Your weapon, your shield, and offtanking

I was busy farming arena points for my Merciless Gladiator’s Gavel when I get a tell from one of our tankadins who was having trouble maintaining a respectable place on the threat meter for Gruul’s. As I was in the middle of getting viciously pwned, I didn’t have time for a proper response. Bradford (of “What not to wear” fame), here’s your response.

OFF-TANKING the CORISTAD WAY (your mileage may vary)

Before the fight, I ask the raid leader if it’s at all possible to be put in a group with either a shadow priest or a shaman. Either will buff your threat capabilities significantly. It may not be possible, and you should plan on not having the luxury, but it never hurts to ask. Also before the fight, I equip as much spell damage and on-use trinkets as possible WITHOUT LOSING UNCRUSHABILITY. Keep in mind the whole purpose of being second on the list is to tank the boss in the event of a MT gib, so don’t put the cart before the horse and stack threat gear only to get savagely abused when it’s your turn to take the beatings. Now the fight is about to start, and the misdirect goes up on the MT.

First, I don’t wait for the assist call. All of the fights in our guild start with a misdirect upon the anointed warrior or feral tank. Unless the tank disconnects mid pull, you are not going to be able to pull threat. The hunters will dump a good 4K threat on them right off the bat. My opening sequence is low risk, and I need the head start. The DPS will start on the assist call. If you need to be ahead of the DPS, you start before them.

As I'm running up to the boss, I judge crusader on them and queue up Seal of Vengeance. I am a huge fan of Seal of Vengeance for off-tanking (and in general, actually), as it allows you to maintain threat even when repositioning, getting knocked back, and so forth. Righteousness can be harder to use for off tanking at this level because your mana flow is going to be dramatically reduced, but Judgement of Righteousness out performs Judgment of Vengeance when you reach about 800 spell damage. Depending on the mob, it may take you a while to figure out where is the best place to stand to make sure you’re actually hitting. I have found that a good trick is to go stand inside of a hunter pet—the AI will position the pet automatically behind the mob, which is where you want to be if at all possible. The in-fight positioning is the hardest thing about off tanking, IMO. The MT may move the mob around, and you might not realize that you’re not hitting, or consecrate is not ticking, until a few seconds, losing threat parity.

What I do next depends on the fight. For Gruul, it may be inadvisable to pop wings right away, as that first shatter can come sooner than planned. For Voidreaver, make sure that consecrate and judgement are off cooldown. If at all possible, I wait until you have a 5 stack of Holy Vengeance built up (Class Timers is a great mod for using with Seal of Vengeance). Now pop wings and unload. Ideally, you want to Consecrate, wings, Judge Vengeance, Reseal Vengeance, renew the 5 stack, shield toss, consecrate, judge and reseal Vengeance, renew the stack, consecrate, and judge again. Your goal is 3 max rank consecrates and 3 judgements in 30 seconds, which is why you have to cheat a little bit and start consecrate first. Since 2.3.2 we don’t get the benefit from having wings up at the start, so it makes more sense to wait for a 5 stack before unloading to get the most benefit from your cooldowns.

So now I'm about a minute into the fight and nearly out of mana. Take a mana pot now. If there is any environmental splash damage around, I start looking for some to draw some healing for some extra mana regeneration. Depending on where I am on the meter and the rate at which my blue rage bar is depleting, I might be able to judge wisdom on the boss and then reseal with vengeance again for some decent mana returns. I was actually able to take agro with Wisdom on Voidreaver, so the mana returns might make it worthwhile.

At this point in the fight, it’s all about cooldown and mana management. I switch to rank 4 consecrates and Judgements of Vengeance whenever they are up. Time your next wings for when you have at least 50-60% mana, as there’s nothing worse than popping wings and running out of mana with time left on the clock.

YOUR SHIELD

As you climb on the threat list, start working rank 1 Holy Shield into your rotation. Omen is a good predictor of agro, but when you get threat there can be a lag between when you start getting beaten on, and when the healers recognize that you are getting beaten. Don’t get crushed. Using this technique I was able to come from behind and take threat multiple times on Voidreaver, despite not receiving a single misdirect and having judgement of Wisdom on the target. Oh, and I have a Rep Reward Blue weapon.

YOUR WEAPON

As far as weapons go I admit I have been remiss in upgrading. Prior to 2.3, there was no real need for me to upgrade—DPS was not being capped, so status quo was fine. After 2.3 came out, I was convinced that I would run Zul Aman twice a week to get the Punisher. That didn’t happen, despite my efforts to the contrary. Then I ran Alterac Valley non-stop to push for the Season 1 mace. As of last week I had enough honor to get the mace, and I realized that I was approximately 1 week away from enough arena points to get the Season 2, so I spent the honor on the wonderful Medallion of the Alliance. So I passed on the Season 1, but my calculations came up slightly off, and as it turns out I’m really 2 weeks away. Next week I get to make the warriors cry in earnest. I already have more health than any other plate wearer in the guild, and equivalent armor. I am now going to improve my overall threat by about 40% just by upgrading my weapon.

Now get out there and make those warriors respec Arms! :D

Edit 1/31: added WWS screen shots.