So, this weekend was a pretty important turning of a corner in my WoW ‘career’, as it was the first time I tanked a dungeon.
I’ve always admired people who can tank – not only protecting the players, but usually leading the raid and soothing frayed nerves all at the same time. Mr B tanks an awful lot (although never LFR!!) so I’ve never really felt the need to learn.
However, I have only one class left to level and this was a warrior. I had tried Arms before and got really bored (rage issues, the same reason I stopped playing rogue as I couldn’t get the hang of energy), so I thought I’d give myself a new challenge and learn to tank.
Yes, I totally mogged the heirloom shield…!
Mr B is levelling a Priest at the same time and with his healing, I knew I wouldn’t be in too much trouble if I made a stupid mistake. So, calling upon his 7 years of expertise, I asked for some advice…
Mr B’s tanking 101
- Hit stuff
- Kill stuff
- Don’t die
… great.
So off I went, knowing I had to maintain a certain amount of aggro so people didn’t rage at me and/or die a lot. Surprisingly, it went really well. Apparently, I probably could have gone a tiny bit quicker (although no one complained), but I don’t get an AoE threat move until level 20, so I played it safe.
Anyway, we had a go the next day, where I tanked Shadowfang Keep, and I had lots of fun with Thunderclap… it makes chain pulling a LOT easier so we were able to go much quicker. My confidence has definitely grown. It’s also made me much more sympathetic towards new players or people learning a new role…. it’s HARD! I ignored so many /g and /w those 2 hours as I couldn’t concentrate on both.
If you take one thing away from reading this post, please be kind to us nooby tanks – we are trying hard to remember the way, keep you from dying AND learning the class! :p
Mr and Mrs WoW 
Looks like your’e wearing the DPS plate heirlooms there, did you know there are tanky specific ones? (slightly different colouring on them ^^) Good jon on the tanking tho! 😀
Yes, of course, I just can’t be bothered to grind any more justice ^^
That’s nice, I have a DK tank haven’t mastered the skills and still learning yet I have tanked before it was fun, I understand that being a tank serves like a leader to the raid group as they always the first role to aggro everything. Heals are on you all the time. But sometimes If my group dies I am to be blames or something just didnt went well which im scared to tank sometimes. >.< Anyway, Great job and keep up the good work! ❤
Woooo congrats on surviving!!! I still havent plucked up the courage to tank. My paladin hit level 10 a while back and I decided to bring her across to my guild and give up on the Ironman Challenge as I wanted to try tanking. But I massively chickened out. To be fair I am still getting used to healing on my priest so I think learning 2 new roles might be a bit much right now.