So like Moroes, I’ve been off-tanking this guy since we started the instance, but unlike Moroes, I got to be there for our second kill.

Because I don’t get on in time for most start-times, I am typically swapped in for people that leave for sleep, get too frustrated to continue, and so on. So I tend to miss Maulgar most nights and the quicker this goes, the less likely it’ll be that I’ll see Gruul again in the future. Therefore, I try to be available to come when I am on.

Last night was one of those times.

My job on Gruul has always been to eat the Hurtful Strikes. Hurtful Strikes target #2 on the aggro table (who is also in range) and start at over 12k unmitigated damage. Every so often, Gruul grows and gets stronger. As he does, his Hurtful Strikes get nastier and nastier, and starting around Growth 2 or 3, he’s one-shotting anyone not in Plate or Bear form.

This makes it critical to pace the MT and stay in range when you’re eating the strikes. You can imagine my horror when on the second attempt I was present for, my WoW client crashed.

Our Main Tank is also our Guild Master (Devilcs) and he’s an awe-inspiringly good tank. He does things that reassure you that Warriors well-played are in no danger of replacement by Bears. He cares about his gear and his role and it shows. The only problem is that I can easily outstrip his aggro if I’m not careful.

My job is to stay #2 and in melee range. It’s not a hard job, really. What’s hard sometimes is keeping behind him while also maintaining a comfortable lead on the more enthusiastic dps. Still, more than once, he asked for a Misdirect to get a comfortable lead back, all while I had reverted to auto-attacking and keeping my Lacerate stack up.

So we wiped once and ran back. I think I wasn’t in range quite fast enough and a couple dpsers dropped, people panicked and shatters started the cascade to doom.

On the second try though, we were amazing. People avoided Shatters, we battle rezzed the fallen quickly, and Devil and I kept our aggro way over the rest of the raid. Then it happened: WoW crashed.

Everything stopped moving, the client started to ding repeatedly at me, and suddenly Devil said over Vent (I was still in Vent — where I listen but don’t talk due to where I play), “Where’s Currant? I can’t see her on the aggro list.”

Everyone started to mention it and they started to look for my character while I frantically tried to shut down the crashed instance of WoW to restart it. They found me still under Gruul and online but off the aggro list.

I killed it and fired the game back up and logged in as fast as I could. When I got back in, no one had died and I was still second on the aggro list! I rushed back to building threat, knowing that Devil had a lead I’d never overcome, and we nailed Gruul only losing 3 people by the end.

My character never left the game and kept her spot as second on the aggro list as far as I can tell because when I got back in, I almost immediately ate another Strike.

Score one for the Bear.

Related Posts

• Unworthy …
• What to Know…
• My Girl

I am currently my guild’s premier Druid tank (though I may be losing this distinction soon due to my lousy playing schedule). As such, I ought to have a lot to say about tanking and how to do it…but I don’t know that I’m really qualified to teach people to tank.

That said, I am often asked how I tank, what advice I can give other people when they tank, and so on. Well, for what it’s worth, here you go:

LOOK BEHIND YOU, BEAR!

The number one thing to keep in mind with a tank – any tank, not just a Druid tank – is situational awareness. More than anything else, the player of a tank must be in a state of zen-like unity with her or his surroundings.

Though this seems like common sense, you’d be surprised how many tanks have what amounts to tunnel vision. They grab a single target and lock it down. Unfortunately, the rest of the spawn is running amok during this time.

Don’t be afraid to rotate your camera to watch the battlefield. Patrols are common in instances and can often wander into the spot you’ve chosen to fight in if you’re unlucky or careless and it’s imperative that they get picked up either by you or by your CC options.

IF YOU LOVE SOMEONE, SET THEM FREE

One of the hardest things to realize when you’re tanking is that sometimes, you need to let a mob go. This is less of an option in a Heroic, to be sure, but sometimes, you need to just watch a mob peel off and let your dps handle it. Counterintuitive? You bet, but it’s critical to effective tanking.

The biggest hurdle to this tactic is trust. You have to be able to trust that the rest of the team is as interested in keeping up the squishies as you are, and that they’ll re-apply CC or burn the loose mob fast. Sometimes, keeping the mobs you have is all you can do while your dps is burning them down and only one of them has to hit the loose one.

Sometimes you can’t, though, and it’s crucial to know when you can and can’t. I’d rather break a sheep than let a mob run amok with the squishies, but if you can exercise the self-control needed and have the trust necessary, let a few of them go.

I most often exercise this option with caster mobs, even in Heroics, especially with a good Rogue around. The Rogues I run with are excellent at grabbing a caster mob and burning them down all while stunning, kicking and gouging the crap out of them to keep them from doing much of anything in return. I find I can usually ignore 1-2 casters completely while my Rogue friends demolish them.

Find dps like this. Love them. Feed them the blood of your enemies.

GOOD GRIEF, THAT’S A LOT OF BAD GUYS!

Crowd Control and Kill Order.

One of the jobs you’ll often have as the tank is marking targets. This can be EXTREMELY intimidating if you don’t know the instance and the mobs in question, but it’s crucial that you know how to do it.

Without getting specific, it’s hard to say what’s best but there are some general guidelines you can follow to make things easier on the rest of the group.

BANISH

This is usable not only on Elementals, but on demons. Banish removes the target from combat completely for 30 seconds. While situational, it can be incredibly effective in the Shadow Labyrinth schoolroom or in Botanica.

The best part of Banish is that it doesn’t heal the target like Polymorph does.

You can’t screw this one up.

ENSLAVE DEMON

Even more situational than Banish, Enslave Demon can be used only on…you guessed it…farmers in Elwynn Forest! Oh…wait.

Enslave Demon is a bit like having another pet but lasts up to 5 minutes. Sometimes I go into a second pull with an enslaved demon in the group. It’s re-applicable, but not reliably. I recommend killing it between pulls more often than trying to get maximum mileage. Most Warlocks I run into these days have pitiful Stamina pools and don’t often survive the loving ministrations of their erstwhile companions.

This is another one safe from Tanking mishaps.

FREEZING TRAP

The most frequently seen Hunter trap is the Freezing Trap and it’ll be the one you mark for. Thematically, the blue block raid icon works almost universally for this.

The most important thing to keep in mind with this trap is that it is more difficult for a Hunter to use this trap on a ranged mob. Casters and Hunter mobs are notoriously difficult for a Hunter to coax into this trap. What that means is that short of a short ranged silencing shot or counterspell you shouldn’t generally be assigning a ranged mob to the Hunter for CC.

This CC is re-applicable which means you can leave the CC’d mob alone while you focus on the others, provided it isn’t resisted and the Hunter is aware enough to re-apply it. Watch for resists.

Most importantly with respect to Freezing Trap is that you will sometimes find yourself chasing a loose mob only to have it stop moving in a block of ice. Do whatever you can to avoid tagging it because that’s the number one way you’ll break Freezing Trap. Though it is re-applicable it is not as quickly re-applicable as some other forms of CC.

HIBERNATE

Your CC. While beasts are not common in most instances, they do exist and you shouldn’t write yourself out of the CC responsibilities. As a sleep effect, Hibernate will break on damage and the aggro from the CC effect is questionable.

While Hibernate is technically re-applicable, you’ll be tanking so unless you have a Druid healer or Boomkin, it is effectively a weak Sap for beasts though usable at range.

If someone else is doing this for you, keep an eye out for the target because it’s easy to miss with only little green Z’s coming off their heads.

MIND CONTROL

This one is tricky. Sometimes your Priest will be your only healer, and other times, the Priest won’t be overly comfortable with the practice. While re-applicable, it can take your only healer out of the equation, though if it doesn’t it is very effective.

Often, the Priests I run with will grab a Melee mob to dps with, or a caster mob to burn off all their mana and maybe heal for us.

Note that the longer a Priest does this the harder it’ll be to peel the mob off them when it breaks. Other than not re-acquiring the mob quickly, you can’t hurt Mind Control.

POLYMORPH

Perhaps the greatest CC option in the game. Usable on Beasts and Humanoids (oh, and Critters, but who cares beyond the humor value of turning a sheep into…a sheep), it covers a LOT of ground.

Polymorph in all three flavors (Sheep, Pig, Turtle) is usable at range, is reapplicable, and lasts a long time. Additionally, Mages can Frost Nova for distance then pause to reapply and go back to blasting.

There are two major concerns when using Polymorph.

First is that when it breaks, any patrols that are nearby may be brought to the fight by the angry mob. For this reason, smart Mages often wait for the mob to close a little rather than pulling with the spell (which also gains them other unwanted attentions).

The other problem is breaking the sheep. This is your bag, and that of anyone in melee or using AoE. Broken sheep is the surest way to annoy a Mage aside from asking for Water with a Warrior. Many mages adopt a You-Break-It-You-Tank-It approach, but those with more experience under their belts understand that things happen and sheep WILL be broken from time to time.

Reapplicable CC is why I made my earlier admonishment to let mobs go sometimes, too. I most often break sheep trying to grab a loose mob that a Mage is already working on.

SAP

Your Rogue CC. VERY effective, doesn’t break stealth in any spec now, but only applicable out of combat.

The biggest thing to consider when marking for Sap is to pick something the Rogue can actually get to. Marking something on the inside of a spawn will only annoy the Rogue. They tend to Sap whatever they want when you do that.

Additionally, there are some mobs that cannot be approached for Sap due to the ability to see through Stealth. As Sap is not re-applicable, the Sap target should be prioritized over re-applicable CC victims.

As the Sap target will often be a way off, you have little fear of breaking this one. Just be sure you give the Rogue time to apply it before you pull.

SEDUCTION

Yet another Warlock spell, and one that’s frequenly overlooked. It is perhaps the swapping out of pets that makes so many Warlocks resist this one, but it is often crucial. It’s very short duration so the target should be prioritized immediately after single-use CC, however, and seems to break a lot. Happily, the target usually seems more concerned with the Succubus than the Warlock.

It is only usable on Humanoids. Still, use it when you have it just watch it like your life depended on it.

SHACKLE

Polymorph for Undead targets. Your Priest should be doing this for undead mobs the same way you should be using Hibernate on animals. If your Priest is healing though, don’t expect it to be re-applied and treat it as such. Multiple applications in addition to healing aggro can make the targets of this spell VERY hard to peel off. Keep Growl handy and watch for the golden chains.

One misplaced Swipe and your Priest could be eating a Cleave.

FEARS

Fear is an often mis-used ability. Priests, Warriors, Warlocks, Hunters and Paladins all have usable Fears that vary by target and targetability.

Priest Fear is multi-target and indiscriminate. Warrior Fear hits multiple targets but leaves their target unaffected. Hunter Fear works only on animals and Paladin fear works only on Undead.

Warlock Fear…now this is fun. The same reason we all hate Warlocks in PvP is why we should love them in PvE. More than once I’ve watched a Warlock fear a mob and dot them to death, effectively locking down and soloing the mob. I kept trying to grab it only to have it run away and finally it just dropped dead. I didn’t know what to think until the Warlock explained it to me.

Back when 60 was the cap, I remember using my Paladin’s Turn Undead to frighten away an undead add during the Alexei Barov fight. It made an otherwise very difficult fight very easy.

STUNS

Cheap Shot, Kidney Shot, Hammer of Justice, Blackout…all these things are cheap but sometimes effective mitigation and crowd control. Don’t be afraid to use them.

The point with all this is that knowledge is your greatest asset while tanking. Knowledge of your surroundings, knowledge of other classes, knowledge of your enemies…all are critical. Tanks need to be smart and aware in marked contrast to the popular image of tanks being stupid meatshields with no finesse. Just because it’s your job to get hit, doesn’t mean you have no call to understand more than just how crits and crushes work and how to juggle Stamina with Dodge.

Generally, CC that isn’t reapplicable should be top priority after finishing with loose mobs. You should also consider CC that seems to be breaking often or early and tend to those if you have time, sometimes before going after the Saps or your own Hibernates.

Burn casters before melee if you can, they’re squishy and the expenditure of party resources has the highest payoff in doing so. Melee targets are the least of your worries as a Druid tank.

Be aware and your teams will love you. In a future post I’ll cover gearing, grouping, and more.

Related Posts

• Bear Ass Tank
• Hammer’s Slammers
• Instance Guide: Black Morass

Meet Morgause. Decidedly undruidly, isn’t she? If you weren’t able to tell from her burly companion and all-too-cliche visage, she’s a Warlock. She’s also my latest level 70 character and my dedicated leather and herb farmer (gg two production tradeskills on Phaelia). So while I may take every opportunity to poke fun at just how OP Warlocks might be are, I must confess I’ve opted to “join them,” at least for brief daliances on the dark side to pick flowers and skin innocent woodland creatures.

And, before you ask, I have no intentions of switching mains. My face gets too tired from rolling across the keyboard to kill things.

Related Posts

• Top 10 WoW Memories
• Instance Guide: Black Morass
• A Quest (or Five) a Day …

My guild has been in Gruul’s Lair since July 26th when we first downed Maulgar, but we’ve run into a serious roadblock with Gruul himself. I think we’ve finally mastered the Shatter avoidance (by assigning each group a quadrant of the room to avoid clumping and having everyone run Deadly Boss Mods), but we just can’t seem to keep our main tank alive. I try to keep HoTs stacked on him at all times, especially when Silence is impending, and I make sure to pop Barkskin on every Shatter. But it hasn’t been enough. Help a Tree out — does anyone have any tips that I could share for our next attempt on Wednesday?

Edit: As of Wednesday, August 30th, Aegis Hestia got Gruul down to 15% at 12 Growths, a 16% improvement over our prior attempts. Thank you to everyone for the advice!

Edit #2: On Monday, September 3rd, Aegis Hestia took down Gruul for the first time, with just 8 guild members still standing! The thrill of victory was only surpassed by the thrill of picking up a set of Gruul’s Teeth! Thanks again, everyone!

Related Posts

• Gruul vs. Bear
• Top 10 WoW Memories
• Added Responsibility, Guild Strength, and New Earrings!

Phaelia has and probably always will be my main character. I first created her in the open beta (albeit with blue-green hair and a different hairstyle) and recreated her on the first day of release. From level 10, she’s been specced Restoration. Because my husband was levelling a Retribution-specced Paladin at the time, it was no issue for me to remain healing-specced for the journey to level 60. Sure, I used Cat Form when jumping from high places, but Bear Form didn’t even have a cute dance yet so it saw little use. Of course, before the release of the Burning Crusade, itemization and scaling issues made the two Druid offspecs much less viable than the classes they were intended to emulate. Many, many Druids found themselves respeccing into Restoration at the end game, especially if they had any desire to raid.

Burning Crusade brought a host of very positive changes for the Druid class, not the least of which was an overall improvement of itemization for our Feral tree (Moonkin still rely primarily upon cloth drops, unfortunately). New abilities such as Mangle made us more competitive with Warriors and Rogues (too competitive, unfortunately, as Bear damage was nerfed due to Warrior complaints). With these changes, many Druids who were previously pigeonholed into Restoration found themselves free to spec how they pleased. Feral tanks were suddenly very much in demand, while Restoration Druids had trouble finding a place in 5-mans due to out of combat Ressurection woes. Moonkin still struggle because of weak (some would argue nonexistent) crowd control, but overall, the relative damage output of the spec became more competitive with that of Mages.

The end result of all of these changes is that, once the vast majority, the population of Restoration Druids has shrunk dramatically. Many former Trees respecced to Bear and Cat as they had long yearned to do while others found they’d enjoyed levelling Balance-specced and remained laser chickens. Restoration Druids are a rare breed now, and — with the viability of the Dreamstate spec — it’s even more rare to find a Tree-specced Druid. Perhaps this is the reason that so many guild recruitment posts list Restoration Druids as a High Priority these days. Because while our mana efficiency may not compare to that of Shamans or Paladins, the power of stacked heals over time cannot be denied.

According to statistics compiled by The Build Mine, of 76371 Druids analyzed, Druids by spec broke down as follows:

• Feral Combat: 58.74% (31+), 57.48% (41+)
• Restoration: 26.74% (31+), 23.48% (41+)
• Balance: 14.47% (31+), 12.27% (41+)

Those numbers are pretty significant when considering that Restoration Druids probably made up 75% or more of all Druids before the Burning Crusade. So if speccing Feral is so much more rewarding today, why stay Restoration? I can’t answer for everyone, but I see several reasons to remain Restoration-specced:

• A good healer can help compensate for poor tanking or crowd control.

  Throw enough heals at a problem (in an intelligent, efficient manner), and you can make up for a lot of typical group deficiencies.

• Everyone can DPS, but not everyone can heal.

  Every class has at least one talent tree dedicated to DPS. Even those classes that were considered “main healers” at the outset of the game have the option to spec into something other than healing. Someone who specs for healing has made the conscious choice to sacrifice soloability to provide better support to her comrades. Many enjoy the feeling they get from making such a sacrifice (self-martyrdom).

• Restoration is currently the most viable spec for competitive PvP.

  This is unfortunate given the general propensity of Feral-specced Druids to want to Maul faces. A host of issues stemming from Blizzard’s philosophy that “hybrids should perform at X% of the capacity of the classes they emulate” make Restoration our most viable option and even then, Paladins often outperform Druids with less effort.

• Role competition is more interesting.

  Unlike the competition among DPS classes (where there basically exists an infinite amount of damage that can be dealt), there exists only a finite amount of healing that can be performed. This means that reaction time plays a larger role in the performance of healers than it often does for DPS classes. Any healer can put up large amounts of healing, but much of that might be ineffective healing of a target already at full life. Of course, this is less and less a measure of a good healer due to Druids’ increased reliance upon heals over time (which tick away ineffectually should the recipient be topped off by another).

• Multiple healers can back each other up.

  Unlike tanking where generally 1-2 players are responsible for the entirety of the role, a raid often includes 3 or more healers who help back each other up, lightening the responsibility borne by any individual. This scenario often leads to camraderie among healers (although I’m sure the same could be said for DPSers or tanks and offtanks).

• Less loot competition.

  This is particularly true of 5-man instances where it’s rare to have more than one healer present. As the size of the group increases, however, the percentage of healers also increases (from 20% to 30% or more), but luckily healers come in all shapes and sizes (cloth, leather, mail, and plate) and are often encouraged to focus on different stats so even then, loot competition is often less dramatic than that faced by DPS classes.

• Healing items often tend toward a more feminine appearance.

  This was especially true before the additions of the Malorne and Nordrassil armor sets which homogenized the appearance of our specs (when in caster form). To many this might seem a superficial concern, but as a female player, I admit a certain preference toward more feminine attire. Healing robes such as Primal Mooncloth and the Masquerade Gown flatter my avatar and make her more enjoyable to look at and, in turn, play.

These are just a few of the reasons that I am and will probably always be “Resto4Life.” For those of you who also find yourself specced to heal, what are the reasons? And for those of you who are not, what made you choose your spec instead?

Related Posts

• The Good, the Bad, and the Hybrid
• My Girl
• Wrath Recap