The Protection Guide - Cataclysm Edition

[Deleted]

Great guide! As a warrior tank I definitely learned a couple things. But why did you charge in to Erudax after he did his knockback (in your video)?

[Tholl]

Another good skill that a LOT of Warrior tanks forget about is Retaliation.

Pop that before a group pull and you are having some instant aggro for those trigger happy Wrath babies who love to spam AoE's.

[Deleted]

Worst tanking guide I've ever read.

It's all stats and button-mashing. There are no tanking skills explained here. This is a Wrath-noob tanking guide, not a Cata-guide.

Where is CC explained? Where are marking and kill priorities explained? Where are safe-pulls, los-pulls, sheep-pulls, trap-pulls explained? What about spacing and ensuring melee DPS have room to get behind without aggro? What about moving mobs out of static AoE drops so that the melee DPS aren't getting hammered by it as well?

The amount of tanks that just charge in and heroic leap and then just sit there like rocks, expecting to get healed through everything and everyone just work around him being the centre of the universe is part of the problem with tanking these days. That's the mentality of the Wrath-tank; run in, mash the same buttons over and over without thinking about anything else or anyone else. And this guide is great for them, but not for decent tanks who actually know about the important stuff that keeps a group alive and makes for smooth and successful runs.

Theres Miss Pan's Handbook guide for you if u dont know game, its not dungeon and marking tutorial, if u fail to make HCs go read Miss Pan's Handbook (u find it on main page)

[Deleted]

Awesome guide, really made me want to play my prot warrior! Do you have this kind of knowledge on other classes, and could make more like this?

[Zamiel]

Pretty good guide but I along with others would impress upon most tanks who aren't already doing it to totally ignore your hit and exp ratings. Threat is so much of a non issue atm that you will be much better served by taking as little gear with hi/exp on it as possible and reforging any hit exp you have on your gear into avoidance parry/mastery preferred.

[Azioth]

I changed my main to a Warrior Tank, and this definitely will help me.
Thanks a lot for the guide

[Dashield28]

if you skip useing heroic throw start with a shout (20 rage) charge in (15 rage) white swing* (25 rage) you end up with 60 rage witch means you can do shield block + shield slam + heroic strike witch in the end will do alot more dmg than a heroic throw and if you have incite you have a higher crit chans

*=do remeber that rage is normalized so it is this value for you

Nice guide. I don't agree with everything (for instance, i dont treat victory rush as optional).

However to the poster above, does any warr tank even take incite anymore? I mean it was pro in WOTLK, but i find myself barely using heroic strike anymore since they changed the mechanic.

If i have excess rage, i usually pop Inner Rage and time that with SS, a REV or just keep throwing devastates out to pop SS again. I think that is a better use of my rage than spamming heroic strike (I could of course be wrong as I did not do theory crafting on this)

Also, if I am way ahead on threat and fighting a boss I try to have enough rage to always have a chance to pop SB, and Enraged Regeneration if lets say the healer is being chased by snakes.

But yeah, I barely ever use HS, anyone wanna throw some feedback?

---------- Post added 2011-01-05 at 10:22 AM ----------

Pretty good guide but I along with others would impress upon most tanks who aren't already doing it to totally ignore your hit and exp ratings. Threat is so much of a non issue atm that you will be much better served by taking as little gear with hi/exp on it as possible and reforging any hit exp you have on your gear into avoidance parry/mastery preferred.

I foud myself missing some interrupts with my hit being as low as it was. I am slowly trying to bring it back up. I found that when it is at 5.5%ish it closes the gap sufficiently. When I had it at about 2% it was way too low. I was missing interrupts left and right.

Dont ignore your hit. Tanks are the more capable players in your dungeons, most DPS still arent used to the whole thing of "what do you mean i HAVE to interrupt?!!!???!!11oneone!1" So a lot of time it falls on us to do it.

[senator]

One thought for those who do not take Shield Specialization - I find that it really helps with Inner Rage up-time and is great for snap aggro/rage. Just pop shield block and the rage rolls in = lul 50k+ shield slams with heavy repercussions / inner rage.

[Deleted]

Worst tanking guide I've ever read.

Now, isn't that a bit rude? I believe you missed how this is not a WoW 101, not a guide on advanced general tanking tips, but an overview of the Warrior's Protection specialization.

First of all, thanks for all your feedback on the guide. A few points though since Iyona (like usual :P) points out the most controversial portion of my guide.

Wait, what? :P

I'll stick by my thought that Vigilance is mediocre, I did state that it's situational though. In my experiences thus far in Cata I haven't needed the taunt refresh since (it seems) taunt can not be resisted. Its great for keeping Vengeance up when your not tanking but there are a lot of fights where I'm tanking the entire time and the only one taking direct damage from the boss. You will see however that I do have it in my build, its only one point, and its decent for threat when the situations are right.

Tanking the Whelps on Halfus, the adds on Maloriak or the adds on that nature-whatever boss in the Conclave of Winds is much less stressful with one point in Vigilance. Also, should you somehow waste your taunt by taunting the wrong target (/blush) or if your co-tank accidentaly overaggroes in a GCD or two due to higher amounts of Vengeance... Or even presses his taunt button by mistake or instinct... I can't really see which talent you'd rather spend a point in.

I'll agree on the expertise thing which is why I added this gem:

However the fact remains that expertise is better, for threat.

*thumbs up*

I'd give it a bit more focus still, it's something far too many seem to neglect.

Usually in raids you will have the 20% bleed damage, so that adds to Rend, not sure you were considering that, and Devastates damage has been nerfed time and time again. I'll try and post the math later to backup my statement (when I'm not late for work :P)

I am considering the buff, and even without it, a full duration Rend deals more damage than a Devastate. What I doubt is if that extra damage really can be considered extra, when a free Shield Slam = another Heroic Strike and it can be used with Inner Rage for even more bigger numbers. And, of course, the CD reset of our strongest hitting, coolest ability.

Lastly, Impending Victory - I was basing this mostly on myself reading the talent and a discussion about it on Elitist Jerks, its only a chance to proc on Devastate which is an ability pretty far down in our priority, and it only heals for 5% (10% glyphed) and I have yet to find myself in a situation where I find it useful. Also I'm pretty sure it does less damage than your other options on a GCD, and my 25 man raid beat Halfus about 20 seconds after his enrage, so every bit of damage I can squeeze helps out.

Some encounters have tight enrage timers, some are rough on the healers. Impending Victory allows us to adapt to the situation, and consider the extra seconds the heal may keep you alive as additional time for your damage dealers to do their thing. Remember the proc has a, I believe it's a 20 second duration. You can get the proc and up save it for a spike in damage taken. :-)

However to the poster above, does any warr tank even take incite anymore? I mean it was pro in WOTLK, but i find myself barely using heroic strike anymore since they changed the mechanic.

If i have excess rage, i usually pop Inner Rage and time that with SS, a REV or just keep throwing devastates out to pop SS again. I think that is a better use of my rage than spamming heroic strike (I could of course be wrong as I did not do theory crafting on this)

You'll do a lot more damage if you use Heroic Strike rather than Inner Rage. A nice trick is to make macros for your free abilities and perhaps even Shield Slam, adding a /cast Inner Rage to them. Also make macros for your Heroic Strike and Cleave abilities, adding a /cancelaura Inner Rage before the /cast Heroic Strike. This way you'll have Inner Rage active for your cheap/free/strongest abilities, while not wasting any rage when Heroic Strike is ready.

[Dashield28]

Also,

Please explain why you took Deep Wounds over Blood Craze.

I never found that I needed threat, ever... like EVER. The extra threat/DPS from Deep Wounds would be marginal to the healing you receive from Blood Craze. Random little heals add up over a boss fight. Combined with Enraged Regeneration and Victory Rush, we're a lean mean healin machine.

[shadowkras]

Not a single mention of safeguard, its not even highlighted as optional talent, yet its one of the best damage reduction abilities we have.
A single well-used safeguard will absorb more damage than a shaman or priest -10% physical damage taken buff through the whole fight.

I know a lot of people dont like it, because it takes skill to use intervene on the right person at the right moment, but even the attention deprived can make a macro to intervene the offtank once in a while and help mitigating the damage they take through the entire fight, and it absorbs a ridiculous amount of damage on them.

Safeguard is a talent that warriors have to stop ignoring.

And there is no mention of blood craze, it know its a sucky talent, but it gives 100 hps per talent point on fights with multiple adds, and about half that on single boss fights, thats 150-300 hps depending on the fight.
If you look at field dressing, its an extra 6% hps from all heals on you, if you actually assign healers and have one person healing the tank, he will get an average of 6k to 8k HPS done on him. Now convert the part that comes from field dressing, thats 360-460 hps on you. Maybe more if the fight is really intense on tanks, maybe less if not (valiona and anshal comes to mind).
Is blood craze better? Of course not, but it also helps and the numbers from it are not too far from those of field dressing. Also, field dressing buffs blood craze slighly. So grabbing both isnt a bad idea if you dont have threat issues, and certainly is a viable option for extra survival.

As for impeding victory, it will pull higher HPS than blood craze or field dressing (alone, but this also buffs victory rushes), but only during the execute phase (19% til death). My tests with it shows that it DOES help, i have managed to 2man an heroic boss because i could spam those 5% heals after everybody died, but it will not keep you alive by itself.
Overall, it is a decent investment as optional talent if you have no threat issues.

The glyphs part needs a LOT of work, you listed 3 aoe tanking glyphs, they are worthless if you are not tanking multiple mobs. Ressonating power is not as useful as you think, if you are tanking 2+ mobs, you usually will be swimming in rage, and dont really need to cut 5 from thunderclaps.
Its missing the glyph of piercing howl, which is mandatory if you grab that talent, otherwise you will have to enter melee range to snare the mobs and its probably the reason you speced in piercing howl, to not get in melee with them.
I personally prefer glyph of berserker rage over intimidating shout. Why, because i can safely send mobs away from me with no risk of being cleaved/aoed by dps and i get extra uptime against melee mobs since they have to run back to me. Downside is that i cant use it when there is the risk of pulling extra mobs. But thats not explained either.
Another major glyph i found to be useful on both tanking and dps specs, glyph of heroic thrown, it adds/increases a single sunder armor stack on the target, so your first shield slam will be done with the target at -4% armor already, on top of increasing the threat from heroic thrown slighly. It does help on threat generation, specially on pull, where we need it most. And if you have a fury or arms warrior in the raid, with either heroic thrown glyph or colossus smash glyph, you will notice it will stack to 3 before your shield block even went down (first 10 seconds of the fight).
Overall need a better organization on them, and separate each of them, explaining their utility and why you should glyph for it and why not, which situations it is a good choice. And keep in mind major glyphs are hardly set on stone, as warrior, you use them to help on areas you are lacking (such as aoe tanking).

Don’t neglect your other abilities on AOE pulls, Shield Block will help in between Shockwave stuns to reduce damage. Spell Reflect has a short 7 second cooldown, spam this whenever you’re fighting spell casters. Use Shield Bash to interrupt, and Concussion Blow to stun, and don’t be afraid to use defensive cooldowns like Shield Wall, Last Stand, or Enraged Regeneration if things get dicey.

You forgot disarm.

And the importance of keeping demoralizing shout on the boss, its not even mentioned anywhere except as a minor glyph and that you should keep it up. Its a -10% physical damage taken, it helps tremendoulsy, more than field dressing or blood craze together. And thunderclap (-20% melee attack speed) will reduce more damage done on you than using shieldwall on cooldown, so dont forget to debuff the boss.

[Tsura]

awesome guide man i know ever sense i made my worgen warrior that i wanted to tank i've been hitting every website i could to get a good idea oh what to do. this guide really helps thx for taking the time on it.

[Deleted]

Also,

Please explain why you took Deep Wounds over Blood Craze.

I never found that I needed threat, ever... like EVER. The extra threat/DPS from Deep Wounds would be marginal to the healing you receive from Blood Craze. Random little heals add up over a boss fight. Combined with Enraged Regeneration and Victory Rush, we're a lean mean healin machine.

The issue with Blood Craze is how it's a 10% chance to proc and how it's an extremely low heal. It's true all heals count, especially if you have many sources of small heals, but many feel it's just too low to be worth three talent points. Extra damage done is always handy.

Not a single mention of safeguard, its not even highlighted as optional talent, yet its one of the best damage reduction abilities we have.
A single well-used safeguard will absorb more damage than a shaman or priest -10% physical damage taken buff through the whole fight.

I'd also like to see Safeguard discussed in the guide. There aren't always obvious uses for it, but there are some certain mechanics this talent completely trivializes. Soul Reaper on LK comes to mind.

[Swbd4L]

Being the MT of my guild I disagree with things you have posted. Here is why.

First of all if your a guild main tank you should most definatly be dual prot specced, You can certainly run 1 spec and dps the other spec but your losing some nice added bonus's

1. Cruelty is important as SS is your #1 damaging ability
2. You should have a surviveability and single target threat spec, and your 2nd spec being a aoe threat spec. being speccing into blood craze for the litttle added healing boost, Speccing into cruelty, and impending victory is actually very nice I find, as listed above when glyphed for it, can heal upwards of 20k when a boss is sub 20%, I find this very handy vs a boss like Cho'gall (For instance)


My thoughts on other things. IF your tanking heroics, then yes expertise is actually really nice for aoe threat, I never CC targets so having proper expertise for thunderclap/rend/SS not missing is nice, BUT

If you are in a raiding guild and of course you are a MT for your guild, youll find that bosses do primarily hit hard, Expertise is really not imporant in a raid enviroment, some may disagre with me but honestly I run with 9 expertise and barely ever had a shield bash miss for interrupts, and I find myself interrupting fast casts on just about all bosses that have them. If you understand what is your best bet for warrior rotation, after the first 8-12 seconds of a boss pull there is no chance someone will pull off you even if you have 1% hit and 5-10 expertise, The only downer is having a parried shield slam, but its really no big deal, I can still put out 7-10k dps as a prot warrior with single target and have hardly any expertise/hit

I also disagree with your statement that

Stamina > Mastery.

If your under 50% block you need to drop all stam gems and turn them into +20parry/mast or +20 mast/30stam gems. even in heroics, most high end guild prot warriors have 150k hp unbuffed but have incredibly high mitigation, like 55-59% block 14% parry and 13% dodge. this of course all comes into play when you get gear but you need to start yourself out in the right direction... I reforged just about all my gear where Parry is 2% higher than my dodge at all times. and I reforged all expertise and just about all hit into mastery.
My stats are 52.36% block
14.23% parry
11.58% dodge
6 expertise
1.2% hit
156k hp

IF I could drop more HP I would, even with 156k hp I am sitting at 185k hp fully raid buffed which is PLENTY, youll find that a high health pool is actually more difficult on your healers in keeping you topped off and actually makes a dent in the difference betwen conserving mana and dumping it. Smoothing out your damage with high block and a good % to parry gives you tons of rage, making expertise and hit really not even worth it for a boss encounter, oh and not to mention with that high block youll recieve a lot less burst damage, making healers hit their oh shit button to keep you alive.

you'll also find that prot warriors can play a substantial role in putting out dps numbers, there are fights where 10k dps single target is very easy to do. having a solid parry rating basically is keeping my rage bar at full on 25 man, allowing me to spam the hell out of heroic strike which also gives you a hell of a lot more threat + proper talents giving you a lot more crits. in raid enviroments right now my damage in recount is showing up as
Sheld Slam
Heroic Strike
Devastate

the only case where I see heroic strike surpassing shield slam is if you do not have heavy repercussions and put the 2 talent points elsewhere. I am actually debating on dropping it.. but I really do like 50-60k shield slams.

If I were to drop heavy repercussions I would put the points into Safeguard, youll find that AGAIN on a fight like Cho'gall if you can intervene your OT when hes tanking him during flame orders you have that chance to make him take 30% less damage for 12 seconds, which is actually freaking awesome. this essentially is giving someone thats tanking other than yourself an extra cooldown!

Anyway that is my thoughts, Enjoy

[Kalx]

you definitely forgot to mention how to handle pulls with CC, which makes a huge play in cataclysm

good guide anyway

[Dashield28]

You'll do a lot more damage if you use Heroic Strike rather than Inner Rage. A nice trick is to make macros for your free abilities and perhaps even Shield Slam, adding a /cast Inner Rage to them. Also make macros for your Heroic Strike and Cleave abilities, adding a /cancelaura Inner Rage before the /cast Heroic Strike. This way you'll have Inner Rage active for your cheap/free/strongest abilities, while not wasting any rage when Heroic Strike is ready.

I agree with that and I have my macros set up (most include cleave instead of HS because i can get lazy and my tiny guild isnt raiding until after the superbowl) BUT, specifically, you mentioned nothing about Incite. It isnt worth taking anymore, in my opinion.

The issue with Blood Craze is how it's a 10% chance to proc and how it's an extremely low heal. It's true all heals count, especially if you have many sources of small heals, but many feel it's just too low to be worth three talent points. Extra damage done is always handy.

10% chance to proc on taking damage. As a tanks we do that.. We try not to... but as it was famously said in Forrest Gump. "It happens" "What, shit?" "Sometimes" coining the phrase "Sometimes, shit happens"

I do agree, that it is miniscule, I guess its just a preference.

[Deleted]

I agree with that and I have my macros set up (most include cleave instead of HS because i can get lazy and my tiny guild isnt raiding until after the superbowl) BUT, specifically, you mentioned nothing about Incite. It isnt worth taking anymore, in my opinion.

+15% critical strike chance and retriggered critical strikes is a lot of extra damage for two talent points. B&T also does nothing for you in a raid environment, it isn't even a choice to me.

I do agree, that it is miniscule, I guess its just a preference.

Yeah. No matter where you spend those points you'll notice a huge improvement.

[Deleted]

Safeguard is a talent that warriors have to stop ignoring.

I actually gave in to the arguments for Safeguard during ICC. I specced and went through great lengths to find ways to use it and granted, a few of them were even quite successful. However, those opportunities, to really make it matter were far inbetween. The whole talent is actually quite gimmicky to use, especially if you're filling the role of a MT and you're always tanking the boss.

I disagree that it requires any real skill to use. It is not why myself isn't using it, but simply because A) it is not a mandatory talent B) it's gimmicky and with good margin for error. If it works for you, that's great but at best it's an optional talent.

I'd also like to see Safeguard discussed in the guide. There aren't always obvious uses for it, but there are some certain mechanics this talent completely trivializes. Soul Reaper on LK comes to mind.

Anything more recent than that? I'm sorry but the Soul Reaper example is getting a bit old and even in that content, in ICC, Soul Reaper was pretty much the only good spot to use it and even than only on 25 heroic.

[Tholl]

+15% critical strike chance and retriggered critical strikes is a lot of extra damage for two talent points. B&T also does nothing for you in a raid environment, it isn't even a choice to me.

Eh, those two points would be better off spent in diferent areas. Threat is not really an issue and I would personally rather see healers not have to worry about their mana as much.

[Zamiel]

I foud myself missing some interrupts with my hit being as low as it was. I am slowly trying to bring it back up. I found that when it is at 5.5%ish it closes the gap sufficiently. When I had it at about 2% it was way too low. I was missing interrupts left and right.

Dont ignore your hit. Tanks are the more capable players in your dungeons, most DPS still arent used to the whole thing of "what do you mean i HAVE to interrupt?!!!???!!11oneone!1" So a lot of time it falls on us to do it.

If your doing any competent amount of raiding then your missed interrupt every now and then shouldn't be a major problem. I personally run with a shaman dk mage as dps and there is rarely an interrupt I even get a chance to catch before their on it. The tank who are staying as far away from hit/exp are the tank thats are in mildly serious progression guilds where people know how to do their jobs and with every dps and their brother having an interrupt it shouldn't be coming down to the tank to have to catch every single cast.