Help me tank!

[Lolezpk]

So...My mainspec is fury and has been for quite a while, i finally built my prot set with this whole new super easy to get shit system. I've tried tanking a few heroics and such, but I CANNOT seem to hold aggro. What rotation should i use? Or priority, etc? Any advice is appreciated!

[xebtria]

there is no rotation because of so much procs we have. it's a priority system.

from my experiences after I got my interface working and couple of heroics, I go pretty well with this:

singletarget:
shield slam > revenge > devastate > shockwave > concussion blow
use heroic strike whenever off cooldown and when you can afford the rage for it. DON'T use it when it would make your next GCD ability not possible because of lacking rage

for two targets: the same, just tab once in a while

multitarget (>2)
Shockwave > thunderclap > revenge > cleave > shield slam > devastate
same here, use cleave only if it does not make a GCD ability which is higher in priority not usable because of the lack of rage afterwards.

use demoralisation shout when you feel you are taking a lot of damage. mostly it helps when you are tanking big chunks of adds.
use shield block on cooldown. I have macroed it to shield slam. for raid environments it may be useful to unmakro it and use it on predictable damage spikes (deathbringer saurfang high runepower phases (>80) for example), because since block was changed to fix 30% physical damage reduction, it's a pretty well defensive cooldown, especially with critical blocks.

run some heroics with some of your guildies and if possible with TS/Vent. learn it there (guildies are way more forgiving and usually play smarter than the standard LFD-crap.) when you're used to it, you can safely go via LFD tool.


gems: nothing changed. gem for 9 stamina sockete bonus and higher, but only if it's not more than one not-blue-gem required.
10 dodge / 15 stam in yellows
10 parry / 15 stam in reds
30 stam in blues and anything else when the socket bonus isn't worth it.
32 stam / 2% armor meta (I guess this hasn't changed yet ... not sure about it though)

Reforge: every item with dodge, reforge the dodge to mastery. don't reforge parry because of the hold-the-line-talent.

the spec I use is 2(field dressing)-3(blood craze)-31. no blood and thunder, no gag order, no safeguard, no imp. victory. everything else.
you may spec cruelty in a raid environment because of moar threat. you loose blood craze then. depends on what you prefer. threat or EH via selfheal. It ticks for 1k with ~50k life, just that you now what to expect.
you also may use war acadamy (5-0-31 then) instead of blood craze. together with a 2.6 weapon, HS/Cleave should hit pretty hard. with facelifter (prof10normal) and without war acadamy, HS already hits for 3,5k in my gear, so guess what you can expect with 2.6 + WA. never leave field dressing out though, it's 6% extra healing done to you, that's the reason you take this talent.
glyphs: prime are fix. shield slam, revenge, devastate. minor are also pretty much fix. demoralization shout, berserker rage + either battle or commanding shout. major glyphs depend on what you are doing. I use Sunder armor, Cleaving and Shockwave. At least shockwave I'd consider as mandatory.

tell every DPS you run with to not pull. tell them you need one hit (shield slam) on single target and one thunderclap on multi target before then can go all out.

try to get your hand on a 2.6 speed weapon (can be a agi-DPS weapon as well), because of heroic strike / cleave being weapon dmg, and 2.6 have WAY more weapon damage than a 1.6

one last thing:
get rid of mongoose enchant if you're using it. It's crap now. Blade Ward always was sort of crap, so blood draining should be the way to go. no threat via that enchant, but it helps your survivability.

[JustintimeSS]

I cant teach you how to tank in one post, nor can you learn to tank in a few heroics but I guess I can toss out as much off the top as I can and you can run with it.

That being said your best bet is to look over each talent and see if it is useful to you. Copying a talent build is fine but you dont really learn you class from doing that. Get to know what and why you have those talents and use them in combat to your advantage.

Your gear needs to reflect your current talents and right now Mastery is a huge part of warrior tanking. I suggest taking the Shield Specialization and reforging your newly acquired super easy to get gear to mastery. What that will do is lower your damage income but boost your rage generation.

Next make sure you have glyph of cleave and shockwave. I personally use Thunderclap (the costs 5 less rage one) for my third.

When you are going to tank a pack, hit your Commanding shout (or battle) then charge and open with TC into a well placed shockwave. I usually use Berserker rage at this point then start in with AE type abilities. My personal priority (we dont have a rotation) is TC, SW, Revenge, Cleave, free Shield Slams. Obviously rage dictates the priority list as time goes on and you could mix in devastates or regular shield slams. Dont forget to tab target so you spread around the threat

A couple of tips that might be helpful now:

1. Use berserker rage - it increases rage gain and gyphed it gives you rage instantly
2. Stop spamming HS - it is a rage dump now. Use it when you are doing Single target and have lots of incoming rage and not any other time.
3. Abuse taunt and concussive blow - these abilities can be used as a "set it and forget it" type move. A mob is low in HP? Hit it with taunt or CB and leave it alone. Dont waste another drop of rage on that mob and focus on the other ones.
4. Mark a single target with a skull - this gives a non AE person a target you can focus a little heavier on. It acts like an anchor in a large group of mobs that you can always return to.

That's about all I can think off right off the top. Obviously there is more but this might be a good start or teach you something you didnt know yet.


Oh and everything that Xebtria said because that was a damned awesome post.

[xebtria]

Oh and everything that Xebtria said because that was a damned awesome post.

thanks. I hoped at least some of what I wrote wasn't that very wrong xD

[JustintimeSS]

thanks. I hoped at least some of what I wrote wasn't that very wrong xD

Not at all. You have mainly the same ideals as I do and you said it a lot better than I did as well. /highfive

[batman30]

OSure about the reforging dodge to mastery??? over on EJ they say Not to do so....Jus curious, and what would be a safe # to be @ for mastery and parry

[xebtria]

ratings should be the same for mastery and dodge.

so reforging 1% dodge gives you 1,25% block and 1,25% critical block
losing 1% avoidance for a gain of 1,625% mitigation is quite a good deal (1,25*1,3 (30% of a block to be critical IIRC)).
also, mastery works perfect together with both hold the line and shield spec.

edit: ok, mastery is 45,906 per % and dodge is 45,2502 per %. so it is "quite equal"

[Lolezpk]

this has helped a ton, thanks guys!

[Reucht]

You missed one essential part for aoe threat tho. No Blood And Thunder?!

Use Rend + Thunderclap, that is one insane aoe threat generator.

Seriously, read the tooltips.

[Nasser]

Haven't played a warrior tank in the new patches, so I don't know about the new "rotations", "priorities" and such, but I'll try and help with other tanking advice:

Make sure you set up a somewhat clean UI - you need to be able to see things "at a glance" so you can react fast.
For example, my screen is almost empty bar a few buttons (the rest are keybinds) and I use Tidy Plates and its sub-add-on, Threat Plates, to see mobs attacking me as green, and the ones not attacking me as red. That helps alot, at least for me - I hate seeing alot of numbers on my screen when I need to think fast, so I use obvious colours instead.

You should learn your cooldowns (especially the shorters ones, like <1 min CD) and use them liberally in heroics to increase your threat, control mobs or surviving a little longer. In raids, obviously learn the apropriate time to use said cooldowns on bosses :P

It's not a huge problem is a dps has aggro on a mob or two for a split-second, especially with today's gear and hitpoints, so don't panic - just stun the mobs, focus fire on them or taunt if you can.
If dps continue to "molest" you like this, either kindly ask them to lower their dps/burst dps if they are in full ICC gear, or try to switch your starting abilities from a tiny AoE threat ability to several, one-target "meatier" abilities on each mob (even if this means a dps will have to tank a mob for 3 seconds before you can hit that shield slam on his mob).
You could also ask them to focus more on your target (or every other dps' target) but I wouldn't expect them to react well.

Oh and a final thing, which makes me feel *really* awesome when I'm tanking, is to know every mob and boss very well (abilities, patrol paths, aggro radius, etc.) such that I can pull, interrupt or position them extremely well and then laugh at silly dps who eat chain lightnings, cleaves or similar mechanics.

There's more to tanking than that, of course, but it's stuff like this that makes you enjoy your class while also tank better! Have fun tanking :P