The best tanking guide I have ever seen...

LESSON 1: EDUCATING THE DAMAGE DEALERS OF THE GROUP

Many DPS'ers have the (incredible false) belief that they are the ones pulling the group through the instance. This cannot be any further from the truth. Let them know that they are easily replaceable. A very easy way to do this is to kick them from the group, and summon a non-combat pet, and tell your DPS that for the first pull, they will be replaced by the snake/cockroach/chicken/seagull. Complete the pull and invite them back into the group after putting away your pet.

This will show them that they are, like your miniwing, simply garnish beside the main course (yourself). Naturally, a main course (such as steak) may have many garnishes. Some of which may include tiny pearl onions, carved carrots, or maybe some stylishly fashioned broccoli. By simple math, we can determine that DPS = broccoli, and everyone hates them and only accept them because mothers say that it's good for you, which I guess they kind of are for the group.

Note: If you for some reason don't manage to finish that pull in under a minute (one cause may be low DPS) and your DPS'er gets ported back to his home location via hearthstone, no worry. Simply tell him to find a replacement for himself because he is completely of no help to the group.


LESSON 2: THE HEALER'S ROLE IN THE GROUP

The Healer has one role and one role only: To keep you alive. The precious mana of the healer should never be wasted on worthless targets such as himself when he has 2 mobs attacking him due to your unwillingness to tank more than one target (auto attack 1 target). Should you notice that the healer's mana is going down but you don't see any healing done to yourself, there is a macro for this situation:\
"/yell HEAL ME HEAL ME HEAL ME HEAL ME HEAL ME HEAL ME HEAL ME HEAL ME HEAL ME HEAL ME HEAL ME HEAL ME"
Spam this macro while you proceed to stand to one side while the healer is killed, then the DPS, and then finally yourself.

Let the healer know, when everyone is ghost running back (not you of course, they should resurrect you) that you are very important because "Without a tank to heal, what good is a healer?". Similarly, you can quote some famous people to prove your point (quoting others also shows your intellect and humble attitude). One of my personal favorites is the quote from the great Greek God of war, Sun Tzu: "The best offense is a great defense". You, the tank, are the defense.

At this point, your healer should be apologizing profusely for not healing the most important person in the group. If he is not doing so, be sure to remind him that he is "replaceable, just like the DPS'ers because my first aid is at 241 and I have a lot more mageweave cloth saved up to make more bandages!"

If at this point the healer tries to make some sort of argument using logic and reasoning saying, "if I'm dead then no one can heal" proceed to kick him, and replace him with an alchemist who has potions, which can restore health.


LESSON 3: MARKING THE TARGETS

So now that everyone in the group knows what they're supposed to be doing (supporting the most important player, you), it is time to officially start the instance. Naturally, as a great leader, you will need effective communication on which raid symbols mean what. This is entirely up to you, but here are some of the common target icons I like to use, and why I use them:

Diamond: I mark this on pulls where there is a female mob, since women really like diamonds. On pulls where there is no female mob, I put it on the most feminine looking one.

Moon: I use the moon to tell the night elf in my party what to kill, because night elves really like the moon.

Star: This always goes on myself because I am the star of the group. This is very useful and can be used to your advantage when used in conjunction with your "/yell HEAL ME" macro: simply change "me" to "star". This shows the group that you have leadership and communications skills to effectively control the outcome of every battle.

Skull: This should be used for the undead member of your group: undead look like skeletons, and the skull fits them perfectly.

Triangle: Perfect for the druid's target: a druid as 3 forms that he uses most frequently: Aquatic form, travel form, and flight form. A triangle has 3 sides. Simple, no?


LESSON 4: BUILDING LOTS OF THREAT

Now that we have marked the targets, it's time to actually kill the group you have just marked. Naturally, the very first thing to do when engaging the group is to decide how you want to pull. Should you body pull? Pull with a thrown weapon? Tell the rogue to pull for you? Keep in mind that one of your goals as a tank is to generate a lot of threat.

You must visualize yourself as that mob and determine what would be most threatening to it. Obviously, running up to the group of mobs directly will generate a lot of threat, because they will find you intimidating. If possible, also use a skill such as "battle shout" or even "commanding shout" (If you play a paladin) to generate even more threat. Shouting at people makes you seem really intimidating and scary, so this is of course the best way to generate threat, or as I like to call it, hate points.

To REALLY get those mobs' blood boiling, consider this macro:
/equip sharp dagger
/yell IMMA CUTCHU REEEEEEEEEEEEL BAD HOLMES!

In addition to this macro:
/castsequence reset= 4 battle shout, commanding shout

On most pulls, I simply spam these two macros to gain a lot of hate points (threat). The combined pressure of being shouted at AND threatened with a dagger is enough to make any enemy crumble psychologically.


Lesson 5: WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH...

The tough get going. This is one of those sayings that are tried and true. I believe it dates back to the period of the American civil war, spoken by another great tactician on the battlefield that was to become the city of Chicago: Phil Jackson.

What does this mean then, to you, the tank? Simply put, adapt to the situation: usually just run away when there are more than 3 enemies attacking you. For each tanking class, there is a way to follow this golden rule.

Warrior: intimidating shout; run out of the instance.
Druid: Travel form; run out of the instance.
Paladin: Bubble, run out of the instance.

Remember the first lesson: you, and only you, are important. The other classes are replaceable. If for some reason after you use one of the above tactics and some mobs are still attacking you, you can tell other members of the party to assist in your grand escape.

The mage, for example, can run between you and your mob and use ice block. This spell is based on the real life spell, "ice berg". You can only see 10% of an iceberg's real size; similarly, when a mage uses iceblock, it may only appear to be a small block of ice, but it is in actuality much,much larger - more than enough to block off your pursuers.

If all methods fail, your last choice would be to have you group members try and aggro the mobs on to themselves. This may prove exceedingly difficult since you have much more hate points than they do (due to lesson 4), but it's worth a shot. It's a toss up, really.


LESSON 6, FINAL LESSON: THE DISTRIBUTION OF LOOT

After pulling all your weight (260lbs ) and lugging the rest of your group through the instance, you manage to get to the boss, who you have ran, as you told your group, no less than 36 times for "that one item I really want, so no one should roll on it". This is a selfish thing to do, and is an incorrect method to fairly distribute loot. The best method to achieve fair distribution is simple: Master Loot.

By not using Master Loot, you are allowing your group members to have false ideas that they actually know what's good for them, more so than you do. Obviously, being the master looter means you're the "master", as the name clearly states. And naturally, the master of his servants would be much more knowledgeable than said servants.

One thing that is generally accepted in loot distribution is taking items for your alt. Contrary to popular belief, taking Bind on Pickup items CAN help your alt. I remember this one time when a nice blue BoP healing dagger dropped, and I gave the item to myself so my paladin could benefit from it. Note: the reason why I rolled a healer is because I wanted to see what is was like to lack leadership and individualism, sort of like when God comes down to Earth and pretends to be a human.

Some priest said something stupid like, "you can't transfer that item to your paladin because it's BoP, and paladins can't even use dagger!" The joke, however, was on him. I sold the dagger to a vendor for 8g and bought a green "sharp dagger of the whale" on the AH for 10g. I linked it to the priest and told him how foolish he was for actually assuming I didn't know what I was doing.

If an item drops that you don't need, or your alts don't need, feel free to tell all other group members to roll on it. The best way to do this would be to look at what class of item the armor belongs to. For instance, Druids and hunters both wear mail, so when mail items drop, tell the druid and the hunter to roll on it.

Mages and warlocks usually wear dresses, so when an item drops that looks like a dress (use the ctrl left click function) tell the warlocks and mages to roll on it. Frayed grey robes are quite popular amongst them.

Finally, if one of your 2 friends happens to be in the group, make sure to give him some blues so he will continue to be your friend; after all, if you don't have loyalty, then you have nothing. Remember this, keep giving your friends lots of gold and items and you will have a group that sees you are very friendly and loyal, and will always whisper you to tank for them!


And that finishes the guide, thanks for reading, and may the tanking gods watch over you!

ROFL... I hope you dont really believe that.... Healers are really the god-like ones you know!

It would have to be a wonderfully cute and exotic pet to replace my DPS'n!!

kalandrielle wrote:

"/yell HEAL ME HEAL ME HEAL ME HEAL ME HEAL ME HEAL ME HEAL ME HEAL ME HEAL ME HEAL ME HEAL ME HEAL ME"
Spam this macro while you proceed to stand to one side while the healer is killed, then the DPS, and then finally yourself.

Star: This always goes on myself because I am the star of the group. This is very useful and can be used to your advantage when used in conjunction with your "/yell HEAL ME" macro: simply change "me" to "star". This shows the group that you have leadership and communications skills to effectively control the outcome of every battle.

These are tempting.

kalandrielle wrote:

To REALLY get those mobs' blood boiling, consider this macro:
/equip sharp dagger
/yell IMMA CUTCHU REEEEEEEEEEEEL BAD HOLMES!

I have to say I really like this one. I would have spit up anything I was drinking all over the screen if I had been drinking something at the time.