Maximizing port warrior threat, help.

[Regen]

Hey guys, after always being up in the air about which spec to play, I guess I finally made a decision (with the help of some upgrades). I've decided to go with prot. It's been fun and I really enjoy it (arms and fury are pretty cool too) but I had just one issue. Threat.

Last night the top guild on my server (Ascend 8/8hc (composed partially of Enigma raiders)) did a little ten man run for some of their alts and 1 main who was there for whatever reason and a few pugs, one being myself. Now, morchok was fine and dandy but for zonozz the blood dk switched to frost and let me tank. This is where I had threat issues. The hunter (407 iLvl - chrisqt) kept pulling off of me and the dk as frost (397 iLvl - Aweetod) for those that care to look them up.

I'd like to denounce it as a difference in gear but I always see people say "lolthreat" and I haven't really seen many tanks having threat problems this late in the game so I thought I'd come here.

Firstly, my link to my armory is in my sig. I upgraded pants and shield and ring2 last night so during the raid those slots had 378 iLvl items. I went with the standard priority of shield slam > revenge > devestate while keeping rend up. And because of these problems I was sure to be spammin the button waiting fr the CD to end such that it gets used ASAP. But still, they would pull threat off of me.

Is there anything blatantly wrong with my setup or my philosophy/play style? Or would it boil down to me being 383 iLvl trying to hold threat off a hunter with heroic tier, heroic WoU, heroic vial and his heroic bow?


Thanks in advance guys, and sorry for any typos - writing from iPhone at work.
-Regen

[Deleted]

Alright, now.. I'm no master of protection.. Only been tanking for a month ..
But my warrior is almost equally geared. Or have been.. http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...ikarl/advanced .. my weapon was upgraded a week ago.

threat vs dpsers, never really was a problem. I had our hunter Misdirect on pull, pre pot with str, shout, recklesness, leap to the boss and shield slam ..
After that its really not that hard. I try to keep Revenge and Shield slam on cooldown, Shockwave after 3. thunderclap, Throw on CD, Blow on CD, devastate to keep up sunders, and just Heroic strike as much as possible.. run shield block on CD for boost to shield slam.
Recklesness when theres little to none damage..

Also if you're on like Yor'sahj, leap out and charge back in while he summons the blobs for the extra rage.
I have no threat problem vs dpsers, as long as i execute the pull alright.. after that, its a walk in the park..

But, compared to our Pala tank, he usually beats me on threat and dps. :/


Something else i noticed on your armory, how close are you to the CTC cap? its seem like you have very little mastery.. I'm not capped, close though, and i got 10% more block than you, and more dodge.. soo.. :S ?

[Deleted]

Well I must admit I haven't raided for quite some time now so I'm not completely up to date on what the highest TPS rotation is, but to give you a few pointers on what you could improve:

Your spec is off. Gag Order is a terrible talent for raiding and word is Vigilance and CB are largely unnecessary in DS. Furthermore, Blood Craze and Blitz are really weak talents while Incite and War Academy both provide a major (relatively speaking) increase of DPS. You could also glyph your Shockwave but yeah.

If you struggle with threat on the pull, consider using Recklessness during your first Shield Block. Shield Block should completely negate the additional damage Recklessness causes (and at the beginning of an encounter all healers will be healing you anyway).

Consider not using Rend at all. I'm not convinced it's actually worthwhile keeping it up unless you must do TC yourself (which is almost never the case), and putting it up simply fluctuates your TPS for that GCD.

Track Sword & Board through an addon and make sure to react to it proccing, use "filler" GCDs (like Shockwave, Rend, Thunder Clap, Demoralizing Shout) when Sword & Board has failed to proc twice in a row.

It's not really possible to give good advice without logs of the event in question but I hope this helped.

[Puntr]

Really it probably boils down to a gear difference.

The valor neck, back, gun and mastery trinket will help a lot with your lack of prot gear, and get a new belt + chest. The fact that they let you in with 2 pieces of DPS gear is amazing.

Your spec is terrible. Go with http://www.wowhead.com/talent#LG0cZZIcGzRRodbu w/ 2 points for either Blood and Thunder(Prot), Safeguard(Prot), or Cruelty(Fury). I would go with Cruelty since BnT and Safeguard are more useful in a heroic raid setting than normal.

Change your major glyphs ... I have no idea why you have victory rush and death wish. Go with Shockwave, Cleave and probably Thunderclap.

Meta gem should be stam+block not stam+armour.

Really just get a full set of actual tank gear and don't run with heroic geared people

threat vs dpsers, never really was a problem. I had our hunter Misdirect on pull, pre pot with str, shout, recklesness, leap to the boss and shield slam ..
After that its really not that hard. I try to keep Revenge and Shield slam on cooldown, Shockwave after 3. thunderclap, Throw on CD, Blow on CD, devastate to keep up sunders, and just Heroic strike as much as possible.. run shield block on CD for boost to shield slam.
Recklesness when theres little to none damage..

You shouldn't be leaping to a boss unless you don't want him to move at all, otherwise you should be charging for the rage. Also you should be heroic throwing as you charge.
Conc blow and Heroic throws are wastes of GCDs. Devastate generally hits for more thus causing more threat. The only reason we get conc blow now is b/c we need it to get to vigi.

But, compared to our Pala tank, he usually beats me on threat and dps. :/

b/c pallies glyph for 10 expertise while we, as tanks, sit around 1-3

[Deleted]

You shouldn't be leaping to a boss unless you don't want him to move at all, otherwise you should be charging for the rage. Also you should be heroic throwing as you charge.
Conc blow and Heroic throws are wastes of GCDs. Devastate generally hits for more

1. You can charge and leap at the same time. Generating rage + leap damage = success.
2. Are you kidding me or do you just look at damage values before raid buffs and full vengeance?
Damage priority looks like: Shield Slam (Shield Block active) > Shockwave (2/3 Blood&Thunder stacks) > Shieldslam > Shockwave (1 or 0 stacks, even great without stacks because you can't dodge/parry it) > Concussion Blow > Revenge > Full Rend + Thunderclap by refreshing a 0-2 sec Rend debuff > Victory Rush > Devastate. Don't forget to use Heroic Strike and Inner Rage frequently, if Heroic Strike is not one of your 2 highest damage sources, you're doing it incredibly wrong. Heroic Throw is a swing timer reset, but includes a +50% additional threat per point of damage, if you're timing it correctly it's just behind Revenge, if you reset your swing timer and lose more than 1 second of autohits, it's behind Devastate (=worthless). Even at 0 rage it's important to time your Heroic Throw according to your swingtimer, or you could end up without rage for another 2-3 seconds. If you're low on rage and playing tank swap encounters, try switching stances and use Colossus Smash directly before you're tanking again for ~40% more damage the next 6 seconds. Obviously the more rage you're losing while stance dancing, the less worthy your Colossus Smash.

The only place you could get away easily with playing a retarded Shield Slam > Revenge > Devastate 3 button priority is Ultraxion, when you are trying to get the maximum amount of Shield Slams with 100% shield block uptime, only if you're specced into heavy repercussions.
Use Retaliation with full vengeance and align Recklessness with Shield Block (and preferably a Colossus Smash) for major burst. Setup some /cancelaura macros for those 2 skills to be able to use Shield Wall instantly and bypass the 12s CD, if you messed up your timing and increased your Damage Taken by 20% just before incoming heavy hits.
Also be sure to hitting your GCDs in time, over the course of the fight, you could easily lose 20-25 globals by delaying your next GCD usage by 250ms. Using that new anti-lag bar in your WoW settings or having addons, that activate your skills on pushing the hotkey rather than letting go will definitely help (SnowfallKeyPress).

[reboundlol]

I always start with a leap, and a charge & shout macro > Shield Block & Shield Slam > Revenge > Devastate & Heroic Strike > Prioritizing Revenge (for warrior 2-set bonus) & keeping rend up with Thunder Clap. Using open GCD's & rage dumps with Devastate & Heroic Strike.