Priests, listen up. I’ve got some bad news for you.

So you’ve read the boards, you’ve studied hard, and you know your class to a T. You know what all the spells do, you know how to solo, and you know more about healing than the guys who MADE the class.

None of it means a thing if you don’t learn at least a little about the classes you’ll be grouping with. True story.

And if you take a good look around, the non-priests who are reading this already know that fact.

To be a good player (no matter the class) you have to understand the game. You have to poke your head up and glance around at something other than health bars from time to time, and there is a lot that you can do to make a group go more smoothly.

On that note, the class type you need to understand most (after your own) are the tanks that will be protecting your squishy self from slavering death.

One of the primary tanks available in the game is a Protection-specc’d paladin.

There are a few things you need to know about these tanks (affectionately dubbed “tankadins”). The main concern of any tank is aggro management. The basic secret to this game is for the mobs to be attacking the tank, and not you. That’s aggro management at its most basic.

The tankadin has a few tricks to help him hold aggro, but most of his aggro is based around the damage he does - holy spell damage in particular.

If you stop and think about that statement, the rest of what I will say may come across as obvious.

Mana
The tankadin needs mana, and loads of it. If he runs out of mana during a fight, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll have an unexpected visitor to your little corner of the world. And look, he’s brought friends.

What can you do to help?

Symbol of Hope
If you are a draenei priest, you have the racial ability Symbol of Hope. It’s more than just a snazzy graphic and sound combination - use that spell every chance you get. It is a group-wide mana regen. It’s not powerful, and it ticks off over time, but even a small amount can help make a big difference. If the tankadin is getting low on mana, stomp on the button even if you’ve still got a nearly full bar. The other mana-users in your group will love you for it too.

Healing
Every Paladin has a passive ability called Spiritual Attunement which will return to him a chunk of mana equal to a percentage of the amount that he was healed. Go ahead and read that again, it’ll put a smile on your face.

What that means is every single time you heal your tankadin, he gets mana. It’s recently been nerfed so that it returns based on the amount that he was healed. Overhealing won’t do him any good, so don’t waste your mana trying fruitlessly to recover his.

Potions
Share your mana potions and water with him. Sure, he should bring his own, but so should you. If a mana potion drops during the run, it’s polite to ask him if he needs it too. He’ll probably want the potion timer for HEALTH potions instead, but it’s his decision, and you should be aware that he needs the potions too.

Aggro Issues
Paladins tank differently than other classes. Although the details of how to fine tune their performance sits with them, there are a few tidbits of information that will be useful to you when healing them.

Consecration
Consecration is the paladin’s AOE (area of effect) damage spell. When cast, it looks like a small explosion of yellow dust billowing out from the paladin’s feet.

This spell is his very best tool for holding aggro on multiple mobs, and it does its work very effectively. If your tankadin needs to hold aggro on more than one mob (which…is the definition of most instance pulls and groupwork), he’s probably using this spell. Because of it, any other AOE damage spells (from mages, warlocks, hunters…) have a smaller probability of pulling mobs away from the tank and onto their much squishier self.

Love the consecration, because it ensures you only have to heal one person. The tank. As it should be.

However, Consecration can play merry havok with CC (crowd control). If you are assigned an undead mob to shackle, do your best to shackle as soon as the pull happens. If your target manages to walk into the consecration circle before you shackle it, your spell will be immediately broken, sending a -very- unhappy ghost your way. And knowing undead mobs, he’s probably armed with a handy silence or fear spell to make that visit all the more special and memorable.

If your tank is watching, they may try to back the tanking group away from your shackle, so they can consecrate without breaking it. This can often interfere with hunters, who may have to also back up and reposition, and other classes trying to stay out ofAOE mob damage range.

It makes everyone happier if your shackle lands well outside of the consecration range. The mob is out of danger, and if shackle breaks early, it’s much more obvious and fixable with a quick recast than if the mob is lost in a sea of other mobs.

The other reason to love consecration is healing aggro. Every time you land a heal, you piss off every single mob in combat. If the mobs are more pissed at you than the tank, there’s a good chance you’re going to get eaten for dinner. Say hello to the Spirit Healer for me.

With some tanks, it can be a dicey situation. Do they have enough hate built up on a mob to overcome your healing aggro, or are you going to be pushing up daisies if you do one more greater heal?

With tankadins, this is less of a worry. Consecration ensures that every mob hates him a LOT, leaving you free to heal without stressing too much about random_demon_06 deciding you’re a bigger threat than the shiny shield-wielding fellow in front.

On the other side of the same coin, if it is at all possible, you should wait until you see Consecrate hit to act. No HoTs, no direct heals…don’t even cast Inner Fire on yourself. Until the pally lays down that consecrate, he has -AT BEST- aggro from his Avenger’s Shield, and proximity aggro.

Avenger’s Shield hits at most three targets, and seems to have a special hatred for critters.

Say he tosses out his shield - hits one, two, and OH, a rat. Everything comes barreling down on him, but in truth, he’s only got aggro on two of those mobs. That leaves three mobs that would gladly turn on you if you so much as sneeze.

So…be patient. That early in the fight, there’s no reason to be healing or buffing anyway. If you want to cast a bubble on him, either do it BEFORE the pull, or after he consecrates. Otherwise you’ll have to burn a Fade just to survive, and you’ve started that fight off to a miserable start.

Drawbacks
So what are the drawbacks to a tankadin?

HP. The tankadin can accomplish a lot through gear choices, but in general, you’ll find that he has a lower health pool than his warrior brethren. His health will seem to go down at a faster rate, and you’d better be Sally McQuickfingers with your heals, because the damage will fly by faster than you expect, and the last thing you want is a dead tank.

Trust me on this, they get a smidge on the cranky side.

I’ll close this entry with the same advice that I intend to close every tank post with : If you find a tank that values your skin above his own….if you find a tank that doesn’t live in a perpetual state of tunnel vision, whacking away at a single mob while your heals piss of that mob’s closest friends and family members…if you find a tank that truly understands aggro and how to manage it…

…do you BEST to impress him, and make him wonder how he ever got on without you. Great tanks are few and far between, and they should be valued higher than all the epiclewt in the game, and cherished as the rare jewels that they are.

Nothing in the world can compare to how much fun an instance run is with a tank that knows his stuff.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 13th, 2007 and is filed under Tanks, ~ Vonya. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.