Warrior tanking tactics

A tank is the heavily armored, high HP, high defense, low damage output, and aggro receiver of any group. A tank's job is to soak up the damage that damage dealers and healers would take. If a tank is letting other players take all the damage, then that tank is not doing a proper job of defending their allies. This tutorial will give you a taste of what it's like to be a tank, and how you can better apply yourself to fights.

In PvP, there is no such thing as aggro or hate (both aggro and hate mean the same thing), thus making the tank look weak. To explain, hate is a value that is applied to monsters to determine what player they should fight. The difference between monsters and players is that players can choose who they can fight. But a tank can help push their teammates ahead, leaving them to take care of the enemy while serving as a useful distraction.

If you do not have at least one point into each of these fundamental skills, then you will find fighting battles later on much harder. A monster that can use spells freely on your group without anyone stopping them is a dangerous monster. If you have no way of stopping these spells from happening, it is just as bad as someone showing up to a test without being prepared for it. Charge is the prerequisite skill you need to get Smite and Bash, and also helps the Warrior move around while still on a bit of Fury.

Summary of a Tank's Role

A typical tank in battle does all (if not, some) the following depending on the situation:

1) Get aggro.
2) Check the positions of you, the monster and your allies, then move when necessary.
3) Check to see if they have enough fury.
4) Stop any spells from occurring (unless the spell cannot be prevented)
5) Check to see if they have enough health. If low, find ways to reduce the damage taken.

Getting Aggro

The very first thing you want a tank to do during the fight is to get aggro. This can involve two things: telling the damage dealers to not attack and the healers to not heal during the first few seconds of the fight; and letting the tank pull the boss first. This ensures that the tank will always have more hate than a damage dealer/healer against a monster or boss. Once you pulled the attention of the monster, you want to make sure that you keep their attention on you by using your hate-generating skills.

Some of the skills that are effective in generating hate are:

Defensive Stance: When Defensive Stance is used, it increases your hate generation (or how well you get aggro) by dealing damage to the enemy. It is a permanent buff that can be switched on. Make sure that the first thing that a Tank does before pulling a monster is if they have Defensive Stance or not. This is key to grabbing free aggro.

Bite (when combined with Improved Bite): When Bite is upgraded to Improved Bite, it can be useful for acquiring aggro. In addition, Bite deals high damage against other neutral monsters, as well as the four basic elements (Fire, Water, Wind, and Earth), complementing the amount of hate you get.

Shattering Strike: When Shattering Strike is used at higher levels, one or two Shattering Strikes can immediately pull the monster's attention away from another ally. It is more effective than Improved Bite at getting aggro, additionally leaving a 5% damage buff to all other players, but lacking in damage.

Taunt: Taunt forces the monster to attack you for a couple of seconds, regardless of who had the monster's attention in the first place. Note that forcing the monster to attack you and having enough aggro are two separate things. You are only buying yourself time to quickly build up aggro. If you're not using the other skills to build aggro, the monster will just switch their attention back to the person who had the second most aggro (likely the one dealing the most damage or healing).

Growl: Growl is like an AoE, except for aggro only. You need a high level in Growl so that any nearby targets that are pulled to you will stay on you, or else one of the monsters will start targeting your damage dealer or healer again. As a bonus, you take up to 5% less damage from the enemy. Note that any targets that are sleeping due to Nightfall or Sleep Powder will be woken up if they are hit with a Growl.

Checking the Positions

The next thing you want to do is to check your position and everyone around it. Ask yourself what kind of situation are you in. Where can the tank go that gives both the tank and allies enough space to move around in case of an attack? Where can the allies go to minimize the damage that they'll take from the monster? Some of the common situations are listed below:

For some monsters and bosses, they might have the Swipe skill, which allows them to constantly hit every player in front of them. This means that you want to be the one that the boss is facing; in the front. Your allies should stay in the back.

In some boss fights, the platform in which you're fighting the boss is limited. The boss might pull off some stunt that knocks a player off the map. In this case, keep the boss in the center of the map, so that you don't fall off by accident, and/or have room to go the other way in order to avoid the attack (e.g. if a rush attack from a boss goes left, you move right to dodge the attack).

An AoE attack (that cannot be interrupted) is about to be used, covering a large radius. You are within the attack's range, and you are tanking the monster. The important thing to do in this case is to pull the boss away in your direction just enough so that you avoid the attack (don't move too much away, or else you might find yourself cornered). Your allies should steer clear of that attack by getting out of range, not walking into it.
- A boss spawns minions into the map, and if a minion gets too close, it will absorb the minion and gain a stack. Too many stacks will increase the boss's damage by a lot and immediately defeat your group. Pull the boss away so that it doesn't get too close to as many minions as possible. Your damage dealers in the group should take care of the minions.

Interrupting the Monster's Spells

The third and fourth steps go together hand in hand. You want to make sure you have just enough fury so that you can use a skill that would counter a monster's spell, but not so much fury that you might lose the monster's attention to another ally. If a monster can be stunned, then use Bash to counter their spell. If they cannot be stunned (such as a boss), use Smite to counter. Against specific boss skills, Spell Reflect can be used.

The biggest question here is, how do you know what spells/abilities should you counter against?

Option 1: UI, Guides and Community

1. A monster has two different types of casts:
- Normal: If a monster doesn't have a shield on their casting bar, you will know that it is not protected (meaning you can interrupt it)
- Protected: If a monster has a small shield beside their casting bar, you will know that it is protected (meaning you cannot interrupt it)

2. Get someone to tell you. An experienced player may already know what spell you have to interrupt for that boss, and may even explain before fighting. There are usually one to three spells that you want to watch out for, because a couple of them end in -barrage or -volley, or in some unique name.

3. Use the wiki to search up a dungeon page. Written by players, they may contain the boss you want, and the abilities you need to look out for. Note that not all bosses are included, and a significant amount of information is missing on certain monsters.

Option 2: Analytical/Investigative Approaches

1. Analyze the boss/monster. If they cannot be analyzed safely, get someone else to send the monster's record to the group so everyone can see it. From there, look at the list of skills and see if they seem familiar (skills that other classes would use). If a monster is using Blizzard (from Mages), there is a good chance that you can interrupt it.

2. Most dangerous spells that you have to interrupt have a medium to long casting time, and may include a channeling phase for several seconds. You can tell if a spell isn't as dangerous if they have a quick casting time (because you usually won't have enough time to interrupt it anyway).

3. By using trial and error, you let the monster attack you with each of their deadly abilities and see which seems to be the most dangerous. Try to smite against the attacks you think are worth interrupting. If it fails, that means that the ability cannot be interrupted, and you should be trying to interrupt something else. Rinse and repeat until you have covered all of the boss's spells. If there is nothing you can interrupt, that means you shouldn't bother using Smite or Bash the next time you fight.

Once you know what you can interrupt, the next thing is deciding what to interrupt. If you're facing a boss with several spells that can be interrupted, you want to go after the one that inflicts the most damage to your group, either by constantly pounding on the tank or hitting hard on each of your group members. But say a monster has two interruptible spells, one hitting hard against the tank (you) and the other hitting your entire group. As a reminder, the purpose of your job as a tank is to protect your team. Therefore, you want to go after the spell that hits your group. Your teammates should be the ones interrupting the other spell by using Disrupt or Smite.

Limiting the Damage Taken

Although the purpose of you as the tank is so that you can protect your team, there may be times in which your healer is exhausting their mana, due to over healing your teammates, or healing you specifically from massive amounts of damage taken. In this dire situation, the healer makes sure that they keep the tank's health alive at all costs. How do you make your job easier for the healer then, besides already getting hold of aggro?

It's simple, you use skills that reduce damage taken. Here are some of the skills as follows:

Endurance: Is a skill that increases armor and sharply increases your magic resistance values for a short period of time. At level 2, this can last up to 12 seconds, having a cooldown of 45 seconds and a 33 second delay between each use. You use this to reduce the damage that you would take from primarily spells and AoEs. Don't be afraid not to use it, as this can save a lot of trouble for your healer in long drawn out fights.

Unyielding Rage: Is an optional skill that you can obtain, restoring health at the expense of fury. This is good for emergency situations when you have max fury, your healer is short on mana, and you're taken quite a bit of damage. At level 3, this skill can heal as much as a single major health potion would. This skill has a cooldown of 3 minutes.

Burning Determination: Is a skill that is used for emergencies, with a cooldown of 4 minutes. Examples of emergency situations include:
- a) the tank receives an abnormally high amount of damage (from a boss's signature attack) that would knock them out if they waited long enough.
- b) the tank is running low on health, and the healer cannot restore enough health in time (their ultimate healing spell, Song of Harmony is likely on cooldown too).
- c) the monster/boss is using a last-ditch effort spell to deal lots of damage to the tank in their final moments before they are about to die at the hands of the damage dealers.

Divine Plea: Is an emergency skill obtained at level 39 that can only be used once during a fight because of it's long cooldown of 8 minutes. Use it when you or an ally is about to receive an attack that would one-hit KO them. If you used it on yourself, you have to quickly get back aggro (you lose all of it when Divine Plea is activated).

Deflect: Is a skill obtained at level 42 that works similarly to Spell Reflect, cutting the damage taken in half from a physical attack that would deal lots of damage to the tank. It has a cooldown of 15 seconds.

As the Role of a Damage Tank

Alternatively, a Warrior that is experienced in both DPS and tanking might want to mash up together a build that does both, allowing them to deal a good amount of damage, while keeping the aggro and interrupting responsibility on themselves. But not only does a Damage Tank have to consider about their skill choice, but what kind of equipment they will bring to the fight as well.

Recommended Skills

In this case, the two key skills that a Damage Tank should go after is Bite and Improved Bite, providing both the damage and the aggro. Don't forget to grab at least one point in the fundamental three skills as well.

Then, the focus should be on getting the tank skills that you still need, such as Toughness (for that extra health), Taunt (so you can pull individual enemies), and Growl (keeping minions off of damage dealers).

Lastly, you should consider the skills that will help you survive, such as Endurance, Spell Reflect, and Burning Determination.

Recommended Equipment

Whatever equipment you decide on is arguably up to you, as there is no best set of equipment. But you want equipment that provides both a decent amount of armor, magic armor, attack, as well as your main stats (strength, dexterity and agility). This can be difficult to find, so you have to mash together equipment that is strong in certain areas and weaker in others to strike a balance. As for tail enchants, the hardest part is choosing either a large amount of armor, or a large amount of attack.

PvP Combat

In PvP combat, Warriors are thought to be an underrated class, just because they're the only ones that engage primarily in close range combat. This is the struggle out of any RPG game, where the ranged classes are vastly superior. But that doesn't mean you give up being a Warrior. Their pride is in catching the ranged ones off-guard and getting rid of the healers for good.

As a side note, you usually wear an elemental glove when facing monsters. But in PvP, gloves that would give you an elemental advantage against the neutral element (players are Neutral 2 by default) have a severe penalty drop in damage. Therefore, it is best to wear a regular glove on your main hand in PvP.

When facing Mages:
- Mages will attempt to bombard you with spells at long range (and very likely on another platform), or put themselves close to an AoE, forcing a Warrior to have to go and take the extra damage. But remember two things: A Mage on Mana Shield is a vulnerable mage, and a Mage on low mana is a dead one. The best way to deal with them is to let them waste their mana, and once it is low, move in for the kill. They will focus on retreating once their mana drops to a low amount, so take advantage of Charge to close the distance. Once you land a hit, they will be slowed down, and then you can Bash them down. Then attack quickly. Always interrupt their Harvest Mana if they bring it up, as it is their backup source.
  - A Mage will usually never want to have their mana low, but if their health is low and their mana is high, then they will cast Mana Shield. Find ways to cut through the Mana Shield quickly, such as Slash if you are a DPS Warrior. That would force a Mage to back off a bit and find a healer to restore their health back. Mages and Priests can't remove the debuff, and can only counter it with a Revitalize.
  - In order to escape, the first thing a Mage will do is use a crowd control spell, such as Flash Freeze, or Curse of Roots (if they have the Lasher bottle enchanted on their hairpin). You have to catch up to them and counter this quickly.
  - Don't wait to use Bash until they have already put their Mana Shield up. This is because Mana Shield cuts down the duration of stun.

When facing another Warrior:
- Damage Warriors excel in doing as much damage as they can. But in order for them to deal a lot of damage, they need to get a lot of fury. You want to be quicker than the opponent in acquiring fury. As a tank, you can Bash your opponent, buying you an extra couple of seconds to get the fury you need. Be warned though, the opponent will try to do the same thing to you.
  - If you're a damage warrior yourself, think about the skills you use. Your opponent has the same set of skills as you. In that case, you need to focus on the skills that deal the most damage first. If the opponent tries to use a high damaging skill such as Thrash (or has a lot of Fury saved up, and you predict a Thrash might happen), use Bash to quickly interfere with them.
- Tanks are armored giants on the battlefield. They will take up a lot of your time, ruining your position as a distraction against the enemy team, so try your best to avoid clashing with them. If you can't avoid them, you'll want to find ways to whittle their health down, and get them caught in a situation where they can't recover their health quickly from. Having multiple classes use DoT skills, such as Slash, Embers, and/or Poison, can potentially endanger the tank.
- Damage tanks are an armored juggernaut. They are good at soaking up damage, but at the same time they can hurt with the recent buff to Bite's dps. Not to mention, Improved Bite can easily restore a bit of their health every 8 seconds in battle. Avoid them at all costs, otherwise try to bait and counter (deal as much damage to them, while taking less damage as possible). Slash is a good weapon to pull this off.

When facing Priests:
- The only healing skill that damage priests have is Revitalize. This is a problem since you can't interrupt it (the skill is an instant cast). You need to use Slash to deal as much damage as they are trying to heal, and overwhelm them with fast, hard hitting attacks. Use Bash and Smite to stop them from pulling off a Nightfall on you. If they are using poison skills, they will typically cast Poison Dust on wherever they're standing. Make sure that you don't stay in Poison Dust for too long while attacking them.
- Healers are easy prey for damage warriors. Use Bash to stop them from using a Nightfall, and use Smite to prevent them from healing. Beware of other damage dealers that might try to protect the healer.

When facing Hunters:
- Pure Hunters often fight far away while going on different platforms, compared to Mages that attempt to flee with Skip and Invisibility when in danger. This is because of their superior horizontal range and the Warrior's melee range that they have a bigger breathing room to focus their attacks. The best way to take them on is when you're with another ally (they have a 50/50 chance of choosing either you or the other), since they have poor DPS against multiple targets.
- Pet Hunters are easier to fight, since they have to close the distance. You can easily take care of the pet with a couple of melee swings, and immediately rush to the hunter.
- Hunters are unlikely to use traps in PvP. Although traps can be useful, they only work best when an ally is assisting you, and you know exactly where and how many enemy players will come. Watch out for Root Trap, as you have to deal with getting rid of the roots, taking up some of your time.