How the other half tanks

To do something a little different, my post today is a brief interview with Demogar, my co-tank and brother-in-arms. Demo was recently served with a 3-day suspension from the WoW forums for what I can only assume was trolling. As you can imagine, he has some strong opinions on the state of tanking today, haha.

This is a bit of a fluff interview though, just to introduce the guy you’ve only seen in taunting comments and raid recaps to the wider audience of this blog’s front page.

1. Tell use a little about Demogar: when did you create the character,
what spec did you level as?

Demogar was actually created solely as something to do when I wasn’t helping a friend level his first toon on my Mage alt. I never intended to play him past level 20 but the mechanics of the class got its hooks in me. I leveled as Fury until level 61. A healer friend of mine begged me to tank for him but I was terrified of the responsibility. After several terrifying dungeon runs I found my footing and a passion for the game I had never known before.

2. What’s your raid tanking experience?

I played but never really got into raiding pre-BC outside of a few Molten Core and ZG runs of my old Warlock. I took some time off after BC launched then when I came back and leveled Demo I seemingly missed the boat on getting into a raiding guild. The guild I did get into spent the expansion running Kara and failing at early ZA. I went to another guild and did a little bit of Hyjal and SSC but nothing serious. Both guilds I tanked for but the Kara guild I was main tank.

3. What was your biggest raiding defeat? Biggest victory?

Excluding current content I would have to say working with my old guild to clear Kara and finally killing Nightbane… the biggest defeat was seeing how badly they performed in ZA and how we were never going to evolve any further. Including current content definitely 10 man heroic ToC is what I am most proud of and Yogg-Saron is my biggest disappointment.

4. What’s your favorite part of my tanking? :P

I think we have a good rhythm tanking together. You are as focused and committed to your role as I am. We each bring something different to the table and compliment each other well. You are able to herd adds together and hold them better than I can by far and are always on the spot with raid utility, whether it be Divine Sacrifice or Hand of Sacrifice on me when I need it. Tanks sometimes tend to butt heads and compete with each other, a problem you and I have never had. Your mind is always in the game and you’re always prepared and ready to react when something doesn’t go exactly as planned.

5. In 7 words, sum up your current feelings of the state of warrior
tanking. You are excluded from using the words “nerf” and “paladins”.

Slightly behind, very ignored, still VERY capable.

6. What do you think is the biggest misconception Paladins have about
Warrior tanks?

I see a lot of people think that Disarm and Spell Reflect are useful raid tools when they are in fact near worthless in a raid setting. There is some trash I can reflect tank and a couple bosses I can disarm but generally they don’t count toward anything in a raid environment.

7. Name the biggest change to tanking you’d like to see in Cataclysm
(non-class-specific).

I would love to see a heavier emphasis on bosses with tricky mechanics over bosses that just hit like a truck. I think Twin Val’kyr are easy but they are a lot of fun because it is all about execution. It would also be nice to see gear options that are viable aside from stam stacking. It was nice when we used to have to balance our stats out to be more well rounded rather than just walking HP pools.

8. How many tanks, ideally, do you think a 25man raid should require?

I think they either need to have all encounters require two tanks or have them all require three. If they change it up a lot then you need to not only have two very well geared main tanks but also some very well geared DPS with very good tanking gear. That isn’t always easy to do. I personally like two tanks but I don’t care either way as long as they keep it consistent.

9. What do you think is a better system: high avoidance with
harder-hitting bosses, or lower avoidance but more, smaller hits?

I prefer low avoidance with smaller more predictable hits. I don’t think the difficulty of the encounter should be determined just on how much gear the tanks and healers have. I do think bosses should certainly hit hard but not as hard as they have been.

10. T13/14 in Cataclysm: How much hp unbuffed is a warrior tank going to
have? Make your prediction now!

It all depends on how much HP we have in full heroic T10 before I can compare fresh 80 HP to fully geared. But since they say that the Defense in the item budget will probably going to become stamina I would say possibly 80k in full heroic T14.