Tanking reflections: Naxxramas so far

Inspired by Veneretio’s latest post about reflecting on tanking here are my thoughts on the recent experiences in Naxxramas, guild-runs and random-runs alike. I didn’t think of the idea that my personal reflections would be of any interest to other tanks, but probably I’m just wrong about that. So here we go.

So, what have I learned since I started raiding Naxxramas?

Threat

How did the current threat-situation affect my playstyle? I started to watch my DPS. For the first time as a tank, this was something I could work on, because nothing else was in urgent need. So I started to catch up on expertise and hit, both theorycrafting- and equipment wise.

The result right now is even more threat-buffer and more damage output. I learned how to maximize my dps, thus also my tps. Kind of the other way round from how it’s supposed to work, but the effect is the same.

What’s next? Keep working on dps, but don’t forget that the primary reason is to generate more threat that way. We still have no idea about future content, and the threat game might come back any time.

Concentration & Trust

Status Quo? Opposed to Karazhan and Zul’Aman, fights in Naxxramas are complex. There is a lot more going on and it’s harder to maintain overview. I used to be raid leader and maintank at the same time, so I’m used to keeping an eye on everything. In Naxxramas, this is a lot more headwork, and I’m having a hard time keeping full concentration over a 5 hour raid that way.

What did I change? I passed over the raid lead part, but I haven’t yet really gotten rid of the habits thereof. I still try to observe every aspect of the fight, people’s movement, positioning and whatever else is none of my business anymore.

What to do? I have to trust the raid and lead more and focus on my part. Trust that people will do the right thing, and the new raid leader will figure out the glitches. This will not only extend my concentration abilities, but also give me an overall easier time on raids.

Offtanking

How comes? We now have a new tank in our guild. I still prefer maintanking, but I’m not available for all raids and even if I am, there’s really no fair reason I get to do all the maintanking. When pugging the id because my schedule interferes with our guild’s dates, many a time I also end up offtanking.

What did I learn? OT can be a fun change of pace and brings some variety to the game. Also you have to get back to the old threat-minigame. Threat and rage management are important as an offtank. It’s fun to have to manage my prime resource again. Also, through more offtanking I got into the habit of watching my (de-)buffs more carefully and to keep them up as much as appropriate.

What to do? Especially in threat generation when offtanking on a single boss I have some catching up to do. Other than that I really prefer to maintank, so I’ll not focus on offtanking too much, while I still want to be good at it. 

Gear

Until now? In TBC this wasn’t an option at the level of Kara and Zul’Aman, because I was busy enough keeping my EH and avoidance at acceptable levels. The same applied for the very first weeks of tanking in WotLK.

What has changed? WotLK offers all kinds of gear on entry level raids. There’s expertise & hit gear, avoidance stuff, stamina pieces and block gear available at every corner, plus an astonishing potential to customize every piece through gems, enchants and other upgrades. I learned to build and actually use various gear compositions for max effect. 

What to do? While those sets do have their focuses, they aren’t anywhere near maxxed out. Come time, come upgrades, sidegrades and re-drops, so I’ll be able to further improve each set. 

Progression endurance

What has happened? For the first time we have a hard time on some fights. It’s not like we’re doing bad – we cleared Naxxramas on the second id. Anyhow the design of the fights exposes weaknesses, especially on single individuals that lack behind on movement, damage output, or just commitment. I tend to get rough on them, especially if they start to look for excuses: “I’m not geared yet”, “I do the best I can” – yes, it takes some time to gear up and utilize your skills for max damage output, but 1,300 dps is unacceptable. Full. Stop.

What did I do? First of all I had to remind myself that I am among the hard-cores for our level of commitment. Most of our people do not have much, if any, raid experience. Naxxramas is, for many of them, some tough learning. They have to deal with gearing principles, basic raiding, talent optimization, gems, enchants, reputation and general game mechanics to a level they never had to. I then identified the thing that annoyed me the most, clearly being: “I am not fully epic geared, so it is totally ok that my damage sucks.”

Oh no, it’s got little to nothing to do with the color of your tooltips. Either some people don’t want to see that there is more potential, or they are really not capable of making use of it. Either way, they will have to change their minds to further progress. So I set up a post on our guild forum, in which I outlined 10 general ways to improve dps, gear itself only being one of them. A good discussion started and some people got the message.

What else? I have to stay realistic. Our people want to raid and they want to progress, but they are not willing to commit themselves to a point where it starts to become a bit more work. First of all I have to step back to not annoy other people, for it is their decision how to approach the endgame. Second I have to make a decision, repeatedly: Is this the right environment for me, or am I a little more hardcore than I thought?

And that’s about that, so far.

Related posts

• Scourging fun and musical disabilities in Zul’Aman (5)
• Haha, so funny. Rambling and good news and stuff. (0)
• Use that Motivation-Booster (0)