RETAIL
CLASSIC ERA
WRATH
RETAIL
CLASSIC ERA
WRATH

Mythic+ 101: Know Your Tank (Shadowlands)



Team synergy is the secret ingredient at the core of successful Mythic+ groups. The road to synergy starts with understanding not only your own class and role, but also from studying the patterns and styles of other classes to inform your own gameplay. The more you know about your tank, the more adaptive you can be towards their patterns of positioning/kiting, coordinating CCs and personal cooldowns, and supporting them during periods of heavy incoming damage. This knowledge will not only boost your dungeon success overall, but it will also greatly improve your personal performance as a healer or DPS. This level of awareness distinguishes a good teammate from a great one.

In this chapter of the Mythic+ 101 Series, we will provide intermediate level information, tips, and tricks to understand the patterns to track for each unique tanking specialization.

Keep in mind that this chapter is not a guide on how to play each tanking class; this is a guide on how to understand the important details of each tanking class from the perspective of the healer and DPS. This guide is about building synergy with your tank in Mythic+.

Want to learn how to synergize with your tank like a pro in Mythic+? Read on!



Table of Contents






  Blood Death Knight



Damage Intake Profile: Blood Death Knights (BDKs) have some of the highest self-healing and self-sustain out of any tank when played to their strengths, as their core mitigation tool, Death Strike, heals for a portion of the damage taken over the past 5 seconds. Their mastery, Blood Shield, also grants them a physical damage absorption shield for a percentage of the healing done by Death Strike (and this includes overhealing!).

This increased self-healing does not come without cost, however, as Blood Death Knights have some of the lowest physical damage reduction in the game (second only to Brewmaster Monks), with no way to increase this, block hits, or perform any kind of magic to somehow take less. BDKs just take the damage to the face and heal it back after the fact.

The reverse side of this coin is that Blood Death Knights are the weakest tank when they run out of resources: Death Strike costs Runic Power, and Runic Power generation isn't free or instantaneous. This can often can be at odds with other priorities, such as staying above 5 stacks of Bone Shield for Ossuary to be active, or making sure to hit Blood Boil for threat and Hemostasis stacks to buff their next Death Strike). At the start of a pull, if a BDK did not save up resources (Runic Power + Bone Shield Stacks) from the prior pull and if they don't have Dancing Rune Weapon available, the BDK (or a DPS due to aggro issues) tend to be in trouble.

Defensive Cooldowns to Track: BDKs have a large number of situational cooldowns:

  • A hybrid throughput/defensive cooldown for Blood Death Knights is Dancing Rune Weapon, which provides a large array of positive effects while it is up, not least of which being 40% parry. If your Death Knight is about to pull big, there's a very fair chance they will use this spell early on in the pull.
  • Vampiric Blood, Lichborne (if using the conduit), and Icebound Fortitude are run-of-the-mill defensive cooldowns — the first increases the Death Knight's max HP and healing received, and the other two reduce incoming damage. Icebound Fortitude also provides stun immunity, but very few unavoidable mechanics stun tanks these days.
  • Anti-Magic Shell provides a very large magic damage absorb shield on a relatively low cooldown, and while it holds, most magic debuffs will just not apply. The most shocking example of this in current Mythic+ is Mueh'zala’s Soulcrusher — a physical tankbuster mechanic that also leaves behind a magic DoT (Crushed Soul), which can be conveniently immuned!

The prime directive when healing a Blood Death Knight, beyond their cooldowns, is to track their Runic Power bar. Runic Power is the resource that BDK uses to heal themselves with Death Strike. An absence of Runic Power + low health means that something went wrong and the Death Knight will likely need assistance. Raise Ally also costs Runic Power, so give your BDK a hand when they're ressing somebody, as their survivability will be weaker in the short term if they have to commit Runit Power to save an ally instead of Death Striking!

Kiting & Utility: On the utility front, Death Knights are masters of displacement and control. Between having the longest range melee interrupt in the game (Mind Freeze, 15-yd range), two taunts, two ways to displace either one mob (Death Grip) or anything within 15 yards of a target (Gorefiend's Grasp) and the strongest AoE slow in the game (Grip of the Dead), there isn't much left to be desired. Asphyxiate, a BDK’s single-target ranged stun, is really just the cherry on top.

Death Knights tend to have a to do less kiting than some of the other tanks thanks to their toolkit being tuned around just taking damage and healing it back up (we're the only tank spec not afraid of the kyrian stitchwerks in the necropolis atop the Necrotic Wake!), and the fact that you cannot generate Runic Power properly at range. In fact, you cannot even spend it if you're not in melee range, and re-entry is dangerous: every mob will have synced auto-attacks and will typically hit you before you hit them, all at once.

That said, we're still no strangers to kiting if needed, and some of our toolkit really shines for this. Grip of the Dead causes Death and Decay to apply a really beefy slow to everything in it, which makes it the ideal getaway spell.

The biggest piece of advice when helping a Blood Death Knight kite is to avoid unexpected forced displacements effect and instead favor AoE stuns. A mob leaving Death Strike range at an unexpected time is really, really not a fun experience.

Things to Look Out For: Typically speaking, tanks that do heavy self-healing will take more damage than tanks that mitigate the damage up front, as their self-healing compensates for it. Therefore, there is no need to panic if a BDK’s health dips low unless they are out of Runic Power! Prepare for a Blood Death Knight to take more damage per hit than other tanks, but also expect them to heal a good portion of it back themselves.

Also, it is worth noting that one of the most popular talent choices for BDKs is Purgatory. If a BDK is specced into Purgatory, keep an eye out for when this procs because the BDK will need to be healed up for the fatal damage absorption during a 3 second window. Otherwise, they will die. The quick healing requirement after Purgatory procs is the big distinction between Purgatory and other cheat-death style spells.

One of the hardest moments for Blood Death Knights is the start of each pull, and in particular, the very first pull of each dungeon. Unlike specs such as Guardian Druids that can use Incarnation before a key starts and have the duration of the cooldown carry over during part of the first dungeon pull, BDKs have no such option.They also cannot carry over any more than 25 Runic Power either, and by the time they reach the first pull, all of it will have decayed away anyway. As a result, they end up with a really awkward priority conundrum as follows:

  • Bone Shield needs to be brought up ASAP, but it itself requires two inefficient, single-target abilities that are both on the GCD: Dancing Rune Weapon, followed by Marrowrend (DRW causes you to gain double Bone Shield charges from casting Marrowrend while it is active)]. As Dancing Rune Weapon itself does no damage and generates no threat despite being on the GCD, all it does is place you at the top of the threat table with 0 threat — a single effect from anybody can cause you to lose threat during that GCD.
  • Their main AoE threat spells all conflict directly or indirectly with Runic Power generation. Blood Boil generates no RP and only amplifies their next Death Strike through Hemostasis. If they are a Venthyr, Swarming Mist can be used to sort of cover this gap every pull.

As a result, the first pull is always a race to get everything rolling, and fortunately, covenant abilities (Necrolord and Venthyr) and a legendary (Crimson Rune Weapon) can allow you to short-circuit or bypass some of these conflicting priorities. Still, the first few GCDs of the first pull, and when cooldowns fade are typically when they are at their weakest. Help BDKs help you by tracking threat and understanding that they have less upfront burst than other tanks!

Group synergies: BDKs have natural synergy with most healing classes due to their significant self-sustain healing. However, healers such as Holy Paladin and Discipline Priest can make a particularly nice pairing with Blood DK for several reasons. Since BDK has the highest on-demand self-healing, this can allow Holy Paladins and Disc Priests to do what they do best and pump massive damage with some spot healing in-between. With Holy Paladins, they bring a damage reduction cooldown (Blessing of Sacrifice), a single-target stun, and an AoE blind, which has great synergy with BDK grips.

Both Priest healing specializations come in handy for a BDK, along with Holy Paladins, although in practice, the reason for this is not due to their healing styles. Both Holy Paladins and Discipline Priests are able to heal while dealing some pretty beefy damage, along with providing an array of tools to help the group, and sometimes the DK.

Meanwhile, Holy Priests have a much higher potential DPS output than Disc Priests if they do not have to actively heal the tank, which is something that BDKs enable. They also bring tools that are both stronger and more well-suited to the BDK playstyle, particularly Guardian Spirit, a cheat death-like spell coupled with a huge healing received buff. Overall, Holy Priests are not to be underestimated, although as usual, the skill of your healer is more important than their class or spec!

Blood DKs do well in group compositions that lack a battle res, but be aware that they do not provide an AoE stun. Therefore, BDKs synergize particularly well with classes such as Windwalker or Mistweaver Monk, Havoc Demon Hunter, and Shamans. With any of these classes in the party, a BDK can do a massive AoE Gorefiend's Grasp to tightly group up dangerous mobs, and then a Monk, Havoc Demon Hunter, or Shaman can follow up the grip with an AoE stun (Leg Sweep/Chaos Nova/Capacitor Totem). For almost all classes, having mobs closely grouped up can lead to significant increase in damage output. In fact, even BDKs and Resto Shamans can do a lot of damage together due to Vesper Totem, the Kyrian Restoration Shaman ability. However, some classes/specs that thrive particularly well when packs of enemy mobs are very tightly grouped are definitely Windwalker Monk, Mage, Hunter, Destruction Warlock, and Affliction Warlock.

We previously mentioned that BDKs suffer from weak threat generation compared to other tanking classes. Therefore, BDKs synergize well with classes that bring utility to help them during their downtime in re-generating Runic Power such as a Frost Mage’s slows, a Monk’s Ring of Peace, a Balance Druid’s Treants, or a Shaman’s Earth Elemental.

Overall, bring a BDK to your dungeon group if you’re looking for a tank with significant self-healing sustain, a battle res, slows, and mob gripping/grouping capabilities.

Covenant choices: The most popular covenant choice for BDKs is primarily Venthyr, but the other 3 covenants can also work sufficiently well. Therefore, BDK is a great flex class if you’re seeking covenant-related buffs for specific dungeons that your group composition otherwise lacks.

See them in action: The following clip from Elnivera showcases every single element described in our little section so far: The sheer, ludicrous self-sustain in the face of a pull that most other tanks would have to blow a lot of resources on. To demonstrate this, we're going to Halls of Atonement.

Elnivera begins the key (as it is the first pull) with virtually nothing, Blood Boils the first two mobs to make sure there is at least a small amount of threat on them, then proceeds to cast Death's Caress while on the move to the first Shard of Halkias. This is done to generate RP while on the move and to get 3 runes recharging, as those runes would be wasted otherwise anyway.

From there, the “yo-yo” begins. Just before he gets properly into melee range, he casts Dancing Rune Weapon followed by one Marrowrend to give himself plenty of time to not have to refresh or recast for a solid 15s. From there, the focus is on efficient RP generation and expenditure: Clever use of all short cooldowns (Vampiric Blood, Anti-Magic Shell), damage through Death and Decay + Heart Strike, Blood Boil and Swarming Mists, and Death Striking as late as possible while still being completely safe. He repeatedly drops to less than 10% HP, but he manages his health safely and effectively!





  Vengeance Demon Hunter



Damage Intake Profile: Similar to BDKs, Vengeance Demon Hunters (VDHs) also come with a significant amount of self-healing capabilities and spiky patterns of incoming damage. While VDHs do not heal for nearly the same level of burst healing as a BDK’s Death Strike, VDHs heal up through their AoE Soul Cleave spell and, if talented, Spirit Bomb.

VDHs have a little more on-demand active mitigation than BDKs. A VDH’s primary mitigation ability is in the form of Demon Spikes. However, VDHs take a significant amount of incoming magical damage. They rely upon self healing, interrupts, and CC as well as their big cooldown, Metamorphosis or the Blood Barrier from the on-use Blood-Spattered Scale to mitigate magical damage (or large incoming damage of any variety). VDHs make consistent use of their Fiery Brand, which is strong for their survival, but also for holding threat if they are talented into Burning Alive.

Additionally, VDHs have a passive ability called Demonic Wards which reduces all damage taken by 20% to help make up for their spiky nature.

Defensive Cooldowns to Track: For a VDH, it is useful to track their Metamorphosis, Fiery Brand, and their Last Resort proc. Last Resort is a common talent choice for VDHs since it functions as a cheat death and procs an extra Metamorphosis when triggered, thus adding some survivability for the VDH during its duration. While VDHs don’t have many defensive cooldowns to track, it can be useful to see when they have Demon Spikes rolling to know when they may be susceptible to gaps in their mitigation.

Kiting & Utility: VDHs have a lot of interesting utility that they bring to a group. While they do not have a natural stun, they have two to three utility Sigils depending on talent choices. Firstly, VDHs have Sigil of Silence, which is a powerful AoE spell that interrupts spell casts, but also locks the enemies from casting spells for 6 seconds thereafter. Secondly, VDHs have Sigil of Misery, which can be used to fear any mobs hit by this AoE spell. Lastly, VDHs can talent into Sigil of Chains, which grips enemy mobs together and slows their movement speed by a whopping 70% for 6 seconds. While Sigil of Chains is not as powerful of an AoE grip as a BDK’s Gorefiend’s Grasp, it is still a fantastic addition to their utility toolkit.

VDHs have a hard CC called Imprison, which can be used to cage an enemy mob. Imprison is one of the best CCs in Mythic+ because, unlike Paralysis, Entangling Roots, Hibernate, or Repentance, walking near an Imprisoned enemy will not trigger combat. Therefore, if an enemy is a demon, beast, or humanoid, Imprison can be used to cage that mob to skip packs safely!

Expect to see a decent amount of kiting from a VDH. With their large degree of mobility primarily through Infernal Strike, VDHs are known for hopping around and launching their Sigils from ranged to survive giant pulls. The mobility of DH tanks allows them to sprint through the dungeon at a greater speed (and occasionally somewhat more sporadically) than most other classes. Between their ability to pull packs from a ranged distance with Throw Glaive and various sigils, their utilization of AoE CC's to kite and their generally enhanced movement, it is pivotal for any healer to come equipped with a heightened sense of awareness to keep up with the way a VDH pulls.

Things to Look Out For: With the amount of utility and mobility wielded by VDHs, it can be tricky to keep up sometimes. One of the most important aspects about healing a VDH is also one of the most simple: You'll need to be careful about watching and following where your tank is going to ensure that they're in range of your healing abilities.

As a healer, playing with a VDH (or any tank) requires you to become in-tune with their playstyle. Some VDHs adopt a more offensive playstyle, in which they rely on the utilization of their defensives and your healing output to allow them to stay in a pack doing damage for longer periods of time before they leap out to kite. To synchronize with an offensively-focused VDH, you should keep track of their personal cooldowns so that you're not overlapping your burst heals with their self-sustain.

Working cohesively to ensure your tank's survival is a job that can expand to DPS players in your group as well. Some VDH players might take on a more cautious approach to their tanking, focusing more on their own survival and constantly kiting/CC'ing mobs to avoid their health dropping. Not only does this require you to be more in-tune with your own utilities, consistently using them at certain points in pulls (such as a Restoration Druid using Ursol's Vortex or a Balance Druid using Force of Nature) so that both the tank and healer know when more healing will be required.

Additionally, it is very important to note that all of the VDH sigils, including their Sigil of Flame, take at least 2 seconds to activate upon the spell being placed on the ground (unless the VDH is talented into Quickened Sigils rather than Sigil of Chains). Therefore, be careful to give your VDH time to grab threat on all mobs during the initial pull, as their threat is relatively weak until they have Sigil of Flame running on as many mobs as possible as their Immolation Aura ticks on any mobs they run near. As a DPS player, it is wise to only open up with your damage cooldowns once a VDH has used their sigils according to plan so that the quintessential big pulls of a VDH do not get out of hand.

Lastly, it can be helpful to track a VDH’s Pain to know if they will have the necessary resources to sustain their own health bar. However, keep in mind that a VDH can only use their Pain to self-heal when they are in melee range, where they can cast Soul Cleave or Spirit Bomb on enemy mobs!

Group synergies: Vengeance Demon Hunters are a popular choice for Mythic+ groups due to their Chaos Brand passive. Whenever a DH touches a mob, a Chaos Brand is applied, causing enemies to take 5% increased magic damage. Therefore, group compositions with multiple caster classes love that extra 5% increase to their damaging spells! In terms of their spiky damage intake pattern, VDHs do well with healers who have damage reduction cooldowns such as Holy Paladin and Disc Priest, but they can work with any healer class as long as you know what to look out for.

Covenant choices: Generally speaking, Kyrian is considered the best VDH covenant choice. Elysian Decree deals an immense amount of AoE burst damage as well as generating extra soul fragments. This allows for more threat generation and some added survivability in the beginning stages of a pull, which is generally when extra damage output and defensive capability matters most for a VDH. The other covenant choices are unfortunately lackluster for VDH in Mythic+ currently, limiting the best choice to exclusively Kyrian for anyone looking to push higher keys as a VDH.

See them in action: The clip below from Gerrit Alex shows a VDH utilizing their mobility to quickly tag and cluster extremely disparate enemy mobs together. Gerrit then uses VDH’s powerful cooldowns to survive the initial bursts of damage while generating threat. This opener sets up a VDH to kite as soon as Metamorphosis expires. In this pull, kiting goes awry as Gerrit jumps over the broken road, splitting the enemy pack. However, Gerrit is able to regain control of the pull using the VDH’s unique ability Double Jump by jumping back and forth over the road...something only a VDH can do! Pay attention to Gerrit’s uses of sigils, defensive cooldowns, and careful movement to micromanage this very large pull.





  Guardian Druid



Damage Intake Profile: On the opposite side of the spectrum as BDKs and VDHs, Guardian Druids (Bears) are known for their exceptional survivability — making them arguably one of the most formidable tanking class in Shadowlands Season 2. With a large degree of damage mitigation and high stamina (HP), Bears are big face-tankers and damage soakers. Bears mitigate physical damage through stacking Ironfur, which uses their Rage resource. However, Bears also have an amazing kit of defensive cooldowns to help them facetank some incredibly scary pulls like the beasts that they are.

Defensive Cooldowns to Track: While it can be useful to see when your Bear tank has Ironfur stacks applied, it is especially important to track their Barkskin, their two charges of Survival Instincts, and their mighty Incarnation: Guardian of Ursoc if they are running that talent.

In fact, a Bear tank’s greatest strength mostly comes from the Incarnation talent combined with the Ursoc’s Fury Remembered legendary. The 3 minute Incarnation cooldown grants the Bear 30 seconds of near-immortality by spamming Thrash and Ironfur.

As we will discuss a little later, many Bears have opted to select the Night Fae covenant due to the power of combining the talent Heart of the Wild with Convoke the Spirits. Therefore, it is important to track a Bear’s Heart of the Wild and Convoke to know when they will be able to burst damage or bolster their survivability with these two cooldowns.

Kiting & Utility: Druids are known for their large toolkit of utility that they can use creatively depending on varying affixes and group compositions. However, Bears have little to offer in the stun department. Bears have Incapacitating Roar as a baseline ability, but this AoE spell only functions as a quick way to interrupt some spell casts since any damage will cancel its disorienting effect. Bears can talent into Mighty Bash for a single-target stun, but this is an uncommon choice in the current meta, as Heart of the Wild is the stronger choice for Bears of the Night Fae covenant.

In the CC department, Bears have a few interesting options if a group wants to CC a mob in a pack to kill later. Bears can Root any viable target, Hibernate beasts and dragonkin, or Cyclone an enemy for 6 seconds. Bears can even choose the talent Mass Entanglement for an extra way to Root not one, but multiple enemies in its area of effect!

For kiting, Bears have quite a few tools at their disposal. While Bears may not bring an AoE stun like a Brewmaster or Prot Warrior, they can offer either Ursol’s Vortex if they are talented into Restoration Affinity, or Typhoon if they are talented into Balance Affinity. This is partly why Resto and Balance Affinities are the two most popular picks for Guardian Druids: Typhoon offers a knockback, and Ursol’s Vortex can act like a sustained Gorefiend’s Grasp by sucking mobs into the swirl repeatedly when an enemy mob moves in its range. Both of these choices are excellent tools for kiting and mob control.

In terms of mobility, Bears may choose to talent into Wild Charge, but generally, their main forms of mobility come in the form of Dash (when they shift into Cat Form), and Stampeding Roar. Stampeding Roar is significant because it grants a 60% movement speed boost to every party member within 15 yards for 8 seconds. Therefore, Stampeding Roar can be a great way to do a longer Shroud of Concealment skip with a Rogue, or to simply help all nearby party members dodge ground effects with more ease during a dangerous pull. Most Bears opt to run Renewal instead of Wild Charge, so their safest mobility increase is through Stampeding Roar. Overall though, don’t expect a Bear to kite as much as some of the other classes such as VDH or Brewmaster — they will be right in the frey taking on some serious damage!

Lastly, Bears bring a battle res to the group (Rebirth), and a curse/poison dispel (Remove Corruption). Bears (and Druids in general) have many niche uses in a group, such as stealthing past mobs with the Cat Form Prowl, or even just simply acting as a sweet ride for a party member when using their instant-cast Travel Form combined with an old Legion Tome to add a seat to their back.

Things to Look Out For: For the DPS players of the group, it is also ideal to coordinate large offensive cooldowns with a Bear’s Incarnation. Keep in mind that bear damage outside of CDs will be quite low, meaning that aggro can be a large issue when playing a bursty/high crit class like a DPS Warrior, Havoc Demon Hunter, and even Mage without Mirror Images. If you are playing a burst DPS class, it is sometimes best to show restraint on the initial pull to allow your Bear to pick up aggro on all the mobs. Otherwise, be prepared for your DPS burst to grab some of the tank’s threat. If you are a DPS and you accidentally grab threat from the Bear tank, you may need to commit a defensive cooldown or kite until your tank can safely pick up the remaining mobs.

Outside of the Incarnation window is when Bears can be a bit weak on an initial pull. Like other Druid specs, Bears require some ramping to build up sustained tankiness and threat. Therefore, it is generally best to give Bears an external cooldown on the pull if their Barkskin and Incarnation are unavailable, or you can help with some form of group utility/heavy healing. During their Incarnation cooldown, Bears should require no external healing and they will generate large amounts of threat. Without Incarnation available, their threat will be extremely weak in comparison, so be careful when popping your DPS cooldowns at the start of a new pull in this case.

As a healer, it is important to note that the nature of a Bear’s Heart of the Wild cooldown depends on their chosen affinity (e.g. Feral Affinity, Balance Affinity, or Restoration Affinity), and their Convoke’s effects depend on the form they are currently shapeshifted into when they Convoke. You may want to coordinate with your Bear to help them kite so that they can safely shapeshift into Moonkin Form and pop Heart of the Wild + Convoke to deal some serious burst damage. Alternatively, Bears specced Restoration Affinity can shift into “human” (regular) form and use their Heart of the Wild and Convoke cooldowns in tandem to pump an immense amount of off-healing to the group. A Bear’s off-healing capability when they are specced Restoration Affinity can be especially useful for affixes such as Bursting, as they can pop into regular form, put a Wild Growth AoE HoT on the group, and quickly shoot out tons of spot healing in a short period of time, with or without the Heart of the Wild talent rolling. Therefore, keeping an eye out for these two big cooldowns can help you coordinate with your tank so that they can assist the group without getting killed if they shift out of the safety of their Bear Form too close to enemy mobs.

Group synergies: Classes that synergize well with Bear are specs with big damage cooldowns that can either help fortify a huge pull during a Bear’s Incarnation, or to cover the damage requirement of other pulls when a Bear’s Incarnation is down. Some great classes to pair with Bear are Venthyr Balance Druid, Holy Paladin, and classes that can assist a Bear’s threat generation issues such as Rogue, Mage, and Hunter. Windwalker Monk and Mage are also great in terms of Bear’s threat problems since they have great tools to help a Bear kite when needed. Classes that tend to be problematic with the inconsistent threat generation issues of a Bear are Havoc Demon Hunter or Fury Warrior.

Since Bears are not very reliant on their healer due to their beefy defensive cooldowns and frequent self-healing through Frenzied Regeneration, Bears work well with any healing class. However, Bears and Holy Paladins are a force to be reckoned with this season due to the Holy Paladin meta and even the fact that the Bear’s Remove Corruption dispel can take care of a group’s curses, whereas Holy Paladin’s Cleanse can cover diseases and magic debuffs. Both Bear and Holy Paladin can perform poison dispels.

Covenant choices: As mentioned earlier, most Bears pushing higher keys have opted to select the Night Fae covenant due to the powerful synergy of Heart of the Wild, Convoke the Spirits, and Balance affinity. Bears tend to lack consistent damage output and threat generation compared to other tanking classes, so you will mostly encounter Night Fae Bears and, occasionally, Kyrian. Additionally, Bears tend to lack a lot of on-demand mobility in comparison to classes such as Brewmaster Monk, VDH, or Protection Warrior, so Soulshape grants Bears a nice boost. On ultra-high level keys, Kyrian Bear tends to be favored for its group utility benefit of Kindred Spirits (namely used on DPS players), but Night Fae remains the most popular Bear covenant choice overall.

It is also interesting to note that Venthyr Guardian Druid is quite strong as well. The Venthyr Druid’s Ravenous Frenzy essentially turbocharges Incarnation, so take this into consideration when determining what playstyle you want to go with.

Overall, Bear is actually one of the better tanks to flex towards whatever covenant suits your group’s needs. Night Fae, Kyrian, and Venthyr are all strong Bear covenants, but be wary of Necrolord Bear...it is not well-advised!

See them in action: In this clip of Dorki, you can see Guardian Druid in action as he starts the pull in Cat Form, pops into Bear Form, and unleashes a big Stampeding Roar as his group remains mounted. As they gather an immense amount of mobs into the final boss of Mists of Tirna Scithe (Tred’ova) with some additional movement speed from his Windwalker Monk’s Tiger’s Lust, he preserves his big cooldowns until all the mobs being to group up. As soon as the pull is gathered up, Dorki goes into the quintessential bear “God mode” with Incarnation, where he spams Thrash and Ironfur incessantly to do heavy damage and hold threat. For the entirety of the pull shown in this clip, he doesn’t even commit his Barkskin, Frenzied Regeneration, Survival Instincts, or Convoke throughout the duration of Incarnation. Bear’s “God mode” is just that strong, folks!





  Brewmaster Monk



Damage Intake Profile: Brewmaster Monks (BRMs) have the most unique mitigation and damage taken pattern among all of the tanking classes. Due to their key ability Stagger, BRMs do not take big spiky damage, instead they stagger the incoming damage over time. They take consistent and constant damage, and require consistent and constant healing.

Once BRMs are stable, they are hard to kill because of their revolving door of self healing and mitigation/shielding. BRMs have a deceptively high amount of self-sustain healing from Gift of the Ox. Gift of the Ox creates healing orbs on the ground that a BRM can either walk over to soak, or pool and use all at once in conjunction with Expel Harm for a massive heal. On top of that, they also have Celestial Brew which is a large shield that is increased the more Purifying Brew stacks you have, meaning that the beginning of a pull is generally the scariest time for a BRM.

Defensive Cooldowns to Track: Outside of tracking their Stagger bar and Celestial Brew cooldown, BRMs have three large defensives they can use to help periods of major damage intake. Firstly, BRMs have a hefty ability called Fortifying Brew. Tracking Fortifying Brew is useful since it is an ability on a very long cooldown. Thus, avoiding overlap with a BRM’s biggest cooldown is key for a healer. Secondly, BRMs have an ability called Zen Meditation. While Zen Meditation is a tricky cooldown due to use effectively due to how the bubble will break if the BRM receives a single melee attack or takes another action, it can still be used by the BRM to soak a large incoming hit if timed appropriately.

Lastly, BRMs can choose whether or not to spec into Dampen Harm, which is a cooldown that reduces more damage the larger the incoming attack. Alternatively, some BRMs choose to run Bob and Weave instead for smoother, more consistent damage intake throughout a dungeon. If your BRM is running Dampen Harm instead of Bob and Weave in a group composition with burst-damage classes, it can sometimes be a good idea to coordinate big trash pulls so that the BRM can use Dampen Harm when the DPS pop their big offensive cooldowns. Overall, tracking a BRM’s big defensive cooldowns can help avoid crucial overlap.

Kiting & Utility: In terms of kiting, BRMs have one of the strongest toolkits to kite mobs and keep them controlled, using abilities like Ring of Peace, Leg Sweep, Clash, and Transcendence + Transcendence: Transfer. Keeping an eye out for these abilities will help you gauge the safety of your Monk, but keep in mind that, even when they are kiting, they will still be taking ticking damage from Stagger. Therefore, continue to make sure you keep their HP bar stable until they're done kiting. While a BRM cannot die from Stagger alone, the ticking damage can put the BRM into a dangerous position if they are not healed before they return to a pack or take damage from an enemy ranged caster.

For the DPS players, make sure to coordinate with your BRM to know when they will be kiting so that you don’t waste a big area of effect damage cooldown right before the BRM zips out of range with a Roll, Tiger’s Lust, or a Transcendence teleport! Furthermore, remember that Tiger’s Lust is not only a movement speed increase; it can also be cast on any party member and free the recipient of roots and snares!

Lastly, BRMs bring a poison/disease dispel to a group called Detox. This is a really important spell to be aware of since there are many poisons and diseases in Mythic+ dungeons that will assist the healer when dispelled!

Things to Look Out For: When playing with a BRM, you should look out for their lack of on-pull aggro; they need a bit of time to ramp up, especially if they are Necrolord of Venthyr due to only having 1 Keg Smash. Give your tank about 2-3 seconds once the pack is grouped up before you pop cooldowns. However, this detail is somewhat irrelevant if you have a Rogue to cast Tricks of the Trade or a Hunter to cast Misdirection. As a healer, BRM's main struggle point is when they are grouping mobs up and when they are kiting. This is when they require the most healing.

As a healer, keeping an eye on a BRM’s Stagger level is key, so make sure to watch the color of their Stagger debuff above all else, as the damage they take increases as the debuff goes from green, to yellow, to red.

Group synergies: The natural synergy of BRM and Restoration Druid is a tale as old as time. BRM’s Stagger creates a need for consistent yet smooth healing from their healer, but the BRM passive ability Celestial Fortune substantially increases the value of incoming healing spells, particularly Healing Over Time (HoT) spells. Since every tick of a HoT has its own chance to crit, the consistent stream of HoTs from a Resto Druid can provide full-coverage protection for a BRM that is further amplified if a Brewmaster stacks gear with lots of crit value. While Holy Paladin is the healing class that is currently the meta for Mythic+, do not discount how well BRMs pair with Resto Druids. In fact, Resto Druids provide a battle res, so this is something to take into consideration if you run a DPS comp with no other natural battle resurrection spells.

Another cool feature of BRM is that all monks bring the passive ability Mystic Touch to the party. Therefore, group compositions with heavy physical damage dealers such as Rogues and Warriors can gain a nice 5% boost to their damage output with a Monk present. Even Hunters and Shamans can gain a nice damage boost due to the 5% physical damage buff provided by having a Monk in your group since the damage profile of approximately half of their damaging abilities is physical.

Also, if your group lacks an AoE stun, Leg Sweep is one of the best on-demand AoE stuns in the game. As previously mentioned, Ring of Peace is another one of the best utility spells in Mythic+ for grouping mobs, kiting, or even doing some creative dungeon skips.

Covenant choices: BRMs are mostly running Kyrian and Necrolord right now, but Venthyr is also a strong choice, so you might see that once in a while. Necrolord has proven to be the tankiest BRM covenant due to the Celestial Infusion legendary paired with Special Delivery, which was recently buffed by 100%. Venthyr and Kyrian both focus more on the damage aspect of BRM; however, Venthyr offers a more defensive option than Kyrian while sacrificing a bit of the damage output.

Necrolord Monk gets Bonedust Brew: A 45-second cooldown reduced by Tiger Palm and Keg Smash that increases the cooldown reduction of your brews from Tiger Palm and Keg Smash while also providing some extra damage.

Kyrian Monk has access to Weapons of Order, a 2 min cooldown, (1:20 with the Mikanikos Soulbind) that resets a BRM’s Keg Smash. Weapons of Order also grants a large chunk of Mastery (which equates to more dodge and healing throughput), and stacks a damage-taken debuff on the enemy per Keg Smash hit.

Venthyr Monk offers Fallen Order (3 minute cooldown, reduced down to 30 seconds — 1 min with the Sinister Teaching legendary equipped). Fallen Order gives the monk a 10% max HP shield for each Ox Adept that spawns. On top of that, Ox Adepts also apply Breath of Fire to the target, which stacks with their current Breath of Fire; thus, increasing their damage reduction by 5% per application. During Fallen Order, BRMs are extremely tanky, making Venthyr an incredibly strong covenant pick as well.

See them in action: In this clip of Equinox, you can see some of the lesser-used parts of BRM’s toolkit getting maximized. Since there are two Malignant Spawns up and Margrave Stradama is only at 69% (nice), this means that both of the spawns will slam, yet both of those slams need to be soaked by the tank to avoid a party-wide wipe. With immaculate precision, Equinox puts his Transcendence spirit down at the Malignant Spawn he is currently tanking, pops Tiger’s Lust, Rolls over to the additional spawn, and soaks that slam. He then manages to use Transcendence Transfer to teleport back to the other add in the nick of time to soak the 2nd slam in the sequence. As if this isn’t enough already, he uses Celestial Brew and Zen Meditation to survive the deadly tentacle slam thereafter. This chain of events is an example of the unique plays you can make on a BRM to save a key.






  Protection Paladin



Damage Intake Profile:Compared to the previous tank specs discussed, Protection Paladins (Prot Pallies or Tankadins) fit a more traditional tanking archetype of sword and shield with a sprinkle of self healing. Within the current meta, they are most well known for their strong damage output, numerous interrupts, and group utility.

Prot Paladin’s main source of mitigation comes from maintaining Shield of the Righteous as well as passive damage reduction from standing in their Consecration. They rely on block chance (and to a lesser extent, parry) to provide additional damage mitigation so they may have a few spikes if they get a string of bad RNG but that’s where their self healing comes in!

Healers should expect Prot Pallies to use their self-healing only when they’re at low health (usually around 20-40% health) as their Word of Glory spell scales up in power with missing HP. Their self-heal also shares the same resource as their Shield of the Righteous (SotR); they cannot heal with the same frequency as a Blood DK but with good resource management it can be extremely strong in its own right and allows the healer to use more of their own GCDs on dps spells. However, every 5 casts of SotR, the Paladin will receive a free cast of Word of Glory.

Defensive Cooldowns to Track: As a healer, the two main defensive cooldowns you should track for a Prot Pally are Ardent Defender and Guardian of Ancient Kings. It is also recommended to track party frames for their various “Blessing” spells: Blessing of Protection, Blessing of Spellwarding, and Blessing of Sacrifice. If you run with a Prot Paladin often, you may also consider tracking their Shining Light to know when they have a free cast of Word of Glory available.

Kiting & Utility: Prot Pallies always have some tricks up their sleeve in dungeons through their great utility kit. They have immunities through Blessing of Protection, Divine Shield, and Blessing of Spellwarding (a talent that replaces Blessing of Protection), which can negate certain mechanics or remove debuffs on themselves and other party members. This specifically can make Necrotic weeks a breeze for Prot Pallies as they have 2 ways to drop Necrotic stacks on themselves (with a 3rd if they’re Kyrian through Phial of Serenity, which most are!).

They also bring a movement speed immunity through Blessing of Freedom and a targeted 30% external through damage redirection with Blessing of Sacrifice. On Grevious weeks, many Prot Pallies talent into Hand of the Protector, allowing their Word of Glory to do strong targeted healing, especially on low health party members. They also bring a Poison and Disease dispel with Cleanse Toxins in case they’re running with healers that lack these dispels, or if there are multiple debuffs going out at the same time.

Their reliance on Consecration paired with a fairly sub-par movement speed increase in the form of Divine Steed leaves them as one of the least mobile tank classes. However, this weakness is mitigated by the Consecrated Ground talent, giving them the ability to slow mobs to assist with kiting. This can be especially useful on Spiteful weeks by passively keeping the Spiteful Shades slowed as soon as they spawn in melee. When party members are fixated, they can take advantage of this slow as well by kiting through the Paladin’s Consecration.

They have great in-combat mob control abilities with Hammer of Justice (the longest duration stun in the game, clocking in at a whopping 6 seconds) and can talent into Blinding Light for a short AoE disrupt.

Things to Look Out For: Prot Pallies have a huge capacity for damage output, particularly in AoE situations due to their kit design and legendary choices. Their mitigation comes from a proper rotation and defensive cooldown usage so in most key ranges aiming to contribute as much as possible to group damage is the preferred playstyle.

Bulwark of Righteous Fury is a commonly used legendary for its damage output. The range increase it gives Shield of the Righteous also gives them the ability to use most of their damaging abilities while short-range kiting and avoiding melee hits.

When running with less experienced Prot Paladins, expect them to occasionally take more damage within the first few globals of a new pull while they get their mitigation set up. However, as Prot Paladins gain experience with the class and the dungeon, they will get better at pooling holy power from previous pulls to get their mitigation up ASAP. Communication is extremely important between a Prot Paladin and their team to decide where to best use their extensive utility toolkit efficiently.

Group synergies: Prot Pallies do well in ranged-heavy group comps due to their Avenger’s Shield interrupting the first target it hits. This can allow them to solo interrupts on most mobs and even allow extra interrupts on non-essential spells to reduce overall damage intake. This strength is taken to the next level for Kyrian Prot Paladins, which we will detail in the next section.

In the current meta, we also see Prot Paladins synergizing particularly well with Resto Shamans as they cover each other’s weaknesses. As stated in their utility section, Prot brings the Disease/Poison dispel (Cleanse Toxins), external (Blessing of Sacrifice) and a plethora of immunities that Shaman lacks. Meanwhile Resto Shaman brings a Curse and Magic damage dispel (Purify Spirit) and an Earth Elemental to help the Paladin out when a pull gets hairy.

Covenant choices: The preferred Prot Paladin covenant choice for Mythic+ is Kyrian, due to the exceptional interrupt, offensive, and defensive power of Divine Toll. This synergizes extremely well with their First Avenger talent (keep in mind it caps at 30% of their health!). With this covenant they get 2 exceptional legendary choices that further double down on their Avenger’s Shield synergy: Bulwark of Righteous Fury which was discussed above and Divine Resonance which gives them both offensive and defensive benefits. Most Prot Paladins will also run Mikanikos as a soul blind, which reduces their Divine Toll to around a 40 second cooldown.

You will also occasionally see Venthyr Prot Pallies in keys. They do exceptional burst damage with their Ashen Hallow covenant ability, which can be a huge asset on Tyrannical weeks to chunk through boss health pools. This ability also helps out with some group healing to ease the burden a bit on healers, but doesn’t have nearly the utility of Kyrian.

See them in action: Take a look at the clip below where Eltharien shows just how tanky Prot Paladins can be when rotating their cooldowns in a planned way. He is able to keep his health very steady by communicating with his group and interspersing his own cooldowns with Force of Nature.

You also see that he’s using the Final Stand talent that adds a pulsing AoE taunt to Divine Shield casts; this unique ability is only situationally used but if your tank is taking it, make sure you communicate with them before the key to ensure it’s also aligned with everyone’s dps cooldowns and burst on huge pulls.

At the end of the clip, you can see Eltharien using that great Paladin utility kit to spot heal the Mage when the healer dies, keeping the group alive until the pull is over.





  Protection Warrior



Damage Intake Profile: Like Prot Pallies, Protection Warriors (Prot Warriors) are another traditional sword-and-board style tanking class. A Prot Warrior’s main forms of active mitigation are Shield Block and Ignore Pain, which both use the Warrior’s rage resource. For what Prot Warriors lack in on-demand self healing compared to some of the other tanking classes, they more than make up for in their unparalleled ability to mitigate incoming physical damage through Shield Block. With the new Reprisal legendary and Heavy Repercussions, Prot Warriors have about 90%+ Shield Block uptime. Despite struggling with magic damage intake like any other class, Prot Warriors have the option to use their Rage resource towards Ignore Pain instead of (or in addition to) Shield Block if they so choose. Since Ignore Pain acts as an absorb shield, it is often a preferred mitigation choice when dealing with larger amounts of magical damage. Therefore, a Prot Warrior’s health only tends to spike when they are taking heavy amounts of magical or bleed damage.

Defensive Cooldowns to Track: The main defensive cooldowns of Prot Warrior are Last Stand and Shield Wall. Another defensive ability that a Prot Warrior may use at the start of every pull once mobs get sufficiently grouped up is Demoralizing Shout. Many Prot Warriors pair their Demoralizing Shout with Avatar to grab initial aggro through a substantial amount of burst damage with the safety of the added damage reduction of Demoralizing Shout. Demoralizing Shout also becomes more offensive when paired with the talent Booming Voice.

One of the biggest hallmarks of a Prot Warrior is their ability called Spell Reflection. Spell Reflection is important to track because, not only is it a defensive spell on a short cooldown, but it is also a strong offensive tool. Spell Reflection can reflect the magical damage back onto the attacker, so it is an important ability for the DPS to track to avoid interrupting an enemy cast that the Prot Warrior is aiming to reflect. Watch this cooldown and listen for callouts from your tank for when they plan to Spell Reflect!

It can also be wise to track a Prot Warrior’s Intervene ability. When a Prot Warrior Intervenes an ally, they intercept the next melee or ranged attack against that ally for 6 seconds while the ally remains within a 10 yd range. Prot Warriors can even choose to equip the Safeguard conduit to make Intervene reduce the damage taken by the ally even further. Being wary of a Prot Warrior intercepting an ally can help the healer prepare for any additional attacks being soaked by the tank.

Kiting & Utility: Keep in mind that Prot Warriors are another high mobility tank, so don’t be surprised if they use their Heroic Leap, Intervene, or Charge abilities to zip around the battlefield! In order to keep mobs grouped up while a Prot Warrior is kiting, be sure to coordinate CCs and slows since Prot Warriors have Shockwave, Storm Bolt (if talented), and Intimidating Shout to help CC mobs. They can also slow mobs a little through Thunderclap, but they may still need assistance with slows if they are kiting for a longer duration of time. Prot Warriors also have Rallying Cry, which is a party-wide defensive boost.

Things to Look Out For: Keeping an eye on a Prot Warrior’s rage resource bar can be a useful way to know whether a Prot Warrior is in trouble or not since both their Shield Block and Ignore Pain require rage to cast. If a Prot Warrior is going into a big pull that requires many mobs to be grouped together and the Warrior does not have Last Stand, Shield Wall, or a defensive trinket cooldown available, they may need an external cooldown from the healer during this initial grouping phase.

While Prot Warriors may not have as much on-demand self-healing as some of the other tanking classes, they can do a decent amount of self-healing due to the Indomitable talent in conjunction with the Unnerving Focus conduit or the Ravager talent. This way, Prot Warriors can do a substantial amount of self-healing while Last Stand is up through their increased rage generation. Therefore, try not to overlap any big healing cooldowns while their Last Stand is running!

When healing a Prot Warrior, prepare to heal them through large amounts of incoming magical damage if they are rage-starved, low on big cooldowns, or are unable to use their Spell Reflection cooldown defensively. If you really want to make the most of your group’s Prot Warrior as a DPS player, be sure to coordinate your interrupts so that you don’t kick a spell they were trying to reflect for big damage!

In terms of threat generation compared to other tanking classes, Prot Warrior falls somewhere in the middle, so be mindful when using your DPS cooldowns at the start of pulls. Their threat is strong with the Ravager talent, but some Prot Warriors choose to run the Into the Fray talent instead for a few different reasons. To name one reason, Into the Fray does less initial damage than Ravager, but it can do more damage over a long period of time. It also deals more single-target damage than Ravager, which is good for Tyrannical weeks. So while Prot Warrior threat may not be on par with Prot Pally and BRM, their threat is reportedly more consistent than Guardian Druid and BDK from pull to pull.

Group synergies: Second to BRMs, Protection Warriors have the smoothest damage intake from physical damage of all the tanking classes. Because of this, they actually share similarities to BRMs in regards to the healing kit offered by Restoration Druids. Blocking attacks allows every single physical hit to be reduced to a point where the health bar of a Prot Warrior is just smoothly decreasing, which complements HoT effects very well. In addition, having the 1.5 minute external cooldown of Ironbark helps fill in damage reduction gaps that Prot Warriors face outside of their Last Stand and Shield Wall windows.

However, Resto Druids are not the only healer that Prot Warriors synergize well with. Restoration Shamans also help immensely with Protection Warrior’s greatest weakness of magic damage. Not only does Spirit Link Totem act as heavy defensive cooldown when needed, but the interrupt from a Resto Shaman greatly reduces the amount of casts that mobs inflict over the course of a dungeon. So although you may lose the large utility offered from the current meta of Holy Paladins, it definitely is worth the consideration of playing with healers that compliment the profile of each unique tanking spec.

The other thing to consider when grouping with Prot Warriors is their lack of utility. Unlike some other tanks, they are not able to Crowd Control mobs or dispel poisons, diseases, or curses, nor do they have a Soothe in their toolkit. This is why classes like Monk and Rogue complement Prot Warriors very well, as they fill in these utility gaps.

The final thing to keep in mind is the type of damage increase Prot Warriors bring to a group with Battle Shout. This can either come in the form of “Meat Gang” because the attack power bonus benefits all the melee classes, but it also compliments Hunter’s physical damage. Although not as strong as a Monk’s Mystic Touch, it is a great benefit to physical damage dealers, and their overall damage meters will thank you.

Covenant choices: Currently, Protection warriors mainly choose either Nightfae or Kyrian covenants. Both are very strong contenders for the best covenant, but both play very differently. There are also arguments for Necrolord Warrior being very good defensively with Banner + Fleshcraft, but Banner is very difficult to be used optimally in practice, and as a result, is rarely used. Venthyr Protection Warriors gain almost no value in AOE situations, which is why Venthyr is not generally picked.

In terms of overall damage output, Kyrian is the best choice. Spear of Bastion being uncapped as well as being reduced to a 40 second cooldown by Mikanikos makes it a huge damage increase/threat generator. The Kyrian Phial is also a gigantic bonus against one of Protection Warrior’s greatest weaknesses…bleeding to death. For these reasons, Kyrian is definitely one of the most common covenant choices for Protection Warriors in Mythic+.

Night Fae is the utility choice for Protection Warriors. Ancient Aftershock provides 12 seconds of knockdowns on 5 mobs, allowing for some fun innovation with pulls that require a lot of “stops” or interrupts. This is very helpful in PUG situations or keys with quite a bit of caster damage, as it is virtually a mini version of a Boomkin’s Solar Beam. Soulshape also provides Warriors with some fantastic movement when Heroic Leap is down. According to Plka, the keys where Prot Warriors should consider using the Night Fae covenant (and depending on your group’s composition) are Theater of Pain and Halls of Atonement.

See them in action: In this clip, you’ll see one of the most extreme cases of how nasty Spell Reflect can be against enemy mobs. You can see that Plka goes into a double trash pull in Spires of Ascension but waits to use his Kyrian Spear of Destiny. By Shockwaving the Ether Divers’ cast of Insidious Venom, the mobs then cast their abilities simultaneously. This allows Plka to then Spell Reflect both incoming Insidious Venom casts at the exact same time. Once the DoT is reflected, he proceeds to use the Spear of Destiny to boost the DoT damage by 20% for the remaining duration, doing Windwalker damage for the course of that pull. This is one of hundreds of examples of ways that Spell Reflect can be used to not only speed up dungeon times, but even negate some dangerous enemy spellcasts altogether.





  Additional Tools and Resources [back to top]



Blizzard has moved towards physical damage comprising the bulk of the damage taken by tanks, while magical damage tends to be kept for avoidable damage, highly telegraphed tankbuster mechanics (although most tankbusters have a shared physical component) or group damage. All tanks come with a toolkit that works primarily against physical damage by reducing it, healing back from it or avoiding altogether.

While aiding your tank, the biggest piece of advice is to be aware of what enemies do, and to pay attention both at the start of a pull and at any pain points thereafter. Track your tank's resources and cooldowns, and make sure to help them when they falter. Similarly, helping reduce damage intake by neutralizing some of the more dangerous abilities in Mythic+ is much more reliable than just hitting buttons harder (that helps as well, though).

Additionally, helping your tank gather pulls (predictably — tell them you're doing it first), and keeping mobs grouped, allows everybody to do more damage, more reliably, and this leads to cleaner and safer pulls overall.

For class-specific guides, please check out Wowhead or Icy Veins.



Links




About the Authors


VitaminP (VP) is the Lead Editor & Assistant Producer of Raider.IO, and is pursuing a Masters of Business Administration. Although VP is currently focused on IRL, she specializes in tanking classes and loves competitive Mythic+. She is a Discord Partner and partnered Twitch streamer, but mostly you can find her editing, doing homework, cooking, playing with her dogs, and catching Pokémon.


Sessa currently mains a Protection Paladin (get your jokes in now, it’s okay, I’ve heard them all before) and is a moderator for the Hammer of Wrath Paladin Class Discord. She also writes Mythic+ Dungeon guides for TankNotes and likes to unwind by finding new ways to frustrate her group with “experiments” when running keys.


Equinox mains Brewmaster Monk and has been playing WoW since Vanilla. As one of the top-ranked Mythic+ tanks over the past two expansions, Equinox enjoys helping players improve their knowledge and skills in Mythic+ through his Brewmaster Guide and interacting with his stream community. Outside of pushing keys, Equinox raids with his guild Denial of Service and likes to sneak around on Rogue.


Plka is a Protection Warrior Campaigner and Vulpera sympathizer. He has been playing WoW since TBC. Plka is most known for his Partnered Twitch stream, Prot Warrior guides on YouTube, and high-level Mythic+ gameplay. When not pushing Mythic+, you can find Plka running community keys, keeping his Mythic+ team in line, and giving friendly advice in his Discord as well as Skyhold. ❤️ Pika Pika


Mandl currently maintains the Blood Death Knight guides for Icy-Veins and Wowhead, and actively helps guides others to improve across all tank specs. Additionally, he has a hand in some generalized content, regularly shows up in MarcelianOnline videos and content, and is just generally out there to help people get better.


MarianasTrench (Mari/Marinara) is an MMO veteran who has played most classes in Mythic+ and Mythic raiding. He is a staff member at the Mythic+ Friends Discord. While he loves Mythic raiding and higher Mythic+ content, he also enjoys helping other players get involved and expanding the Mythic+ community through the Mythic+ Academy at Mythic+ Friends.


Dorki is widely known among the high Mythic+ community for his multi-class tanking—most notably as BDK and Guardian Druid. In Shadowlands Season 1, Dorki competed in The Great Push on team does the bear stream?. Recently, Dorki was the first tank in the Shadowlands Season 2 MDI to bust out some Prot Paladin gameplay with his team Incarnation. Dorki is often found streaming Mythic+ or experimenting with new strats and talent builds on the PTR.


Hulahoops has been playing WoW since Vanilla. She has recently shelved Retail to go back and re-experience TBC in all its glory, but will one day make her way back to the Shadowlands. In her hey-day, Hulahoops could be found raid-leading in Mythic Progression, or competing in the MDI with her team Angry Toast. Hulahoops is a Holy Paladin in every sense of the term: she moderates the Hammer of Wrath Paladin Class Discord, and she was a practicing Lawyer for 7 years. Judgment isn't just a spell! Hulahoops decided to put the law books away and follow her passion for gaming and esports by joining the team at Raider.IO. In her capacity as Production Manager, Hulahoops oversees events, content, and more!


Ferris is the Community & Events Coordinator at Raider.IO. Currently ranked among the top 100 Resto Druids in North America, Ferris is always pushing to adapt and improve! While her Rejuvs are currently limited to Retail, Ferris puts them to good use as she dedicates her game time towards pushing keys with friends in the Renewal Community or LFG. Additionally, Ferris is one of the PvE Leaders of the Oasis Community. Outside of Azeroth, Ferris is typically found defending the “rdruid dream” on Twitter or theorycrafting on her Twitch stream. As a dedicated listener and community leader, Ferris retains an attitude of growth and enthusiasm consistent throughout all her engagements and endeavors. Have feedback or suggestions for events at Raider.IO? Feel free to reach out to us via Twitter or join the Raider.IO Discord!