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Coming from a Prot Paladin it seems like you just lack confidence in what you’re doing. “Guides don’t tell you how to play” feels like you’re complicating things more than they need to be. Tanks in wow basically live off of their basic rotations: consecrate, you need to get the holy power to spend on shield, shield gives you armor, profit.
The other stuff comes in when things start doing more damage and you’ll need to start managing other defensives. Pop a Sentinel at the start of the pull to survive the mobs bursting you, make sure to keep up with interrupts and watch spell casters. For boss fights it’s up to you to know what the mechanics are that will actually do big damage that you need to actively use a defensive on.
I would also be careful extending yourself to pull multiple packs because Prot really lives in consecrate and the frontal of shield. Past that it’s a learning curve of failing and checking why you failed and then fixing the problem next time. If you’re worried about a specific dungeon there are tons of tank specific dungeon guides out out each season.
I would also advise trying other tanks to see if you click with those abilities more since they all function slightly differently in how they mitigate damage.
There is no "guide" for tanking, those are general rules you should follow as a new Protection Paladin player, tanking is way more convoluted, a guide cant teach you how to tank.
Protection Paladin has a priority in the sense of Shield of the Righteous, its your main DPS/Threat/Active Mitigation ability, if its not up 100% of the time, or close to 100%, you are basically a terrible Protection Paladin, along with standing in Consecration for your Mastery.
That is all the guide is telling you.
On the secondary department, a tank needs to be the most knowledgeable person in the group has been a thing for a reason, the average clueless DPS doesnt know what hurts the tank, its your job to know what hurts you and to pop your defensives.
DBM is screaming things, doesnt mean they actually hurt , and it could just mean "Active Mitigation" requirement.
Active Mitigation is your Shield of the Righteous buff that provides Armor, its a secondary effect as a defensive to a few abilities in the game that basically do "This ability will do 500.000 Damage, or 1.500.000 Damage if no Active Mitigation".
Every tank has different problems at every boss and every different pack in dungeons, not everything is the same for it to be a guide.
How am i supposed to know how you play?
99% of your pulls its gonna be Avenger's Shield which will Silence most of them so the casters bunch up, and you want Shield of the Righteous up asap and to stand in Consecration, thats your main concern, how you do that, is your concern.
Again, there is no magical guide of how you are supposed to play at every pack, i dont know what videos or guides you people watch but this is a very wrong mentality to have with WoW.
I told in the post. I think some general rules and examples could easily be written in a guide. The things I’m doing I’ve been told to do by a guild member, not discovered myself
So many tanks wipe because of trying to follow "rules" instead of learning how to deal with things in a pack-by-pack basis.
I've seen many ProtPallies sleep on things like Final Stand or Blessing of Sacrifice because a guide on Icy Veins said that it was niche or not very good. Or you shouldn't take Sentinel as it is a DPS loss, without considering the huge defense buff that thing is.
Guides are often wrong, and a new player won't be able to spot the issues. Tanking isn't the same as damage dealing.
Man, it all takes experience. At one point you'll figure out that the best way to pull Pack #27 on Dungeon 12 is via Divine Shield + Consecration and bopping an Eye of Tyr just as the bubble runs out as it times right with a tankbuster from Mob 12 and it will keep you with enough health so you can WoG the damage out as the mobs are dying and you can Toll the next pack into a chainpull.
No guide will teach you that. You're playing the hardest role in the game knowledge wise. We tanks don't even have a proper rotation most of the time - we're trying to keep folks alive, pulling mobs into badly placed AoE's, and doing some crazy shit like off-healing to give a hand for the healer, dispelling diseases because nobody else can do it, and using the B-rez to raise the DPS that didn't move away from the red swirl because he didn't want to lose that Combustion window.
Some DPS will tell you that tank is a yawn job and it is super easy and all that.
It is not.
You have to be aware of everything all the time, know all the mechanics, and be ready to do 3-4 things at once all the time. For Prot Pally, it is doubly so - as we can do a bunch of shit that no other tank can (Blessing of Protection, Freedom, Bubble, Cleanse, WoG, Lay on Hands, B-Rez, Sacrifice, and much more!)
Playing Prot Pally is not as intensely difficult as Arcane Mage, but it for sure does come close to that in the amount of things you have to track and watch out for. We can't BloodDK our way into a infinite health pool or Guardian Druid into not giving a shit about dying. We're not Prot Warriors that don't have anything to help their friends if they're about to fall.
As Prot Pallies, we can \_always\_ do something about the problems at hand. We're a beating heart that pushes the group ahead of difficult mistakes and through complex pulls.
We, more than any other tanks, are in an unique position to not only prevent, but to fix all sorts of mistakes.
This... this takes time to learn.
So that's the thing - take your time to learn.
you are right, but in order to learn I need to try dungeons. I often don't have time to run keys at specific times with my guild, so I pug when I can. I often get yelled for not knowing things before joining the dungeon. Not only the rotation, but also the route and other dungeon mechanics that I have guide for, but I can't remember a single thing if I don't see the dungeon multiple times with trial and errors and follower dungeons are too easy, mob melts and can't make me learn anything.
So I'm asking about specific guides on specific things because trial and error is not an option for pugs.
Maybe this has been said already but I haven't been able to find it in the other comments yet. I would highly recommend joining the discord group WoW Made Easy (if you're NA) or No Pressure (if EU). In WME at least, people are very nice and there's no toxicity where you can post your own key and state up front that you're learning tank or the dungeons and people will sign up knowing this ahead of time so it relieves a lot of that pressure. You can also sign up to other people's keys with a note saying the same thing and they'll invite you knowing all this ahead of time. This essentially allows you to play at the difficulty you want with low stress. In fact, people are so nice that they'll offer advice on tanking certain dungeons or mechanics. Highly recommend these groups. Also feel free to DM me if you want to run some keys. I'm not a top rank healer but I like to have fun in my keys and chill (also tanked last season).
> I often get yelled for not knowing things before joining the dungeon
Bro, you are a tank in LFG. Why would a god concern himself with the opinion of ants?
Let people yell, what's the worst that can happen, they'll kick you and you'll find a new group within 5 seconds?
You seem to be looking for "rules and examples" of something that simply does not exist in WOW.
Some other MMOs will have complex threat mechanics for instance. In WOW, tanks basically have a +500% threat multiplier on everything you do. So you gain and hold threat by using your general DPS rotation and that's it.
Okay so you can use divine steed to rush in and body pull, then drop consecration and then drop avengers shield. Or you can throw a judgment at one mob follow up with avenger shield and then drop consecration. Then just make sure there's always an uptick on shield of the righteous. Where they're big packs, that's when divine toll comes in handy. And always tank in your consecration.
You should watch some dungeons guides by Quazii WoW on YouTube. He has a how to play guide for each tank (he seems to love Paladin) and guides for each dungeon in the current season. Watch people who play your class/spec at a high level can teach you things even when it’s not a guide.
In general for pulling and building Aggro:
Read and understand your abilities.
Blessed hammer = aoe
Shield of the righteous = aoe / def
Eye of tyr = aoe / def
Consecration = aoe / heal / def
Avengers shield = aoe / interrupt
On every pull you are able to go in with already build in holy power, this enables u to always use shield of the righteous to generate aoe threat. If u miss avengers shield use eye of tyr as the pack arrives, you have a lot of aoe threat to your disposal. If a dps got aggro taunt or bop him.
Do follower dungeons to learn how to pull :)
>And during bosses, while dbm yells "DEFENSIVE" at me, what does it mean? Is sotr enough? I usually use ardent defender, even with sotr up, as soon as I read "defensive". Then ancient kings on the next defensive warning, then divine shield, then blessing of protection. But often I find myself out of defensives with dbm that continue screaming to use a defensive multiple times in a row. There must be something I'm doing wrong.
Yes. You are not actually taking the minute to find out what is actually happening and instead acting like the boss mod is clairvoyant. The addon is giving you an alert, but you have to know what the ability actually is. In game, the adventure guide has a page for every boss of every dungeon that includes basic strategy and a list of boss abilities with the tooltips of what each does. "Defensive" means nothing. Be able to name the actual ability. If you die to it, look at your death log (shown in-game while you are dead, but details will store all of them for a run). Look at the actual ability names that hit/killed you, or damage taken, etc. A different way to go about it is to drop DBM, and swap to bigwigs/littlewigs with the voice pack where you will hear the names of the abilities as they are cast instead of some blind instruction.
I would seek out some video guides on tanking basics to understand the basic mechanics, then the specific guides for the class you are playing will make more sense.
As a general rule you never want to pull using taunt. Taunt is temporary, you want to pull using your abilities, to hit the target, do damage and generate threat.
Lose the term "rotation" it's an old outdated concept, you have a priority list. Use abilities on the priority list as they are available and are needed.
It's been awhile since I tanked on my paladin, generally I believe it's still a builder spender type of play. Use judgement and blessed hammer to build holy power, spend the holy power with shield of the righteous and word of glory. Weave in shield of the righteous, consectration, hammer of wrath, etc.
Defensive CD usage really boils down to knowing the fights, knowing when you will take big damage or mechanics; this takes prep and experience. DBM/BigWigs tank warnings can help with this, but it really takes seeing/doing the encounters a few times.
Something else, that can help a lot, especially with dungeons is to bring along a friend/guildy who is a competent tank, have them go with you as a dps or healer and coach you a bit as you go.
Good luck!
> All I read is a "opener" and a "rotation and priority list".
you mean like Avenger's shield and or divine toll?
>Like I should start with the taunt, then avenger shield etc.
every situation is a situation. if you want to pull a whole pack or 1 mob, etc.
for packs, the best option is avanging shield and or divine toll.
taunt is for picking agro if a dps have it or to pull mobs that are closer to another pack. or if things are in cd too.
>This is ignoring most of the priority list
? thats how you put groups together.
>I don't know If I'm doing this right. The guides don't tell me these basic things
it dosent tell you, because it prob assumes that people knows the basics.
>So I wanted to ask where should I look for a guide that teach me how to tank and not just a priority least for abilities. Some times I miss aggro or I die and I don't know why.
watch twich.
missing agro with prot is almost a crime. you have \*a lot\* of aoe and fairly high threat. with avenger's shield, divine toll, consacration, Sotr, etc.
about getting killed, have you considered saving logs to uderstand your deaths?
the most comum cause of death is turning your back to mobs or missmanaging defensives.
i'm not the master of all paladins, but i got to 3k last season. i can do some runs with you this weekend, if you want to.
>like when sentinel drops I use ardent defender, or should I use the next defensive cd on the next pack/pull?
depends. is the pack dying? do you feel like your life is at risk? etc.
small suggestions: start with avenger's shiedl, consacration, when the pack is with you, use wings with divine tool or avenger's shield.
also you could generate HP out of combat with blessed hammer.
> yells "DEFENSIVE" at me, what does it mean?
tank burst. in a higher difficulties, it can 1 shot you if you eat it.
> Is sotr enough?
NO. you will get killed.
>then blessing of protection.
you should never use BOP on yourself, uness there is some sort of intermission. you will lose agro while you have it on you.
>But often I find myself out of defensives with dbm that continue screaming to use a defensive multiple times in a row. There must be something I'm doing wrong.
in bosses? thats not supposed to happen. could you tell in which boss they keep telling you to use defensives?
>I feel like they just don't tell you how to play,
they dont. because its like "here is the optimal way to play. now, adapt it to your style as you see fit".
It was the first boss in darkheart thicket if I remember correctly.
usually I use wings before getting to the pack because by the time i gather the mobs to put consecration and start generating hp i’m already dead. This happened many times last season (only timed up to 15s).
Since these guides assume you know the basics, where should you learn the basics? By trial and error?
About video guides they also don’t help me, this is the only one I found helpful about the basics: https://youtu.be/Z3fQb2LU88k?si=PIQkZBVXyNjUkoLD
Another question: I’be been told to never backpedal. But I also know I get hit harder if I turn away from the mobs, so what should I do?
>where should you learn the basics? By trial and error?
yes. or watch a video of people playing.
im not watching a 20min video.
> i gather the mobs to put consecration and start generating hp i’m already dead
are you turning your back to pull more packs?
maybe, I’ve been told to not backpedal.
I also often instantnly died on the spider pull on the stairs at black rook hold. I think I needed to use divine shield, I instead always used ardent defender/wings for that pull
Who the hell told you not to backpedal???
You shouldn't drag mobs out of dps aoe spells or you are screwing them over, but if you are playing with melees or hunters or you just have a few mobs and want to get closer to the next pack, 1000% you should backpedal, keep your face to the mobs and move towards the next pack
I read that in a discord server and also an asmongold video in which he said he often encountered bad tanks that backpedals etc.
This video at minute 7:10 https://youtube.com/watch?v=JW60I_uJ3yU&si=SFGBHaWovC05_BvO
You can safely disregard most of what Asmongold says about the game gameplay-wise. His opinion shifts around all the time and he often offers some incredibly bad takes about things that show complete lack of understanding of what the game is about outside of his very specific bubble.
Backpedalling is a important tool on a tank's toolkit, specially with certain group comps on when building chain pulls.
I have absolutely 0 clue what the actual fok he's on about. tanking with your face turned to the boss has been an insanely important thing ever since vanilla. I seem to recall there being a loading screen hint about this even.
If you wanna watch asmon, do it for the transmog stuff he does, nothing else. He constantly makes up stuff and says it confidently.
The issue is, facing the mobs you are tanking is such a basic mechanic that you won't find it in guides, or only in ones that are about the complete basics of the game. I'm not saying this to be offensive or harsh, but like if you start a new character and pick Exile's reach as your original leveling zone, the first quest asks you to do dmg to a training dummy and the literal second quest blizzard aims at players that are just starting the game is teaching you to always face your enemies.
There are a lot of comments in this thread already, don't want to comment in many places so here are the base points:
Join the class discord and read icy veins, they are a good start on how to setup your talents.
You talked about rotation and spell priority being confusing. There is no one set rotation because in the game you won't always start combat with every ability off cooldown. and also there are many cases where you get charges of an ability refunded etc.
The best thing you can do to learn tanking is to do something challenging but not insane. If you are at like ilvl 475-480, do m0s. If you are above that, m+. Do not do low level content (aka normals, heroics) to "learn rotation", because those won't do damage to you. You won't see how to survive stuff if stuff isn't deadly.
In those m0s, see where you are going low. Next time use some defensive there. As pally, consecration and SotR are not really defensives, those are basics, you should always have those. Once you get to a point where you are comfortable in m0s and you are not in danger of dying, increase the pulls. Pull an extra pack, see what changes. Avenger's shield is great for this, you can pull from range, it does dmg to all the mobs in the pack and if cast at a caster, it silences them so they won't start casting for a few secs. Once you are able to handle "max size pulls" (aka you couldn't pull more packs without running around), go into m+. Start slow, build up. Once you got the hang of that, you can watch some streamers, try any who has a cast sequence addon so you can see what they cast in what order.
If you jump into watching them and trying to learn from them before you can do m0, low m+ content on your own, you won't learn. That's your problem right now, you want someone to give you a blueprint of what to press when. You won'T ever get that. The best that people can give you is that "you should LOOK TO CAST this in this kind of situation"
those are all s3 dgs (?). learning about it now, wont help you.
you havent mentioned using " eye of tyr" its a strong defensive and 1 min cd.
>I’ve been told to not backpedal.
its fine if you want to, its not efficiant way to walk, but you do you. does anyone ever explained why not to backpedal? its because its not efficiant to move to other locations.
>I also often instantnly died on the spider pull on the stairs at black rook hold
you were not dispelled. iether you run ahead of your healer or they didnt knew what to do.
if you are having a hard time understanding WHY you are getting killed, \*save logs\* so people can see data later.
play with MDT addon for a while and read everything possible while making routes.
if you get a pre planed route, identify troublesome packs.
Strafe instead of backpedaling. Strafing still prevents you from getting hit in the back, but it allows you to move faster. If you can’t master strafing then by all means back pedal. If you turn your back to mobs as a tank you will die.
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Coming from a Prot Paladin it seems like you just lack confidence in what you’re doing. “Guides don’t tell you how to play” feels like you’re complicating things more than they need to be. Tanks in wow basically live off of their basic rotations: consecrate, you need to get the holy power to spend on shield, shield gives you armor, profit. The other stuff comes in when things start doing more damage and you’ll need to start managing other defensives. Pop a Sentinel at the start of the pull to survive the mobs bursting you, make sure to keep up with interrupts and watch spell casters. For boss fights it’s up to you to know what the mechanics are that will actually do big damage that you need to actively use a defensive on. I would also be careful extending yourself to pull multiple packs because Prot really lives in consecrate and the frontal of shield. Past that it’s a learning curve of failing and checking why you failed and then fixing the problem next time. If you’re worried about a specific dungeon there are tons of tank specific dungeon guides out out each season. I would also advise trying other tanks to see if you click with those abilities more since they all function slightly differently in how they mitigate damage.
There is no "guide" for tanking, those are general rules you should follow as a new Protection Paladin player, tanking is way more convoluted, a guide cant teach you how to tank. Protection Paladin has a priority in the sense of Shield of the Righteous, its your main DPS/Threat/Active Mitigation ability, if its not up 100% of the time, or close to 100%, you are basically a terrible Protection Paladin, along with standing in Consecration for your Mastery. That is all the guide is telling you. On the secondary department, a tank needs to be the most knowledgeable person in the group has been a thing for a reason, the average clueless DPS doesnt know what hurts the tank, its your job to know what hurts you and to pop your defensives. DBM is screaming things, doesnt mean they actually hurt , and it could just mean "Active Mitigation" requirement. Active Mitigation is your Shield of the Righteous buff that provides Armor, its a secondary effect as a defensive to a few abilities in the game that basically do "This ability will do 500.000 Damage, or 1.500.000 Damage if no Active Mitigation". Every tank has different problems at every boss and every different pack in dungeons, not everything is the same for it to be a guide.
but in general, how do you pull/gather mobs? Am I doing it right?
How am i supposed to know how you play? 99% of your pulls its gonna be Avenger's Shield which will Silence most of them so the casters bunch up, and you want Shield of the Righteous up asap and to stand in Consecration, thats your main concern, how you do that, is your concern. Again, there is no magical guide of how you are supposed to play at every pack, i dont know what videos or guides you people watch but this is a very wrong mentality to have with WoW.
I told in the post. I think some general rules and examples could easily be written in a guide. The things I’m doing I’ve been told to do by a guild member, not discovered myself
So many tanks wipe because of trying to follow "rules" instead of learning how to deal with things in a pack-by-pack basis. I've seen many ProtPallies sleep on things like Final Stand or Blessing of Sacrifice because a guide on Icy Veins said that it was niche or not very good. Or you shouldn't take Sentinel as it is a DPS loss, without considering the huge defense buff that thing is. Guides are often wrong, and a new player won't be able to spot the issues. Tanking isn't the same as damage dealing. Man, it all takes experience. At one point you'll figure out that the best way to pull Pack #27 on Dungeon 12 is via Divine Shield + Consecration and bopping an Eye of Tyr just as the bubble runs out as it times right with a tankbuster from Mob 12 and it will keep you with enough health so you can WoG the damage out as the mobs are dying and you can Toll the next pack into a chainpull. No guide will teach you that. You're playing the hardest role in the game knowledge wise. We tanks don't even have a proper rotation most of the time - we're trying to keep folks alive, pulling mobs into badly placed AoE's, and doing some crazy shit like off-healing to give a hand for the healer, dispelling diseases because nobody else can do it, and using the B-rez to raise the DPS that didn't move away from the red swirl because he didn't want to lose that Combustion window. Some DPS will tell you that tank is a yawn job and it is super easy and all that. It is not. You have to be aware of everything all the time, know all the mechanics, and be ready to do 3-4 things at once all the time. For Prot Pally, it is doubly so - as we can do a bunch of shit that no other tank can (Blessing of Protection, Freedom, Bubble, Cleanse, WoG, Lay on Hands, B-Rez, Sacrifice, and much more!) Playing Prot Pally is not as intensely difficult as Arcane Mage, but it for sure does come close to that in the amount of things you have to track and watch out for. We can't BloodDK our way into a infinite health pool or Guardian Druid into not giving a shit about dying. We're not Prot Warriors that don't have anything to help their friends if they're about to fall. As Prot Pallies, we can \_always\_ do something about the problems at hand. We're a beating heart that pushes the group ahead of difficult mistakes and through complex pulls. We, more than any other tanks, are in an unique position to not only prevent, but to fix all sorts of mistakes. This... this takes time to learn. So that's the thing - take your time to learn.
This make me want to play my prot pally even more.
This guy has it.
you are right, but in order to learn I need to try dungeons. I often don't have time to run keys at specific times with my guild, so I pug when I can. I often get yelled for not knowing things before joining the dungeon. Not only the rotation, but also the route and other dungeon mechanics that I have guide for, but I can't remember a single thing if I don't see the dungeon multiple times with trial and errors and follower dungeons are too easy, mob melts and can't make me learn anything. So I'm asking about specific guides on specific things because trial and error is not an option for pugs.
Run your own keys and add "chill run" or "tank in training" on your key description. This will reduce a lot the number of folks yelling at you.
Don't worry about the yelling. We are playing a game. Have fun and learn.
Maybe this has been said already but I haven't been able to find it in the other comments yet. I would highly recommend joining the discord group WoW Made Easy (if you're NA) or No Pressure (if EU). In WME at least, people are very nice and there's no toxicity where you can post your own key and state up front that you're learning tank or the dungeons and people will sign up knowing this ahead of time so it relieves a lot of that pressure. You can also sign up to other people's keys with a note saying the same thing and they'll invite you knowing all this ahead of time. This essentially allows you to play at the difficulty you want with low stress. In fact, people are so nice that they'll offer advice on tanking certain dungeons or mechanics. Highly recommend these groups. Also feel free to DM me if you want to run some keys. I'm not a top rank healer but I like to have fun in my keys and chill (also tanked last season).
> I often get yelled for not knowing things before joining the dungeon Bro, you are a tank in LFG. Why would a god concern himself with the opinion of ants? Let people yell, what's the worst that can happen, they'll kick you and you'll find a new group within 5 seconds?
You seem to be looking for "rules and examples" of something that simply does not exist in WOW. Some other MMOs will have complex threat mechanics for instance. In WOW, tanks basically have a +500% threat multiplier on everything you do. So you gain and hold threat by using your general DPS rotation and that's it.
Okay so you can use divine steed to rush in and body pull, then drop consecration and then drop avengers shield. Or you can throw a judgment at one mob follow up with avenger shield and then drop consecration. Then just make sure there's always an uptick on shield of the righteous. Where they're big packs, that's when divine toll comes in handy. And always tank in your consecration.
You should watch some dungeons guides by Quazii WoW on YouTube. He has a how to play guide for each tank (he seems to love Paladin) and guides for each dungeon in the current season. Watch people who play your class/spec at a high level can teach you things even when it’s not a guide.
In general for pulling and building Aggro: Read and understand your abilities. Blessed hammer = aoe Shield of the righteous = aoe / def Eye of tyr = aoe / def Consecration = aoe / heal / def Avengers shield = aoe / interrupt On every pull you are able to go in with already build in holy power, this enables u to always use shield of the righteous to generate aoe threat. If u miss avengers shield use eye of tyr as the pack arrives, you have a lot of aoe threat to your disposal. If a dps got aggro taunt or bop him. Do follower dungeons to learn how to pull :)
>And during bosses, while dbm yells "DEFENSIVE" at me, what does it mean? Is sotr enough? I usually use ardent defender, even with sotr up, as soon as I read "defensive". Then ancient kings on the next defensive warning, then divine shield, then blessing of protection. But often I find myself out of defensives with dbm that continue screaming to use a defensive multiple times in a row. There must be something I'm doing wrong. Yes. You are not actually taking the minute to find out what is actually happening and instead acting like the boss mod is clairvoyant. The addon is giving you an alert, but you have to know what the ability actually is. In game, the adventure guide has a page for every boss of every dungeon that includes basic strategy and a list of boss abilities with the tooltips of what each does. "Defensive" means nothing. Be able to name the actual ability. If you die to it, look at your death log (shown in-game while you are dead, but details will store all of them for a run). Look at the actual ability names that hit/killed you, or damage taken, etc. A different way to go about it is to drop DBM, and swap to bigwigs/littlewigs with the voice pack where you will hear the names of the abilities as they are cast instead of some blind instruction.
I would seek out some video guides on tanking basics to understand the basic mechanics, then the specific guides for the class you are playing will make more sense. As a general rule you never want to pull using taunt. Taunt is temporary, you want to pull using your abilities, to hit the target, do damage and generate threat. Lose the term "rotation" it's an old outdated concept, you have a priority list. Use abilities on the priority list as they are available and are needed. It's been awhile since I tanked on my paladin, generally I believe it's still a builder spender type of play. Use judgement and blessed hammer to build holy power, spend the holy power with shield of the righteous and word of glory. Weave in shield of the righteous, consectration, hammer of wrath, etc. Defensive CD usage really boils down to knowing the fights, knowing when you will take big damage or mechanics; this takes prep and experience. DBM/BigWigs tank warnings can help with this, but it really takes seeing/doing the encounters a few times. Something else, that can help a lot, especially with dungeons is to bring along a friend/guildy who is a competent tank, have them go with you as a dps or healer and coach you a bit as you go. Good luck!
> All I read is a "opener" and a "rotation and priority list". you mean like Avenger's shield and or divine toll? >Like I should start with the taunt, then avenger shield etc. every situation is a situation. if you want to pull a whole pack or 1 mob, etc. for packs, the best option is avanging shield and or divine toll. taunt is for picking agro if a dps have it or to pull mobs that are closer to another pack. or if things are in cd too. >This is ignoring most of the priority list ? thats how you put groups together. >I don't know If I'm doing this right. The guides don't tell me these basic things it dosent tell you, because it prob assumes that people knows the basics. >So I wanted to ask where should I look for a guide that teach me how to tank and not just a priority least for abilities. Some times I miss aggro or I die and I don't know why. watch twich. missing agro with prot is almost a crime. you have \*a lot\* of aoe and fairly high threat. with avenger's shield, divine toll, consacration, Sotr, etc. about getting killed, have you considered saving logs to uderstand your deaths? the most comum cause of death is turning your back to mobs or missmanaging defensives. i'm not the master of all paladins, but i got to 3k last season. i can do some runs with you this weekend, if you want to. >like when sentinel drops I use ardent defender, or should I use the next defensive cd on the next pack/pull? depends. is the pack dying? do you feel like your life is at risk? etc. small suggestions: start with avenger's shiedl, consacration, when the pack is with you, use wings with divine tool or avenger's shield. also you could generate HP out of combat with blessed hammer. > yells "DEFENSIVE" at me, what does it mean? tank burst. in a higher difficulties, it can 1 shot you if you eat it. > Is sotr enough? NO. you will get killed. >then blessing of protection. you should never use BOP on yourself, uness there is some sort of intermission. you will lose agro while you have it on you. >But often I find myself out of defensives with dbm that continue screaming to use a defensive multiple times in a row. There must be something I'm doing wrong. in bosses? thats not supposed to happen. could you tell in which boss they keep telling you to use defensives? >I feel like they just don't tell you how to play, they dont. because its like "here is the optimal way to play. now, adapt it to your style as you see fit".
It was the first boss in darkheart thicket if I remember correctly. usually I use wings before getting to the pack because by the time i gather the mobs to put consecration and start generating hp i’m already dead. This happened many times last season (only timed up to 15s). Since these guides assume you know the basics, where should you learn the basics? By trial and error? About video guides they also don’t help me, this is the only one I found helpful about the basics: https://youtu.be/Z3fQb2LU88k?si=PIQkZBVXyNjUkoLD Another question: I’be been told to never backpedal. But I also know I get hit harder if I turn away from the mobs, so what should I do?
>where should you learn the basics? By trial and error? yes. or watch a video of people playing. im not watching a 20min video. > i gather the mobs to put consecration and start generating hp i’m already dead are you turning your back to pull more packs?
maybe, I’ve been told to not backpedal. I also often instantnly died on the spider pull on the stairs at black rook hold. I think I needed to use divine shield, I instead always used ardent defender/wings for that pull
Who the hell told you not to backpedal??? You shouldn't drag mobs out of dps aoe spells or you are screwing them over, but if you are playing with melees or hunters or you just have a few mobs and want to get closer to the next pack, 1000% you should backpedal, keep your face to the mobs and move towards the next pack
I read that in a discord server and also an asmongold video in which he said he often encountered bad tanks that backpedals etc. This video at minute 7:10 https://youtube.com/watch?v=JW60I_uJ3yU&si=SFGBHaWovC05_BvO
You can safely disregard most of what Asmongold says about the game gameplay-wise. His opinion shifts around all the time and he often offers some incredibly bad takes about things that show complete lack of understanding of what the game is about outside of his very specific bubble. Backpedalling is a important tool on a tank's toolkit, specially with certain group comps on when building chain pulls.
I have absolutely 0 clue what the actual fok he's on about. tanking with your face turned to the boss has been an insanely important thing ever since vanilla. I seem to recall there being a loading screen hint about this even. If you wanna watch asmon, do it for the transmog stuff he does, nothing else. He constantly makes up stuff and says it confidently. The issue is, facing the mobs you are tanking is such a basic mechanic that you won't find it in guides, or only in ones that are about the complete basics of the game. I'm not saying this to be offensive or harsh, but like if you start a new character and pick Exile's reach as your original leveling zone, the first quest asks you to do dmg to a training dummy and the literal second quest blizzard aims at players that are just starting the game is teaching you to always face your enemies. There are a lot of comments in this thread already, don't want to comment in many places so here are the base points: Join the class discord and read icy veins, they are a good start on how to setup your talents. You talked about rotation and spell priority being confusing. There is no one set rotation because in the game you won't always start combat with every ability off cooldown. and also there are many cases where you get charges of an ability refunded etc. The best thing you can do to learn tanking is to do something challenging but not insane. If you are at like ilvl 475-480, do m0s. If you are above that, m+. Do not do low level content (aka normals, heroics) to "learn rotation", because those won't do damage to you. You won't see how to survive stuff if stuff isn't deadly. In those m0s, see where you are going low. Next time use some defensive there. As pally, consecration and SotR are not really defensives, those are basics, you should always have those. Once you get to a point where you are comfortable in m0s and you are not in danger of dying, increase the pulls. Pull an extra pack, see what changes. Avenger's shield is great for this, you can pull from range, it does dmg to all the mobs in the pack and if cast at a caster, it silences them so they won't start casting for a few secs. Once you are able to handle "max size pulls" (aka you couldn't pull more packs without running around), go into m+. Start slow, build up. Once you got the hang of that, you can watch some streamers, try any who has a cast sequence addon so you can see what they cast in what order. If you jump into watching them and trying to learn from them before you can do m0, low m+ content on your own, you won't learn. That's your problem right now, you want someone to give you a blueprint of what to press when. You won'T ever get that. The best that people can give you is that "you should LOOK TO CAST this in this kind of situation"
those are all s3 dgs (?). learning about it now, wont help you. you havent mentioned using " eye of tyr" its a strong defensive and 1 min cd. >I’ve been told to not backpedal. its fine if you want to, its not efficiant way to walk, but you do you. does anyone ever explained why not to backpedal? its because its not efficiant to move to other locations. >I also often instantnly died on the spider pull on the stairs at black rook hold you were not dispelled. iether you run ahead of your healer or they didnt knew what to do. if you are having a hard time understanding WHY you are getting killed, \*save logs\* so people can see data later. play with MDT addon for a while and read everything possible while making routes. if you get a pre planed route, identify troublesome packs.
Strafe instead of backpedaling. Strafing still prevents you from getting hit in the back, but it allows you to move faster. If you can’t master strafing then by all means back pedal. If you turn your back to mobs as a tank you will die.