Hold the Line; An Endgame Tanking Reference

By: Patrick O'Callahan / Ciderhelm

The following is the second compilation of my reference guide written to help those new and old in Warcraft raiding. None of this is a replacement for guild strategy decisions, nor is it the end-all and be-all of tanking.

Enclosed in this guide are four major sections designed to assist dedicated tanks; though it is written for Warriors, it may be helpful to Druids and Paladins, as well as anyone interested in researching certain dynamics of the endgame. The first section covers Main Tanking and leadership qualities related to this role. The second section covers gearing and itemization as it relates to tanking. The third section covers tanking itself, in terms of talents, threat, positioning, and other related subjects. The fourth and final section is a reference guide to specific encounters in the endgame. Addendums to this guide include mods and other various information.

This guide, though long and undoubtedly arduous for the reader, serves the secondary purpose of preparing warriors who are unfamiliar with the endgame environment. If you are a warrior applying to or forming a raiding guild, you are strongly recommended to read this and familiarize yourself with the concepts.

I do not believe in the so-called casual guild. Any raiding guild, by the nature of achieving raid goals, is incapable of being casual and undisciplined. It is instead a high level of discipline and organization devoted to a goal, be it learning Molten Core on your weekends or learning Naxxramas six nights a week. In everything we do, we are given a certain amount of time in which we either put forth our full discipline and attention or we do not; in which we either succeed or do not. This guide is not written for people who do not wish to progress; it is written for those who have a deep desire to progress as fast as time permits. As such, I will not apologize for certain premises you may find in this guide -- for instance, Protection is better for raid progress in most new encounters than either Arms or Fury heavy builds.

This is not an all-encompassing reference guide. Your guild, your experience, and your intuition comes first. I do not pretend to be a perfect warrior; our videos never attempt to show clean-cut kills where nothing has gone wrong. Instead, they show the general reality of encounters, what can go wrong, and how you can recover.

Details in this guide may be off; abilities may be misrepresented; math may need adjustment. The living environment of the World of Warcraft may cause details in this guide to drift off course over the months. For my part, I apologize for error and will make an ardent effort to fix these errors.

Courage alone does not bring victory. It is courage tempered with science, discipline, and fierce determination which bring this. This is as true in a simple raiding game such as World of Warcraft as it is in the corporate world and in the modern battlefield. Prepare.

Thanks,
Patrick O'Callahan, Ciderhelm, Guildmaster of Eventide
http://www.eventideguild.com/

An Introduction to the Endgame

• 0.1 Raiding

Main Tanking

• 1.1 What is Main Tanking?
• 1.2 Time Commitment
• 1.3 Guild Loyalty and Guild Gearing

Gearing

• 2.1 Pre-Molten Core
• 2.2 Blizzard's Itemization Theory
  
• 2.3 Stamina: Magic Armor
  
• 2.4 To every season: Defense vs Stamina in relation to Healing
  
• 2.5 Resistance: Magic Defense
  
• 2.6 Heavy Armor
  
• 2.7 All About Shield Block
  
• 2.8 Self Sustenance; Consumables
  
• 2.9 Aggro verse Mitigation Weapons, Enchants

Tanking

• 3.1 Attack Power, Crits, and Steady/Irregular DPS
  
• 3.2 Attributes and Modifiers
  
• 3.3 Tanking: Talents, Skills and Preparations, Preparation, Discipline & Science, Tanking Theory, Skill Usage & Threat (Kenco), Efficient Tanking Talents
• 3.4 Special Creature Abilities
  
• 3.4.1 Threat Reduction & the Ceiling
  
• 3.4.2 Knockbacks, Knockups, Knockdowns, and Stuns
  
• 3.4.3 Triggered Memory Loss
  
• 3.4.4 Triggered Aggro Loss
  
• 3.4.5 Fear & Intimidating Shout
  
• 3.4.6 Stacking Debuffs
  
• 3.4.7 Paralyzation
  
• 3.5 Positioning
  
• 3.5.1 Tactical Entry Tips
  
• 3.5.2 Camera Spin & Jump Shot for Tanks
  
• 3.5.3 Dynamics of the Dragon -- Guidelines for Positioning

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