Wow, One listener’s plea for advice on how to begin tanking turns into quite the discussion! Join us as we discuss Basic, Intermediate and even a few advanced tanking behaviors and methods to help our listener, Seth, on his way to tanking greatness.
As always, comments are welcome and discussion about other great tips are encouraged. If we forgot to mention something, don’t leave poor Seth hanging, talk about it here! (P.S. Seth is a Protection Warrior specifically, though we try to discuss Tanking habits and methods that all tanks should practice)
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I had always wondered about the strafing thing, whether it counted as facing away or not. It’s good to know.
For the difference between threat and aggro I like to use the analogy of a ladder.
Imagine a ladder; the rungs on the ladder represent threat. When an enemy mob is engaged they will only attack the person on the top rung. Who ever is on the top rung has the mobs attention and thus has “aggro”.
Doing damage and healing generate threat. Increases in threat increases your position on the ladder moving towards the top. Certain spells reduce threat e.g. feign death. If you generate more threat as to replace the person on the top rung, you now have aggro and the mob will attack you.
When you are in a boss encounter since the dps are constantly doing damage and the healers are constantly healing, tanks must also constantly deal damage to make sure no other players overtake their threat, AKA hold aggro.
It is more difficult to explain this analogy through text than through speech so I hope it makes sense 🙂
~Elamari
I also use a generic numerical comparison to help people understand how they are generating it. These are NOT the actual values generated in game, but it is easier to get a grasp when using a simple example.
Tanks do 1.5 threat for 1 point of damage
DPS do 1 threat for 1 point of damage.
Heals do 0.5 threat for 1 point of healing.
If everyone always Healed or Hit for the same amount and at the same rate, and no one ever missed, tanks would never lose threat… If only, right? 🙂
Afaik the reason that the guides recommend 7.5% exp and 7.5% hit (raiding caps need less for 5mans) is not for threat, it is for survivability with the new active mitigation model. You need to hit the boss to get rage to use to keep up you defensive abilities (sheild block and shield barrier?)