tank transition

[Mynz]

Long time reader.. first time poster.
Soliciting a bit of advice from fellow warriors:

I thought I would ask if any of you use a macro hotbutton sequence when you suddenly become the main tank or how do you organize your regular hotbuttons in a raid setup.

It is easy when you go into a situation tanking, as you know what to expect, and you can anticipate hammering they keys you need at the right times, but I find it much tougher when you have to jump in somewhere in the tank order when someone bites it.

I am usually the 3rd or 4th tank and I have struggled in the last couple opportunities, when suddenly someone goes down. I am frustrated that I blew the tank transition because of a few factors.

1) sometimes the tank order isn't clear (easy to fix)
2) sometimes when its crowded, its tough to tell if the tank ahead of you died, if he just lost aggro or if he went FD due to one of those damn spells.
3) once I figure out that I am up, its like "Oh crap!" and I find myself suddenly fumbling around through banks of hotkeys, only to end up dead, because I didn't get the right sequence off in time.

I was thinking of setting up a macro just for raids something like this.

/do ability AETaunt
/do ability Whirlwind blade
/discipline fortitude
/rsay HOLY CRAP THE TANK IS DEAD, I AM UP NEXT HEAL MY GIMP BUTT.
/bandolier agrro

what do you think? should I throw a regular taunt in there too? or save it in case ae fails for some reason? should I throw in a /defensive or /stonewall ? or hammer a second button based on the situation? I am a little concerned that if the aggro grab fails for some reason that the discs are burning away while aggro is bouncing. But then again, none of that matters if you never get them off in the first place.

Perhaps I should just setup a totally different bank of hot buttons just for raid use that allows easier access but still keeps the functions seperate?

Thanks for your suggestions.

[Grayhelm]

I just whack the keys, what discs I end up clicking on depends on the mob.

The key, as you have mentioned, is spotting the tank going down, and being close enough to take over when needed with aetaunt.

I resist stacking lots of things in hotkeys, because it's too easy to click by accident and fire them all. I have three banks of hotkeys, and they're all identical *except* on bank 1 my 'tanking' message says 'tanking assist me' (basically), on bank 2 it says 'off-tanking ignore me' and on bank 3 it says 'tanking I need heals now'. I use the bank relevant to the current role I have and don't have to switch banks qiuckly when things get messy.

I find ctrl-2 (whirwind blade) is as easy to press for me as a hotkey, and aetaunt is always hotkey 8.

Finally, if I'm backup tank, I don't use any DPS weapons, I tank with my full aggro set and turn attack off every few seconds (after giving MT a good head start). That way I don't have to click another key to get the aggro weapons equipped.

I don't think there's a good secret to it, I think you've got the idea, it's just practice practice practice which is always hard on 'oh shit' skills.

[Arylle Pixiecrippler]

It is usually pretty easy to tell when the tank went down. Mob will normally have their corpse on ToT health a second before switching.

Be sure you are aware of your surroundings before you hit that cyclone blade

[Phantron]

Hit furious and the clerics better have something sorted out before it runs out.

[Myrtiz]

/shownames off and position yourself so u can see the tank.

If Im back up tank I use full aggro set up except for mobs who proc aggrodebuffs etc. (I dont own any of the serious aggro weapons like darkblade/fleshbiter/bbob btw)

Basically if u spot the tank go down u gotta learn to have that relex to aetaunt and furious/fortitude, using high aggro weapons helps since u know u wont steal aggro if nothing weird happens (u should be able to keep your aggro down with full aggro setup) so if u get aggro u know something is wrong.

Practise, practise, practise... and a good flexible healing crew.

[Gunnar]

When i form if we are tanking a major single target I put the high part of the order in the MT group together, with a bard and some fast assist healers who are out of the chain. It's easier to be grouped with the top tanks in the order.

You should have a macro. My "O pewp they made me tank again macro" I've had for couple years. I forget the commnads offhand but,

1) /Disc Fort - Use fort for emergencies, hit this first!
2) AE Taunt - Regular taunt blow big woopersnapples on raid mobs. I announce it so the tanks know i've blown it.
3) /rsay - It's important to get peoples attention fast. Don't be shy imo, but, keep it short and in caps. Something like

"AE TAUNT"
"TANKING %t "
"HEAL ME FGS"

Add humor if you like hehe. I wouldn't wrap cyclone into my tanking disc because you might not want to wack mezzed, or, exploding mobs etc. Just make sure you fire Fort, identify yourself as the tank on the tgt and call for heals.

[Trueda]

Grunnar is correct, you should always pop furious/fort before u AE taunt. When u start trying to take over on mobs that hit for 5k, u dont want agro before u can take the ass beating. Paying attention is the best answer for knowing when u need to step up as MT. I always keep my dps weapons out until the tank ahead of me is up, then once he has a agro lead i pull out my agro set up and start trying to ride agro right behind him/her. Its makes things easier if u have names off also. If MT lays down on the ground and u dont see soandso's corpse, then he is just FD.

[bardeil]

Personally, all my hotkey does is fire a voice tell to the raid, /rsay HEAL ME OMG and switch in aggro weapons.

I use my regular hotkeys to aetaunt, taunt, bazu, cyclone and furious/fortitude, and I prefer to wait to hit me key saying to heal me until I've actually got aggro and have fort/furious running. It's pretty annoying when a guy spams the raid saying 'i'm tanking' but doesn't have aggro, and doesn't end up getting it.

Being in the tank in front of you's group helps a lot to ensure you know when he's dead.

[Tybor]

just a clerics point of view here, with HoTT, personally, i hate it when the tank announces that he needs heals. I have HoTT to tell me that, start spammin OFMG NOOBTARD HEAL ME and i sometimes forget which key i press to cast heal~ =)

[Sandaormo]

AE Taunt is :

/alt activate 110

I made a hot key like this for our tanks a while back , it takes out the fumble finger oops excuse when you have it all in one button imo.
With HoTT it's easy to watch tanks health and jump in with little to no chance of the mob turning on dps or healers.

[Aramelus]

I'm not a fan of having the ez-mode macro button with all the commands built right into it. To be truly good, you have to be flexible and able to adapt. Also, in most cases, fortitude is better than furious. Here's one (there are many) hypothetical situation where it's bad. I'll describe how with the one-ability-per-button approach, you're in better shape.

---
You are second assist on Queen Pyronius, who hits for 5000. You have all your disciplines up, except furious/fortitude.

The mob is at 50ish percent, and suddenly for whatever reason, the MA dies. You're up.

Responding like you've conditioned yourself to, you immediately jam your "PANIC" button which includes: /disc fort, ae taunt, /rsay OMGWTFBBQ I AM TANKING GIVE ME THE HAWT HEAL ACTION, bazu bellow, and cyclone blade.

The first line does nothing, since your fortitude is down.

But AE taunt still goes off. Now the Queen is aggro on you.

You've successfully announced to the raid that you do indeed have aggro and heals should head your way. Clerics have begun the process of switching to target you (which can take a few seconds).

You bazu bellow and cyclone blade for added aggro.

What's missing here? Since your fortitude was down, and you may or may not realize that, since you can't see if it's refreshed by looking at a macro button, Queen is hitting you full on, and whats worse, your healers haven't had any time to get heals flowing. You are quite likely to get owned here, and waste a bunch more people since the third assist is gonna be impacted by all the healers switching to you and then losing you immediately.

The proper action to take here, IMO, is:

1) MA dies.
2) You hit defensive, knowing your fortitude is down because you have it hotkeyed and can see it's greyed out.
3) You call your assist button, letting the raid know that you are taking aggro.
4) Since you're smart, and since you know Queen is nasty, you LET her kill a few DPS classes to allow the healers time to switch onto you. It's mean, but it is better to a couple DPS people (they never die anyway) than the whole raid due to a botched switch.
5) Now you AE taunt. Heals have started on you and you survive.
---

As for fortitude better than furious, if you get summoned into the mob, or if there's adds in the fight, you might be receiving damage from your rear side... in which case being 'furious' is like running no disc at all. Fortitude mitigates all damage in 360 degrees.

[Gunnar]

Hehe, every warrior should have access to all of his discs outside of any one shot macro. Most i would think bind them to the keyboard. There is no reason you have to fire a redundant macro, but, you can still use it when it makes sense. The thread starter asked what a good "emergency switch tanking"macro should include. A good one imo should pop fort, ae taunt and announce you're tanking and need heals. Now admittedly, my macro is much older than HOTT. You used to have to call for heals, or, get mulched.

In any case there are targets the chain will not see. Occasions, where announcing for heals will still save your butt. If you have a good tank team working together and they know you fired ae taunt and disced they will leave aggro on you. Kinda dumb to taunt off a fort disced tank. In any case fort has a long refresh timer and I know whether its up or not in a fight. Such a key is an option to use for a good tank, it's not a limitation.

[Phantron]

Good prior communication is more important than having a good macro to deal with lack of communication. AE Taunt + Fortitude is basically a guaranteed successful tank switch so your healers should always assume that the next tank up is the person they should be healing and whoever overaggros either dies or find a way to take care of themselves. Indeed it's because there are very few melee powerhouses we even have this problem because if you tank out of order on a real melee powerhouse you simply die, and no harm is done to the person who's supposed to go next (of course, you raid is now down a tank, but it shouldn't affect the next person tanking).

If I'm supposed to be tanking I just do AE Taunt and trust that the healers do what they were told to do. If your healers don't know what to do or some other war steals your aggro, that's a problem that a macro can't deal with anyway and you need to sort it out some other way after the fight is over.

[Gunnar]

I always call the tank order prior to engage in all caps. Stuff happens. Clerics get foggy brain, tanks die, a tank blows AE'taunt and FD's too long whatever. There is no reason not to have a tool to assert yourself with when needed, it should just be used properly. Besides not all raids are created equal.

Of course good communication is more important than any macro. The thread starter asked for a good macro sheesh.

[Myrtiz]

http://www.omegalegal.com/Articles/StopAllCaps.htm