tank transition

[oomwarrior]

Fort
AET
bellow
cyclone(if raid allows)
bandolier aggro
/RS TAKING AGGRO ALL HEALS ON ME
/pray cleric is paying attention

[status38]

I use all single keys and no macros, but my sequence goes something like this.

AE Taunt + Fort, the keys are next to each other.
Bazu
Cyclone

Then I have a key that /rsay ENGAGING > %t < HEALS TO ME

[Phantron]

Telling people to heal you when it's not your turn to be healed usually leads to confusion which means no one gets healed. If you're not supposed to be tanking you should just die quietly in a corner somewhere for overaggroing instead of making the problem worse.

And if you're supposed to be healed, the healers ought to know. If Furious/Fortitude isn't enough time for them to start healing you then you'll never get healed anyway.

[Gunnar]

Nah, as you said communication is key. There is always room for hesitation and doubt that good communication can overcome. In situations of doubt and stress good raid commands and reinforement can sway things to the win. A tank can dispell doubt and put things on track fast by good communication. This kind of macro can be used effectively and save time. It is the same thing IRl. saem as being in contact in a firefight. Of course troops Know their drills, important actionas are still called for effect. No difference here. That doesn't mean such communication on behalf of the tank is always necessary, or, advantageous. It is likely the more predictable the situation, the more experienced the guild of folks working together and the more obvious to everyone whatis going on that such communication is unecessary. Thre usuall comes a time it's a good thing tho.

Of course poor communciation is sometimes worse than no communication at all hehe.

[Gunnar]

Originally Posted by Myrtiz

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

Judicious use of all caps is a good thing. spamming and using it too much is counter productive. Raid environments are dynamic in a way similiar to other short term stressed group activity. At times emphasis is important.

[status38]

I think an rsay notification is perfectly fine.

Sure the clerics know who's up next, but what about patch healers?

If the fight is going ugly, especially ugly enough to reach a 3rd or 4th tank, it's good to say it in raid so people that don't usually heal can toss a couple patches.

[XAclylospradaX]

Yea basicly it's

aet(get agro)
fort (call tanking ie; Aclylosprada tanking %T need heals now)
Disc def/stone/eves (depends on fight)
bazu/cyclone - if no mezzable
Oh and taunt somtimes work ;p

Some people use a few utility items such as vish shoulders or snare glands; spamming a full gland can work at times and doesn't hurt to try. General rule anything to get agro is the plan as that is your job in the situation when your up to tank.


Aggro weapons should already be on anyhow given the notion you are "pulsing" laying on dps/procs as much as possible without ganking agro from MT. Doing this will put you pretty high on the hate list if done correctly.

also

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.

I hope this is sarcasm because letting dps on certain raids is a sure fire wipe also letting them die because you were not able to stay above them in the hate list is poor agro managment imo. Clerics should know what tank is next if your doing high end raid encounters. Person calling tanks announces, cleric person doing rotation announces (should at least to his fellow clerics for further notice), it's also good practice to announce a few times through the duration of the fight. In some situations losing first tank is almost a wipe. For the most part communication fixes any issue that can arise and cause problems if you have a good setup available in your raid then you should at least be able to tackle decent raiding, not saying you can kill every mob possible but raiding at least will be more enjoyable.

[Gunnar]

Well, before fort and furious were on a seperate timer it was sometimes worth "slight" delay before ae taunting when you had no tanks to cover if you died. Thats of course situational hehe and I haven't had to do that for years.

[Phantron]

Patch healers usually go by HoTT. I mean, it doesn't hurt if you're supposed to be tanking next to announce that you really are. But if you're supposed to be next and you need to tell your clerics that you're next to get the heals then something is very wrong with communication, especially if you're willing to use Fort/Furious.

On the other hand, if you're not supposed to be going next, having a macro like that will confuse everyone and get people killed. Having a macro like that seems to just increase the chance you'll hit it when you're not supposed to be tanking. We have paladins who has a macro for "I'm on rampage heal me" whenever he gets hit and it sure looks like after a while no one bothers healing him anymore, even though he's not lying.

The way I see it if you don't have a macro then in the time it takes you to type "It's my turn to tank" you'd have enough time to make sure you really should be tanking, and being sure who is tanking to me is more important than being able to hit AE taunt + disc as fast as possible because there are very few heavy melee DPS encounter anymore so tank survival is not a premium like it used to be.

In very heavy melee DPS encounters, it is often better to let the mob go through a few DPS classes or even healers (provided you've more healers than the number of capable tanks) instead of grabbing aggro right away especially if you don't want to use up your Fort/Furious early. Such encounters are pretty rare now though.

[Gunnar]

Emphasis helps. You can't judge the value of a tool by assuming you will use it incorrectly and wack off a toe. That kind of emphasis is standard practice in tactical and dynamic social situations among people irl. Of course doing something dumb isn't good. Take your finger off the trigger!

[Swansong]

The level of content I tank at the moment - Tier 1/2 PoP bosses etc, I use,

AE Taunt,
/fort,
I don't have an /rsay message to be spammed, usually because we set order before hand, and the healers we have are generally quite competent.

Also, because the mobs I'm tanking don't generally one round me, I fire off a HoT potion if I have room in buffs after about half of fort has gone, purely so I have a head start on heals if the healers don't catch up in time. Its not much, but every little bit helps.

I also keep my aggro weapons up, since the tanks above me have vastly superior agro setups usually. If I'm ganking their agro (don't think its happened yet) I'd start switching off/on weapons every now and again.

[Aramelus]

The other reason macro buttons are bad is because if you accidentally hit it, you blow your load all in one fell swoop.

I'd rather accidentally hit my AE taunt key and have that down for 10 minutes than accidentally hit a key taht does ae taunt, fortitude, bazu bellow AND cyclone blade. Now you're totally screwed.

[Detheb Ultimaweapon]

Honestly, what i've always done is.

-AET
-Fort
-Bazu
-Cyclone Blade

Not only does this guarentee im going to be at top for aggro, I also get heals before Fort drops off. Though, i've never had a hotkey saying "Heal me, im tanking %T" or whatever. Ussually spot healers get the job done quick(and everyone in a raid is quick to say DETHEB TANKING!)

Also, when im in tank list, but not MT, i ussually use Fleshbiter+2.0, and every 3 or 4 static blow procs i switch back to 2.0+shield for about 45 seconds. It assures i'll be on top for aggro, but not overdoing it. Always has worked great for me.

[Rawr]

I don't really understand why you would want to be right behind the MT in aggro, isn't that what AE taunt is for? In my view being right behind the MT in aggro if you are next is just asking to die due to not getting Fort fast enough, its same reason i hit fort before i hit AE taunt. As far as a heal me message i don't really use mine if i am in tank order.

I have my keys mapped to either keys or in hot bank slot so my order is:

1) Fort (5)
2) AE taunt (3)
3) Bazu (Q)
3) Def (6)

[Gunnar]

Aye, generally it's safer to hit fort first then ae taunt.

Position on the hatelist is a fluid thing for a tank imo. There are times beind 2nd is a bad thing, but, many times especially with the lighter hitters (relatively) in OOW and DON it is better to allow a little pong than for DPS/ healers to die. An obvious example would be Tunat 1.0. You can't use AE taunt there hehe. Sometimes AE Taunt is down, sometimes you have easy fast healing in the group etc. On keldovan we usually set a RT with BDA is using a warrior, but, I often tag behind him with an arrow and run next to the MT I have assigned. I have never died doing this even when unhealed. He just doesn't hit that hard and aggro is brief.