Restoration Shaman | Playthrough | 1 - 20

Greetings all, In this section of my blog I will be covering my experiences and things I learn as I level up a Restoration Shaman on Ragnaros eu. This will be a home for my accomplishments and what I come across throughout my adventure. - Vaylen.

Like all adventures start, this one began in a foreign place to my knowledge. I had a little dabble in the Panda starting zone but never really paid that much attention to the details. However, with this time round I really did look through every quest, every text, every element and you guessed it, it was a awesome experience. The questing lineage is simple and sends you from point to point, Simplistic and great for new adventures in this land like myself. 

Here You will level to around 11/12 and ultimately save the place of your birthright. With the not so much helpful alliance/horde bashing their ships here and there and generally making a mess of things, we are of course there to clean up their mess. Once the main story is completed You will be given a choice, do you depart as horde or alliance, I went horde, Obviously. 

Once I picked up some quests in Orgrimmar I then headed out to Azshara, North of the horde stronghold. Here I picked up my Heirlooms and Professions. After some research on what would be good for heroic raiding as its what I plan to do on this,  I went with Blacksmithing and Mining  drop mining once maxed and go for Jewelcrafting. I also took this time to grab first aid, cooking and fishing.

Questing here is pretty annoying, its a lot of multitasking so I tend to power through this zone as fast as possible. During my time here I did however find this rather vain artwork, No doubt Gallywix or someone of that goblins status, to get that built for them out of a mountain. :P

Once I reached Level 15 I took a dive in to Dungeon finder and chose my specialization, Restoration. The healing abilities are very limited and will mention my most used healing spells and utility spells at the end of the post.  

After healing that zone I was around level 20, With a larger array of spells, Below shows the spells I currenttly use and have to my disposal: 

Healing wave - My basic healing spell, I use this if I need to cast a small heal, it does however crit big, something like 1.6k at my level and gear.

Healing Surge - My Oh crap heal, Short cast time but costly in mana, use as a last resort. 

Riptide - This I cast on cooldown, it places a hot on a target and also helps with the bonus to health passive shamans posses. 

Searing Totem - I use this with every trash/boss pull. Just shoots a fire bolt to a target.

Flame Shock - A fire dot, I use then when I have nothing to do!

Wind shear - Ranged interrupt  I guess I get in to the habit of stopping everything I can if possible from heroic raiding, so this I use all the time. 

Purify Spirit - Cleanses all magic and curse effects, Only used it once but no doubt will make use of it as much as possible. 

Flametongue - The first Weapon Imbue we get, this we gain a 7% more magic damage done to targets, always helps for now.

Water Shield - This refunds some mana every few seconds, Also when I receive melee damage I retain a lot of mana.  

Stay tuned for my daily updates on this character and I hope you enjoy it as much as I am! - Vay.

From Winds To Water

Greetings my fellow readers! As always a lot has been going on within the world of warcraft community and such things have brought my raiding guild to the conclusion it was time to take a back seat. Officers could not come to an agreement and that has lead to the guild I have progressed with to disband. We had a great run and I really did enjoy my time there, so I truly hope the players there find the other end game raiding guilds of their choice and all the best for the future!

As I went semi afk during the progress I was not really playing my monk so much, but instead gaining more experience in raids on my Holy Paladin. So recently my Brewmaster has taken the backseat. Due to recent changes to tanks, and the direction blizzard seem to be going in terms of tank game play, I have been switching around specs and really found my enjoyment for the class again as Windwalker. With the changes to mastery and some more potent cleave I have really found my footing within a Flex raiding guild and currently really enjoying it!

As times change, as does ones interests. Currently I'm working on a number of things out of wow and in wow.  I have been pretty absorbed by GTA and looking for a Hearthstone BETA key, with still no joys! As well as working out what class to play next, with much thought, changing of ideas and such I'm going back to my roots of playing a Resto/Elemental Shaman. 

My blog will be my place of random posts and what I discover on this new character as well as my thoughts and Ideas on the class as it develops. I think it will be pretty hard to fit it in within this blog but hopefully I can cut a nice deal with a really decent blogger and see if I can get a layout sorted for it. 

Lets play: World of Warcraft!

Greetings all, Follow an aspiring Orc and his trusted companion Barry throughout their exploration and discovery in Azeroth. During the 1 to 90 process we will be thrown in too deep forgotten dungeons, ancient battlegrounds, and exploring the vast places beyond the gates of Orgrimmar, Guys and Girls, You too can be apart of the adventure, so sit back, relax and Enjoy, Lets play: World Of Warcraft! 

Preparations for 5.4, Hearthstone, Diablo 3 talk and Monk Meditation.

This Vlog will be released every Wednesday evening. I will be discussing gaming news, stuff I have seen within the community and other all sorts of goodness. This is my very first Vlog I have done so sorry about the length. All of my upcoming videos will be a maximum of 5 minutes. So sit back with your finest Brew and enjoy. 

Vaylen, Ragnaros Eu.

Question & Answer Time With Sunnier The Brewmistress!

Hello to all my readers, I spoke about a special post in the works for you guys and girls out there! so for those who are interested in the ways of the Brew, want to know more about the class from another perspective as well as a whole bunch of cool facts then look no further! Today we get an insight into one of the monk communities most well known Blogger, Co host of Monk Meditation Podcast and Heroic raider in Frustration. Ladies and Gentlemen, Orc and Gnome alike, I give you Sunnier! 

I am Sunnier, brewmistress blogger of SunniersArtOfWar.com. I tank for my guild Frustration on Fenris-US, update various brewmaster guides around the web, and maintain a surprisingly popular set of Weak Auras. You can contact me via email, sunnier@sunniersartofwar.com, twitter, @SunnierBear, or ingame, Sunnier#1336.

=================

Class Based Questions.

=================

- Greetings Sunnier, Thank you for taking part in my questions and answer section for the Brewmaster Monk. As many people may or may not know, You originally played a Druid tank in your early days of world of warcraft. With the most recent addition to the tanking club, What was your main reason for the change from druid to monk? 

I've always loved monk archetypes in various games -- the agile, squishy melee character who punches and heals -- so I was very intrigued when monks were announced. I still loved my druid, but I think what finally pushed me over was aesthetics. Pandaren looked adorable, and monks could see their transmog in combat! Not to mention the unique animations. I'm a sucker for pretty things.

- The Brewmaster play style was introduced with active mitigation in mind, and it arguably is the strongest to tank with currently in terms of the new tanking system, Are you glad you changed classes when you did? 

I'd say paladins are the strongest tank right now, but there's no question that brewmasters are in a close second. However, even if monks were the worst tank, I'd still be happy with my choice. (I rather enjoy the challenge of being an underdog.) I still think that tanks are relatively balanced in today's world, such that any fight can be completed with any tank. The apparent imbalance only arises when placed under a microscope, and when unintended strategies used by high end guilds become expected in less hardcore guilds.

- The playstyle of the monk is somewhat different to the other tanks currently, do you feel the play style and *feel* of the class makes it stand out and really suit the monk identity?

Brewmasters are unique in that we have so many buttons to push. We have more active mitigation choices than other tanks, though some of those are closer to buff maintenance than true choices. We are exceptionally good at preparing for damage, and I really enjoy that proactive playstyle. I like that we are relatively smooth tanks, which fits well with our drunken brawler flavor. I especially love how Blizzard incorporated aspects of real life "drunken kung fu", like staggering or gift of the ox (where we actually have to make our characters weave about), into our own unique mechanics.

- With the Identity in mind, do you wish the Brewmaster had something else to make them stand out from the other monks specs, or do you feel blizzard have done this well enough with the stance animations and statue? 

Blizzard did a great job of establishing the Brewmaster identity, and I think it's the most well-defined monk spec. Our three identifying features are drunken brawling (the fighting style), brewing, and the ox. Drunken brawling gives us stagger, shuffle, our stance animations, and any other martial arts inspired abilities. Brewing gives us Keg Smash, Dizzying Haze, and the other brew skills. We can thank Niuzao for our ox skills, like Ox statue, Clash, and Gift of the Ox. Now if we're missing one thing, it's obviously the ability to summon Niuzao.

- A huge debate within the Brewmaster community is *what secondary stats do I go for* With this question forever popping up in forums, what would be your reasonings behind going Crit/haste heavy or Mastery/stam heavy? 

My general advice is always: if you die a lot, try mastery/stam; if you're not dying, try crit/haste. When we get into specifics, I usually advise newer players to start with mastery and stam because it's very forgiving. In a full mastery build, your damage intake is so smooth that even if you make a mistake, your healers can likely help you recover. It's also useful for experienced players who are going against an especially hard-hitting boss. When I advise people to go crit, it's usually because they want to push their personal dps. Crit is great for the majority of monks because it double dips as our best dps stat and a strong damage reduction stat. The downside is that you take more bursty damage and can be harder to heal.

As an aside, this stat paradigm is one of my favorite aspects of the class. There's no right or wrong answer (unless you're a high end guild, but most people aren't so we'll ignore that). A lot of our stats are optimal at levels the user feels most comfortable at. As a guide writer, I feel like I did my job when I enable people to make educated decisions for themselves, and since monks have no single correct answer, that makes my job more enjoyable.

- Many people enjoy Throne of Thunder, I personally feel it was one of the better content patches to be released this expansion, which two fights were your most enjoyable/memorable to tank?

My favorite fight is Horridon. When you have to tank both the trash and the dinosaur, you have to focus on two completely different aspects of tanking: add pickup and dealing with large, predictable damage. The different and often conflicting goals made the fight more interesting. And I can't forget that I just love giant dinosaurs in the first place. My second favorite is Megaera. After a bunch of complicated movement fights, it felt really nice to just sit relatively still and focus on surviving. That fight also encouraged the use of some unconventional tools, like transcendence, healing orbs, and glyph of guard.

- From your heroic raiding experience in this patch, what would you say was the most challenging and demanding fight you come up against? 

Dark Animus was the most challenging for me. We spent a lot of time attempting the zerg strat on Animus, which pushed both my survival and dps skills. I learned that I am not very good at maximizing both of those at the same time (though to be fair, neither was the rest of my guild) so we went back to the "normal" strategy and eventually killed it.

- Coming up to the end of the expansion, and with a number of changes to monks in general, do you feel the monk has handled and surpassed your expectations? 

I initially expected monks would experience a roller coaster of changes, similar to the death knight throughout WotLK. I was pleasantly surprised that, for brewmasters at least, we've been incredibly stable. We don't have any glaring issues, we're in high demand, and it looks like it's going to stay that way. I was a bit worried about us during the beta because we were slow to get a defining feel and it was starting to look like we were going to be very boring. But they pulled through and gave us some really great play.

=================================

Get To Know The Person Behind The Class!

=================================

- You have been playing long enough to see all the changes within world of warcraft, The good and the bad. What has been you most memorable moment? This can include an old guild, a specific item/mount you worked for etc. 

Most of my memorable moments revolve around boss kills. I think the one that sticks with me the most is killing H Spine of Deathwing pretty early in the progression race. It was an incredibly stressful experience, and the nature of that fight was that everything went completely nuts at the end. Most of our third phase wipes were due to tank mistakes, which meant that my guild leader was screaming at me the entire time. So when it finally went down, there was such a huge surge of relief.

- Which expansion was your most favorite and why? 

Despite its very obvious balance flaws, I loved the aesthetics and raids of The Burning Crusade. The zones were so bizarre and magical, there's still no expansion that's quite so recognizable as that one. I also have a soft spot for Cataclysm, where I experienced my best progression and I really enjoyed the low level zones.

- Every few months, blizzard has an in game event, winterveil, brewfest etc. Which one would you say is your most favorite and enjoyable?

I love the summer fire festival, especially back before you could fly in the old world. It was really relaxing to romp around on a ground mount and extinguish/honor all the bonfires.

- Out of all the raids you have seen and experienced  which one was your most enjoyable, you can also include the one you like the least. 

It's hard to pick just one, since there's something I love from just about every raid. Sunwell wins in the most categories because it was beautiful, challenging, and had excellent visual storytelling (like the elves became more demonic, the lighting grew darker). It all culminated in a fantastic story-as-encounter in Kil'jaeden. The conclusion of that raid was fantastic.

As for least favorite, the mood of Ice Crown Citadel bums me out. I mean, it's a well designed raid and understandably dark and cold. But it still bums me out.

- List your favorite zone from the following continents:

Eastern Kingdoms: Gilneas. They did an excellent job giving the worgens culture through their environment.

Kalimdor: Feralas. A green zone that I felt a special affinity for as a leveling feral druid.

Outland: Nagrand (obv). The home of the talbuks!

Northrend: Howling Fjord. It has wonderful music.

Pandaria: Jade Forest. It's so green!

- With each new expansion released, which one did you enjoy the leveling experience most? 

I really enjoyed the low level quests introduced in Cataclysm, but for high level characters I loved my initial quest through Northrend. The story felt so well connected, like I was contributing, while also learning about Azeroth's most interesting history.

- If you never rolled a druid or monk, what other class has caught your eye over the years? 

The one other class I've always gotten to max level is a hunter, though to be frank I've always felt I mesh better with shaman. I just was never able to stick with a spec long enough (I love them all) to reach max level on one. Power over the elements is very cool.

- With the new expansion on the horizon, what would you want it to be based on? 

I'm really hoping we get to fight the Burning Legion and visit other strange planets. Not only because of the TBC nostalgia, but because I want to see what Blizzard's concept artists can do when you give them free reign. Maybe we should give Azeroth a rest for a few years and go destroy another planet?

===============================

A Sunny Future For Sunnier! 

===============================

- With the success of your incredible blog, Sunniersartofwar.com which is also featured on Icy Veins, What other treats, posts are in the works for your much appreciated Blog?

In the short term, I'm doing a lot of work in preparation for 5.4. Updating guides, reviewing new bosses, catching up on new theorycraft. It's a lot of work! In the long term, I'm working on a few new guides and site improvements. I've slowly been teaching myself lua in hopes that I can translate my auras into a full blown addon, but that's going to take a while.

- Monk meditation is an incredible Podcast, I for one absolutely love it, But how did you guys come about making this awesome show? 

Monk Meditation was the brain child of the guys over in the Convert to Raid guild. CTR is huge and has supported an excellent podcast for a long time, so it's only natural that little baby podcasts branch off. Lucky for me, they reached out because they didn't have a brewmaster representative yet. I was attracted to the project because I've always been a fan of the druid equivalent, Team Waffle. A few weeks of organizing our ideas and Monk Meditation was born!

- Can we expect some master classes on the Brewmaster in the somewhat near future? maybe a tier 16 Trinket comparison?  :P

Ahhh trinket comparisons are so hard and the most requested thing! I've been playing around with them on the beta, but the difficult part about tank trinkets is that there's rarely a pair that is best for all situations and players. Some are good for dps, some for avoidance, some for smoothing, some are mixtures. On top of that, it's difficult to really get a feel for which ones are useful without spending a few nights raiding with them, and that's something you just can't do well on the PTR. 

After that, without diving deep into theorycrafting or returning to the progression race, the best I can do is read around and regurgitate what I find. Since we're nearing the end of the expansion, it's about time for retrospectives and commentary on the meta playstyle, which might be of interest to more experienced brewmasters. :)

- You're the voice of the Brewmasters in this webshow, as well as a key figure within the monk community, did you ever expect to get such a large following of players? 

It sort of snuck up on me. I started out blogging three years ago as a self-teaching tool, and slowly gained followers as a druid, and later as a monk. I try not to think about having a following because it's terrifying! What about when I steer players in the wrong direction, or forget to cover something important? I'm not a theorycrafter or progression leader, so I constantly worry about what I can offer. Whenever my worries get the best of me, I have to remind myself that my blog is just for self expression and conveying my passion for a niche subject, and that the people reading it are just a bonus.

- Frustration, Your home on Fenris, whats your guilds plans for the future? Are you preparing for 5.4 and beyond? 

We're really looking forward to the merged realms in the future. Fenris has a very small population, which makes recruiting skilled players nearly impossible. My team only has 10 raiders, and personally I'd love to have a tiny buffer so that we don't have to stop raiding for two weeks when someone goes on vacation. I hope that with merged realms, and the possibility of skilled pugs or full time raiders, we can actually clear all of upcoming Tier 16.

- What does the future hold in store for Sunnier?

Right now, my mind is very much focused on testing and research in preparation for the upcoming patch. I hope that once the patch drops, I can take a break and do something unimportant like pet battles, the new Timeless Isle, or level some alts, but that's unlikely! In a few weeks I get to go to PAX, a gaming convention in Seattle, and meet some other WoW bloggers. And then in a few months, Blizzcon!

I just want to say a huge thank you too Sunnier for taking the time in answering the following questions. The monk community have followed you throughout your Journeys, Updating us as you go and giving your view on upcoming changes, comparisons and such. I just want to also thank you from so many of us who use your fantastic Weakauras. Without your information a lot of us will be still in the dark, but your guides have given us light. Your blog has inspired me to work on my own one, and just passing 3500 views it was a great idea to work on the inspiration you gave me. Keep up the great work! We as a community appreciate it dearly. /bow

-Vaylen. Ragnaros Eu.

Small Update

Just a quick update for my readers, I have not been frequently posting the past few days, due to getting 12/13 Heroic in two nights, with a Lei Shen heroic one shot to add to the mix, I took a few days off to sort out my set up, move my room around and spent the last couple of nights down the Pub. I also have a incredible post for you soon, with an interview with one of the monk communities most loved Brewmasters. More on that soon! 

I had a little move around and decided to stop duel screening off my System. As much as I loved it and how convenient it was, there was no doubt my Pc was starting to struggle. So a few days ago, I bought some upgrades, new graphics card, SSD some cable protectors and decided to go back to a single Screen. I also polished up my Laptop and now will be using this to post, watch streams and such.  

Also, to add to the update, I finished reading Shadows Of The Horde. In my opinion its a really good book, and has some interesting moments, especially when you find out Vol'jin has an unlikely partner throughout his time/recovery in Pandaria. I will say though, out of the books I have read, Rise Of The Lich King is still the best one in my opinion.

Lei Shen... *waves*

Good evening to you all! As you can see tonight has been an awesome evening indeed. I know the reputations are so last two patches ago but I have been slacking on this little monk in terms of them so I thought I would polish of old reputations before 5.4 hits which, judging by the twitter feeds is soon! Between the 27th of august and the 3rd of september, so be ready!

Little shout out to Tadzu from Soul Swap who helped me out in terms of farming Warbringers and War Scouts for the tokens and congrats on his Epic mount that dropped! He now sits on 207 mounts, only fair because I was stealing every rep token in sight!! :D

And so, he dies, the guild has killed him a number of times, but in terms of personal progression, I now have 1 more to kill before a full house! This encounter requires every member to be on point with moving in and out of things and coordinating each platform perfectly, I won't go into detail on the strategy, as there are perfect ones out there, but for Brewmaster monks the following really helps:

- Tigers lust, it provides a great sprint for things like moving from decapitate and Helm of command. 
- Dampen harm, Works perfect in the last phase with the fast tank swaps and ready for taking large hits. 
- Leg sweep, timed right with other stuns for the lightning orbs on phase 2 and 3.
-  Breath of fire, the stun after the leg sweep on the previous tip provides you with another stun and aoe damage coverage beside Keg smash.
- Advert harm, A brilliant raid cooldown, so pick your moments. I used mine on the first group up on intermission 1 and phase 3 when I was not on the boss.
- Transcendence, It has its usages in every encounter, just find out were. On Lei Shen Heroic, Its great for the intermissions for the stacking as well as moving for decapitate, which leads me to my last tip..
- Zen meditation, it absorbs most of the Decapitate damage and makes your vengeance sky rocket.  

Hope some of that was easy to make sense off, tomorrow will be a fresh run in tot for myself again so lets hope for some upgrades, Until next time, Vaylen out.

Heroic Animus down!

Morning all! Last night was a pretty productive day again for myself. After selling on my mounts and making some gold for next patch/expansion the time had come to be ready for my first raid with Invictus Maneo. We went ahead with the zerg tactic and after a few attempts of getting proper cooldown management system going, We got him down. We could of had it a lot sooner if I was more aware of the specific tactic of had some experience with it but it was new for me and we got the sucker down.

The way we handled it was have myself tank three adds and kill them as fast as possible, feeding that vengeance through the roof, then once all three are dead I taunt over our healers add and dps the boss as hard as possible. Our Main tank, Dynoo, took adds as well as the boss and was putting out insane damage, we got the fight down just over two minutes. Such an easier way to defeat this sucker, if you  have the dps for it. From a Brewmaster perspective using Dampen Harm a few seconds into the fight works great with an early fortifying brew to boot. I think I was purifying every two or three seconds so making sure you have the chi is important. I never had the 4set at that time so I never had the luxury of that benefit.

Some nice items dropped and I replaced more ring, a great upgrade to one of my best in slots.

We then took down IQ and Twins down easily and was lucky enough to replace my helm with a heroic tier, not only getting my set bonus but a huge upgrade with my legendary meta to drop in there. With the rest of the night on Lei Shen and a 5% wipe, and lack of focus, from myself included we should hopefully have him dead tonight and hopefully I can be used for Ra den.

Stay tuned!

Vaylen, Ragnaros Eu.

Explorers Diary #2

Greetings adventurers and explorers alike! This post will cover two incredible Raids. Us PVE players have always gravitated around raiding content and what makes it worth all the hours of progression and the strive for gear and downing bosses for the good of our guilds. It was so hard for me to choose these top two, but in my mind they are the few that are most thought out and enjoyable throughout my entire seven years raiding experience. 

Without question, Karazhan was my most memorable experience in terms of proper progression raiding. Even though I did touch on Vanilla raiding in MC and two bosses in Naxx, This for me was my real chance to strive for top end raiding. With over ten bosses to face, some of which were on an RNG type system where you had the chance to go against 1 of 4 bosses (I.E Opera Event) it was one of the most complex and incredibly thought out places to delve into. Its geometric structure was unlike anything I have seen before.. I mean c'mon, A haunted castle, also known as Medivh's Tower who was the last former protector of Tirisfal. With spirits reawakened and Medivh himself still cascading down the haunted halls, you generally felt the epic scale of the place. Ley lines from each magical sector all pointed under Karazhan, from the mages in dalaran to the high priests of Stormwind..  and to me, still holds the title of the most epic Raid to date.

My second top raid would have to be without doubt one of the most awesome raids the dev team worked on after the burning crusade. With a wobbly start to re opening Naxx, Blizzard blew every PVE player out the water with this one. Ulduar, With 13 bosses and 1 extra to go up against, this place was incredible. From Titans to huge gnomish like constructions, old gods and the odd dragon, It was one of those places where everyone had something they loved here. The size of the halls, different sections like the huge conservatory and halls made out of ice, It was beyond the scope of any of our imaginations and to this day is still farmed for the mounts and just to feel the nostalgia of the mighty Ulduar. With the helping hand of Brann Bronzebeard who believed this place to be an old Titan city, we few mortals who dared to enter had one hell of a story to tell the rest of the guild and hold Ulduar close to one of the great raiding memories of all time.

So, these are my top two raids, what was yours?  

Vaylen, Ragnaros EU.

The Back Foot Of Defence, The Fist For Offence.

With new and old players alike looking for a change in progress and looking for new challenges to conquer, many players including myself switched to tanking and have enjoyed the experience ever since that initial change. I see a lot of people asking, what class is best to Tank with, what makes a tank better than a good Tank and what are the basic qualities of a Tank. In todays post I will cover some aspects briefly of the Tank roll, what to expect and hopefully give new players a peace of mind when jumping into the deep end. 

Basic aspects of tanking

People ask this in a number of ways, but Ideally they have played a while as a DPS/Healer and want a change. The tank in theory is the pushing force of the group. Depending on how your healer can handle your pulling speeds and efficiency in instances to not over pull groups of mobs you're generally in control of the pace. Knowing so, you have to understand the concepts of over pulling and managing aggro. 

Over pulling is aggroing a large amount of adds (more than necessary) and is a common reason why a tank has wiped the group. Knowing your limitations and having trust in your healer will make pulls a lot smoother. Use obstacles such as walls, pillars and doors to LOS (Line Of Sight) the mobs, this will force them to stop casting (if they were) and trace you down. This can also be a great way to manage your aggro on large groups.

Having them in a group, will effectively boost your output of your cleave, As a brewmaster the conjunction between Breath Of Fire and Keg Smash will hold a solid amount of aggro, meaning your dps can push that little harder in dps. Maintaining a group of mobs to remain stacked up is a good sign of your Capabilities as a tank and will forever be you go to tactic for casters and such.

Group those bad boys moar!

These reasonings may seem daunting to a new Tank, But what appeals to us, is the control you have over the fights, the dps can't do their job if the boss is jolting all over the place, the healers can't heal if you move to far away, so knowing your limitations, controlling each situation will always make you a better tank.

I hear tank swapping being used a lot, how do I tank swap with confidence?

Managing aggro will also affect how you perform on a boss. Knowing your effectiveness in a fight is key, so if you are starting a fight( Pre pot/use potion for dps/threat boost), use abilities that generate a lot of threat (will say which in the spell toolbar) In my case, Keg smash.

Its not that much needed in five man heroics/normals but if you're interested in raiding or wanting to know more, knowing how tank swaps work will help drastically.

Use of strong abilities on a boss that requires tank swapping

A basic example would be: 
Main tank receives 3 stacks of (random debuff name here)
This is the time you tank off him, Use taunt, use a large threat generating ability, Self heal (if available)
Once you receive the 3 stacks and his has worn off, he will taunt the boss off you, slow down on the dps, use some self heals, think about your position and if you should move closer to the tank or away and continue this cycle.

As mentioned, this is in raids were a lot of generic fights require tank swaps at all times,
So the same applies on tank swaps as if you was starting the encounter. Once you taunt the boss, drop some big damaging abilities and you shall be on your way with dancing with the Boss.

Quick tip: Have your tanking partner set to focus, doing so you are always aware of the debuff count he/she is receiving indicating you when to taunt. To do this follow these steps: (Right click on Tanks name plate > drop down box will appear > Select "Set To Focus") and there you have it, your tank now has your devoted attention. /hug.

Other traits of a good tank:
- Knowing when your healer needs mana, Ask for mana breaks. No healing mana = no heals = a slow death.. Or fast if you ignore the previous section. :P /cheer.
- Watch out for patrolling mobs. You will sometimes see some creatures to call over for you to beat down, but they may have some buddies so be careful, if you see a sequenced patrolling, what for them to pass, taunt over the mobs you were originally going for, pull them away from the patrols wandering around and you should be golden.
- Defensive cooldowns are there to use when things get rough, use them in a logical manner. If you use them when you feel like it, You never know, this one boss really wants you dead and your defensive is on cooldown, say goodbye to what could've saved you, don't play dumb.
- Be prepared, a sleepy orc or gnome, depending on your faction may walk to far ahead and pull some really aggravated mobs, be ready to grab them with some damaging abilities and a taunt if needed to protect your clumsy Allies.    

The verdict

Tanking in my opinion is the only way I will be playing this game for the rest of my days. I enjoy the key rolls, I enjoy taking responsibility for the lively hood of my pals and I like controlling the fights so to speak. With some basic knowledge of your class, understanding the key things to be aware of which you could get flamed for in instances (I.E aggro, over pulling, tank swapping) learning these will make you a better player and I hope this post helped answer some common questions and unearthed some basic conceptions of a tank.

So raise your shield in defiance, your weapon in glory... or.. if you're a tea drinking monk/tree hugging bear, Have fun and stay strong!

Netherix.

Being Trolled by a Troll.

With another reset night, We went on a small mission on getting myself some new Gear to catch up with the rest of the guild. I think its hugely noticeable with the damage I sustain on Lei shen to know I need more gear to boost that as much as I can.

So we delve into TOT from the start due to two unsuccessful nights on Heroic Lei and My first attempt at heroic Council was a frustrating one to say the least. Our Druid Main tank took Sul and Frost lord to the left, I taunted the priest every CD while dpsing the grouped two bosses to add in some insane Keg smash damage. Soon as she would get the Dark Empowerment, I would Interrupt her cast, get our Hunter to interrupt her second and drag the crazy Troll lady to the rest of the bosses for some heavy dps. As soon as her empowerment dropped off, I interrupted her cast, rolled x2 (use Tiger Lust helps here) and took her back of the group to continue dps on the other Targets and new Dark empowered member of the council.

What was annoying the crap out of me was her cast time on her abilities making bringing her over very annoying and extremely painful, but with decent communication between myself and our Hunter, we managed to get it down after a few tries! So more progression towards the 12/12 and exalted with Shado-Pan Assault which was a bonus!

I also got two upgrades! heroic chest and my new shiny weapon! BOOM BABY!

Happy Hunting.

More heroic Kills in TOT!

Ahoy hoy! Another night with DeusEx! HODOR! Tonight was successful by all accounts, Getting four new bosses down heroic mode on the second night! You can really tell the guild have done this a number of times before, I knew I was way out of my comfort zone here, Learning new fights on the job, while playing a Brewmaster with enough Micromanagement, the amount of pressure was crazy. I literally read up the tactics on my way to work and on my lunch break, to then be thrown right in the deep end to actually do pretty well!

Durumu, Always a B!tch on Normal, Even more so on heroic. Despite having to solo tank it with two paladins dropping Hand of Protection on short stacks, I was then dealing with Purifying a whole lot more here. (Four set bonus really does help) anyway, with a few attempts we got the fat slob down.

Primordius, Actually surprised how simple the change was but I really enjoyed that fight. While dealing with the Normal mechanics of kiting the boss, two Adds spawn randomly around the room, The off tank has to pick these up and make sure they don't cross the path of the boss or its an instant wipe. So spinning the camera angle was key here. Again, spamming those Purifying brews like a drunken master.

Iron Qon, Awesome fight. First three phases are the same with an extra annoying mechanic from some adds, last phase = amazing. You tank the main boss as well as three of those flying mounts he hops on. Looked insane for healers and once again, I used Purify here so much more than on normal.

Twins, Epic fight on heroic. Makes the normal version like worse tenfold. Despite the same sort of idea were you tank the dusk boss for a while, then dps the nightmare that spawns, the second phase is a touch harder. Those comets that fall periodically have a lot more use here, The tank that is currently on the boss moves the dawn boss towards them enough to activate them so they get damaged over time and apply a debuff to the boss. She then casts Inferno every few moments during the phase so you have to keep a comet active to jump behind so you take zero damage. (good time to drop some healing spheres and Advert Harm)

Then once they both become active, I picked up the Dusk boss, moved her away from the raid, jumped behind comets when I had too (Clerity talent here works wonders = x3 roll) rinse and repeat till the dps finish the dawn boss then back in to the first phase till its down. Winning.

Really had fun tonight, and the guild got there third kill on Dark Animus HC. Looked like one hell of a boss, so I was happy to sit out and let the more experienced tank take over, Was pretty cool, I went to the Auction House and bought some new pets.

Goodnight!

Heroic Progress!

Last night, while generally browsing trade and looking for a TOT 10/25 pug, I was lucky enough to get a whisper from a member of <Sanctuary Of Elune> They was after a tank for TOT 10 fresh run with 3 bosses in HC. A bit apprehensive in joining as I have had no Heroic experience what's so ever (few glances over some FatBoss videos) I did not think I could handle the amount of pressure on the Lil' old monk. However, I was really surprised at how easy it was.

Jin 'Rokh, Not to much different, boss hits for a tad more, and on the lighting phase were you usually stack, You Have to avoid lightning coming from all angles, I died the first time as I was unlucky with 4 orbs on top of me = a sad Gnome.

Horridon, Again not much to report, adds do more damage, they have a tad more health and dps have an add fixate periodically during the fight which can be slowed down by the DPS is focusing. Really easy for me, I never had the add bother me as the DPS coped enough so I would not have it at all and we all know adds are easy as hell to handle for most tanks!

Ji-Kun, I noticed the nests were more frequent? I maybe wrong but it just seemed so. Instead of taunting on the Talon Rake stacks, you focus more on the Infected Wounds Debuff and taunt around 3 while keeping a balance of Talon Rakes between the two tanks.

Overall, I'm surprised how easy they were even if I did make a few mistakes, Nonetheless it was an awesome experience with the bonus of a new Weapon which is desperately needed and Heroic Leg tier! HAPPY DAYS.