Warrior Tanks seem to be lacking enough AoE tools?

[TEHPALLYTANK]

I have to say that for Seal of Righteousness vs Seal of Insight, you really, REALLY should go with Righteousness for AoE pulls.

Insight, while it DOES add up over time, will NEVER, EVER help you stay alive now. It also does paltry threat generation in comparision to Righteousness in AoE situation.

And yes, while Hammer does crap damage, and consecration does take a wee bit to do full damage, and holy wrath DOES do less damage per target, all of them combined, with Lights Hammer is about equivalent to TC/Deep wounds. As I stated earlier, paladins do more of a "constant" AoE thing compared to warriors, who will find it hard to pick up new things outside the 6 second CD window.

Light's Hammer is a minute CD and doesn't generate threat, I'm not sure why you're comparing it to baseline abilities rather than looking at it versus shockwave/bladestorm. You claiming seal of insight will never help you stay alive is just flat out wrong. Paladins are indeed better for picking up constantly spawning adds while warriors are far better at actually killing them.

[Aleksej89]

A lot of folks here simply don't understand what i am saying in the original post.

Warrior Tanks have trouble getting the initial aggro on AoE mobs IF their Thunder Clap is not ready.

I am NOT talking about the AMOUNT of threat generated during AoE - i am talking about having ONE AoE attack (TClap) that has a 6 second cooldown.

If a big mob pack attacks just after you used your Thunder Clap, you are utterly unable to get their attention until your Thunder Clap is ready again - and 6 seconds is more than enough to tear up a healer or a DPS.

Sure you have things like Mocking Banner and Shockwave but with such long cooldowns it will happen quite often that, as a warrior, you just stare at your healer/dps getting beaten to death while your 6 second Thunder Clap is not ready yet.

This is MUCH more noticeable in dungeons from level 15-80 (even in cata)... pandaria dungeons tend not to have that kind of "constant stream of mobs" thing.

If we exclude AoE spells that have over 15 seconds of cooldown, Warriors have only 1 AoE (TClap) while Paladins have 4 AoE (Hammer, Consecration, Wrath, Seal) who's cooldown is reduced by haste!

The chances of getting the same kind of "No AoE Ready" problem on a Paladin, Monk and Druid tank are literally zero... simply because they have either a lot of tools OR a constant stream of damage coming out - warrior tanks have neither of those, and DKs also tend to suffer the same thing.

[Huntingbear_grimbatol]

Holy Wrath does nothing.
Consecration is slow and poor threat gen.
3 target shield is ok, nothing more.
Hammer of the Righteouss is good to use but threat is, again, poor.

All those abilities and a thunderclap from warriors or a keg smash from monks will instantly pull aggro from a paladin (more or less)

[Pua]

Ultimately, it depends on what you mean by "lacking".

Do we lack consistent AoE threat/damage? Well, no - Deep Wounds and Thunderclap cover almost all eventualities in that regard. Do we lack a lot of AoE tools? Well, yes; but again, I'm more inclined to argue that paladins and monks are too good in this regard, rather than warriors not being good enough. Additionally, you need to be careful with your comparisons. It's not fair to count Avenger's Shield (overpowered though it is) as AoE, but not count Revenge for warriors.

In all honesty, I'd much rather see Deep Wounds reined in dramatically and Shockwave as baseline for warriors (on a 20 second cooldown). It worked well in Wrath and in Cataclysm, and it's a complete mystery why they moved away from it.

[Deleted]

A lot of people seem to be thinking the OP is saying that Warrior AoE is weak in general. He's saying that once your snap aggro abilities are on cooldown it can be difficult to gain aggro in additional incoming targets, like on Immersius HC where more and more adds keep coming in. I agree it can be tougher on a Warrior due to us lacking some sort of very short cooldown AoE OR a ground AoE such as consecration or DnD, but it's never really impossible. We have a pretty vast toolkit, and in a raid scenario you can almost always ask the DPS to help you out if you're struggling (tricks and MD). Plus, to be honest, prot warrior feels very solid to me right now, I'm okay with there being an area of tanking that we don't excel at, we bring a lot to a group as it is!

Also, one thing people aren't mentioning that could help if people are struggling is 'Vigilance: taunt taunt taunt taunt taunt'

[Deliverer]

I don't think he is talking about the warrior aoe threat, but about the ability to deal with fast waves of adds like immerseus hc or sha of pride heroic.. While I believe war got the best damage atm, specially on single target, it's also true we don't have a spam aoe ability that even if don't hit for much damage will get all the mobs on you. Monks can have spinning crane kick up 100% of the time, dk have blood boil spam and paladin got plenty of aoe spell+healing himself also cause adds to go for him instead of proper healers if vengeance is high enough. During sha of pride I just use blade storm and it works just great but on immerseus hc it is impossible to gain aggro from all those adds cause they are coming too fast too many and too spread and it's much easier job for other classes unless you can mocking banner but it won't be rdy every wave. I probably would prefer if they nerf other classes aoe abilities rather than buff warriors cause getting aggro from multiple targets should be a matter of skill and not a retarded spamming of all buttons.. But that is not going to happen since they will be buffing warrior aoe abilities with lvl 100 talents, ravager and blade barrier.

- - - Updated - - -

Holy Wrath does nothing.
Consecration is slow and poor threat gen.
3 target shield is ok, nothing more.
Hammer of the Righteouss is good to use but threat is, again, poor.

All those abilities and a thunderclap from warriors or a keg smash from monks will instantly pull aggro from a paladin (more or less)

Still those are enough to get the adds on you! He is not talking about damage but the ability to deal with fast waves of mobs.. It is true that our lowest cd aoe ability is thunder clap and it is still 6sec while other classes like monk /pala can have a 100% uptime

[Biggles Worth]

A lot of folks here simply don't understand what i am saying in the original post.

Warrior Tanks have trouble getting the initial aggro on AoE mobs IF their Thunder Clap is not ready.

It seems to me you may need to time your Thunder Claps better if a whole other mob just spawns. If you already have a groups attention, you gotta be ready in case a pack of mobs you do or do not know about appear. This is of course unless you are talking about before a fight even begins and in this scenario your Thunder Clap is up since battle hasn't begun yet.

[Aleksej89]

And yet people see fit to reply to a thread without actually bothering to read my original post, or my 2nd post...

The amount of threat warriors deal is FINE.

However i see a problem in warriors dealing AoE threat only ONCE every 6 seconds, assuming the longer cooldown Banner/Shockwave is not ready.

Paladins do AoE attacks every ~1 second, essentially being a beacon of constantly pulsing AoE threat - no chance new monster can go for healer.

Warriors do 1 AoE every 6 seconds, and are unable to do AoE threat if their Thunder Clap is on cooldown - so mobs can go rampant during those ~6 seconds until your next TClap is ready.

[Nillo]

The thing with paladin aoe abilities is that while they are available on a decent frequency deal such a low amount of damage that you may actually lose threat anyway and they have a shitty base damage meaning you need some vengeance to actually make them useful.

Btw. the best paladin aoe threat ability is a strong eternal flame hot - on high damage bosses like garrosh this generates enough threat to outdps dds focusing their adds.

[lunchbox2042]

Different classes have different tools? Both tanks are fine. I prefer warrior's mobility over paladin's aoe.

[Leih]

And yet people see fit to reply to a thread without actually bothering to read my original post, or my 2nd post...

The amount of threat warriors deal is FINE.

However i see a problem in warriors dealing AoE threat only ONCE every 6 seconds, assuming the longer cooldown Banner/Shockwave is not ready.

Paladins do AoE attacks every ~1 second, essentially being a beacon of constantly pulsing AoE threat - no chance new monster can go for healer.

Warriors do 1 AoE every 6 seconds, and are unable to do AoE threat if their Thunder Clap is on cooldown - so mobs can go rampant during those ~6 seconds until your next TClap is ready.

Yeah, this has always been a weakness of warriors. It mainly comes from the fact that most other tanks have a duration-aoe (like Death and Decay, Consecration, Spinning Crane Kick) that can be kept up at all times to grab streaming waves of adds or at least a non-cd AOE (Dizzying Haze for example) which they can spam. Warriors have always lacked a tool like that, which does make certain types of tanking more difficult for us. Usually not impossible with clever use of your abilities, but certainly requiring more effort than other tanks.

Our Mocking Banner and Vigilance have helped a little with this in recent expansions, but we still lack a little. I think that's one of the things the proposed level 100 talents are out there to address. Blade Barrier and Ravager both fill that missing niche in different ways, so it seems like Blizzard are giving some consideration to the imbalance. Whether those talents stick or not is something we'll find out later.

[Fog]

And yet people see fit to reply to a thread without actually bothering to read my original post, or my 2nd post...

The amount of threat warriors deal is FINE.

However i see a problem in warriors dealing AoE threat only ONCE every 6 seconds, assuming the longer cooldown Banner/Shockwave is not ready.

Paladins do AoE attacks every ~1 second, essentially being a beacon of constantly pulsing AoE threat - no chance new monster can go for healer.

Warriors do 1 AoE every 6 seconds, and are unable to do AoE threat if their Thunder Clap is on cooldown - so mobs can go rampant during those ~6 seconds until your next TClap is ready.

It seems like you ignored my post then, because I adressed the tools used as a warrior tank. Low level balance should be of no concern anyway, because classes get things at the different levels. End game is where things are balanced.

Paladins gain threat from far away with different tools and have strong melee aoe abilities. Warriors utilize charge and leap more to gain control. Although cleave is weak, it helps to get damage on the targets around. Revenge is strong because of its high damage. You simply need to utilize the warriors movement utility to gain controll of your surroundings, rather than complain that paladins have it easier. Applying Deep Wounds through Devastate while TC is on cooldown helps alot on 2-3 mobs as well.

Time your Thunder Clap, and Deep Wounds will handle the rest. Leap, charge and target switch helps alot for those times without TC, which is only 6 seconds at a time.

[Aleksej89]

Thank you all for answering.

Seems warrior tanks have to work quite a bit to fully catch all swarming enemies - i guess it is a difficult playstyle that many players find fun

[Heladys]

Thank you all for answering.

Seems warrior tanks have to work quite a bit to fully catch all swarming enemies - i guess it is a difficult playstyle that many players find fun

It's fun to do well. It's not fun when you're not doing it well. All of us occasionally get caught with our pants down but there are enough tools in the shed to work around occasional gotchas. You learn awareness and anticipation, and so long as you don't have pull-happy idiot DPS yanking shit on you when you least expect it pull after pull you can do the job and do it well.

[Deleted]

Dont forget the mighty Mocking Banner aswell!

[Deleted]

I personally find that having to use your abilities intelligently to pick up a crowd of swarming mobs is one of the interesting and more satisfying mechanics of Prot Warrior as it has great benefits when it is executed correctly.

Did you make sure you were positioned correctly to hit as many mobs with TC as possible?
Did you use Heroic Throw?
Did you use Heroic leap?
Did you use an early Dragon Roar / Bloodbath?
Did you reposition a little so that you COULD heroic leap?
Did you use Mocking Banner?
Did you sacrifice that little bit of mitigation to cleave to make sure the mobs were on you?
Did you sacrifice the damage mitigation CD of vigilance on someone to spam Taunt for a while?
Did you tab target efficiently (preferably with ThreatPlates) to use your single target abilities on mobs in the swarm?

All of these happen and need to be thought of and reacted to, usually in a few to less than one second if you want to prevent unnecissary damage on the DPS / Healers. This is personally one of the things I find most satisfying about the class. It is however a different story if the DPS each pick their own target to nuke and their own fault if they die