One of the first, and most important, is positioning. The most important rule to follow here, I think, is:

Always face whatever you’re fighting away from the group.

There are far and away huge numbers of abilities which can be used by both bosses and trash mobs which only attack the front of the enemy. Examples include:

• Cleaves
• Fire breaths
• AoE attacks (such as Dark Smash)

By facing the boss away from where the group starts, you also gain two extra advantages – firstly, they don’t need to move before engaging, and two, melee dps can position themselves faster, contributing to group dps. In addition, they’re unlikely to be parried, gaining you that extra bit of survivability.

This doesn’t just apply to bosses, though – in fact it can be useful on trash just as much, if not more so. By facing a trash pack away from the group, you can immediately see when one turns around and starts aiming for someone other than you. In addition, because you’ll usually have cleared up to where you’re currently standing, the only place patrols are going to come from places you sqaurely between them and the rest of the group. A quick AoE threat effect, whether it be swipe, thunder clap, consecrate, or whatever, will pick them up before anyone else has a chance to get eaten.

As tank, there’s another important point about positioning – keep out of the AoE. it sounds simple, but time and again I’ve seen tanks stand in the AoE oblivious to the fact that they’re getting the melee dps killed slowly (or not so slowly). Always keep an eye out, and move away. This especially applies to delayed-action effects, such as landmines, which will kill dps if they don’t notice it’s been laid. It’s a guarantee that they won’t, too, if the mine’s in the middle of a whole bunch of other things they’re still trying to kill.

Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule. Certain bosses in Ulduar require that the entire raid stand in fromt of the boss, for example. Some other bosses need as many people as possible in the AoE because its damage is divided between everyone it hits. On the whole, though, keeping whatever you’re fighting facing away from the vast majority of everyone else is a habit that everyone should be in.

Next time (whenever that is), I’ll try to talk a little about target prioritisation.

And now, are things changing? Well, maybe. In the patch notes, we see that bonus shield block value on items is being doubled. “So what?” I hear you ask. “My regular tanking gear has almost no bonus SBV as it is”. True, neither does mine. But hidden away in the cupboard, destined only to come out for certain fights, is another set of gear, my Shield Block Value set. And I can see things changing here – rather than some people using Frost Resistance gear on Hodir, I can see all of us moving to using SBV gear because it will mitigate Frozen Blows in its entirety.

There’s the rub. This change isn’t huge, but it does introduce choice in how we gear that was less present. Sure, for someone like General Vezax, who hits for 30k, isn’t going to be the fight you use your SBV gear on – a chance for a 10% reduction in incoming damage is nothing – but there are plenty of other fights where the melee hits come more often and for less. A good example might be the crusher tentacles of Yogg-Saron, where a good amount of block value (especially with shield block up) would help immensely.

Something tells me we haven’t seen the last of these changes – maybe a change in the percentage block you get per point of block rating will crop up too – but I’m intrigued as to what we’ll end up with. More choice over what gear is feasible can only be a good thing.

But – there’s yet more changes on the way! Defensive stance’s damage penalty is being reduced to 5%, down from 10%. That’s quite a serious increase in threat, and I think it’ll help a great deal. I wouldn’t say that Warrior threat is inherently bad, but when compared with other similarly-geared tanking classes, I’ve found I have to work very hard indeed on occasion to keep up with them, all other things being equal.

Of course, all things are not equal. But it’s nice to get a buff that will help wit threat as much as that one. And as gear increases, the threat game is gradually coming back into force. Rumours of its death, I always thought, were overstated.

I’m still wondering what will happen with Heroic Strike – an ability which requires a ridiculous number of keypresses at present, and one which the developers have said will be improved. I, and my RSI, await the solution with interest.

As for the oft-promised changes to how rage decays when shifting stances – they’ve been dropped. This doesn’t affect me so much because I rarely PvP, and I tend to use Battle Stance once in a blue moon to spam Execute on a boss while tanking it, or Beserker Stance of I really, really need to Intercept something. The extra tools that the changes might have afforded us might have been nice, but you can’t miss what you’ve never had. Maybe they’ll resurface in a future patch – we’ll see.

As for the patch date – it has to be within a month, because of the changes to Noblegarden. There’s still a lot going on though, so I’d wager on it being nearer April 7th /8th than any other time. Plenty of time for even more changes to make my current thoughts obsolete!

Yes, the abilities have changed. The buttons we press to engage the enemy are not the same buttons we pressed back when I started playing back in patch 1.9. It’s now possible for any number of classes to tank – Death Knights, Paladins and Druids have joined Warriors in being able to hold aggro and not die. But so what?

• You are not the buttons you press to keep aggro.
• You are not your class.
• You are not the gear you wear, nor the buffs you give out.
• You are not a beautiful and unique, heavily armoured snowflake, and your toon is the same collection of fleeting pixels as everybody else’s.

Apologies to Chuck Palahniuk.

The role of the tank is, and will continue to be, the one who can hold onto aggro. That’s all. Keep everybody alive by being less squishy than everyone else. Whether that’s in AoE situations, by hitting shield slam, or swipe, saving shield wall for the right situation, or just doing your damnedest to spam taunt, tanking hasn’t changed.

What has changed is our tools. We now have bigger and more varied tools at our disposal. The tools doth not make the player – a good tank is a good tank regardless of what abilities he has to hand. Tanking is all about spatial awareness, positioning and quick reactions (when it’s necessary to save someone). That hasn’t changed.

Better tools might mean that we have a more interesting time than we did before, but the buttons we press are so low down the list of things that make a good tank they may as well be near the bottom.

Playstyles have changed. But that doesn’t mean that tanking has.

Now, it looks as if history is repeating itself. True, I have my Eternally Folded Blade, but will King Ymirion give up the coveted Red Sword of Courage? Hell no. It seems I’m resigned to hoping that I’ll see the Naxx-10 trash sword before the Utgarde Pinnacle one drops.

Also, what’s with all the slow tanking weapons? I know Death Knights can dual wield tank, but even with two slow one-handers, parry gibbing is going to cause problems, surely?

This is the frustration I see – lots of tanking weapons, but none dropping. And half the ones available are severely non-optimal in terms of speed.

I seem to recall that this was mentioned in one of the discussions at Blizzcon or the Worldwide Invitational, and that it would be harder for tanks to reach the new number (540 defense skill) this time around.

This hasn’t been the case – with minimal reputation farming, I was able to get all the rep-based defense pieces and get to 540 defense with minimum hassle and gemming / enchanting straight defense on almost nothing. In fact I found it so easy that I went back and re-enchanted some gear for health rather than defense, I was so far over the limit.

Now, however, I have a problem. Almost all the heroic and Naxx-10 gear I’ve come across has hardly any defense rating in comparison. True, once I’ve made my armor plated combat shotgun and sorted out the titanweave enchant on my cloak, I’ll be a bit healthier, but at the moment it’s disheartening to see all these upgrades drop and then have to grub around trying to work out how to get my def skill up again.

So, no, it wasn’t hard to reach uncrittable status. It’s a lot harder to keep it (and the next time someone refers to 540 defense as a cap, I’ll scream. It’s not a cap – every skillpoint over 540 gives you more avoidance and block).

In other news, I’ve seen plenty of Naxx bosses now. And the one thing about Naxx that strikes me is that while the encounters are a lot of fun, it’s a horribly ugly instance especially compared to everywhere else in lich king. Half the textures look like they’ve been borrowed from Undercity too. WTB [more Eye Candy] please!

In my last raids, I have been number 3 in ZA several times, and was number 2 for our last Kara run

Now, far be it from me to complain about a protection warrior doing decent dps, but there’s something wrong there from my point of view. If the tank, who by definition, is wearing a set of gear which maximises survivability, is topping, or coming close to topping, the dps meters then there’s something seriously wrong somewhere.

I am of course assuming that Kadomi is geared similarly to the rest of her group, and that Daughters of the Horde are very much at the casual end of the spectrum, however to me if the DPS are struggling to out-damage the tank, there’s something not quite right somewhere, whether it’s in their rotations, their choice of spells or even how they have gemmed and enchanted their gear (if they even have).

So, my point, long winded as it is, is that yes, tanks can do reasonable dps these days, but if the players who are supposed to be doing the most damage aren’t, then everyone should work together until they are back in the right place again.

If tanks could do an equal amount of damage to the dps players, what would the point of taking the squishier people with you be?

The encounter, however, brings a lot to the fore, in particular with respect to what’s coming up in the not too distant future with respect to Shield Block and Block Value. At the moment shield block is twice every few seconds, and blocks a small amount of damage. It’s changing to once every 20s (at most) and blocking a lot more. This is important for Reliquary, because for the first phase (2 million damage or so) you get no healing, apart from Last Stand (if you think that counts – it definitely helps). With the incoming changes to block value (you get 250% of block value from strength compared to TBC), suddenly if you have a high block value you’ll take loads less damage from every blocked hit, even if you can’t rely on the blocks happening as often. The entire first phase will suddenly become so much easier.

And it’s here that a thought occurs. What we currently call “passive uncrushable” will be hugely desirable for tanks in Wrath of the Lich King. Every block will block a huge chunk of damage, even more so given the itemization of warrior gear in the expansion toward Strength. I’ll coin a term now – passive defense. As your passive defense (ie what we used to call block plus parry plus dodge plus miss) tends toward 102.4%, the amount of damage you take will fall off rapidly. I won’t go so far as to say that every unblocked attack will have the effect of a crushing blow today, but a slightly lesser version perhaps. Effectively the crushing blows have been removed from the combat table by making every blow crush. Ouch.

And in case you were wondering, yes, all bosses including WoW classic and TBC will lose their ability to crush too – the mechanic is being changed so that only adversaries 4 levels above or more can crush. Bosses are fixed at 3 levels.

One last thing – Blizz, if you’re listening, can I please have a new shield that doesn’t look just like my old one?

- If, by Rudyard Kipling

I’ve been a raidleader in my time (though I don’t currently lead anything other than the odd Zul’Aman) and after hearing from various friends about how their raid leaders operate, I’d like to think I have a handle on what makes a good or bad raidleader. We should bear in mind, though, that the best raidleader in the world will have an off day.

Who should raidlead?

Anyone can raidlead, but some classes’ players are going to be better disposed toward leading than others. In particular the “big picture” is important here. Knowing exactly when to call a wipe is important, so as many attempts at a boss can be made in as short a time as possible. Also it helps to be at range so that you can see what is going on in a physical sense – who’s failing to run out of the fire, who’s beig slower to pick up than you’d like, and so on.

For this reason, I think the best raidleaders are healers. They already have the information at their fingertips and they’re far away from the action that they can keep an eye on other things that might be happening. That’s not to say other classes can’t raid-lead – part of the reason for my information-junkie UI is so that I have a good idea of what is going on – but by having your raidleader heal, they’re paying attention to all the information they would be paying attention to anyway.

The Start of Good Raid Leadership

Good leadership starts well before you’ve set foot in the instance. It involves picking a group that you think will do well against the bosses that you’ll be facing, but also not min/maxing too much. If you down a boss much more quickly than you expect, you may well find the next boss is impossible if you’ve tailored the group too tightly to a single encounter. More than that, ensure that you’re giving a fair exposure to each of your raiders to the content. If you stick with the same team for too long, the members you pick will get complacent about their position and those on the outside will start to resent their own situation.

Also, make sure that everyone knows the tactics for the fight. Drop a link to somewhere like BossKillers or MMO Champion on your guild forums, and start a discussion based on it. Usually there are a few different options you can try, and by getting everyone involved in discussing what they think is going to be the best way, you’re that much more likely to have your raiders actually read up on the encounters.

Stay Cool

In the face of insurmountable incompetence this is sometimes hard, but it’s absolutely necessary. Nobody enjoys being shouted at. Different people have different strategies for managing this. The first, and most prime of these is to have an area you can vent into – whether that be your guild’s officer channel, a private chat channel containing your closest friends, or whatever. Just make sure the people in that channel know that you’re merely venting and don’t mean anything by it.

Don’t raise your voice over TeamSpeak / Ventrilo / Voice Chat. It doesn’t help, and especially don’t swear. There are exceptions to this latter rule. If you’re like some people I know who curse every third word then so long as it’s in your normal tone of voice it’s not going to cause too many problems. Other than that, try not to be confrontational – if someone’s having problems with something then approach them in private, or better yet get a member of their own class (perhaps an officer) to have a few words. Giving criticism and approaching people in private with concerns in a positive way speaks volumes for how much you view them as a raider, even if deep down you’re cursing their very existence.

Different leaders have different ways of dealing with frustration. I tend to use an air of enforced relaxation to assist with this. After the tenth attempt on a boss with frustration building throughout the raid, everyone will be annoyed with progress. Even if you as the leader are too, don’t let it show. Put on a relaxed, calm and confident voice, discuss what’s going wrong with your raiders and keep at it. If you sound confident, your raid will assume you are confident, and that confidence will spread to them. On the other hand, don’t overdo it and sound cocky – that will get you and the raid nowhere fast.

Have Fun

Finally, and most importanly, if you’re not enjoying yourself, the rest of your raid won’t either. Let your enjoyment be infectious!

No more Crushing Blows. That’s the big implication of what we’re seeing. It’s huge, and it looks like Warriors are being repositioned slightly to be more in the manner that Druids tank now. It’s fair that we’re no longer going to be the primary anti-magic tanks – that’s the Death Knights’ job – and versatility is remaining the name of the game.

The change to Anticipation simultaneously concerns me and excites me – from its current 20 Defense it’s being switched to 5% dodge. That’s a massive increase in the avoidance that it gives, but on the other hand, it’s going to make gear flexibility harder. One of the big reasons I currently have 5/5 anticipation is the extra cushion this gives me to swap in resistance and avoidance gear and still remain uncrittable without resorting to Resilience.

I’m having a hard time imagining what Improved Shield Block is for now – previously an essential talent, I get the impression it’s going to be relegated to the league of useless. My main concern is current bosses with the new talent trees – suddenly I’ll be taking a lot more crushing blows because they are still present on the table and I can’t guarantee to block them. This is concerning, and I hope something is done to current bosses to address this.

A combination of Improved Shield Bash and Shield Mastery are going to make for big Shield Slam crits – just the ticket for keeping threat. Add to that Sword and Board and suddenly Shield Slam is even better for threat than before. I look forward tostrings of Shield Slam crits with this (yeah, yeah, I can dream).

Safeguard puzzles me a lot – yes, it’s going to be something you can do as an offtank to reduce incoming damage, but I’m concerned that encounters are going to be written into the game that require timely use of the ability. Talents shouldn’t be required for any encounter. Similarly Critical Block just doesn’t do anything for me, unless we start getting to 50% block value through gear (and how I don’t want that to happen), and even then it looks like a rage starvation opportunity more than anything else.

Finally we have Shockwave. It’s nice, an upgraded Concussion Blow, but I do wonder how often I’ll actually use it. One of those “Oh, $£%!” talents, I guess.

I’ll leave you with this build, which I’m pondering for when WoW 3.0 comes out, most likely a month or so before the expansion. I should mention I’m planning on levelling as Protection, and probably ending up with something like this.