The Protection Guide - Cataclysm Edition

[shadowkras]

....why did you shard a BiS (pre heroic, for dps war) BoE?

Better question, why not?

[Nume]

Better question, why not?

Because 6-20k gold (depending on server) is much better than the 100-400 gold (also depending on server) you could get for the crystal.

[Deleted]

Thanks Iyona for your help, fixed the gems, glyphs etc.

Tanked a lil bit so far and now it's just down to me getting the hang of it! ;>

[Deleted]

Ok I bought wow and all the expansions to finally try out the game, for sometime I've been playing other mmos where I wore tanking as well. So I chose to roll a warrior with the help from this guide however I have a few questions.
1. Currently I'm lvl ~54 ish in a nice guild. But recently i had trouble tanking a few instances since the default UI didn't have enough space for all hotkeys. I really lime the standard blizzard UI but i switched to bartender4 since the guide recommended that i did so. The bars on bartender made me feel uncomfortable with the different hotkeys. ATM i switch between holding down shift for single target spells aimed for tanking purposes and just 1,2,3,4... ECT for AoE. Is there a way to simplify things further preferred w/o the use of the bartender addon?

2. Tanking requires a lot of different spells but i feel some of them are more for a pvp usage right? I.e disarm, hamstring... Could someone please specify a good use of other spells that i normally don't use?

3. Are addons for threat and stuff really needed? i run the game on a small res at 1366x768 and i just feel they 'clutter' up my screen too much. I understand all their purpose but it would be nice for some sort of quick guide on how they all work.

4. I really do want to raid when i get to 85 but I'm afraid of how i will be greeted by all the different boss mechanics, this late into the expansion everyone should atleast have some kind of knowledge about the different bosses. I'm want to learn but most raiders want an experienced tank or is it just trial and error till i understand?

If you want to check my tauren char go search for Octave on vashj (EU)
PS. Since lvl 15 I've only levels through dungeons so that I can get some early experience along my way to 85 so far my reviews been good when I asked. Ds.

[Deleted]

Ok I bought wow and all the expansions to finally try out the game, for sometime I've been playing other mmos where I wore tanking as well. So I chose to roll a warrior with the help from this guide however I have a few questions.

Welcome to WoW! You made a great choice of class and spec! :-)

1. Currently I'm lvl ~54 ish in a nice guild. But recently i had trouble tanking a few instances since the default UI didn't have enough space for all hotkeys. I really lime the standard blizzard UI but i switched to bartender4 since the guide recommended that i did so. The bars on bartender made me feel uncomfortable with the different hotkeys. ATM i switch between holding down shift for single target spells aimed for tanking purposes and just 1,2,3,4... ECT for AoE. Is there a way to simplify things further preferred w/o the use of the bartender addon?

How exactly do you feel uncomfortable? I have an issue after rearranging spells or changing the look of my UI that I can't localize my abilities and perform terribly until I got accustomed to it. You can display the hotkeys on the buttons on Bartender if that's what's bothering you.

Evaluate yourself for keybindings. Which abilities feel similar to you? Which are bound closely together? Place those abilities close to each other. A prime example of this is The Big Ape's keybinds and UI. He's arranged his buttons to look like the keyboard, I believe this is very efficient for learning and it's easily done with Bartender.

See a bit further down for a suggestion on UI.

2. Tanking requires a lot of different spells but i feel some of them are more for a pvp usage right? I.e disarm, hamstring... Could someone please specify a good use of other spells that i normally don't use?

Hamstring isn't ever used as Protection PvE. Disarm, however, is great. If a mob has a strong Whirlwind-type of attack, disarm it and save your healers lots of mana. If you're in deep shit during a pull, disarm a mob for lower damage taken. It's seldom usable in raids, though.

What other spells are boggling you?

3. Are addons for threat and stuff really needed? i run the game on a small res at 1366x768 and i just feel they 'clutter' up my screen too much. I understand all their purpose but it would be nice for some sort of quick guide on how they all work.

They aren't needed but you'll be able to feel a whole lot more comfortable with them. Please don't tell anybody, but here's a link to a vid of me and my interface. Disclaimer: I perform terribly bad, I was so nervous from the recording! Pay attention to the nameplates (the health bars above the NPCs). You will notice they are red on anything that isn't attacking me, and green on everything that is attacking me. That addon is called Tidy Plates and is skinned with Threat Plates.

While tanking dungeons you won't need things like Omen Threat Meter, you won't necessarily need it in a raid either, but it can be incredibly useful to know which mobs you have low threat on or which player is doing the most threat.

Addons aren't supposed to clutter your screen, though. Install the addons one at a time and configure it to be as small as possible.

That aside, I want to recommend using an addon package like Tukui or any of the modifications to is.

http://www.tukui.org/blog/

I use Duffed's edit and I'm quite happy with it. Most, or all, configuarions of Tukiu are incredibly easy to install, configure and perform really well. You get things like the threat meter built-in, the name plates for tracking aggro etc., all presented neatly.

4. I really do want to raid when i get to 85 but I'm afraid of how i will be greeted by all the different boss mechanics, this late into the expansion everyone should atleast have some kind of knowledge about the different bosses. I'm want to learn but most raiders want an experienced tank or is it just trial and error till i understand?

You're actually in luck. Roughly one week from now, a new raid tier is released and the previous (the first for this expansion) has it's normal mode difficulty reduced. The rewards from those raids are still relevant, although Blizzard has decided to nerf the normal modes to allow more players to see the content. It's a perfect chance for you to get some raiding experience without too much pressure.

Keep in mind, however, that you will be expected to wear solid gear before being brought to a raid. As you reach level 85 you want to gear up to raids. Gear is presented to you in tiers. Each and every gear piece has an item level, and as you progress through the end game you will get items with higher and higher item level.

Now when you reach level 85 during the new tier, T12, you'll do many, many dungeon and spend probably some gold until your avarage item level is around 350. At this point, most PuGs or guild runs should be comfortable with bringing you to the T11 raids. You'll be gated through dungeons, at first you'll do normal mode dungeons, then heroic mode dungeons and finally the troll-heroic dungeons. You'll also be able to buy very strong items for your Justice Points and Valor Points (obtained through doing dungeons) and buy other raid-quality items from the Auction House.

If you're familiar with MMOs and tanking I doubt you'll have any problems getting into WoW's PvE end game. People will expect you to have achievements for bosses, sadly, so you may have issues getting a group if you haven't got friends around already. Check the link in my signature for my armory, at the bottom of the page you can see which raid bosses I've killed.

But honestly, there are many guides and videos (and people!) online providing great help for the various ways to approach a raid boss. Come T12, Blizzard is also implementing a Dungeon Journal which will contain general pointers and tips to each and every encounter. Your best bet is to be honest about being new, finding somebody who trusts your capability and brings you to a raid.

edit: What I'm saying is basically, I'm sure you can learn how to do it quite easily. There's a weekly push-over PvE boss everybody does which should give you the original feel of how to raid. The problem is gaining people's trust.

Good luck!

[Deleted]

@Octavia
Glad you decided to try out tanking, despite being new to the game. A lot of people stick to the "safe" choice first time around and go for DPS. I'll see if I can address your questions.

1. First and foremost, addons are never truly required. You can play the game quite effectively, save a few specs like warlocks and feral dps, and you should consider only using a few must-have addons, if you truly don't want that many addons. At lower levels, I would say you only need Omen, which is a threat meter. When you begin raiding, you should add things like DBM (a boss mod) to the mix. Otherwise, the default UI is sufficient.

Bartender, to my knowledge, doesn't actually add any bars to the game. It simply takes the existing ones and allows you to alter them in ways that the game otherwise wouldn't allow for. One of the better features is the fact that you can move them around, shrink and make them invisible, as well as a more user-friendly way of adding keybinds. In your default UI, if you hit ESC and Interface, then go Action Bars, you should see options to enable more action bars; right, left, two on top of those and two more on the right side of your screen. Each button can also be keybound from going ESC -> Keybinds. It just takes a bit of time to know what the bars are named.

These are more then sufficient for any number of buttons you want to add to your game. I suggest going for the bottom ones first and use the right ones for utility abilities. In my UI, I have actually hidden a lot of buttons that are keybound and I simply do not need to see. These include stuff like mount up, Inner Rage, shoot, and a lot more. For me, it is better to always hide buttons because it clears a lot of space on the screen.

2. Very few abilities are actually pvp oriented. Hamstring is one that comes to mind but otherwise, we have a lot of abilities that can be used. However, on lower levels these play a very small role tbh. Some of the more important utility spells that a lot of warriors neglect are things like Concussive Blow, Disarm, Berserker Rage (gives extra rage as well as gets you out of fear effects), Intimidating Shout (make sure you glyph it so the mobs don't run around), Victory Rush (really good when chain pulling dungeon mobs), etc. I could go on but the point I am trying to make is that don't be afraid to disarm and stun mobs, or use other abilities that at first do not seem for PvE. Warrior is a very strong class, thanks to this wide array of abilities.

3. As I said in #1, very few addons are really needed. Omen is is a must have because it tells you how you are doing threat-wise, which is extremely important to be constantly aware of. If the addon gets in the way, look into the configuration (just type /omen config) and tweak it around. You would be surprised just how small and inconspicuous you can make it. The same goes for a lot of addons as well.

4. Yeah... the WoW is one of those games that is really poor at teaching its players how to really play it. I would say up until ~80, you barely need to know how to keep aggro and you will do fine. Even many of the Cataclysm normal dungeons are really simple and do not really require much in terms of skill to complete. The best advice I can give you is start early on and treat every dungeon as a raid dungeon. It's what I did, when I leveled my first max level toon as a tank. Don't just faceroll through dungeons but look for ways to use different techniques, both in pulls and during pulls. Always examine your spell book when you get new spells and bind the abilities, and also use them.

You might not have any real reason to disarm a mob, but do it anyway. Same goes for stunning, using Spell Reflection, interrupts, etc. Install powa addon to track Victory Rush procs and always practice using your entire arsenal of abilities. I really can't over-emphasize how important that is. When you finally hit max level, you'll find you're already way ahead of the curve when you suddenly realize that using these abilities is beginning to be almost mandatory.

It might be difficult to find a good raiding guild but it isn't impossible either. A lot of good guilds are willing to recruit more in-experienced tank, whom they can see has really dedicated to his character. You'd be surprised how easy it is to spot. I wouldn't be too concerned for gear, even after 4.2, you can farm a lot of Valor Points from dungeons alone and catch up. With the Zandalari dungeons, you can even farm some pretty convincing entry-level gear for Firelands and there will, as always, also be a lot of craftable items available.

Kk, been talking a while now so, hope this helped and good luck with your character.

[Deleted]

Bwahaha, Dannyl, you slow slug!

Edit: oh yeah Octavia, should you decide to stick to the original UI/Bartender, make sure to install OmniCC. I can't for my life play without this. It adds a cooldown count on your abilites rather than the regular circle.

[Deleted]

Bwahaha, Dannyl, you slow slug!

Quality over expedience. Like a good wine, a post gets better with time ;D

[Deleted]

Ok, just gonna add a quick message about what spells i'm a little confused about.
below should be a short list on some spells i don't like and their reasons why i don't use them anymore.
Strike - heroic strike, devastate feels more usefull than this one
Overpower - required battle stance
Slam - cast time, don't like
Execute - requires battle stance
whirlwind - requires beserker stance
intercept - works like charge, longer cooldown and costs rage (give me reasons to use it)

I will however try to incorporate spells like disarm, pummel, concussion blow to my rotation. I already use the tauren racial to stun a large mob from time to time, quite usefull.

And i'll try to make something up with my keybinds that i feel comfortable with. Right now the only spells i have left to unlock is buffs and movement stuff.

Also, new question: professions? Form what i understand Blacksmithing and jewelcrafting is a really wise choise on tanks. But how can i level both of them when they need to use mining?

[Deleted]

Ok, just gonna add a quick message about what spells i'm a little confused about.
below should be a short list on some spells i don't like and their reasons why i don't use them anymore.
Strike - heroic strike, devastate feels more usefull than this one
Overpower - required battle stance
Slam - cast time, don't like
Execute - requires battle stance
whirlwind - requires beserker stance
intercept - works like charge, longer cooldown and costs rage (give me reasons to use it)

Strike becomes obsolete at very early levels and most of what you listed are not used by tanks. In fact, from that list, the only ability tanks use is Intercept, because we have the Warbringer talent, allowing us to use Charge and Intercept in any stances. Primarily, you will prioritize Charger but sometimes you need to zoom around the room in quick succession, in which case you would use Intercept after Charge.

Also, new question: professions? Form what i understand Blacksmithing and jewelcrafting is a really wise choise on tanks. But how can i level both of them when they need to use mining?

Simple; either you get an alt with Mining or you buy the materials from the AH. I wouldn't be concerned over it. Generally it takes ~3-5k gold to max out a profession, depending on the economy of your particular server. But you're correct BS and JC are very good for tanks.

[Alianthos]

please don't tell anybody, but here's a link to a vid of me and my interface. disclaimer: I perform terribly bad, i was so nervous from the recording!

i saw it ! I totally saw it !
U R fucked.

[kharaa]

This guide has given me an amazing starting point for how to start tanking, thanks!

[Sal the Shieldhog]

I loved this guide. Helped me out loads

One question: Is there a macro for using both Rend and Thunder Clap if I'm Blood and Thunder specced?

[Deleted]

#showtooltip
/cast [modifier:shift]Rend; Thunderclap

Casts Thunderclap, if you hit shift + that hotkey it casts Rend.

[Sal the Shieldhog]

#showtooltip
/cast [modifier:shift]Rend; Thunderclap

Casts Thunderclap, if you hit shift + that hotkey it casts Rend.

Sweet, thank you

[Mammoth]

I just read the following on another of those "my threat sucks" threads on the official blizz forums:

Put +40 ranged crit on your ranged weapon, Thunderclap benefits from it!

No following posts referred to it, but is he correct? Is there actually a ranged weapon enchant that is useful to us?

And if it is true, can anyone convert it to an actual % increase for a prot warrior?

[Chozobo]

I came accross this guide a while ago. Skimmed it, saw this "stam > mastery" and stopped reading. I mean really? Fucking priority of stam over mastery?
Hahahahahaha!

[Deleted]

Put +40 ranged crit on your ranged weapon, Thunderclap benefits from it!

No following posts referred to it, but is he correct? Is there actually a ranged weapon enchant that is useful to us?

And if it is true, can anyone convert it to an actual % increase for a prot warrior?

While I can't confirm it from personal experience, the last to my knowledge mention of Thunder Clap and the attack table is that it is, in fact, considered a ranged ability.

Thunderclap: This ability now counts as a ranged attack, granting it double damage on critical strikes instead of 150% and ranged miss chance, and still cannot be dodged or parried.

There is no mention of Heroic Throw or Shockwave, but if Thunder Clap indeed is on the ranged attack table, it's highly possible that both HT and SW are too since they behave identically to TC.

Either way, I enchant my ranged slot with a R19 Threatfinder. Hopefully it does something, but I'm not going to conduit any testing. :P

edit: It is entirely possible all of these abilities are considered ranged, but that does not necessarily mean they are affected by a scope.

[shadowkras]

Easy to test, get a proc based enchant on it.

Hint: It doesnt.

[Deleted]

Ok this is starting to get to an issue.
When i que for dungeons i often find that i'm grouped together with a Death knight, Warrior, or Paladin. When that happens i often find that i'll struggle keeping aggro when i'm the tank i have to frequently use taunt to keep them sticked to me and it gets quite annoying. Any tips?

Other than that i'm having fun leveling while i'm at dreamhack. My aim is about 70+ before i go home.