A few things that will make you a better tank. Part 3

Ok, when we last left off I was talking about playing the role of caster dps.  Some people think I'm completely off my rocker for saying that to be a better tank, you need to do everything BUT tank.  I have found that the best way to become a better tank is the ability to empathize with the other members of your group.  If you understand what they are having to deal with, it will always help you to be able to make a pull better, get a boss down faster and make the run go smoother.

On that note, Melee is next!

No, some tanks out there have done this.  Some have a melee spec and they go to town killing stuff.  HOWEVER.....they usually do it in their tanking gear and have no fear of pull off the tank.  This does nothing to make you a better player.  All this does is give you a bigger epeen and make you the group pain in the @ss.

So, as stated in the last couple of blogs, start up a new toon, I recommend a warrior as this class is perfect for this.  With a warrior,  you can't step back and cast a heal on yourself to pull your butt out of the proverbial fire (or real fire if you were standing in it, lol).  You will have to rely on paying attention and your healer to keep you alive.  Level to 10 and then jump on BGs.  This will give you the perfect place to learn to watch what is going on.  If you can develop eyes in the back of your head, you will have learned a skill that will make you a good dps and a great tank, extreme situational awareness.  This is a skill that you will find a great number of people are lacking.  Even dps should know what is going on at all times with stuff in the room.

Once you hit 15, jump in to dungeons with both feet and learn new fun features such as "The tank keeps him moving when he doesn't need to....I CAN'T HIT HIM!!!!"  or my favorite "Why does the tank keep turning him? I keep getting him by the mob since the tank faces him to me!  AHHHH!!!"  Watch closely at what your tank is doing and remember or even write down the things he/she does that drive you nuts.  Don't yell at them in chat, it won't do any good.  Just make a note of it and remember it.

So, now that you have played the roll of healer, caster and melee dps, you have a firm grasp on what the other members of your group go through on a daily basis.  You know what they have to deal with trying to keep you alive and how the strive to keep themselves alive.  Remember, you are the tank.  It if your job to not just grab mobs and make fast pulls to show off your epeen.  It is your job to keep the group alive.  It is the healers job to keep you alive so that you can do your job.  This means do not be afraid to CC something or to make a LoS pull or to kill that extra group of trash so that it does not get accidentally pulled.  It's your job to keep them alive by setting up the run.  You are the first one in there and it is your job to set up pulls so that no one gets killed (there are some exceptions such as people standing in fire.  Cause you just can't fix stupid, lol.).  You will find that once you try this technique of playing all the different rolls until about lvl20 or 30, you will have much better understanding of the real group dynamic and you will become a much better tank for it.

I hope this has helped out.  I have done this and I can say that it gave me a lot of insight and makes my runs much smoother and with less repair bills.  If you have any questions or comments, feel free to comment below and I will respond quickly.  If you enjoy this blog,. please become a follower and spread the word about Neo's Challenging Roar!

A few things that will make you a better tank. Part 2

So, in my last blog, I covered that one thing that will make you a better thank is to put yourself in the healers shoes for about 20 levels.  Now, lets move on to dps.  Every tank should play two different dps classes.  One should be a melee and the other should be a mage since you get the ability to CC at a very low level.

Like before, level up to 10 and run BGs to get a better feel for shooting things that want to kill you more then spiders in Elwynn do. However, don't take off your heirloom.  In fact, you should have the highest and strongest possible enchants on that heirloom gear. As soon as you hit 15, queue for dungeons.  This is again where you will learn some good information and help you out as a tank.  You should have gotten Polymorph at lvl14 so every chance you get in a dungeon, CC something near the group that might be or was accidentally pulled.  Watch how the tank tends to ignore your CC and either hit it anyway or after the group is dead, walks past it like there is supposed to be a sheep walking around in Ragefire Chasm.

Now, you might be noticing that you are probably doing crazy dps with your heirloom gear on at this point and pulling mobs off the tank may be a bit on the easy side. You are now starting to understand that you might be under the tank on threat but it only takes 1 good crit to blow past him to make you run from the giant earth elemental screaming like a little girl as it pounds you in the face (ok, maybe that's just me that does that, lol).

Remember, dps are usually not totally fail or dumb.  They don't CC stuff to annoy you but rather to help out.  They don't mean to pull off you, sometimes a abnormally high crit happens.  Trust me, normal dpsers don't want to pull mobs off you and tank them.  They know that they can't take a hit like you can and don't want to try. You can always tell the good dps from the crazy epeen maniacs by whether they pull off you all the time or not.  You are always gonna run in to the epeen maniacs at some point or another, it can't be avoided.  That's what the pick feature is for.

Keep up the good work tanks, the world won't get anything done out there without you. Keep your eye out for the next part of this series on how to become a better tank.  Remember, no one is perfect and we all have room for improvement.