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.

The Three Fundamental Skills

For any Warrior, regardless of being a tank, a damage dealer, or a mix of both, you must always dedicate 3 of your skill points in the following skills:

• Charge Lv. 1 (maxed at Lv. 1)
• Smite Lv. 1 (maxed at Lv. 1)
• Bash Lv. 1 (minimum)

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 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.

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.

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 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.