Written by Zoe of Trollbane-EU realm, this detailed guide explains the mechanics of tanking. It is rather complex so take your time to read, I have also taken the initiative to highlight key points to help reading.


Basic Concept: The basic concept of tanking consists of three parts, maintaining the aggro, mitigating the damage and staying alive. There are three classes considered to be tanking class, the Warrior, the Paladin and the Druid. Though any class has some form to maintain aggro, mitigate damage and staying alive, only Warriors, Paladins and Druids have skills and talents specific for this purpose, as well as items made for them. This guide focuses on Paladins, but also talks about Warriors and Druids. If you want to try to tank with your Shaman, Rogue, Shadow Priest or Hunter Pet, I wish you all the luck you can get, but I don’t know enough of their mechanics, nor do I needlessly want to cluster this guide.Maintaining Aggro:One aspect of tanking is making sure the mobs attack you, not the other people in your group, since you’re made to take the hits where the rest is not. Mitigating your damage is useless if you’re not the one getting the damage, and you’ll more likely to survive a hit than the other people in your group.The threat caused by Warriors and Druids scales with stats such as Strength, Agility and Attack Power. Protection specced Warriors also get a lot of threat from Block Value. The threat caused by Paladins scales with Spell Damage.Mitigating Damage:

Another aspect of tanking is minimizing the damage you’ll be receiving. It’s completely useless to keep the aggro from the cloth wearers, if you take as much damage as them. Your healers cannot keep you alive, unless you make sure to take the minimum amount of damage possible. Damage mitigation can be subdivided in two groups.

Damage Reduction means reducing the damage you’ll receive when you get hit. The most basic form of damage reduction is Armor. The higher your armor value, the less damage you will take. A Warrior’s Defensive Stance provides 10% Damage Reduction. A Paladin’s Righteous Fury provides up to 6% Damage Reduction based on talents. These apply after each other. If you have a 60% Damage Reduction from Armor, then Defensive Stance only reduces 10% of the remaining 40% for a total of 64% Damage Reduction. Blessing of Sanctuary provides a flat Damage Reduction (80 at level 70), but before Damage Reduction from Armor and Stance is taken into account, so that Warrior with 64% Damage Reduction would only receive 28.8 less damage thanks to Blessing of Sanctuary. Block Value provides a flat Damage Reduction whenever you Block an attack, after Damage Reduction from Armor and Stance is taken into account. Druids have neither a flat Damage Reduction bonus, nor Block Value, but they have the highest Armor of all three classes to compensate for this.

Damage Avoidance means avoiding a source of damage altogether. Your Miss, Dodge and Parry chance avoid getting damaged altogether. Your Block chance avoids receiving Critical Hits and Crushing Blows, since these are mutually exclusive, with the exception of forced Critical Hits, like a Rogue’s Cold Blood, which can turn into a Blocked Critical Hit. Though avoiding getting damaged altogether is a nice thing, it’s only a chance, and therefore unreliable. It’s chance based, and might or might not happen. It won’t do you any good if it doesn’t happen. Don’t go through great lengths just to boost complete avoidance. It’s a little different for Critical Hits and Crushing Blows. With the right talents and gear, these can be avoided completely by Warriors and Paladins, making it something you can rely on. By reducing the chance of Critical Hits and Crushing Blows to zero, you cannot get unlucky.

Staying Alive:

The more Damage Mitigation you have, the less your healers will have to heal you, but you will receive damage. No matter how low the damage you take is, if the healers don’t have time to heal you, you will die regardless. Your heath bar is there for the sole purpose to give your healers time to heal you back up before you take the next hits. It does not reduce the damage you take or the healing you need in any way.

If you completely strife for the most health, while disregarding actual damage mitigation, you will take more damage than your healers can keep up with, and you will die. If you completely strife for the most mitigation, while disregarding your health, an unlucky string of hits will kill you.

Damage Reduction from Armor:

Against mobs up to lvl59, the Damage Reduction in % is:
100 * Armor / (Armor + (Moblvl * 85) + 400)

Against mobs of lvl60 and up, the Damage Reduction in % is:
100 * Armor / (Armor + (Moblvl * 467.5) - 22170)

Against lvl73 mobs (Bosses are considered lvl73 for lvl70 player characters):
100 * Armor / (Armor + 11957.5)

The Damage Reduction for Armor is capped to 75%. Any Armor in excess of that becomes useless. For lvl73 mobs, this is 35872.5.

The Attack Table:

When a mob or character physically attacks another mob or character, WoW determines the result with a single roll. It adds all possible values together, using the following attack table:

Miss
Dodge
Parry
Block
Critical Hit
Crushing Blow (mobs only)
Regular Hit

There are formulas that determine the a character or mob’s chance to Miss, Dodge, Parry, Block, Critical Hit and Crushing Blow in %. Those are placed below each other on a line from 0 to 100%. If the total of those values is less than 100%, the remainder is filled up with Regular Hit. If the total of those values is more than 100%, everything beyond 100% falls off the bottom (first Crushing Blow, then Critical Hit, then Block, etc…).

Example 1: There is a 10% chance a mob will Miss a character, 15% the character will Dodge his attack, 20% the character will Parry his attack, 15% the character wil Block his attack, 5% he will Critically Hit the character and 15% he will place a Crushing Blow on the character. Those values count up to 80%, so the remaining 20% becomes a Regular Hit.

One check is made. A result of 0-10% becomes a Miss. 10-25% becomes a Dodge. 25-45% becomes a Parry. 45-60% becomes a Block. 60-65% becomes a Critical Hit. 65-80% becomes a Crushing Blow. 80-100% becomes a Regular Hit.

Example 2: The character mentioned in Example 1 is a Paladin. He casts Holy Shield, which raises his chance to Block an attack by 30% (for a total Block chance of 45%). The values now count up to 110%, so 10% from the lowest value (10% Crushing Blow) falls off. A result of 45-90% becomes a Block. 90-95% becomes a Critical Hit. 95-100% becomes a Crushing Blow. There is no space for Regular Hits.

Example 3: The character mentioned in Example 1 is a Warrior. He casts Shield Block, which raises his chance to Block an attack by 75% (for a total Block chance of 90%). The values now count up to 155%, so 55% from the lowest values (all 15% Crushing Blow, all 5% Critical Hit, 35% Block) falls off. A result of 45-100% becomes a Block. There is no space for Critical Hits, Crushing Blows or Regular Hits.

Preventing Crushing Blow and Regular Hit:

At the above examples, you can see the basic principle of pushing Crushing Blow and Regular Hit off the table. By raising your total Miss, Dodge, Parry and Block chance to 100% or higher, there is not space left for Critical Hit, Crushing Blow and Regular Hit.

A Protection Warrior’s Shield Block adds 75% Block chance to 2 blocks per 5 seconds. Protection Warriors only need 25% additional mitigation chance to reach 100%, which they already receive from base values and talents. Warriors without the Improved Shield Block talent can only use Shield Block for 1 block per 5 seconds, which results in it being down often, leaving the Warrior vulnerable to Critical Hit, Crushing Blow and Regular Hit.

A Protection Paladin’s Holy Shield adds 30% Block chance to 8 blocks per 10 seconds. The Libram of Repentance raises this by 5.31%. Protection Paladins need 65% additional mitigation chance to reach 100%. They receive around 25% from base values and talents, so about 40% more needs to come from gear (excluding the Libram of Repentance). Protection Paladins also have Redoubt, which adds 30% Block chance to 5 blocks for 10 seconds. However, Redoubt is a chance result of getting hit and cannot be kept up permanently, making it ineffective to reliably prevent Critical Hit, Crushing Blow and Regular Hit.

Druids cannot Parry or Block, so they can only use Miss and Dodge. They have no skills that drastically raise these stats and thus cannot prevent Critical Hit, Crushing Blow and Regular Hit in this way.

The mentioned method is quite situational. There are certain situations where this will not work, leaving you vulnerable to Critical Hit, Crushing Blow and Regular Hit:

- Mobs attack you in the rear.
- Mobs use ranged attacks.
- Mobs attack you more often than Shield Block (2 blocks per 5 seconds) or Holy Shield (8 blocks per 10 seconds) can sustain.
- You get stunned and cannot keep Shield Block or Holy Shield up.
- You get silenced and cannot keep Holy Shield up.
- You do not have enough rage or mana to recast Shield Block or Holy Shield.
- Holy Shield gets dispelled.
- You are disarmed and cannot Parry.
- You are casting and cannot Block.

For Crushing Blows and Regular Hits, nothing else can be done. Raising your total Miss, Dodge, Parry and Block chance to 100% or higher is the only method to prevent them. There is however a different solution for Critical Hits, that is more reliable.

Preventing Critical Hit:

Critical Hit% = 5% + ((Attacker’s Weapon Skill) - (Defender’s Defense Skill)) * 0,04%

For the average mob or character, both Weapon Skill and Defense Skill are 5*lvl. So if both the attacker and defender are of equal level, without bonuses to Weapon Skill or Defense Skill, the Critical Hit chance is 5%. Bosses are always considered 3 levels higher than you, so their Weapon Skill is 15 higher than your default Defense Skill, which raises the Critical Hit chance by 0.6% (to 5.6%).

By raising the Defense Skill high enough to reduce this chance by 5.6%, the Critical Hit chance from bosses is reduced to 0%. This requires 140 additional Defense Skill (which, at level 70, brings you to 490 Defense Skill). For level 70 characters, 2.4 Defense Rating raises your Defense Skill by 1. 336 Defense Rating raises your Defense Skill by 140.

Warriors and Paladins have a talent called Anticipation that raises their Defense Skill by 20. Characters with this talent only need an additional 120 Defense Skill. 288 Defense Rating raises your Defense Skill by 120.

Calculations:

As mentioned above, you need 490 Defense Skill to prevent Critical Hits from bosses. In addition, you need to raise the total Miss, Dodge, Parry and Block chance against lvl73 mobs to 100% to prevent Crushing Blows and Regular Hits from bosses. Warriors and Paladins can achieve this. Druids cannot.

For the sake of simplicity, I’m going to assume you do not have talent points in Deflection, Anticipation or Warrior Shield Specialization.

Base Agility @ lvl70:
Night Elven Warrior - 101
Human Warrior - 96

Human Paladin - 77
Dwarven Paladin - 73
Draenei Paladin - 74
Blood Elven Paladin - 79

Miss chance:

For Warriors and Paladins, every point of Defense Skill:
- Increases the chance to be Missed by 0.04%.
- Increases the chance to Dodge by 0.04%.
- Increases the chance to Parry by 0.04%.
- Increases the chance to Block by 0.04%.
- Decreases the chance to receive a Critical Hit by 0.04%.

2.4 Defense Rating = 1 Defense Skill (@ lvl70)
60 Defense Rating = +1% Miss, +1% Dodge, +1% Parry, +1% Block, -1% Crit (@ lvl70)

Miss% = 5% + ((Defenders Defense Skill) - (Attackers Weapon Skill)) * 0.04%
Miss% = 5% + (Defense Rating / 60)% (+0.8% with Anticipation) (-0.6% against lvl73 mobs)

Dodge chance:

18.9 Dodge Rating = 1% Dodge (@ lvl70)
Night Elves have a 1% Racial Bonus to Dodge%.

Dodge% = Base Dodge% + Racial Bonus + (Dodge Rating / 18.9)% + ((Defenders Defense Skill) - (Attackers Weapon Skill)) * 0.04% + (Agility / Agility Ratio)%
Dodge% = Base Dodge% + (Dodge Rating / 18.9)% + (Defense Rating / 60)% + (Agility / Agility Ratio)% (+1% for Night Elven Warriors) (+0.8% with Anticipation) (-0.6% against lvl73 mobs)

Warriors (Base Dodge% = 0.75%, Agility Ratio = 30):
Dodge% = 0.75% + (Dodge Rating / 18.9)% + (Defense Rating / 60)% + (Agility / 30)% (+1% for Night Elven Warriors) (+0.8% with Anticipation) (-0.6% against lvl73 mobs)

Night Elven Warrior (Base Agility = 101, Racial Bonus = 1%):
Dodge% = 4.91% + (Dodge Rating / 18.9)% + (Defense Rating / 60)% + (Agility Bonus / 30)% (+0.8% with Anticipation) (-0.6% against lvl73 mobs)

Human Warrior (Base Agility = 96, other Warriors match this closely):
Dodge% = 3.75% + (Dodge Rating / 18.9)% + (Defense Rating / 60)% + (Agility Bonus / 30)% (+0.8% with Anticipation) (-0.6% against lvl73 mobs)

Paladins (Base Dodge% = 0.65%, Agility Ratio = 25):
Dodge% = 0.65% + (Dodge Rating / 18.9)% + (Defense Rating / 60)% + (Agility / 25)% (+0.8% with Anticipation) (-0.6% against lvl73 mobs)

Human Paladin (Base Agility = 77, other Paladins match this closely):
Dodge% = 3.53% + (Dodge Rating / 18.9)% + (Defense Rating / 60)% + (Agility Bonus / 25)% (+0.8% with Anticipation) (-0.6% against lvl73 mobs)

Parry chance:

22.4 Parry Rating = 1% Parry (@ lvl70)
Deflection gives a 5% Talent Bonus to Parry%.

Parry% = 5% + Talent Bonus + (Parry Rating / 22.4)% + ((Defenders Defense Skill) - (Attackers Weapon Skill)) * 0.04%
Parry% = 5% + (Parry Rating / 22.4)% + (Defense Rating / 60)% (+0.8% with Anticipation) (+5% with Deflection) (-0.6% against lvl73 mobs)

Block chance:

7.9 Block Rating = 1% Block (@ lvl70)
Warrior Shield Specialization gives a 5% Talent Bonus to Block%.

Block% = 5% + Talent Bonus + (Block Rating / 7.9)% + ((Defenders Defense Skill) - (Attackers Weapon Skill)) * 0.04% + Ongoing skill effects
Block% = 5% + (Block Rating / 7.9)% + (Defense Rating / 60)% (+0.8% with Anticipation) (+5% with Warrior Shield Specialization) (-0.6% against lvl73 mobs) (+75% with Shield Block) (+30% with Holy Shield (+5.31% with Libram of Repentance)) (+30% with Redoubt)

Warriors:
Block% = 5% + (Block Rating / 7.9)% + (Defense Rating / 60)% (+0.8% with Anticipation) (+5% with Shield Specialization) (-0.6% against lvl73 mobs) (+75% with Shield Block)

Paladins:
Block% = 5% + (Block Rating / 7.9)% + (Defense Rating / 60)% (+0.8% with Anticipation) (-0.6% against lvl73 mobs) (+30% with Holy Shield (+5.31% with Libram of Repentance)) (+30% with Redoubt)

Prevention chance:

Chance to prevent Crushing Blow and Regular Hit:
[Miss%] + [Dodge%] + [Parry%] + [Block%]

[5% + (Defense Rating / 60)% (+0.8% with Anticipation) (-0.6% against lvl73 mobs)] + [Base Dodge% + (Dodge Rating / 18.9)% + (Defense Rating / 60)% + (Agility / Agility Ratio)% (+1% for Night Elven Warriors) (+0.8% with Anticipation) (-0.6% against lvl73 mobs)] + [5% + (Parry Rating / 22.4)% + (Defense Rating / 60)% (+0.8% with Anticipation) (+5% with Deflection) (-0.6% against lvl73 mobs)] + [5% + (Block Rating / 7.9)% + (Defense Rating / 60)% (+0.8% with Anticipation) (+5% with Warrior Shield Specialization) (-0.6% against lvl73 mobs) (+75% with Shield Block) (+30% with Holy Shield (+5.31% with Libram of Repentance)) (+30% with Redoubt)]

15% + Base Dodge% + (Defense Rating / 15)% + (Dodge Rating / 18.9)% + (Parry Rating / 22.4)% + (Block Rating / 7.9)% + (Agility / Agility Ratio)% (+1% for Night Elven Warriors) (+3.2% with Anticipation) (+5% with Deflection) (+5% with Warrior Shield Specialization) (-2.4% against lvl73 mobs) (+75% with Shield Block) (+30% with Holy Shield (+5.31% with Libram of Repentance)) (+30% with Redoubt)

Night Elven Warriors:
19.91% + (Defense Rating / 15)% + (Dodge Rating / 18.9)% + (Parry Rating / 22.4)% + (Block Rating / 7.9)% + (Agility Bonus / 30)% (+3.2% with Anticipation) (+5% with Deflection) (+5% with Shield Specialization) (-2.4% against lvl73 mobs) (+75% with Shield Block)

Human Warriors (Other Warriors match this closely):
18.75% + (Defense Rating / 15)% + (Dodge Rating / 18.9)% + (Parry Rating / 22.4)% + (Block Rating / 7.9)% + (Agility Bonus / 30)% (+3.2% with Anticipation) (+5% with Deflection) (+5% with Shield Specialization) (-2.4% against lvl73 mobs) (+75% with Shield Block)

Human Paladins (Other Paladins match this closely):
18.53% + (Defense Rating / 15)% + (Dodge Rating / 18.9)% + (Parry Rating / 22.4)% + (Block Rating / 7.9)% + (Agility Bonus / 25)% (+3.2% with Anticipation) (+5% with Deflection) (-2.4% against lvl73 mobs) (+30% with Holy Shield (+5.31% with Libram of Repentance)) (+30% with Redoubt)

Paladins:

Unlike Shield Block, Holy Shield does not push Crushing Blows off the table by itself. Additional prevention is required. Their main priority is to get their Defense Skill up to 490. If they have the Anticipation talent, then this requires 288 Defense Rating, else it takes 336 Defense Rating. Human Paladins with Holy Shield up and 490 Defense (with or without Anticipation) have the following Crushing Blow prevention against a level 73 mob:
68.53% + (Defense Rating beyond 490 Defense / 15)% + (Dodge Rating / 18.9)% + (Parry Rating / 23.7)% + (Block Rating / 7.9)% + (Agility Bonus / 25)% (+5% with Deflection) (+5.31% with Libram of Repentance) (+30% with Redoubt)

Human Paladins need an additional 31.47% chance to prevent Crushing Blow and Regular Hit. To upgrade Crushing Blow prevention by 1%, you need:
- 7.9 Block Rating
- 15 Defense Rating (Warrior and Paladin)
- 18.9 Dodge Rating
- 22.4 Parry Rating
- 25 Agility (Paladin)

For the sake of simplicity, let’s assume you have the Anticipation and Deflection talents maxed out and have the Libram of Repentance equipped (these are mandatory in your early days of fighting Crushing Blow, though you can possibly replace these later on). Since Redoubt is unreliable, I’ll stop including it into calculations. If you managed to get 288 Defense Rating from gear, your avoidance will be:
78.84% + (Defense Rating beyond 288 / 15)% + (Dodge Rating / 18.9)% + (Parry Rating / 23.7)% + (Block Rating / 7.9)% + (Agility Bonus / 25)%

That is 21.16% short of Crushing Blow immune. To reach 100% prevention of Crushing Blow and Regular hit while remaining immune to Critical Hits, you need:
- 288 Defense Rating + 168 Block Rating
- 288 Defense Rating + 318 additional Defense Rating = 606 Defense Rating
- 288 Defense Rating + 400 Dodge Rating
- 288 Defense Rating + 474 Parry Rating
- 288 Defense Rating + 529 Agility Bonus

Of course, you can use a combination of Block Rating, additional Defense Rating, Dodge Rating, Parry Rating and Agility Bonus, as long as the following formula gives a result of 21.16% or higher:
(Block Rating / 7.9)% + (Defense Rating beyond 288 / 15)% + (Dodge Rating / 18.9)% + (Parry Rating / 22.4)% + (Agility Bonus / 25)%

Dwarven Paladins need 21.32%. Draenei Paladins need 21.28%. Blood Elven Paladins need 21.08%.

If 100% prevention is reached, additional Block chance becomes useless, as it falls of the table. Therefore, once 490 Defense Skill and 100% prevention are reached, only complete avoidance helps. To upgrade complete avoidance by 1%, you need:
- 18.9 Dodge Rating
- 20 Defense Rating (Warrior and Paladin)
- 22.4 Parry Rating
- 25 Agility (Paladin)

Of course there are situations where you cannot keep Holy Shield up. In these situations Block Chance has an effect. However, keep in mind that Regular Hit is the first value to fall off. When Redoubt is not up, the only effect is that you turn Regular Hit into Block. The damage mitigation is equal to [the difference in Block Chance] * [your Block Value].

When Redoubt is up however, there’s a slim chance that you receive a Crushing Blow and no chance that you receive a Regular Hit, as Holy Shield has a slightly higher Block Chance than Redoubt due to the Libram of Repentance. Additional Block Chance would actually turn Crushing Blow into Block in those situations.

Checking immunity to Crushing Blow:

There’s a simple method to check if you’re immune to Crushing Blow or not. You can calculate this from the Defense tab on either your ingame characters sheet or your armory character sheet. Note that bonuses from buffs affect these values directly, so make sure you are unbuffed before starting the calculation.

Hover your mouse over the Defense line. It lists your Miss chance from Defense.
Add 5% base Miss chance to this value.
Add your Dodge chance.
Add your Parry chance.
Add your Block chance. Note, if you are in game, it’s best to cast Shield Block or Holy Shield right before checking your Block chance.
If you cannot do that (for example, you’re using the armory), then add the following:
- Warrior: 75% for Shield Block.
- Paladin: 30% for Holy Shield.
- Paladin: 5.31% for Libram of Repentance.

If the total is 102.4% or higher, then you’re immune to Crushing Blow (as long as Shield Block or Holy Shield is up of course).

You need to surpass 102.4% instead of 100%, since the character screen assumes you’re fighting a lvl 70 mob. A level 73 mob lowers your Miss, Dodge, Parry and Block chance by 0.6% each for a total of 2.4%.