So glad you found my suggestions helpful! The folks who write Tidy Plates don’t update at Curse for whatever reason. Instead, you’ll find updates at http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info13674-TidyPlates.html

Yes, I can see why certain DPS deserve to keep the aggro they lovingly gathered, lol. :)

Belated response, but for those reading this in the future, my comments:
This macro will be your friend:

#showtooltip Faerie Fire (Feral)
/cast Faerie Fire (Feral)
/startattack

No truer word has been spoken. This is a must, and essential.

Actually recommend adding /startattack into any of your powers: that way, you’ll start attacking with that keystroke even if you don’t have sufficient rage to trigger the power.

Done, and very, very useful advice.

As to Threat Plates – I had some trouble here. Curse didn’t seem to support the base Threat Plates (although the tanking mod was supported). I manually downloaded it, and it’s since updated on Curse. These are very useful, and I thank you for it. It’s now easy to click on the big red plate, rather than tabbing through the crowd, however I still use grid to ascertain exactly who is getting the aggro. If it’s that annoying mage with Blastwave, or the meat-head warrior who charges in right after me, I can happily ignore it. If it’s the healer with the little red dot, I’m all over them.

And you’re absolutely right about not turning around :)

Two other overall comments: (1) Don’t be reluctant to demand crowd control and threat reduction/misdirection from your party. Get someone to sheep/hex/frost trap/shackle/etc that ranged who’s troubling you. (2) Just about every class has something that will reduce threat: tricks/feign death/fade/iceblock/soul shatter/etc. DPS and healers do in fact have the responsibility to manage their aggro.

This is also sage advice, and I’ve learnt that tanking, even more so than healing, requires crowd control of your own party. Tell them what to expect, tell them how you want to play it, and keep the communication flowing. Especially at the lower levels, some people just DON’T KNOW. Thank you – you’ve really helped me here.

thank you for this. I have a Tankadin also and I chain pull the hell out of heroics with her because of the 15sec between pulls for divine plea and my ability to get hurt and get mana when healed. People don’t seem to understand this and in places like HVH this is actually an issue where I’ll have no mana and divine plea disappears due to portals taking 15sec for a mob to show up -.- However, critters can also be used for pallys by whacking them as you run by with Divine Plea up to refresh it =)

@Pete, If FFF crits you get +5 rage on top of staying in combat…. so I’ll choose to FFF a critter =)

Yossi says: December 29th, 2009 at 10:06 am

-I realised 2 days ago that I’d been pulling mobs but that I was forgetting to actually attack them in some cases (like after a FFF pull) – some abilities don’t seem to initiate an auto-attack.

This macro will be your friend:

#showtooltip Faerie Fire (Feral)
/cast Faerie Fire (Feral)
/startattack

Actually recommend adding /startattack into any of your powers: that way, you’ll start attacking with that keystroke even if you don’t have sufficient rage to trigger the power.

And for some reason, ranged mobs always seem to get attached to my healer. I then promptly twirl around, tabbing frantically, looking for the mob (in amongst 2 elite and 3 non-elite) that has my healer targeted and low threat.

I use grid to warn me of aggro on people (I tend to ignore it on the dps warrior/paladin who are attacking the cross before the skull), but have no idea how to find the mob responsible (see above). And I can’t seem to figure out how to taunt the right mob – I always seem to taunt it half a second after it’s come back to me anyway (it probably just got mauled after I targeted it to taunt) and there goes a wasted taunt CD, whilst some OTHER mob decides to chew on my healer.

I also have significant issues with casters, especially 2 casters at range. The back-to-basics post (http://thebigbearbutt.com/2009/12/26/intro-to-the-basics-of-bear-mechanics/) helped a lot (I guess it’s just practice), but they still seem to target whomever they want. I dread the inevitable red dots appearing on the mage and priest in my grid (aggro monitor). I really think I get most of the theory now, it’s just that the practical application of maintaining threat is a little beyond me.

If any friendly bears have some sage advice for a very new bear tank (at my level – I’ve had loads of pugs telling me to mangle and innervate), it would be most welcome! Macros, grid configs, add-ons, sequences, handy tricks, etc… Anything that lets me keep the mobs off my healer/squishies!

I love Threat Plates (a Tidy Plates add-on), as it puts the mobs’ threat right above their heads which makes it glaringly obvious on whom I do or don’t have threat. I don’t really care which player is pulling threat, so Grid and it’s ilk aren’t nearly as useful IMO.

Also, do not turn around to tab through mobs. Turning your back on the melee will result in you being hit a lot more, making your healer work harder. Your healer is generating aggro every time he heals, so if the ranged aren’t fixated on you, they’re going to be going for him. Instead of turning, hold down the left mouse button and shift your camera view around. Growl and FFF do not require you to be facing the enemy. Keep swiping to maintain the close aggro, click the ranged who’re a problem, then taunt.

If you can’t get your camera view far enough back to see everything, macro:
/console CameraDistanceMaxFactor 4
I usually hit that first thing when logging in. May not need it, but better safe than sorry.

Mangle is a wonderful thing to distribute right off as it’s 30% plus to bleed damage: your Lacerate and Maul will thank you. More damage, more threat. Innervate is a dangerous thing to the tank… I usually only cast it between pulls, usually reserving it for the healer. If you have a lot of mobs on you, jumping out of bear form to innervate is instant death in most cases.

Two other overall comments: (1) Don’t be reluctant to demand crowd control and threat reduction/misdirection from your party. Get someone to sheep/hex/frost trap/shackle/etc that ranged who’s troubling you. (2) Just about every class has something that will reduce threat: tricks/feign death/fade/iceblock/soul shatter/etc. DPS and healers do in fact have the responsibility to manage their aggro.

In some ways, tanking/healing has become so overpowered that everyone else has gotten really lazy. Unless I demand up front, almost no one CC’s, reduces threat, or even interrupts casters. Compare how we charge in now to the immensely careful pulls with 3 CC minimums that used to have to be done in Shadow Labs in Blackheart’s room… Generally, if you ask, people will help. They’re just totally out of the habit now.

“If i have no RAGE… I cannot SWIPE! Do not AoE before the mobs hit me PLEASE!” …Even our AoE Taunt requires rage…

I try to always have rage at the beginning of a Pull, but sometimes it just so happens i’m out of Rage and Enrage is off CD. Between FF and Growl Single pulls are easy with no starting rage. But AoE pulls? …Huricane Agro <Blizzard Agro

Reading it over, I see why.

I never intended to get into an in depth discussion on techniques for Paladin tanks to get mana back, but hell… awesome advice, guys. Seriously, I feel like tossing this to a Paladin tank blogger and saying, “Could you please dress it up and post it, I wish I’d known some of this when I started tanking?”

The sitting down to get crit on purpose amuses me even more than naked tanking… maybe because as a Bear, I don’t get the most obvious benefits of being naked… there’s no shock value, I already tank naked, ‘skyclad’, if you wish.

My thanks to each person who has so far made such intelligent, insightful sugestions on generating mana. Thank you very much.

My apologies go out to people that feel, based on what I wrote, that I think Warriors aren’t capable of chain pulling and holding group aggro against AoE.

I never meant to give that impression, what was in my head was that, just mentioning Warriors as a Rage based class as an example, but including other tanks in general, a tank doesn’t need to mimic a Paladin tanks’ playstyle based on mechanics as the only right way to tank, because each of us has different mechanics, and wouldn’t it be more fun if we each found our own groove and danced to our own favorite song.

If you WANT to chain pull at top speed and blast through content, it’s my opinion that we’re perfectly suited for it… with some of the observations made above. Starting a pull at low Rage when your Rage generating abilities like Enrage are on cooldown can be bad news if the DPS is waiting for you just to get in the general area of the mobs before they unload hell on the entire area.

I’ve been paladin all of times, sure, I got my alts leveled, none to 80, but all my time as 80 was on a Paladin, Protection specced.

On the very first moment of the tank career I’ve started to run extreemly quick out of mana, something about needing to stop almost every pull. It was due my DPS friends were overgeared, so the mobs died too quickly and I got no mana back from healing. The solution was not chain pulling, I was not geared enough to that, but not using a full tanking rotation unless I was wacking the boss. It’s just a matter to not open with consecration, ever, and I still dont do so (unless there is a DK that thinks that he should open up with death and decay on Violet Hold). Mostly Shield of Rightousness, Hammer of the righteous and avenger’s shield made the trick.

Then I’ve geared up, and met my doom. A discipline priest. I mean, I did not got a single heal during the pulls, only shields, My mana would drop so fast even not using full tank rotation that I could not even hold aggro. I’ve tried to switch over Blessing of wisdom, but it is useless, I recovered more mana from the 4 dodges I got per pull than from Blessing of Wisdom. The only solution i’ve got, and that yet not failed me during all the random pugs, was the Seal of Wisdom.

Divine plea showed itself mostly useless. I get 350 mana each tick, and spend 700+ in the same time. It delays the problem, not solve it. But, since nowadays threath is not a problem, a protadin can generate 46k threath with only avenger’s shield, shield of righteousness and hammer of the righteous, withouth any tanking seals, there is mostly no problem to switch your seal to wisdom.

Reasons:
1) The proc is faily constant, happens way more often than divine plea itself.
2) Each proc recovers around 550 mana, instead of 350

I still did not run oom in a heroic, no matter how good any of the others members of the group were, how geared they were, how good they played, and what is the class/spec of the healer.

You could, of course, undergear yourself for it too, like to switch to some dps or healer gear to improve threath/mana, depends on where you feel the help would be more needed, but you could not “carry” the group on disasters like tank and hold all ads from getting to brann in tribunal of ages, when only you is alive, until the end of the encounter.