I found this nice guide on a forum, i tells you and others how to tank ect, hope this helps some people.

Things Warriors Want Non-Warriors to Know

* Don't run away from us if you have aggro.

* Let the warrior do the initial pulling unless you are using a hunter to create the Perfect Zone of Ultimate Safety. It's easier to hold the aggro when you start with it, than trying to pull it off someone. Sure mages have some amazing ranged spells, as do many others, while the warrior's ranged ability is mediocre at best. If a mage opens up on a mob by doing a couple thousand damage, its hard for a warrior to overcome the hatred that creates in the mob. In the event it appears that the best tactic would be to have someone else pull, use a low damage low hate spell. Whatever you have that does the least damage is good.

* Wait to start fighting mobs until the warrior has their attention with a shout and swing or two. Stunning or immobilizing an enemy while we're trying to drag them all into a nice spot can easily lead to us missing them, and starting to unload damage before we've hit them often means they'll start running at you.

* If we're not in melee range, we're not doing damage, we're not generating rage, and most important of all, we're not getting aggro. Please do whatever it takes to force the mobs into close combat. Never think it's acceptable to trade fire from across the room. Mages can use Counterspell to stop a mob from casting. Normally they only have one school, so after the interupt they will run into melee range. Be carefull tho as Counterspell generates a good amount of threat.

* If we are holding aggro, healers, your first priority is to keep us healthy. When the tank dies, the party dies. Tell us if you are getting Out of Mana and the end of the fight is not yet in sight. Then we can use abilities like shield wall to stay alive. Often we are so busy with tanking we forget to mind our health.

* We can tank without a shield. It does require us to have better gear than the average warrior at that level or to only do it on the easier section of the instance, but it can make things quicker and lets us hold aggro better (assuming we're still in Defensive Stance). If you're getting bored healing, let your tank know--it can make clearing out the trash mobs a faster and more painless process.

Some class-specific notes--

Paladins - Make good use of your auras. If we're dying, Resistance or Devotion Auras are nice, but if we're losing aggro, Retribution Aura might be nicer. Also, we know Blessing of Kings is in your Protection tree, but it's simply amazing if you have it.

Hunters - We know you're good at pulling, but it's a lot simpler to let us do it in most situations. Offer to pull in dangerous situations where there's a big chance for problems (lots of or fast moving patrols, many close enemies) but please don't be too offended if we'd rather do it ourself. If you really want to pull and you have the misdirection spell offer a misdirection pull as that will dump all aggro on us.

Druids - Thorns is nice, please don't forget to cast it on us. Also, even if you aren't the healer, if you aren't the tank please resist the temptation to turn into a bear and use Growl/Maul on everything. It makes it much more difficult to hold onto the mobs, since you have naturally increased threat in that form.

Rogues - If you use Expose Armor, we can't use Sunder Armor on that target. If we can't use Sunder Armor, we have a hard time holding aggro. If we have a hard time holding aggro, the mob has a tendency to turn around and squish you. Also, be aware that stunning a mob means it isn't hitting us, and not giving us any rage. While it won't be a danger to anyone, there's a good chance that it'll turn to you when the stun wears off. And please resist to stun mobs during the pull it makes tanking a lot harder for us.

Mages - Please don't blink away when you pull aggro. We can't move that fast, and it tends to make it difficult to get a hold of all the mobs again. If possible, don't rely on a macro that says your target's name when you polymorph. We don't usually have time to read names in 1.5 seconds, and sometimes there's more than one of them anyway. Instead, teach your tank what Detect Magic looks like and cast it on a mob before sheeping it. Visual clues are a much bigger help. Raid Icons are usefull to i.e. Moon gets polymorphed.

Warlocks - When in doubt, please bring your Imp. Blood Pact is a really awesome buff, giving healers more time between us being at full health and us being dead. At the same time though, don't be afraid to pull out a Voidwalker, Succubus, or Felhunter if you think their skills will be useful in dealing with the mobs. Also, we'd like a healthstone if you've got shards to spare.

Priests - Don't use Power Word: Shield on us more than necessary. Yes, it's a useful tool to save us from death, and it's convienient to just keep shields up while dealing with easier enemies. However, it severely cuts down your typical tank's rage generation, making it very frustrating to try to hold aggro. However please do use Power Word: Shield before a boss fight as the boss will hit hard enough to knock down the shield fast but you don't have to heal us for the first few seconds giving us the chance to build some solid aggro so you won't pull the mob off us with a critical heal.


Things Non-Warriors want Warriors to know

* The first thing that every warrior in an instance group needs to accept is this: you are not there to do damage. Any smart group would rather you do zero damage but keep aggro on you at all times than to try to keep your dps up and let the mage or healer get beat on. It is possible (even easy) to hold the attention of 2-4 mobs at once, but not while you are trying to do damage to the enemy.

* Always have Sunder Armor on your action bar. Regardless of your preferences, you have considerably more armor than most casters have, and Healers will have a much easier time healing if only you are taking damage.

* If you're tanking, be in Defensive Stance for most of the battle, unless you are using Tactical Mastery to switch stances to use special abilities. Also, if you have Tactical Mastery, in some pulls, charging the mob then switching right to Defensive Stance can be a very effective way to generate your initial rage, which is the hardest part of the battle.

* There are several skills that a warrior needs to have in an instance group to survive. The first of these is aggro generation. There are three skills that do this best, Shield Bash, Revenge (much more efficent with talents), and Sunder Armor. These three skills are what you use to keep aggro on yourself. When this fails, Taunt is your best friend, and will buy you a few seconds to regain aggro (with Shield Bash or Sunder Armor).

* Another skill that is rather simple yet many warriors do not use, is "tap" aggroing. When there is a pull of multiple mobs, they will have no one on their aggro list, and run to attack the nearest party member. An easy way to stop this is to use Demoralizing Shout to gain a very small ammount of aggro on all the mobs around you instantly. While the mobs will still run for your healer when they start healing you, it gives you time to use skills like Whirlwind, Sunder Armor, Shield Bash, and Revenge to gain a stronger hold on aggro. A good warrior can pull 4 mobs and never let one leave him. A poor warrior focuses on 1 and lets his group deal with the rest.

* Remember that it is your job to protect the rest of your group. However, when bad things happen (and they always do), it is important to know which party members need saving first:

1. Main Healer - Always, without fail, protect your healer above all else.
2. Cloth Wearers - They die fast and need attention before their mana is depleted.
3. Druids/Shamans/Rogues/Hunters - Have Leather Armor or better, and either heals or ways to lessen their own aggro. Can all off-tank in bad situations when the healer needs saving, but don't count on them to do your job for you. If the Druid or Shaman is main healer, get the mob off them first.
4. Paladins - Unless they're your main healer, Paladins are tanks themselves, and can off-tank an elite mob if needed. If they are main healer, help them first.

* While it can be argued that you are perfectly capable of pulling, you are not going to be the best puller in every situation. A great resource on knowing when you are the puller is The Perfect Zone of Ultimate Safety. Basically, a Hunter or even a Rogue can attempt a pull while the rest of the party is standing out of aggro range, then if it works they will be able to hand aggro to the Warrior. If the pull goes bad, they can abort it or just die and be ressurrected later. This can be a slow tactic and may even be impossible to pull off at the time (cramped space for example).

* If you are the primary tank, use a shield. With a shield, in some cases you can get close to 3000 extra armor, a few more stats, a shield spike or enchantment, and + defense to add on to what you already have.

* If you are tanking a mob near a shackle, sap, polymorph or otherwise incapacitated mob please consider pulling the active mobs away before using any AoE abilities like Thunder Clap. Also consider moving away so that other members of the group with AoE will not hit the crowd controlled mobs.

* Do not become overly aggresive. Don't go rushing into battle whenever you see a mob. Let casters recover mana and allow for rebuffs. You can't last long if healers and damage dealers are tapped out and can't recover while in combat.

* Healthstones and Healing Potions are in the game to be used, so use them!

Things Warriors want new Warriors to know

* If there is no other warrior in our party, you need to tank. Get used to it.

* Do not, I repeat, do not try to tank with a two-hand weapon or two one-hand weapons unless the healer(s) agree with it

* Do not, I repeat, do not use charge to pull a group of mobs, unless you know that only that group of mobs is going to come.

* When in doubt, pull with a ranged weapon.

* If there are multiple warriors in a group, make sure that everyone knows who the Main Tank is and don't taunt a mob / boss off the Main Tank unless asked to.

* If a mob start hitting the main healer and the Main Tank is busy or running after another mob start tanking it, the healer will be grateful and will often give you a heal or two.

* If you taunt a mob of a healer while fighting with a two-hand weapon or two one-hand weapons and the Main Tank isn't picking it up take out your one-hander and shield en switch to Defensive Stance. Your healer will be very grateful and, if he has mana, will heal you.

* Do not focus on one mob only look around you and make sure there are no other mobs hitting the group

* Keep an eye on the status of the group and act on it. If the healer is Out of Mana do not start pulling.

* Have faith in your group. Do not start yelling for heals or when a rogue pulls aggro on a almost dead mob.

General tips

Rogue

PvE pull the aggro, if the rogue doesn't remember to get behind the mob, you go behind it (turning the mob around), maybe the rogue will figure it out and backstab.

If you notice that the rogue is wielding some weapon other than a dagger in his/her right hand, he won't be able to backstab. However, even if the rogue is built off of the Combat tree and doesn't need to be behind the target to backstab, manuvering the mob so he is behind it will make him more effective, since mobs can't dodge/parry/block attacks from behind.

In short always try and keep the mob facing you (the warrior) and have its back to the rogues.

Warrior

When grouped with another Warrior, it is vital that the two of you agree who is to be 'Main Tank', and who is to be Secondary. Even if it's just the two of you alone in a big open field of wandering mobs, grinding for xp, it is still helpful to have these roles. In Instances, it is vital.

Main Tank: Use Defensive Stance and a one-handed weapon + shield. Focus on high Threat specials, like Sunder Armor and Revenge, and Taunt as necessary.

Secondary Use Battle Stance or Berserker Stance and dual wield or use a two-hander. Focus on low or no threat specials, such as Rend, Hamstring and the shouts. Be aware that you will generate much less rage, not being aggro. Use Bloodrage and Charge to compensate.

See the 'As a Warrior' section of the Instance Grouping Guide for more details.

Priest

Any time you're grouped with a priest, keep the following in mind:

- If you die, but you've eliminated and weakened enough enemies for the priest to be able to finish off the rest, the priest can simply resurrect you.

- If the priest dies, but you finish off the enemies yourself, you're stuck waiting for the priest to run back from the graveyard before the group can continue adventuring. You may even have to start over, if you're in an instance dungeon, for example.

Always, always protect the priest, even if he's an idiot. Especially if he's an idiot.

Warlock

The Warlock is yang to your tanking yin. If you do your job well, we can do our job really well. Our high dps is acheived through damage over time (DoT) spells. The downside is that they generate a moderate amount of threat, so we can't fire-and-forget unless someone is holding aggro for us. It's surprising the number of warriors who will whack away at one mob and do very little to hold on to the rest of the group until the you-know-what hits the fan and something starts to charge a cloth wearer (us).

A level 50 Warlock can easily do 200-300 net dps on three or four mobs by switching targets frequently and recasting DoTs. However, if the tank is not actively holding all three or four attacker's aggro, the Warlock would be foolish to try this tactic and will just sit there wanding the main target while you get hammered by three full strength mobs. It's much more effective for the Warlock to DoT all of the mobs while you keep aggro, so when the final boss is dead, the secondary mobs are already at 50% health.

Mage

Do not attack the sheep. In addition, avoid area effect attacks like cleave and whirlwind while sheep are near. Do not slap down a rend on a creature the mage is trying to sheep. Avoid weapons and items with uncontrollable Area of Effect chances like Skullflame Shield, as they will randomly break sheep and other crowd control effects.

In order to keep aggro away from a mage (expecially pre-60) you both have to work at it. A mage has higher dps than a warrior so naturally he'll pull the aggro unless you use your special aggro generating abilities. Sunder Armor works very well pre-60, even after it stacks 5 rimes KEEP using it, it still causes aggro even if the armor debuff isn't stacking (unless you have Devastate, which will refresh the sunder armor and cause additional threat and damage). Also make sure the mage actually gives you some time to get aggro. A skilled mage will always wait for you, but there's lots of mages who will just start using their biggest burst damage spells from the beginning.

Druid

In PvE, it's great to have a druid healer, but you need to manage the aggro because you might lose a mob from some of the higher damage druid spells. Be ready to pull any mobs that attack the druid so that he/she can focus on your HP, otherwise you might be waiting for your partner to get back from the graveyard. Note that around level 20 druids gain the ability to ressurect, so find out if your partner can perform this function and defend accordingly. Also, it is important to remember that while you may benefit from running from one mob to the next, your caster friends are going to need mana at some point.

Hunter

Realize that the hunter can create a Perfect Zone of Ultimate Safety and you cannot. When there is a healer in the group that can res the hunter, let him pull without giving him crap about aggro management. In cases where there is no healer, the hunter might still be a better choice of pulling, as he is much less likely to die on a bad pull than you are, as he has ways to abort the pull, while you do not. In such cases, you need to recognize when his tactics fail and you need to step in. The hunter has ways of giving up aggro from a pull, so you should have no trouble taking the aggro from him. Just make sure he is using them.

If paired in a duo with a hunter, make sure you (and the hunter) understand how his pet fits into the overall strategy. Generally, PvE characters will use pets like tanks, so they should be used to working with one. PvP hunters tend to have pets that deal damage which, combined with their taunts, can pull aggro off of you and lead the hunter to overestimate what a talented but merely human tank can do to keep aggro off of them. Poorly run PvP hunters tend to sprint around the battlefield, forcing you to take a beating if they've drawn more aggro than they can deal with instead of using the abilities they have that shed aggro.

If your hunter's favorite pet is a bear or a scorpid, you'll likely feel right at home. If on the other hand her favorite pet is a cat or raptor, you may be in for some frustration before the evening's adventuring is done, unless the hunter remember to turn off the taunting ability.

Paladin

Working with a paladin comes down largely to whether or not the paladin is serving as the party's main healer. You're going to be the main tank regardless, but when things start to go pear-shaped, your response will be a little different depending on the paladin's role.

If the paladin is serving as the main healer, treat them the same as you'd treat a priest or druid - sure they can take hits better than those other two classes, but any mana they spends healing themself is mana they can't spend healing you. Keeping the mobs focused on you also reduces the amount of aggro they will create with their healing spells, since they're only casting spells on one character (you) rather than two (you and themself). It's a win/win.

If the party has a priest or druid as the main healer, let the paladin deal with adds or mobs that shift their attention to the healers. Your job is to deal with the main batch of mobs - finish them off, then move to help the paladin clean up any stragglers.

In either case, you should be aware that Lay on Hands is one of the best aggro-magnets in the game; a high level paladin can heal thousands of hit points with this ability, drawing the hate of any mob that hasn't already been beaten to within an inch if its life. You'll need to work quickly to ensure that the paladin doesn't pay with their own life for saving yours.

The rule of thumb for working with a Paladin is to not sweat it over them. They do have just as much health and armor as you do in most cases and can handle themselves appropriately. As Paladins make capable tanks on their own it is not necessary that you immediately freak and take aggro back. The only exception to this rule is when the Paladin is main healer, or an offhealer stepping in.

Also, like a priest: if you go down but have eliminated enough mobs for the Paladin to survive, you'll be shortly resurrected. If the Paladin goes down, you're going to be waiting for him to come back from black-and-whiteland.

Shaman

Make sure the shaman is not proc-ing often with windfury weapon enhancement and using frost shock as this generates lots of threat

Shamans are a pure hybrid class which wears mail and can heal. The main thing you are concerned with is totems which are stationary AoE Buffs, the ones you would like are

- Strength of Earth Totem - Adds an amount of strength, handy for dealing more damage
- Stoneskin Totem - Reduces the amount of melee damage from a mob before AC
- Grace of Air Totem - Adds an amount of agility, handy for extra crit, dodge, armor and damage
- Windfury Totem - Gives a 20% chance to gain 2 extra attacks with extra AP

As they can only have one totem of each element up it is reccomended you go for Windfury and Strength of Earth unless the Mob deals a lot of damage then maybe Stoneskin

Shamans have no aggro-reducing abilities (unless they go down the resto tree, even then it only works when they're low on health) so if it is your primary healer make sure to be quick in defending them as healing will get interrupted.

You forgot thunder clap, when multi tanking...

otherwise some good stuff

This is probably the best yet, this has made me realise as to when i was a hunter, what the warrior was going though, now i understand abit more, i can put that into my new chara and become a better player


thank you


zues

I see people don't read entirely and give you credit; but that's quite alright. posting this certainly deserves credit as this an invaluable guide for tanks and non-tanks alike. Stickyplz.

The only thing I don't get is putting up: "we can tank without a shield" and later going "don't even tank with a twohand or two onehands". It's a little confusing and inconsistent. Véry nice guide, though. :D

Awesome you know so much about other classes but not so much about you're own. Hang in there Chubby, you will learn you're place one day.

Good guide.

<3

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Q u o t e:

* If we are holding aggro, healers, your first priority is to keep us healthy. When the tank dies, the party dies. Tell us if you are getting Out of Mana and the end of the fight is not yet in sight. Then we can use abilities like shield wall to stay alive. Often we are so busy with tanking we forget to mind our health.

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I strongly disagree with this, If you are too busy to check your own health you might as well not ask for healthstones, not get healthpotions, not block, not stun, not use last stand etc etc. Keep an eye on everyone's HP...pretty much a key component to tanking :/

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Q u o t e:


I strongly disagree with this, If you are too busy to check your own health you might as well not ask for healthstones, not get healthpotions, not block, not stun, not use last stand etc etc. Keep an eye on everyone's HP...pretty much a key component to tanking :/

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Actually I never watch an individuals HP bar, sure at times during the fight I will glance to see what shape the group is in, especially on long boss fights, but other than that I have to concentrate on keeping aggro. And this usually means timing the button pressing exactly.

What I would always try and do, is know where the healer is, if a mob start moving towards the healer or the healer is in motion its my concern, and no I don't have to look at there HP bar to know that a problem is occurring.

In general I would say most players who have never tanked have no idea of how busy the warrior is during fights.

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Regards the excellent notes above, one thing which is maybe worth noting is that out AoE casts only effect 4 mobs at a time. Some DPSer get very puzzled when on an early nuke causes a mob to jump off the awarrior and whack them dead after the warrior has done only one AoE cast, especially in heroics.

Resist happens.

Good advice on the most part though I disagree with some of the statements you have made. Sadly the people who need too hear this most likely never will :(

/sticky

Really a nice guide. Deserves a sticky!

Truely fantastic!

- well writen
- specific to all class perspectives
- great info for any young warrior learning how to be a good aggro manager rather than the 'guy all the mobs bash on'

/sticky

Thanks for all the comments, maybe this guide shoud have been placed on every class forum, so that they learn how to make the tank tank easier.

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Q u o t e:

* There are several skills that a warrior needs to have in an instance group to survive. The first of these is aggro generation. There are three skills that do this best, Shield Bash, Revenge (much more efficent with talents), and Sunder Armor. These three skills are what you use to keep aggro on yourself. When this fails, Taunt is your best friend, and will buy you a few seconds to regain aggro (with Shield Bash or Sunder Armor).

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In my opinion there are 2 situations to use Shield Bash: If the mob is casting or if you are disarmed and Shield Slam (If you have it) as well as Revenge is on cooldown. In all other situations another Sunder Armor or Devastate is a better use of the global cooldown.

Also improved Revenge does not increase your threat. It stuns the target, which, especially at the beginning of the fight, can have very negative consequences for your rage- and therefore threat- generation.

One other issue is the pull. It depends on the situation. If a hunter pulls, i prefer that he pulls with as much damage as he has, because with a taunt i get all the threat that he generated and when he feigns, his threat will be at 0. Misdirection is of course the better choice.

Also worth noting is that if you want to use Sheep, it is a good idea to let the mage pull (depending on the situation, e.g. If there are patrols and such, the mob needs to be pulled and then sheeped) and get the other mobs with a thunderclap when they run for the mage. That way the sheep is out of harm's way and you can start building multi-mob aggro without worrying about that sheep running around inside the group.

One thing I'd add is this.


If you're not sure what you're doing and don't want to really annoy the tank, target them and press the "F" Key (unless you've re-assigned it) this will target whatever the tank is fighting and you're less likely to pull that target off the tank.

Alternatively look for the mob with the most Sunder Armor hits on it. You can tab through enemies quick;ly to find out which is the correct target you should be hitting.

This is also useful if you have a lesser exprerienced tank that's struggling to keep aggro.