Fresh 90, trouble with heroics

Hello everyone,

I started tanking heroics yesterday (I also dinged 90 yesterday... congratulation to me! ) however I am having quite a hard time to be honest. Between the frequent loss of aggro and the very large damage that I am being victim of, most groups that I run with ends up with, simply put, a bad tank (me). I would like to get better however I am a little bit lost. On one side, I read Theck analysis and it seems that the stat priorities would be :

Hit 7.5% >= Exp 7.5%-10% > Haste > Str...

However, on the other side, the paladin 101 thread indicates this priority setup:

Mastery > Hit = Exp > Dodge > Parry

From my understanding, Theck priority were more appropriate for raiding content... But is it so different between raiding and heroic dungeons ?

My character name is Thaosin on Korgath-US server, I am at work right now but I will post an armory link later.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

EDIT: Link to armory http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/korgath/Thaosin/simple

Well, if you're just starting, go with Hit > Exp > Mastery. You shouldn't really need to cap to 7.5 for hit as heroic dungeons are a little lower...same with exp.

On another note, pick up the BS crafting tank 450 ilvl gear. It'll help a ton. As well as the Engy trinket.

The main difference between heroics and raids is that in raid (expecially heroic raids) you need the biggest uptime of Shotr as possible to minimize the huge damage you are taking from bosses, thus (hard)capping hit and exp is necessary to keep the HP flowing.

On the other hands, on 5 men heroic, the damage you take is usually very little (to the point that with better gear you can pretty much run without healer), and even when it's high damage, it's just for short periods so cooldowns are enough. Thus, it's not as important to have capped hit/exp.

Capping hit and expertise does help your threat a lot, and as a fresh 90, you need every edge that you can get in that regard. To that end, run yourself through the Arena of Annihilation scenario for a 450 mace to replace your sword. Takes about 10 minutes, totally failsafe. Between that and getting yourself a Ghost Iron Dragonling (with Fractured + Quick + Rigid cogwheels, an Engineer can make all of this for you for 20 Ghost Iron Bars and 12 Windwool Cloth and you don't need Engineering to wear it), your accuracy stats should work out pretty well and you might even be able to edge out a little more haste.

Sure, capping hit and exp will give him an edge, but he really doesn't need the full out 7.5/15 as raiders do. Having 6% hit and exp is sufficient in order to push more mastery to smooth damage intact. I really do not recommend having haste at the start, focus on mastery/stam. You'll get much more bang for the buck than you would with a minimal amount of haste since it's not really a survivability stat and that's his concern in order to not be removed from dungeons for being considered a 'bad' tank. Fractured, Rigid and Precise cogwheels are a better choice for starting out in the Engy trinket.

To be honest, I doubt it is a matter of how you enhance your gear - more that your gear is rather low level. It's not too low for heroics but it is of the level that makes them suitably challenging. By this stage of the expansion, however, most players are better geared and accustomed to blazing through five mans. It is hard starting to tank heroics with just entry level gear when most others are better geared. To try to limit abuse, it might be wise to start out saying "Fresh 90 tank here, please make allowances". Or at least whisper it to the healer.

For what it is worth, what I do with my alt tanks when starting is go for a decent amount of hit and expertise - 6% would be fine - and then stack some stamina. The hit and expertise reduce the chance of you failing to get threat or holy power due to bad luck. The stamina is a cushion to give time for your healer to wake up and give a big heal; or for you to realise you are in trouble and pop a big CD. More expertise, more haste, more mastery, more whatever is all good but I would not make them an early priority. If you go to Ask Mr Robot and choose the "control/haste" build, then choose optimise - it will give recommendations broadly in line with what I am suggesting (i.e. gem mainly stamina, reforge to hit/exp).

Some other advice for starting out, not related to gearing:

On the issue of threat, mark a skull for most pulls. No matter how good the DPS, you'll likely be able to hold threat if they hit what you are hitting (your threat is 5x your dps). If they hit something else and get aggro, that's their fault. I use an add-on that I can just click to set the skull icon as the default right click, menu thing is too clunky. (You could set a keybind.) Also, get threatplates and tidyplates - that way it will be much easier to keep track of what is locked down (nameplates of loose mobs are enlarged). Don't be afraid to taunt loose mobs if you don't have a J or AS free. (I keep "1" as my taunt key and "2" as my interrupt, I use both so much in 5 mans.) Then just mash keys and tab target until you have everything under control.

On taking large damage, there a number of things you can do. Most important is manage your active mitigation - spam shotr as much as you can. Holy Avenger can help a lot for this in tight spots and I try to use it once every 2 minutes or so. Additionally, get used to watching sacred shield - I use an add on that tells me the size of the shield, so I can see when it has gone and might need refreshing. Don't be afraid to refresh it in moments of high damage - it scales with your vengeance. Use divine protection (glyphed) almost on cooldown - I would use it on every serious trash pull if it's up. If you get nice "on use" features on your trinkets macro them to DP and HA so they don't go to waste. Then it's just a matter of using big CDs liberally - we have a lot, ardent defender, GoAK and LoH. In a 5 man, I would just use them whenever you think you are in trouble - don't hold back, they recharge fast enough. Try to use GoAK early in a big fight when you still have enough health to get the full benefit; use LoH when you have almost no health. AD I use either in desperation to try to cheat death or more commonly just for the % damage reduction if the situation does not quite warrant GoAK or LoH. Finally, get the add-on GTFO if you haven't got it - MoP seems to hate "tank and spank" fights, so loves to randomly put bad stuff under your feet. GTFO screams at you when that happens and stops you being the one who died standing in the fire.

Wow thanks a lot guys !

It has been a few days now and I can pretty much hold my ground correctly in heroics (so far my only problem is in scarlet halls, the hall with the mobs that throws gold... I have no problem if I go one group at a time, but I am trying to practice for CM's so I'm pulling the whole room... Not great results yet ;P)

I still have to take a look at the add-ons, however Im still practicing to priorize my HP generators over everything else... It's weird since I always used AS to pull before xD

Kaigen wrote:It's weird since I always used AS to pull before xD

I tend to pull with judgement and follow with AS. Not only does it give you holy power, the mobs start to group after you aggro them so that AS has more chance to bounce to 3 (if there are 3, don't fire AS at the middle one).

Worldie wrote:The main difference between heroics and raids is that in raid (expecially heroic raids) you need the biggest uptime of Shotr as possible to minimize the huge damage you are taking from bosses, thus (hard)capping hit and exp is necessary to keep the HP flowing.

On the other hands, on 5 men heroic, the damage you take is usually very little (to the point that with better gear you can pretty much run without healer), and even when it's high damage, it's just for short periods so cooldowns are enough. Thus, it's not as important to have capped hit/exp.

Hit and exp are also premiere dps stats. Don't listen to worldie.

NB the cap for heroics is only 6 hit and 12 exp though, which is much less daunting.

You don't need to be topping dps meters in 5 men

econ21 wrote:

Kaigen wrote:It's weird since I always used AS to pull before xD

I tend to pull with judgement and follow with AS. Not only does it give you holy power, the mobs start to group after you aggro them so that AS has more chance to bounce to 3 (if there are 3, don't fire AS at the middle one).

On a group of 4+, you can AS one of them, and J the one that AS doesn't hit.

econ21 wrote:

Kaigen wrote:It's weird since I always used AS to pull before xD

I tend to pull with judgement and follow with AS. Not only does it give you holy power, the mobs start to group after you aggro them so that AS has more chance to bounce to 3

Plus, if you do that on the caster in the pack, you immediately will interrupt him You don't interrupt him if you start off with tossing the shield.

Worldie wrote:You don't need to be topping dps meters in 5 men

Worldie logic: survivability isn't an issue in heroics, also dps isn't an issue in heroics. Obviously you should just tank in int and agi gear.

Well fuck. I guess I've been doing it wrong then.

I have only just read this thread and since the dawn of time the biggest issue for any new tank in 5 mans in a group with better geared people has always been threat due to gear level differences and level of knowledge of the dungeon.

Awareness and good use of cool downs will see you through most 5 man challenges. Don't skimp on gems/enchants either!