Frequently Uttered Questions - United. (or F.U.Q-U)

1. What do you say if someone asks you if you're a good tank?

I tell them how many HP, duh!

2. What do you say if someone asks you how many HP you have?

I tell them to shut up because they know nothing about tanks and I wouldn't tank for them if they were the last pug on earth.

3. Aren't points 1 & 2 contradictory?

Yes. What's your point?

4. Ohhhh-kay, moving on, what should I be stacking, stat-wise?

In order:

a) Defense: Always have at least the minimum Defense needed (535 for 5-mans, 540 for raids). This is non-negotiable, even if you have to give up 5k health to get it. That wasn't 5k health you had, it was 5k health you borrowed from the Healer's mana pool. If you can, get more, but I'll cover this in point c).

b) Effective Health: Enough Stamina and Armor to survive a reasonable amount of burst damage from whichever boss is the instance's real meat-grinder. In practical terms, I find 21k health is fine for 5-man heroics and you'll be in easy street in raids with 24k+.

c) Avoidance: Now that you have enough EH to survive a few hits without a heal, it's a good idea to make those hits less frequent. Get what you can in Dodge, Parry and Defense rating. A mod like Tankadin will keep you right on how your total avoidance is shaping up.

d) Primary Threat Stats: Strength and Block Value. All of your damage-causing abilities scale off strength in some way, either via Attack Power, Shield Block Value or Weapon DPS. Block Value also increases your mitigation versus melee attacks significantly, especially if you're Block Capped (see below).

e) Secondary Threat stats: Hit and Expertise. I've ranked these bottom of the pile. Whilst they are nice to have, they aren't as critical to us as they are to our Warrior brethren. A missed attack doesn't dent our TPS that much, and between Combat Expertise and the Seal of Vengeance glyph, we have 16 Expertise without gear.

5. What's "Block Capped" then?

If your Dodge, Parry, Block and Miss chance add up to 102.4% with Holy Shield then you're considered "Block Capped", which means that all hits that aren't avoided by you will be blocked. Tankadins are currently the only tank that can do this, and it's apparently an assumed part of our mitigation when Blizz are tuning the various tanking classes.

In practical terms, it's difficult to get before you have Naxxramas10 gear, but it's a good goal to aim for. Again, the Tankadin Mod will keep you right on how close to the Block Cap you're getting.

6. What's the point of getting the minimum defense, or block capping? My healers are awesome enough to heal me through an occasional crit.

Tanking has two basic subroles: a) generate enough threat to let your DPS go apeshit, and b) remove all unecessary damage. If you get crit when you could have geared to avoid it, or take a hit when you could have geared to block it, then you are failing role b).

Best example I can give from my own experience is at Malygos 10. Maly hits Ulu in the 8-9k range before blocks. He also periodically uses an Arcane Breath for 14-15k with a follow-up explosion for a further 6k. That's the worst burst he can do in a 3 second period, and it comes to 13k DPS. If you block both those melee hits for 1.5k, then you've just shaved 1k off his DPS. If one of those Melee hits crits though, then his DPS over that 3 second burst becomes 16k, and you've suddenly become a lot harder to heal.

7. What weapon is best for me?

The highest DPS one-hander you can wield is always the best, regardless of speed. If you have the choice of a few with the same DPS, then pick the one that gives you the best stats.


8. Should I gear differently for certain fights, trash, etc?

Up to you. Personally, I don't get the point of putting on a different gear set for trash. It's fecking trash! It's only purpose is to eke out the 6-10 boss fights in an evening to a reasonable length of time and to punish you mercilessly if you wipe too many times. If you're wiping to trash out of anything other than carelessness you're either undergeared or Doing It Wrong.

However, if you do feel like you need to tune your gear for different bosses then ask yourself one question: What's my problem?

a) I'm dying to massive burst damage.

If your healers are alive, then the chances are you need more Effective Health. Load up on Stamina, Armor and Block Value (if you're block-capped or close to block-capped)

b) My healers run out of mana/complain I'm too hard to heal.

Sounds like you could use a bit more avoidance in your gear. You could also make sure your healers aren't too undergeared and if possible, try and get someone with Replenishment in your raid. Ultimately though, those factors will usually be out of your hands, whilst the ability to put on more avoidance gear is definately within them.

c) The boss hit his enrage timer.

First of all, was your DPS doing their job? 10-man/heroic DPS should be able to put out an average of 2k DPS each, with better geared people doing much more.

If they were all doing this, but were complaining that you were threat-capping them, then it might be an idea to look into more threat stats.

9. Why don't you mention 25-mans much?

Because I honestly don't have much experience with them. I run a 10-man guild, and although we occasionally take a run at the easier 25-man bosses with around 15 people, I have no desire to put myself back into the insanity which is the "casual" 25-man raid group.

10. Is it just me or...

It's just you. Shut up!

11. You're mean!

And you're and idiot, but after 10 minutes with your mum, I'll be significantly less mean. You'll still be stupid.