Taking a Stab at Tanking

Well after quite a long layoff between posts I doubt I have any readers left but what the hey. I've been in limbo with Rhubarb for quite a while now. I reactivated her a while back when Heroes was low on healers; I specced her holy and turned her loose, healing up a storm. At the time I only planned on healing for a little while but I realized that I liked it. However, in the back of my head I had always had the thought of returning to Ret once the guild had enough healers. We received an influx of healers and I specced back to Ret; unfortunately it was far too frustrating to do anything with. Inconsistent damage and no mana made for a frustrating grinding experience. This was very annoying and I toyed with leveling up something new or just playing Brambles again.

It was about this time that one of the main tanks in Heroes, Honorshammer, decided to leave us in order to pursue more of a raiding career. This, combined with an already existing shortage of tanks has created something of a tanking vacuum in Heroes that is somewhat holding up our progress through Kara.

I decided to see what I could put together for a Tanking set. After picking up some rep pieces and getting a couple of small drops, in very short order I was uncrittable (490 defense) and about 13% away from uncrushable. At this time I was ready to try tanking since I still didn't know if it was something I could do, or would like to do even. Unfortunately, at work we entered a 2 week long competition in Calgary, where I live, that took up almost every evening for those 2 weeks. That ended about a week ago and I just this evening tried tanking my first instance.

For my first instance as a tank we ventured into Shattered Halls. On this run was:

Rhubarb: sacrificial tanking newb
Origami: feral druid
Wichita: resto shammie
Lakini: moonkin
Regolas: warlock (not sure of spec)

My first problem (besides not having tanked before) was that these guys vastly outgeared me. I realized I need more spell damage to roll with these guys so I can generate enough threat.

Second, it does not matter how much you gear up and read up on how to tank, until you've done it you don't know squat. I had read all the theory and stuff, I had planned out what I was going to do and how I was going to execute my plan to build threat and to hold aggro. Not a complete waste of time but I definitely didn't need to spend so much time.

The problems I had were definitely not from building threat. They were mostly from holding aggro, and getting it back. Lakini and Reg were especially good at yanking mobs from me.

Some things I need to work on:

Avenger's shield: When there are more than 3 mobs I need to learn to pick my targets better.

Righteous Defense: Our taunt functions differently than other tanks in that, as far as I know, it becomes useful only after we have lost aggro. Its incredibly useful when a mob takes off, but noticing this is the problem. When there is only one mob it was pretty obvious when I lost aggro, however when I had many more it was more difficult to identify the lost mob and who hes targeting.

Mana: I burnt through my mana like crazy, partly because I had to really work to hold aggro against my overgeared guildies.

Composure: When everything went wrong and the sh*t hit the fan, I was left standing around wondering what I should do. My first couple of pulls there was a lot of this, luckily origami was able to put his bear suit on and save my bacon.

Anyway to make a long story slightly longer, we finished SH without a single death, whether I was the reason or not I am secretly going to take credit for it, *shhhh*. The tanking trinket didn't drop but thats ok, I realize that the tanking xp and practice is actually much more valuable at this stage.

I need a few pieces of gear before I am ready to venture into Kara, but more importantly I need much more practice. Hopefully in the next couple of days I can suit up for a couple more runs.