Some Musings on the Art of Tanking

Introduction
Inspired by this post by Latus. I even stole the title.

There are certain aspects of WoW that are required for effective tanking. Things such as general awareness, camera positioning and movement as well as, most importantly, threat management. Those who fill the DPS and healer roles - and who are good at doing so - will have a similar interest in those aspects which are relevant to them; movement is less of an issue for both, and threat mechanics aren't a huge issue for healers.

General Awareness
General Awareness is all about being knowing what's going on at all times. Tanks tend to have more to keep track of than other members of the group. Area effects such as void zones, rockets in Mimiron phases 2 and 4, etc everybody has to watch for. Other than those, healers concentrate on who needs healing, DPS concentrate on what they need to hit, and tanks concentrate on where they are, where the boss is, whether or not the boss is about to use a high-damage special attack, when and where adds are going to spawn, what abilities you have available to pick them up and whether or not other members of the group have aggro.

It's certainly a lot to keep track of, and not everybody can do it. If you can, though, life as a tank shouldn't be too difficult.

Camera Positioning
Camera positioning is important for the majority of fights. Only being able to see a boss's crotch is fine if you don't also have to pick up adds, move to specific zones or avoid things such as landmines. If you do, you need to position your camera in a way that allows you to see as much of the area of the fight as possible - this generally means zooming as far out as possible, and possibly adopting an overhead view.

Movement
Ever heard the saying "There's more than one way to skin a cat"? Well, there's also more than one way to kite a boss, and they aren't all equally effective.

If you have to move quickly and more than a few steps, walking away backwards isn't going to work - you'll get yourself killed by the void zone or shock blast or whatever else it is. If the boss hits hard, turning your back to them for any lengthy amount of time probably isn't a good idea.

As a semi-aside, my ex-girlfriend recently started playing WoW with me. I jump quite a lot when I move. To be honest, I rarely move in a direction without also hitting my spacebar. When she said that I "prance like a girl" I replied that I'm a tank, and I therefore have a jumping habit.

Jumping is good. It allows you to move quickly in one direction, but already be facing in the opposite direction when you land. If you've ever watched somebody tank Heigan, you'll probably notice that they turn away from him, run towards the next safe zone, and jump into it while turning back towards Heigan. This is fine because Heigan hits like a wimp, try doing it while taking ~20k hits kiting a boss like Ignis and you'll probably be dead in a hurry.

So if you can't do that, what can you do? Moving sideways is your best bet - it should allow you to keep facing the boss, but also move quickly out of anything that's going to greatly reduce your lifespan.

Obviously it's up to you, as a tank, to know which method of movement is appropriate to the encounter. As a DPS or healer, there's a lot less importance on how you move, only that you do it in time.

Threat Management
Healers, you aren't welcome here. Not that I don't love you guys, it's just that this really has no relevance for you. The only time healers pull aggro is when they get too close to enemies that haven't already been pulled, or cast heals when enemies haven't been hit at all by the tank.

Threat forms the basis of the tank-DPS relationship. Tanks have to know how to put out high levels of threat (while doing everything else they have to do), and DPS have to know how to put out high levels of damage without putting out too much threat. And they both have to trust that the other not only knows how to do it, but that they are doing it.

While Omen is less of a requirement with the addition of Blizzard's built-in threat meter, it's still a highly useful addon. You can work out how much threat your individual attacks are doing (potentially useful for maintaining some damage output as opposed to not attacking at all when trying to limit threat output), as well as see how much threat you're dealing per second and how far behind the tank(s) you are.