Tank anxiety/new tank thread

At level 32, I guarantee people will be more helpful than abusive. Its not bad players that players don't like, its ignorant players. If you mess up, you might get people helping, listen to them and show gratitude and that will help your anxiety massively.

I've been tanking since 2.0 and have done all the raids on tank and I remember going into my second Haukke Manor at level 30 and needing one of the DPS to teach me how to use flash.

If that doesn't help, try tanking with people that you know, ease yourself into the comfort of the role before you expose yourself to the duty finder.

There's probably a level of thicker skin required to tank purely because you are one of the most "visible" roles in most games. Most of the advice here is spot on - and once you get past that initial nervousness you will probably then perform far better too. Goes with advice for higher tier raiding - just keep calm and carry on :) when people panic/worry they mess up more and spiral.

Remember, you will meet rage kids but these are random people on the internet don't fret too much just try and find any positive takeaways in their messages (if there are any) and forget them.

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Originally Posted by SuperNoob

Just got my Paladin to 70. Indeed I do have some anxiety yet too. Endgame is going to be more hard than dungeon. Tankbuster, tank swap and doing enough dps off tank stance while Mechanic.

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Listen: Tanking is the sweetest gig in a raid. It's easy. Here's a three point plan of attack to end your worries.

1. Tank Buster: Pop a cooldown. You don't need to use cooldowns when the boss is just auto-attacking. Hell, since you're a Paladin, you can just heal yourself.

2. Tank Swap: TALK TO THE OTHER TANK BEFORE THE FIGHT STARTS. Agree to have each other call for swaps so you don't have to stare at each other's health meters and can just dps. Set up a macro for it. When he taunts off you, shirk him. When you taunt off him, have him shirk you.

3. DPS-ing: Dpsing is not hard. Just go to Youtube and learn a rotation, then spend a couple hours pounding on a dummy and working it into your muscle memory. Nothing to it.

Above all, tanking is supposed to be fun. If it's seriously giving you anxiety, play another role. Don't do something that freaks you out.

I really appreciate everyone's help, encouragement and validation that my tank anxiety doesn't make me crazy!

I'm going to start it this evening and I do think I'm going to try to take someone I know with me to heal so that at least I don't have to worry about disappointing a DF healer.

Again, thanks to everyone who replied!

For raid and non raid purpose, keep something in mind : Survival cooldowns are not something that must be dormant and kept for dramatic situations : Cooldowns must be planed, and rotated evenly to get the best of them. On raid it's mostly "for tank busters" as they said, but for other purposes, dungeons, raids, keeping the highest uptime of cooldowns cycled correctly, will make the difference between a cheap tank that let the healer get all the stress, and a shared responsability.

If you get down to 5%, probably no cooldown will save you. If you had a cooldown prior of that, you would not be so much on the edge right now.

Remember to tab thru targets and keep an eye out for healers MP before Yolo pulling. The angst gets easier once you learn the fights from a tanks POV.

Simple....remember what you hated about tanks when you healed for passed year, don't do those things...then what you wished them to do in dungeon and raid, do those things.

I'm getting the hang of it.

Surprisingly losing aggro hasn't been a big issue, I'm more woried about proper positioning for the melee than anything. The enemies in general don't move as fast as I expected so I can't just back up to where I want unless I am okay with not hitting things for a few sexonds which I'm not.

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Originally Posted by MoroMurasaki

I'm getting the hang of it.

Surprisingly losing aggro hasn't been a big issue, I'm more woried about proper positioning for the melee than anything. The enemies in general don't move as fast as I expected so I can't just back up to where I want unless I am okay with not hitting things for a few sexonds which I'm not.

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I wouldn't worry about that necessarily on large pulls. They should be AoEing anyway.

Proper positioning comes with practice. Don't stress about it too much. Sometimes bosses or mobs will drop AOE spots or lasting puddles which will force you to move and readjust. As you run more and more stuff, I promise you'll be able to react naturally to it. One thing to remember is that it's best to keep still after you grab the mobs you want. Moving mobs unnecessarily will make it harder to land positionals.

Enemies movements are a bit jerky, not too much about that can be done, unfortunately. Melee will be able to work around it though.