Ran heroic Slave Pens last night.

I was doing a friend a favor because their healer dropped out as they were about to begin. He warned me that this was a PuG and it may not work out so well. So I went into this fully aware of the possibilites.

I was the ONLY healer (rezzer). And I was the ONLY one who ever died. The tank just could not keep aggro off of me. I even held back my heals until he "had aggro". I died no less than 9 times. That's a lot of dying for the easiest Heroic in the game. Although I wanted to help my friend, I finally called it quits after we downed the 3rd boss. There was no possible way I could take any more - not without going completely bonkers, that is.

The tank whispered me at the end apologising and explained that he'd taken a year off WoW, and this is his first instance since starting up again. Good information to relay at the beginning of a dungeon - dont'cha think????

But, yes, before you say it, I realize it was a Pug. Bad things are kind of, sort of expected to happen in a PuG. I'm not posting to complain about the group or even the tank. I make it a personal rule never to begrudge a tank. It's a thankless job. I appreciate people simply for trying it. I'm actually posting to ask all of you the following:

(A) Whereas I was NOT allowed to throw an HoT on the tank until he had aggro (which meant that he was down to - oh - about 40% health), do I just throw in my Healing Touch and pray it actually hits before he's dead? Because, I'm not gonna lie, that just sucks. I am NOT used to having to hold back my HoT's prior to a pull. I understand why it should be done, but I guess I've just been blessed with running with a good tank on a usual basis.

(B) What kind of stats should I look for in a tank when I am invited to a PuG? Forgive the rather odd question, but I only have two toons: Resto Druid and Shadow Priest. Aside from Druid's, I don't even know what to look for in other tanking classes.

(C) And finally, is inspecting a Tank's stats before agreeing to heal - rude? Don't get me wrong, I certainly don't profess to be the best healer on the server. But, I love my game. Except, not so much when it makes me want to gouge my eyes out.

He could have good gear and stats, but if doesn't know what he is doing it doesn't matter.

I know if I had +1500 healing, 120MP5, etc., I'd still find some way to make sure everyone died. :D

I've never come across a tank with whom I had to hold off throwing Rejuv or start on Lifebloom stacking on (but then again I only run a couple instances/week).

You could always try chain casting HT and jumping/cancelling the spell unless you want it to hit. Somewhat risky if you're spamming and jumping out of rank13HT.

This game is built around gear but you don't need a T6 tank to do well in heroics. With tanking and healing (and to a less noticeable degree, DPSing), it's all about basic knowledge of how to do your job. Unfortunately, stat's won't always tell you how good/bad a person is so I always go from first impressions. PuGs are PuGs...you're always going to meet fun and good people and you'll for sure run into those who are maybe off their game a bit or not understanding the basic mechanics of their class.

If you truly want a safe run, you're going to have to run with people you know or people the people you know, know (O___o). It's never fun to have a "inexperienced" group but there's not much you could do about it.

Usually it's the healer's that get the most gear checks for heroics (IMO) because they're much easier to find than tanks and how many ignorant people always blame healers for deaths/wipes. You'd be surprised how many heroic groups I've been denied to as resto (which is quite a bit...I'm in arena gear though) compared to my preKara tank gear (which always got me groups when I was feral)

Being a tank isn't a thankless job at all these days Magellen :> I tank for various people all the time and they usually tank me for it, I've made a number of ingame friends purely because they liked my tanking.

Healing an incompetant tank is extremely frustrating. The kind of tank that grabs aggro from one mob, when there are three. All 3 hit him until you're forced to heal him, then the 2 he wasn't hitting run straight for you. And while you die, he does nothing. It's like... open your eyes man !

a)
If you suspect a tank has very low aggro on something, the safest way to avoid pulling aggro is to let his health go down a bit, then put some lifeblooms and rejuvenation on him to "stabilise" his health. So maybe his health is then hovering around 40% or so, just keep it there if you can, don't heal more than you need to.
This doesn't work very well if the tank isn't at the crit cap, as occasionally they will take a big damage spike and that's your balancing act pretty much out the window.
I would like to emphasise though that tanking well is easy and fun, and if you're still pulling aggro and the tank isn't helping you, slap them with a wet fish and leave the group. Acquiring a bad reputation with n00bs is no problem.


b)
As Trixtaa says, the best thing to look for is how they come across.
For example, which of the following two tanks would you rather take with you?

[Spoogebox] whispers: hi m8 u gt tank/???

[Eladriel] whispers: hey there, i heard you were going slave pens. Do you need a tank? :>


In terms of stats, warriors and paladins need loads of +defense skill in order to become uncrittable - druid tanks need less.


c)
No, it's not rude. Or at least, it's not rude enough that you should be embarrassed or discouraged from doing it.

When I take on a complete pug into one of the runs I go to regularly, I usually talk with them for a few minutes first to see what they are like, before agreeing to let them come with me.
I almost never agree to go in a group that someone else has formed because very few people seem to make an effort to select the right members when planning an instance.


-Annikk

Biggest mistake you can make is waiting so long that only a HT can save the tank. A HT as a start to heal is almost everytime your death.
Just begin with a Rejuvination and then start stacking 3 lifeblooms (Reju first cause u can emergency-swiftmend the tank).
A druid tank will generate enough aggro with 1 mangle to keep you save when u do the above things.
Same with sunder armor or skilled thunderclap of a warri.
Same with Avenger's shield of a pali.

So i think it was your fault u died cause of false usage of your spells. no offense but a good healer never goes out of treeform (except for the instant-HT as a last resort). So u should practise there a bit.
BTW: u can stack 3 lifeblooms on the tank before he pulls cause you gain no aggro from overheals as i know... then u have a constant aggro gain which most of the tanks can handle easily.

Greetz

I almost never agree to go in a group that someone else has formed because very few people seem to make an effort to select the right members when planning an instance. I assume they're competent until proved otherwise. ;_;

Yeah, just sounds like the Warrior wasn't using his abilities properly.

You did nothing wrong.

:)

It's a cliché to blame the healers, anyway :p


-Annikk

BTW: u can stack 3 lifeblooms on the tank before he pulls cause you gain no aggro from overheals as i know...

That's my usual pre-pull technique. But I do throw in a Rejeuve just after....so, I guess I gotta hold off on the rejeuve until aggro is secure. I can live with that if I can still use LB. I feel better using something.

If you cast any healing spells once the tank has aggroed the mob(s), you will receive full aggro for them.
If you do a regrowth on him and it lands before he has aggroed any mobs, you will not receive threat for the healing-over-time component.
If you stack 3 lifeblooms on him, you won't receive any threat from it until you recast it when the tank has pulled.

I would recommend using regrowth as your pre-pull healing over time, as it lasts 21 seconds compared to lifebloom's 7.
As long as your spell lands before the tank has aggroed, it will be aggro-free.
And yes, you receive theat only for effective healing. Overheal doesn't generate any threat.

-Annikk

Usually it's the healer's that get the most gear checks for heroics (IMO)

Ya, I get the "inspection" all the time. Of course, I understand the need for it, but nonetheless, it still bothers the heck out of me. Dunno. Just feels like an intrusion. Silly, I know.

In fact, I had just won some great gloves in Kara, and one of my guildies whispered me a day or so later to let me know that he was checking me out on the Armory and he had some nice gems to send me. He was being kind as hell, but it felt..."wierd". How stupid is that????

It actually used to hurt my feelings a bit when I was ever refused a spot on a raid because of my gear, just after switching to resto. Again, silly. But I've moved on. :cool:

I would recommend using regrowth as your pre-pull healing over time, as it lasts 21 seconds compared to lifebloom's 7.

Hmmm, regrowth, now I've never tried that. Gonna give that a go.

Thanks for the tips guys. I love this site!

I try run with tanks I know but when I do run with others, I usually inspect them if they look like they are in a hobo suit of armor. I almost always look at thier spec though. Which IMO is the most important. It is usually a warrior that's the problem as far as what class of tank, since most feral druids I know don't have too hard of a time holding aggro. A palli tank has to be well geared and deep in the prot tree to hold aggro.

So few Warriors are spec protection these days and are usually Mortal Strike or Fury.

Honestly the problem I usually see as the healer or tank is not the healer pulling aggro but the DPSers. It doesn't take more than one good revenge to keep a mob on the tank and a sunder every once in a while to keep them off the healer and till the first mob is dead.

Also not having enough CC can be another problem. When I pull aggro in an instance from heals, its because plain and simply the tank is getting hit too hard.

One instance run comes to mind. It was a regular arcatraz run. We died on the first 2 pulls. I was like, ok WTF is up. I can understand sometimes not being ready for the first pull. But I had neglected to inspect him before we started so I took a look. The tank didn't have the gear, the spec or the know how to be a tank. I prompty appologized and bailed.

Its hard to say which is the most important, spec, gear or know how. It doesn't matter if your specced well and know how to play a warrior if you gear can't mitigate the damage. For heroics you have to have all 3 but I think the gear can be lacking a little for the tank and you will be ok as long as he is specced right and knows how to play it.

Below is a link to the talents warriors must have to tank well IMO. This is the very minimum. They are all the things that help them hold aggro.

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/warrior/talents.html?0000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000055501033020000000000

Because druids can't be uncrushable they have to have shiz loads of armor and health. Their tree should look something like this

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/druid/talents.html?0000000000000000000005030321323201053 0125105500300000000000000

For heroics I think they should have 12K armor and at least like 26K+ armor minimum unbuffed. I honestly wish we could see thier stats when we examine them. With once piece of Kara gear and the right pieces I had 29K amor and 13K health unbuffed and I did well tanking in heroics.

Hopefully this helps.

For heroics I think they should have 12K armor and at least like 26K+ armor minimum unbuffed.

I'm confused....which one are you suggesting?

I'm of the belief that if you know what you're doing, 12K HP and 20K Armor would be enough to tank a Heroic.

Remember, Heroics are "supposed" to be easier than Kara.

If you can tank Kara, you should be more than geared for Heroics.

Luckily when I was in this pug, I was just on my Hunter, the easiest PUG job in the world.

But we had a tank, who for some reason decided to bring his fully Teir 2 equiped lvl 60 warrior to Hellfire Ramparts, and he could not keep agro for ****. Not because he wasn't good, but because he was so decked out; nothing there could hit him, thus, he couldn't build rage.

Needless to say there was a lot of mob bouncing, trapping on the fly, and pet tanking going on. He was a nice guy, just too well geared for that content.

But we had a tank, who for some reason decided to bring his fully Teir 2 equiped lvl 60 warrior to Hellfire Ramparts, and he could not keep agro for ****. Not because he wasn't good, but because he was so decked out; nothing there could hit him, thus, he couldn't build rage. Lots of tanks with high-end gear end up wearing their DPS set to tank in lesser instances for exactly this reason. Rage generation issues. Paladin tanks have a problem with it too; they don't generate rage per se, but a lot of their threat is reactive. IE, they have to get hit by the mob to cause enough threat to tank effectively.

Too much avoidance can actually become a problem that the DPS has to be aware of and account for. Not just in normal instances, it can be a problem when clearing the trash on the way to the raid boss too.

I started tanking in a mixture of my pvp gear on normal instances and it seems to work fine ...

There ar etwo simple rules

1. If the tank loses aggro to a dps, its the dps' fault.
2. if the tank loses aggro to a healer, it's the tanks fault.

You don;t get aggro for overheals so if the tank cant generate more threat than gained from healing the health he loses, he needs to step up his game.

I prefer to do heroics with the tanks in my guild that still have thunderfury from MC, because it procs like crazy and one proc is equivalent in threat to 2 sunders (and procs on multiple targets). No mobs come for me :)

Its even worth running mc now to get your pally tank TF for when he has to tank multipe mobs, because that combined with consecrate generates crazy aggro, and slows their attack speed on him, and when you are aoe tanking, that is very important :)

a)
If you suspect a tank has very low aggro on something, the safest way to avoid pulling aggro is to let his health go down a bit, then put some lifeblooms and rejuvenation on him to "stabilise" his health. So maybe his health is then hovering around 40% or so, just keep it there if you can, don't heal more than you need to.
This doesn't work very well if the tank isn't at the crit cap, as occasionally they will take a big damage spike and that's your balancing act pretty much out the window.
I would like to emphasise though that tanking well is easy and fun, and if you're still pulling aggro and the tank isn't helping you, slap them with a wet fish and leave the group. Acquiring a bad reputation with n00bs is no problem.

I can't believe that this strategy has not received more attention in this thread, as it is a) brilliant, and 2) NECESSARY when you're running with a horrible tank.

I was running hSP with a GUILD TANK and we had trouble on the double Defender pulls where I was not used to holding back at the beginning (and died). What did work in later double Defenders was the strategy that Annikk mentioned above ... waiting until about 50% health and then just holding the tank's hit points there with a couple of HoTs.

waiting until about 50% health and then just holding the tank's hit points there with a couple of HoTs.

...and the tank gets some fast damage and dies...not THAT effecient

...and the tank gets some fast damage and dies...not THAT effecient

I'm sorry, when did trash start crushing? We're not talking about boss healing here.

Also, this is an option to use when healing any more is unsafe. It isn't perfect ... but sometimes it's what you have to do.

I'm sorry if this topic isnt about heroics or so.
but i dont know any tank, who's not full kara or in the 25man-content, who tanks heroics easy going with never taking some big damages on mobs in heroics+.

I'm sorry if this topic isnt about heroics or so.
but i dont know any tank, who's not full kara or in the 25man-content, who tanks heroics easy going with never taking some big damages on mobs in heroics+.

Letting a tank's health drop to 50% and then holding their health there is a tactic that I have used in heroics. Tank and healer were both Kara (or better) geared, but as long as the group isn't undergeared for the instance I don't see why there would be a problem using this strategy. Generally, the damage just should not be that unpredictable on trash.

interestingly, the very night this thread, some group asked me to main heal (as feral but with quest rewards healing gear) at Ramparts. i reluctantly agreed. We wiped in the FIRST pull. wiped in the second pull. and got 2 pulls in the third one. I was like WTF?!?! We had a druid who was tanking, but half way through, the mob would start attacking the hunter, and the @#^%#@ing druid would GO INTO CAT FORM and start DPSing. when i questioned him about it (Actually it was a little more violent than questioning... :elfgrin: ) he said "but i can't get him to attack me..." needless to say if i hadn't left i would have either gone mad, or taken till the following leap year to get ramparts done. >< worst group EVER.

Ugh. I see that group as having two interrelated problems - a bear who's tank clueless and a hunter who's just plain clueless.
(insert one of AppleJax's dufus pix here)

Having put a heck of a lot of work into my 70 hunter (and not being a Huntard), I've got little to no sympathy for one who doesn't keep track of his aggro vs the tank's aggro. :nono: Even if the tank sucks, you back off on the dps and/or feign regularly so you don't have to tank. If it's too bad, you bail. I don't blame you for skipping the rest of that 'adventure'.

The best way to know about a class is to play that class, but we always dont have that luxury. I have a 70 prot warrior so thought I would share some tips.

1. Always cast thorns on the tank, and Faerie Fire

2. Never allow a pally or priest to shield a tank, you want them to take damage to build more aggro

3. never allow a rogue to use expose armor, because it is superior to sunder armor and a tank will not be able to cast his best aggro spell

4. Look for debuff Icons and remember the sunder armor Icon, which displays the same if the tank uses devastate, a deep prot talent. If you dont see it /Y.

5. watch the tank when he changes stances and you see anything besides a shield above his head, /Y he is using a stance other than defensive (I wish blizzard would make this a buff cause its hard to tell what stance a warrior is in)

6. I always ask for the leader to put an icon above me so everyone knows where the healer is.

7. FYI taunt has a very low cooldown, in fact its just a couple seconds short of being able to tank a second target with taunt alone.

8. Also keep in mind that unlike most classes a full prot is leaps and bonds better than a hybrid. Like a druid could heal almost as good with 41 pts as they could with full resto. However warrior tanks have good talents full prot like spell resistance and shield mastery. In fact on my warrior I cant think of a single prot talent that looks unattractive.

9. Im a fan of hunters using redirect to pull targets directly to the tank

10. My tank isnt all epic but in heroics I hear that even at the crit cap warriors can still use defence to minimise crushing blows as well.

Thats just off the tip of my head.... comments welcome :vaseplus:

3. never allow a rogue to use expose armor, because it is superior to sunder armor and a tank will not be able to cast his best aggro spell

This is not the case anymore. Shield slam ( at 70 ) is by far and away the best aggro building ability quickly followed by devastate . If a prot warrior is using sunder over devastate, it's time to find another warrior. :box:

I'm confused....which one are you suggesting?

I'm of the belief that if you know what you're doing, 12K HP and 20K Armor would be enough to tank a Heroic.

Remember, Heroics are "supposed" to be easier than Kara.

If you can tank Kara, you should be more than geared for Heroics.

I guess I've just been lucky then... I have 21k armor and around 14k health, and have off-tanked and main-tanked in kara pretty easily. Heroics, though, healers never seem able to keep me up. It's like I'm made out of paper or something.

Heroics, though, healers never seem able to keep me up. It's like I'm made out of paper or something.It is trash. The trash in (some) heroics are far more demanding on healers than most of Kara. Having 2-3 hard hitting mobs on the tank at once is tough. Even more so if the party is taking damage at the same time (AoE, broken CC, etc.). All this has to be handled by a single healer.

In kara, there are 2-3 healers doing the same thing with fewer mobs. If kara had 10 pulls (2 tanks * 5 mobs pulls like say SH), then it would be comparable.

This is not the case anymore. Shield slam ( at 70 ) is by far and away the best aggro building ability quickly followed by devastate . If a prot warrior is using sunder over devastate, it's time to find another warrior. :box:

I should have been more articulate. However, when I said sunder I was acting like sunder and devastate
are one and the same, since devastate replaces the other and even if you use devastate the healer wont know because the healer will still see the sunder debuff. In addition maybe i should test this out I love shield slam but I use devastate more because im in a race to get 5x sunders on, and devastate is 5 rage cheaper..... It could be out of habbit that I dont use shield slam much but I've always been told that devastate and revenge were the big threat spells....

Oh by the way I did OHB last night with a prot warrior who refused to get into defensive stance, and he continually lost aggro, and guess who was second on the threat table? Me...... I was pulling mobs with lifebloom of all things..... I expect to pull aggro on a huge HT or tranquility but for the love of Elune, Lifebloom... guve me a break!:duel2:

Oh and if I post 10 tips and I only get critisized on one then I would consider that a victory..... cheers druids

Having 2-3 hard hitting mobs on the tank at once is tough. Even more so if the party is taking damage at the same time (AoE, broken CC, etc.). All this has to be handled by a single healer.

Sigh, so true. Keeping the tank up is fairly straight forward, but, regardless of a gifted tank's ability to keep aggro, there is always somebody not watching their threat well enough, and you just want to smack 'em.

Sigh, so true. Keeping the tank up is fairly straight forward, but, regardless of a gifted tank's ability to keep aggro, there is always somebody not watching their threat well enough, and you just want to smack 'em.
I think this was my problem last night in hSV. We really only had 1 CC (hunter) and on the 4 pulls, I couldn't hold aggro so well on all three mobs as a Shammy would always pull one off me. So, the healer (a 0/0/61 Druid) would have to heal the Shammy as well as me. Causing insane amounts of healing threat that would result in any "free" (or nearly free) mob to go crashing to the "big tree with arms". We one-shot'd the bosses. But wiped 10+ times on trash.

Given the number of wipes, I should have just used Challenging Roar on every pull to save the Shammy from damage for 6 seconds. Instead, I eventually just let the Shammy "tank" the primary target (a caster mob of some sort) while I held onto the other 2 mobs. For the 5-pulls we had the warlock sort of CC another mob, but it didn't work out so well.

All in all, I think "bad group dynamics" and/or a lack of CC (we had sheep on the last 2 pulls and they when quite nicely) were the result of our wipes. But I just had this feeling that "the blame" was probably put on me (and/or the healer a bit).

But I just had this feeling that "the blame" was probably put on me (and/or the healer a bit).

Ya nobody dares say it, but yes, you know they are always thinking it.

And THAT is why, my dear fellow Drood, there is always a lack of Tanks and Healers. :wink:

Ya nobody dares say it, but yes, you know they are always thinking it. You can tell when there are long gaps in the party chat after a wipe on the walk back or during the healing/rebuff phase. Especially if a couple of the players are RL or in-game friends. Often you learn who the "tell" players are after sometime. They are the ones that insist on sending "tells" directly to you to bitch about someone else in the group ("seems like the healer isn't pulling their weight", "WTF why is that shammy using chain lightening as soon as you pull?"). If they do that when you are doing well, you better believe they do it when you are not.:grin:

You can tell when there are long gaps in the party chat after a wipe on the walk back or during the healing/rebuff phase.

LMAO - Sounds familiar! Hey! Have we played together before? :texla:

It is really obvious when you see them on auto-run facing a wall/rock/tree while in ghost form. You just know they are typing something.