Skills and becoming a better Tank.

[Kyloc]

Hey all,
Just a couple quick questions if I could. I've got a Warrior that I hope to be using on a more frequent basis for grouping etc. and possibly if I can attain ALOT of equiptment upgrades some raiding. I've had no trouble finding any info. on upgrade suggestions etc. but Im looking for some info on skills. Specifically mob posistioning, handling aggro, dealing with rampage-enrage. Functions as an MT or Ramp tank etc. I've used this toon as a bot to duo with my shammy main so looking for any and all basic info to become hopefully a better tank. So if anyone couild point me to some posts etc on these subjects I'd greatly appreciate it. Ive looked through the Library but didn't find much on what Im looking for. Thanks in advance for any responses, and I apologize for the Noob aspect of my questions. :)

[Brokkah Narrow]

Maybe if you could post some more information about what and where you are expecting to tank, and a magelo so we can see how you measure up against that content.

The advice you are asking for covers a massive array of information, so its kind of pointless to try and answer without some kind of context.

At its basic level tanking is about 2 things - Making the mob hit you and not others, and living through that punishment. Thats what a MT does.

I notice you are on Tunare, which is my home server :) Feel free to shoot me a tell anytime you have a question, charname is Brokkah

Happy xmas, and post some more details so I can try to help you properly :)

[wudedormTunare]

really tough to answer this without more info like Brokkah said. What expansion, what zones? what mobs? what are your stats? if you narrow down the scope you need to know can probably get more help

[Bedan]

I main a warrior and bot a shammy so I have some experience with what you are doing. Here are a few "basics" that I have shared with people starting up a warrior for the first time. Its hardly an all inclusive list but its what I could come up with on short notice:

1) Attitude means a lot in this game. Be friendly and polite. Don't blame others or point fingers and be ready to fess up if you screw up since it is likely to be obvious anyway =).
2) Communicate. Know what classes you are grouping with. Discuss who will be doing what and when if there is any question.
3) Mob positioning is one of your main jobs. In a static camp try and start with the mob in the same spot every time if possible. If a mob is on the wall put your shoulder on the wall as well to keep the mob's back exposed.
4) Don't be afraid to turn attack off and step away or switch in a shield if your health gets extremely low.
5) Be ready to be creative. If your healer is low on mana go ahead and kit the mob if possible or trade aggro in the group with another tank class to buy time.
6) Work with pet classes to position backstabbing pets properly but don't maneuver too much and risk losing aggro.
7) Watch the health of your healer/mezzer and become a frequent user of /shield.
8) Taunt mez'd mobs till it lands (depending on mob toughness), hit bellow then attack to break. Be ready to use /shield on the chanter/bard if taunt just won't land.
9) The puller in my regular group is in charge of group movement and positioning through a zone or task. If your the puller then take charge and let people know what your doing (waiting on a pop or a mob to clear) and when and where they should move to. Since a warrior's pulling tools are pretty limited make sure you have a hot key that says "BAD PULL DO NOT ASSIST" and take a death away from the group rather dump a guaranteed wipe on them.
10) Don't use call of challenge on a mob that can gate if that is an option. If a mob does gate away and a train is a coming call for everyone to camp out/FD ASAP and meet the train for a little round-a-round to buy some time.
11) Proximity aggro is important. Try and stay right in the face of the mob and closest at all times.
12) Know and use all your non standard aggro tools and don't be afraid to use them frequently (whirlwind blade, spirit of rage, AoE taunt, rampage, furious, sit aggro)
13) Same thing for all your varying defensive disciplines. Don't be afraid to use them early in situations that could quickly deteriorate.
14) Stay calm in a bad situation and know when and how to use your disciplines. This is one of the things that can really distinguish a good warrior from a great one.

[Baash]

Ask the warriors you are raiding with to give you a quick rundown of what is expected of you. I am sure they are willing to help.

[Yoda]

Brabble made some times ago two very lengthy post in this subject that was more than perfect. If someone find them, I may put them in the library for a better resource to new warrior.



moving done. If you want to add something to this topic original thread here (http://www.thesteelwarrior.org/forum/showthread.php?t=13460).

[Brabble]

Yoda,
I sort of combined various posts I've made on this general topic. Probably could be written better. Perhaps before anything drastic like a sticky, it should be reviewed. But here goes...

A warrior ought to try to do several things well. I'm going to approach this in terms of group fighting, because almost everyone here raids more than I do, and because many things about raiding are the same in terms of general skills. If you're down in the tank order on the raid, I'd follow Baash's suggestion above and make sure you know your role. Bedan's suggestions above are pretty good too: really not much on his list that you're better off never thinking about.

For general skills a warrior should strive to:

1. Secure and maintain aggro

2. Communicate well with his groupmates

3. Develop good situational awareness

4. Use the skills you have intellegently


AGGRO
We'll start with aggro. Grayhelm once posted this (to a lower level warrior, but it's a succinct statement on aggro generally, and many folks here have posted essentially the same thing in different threads):

1. shoot the mob with an arrow on incoming
2. do some damage
3. use your best incite disc
4. get two stun procing weapons
5. get your dex buffed so you proc as much as possible
6. remind the group that aggro is a team effort
7. repeat 6 until they understand
8. repeat 6 until they really understand
9. use taunt when you lose aggro, to get it back, not every time it refreshes


Because he was addressing a low level warrior, he didn't mention aggro augments for weapons, or AAs, but they are obviously very important and you should get the best you can. Certainly after level 56 you should never use as your main tanking weapon(s) something that lacks either an innate stun proc or a high-order hate proc (EB or Anger III, for example). See the AA sticky in the thread on AAs above for guidance on aggro AAs, but Area of Effect Taunt and Weapon Affinity are probably the first two to get, and both are vital to your job. if you find that your aggro is a little soft, and you don't have these AAs, remember that for an individual fight, it might well be the case that better aggro will save you more damage than the next defensive AA you might get, because better aggro allows your groupmates to kill the mob faster. And dead mobs don't do damage to you.

Whenever possible (that is, anywhere you can get single pulls) try to do the pulling yourself. The player who first gets on a mob's hate list gets an aggro “bonus” at the beginning of the fight; obviously, however, you can't always do the pulling & when you can't, try to get an arrow into the mob before it gets to camp. You want to be on the mob's hate list before you use the incite line.

But try to get that incite line in before the mob is slowed. Also, do not use the taunt button if you already have aggro. Save it for when you lose aggro. If you already have aggro, you gain almost nothing with a successful taunt.

What Grayhelm said about aggro being a group concern is quite true. Getting the mob slowed is a huge benefit, but have the slower think about which of these two events is actually more mana efficient:

1. Warrior tanks unslowed mob for 20% of mob's life, then slow lands. Mob stays on warrior until mob is dead. Every 5-10 mobs, the cleric has to do an extra complete heal.

2. Mob is slowed on incoming, immediately jumps slower, slower runs around in erratic circles with mob beating on slower's back, warrior's taunt fails, then warrior gets an "out of range" message on the next taunt, warrior and all melees run around trying to stay within melee range of the mob as mob chases slower. Slower can't cast any spells while running, healer is patch healing slower, group melee dps is in the tank and the slower is taking far far more damage than you would ever take against even an unslowed mob...

Sometimes a caster will gank your aggro; it happens. When it does happen, the caster should stand still. I actually prefer a shaman slower to stand right next to me if he wants to push the envelope with an early slow. If the mob jumps to him, the mob never leaves either my melee range or taunt range. Also, the slower is in range of my /shield ability.

As much as possible, try to do the same thing to every mob you face, in the same order. If you are consistent, then a smart groupmate will figure out within a few mobs about how much aggro you produce relative to the aggro his spells/melee are producing, and he can adjust his timing to stay under your aggro production. If you are inconsistent, then you are making your groupmate's job harder.

Some things increase your aggro, some do not. Beg does not. Disarm, as far as I know, will get you on a mob's hate list but not much else. Cyclone blade works well, though you have to be careful when to use it (around mobs the chanter is trying to mez, for example). Doing a /rude to the mob doesn't help. The "spirit of rage" discipline actually does add to your hate, though it is rarely used because of it's END cost, long refresh, and general lack of power. Sit may not add to your aggro, but you can re-position some mobs with it. I believe the general thinking is that /shield does not add to your hate, though it's still a good idea to use it in group settings when a caster draws aggro (or, you can use it on knights as a kind of insult, heh).

COMMUNICATION
Nothing costs less and does more for group effectiveness than good communication. You're the tank, and in a good position to make that process smoother. It will seem natural to your groupmates if you decide where the mob will be positioned, what direction the mob will be facing when you tank it, what order you'll be tanking the mobs in and so forth. You should have good reasons for deciding all of these things, but it is helpful to your group if you communicate those decisions to them, announce which mob you're grabbing on multi-pulls, announce mez breaks, call "run" or "camp" if necessary (or simply ask who will call such things). Ask about caster mana once in a while. Especially in groups where folks don't know each other well, some casters are a little shy about calling med breaks. If they want one, vote with your healer. Be friendly, polite, and not bossy when you do this stuff. Communication is not just good in and of itself, but it also tends to inspire confidence in the group when done diplomatically, particularly when not everyone knows everyone else.

Let your groupmates know your buff status when appropriate, and about any debuffs/dots that have been cast on you (especially ones that can be cured).
Watch for particularly good play on the part of your groupmates and compliment it when you see it. Not just crits, but positioning, timely snares, good mezzing, anything that shows your groupmate is on the ball. Not only does this make the group more fun for folks, but if people know you are paying attention to what they're doing, often they'll work harder.

SITUATIONAL AWARENESS
Great tanks always know what's going on around them.
You should always know where everyone in your group is, where the mobs in camp are, and who is hitting whom. You should know the order the adds were mezzed in. You should time the mob spawns everywhere you fight. This should be automatic and you should be able to do it in your head.
Know the characteristics of the mobs in the zone: their relative ATK, hps, MR, pathing, aggro radius, spells, potential to run or gate or summon. Know which ones will give crowd control problems (for example, which cannot be mezzed) and grab that one first on a multi-mob pull. You might have a mob tanking order that goes boss mob, unmezzable, healer, caster, melee mobs. It varies slightly depending on what kinds of mobs you're fighting and who else is in your group (kiting classes, a good offtank, etc), but you should quickly ascertain what's coming into camp and deal with it efficiently.

Start positioning mobs now, and never stop doing it. Position with respect to pets, to group members, to the pathing of other potential wandering mobs; stay within range of your casters. Position with respect to the needs of other classes: backstabbing rogues, for example, and rangers using ranged weapons (don't tank the mob into a wall if there's a ranger trying to use his bow). If I'm in a group with pet classes, I usually tell the group that I will position mob so that its back is to pet X ("/g I'll want to take the mobs here (stand there) and I will position them so that their backs are toward Pet X"). It's a lot easier for folks to park their pets in a good spot than it is to re-position their pets in mid-fight. Also, it gives other melee, particularly rogues, an idea of at least where you hope the back of the mob will be. Usually it allows me to face my casters, which I find useful for various reasons (though that's personal preference to some degree--many fine tanks prefer to face away from their casters).There is always an optimal position to tank a mob in. Don't wait until it is life or death before you start to practice positioning. Do this when it doesn't matter, do it when it does, do it early, often, always, and twice on Tuesdays.

Know the abilities of your groupmates' classes, and do what you can to help them do their jobs, particularly enchanters who are attempting to mez mobs.

Judge the feel of the power of your group. How fast can they kill mobs? How much rest do your casters need? Ask about mana. Med breaks are shorter than corpse runs. If group is not out of mana, pull faster, but ramp that up gradually: a bad puller believes that faster pulling is always better, but a good puller pulls at the maximum rate the group can kill, with very little time under or over that optimal risk/return curve. There is always some bottleneck or other that will limit the speed at which a group can kill stuff. Sometimes that will be crowd control, sometimes dps, sometimes healing mana. Whatever it is, know it, and do whatever you can to adjust.

USE YOUR ABILITIES
Warriors deal with large amounts of incoming damage better than any other class. but you have a number of optional actions that you can take to modulate the damage you take: stonewall, furious, defensive, evasive are important examples. Many of your key discs are sort of "paired" with other discs; the classic example is defensive/evasive. You should always have a good reason for the one you choose. There are lots of posts around here concerning how to make that decision.
Usually in a raid it's relatively clear when you ought to be under disc and when you should be saving the disc. Some warriors do not use defensive/evasive much in groups, although I do. A full endurance bar does nothing for your group, and the less healing power your group has relative to the mob strength, the more efficient you perform when you intelligently use your discs. In some places, you want to save your discs for when the shit hits the fan. Other places, you can use them simply to increase your tanking efficiency or smooth out mana use on the occasionally heavy pull. Your judgment in these matters will be part of what determines how good a warrior you are.

Make good use of range weapons, /shield, taunt, and offensive discs. Even small things like bind wound can sometimes be useful. A kick or a bash by itself is no big deal, but a well timed kick or bash on a casting mob can be pretty handy.

There are a growing number of things in the game that are not exactly part of the warrior class, but which you can use: healing potions, invis potions, resist potions, gate potions, SoW potions and so forth, along with some utility items (enduring breath, snare, slow, self buffs) that can also make you more handy. You should never run out of invis potions or gate potions or arrows.

Gear yourself intelligently, do whatever it takes to get aggro, and never whine.

[Vilicontus]

Adding some general input here:

1. Know the various types of haste. There are 3 versions, Item/Tribute haste, Spell haste, and Version 3 haste. Once you learn more about haste and how they stack it will improve your aggro and general DPS output.

2. Dexterity can be improved with a lot of spells. Shamans and beastlords will have buffs that directly affect your stats including Dex. Enchanters tend to have haste that has +Dex built into it, and if that's not enough, ask for Night's Dark Terror, this neat illusion has 120(!) Dex built into it.

[Kyloc]

Thanks so much for the replies all. Thats basically the info I needed. At this point Im trying to read and gain as much Info. as possible on how to play a warrior the right way. From grouping with my main there has got to be no quicker way to wipe a group than a poorly played tank. Again thank you all.

[Apsu]

Well I'm in a bit of a hurry, so didn't have a chance to read everything above to see if this had been already pointed out. But, I've heard complaints about other tanks not understanding positioning. Just be aware, a warrior is not a class to get aggro and afk on. You need to pay attention to where the mob is being pushed, where you know it should be pushed, and how easy is it for the rest of the groups dps to attack it.

1) Keep mobs out of walls. It's up to you to do this.

2) If you're keeping a mob on a wall or in a corner, make sure his back is facing out of the corner for rogues and necro pets to backstab.

3) Watch where any adds are. The way you face the mob is going to determine what direction the rest of the groups dps is going to come from. Their dps usually = more push than your dps, so if you have the mob faced towards adds so you can be facing the casters, sometimes you have to turn it when it gets too close. If you're in a heavy caster group, then watch where your own push is moving the mob.

4) Keep the mob far enough away from the casters to allow for a quick taunt if one of them grabs aggro (and pray for a lucky success.)

5) Use HoTT whenever someone in the group has it - it really helps alot.


If your group is playing smart, then mob positioning is completely up to you -- keep the dps on the mobs back and be aware of your surroundings. Keep the mob away from the casters, away from adds, out of walls and with his back open. And get Press the Attack aa, it'll help alot with positioning.



*** edit by Yoda *** found this thread interesting to add to this post: Mob Positioning/Movement ~ Casting Inturrpts

[Yoda]

time for an update...

[Swansong]

Can we flame Yoda for thread bumping?

.. In all seriousness, Brabble's post is still one that I quote occasionally to new warriors. I'm not sure what you want as an update Yoda? =)

[Brabble]

Oh, actually, I suggested that it be updated in another thread.

for one thing, there's some indication that some of this was made before it was clear that the incite line was not subject to initial hate cap on aggro (maybe even bfore the discs were unlinked, in the case of the bit from Grayhelm I quoted). thus, while sticking a mob with an arrow doesn't hurt, if you wait until a mob gets within scowl range and pop him with that and bazu the percentage your aggro is lower than if you had also got an arrow in is pretty low.
Also, I go on a bit about slows, but I think problems with holding initial aggro in the face of slows has pretty much disappeared (as long as you have the END for your aggro discs).
There are all kinds of camps where through some kind of combination of geometry or lag you're not necessarily better off positioning yourself for an arrow as you would be positioning yourself for optiimal tanking.
I don't know about other folks, but my ideas about how much benefit I get from standing on a mob's toes when I tank it has evolved. I think it matters with some kinds of mobs and less with others. I'm more careful with it around animals and undead.


i still believe that "even small things" that a tank does can matter, but i don't think bind wound is one of them any more, lol. For group stuff, do not run out of water, food, invis potions, healing potions, some method of shrink, some method of range attack that exceeds the range of scowl; assuming you have vet rewards, don't forget to use infusion et al when appropriate (c.f. http://www.thesteelwarrior.org/forum/showthread.php?t=16771). Named/rare mobs that can fear you, blind you or charm you are candidates for this sort of thing, particularly in a warrior's mid to late 60s through early 70s you might run across some such mobs before your resists are maxxed.

As far as my comments on defensive/evasive, obviously over time warriors have got a couple of additional discs to choose from.

I think for non-raid warriors in a pick up group, a tremendous amount of decision making skill nowadays involves managing your aggro. Amongst people who know you, your being consistent will be enough; for folks who don't know you I think that changes slightly: classes such as necros will be limited by your aggro output, and some other melee classes who might be raid geared can also gank you even if you're as good or better at mitigating damage as they are. You can control this a bit through your aggro discs, but doing so *and* not running out of END quickly require you to pay attention to the HoTT box, pay attention to what others in your group are doing. Most raid-geared melee are good enough players that they'll adjust to your aggro if you can mitigate okay, but that doesn't mean you are released from the responsibility of doing everyhting you can to maximize your group's dps.

It's still true after years and years that in a pick up group where not everyone knows you, the single two things you can do to inspire confidence are to 1) hold aggro and 2) communicate in a focused and friendly way.

And I'd still say that Bedan's post is well worth reading and understanding for any warrior.