Tank progress at 80
This morning, at 6:45 am, when I blearily walked towards my office building, a thought occurred to me. How do you measure progress as a tank once you’ve hit end-game?
Back in the day, in October 2008, I cried about the death of the threat mini-game, but of course it came back. It came back in the form of AoE insanity and all you can do is try to stem the tide of losing all your mobs to that warlock/moonkin/mage/insert any AoE class. Once you hit 80, first goal of the day is to hit the magic 540 to be raid-ready, or 535 to do heroics. Then you work on gear, and have to learn and live the skill to make it through instances like H Halls of Stone, H Utgarde Pinnacle and the H CoS timed run. It all requires quick reflexes, snap aggro (as much as you have that as prot warrior) and the will to best all your AoErs on threat. Pity the warriors and druids who don’t have it anywhere as easy as paladins and DKs. I like the ‘Bring the player, not the class’ theme, so it’s always been a personal challenge, to learn and improve. If everything works right, I can even one or two-shot the Brann event, though the frequent rage starvation and cooldowns makes it very obvious that we do not have any kind of snap aggro.
Once you get into your first raids, and I am merely talking Naxxramas-10 from my personal experience, trash groups shouldn’t really be a problem. Two tanks can hold against the AoE for the most part. Adds? kk, no problem. In a way, I miss trash pulls like the Ushers in Karazhan, which had such high requirements for tanks. Two tanks competing for threat, and a shackle to bind the second usher. If you had no shackle, you had to be creative with the tanking, but it was entirely possible. That part is missing. I haven’t found any Naxxramas trash that is quite that interesting. Gargoyles are annoying, and kiting oozes isn’t that amazing.
How do you really measure progress in your own technical skill as a tank from that point on? I try to thank healers when I can for great saves, but there aren’t really any times that someone tells me ‘Wow, Kadomi, your threat is amazing!’ I am vain enough to think that I am an excellent tank performing quite well. But I am never satisfied. I want to be better. My current measuring method is to look at WWS and personal DPS on bosses. Thanks to protection warrior changes, personal DPS really reflects on your TPS. Of importance to me is the benchmark boss, because he really isn’t anything else: Patchwerk. A benchmark for the tanks how much damage they can take; for healers how much healing they can do before going out of mana; for DPS how much damage they can do when there’s a boss that just stands there and doesn’t require any movement whatsoever.
I have tanked this fight twice now, which isn’t often at all (I healed once), but it’s got to do as a benchmark. My first time, I did around 1500 DPS, which I thought was great. Yesterday I did 1693 DPS, which was even better. 82 Heroic Strikes, 39 white swings. My best ratio yet. Of course, that’s nothing compared to Zhyk from the guild Showdown on EU-Vekni’lash who just ran Naxx-10 in 59 minutes. That’s 85 Heroic Strikes, 0 white swings. Is tanking progress really measured at how often I can hammer down on my HS key? I know a lot of tank bloggers actually have it on their mousewheel. I don’t. Instead I will wait for Blizzard to fix this really awful mechanic, because spamming one button inbetween using your regular priority rotation is really…silly. I would like a more clever way to dump excess rage. And yet, I shall continue to strive to push myself with Heroic Strikes. My Glyph of Cleaving is going the way of the dodo, because HS does do pretty impressive damage. I like being competitive DPS. Now, I do not like that I was only 30k damage below our lowest DPS, but I want to contribute with the highest DPS I can offer, while sustaining survivability.
How about you guys?
As a note, I don’t have any of my weekend stories this week. I had a very disappointing raid weekend, and so neither of my characters has gotten the full Naxxramas achievement yet. It was a raid weekend full of afks, waiting, standing around, and disconnect hell. But people got upgrades, people fought bosses they had never seen before, and next time we’ll get Thaddius, Sapphiron and KT again. Then hopefully I won’t grind my teeth while asleep. My jaw hurts. Peace.
I too miss the Kara trash pulls. Having to alter your strategies on the fly based on what CC you did or did not have is an aspect I’d like to see, if even in a limited capacity. At the moment our 10-man group is practically chain pulling trash with no regard group dynamics. It helps that our healers are epic.
Something I didn’t realize though was that AoE tanking for some warriors was a concern. I guess I’m lucky in the fact that I leveled with a mage that loved to spam Blizzard!
You’re beating me in DPS! I’m only at 1,655 on Patches!
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Warrior AoE snap threat is great, if you ask me, it’s the sustained threat that is a killer. That is one of the things I took away from going in with Deep Wounds spec, it sustained my threat long enough in practice that everything was dead before the Mages could pull off of me.
As for metrics, the place I’ve been really focused on Tarsus is increasing my TPS number aggregated across an entire night. I generally look at the WWS report from the last run I did of an instance before I head in so I have some comparison, then I do some number crunching to figure out how I did (specifically, trying to drill down to the raw numbers beyond the effects of buffs).
Also, If you’re grinding your teeth you seriously need to look into getting a mouth guard. Friend of mine had literally ground her molars flat and had to have expensive dental surgery – all of which could have been avoided by a ten dollar piece of plastic.
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admin Reply:
April 6th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
Snap threat is only great if you have a TC/Shockwave cooldown available. But what do you do when two waves come running in on Brann Bronzebeard and neither are available?
I still enjoy my DW spec a lot. 10% of my damage on Patchwerk is nothing to sneeze at.
And yeah, if that teeth stuff continues, I will do that. My dentist tried to smooth out my teeth last week a bit, but it didn’t quite work.
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Mal Reply:
April 6th, 2009 at 10:27 pm
TC/Shockwave on cd still leaves Challenging Shout as a OMG option
Otherwise, those waves are pretty annoying.
But for aggro retention, our Naxx group has an equitable agreement, I MT the bosses and OT the trash. I’ll taunt or mocking blow a mob if/when I need rage with the trash. But this way the two tanks don’t have to compromise on a build when raiding. I spec into Deep Wounds and the other tank just needs to be careful when dealing with undead – as a pally he can pull aggro from me easier than I’d care with that Holy thing.
Seems to work for us anyway.
Just my $.02 worth
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Tarsus Reply:
April 6th, 2009 at 10:47 pm
For that fight I generally use TC for the 4 Melee adds, taunt and shield slam for the casters, and “whatever I can reach” for the golem. Generally when I feel like things are getting out of control I’ll back up to the base of the steps and hit Shockwave for a few extra seconds. The DPS I’ve run with generally works well with that formula.
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admin Reply:
April 6th, 2009 at 10:55 pm
I can usually complete the event in one or two tries, but I still feel super gimp somehow. When the event starts I have little to no rage. It’s about the only time ever that I wish I had a Consecration to spam. But then, who wants to drink after pulls? Not me!
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delta38 Reply:
April 8th, 2009 at 7:14 am
demoralizing shout does at least stop the adds from running towards brann – if everything else is on cooldown. I usually try to cycle through mobs as much as possible with cleave and one-target abilities, saving TC/SW for those moments, when you need them.
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Awww sorry to hear you dont have any fun raid stories to report – I always look forward to them too
My only raid story atm is “failed at immortal” each week – one tiny error from one player each time. And time is slipping away… I’m mostly about the alts these days.
Dunno really about tank progress from stats. Some fights require more of tanks than others, threat wise (malygos p1 is the only boss where threat is an issue, though tbh, dps can just take a chillpill – even 6 min maly is not a crazy dps race).
On aoe trash, threat is always a non-issue – but since we tank 25 taxx with 3 tanks, someone will be picking up a loose mob. Warriors definitely have the hardest tanking mechanics of all 4 classes (that I’ve played). Not only HSing, but tab targeting on AOE mobs takes a lot of skill and effort. The other 3 classes just have an easier time, druids & pallies having the easiest of all, I suspect. Tbh, I think they’ll change the warrior thing to make it simpler. What’s the point of having it so tricky?
I used to measure my tank performace by pure dps since survivability has been a non-issue. Usually I’m first of the tanks, but occassionally a DK will beat me
But I’ve also gotten bored of that recently. Survivability in Ulduar will be a lot more of a challenge, and I wont be worrying about my dps in there the first few weeks.
Sarth3d in 10 man was hard to learn as an MT, so I measured my performance on that, because it was so clear I was struggling to learn a fight the rest of my guild knew (I’d just joined the guild). Still it only took me 1 evening to perfect it which was not too shabby.
All in all, I’d say tanking is pretty easy from an individual standpoint. But then again, its been years! I see new deathknights who havent got a clue how to tank, much less lead a raid through an instance. But they get away with it because 1) DKs are very OPat, 2) naxx is so easy. They think its all about being the first to pull, and having the raid admire their leet pulling skills. Such DKs tend to die on trash a lot more than the other tanks with more experience and skill.
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admin Reply:
April 6th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
Look at you, Mr. Hardcore raider, and you wanted to read my silly raid stories about wiping on Grobbulus and how we sat around for an hour because of OT and healer chain-disconnecting?
I did get some non-raid stuff accomplished the past couple days, so just for you I’ll post a more bubbly story later this week.
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Great post Kadomi and I totally hear you on the HS spam thing.
Patchwerk is indeed my benchmark boss as well for seeing how I’m doing gear and performance wise, we’re usually doing it 25 man though instead of 10, which is undeniably easier.
Last try I was down to 7 white swings, 2.8k dps but I know there’s room for improvement which might sound perfectionist but seeing as we still dont have the three minute kill nailed, every bit counts.
Other than Patchwerk I dont feel tested much, unless pulls go horribly wrong. We did a followup Naxx10 today starting in Military Quarter and I did a fairly godawful pull ending with us fighting two of those big groups and a shade at the same time, with a pair of horsemen adding at the end.
We somehow lived and while it didnt give any hard numbers to work with, it sure felt satisfying working through that with just a rogue dead.
Vads´s last blog post..I fart in your general direction.
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I just respecced back to Prot after a brief dabble with Fury. As dps I found it quite easy to measure my progress…install Recount and watch the numbers
As Prot it is less quantitative and more qualitative imho. It isn’t necessarily about you and your personal dps, tps etc etc. For me, it is about how well your group, team or raid does. Thats because there is a lot more to tanking than pure damage output, as with dps these days. If you are contributing to the overall success by maximising your defence, threat, dps, awareness, positioning etc etc then you are doing your job.
I think there’s a danger in measuring your progress based on dps against Patch. This would apply moreso in Naxx 25 where you can’t just stick all your threat/dps gear on without any care for defensive stats. Also, raw tps wont do you much good against Maexxna in the enrage phase. Rather, give me a Warrior who always pops his cooldowns before the web wraps and saves himself and possibly the raid.
Don’t get me wrong, I still fight to compete with the Pallies and DKs on AoE threat as it pushes me to improve but its a losing battle. Unless I get to the group and land a lot of initial aggro before they arrive they will generally pull all but the skull off me before the end of the fight. But so what? If I’m running Naxx 25 I will take a step back when the skull dies, let the DK and Pally OT handle the rest unless they look in trouble in which case I might taunt one off them. Otherwise I will make sure none of the healers or DPS are in danger, watch for any unexpected adds or simply look towards the next group and mark the skull…generally just work for the good of the group rather than my own personal stats.
In heroics and the like I tend not to have too many problems holding aggro long enough for the groups to be dead. In some ways Wotlk made it much easier to aoe tank, giving us damage shield and shockwave etc. In other ways, for me at least, it is harder. I used to be able to tab and devastate through the mobs. Now devastate isnt a reliable threat generator so I have to use Shield Slam, Revenge, HS etc but they arent always up…harder to tab through enemies watching Omen for potential threat problems and also watch for abilities becoming available to hit. Crude solution? Glyph of cleaving. I tend to just rely on Shockwave, TC and Cleave these days and rarely tab. It feels less skillful in approach but it is effective.
I genuinely think Warrior tanking is a tough job. I haven’t played DK or Pally tank but I’m told its much, much easier. Having played Fury for a while Im amazed how few abilities I had to concern myself with…back to Prot and its I must get my rotation right…TC, Shockwave, Cleave, Shield Slam, Revenge, Heroic Strike, Concussion Blow, don’t forget my shouts, watch my health and pop potion, shield wall, last stand or regen, are all the mobs positioned? have we got any other aggro? keep an eye on Omen for all mobs, damn I have no rage, use bloodrage and berserker to get some more etc etc ….its madness that I think people who haven’t tried Warrior tanking just don’t get
Blizzard still haven’t got the balance right for me, rage starvation at the start of fights, mad clicking of heroic strike, working your arse off to keep aggro only for a DK to hit one button and drag every mob off you…meh
Sorry for the incoherent brain dump
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admin Reply:
April 7th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
I appreciate the comment. I know that we are still the most complex tanking class to play. I don’t mind the complexity, it’s part of why I dig warrior tanking. But I do get envious when I watch DKs and Paladins lay down their AoEs and the mobs all come to them, while I wait for my cooldowns.
I really don’t mean to cry about prot warriors, because we have gotten so many improvements, and I love the class.
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I use a vigilance rotation, I’ve found that warriors are great for raid agro management, we have a few DPS who do alot of threat (and DPS too boot) I am the same though I don’t use HS all the time, though my threat output and DPS is still competitive, mostly though I find myself bored of the threat ‘game’ in currant WoW, long gone are the days I would have to ask a mage to slow down on prince, it just feels like the best thing to do is time your shield block at appropriate times for maximum mitigation, which doesn’t require that much.
It’s got the the point now that very few of my guild even use omen now, the times they do pull I need to shout at them to stop DPS only to taunt it back off…
I don’t remeber agro gaining being that simple.
I personally blame people with l2p issues, if they hadn’t sucked so much we might still have a challengeing game.
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I do hope Ulduar is going live next week. Because when tanking with my warrior, I just don’t feel the actual content helps me learn the class.
When I tanked Karazhan with my bear that was different. You mentioned the difficutly of trash and bosses, we don’t find that in Naxxramas. And the way of gearing was so different. I entered Naxxramas with 2pcT7 and nearly full epic. When I started tanking Karazhan I was in clefthoof gear and some arena pieces (nostalgia inc!).
I miss encounters like Nightbane, Netherspite and ZA bosses and trash. I guess I’d be a much better warrior tank if I had tanked the first 5 months of BC than now 5 months into WotLK.
So at this point, both my warrior and shaman are collecting dust and get to see the light of the day just for the occasional raid, in the meantime I don’t play, level my mage or tweak my UI. I’m still not happy with my solution for watching warrior cooldowns, right now that is an actionbar with 6 buttons in the center of the screen + omniCC.
Right now I’m testing Coolline modded by dawn and PriorityQueue and some macros.
drug´s last blog post..Addons: The LDB post
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admin Reply:
April 7th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Oooh, keep me updated about that. I am going to post my Power Auras video today for cooldown watching.
What I really want more than anything in WoW is a second ZA. Short, with challenging encounters and challenging trash. I might have cursed all the way through Eagle and Dragonhawk trash, but you had to be good. Remember the scouts you had to watch for? A sense of danger, you had to be on your toes.
Sapphiron is a cool encounter, but he’s a joke compared to Nightbane, the personal bane of my existence. I don’t want to wax nostalgia, but I want more content like that.
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Dont worry, Ulduar will be harder. We had to use CC on some of the trash they had on the ptr. Some of the trash felt like a minibosses – fire damage for 12k anyone, melee for 5k? No AOE packs in there, that was for sure. So we were a lot more careful. There were some surprise trash encounters too – dont want to spoil it for you, but watch out for those empty looking hallways.
The bosses themselves seem hard too. So I suspect hard mode will be much much more challenging. Lets wait and see if the boards explode with QQ about Ulduar being too hard
I also think tank skill is about the ability to use the tools you got. How many warriors dont realize they have vigilance, to drop on another tank to help reduce damage? Or that they even have a commanding shout and hey, it dropped off again? When was the last time you saw a DK put up an anti magic shield… for someone else?
ps. I love your stories!!! One of my favourite blogs. Just so you know, a lot of hardcore players who clear content before anyone else are *crazy* people. There’s no relationship necessarily between finishing the game before anyone else… and having anything interesting to communicate to a wider audience.
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Hey Kadomi,
my personal record on patchwerk is 3.1k dps but that is 25 man buffed. Not really kept track of 10 man but I suppose that will be around 2.5k dps.
The thing you say about heroic strike is quite true.
It matters alot how many times you can hammer a heroic strike. My heroic strike is not on the mousewheel but on 4, with conc blow being 5, devastate 1, revenge 2, shield slam 3, my other keybindings are to no use to you as I use an azerty-keyboard. But basicly they’re done so that my finger never has to leave number 4 except for conc blow.
So i just hammer it constantly and lose it right after a heroic strike to do the conc blow. My keybindings are quite strange though as I’ve moved all my movement keys one to the left so dunno if you’ll be able to pull it off with your thingy =)
My hint is to keybind heroic strike to a button where you can have a finger that never has to leave the place.
But that’s just me, hope it’s helpful.
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