Tank like a girl

I recently had reason to compare tanking of the past to current tanking, trying to help someone with their TPS. Just like my anti-parry gem crusade, it hasn’t quite worked out, which has me quite a bit upset, but that’s another story. It leads me to look at the evolution of prot warrior tanking in WoW. As caveat, I did not raid in vanilla, nor did I tank a lot, so I only remember the basics.

Tanking has changed a lot from when I rolled my very first warrior in summer of 2005. I was full of naivete, wanted to tank, and leveled protection, fool that I was. Back then, you really only had one tanking class, the warrior, and many of them weren’t even protection. Druids used to be resto, back before there were trees, and paladins leveled retribution and went healbot at 60 as well. Back then, the classic expression in 5-mans was ‘hold DPS til 3 Sunders’. The basic tools we still have today existed then as well, they were just a bit more limited. Simpler days. Sunder spam was very common. I am curious what raid tanking was like back then, if any of you oldtimers want to share, please do!

TBC was in the air, and with 2.0 warriors saw big changes. We got Devastate as ultimate talent. Originally best used once you had a full stack of sunders on, later then changed to replace Sunder completely. We got Thunderclap to be used in defensive stance, to help with multi-mob tanking. We suddenly had two very strong contenders for tanking spots, and it was good. Tanking was not easier than in vanilla WoW, and still mostly done with threat coefficients on abilities, not damage. By the end of TBC, the best rotation for tanking was well established: Shield Slam, Revenge, Devastate, Devastate, rinse and repeat.

Since October, we’ve been in the 3.0 tanking world. This was a rather drastic change that requires a complete change of mind, away from rotations, welcome, embrace prioritizing our abilities. Devastate spam is no longer king, instead we try to get in as many Shield Slams as we can, use Revenge, use Concussion Blow and Shockwave, and maximize our DPS for more TPS. You won’t have the DPS output of a well-played and geared DPSer, but you should give them a run for their money. That’s playing your class to the full potential. It’s an awesome time to be a tank, but it can also be stressful, as DPS expectations are very high. In a way, this easy AoE tanking for all four tank classes is a trap. It means DPS expects to be able to start the smackdown without waiting at all, and people looking at Omen get more rare.

What I am trying to say is that we have seen 3 incarnations of protection warrior throughout the different game versions. It’s a new game now, and you’re doing yourself and your groups and your raid a disservice if you are not trying to be as informed and open to the different changes that have come upon us. Know your class. Don’t tell people to wait for three sunders. That’s so 2005. Don’t spam Devastate and ignore abilities that are much higher on the priority list. That’s so 2007. Prioritize your use of Shield Slam > Revenge > Concussion Blow > Shockwave > Devastate, on bosses and trash. That’s so 2009. Just do it. I know you can break old habits.