I'm pretty new to the MMO-Champion community. That said, I'd like to get some thoughts on this completely made-up ability that I've been thinking of. There's no realistic way that this idea will ever come into view of a Blizzard developer, but it's nice to play pretend like a kid again sometimes.
AOE Threat
At this point, Warrior AOE threat is not a huge problem. There aren't many fights that come to mind where our lack of sustained AOE TPS (notice I said sustained, not burst..) in comparison to Paladins, DKs, and even Druids causes us problems. The thing is, all of this can be remedied by a Rogue using Tricks of the Trade+FOK. That's how we tank 0L, pretty much. Without 1 Rogue constantly tricksing you on 25m 0L, it can be quite the hassle to tank. The only other time where we really need this is trash that we AOE down. Some of you may say "have DPS that can wait" - but in the fast-paced progression of today with extremely high DPS requirements, there are times where the DPS must go all out right away. It's your and the Rogues' fault if someone pulls. It's not like this in trash, but it would be extremely nice to know what it feels like to be able to hold an AOE pack without tricks of the trade with DPS going all out right away.
In my opinion, AOE tanking as a Warrior in it's current state isn't very fun, and with Cataclysm they're trying to bring fun back into the talent trees. Now, the suggestion I'm about to present doesn't come from my inability to AOE tank (although it will inevitably be said), but it comes from my experience that at the most simplistic of levels, all we do in AOE tanking situations is tab target and use thunderclap/shockwave whenever they're up. In an expansion where most classes have some sort of set rotation for every situation, including AOE, we're one of the few left behind. Druids have been, as well. They spam swipe and maul.
Boooooring.
Flavor
It's been brought up many times that we should have a "dot effect" on the ground, like consecrate. At one point I agreed, but many cite "flavor" of our class as being the reason. Well, what is our flavor? Blizzard wants us to be a little primal, they love shouts, bleeds are a huge part of our class, and they like us having AOE threat moves on cooldowns. That's what I'm gathering, anyways. If they were going in a different direction for AOE tanking, I certainly missed it. So, having discerned this, we could come up with a solution to make AOE tanking more fun without us relying on Rogues, but still keeping a very Warrior-ish feel to it.
So, I came up with "Deafening Shout", and a couple of talents that improve it. It would only be usable in Defensive Stance, and untalented wouldn't be quite the threat move as it is talented. This is all completely made-up and at best a pipe-dream, but it's fun to talk about!
Now, ignore the damage. It would be increased by AP, and obviously Blizzard would have to tune that! This is basically just a new ability that you could use every 10 seconds. This alone does not create a semblance of an AOE rotation, but it's the makings of one. Without talents, it becomes a patch to tanking as DPS spec - you now have an AOE threat move to replace Shockwave. The two talents I "dreamed" up would create a sort of rotation for us Prot Warriors:Deafening Shout - 20 Rage - 15 yards - 10 second cooldown
You let forth a Deafening Shout, rupturing the eardrums of nearby enemies. Inflicts 150 physical damage initially, and another 100 bleed damage every second for 7 seconds. Damage increased by attack power. This ability causes additional threat.
This talent allows us to keep our current AOE openers. Thunderclap to round them up/apply debuff, and then Shockwave. The wording also covers something important - "if used on an enemy hit by Shockwave within the last 3 seconds". This way, if the targets are not stunnable, we still benefit from using Shockwave before Deafening Shout. Deafening Shout would have a 10 second cooldown so that it would always coincide with Shockwave's CD if used whenever they're up after the first initial rotation. However, one more talent that would make something that we hardly use on trash packs, etc., because of lack of globals, viable in AOE tanking situations:Improved Deafening Shout
Increases the initial damage of your Deafening Shout by 100% on targets affected by Thunder Clap. Additionally, the bleed effect from Deafening Roar has a crit chance equal to your Dodge chance if used on an enemy hit by Shockwave within the last 3 seconds.
This means that for every application of Deafening Shout, we could use Demoralizing to extend the bleed duration all the way to the cooldown (10 seconds) of Deafening. Also, we get the AP reduction which would help our mitigation on AOE packs, which we will lose a lot of once block becomes a % based tanking stat, rather than blocking a set amount.Improved Demoralizing Shout
Increases the melee attack power reduction of your Demoralizing Shout by 40%. Additionally, if Demoralizing Shout is used on a target affected by Deafening Shout, the bleed duration of Deafening Shout is increased by 3 seconds, up to a maximum of 3 seconds.
In the end, this is just me throwing out a pipe dream idea that would be a lot of fun, but probably isn't anything close to what Blizzard has in store for us in Cataclysm. All I hope is that they make some sort of AOE "rotation" for us. I believe to really balance us out in terms of AOE threat, we need a backloaded, non-spammable move that keeps the flavor of Warriors. That's what I tried to do here.
What do you think? And please, don't let this degenerate into an argument of who can tank Emalon adds and who can't. Ugh.