My tank is doing ok, she is just shy of 5k gearscore and has never stepped into anything greater then a 5 man ( and I say that with a GS qualifier of that it does not have one piece of Pvp gear, and its gearing for items not score – but it gives you an idea of where she is at) Mixed Badge, Boes ect, 34k health unbuffed, and 44k has been been the highest HP i’ve seen her in an instance.
But I am now at the point where I have no idea what to do with her – besides maxing out her professions ( which I have been lax with). This is what guilds are for. Taking undergeared/under experienced tanks into places they wouldn’t be able to sneak into otherwise.
The frost badge collection is slow going not running ICC, the holiday instance for brewfest has helped a lot, but still, I need more frostbadges then I am likely to ever obtain.
If I had enough throw away gold I might be able to buy my way into a TOC GDKP as an offtank or something, as a carry, and if I had 85 k ( I think it was the price being offered) I could buy my way into an icc 10 including gear. But I have never needed that sort of gold, so never tried to make it. Sneaking in without any raid tanking experience into places like naxx or ulduar might work but I really wouldn’t want to try that. Tanking 5 mans and halls of stone for the gazillionth time is still far away from tanking any raid tanking experience.
I might be better off getting a dps set, as dps are a little more accommodating if you have another toon that has the experience – just to get the achievement.
I have gleaned a few more things of wisdom from tankage.
Charge – not only does it generate enough initial rage to do your thing, it also puts distance between you and trigger happy dps that fire high agro salvos as their opening shots. While charging too far ahead of the healers will pee them off ( as I have been pee’d off while trying to heal a charging warrior) it stops the hunter from multishotting before you’ve even hit the lead target.
I had a lot of difficulty early on when learning to tank some instances on multiple targets for this reason. Hit target one with a shield slam for your threat, then thunderclap before dps grab agro on the other targets. But trigger happy dps was hitting multiple targets before I could even hit one, so Thunderclap as an opener for agro grab meant I was still chasing after loose mobs. Charging ahead gives me a breather. There is still a GCD between when I can thunderclap after my sheild slam has gone off, and everything else but using Challenging shout ( 10 yard enemy focus on you) is all single target.
I told one highly geared dps Boomy that was single targeting mobs that if the “mob starts hitting you – stop hitting it” I was told it was my job to get agro off him He had my vigilance, and I ended up taunting on cooldown. Really made running that instance a chore.
Stuff like MD’s/fades. and all the other agro reducing abilities are just not getting used in 5 mans because of the facerolling. I might set up a poweraura for Misdirect so I know if the hunter is using it on me, and maybe get used to poking them if they don’t use it, and I think I need it.
The other thing I have learned is also to be more aware of my Melee dps when positioning. They all like doing it from behind. So moving the target sometimes to allow for them to get in behind means they die less.
But even they can’t help when the healer decides to stand behind with them on Krystallus in Halls of stone, and blow them all up. Pulling the Maiden of Grief back a little further from a Storm of Grief ( the black circles) ( also from HOS) means the melee dps don’t stand in it as often, and die less. From my tanking I know that when your standing in bad stuff with all the aoe, and spell affects and the like it can take longer to realise, but thats not an excuse. I’ve never melee’d dps but I would have thought that range have less environmental distractions so can be more aware of the ground beneath them by sight, without having to look at debuffs.
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