Preach long time lurker... Amazing series. Like a mental checklist on how to tank right. I have already incorporated 90% of what you were talking about but its that 10% that sets me apart and I was reminded of it here. Thank you for taking the time to make this content.
This series inspired me to talk to my guilds prot warrior for advice on how to play prot and the first dungeon I jumped into as a tank was a VoTW +6 PuG and we 3 chested with no problem. Was a real confidence booster and now I'm tanking keys for guildies and getting into pugs like instantly. It's opened up a part of WoW that I've never even considered trying before and I love it. Thanks mate.
I can't say thank you enough. I have been tanking, healing and mainly dpsing on and off since Vanilla, yet your view on things boosts my motivation so much to keep doing it. Thank you Preach!
This is GOLDEN Preach! I had a great night boosting mythic plus 5 through 9 last night without a healer, and this made me realise why it went so great. I was in charge the whole time, lead the group through the dungeon, called for help, told them to wait for my stacks to drop and so on. We where in constant communication about cooldowns, what we needed for certain pulls, if we could skip a pack or take an extra one for percentage, marking mobs and calling interrupts. We had quite the composition though. Protection Paladin (my alt), Elemental Shaman, Enhancement Shaman and a Fire Mage xD
I’m know I’m late to the party but thanks for this awesome series. I’ve been playing since vanilla and the thought of being the tank “the make or break member” of the group/raid has prevented me from ever trying to play one. I’ve been successful at every other role thus far. I forget how many times my group of friends have been wanting to do something including raids and didn’t because “our tank” wasn’t online lol. I am currently leveling a warrior and will begin tanking once I get my artifact. I will be sure to refer to this series along my journey and again thanks for making content for those like me in the community.
Thanks for this series Preacher. I'm coming back to the game after years away right now. I was a raid lead/prot warrior until Cata dropped. Your vids are reminding me of those little things that made me a good MT and RL, and I'm feeling less apprehensive about finally getting back to it. Srsly. Thanks man.
That point on communication is so important. Despite not liking the responsibilities that come along with tanking since I'm a fairly shy guy, I still tanked through previous expansions and remember calling out taunts and CDs for healers, or whether I'm moving for the group/raid while tanking through BC/Wrath/Cata. So easy to just say "I'm out of CDs and tricks, anybody have any shit they can pull out of their ass?" Or stuff like "My big CD is about to fade." So healers know to start pre-casting heals. Or even just "Pulling him to the wall." Before you start moving so people can start to re-position. Makes all the difference. The reason I love tanking so much is the dance you get to have with the other tank. The communication of when you're taunting, how many stacks you have, stating whether you have the CDs available so the other tank knows if he has to taunt, or like in my paladin's case, telling the other tank I'm giving him Sacrifice or Spellwarding for this upcoming burst. So great, much fun, such rewarding. Plus, you'll still have those moments where everyone is dead and you pull off the last couple percent. Both my guild and my group of friends both gave me the nickname of "Raid boss" because of that shit, but that doesn't mean you don't communicate because you're still baloney by yourself, and nobody wants a sandwich made with nothing but baloney.
really enjoyed this set of videos. as a healer i found great insight, and the will to look at tanks more closely to better understand their weaknesses and strength and how they fit with my own. only raid with one or two classes so never took the time to understand the rest. i am excited to see some improvement to my own play to better move at the tanks pace. thanks mate!
Hey Preacher, this video is the most helpful one in the series for me. You cleared all the concerns i had and now i am going to play my 862 blood dk who is sitting there rotting because i was afraid to tank. Thanks a lot man!!
Thanks for this series, Preach. I'm really looking forward to that healer series you mentioned at the end of this video. Just so happens that I tank our M+ dungeon runs and heal for our raids. Keep up the good stuff, sir!
Really enjoyed this series! Played rDps exclusively when Legion launched. Now have an ilvl 856 guardian druid and loving it. Also realized how squishy my lock and hunter really are (even with "tank" pets). This week will be running my druid through his first mythic+ and leveling my blood DK (who I haven't touched since SoO). Thanks for the inspiration!
I had it last week where the healer decided he was god and pulled the entire ship for me on Mythic while I cried like a little baby. Thankfully the dps was decent and we actually pulled it off. I think I have a few more grey hairs though.
I stepped up volunteering to try tanking for my guild that desperately needed a stable offtank. I had no idea how much I was brutally taught in a couple of weeks until this video reminded me of wipes I caused by dying and healers reminding me to call for a cooldown, to warn them about something etc. Good shit.
thank you preach, I am a druid who has done every role, maxed every spec of every class and this has still helped me where I had an ego but at the same time would always do small pulls cause I would not trust dps or healers to do their job after watching your guides my runs go so much better
You and your videos and their instructions are fanfuckingtastic, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, even. I always love listening to drama time when solo playing, and replaying older videos to get pumped for a raid or whatever. Much love
Pretty much got all my tanking down now thanks for the video's, just looking for a guild that suits me and my wow journey will be proper;y underway, ty Preachy!
Hey Preach. As you spoke about a tanks ego and godmode syndrome I couldnt help myself but smile. Our guild had a tank that left for this very reason. He was in godmode, always blaming others for wipes on progress so on so forth. So he left and joined mythic progress guild. Suprise suprise, he never got to any raid. I dusted off my brewmaster (tanked HFC with it) and tanked instead of him (luckily I was windwalker, so I didnt have to catch up with Artifact knowledge). And I have to say Im glad he did. because m+ dungs are way more fun as a tank.
Totally agree about the ego thing. If there's anything I've learned, having played every role (with a few different classes), it's that each individual person is capable of doing great things that have a big impact of the success of the group. Makes no difference what your role is. The difference is, when you're dps, or even heals most of the time, no one notices the good things you do...until you stop doing them.
I agree with most of what you've said in this series, except for the, "I wish I had X ability" comments. For the most part you are correct in the sense that every class in every role has the tools to deal with whatever the game throws at them, the exception to this is Blood DK. As a Blood DK main in a mythic guild, certain abilities like Cenarius/Odyn Spears you just don't have the same tools. Having to talent into a 25% DR with a 30%DR baseline isn't enough to keep those abilities mitigated like they are intended. The fights are still killable. Iron Bark/Pain Sup work wonders, but blood has such trash AM, we have to have "Recently Used: Death Strike" to "count" as am for certain boss checks when Blood Shield doesn't do anything for mitigation really. It would be nice to have a reliable baseline DR to deal with those things.
I've only tanked in MoP & WoD (on blood DK), but I've also noticed that healers usually aren't aware of how much self-healing tanks do, especially Blood DKs. I had the situation where a Ret pally swapped to Holy in WoD (HFC) and since I was the more smoothed out tank, they stuck him on me. We had fun, killed most of the bosses we wanted to, and I told my paladin friend I never felt in danger & he did a great job. To my surprise, he told me that while he was healing his ass off, he ended up with almost 80% overhealing on me & asked if we could do some Timewalking dungeons to help work on that. I told him to take Beacon off me to see how much raw healing I actually needed. At the time, I had equipped a 2-pc that lowered the CD on Vamp Blood every time I spent RP or runes or something. The whole time, I we were in voicecom and I was actively saying things like "Ok i'm at 60% HP but I can Vamp BLood & do 2 Deathstrikes and then after that I can Anti-Magic Shell to get more RP and anoher death strike or 2 in the Vamp BLood window, and by then a few mobs would have died and i'm not worried about the amount of incoming damage anymore, even though i'm at 60% HP and it LOOKS kinda scary now in this moment". I could almost hear his brain exploding from across the internet. Was a great time, much success was had and his overhealing on me dropped hilariously significantly the next week when we raided again.
This is good advice. Tanks need to communicate and work with their group. In raids this is essential between the tanks and the tanks to healers. You need to respect what others can do for you and call as necessary. If you're really lucky then you're in a good team with the other main tank, you chat, you accept when you've made errors and you look to avoid repeating them. I wouldn't say that tanks should be optimal raid leaders, some fights make it near impossible to call group coordination as tank coordination is completely different to that but the advice about keeping the team alert between pulls is a good one. On Mythic+ there are definite tank types that are good for certain affixes but again, it's about the composition and using the appropriate team. It doesn't solve all problems for necrotic (up to 9+ it's relatively simple but the Mythic 10 affix can destroy that) but it's sensible advice (again). So yh, a nice series on tanking as an introduction, I personally love tanking, there's no better way to control your own enjoyment than to be the tank in a pug.
Okay, I just had smack my forehead moment. I don't call out to raid healers when I have burned my mitigation cool downs and need more healing/attention. Its so obvious now, back in the day my healers new me and so I didn't have to say anything. But the healer who trained me back in Wrath did train me to call out when I was in trouble. Thanks Preach, you just saved my raiding career and made it more fun too.
The point about looking at time in between pulls is actually very big. We were recruiting people at the end of HFC and were having to switch people in and out. Some high progression recruits started looking at our time between pulls and questioning why we were taking so long to clear. In reality it was because we were swapping people in and out but people do look at those things so make sure to stay on top of it.
As someone who has been playing all the healers since Legion's launch almost I wish more tanks I play with would understand a lot of what you covered Preach. I greatly look forward to the healer series to see areas where I can definitely improve, particularly with Mythic + which is my biggest downfall.
The more tanks the better, or at least decent tanks. I`ve played DK since wrath and I`ve tanked OS and MS since then. Everything falls natural for me. But I think more players should try tanking/improve their tanking. These videos are really amazing and well done as a short introduction to tanking. Keep it up PG.
Preach. I purposely MT a brewmaster because people in general state they are not as viable as other tanks. I am constantly researching and mastering my class and I learn something new every run. Sitting at 860 gear and I'm still always learning. People are now inviting me in mythic+ all the time because I'm changing their minds on monks. Be humble as a tank and communicate and any class is viable.
Having 'fun' last night in a +10 BRH, my only other experience of necrotic was a +7 arcway the other day. Blizzard got it sooo right with mythic+ dungeons. We don't raid anymore, but we do dungeons and these give us the opportunity to have fun in dungeons with new and interesting mechanics that completely change the way you play/go through it. The one thing I would say is talk to your healer. When in runs our healer would simply say things like 'got you' 'not got you' and the latter meaning I'm going to have to use something to keep myself alive, be it a cooldown, a stun, kiting, etc.. helps you time your abilities with his and avoids situations where he pops a big cooldown on you and you pop your own at the same time unnecessarily. I'm really enjoying this style of tanking these days, I didn't like it originally.. I was an old skool tank that prided myself on keeping threat but on reflection that didn't really mean much more than just mashing my buttons when I had the rage to. Nowadays I'm thinking about what type of damage I'm taking, what cooldown should I use now and what should I save for that big ability I know is coming? Apart from the abysmal itemisation issues Blizz really got a lot of things right with this exp. :)
omg, this video just dickslapped me, guilty of a lot of of those sins. I might end up owing some apologies here and there.... Still, fuck devastator....
I am not a raid lead, but I am definitely taking on board what you have said about getting out of the god mode mentality and communicating with the group when doing harder M+. I have seen one of the problems with trying to do harder content is the lack of voice communication. This is why I just don't want to do Karazhan outside a guild group and why pugs always ask for absurd gear score.
Hey Preach, thanks for these videos... I'm tanking as a blood DK and I'm loving it. I'm not new to tanking and still enjoy watching these kind of videos. You can never learn enough. But I do have a question... I'm the MT1 for my raid and I have difficulties with the 3rd phase of Odin. My mobility isn't great as a DK, as you well know. My raid and I have made some adjustments to make it easier but I still have difficulties with this and I have tried almost everything but still no luck. I kill most of the dps by running so slowly. Can you give me some advise? Would the feather from the priest still help?
My Blood DK tank became a BEAST once my ilevel hit the 850s. Dungeon crawls became dungeon runs and the entire game, including World Bosses, has become far more enjoyable. This is prob because I no longer have to deal with irritating repair costs and/or guildies being all anxious, bitchy, and neurotic when it comes to signing up for Guild Night activities and then actually showing up.
thx Preach :) i used to tank back in tbc and wotlk,but after i drifted a bit to dps. Now in Legion i picked up my druid and enjoy tanking + your videos help's me remambering,how it used to be back in the days :) huge difference on some dungen runs when i tank or i do dps ....when i tank i don't watch Yoy Tube on the other screen :D
This is such good stuff, as healer i know in 10 seconds if the tank plays with this mindset and if we are going to have fun in anything from HC dungs to higher level raids. Hate throwing Guardian Spirit when the tank had it all planned just to see him die 30 seconds later cos my GS was on CD.
Great videos... You got geared insanely fast lol! Well played I have been playing blood only been 110 for 16hrs almost 840 about ready for some m+ keep up the work bro
Preach one thing to say as well that the EGO effect does not only apply to tanks. I've been a pally tank since TBC pre patch. Using cc in a dungeon was a regular thing to do. But now entering a M+10 after pausing the game for whole Draenor when I'm asking for help or telling someone to slow down as I'm still getting used to some mechanics( i'm 110 not even two months yet) People just charge in and blame me for the fail of the timer at the end. The game got quicker and that is nice- but it lost a lot of the "social" aspects and most ppl in pugs do not care much apart of the tip of their nose...
On the topic of tanks calling out for external CDs... I used to do that, but not anymore. Your point is that tanks die because they didn't say a word about not having any CDs left, how are healer supposed to know? My point has shifted to, how am I as a tank supposed to know that you weren't capable of keeping me alive at that point? Especially for PuGs I expect my healers to do their thing and if they feel like I'm about to die use their other thing.
This is my first expansion both main tanking and raid leading, and the ego thing is something that is hard to get used to. A problem I find as a blood DK is delegating what should be tanked, I naturally want to find ways to tank things better myself, solo tanking bosses for example but then I remember we have 2 tanks and the other is just dealing with adds or doing nothing interesting. I don't want to make the other tank feel bad like that but it's hard not to want to handle stuff when I can.
This has probably already been answered somewhere, so sorry in advance. Will there be a dps series after the healer series? Loved the tank series and I learned a lot, even though I main dps. Looking forward to the healer series!
I really want to get into tanking but I still cannot choose which one to start lol, narrowed it down to DK, Brewmaster, or boosting my druid, hard choices :\
Is there an addon that enables you to quickly ask for the buffs, etc, that you need, without having to type it out? I haven't played since legion, and I'm returning this week.
I wish you could compress 10years worth of experience into an hour of video. You did a great job with this though, made me pick up my warrior though who was gathering dust in my -mouth vom- Garrison.
Thank you for the encuragment just got offered a tank spot in guild and i was like i haven't really tanked since early wod i dont know watched your video and accepted it :)
I am ilvl 856 and most of my gear came from heroics and heroic EN. All the gear from WQ has been either low ilvl such as 825 or 825 or just completely useless stats for my class.
MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATE (richid leeeeewwwwis voice) Thanks for the videos. I have resubbed for legion and now have a DH tank alt because of this series.
Looking forward to the healing one. AFAIK neither you nor ghost has tremendous experience of healing in the latest expansions, do you feel you got enough knowledge alone or are you going to ask dedicated healers for tips on the more advanced stuff?
Healing and dpsing follow mostly the same rules when you're trying to maximize performance, these rules are: not wasting gcd's by running around, getting as much uptime as possible, as much cleave/aoe healing as possible (don't pad though), and cooldown & trinket proc management. The only difference is that having a battle plan (see preach's other video) is a lot more important as a healer since knowing exactly when each individual player is going to take damage and how much they're going to take will provide you with and enormous advantage over the other healers. The advantage you get from this is bigger than any other optimization will provide you such as: perfecting your rotation/priority, optimizing secondary stats, optimizing movement, positioning, and gcds (not that these aren't important). A good battle plan is more important than all of these and will even overcome class balance in pretty much all cases (except MoP). In order of importance when trying optimize your healing performance: Battle Plan >>> Not wasting gcd's by running around > Always casting > As much aoe healing as possible (battle plan ties into this) > positioning > perfect healing rotation/priority > gear optimization
I wish all pug tanks saw this before going to do M+, especially necrotic. I am 889 MW and one night we had to pug a tank , did 6 8 10, when necrotic appeared, i noticed this guardian druid is not trying to get rid of his stacks as I was used to with my usual tank. In the 10 run, he was just happily taking 20-35 stacks and bitching that I am a bad healer, i constantly repeated that HE needs to get rid of the stacks (it was also raging so he was getting obliterated) since the 8 dungeon. He kept going on without changing anything and taunted me repeatedly, to the point i felt like kicking him and depleting my key, he started dying on purpose etc. So yeah, ego is the biggest problem in tanking.
Well not every guild has the "GO GO GO" mentality. In my guild we waste a lot of time but nobody minds as long as it's within a reasonable time limit. If you're a heroic-only guild there's not much to do, so finishing a raid faster only means you finish the night sooner.
As a tank pally tank from BC to Cata this is second nature to me. In terms of class diversity I feel as if BC was the best for it (I didn't play Vanilla so I can't really comment) ultimately bad communication is what makes potentially great guilds medicore. During ICC I my guilds only failure was a small % of the non English speakers just wouldn't attempt to communicate, because of this LDW25HC was the second hardest boss for us, poorly communicated MC's caused so many issues, we had no chance with LK25HC though..
Is Preach going to be doing harder content in the next video? Hopefully he got some Teeming/Necrotic runs recorded in 12+ because higher end players are still gonna complain about things related to their class and if they only see +9s being done I dunno if they'll be convinced.
love this series honetly - though cynic in me knows it will all shatter the moment people join lfg and meet with "go go go 3 chests or gtfo mentality" :(
Preach or anyone else who knows, please tell me what add on it is youre using for nameplates that put your runes above them, I need this in my life :')
As a tank I have been last "bear" standing vs the boss and managed to solo the last of its health. but since they are mostly guild runs we can communicate and manage our cds. If i need a slow, stun etc I ask for it.
We call it superman Tanks. Also they very rarely blame them self or the class and are more likely to blame any other person in the Instance other then them selves.
For some reason people in comments are complaining that blood dk is bad. That is not the case at all. Blood dk can pull VERY high aoe dps and is good at tanking multiple targets. If the ammount of enemies is high, blood dk tanks and does damage extremely well. Some said that blood dk is bad for necrotic because you get healing reduction, well, you can block necrotic with anti magic shell for 5(?) seconds and if you have the legendary 10 seconds. That means you have 1/6 of time shell up blocking all necrotic and when you can't tank the pack just use death and decay and run away. Now that you might think that "yeah, it's only 1/6th of the time up" but in which dungeon do you have to pull big packs all the time?
On the comment about tanks having an ego I couldn't agree more and to be honest I've ran into said ego way more in Legion than any other xpac. I remember once when doing Normal Neltharion's Lair the tank was a DH and just rushed ahead, ignoring the first pack of trash mobs which left the rest of us to deal with it and we were dying. When I brought it up to them their response was "IDC learn to keep up newb" I just said screw this and noped out after calling him a piece of shit tank that obviously doesn't give two shits about the rest of the group. Thankfully my next run was met with a tank that paid attention to what was going on. Myself I just recently started tanking with my DH, still working on reaching 110 with her, and yes it may make things a little slower but I do make sure the rest of the group is with me before moving on, especially when I have melee DPSers. Annoying though when you get that one guy in the group that while you're working on one mob decide to go grab more and nearly get you killed, I felt bad for the poor healer who was struggling in that dungeon to keep us all alive because of the lock's BS.
![[Basics] Tanking - Speed Tanking 5/5](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/9-U_qN-QcfU/mqdefault.jpg)
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This is honestly the best tanking guide/series I have ever seen, anywhere. Just wanted to say thanks for this upload and great work.
WHAT MATE, EGO MATE? NAHHHH MATE, IM THE TANK UR NOT, LOL MATE.
Ahhh, healer series
Preach long time lurker... Amazing series. Like a mental checklist on how to tank right. I have already incorporated 90% of what you were talking about but its that 10% that sets me apart and I was reminded of it here. Thank you for taking the time to make this content.
This series inspired me to talk to my guilds prot warrior for advice on how to play prot and the first dungeon I jumped into as a tank was a VoTW +6 PuG and we 3 chested with no problem. Was a real confidence booster and now I'm tanking keys for guildies and getting into pugs like instantly. It's opened up a part of WoW that I've never even considered trying before and I love it. Thanks mate.
This video came at the perfect time. The ego you described has been making itself known the last few weeks. I need to really keep it in check.
well done sir, i appreciate the motivation to people that were too scared of mythics before showing out now...trying new things. Its great! Thanks.
I can't say thank you enough. I have been tanking, healing and mainly dpsing on and off since Vanilla, yet your view on things boosts my motivation so much to keep doing it. Thank you Preach!
This is GOLDEN Preach! I had a great night boosting mythic plus 5 through 9 last night without a healer, and this made me realise why it went so great. I was in charge the whole time, lead the group through the dungeon, called for help, told them to wait for my stacks to drop and so on. We where in constant communication about cooldowns, what we needed for certain pulls, if we could skip a pack or take an extra one for percentage, marking mobs and calling interrupts.
We had quite the composition though. Protection Paladin (my alt), Elemental Shaman, Enhancement Shaman and a Fire Mage xD
I’m know I’m late to the party but thanks for this awesome series. I’ve been playing since vanilla and the thought of being the tank “the make or break member” of the group/raid has prevented me from ever trying to play one. I’ve been successful at every other role thus far. I forget how many times my group of friends have been wanting to do something including raids and didn’t because “our tank” wasn’t online lol. I am currently leveling a warrior and will begin tanking once I get my artifact. I will be sure to refer to this series along my journey and again thanks for making content for those like me in the community.
Thanks for this series Preacher. I'm coming back to the game after years away right now. I was a raid lead/prot warrior until Cata dropped. Your vids are reminding me of those little things that made me a good MT and RL, and I'm feeling less apprehensive about finally getting back to it. Srsly. Thanks man.
That point on communication is so important.
Despite not liking the responsibilities that come along with tanking since I'm a fairly shy guy, I still tanked through previous expansions and remember calling out taunts and CDs for healers, or whether I'm moving for the group/raid while tanking through BC/Wrath/Cata.
So easy to just say "I'm out of CDs and tricks, anybody have any shit they can pull out of their ass?" Or stuff like "My big CD is about to fade." So healers know to start pre-casting heals. Or even just "Pulling him to the wall." Before you start moving so people can start to re-position.
Makes all the difference. The reason I love tanking so much is the dance you get to have with the other tank. The communication of when you're taunting, how many stacks you have, stating whether you have the CDs available so the other tank knows if he has to taunt, or like in my paladin's case, telling the other tank I'm giving him Sacrifice or Spellwarding for this upcoming burst.
So great, much fun, such rewarding. Plus, you'll still have those moments where everyone is dead and you pull off the last couple percent. Both my guild and my group of friends both gave me the nickname of "Raid boss" because of that shit, but that doesn't mean you don't communicate because you're still baloney by yourself, and nobody wants a sandwich made with nothing but baloney.
really enjoyed this set of videos. as a healer i found great insight, and the will to look at tanks more closely to better understand their weaknesses and strength and how they fit with my own. only raid with one or two classes so never took the time to understand the rest. i am excited to see some improvement to my own play to better move at the tanks pace. thanks mate!
Hey Preacher, this video is the most helpful one in the series for me. You cleared all the concerns i had and now i am going to play my 862 blood dk who is sitting there rotting because i was afraid to tank. Thanks a lot man!!
Thanks for this series, Preach. I'm really looking forward to that healer series you mentioned at the end of this video. Just so happens that I tank our M+ dungeon runs and heal for our raids. Keep up the good stuff, sir!
Really enjoyed this series! Played rDps exclusively when Legion launched. Now have an ilvl 856 guardian druid and loving it. Also realized how squishy my lock and hunter really are (even with "tank" pets). This week will be running my druid through his first mythic+ and leveling my blood DK (who I haven't touched since SoO). Thanks for the inspiration!
Preach, this is so incredibly satisfying to listen to... good advice, brought with you usual enthousiasm... great series, and I thank you for it :)
880 prot, I got this "god mode" attitude in heroic maw. Pulled the ship then everyone got fucked because of fears, had to reflect and chill out. :3
heroic. lol.
sorry im a bear i never wipe... you plebs better stay alive
L4t3xs Ikr! Gear doesn't protect your party when you're constantly feared and everyone else dies. Kind of feel like a dick at that point.
I had it last week where the healer decided he was god and pulled the entire ship for me on Mythic while I cried like a little baby. Thankfully the dps was decent and we actually pulled it off.
I think I have a few more grey hairs though.
Would you say you..."swipe" instead?
I enjoy your videos. It's like drivers Ed for tanking just helping to keep my skills sharp.
The Healer Series! At last!! So long I have waited!
I stepped up volunteering to try tanking for my guild that desperately needed a stable offtank. I had no idea how much I was brutally taught in a couple of weeks until this video reminded me of wipes I caused by dying and healers reminding me to call for a cooldown, to warn them about something etc. Good shit.
thank you preach, I am a druid who has done every role, maxed every spec of every class and this has still helped me where I had an ego but at the same time would always do small pulls cause I would not trust dps or healers to do their job after watching your guides my runs go so much better
Great video. I'm really loving the tanking series. It makes me want to try tanking for real.
You and your videos and their instructions are fanfuckingtastic, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, even. I always love listening to drama time when solo playing, and replaying older videos to get pumped for a raid or whatever. Much love
Pretty much got all my tanking down now thanks for the video's, just looking for a guild that suits me and my wow journey will be proper;y underway, ty Preachy!
awesome video m8 really loves how you are explaining people need to communicate no matter what you are playing
Hey Preach. As you spoke about a tanks ego and godmode syndrome I couldnt help myself but smile. Our guild had a tank that left for this very reason. He was in godmode, always blaming others for wipes on progress so on so forth. So he left and joined mythic progress guild. Suprise suprise, he never got to any raid. I dusted off my brewmaster (tanked HFC with it) and tanked instead of him (luckily I was windwalker, so I didnt have to catch up with Artifact knowledge). And I have to say Im glad he did. because m+ dungs are way more fun as a tank.
Totally agree about the ego thing.
If there's anything I've learned, having played every role (with a few different classes), it's that each individual person is capable of doing great things that have a big impact of the success of the group. Makes no difference what your role is.
The difference is, when you're dps, or even heals most of the time, no one notices the good things you do...until you stop doing them.
As someone coming back into after taking wod off to only heal and dps these have been real real helpful tyvm Preach an Ghost
I agree with most of what you've said in this series, except for the, "I wish I had X ability" comments. For the most part you are correct in the sense that every class in every role has the tools to deal with whatever the game throws at them, the exception to this is Blood DK. As a Blood DK main in a mythic guild, certain abilities like Cenarius/Odyn Spears you just don't have the same tools. Having to talent into a 25% DR with a 30%DR baseline isn't enough to keep those abilities mitigated like they are intended. The fights are still killable. Iron Bark/Pain Sup work wonders, but blood has such trash AM, we have to have "Recently Used: Death Strike" to "count" as am for certain boss checks when Blood Shield doesn't do anything for mitigation really. It would be nice to have a reliable baseline DR to deal with those things.
thanks preacher! this tanking series helped me su much. great work mate!
Being overgeared is a great time to learn the most efficient routes through dungeons to improve your M+ times
I've only tanked in MoP & WoD (on blood DK), but I've also noticed that healers usually aren't aware of how much self-healing tanks do, especially Blood DKs. I had the situation where a Ret pally swapped to Holy in WoD (HFC) and since I was the more smoothed out tank, they stuck him on me. We had fun, killed most of the bosses we wanted to, and I told my paladin friend I never felt in danger & he did a great job. To my surprise, he told me that while he was healing his ass off, he ended up with almost 80% overhealing on me & asked if we could do some Timewalking dungeons to help work on that. I told him to take Beacon off me to see how much raw healing I actually needed. At the time, I had equipped a 2-pc that lowered the CD on Vamp Blood every time I spent RP or runes or something. The whole time, I we were in voicecom and I was actively saying things like "Ok i'm at 60% HP but I can Vamp BLood & do 2 Deathstrikes and then after that I can Anti-Magic Shell to get more RP and anoher death strike or 2 in the Vamp BLood window, and by then a few mobs would have died and i'm not worried about the amount of incoming damage anymore, even though i'm at 60% HP and it LOOKS kinda scary now in this moment". I could almost hear his brain exploding from across the internet. Was a great time, much success was had and his overhealing on me dropped hilariously significantly the next week when we raided again.
I think this is the best video youve ever made, thanks :D
Preach what is the music during maw of souls +9 ? the electric music :D
This is good advice. Tanks need to communicate and work with their group. In raids this is essential between the tanks and the tanks to healers. You need to respect what others can do for you and call as necessary. If you're really lucky then you're in a good team with the other main tank, you chat, you accept when you've made errors and you look to avoid repeating them. I wouldn't say that tanks should be optimal raid leaders, some fights make it near impossible to call group coordination as tank coordination is completely different to that but the advice about keeping the team alert between pulls is a good one.
On Mythic+ there are definite tank types that are good for certain affixes but again, it's about the composition and using the appropriate team. It doesn't solve all problems for necrotic (up to 9+ it's relatively simple but the Mythic 10 affix can destroy that) but it's sensible advice (again).
So yh, a nice series on tanking as an introduction, I personally love tanking, there's no better way to control your own enjoyment than to be the tank in a pug.
Okay, I just had smack my forehead moment.
I don't call out to raid healers when I have burned my mitigation cool downs and need more healing/attention. Its so obvious now, back in the day my healers new me and so I didn't have to say anything. But the healer who trained me back in Wrath did train me to call out when I was in trouble.
Thanks Preach, you just saved my raiding career and made it more fun too.
The point about looking at time in between pulls is actually very big. We were recruiting people at the end of HFC and were having to switch people in and out. Some high progression recruits started looking at our time between pulls and questioning why we were taking so long to clear. In reality it was because we were swapping people in and out but people do look at those things so make sure to stay on top of it.
As someone who has only tanked and dps'd since day 1, I am excited for the healer series.
As someone who has been playing all the healers since Legion's launch almost I wish more tanks I play with would understand a lot of what you covered Preach. I greatly look forward to the healer series to see areas where I can definitely improve, particularly with Mythic + which is my biggest downfall.
The more tanks the better, or at least decent tanks. I`ve played DK since wrath and I`ve tanked OS and MS since then. Everything falls natural for me. But I think more players should try tanking/improve their tanking. These videos are really amazing and well done as a short introduction to tanking. Keep it up PG.
Preach. I purposely MT a brewmaster because people in general state they are not as viable as other tanks. I am constantly researching and mastering my class and I learn something new every run. Sitting at 860 gear and I'm still always learning. People are now inviting me in mythic+ all the time because I'm changing their minds on monks. Be humble as a tank and communicate and any class is viable.
keep it up preacher! I'm a tank now and proud of it, thanks to you.
you should post more videos :D its like im watching a serie where i get sucked into it and hope it never stops !!!!
Having 'fun' last night in a +10 BRH, my only other experience of necrotic was a +7 arcway the other day. Blizzard got it sooo right with mythic+ dungeons. We don't raid anymore, but we do dungeons and these give us the opportunity to have fun in dungeons with new and interesting mechanics that completely change the way you play/go through it. The one thing I would say is talk to your healer. When in runs our healer would simply say things like 'got you' 'not got you' and the latter meaning I'm going to have to use something to keep myself alive, be it a cooldown, a stun, kiting, etc.. helps you time your abilities with his and avoids situations where he pops a big cooldown on you and you pop your own at the same time unnecessarily. I'm really enjoying this style of tanking these days, I didn't like it originally.. I was an old skool tank that prided myself on keeping threat but on reflection that didn't really mean much more than just mashing my buttons when I had the rage to. Nowadays I'm thinking about what type of damage I'm taking, what cooldown should I use now and what should I save for that big ability I know is coming? Apart from the abysmal itemisation issues Blizz really got a lot of things right with this exp. :)
As much as I love Preach’s modern content I do miss the WoW focused content like this
Healer series! YES! I was hoping you would do the same thing with healers :D
omg, this video just dickslapped me, guilty of a lot of of those sins. I might end up owing some apologies here and there....
Still, fuck devastator....
Manolo AKA El Druk what's wrong with devastator?
As a healer main, I'm looking forward to seeing your take on it Preach :)
I am not a raid lead, but I am definitely taking on board what you have said about getting out of the god mode mentality and communicating with the group when doing harder M+. I have seen one of the problems with trying to do harder content is the lack of voice communication.
This is why I just don't want to do Karazhan outside a guild group and why pugs always ask for absurd gear score.
Absolutley love this series. Really, really helpful. Thanks Preach. :)
Hey Preach, thanks for these videos... I'm tanking as a blood DK and I'm loving it. I'm not new to tanking and still enjoy watching these kind of videos. You can never learn enough. But I do have a question... I'm the MT1 for my raid and I have difficulties with the 3rd phase of Odin. My mobility isn't great as a DK, as you well know. My raid and I have made some adjustments to make it easier but I still have difficulties with this and I have tried almost everything but still no luck. I kill most of the dps by running so slowly. Can you give me some advise? Would the feather from the priest still help?
My Blood DK tank became a BEAST once my ilevel hit the 850s. Dungeon crawls became dungeon runs and the entire game, including World Bosses, has become far more enjoyable. This is prob because I no longer have to deal with irritating repair costs and/or guildies being all anxious, bitchy, and neurotic when it comes to signing up for Guild Night activities and then actually showing up.
I'm 870 on my blood DK and i still feel really shitty. I get rekt in +10 or +11 so hard. And my 865 prot warrior has no problems with +10.
check stat priorities
I tanked through Wrath and Cata and burned out switching to DPS, watching this has made me want to tank again.
thx Preach :) i used to tank back in tbc and wotlk,but after i drifted a bit to dps. Now in Legion i picked up my druid and enjoy tanking + your videos help's me remambering,how it used to be back in the days :) huge difference on some dungen runs when i tank or i do dps ....when i tank i don't watch Yoy Tube on the other screen :D
This is such good stuff, as healer i know in 10 seconds if the tank plays with this mindset and if we are going to have fun in anything from HC dungs to higher level raids. Hate throwing Guardian Spirit when the tank had it all planned just to see him die 30 seconds later cos my GS was on CD.
Great videos... You got geared insanely fast lol! Well played I have been playing blood only been 110 for 16hrs almost 840 about ready for some m+ keep up the work bro
Was that a sneaky Wowcrendor reference at 10:24 ?
Preach one thing to say as well that the EGO effect does not only apply to tanks. I've been a pally tank since TBC pre patch. Using cc in a dungeon was a regular thing to do. But now entering a M+10 after pausing the game for whole Draenor when I'm asking for help or telling someone to slow down as I'm still getting used to some mechanics( i'm 110 not even two months yet) People just charge in and blame me for the fail of the timer at the end. The game got quicker and that is nice- but it lost a lot of the "social" aspects and most ppl in pugs do not care much apart of the tip of their nose...
On the topic of tanks calling out for external CDs... I used to do that, but not anymore.
Your point is that tanks die because they didn't say a word about not having any CDs left, how are healer supposed to know?
My point has shifted to, how am I as a tank supposed to know that you weren't capable of keeping me alive at that point?
Especially for PuGs I expect my healers to do their thing and if they feel like I'm about to die use their other thing.
This is my first expansion both main tanking and raid leading, and the ego thing is something that is hard to get used to. A problem I find as a blood DK is delegating what should be tanked, I naturally want to find ways to tank things better myself, solo tanking bosses for example but then I remember we have 2 tanks and the other is just dealing with adds or doing nothing interesting. I don't want to make the other tank feel bad like that but it's hard not to want to handle stuff when I can.
Love this series
This has probably already been answered somewhere, so sorry in advance. Will there be a dps series after the healer series? Loved the tank series and I learned a lot, even though I main dps. Looking forward to the healer series!
Thanks for this series, looking forward to healer vids.
What's the background song?
Very much enjoyed the series btw. Really helped me out!
unfortunately you probably wont get an answer. ive been asking for it the past 5 videos hes had it in XD
Fuck it's epic
come on preacher boyo, where's the music links
Can somene please tell me the music palying in the background? thanks!
I really want to get into tanking but I still cannot choose which one to start lol, narrowed it down to DK, Brewmaster, or boosting my druid, hard choices :\
Are you going to be doing a healing one? I prefer healing more and am always looking for ways to improve.
If you actually listened to the video you'd know.
Well as I tank i still got moments of 'oh my god what if i suck...? we'll gonna die!! i'm so sorry, pls don't kick me' ...
Is there an addon that enables you to quickly ask for the buffs, etc, that you need, without having to type it out? I haven't played since legion, and I'm returning this week.
I wish you could compress 10years worth of experience into an hour of video. You did a great job with this though, made me pick up my warrior though who was gathering dust in my -mouth vom- Garrison.
Thank you for the encuragment just got offered a tank spot in guild and i was like i haven't really tanked since early wod i dont know watched your video and accepted it :)
when can i add you preach
I am ilvl 856 and most of my gear came from heroics and heroic EN.
All the gear from WQ has been either low ilvl such as 825 or 825 or just completely useless stats for my class.
Hello, what is the song for this @Preach
MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATE (richid leeeeewwwwis voice)
Thanks for the videos. I have resubbed for legion and now have a DH tank alt because of this series.
Love it, m8! Great video!
Looking forward to the healing one. AFAIK neither you nor ghost has tremendous experience of healing in the latest expansions, do you feel you got enough knowledge alone or are you going to ask dedicated healers for tips on the more advanced stuff?
Healing and dpsing follow mostly the same rules when you're trying to maximize performance, these rules are: not wasting gcd's by running around, getting as much uptime as possible, as much cleave/aoe healing as possible (don't pad though), and cooldown & trinket proc management. The only difference is that having a battle plan (see preach's other video) is a lot more important as a healer since knowing exactly when each individual player is going to take damage and how much they're going to take will provide you with and enormous advantage over the other healers. The advantage you get from this is bigger than any other optimization will provide you such as: perfecting your rotation/priority, optimizing secondary stats, optimizing movement, positioning, and gcds (not that these aren't important). A good battle plan is more important than all of these and will even overcome class balance in pretty much all cases (except MoP).
In order of importance when trying optimize your healing performance:
Battle Plan >>> Not wasting gcd's by running around > Always casting > As much aoe healing as possible (battle plan ties into this) > positioning > perfect healing rotation/priority > gear optimization
If this is the last video, did you decide to make it only a four video series? The last video (Places to Learn) was 3/5.
think he mentioned speedtanking is to come
He said at 4:04 that the next video will be about speed tanking.
I'm not sure but at 4:04 he says that the last video will be on speed-tanking.
I wish all pug tanks saw this before going to do M+, especially necrotic.
I am 889 MW and one night we had to pug a tank , did 6 8 10, when necrotic appeared, i noticed this guardian druid is not trying to get rid of his stacks as I was used to with my usual tank. In the 10 run, he was just happily taking 20-35 stacks and bitching that I am a bad healer, i constantly repeated that HE needs to get rid of the stacks (it was also raging so he was getting obliterated) since the 8 dungeon. He kept going on without changing anything and taunted me repeatedly, to the point i felt like kicking him and depleting my key, he started dying on purpose etc. So yeah, ego is the biggest problem in tanking.
I guess he will pick up his mistweaver for healing. Looking forward to it.
Well not every guild has the "GO GO GO" mentality. In my guild we waste a lot of time but nobody minds as long as it's within a reasonable time limit. If you're a heroic-only guild there's not much to do, so finishing a raid faster only means you finish the night sooner.
How do you get all your buff to show up over your healthbar?
Thanks !
As a tank pally tank from BC to Cata this is second nature to me.
In terms of class diversity I feel as if BC was the best for it (I didn't play Vanilla so I can't really comment) ultimately bad communication is what makes potentially great guilds medicore.
During ICC I my guilds only failure was a small % of the non English speakers just wouldn't attempt to communicate, because of this LDW25HC was the second hardest boss for us, poorly communicated MC's caused so many issues, we had no chance with LK25HC though..
Is Preach going to be doing harder content in the next video? Hopefully he got some Teeming/Necrotic runs recorded in 12+ because higher end players are still gonna complain about things related to their class and if they only see +9s being done I dunno if they'll be convinced.
love this series honetly - though cynic in me knows it will all shatter the moment people join lfg and meet with "go go go 3 chests or gtfo mentality" :(
Preach or anyone else who knows, please tell me what add on it is youre using for nameplates that put your runes above them, I need this in my life :')
He has a video featuring his addon setup from the start of legion I think
As a tank I have been last "bear" standing vs the boss and managed to solo the last of its health.
but since they are mostly guild runs we can communicate and manage our cds.
If i need a slow, stun etc I ask for it.
We call it superman Tanks. Also they very rarely blame them self or the class and are more likely to blame any other person in the Instance other then them selves.
For some reason people in comments are complaining that blood dk is bad. That is not the case at all. Blood dk can pull VERY high aoe dps and is good at tanking multiple targets. If the ammount of enemies is high, blood dk tanks and does damage extremely well. Some said that blood dk is bad for necrotic because you get healing reduction, well, you can block necrotic with anti magic shell for 5(?) seconds and if you have the legendary 10 seconds. That means you have 1/6 of time shell up blocking all necrotic and when you can't tank the pack just use death and decay and run away. Now that you might think that "yeah, it's only 1/6th of the time up" but in which dungeon do you have to pull big packs all the time?
Also use bone storm. That's what keeps you alive and gives amazing dps against big or even smaller packs.
this video was so good m8. keep it up
i really want the prot pally armor buff/ attack that give you armor, were replaced with more heals and like overhealing as armor instead
And then you have those heals that bitch at you when you ask for something or just pop PS/GS/LC/whatever on you when you drop below half.
The beauty of being a tank means that there's only one jackass in the dungeon :D
Any chance of a series of vids like this for healers?
"Next will be a series like this on healers, should be fun"-Preach at the end of this video.
Samuel King The one time I back out before the end and now I'm "that guy" haha. Thanks!
M1ke10191 lol, no problem.
any way to see what talents hes been using for mythic +
For your +9s did you pug them? When DKs complain about necrotic it's because it's hard for them in pugs.
Not pugs, but as preach has always said stay away from pugs and find a guild
On the comment about tanks having an ego I couldn't agree more and to be honest I've ran into said ego way more in Legion than any other xpac. I remember once when doing Normal Neltharion's Lair the tank was a DH and just rushed ahead, ignoring the first pack of trash mobs which left the rest of us to deal with it and we were dying. When I brought it up to them their response was "IDC learn to keep up newb" I just said screw this and noped out after calling him a piece of shit tank that obviously doesn't give two shits about the rest of the group. Thankfully my next run was met with a tank that paid attention to what was going on.
Myself I just recently started tanking with my DH, still working on reaching 110 with her, and yes it may make things a little slower but I do make sure the rest of the group is with me before moving on, especially when I have melee DPSers. Annoying though when you get that one guy in the group that while you're working on one mob decide to go grab more and nearly get you killed, I felt bad for the poor healer who was struggling in that dungeon to keep us all alive because of the lock's BS.
Good intelligent advice here.