Get Into Tanking! Overview Of Tanking!

[00:02] of getting it to tanking. And I get it. You need to survive the opening of a pole, do enough damage to keep the enemies looking at you, and have a route through the dungeon. But I'm here to help demystify all of that. Tanking is a

[00:15] support role where you hold the front line, keep the mobs looking at you, and set your team up for success while easily surviving the impossible. All of this and routing might sound really intimidating or hard at first, but I

[00:28] promise once you understand the pieces, it comes together so nicely. My name is Bowser the healer. Hey, let's get you into tanking. Let's start with the basics. Tanks are naturally bulkier than DPS and healers

[00:43] and generate more threat per damage done. So, enemies naturally will hate you more and fight you instead of your healer or your DPS. Typically, every tank has a basic rotation or a set of resource generating moves and resource

[00:57] spending moves. Each tank is very different here in how they do their DPS, but tanking DPS isn't ever too complicated because you need to be able to do it while getting slapped around, although there is quite a bit of depth

[01:10] to it once you get your feet wet. Now that you know your buttons, it's time to talk mitigation and defense. Damage comes in two major flavors: physical and magical. Physical damage is resisted by armor, can be blocked, parried, and

[01:24] dodged, and most of your mitigation tools will work extremely well against physical damage. Most mobs do their damage via their melee auto attacks between abilities and spells. While healers and DPS will die extremely

[01:38] quickly to this damage, you can survive it for very long periods of time. Magic damage, on the other hand, hurts the most. You might have natural magic resist as a tank or tools that specifically deal with magic damage, but

[01:51] these are the moves that will do the most to your health bar. And eventually in high keys, you're going to be planning around some of the larger magic tank busters or massive amount of spells coming your way. I have three categories

[02:04] of defensives. And while this is by no means official, it helps me understand means official, it helps me understand how tanks defend. Active mitigation are the basic one to two tools that a tank has very frequently up moves such as

[02:17] shield block and ignore pain, demon spikes, stagger with purifying brew, etc. Most of these deal with physical damage, but some will work with any amount of incoming damage or have like a magic resistance component to them.

[02:31] Rolling mitigation are tools that get rolled from mitigation to mitigation. Thrash on guardian druid is a great example. You stack up this bleed on targets by hitting thrash and every stack of the bleed gives you damage

[02:44] reduction. Over on Brew Master, they will sometimes talent into fire breath and it gives you either 5 to 10% damage reduction on all enemies hit. But you need to know that Brew Master has so much active mitigation going on at a

[02:59] given moment. This 5 to 10% goes a really long way. So keeping this rolling can help make the poll safer. Some tanks really rely on the concept of rolling mitigation. Vengeance is a perfect example. Sure, they have demon spikes

[03:14] for their active mitigation, and the more uptime on that, the better. But flame sigils apply frailty, making those targets deal less to you, and you heal off of them. Flame sigil provides bonus parry chance. Your fiery brand applies

[03:28] 40% DR to a target, and some of your talents will spread it around. And then Painbrer when you're eating up your soul shards that you're smacking out of all of these are layered together nicely. One can fall off and it's not

[03:42] why it's important because if multiple of them fall off at the same time, the demon hunter might explode. Cool down mitigations are those big cooldowns like shield wall, dampen harm, etc. Some are combination damage and defense like

[03:57] metamorphosis or incarnation. Some cooldowns like dancing rune weapon and vamp blood on blood death knight are both major cooldowns and rolling mitigation as you're always trying to cool them down and use them again. Hence

[04:10] why this isn't a perfect three categories but it organized them well enough I think to understand. Every tank will set up and use their active mitigation extremely often. This is sometimes enough for easier content like

[04:23] lower level delves allowing you to experience tanking with very little effort. Now, we need to combine the two. Doing damage to make sure our enemies are looking at us and defenses to survive. This is what I like to call an

[04:35] opener, and it's not too intimidating, I promise. Let's look at Guardian Druid as an example. Iron Fur is Guardian Druid's active mitigation. Taking rage and turning it into a stacking temporary armor buff and

[04:49] doing damage around the bear. Thrash, as we mentioned earlier, will make targets do less damage to me, and it will be a large portion of our damage to our enemies. To start the pull, I might use my ranged attack, Moonfire, to tag the

[05:04] enemies. This will generate some early threat and get them to start running in. I can then hit my own charge and dash in at them. Press Thrash, then Iron Fur, and ta, I have started a pull. Depending on how big this pole is, this might not

[05:19] be enough. But then we can just add in more elements. Bark skin is a basic defensive cooldown that's actually on a relatively low cooldown and it just reduces damage taken that can go a long way in helping me get the first couple

[05:32] of thrashes off. I also have the self-healing resource frenzied regen. If I lose too much health quickly, I can hit this spend a little rage and get my health back up. Lunar Beam is a one minute cooldown that I have that reduces

[05:45] the cooldown of itself whenever you hit any kind of arcane damage which for whatever reason thrashes in this build and of course that moonfire we used earlier. When I press this button, a disco beam of light comes down from the

[06:00] increasing our mastery which increases our health and increases our healing received. When you put all of this together, you'll have tons of thrashes running and doing damage for you. And when it all ends, you'll still be alive

[06:15] thrashes and you probably have plenty of iron fur to use. And and just a note, like we're not even talking about bear's biggest cooldown, incarnation. You have a lot of tools to layer on and play with as a tank. And if this sounds like it

[06:30] might be tough, try it out in a delve. Healer Bran is fantastic for getting started with tanking. Healer Bran will keep you up. walk over the health pots and it'll be pretty easy. DPS brand, on the other hand, is great for testing

[06:44] yourself to see if you're ready to handle it on your own, as every single tank can definitely do delves completely on their own with a DPS brand. The first pull of priority with Sacred Flame is also a perfect place to practice because

[06:58] the first four mobs that show up only do physical damage. So hop into mythic zero and use it as a nice little testing ground for how your active mitigation tools work or just how any of your mitigation tools work. When it comes to

[07:10] damage as a tank, physical damage, like auto attacks and whatnot, are the kind of thing that you really specialize in. So mobs like this should be no problem for any tank starting off. It's when physical damage does too much damage and

[07:23] it goes over your block chance or the move can't be parried. I'm not sure if any moves can't be dodged, but you know, things that you can avoid. And more importantly, magical damage. Magical damage is the hardest hitting thing

[07:35] that'll hit a tank. And you'll typically be planning some of your cooldowns dungeon level goes up and up, you'll you'll feel it. A magic tank buster or "Ooh, wow. That did half my life part. Okay, that's painful. I should be

[07:50] careful of that one." One more thing before we talk about setting up pulls and how to do them. When it comes to tank damage and blocking and all of that, it only works on the front half of your character. Like, if you look at the

[08:02] little circle underneath your character when you select yourself, the 180° that your character is facing is all parry chance, block chance, dodge chance. If you're taking hits to the back, it's just going to go through your armor.

[08:14] There's no parry, there's no block, etc. So, try not to take back shots whenever possible. However, that being said, you're going to take one or two while moving through them. That's okay. As long as you're not taking like 50 of

[08:27] them at once, you'll be fine. But it is pretty important to know how that works slightest off and there's a mob hitting your back, they're going to be doing substantially more damage than everyone else because well

[09:02] whenever possible. This will prevent frontals from hitting your teammates, DPS getting parried that are in melee, any other bad things that might happen to them. It's not always possible to stack the enemies up nicely, especially

[09:15] gathering mobs. That can look a little messy. But once you get them all gathered, that's your goal. So try to position them nicely for your team to do damage. Also, the back pedal button is your best friend. The mobs will file in

[09:29] nicely as you back up slowly, and you won't stop dodging, pairing, or blocking while you do this. And also, while we're on the topic, it's okay to do the DPS butt wiggle thing as a tank, but try not to actually move the mobs around too

[09:43] lot of players will have things they need to put onto the enemies that are in an area. And if you're constantly dragging out of players AoE's, they're as a tank, it's okay to use your interrupt to move a mob. In fact, you're

[09:58] going to do it a lot. At the start of a pull, some mobs won't want to move. And interrupting them is part of making their AI decide they want to auto attack you. When a mob has a spell to cast, they're going to keep casting that spell

[10:11] When you use an interrupt move, you disable a school of magic. And thus, if the AI goes, I can't cast this fireball anymore. Okay, my only other attack is auto attack. They run in to go punch you. This is why you do want to

[10:27] typically use your interrupt to get the mob interrupted so they walk towards you and they're maybe not in turbo nardia while your warriors are all swinging trying to cleave down the enemies. Another way to get the casters to walk

[10:39] in, by the way, is called a line of sight. And it's when they can't see you. We call it line of sighting or loss. And it's a very fun and easy way to get mobs together, but it's not always easy to understand. So, sometimes players will

[10:52] know a common line of sight spot. Sometimes you're going to have to use an arrow ping or something to let your team know or write loss in chat. As you become a more advanced player, the final trick to setting up your team is pulling

[11:05] around cooldowns. Okay, your first important rule about this. Do not pull more than you can handle. Check your own personal and cooldowns defensives before you go grab some massive three, four, five pack pull and ruin Christmas. But

[11:20] track your team's cooldowns or you can simply ask them if they have cooldowns. Setting your team up for big pulls for big damage is a ton of fun. Even if the cooldowns aren't up for your DPS, if you have no problem living and your healer

[11:35] isn't going to sweat too hard trying to keep everyone up, DPS typically have a lot of AoE damage to provide. And so sometimes pulling big just because you can isn't a bad thing. And speaking about big pulls, this is also the

[11:48] to grab a certain amount of mobs in Mythic Plus in order to satisfy the conditions for clearing right percentage of trash and beat it under the timer. Well, the biggest time save that you have is having to do less pulls because

[12:02] the more mobs that you can clear in singular pulls is more effective damage and thus saving you time. But, uh, the biggest time loss a dungeon can sustain is a wipe. So, if everyone dies, that's not very helpful. This is why it's

[12:15] important for you to not pull bigger than you can because realistically, you because if you're dying a whole lot, then yeah, you're going to be losing a lot of time. And that does happen, especially when you're learning. That is

[12:27] make, but it's also the biggest reward if you do it right. Now, on to the final aspect of tanking, routing. This was one of the most disliked parts from tanking weren't getting into tanking, and

[12:42] most. But routing doesn't need to be very hard. First of all, the dungeon journal does give you a load of the information you'd like to know. How the bosses work, their loot tables, and a map to get you started. But also, you

[12:56] can just hold W. Now, I'm not kidding. You can start a lot of these dungeons, especially in heroic if that's a great place for you to start if you're really not confident in the dungeons. Jump in, hold W, and walk boss to boss to boss,

[13:09] killing on your way. Most routes, this will give you all the percent you need and allow you to take out the dungeon. And that won't be a problem in lower dungeon, you'll be able to come up with basic routes that satisfy the conditions

[13:22] of the dungeon while not being too hard on your team. And if you want to take out some of the guessing work, Raider IO has a section for their weekly routes. pug safe routes that are great for beginner groups or your friends that

[13:36] don't know what they're doing or they'll provide some sweaty routes as well in case you want to really push yourself. I love this part of Raider.io. And they're I love the heck out of them, but this is a really cool tool for getting into

[13:51] tanking. So, if you just want someone to hand you a map, here you go. And Mythic Dungeon Tools lets you explore dungeons and come up with routes on your own, and you can even share them to your whole team in the dungeon. This is a fun way

[14:04] that maybe you want to play more efficiently, or if you want to really get into the weeds and come up with the perfect route for you and your team. I know routing can be intimidating. Don't be scared of just walking forward. I

[14:16] have learned most of the dungeons this season walking forward and just kind of freeballing it and figuring it out and it's worked out pretty freaking well for me. So give it a try and don't be too nervous. You can also ask like, "Hey,

[14:31] what's the typical pull here?" Players will tell you, especially if it's in a mind to take a moment and let you know what to do. And tanking can get a lot more complicated if you wanted to, but I wouldn't say it's an unfair skill curve.

[14:47] You'll learn as difficulty goes up what hurts you a lot versus what barely hurts you. Take note of the stuff that really stung and move on. Eventually, you'll need to plan around it. But when you're planning around incoming damage, you're

[15:00] also likely much more comfortable on tank and you've been in the dungeons more than a few times. With that knowledge, you could definitely start tanking. But there's one part I haven't really talked about yet. What if I wipe

[15:13] the party? Okay, everyone needs to hear this in World of Warcraft. You're going to die and the party might wipe. It happens. Just like how healers will struggle to save a group or a DPS didn't do enough damage or didn't interrupt

[15:28] Everyone makes mistakes in World of Warcraft. The tank is just the easiest at. In my experience, the only thing that's ever really gotten a tank truly flamed is not knowing your spec, like egregiously. So, when I see a warrior

[15:45] dying constantly in a dungeon in a plus 10 with 20% shield block uptime, I'm I'm they didn't practice enough of their personal responsibility of keeping their

[15:58] ability. Yeah, tanks do need healing sometimes. Healers do need to keep an eye on them, but you should never need to be babysat. Most of the incoming damage you're going to be able to handle. And let's just say you have a

[16:11] bad run or players are making mistakes and falsely blaming you. The best news for you, you're going to get another dungeon, likely before they will. Tank is one of the most needed roles. You're going to get a ton of invites and a ton

[16:24] of practice. And you can just stay in lower level dungeons or even heroics until you feel like you know the lay of the land and you're ready to move on. And I cannot stress enough delves are perfect for navigating in a risk-free

[16:38] environment on how to tank. I got over most of my worries about tanking by simply doing delves. Sometimes with friends, sometimes on my own, and it made a huge difference in allowing me to really feel it in practice. If you're

[16:51] looking for tank suggestions, this isn't going to be a definitive list by any means, but let me at least categorize them from my own experience. Guardian Drew's the easiest. It's the simplest to understand. It's kind of the go-kart of

[17:04] And yeah, some people play competitive Mario Kart, and both are kind of sick. I who want to jump into tanking. It's your first time tanking ever because it's fun. It's a little silly with all the laser beams coming down and I think it's

[17:19] just the best at teaching the fundamentals of positioning, routing, all of that stuff because you won't be overly focused on how to actually play it. Prop Warrior and Prop Paladin for me are on the easier side to start because

[17:33] buttons for their core rotation. They do have a lot of buttons, but a lot of them are defensive or utility cooldowns or offensive cooldowns, making them easier to learn than you might think. Prop Paladin is a little tough right now as

[17:47] of recording this video, but if you're in love with the Paladin fantasy and the control they bring, I'm sure you'll make it work. It's currently not the easiest to play here in harder content, but I think from a learning perspective, it's

[17:59] think from a learning perspective, it's not too bad still. Blood DK is all on you. Blood Death Knight is puts all the responsibility in the tank. You tank death strike to heal it back and give yourself a physical shield. You play

[18:13] this really terrifying game of how much of my health bar can I sacrifice before I heal, how many buttons can I press before I absolutely must death strike, and how long can I get my cooldowns to roll and mitigate before I fall over

[18:27] challenge and you want to do it all yourself, there's no better way than doing it than death knight. Brew Master is a challenging tank and it gets harder as the content gets harder by a pretty significant margin. However, it's not

[18:42] the hardest tank to start with. It's got maybe the most buttons. So, if you're intimidated by having 5,000 buttons on your bars, then I totally understand this might not be for you. But what I love about Brew Master is Stagger. Its

[18:55] damage you take and turns it into a damage over time called stagger. So, some goes to your face, some goes to stagger, and then you use purifying brew to kind of cleanse away that stagger damage. And then to further this loop

[19:09] that generates chi and then you can spend theqi to make a giant shield and the loop continues. Room master is really fun because yeah, you walk in and you only have to press your damage buttons to start, which is great and can

[19:23] allow you to really focus on the more important parts of tanking, but it can curve goes up. But if you like that challenge and you don't mind the start you, Brew Master is one of my personal

[19:36] favorite tanks and I do highly recommend it, but it is on the challenging side. opinion. Some people might want to contest me on that, but Vengeance has the most amount of moving parts, if you will. As you might have heard me

[19:50] earlier, it's a mix of yeah, your demon spikes add some armor and some parry chance, and that does really help you out, but once you start applying frailty, the parry chance from your fiery sigils or your flame sigil. There

[20:03] we go. I got it right. And you have your painbrer stacks from consuming soul cooldown that can also spread to other targets. You can use your damage cooldowns as also mitigation defensive cooldowns. So maybe you plan those out

[20:17] to do a ton of damage early on and save some of your resources. The list goes on. This spec keeps on giving. But I got to say, it's one of my favorites. Once you crack the code on vengeance, that dance routine of trying to keep

[20:29] everything together while hitting all of your beats is incredibly fun. If you like being an elf and you want to also be a demon, look no further. And while I might pout that I still can't be a Vulpera demon hunter if you're really

[20:42] okay with a challenge. Vengeance is a ton of fun to learn, but it is also very painful to mess up and you'll feel it when you mess up. But give it a shot if it sounds fun. Hold the line while the enemies struggle to take you out. Set

[20:55] your team up for damage and watch the bad guys go down back to back to back. It's one of my favorite fantasies in the MMO genre. I'm so happy that I'm now giving it a full real try as a content creator and I hope you give it a try

[21:10] too. If you have any questions down below, please let me know. If you have any insecurities as well, feel free to air them out as I would love to help you stream and bother me about it too. We talk about this stuff all the time.

[21:24] That's it though. Thank you so so much for watching and I will see you all in for watching and I will see you all in the next one.