How To Protection

[Slipper]

Hiya my warrior is about to hit 50 and im going to spec protection, having played the game for 4 years i have a general idea of what skills to hit when but I just wanted to confirm my thoughts with MMO-champ player base.

So are these rotations about right . . .

Protection Solo

Charge --> Rend --> Shield Slam --> Revenge --> Devastate ??? (unsure whether to use sunders etc?)

Trash Tanking

Charge --> Thunder Clap --> Shockwave (at appropriate level) --> ??? (not sure about this, cleave?!)

Boss Tanking

Charge --> Rend --> Shield Slam --> Sunders + Revenge (when active) --> Devastate
__________________________________________________________________________________________ ____

As stated fairly new to warrior and prot but is this the general idea, thanks for the feedback!

[Wenger]

Don't use rend. To my knowledge you can't use rend in defensive stance. Use shield block when it's off CD or when you want to do lots of damage to a higher health mob or elite.

EDIT: my mistake

[Slipper]

To my knowledge you can't use rend in defensive stance.

You can.

And okay i get the shield block but is the rest relatively correct - only thing im ~really~ unsure about is when to apply my sunders and whether to bother when soloing / trash?

[kladde]

Hiya my warrior is about to hit 50 and im going to spec protection, having played the game for 4 years i have a general idea of what skills to hit when but I just wanted to confirm my thoughts with MMO-champ player base.

So are these rotations about right . . .

Protection Solo

Charge --> Rend --> Shield Slam --> Revenge --> Devastate ??? (unsure whether to use sunders etc?)

Trash Tanking

Charge --> Thunder Clap --> Shockwave (at appropriate level) --> ??? (not sure about this, cleave?!)

Boss Tanking

Charge --> Rend --> Shield Slam --> Sunders + Revenge (when active) --> Devastate
__________________________________________________________________________________________ ____

As stated fairly new to warrior and prot but is this the general idea, thanks for the feedback!

Looks like you got the basics down allright. About sunders, there is not really any reason to use Sunder Armor once you have Devastate. Basically, Devastate is used as a filler when all no other abilities are availible.

Cleave and Heroic strike function pretty much in the same way replacing your next main hand melee swing and does not invoke the global cooldown. They are used when you have enough rage to keep all your other abilities going, and still rage to spare. Heroic Strike for single target tanking, and Cleave can add some extra multi mob threat for aoe pulls. Do note as they are both off the gcd they do not conflict with anything in your priority list of abilities to use, but can be queued up for your next swing whenever you have rage for it.

About Rend, sure, it can help out your dps/tps while tanking. But when starting out I'd suggest getting comfortable with the rest of the basics first, and then start looking at adding stuff like rend to your rotation.

There is a lot more to get a hang of as you get more experienced, but what you got so far will go a long way.

[Slipper]

Brilliant reply thank you!

Everything i needed to know

[MintMagic]

No.

rend is not suggested for tanking.period. EJ says you loose too much rage/per threat.

priorities for tanking; shield slam, revenge, (free heroic strike if you have glyph and we all do), devastate. warr tanking is very reactive. as you fill in your talents you will pick up more and more reactive talents so there is no set rotation. (well you could follow the above mentioned but you would loose potential threat due to procs). charge is great to start fights but cant always do that.

Edit:kay I have a good policy, I will continue to stick poles up Xenryusho his large stinky orifice. If you have questions for me drop me a private message. Bye ><

on trash thunderclap and shockwave will not be enough to hold aoe threat. if you are not ss, revenge and devastate all the mobs (tabbing through and getting solid threat) you will lose them. on my white hits i use cleave (glyphed) when i can.

these are the basics.

oh and to answer your other question; when prot and soloing reg mobs while lvling theres no need to apply sunders/devs, and rend is nice for the dps. if your going through old world stuff then dev can be nice to add dps.
edit:gram errors and more info

[Bihnn]

Shockwave and Conc. Blow are things you should be working in to your rotation on bosses if Revenge and Shield Slam are both on cooldown. They both do substantially more threat and damage than devastate. Other than that (and the rend thing), seems like you got it.

[Xenryusho]

No.

rend is not suggested for tanking.period. EJ says you loose too much rage/per threat.

priorities for tanking; shield slam, revenge, (free heroic strike if you have glyph and we all do), devastate. warr tanking is very reactive. as you fill in your talents you will pick up more and more reactive talents so there is no set rotation. (well you could follow the above mentioned but you would loose potential threat due to procs). charge is great to start fights but cant always do that.

on trash thunderclap and shockwave will not be enough to hold aoe threat. if you are not ss, revenge and devastate all the mobs (tabbing through and getting solid threat) you will lose them. on my white hits i use cleave (glyphed) when i can.

Edit: kay I have a good policy, I will never revisit a thread. If you have questions for me drop me a private message. Bye ><

these are the basics.

oh and to answer your other question; when prot and soloing reg mobs while lvling theres no need to apply sunders/devs, and rend is nice for the dps. if your going through old world stuff then dev can be nice to add dps.
edit:gram errors and more info

Absolutely 100% incorrect.

Rend does more damage and threat then devastate. Devastate no longer applys threat for the sunder debuff.
You should NEVER have problems with rage, revenge glyph is terrible unless it's a UA gimick build.

heroic strike when single target tanking should always be lit. Single target you also use concussion blow and shockwave. They do more threat then rend which is more then devastate.

Single target: Charge/Heroic throw.
Shield block > shield slam > Revenge > Concussion Blow > Shockwave > Rend (if the duration is up) > then devastate.
Heroic strike on every melee swing. It's that simple as far as what takes priority.

For trash it gets more complicated


"What I do is I either heroic throw or charge in depending on the situation. I thunder clap and then if there is alot of dps, then I shield block and then slam one target to proc glyph of blocking. Then I span devastate and cleave tabbing between each target to ensure that different ones are hit each time. When shield block wears off I hit shockwave, hitting TC whenever it's up and shield slam only to get back low threat mobs or refresh glyph of blocking. If the dps isn't so great I shockwave first and then shield block and shield slam when shockwave ends doing the same thing with cleave and devastate. I don't bother using a GCD on Demo should I find it's not enough threat unless I'm taking too much damage and need to mitigate more.. "

"Macro:
One last suggestion is a retaliation cast sequence macro. Where you wouldn't use shockwave but you would use shield block before the duration is up.

/cast sequence reset=20 Battle stance, retaliation, defensive stance, charge
/cast sequence reset=20 Battle stance, retaliation, defensive stance, Heroic throw

If you do something similar to that you can start aoe pulls and bosses with a good boost of tps and dps."

A old post I made I dug up so I didn't have to retype it.

As far as solo goes just spam keys it dies you're happy lol ><
I knew I promised to leave for a while but damn son you need better advice then don't use rend (which is 100% wrong) rage per threat? you have 100% at all times and a full duration of rend does more damage and threat then devastate unglyphed and untalented. It's more threat and damage for a single GCD and that's all that matters.

[MintMagic]

@ OP: i stand corrected, rend will up your dps and do nomanally more threat than devastate however this is only since 3.0

http://elitistjerks.com/f81/t39944-t...priorities/p2/

@Xenryusho: i stand only corrected about rend. the rest of my post still applies and the info is correct, including hero glyph. prove me wrong a-hole oh and if you could, would you quote me correctly next time? kthxbia

[Wani]

Shield block > shield slam > Revenge > Concussion Blow > Shockwave > Rend (if the duration is up) > then devastate.

Are you really going to trade a snb proc during the block for a tick of rend?

[skatzi]

[Start in BattleStance] Retaliation+DefensiveStance(Macro)--Charge --ShieldSlam+SheildBlock(Macro)--Revenge--ConcussionBlow--Shockwave-->

Then Prio ShieldSlam--Reverge--ConcussionBlow--Shockwave--Rend--Devastate (Keep Demolishing Shout and ThunderClap up if other don't apply it for you, ppl slacked with it in Naxx cos bosses hit for nothing but you'll need it in Ulduar)

[Phyta]

Protection Solo

Charge -> [MACRO THIS] /cast Shield Slam + /cast Blood Fury(racial) -> Revenge -> Devastate x5 (then TClap, Demo Shout, Rend) RESTART
(this is for bosses, not solo regular mobs. Bosses really need to keep TC and Demo up, also keeping rend up keeps the other classes that have bleed requiring talents happy) This will always keep 5 sunders up, and all 3 needed debuffs. If ur an orc, make a macro for Shield Slam + racial to get the extra ap for threat.

Trash Tanking

Charge --> [MACRO THIS] /cast Thunder Clap + /cast Cleave --> Shockwave. This will queue up your cleave when you use your thunderclap, which should work 99% of the time, bc after a charge, you WILL have the rage to cast 2 powers.

[frankster]

1. Don't use castsequence macros if you want to be good.
2. Do use rend (but only if its the last gcd before shield slam is back up, so you don't lose Sword&Board procs).

[Bihnn]

1. Don't use castsequence macros if you want to be good.

This.

and

If ur an orc, make a macro for Shield Slam + racial to get the extra ap for threat.

Shield Slam is modified by Shield Block Value, not AP.

[Xenryusho]

1. Don't use castsequence macros if you want to be good.
2. Do use rend (but only if its the last gcd before shield slam is back up, so you don't lose Sword&Board procs).

1. It's easier and used to pull, if you have trouble clicking one button to pull you need to deinstall wow and play a single game of sudoku for a few months.
2. You can't rely on the RNG to make up for the slack that devastate pulls. If you want consistently more threat use rend above devastate. If you want to nerf yourself and hope for a proc then be my guest.

[Chozobo]

Xenryusho, I've been reading your posts for some time here and I found them to be very informative and well thought, but you come off as really arrogant and you make it seem like everything you say is a fact. There's this thing called an "opinion", might help a bit to say "in my opinion..." from time to time. Stop trying to make it seem like everything you say is absolute.

You also don't back up your claims with cold hard facts. You often affirm something and don't provide some statistics/sources.

If someone wants to rely on RNG, then let them be. People relying on RNG could be gambling with luck, and win 10 SnB procs in a row, or maybe not win a single proc. Point is that spamming devastate could lead to MORE threat than substituting it with other abilities such as rend/conc. blow/shockwave.

Oh and your style of tanking might be good, but don't try to make it like it's the best. You know, people have preferences. Unless you can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt on the perfect tanking rotation, then stop posting crap like "deinstall wow" or "if you want to nerf yourself...be my guest".