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  1. #1

    How is Warrior tanking?

    I have a love-hate relationship with WoW. I bring her back into my life but I can't help but cheat on her but what can I say, the old gal and I have some History that I can't let go of and she can be really naughty and kinky at times... Okay now that I'm done comparing WoW to an ex lets get going.

    I'm thinking of making a come back and thinking of going back to my age old love of tanking. Something about being punched a whole lot and then being congratulated for not suffering brain damage on a biblical scale. Now I have been a Paladin tank for a few years; tried to do some healing but that's pretty lame really. SO!

    How are Warrior tanks feeling at the moment? I've done some reading on the guide and have tanked as one before MoP and found that myself struggling to get my hand around the place enough but that probably is my fault really. Is the a bit much bloat on the action bar or has it gotten better? How are they in terms of massive AoE pulls for farming since I prefer to from gold/quest/items via this method. Finally how are they in terms of the other tanks? Have the MoP changes been kind or are they struggling to find their way in this new world order?
    He slipped out of his royal garments, left eternity to enter time, divinity to wrap himself in humanity.
    The sea of glass, for the ocean of separation. He left peace, and for the first time felt pain.
    Because the very hands that held the stars were now sentenced to wear my scars.

  2. #2
    Herald of the Titans
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    Pretty much everything has changed since MoP. The magic words are: Active Mitigation. You cannot simply reach cap xy anymore and start to smash buttons due to an unending ragebar, you actually have to consider in the blink of an eye what to use and also have in mind how to build up enough rage to be able to use something else for the next big hit. That being said, there is also a lot of room for improvements when you have grasped that concept. I think the sentence "easy to learn, hard to master" can barely be as related to any other class as it can be related to warriors.

    Warriors come with a sweet utilitypackage for the hole raid. Where paladins bring raidheal and brewmasters bring exorbitant damage, warriors bring skullbanners, demobanners, ralleying cries, shattering throws and, last but not least, sunder armor. Aside from that, you have also quite some oh-shit-buttons for yourself.

    Now, how does it feel to play a warrior tank? For me, it´s always like I have a lot of controle about my survivability. Rarely I am dead thinking "well, you did everything you can". There is a lot of room for improved timing, better Mitigation choices and useage of cooldowns.
    I want to be honest with you: Raidgroups will usually prefer Paladin-tanks at the moment. They are currently quite OP. But in terms of fun and challenge, I´d always pick the warrior.

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Valech View Post
    Pretty much everything has changed since MoP. The magic words are: Active Mitigation. You cannot simply reach cap xy anymore and start to smash buttons due to an unending ragebar, you actually have to consider in the blink of an eye what to use and also have in mind how to build up enough rage to be able to use something else for the next big hit. That being said, there is also a lot of room for improvements when you have grasped that concept. I think the sentence "easy to learn, hard to master" can barely be as related to any other class as it can be related to warriors.

    Warriors come with a sweet utilitypackage for the hole raid. Where paladins bring raidheal and brewmasters bring exorbitant damage, warriors bring skullbanners, demobanners, ralleying cries, shattering throws and, last but not least, sunder armor. Aside from that, you have also quite some oh-shit-buttons for yourself.

    Now, how does it feel to play a warrior tank? For me, it´s always like I have a lot of controle about my survivability. Rarely I am dead thinking "well, you did everything you can". There is a lot of room for improved timing, better Mitigation choices and useage of cooldowns.
    I want to be honest with you: Raidgroups will usually prefer Paladin-tanks at the moment. They are currently quite OP. But in terms of fun and challenge, I´d always pick the warrior.
    Fantastic! I did read something about Warriors struggling with add fights but I can't really get why given their tool-kit built for chasing down and thundering the hell out of things.

    For self healing and keeping ones self alive; how is that? I worry I would suffer because of a lack of healing myself back up while farming by my lonesome
    He slipped out of his royal garments, left eternity to enter time, divinity to wrap himself in humanity.
    The sea of glass, for the ocean of separation. He left peace, and for the first time felt pain.
    Because the very hands that held the stars were now sentenced to wear my scars.

  4. #4
    Herald of the Titans
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    Quote Originally Posted by AutomaticBadger View Post
    Fantastic! I did read something about Warriors struggling with add fights but I can't really get why given their tool-kit built for chasing down and thundering the hell out of things.

    For self healing and keeping ones self alive; how is that? I worry I would suffer because of a lack of healing myself back up while farming by my lonesome

    Adds are really no problem at all. I would even say, that warriors are the best class for collecting mobs around the raid and then tank them. High mobility through safeguard and charge make it easy to get from one point to another (or from one add to the next) and if that isn´t enough we still have our mocking banner. Seriously, I love that thing. It´s like a long lasting mass-taunt which can be placed 20 yards around you. Great for throwing into the raid while tanking the boss, so that you don´t have to move him an inch away. In terms of survivability in addsituations we are quite blessed as well. Our shieldblock has no "cap" or something, it will simply block ALL meleedamage for six seconds. It´s not like absorb, which is used up in a few seconds, if it comes to mass. And finally, if we talk about cc-able adds, shockwave is fantastic. if necessairy it´s easy to stun them, intervene away, jump away again if they reached you and finally charge the boss when they reached you again. And then you stun them again.


    Keeping yourself alive is more about damage reduction then through active self-healing. you have the old nice shieldwall, a flat 40% reduction, demoshout, flat 20% reduction, the demo banner, 10% again (I think).
    Self healing is limited to enraged regeneration and (if you happen to have t15 2p bonus) victory rush. Both heal you for all in all 20% of your maximum health (Enraged Regeneration for 10% instant and 10% over 5 seconds). That´s why it´s nice to stack them (or at least enraged regeneration) with last stand, which pushes your maximum health. With flask and staminabuff I reach roughly 1 mio hp. It´s nice to be a burning crusade raidboss.

  5. #5
    Old God Mirishka's Avatar
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    Warrior tanking is, IMO, better than its ever been. I planned on switching to hunter fulltime in Mists but the 5.0 warrior playstyle was just too much fun. >.<

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Mirishka View Post
    Warrior tanking is, IMO, better than its ever been. I planned on switching to hunter fulltime in Mists but the 5.0 warrior playstyle was just too much fun. >.<
    I'm in the near opposite of that :>
    I was a hunter for the last 3 expacs and since one of our tanks had their pc die and I had to roll back to my warrior to tank our raids.
    Not that that is a bad thing, I still consider warrior's to be the best/most fun tanking class for end game.

  7. #7
    I kinda disagree with warrior being good tank. I am not gonna even compare to paladin (too OP in current patch). We do least dps from all other tanks. You may say it doesnt matter but when you see other tank classes pulling twice your dps and additionally healing raid thru either heals or absorbs you start to wonder what the hell is blizz thinking.

    Current prot warrior is really good at stopping damage and moving fast, but apart from that he is lacking. Aoe threat is terrible, wrong use of thunder clap and you sit there for 6 sec watching mobs doing whatever they want. Imo I would rather take dps warrior (rallying cry, skull banner) and other tank class than the other way around.

    To sum up:
    Warrior receive some of the lowest damage compared to other tanks, deal lowest damage, have really crappy aoe threat starter. Raid cooldowns are really nice.

  8. #8
    I enjoy warrior tanking the most out of all tank classes, besides Monk because I haven't tried it yet, but indeed the damage we deal at the moment makes me want to hang myself. As for AoE threat, yes it could get annoying at times, but I rarely have trouble with that, just because there are so many ways to fix your mistake -> Mocking Banner, Heroic Leap, Shockwave/Dragon Roar, Glyph of Incite Cleaves, and well with enough mobs you can spam Revenge anyway.

  9. #9
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    Don´t forget, that cleave + ultimatum and revenge hit several targets. not so helpful for more than 3 or 4 mobs, but okay if you wait for the 6 seconds of thunderclap to be ready again. thunderclap itself is nice. deals moderate damage and applies a dot. It´s okay. Regarding the tankdamage you are right. Warriors really need to exploit all abilities to push their damage. For example, I use Dancing Steel on my weapon, throe str pots + flasks if healers can do it and specc dragons roar + bloodbath for most fights. pulled 107k dps on jin´rohk hero last night, twas not good but okay.

  10. #10
    Too bad Paladins/dks/monks/druids can pull 150k+ on that fight.

    I also use str stuff everywhere I can. Playing warrior tank is nice and enjoyable as long as you dont look at your dps.

    The real problem is that RL deciding what tank to take will almost always go like this:
    1) Get Paladin
    2) no paladins? Get Monk
    3) no monk? Well druids and dks are somewhat nice
    4) none of the above available? well no tank then.... oh wait are there any warriors?

  11. #11
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    As a low lvl Warrior tank I hate how defensive stance works right now ... 1 rage every 3 ses? Is this a joke? Why I don't get any rage from damage taken, like Guardian druids? In Battle stance or Berseker stance I don't have any problems with rage at all, but defensive stance makes a Warrior tank not fun to play.

  12. #12
    I was a Prot Warrior for most of Cata. Mists soured that experience with the active mitigation move which IMO wasn't wanted or needed. I really didn't care for their vision of how tanking should be, so I've all but shelved my Warrior.

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sifu View Post
    As a low lvl Warrior tank I hate how defensive stance works right now ... 1 rage every 3 ses? Is this a joke? Why I don't get any rage from damage taken, like Guardian druids? In Battle stance or Berseker stance I don't have any problems with rage at all, but defensive stance makes a Warrior tank not fun to play.
    It's intended, you have your power generator button (shield slam, revenge, shout or a filler) and your power spend buttons (=active mitigation). Sadly you can't roll later on with berserker stance because you a) want the threat modifier and b) need vengeance to compete. And Blizzard don't want to encourage you further to stand in the fire for extra rage

    While we have *something* to push at all time ... playing another tanking class with 1.0 gcd instead of 1.5 gcd and you really, really feel bad in addition to the damage output problems we're struggling with.

  14. #14
    High Overlord Kanx's Avatar
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    Warriors are fun to play at the moment, and are more than capable of acting as a Main/OT in 10/25m heroic raiding capacities without being a hindrance.

    However, if you really want to squeeze the most out of your class for the raid, Prot Paladins & BrM Monks are superior this tier, imo.

    I've played Warrior since Vanilla, and this is the first time/tier that i've ever rerolled for the sake of improving our raid. That said, it's also the first time i've raiding 10 man as opposed to 25 man.
    Last edited by Kanx; 2013-05-17 at 12:22 PM. Reason: typo
    Kanx - Protection Warrior (Armory)

  15. #15
    The benefits of bringing other tank are just too good. Palas can solo tank while battle healer gives you like 0.5healer. If you also add their offensive capabilites there is really no place for warrior tank in 10man (especially in Heroic). Its almost the same with monk, just without that solo tanking part.

    Paladin: 150% warrior dmg, can do 40-50k hps, can solo tank some fights which gives you slot for another dps/healer and due to his healing you can easily change 1 healer into dps.
    Monk: 150% warrior dmg, can do some crazy healing/absorbs on raid which allows to bring 1 less healer for some fights.

    The above easily sums up warrior tank place in current Tier.

  16. #16
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    You shouldn't underestimate the role of the "main" tank. Only a few fights allow it to have both tanks getting beaten 100% of the time, on the rest of the fights one of them will just stand around waiting for the generic tankswap debuff to wear off. Without high vengeance neither paladin nor monks can dish out great raidheal and it's regulary totally fine to bring another tank (dk, druid, warrior) along them.

    Regards solotanking: one paladin in your raid is enough to allow that, mustn't be your tank.

  17. #17
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    to me its alot of fun being a warrior tank. As mentioned, we have alot of tools. we got alot of controle of our income dmg, so its mostly about mastering those, which makes warrior tanks FEELS like you are actually defending while in combat, unlike IMO DK and others.
    im not a hardcore raider, so i dont know how much better other tank classes are compared to a warrior tank.
    But to me, im having alot of fun leveling my warrior again since its been "asleep" since MoP, as i started my mistweaver back then. and im deffently going to do some LFR with in very soon, even though i have grinded all of the raids on my healer ;D

  18. #18
    Pit Lord Odina's Avatar
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    I have an absolute blast tanking as a war this expac! I swapped over to war at the begingin of FL as our tank went MIA and I love the changes that came with MOP!

    The active mitigation means that you actually have a great deal of controll on what/when you will mitigate dmg! You have the ability to absorb magic damage now YEAY s.barrier, you have all the mobility youuse to have (even one more option with intervene to banner), we have great raid cd's etc etc!

    Really depends on how you like ot play but for myself Warr tanking is great this expac as you actually need to think > CTC cap? good roll face!

  19. #19
    Getting a buff soon we have alot of survivability with the dam reduction cds as well as rally cry and last stand in the mix def worth a go

  20. #20
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    Imho, if you do not aim for heroic modes warriors dps is fine.

    + has a lot of raid utilities
    + has an awesome control of incoming damage
    + has good mobility
    + doesn't steal loot from DPS classes :P
    + It's an awesome class to solo old content

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