struggling to survive (TOT)

[Deleted]

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...c3%ad/advanced

above is me.. short version is im struggling with some TOT bosses and taking insane amounts of damage even while maintaining my defensives as best as I can atm.
I spoke to a fellow war tank on my server who said to keep SB up as much as possible but I struggle to even generate 60rage in 6 seconds atm due to s&b not procing enough and and my dodge/parry not being great.

Any advice/tips anyone can give me? I tank with a DK/Mong partner who don't seem to be having these dmg issues. I know they have better gear than I do but the comparable gap between me and them is very high. Getting to the point im considering shelfing the warrior as the monk/tank can do what I do better whilst taking more dmg and doing more dps.

and I know my shield is crap but not gotten any drop yet

[Valech]

Your build is made to reduce spiky damage, not damage taken over all. If you want pure survivability you drop hit and exp and go for pary and dodge. i don´t know any warrior who does that.
Anyway, since you decided to go down that road, it´s all about anticipation und awareness. Modify your dbm. Uncheck the boxes of abilities not important for you. Learn the important abilities by heart and know if they can be blocked or should be absorbed. That means, Shieldblock is NOT always the best solution. Let´s take Horridon for example. He deals quite a lot physical damage but also uses Triple Puncture. The physical damage of his melee swings can be blocked, Triple Puncture will always hit you, thus, needs to be absorbed. Rarely you will have enough rage to always have a shieldblock for inbetween Punctures and also a 60-rage-barrier for Puncture. Therefore maximum effectiveness is necessairy. You will notice, that he uses to charge people and/or do that sweeping attack before he uses Triple Puncture. Why should you use Shidlblock in that moment? You won´t receive any damage and therefore you are able to add some rage through another shieldbash which you can invest into a shieldbarrier to absorb a large quantity of Triple- Puncture´s damage, that will come right after the sweep.

What I want to say is, that you really need to learn when to use either shieldblock or shieldbarrier, when you can be sloppy with rage and when you need to pool rage.
Also, most of your cooldowns are not to be understood as "oh-shit" buttons. Don´t use shieldwall only if you already dropped under 10%. Most of your (minor) cooldowns are on a one or two minute basis. Use them frequently and without hesitation, but again, don´t waste them. Sure it´s nice to reduce the damage of Ji-Kun´s quills (I think that´s the english name of that AoE attack of him), but it would be a much greater help for the healers to lesser the damage of the next Talon Strike (That tank dot ability, sorry, not good with the english names) for the healers will be spamming groupheal in the quills-phase anyway.

All in all, active mitigation does in our case indeed mean actively making decisions based on anticipation and awareness.

[Mindyourbaal]

Everything past Jin is tuned for 500+ item level, you are like 495, you should be taking more damage. I'm about 505 item level and I take significantly less damage than our 495 tank. The amount of stats you get from the 522's is insane. All in all what Valech said is good but you also just need more gear.

[Deleted]

Your build is made to reduce spiky damage, not damage taken over all. If you want pure survivability you drop hit and exp and go for pary and dodge. i don´t know any warrior who does that.
Anyway, since you decided to go down that road, it´s all about anticipation und awareness. Modify your dbm. Uncheck the boxes of abilities not important for you. Learn the important abilities by heart and know if they can be blocked or should be absorbed. That means, Shieldblock is NOT always the best solution. Let´s take Horridon for example. He deals quite a lot physical damage but also uses Triple Puncture. The physical damage of his melee swings can be blocked, Triple Puncture will always hit you, thus, needs to be absorbed. Rarely you will have enough rage to always have a shieldblock for inbetween Punctures and also a 60-rage-barrier for Puncture. Therefore maximum effectiveness is necessairy. You will notice, that he uses to charge people and/or do that sweeping attack before he uses Triple Puncture. Why should you use Shidlblock in that moment? You won´t receive any damage and therefore you are able to add some rage through another shieldbash which you can invest into a shieldbarrier to absorb a large quantity of Triple- Puncture´s damage, that will come right after the sweep.

What I want to say is, that you really need to learn when to use either shieldblock or shieldbarrier, when you can be sloppy with rage and when you need to pool rage.
Also, most of your cooldowns are not to be understood as "oh-shit" buttons. Don´t use shieldwall only if you already dropped under 10%. Most of your (minor) cooldowns are on a one or two minute basis. Use them frequently and without hesitation, but again, don´t waste them. Sure it´s nice to reduce the damage of Ji-Kun´s quills (I think that´s the english name of that AoE attack of him), but it would be a much greater help for the healers to lesser the damage of the next Talon Strike (That tank dot ability, sorry, not good with the english names) for the healers will be spamming groupheal in the quills-phase anyway.

All in all, active mitigation does in our case indeed mean actively making decisions based on anticipation and awareness.

thanks for response. I try not to spam shield block for the reasons you said and use barrio/block as needed. I know my gear isn't great and got a few upgrades from the run to the jackass bird just now. Im still not fully use to the AM situation and keeping my finger off the HS button from old habbit is annoying. Just trying to find a happy medium with it all. If its just a case of my gear isn't quite enough then il keep plugging and learning the bosses more. It is just more worrying that my dk/monk counterparts don't seem to struggle anywhere near as much as myself at staying alive even with me doing everything I should do right

[Mollari]

The gear for the most part is alright. You are still reforging to hit over the 7.5% cap so that can be fixed but not terrible overall.

I went ahead and looked up logs for your guild and....wow. Well I do think you need to start from the beginning and reread all the beginner guides for the class. I will be using your Magaera 10m kill logs, which you can kiss your healers asses for carrying the crap out of you btw, (found via WoL: http://worldoflogs.com/reports/grx2g...?s=8794&e=9249) as the example as you are pretty much always tanking something. I am going to be blunt with you here because you are in need of some work. Hopefully you do not take it as an insult because it is not but I am being honest because from what I am seeing in the logs is that you are being carried by your healers. Please note that its NOT RNG that is making you take a lot of damage. It is you ignoring the core mechanics of the class you are playing.

You hit shield block 0 times and you hit shield barrier 12 times in a 7:34 fight. This is completely unacceptable at your current gear level. You spent ALL of your rage (that is used now as active mitigation and not dmg as previous expansions) on heroic strike. You used heroic strike 77 times! That is WAY too much. 15 of those were free through ultimatum procs so that means you spent 62x30 1860 rage on heroic strike that should be used to take less damage (especially with your ilvl, whereas higher ilvl may be granted more leeway in mitigation vs dmg). You really should not be using heroic strike outside of ultimatum procs because that rage is better put to use through block/barrier.

I am going to use just block here as an example because it has less variables than your specific barriers due to vengeance and rage costs ranging 20-60 rage. In this fight you should be using a mix of both barrier and a few blocks because there are both magical and physical dmg but that is beside the point. 1860 rage is 31 shield blocks worth of rage. It is 186 seconds worth of 30% less physical dmg taken with the chance with the chance of 60% through crit blocking. Also note that critical blocks enrage you and will generate 10 rage so keeping shield block up more often will actually increase rage generation along with a minor damage increase (10%) while enraged.

You will also note that you used shield wall/last stand once. You will also see that you took enraged regen (I personally would go with Impending Victory but to each their own) and you only used that 2 times. Shield wall/last stand could be used more in a 7:34 fight if planned out so they are up near the end where you take the most dmg. I know the damage in this fight ramps up but saving your healers a little extra mana in the beginning is always a plus. Enraged regen is a 1 minute cooldown and not a very good "oh shit" button so it should be used as much as possible to get the full benefit from it.

Taking a quick look through your longest Ji-Kun attempt I also see 7 barrier and 0 blocks in a 7:28 fight. Granted there is tank swapping here but 0 blocks is absolutely unacceptable as a tank on this fight as talon rake is blockable damage. You seem to have somehow skipped over the core mechanics of warrior tanking (block/barrier) along the way and you need to go back and start over as far as warrior tanking 101 goes. Heroic strike is not the rage dump it used to be.

On a side note I do not see any use of tier 4 and 6 talents (should be dragon's roar/bloodbath for these fights) and no use of shattering throw. Banners I do not think show up in logs so make sure you are using those as well (demo/skull).

I hope this helps you out and if you have any other questions let me know. Also keep in mind that just linking armory rarely tells the whole story. Posting logs is the best way to take a look through and see exactly what is going on. Good luck!

[Deleted]

The gear for the most part is alright. You are still reforging to hit over the 7.5% cap so that can be fixed but not terrible overall.

I went ahead and looked up logs for your guild and....wow. Well I do think you need to start from the beginning and reread all the beginner guides for the class. I will be using your Magaera 10m kill logs, which you can kiss your healers asses for carrying the crap out of you btw, (found via WoL: http://worldoflogs.com/reports/grx2g...?s=8794&e=9249) as the example as you are pretty much always tanking something. I am going to be blunt with you here because you are in need of some work. Hopefully you do not take it as an insult because it is not but I am being honest because from what I am seeing in the logs is that you are being carried by your healers. Please note that its NOT RNG that is making you take a lot of damage. It is you ignoring the core mechanics of the class you are playing.

You hit shield block 0 times and you hit shield barrier 12 times in a 7:34 fight. This is completely unacceptable at your current gear level. You spent ALL of your rage (that is used now as active mitigation and not dmg as previous expansions) on heroic strike. You used heroic strike 77 times! That is WAY too much. 15 of those were free through ultimatum procs so that means you spent 62x30 1860 rage on heroic strike that should be used to take less damage (especially with your ilvl, whereas higher ilvl may be granted more leeway in mitigation vs dmg). You really should not be using heroic strike outside of ultimatum procs because that rage is better put to use through block/barrier.

I am going to use just block here as an example because it has less variables than your specific barriers due to vengeance and rage costs ranging 20-60 rage. In this fight you should be using a mix of both barrier and a few blocks because there are both magical and physical dmg but that is beside the point. 1860 rage is 31 shield blocks worth of rage. It is 186 seconds worth of 30% less physical dmg taken with the chance with the chance of 60% through crit blocking. Also note that critical blocks enrage you and will generate 10 rage so keeping shield block up more often will actually increase rage generation along with a minor damage increase (10%) while enraged.

You will also note that you used shield wall/last stand once. You will also see that you took enraged regen (I personally would go with Impending Victory but to each their own) and you only used that 2 times. Shield wall/last stand could be used more in a 7:34 fight if planned out so they are up near the end where you take the most dmg. I know the damage in this fight ramps up but saving your healers a little extra mana in the beginning is always a plus. Enraged regen is a 1 minute cooldown and not a very good "oh shit" button so it should be used as much as possible to get the full benefit from it.

Taking a quick look through your longest Ji-Kun attempt I also see 7 barrier and 0 blocks in a 7:28 fight. Granted there is tank swapping here but 0 blocks is absolutely unacceptable as a tank on this fight. You seem to have somehow skipped over the core mechanics of warrior tanking (block/barrier) along the way and you need to go back and start over as far as warrior tanking 101 goes. Heroic strike is not the rage dump it used to be.

On a side note I do not see any use of tier 4 and 6 talents (should be dragon's roar/bloodbath for these fights) and no use of shattering throw. Banners I do not think show up in logs so make sure you are using those as well (demo/skull).

I hope this helps you out and if you have any other questions let me know. Also keep in mind that just linking armory rarely tells the whole story. Posting logs is the best way to take a look through and see exactly what is going on. Good luck!

Ty. Not sure who was logging raids as I cant do myself due to pc issues. hence just the armoury link. So less HS more rage into other AM. next question... and I know as a tank it shouldn't be an issue. How do I manage comparable dps output compared to the other tanks.. shouldn't make a difference I know but part of my problem is trying to maintain everything to justify taking me as a warrior over monk/dk.

and yh I know I need to keep off the HS button. old habits die hard -_-. Might just remove the bind for the meantime and put it on something I have to go out of the way to press rather than an easy button. Just had a look at tonight's logs. didn't realise I was using it that much.. Thanks for that btw. I have a good base to work on now and see how it goes from there using my rage better

[Mollari]

Ty. Not sure who was logging raids as I cant do myself due to pc issues. hence just the armoury link. So less HS more rage into other AM. next question... and I know as a tank it shouldn't be an issue. How do I manage comparable dps output compared to the other tanks.. shouldn't make a difference I know but part of my problem is trying to maintain everything to justify taking me as a warrior over monk/dk.

and yh I know I need to keep off the HS button. old habits die hard -_-. Might just remove the bind for the meantime and put it on something I have to go out of the way to press rather than an easy button. Just had a look at tonight's logs. didn't realise I was using it that much.. Thanks for that btw. I have a good base to work on now and see how it goes from there using my rage better

Monks will end up doing more dmg as the xpac progresses just due to the fact they stack agi/crit/haste for tanking and warriors do not. Overall though the damage isn't that huge. As I pointed out previously, I didn't see you use tier 4/6 talents on Magaera or Ji-Kun. Any fight that doesn't need shockwave stun you are going to increase your DPS by taking bloodbath/dragon's roar combo (throw in zerker rage right before for an extra 10% dmg for 6 seconds). Always use bloodbath then immediately roar with vengeance for maximum effect. They come to about 10-15% of my overall damage on single target fights (more with adds but depending on how many and how long shockwave may come out ahead) so it can be quite a dps increase.

Warriors bring a lot more utility than monks or DKs IMO. Monks and DKs bring the toolkits they have for themselves and that is about it. Warriors bring a lot to the table outside of tanking. We have raid wide damage increases through sunder armor (can be brought from other classes but not Dk/monk), shattering throw, and skull banner. Used correctly with other raid cooldowns (lust/stormlash/pots) it is quite the raid wide DPS increase. We also bring raid wide defensive cooldowns like demo banner, rallying cry, and even safeguard. Quick note that I would suggest taking safeguard over vigilance just due to the fact that vigilance doesn't help healers outside of redirecting some damage whereas safeguard is a 20% reduction for 6 seconds. This may not seem like much but on most fights after a tank swap when your vengeance is about to fall off you can intervene the other tank after you barrier so you take almost 0 damage from the intercepted hit and reset the time on vengeance so you get more DPS. The other tank will also take that 20% reduction for a swing or two from the boss. You have to be mindful though that you don't intervene a debuff or something like that, but it is a great way to increase your DPS if that is strictly what you are looking to do as a warrior tank. We also have unmatched mobility when it comes to the tanks. We can get from point a to point b and back to point a faster then anyone can with Monks close behind.

So when it comes down to personal tank damage Monks will win out due to them stacking dps stats for tanking but the utility and raid buffs/dmg reductions the warrior will bring puts them on par if not better (better IMO but I love my warrior so I am biased) then a Monk or DK. It really comes down to play what you like the best and are able to play the best.

Edit:
As for shield block. On fights like Ji-Kun (I guess all of them but Mag) that have tank swaps, it is recommended to have enough rage to block right before you taunt so you have at least a 30% melee dmg reduction on the switch so healers do not freak out when the dmg switches to you. It can help save some oh shit moments for the healers which means they can be more mana efficient. Also some mechanics like the Ji-Kun talon rake are blockable so you should always have shield block up for each time he applies that to you (I am assuming you switch at 2).

[Valech]

Regarding heroic strike, it´s quite simple. Press it when it glows. No glow, no use. A small exception is when tanks swapped and you wish to push damage. But be sure to not draw aggro and be sure to have pooled enough rage right before you have to re-taunt for reasons mentioned by Purples. If you can´t stop pressing it, switch its button with Devestate. Spamming devestate when Shieldbash and Revenge are on cd is intended.

Damage pushing is a real issue with Warriortanks when it comes to single target. Glyph of Hold the Line and Heavy Repercussions help out a lot. Also, I can´t think of many bosses, where shockwave is useful. Perhaps Council if you happen to tank Mar´li to stun every second add spawned by her. Or Lei shen, not sure if those Ball Lightnings in P2 and P4 are stunnable. Aside from them you should mostly go for Dragon´s Roar + Bloodbath.
Try to use the hole spectrum of your abilities. Bloodlust is up? Pop Skullbanner + Shattering Throw. Hilarious crits for Melees guaranteed. Then pop Recklessness and Bloodbath, start with Dragon´s Roar and start smashing faces yourself. Early 500k+ crits are easily aquired by those means.
Lastly, you bring a shitload of utility, as mentioned by Purples. Group drops? Ralleying Cry. Other tank drops? Safeguard/intervene/Vigilance + Demo Banner. Note that you can soak the complete damage of Safeguard/Vigilance with a neat 60-rage-Barrier.

[Damosapien]

quick question, when i don't have aggro i usually continue use of shield block but use it only before i shield slam, is this and normal use of revenge/devastate/etc better dps wise than using hs?
It gets me significantly better numbers than the main-spec tanks i raid with, but just because I'm doing better than bad tanks doesn't mean I'm doing it right...

[Valech]

quick question, when i don't have aggro i usually continue use of shield block but use it only before i shield slam, is this and normal use of revenge/devastate/etc better dps wise than using hs?
It gets me significantly better numbers than the main-spec tanks i raid with, but just because I'm doing better than bad tanks doesn't mean I'm doing it right...

Spledindid Question. To use Shieldblock you´d need 60 rage. This is equal to two heroic strikes without ultimatum procc. Comparing the damage of two heroic strikes with a half shieldbash will result in no significant diffrence. Therefore I´d go either with heroic strike to ensure having shieldblock fully available when it comes to the re-taunt or with shieldbarrier to soak up floating damage.

[jason1975]

After the analysis above, I'd recommend removing HS/Cleave from your bar entirely. Once you learn how to maximize your rage use on your defenses, then put it back on. Not until.

Break that bad habit first, then get "more advanced".

[Deleted]

Spledindid Question. To use Shieldblock you´d need 60 rage. This is equal to two heroic strikes without ultimatum procc. the added damage of two heroic strikes would have to be < then 10% of shieldbash, which is very unliekly. Therefore the use of HS while not tanking is prefered.

What ?
I checked my own logs and on average, 2 heroic strike is ~0,5 HR shieldslams.
The only reason not to use shieldblock for buffing SS is to avoid it being on cooldown when the tank swap happens.

[Mirishka]

Many warrior tanks hardcap expertise (15%) and softcap hit (7.5%) for absolute control over their rage generation - Shield Slam/Revenge will never miss or be avoided at those numbers - ever since I switched to that model my dps and rage (and therefore my survivability through Active Mitigation) skyrocketed.

And in a situation where you can be killed (e.g. Throne bosses) its best to not HS or Cleave at all until Ultimatum procs, unless the other tank has the boss - HS/Cleave are pretty sub par for prot without a great deal of vengeance though. Regardless, if you're the one tanking, use that rage on SB or Barrier.

To answer the question about HS vs. Shield Block/Shield Slam and Revenge usage when offtanking, its not really a matter of having to choose. Shield Slam/Revenge/Devastate either generate rage or cost 0 rage, and are on the GCD. Heroic Strike is off the GCD and costs rage. Meaning you can use both those abilities and HS at any time, assuming you have enough rage to HS or Ultimatum has proc'd.

As for your concerns about damage, monks and druids have the advantage of being able to tank in pretty much nothing but dps gear. Blizz has buffed warrior tank damage a bit though. Once you push misses/dodge/parries off the table, your dps will improve a lot.

[Deleted]

What ?
I checked my own logs and on average, 2 heroic strike is ~0,5 HR shieldslams.
The only reason not to use shieldblock for buffing SS is to avoid it being on cooldown when the tank swap happens.

It's a give or take of nothing for me when i compare shield slams without block up versus regular heroic strikes as well. BUT i'd prefer using heroic strike due to rage management for the next swap but regulary i just prefer using barrier because there's "always" stuff flying around that you can absorb (-> smartheals hit those who might need it more and i barely play with hot classes).

edit: if you can get two shield slams into one block (which will occur occasionally, especially while offtanking and only hitting revenge every so often) it's def. stronger than 2x HS.

[Valech]

What ?
I checked my own logs and on average, 2 heroic strike is ~0,5 HR shieldslams.
The only reason not to use shieldblock for buffing SS is to avoid it being on cooldown when the tank swap happens.

For some reason I thought the glyph would buff ss by only 10%. looked it up, edited my post.

[Deleted]

After the analysis above, I'd recommend removing HS/Cleave from your bar entirely. Once you learn how to maximize your rage use on your defenses, then put it back on. Not until.

Break that bad habit first, then get "more advanced".

that's what ive pretty much done now. moved it to one of my shift mods so I actually have to go out of the way to press it. have respect a bit from the spec I had and taken impending victory so that now takes the spot of my old HS/Cleave button.

I think part of my issue is I didn't realise how much I was using HS so was struggling with rage ect. Have too see how I do on next tot run on weekend and compare to the weekend just gone. Hopefully will get a big improvement on my end.

Have also started utilising intervene(now safeguard) a bit more to keep my vengeance stack up longer out of target tanking.