Looking for advice on tanking.

[lespaul5895]

I used to tank a lot on my paladin back in WotLK and I loved it. I stopped tanking in Cata because the heroics at first were just utterly frustrating. I'm wanting to get back into tanking and am clueless where to start.

My Armory as Prot

I've gathered up a ton of the timeless tokens so I started working on a prot set for this guy. I was wondering where I should begin. I know I need to reforge into avoidance now over mastery, but any other advice?

[Deleted]

Make sure to start the legendary chain and do SoO LFR.

Make sure to get your 3 warshizzle coins every week. You want to roll on: Ordos (hello warforged gear), 1 of the 4 Celestials at the arena on the new island (hello normal mode tier set items) and if you are really lucky and get a kill on Immerseus flex/normal you can roll on him too. Immerseus and Ordos both drop the most tank items.

If you are lucky someone will run a TDD heroic run on your server. Try to catch a spot. If it is a good group you may catch some 535+ items. On that note...Make sure to buy 20 MOGU coins for 20.000 timeless coins before you do any TDD run. Roll on any boss.

Do not upgrade gear that you are going to replace soon. Any SoO normal mode tier sets or warforged items you want to to upgrade instantly of course.

The rest really depends on the time are willing to invest into raiding. For now try to level up to ~ilvl 520. That should be enough for SoO flex.

Regarding stats. Go for Avoidance. Check your parry and dodge rating, not percent. If you keep your parry:dodge rating at ~3:2 you should be golden. You are already exp/hit capped. Keep that.
You still should use shield block on cooldown unless you know that a hard hit is coming that you cannot block.

Change the charge glyph to Unending Rage or Unresolved Power. Personally I like the rage glyph more. It allows me to pool rage for a block+barrier combo. But the thunder clap glyph is amazing aswell.

Regarding talents: I suggest Dragon Roar + Bloodbath. You can macro both for added gain. In certain scenarios you want Shockwave + Stormbolt.

[Deleted]

I don't know how experienced you are tanking on your Warrior, but here's a couple of extra things you might want to keep in mind:

Dragon Roar vs Shockwave:

Shockwave is far superior in heroic dungeons where trash can be stunned and provides extra mitigation through the nice long stun, it's also better at lower gear levels when that stun could save your life on trash. Dragon Roar is a longer CD, but does far more damage and on single targets it's miles ahead of SW.

If you're new to tanking as a Warrior, I'd recommend Shockwave over Dragon Roar, just until you get the feel of aoe tanking and gear up a bit and then switch our to Dragon Roar later once you're comfortable on your Warrior. If you're going straight into raid tanking, maybe swap out the ability between trash and bosses. As Zorker said, definitely combine either of the abilities with Bloodbath, make sure you trigger BB first though

Glyphs:

Unending rage; great glyph but it's arguably more about rage management, once you've got the hang of manging your rage, you likely won't need this glyph as much. That said, as Zorker mentions, being able to pool rage for a Shield Barrier and Shield Block is pretty nice at times, but with the buffs to our rage regeneration in 5.4, it's maybe not quite as necessary.

I'd definitely recommend this glyph at the start, until you've gotten used to the "eb and flow" of your incoming/outgoing rage.

Hold the Line Glyph; awesome glyph, especially if you're going for the avoidance approach, makes Revenge hit even harder!

Glyphs that modify Charge (Bull Rush/Long Charge); not actually that useful, they sound good and on trash they have their upsides, but on bosses they're pretty useless as you don't end up charging that frequently.

Gearing:

The last patch was amazing for protection warriors and we now have a greater choice in gearing strats, avoidance vs mastery stacking, there are pros and cons to both.

Avoidance:

- You take less damage overall, but you'll be slightly more prone to damage spikes
- Does a bit more DPS than Mastery builds due to the Riposte changes in 5.4 where 75% of your total dodge/parry rating is converted to crit rating (for 20 seconds following a parry or dodge).
- Seems to generate a little more rage, through Revenge CD resets after dodging/parrying. (although I've no numbers to back that up, simply my impressions from playing around with both specs)

Mastery:

- Takes a little more damage overall than avoidance, but it's far smoother and you'll rarely, if at all take damage spikes. Additionally, in SoO gear, it's possible to mastery cap, meaning every time you block, it will be a critical block (60% blocked, rather than 30%).
- For the reasons above, mastery build tends to be more popular in 10 man raiding than 25.

Crit/Mastery Build:

Disclaimer: I don't know a ton about this build, I've read a few things here and there, but never tried it myself or looked into the build in any depth

I believe the rough idea behind this build is high DPS/Solid Mitigation; it works around crit devastates for higher enrage uptime and rage building to fuel Shield Block and Shield Barrier, while providing higher DPS through critting more with all abilities. I don't know how it stands up vs the other builds in terms of mitigation, but I would imagine it's DPS is probably quite a bit higher than the Mastery one.

I believe the stat priority works along the lines of: Hit 7.5%/Expertise 15% > Mastery > Crit > Dodge > Parry but I'm not dead sure and I also have no idea on their weightings, if you want to try this build, I'd suggest doing your research first.

Which ever gearing strat you choose, make sure it's one that you and your healers are comfortable with.

- - - Updated - - -

Actually, I just noticed Pariah's 5.4 Protection FAQ thread, some good stuff in there that's worth reading

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1308849-5-4-Protection-Warrior

[lespaul5895]

So I just just jump in the fire (not stand in it) and cut my teeth on SoO LFR? I can't do Ordos as I don't have the Legendary Cloak so that's out. How hard is it to obtain the cloak in today's game?

[Odina]

A couple of things I would sugest is reading the FAQ on this forum, watch a video or 2 of a prot war in action to see what you should be experiencing (visual learning tends to saok in faster), and finally just go out and get your boot dirty

The best way to be honest if you want the best feedback and the best possible learning is to go out in LFR as soon as possible and log the fight /combatlog . Then get a free acount over at World of logs and upload that log then you can come back here post it and then you can get some great feedback as peoepl would be able to see what you are ...or arent doing and give great advice on hwo to fix it

GL and welcome to prot war tanking it's a very fun part of the game more should experience IMO

[lespaul5895]

Is the only incoming damage cooldown warriors have Shield wall? or am I missing something?

[Valech]

demo shout. demo banner. and of course your active mitigation.
of course you might count spell reflect and disarm as well.

[Odina]

Is the only incoming damage cooldown warriors have Shield wall? or am I missing something?

Shield block for blockable dmg
Shield barrier for everything
Demo shout (not just for war)
Demo banner (not just for the war)
Vigilance (for a party member)
spell reflect and mass spell reflect

Really depends on the situation and what works with it.

[lespaul5895]

Thanks for the info, I'm just prepping to attempt tanking the first section of Siege of Orgrimmar LFR and am trying to get a feel for things before I go in.

[Deleted]

Thanks for the info, I'm just prepping to attempt tanking the first section of Siege of Orgrimmar LFR and am trying to get a feel for things before I go in.

Let us know how it goes and if there are any issues you have!

[Odina]

Thanks for the info, I'm just prepping to attempt tanking the first section of Siege of Orgrimmar LFR and am trying to get a feel for things before I go in.

Piercing howl on imersius to slow the adds helps if you don't have the gear to nuke them fast

Glyph of rude interuption with disrupting shout can give you some nice numbers if you are pumeling and shouting sun's cast whenever you can.

If you get pulled down to do a tank test on naroushen you can spell reflect the cast they do

On sha you can tank just infront of the prison release mechanism so that if you are the tank at the time of prison you can just step back on it and if the off tank at the time it's a fast stroll over to the side but DON't be on the prison as you will get knocked back.

Just a couple tips for the first four hope it goes well for you

[Deleted]

Sadly disrupting shout doesn't give you the rude interruptions buff, but you can maintain full uptime on it on protectors if you play intelligently with moving the bosses

[Deleted]

Safeguard is awesome now. You can protect your offtank every 30 seconds.

[Odina]

Sadly disrupting shout doesn't give you the rude interruptions buff, but you can maintain full uptime on it on protectors if you play intelligently with moving the bosses

damn had not realized that one ... but hey at least you are stopping her from casting!

On normal and LFR what you can do is tank rook on her facing awy from raid and have a /target sun /cast pummel / target rook macro and just use that with next to no moving outside of the splits.

- - - Updated - - -

Vigilance is awesome now. You can protect your offtank every 30 seconds.

how do you protect them every 30 seconds on a 2 min cd? I'm sure it's probably something along the lines of rotating CD's like demo shout and what not but just want to be sure I didnt miss something.

[Drobu]

I just got back into tanking for this tier, and I forgot how much I missed tanking.
For advice I would do the proving grounds, just to get into a safe environment without
ragers and get a feel for tanking. Also LFR when you can. Vox Immortalis have great
videos for all the SoO fights and they have role specific videos as well.

I would also make Weak Aura's that track debuffs on the other tank, which is my
focus target so you know when to tank swap. I place mine right over his unit frame
and made it large enough to catch my eye.

http://www.voximmortalis.com/threads...-Normal-Guides

[Augusta138]

Demo shout (not just for war)

Demo Shout is personal, only Demo banner is raid wide.
And i think some people confuse Vigilance with Safeguard, coz safeguard is a improved intervene every 30 seconds with a 20% dmg reduction on your target.

[Trubo]

So I just just jump in the fire (not stand in it) and cut my teeth on SoO LFR? I can't do Ordos as I don't have the Legendary Cloak so that's out. How hard is it to obtain the cloak in today's game?

1. 20 Sigils (10 Power + 10 Wisdom) available from 16 (T14) + 12/13 (ToT) + 14 (SoO) = 42/43 bosses so feasible to finish in one week.
2. 3 weeks for 3k Valor
3. ~a day to finish the 2 pvp wins + commander defeat quests
4. 20 Secrets of the Empire from 26/27 bosses, probably 2-3 weeks depending on luck.
5. 12 Titan Runestones from 20/21 bosses, another 2-3 weeks
6. Do the Blessings quest and find a group to defeat all 4 Celestials in one go.

So about 10 weeks as a fresh 90.

[Deleted]

how do you protect them every 30 seconds on a 2 min cd?

Damnit. By mixing up the talent names.
I meant Safeguard of course! -20% damage taken for 6/30 seconds or 1/5th of the time you are not tanking.
If you are not tanking make sure to keep Safeguard running on your OT.