Is it questionable to invite oneself into a meme-that-is-not-a-meme that you haven’t been tagged in? Possibly. Is it a meme that has been circulating long enough to be considered lame by some? Probably. Do I ask and answer my own questions too much? Without doubt.

The specific quasi-non-meme in question, Circle of Tanks, is useful to my goal of introducing myself to the larger community, so I hope you’ll forgive my faux pas.

Note: Before I begin, I want to assure some of the more detail-oriented readers out there that I am aware that Cayleb’s specs, gear, etc. could use some optimization. Please keep the “LOLWUT? N00B!!1!” and such to a minimum. Constructive criticisms and suggestions, however, are most welcome. I am not a pro tank, and will not pretend to be. My guild thinks me competent, and that is sufficient. As they grow, I will also grow and seek to improve.  Also, I am snarky, and as such have embedded a bit of it into my responses below. If you fail to recognize it, I will likely mock you. Mercilessly.

What is the name, class, and spec of your primary Tank?

Cayleb, Paladin, 0/53/18 <-primary (and currently only) tank

What is your primary group Tanking environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)

Mostly raids with the occasional Heroic thrown in. Also, what is this “pvp tanking” business all about? (Just kidding, I know perfectly well that Protadins are the number one pwners in pvp tanking. Pro Tip: skip resilience, because who needs survivability anyways?)

What is your favorite thing about the class you chose for your primary Tank and why?

Paladins are the most storied class. Also, space-goats can’t druid. Seriously though, I joined up in the Alliance ranks back during the Burning Crusade. As I was determined to play a draenei, my choices for tanking were to be a heroic servant of the Light or a bland, plate-wearing fighter with little in the way of backstory.

No offense Warriors. You make a very capable tank or DPS class, but telling someone you rolled as a Warrior is like telling someone you have a pet Tallstrider named “Legs”. Except less funny.  I am slightly jealous that all the higher ilevel drops seem to be graphically designed with Warrior plate in mind. So that might be adding to my feelings here. Level 80 and I still look like a rainbow puked on me. Except with neat glow effects.

What do you like least about your class and why?

I dislike having to run around so much in order to smush casters in PVP. I mean, with Repentance and my hammer stun always on cooldown, that leaves those pesky clothies with far too much time to flee in terror while casting DoTs that I’m far too lazy to Cleanse.

As far as tanking goes, I’ve had some mana issues when running dungeons in which I’m over-geared. Divine Plea, BoSanc, & Spiritual Attunement just don’t keep my mana topped off in H ToC and Utgarde Pinnacle anymore. Even Judging Wisdom instead of Light still leaves me at a significant mana deficit at times. This can be overcome in a few ways, but none of them are really pretty. I think I’ll cover the topic more in a later post.

What do you feel is the biggest strength of your Tanking class and why?

AoE threat generation. When it comes to keeping threat high on multiple targets at the same time, a paladin really has no peer. Add to that the 969 rotation‘s simplistic beauty and you have a very steady and elegant means for keeping those mobs occupied until the deeps get around to burning them down.

What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your Tanking class and why?

I know that Honorshammer thinks low interrupt frequency is an issue. I would agree, but I want to add in that unlike Druids, Warriors, and DKs (especially DKs), Paladins have no way to close range fast with our targets. We cannot sprint towards them nor can we call up some bad-ass ghostly arms to yank them to us. (If a dev is reading this, I would like the DK version better. You could even name it Hand of Beckoning, to go along with the other Hand currently useable on enemies.)

In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best tanking assignment for you?

Paladins (now) have the ability to excel at most any tanking assignment.  As long as I’m taking damage (or mitigating/avoiding said damage) and maintaining threat on the boss or adds I’m assigned to tank, I can handle the job.  Off-tanking is where I tend (depending on encounter design) to really shine, as I enjoy throwing huge amounts of threat out on multiple adds simultaneously. It does get a bit hairy when the screen fills up with a veritable forest of said adds, but that’s why paladins have RD and Consecrate (and Holy Wrath, In ICC). 

What Tanking class do you enjoy tanking with most and why?

I quite honestly have only ever really tanked as a Paladin.

[Editor's note: As long as you promise not to tell my toon, I've begun to experiment with a lowbie druid and with a DK and am aiming to hopefully tank with them someday soon to get a feel for other tanking classes.]

[Main's note: I heard that.]

[Editor's note: Crap.]

What Tanking class do you enjoy tanking with least and why?

Warrior, and that’s probably because I’ve not really ever tanked with one. Also because (see above) I’m of the opinion that their lore is fairly bland.

What is your worst habit as a tank?

This is a tie between occasionally losing track of where my healer is and being too conservative with my cooldowns.  I’m trying to be more mindful of both habits this year so I can overcome them.

What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while tanking?

I get easily annoyed by DPS who ignore kill order. What really ticks me is when they’re clearly clueless that I’m not targeting the mob and subsequently pull threat on the mob. When it happens on bosses with adds, the results can be catastrophic if I don’t react fairly quickly. When it happens on trash, I’m usually more forgiving, or else I’ll purposefully let the wayward DPS kill themselves a few times before they get it.

I tend to have no patience for individuals who constantly repeat this mistake, especially when I do try to prevent their stupidity from killing them and they die anyways and then blame me.  This is why I enjoy the new Dungeon Finder less than I could.

My guildmates, I should note, typically avoid this mistake. That’s one of the many little reasons I love MoK so much.

Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other tanks for PvE tanking?

Yes, though I don’t really have raiding experience as any other tanking class. I also haven’t healed raids, so I’m not sure how easy/difficult protadins are to heal as compared to other tanks. In fact, the overwhelming majority of my raiding experience has been as a tank. This is a deficiency that I’d love to correct, but haven’t had the chance to yet due to time constraints.

What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a tank?

Lately, I’ve been using Skada as both my threat meter and a substitute for Recount, which I feel is a bit of a memory hog.  In my opinion the Skada window’s left/right click navigation is also simpler to use and more intuitive than Recount’s little arrows.

Tidy Plates is another tool I use.  It replaces those ugly default Blizzard nameplates with some form improvements and a lot of functional improvements, including threat indicators on multiple targets.  It also seems to use less memory than Aloft, another nameplate add-on.  I consider Tidy Plates to be a must-have for tanking as it allows for very easy identification and click-targeting off whatever add might have decided to go munch on your DPS or healer instead of on you.  A caveat: in a multi-tanking environment the green-low threat display is identical for adds munching on other tanks and those munching on other dps/healers.  Awareness of which mobs are your responsibility mitigates the confusion that this can cause.

What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your tanking class?

I think far too many folks assume that a protadin can put out ungodly amounts of threat on multiple mobs instantly just by looking in their direction.  This assumption can lead to unexpected deaths when DPS don’t give the tank any lead-off time on threat generation and instead plunge in right away with their highest-threat spells.  Once a paladin’s locked aggro, you’re going to have a hard time accidentally pulling it, but they’re not locked on me the moment I taunt them.  Assuming otherwise, in combination with ignoring kill order, Trigger-happy DPS are likely a problem for every tanking class though.  Ultimately, DPS need to stop assuming that a few seconds of hanging on while the tank gathers up adds/mobs won’t cause a wipe; causing your tank to use up all his taunts covering for your gaffe will.  I also find it tends to cause a sort of aggro tug-of-war between tank and the DPS in question, which doesn’t help anyone’s efficiency.

I also think that people (some paladins included…) assume paladin tanking is easy-mode because of the 969 rotation.  Effectively making use of the full range of Paladin tanking abilities requires more than just a macro for your 9-second abilities and a macro for your 6-second ones.  (If you tank-by-macro, ur doin it wrong.  And worse, you’re hampering your effectiveness and robbing your guild of a better tank in the process.)

What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new tanks of your class to learn?

I feel that the most difficult part of the protadin learning curve is the complexity of mana regen and learning how to avoid the OOM. Protadins as a whole are uniquely mana-dependent. No mana = no threat-generation = party/raid wipes = people cranky at the tanky.

For a Ret pally, keeping mana up is really only dependent on judging enemies, and usually is as simple as casting:

  1. the appropriate judgement
  2. Divine Plea from time-to-time

For a Prot pally, mana regen is dependent on three things:  hitting enemies, taking damage, and avoiding damage.  It requires balance between all three, because any one method will not usually give you ample mana all on its own. This means that to keep mana regen from outpacing mana expenditure, tanks must juggle:

  1. BoSanc
  2. Holy Shield (up at all times)
  3. Divine Plea (refreshed at all times)
  4. Spiritual Attunement‘s effects (as in you must take damage to effectively regen mana)
  5. Seal of Wisdom (know when to use and when not to)
  6. Judgment of Wisdom (you’re really only ever going to need to use this in instances)
  7. Consecrate (which is a great tool for keeping multiple mobs/adds aggro’ed, but should be the first spell to go if mana is running low)

That’s a lot of focus to have to put into keeping mana up when a tank’s primary job should be keeping threat up. I know other tanking classes have their own resources to balance, but it doesn’t seem (at least from the comfortable distance of not playing them) that their resource-to-threat-output relationship is quite as touchy or complex as a protadin’s.

Two words to sum up the relationship between Protadins and mana? It’s complicated.

If someone were to try to evaluate your performance as a tank via recount (or Skada), what sort of patterns would they see (i.e. lots of threat, low dps output, etc)?

DPS meters are not a good tool for evaluating tank performance. Threat-per-second (TPS) can be very indicative of need for improvement of gear/enchants/gems/rotation. Low numbers of Deaths are probably an indicator of good performance, or at least smart DPS/healers.  My personal numbers are within an acceptable range.  I’m trying to always increase TPS and decrease Deaths, of course.

Avoidance, Mitigation or Stamina and why?

I like mitigation.  Of all the stats important to us, it seems the most “tanky” to me.  Dodging blows isn’t very tank-like, and Stamina seems much like steroids. Unfortunately for my preferences, Blizzard’s current design philosophy seems to underemphasize thinks like block rating in favor of Stam-stacking.  Add to that the fact that armor somehow means absolutely nothing to non-physical damage, and the Effective Health game becomes the only game in town. Oh well.

What Tanking class do you feel you understand least?

Hands-down this would be DKs.  I really don’t like the feel (so-far) of their tanking rotation options, and I think it’s because I don’t really understand the class.  The design philosophy behind them turns me off and at the same time baffles me.  I absolutely hate tracking rune cooldowns and I think that’s most of what makes their resource system feel so awkward to me.  Perhaps I’m doing it wrong.  More time spent on that alt may in fact improve my outlook.

What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in tanking?

I use quite a few add-ons.  Bartender4, DrDamage, TipTac, ouf_Nivaya, Skada, Elkano’s Buff Bars, and several others.  I’ll start a UI category soon and elaborate more in later posts.

Do you strive primarily for balance between your tanking stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?

Right now, I’m a stam-stacker. Chill of the Throne pretty much invalidated gemming/enchanting for avoidance and you really don’t have many options to add block/block value to existing gear.