Pet Tanking in 3.3

As we all know, the last big patch is out before Cataclysm hits, so it’s a good time to update the WHU on what we’ll need to know for tanking. So there’s a few nuts-&-bolts updates hidden inside my thoughts on tanking in general right now, as well as a video featuring the new content.

As you may have seen, we can’t check the “tanking” box for even regular-difficulty instances in the random group finder. Some small red text informs us that “your class may not perform this role.” I yelled into Vent upon seeing this, eliciting laughs from my guildmates who had already anticipated my reaction. But what it means is this: Blizzard doesn’t think we can be tanks.

But forget them, we know better. And they’ve made it a bit easier for us. With the 90% pet AoE avoidance without spec, it frees up some points in our pet spec. I’m currently running with the following: http://www.wowhead.com/?petcalc#0d0GbrMzbzoM
As I push forward into raids, threat is becoming more of an issue than survivability for me, so I splurged on Spiked Collar instead of something like Silverback or Last Stand. Either of those is appropriate for the final 2 points if your pet’s health is a bigger obstacle than threat, as it is for many who are new to tanking and are using a lot of raid gear. The WHU’s updated recommended pet tank build includes Last Stand, for example, which is prefectly fine for many tanks.  And the new Culling the Herd, while a larger total dps increase, won’t amount to better pet dps than Spiked Collar, so avoid it for tanking.

And with the 100% resilience transfer to pets now, we only need 132 resilience to d-cap our pets (including the 4% crit reduction from their spec). Any tank set worth its salt should probably include some PvP gear anyway, so this should be a breeze.

There’s two other changes of note: One is that Volley works with MD now. Adjust accordingly on trash pulls. The second is that Cower no longer affects threat, but reduces damage by 40% for 6 seconds.  After talents and on auto-cast, this will amount to roughly 8% reduction in total damage.  It slows your pet’s movement by 50% while up, but I don’t really see a huge downside to that aspect of it.  Barring special circumstances, leave it on auto-cast.  I did notice one other thing: unless my UI is lying to me, our pets don’t get the 20% dodge nerf inside ICC like the rest of us do.  I’m just saying…

Endgame Tanking

This is the part where I bemoan the lack of pet scaling with our gear. And not with avoidance stats… avoidance pieces would, frankly, kinda stink for tanking. Epic for soloing, but we’d be sacrificing a lot of threat. But I’m talking about crit, a higher percentage of attack power, agility, etc. Because we can compete with any average-geared tank in terms of health, armor, defense, etc. Not surpass, but compete. But we can’t generate threat like they can, even with the slight bone we were thrown in 3.3.

This can be dealt with even in lower-level raids (as with saw with Patchwerk, for example). Have some intelligent dps, give time for initial aggro, extra MD’s, stuff like that. But think about the dps you need to complete ToC compared to Naxx. The gap is gigantic. Intelligent or not, we can’t hold aggro against that kind of dps. Other hunters, ironically, could probably manage not to pull off of pet tanks since they have the best aggro drop in the game. But Warlocks, Warriors, and various other classes would have to nerf their dps a lot, which would result in frustrated players and wipes. Comprehensive pet scaling is literally the one big thing keeping us from being able to be decent endgame tanks. A long Taunt cooldown and inefficient kiting mechanics contribute, but I see this as the biggest culprit.

So no luck in 3.3 on scaling. But keep your fingers crossed, because as long as Blizzard plans to implement scaling, we should be able to remain viable almost-tanks.

Video Time: Forge of Souls Heroic Pet Tanking Pug!

New content, new 5M’s! And I tricked Blizzard’s role functions for this one. I grouped with a ret pally friend, he signed up as a tank, me as dps (we also grabbed a guild healer). Then we explained things to the random PUG’s once everyone was confirmed. They were cool about it, and we would’ve dropped group to let them find others if they weren’t.

Forge of Souls (Heroic):
Unbuffed Stamina: 2002
Unbuffed AP: 3808
Pet Buffed Health: 34.6K
Strats:

• I found the new MD Volley to be wildly useful for trash pulls. It might even be worth it to go MD, Multi-Shot, Volley on pulls of only 2-3 mobs to get those extra couple seconds of AoE threat.
• Pull the first boss to the side of the room for Phase 1, so that if you get the beam between you and the boss (where you want the boss away from you) you can run to the opposite side. If another person gets the beam, you can put your pet on passive and kite to wherever you need.
• Groupwide damage is more prevalent than most heroics even when you maintain aggro. It’s not a problem, just let your healer know beforehand to be ready for it.
• I’m getting better with hotkeys, but still revert to clicking occasionally. Still, it’s progress.

Expect more videos/strats/updates in the coming weeks and months, and Happy Holidays!

-Arth