AOE tanking cata experiences

[Jate]

So I tanked for the first time in Halls of Origination. And it was pretty tough. I was a little under gear/level for the place as i was 84 and the bosses in that place were 87 and the rest of my party were all 85. the health scaling is ridiculous as at the time i had 64k health and upon dinging to 85 it boosted up to (with no change in items) to about 75k health. Things were hitting me pretty hard but we managed to get to the last boss but couldn't do it cause 2 dps disconnected and it was like 230am pst.

aoe tanking is a little tough. at first i tried rend, tc, shockwave and had very little success with dps aoe immediately getting aggro. i decided to change up the order and tc, shockwave, rend, then tc again and had a little more success with that.

afterwards i started priming my shockwaves with thunderstruck. as my rage would decay after a fight i would wait for the last possible moment to tc to start the 20second timer. then just before that could run out (provided we didnt already pull again) i'd commanding shout +tc again to start the 20 second timer over. about 37 seconds of downtime you can keep with this. on the next pull i'd tc again immediately giving myself 3 stacks of thunderstruck and i noticed aggro was a little better.

HOWEVER sometimes it seems that thunderstruck bugs and doesn't work properly with the shockwave. it may have been just me but there are some current problems with coll smash so i wouldn't be surprised if that was the case with thunderstruck.

overall aoe tanking is still rough for warriors in cata luckily there is less emphasis for it and crowd control is much more important in regular 5 mans (not sure if heroics are implemented yet...dont think so).

[JustintimeSS]

Hmmm. I want to thank you for this info first then say my peace. So yes, thank you for this insight into aoe tanking since I was particularly curious after trying to tank in the buggy PTR. However, I think I will go with an older style of tanking not really relying upon SW and thunderstruck as my main threat. The old style of tabbing and cycling taunt/stuns with a mix of thunderclap should be decent enough I believe but the added advantage of an AOE stun/threat will work nicely as an added bonus. I might even forgo the whole rend thing (B&T) at first as well until I really get a feel for the style again.

Anyways, enough about my ranting. Thank you again for the info. It was greatly appreciated.

[shokter]

Hmmm. I want to thank you for this info first then say my peace. So yes, thank you for this insight into aoe tanking since I was particularly curious after trying to tank in the buggy PTR. However, I think I will go with an older style of tanking not really relying upon SW and thunderstruck as my main threat. The old style of tabbing and cycling taunt/stuns with a mix of thunderclap should be decent enough I believe but the added advantage of an AOE stun/threat will work nicely as an added bonus. I might even forgo the whole rend thing (B&T) at first as well until I really get a feel for the style again.

Anyways, enough about my ranting. Thank you again for the info. It was greatly appreciated.

I'm also curious to see how well blood and thunder ends up working and how essential a talent it will end up being for aoe tanking and tanking in general. I'm wondering if it might get buffed if the feedback/attitude towards it remains 'meh'...which (I could be wrong idk) is what most beta/ptr commenters i've seen have been saying. Overall i think the concept of it is interesting...but with trigger happy dps being the norm I just don't see how it could be well implemented. I suppose if trash/aoe fights last long enough it might be a very good tool to use after grabbing initial agro and consolidating threat, say maybe applying rend before the second TC.

Slightly offtopic: It's a little suspicious how much thought it looks like blizz is putting into aoe for all the various classes. Locks are getting unique aoe for each spec...i think same for mages though i could be wrong about that. Hunter aoe is getting completely revamped. And warrior tank aoe getting the b&t treatment. I'm not against any of this stuff...i think it's more interesting to have varied forms of aoe for different specs etc...but aren't we supposed to be moving away from aoe?

[Griefel]

I decided to try protection out on PTR after reading this thread, and although my average item level is pretty high on my tank offspec, I did have a bit of tanking problems till I figured things out. I used Blood and Thunder mechanic and it looks for me atm, pretty much essential. For me rend ticks for about 250ish and TC hits for about 300, using them on cooldown ended up in Rend doing 2x more damage than TC on one single target. About clunkiness I believe what you guys say is not true, after a Charge and up to the time where melee are already hitting your mobs you have plenty GCDs to put a Rend up and TC right after, and you can also Cleave and drop a Shockwave as soon as they start attacking. That for me was solid enough threat.

If one keeps pulling w/o much downtime Thunderstruck becomes very powerfull depending on the DPS mob killing speed, I tanked on the PTR and the speed was pretty much the one we had in TOC/Ulduar times in a dungeon like Gundrak with random LFG DPS.

Like with soloing Victory Rush is very powerful, and if mob killing speed is good enough, it can be used very well as a healing cooldown whenever you notice your hp droping unconfortably low. This along with the other healing/health talents supports the use of maximum stamina gear while leveling-tanking.

The damage we do compared to live is abismal, in full tanking gear, but considering with the crit reduction from talents we can equip more DPS gear than ever in Cataclysm, dungeon tanking will provide more entratainment than it ever did, especially at higher gear levels.

If anyone has anyother questions, post them here and I'll answer as best I can.

[Elosion440]

I've read a lot about blizzard having issues balancing warrior AoE tanking, and I just want to put my idea out there. Introducing a new talent that works with the ability Cleave. Reducing its damage output by 50% but increase its threat by 200% and remove the target limit. this would not be a spammable skill as it would still work off weapon swing with a high rage cost, and so has to be rage managed carefully.

Gimme some feedback would love to see what people think.

Ty

[Aedros]

So is cleave no longer viable in AoE tanking, since I noticed you weren't using it?

[Eldar45]

So is cleave no longer viable in AoE tanking, since I noticed you weren't using it?

I notice I'm using cleave a lot more, seeing as I try to only be tanking 3-4 guys at a time.

DPS are just going to have to learn to control their threat and not just start AoEing right when the pull starts.

[Griefel]

Cleave is in the same place like it always was, it's on demand damage on 3 targets, you could not hate it... well maybe you could hate it's cooldown. D:

[shokter]

I decided to try protection out on PTR after reading this thread, and although my average item level is pretty high on my tank offspec, I did have a bit of tanking problems till I figured things out. I used Blood and Thunder mechanic and it looks for me atm, pretty much essential. For me rend ticks for about 250ish and TC hits for about 300, using them on cooldown ended up in Rend doing 2x more damage than TC on one single target. About clunkiness I believe what you guys say is not true, after a Charge and up to the time where melee are already hitting your mobs you have plenty GCDs to put a Rend up and TC right after, and you can also Cleave and drop a Shockwave as soon as they start attacking. That for me was solid enough threat.

If one keeps pulling w/o much downtime Thunderstruck becomes very powerfull depending on the DPS mob killing speed, I tanked on the PTR and the speed was pretty much the one we had in TOC/Ulduar times in a dungeon like Gundrak with random LFG DPS.

Like with soloing Victory Rush is very powerful, and if mob killing speed is good enough, it can be used very well as a healing cooldown whenever you notice your hp droping unconfortably low. This along with the other healing/health talents supports the use of maximum stamina gear while leveling-tanking.

The damage we do compared to live is abismal, in full tanking gear, but considering with the crit reduction from talents we can equip more DPS gear than ever in Cataclysm, dungeon tanking will provide more entratainment than it ever did, especially at higher gear levels.

If anyone has anyother questions, post them here and I'll answer as best I can.

Thanks for the feedback. If you have time can you post the spec you were using (I don't want to critique it I am just curious). I'm glad to see someone feeling excited about prot warrior on the ptr. Fairly sure I am going to make my prot my main once again after he took a back seat to my enh sham for the latter half of wotlk. I've read some folks saying tanking is a lot harder on ptr, but I am going to chalk this up to numbers not being balance yet. Feedback like yours is useful and encouraging because it's more about the synergy of our abilities. I wonder if a macro to use TC immediately after rend will be useful, as I doubt we will be using rend besides for B&T (could be wrong about that though...maybe it will be a part of our sing tar boss tps/dps though i doubt it).

[Jate]

cleave is still part of warrior aoe tanking.

update i was seeing shockwave get blocked. thunderstruck and blood and thunder are pretty much essential to aoe tanking. priming thunderstruck is a good idea if you have dps that doesn't pay attention is pretty much essential. blizz saw it fit for tanks and healers to have to pay attention more (using proper skill rotations and selections) but apparently not dps.

[shokter]

cleave is still part of warrior aoe tanking.

update i was seeing shockwave get blocked. thunderstruck and blood and thunder are pretty much essential to aoe tanking. priming thunderstruck is a good idea if you have dps that doesn't pay attention is pretty much essential. blizz saw it fit for tanks and healers to have to pay attention more (using proper skill rotations and selections) but apparently not dps.

can you elaborate as to what you mean by 'priming thunderstruck'?

[lawomous]

What I'm guessing he means is stacking it up to 3 times and saving a super buffed shockwave for the new group.

[shokter]

What I'm guessing he means is stacking it up to 3 times and saving a super buffed shockwave for the new group.

Yeah I was thinking he meant that...or maybe a quick tc to build 1 stack if ts buff is at 0...then a sw, and apply your rend for b&t while they are all stunned.

offtopic: where is the best place for the prospective warrior tank builds to be compared and discussed within this forum?

[kinetiks]

Aoe tanking is only slightly tougher now. I'd imagine once we get our damaged buffed things will get better. Keep in mind a lot of Mages/Locks/Hunters are over tuned and a lot of Death Knights still seem to be DPSing in Blood Presence. Which is now their tanking presence. A good thunderclap/cleave/shockwave/rend/thunderclap is usually enough. Sometimes i'll go straight for Rend/Thunderclap but usually a dps the healer will catch aggro. On 2-3 targets our threat is plenty, but on 4+ it can get sloppy depending on trigger happy dps.

[Griefel]

Thanks for the feedback. If you have time can you post the spec you were using (I don't want to critique it I am just curious). I'm glad to see someone feeling excited about prot warrior on the ptr. Fairly sure I am going to make my prot my main once again after he took a back seat to my enh sham for the latter half of wotlk. I've read some folks saying tanking is a lot harder on ptr, but I am going to chalk this up to numbers not being balance yet. Feedback like yours is useful and encouraging because it's more about the synergy of our abilities. I wonder if a macro to use TC immediately after rend will be useful, as I doubt we will be using rend besides for B&T (could be wrong about that though...maybe it will be a part of our sing tar boss tps/dps though i doubt it).

Considering the current numbers it would seem to me Rend isn't viable for single target just yet. Maybe with more crit later on, but I doubt it, especially if we will become GCD capped.
I use Rend on a key and then TC from another key, but if you're confortable with a macro like that it could work for you. I for one find macros like that clunky. :P
The spec I am using on PTR is http://cata.wowhead.com/talent#LGZZIdGdMRobbu . I mainly put points in the places that I wanted to test out so it may not be the best spec.