Yesterday was actually a good amount of fun for my newbie tank. Fortunately the newest expansion of WoW has been out about 4 months and we've had this patch of content for a while now, so most of the need to know tanking tips are all over the lovely interwebs. One of my favorite sites to check on all of that is wow.joystiq.com. Their Death Knight columnist breaks everything down from some of the more popular talent specs, where to find gear, and how all of your stats weigh against each other.
One of the awesome things that boosted my confidence a little is that before I read the DK gear guide I had already purchased and gemmed/enchanted some of my gear. I had guessed based on my previous knowledge of the class and just went with my gut. The great part was that the columnist suggested the exact same choices I made! So yay for going with my gut. Oddly enough I'm only 4 items away from having a complete tank gear set. Those four slots are currently filled with my dps pieces, and they aren't horrible for a tank, so at this point I could probably tank a normal dungeon without any problem. Hell, I could probably tank a heroic if I wasn't so scared. There are a lot of asshats out there that do it with less gear, but I'm pretty hard on myself.
I'm wondering if I'm going about this the right way? Am I conquering a fear if I refuse to run any dungeons as a tank until I'm completely over geared? Then again, if I run it now and completely suck my confidence will be shot and it'll be a while before I can force myself to do it again. I guess I'll do it like I always do it, research, wait, and do it when I'm comfortable. Or with friends, if we all happen to be online together. I won't be able to play much for the next three nights because I'm having a friend visit from high school & then plans for Saturday night, but we shall see.
I didn't play a whole lot last night (after the gearing/gemming/enchanting extravaganza) just a quick northrend dungeon with Sarah and Frank. Who knows, maybe today I'll feel adventurous? One great thing about this tanking spec is I have soooo many self heals and wards ways to survive. I tried some player vs player content yesterday and totally kicked ass. I'd go through entire Tol Barad events without dying once. Consequently I was there for 3 TB wins yesterday, when normally I'm lucky to see even one. At the very least this experiment is great for pvp!
"Am I conquering a fear if I refuse to run any dungeons as a tank until I'm completely over geared?"
ReplyDeleteTanking is only about 40% gear, the rest is being able to hold agro and fight management. We have all seen the 196K HP tank that can't hold agro or for reasons that are only clear to him/her, stand in front of massive damage attacks that could easily be avoided.
I'm sure you are geared enough for it, just a matter of taking the leap to tanking heroics. Say the word and I will gladly throw my dps at the instance. =)
soon soon, I'm actually sorta confident that I'll be able to hold aggro. DKs (as do all of the tanking classes) have lots of tools for that. I'll still probably want to try a normal dungeon first though, before any heroics.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that I did when I was learning how to tank on my DK at 80 was to queue for the lowest level normal instance available (at the time it was Hellfire actually) and I would tank for a bunch of people 10 levels lower than me. It helped me learn what best ways to hold aggro and get my rotation down a little better. Helped a lot.
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