The Prot Solution

[Idaho Immortal]

The Shield Slam and Concussion Blow brought my threat up to 11k when I'm trying. At least.

Think about it. We're less capable as aoe tanks. It's just harder to do, even if it is possible to keep up fairly well with paladins, I don't think Blizzard makes changes based on the high end of the community. It seems more ideal to buff based on the common player.

And while the logic doesn't make sense because warriors are already awesome single target tanks, at least what we lack in terms of aoe threat and other tanking abilities, we'll make up for in burst threat. Awesome for dps races, and still unneeded even in that situation. Our aoe is the problem. Single target wasn't ever the problem.

I wouldn't mind seeing our threat single target nerfed. It's grossly unfair, and (in pugs) I'm pulling off the other tank (Toravon for example) with minimal effort. I can't even heroic strike when it's time for them to taunt. I take my hands off the keyboard to let them get threat.. And it still wouldn't be challenging for me to pull threat while I'm taking damage. Taking damage in any situation will quickly lead to an infinite rage scenario. Our threat is defenitely overpowered, I don't like not having to try. I was pulling threat off the druid I was tanking with in a Naxx undying run with a single shield slam.

Nerf our single target threat.

Reduce Thunder Clap and Shockwave cooldowns, buff Thunder Clap threat, decrease the damage caused by Shockwave for pvp balance. Buff Thunder Clap threat a lot.

Our t10 shouldn't affect shield slam. It should be affecting our aoe threat and our dodge amounts in Icecrown. The prot t10 is grossly overpowered in a pvp situation. I'm not stacking block, at all. Given that, I have the 2 pc set bonus, and while tanking (in bt, but still an example) single target on Illidari Council, I pulled 4.3k dps. With glyph and shield block up, my shield slam was critting for 14k. My shockwaves are critting for 6-7k, making them invaluable to my single target rotation as well. Since 3.3, Concussion Blow and Shockwave became a lot more important to my single target rotation.

I don't want to have to use this many abilities. I'm using a lot. It gets chaotic.

I could give a shit less if I'm pulling 500 dps. If I'm pulling enough threat, it's working fine. They're not buffing in the correct direction though. Rage is a broken mechanic. I either have an infinite amount or I have none. If I'm not taking damage, I can't pull off anything. If I'm taking damage, I never have to conserve. It seems like if I'm more than half a second late on a Thunder Clap during an aoe pull, I lose threat.

Warbringer nerf should only have affected player snares. Not mob and boss snares. It has given me problems more than you would think. And where I'm usually trying to run around and get everything hit, silenced and gathered for shockwaves and cleaving, a stun usually results in something dying.

If it's at the beginning of the pull, that's the healer. And I don't think inevitable wipes are a game mechanic.


Why nerf concussion blow's damage? it's got a decent cooldown. A nerf was justifiable, but it feels like the damage was nerfed much more than neccesary. I would completely agree if it was on a 45(?) second cooldown.


Basically:
Fix rage.
Reduce Thunder Clap and Shockwave cooldowns.
Nerf our t10 2pc.
Nerf shockwave damage for pvp balance given a reduced cooldown.
Buff all aoe threat abilities tps.
Make demo shout useful again.
There was too much of a bonus from concussion blow and shield slam threat buff. I don't think that having that much of an advantage is fun. Maybe I'm insane.
Make warbringer remove snares from enemies and not players.
Concussion Blow needs more damage or a shorter cooldown.
Remove the range limitations from our shouts. When you have a warrior tank holding the boss, his buff isn't really going to reach the paladin tanking adds at the other side of the room.
Thunder Clap needs a pretty large threat buff.
That revenge buff is kind of retarded. Maybe i'm mistaken, but was it a tps or dps increase? I think it's dps... And revenge is an awesome pvp ability. Stack dodge. You have a stun with almost no cooldown, buffing the dps of it will once again make me awesome.
Why buff our health? I didn't know I needed more. I always felt like I was on par with other tanks...


There's a common misconception that warriors are in a great spot for balance in the game. I happen to think Blizzard is buffing the wrong places, and the spec needs a lot of work.

I would like to know the best way to make rage work better. Masteries will probably help. Open to discussion. Any thoughts?

[bouddieehh]

or! and this might sound like a very good idea: Don't do all what u said and learn2tab i have little problem making aoe threat tbh. Just a matter of tabbing and use singletarget moves on them while cleaving ofc

[Warrenar]

We just went through a nerph and you want another one? Re-spec arms\fury please.

[Samin]

Rage is broken? Wtf do people have with Revenge? It's one of the most awesome abilities! (together with shield slam and devestate and maybe shockwave). Try getting some avoidance instead of pure stamina? :P I don't know, has it such a bad scaling? It does huge damage for me (low geared) - not as much as shield slam but definitly worth hitting everytime it's up.
A TC threat buff would be nice..but not totally necessary.

[Astray]

1. Compared to prot pallies...
Just stop it. Protpaladins have very strong aoe threat, yes. But warriors and DKs and druids also have AoE-Threat that works really good in the actual game.

It doesnt matter if you have 126% or 152% of your dps' threat. Our class is NOT BROKEN just because you do less unneeded threat than other classes. And yes, i said "unneeded" and yes i know lady deathwhispers ability. What is this "help, my class if affected by a boss ability, i am broken!"

2. Recent buffs
- stamina
- revenge
- devastate

"buhu blizz dont care"
I'm really looking forward to use the improved revenge on live.

3. The Warrior's Way to get things done:
It would be boring if every class solved every problem in completely the same way.
Warriors uniqueness is strong single target threat, so accept that and tap through targets.
Thats what a lot of players love about warriors. Its fun as a paladin to run in, and pew pew all is holy around, yes. But playing a warrior should not be "run in pew pew aoe" with physical instead of holy damage. I'd like it if they made revenge put rend on the target or something like that. That would hold "tapped" targets a bit better. Warrior aoe is a bit weaker, especially with larger groups ( 3 to 4 is fine with cleave ), but the ideal solution is not making the warrior more like "zomg aoe at all!"

[LavonTB]

I wish they would just give us a buff while doing random heroics, to put out more AoE threat. So I don't actually have to try while tanking HoR. TABBING IS HARD GUYS,K!?

[Hack]

Alternatively they take tanking back to what it was like in vanilla and partially in TBC where you needed crowd control and actively worked on building threat on say 3 hard hitting mobs rather than having 5-6 AoE kill mobs which being honest doesn't require skill from dps or tanks to kill.

Won't happen though, will mean people will need to learn how to use crowd control (and not break it early! - 'you break it, you tank it' ftw!), make the game (eek! ) harder and will mean people start cucu'in about the fact one class can do CC and another can't.

All tanks have short cool downs now, why not make trash use them too, make it exciting instead of an annoyance as it is now with AoE ZZzz mode.

In many ways the golden age of tanking requiring finesse is lost I feel. Here's hoping Cata brings some of the skill to play requirement back eh!

[LavonTB]

Alternatively they take tanking back to what it was like in vanilla and partially in TBC where you needed crowd control and actively worked on building threat on say 3 hard hitting mobs rather than having 5-6 AoE kill mobs which being honest doesn't require skill from dps or tanks to kill.

Won't happen though, will mean people will need to learn how to use crowd control (and not break it early! - 'you break it, you tank it' ftw!), make the game (eek! ) harder and will mean people start cucu'in about the fact one class can do CC and another can't.

All tanks have short cool downs now, why not make trash use them too, make it exciting instead of an annoyance as it is now with AoE ZZzz mode.

In many ways the golden age of tanking requiring finesse is lost I feel. Here's hoping Cata brings some of the skill to play requirement back eh!

I too was thinking about this the other day. As we are progressing to Cat. and the old content being renewed (somewhat) wouldn't they be nice if they brought back some of our roots? It's as you described actually having to use some form of CC and "Skill" while doing dungeons. I don't like how in WoTLK they have made it to where we just pull mass mobs and AoE them down. This makes playing as a warrior a tad bit stressfull if you're new and you're queing in the new Random LFG Sytem. I enjoyed just the idea of doing regular dungeons in vanilla WoW and progressing that way. I also enjoyed the addition to heroics in BC. But you really couldn't do them right away either you had to get rep and better gear through regulars. And of course in WoTLK you hit 80 and go farm heroics, gg. But I digress.....

I think if they did make the dungeon system in Cat. to be more of the old style of doing dungeons it would change our structure of doing them even now. Like adding in CC and other things. But for right now I would just rather have a pally so I can hit one button and have every mob hitting me. I just started playing my warrior again since the week Ulduar came out and I really don't enjoy it as much as I used to. But this is turning into QQ so I will stop. I will say this though, we have always been a single target tank and in that area we do excell in it.

[Idaho Immortal]

Rage is broken? Wtf do people have with Revenge? It's one of the most awesome abilities! (together with shield slam and devestate and maybe shockwave). Try getting some avoidance instead of pure stamina? :P I don't know, has it such a bad scaling? It does huge damage for me (low geared) - not as much as shield slam but definitly worth hitting everytime it's up.
A TC threat buff would be nice..but not totally necessary.

It's pretty well understood that rage is a shitty mechanic. I don't have a problem with revenge. I just don't want to be overpowered, and revenge already hits moderately hard. Avoidance is hardly useful in Icecrown, save for parry. Chill of the Throne is too massive to overcome.

I'm not having a problem after I get ahold of all the mobs... But getting to that point is sometimes a hassle. If you don't tab to something fast enough, or it doesn't get cleaved, you'll probably lose it to that one mage. He's always there. Always.

I just don't understand why they're buffing single target threat - something we never had a problem with, but the common warrior has problems with aoe threat.

[Spaceknight]

People still have problems with AoE threat? Obviously, they haven't played before WotLK then when TClap didn't scale, only hit 4 targets, and rarely crit.

AoE tanking is fine, I personally believe that Warriors shouldn't compare up to Pallys in AoE tanking as this just takes away from the specialty that each tank has.

[Sulika]

If you want easymode AoE threat reroll a paladin or a DK.

Accept that each class has its strengths and weaknesses, that is what makes them each fun and distinct. Is AoE threat harder as a warrior? Yes. Is AoE tanking a lot more fun as a warrior? Hell yeah.

I do not want to become a one button spam monkey on AoE threat like those poor swipe druids. I do not want to become a two button tanking clown like the paladins with their 969 macros. I do not want to cast abilities for 4 seconds then AFK for 6 waiting for runes to refresh like the DKs. Those are dull, boring, repetitive ways to tank.

I want my warrior to continue being the hectic tab targetting, proc watching, 10+ ability using AoE tanking wonder that she is. You sicken me when you suggest reducing my AoE tanking to mashing two short cooldown abilities. You offend me when you suggest I am inadequate when I know very well I can AoE tank anything in the game on my warrior. You demean me when you take your inability to tank and use it to draw inferences about my class as a whole. In short, your entire post is insulting and degrading to me and to the many other people who enjoy warrior tanking in all its hectic glory.

If you want the ezmode tanking class they exist. Don't try and turn warrior into another one just because you are too lazy to reroll. You think warriors are considered the best tanks because it is the easiest class? Nonsense. Warrior's get respect because everyone knows the ridiculous amount of things a warrior has to juggle to perform at their best. This is my warrior's playstyle. This is why I love my warrior. When you ask for it to be dumbed down because you are incompetent that makes me want to scream at you. You want to turn the one fun tanking class into another faceroll tanking class. You want to take away everything that makes playing a warrior distinctive and fun. Go away. Do not come back. Reroll paladin or DK or druid and enjoy the long dull hours of two button tanking. Go experience that form of play. If its vile monotony does not sear your soul to it's very core with its mind numbing dullness then persist in that endeavour. However, whatever happens do not dare to ask for my wonderful warrior tanking to be dragged down into that fetid mire of foul and unending repetiton.

Those of us who crave the frenetic, the undisciplined, the freeform have but one tanking class available to us. What sort of heathen beast are you that you would dare try and take that away? Is it too hard for you to comprehend that some of us actually like having to work hard to succeed as tanks? That the actual effort involved is what makes playing a warrior tank rewarding? It doesn't matter that I could play paladin and have the same results with pretty much no effort at all. There is no fun for me in that. Success would no longer hinge on my abilities as a player but be determined entirely by the abilities of my class. That is not fun for me. It never will be. I don't mind that it is fun for others, I don't care that they can sometimes do better than me with very little effort, every playstyle is entitled to succeed. This is where you are getting it all wrong. The class doesn't matter. It is all about the playstyle. If you want less buttons to worry about, less abilities to use, a less complex tanking class overall there are already three options out there for you. If you take away the one remaining complex tanking class then I have nowhere left to go.

[Minotaurius]

They are buffing revenge to make it more appealing to use. With the buff to devastate, revenge has become more obsolete except in rage-starved situations (which rarely happens in raids). Blizz already said the change is to make it part of the rotation again.

[SRS_USRNAME]

Think about it. We're less capable as aoe tanks. It's just harder to do, even if it is possible to keep up fairly well with paladins, I don't think Blizzard makes changes based on the high end of the community. It seems more ideal to buff based on the common player.

If you want easymode AoE threat reroll a paladin or a DK.

This.

If i wanted to be able to face roll AoE threat I WOULD re-roll to a pally or DK.

Personally I love the fact that I have to work (or at least pay attention) to what im doing when I'm tanking several mobs.

And with the line that I quoted from the OP, 'It's just harder to do, even if it is possible to keep up fairly well with paladin'

You have just said that it is possible to keep up with them (the best AoE tanking class) it's just harder to do.

So whats really the problem is you are to lazy to do more than a 969 rotation?

We really don't need an AoE buff, some warrior tanks just need to stop caring that it is 'harder'

[aGit]

Maybe I'm insane.

agreed, i think i disagree with every single point you made.

edit:and another thing, why do people actually have to tab for aoe threath? glyphed cleave, tc and SW should be enough for everyone, atleast is for me.

[Merzbow]

While I agree with your statement, that we're not on-par with Paladins in terms of aoe threat, we're absolutely not lacking the capability of performing well in any raid situation.

Even without ae tps glyphs I have absolutely no issue with ae threat against 12k dps warriors or pallys even without 2pt10 on for example Marrowgar trash.
Just drop your shockwave and thunderclaps on every cooldown and watch out for high-threat targets in the pack using omen or a good nameplate mod. Even if they go absolutely nuts on the pull I always manage to get a quick taunt off and shield slam/cleave the crap out of the regarding mob.

Also: Who cares about trash?

[PaladinBash]

Actually...while my main is a Paladin, I far more enjoy tanking on my Warrior for bosses and even trash. It's involved and actually has far more options to kick casts, debuff whole groups and stun better and more often. Is that really needed for trash? No...but it is fun and feels cool. On my paladin I can safely tap 2 buttons occasionally whenever they're up and never have to tab around and watch what I'm doing...but that's boring as hell.

Warriors can AE tank just fine but there's one pretty key downside to it: you have to do more (in terms of hitting more buttons, looking where you are, tabbing about etc) and you have to make sure your DPS aren't retarded. For me, that is actually a massive break from paladin tanking (which I personally find boring, moreso because I've done it far longer than anything) and it leaves me with a mild sense of accomplishment to have not failed. When I see a large group of trash with 5 sunders, demo shout, tclap and all of it hitting me...I feel good. When I can charge around, kick heals, intervene and intercept back somewhere else...it's amazing.

So really in summary you can pretty much do as good a job as a paladin on trash (or a DK or a bear). If you aren't doing it yourself, you just need to mash more buttons, tab more and pay a lot of attention. That is the FUN part of the class. If you don't like doing it, then you are playing the wrong class. If you don't like managing runes, you shouldn't be a DK. If you don't like having to watch dot timers, you shouldn't be an Affliction warlock. Don't like totems? Don't be a Shaman. There's several fundamental elements that go hand in hand with playing a class or spec and for prot warriors, it is being very busy on big trash pulls.

There is a huge difference between 'easy' and 'good'. All tanks can be good at AE tanking, it's just some are more simple than others. As someone else said, it doesn't matter if you're 130% over DPS or 170%. What you need to learn (and what a lot of newer tanks lack) is to tell DPS to PAY ATTENTION. If you are spamming every ability and have no GCDs left and they are still pulling off you, it is their own fault for doing something they shouldn't and dying. Did people DPS like that in Vanilla? No. Did they do it in BC? Hell no. They seem to believe that aggro falls from the sky and keeps them alive while they spam Seeds of Corruption as soon as they see you heroic throw. Let them die a few times and see if they keep doing it

Also: I like tanking trash. Does it make or break warriors as a class? No. I like tanking it. Some people hate it (I do on my paladin).

[Creos Malkor]

@ Skulver

Only chumps make 2 button macros for paladin tanking. Every pull is different so the use of certain abilities is required at different times. Furthermore, just so you know, 969 was not designed to make it easy for paladins, it was designed to maximize TPS through use of every available GCD. A paladin using 969 properly is totally confined to it and has no available GCDs for anything else without losing significant threat production.

Edited for typo.

[The Handsome Stranger]

Warriors are in a good place right now.


The best tanks in the game in my humble opinion, are warriors and pallys. A warrior rules with snap aggro, pallys with aoe.

A decently geared warrior with 40k hp can MT any boss in the game, if they know what the hell they are doing, no one will come close to threat to any warrior, yes the threat gap is that big.

Leave warriors alone, our aoe is good enough.

[Idaho Immortal]

agreed, i think i disagree with every single point you made.

edit:and another thing, why do people actually have to tab for aoe threath? glyphed cleave, tc and SW should be enough for everyone, atleast is for me.

Surprising. I lose threat if I'm not tab targetting.

Actually...while my main is a Paladin, I far more enjoy tanking on my Warrior for bosses and even trash. It's involved and actually has far more options to kick casts, debuff whole groups and stun better and more often. Is that really needed for trash? No...but it is fun and feels cool. On my paladin I can safely tap 2 buttons occasionally whenever they're up and never have to tab around and watch what I'm doing...but that's boring as hell.

Warriors can AE tank just fine but there's one pretty key downside to it: you have to do more (in terms of hitting more buttons, looking where you are, tabbing about etc) and you have to make sure your DPS aren't retarded. For me, that is actually a massive break from paladin tanking (which I personally find boring, moreso because I've done it far longer than anything) and it leaves me with a mild sense of accomplishment to have not failed. When I see a large group of trash with 5 sunders, demo shout, tclap and all of it hitting me...I feel good. When I can charge around, kick heals, intervene and intercept back somewhere else...it's amazing.

So really in summary you can pretty much do as good a job as a paladin on trash (or a DK or a bear). If you aren't doing it yourself, you just need to mash more buttons, tab more and pay a lot of attention. That is the FUN part of the class. If you don't like doing it, then you are playing the wrong class. If you don't like managing runes, you shouldn't be a DK. If you don't like having to watch dot timers, you shouldn't be an Affliction warlock. Don't like totems? Don't be a Shaman. There's several fundamental elements that go hand in hand with playing a class or spec and for prot warriors, it is being very busy on big trash pulls.

There is a huge difference between 'easy' and 'good'. All tanks can be good at AE tanking, it's just some are more simple than others. As someone else said, it doesn't matter if you're 130% over DPS or 170%. What you need to learn (and what a lot of newer tanks lack) is to tell DPS to PAY ATTENTION. If you are spamming every ability and have no GCDs left and they are still pulling off you, it is their own fault for doing something they shouldn't and dying. Did people DPS like that in Vanilla? No. Did they do it in BC? Hell no. They seem to believe that aggro falls from the sky and keeps them alive while they spam Seeds of Corruption as soon as they see you heroic throw. Let them die a few times and see if they keep doing it

Also: I like tanking trash. Does it make or break warriors as a class? No. I like tanking it. Some people hate it (I do on my paladin).

Ha, ever tried to tell a random pug with super epeen to watch omen?

I came off the wrong direction. I don't dislike the class. I love the class. I love the play style. It just feels like they're giving us pointless buffs, when there are places that could be useful to be buffed in. I enjoy tanking trash too. It's rewarding when you do it right, and I wouldn't want insane buffs. Just miniscule ones to give me a little more room. Just in case something happens.


And the fact that on most single target boss fights, I can build agro for the first 40%, and leave to take a shit, then come back and still have agro says something about our single target threat and how insane it really is. I don't like having THAT much of an advantage.

[The Handsome Stranger]

If you really want a challenge as a warrior tank, take over 70% of all total damage in any heroic.

Easy to do on a pally, and dk.


Challenging on a warrior.