The Ultimate M+ Pug Tanking Guide Dragonflight Season 4

okay let's talk about something I see being talked about under my tanking guide called tanking anxiety or some people refer to it within impostor syndrome but it's basically just generally being nervous or scared to tank P groups as you push higher in Mythic plus this ultimately makes people not do it at all now I think this will be different personto person but the idea with tanking specific anxiety is that in Mythic plus the tank isn't just a role but it's more so a leader especially in pugs you're expected to know how to play your class do mechanics know the route you'll be taking which means you have to have already known the dungeon and then when you start assigning people certain mechanics in my experience if the tank doesn't do it no one does a bit of important background before I move on this season I have pugged all of my scor giving keys and I'm around 3,20 Mythic plus score at the time of this video which according to Rider IO that's just about in the top 1.5 to 2% globally which I feel is pretty good I am trying to go for the .1% title again all pugging if I do that another video will come out but otherwise you won't ever hear me mention it again so of the 100 Keys I've pugged on this Demon Hunter that gave score only five have depleted giving me an over 95% success rate in timing score keys in full pugs and I'm sure you all know that as the tank typically you only have so much control over a key especially if it's failing I'm going to go over a few ways I think were big in getting this decent record and ways I overcame the anxiety of leading randoms this is my first season doing this well pugging as tank and if for being honest the reason I haven't done this much in past seasons is just because I kept getting in my own head so while all the recent experiences are fresh I thought I'd make a video on also I'll share a few realities that if you're new to the tank roll you may not know but it will greatly help with any sort of impostering going on so an unfortunate reality is that if you are very new to the game or new to Mythic plus you probably shouldn't be tanking that being said you can learn to tank without actually tanking when you're playing as a DPS observe what pulls your tank do that you like like or don't like then in the future when you start tanking you can already have an idea of how you want to pull the dungeon lots of tank responsibilities can be learned by just observing other tanks even though I think that tank should not be your first role if you just start Mythic plus it's very reasonable to make it an early goal regardless of what Ro you decide to start out as but observing can only get you so far my second point is that you need to know your class and you can do this and should do this before you actually start getting into groups let me explain how so no tank has a complex rotation so at bare minimum you need to to know what buttons you're going to press to do DPS and what buttons you need to press to live tanking is also very FY craft meaning you can do slightly in quotes wrong rotation as long as it's giving you success and you're doing good damage or you're staying alive it doesn't really matter now DPS rotations for tanks is laughably easy you can just go read a guide and hit a training dummy the difficulty will really start when you're trying to figure out what buttons to press defensively now I have a really easy strategy for learning this if you're new to a particular tanks go into a Mythic Z dungeon or burn your own Keystone and go solo some pulls you want to pick a difficulty that's appropriate for your gear level as you can see here I went in on an atal r25 you don't have to don't push your key then go in but like with whatever you have right now whatever gear you're at right now just go into something now ideally pick a dungeon that has accessible trash pulls at the start I think every single dungeon this season in the rotation has lots of trash at the start so that should be no problem in terms of Mythic zeros in dragonflight Ruby Life Pools or that one and no Narin planes where you fly around as well as even the the underground The azer Vault I think it's called it's been so long these are all really good dungeons just to get in if you're at like that 420 430 440 gear level run in without using any cooldowns longer than 30 seconds and see how long you live then add cooldowns but none that are longer than a minute and see how longer you live repeat this by adding more and more cooldowns and that should give you an excellent idea of what you need to press you can even go in and test with just this cool down or this other cool down like I can go in and not press any anything besides demon spikes and live pretty long but there are gaps in Demon spikes after you go in with just demon spikes you can identify okay in this Gap is where I need to F Dev if you're fell deving before and the pack is not even moving your HP you don't need to overlap CDs and this goes for every single tank as prop Paladin you don't have to Argent Defender guardian of ancient Kings and then rip everything and wag yourself SM you don't have to do a lot of these things sometimes as prop Paladin and Demon Hunter a lot of your damage mitigation especially against mobs cuz most packs just m you right so a lot of your damage mitigation on those classes specifically and even Warrior is just from blocking and parrying now doing this in a dungeon solo gives you a situation where not everything will be kicked and interrupted and you have to work hard to stop as many casts as possible in the pack now this is a situation that will unfortunately happen a lot in pugs when people are panicked especially but because you're doing the solo on your own time in your own dungeon you get to basically experience the worst case scenario for tanking this is like a failure situation where you're getting no help on any of the mobs and no incoming heals without the pressure of letting the group down or having to deal with the full wipe the more confident you can get at tank rotations and defensives especially in this solo case the more it will ease your anxiety When jumping into pug groups as everything will feel easier especially at a similar level than trying to solo a dungeon now the final note you can consider before you join a group as tank is to learn from the community tanks and healers have a unique disadvantage compared to DPS when you're dpsing a key you are directly in competition with other DPS via the damage meter this keeps all three DPS in check and easily highlights when one person is above or below the average Hanks and sort of healers don't really have this as healer at least you can see people dying a lot but sometimes that has nothing to do with healer misplay and more to do with mechanical failures however as tank especially with a dungeon route you can be making big mistakes but you don't realize it until it's destroying the group this tanking phenomenon is something I call a failure success of value what this means in practice is that you do a dungeon a specific way as tank it goes well and 90% of the time when you do that dungeon it goes well however as you climb in key levels or play with different comps the dungeon success rate starts to get worse from the point of view of the tank it was successful before and they're not doing anything different so it's not their fault and this is what I mean by failure success value you did something that provided success however even when that thing is no longer good in this case the route just doesn't scale well to higher Keys you keep doing it but because you've had so much success in the past that you like a river has dug a valley and even if there's a better way to go you basically can't at this point now this is why whether it be streamers YouTube videos or just browsing logs watching other tanks is crucial because in a dungeon if you CU tank always you lose any frame of reference without observing other people play DPS are competing with each other healers are competing with the DPS is ability to die but tanks are kind of in this bubble and I think this failure success Valley this is why a lot of Tanks will have an ego cuz even if they're the ones up they can't directly see that okay you've considered all the prep you learned your classro rotation seen other tanks fail and or do well and generally now you have an idea of what you want to do when you're tanking a given dungeon but now is where the real tank xiety steps in you know what to do but what if it's wrong what if other people expect you to do different things and you don't do those things let's talk about how to handle these dilemmas inside dungeons firstly as a tank only do pulls especially at the start of a key where you can solo the core mechanics now there's a limit to this so be reasonable you don't literally have to move people out of bad mechanics or keep people alive but I'm more so talking crowd control and interrupts for example as a Demon Hunter in the first few pools of a dungeon I will go super aggressive with using my sigils I'll silence the mobs and I'll be constantly gripping and fearing to stop every single cast during this time I'll observe how much I'm overlapping with teammates if you see a lot of other people using similar crowd control you can reasonably expect that they will continue to play as they are throughout the key also tracking interrupts with an add-on like Omni CD will give you a good idea of what to expect from your new pug group if you see a lot of overlapping kicks people are more like likely to kick but if you see a lot of kicks left on CD even as mobs are casting then know that maybe you should do smaller is pulls with less casters if you can't solo the kicks yourself now I've also found that if players aren't interrupting at all typing please kick more in chat doesn't really do anything beyond the next immediate pull so yeah good luck with that now I've generally noticed that as you push higher in score and key level people on average get better so just remember when you get a bad group that the groups will again on average only ever get better from there now once you get your basic rotation and surviving down which I can't stress how important this is because of how easy it is as tank then you can worry about keeping your teammates alive example if I go into a pull on my Paladin and I have done this pull before I know that I can live without any major CDs then my mind no longer has to work out how to live I can chill do my rotation and see what casts and mechanics I can help the team with a lot of the times in a dungeon and this is doubly true as you get better at playing your tank spec you will not be the one dying there are many many many 20 to 30 mop poles I could do as DHR Paladin this season and I live no problem it's just that my party will be dying around me now moving on keep in communication with your group now I don't mean getting into voice or anything crazy just make sure you have ping Bound in game and ping Corners when you're pulling back or ping mobs when an AIX or something that needs attention is happening don't overuse pings or really ever ping players this will just make people ignore them or it's likely to provoke reaction remember pinging is sort of just like yelling and pointing it's really up to the interpretation of everyone what your ping means so try not to do super vague pings cuz that might just start tilting people Beyond pings there's a strat I use called absolving myself of any responsibility for example in this dungeon I want to pull a somewhat scary double pull next I know I can live without any issue but I want the Healer to confirm that they're okay with it so I will explicitly ask every single time if the healer is okay with this pull if the pull goes bad I am completely absolved from any blame for doubling the packs because after I got the Healer to confirm it's now a collective decision and thus no shot will anyone Blame You the tank at all this also works in Reverse if it's an expectation that you typically do a double pull and you don't want to do that just keep your group informed like if you're ever uncertain about some PS or you think you might die or you're just nervous just communicate to the group it's going to be a two mob pole then a six mob pole just give them basic information if anyone has to protest they will do so then but most of the time if people see that you have a plan they will just go along with it cuz in their head they don't have a plan either this also mitigates anyone flaming after the group wipes or after you die this is also just kind of a real life tip getting ahead with clear communication is just a really good way to ensure things are smoother and you have less stress MMO players have pretty bad social skills so things are more likely to break down however no one can fault you if you told them what the plan was or you got someone else to agree that the plan was good remember from the point of view of healers and DPS and pugs 99 or maybe 89% of their tanks just aimlessly pull the dungeon and they have no clue what's going on the DPS have no clue what's going on the Healer has no clue what's going on so if as a tank in a pug you give them any amount of information so they have an idea of what's going on it just everyone's happier and having more fun now this goes both ways if you ever die as a tank and I don't know if you're watching this in a future season but in Dragon flight season 3 if you die first as tank and it's not to like three very specific dispels it is absolutely your fault assuming we're talking the mid to high key level so not Keys within the. 1% title range which is like 27 28 26 right now is but if I die first within the group of my Demon Hunter on any key 24 or lower it is my fault 100% again it's not to a dispel cuz there are dispels that if the Healer ignores you can just get deleted but a tank dying first in a group is most likely the Tank's fault now be reasonable with my statement here obviously if someone body pulls a boss or drags random mobs from the dungeon into your pull that's clearly not your fault but even though I'm into the 23 to 25 key levels I have gone full weeks without dying on both my DH and Paladin every single death I've had this entire season when I watch it back it's always been my own fault which by the way record your gameplay and rewatch it you will learn a lot just by doing that or use a clipping rewind program like Shadow play I personally use steel series moments and press the key bind every time you die pair this with a death recap add-on like death note so you can get a good idea of what exactly happened if you're using Death Note by the way this add-on crashes a lot so don't try to open it in combat this is an after dungeon thing if you do open it in the dungeon don't Mouse over anything in the middle it might crash also in details damage meter on the bottom right of my screen I have a couple broadcaster tools turned on this shows my last key presses as well as anyone nearby using cool Downs including myself paired with announcing deaths and announcing battle reses in the raid tools option makes it really easy to get a grasp of what is happening and what abilities are being used when I'm re-watching the clips I recommend turning all of these on as they have no per performance impact from what I can tell and you can put them on outer reaches of your screen cuz you don't need to look at them in the actual game just in replays I also don't think it'll really distract you if anything seeing that someone's died seeing that someone's getting resed kind of keeps you informed but most of the information being shown especially on the broadcaster tools is completely irrelevant when you're playing even if you stare at them it's telling you what you pressed so it's not like it's going to inform anything poorly now as tank remember you are the actual group leader even if you're not literally party leader one of the biggest causes for key depletion and motivation deletion is when friction builds within a group and someone just leaves or intentionally throws remember online video games are not a good medium to dissipate social frustration even if you do nothing wrong someone else getting mad or getting ashamed then mad as a defense before leaving the group is still going to waste your time and possibly your Keystone so it's in your best interest that that doesn't happen now my personal thing is that I never leave the key first now I'll let the group mess up the same thing two times before I ask in chat about the timing chances or whether we want to finish with a deplete drop the key and go lower or just disband dragonflight season 3 timers are very generous so even keys with 20 to 25 deaths are still somewhat easily timable now earlier I said I would mention some realities that you may not be familiar with unless you've played all three roles or at least played a lot of tank one of these realities is that people generally don't know when you the tank makes a mistake I can remember four specific situations in the last week where I thought oh God I messed up this might wipe the group and sometimes it did wipe the group but then when the group WIP even though I said my be or that was on me or something like that again getting ahead with clear communication despite that people will be like no it's not your fault tanks can't do anything about that or some and I'll be like oh okay if only they knew people are just generally thankful that someone is playing tank if you tried to Q his DPS or tried to find a tank for your random lfg key you would probably understand why there is and probably always will be a shortage of tanks and the reason for that is the same reason that I even thought to make this video there's a lot that comes with tanking and in wow and as a tank you're basically paying $15 a month to let other people play the game and those other people are really happy you're doing that it's just important as tank to not be an so many tanks have absurdly big outgoing egos or again fall into that failure success Valley where in reality tank rotations are piss easy outside of very very high Keys you can't really die as tank unless you mess up and if you take out the social Factor tanking is actually very simple at its core it's really just the social things and also adapting PS and how you play to having different classes in the group that makes it complicated I see a lot of Tanks being aggressive or toxic just because they think that they are doing everything right and everyone around them sucks but I'd wager that if that tank were to be thrown into a 27 or 28 key right now they'd be humbled real fast when they realize how many mistakes they were making that they were getting away with for so long that about does it though I know I didn't mention any magical methods for making nervousness or t anxiety go away that's just because there isn't really a trick to it at all it's kind of just about being prepared and understanding the possible things that could happen so you have less surprises it's also especially about keeping an open mind as there is a big difference in perspective between tank players and everyone else the three roles at times play very different games but it's important to remember Mythic plus is a team game and you're all working towards the same shared goal that's all for now though I'll be active in the comments as usual in case anyone has any questions later

Channel: IVIV

Views: 69,503

Keywords: world of warcraft, pve, mythic plus guide, tanking in wow, mythic+ guide, wow dragonflight, dragonflight wow, dragonflight tanking guide, M+ tanking guide, M+ tanking addons, wow tanking addons, wow beginner guide 2022, beginner tank guide wow, beginner tanking guide wow, how to tank m+ dungeons, how to tank M+ dragonflight, dragonflight ultimate tanking guide ep2, wow tanking guide, wow tank guide, how to tank in wow, how to tank wow, wow tank

Id: 4s1rGzFluaM

Length: 16min 34sec (994 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 30 2023