Tanking school: The pull
That’s one of my favorite lines whenever I pug on my DK. Whenever I see some tank doing something silly, I keep thinking ‘Dude, go back to tanking school!’. But there is no tanking school. We all have to learn the basics from experience, with no experience you cannot obtain the skills.
As tank in a group, you have the ability to control a pull and set the pace for your whole group. While in the beginning, you will probably pull carefully, once you understand the basics, you can proceed through instances and raids at a steady pace. That is the skill that the non-tanks in the group will appreciate the most. It will also enable you to move your raid through farm content quickly once you start raiding. You should never be shy and insecure about pulling. Someone’s gotta get the ball rolling.
Trash is inevitable when doing group content, and usually comes in groups of 3-4 mobs. When faced with new content you’re not completely familiar with there are some easy guidelines you can follow.
- Are there any mobs that look like casters? Blizzard makes it relatively easy to spot those. Guys in dresses, most female Vrykul, dragonkin wearing hoods, they’re all identifiable as casters at a glance and should probably be killed first. Often the name also hints at their abilities. Casters should generally die before any melee mob, because they often have abilities that damage all group members, silence, heal, all the nasty stuff that clothies do. Healer-types should die before normal mage-type casters. This is e.g. why you usually kill the shaman in ToC before you kill the mage.
- If there are no obvious casters, pick the mob that looks the biggest. Yes, sometimes it is that easy. Size usually signifies how hard mobs hit so you want to kill the big guys first.
- If there is no obvious size or name that hints at a mob hitting like a truck, you have free pick. Should you spot a mob that looks like it does ranged DPS, like a hunter (e.g. in Utgarde Keep) you want to pick them first, just because their mobility and uncanny habit to go back at range are irritating.
Clustering
This is an important concept that every tank should live and breathe. Every class has different tools for clustering a pull (though I think feral druids got the shaft here?). Until level 80, we only have Charge available to cluster a pull but at 80 you receive a very powerful tool, Heroic Throw. But first, what is this Clustering? It means that you pull and keep all mobs in the group tightly together, so that your AoE tanking abilities like Thunderclap, Shockwave and Cleave all have their full effect on the group. It means that somehow you manage to bring ranged mobs into your range and keep them tanked together with the melee. You cannot build threat on a mob that’s outside of your range, risking healer or DPS death due to being unable to maintain proper threat.
Our tools for clustering:
Charge. Tried and true, it’s a bit more effective for pulling now than it used to be in the past. 2 melee and a caster? Charge the caster, keep the group in place. Is there another group close by and you’re not 80 yet? Warn your group, pull the caster, run out of range of the caster’s range, let him come towards you, Charge. If you’re just pulling with a gun and you do not use the opportunity to Charge, you should get used to it.
Heroic Throw. At level 80 you receive Heroic Throw, which will make Clustering even easier. If you picked Gag Order (and why wouldn’t you), HT will silence a mob. The above mentioned pull would be even easier now. Heroic Throw the caster, have them all run towards you, then boost your rage by charging at the group as they come running at you. Thunderclap, then position yourself for Shockwave, and they should be all yours. But not only does Heroic Throw silence a caster, it also causes quite a bit of front threat. If you’re pulling and HT is up, use it.
Now assume we have a group of two casters and two melee (like e.g. dragonkin in Nexus or Vrykul groups in Utgarde Pinnacle). The above-mentioned method usually means you have three mobs charging at you, and one caster staying behind. Sub-optimal! If you now try to just move your group to the other caster, you will end up with the same situation, as the other caster will stay behind. Soon, all hell might break loose. To cluster a group like this takes practice, but I love ‘em, because we get to use our tools. Set your /focus to one caster, Heroic Throw your focus target, and then charge the other caster. The silenced caster and the melee will come to your Charge target, eh voilà, your pull is clustered. Thunderclap, Shockwave once you’re in position, tank, loot, repeat.
Another way of clustering that I see tanks struggle with is when it’s ranged mobs, like the hunters in the Nexus hallway with the Commander. Pro-tip for clustering ranged hunter-mobs: go into their melee-range, then slowly strafe away to where another hunter might be. The secret is to not move too quickly. As long as you stay in their melee range, they will follow you around. They are that dumb. So imagine a group of iceblocks with two hunters and a berserker in H Nexus. Charge one hunter, then walk her over to the other. TC while you’re strafing, Shockwave once in position.
I keep mentioning ‘Shockwave once you’re in position’. Our 51 point talent is an amazing talent, very fun to use but it does require proper execution to work. If you are struggling with this, I highly recommend practicing in my favorite farm spot for rhino meat in the Storm Peaks. Find one of those large groups of roaming rhinos, Charge into the aggressive rhino, use Demoralizing Shout to aggro all the yellow ones and then position yourself. Shockwave is a frontal cone effect within 10 yards, so mobs to the sides of the cone or behind you will not get hit. You want all mobs to get hit by it. The easiest way to accomplish this is to Charge in, Thunderclap and then walk backwards, one or two steps, before using it. The frontal cone will hit more mobs this way.
If you want to test clustering with mixed caster-melee groups, the fortress of the Scarlet Onslaught not too far from Naxxramas in Dragonblight is good. Densely packed with mobs, you can test your moves there. Any area that has a lot of caster mobs mixed in works to practice this.
I might follow this up with a companion-video if there’s any interest. If you have any advice, suggestions or questions, please do let me know. 
Great entry! Would definitely be interested in a companion-video.
Putting in my own 2 cents: the DK ability, DeathGrip, is a fabulous tool for dealing with those pesty casters and other ranged attackers.
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I also like to mark before pulling and use macros for fast marking. WoWWiki has a good resource for this: http://www.wowwiki.com/Useful_macros#Raid_icons.2C_Lucky_Charms
I have a macro for each Raid Icon (Skull, X, Triangle, etc.) and then place those macros on my hotbars on the right side of the screen. They aren’t keybound but I found it easier to mark this way versus trying to right click on each mob’s name after targeting.
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Kadomi Reply:
September 2nd, 2009 at 8:13 am
I am old-school, so I try to mark every pull, to at least specify a kill order. To have it ignored by every single PUG, but at least I tried. I have them all keybound from F6-F12.
I am going to try Ghost: Marker this week, which can mark mobs based on attacks you use on them. Like putting skull on mob you Shield Slam, etc.
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Super Orc speaks the truth. She’s a professional mob puller, I saw her in action the other day and was officially impressed.
Great post!
.-= Naissa´s last blog ..Alts and the fun they bring. =-.
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Nice post
Pulling as a warrior is pretty difficult compared to other tanks (other than maybe bears) because you start with zero resources. Pallies and DKs can unload straight away, but we need to earn our resources before we can use them to generate threat. IMO the worst thing that can happen on a pull is to be rage starved. This is the ultimate nightmare and I think that pretty much everything that we do on the pull should be designed to avoid that, because it can often mean a wipe.
I therefore think that you should always charge into combat if you can to make sure you have at least some rage. Heroic throw is ok, but it only puts threat on one mob. If you avoid that mobs first attack you might only have a small amount of threat to work with.
It is not well known, but bloodrage does a fairly large amount of AoE threat by virtue of the resource gain, so it’s also a good idea to save this for the start of the pull especially since it is not on the GCD. Threat and resources from one button.
I also think that retaliation is a massively under-used ability for pulling large melee groups. I have yet to find a really good macro for it, but have a button that I hit once to put me in battle stance, and again to pop retaliation. I then have to hit another button to go back into def stance, so it isn’t ideal. Any advice would be welcome!
EB
.-= Everblue´s last blog ..Second night of hardmode training =-.
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Kadomi Reply:
September 2nd, 2009 at 11:52 am
Check out Veneretio’s macro-post from when WotLK was released. You still have to poke the macro several times to switch back to def stance, but I used it extensively while leveling.
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Everblue Reply:
September 2nd, 2009 at 12:07 pm
That wiley devil.
Thanks very much
.-= Everblue´s last blog ..Second night of hardmode training =-.
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Fer Shockwave positioning, I likes ta run past the group, then do a quick 180. That way, is much less likely fer the squishy rogue ta butt-pull the next group.
There’s also the old-school line-of-sight pull ta get multiple caster/hunters concentrated when the Throw is on cool-down. Unfortunatelies this requires a certain degree of discipline from the dps, or ya ends up with a mage off-tanking while you stands behind the corner wondering where one of yer mobs is.
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Excellent article. A video would be greatly appreciated.
.-= Chillyhollow´s last blog ..TANK SCHOOL =-.
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another easy way to cluster ranged groups is the old art of line of sight pull. can fail with trigger happy DPS but i still prefer it when possible.
those frozen guys in nexus are a good example for that as you do not only want to cluster the mobs but also get some distance to the next group of mobs.
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Kadomi Reply:
September 2nd, 2009 at 5:28 pm
It definitely is an old art. I can use this with guildies at times, but in PUGs, LoS appears to be completely unknown these days. Great catch, thank you.
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Thank you for summarizing the techniques so well. I use exactly the same and I will now make sure that the new warrior tanks (and the others too so they can learn the proper kill order) I’m mentoring come and read your post.
I completely agree that you should charge for every encounter. I especially love the 4 pack in Nexus before (have a blank here, that stupid mage boss that splits up??) where you can just line of sight them to the right, run a bit further and then charge them when they turn the corner.
Another great post, thank you Kadomi! I don’t post often but I’ve been reading every single entry of yours since probably just before Wrath hit.
P.S. I use the Belkin N52te pad to play so I’ve keybinded the marking on the num pad of my normal keyboard. Pretty easy to access.
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Don’t forget about line-of-sight pulls! Mastering the LOS pull is what separates the men from the boys. Agro one of the mobs, then break line of sight by going around a corner or behind something. (Make sure your party doesn’t agro until they reach you.) This makes handling multiple caster mobs easy, as in that last room of trash in Utgarde Pinnacle before the boss.
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Kadomi Reply:
September 2nd, 2009 at 5:27 pm
You are absolutely right, I forgot the LoS pull. Ah, remember the days of yore where you had to pull those off to perfection in H MgT.
The key here is communication as people are not used to LoS anymore and tend to DPS while you’re still waiting for mobs to come to you. *sigh*
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Telessas Reply:
September 2nd, 2009 at 6:07 pm
The problem comes when you make the point of telling them that you’re line of sight pulling to the right or so and quite a few of those guys don’t know what it means now.
Agreed on the UP last pull. I also use LOS for the pulls leading up to it with the berzerkers.
Sometimes I do think it’s laziness. Even if you give instructions in HoL not to cast anything or hit anything until you reach the far stairs and then do not AoE the elementals down, someone will almost always think they know better and just do it. Lost the AoEing rogue and our healer to that last night.
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Pointing out the incredibly obvious here but it was a *ahhh* moment when I realized it for marking. The caster mobs? Are the ones with mana bars. Derp derp.
I hate it when people forget the lessons they should have learned in heroics when they go to raid. Like smacking a Misdirected boss before it gets to the tank. No. Do not want.
Which reminds me, I will be pestering you soon to craft my paladin the wee cobalt NR tanking gear if you can so I can learn some of the basics before hitting 80. I’m failprot right now.
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Thank you! Although my tank is a DK, I find this really helpful and still learned some stuff I didn’t know, haha. Woo!
.-= Matojo´s last blog ..Matojo and Tanking, or: “HEALER HAS MANA I’M PULLING.” =-.
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heh, I didn’t actually know how warriors did AOE/silence pulls
Thanks.
.-= Gravity´s last blog ..Anub’arak, Koralon and Vezax hard-mode video =-.
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Nice little lesson, your school is great !
Maybe you could do a part 2 : how to use line of sight.
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I usually find on corner pulls, or pulls where i wants the mobs away from others (boss in nexus for fear etc) clicking my macro that says,
‘If anyone dies furing the pull deserves to die for being reatarded’
Helps alot from stopping people DPS before i have the mobs *smiles*
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When I tank heroics, it’s usually only with way overgeared guildies and I’m usually in a DPS spec. This gives some leeway so my pulls usually just involve me throwing down a DnD and hitting some random buttons afterwards.
.-= shopshopshop´s last blog ..Sometimes The Pen Is Mightier =-.
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This is probably my favorite article you’ve written, because every once in a while i get asked how to tank as a warrior and this is one thing i often over look when handing out advice but the pull is one of the most important things, and it is almost entirely under your control at the start. @everblue and Telessas – charging is great for trash and when healers are used to it. Be careful though I just joined a guild that had never had a warrior tank before i charged into a boss and died before i ever got a heal.
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[...] appears to have written an excellent post on pretty much the same things I was going to cover, in Tanking School: The Pull. Have a read, it’s good [...]
Great post!
Pulling is definitely something every tank should master! It is the first and most important part of a fight because usually if the pull is bad, the fight will be bad. As warrior tanks we also have another ability…Warbringer. Dont be afraid to use this! It’s especially useful for when one of those pesky mages gets aggro and you have to get it back, assuming your taunts are on CD. But us tanks never lose aggro, right?!
As a side note on Heroic Throw, I especially love to use it with my group who is used to having a DK dps deathgrip a mob into range. I usually wait for them to tell the DK to do it, then Wham! Heroic Throw! Kind of lets them know Warriors have tricks, too. Maybe more so than most others. Learn them. Flexibility+Mobility=Win.
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