From the mailbag: getting your foot in the door
I received a really great email over the weekend from a new tank who’s struggling to get off the ground and start tanking heroics. He’s stuck in the same mire that many other fresh 80s are where the gear score-wielding snobs of the pug world are just looking for tanks with 40k health to carry them through the dungeon, and tend to heap scorn on any new guy who just wants to learn the ropes.
Consider the insanity of the situation: back in December we were tanking Naxx with 25k hp, but now that’s barely enough for a heroic.
I mourn for all new tanks out there and can’t rely on a guild for guaranteed heroic groups.
Anyway, as to the letter:
Hey Rhidach,
I had a couple of quick questions regarding tanking.
First, and probably the one you get a lot, why is corruption/vengeance superior to command after the command AoE changes? Wouldn’t hitting multiple targets help with multiple mob encounters in instances? I want to stop using command and move to vengeance, but I feel like I need some sort of authoritative position to prove to me why I should.
Second, I just hit 80 on my Paladin (my first character to 80), and I immediately specced out of Ret and moved over to Prot. I’m very happy tanking, but my gear score is only 3700ish right now and my defense is 512. I’m having difficulty finding gear upgrades, and as you probably know there’s no pvp gear for tanks.
Many times in groups I get ridiculed for not having enough HP (24k with BoSanc) or Gear Score to be effective, but in all my times running heroics I’ve never lost aggro and never seen a single party member die. Despite this, many people drop group when they see my score, or give me constant criticism over my HP. I’m not sure what do to here – I can’t get groups for ToC Heroic, much less any 10 man, and none of the heroics other than ToC offer me tanking upgrades. Where do I go to find tanking upgrades? I’m very tempted to gear up for Holy through PvP and spec it to gear Prot as an off, but that process would take time and I don’t want to stop tanking – it’s what I really love to do in MMOs.
What would you suggest? My armory is here:
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Illidan&n=Emigre
Any advice you can give is much appreciated – I just want to know how to make the jump to being better geared.
Thanks,
Emigre
To answer your first question Emigre, it’s been worked out by some theorycrafters (primarily Theck) that if the mob is living long enough to get a 3-stack or higher of the Seal of Vengeance dot (generally 4.5 seconds, depending on your weapon), use SoV; otherwise, SoC will be more threat. Though, even then the threat gained is ultimately negligible. I think you’d ultimately be better off putting that point into Conviction and enjoying the constant 1% crit than a niche Seal choice.
As for the crux of your email, I poked around with your set on warcraft.net and came up with the following get-up that will give you 27k health unbuffed and 540 defense. Should be enough to get past the gear score snobs. One thing I couldn’t find was the Greater Inscription of the Gladiator for the shoulders, which will give you 30 more stamina and enough resilience to cover the defense loss. Also, if you have money to burn you might want to put epic gems in there instead of rare quality.
Now, the beauty of this set is the items you’ll need to put this together are mostly purchased from blacksmiths and jewelcrafters:
- Tempered Saronite Breastplate
- Titanium Earthguard Ring
- Titanium Earthguard Chain
- Tempered Titansteel Helm
Though, you will need the two trinkets from normal instances (easily done, at least):
- Seal of the Pantheon (HoL)
- The Black Heart (ToC-5)
Altogether you will be in a pretty good spot with this. You have some good equipment right now, you just need to build on it.
Does anyone have any other recommendations for how Emigre can gear himself to make himself a more desirable tank to the pug snobs?
Armory Feed
the best way to avoid gear snobs is to start the pug yourself. most servers are so tank-starved that anyone in LFG spamming “pally tank LF heroics,” you’ll get so many messages from dpsers that you get to decide who stays and who goes.
that, and make friends with a healer. keep mobs off them and watch their mana, and they will love you. once you have a healer friend, the instances will just fly by.
@honorshammer
9 November 2009 at 4:22 pm #
Try to do Heroics as Ret or Holy and save up the Badges for the Tier 8.5 helm and Chest. Those will be huge upgrades. Also, if you have the gold to burn, buy Runed Orbs and Crusader Orbs. You can get a Chest, Bracers, Boots, and a Belt made which provide a big boost in HP.
Remember that a geared DPS (even a clothie) will be sporting nearly 23k hit points these days. They get a little nervous if they have more HP than the Tank.
One personal piece of advice…
NEVER TRUST A HEALER WHO IS A GEAR SNOB.
I know I can run with an average or gearing up healer through a heroic, and when I heal on the druid, I can run with an average or gearing up tank with success. To be completely honest, I will heal a 3 legged dog running around in plate if he’s defense capped just to see if I still got it.
The tank belt and boots made with Runed Orbs aren’t all that expensive to make, and are really amazing for 226 gear. Take a few days, grab Runed Orbs and Titansteel when they are reasonably cheap, then find somebody with the recipe to make them for you.
Another cheap trick is to use a Stoneblood flask and eat some +stam food before you join the group. Forming your own group will also help a little. At least then you only have to worry about people leaving, not being kicked! Then you just have to worry about what the healer will think, as a DPSer is probably not going to want to have to look for a whole new group.
JG has is right. I’ve got a pocket healer that knows I log on around 5:30 or 6 AM to do the daily heroic – and we pair up as soon as we can to get it knocked out.
I like the extra points in Divine Guardian over imp HoJ – but that’s a personal thing. I’m also running a different level of instance, so CC is handled by others.
Like Rhidach said – you can cover defense loss with resilience for the ability to not be crit, but you don’t get the additional mitigation from it.
Make sure you always have buff food, flasks, and pots. Elixir of Mighty Fortitude is your friend. Between a pot and a well fed buff, you can pick up close to another 1k HP. Elixirs of protection or defense are also worth using to bump your stats a little. Also, get your gear enchanted, and fill up those socket slots.
I will give a guy a much bigger break if I see that they’ve put the maximum into all their gear. You’re looking at a (rough) 2k HP from buffs and missing gems/enchants. 22 Stam for boots, some +30 stam gems, 40 stam from well fed, and 350 HP from elixir will give you 1690 (with kings/sanct) extra HP. Yeah, it’s going to cost you some gold, but it’ll get you in.
Last thing – where is this ‘gear score’ number coming from – because according to wow-heroes I only have a gear score of 2800 or so…
@hazmacewillraid
9 November 2009 at 4:49 pm #
I completely agree with Honor, do heroics as Ret. Even if you don’t particularly enjoy DPSing, it’s a lot easier to find a group as an undergeared DPS than it is an undergeared tank. Many people don’t need upgrades from heroics, so you’re more than likely going to be rolling unchallenged, and all those badges you’ll be collecting can go towards your Prot set.
And like Jgalt said, just start your own groups if you feel up to the task. Anyone who doesn’t want to heal/dps for you; no big deal, there’s hundreds (ok, maybe not that many, but a lot) of other healers and DPSers out there to fill the roles you need.
I feel your pain, I recently went through the same thing. I made sure that I was at the def cap 535 so no one could complain about that. Wyrmrest has a cloak and chest piece that while they aren’t exactly upgrades, provide nice defense. Also, the Argent Tournament has an axe that has defense that is pretty easy to get. The crafted neck and ring are pretty easy to get, too. I don’t claim to be the best or do a lot of theory crafting, but I have noticed that people doing gear checks seem to get turned off by pvp items or non-defense pieces. Yeah, its lame, but that’s the game we play. I kept at it and now I don’t need anything else from H ToC, at least not for my tanking set. Good luck.
Rhabella – “To be completely honest, I will heal a 3 legged dog running around in plate if he’s defense capped just to see if I still got it.”
Take it from another healer: this is my attitude, particularly if I’ve decided to PuG. The key? “defense capped” Yeah, we know it’s not really a cap, but it is important. Getting over 535 (or 540 for raids) is such a fundamental goal that you should beg, borrow, and steal to get there. Get dual spec, run Heroics as Ret, and roll on tank gear. If you’re lucky to run with a relatively geared group then you’ll probably find yourself picking up dps pieces as well. Badge gear is your friend!
adgamorix – “Last thing – where is this ‘gear score’ number coming from – because according to wow-heroes I only have a gear score of 2800 or so…”
There is an addon called “gear score”. I have no idea how it calculates but it give me a decent score and my tank set is a bunch of Naxx & early Ulduar DE bait. “only 2800″ on wow-heroes is hilarious. My healing gear is ‘only’ 2600! :P
The sad thing about the addon is the noob gear snobs will say “nice gear!” and not notice substandard gems, enchants, or Defense rating. Badges make it relatively easy to gear up, but they also make it easy to inflate a meaningless score while remaining crittable and all kinds of other terribad-ness.
Joe – I was using that as a comparison because the email came from someone with a ‘gear score’ of like 3600 or something.
Like has been said – gear scores have killed it. Someone in the blogsphere did a post about people wanting high gear, because to some extent, if your gear is good enough, your skill doesn’t matter.
Can’t wait for 3.3 and auto LFG…
I suffered through this early in my tanking career. Getting defense capped, at least to 535 is essential, and non negotiable. That needs to be your focus, be it through farming the seal of the pantheon, epic gems, or anything else, you need to have 535 defense or, especially at your health and armor levels, bosses can easily two shot you.
Leading your own group is the key to getting into runs. Some people will leave when they see your gear, it’s still easier to get one person at a time to agree to it, then trying to convince 4 at a time.
In order to make the run succesful, you’ll need to work harder than other tanks. While most tanks with superior gear can simply AoE tank the whole instance indescriminately, you’ll need to make sure you know exactly how you’re going to handle each pull. You need to be able to quickly mark each pull, and make it clear to the rest of the group if it’s gonna be an LoS pull.
Plot out your badge upgrades in advance, and plot out a plan for which items you want for which instances.
@ Emigre
In my guild we have been helping a Warlock’s Warrior alt gear up for tanking. He never tanked before, so he wasn’t much more advanced than you are now. In a week and half he upgraded many heroic blues and quest rewards with ToC-5 Heroic and Emblem Gear (and some nice heroic drops).
If you have cool guildmates to boost you through heroics and easy raids like Naxx 10 or 25, you can get some nice drops and emblems to buy Tier 8.5 quality. Buy crafted gear if you can afford it. Farm some dailys to make money to buy gems/enchants and possibly crafted gear. Don’t forget your Sons of Hodir dailies! They are the key for your shoulder enchants.
Well, I think that’s all. Good Luck!
Drop all the pvp equipment, resilience is not a good tanking stats anymore, you will get more itemisation with propoer tanking gear even they are a tad lower in the ilvl . Acquire all the tempered titansteel items. level up the blacksmilth (+ socket for stam gem) and mining skill (+% of total stam) fill in the missing with rare tanking saronite gears. You should be comfortably geared with defence capped. Be frank when pug, tell them you are a new tank with def capped. If they have a strong healer and good dps you should do fine. Hit out all the easier heroics first eg HUK, H NEX, HVH, NTOC skipped those terrible ones like HUP, H OCC, and hell even HTOC.
To be frank, it starts with the first pull. If you can pull nicely and hold on to the aggro without the mobs going to the healer or dpsers. They will continue the instance with you. If everything fail, just let the pug know if they are not comfortable after the first pull, they can switch you out should be able to get you an invite to heroic
@rhi
Funny you posted this article, because yesterday a noob in a similar position asked the same thing basically.
He wanted me to help gear him out which i told him no since i don’t know him and he can ask his guildys if he wanted such a freebie. But i did offer him my advise for new aspiring tanks.
Imho Rhi, my fast tank fast track guide is that…. noobs should not tank to get gear… (gasp). I know what your thinking but listen out first.
Nobody wants a crappy geared tank. Best you can get is invites to 5man normal or heroic if your lucky. And this is after doing the minimum gear upgrades most of which is crafted gear which you mentioned Rhi, but also the NPC reputation level for gear purchases.
But the reason why i say focus on other specs like dps and heals is because they are more easier to get into 5mans and raids compared to tanks which is the most demanding in terms of gear, experience and skills…
So for a dps or healer, just make your own 5man heroics and do toc 10 normal and heroic. All the starting gear is all there. You can forget spending shitloads of gold for gear. Just getting toc gear will set you on your way. Any fillers you can then get by trading conquest and triumph emblems for. Now your done and fully geared to handle Ulduar 10/25, Toc10/25 …. (assuming you got the itemlevel 226+ conquest and triumph vendor gear as i suggested).
When making your own pugs, REMEMBER to inform the raid/group your mainspec rolling on tank gear, so people don’t say you ninja and you don’t compete with other dps specs looking to get offspec gear against you. Keep people who need your gear to a minimum. Check Atlas loot for what instance drops what you need exactly. Don’t just randomly pug instances without knowing what exactly drops or you just waste your time.
Once your geared, does not mean your a good tank. Now you can go practice by tanking in 5mans to get the EXPERIENCE which is needed to learn how to tank properly. Holding agro, situational awareness, understanding of boss mechanics for the instances and that jazz….
10man and 25man raids are more challenging for new tanks to learn. The best method is to pair up with an experience tank and ask questions what to do and for any tips. Any supplementary help can be done by watching Utube to get a basic understanding and PRACTICE PRACTICE and more practice ingame till you get it….
Thats not to say your method isn’t fine Rhi, just that it takes much longer getting there gearwise compared to my suggestion :)
Rep gear, BOE items, and TOC is your best bet. I have helped gear our guilds other tanks and even healer and dps using this method.
As a paladin, you are considered the best tank for TOC and try to find a group that is looking to farm reg TOC. There are, I believe 5, really good items for you to pick up there and once you get those items run HTOC everyday if possible. Upgrade with badges and pick up a few crafted epics to fill the rest.
After that, just run Naxx/Sarth/VoA as much as you can. When 3.3 hits this option will be far easier to do as everyone will be farming old raids.
Good luck
On top of the suggestions made by others already, max out your professions. Mining and BS combined which you have will add another 120 stam. 60 from mining (toughness at 450) and 60 from BS sockets on your bracers and gloves.
I would also suggest farming ToC 5 regular. The instance is not tough on reg and contains a nice tanking belt, pants that have more stam then the ones from HVH, and gloves. Not to mention the Black heart trinket is also in this instance. If you group with the same people for the most part you can kill two birds with one stone and get some upgrades for your offset as well.
What you need is a good reputation with the healer faction
I agree with what several posters above said, and be flexible. I will switch out to tank a fight, or even a dungeon, if needed and another healer is in the group, and the tank is struggling. So he doesn’t have dps gear, umm so, the Peacekeeper blade does so much dps it might as well be a dps piece anyway.
I am a scaredy tank, slowly getting confidence the more tanking I do. I prefer healing. I love healing, but as a paladin I bring 2 tools and sets of gear to do either job. If you have a “want a fast run” snob in your group, get rid of them like they are on fire. They are more trouble than they are worth. i have much better gear than many new tanks, so I let them take any and all tanking gear. Nothing drops in five mans for me that is even remotely useful, and I mean nothing for either set. Money is easy, I say at the start if you want a piece roll Need.
I always explain the fights and tricks to new tanks, even if it takes longer. If you don’t know a fight ask. Don’t try for achievements until you are bored with the instance, and make sure everyone can do it. I gladly make guns for free for new warrior tanks, (they do have to provide the mats.) We need more tanks, and I prefer good ones, not ones that have a, “well I tried that, but I couldn’t keep up” attitude. I want you to enjoy tanking. I want you to understand the fights. I want a successful run. Which to me means a new tank that understands the dungeon better, even if we wipe, because he made a mistake. The rogue who wanted a 15-20 minute Nexus Heroic, because it was lolNexus was universally added to everyone else’s ignore list. I even let the rogue tank, he just yelled at me. I warned him, you want to tank then tank, otherwise shut it.
Get a healer who helps you, paladins and druids are good for this. They can be both tanks and healers, so they get more invites if they do both. They also know the fights from a tank’s perspective and can explain mid dungeon, while keeping you alive. I will give up my concentration aura for Devotion if the tank needs the extra stamina, (usually warriors and DKs.) Get a healer like that, add them to your friends list and treat them like the Hot Girl that you always wanted, but you thought would never give you the time of day. When you see her on, ask if she would be kind enough to do a dungeon with you, preferably the daily, but whatever she is able to do is fine. If she is nasty, or rude keep looking, she might have had a bad day, it happens. Nice healers abound, it is what we do, stand in the back and keep you alive. Add them to your friends list. I like getting invited to heal dungeons and raids. I will tank if I have to, but if you will do it. /cheer Plus it is either that, dailies, or going back to BC and Classic to finish out loremaster, boooorrring.
Another thing I would suggest is take the time to finish maxing out your professions. I see you have mining and blacksmithing, max mining will give you an extra 50 stam I think and max blacksmiths get 2 extra sockets you can put 2 more 30 stam gems in. It really won’t take too long and will really be an easything to help you out. Also you will then be able to make some of the starter tank gear for yourself instead of buying it all.
There has been some good advice given in this thread. One thing I’d point out, though, is that the individual asking for advice says that this is his first 80. He probably doesn’t have large reserves of gold to buy BoE items and even epic gems. He may not have any friends in game or guildies who will help him by running instances, crafting gear, etc. Here is an approach to getting as geared as quickly as possible relying entirely on soloing and pugs without a large gold investment up front.
1. Farm regular ToC. This can be done in a single afternoon and is easily doable in your current gear. The Black Heart is an excellent trinket, and you shouldn’t stop until you have it. The belt is largely a side grade to what you have now– better for threat and EH, worse for avoidance. The boots, gloves, and legs, though they devote a fair amount of their item budget to expertise, are all still upgrades. Just be sure to socket them to make up for the defense you will be losing from the rep items they replace. As an added bonus, the fact that they are ilvl 200 epics replacing blues will help to quiet the concerns of others regarding your gear score. Also, pick up pieces that nobody else wants for your ret/holy sets, as being flexible regarding your role in groups will get you into more runs.
2. Do h ToC every day. The helm, sword, ring, neck, and shoulders are all significant tanking ups. You’ll also pick up 3 Emblems of Conquest per day. Again, roll offset on any ret or holy ups to improve your ability to DPS or heal at need.
3. Farm heroics for Conquest badges. As others have stated, start your own groups or go as DPS. Getting into heroics any way you can is going to be key to improving your gear quickly. There isn’t anything outside of raids for the chest slot that compares to the t8.5 piece (unless you count the crafted one that uses Crusaders’ orbs). The neck, gloves, and belt are also nice. Trade some emblems down to Valors, and snag the cloak and boots. When you’ve gotten all the badge tanking gear you need, keep running heroics. Use excess badges to get epic gems for your tanking kit. After that? Use excess badges to buy off set gear and gem it.
4. Do the daily heroic and spend your Triumphs wisely. The first slot I’d upgrade were I you is the ring.
5. Level mining and blacksmithing. Mine while looking for heroic pugs to join. Take the ore you gather and use it to level blacksmithing. Your goal is to hit 450 mining for another 60 stamina and 415 blacksmithing to allow you to socket your bracers and gloves, netting another 60 stamina (or 48 stamina, if you are using rare gems). Also, hitting 415 BS means you can make eternal belt buckles, which (at least on my server) reliably sell for a 30-50% profit. That being the case, you can make a couple of hundred of gold per day very easily by just buying all of the mats you need off the AH and listing about a dozen of the buckles. That will allow you to start looking at crafted upgrades.
6. Get into VoA and Ony pugs any way you can. Often times, pugs won’t be too picky about the gearing of a final DPS or healer. Read up on the fights ahead of time so that you can step in and contribute as much as your gear will allow you to. Understand that you may have to put up with some folks whining about your 2k DPS or whatever. You may get unfairly blamed for wipes. Just stay focused on your goal of improving your toon. Again, there are some potential big ups there from the drops, and you’ll earn both Triumph and Conquest badges. Even if you are coming as DPS or healing, it is fairly likely that you will have a shot at rolling off spec on any tankadin drops from Emalon or Archavon, and, if nobody is a prot pally in the run, you may even have a shot at ilvl 232/245 tanking helms, pants, and gloves.
7. When you are afford crafted gear, look carefully at the degree of upgrade it will give you, other possible upgrades that are available to you, and the cost of making the item. Balance these to get pieces that are a real upgrade, that you will be keeping for a while, and that won’t prevent you from pursuing other improvements. For example, the Tempered Titansteel Helm is a nice up from the DPS helm you are using; however, it’s not a huge up compared to the Helm of the Crestfallen Challenger (h ToC– which you should be doing daily). On the other hand, the Spiked Deathdealers are clearly superior to anything prior to the Greaves of the Lingering Vortex (ToC10, twin val’kyrs– which you probably won’t be doing regularly soon). Consequently, it would make more sense to spend the extra gold on getting the boots made, since there isn’t anything on par with them on the horizon.
By the time that you are spending badges on gems, looking into high end crafted gear, and so forth, you should be geared to the point that finding groups isn’t a problem. When you’ve reached that point (and congratulations are in order for putting in the work to achieve that goal), Hopefully, you’ve done alot of tanking in 5 mans and may have even tanked a bit in 10s/25s by this time. Just remember to keep looking for ways to grow as a tank. Gear defines the limits of what a character can do, but it is the skill of the person at the controls that determines how much of that potential is fulfilled.
http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com/forum/index.php?f=21&t=25819&rb_v=viewtopic
is my suggestion :P
props to Honors for that.
Oh, although it isn’t what you asked for, I’ll toss in some additional advice on glyphs. You already have the Glyph of Divine Plea, which is excellent. You also have the Glyph of HotR, which is nice for trash tanking. Your 3rd major glyph (Avenging Wrath) isn’t well suited to tanking. It would be worthwhile to replace it. One option would be with the Glyph of Vengence (+10 expertise skill– not rating– when Seal of Vengence is active). Since SoV is your standard tanking seal, this glyph is nice in that it enhances threat generation and reduces the parry hasting of mobs under most circumstances. Another one to consider is the Glyph of Righteous Defense (which lowers the chance to miss with your taunts by 8%), since resisted taunts are never a good thing. Additionally, the Glyph of Salvation can be used as a mini-cooldown, assuming that you have a commanding threat lead. Some people also like the Glyph of Judgement for the threat boost it provides. It’s not a huge threat boost, but if you’re having trouble holding mobs, every bit helps. Personally, I use Divine Plea, SoV, and Righteous Defense and am fairly happy with this group. YMMV.