Tank seeking advice for raiding!!! [Please read]

I am in need of some advice, I am a paladin tank, looking to begin raiding soon and I wondered how I go about becoming a main tank in which my guild highly needs for raiding?

Should I go into a weekly public raid of HE and AoA x4 and see what the main tank does and note it down to revise and work on or is there another way in which you can advise me on where to start if I'm looking to become a main raid tank?

Please leave advice below

Thanks all that reply

1.) you have hopefully run all the COE instances as a tank already and know your class very well.
2.) talk to your guild instead of asking in forum.
3.) of course you can try to get into any PUG Raid, doesn't hurt, might be hard as a tank though, since PUG raids are usually started by people who already have a good tank, but you may still get a spot, and if you're lucky they even explain some strategy, although usually they only explain the stuff that the DPS needs to know, since the tanks already know what to do.
4.) good luck. main thing with a Tank is: u need self-esteem (and know your class well), and have tanking experience from heroic content a lot. Then it shouldn't be a problem when your decently geared.

Be humble also and realize many, many things can wipe a group it is not always your healer. Some of the best players I know can admit when they are the ones who made a mistake. You can ask me in-game for more tips at Guk.Estred if needed.

You mean as humble as you are? :LOL

Estred speaks from experience. Nice to admit publicly that she causes so many wipes.

More over as I try to be at times. I do have strong voiced opinions here on the forums, as noted on another thread where we disagreed.

Sure, I have been the cause of plenty of wipes because I overestimated my healer. I had all aggro, just pulled more than my healer could heal.

More advice for the OP.

Pick up raids will indeed help you get acquainted with tanking basics. I would recommend finding what ever guild raids on your server and asking their tanks who match your class. I would offer advice but I don't play a Paladin except as an alt. So most I could give tank wise is
1: Always turn the mob
2: Once you set the mob, don't move it unless you utterly have to
3: Be very aware of your surrounding for pathing adds or in case an enemy starts to go for one of your group members.
4: Use of your temps to survive will come with practice, speaking with a HM-Raiding Paladin in your case would be a very good idea.

so your definition of "humble" is to blame the healer. I got it.

It is my job as the tank to gauge how much my healer can do. Any idiotic tank can pull 1-3 rooms in Reckless; sure as heck doesn't mean they will survive it having aggro or not. I don't see where in that sentence I said "blame your healer" as a piece of advice.

There is responsibility in all rolls of a group/raid. A Tanks job is to pull at a pace the DPS can kill and the healer can heal. They also have to not pull so much they lose aggro. Healers jobs are to keep the group alive (obviously) but for many groups it is very important to cure very fast. DPS simply has to make it so the enemies die quickly thus allowing the group to move faster while the Utility classes keep Power and damage buffed.

I have been tanking in MMO's since the days of EQ1. With that being said I have a few pointers that can help you.

1. Never turn your back to a mob. If you must move a mob or change your position ALWAYS strafe.

2. Use key bindings, apparently this is the first MMO where people click more than they use bindings. If you are a clicker, then you should not be tanking. I know this will bring some arguments about how some people claim "they are pro clickers" don't listen to them, there is no such thing. The reason being as a tank the mob and the raid requires your full attention. No one can pay attention to everything going on around them while they are looking to see where their mouse pointer is going next. Lastly you will not generate as much agro as you possibly could. Again people will argue, but you can't argue with logic. It takes roughly .3 seconds for the hand to eye to coordinate for each move. Think about how many abilities you use. That is a lot of wasted time at the end of a 5 min fight.

3. Only pull what your group can handle, and always make sure your group is ready for a pull.

4. Know your deathsaves / prevents.

5. Know your encounters. There are quite a few encounter strats you can view on the internet. I would suggest reading the strat, for each encounter so you are not going in blind folded.

6. Know your class, there is tons of information on eq2 flames as well as these forums, for each of the tank classes. Make sure you are using the right spec for whatever task you are doing.

7. Practice makes perfect. What I mean by this is simple, run heroics until you are blue in the face, then run some more. Make sure you are fully prepared to tank. Run some hardmodes, with high dps guildies, to test your abilities. Once you feel comfortable with your tank then I would take the step up to raiding.

8. Be ready to be criticized. Tanks are the easiest people to catch screw up, period. The entire group is going to be watching you. Sometimes it will be the healers fault sometimes it will be your fault. People in raid will always try to offer you advice, in my experience 9/10 times they have no idea what they are talking about, but you should always at least hear them out.

9. Make sure to download act, so you always a reference on what killed you, what your heals were looking like etc. This will help you pin point the reason you perished.

10. Know your gear. Always always make sure you gear is the best it can possibly be. Sometimes simple to acquire upgrades are easily over looked.

11. Lastly being the tank of your guild, is so much more than just being online for raids. This of course is an opinion, but being the tank for your guild is a position that holds respect. How do you get your guildies to respect you? By being online more than just for raids. Though it is important to be online for as many raid as possible, to build up trust and show them you are reliable. It is also important what you do in your off time. In today's eq2 it is getting harder and harder to find a group, grouping with several of your guildies outside of raid will help to earn you the respect as a tank in your guild. They will also be grateful to have you tanking for them.

12. Have cure pots, healers are sometimes slow. Carry your own and this will almost never be an issue.

Anyhow, I know this doesn't tell you your rotation or anything like that, these are just pointers which I have picked up along the way. When you die don't blame people, and never call out anyone. If you know why you die, if it was due to lack of heals, send a tell to your healer, or just make a subtle statement, IE I only was at 50% health forever, was something going on with the healers I need to know about, etc. It is also your job to pay attention to the environment. To know where people are, and were they should be. You need to be able to call out if someone needs to move out of way or reposition.

Again if you can't do any of these thing, I honestly feel the tank role isn't for you. If you can so all of them, then I think you will make a fine tank for any guild out there.

As far as Nynaeve and Estreed are concerned. Normally when a tank dies it is a healers fault. Tanks hp hit 0 = not enough heals the end. Now occasionally one shots do happen, now that is sometimes the tanks fault. Or if the tank is doing something he shouldn't be doing. Or standing somewhere he shouldn't be standing.

One of your arguments was if the tank pulls to much that he loses agro. Even then he would be the last one standing, until his healer got agro. But, to act like healers aren't to blame for the majority of tank deaths is absurd imo.

Well said. You also summed up my point about tank vs healer fault with the line of "Or if the tank is doing something he shouldn't" such as pulling more than the healer can heal. It is amazing how many things you listed that I do automatically when I tank groups/raids. I personally thank you for posting them.

First of all and maybe (at least right now) role a monk.

Secondly, be prepared to get flamed, if the mob is not turned in correctly.... well even if the size is twize is wide as a schoolbus, you should be able to park it on a stamp so no one has to move anymore (j/k soomehow, but true anyhow)

Thridly, you have to compete and react almost faster then the healer rolleyes does to the situation.... if not, you fail and at least one or a group will die due to a front ae or something else.

I normaly blame the dds for doing way to less dps ^ ^ at least the healer will not flame you for this

But after all those nice points, writen before and (some) here.... you have to have fun with what you are doing and being MT.... isn´t that thrilling as it might sound in frist place

No matter what anyone else contends, as a main tank you will have more responsibility than any other member of the raid.

First, ask yourself: do you want this responsibility?

To give you some idea, your duties will include, but not be limited to:

• Keeping your group/raid moving through the zone. The tank is the pacemaker of any good group and any notion you have of taking a brief /afk to use the restroom while auto-following someone else should be immediately forgotten. If you expect to socialize in-game or out-of-game while tanking, forget it or choose another class. Groups want to get through a zone as efficiently as possible and on to whatever else is next, and expect you to be the one to get them there.

• Micro-managing practically everything. If you have attention-deficit problems, choose another class. During raids, you will be expected to simultaneously pull, position, and maintain aggro on the target. Furthermore, you're going to be expected to keep an eye out for adds, sometimes cast and maintain an archetype-specific debuff, watch for and react to scripted red texts, and snap aggro when mobs mem-wipe. All the while, you'll be trying to utilize the optimal combat art/spell rotation in order to maintain aggro, while maintaining temporary buffs to keep you alive through random spike damage.

• Feeling wholly responsible, whether you are or not, for the group's or raid's failure or success. Even though everyone knows it requires a perfectly coordinated effort on the part of every group member to flawlessly execute the most difficult scripts, you will still feel as though every death or failure is a direct result of your actions or lack thereof.

While it may seem that I'm trying to dissuade you from tanking, I'm really only trying to give you an idea of what will be expected of you, which is a lot more than you can possibly imagine at this point. Every tank had to start at level one, however, and those who are now main-tanking for the best guilds in the game at one time were in the same position as you.

Don't be discouraged, but do be aware that tanking entails stress that many people actually use this game to avoid. This stress will lessen over the course of time as you become a better tank and surround yourself with better players, but never be altogether absent. As you become a better tank though, this stress will actually heighten your performance and allow you to do things that you never thought possible.

http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/index.php?threads/paladin-guide-to-success.1863/

Have a thick skin, and be open to constructive feedback and advice. As was already stated, as the tank your always the first to get the blame for anything that goes wrong, ANYTHING. Having a thick skin and not taking things too personally helps with this. Also, know when people are trying to offer constructive feedback rather then just flaming you, not everyone gives good constructive feedback, and it can come off as a flame even tho its not the intent.
Never stop trying to improve your character, theres always something you can be doing better.

I genuinely thank you All for your great advice the mini argument helped me see sides from both perspectives. I am young, don't get me worn players sometimes pick at me for that but I am determined to become better, I also intend to do a ton of research into this to help me become ultimately a better tank and also to help other in a similar situation to me! Once again thank you all for your top tips ill be sure to implement all of these into the game have a great day all

I'm just getting to know this community but I find it interesting how differently I view some of the contributors between one thread they post in and another. =P

Plavem has a great post in this thread, in my opinion. The only thing I would caution is to find the spec that works best for you, as opposed to blanket copying someone else's without understanding why they did everything they did. ACT is your best friend when it comes to this. Yeah the parse at a glimpse is fun to watch, but the real power of ACT lies in performance analysis. It is the tool that will let you pin-point the exact overall effect of making one decision versus another when constructing your toon. Be prepared to invest plat in learning what is best. You need to buy gear and swap adorns to experiment with the results. Sure you can look at lots of other toons to see what they do, and I encourage you to do so, but if you really want to learn how to be the best player YOU can be, then you still need to actually try the different things you see, or better yet, think up on your own things to try.

Another way to learn about how a good tank does their job is actually by playing a healer. LOL You will have first-hand view of what the tank does and know exactly how much damage they are receiving or mitigating. As an experienced healer you can usually tell right away if your tank is experienced or not, but even as an inexperienced healer you'lll notice right away when a tank is not doing their job correctly because your job will feel impossible. =P

And yes, even as a healer, I agree that 99% of the time when the tank dies it was the healer's fault. The most common exceptions were already listed.

I disagree to a period.

I mean look at it like this. You can teach yourself to do anything you want to do in life, however, there are reasons other people of the same trade do things a certain way. Most of the time the way they are doing it is close to the most efficient way of doing it. Now when it comes to a game which is all numbers, most of the top players have already done the work for you.All you have to do is play that spec the way you want to play it and tweak it to your liking, but there are reasons why they are specced that way.

As far as my other posts, I do contribute what I can, however I can't stand sony as a company, and there are quite a bit of issues with this game. I also can't stand stupid people, or people who whine about things that are so minimal etc. Anyhow different posts get different reactions, and feelings put into them.

^^ Agree with this completely. There are people out there that have a very good time crunching the numbers and min/maxing a spec to squeeze the very best out of it. They do it for fun, and to be able to play well. You may tweak that spec a little bit for your own playstyle, but if you want to min/max, why would you reinvent the wheel?

Maybe I should have bolded this part:
The only thing I would caution is to find the spec that works best for you, as opposed to blanket copying someone else's without understanding why they did everything they did.

If you are going to know what tweaks to make and why, you are going to have to understand why the spec is setup the way it is. Plus there's difference in group setup to consider, so looking at the spec for a toon who always has an optimal group/raid setup may not be pratical to a player who rarely has an ideal group setup. I realize that in most cases there will be components of a spec that everyone does, but in other cases there will be choices to make and the popular answer isn't necessarily the most appropriate answer. It is about finding what works best for you.

There's also the fact that specs change with time and not everyone keeps up. Besides, the only way you can be sure that all the possibilities have been tested correctly is to test them yourself. The OP was interested in becoming the best tank possible and I think that knowing how to build your own spec is an important part of that.

Sorry if I've caused any offense, I was just making an observation and trying to contribute a point of view.

I agree with this wholeheartedly, I have friends that ask me about speccing different class AA's and I freely give them mine to look at, and I know they're interested in doing it right when they ask me WHY I did things this way or that, rather then just blindly copying it; a blind copy does little for you if you don't understand WHY you went with choice A over choice B, and vice versa.
You can copy the WW#1 of any class, right down to the gear, but if you don't understand the toon, and how to play them and why you have certain aa/prestige options over something else, your going to be one seriously gimped version of that toon.

Basically, talk to other raid tanks and raid leaders, especially paladins. Be sure to research fights and zones. Just watching another tank work won't necessarily help if you don't understand what's going on behind everyone else's screens.

After that, develop a sadistic glee for repeatedly slaughtering your guildmates while you get the hang of things... And remember to blame the healers.