Practicing to Tank

[Igrado]

If... well rather, when I convert my Paladin from Holy to Prot, would it make sense to queue up for AVs all of one weekend and just practice tanking the elites in there? It seems to me to be a good idea, especially if I can get a healer buddy to queue up with me. Here are the reasons I'm considering it.

--) No finding a group, just queue and go when it pops.
--) No deep consequences for screwing up, such as dead guildies or pissed off PUGs.
--) Multiple basic elite tanking opportunities per hour, much better rate than most instances. Especially once you take out the LFG time.
--) Honor is a side benefit.

It just seems like a fast, low-risk way to get a lot of practice to get caught back up on my basic tanking techniques before getting into guild runs and then PUGs. I don't need to bother guildies to tag along and give up their time. Granted the massive PUG-type atmosphere could make it overly difficult to hold aggro... but do you think it's worth a try?

[Vanifae]

easiest way is to do a low level dungeon in the Outlands, like Ramparts or Underbog.

[Xanatos]

You won't get a true feel for tanking in AV since nobody bothers to heal the tanks.

[Calindae]

Start off with an easy instance, I did Old Hillsbrad since it's pretty easy and you can CC virtually everything, which is helpful if you're getting started. As Xanatos said, AV's a waste. 98% of the time some retard MS warrior will taunt off of you and get destroyed, or you won't get a single heal, so I wouldn't bother with that.

[corc]

i'd say stay away from the easy instances personally. I find tanking easy instances to be harder because I go oom a lot more and that's just not fun and also dangerous when a bad pull happens.

try tanking shadow labs imo. bring some friends and make sure you have RF up and have fun. remember that the humanoids around the 1st boss gouge so be careful

[Vanifae]

i'd say stay away from the easy instances personally. I find tanking easy instances to be harder because I go oom a lot more and that's just not fun and also dangerous when a bad pull happens.

try tanking shadow labs imo. bring some friends and make sure you have RF up and have fun. remember that the humanoids around the 1st boss gouge so be careful

If you have never really tanked before, it is probably best not to do something overly difficult, besides running out of mana is less tragic then oops we wiped again cause I have no clue what I am doing.

[Chadoxx]

I think trial by fire is best way. Just get some friends and run a 5 man. Just do it on stupid mode "No CC", mark your main target, throw shield, consecrate, keep HS up and then mess with seals and judgments.

Just remember to keep HS up as priority, next consecrate if you've got a lot of mana or need to gain a lot of threat to keep up with party, then just worrying you got SoR up and judging if you got the time between other abilities. Remind your group to keep AoEing and just drink and pull next group...too easy.

In fact you need practice when things go bad. What do you do if someone pulls aggro? What if not getting enough mana in to hold threat? Have your RD taunt macro ready, and if you need mana and have good threat lead remember to judge wis.

[corc]

i'd say stay away from the easy instances personally. I find tanking easy instances to be harder because I go oom a lot more and that's just not fun and also dangerous when a bad pull happens.

try tanking shadow labs imo. bring some friends and make sure you have RF up and have fun. remember that the humanoids around the 1st boss gouge so be careful

If you have never really tanked before, it is probably best not to do something overly difficult, besides running out of mana is less tragic then oops we wiped again cause I have no clue what I am doing.

have to disagree, slabs was actually one of the first instances I tanked (other than a deadmines run years ago on a warrior alt ). I said bring friends for a reason, if you wipe you can see what happened and fix it. This instance is perfect for learning a lot of the different tanking situations from aoe pulling to singles to fearing hard-hitting mobs to a boss that has no real aggro table ('cause you'll most likely have a bunch of ranged.

also, he's on this board so he has a clue about what to do, and if he doesn't here are a few:
(1) Use SoR for now and judge it instantly when you pull, it'll give you a little room to work with in threat
(2) keep your threat buff up and kings as well
(3) don't use your shield if people are trying to sap, if you have a mage ask them to sheep AFTER you shield the group (added bonus if it hits their target cause when it breaks it'll run to you most likely).
(4) don't just stack warrior tanking gear, put on a few +dam rings of something (I use a +40ish chest piece with no defence I got somewhere)
(5) keep HS up too

(6*) for this instance, the pulls before the 2nd boss are super easy if you los them back into the 1st boss room and just aoe them, focus fire them down using raid target icons.
(7*) for the 2nd boss keep blessing of wisdom up and try to time your taunt for a little after each MC so some crazy caster who pulls too soon won't die (and tank with your back to a wall)

granted the 2nd boss is hard and a large block for some groups, but you can do it. if anything, get in vent and enjoy the laugher as you try to solo the boss with just you and the healer... even at enraged the boss doesn't hit too hard! sometimes I even heal a little when my taunt is down and the spreist insists on laying on the MBs and SwDs

these are noob tips not ment for vetrans who most likely have their own ideas... these are simple to follow and require the least about of button pushing. And, they get the job done.

[Phaex]

I believe the first instance i tanked was slabs too. I don't really remember.
If you are no complete tard you'll figure out how it works pretty quick. Its not like you have to do a perfect job in a nonheroic pug. They are used to wiping, and won't be angry at all if you clear it in less than 2 hours, because it'll still be the smoothest run most of them ever did.

One thing really helped me when starting: Buff salv on every dd, and ignore their cries for might/wis/whatever. It makes things much easier.

If you have half decent gear go try it. If you don't, go do some healbotting first and pick up some stuff.
Your pug will still be amazed, even if you make one or the other mistake. Its kinda simple to impress some randoms, because we are like ubar imbalanced in nonheroics.

But make sure you bring tons of manapotions and demonic runes for the ogre dude.

I wouldn't recommend doing low-instances, it won't help you at all.
AV could be kinda frustrating. Warmasters are no common elites, in fact they hit harder than most heroic trash does.
Especially Drek will just destroy you, like he does with every newb equipped tank. And your like 10k hp won't make it any better
Just tanked him with a renew half an hour ago, but i remember those times where he killed me little tankadin during his 2 second knockdown

P.S.: Yeah i have to edit like 200 times, because i suck so much and gotta practice my english. Hope you understand the shit i write, i have no clue anymore, schools over since a few years :>

[Vanifae]

If you plan to practice tanking in AV then I am not sure you would know what you are doing but you bring up good points.

My only advice then is do an actual instance with friends/guildies who want to have fun.

[corc]

My only advice then is do an actual instance with friends/guildies who want to have fun.

That my friend, is all the advice you need

[Everlight]

Don't do AV, it's an exercise in frustration as every nub warrior in greens with a 2-hander will chain-taunt mobs off you constantly.

My advice is go and solo something easy like Scarlet Monastery, then work your way up to Blackrock Depths, so you get the hang of your abilities, how to control your mana, and how to deal with many mobs at once while under fire. You'll also be solo, so you can take your time and get the hang of things at your own pace. And it's pretty low risk, just bubblehearth if it looks too dire

Then grab a bunch of friends who just want to have fun and don't care if they win or lose, and go smash something easy like Ramparts or Blood Furnace. Move your way up from there to Shattered Halls, then from there hit Steamvaults (for practice on more complex pulls involving casters), then Shadow Labyrinth.

That should do you for practice

[PsiVen]

Shattered Halls is definitely the best learning grounds. If you're even mildly competent your groupmates will love you and demand that you run them through six more times tonight.

[Phaex]

P.S.: the most evil thing in AV are those feral druids. They are truly evil. Look at me i'm a mighty bear i'm gonna taunt everything off you all the time because i'm so evil and have no life. Theres like ten of them chaintaunting drek. Every game. Oh my god.
The warrior taunters in greens are good for a laugh at least.

Just 4k more honor... gotta.. get in there again... gotta... NOOO

[Xanatos]

Even though I did warn you off AV cos you won't be getting heals, the best way to train tanking (for me personally) is to actually try surviving against (1) multimob pulls without a healer and (2) single hard hitting boss - both without a healer.

That was how I began my life as a tankadin (3 manning SM with 2 mages trying to keep myself alive while holding aggro off the mages). This trains your skills in surviving as a tank. After that, try any PUG/guild/friends instance. You will find that the addition of a healer allows you to leave off worrying about keeping yourself alive (beyond the reflex spamming of holy shield and JOR), and worry more about holding aggro, while still keeping a sense of what you should do to keep yourself alive.

It worked for me but YMMV.