If you, like many other people since 3.1 and dual-spec, are newly DPS-turned-tank, and are at a loss as to what to do, look no further! There is a wealth of tanking resources out there, as I have already mentioned; Reading widely + lots of practice will help see you through your initial tank phase. It could take a while before you grasp the basics, so practice, practice, and practice more. Be self-aware, and don't be afraid to approach others for help/assistance/advice, and above all, remember that there is no substitute for practice, nor is there a shortcut to tanking.
We (by we I'm referring to K, B, Z, and I) did a Naxx10 today to help B gear up his rogue (like it needs it anyway, judging from the number of BoE Ulduar items it already has) who has recently hit 80. Not surprisingly, we had to PuG, as it was roughly an hour just past noon. Since I highly distrust PuG tanks, and it would be irresponsible for me not to tank, I did, saying that I would be better served in a tank role than a DPS role anyway. Out comes S, warrior number 3, who is in very very average gear, with 952 block value, 28k HP, and roughly 48.8% total avoidance unbuffed. B found a PuG tank, who also happened to be a warrior. We form up, and we head in. Upon inspection, this warrior's gear happened to be slightly better than mine, but with some enchants missing here and there, but he had the coveted The Undying title (which H still does not have!), so I expected an easy run, given that half of the raid comprised people who knew their class well, and given that this warrior rated to be a pro.
Starting off with the Plague Quarter, everything seemed ok up until the first pull of the 2 gargoyles with another gargoyle patrol. Warrior grabbed all 3, I had 0 rage, and Bloodrage was on cooldown. As an aside, I have a quirk of never taunting a mob that someone else is tanking. It shows contempt for the other tank, and reflects badly on me (see -2000 points). So, I just meleed a gargoyle that wasn't marked with skull, and threw out threat moves when I had the rage to afford them. To my (small) surprise, I was able to pull the other two gargoyles off the warrior, and keep them on me. Alarm bells start to go off in my head. B (who was leading the raid), asked the warrior to solo tank Noth and me to DPS (in my scrubby DPS set). Having done it myself on my warriors and druid, I knew it was totally possible to be able to generate enough threat on Noth and his adds to hold them to me. The result? I ended up pulling aggro from at least 2 adds, and was subsequently "tanking" the 2 other skeletons that spawned immediately after Noth teleported.
The situation was exacerbated at Heigan, where the warrior (who was tanking) ate quite a number of the green lava thingy due to improper positioning, causing some of the melee DPSers to eat extra damage too. Finally, B called for me to tank Loatheb and it went without a hitch.
At Loatheb, I inspected the warrior's DPS gear, and was quite surprised to find that he was Arms, with 4/5 T7.5 (his tank gear was 2 T7), which led me to conclude that he was relatively new to tanking. Naturally, not wanting to appear to be an insufferable know-it-all, I refrained from any "friendly advice".
Quite a few times throughout the raid, however, this warrior also seemed to have slow reflexes. Imagine me going AFK awhile after we downed Gluth to restart my WoW client. Now, when I come back, I move towards the raid, who is just past the entrance of Thaddius' room. Somebody is calling out in raid chat that there is a Shade, so naturally I assume the warrior would pick it up. As I am almost reaching, out of habit, I charge the Shade, only to find that the highest on its aggro table is Z, who was healing. I press Taunt, we kill the Shade without any problems, and the warrior claims to be "lagging." That was probably the 5th or 6th time that the warrior has failed to pick up a Shade, and had I not done so all those times, someone would have inevitably died.
It was quite amusing throughout the whole raid, however, to see the other warrior struggle to grab some mobs of his own to tank during trash pulls. He tried taunting mobs away from me a few times, only to have the mobs turn back to me at the end of the Taunt duration. His low threat output only became really apparent as I inspected his damage breakdown (via Recount) at the end of a few trash pulls. No Cleave, no Heroic Strike, and no, his valiant Devastate spam wouldn't be enough to secure a mob for him to tank. Furthermore, to my horror of horrors, he used Taunt to pull the first pack of trash in the Military Quarter. That was... very very bad.
It was even more interesting at Patchwerk, where B stated (for assignments), and I quote: "Whoever's threat is lower will be the hateful tank." At that point, we all knew among ourselves that it most definitely wasn't going to be me, and so it was: Me serenely pressing buttons, him desperately trying to chase my threat (and failing).
The crux/most interesting part came only at Thaddius. K was complaining throughout the whole instance that the warrior's threat was very low. It only occured to me how low it was when, after the first Tank Throw, Stalagg went for K before I landed on the platform, forcing him to Feign Death, and me to Taunt, immediately after I landed. When both sub-bosses were down, the other warrior got the first few hits on Thaddius (his sub-boss died 5% before mine), but the boss came to me after a few more seconds (!!!), and when he Taunted the boss halfway through (I have NO idea why), Thaddius of course refused to stick to him, preferring to hit me instead =P.
The whole point of that story, people, is that there is no shame in asking for help or advice. It will not make you look like a fool, nor will you be labelled a noob. Shelve your pride, and ask the better tank how he manages to do what he does so well, and you will be well on your way to becoming like him. As I have said, I am a sucker for politeness and humble people, and will gladly take someone with low DPS/lousy tanking skill but willing to admit it and to learn, rather than that mediocre DPS/tank who thinks he/she knows it all and insists on erring time and again, with no inclination to learn or self-improve.
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