Tank on Tank Violence (or something like that)

This is really a two-part question, but I'm going to disguise it as a single topic anyway. Bottom line: through the course of pugging just about every raid currently available, I've found that I don't know how to effectively work with warrior and death knight tanks to create an efficient tanking team. I'd like to fix this shortfall on my part, so I'm posing the following questions:

1. What are the gearing priorities for warrior and death knight tanks, as far as stats go, and how do these stats affect their tanking mechanics differently from our pally tanking mechanics?

2. What situations favor warrior/death knight tanks, and what situations favor pally tanks over them? How can I best work with a warrior/death knight tank to make the most of our respective strengths while minimizing the impact of our individual weaknesses?

With those questions in mind (and I'll be surprised if anybody reads beyond that part of the post), I'm going to give an example of why I'm confused on these items. I was main-tanking 25-man VoA with a warrior off-tank. He was taunting off me at every opportunity (I think every time his taunt was off cooldown), which got really annoying. I'm pretty sure this is not how we work most effectively with warrior tanks. But then I got to thinking (and I'm sure it is due to the small warrior tank population on my server) that I really didn't know how we do work effectively together. If it is two pally tanks (which is common on my server), I know to build AoE threat on adds and focus my single target abilities primarily on the boss. If it is a druid tank I usually end up dealing with adds if there are any, otherwise I'll end up tanking the boss since the druid won't keep up on threat (I've played a druid tank before, so I understand most of their current mechanics).

I'm sure the easiest response is to go play a warrior/dk tank, but my play time is limited and hopefully somebody here has experience at one or both of those classes tanking mechanics in addition to pally tanking and can provide some insight. My goal isn't to find out that pally tanks are the best, or to hear the common stereotypes about which classes tank what. I'm more interested in the details of why the other tanks do some of the things they do, and how I can better work with them in order to provide the raid with the best tanking team possible. Actual anecdotes from tanking as a pally on a team with one of these other classes will probably prove the most valuable.

PS: The warrior tank that kept taunting off of me ended up getting grabbed every time, so it ended up making my life easier, I just had to use DP to cover the mana short. Maybe that was his intent...I still put him on my ignore list since it annoyed me.

Riposte wrote:This is really a two-part question, but I'm going to disguise it as a single topic anyway. Bottom line: through the course of pugging just about every raid currently available, I've found that I don't know how to effectively work with warrior and death knight tanks to create an efficient tanking team. I'd like to fix this shortfall on my part, so I'm posing the following questions:

1. What are the gearing priorities for warrior and death knight tanks, as far as stats go, and how do these stats affect their tanking mechanics differently from our pally tanking mechanics?

2. What situations favor warrior/death knight tanks, and what situations favor pally tanks over them? How can I best work with a warrior/death knight tank to make the most of our respective strengths while minimizing the impact of our individual weaknesses?

With those questions in mind (and I'll be surprised if anybody reads beyond that part of the post), I'm going to give an example of why I'm confused on these items. I was main-tanking 25-man VoA with a warrior off-tank. He was taunting off me at every opportunity (I think every time his taunt was off cooldown), which got really annoying. I'm pretty sure this is not how we work most effectively with warrior tanks. But then I got to thinking (and I'm sure it is due to the small warrior tank population on my server) that I really didn't know how we do work effectively together. If it is two pally tanks (which is common on my server), I know to build AoE threat on adds and focus my single target abilities primarily on the boss. If it is a druid tank I usually end up dealing with adds if there are any, otherwise I'll end up tanking the boss since the druid won't keep up on threat (I've played a druid tank before, so I understand most of their current mechanics).

I'm sure the easiest response is to go play a warrior/dk tank, but my play time is limited and hopefully somebody here has experience at one or both of those classes tanking mechanics in addition to pally tanking and can provide some insight. My goal isn't to find out that pally tanks are the best, or to hear the common stereotypes about which classes tank what. I'm more interested in the details of why the other tanks do some of the things they do, and how I can better work with them in order to provide the raid with the best tanking team possible. Actual anecdotes from tanking as a pally on a team with one of these other classes will probably prove the most valuable.

PS: The warrior tank that kept taunting off of me ended up getting grabbed every time, so it ended up making my life easier, I just had to use DP to cover the mana short. Maybe that was his intent...I still put him on my ignore list since it annoyed me.

I dunno how to answer your question from lack of experience working w/ other tanks. I'll be interested to see what others say. Should be a good read. But I have noticed a lot of tanks in VOA do this. It may just be inexperience tanking in raids, since the boss isn't hitting them, they taunt, just like a 5 man. It may also be an attempt to show how leet they are w/ a damage taken recount to the raid leader. I don't know, but I see it all the time. I've gotten to the point where I don't even care anymore, as it won't affect the fight really, and we don't share loot that drops there, so there's really no competition to see who can tank better. I'm just guessing though...Look forward to others responses!

I don't know about everyone else around this forum, but VoA might not be the best judge of an off-tank. Personal experience pugging VoA has taught me many of those who would tank are pretty fail at generating threat, so I'll often ask them to taunt off me whenever my lead is considerable because they aren't capable of keeping ahead of the shadow priests and fury warriors otherwise. It's possible this warrior is used to running with paladins like me who accept this as the strategy and he expected you to be taunting back or just being awesome and taking him back from pure rotation, or he could be fail.

So far as itemization goes, each class has different theories about how to gear just as paladins do. Some stress EH, avoidance or threat depending on which forums they read. When running with DK's or warriors I'll generally pass to them anything with hit or expertise, and also defer to DK's when parry is itemized if it's not a huge upgrade for me. Anything with dodge or block is fair game imo.

In BC I tanked alongside a warrior and it was a fantastic experience. Generally he'd sit off in a corner and tank one or two big things and I'd grab the rest of the pack during trash, and we'd generally decide who tanked a boss based on the type of damage incoming. Small quick hits went to me, and casters or fearing mobs went to him. If gimmicks weren't involved, we'd typically just /roll.

In WotLK I tanked alongside a DK when Naxx was still progression, and things were flipped a bit. D&D is so nice for aoe, I found myself better suited to grabbing the three priority targets and leaving the rest to the DK on trash, and tanking most bosses since the DK did better off-spec DPS than I could. On things like Patch I typically OT since my mitigation has been better.

Chanticleer wrote:I don't know about everyone else around this forum, but VoA might not be the best judge of an off-tank. Personal experience pugging VoA has taught me many of those who would tank are pretty fail at generating threat, so I'll often ask them to taunt off me whenever my lead is considerable because they aren't capable of keeping ahead of the shadow priests and fury warriors otherwise. It's possible this warrior is used to running with paladins like me who accept this as the strategy and he expected you to be taunting back or just being awesome and taking him back from pure rotation, or he could be fail.

bub64882 wrote:I dunno how to answer your question from lack of experience working w/ other tanks. I'll be interested to see what others say. Should be a good read. But I have noticed a lot of tanks in VOA do this. It may just be inexperience tanking in raids, since the boss isn't hitting them, they taunt, just like a 5 man. It may also be an attempt to show how leet they are w/ a damage taken recount to the raid leader. I don't know, but I see it all the time. I've gotten to the point where I don't even care anymore, as it won't affect the fight really, and we don't share loot that drops there, so there's really no competition to see who can tank better. I'm just guessing though...Look forward to others responses!

For clarification, my question wasn't directed specifically at VoA, that just happened to be the most recent example. Although, since you mentioned it, I do seem to find other tanks taunting off me more than usual during VoA. I just keep up my rotation and grab threat back, resulting in them having to taunt yet again. I kind of get the feeling that it is just e-peen in this specific example. I should have used a better example, but I can't think of anything specific for warriors/death knights.

An example of something that I thought worked well was co-tanking Gluth on 10-man with a druid. We wiped on our first attempt not because of the tanks dying or healers going OOM, but because the adds weren't dying fast enough. So I told the druid that if he could grab Gluth before the decimates I would run out and holy wrath, hammer of justice, and shield toss to slow the adds down as much as possible to help out our dps. I don't think it was just our change that made that attempt successful, but I like to think that we helped contribute more than on our failed first attempt. Maybe this is all we really bring to the table at the moment, but I have a feeling there are better synergies out there and I also have a hunch that people on this forum would be aware of them and willing to share.

This is just my POV, as someone who's MT'd stuff on a paladin and a DK:

the gear most tanks want isn't all that different, but specifically, if a pally is looking for bv and hit on gear for extra threat, a DK will be looking for expertise and hit. Otherwise everyone wants avoidance. Warriors and DKs will struggle a lot (for threat) unless they're appreciably close to the expertise soft-cap and the hit melee-cap.

The weakness of paladins that DKs and warriors are best able to cover is a lack of 'oh crap' buttons, and better handling of spell damage (usually). The weakness of warriors and DKs that pallies are best able to cover are mitigating lots from low-damage melee hits (blocking reliably for high % values of incoming damage), and consistent aoe threat. Warriors basically rely on shockwave and thunderclap (which are good for burst but bad for sustained threat) and DKs will be relying on a combination of Death and Decay, howling blast, unholy blight, pestilence and blood boil, depending on spec. Having consecrate always down is a lot more useful for some situations, especially where there is an constant stream of incoming mobs (final boss in AN, Gothik, Sarth, etc).


As for chain taunting in VoA? I don't chain taunt like that, but I'll regularly taunt to make sure both tanks have a clear threat lead - I see it as pointless waiting for the boss to pick up the MT, and then try to taunt before he turns around and hits someone else.

Keep in mind that there's actually a good reason to use taunt in VoA, though chain-taunting isn't really necessary.

My VoA runs usually go something like this with a poor off-tank:
Theck pulls, builds a Retarded Amount Of Threat (RAOT) on Archavon. Off-tank is below the DPS in threat.
Archavon grabs Theck for Happy Fun Time, and then turns to the next highest in threat (aka "unlucky DPS"), generally before the off-tank can taunt. Sometimes unlucky DPS dies due to this.
Off-tank taunts, but now has only as much threat as the highest DPS, which is usually 50% or less of the RAOT Theck had built on the boss before he was manhandled and his threat was reset to zero.

On the other hand, when I bring one of my better tanks, or someone on ventrilo that I can instruct, it goes like this:
Theck pulls, builds a RAOT on Archavon. Off-tank is below the DPS in threat.
Off-tank taunts, reaping the benefits of Theck's RAOT, and is now far ahead of all the DPS.
Archavon grabs Theck for Happy Fun Time, and then immediately turns to the off-tank.
After Theck's done being man-handled, he can then taunt off of the off-tank to recover his RAOT, and continue onward.
Lather, rinse, repeat.

Again, chain-taunting isn't necessary, but if you keep pulling far ahead of the off-tank, then having him or her taunt on cooldown means that you get to keep all the threat you've been building the entire fight (rather than losing it all when you're manhandled). You can just taunt back off of them whenever it's convenient, if they're weaker-geared for example.

Also, sometimes you'll get lucky and he'll grab the off-tank for Happy Fun Time, which means you can continue building RAOT on the boss.

So, I can't comment on warrior tanks from first hand experience having not played them, but I can comment on Death Knight tanking from a personal perspective, up to main tanking all of ten man content and most of 25man content on one in addition to my paladin tank (main tanked all 25man content except hard mode Sarth).

My understanding is that warrior and paladin tanks are broadly the same in terms of what they can and cannot tank, and the stats that they generally look for on their gear. The differences that exist are slight, but they do exist:

Warriors have better burst aoe threat; Paladins have better sustained aoe threat

Warriors love expertise on their gear; Paladins will take it if it's there but certainly won't go looking for it

Paladins are slightly more consistent in the damage they take (on melee enemies) through block capping; warriors have the potential to block more of any single hit (critical block) but can't guarantee to block them all unless they totally gimp other stats to become unhittable.

Warriors have better emergency-button capability - shield wall + last stand is just better than bubblewall and hoping that you won't be incapacitated to fire off lay-on-hands

Warriors have much better mobility, but paladins have the ability to build not-inconsiderable amounts of threat from range (AS + judgement)

That's probably not all the differences, but they're the ones that stick out.

Death knights on the other hand are a whole other kettle of fish.

Major difference: death knights can't block. Depending on spec, however, they will have anywhere from a bit to a lot more health than an equivalently geared paladin/warrior (these don't have the same health in identical gear anyhow due to higher base hp of a warrior but better stam scaling for a paladin). They will almost certainly have more armour. They will also have anywhere from 10-15% more pure avoidance through talents (frigid dreadplate + blade barrier) They do not have a stance modifier on melee damage, but they do have a hefty 15% spell damage reduction modifier.

The major difference between the shield tanks (particularly a paladin) and a death knight is their ability to deal with and survive extraordinary amounts of damage potentially indefinitely through chaining of cooldowns. This is particularly overpowered for tanking enrages (prototypical example would be Grand Widow when the frenzy isn't dispelled), since it effectively removes the enrage mechanic (enrage gives 200% damage bonus, but cooldown reduces incoming damage by 30-60%). This is contrasted with their generally higher incoming damage with no cooldown up, and spikier intake due to high avoidance but taking more damage when a hit does land since they will take unblocked hits (technically, it should be the case that expected damage taken in any time period is roughly equal between tanks, but for a Death Knight it is certainly the case that the variance in this damage taken is higher). In short: played well, if the damage is melee I think a paladin has the capacity to take a survivable fight and trivialise it through consistent damage reduction, achieved through block-capping. A death knight, on the other hand, in their current incarnation has the capacity to take otherwise unsurvivable damage and turn it into a survivable fight (c.f. tanking enrages, tanking sarth+3 drakes without outside assistance).

Another minor point, but I'm sure you've noticed it: paladins are head and shoulders above other tanks in terms of threat generation.

Hope that's of some use

Another fundamental difference to note is that paladins and DKs are "pull tanks", while bears and warriors are "charge tanks".

In my opinion, on trash a "pull tank" should pull. While the mobs are inbound, everyone knows where they are going to end up, the tanks can group and the DPS can prep AoEs. Too often a warrior will charge into a group, get aggro with TC, but not have any other tank support with him or tank AoEs down around him, so he will quickly lose aggro to the DPS. While these get picked up by the slower tanks, the pull is split into 2 groups, halving the effectiveness of AoE DPS.

I work mainly as an OT with a warrior MT (I find it easier to operate as a raid leader in the OT capacity, and I am a better OH than the warrior is). However, I do all the pulling. He takes a few steps back so he can still charge in and get rage. We found this combination makes for predictable, controlled pulls that lead to fewer deaths to trash and a much faster overall run.

as for the OP's experience, in VoA, the OT will frequently see the boss target someone for a special ability, think the MT has lost aggro, and taunt. This is particularly common in pugs. Also in pugs you will run into OTs who think they should be MT regardless of what the raid leader says, so they will taunt just to show how they can pull off of you. Apparently the chicks dig it or something.

Koatanga wrote: This is particularly common in pugs. Also in pugs you will run into OTs who think they should be MT regardless of what the raid leader says, so they will taunt just to show how they can pull off of you. Apparently the chicks dig it or something.

ThatJustHappened is great for this. I have every tank taunt setup in there to announce in "say" whenever one of them has been used, by whom, and what the target was. It shut up one of our pally tanks pretty quick when we first started doing BT and he would be constantly taunting off me to show he had better threat gen on AoE packs than me (I think it hurt his ego that I was able to gear up above him inside of about 1.5 months when he has been our only pally tank up to that point for 5-6 months).

One of the things that you'll kind of have to get used to is tank on tank e-peen flexing. Voa is a pretty good way of seeing if a tank knows what they're supposed to do, or if they're running omen and NEED TO BE TOPS THREATS ZOMG!?!!?!?!.

For example, I push around 5-6k threat 10 man, 7-8k threat 25 man, and personally I dont know too many tanks that can push more or equivalent on my server that arent in a good guild or know how to play better than me. Our threat makes other tanks feel inferior, just like stacking more stam over another tank makes the other tank feel inferior.

Anytime you come out and just ARE flat out better at something than someone, they will want your thunder, and hence taunt.

I ran a 25 man OS with a druid tank once that flat out just plain refused to be OT, he had the same amount of HP as me (31k unbuffed in bear form) and did significantly less threat. His idea to fix this, was taunting every single time taunt came up. It was hell for the healers, it was hell for him, and i just pulled threat back a second later. Point is, paladins are in a position where we typically do superior threat compared to equally geared tanks just due to mechanics, as our threat is based primarily based off of damage done.

In situations like yours, I either call the person out on it, or kick em from the raid. Tanks with peen problems are also just that, PROBLEMS. People have to understand that the best tank for the situation is the best tank for the situation, and barring any kind of mitigating circumstances, like extraordinary player skill or niche game mechanics, the best tank should typically be the person tanking. Realize when your doing better, or when your not the most optimal for the situation, and choose your role. But taunting furiously to hold aggro is just a sign of insecurity or weakness on the part of your offtank, and should be dealt with immediately.

I co-tanked with a warrior through my entire time in BC. It was great. After some time we never marked targets, discussed roles, etc. We just knew what each other would do. It was pretty awesome to just be in such a groove with another tank that things just "worked".

I'm getting there now with my co-tanks but we're not there just yet.

When I pug with another tank I usually give the tank 3-4 times taunting off me before I whisper them, "If you taunt off me again for no good reason I'll be salving or BoP'ing you. Good luck!"

i have to agree that an AoV is not a good example of any 'issues' when it comes to tanking. most AoV's (at least on my server) are pug'd. and alot of the 'tanks' are pvp'ers with some limited tank equipment via, BoE crafted items.

as far as gear...a DK will have little to no use for anything with block in it. though some will grab the occational items if they are available to take for use in playing around with equipment. i will always pass on items that have parry on them, even if its for an 'off-set'. as a pali i have no use for the junk.

pali's and warriors will more often then not fight for the same gear. my guilds rule of thumb is if its got parry on it ship it to a DK. if it has block let the warriors and pali's fight for it. (ever see a warrior cry cuz LoH is cheating...its pretty funny shit)


for what tank is better situated for what encounter...obviously a DK would be best for a caster boss. they are by far the best when a boss does most of its dmg via magic.

a warrior is best for any kinda boss that has a silence effect rendering a pali almost defencless

in a 5man instance you will most likely only have one tank. so i will assume you are asking in reguards to 10 and 25man content.

i split up tank duty based on the bosses ability between my guild tanks. 80% of the time im just there to make sure that there is no dispute about loot and dont contribute much as far as tanking other then the adds.

azub-warrior or bear....you dont have to move him because of the swarm.
Grand Widow...let the pali and DK tank the adds let the warrior move her off the plaform
Maxina-warrior has more OhShit buttons
Noth-one pali tank can tank everything + adds
Heigan-usually let a DK tank it. i run with PoJ and melee tends to bitch cuz they get stuck in flames
Loatheb-i usually tank it cuz i do more dmg tanking then i do running JoW, but anybody can. its a healer test
Instructor Raz- ththpht
Four horsemen- i usually tank the 2nd boss with double JoL and have the MT's healer hit me during the cross in 10man
Patchwork-i MT in both 10 and 25man. threat generation becomes the issue
Grob-i MT in 10 and grab the adds. in 25man i grab the adds
Gluth-i usually endup running around catching skullys while sombody else MT's and anybody that can taunt takes over for 6 seconds
Thadius-is a pali dream and a dk and warriors nightmare. if im not MT'n i have to turn of RF otherwise i endup pulling threat every time
Sapp- a DK if i have one, otherwise i let the warrior do it, and i spot heal during swings
KT-i take a break after phase one. camp in a corner and take a bio. and pick up the adds at 40%


there is your list of a boss by boss basis, and why...

most people in my guild prefer me to tank everything . im easier to heal then the prot warrior and i generate more threat allowing our heavy dps'ers the ability to engage faster and harder. (they tend to have to hold back when the warrior tanks). and unfortuatly i have yet to see a DK that can hold threat in a fight that lasts longer then 3 mins. and pali's are 10x's easier to heal overall then dk's and warriors.

hope that kinda answers your questions.

just share the tank love. bow down to better suited tanks for a boss. and if push comes to shove. take em outside and duel em !!

-Irish-

Doxa wrote:I co-tanked with a warrior through my entire time in BC. It was great. After some time we never marked targets, discussed roles, etc. We just knew what each other would do. It was pretty awesome to just be in such a groove with another tank that things just "worked".

I'm getting there now with my co-tanks but we're not there just yet.

When I pug with another tank I usually give the tank 3-4 times taunting off me before I whisper them, "If you taunt off me again for no good reason I'll be salving or BoP'ing you. Good luck!"

In response to the OP I think that well-played tanks that can work together can make for some great synergy in the current raiding environment. I'm a big fan of a guild having a "tanking corps" instead of a MT and a few OT's, and I think a lot of tanks would agree with that idea. One of my IRL friends (in another guild) is a geared prot warrior, and when we throw together quick PUGs for 10 mans it's an absolute blast. Same as the DK tank formerly in my guild. We'd rip through Naxx-25, aoe'ing trash and tanking whichever boss best suited our class. Death Grip is an awesome skill to have in a co-tank! If it was a boss with no advantage for either we'd just /roll on who would tank boss and who would grab adds/loldps or whatever. When tanks want to work together it can be very efficient and rewarding for both of you, as long as you don't let e-peens get in the way.

However, there are still a lot of tanks out there with the left-over BC attitude of having one MT and a couple of low-priority OT's. I've found these generally to be warriors unfortunately, as they were the defacto MT in a lot of BC guilds. In my guild an officer who had taken a break from his prot warrior recenty dusted him off and brought him back out. He had been their MT and raid leader pre-BC, so he immediately wanted these roles again. He equipped his frost-resist belt gemmed for stam (banking his Ablative Chitin girdle) and his Tempered Titanstell helm again gemmed for stam (banking his Thane's helm) in order to beat the hp of myself and the other tank, and then proceeded to taunt on every cooldown since his threat was sub-par due to being a stam whore and not knowing the warrior threat rotations. He refused to let anyone else tank bosses, as "warriors should always be the main tanks, blizzard should realize that and stop nerfing us". Our excellent DK tank recently /gquit, and I'm now on the verge. Off-tanking all the time in WOTLK is NOT very rewarding.

TL:DR - There is some great synergy between different tank classes now. But you gotta find people who aren't in the "I'm THE main tank" mindframe to make it work IMO.

Warriors significantly value Expertise and Hit to the point of gemming for them in some cases. DKs prefer dodge to parry. Defense and Parry are more or less "wasted stats" on a druid. Gatekeeper is a bear item, Boundless Ambition is a warrior item. DKs who roll on block gear are probably being dumb.

Paladin tanks generate more threat than other tanks. Paladin tanks that know what they are doing generate enough threat to make other tanks look bad. Paladins should MT Loatheb and any fight where threat is a major issue.

I have been in only one VOA run where the other tank didn't suck.

Irishbiker wrote:
pali's and warriors will more often then not fight for the same gear. my guilds rule of thumb is if its got parry on it ship it to a DK. if it has block let the warriors and pali's fight for it. (ever see a warrior cry cuz LoH is cheating...its pretty funny shit)

-Irish-

IIRC Forceful Deflection is also included for DR calculations, so the DK gets less benefit from parry than you.