How do you explain your lower health?

A lot of times when a pug is looking for a tank, they'll ask me what my defense and health are. They never ask me what my block value is or what my avoidance stats are like. Is there a simple way to explain to them how I'm better than most PUG tanks they'll find even though I might have less health?

On a related note, my guild is starting 25-man naxx soon and I'd like to be considered for maintanking (I've found it's much more stress free than running around trying to pick up adds). My guild respects me as a tank, but it will be hard to compete with the warrior tank who has 3k more health than me unbuffed even though I'm block capped with 5% more pure avoidance than him and considerably more block value (especially with libram).

My Armory

Warrior Armory

I'm tempted to jump on the stamina bandwagon.

Edit: because armory doesn't show it, I have all the blacksmithing sockets with +16 defense gems in them.

The gun is a big factor in it other than that i can see some major typos on the Armory so im not sure
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Hinata of Crit Happens - 80 - Arygos

go tell your guild to parse your warrior tanking grand widow faerlina while enraged, and then you, and see who takes less damage

or better yet, see who can live through it.

i don't talk about PV.
(The first rule of Fight Club is, you do not talk about Fight Club. #2 - The second rule of Fight Club is, you DO NOT talk about Fight Club

i talk about my EH

and then i compare already done heroic achievements (or best instance, or specific nice achievement, or number of token) somethings which back up everbody's skill

otherwise, i don't run with idiot, make my life easier

there are some very good PUG but they are not the majority


PS. i don't undestand why this post is on "advanced training" ...

When exactly did people forget about Paladins being complete lol-instance tanks? After about halfway through TBC, you had to drag a group into an instance with a warrior because it would take 2x as long as with a pally.

Just because they don't ask for the stat doesnt mean you can't give it.

just go:

HP - 25k, Def - 541, Block - 25%, Dodge - 18%, Parry - 17%. Quite simple and if they don't take, you well then it was probably a bad group leader anyway. Or hell make your own group.
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Regretful - Female Blood Elf Paladin of Mannoroth
Subject - Male Human Paladin of Arthas (Sold Pre-2.4)

Honestly most people that ask just for your health have no clue, if its a grp of people that know there shit they will normally ask for all your avoidence
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When I'm playing on one of my dps toons, I often use hp to as an estimate of how good a pug tank is. The method goes something like this:

me: Oh crap, the tank only has 1000 more hp than my mage
friend: I sure hope that's not his tanking gear
*tank pulls
me: oh #$^@, everyone run out
*alt-f4

[edit] at the moment, this seems to happen a lot with DK tanks. At least, they say they're tanks.

[edit again] last night I did a normal CoS on my mage with some friends, the only pug was the unholy dk tank. The crittable unholy dk tank that was actually out-dpsing me. Yay wipefest.
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Shadow Council - US - Horde
Xandreth (74) - Prot Paladin - MT (going ret until 75)
Tyrenn (80) - Frostfire Mage
Saege (70) - Resto Druid in training
Staub (63) - DK backup tank

This is why I log out in my tanking gear. =.=
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Rinforce | Rinforze

Tip for new tankers

1) Have a High Stam set programmed into your Outfitter addon.
when joining a new pug raid etc put on your stamina gear. people will only evaluate your gear level by the little box on their UI with your hp and mana. This will get you past the scrubs who think higher stam = a better tank. be sure to click on yournormal tanking gear when you accept the summon tho, as more experienced Raid leaders will inspect you and evaluate you gearing choices more this way.

2) Run recount and show the recounts of you taking less dmg, Mother Sharaz was the best encounter to prove this on during BC as there were 2 OT's taking the same Dmg input for the same amount of time. (i used this to prove the scrubness of our guilds other prot pally).

3) talk to your healers. if you really are better, there is a good chance they will know it and can comment on it. it you really do take less damage then the other tank they should be asking the raidleader to swap tanks.

on a side note, whilst the first tip is helpful with pugs, if they are going to judge you purely on your stam, then save your gold as its not going to be worth the repairbill.

The flippant easy answer is that I dont respond to these questions.

I realize thats harder when you are not in a guild with a solid history of being able to tank.

I really do suggest that you avoid these groups. There are times when numbers matter, but if you start in on this now you'll just be bitter and sad.

How to find good groups:

1: Always be upbeat
2: Never place blame
3: Be willing to die, a lot.


Money is supremely easy to get. Dont sweat it, be the guy who is up for another try, the always calm voice in vent, and you'll find groups.
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Yup. Leadership is our immeasurable tanking stat.

I seldom join PuGs (while often creating them), though honestly on my server I've not yet heard "what's your HP" or "your HP is too low". Usually when I go with complete randoms, I'm spammed by requests for the next couple days.
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Ythalaine - Die Aldor EU

Agreed. Start your OWN groups, and then ask others if they'd like to Heal/DPS. Healer friends will trust you, guildies will, etc.