I've been main-tanking for 5 months for my guild on Aegwynn, and we've just recently downed Princess Huhuran, and have killed Instructor in Naxx. here's my question to everyone here.

We're at the point now, where the MT (myself) can't do all the warrior jobs at once. IE: If I am not at a raid (school, real-life, etc) the raid suffers, and it suffers horribly..

I've talked to them about threat generation, and about how to maxamize that, I've tried to talk to them about reaction time, and learning how to react to the boss, and how to adapt to how OUR raid, as it's being run at that point in time.

Example: They did AQ20 the other night, and got to Ossarian, I haven't missed an AQ20 in a long time, and I was out on a date, so I couldn't be there. I got home, logged on, and eveyone was saying how they couldn't kill Ossarian because of agro issues, of them not moving fast enough to the crystals, or them dying to fast.

How do I go about teaching them how do to what I do, and do it as well as I do?

"Good to Great" is a book I've recently read, and it talks about level 5 leaders, which are leaders (CEOs) who make there company the best, but they are level 5 leaders, because after they have retired, or moved on, the company still runs fantastic without them. That's what I want to do here, what happens if I can't play WoW anymore. I'll feel bad about leaving sure, but I feel worse because my guild can't do 1/2 the content with out me.

I've broken it down into 3 major concerns:

1: Confidence

Alot of the warriors who arn't MTs, don't have the confidence when they are called to MT, Main-tanking to me, isn't that hard, it's about threat rotation, knowing your boss, and reaction to the situations, they either 1: go on overload, and can't do one of thoese 3, or 2: They shut down, and all that confidence they had, is lost. I don't gloat, or go around saying I'm the best tank ever, because I'm not. For some reason, I think they might feel that they have to be like me, and when they arn't they are lost? I'm not sure, I think I'm just rambling.

2: Knowledge

I read. About everything. I read about the boss we are attempting, I know it's abilities, I know how to counteract them, I know how to do this and that, and I have been pushing them to do just that, read stuff on these forums here, go to wowwiki, go to warriors forums, read about your class, they say they are, so what else can I do to push them to the next level.

3: Responsiblity

There is a enormous responsiblity to being a main-tank of a guild, which is one of the reasons I love doing it, there's a lot of pressue all the time. If you fuck up, the raid wipes, if a healer, or mage fucks up, the raid is fine. How do I teach them how to really push to being responsible for there actions. I want them to want to be MT like me, I want them to strive to be the best, I just don't know how to keep pushing them, without becoming an asshole.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciate, sorry for babbling.

4. Practice

Practice makes perfect is truth. Sometimes it takes people longer than you'd like to get the hang of something, but when they nail it, give them positive reinforcement. Once you get the hang of something, refine it until it's so habitual you can do it without looking. Force people to trade off tasks. Having one person tank everything is a sure way to stumble through progress when that person isn't available. Peer coaching makes a huge difference, and you can learn a lot from watching someone else do your job.

The best example of this is positioning mobs, imo. Getting positioning dead on is one of the hardest things for tanks to get right the first time. It seems so simple to everyone else, but they usually aren't the ones staring a mob the size of a bus in the face while jammed up against a corner. I think a lot of people get locked in to being behind their character and don't do simple things like spin the camera to get a better grip on where they are. If you've mastered the art of maximizing your cooldowns you should be able to look around and take better stock of your environment. When you're clicking on a 5 minute cooldown because you know it's going to come up any second now or hitting your HoT's refresh dead on without looking at timer bars, you're in the groove, and you should be able to do more than an average player.

Practice makes perfect. It sounds like other leaders and tanks in your guild have very little opportunity to practice, and thus when they do have to step up to the plate they just aren't prepared.

Let other people lead things, MT things, and organize things (since it sounds like you are handling all three) while you are THERE. You can give them feedback (of course I don't just mean nitpick them every time they do something wrong -- that'll make you that asshole you don't want to become -- point out things they're doing well too). Discuss things with them constructively AS THEY ARE HAPPENING.

If you guys start to have a crap night (you wipe on Ossirian a number of times with someone else taking the lead) then just step in and show him how it's done. He'll be able to more accurately compare his performance with your own since they're in very close proximity, and he'll have gotten some real practice in.

You weren't totally awesome the first time you tried tanking Ossirian either, were you? Of course you probably picked it up quickly...but if you MT a lot of varied encounters, you'll have the skills for something new more easily available as well. Your other tanks who end up taking a back seat to you on everything just don't have that kind of experience.

Now, if your players are just bad, then obviously this isn't going to help (well, it'll help some, but it won't make them good...just bad with experience). And obviously you can't make them read strats, etc. But developing confidence and responsible playing habits comes straight from giving them the opportunity to prove themselves. If the only opportunities they have to prove themselves are few and far between (and it sounds like that's the case), and the guild is already a little off balance from the usual leadership being absent, well...they're going to have a tough time.

The issues you're describing sound like issues that basically ran rampant in my previous guild. Some people who played a lot would provide a lot of the management positions, and then when those people weren't online, whoever had to step up to fill their role - be it managing healers, organizing the raid, providing constructive feedback for whoever screwed up, or just tanking shit - would simply be unprepared. They weren't bad players, but they had so little opportunity to do these things that when the time came, they were basically learning them from scratch.


Now, if your people have plenty of opportunity while you're around to do these things, then you may have a different problem entirely.

Oh, hell. Gor was in that previous guild with me and snuck in while I was posting. That's absolutely batshit insane.

sorry for teh dbl post omg

"Abandoning" them is not the best way for them to learn, most definitely take them under your wing individually and make them do the job, but be there. Showing them or letting them figure it out for themselves early on is bad unless they are absolutely determined. The presence of a "leader" alone will motivate someone to try harder unless they are hopeless. Make them tank something that requires an off-tank, which YOU should be off-tanking. You will be a backup net, you will be there to help them learn, and when they slowly get the hang of it, then don't show up.

Basically just show up, say "OK x, you are tanking Ebonroc today" and be ready to taunt.

One of the things that has worked very well for us from MC to Naxx is avoiding the "main tank" role and focusing on all thewarrios as potential tanks unless they're pushing for DPS.

Yes you'll generally want your best geared tank to main tank a new encounter but spreading out that gear and responsibility gives the other warriors something positive to work towards and, perhaps more importantly, gives them practice. We've got different tanks on pretty much every boss in Naxx based on connection issues, gearing, and specs.

It doens't ahve to be a pure rotation. Bobby gets boss1 Sue gets boss2, but keeping the assignments somewhat fresh and mobile gives you a lot more strength if one of your tanks has to leave. Same deal with gearing. You can push gear on one tank and let the others be farther behind, but if that tank leaves, you've pretty much screwed the pooch. If you gear them up somewhat evenly (again there will be some spread, just make sure that the more dps interested warriors are picking up more dps gear and the more tank interested warriors are getting tanking gear) you can spread the weight of tanking across many people without each one being so important that you can't accomplish content without them.

It's a little slower if you'r enot gearing/promotingone warrior above all others- but it makes for a more adaptable guild overall.

Damnit, Bekah beat me to it :(

Yep, like Bekah said, you want all of your warriors that are interested in tanking to be given the opportunity to tank so they can get experience at it. Focusing on a sole warrior the entirety of your raiding progression is detrimental more than it is beneficial(though it may seem very beneficial at the start).

Obviously you don't want to spread your tanking time and also the available tanking loot *too* thin, but focusing on say, three tanks as the role of "main tank" rather than one is a very good thing to do.

Bekah kind of touched on this. But practice does make perfect.

1 of the main rules i have always had with myself as a dps warrior is to learn how bosses are tanked first before learning how to dps them. That line of thinking i think has not only proved vital to me but some of my fellow guildee warriors as well. Not only can i step in on short notice for a tanking role but i can offer advice to warriors newer to tanking an encounter in particular. For instance when we had our MT come back from a 1 and 1/2 month hiatus almost all warriors even us dps warriors gave him insight on how the tanking path for the emps worked and he nailed it within 2 attempts of never even seeing the twin emps.

When warriors learn the tank postion of fights they also learn the inherent aggro threshold for the encounter actually making them better dps warriors in the process from which i found. So i encourage warriors to tank in my guild (even though sometimes i shy away from tanking just so i can keep my full dps equipment equipped rather then mix matching gear :P)

Also farming runs like through AQ are good training grounds for keeping tank ideas fresh in warriors minds. We ussually rotate on tanking assignments from week to week and it varies but it really makes people understand concept and roles in every fight.

edit: But when learning to tank a new fight on farmed content dont be drunk while doing it. I had the pleasure of trying to tank anub while heavily inebriated and it went so bad i havent tanked him since :P

What conventions do you use for Ossirian and did they follow them during their Ossirian attempts?

I've lead AQ20 runs for many months, and I've done it as a warrior, mage, and a priest. I've done all aspects of this fight, so with whatever character I happen to be on that day, I still ask for "volunteers" for the key roles needed to kill this guy. I make sure I have 2-3 tanks, 1 person assigned to crystal activate, 2 people assigned to crystal finding. DPS is also told not to open up till after the 2nd crystal activation (at earliest) as an agro buffer. We've had alot of different people learn how to tank Ossirian, and only once ever did I simply tell a warrior that he was "fired" from tanking him (kept going opposite way of the crystals due to some "camera problem").

Thing is, I know the raid would beat Ossirian even if I weren't there. I don't fulfill a critical role on this fight as a mage, but I set up the assignments and tell them to go. Vast majority of the time they can one-shot it. Sometimes we get newer people who need some experience, and we end up wiping a few times before they get it. The important part is they get it and could do it again later, even if I'm not there or there are different people doing the key tasks.

Key here is the convention, how to be successful despite specific people changing roles or being absent. This isn't to be confused with "habit", as that is often what happens with the MT position. People get comfortable with having SoAndSo MT, and when that habit is not fulfilled (MT is absent), people get nervous and uncertain. It helps a great deal to have someone else fill a role from time to time, especially if you're there backing him up with the attitude of "yeah, I know how to do this, but I think ThatGuy can do it to and I'm going to walk him thru it." When you're absent, but ThatGuy is present, there is less uncertainty and doubt given the raid has witnessed ThatGuy MT the encounter in the past, and would have more confidence in his tanking on newer encounters in the future.

I'd agree with all of that. The thing that made me a halfway decent tank on my alt was practice and reading.

Sites like the one we're reading (see combat mechanics 3.0 thread) and this one contain a tremendous amount of information about game mechanics. You don't need to cram the whole thing into your brain in a day. Read a bit, digest it, apply it, and read some more. Ask some questions of more experienced guys or experiment if it doesn't click for you. Talking with other tanks about what works and what doesn't is also important.

When it comes down to playstyle, I think there's a couple other things that make people a good tank.

1.) Good tanks are aggressive. Not stupidly so, but they aren't squeamish about getting up in a mob's face and smacking it around. Usually the worst tanks I see are running around trying to wack at a mob and hoping that will get them aggro. Be proactive, use bloodrage, learn the high threat/rage moves to keep a mob kicking your head in.

2.) Keep it simple stupid. I use 3 basic keys to tank. 1 for HS, 1 for global cooldowns (revenge / sunder macro), and 1 for shieldblock. I keep last stand and shield wall on buttons 4 and 5 on my mouse. That way my focus can stay on movement/positioning and whether or not I need to hit an "oh crap" button (aka taunt, last stand, shield wall). I pound my 1 or 2 key to generate threat, 1 key for limited mitigation, then the six movement keys + right click and drag to move. Strafing should be easy for anyone who ever played a lot of first person shooters, if not, practice.

You should never have to take your eyes off the screen or click on a skill bar repeatedly with your mouse to tank. Glancing down to make sure you're about to hit bloodrage is ok, but you shouldn't have to do it a lot. The basics should come to you without having to think about it, so you can think about important stuff like positioning and the flow of the fight.

3.) Understand threat mechanics. I can't stress this one enough. Knowing where ranged should stand, where melee should stand and how all that relates to threat and dps is what separates good players from mediocre players.

You might want to force them to tank occassionally when you're around so you can give them tips on how to improve ("gee, you should have taunted that molten giant after the knockback"). Start with the easy stuff (MC/ZG) and move to stuff like stage 3 ony where it gets a bit more chaotic (and since she's untauntable, threat generation actually matters).

My explanation is a bit different. After having been in 3 different guilds on different servers, with different mentalities, there's one thing that's very clear. There's bad players. In every guild, there's bad players. Sometimes they're not trying, sometimes they don't pay enough attention, sometimes they're jut not good at games(reflexes, hand/eye coordination, the kind of thing you can only get used to after years of playing). Whatever the case is, it doesn't matter as long as they have a little role. Like, when they're healing off tanks, or dpsing. It's the same people that pull aggro randomly even tho they have KTM, can't get out of an AE in time, don't understand the concept of Dark Glares etc etc. If you don't have any player like this in your guild, you're lucky. It's also about half the time veterans in the guild, pretty cool/nice people, and that's why they're still in the guild even tho it's common knowledge they're terrible.

However, chances are 10% of your guild is plagued by people that have one of the problems I listed earlier. With a lot of time, they get used to some stuff(like chtun, but it takes 3-4times longer than everyone else), but main tanking imo is way too demanding to get used to. It can work... If your guild is just as clueless as you, and you're still learning MC. However, if you ask a bad player to main tank when everyone has been used to having a decent tank before, he'll fail. And the more he fails, the more he'll hate it because of remarks of other people.

Everyone's else ideas are all good, and unless you're REALLY unlucky, there's probably good tanks in the lot. But it'll be tough on them to learn how to tank all of a sudden. Might be a good idea to try recruiting people, depends on your roster I guess. But as a good tank, you should be able to tell in one MC/ZG run if a warrior is good or not, whatever his gear is(how fast he taunts, if he's able to tell what mobs are on you, if he switches to 2h when he has nothing to tank, if he's waiting for the next pull ready to pick his mob without assigns etc). It's a good idea to recruit warriors that look good and get them geared fast. They'll get confidence faster, and can usually catch up on main tanking role in a very short amount of time, much faster than you could have gotten one of your old bad players to do it.

Might be a pessimistic/negative view, but imo, bad players will probably stay bad tanks forever; average players can become good tanks; good players can virtually play any class in a matter of 1week of being 60. You can't really change it, just hope the bad players are spread in multiple classes and not stacked in the warrior class.

The same thing that makes any player great makes a tank great: the desire to be the best player they can be.

If you have tanks that take the initiative to read up on how to play their class, how the game works, etc, and want to be the best tank ever, then you're on the road to success. If you have tanks that don't fit that criteria then you've got your work cut out for you.

Edit: Ignore my post, read Pyros's, he says what I'm thinking a lot better than I do.

I actually really agree with this statement. Good players adapt. They learn from mistakes far more then they do from success. They understand when you die to things like dark glare on Cthun it means "move the fuck out of the way next time so it doesnt happen. Good players can adapt to almost any class within a week of 60 because they see what they did wrong and why they are failing

Bad players are bad because they dont understand the concept of adapting. Every guild has those hand full of players that everyone cringes at when they join the raid on something like cthun or even loot pinata encounters such as grobbulus because they simply dont understand stuff like moving and adapting to your surroundings or doing stuff on the fly.


The average players are the majority of progressive guilds player base. They can understand adapting and why not do stuff differently because it either gets you killed or wipes the raid but you have to spell it out for them before they really catch on. Average players tend to have to hold hands with the good players to be good at their class. All in all average players become good players when they have the naturally better players telling them scripts or how to deal with a situation and they just memorize what to do

We had massive problems of the same sort of thing with our guild awhile ago. Basically if I didn't turn up, the raid would struggly horribly, even on farm content. A few things I've noticed from my point of view at least.

The raid trusts their MT. Personally, I try and get friendly with all the classes (this helps as I raid lead as well). Even having a diverse number of friends in the guild from different classes means that the raid will trust you more. Obviously this trust must be earnt, but if raid morale goes down the drain when they don't see the usual brick wall between them and the big bad, then they'll sure as hell be hesitant to play the same way they always do. The first thing I try and push to all tanks is work out how, in any situation, you can maximise your threat as fast as possible. If people are afraid of hitting or healing due to aggro problems the new tank will a) lose confidence, due to people whinging about lack of tanking ability, or b) do a lacklustre job, which sometimes ends in a wipe.

Henaki's idea is great. When you're in a raid, give one of your OTs a boss to fight and act as the backup net. You know how to control your own threat (hopefully :P) and can stay just behind your OT to "catch" the boss if something goes wrong.

Some people can't adapt. They may be the best dps warriors or the nicest people, but under stressful boss circumstances, they simply are unable to adapt to that situation that draws the line between wipe and success. They're either not fast enough to react on a Shield Wall, Gift of Life, potion, etc, or aren't prepared to stretch outside their own personal safety zone. The easiest way to aleviate some of this is with strong, adaptive healers. The amount of times that I've seen tanks go down one by one on trash packs in Naxx and BWL and nobody pick up the mob is sort of annoying. Our good tanks will run across, taunt a second, third, or fourth mob onto themselves to save the raid. Thankfully our healers are on the ball enough (most of the time :P) to notice these tanks and start chaining heals to keep them up.

That said, some people won't look at that situation as dangerous, and happily tank their mob in the corner while a loose abomination rips a hole in your raid, then complain about dying when their healers get eaten by said loose mob.

The key things have been mentioned above, time and time again, practice, patience and adaptability, but main tanking requires a large degree of trust between warrior and raid to be successful also. Obviously putting in the research of an instance and actively seeking help to improve will help, but some people won't, and simply won't improve as a warrior ever.

Finally, if you're teaching someone how to tank a certain mob, unless the raid is about to collapse in a steaming heap of emo, don't make them give up after a few attempts if they are getting slowly better. Even training priests on Razuvious took us awhile, just in case our usual 2 MCers were AWOL for a raid, but positive reinforcement, and actually giving them a fair go, without people abusing them in some sort of channel makes a difference.

I loved using the BWL drakes for training new tanks and building confidence. One of the more useful things is they're big and ugly - and tauntable. As MT you tell your new tank that you'll be right there in tank gear ready to taunt and take over if he dies. This generally removes a lot of the pressure of "omg if I screw up the raid wipes", and lets the guy focus on tanking, positioning etc.
Ebonroc in particular allows you to get a fairly undergeared tank into the thick of things - and there's little risk if he dies. Flamegor and Firemaw are good confidence boosters for the up-and-coming MT.

After that, you can move them on to harder hitting and roles with more risk - make him tank Chromaggus - an excellent confidence builder and trainer mob - and one that you can pace threat with in case of disaster.

There are many aspects to being a competent raider - MT is no exception. When you put a new guy in front of a big ugly mob, don't leave him out there to hang. Make sure he knows you're all with him. Discuss positioning, tanking strategy, special techniques (like using FR pots to clear Firemaw's debuff). Hand him fort pots, FR pots, stamina food, flask, etc. I found I really only had to do this once or twice with the talented warriors before they were turning down pots and food and stuff because they'd brough their own.


Anyway, I really believe that nobody should be essential to the raid. As soon as you've learned something critical and essential, it's worth the time of the raid to train someone else to do it. It builds confidence in the group, and in the individual players - and the occasional extra wipe during training is worth the stronger raid group.

I have to say, one of the most rewarding aspects of the game is taking a new green warrior, and working with him to build his skill confidence and experience - and then suddenly waking up to realize that you've helped produce a really great raider and main-tank.

Having the others tank while you're there is definitely a very very good idea, for one additional reason: You're there to bail them out in the end. The idea here is that after, say, the second wipe while they're practicing, you step in and finish it off nicely. This accomplishes a couple of things: First, they'll be in a position to reflect on how what they did was different from what you did, and it'll make more of an impression when they've just wiped than when they're being DPS. Second, it keeps the rest of the raid from getting despondent about the lack of progress.

Throwing them in the deep end is better done once they're a bit more experienced.

I'll also note that it's a good idea to give out different roles at different times: Being the MT and main assist is far different from off-tanking the mob that will get killed second. I was very insecure for a while (and unpracticed) in my skills at getting snap aggro, because I was always OTing. I could build huge aggro, but because my mob was always the second target and never the first, I never had the need to get that fast initial aggro. And when I practiced doing it, I wasn't sure how well I was doing, because there were no rogues there ready to get their faces shredded when I messed up. MTing boss fights is also slightly different, as each boss has gimmicks, and people tend to ramp up a little bit because they know they're settling in for a long haul.

So: *Do* have other people take on MT responsibilities when you're there to back them up in time to keep the raid from lynching them. *Do* make sure that they understand that you're taking over so that the raid will make progress, and that you're looking forward to seeing how they do on thta boss next week. *Do* suggest that they pay attention to what you do when you take over from them (and if you've noticed specific problems they have, point out what to look for). *Don't* throw them in the deep end alone until they're reasonably confident and competent. And finally, *Do* assign different roles to different people, as trash MT, trash OT, boss MT, and boss OT jobs can vary a lot in what skills they require.

i know what you mean.

i am raidleader and maintank from a raid group containing 8 or 9 small guilds that come together for raid nights for like 1,5 years now.
We killed C'thun last week and have Razuvious and Anub down.

what you need to understand is that you cannot do all the work on your own.
other people must do the work too, to get used to it.

days like a bad AQ20 raid are perfect, all the other guys will learn from that.

if you get the chance let the other warriors tank specific encounters so they can get a feeling for threat, aggro and stuff.
give the raid leader to other persons so that they really get to know how to swith groups for encounters, do all the shouting...

at the end its all about practice.
every raid has its "special" persons: carebears, hardcore-overnuker, wipe-kids, whatever and the practice will make things go better and better.

wbr
rothar

I've always wondered (coming from a very long term EQ background) why guilds in WoW didn't rotate MTs more often and on non-trivial content. Heck, in EQ tanking was vastly easier for the most part and yet getting any and all of your tanks face-time was always a smart thing to do. I guess a lot of it comes down to the way so many of WoW Warriors don't see themselves as tanks at all and like the role about as much as a sPriest likes healing.

Still, I think it is extremely important to have a number of warriors that actually like tanking around and to get them to not only talk about tanking with each other but to have the lesser-geared tanks actually tank important encounters. You'll not only save burning out your 'usual' main tank but you'll have a happier raidforce in general I think. I personally would hate to be the secondary tank all the damn time ;)

This is what I believe to be a common problem among warriors in guilds. A few months ago our MT went on holiday for 3 weeks, we had ample cover but she had been the MT for so long almost exclusively that the DPS and healing classes had no confidence that could get through content without her.

Since that rut in the guilds history I've made sure theres plenty of tank rotation happening and that there is no such thing as a 'dps warrior'. Even our highest performing Fury warriors tank regularly. We've used 4 different MTs for nef, 5 different tanks for emps and most warriors know how to tank most encounters now.

I changed from DPS to second MT when we needed one in my first guild, and I can tell you I had my heart somewhere around my knees when I first had to tank Emps. I was lucky I was sufficiently geared for the job at that time because I was witness to many, many tank splats when we first started doing the Emps fight earlier that year and I'm sure many potential tanks can be spooked by that :)

Nowadays I find it somewhat addictive to tank big bosses, and it annoys me to no end to see people fool around doing that important job. I've had to physically log onto the MT's account and tank Heigan just so we could do the fight. I tried it on my own char first, but as a Fury spec I just couldn't maintain aggro on him with our ranged damage. Just the little things, knowing where to go blindly on each splash, that you'd have to move to the third splashzone but slowly walk back towards the platform when the dance was about to begin, all that. The good news was tho, that after I showed him what to do (and rubbed it in his face, that usually works too ;)), he picked it up pretty quickly.

But yea, let all of team warrior tank a boss on occassion. Start with farmcontent bosses because even if your wars are drooling spastic retards, having seen a bossfight a thousand times before does help, after that you can move to the big stuff. Pay for the 50g respec costs from the guildbank and just announce you're gonna need a new tank for Boss X in Zone Y tonight. It might be a little spooky at first, but it beats "Sorry guys no raid today, the MT isn't here" any day of the week.

My guild has what is probably the best warrior corps on the server, hardcoreness aside. I know other Hyjalians read these boards but I don't care, if you don't know it, we do ;)

This has been I think more of a luck thing than anything else...I have tried to work with a couple of poor tanks in my time and it just hasn't been worth the effort, you either have it or you don't. Communication is key, obviously, as is community...but really from my perspective I simply hold them to very high standards, I take full responsibility when I fuck up and I hold them accountable when they fuck up. I do not accept poor play from the tanks, period, and we had such a strong and steady corps of warriors coming from the time we were still leveling that the pride in that is pretty steep. The tanking heirarchy is what it is, you don't get moved up artificially, when a warrior is gone and you're in their spot, or one goes down, that's your time to show what you've got. Our attendance rates allow for a good amount of rotation through tanks in most farm content, but that's really what opportunity the ambitious tanks have.

The bottom line is though, some have it and some don't. You can teach many things, but you cannot teach attentiveness, intelligence, reflexes, situational awareness, aggressiveness, or adaptivity. That is where we've been lucky, we have managed to gain some really knock-out wars in our time, if you don't have talent at warrior you won't have much. This is not to say that you can't make players better -- you can, I've seen it, but tanking is just really goddamned difficult to "make" happen.