Tanking

A little more than four years ago–where does the time go?–Ghostcrawler posted a Dev Watercooler that would change tanking forever. In “Threat Level Midnight”, Ghostcrawler outlined what would come to be known as active mitigation, promising to “shift more tank mitigation to require active management.” We’ve been tanking under this new regime for the length of an entire olympiad now. It’s been tweaked and improved a few times from class to class as the expansions passed, and now the question is: was this new system an upgrade? Is tanking more fun now with active mitigation than it was before, and are there improvements that still could be made?

Originally, I had wanted to focus today on Brewmaster cooldowns in general.

This post is going to go through the first six bosses of the raid, giving tips and details to cover exactly what you need to successfully tank these encounters. This isn’t a general fight strategy, but rather a focus on exactly what you need to know, as the tank, to do your job.

Setting classes aside, there are four roles World of Warcraft: tank, healer, melee DPS, and ranged DPS.

Blackrock Foundry, all in all, was a decent raid. That probably the best adjective I can really apply to it. Adequate would also work. There were some very creative boss fights, both in terms of general encounter mechanics and specific tank mechanics – and there were some very forgettable encounters. In this post I’m going to take a look at some of the more stand-out encounters in BRF and what made them so great (or so painfully terrible) to tank.

Tanking in a massively multiplayer game like World of Warcraft is when certain classes (Monks, Death Knights, Warriors, Paladins and Druids, in the case of WoW) choose a specialization and perform a role that is intended to keep the monsters in a dungeon or raid focused on said tank, and not instead on the healers or damage dealers in the group. You may already have known that, but it can be useful to establish basics right up front.

Tanking requires a lot from a player, especially when the group is all-too-happy to hoist responsibility for the success of the group right onto your potentially uncertain shoulders. It's a tough job, but we'll help you get started.

Let’s talk today about some of the key tips and tricks that can assist with tanking success. What separates the serious tanks from the DPS that check the little box under the shield for a shorter queue time is the same thing that separates the successful from the also-rans in many aspects of life: preparation.

This week I’m going to shift gears from general tutorials and instead do a quick look at tips and tricks for tanking half of the bosses in Blackrock Foundry. As they say, it’s better to strike while the iron is hot -- BRF has been out long enough that I’m sure interest in the place is beginning to cool off.

In the comments for my introductory column the other week, I had a few folks ask me to write a 101 guide for those new to the spec and tanking in general. Considering this is only the second protection-flavored Lightsworn post, that sounds like an excellent idea!