Guide to Tanking

Ok, it's Egamad again except this time no shaman nonsense, no gem dribble, and no stat to stat on stats.

This is my opinion of tanking, from 15-20 (so far).

Is tanking easy? Well tanking never was hard, get things to hit you by attacking them, seems simple enough. Keep them off the healer, also should never be an issue. Keep them off the DPS, now we get down to the problem I dare to say most tanks will have.

Now I'm not an expert, and this shouldn't be seen as gospel, but I HATE DPS. Yes, yes a bit harsh I know, however in my level range most of them are content to GOGOGO (as Foo says) even when healer is OOM. I have had a pally 4 levels lower start tanking, I've had warlocks and hunters chain pulling mobs, even though healers and other mana users are OOM. Now the dungeons are easy enough, there not hard lets be honest, and with the BOA gear scaling a lot of DPS think they can effectively chain pull to go at there pace and that healers and tanks should work around them.

As Foo mentioned in a gloriously high number of posts, the DPS, the guys on your team are the ones that make the run harder more times than the actual mobs in the dungeon. Now I can hold aggro, its easy enough being a warrior tank, and I have some survival talents already at 20, but for the love of Warcraft I'm not a paladin, I don't start with full resources I need to build them or use a minute cooldown to get them after each OOM healer break. I would love to chain pull and have RAGE in the bank at all times, but alas I have to wait, and the DPS should respect this.

My concern right now, is the fact that these DPS, have limited or no AOE attacks yet, so when the inevitable "I would rather AOE that group than burn a single target" happens, my life will be a blur of panicked button mashing. My point although lost now in the mess of typo's and grammatical errors is that despite the relative ease of the lower dungeons, Dead mines/Ragefire chasm, is that I'M THE TANK! Aggro is mine, leave it alone. I decide what to pull next, and the healer determines the pace/amount per pull. The DPS are there to make there death faster, THAT'S ALL, all DPS should do is kill the targets I have aggro on, and stop when they catch up or take over my Aggro count. You do not need to pull the next mob, or scream to hurry up, the healer needs mana we will wait, its much faster to do it smoothly than make the healer OOM every pull, the tank struggle to pick up the extras you wanted to invite, and then call us "Noobs" because you effectively wiped us.

Now, please guys remember we are not 80, not geared to the teeth, do not have all our magical talents, and have high cost low return spells, and a lack of resources at low levels. I like to tank and I like to heal, I am good at, I can DPS effectively to but rarely get the option. We have our roles, Tank takes the damage and uses aggro to manage mobs, the healer makes sure the tank survives long enough for the DPS to kill the mobs, can we please stick to this method. On that note pets from warlocks and hunters that have Taunt set on are just...Annoying really.

My hope is that my experience from 20 on, is much more focused on the tank being just that a tank, not being a taunt machine from the DPS that pull.

Egamad, now a warrior tank, a shaman healer, and a very bored PVP mage