TANK 101Core
There Is No Ready
An introduction to starting the pull before you think you should. Readiness checks are covered briefly, then ignored.
- Room
- Wherever Roxim is standing
- Prereq
- None. You are already late.
- Pass rate
- 41%
Roxim’s School of TankingUnaccredited since Classic
The Founding
Founded in Classic. The lessons were much older.
They began in the original World of Warcraft, in ruined cities, burning mountains and late-night raids alongside friends whose names have faded with time. Nobody called it training. Roxim was simply finding out how far a group could be pushed before everything fell apart.
A hallway meant to be cleared pack by pack became an experiment. Healers learned that mana was more of a suggestion than a resource. Crowd control became whatever survived the first ten seconds. And somehow, more often than anyone had a right to expect, they lived.
Every successful disaster taught them something. Every wipe did too.
- Original WoW
The Stratholme years
Runs with the group that became Team Leet. The first hallway pulls.
- The quiet years
Blades set aside
The old group scattered. The lessons stayed.
- Classic
The School gets its name
A new generation of tanks, the same old questions.
Course Catalog
No lectures, no applications, no certificates
Most students find out they enrolled when Roxim vanishes into the shadows. Class begins with one word.
TANK 214Field study
The Hallway Pull
Not a pack. Not two packs. The hall. Students plant their feet and make the situation theirs.
- Room
- Stratholme, the long corridors
- Prereq
- TANK 101 and a healer with nerves
- Pass rate
- 12%
TANK 310Theory
Threat Is a Leaderboard
Holding aggro against a DPS-obsessed Rogue who treats the threat meter like the damage meter. Covers the 110% melee rule.
- Room
- Your threat meter
- Prereq
- TANK 214
- Pass rate
- 23%
HEAL 150Cross-listed
Mana Is a Suggestion
An elective for healers who keep everyone alive despite every reason to let them die. Drinking between pulls is discussed as a historical practice.
- Room
- Behind the tank, ideally
- Prereq
- Patience
- Pass rate
- Unknown. Nobody stops to check.
TANK 499Senior thesis
Incoming
Graded live. The pull doubles, the healer is low on mana and the Rogue is already chasing the meter. Hold the line anyway and you graduate.
- Room
- Everywhere at once
- Prereq
- Everything above
- Graduates
- One. Ironghost.
The Grading Policy
“If I pull aggro, you suck.”
It doesn’t matter that Roxim treats the threat meter as another leaderboard. If the boss turns away from the tank and toward the Rogue, there is no discussion of threat mechanics. The tank has received their grade.
Roxim is not known for grading on a curve.
The exam is a school model, not a combat log. It uses the Classic rules: melee pulls aggro at 110% of the tank’s threat, and a Rogue’s damage makes 71% threat. Splitting threat across a big pack makes the tank’s job harder.
Tank
0
Roxim
0
Threat on the kill target0.0 s / 12.0 s
Pick a pull and press Incoming. Roxim will not wait.
?
Not yet graded
Twelve seconds on the kill target. Keep Roxim under the red line.
The Curriculum
A few simple truths
Doctrine of the School
- There is no ready.
- Incoming means it’s already too late.
- If Roxim pulls aggro, you suck.
- Don’t be a bitch.
- When reason, mechanics, diplomacy and common sense have all failed: fuck you.
Hall of Records · Exhibit A
You Suck, Badgey.
Preserved for future students: the moment a tank stood still with a perfectly good shield while the professor took the pull personally.
CourseTANK 310, Threat Is a LeaderboardGradeFQuote“Fine, I’ll do it myself!”
In Memory of an Older Azeroth
Built by old friends
Their names might not all be remembered, but their fingerprints are on every lesson.
- The tanks who gathered up the chaos and showed Roxim what could be survived.
- The healers who somehow found one more heal.
- The damage dealers who learned that when Roxim disappeared around a corner, something stupid was about to happen.
- The friends who laughed after wipes that should have ended the night.
Roll of graduates · 1IronghostThe only tank to pass. Read the dedication →
Perfected through terrible decisions. God help the tanks who enroll.