Know any good tanks?

Do we know them when we see them?

-I was in que for a short time, ICC just hit and I was farming frosties on my alt to get my tanking boots made. As we loaded, it was the normal don't talk, just start pulling. LFG was also new too, so I was seeing different realms all the time. By the time I realized it we were done with the 1st hallway and pulling fast as lightening. I stopped DPS'n to inspect the tank. OMG he is unenchanted and ungemmed. He was in 258 gear and has the healer and another DPS from the same guild with him. At 4 minutes we were at Skaldi and done in 8 minutes.

I tell this story because, as the run went on, I know I was with a good tank or a good player or both. The group was amazing. The tank was the leader! He set the pace and the tone and the group followed.

So is it about leadership?

You have to move the group along, set the pace and motivate where needed via extra effort or a small tell saying "hold back for a second". No one moves past you in a raid or dungeon. There is alot on the tanks plate when working with a team via 5 man or raid. Mana issues, aggro and cool down management to name a few plus you have the others so they are following your guidelines on staying behind you and not pulling mobs for you. I've heard the sporting analogy of "the tank is the quarterback of the raid" and I guess you can say that to an extent.

Oh but I also forgot another key thing, you need patience! And a ton of it!

Is it about respect or trust?

What a loaded question! I will talk about both sides of my head with this one. Both. You don't as a guildie or raider need to like the person playing the toon, but you do have to trust him but not respect him for whatever reason. You have to know that he will do his job and like clockwork be ready to play that toon if sh!t hits the fan. You don't look upon your tank the C.E.O of the company but they are the foundation of the raid. Bad tank, poor aggro or wrong gear and its a wipe.

Respect in each other.

There is a certain amount of respect that must be levied upon any tank be it pug in a 5 man or raid. If there isn't its a quick tell saying, we need to replace you or a vote kick in the heroic.

Easily Rreplaceable?

Well, once again Wrath is a different beast. In TBC or Vanilla it was impossible to replace a tank mid progression tier. Wrath we have dual specs and lots of epics flowing around. But... even with that gear that is flowing around and swapping out your main spec to help the raid. Is that continuity? Does that always work? Not really. People want to go back to their main spec or toon and that trust factor might be gone with the old tank that left/quit.

In fact its hard to replace a tank as a guild. The reason you don't see tons of LF Tank on the forums or trade is because there is a fit or balance that guilds have with the tanks they have, there is not a ton of tanks needed and there is an investment that is unspoken between a tank and a guild. Tanks usually get gear priority, fair or not.

But what really makes the tank good?

With all this said above, what is it that seperates the good from the great? The lets pass him to OMG did you see what they just did?

• The know the toon. They know how to spec, gem and glyph. They min/max and do everything for that toon that needs to be done.
• They have an understanding of the raid set up and can read whats going to happen with the raiders.
• They know boss/trash mechanics. Use of abilities and can manage cooldowns. IE bop/salv a dps that has hit a string of crits early.
• They put some work into the game, by reading and watching encounters and hitting the training dummies.
• They limit mistakes, see other mistakes and adjust.
• They are allowed to fix problems and make comments that will fix whatever it was that caused the wipe.

When is stam ok to start stacking?

Stam!
Remember back to Naxx 3.08? No one was "stacking stam" back then. We were all trying to get block capped...102.4% no hit comes in w/out some mitigation! That was even the rule for oh...about 2 minutes in Ulduar. I do seem to recall thou, OS 3d (10 or 25 man) and Maly's tank was always the tank with the highest HP's, pug or not. When you went and did maly as a pally tank, you moved some gear and put your highest stam set on. Maybe put a new glyph to cause more damage and threat.

When thou did we as pally tanks start stacking stam? And even better question, at what point do you recommend others stack stam? Do you even recommend avoidance? I know the hard fast rules of  540 defense is still the number one thing. But if a tank just hit 80, is running heroics and learning, do you say "pvp shoulder enchant, stam in ever socket, agi/stam to light the meta"?
As a tank that does ICC and I have a few other meatshields, I still chose stam. Yes avoidance is great but its not reliable, ever. Even the proc or on use trinkets are horrible. That is why, when I go to the help section or advice section to some forums, I still alway say put in stam. At this point in the game, in the LFG system, you get 264 geared heals, you get the ignorant players that just want a 10 minute badge run, I get that. But they also like to see 35k hp's and don't care that you have 102.4% or do they care that you have 22% dodge. They wanna see your GS and green bar with big numbers.
What do you do? What is your advice? Lets face it, tanking has 2 hard fast rules....don't get crit (stay alive) and hold threat. Other than that its preference right? so at what point does stam become the rule and not the luxury?
I'd like to see some opinions on this.