Avian Gamers Network

SECTION 1: INTRO - THE IMPORTANCE OF A GOOD TANK

Through damage mitigation (armor, stats, & talents), warriors benefit their group/raid in 3 ways:
1) By being harder to kill your healers have time to use their most efficient heals on you. These heals usually have longer cast times.
2) By being harder to kill, your healers have time to heal not only you, but other players as well.
3) By being harder to kill... and therefore requiring fewer heals... your healers generate less aggro.

A tanks ability to generate aggro (or lack of) seriously impacts the performance of the entire raid. When a tank can't hold aggro, the mobs tend to focus on the healers, then on the DPS classes... and not just any healer or any DPS ... usually your BEST people! A good tank may or may not be high on the damage meters, depending on build, but a good tank knows how to hold aggro, and counter the anti-aggro moves some mobs have (knock-backs, blinks, etc.). Basically, a good tank will allow your healers to heal & your dps to damage, longer than a so-so tank will. While there are other classes that can tank, your most effective tanks, are in fact Warriors. Through shouts, talents, inherant abilities, and the ability to wear plate armore w/+def stats, no other class can tank quite as effectively as a GOOD warrior.

*A note on Feral Druids: A skilled & equipped Feral druid can tank as well as a warrior, but the lack of +def stats & other damage mitigating abilities will eventually be a mana drain on the healers if the DPS isn't quite up to snuff.

*A note on Pallys: While the Paladin wears plate & can tank, he has less aggro management and fewer debuffs than the Warrior. When aggro is lost, it is VERY difficult for the Pally to get it back... not to mention running out of mana.


SECTION 2: TALENTS

In other posts I've given a few talent builds for warriors asking my advice, but as far as the talent trees go, in my opinion this is the best build for someone wanting to be the best possible tank they can be:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=TVhxdhboZVZEizox
You will not top the damage meters, but I guarantee you will hold aggro and still do a fair amount of damage.


SECTION 3: AGGRO & RAGE - HOW TO MANAGE THEM EFFECTIVELY

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: REVENGE is the most effective tool we have as warriors. It costs only 5 rage, and generates the 2nd largest amount of aggro of any talent. Not only that, but it generates more hate/rage than any other talent we have... period. www.thesteelwarrior.org has a nice little comparison chart of hate/rage warrior abilities:

Skills by total hate generated on a single target (50% mob dmg reduction):
1. Shield Slam - 1950 total hate.
2. Revenge - 1370 total hate.
3. Sunder Armor - 1050 total hate.
4. Shield Bash - 930 total hate.
5. Heroic Strike - 890 total hate.
6. Cleave - 490 total hate.
7. Thunder Clap -340 total hate.
8. Bloodrage - 335 total hate.
9. Demoralizing Shout - 175 total hate.

Skills by hate/rage efficiency on a single target (50% mob dmg reduction):
1. Revenge - 273 hate per rage.
2. Shield Bash - 93 hate per rage.
3. Sunder Armor - 70(88) hate per rage.
4. Shield slam- 65 hate per rage.
5. Heroic Strike (fast weapon) - 59(49) hate per rage.
6. Cleave (fast weapon) - 21(27) hate per rage.
7. Demoralizing shout - 18 hate per rage.
8. Thunder Clap - 17 hate per rage.

Regular physical damage in def stance (with defiance): 4.0 hate per point of damage.

1 Hate = 1 point of healing by a Priest with 20% threat reduction talent.

*notes:
Sunder armor is the same amount of hate per application, regardless of how many sunders are already on, and the hate is not removed when the debuff wears off.
The same is true for demoralizing shout and thunderclap.
1 point of damage = 4.0 points of healing = 4.0 hate
Hate per point of rage includes damage.

The healer can heal the tank for roughly 4 health for every 1 damage the tank does, but an untalented healer and battle/'zerker warrior situation drops that ratio to only 1.8 health for every damage done. That's why there are so many bad tanks out there. Leveling up, warriors rely on battle stance. I myself used battle stance 99.9% of the time while leveling. At 60, they think they can continue those BADle stance habits and still tank... which is not true. They require more healing & generate less aggro by remaining in BS.


SECTION 4: TANKING MULTIPLE MOBS

Any warrior can tank 1 mob and hold aggro. A good tank can hold aggro on 2-3 mobs at once, and a truly GREAT tank can even hold aggro on 4+. If you're tanking in a 5-man, you're going to need to hold aggro on more than 1 mob at a time... especially if this group does not have a Pally or Feral Druid. These are my tips on how to hold aggro on multiple mobs.

1. Make sure your raid/party know that they are not to attack (or heal!) until you tell them to, and that YOU are pulling.
2. Target the mob for FF, charge in, wait a second & Thunderclap to grab all the attention. Turn so that the mob is between you and your healer.
3. Swithch to Def. Stance, Bloodrage & toss off a demoralizing shout.
4. Sunder your FF target, then rend him to help generate rage.
5. Hit a cleave & swap to the other target.
6. Rend this target, sunder him, and focus back on FF target.
7. Use shield block & shield bash periodically, use revenge whenever it is available.
8. Repeat steps 4-6 as necessary... adding mobs to this tactic as necessary.
9. If rage drops low enough, swap back to Battle Stance for a second & thunderclap when it has worn off. Go back to Def. immed.

*notes: If you are fighting a caster, use your shield bash to interrupt spells.
If you see your healer pickup aggo, run to the healer & taunt his mob. Pull him back to where you were tanking before & add him to your rotation.

When done tanking 3+ mobs at once, tell your group you need a quick break. If you were tanking effectively, you should be all jacked-up Sit back & take a drink of coke for a second or two

COUNTERING THOSE ANTI-AGGRO MOVES MENTIONED EARLIER

Remember those knock-back & blinks I mentioned earlier? Here's how to keep aggro even after you've been hit w/one of them:

Knock-Back: Try and get the timing down. Have your finger always hovering near the key you've bound taunt to. The second you start flying, hit taunt. He will chase after you. This will not work 100% of the time, as being off just a little will put you out of range to taunt him. Practice makes perfect though .

Blink: With experience on the mobs, you will be able to determine when they begin to cast their blink. At that moment hit taunt. They will either not blink, or blink & immediately run right back to you. Until you get the timing down, just throw a taunt whenever you can, you will get lucky enough times to prevent the blink more than you'd think


SECTION 5: GEAR

You want to focus on avoidance as much as possible (dodge, parry, etc). A missed hit is better!
Then you want to look at armor itself.
Next comes defense (see my other post for more info on +Def stats)
Get as much stamina as possible w/out sacrificing the previous stats.
DPS stats (agility & strength)... you have moves to aquire the aggro, but if you want to KEEP it, you'd better be able to deal damage!


Vlad

quick question for ya on the build you linked -

You have 1 in sweeping strikes and impale - considering the hate generation on sunder armor, wouldn't it be better from a tanking standpoint to instead get the rage cost reduction, helping to get the sunders on faster at the expense of extra dmg overall? Or is not having the rage cost reduction mitigated by the increased damage (more rage) for it to not matter?

Very good guide Vlad. I've never tried a Prot build for more than a few hours. One thing that should be explained is that Imp Shield Block should not have more than 1 point in it. The reason is because the first point gives you an addition block (which is VERY nice), but putting more points will only increase the duration. There shouldn't be any need for increasing the duration, as the charges will be used up very quickly, and those two points can go into something a lot more useful.

Ivanov: When you are tanking, a good amount of your rage generation is from taking damage. You usually won't have too much problem with not having enough rage, and I think Vlad took SS and Impale to generate hate better (especially in multiple mob situations, SS is good).

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Armory: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-shee ... n=Thermoon

Correct

100% Protection Warrior... 0/0/51

I know the build isn't for everyone but it works for me.

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Some quick pointers on tanking from me.

1) Always queue up Shield Block when it's finished its cooldown. It will mitigate damage AND proc revenge.

2) Always put 5 sunders on your target, unless the targets are going down too fast anyway. Sunder is mana efficient, and is an instanct attack which means it can be spammed every 1.5 seconds. Don't forget to refresh the timer on the sunders.

3) Don't taunt when a mob is already targetting you, as it will do nothing. Taunt will bring your threat level to that of the current highest, and force the mob to target you for 3 seconds.

4) If a Taunt is missed or resisted, switch over to battle stance and hit Mocking Blow (same as taunt but costs 10 rage). Of course, this will only work if you put at least 2/5 points into Tactical Mastery.

5) If you lose aggro and a mob is chasing down squishies, it might be a good idea to switch to zerker stance and Intercept the mob, switch back to Defensive and Taunt. Again, this will require 2/5 TM.

6) Queue up Heroic Strike at all times (assuming you have enough rage to do so). HS will greatly increase your threat. It might be a good idea to have 3/3 Imp HS for rage efficiency, but not required.

These are what I can think of at the top of my head. Again, there are many different ways to tank and different situations call for different tactics but I think these ones are pretty standard.

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Armory: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-shee ... n=Thermoon

excellent guide.
Mogen is just starting to learn instance tanking so this was very helpful. I switched from a 31/5/10 (lvl 55) to you build listed above. I can see how this will only slightly lower my DPS while greatly increasing my hate generation.

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Moge