Getting the most out of my warrior when AoE tanking

[Sarcasm]

Hello warriors, fancy seeing you here.

My warrior is almost at 80 and I'm planning on dual speccing prot/fury, and obviously farming heroics as a tank. Single target my threat is superb, But when I'm AoE tanking I'm not sure how to be effective aside from using Thunder Clap/Shockwave on every CD. I have a few questions:
1) I'm currently running Glyph of Sunder Armor. Does the application of Sunder Armor to the nearest enemy also apply the threat from Sunder Armor to that enemy? I've been assuming it does but I'm not sure.
2) How effective is tabbing and Cleaving compared to tabbing and Heroic Striking? Cleave to me feels very weak but Heroic Strike feels too centered.

Would be good to get some feedback on how other warriors AoE tank.

[WarriorGuides]

1) No. I assumed you think Sunder armor acts like a cleave( correct me if im wrong)
2) Tab+Cleave is best(imo)

The thing with warrior tanking is its based on personal preference/gear/skill, so use whatever you like, just get used to a routine and you'll be fine

[lawomous]

Here's how to make your life easier.

A glyph: Glyph of Cleaving

And a macro:

#showtooltip
/cast Thunderclap
/cast !Cleave

Any time you need AOE threat just keep hitting the macro, along with well timed Shockwaves, and focus your other single target abilities on the other mobs if you're losing threat (tab, Shield Slam, Devastate).


Sunder Glyph does apply the threat from Sunder on another mob but I prefer the Devastate glyph instead for much stronger single target threat. (i.e. Main Tanking for 25 man raids)

[Spaceknight]

The Threat does transfer over from the Sunders.

Tab Cleaving is amazing.

IMO, once your warrior starts getting extra def, start switching out some pieces of your gear for dps gear. This makes the heroics progressively faster as you will be putting out much more dps. More dps= More threat so you would be fine.

Put Vigilance on the member with the best AoE so you could grab more aggro there. You could also use demo shout to grab a lil more aggro, but it wouldn't be much.

[failoth]

glyph of devastate is crap. i use glyph of cleave.

it depends how big the pack is. if it's 3-4, spam cleave, tclap, shockwave and tab shield slam/devastate if rage permits. if you miss something with your shockwave, obviously give it some attention with at least a shield slam.

if it's 5-6 or bigger i usually do tclap, shockwave, tab shield slam and use lots of demo shout too.

what's more important imo than a rotation or priority is knowing how much aggro you have on what/good timing and capability to shield slam/conc blow something that you are low threat on

[SRS_USRNAME]

First, gratz on nearly getting to 80

With your first question (from memory) the glyph applies the threat from the sunder to the second mob, however it does not apply any threat from damage (assuming you're using dev not sunder 8) )

So you have 2 mobs beating on you, so you dev. mob A.

Mob A gets threat from the sunder effect and the damage caused from the ability

Mob B gets an application of sunder and the threat caused by the sunder effect only.


AoE tanking can be a pain but there are a few tricks to help.

Charge in and TC first off.

I have a habbit of waiting about 2-3 seconds before I SW (just to get some extra rage), so I usually SS my main target and or heroic throw a caster to being it into range

Shockwave - When they are stunned tab through and SS and Dev. while spamming cleave.

For AoE situations cleave is better, for the fact that it does hit more than one mob and can proc www.wowhead.com/?spell=12867

If you are really concerned about AoE tanking get http://www.wowhead.com/?item=43414 and http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45792

Also for any tank http://www.wowinterface.com/download...eatPlates.html

Makes tracking which mobs you have threat on alot easier.

EDIT: Forgot to add, bind cleave and heroic strike to your mouse wheel (on one MW up, the other on MW down) makes using them alot easier as you can spin the wheel while using other keybind abilities, and it has the advantage over macroing HS and cleave into other abilities because binding HS&Cleave can lead to rage starvation alot easier.

[wrathblade]

Basic things i do when tanking aoe trash looks allitle like this,

Charge > thunderclap > shockwave > devastate+cleave > tab true mobs while using shield slam cleave and devaste

While doing this i use thunderclap every time it comes off cd same as shockwave.

Seeing your not lv 80 yet and thus probably undergeared for most dps you will group with, I suggest telling ppl in advance your a new lv 80 tank that isn't a prot pala but a warrior and thus can't aoe tank like them.

Still as a tank its your job to keep mobs off dps and the healer but it's also the dps there job to not overagro on the tanks.

little things like these are rather commen.

arms warrior charging in and using bladestorm before you even got thunderclap off
ret pala running in and going nuts on his undead aoe + con while having his 80+% threat buff ( i see this way to many times )
warlocks using seed of corruption like mad
fire mage using dragon's breath+cone of cold + instant flamestrike and then frost nova the second you hit a mob

So yes you will have a hard time with some dps and get flamed for it but remember good dps know after the first pull howmuch threat the tank does and keep that in mind.

also little tip if you happen to group with a rogue ask him to tricks you and do fan of knives 2x it sure helped me allot when i just started tanking

[Dhurn]

Glyph of cleave is probably the best aoe threat for heroics. What the guy said too about waiting a couple second before SW is a good idea too, otherwise you'll be outta rage while they're stunned. You may also want to look into a spec with impale/deep
wounds for even more threat.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...idge&cn=Dhurne

my armory/spec if you care to take a look. Sacrafice a mitigation talent here or there but I only tank heroics, so that's something you may want to move around if you plan on doing raids.

[Sarcasm]

First off, thanks for the all the suggestions.

First, gratz on nearly getting to 80

Thanks, it'll be my 5th one, and they just get longer and longer to level >_>

#showtooltip
/cast Thunderclap
/cast !Cleave

I hadn't even thought about doing that, thanks a lot. I'm pretty big on macros and I hadn't even thought to make an AoE button!

A glyph: Glyph of Cleaving

When I chose my glyphs it was a tossup between the Sunder Armor or Cleaving glyphs. Now that I know that Cleave isn't really bad at all for AoE tanking I think I'll switch over to it instead.

[Deleted]

For a starting out tank I would recommend Glyph of Devastate, Glyph of Cleaving and Glyph of Blocking. To run heroics with, that is. Devastate on account of it being an actual debuff that increases DPS, especially yours, cleaving on account of that being your main source of outgoing damage in an heroic where there's a fair few +2mob pulls, and Blocking because hell, blockvalue is fun.

And if (you should) you're using the tabbing strategy, make sure you're facing away from other mobs to avoid tabbing to those and standing there being spammed with "you're out of range".

Also you're gonna need to know how to cope with your poor gear, so learn when to burn your cooldowns to survive, don't expect a randomass pug healer to keep you up.

[Astray]

If single target threat and defense are no prob you can completely go for aoe threat.

- cleave glyph
- sunder armor glyph
- shockwave glyph


Blocking is a must have, but if threat is more often a problem than you getting beaten to death, chose those.