Warrior tanking, changes and builds in Wrath of the Lich King.

Ivan

I'm sorry, no.

I agree with the majority of your post, but you will not be ready for heroics with entry level <80 gear.

You need 535 defense to be crit immune for heroics. With exponential scaling of defense and diminishing returns on dodge and parry, you just wont have the avoidance for tanking heroics at 80 without at least some work, at 80.

Grab yourself some tabards and do HoL/Stratholme from 78 or so on. Try to build up to honored, if you arent already from quests, with all the reputations as it'll let you buy some decent tank gear once you hit 80 (in some cases 78).

Revered is ideal and some factions are better than others in terms of tank gear. Most notably Argent Crusade since you can grab the head enchant which helps.

Also, start on the Sons of Hodir quest chains in Storm Peaks while you can. You want to be exalted with them eventually for the great shoulder enchants and at the moment at least, you can only put out about 1k rep per day from the dailies.

The http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=55301 and http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=55303 daunting gear is great for building up defense initially. But you'll most likely need to gem and enchant for defense just to be ready for entry level heroics. Otherwise your healers will hate you, you will wipe and most likely your groups will fail to kill most bosses. This is the biggest issue most freshly 80 tanks face and it is just tragic.

The cost of titansteel has dropped significantly in the last few weeks but is likely to drop even more in the next few weeks. Grab the tempered titansteel helm first, it's one of the cheapest titansteel items you can make/get made and it is currently pretty damn nice. And it is getting a blue and meta socket added in the next patch so will be even better.

If you arent JC/Alchemy or Engineering at the moment, I would highly recommend one of them. There are only 3 crafted trinkets with stamina on them and I believe 2 stamina trinkets from drops. The JC trinket is simply the best stamina trinket in the current content and has a damn nice use effect too. Plus there is rather nice money in the profession

Other than that, dont be afraid to gather dps gear where possible as you'll most likely need it at some point. Especially with the dual spec system coming soon. Your best bet is to spec fury/arms for a short while once you hit 80 to farm some gear and reptuation and then go from there.

Finally, http://wow-loot.com/ is your friend. Use it to find the gear you need

Good luck and good tanking!

P.s. If you are like me, you'll be looking at the epic tank gloves from Kirin Tor with greedy eyes. I wouldnt bother, by the time you'll be in a position to buy it, you'll have better or you'll be relying on the daunting gloves to stay crit immune.

Anti

Yeah, maybe the saronite set wont be enough for heroics, especially as some of it is lvl 72. But i'd assume the op would replace most of it along the way in Hol/strat,occ and the likes. Even some of the quest stuff isnt too bad. And i suppose at 80 there is the epic saronite set along with a shield too.

WellyJ

Ivan wrote: »

With Prot paladin buffs and Titans grip buffs in next patch, I think the time of the Prot warrior is finally coming to a close

Fury warriors are already insane but now they are actually practical for leveling too!

Damn you Ivan.... Damn you.....

I don't want to take the bait but I have to!!!!

Even though I don't play my warrior tank much atm, I have to stick up for them. Our guild doesn't even have a pally tank, or a druid tank. We have active and nicely geared Prot Warriors and we have cleared all 10 man content and 25 man naxx.

Grrrrr....

Prot Warriors will always be what the majority of players think of when they hear "Tank" and still usually what people want when they are LF TANK LAST SPOT OMG GO GO

Karl Hungus

RecessionHead wrote: »

I have yet to get to grips with the notion of beginning to add on attack power to hold threat, still just working on getting def gear at this stage.

I wouldn't really worry about attack power at all. Your main single target threat maker is Shield Slam, and that ignores AP completely, it's damage is based on block value. Damage Shield is another great one for holding threat that uses block value for damage also. Heroic Strike isn't based on attack power either.

The damage/threat of your main abilities are modified as much by your talents than anything else. Shield Mastery gives you 30% additional block value, gag order gives you 10% more shield slam damage, critical block gives you an additional 15% chance to critically hit with shield slam, and the shield block ability gives you 100% increased block value for 10 seconds. After that, you can take Impale for 20% extra critical strike damage on all abilities.

All the damage/threat output you'll need is built into your talents, so your average 80 tank will have a 25% critical strike chance across all their main abilities, and that's without having a single piece of gear with +critical strike rating on it. You could work on getting more crit bonuses, but it's just not worth it, and that's the same with attack power.

Keep on working on getting defensive gear, because the damage bonuses come with the gear. You'll get 10% increased shield slam damage from the Heroes' Dreadnaught Plate set, and quite a bit of the heroic/naxx gear has additional block value. Strength gives more block value, but again, don't worry about it because you'll get more strength from better gear.

RecessionHead

that's great news! I'll stick with the def gear so.

Cleared Draktharon Keep last night with a pug group - great fun!
Then onto violet hold , but wiped twice at void boss - beer was beginnin to kick in at that stage i think , but no worries we will be back, and this time its personal!

Simply put , the best game ever. Been playin since it started 4 years ago. Every week Im switching tactics, strategy, goals, chars -from instances to questing, to getting money, to killing the scumbags (alliance ofc) and back again.

And the deathknight now given a whole new class to figure out too...

Anyone got a char on Quel'Thalas feel free to contact me ingame - Kulk, level 75 horde orc warrior, GM of Kegheads - an appallingly casual guild... who occasionally muster up a crew to attack the scumbags (alliance ofc) from time to time...
(altho with 80 comin up soon, we might have to get a little bit more organised, such as putting the beer in the fridge the night before an instance run, instead of during :-) )

copeyhagen

still havent played my warrior at all or my hunter, only my dk since wotlk.

i havent played much either, hes casually sitting at 76 at the moment.

its such a versatile class though, i can tank and keep huge amounts of threat no problem and with the same gear i can dps and finish second if its a decent group (maybe 3rd) or first if theyre all shams! which a lot tend to be.

lovin unholy at the moment, but deffo gonna shift some of my points around at 80.

Karl Hungus

Hmm, while I haven't been playing Warcraft for a bit, I've certainly still been thinking about it. I've read that they're changing the Glyph of Cleaving in the new patch so that instead of it reducing the rage cost by 5, your Cleave hits 1 additional target. This got me to thinking, because I do spam cleave on mobs solo and in instances in high rage situations, and I came up with this 5/13/53 build that incorporates Improved Cleave and Improved Demoralizing Shout. I'd say I could happily drop the Glyph of Heroic Strike for the Glyph of Cleaving, so I'd essentially be hitting 3 mobs with the same power as a single Heroic Strike.

I think it might be worth trying out once the new patch arrives to see if I have any problems holding threat if I drop impale. The 12/8/51 build has a few points in fury just to build up the numbers so that I can actually get impale (Improved Heroic Strike is not something I need when I have this), whereas Improved Demoralizing Shout would be plenty useful. Thoughts?

Anti

not a bad build at all tbh, but it does require stance dancing a bit. Also i like the way you dropped vigiliance as it had turned out to be the biggest pile of **** ever.

Karl Hungus

Manties wrote: »

not a bad build at all tbh, but it does require stance dancing a bit. Also i like the way you dropped vigiliance as it had turned out to be the biggest pile of **** ever.

Why would it require stance dancing? I'm not focusing on any talents that are used outside of defensive stance.

Yeah, vigilance seems like a good idea on paper, but I dropped it when I first took my 12/8/51 build and kept aggro even better, so a wasted point really. The only time I can see it being potentially useful is for raid bosses, where a tank and offtank would buff each other (:D) with it for the 3% reduced damage.

WellyJ

Karl Hungus wrote: »

Why would it require stance dancing? I'm not focusing on any talents that are used outside of defensive stance.

Yeah, vigilance seems like a good idea on paper, but I dropped it when I first took my 12/8/51 build and kept aggro even better, so a wasted point really. The only time I can see it being potentially useful is for raid bosses, where a tank and offtank would buff each other (:D) with it for the 3% reduced damage.

You guys are grouping with the wrong dps if you think vigilance is totally useless

Some tanks i have ran HCs with would not have been able to come close to keeping up with my damage if it werent for Vigilance.

Anti

ive no problem keeping the aggro of locks that do 3000dps

nix

Regarding crit immune you dont need to be 535 to run heroics, i think i only reached that def quota recentley on my DK and i only hit it by getting heroic blues/epics, and i was never one shotted.

And i had tanked heroics such as:
UK, UP, Zul, VH, Old kingdom, nex and HoS with no probs

So your grand for heroics once your def rating is over 500 IME

Karl Hungus

nix wrote: »

Regarding crit immune you dont need to be 535 to run heroics, i think i only reached that def quota recentley on my DK and i only hit it by getting heroic blues/epics, and i was never one shotted.

And i had tanked heroics such as:
UK, UP, Zul, VH, Old kingdom, nex and HoS with no probs

So your grand for heroics once your def rating is over 500 IME

I'd be wary of lowballing the defense rating, it still effects your dodge/block/parry so you're gonne lose a little avoidance and be that bit less hardy. That rare chance of crit mightn't happen if you're lacking a couple of points, but it's there, always looming. Not to mention if your party ever found out that you've been critically hit, they'd probably get another tank fast.

nix

But never did and i got my 100 emblems achievment last night

RecessionHead

Nice going! I've now decided to stop messin about and head straight for level 80!

Altho... failed at violet hold last night again - tried it with 3 frost specced mages, a druid healer and myself. Found out that all bosses in there are frost and beer immune.

So we did The Dalaran Run! - switch your pvp on and run through the Dalaran slapping the alliance scumbags and generally being a nuisance. Whoever lives longest is the winner! Strangely enough, the mages were dead within minutes. No-one, not one scumbag tried to hit me ! I think it's the tank gear that scares them :P

Anti

Violet hold can be hard if yoru healer is crap/drunk , ive practicially stopped grouping with mages as they just dont have the raw dps of a nice feral druid or ele shammy. Granted not all mages are the same but alot i know do the same dps as when they were lvl 70.

Dustaz

RecessionHead wrote: »

So we did The Dalaran Run! - switch your pvp on and run through the Dalaran slapping the alliance scumbags and generally being a nuisance. Whoever lives longest is the winner! Strangely enough, the mages were dead within minutes. No-one, not one scumbag tried to hit me ! I think it's the tank gear that scares them :P

I hate to break this to you, but Dalaran is a non-pvp zone.

Im not sure how your mages died, but well done for staying alive...

Dustaz

Manties wrote: »

ive practicially stopped grouping with mages as they just dont have the raw dps of a nice feral druid or ele shammy.

0o

man seriously, what bizzarro server do you play on? As a mage i know that the best spec for raids means your a little gimped in 5 mans and i get outdpsed a fair bit (rets, dks and enh shamans mostly) but never by those 2 classes. How did you manage to settle on the 2 worst dpsing specs there is ?

Ivan

Well, feral druids scale rather nicely. Once you get some decent gear on them, they can get very scary. A dps druid in our guild has 14k AP raid buffed in cat form.

I second ele shamans though.

And raiding mages have some insane dps with the right spec (i.e. frostfire).

Requires a decent bit of gear and the know-how to use one of the simplest rotations this side of mangle, shred, shred, mangle; but they are insanely competitive in their dps.

Also, VH is one of the easiest instances, heroic or otherwise. Crit immune tanks are vital, also the knowledge of how to fight the random bosses. Also, if you have difficulty, use the gems scattered around the place for some big AoE damage. Makes several boss encounters trivial but you dont get your achievement

Karl Hungus

Ivan wrote: »

Also, VH is one of the easiest instances, heroic or otherwise. Crit immune tanks are vital, also the knowledge of how to fight the random bosses. Also, if you have difficulty, use the gems scattered around the place for some big AoE damage. Makes several boss encounters trivial but you dont get your achievement

Ah, VH can be hard enough on heroic depending on the boss. That damned Ethereal lad is a pain.

Anti

Dustaz wrote: »

0o

man seriously, what bizzarro server do you play on? As a mage i know that the best spec for raids means your a little gimped in 5 mans and i get outdpsed a fair bit (rets, dks and enh shamans mostly) but never by those 2 classes. How did you manage to settle on the 2 worst dpsing specs there is ?

My server is a bit fecked up, but ive always said that. And by ele shamans i actually meant ench shammys (my bad) Feral druids i find completely imba, but like ivan said its pretty gear specific. While im yet to have moer then 1 wipe in VH, it can be tough the first few times in here if you dont know the boss. But the "heal through the damage you cúnt" usually works :pac:

smellslikeshoes

Only boss Ive ever really had any trouble in VH with is the etheral boss, even when a tank knows the encounter its possible to end up getting unlucky.

Just from my experience mages don't seem to be as strong as they used to be in 5 mans or raids. Hunters, DK's, Retardins seem to be beating them consistently aswell as a few other classes a decent amount of time.

Dustaz

smellslikeshoes wrote: »

Just from my experience mages don't seem to be as strong as they used to be in 5 mans or raids. Hunters, DK's, Retardins seem to be beating them consistently aswell as a few other classes a decent amount of time.

They arent as strong in 5 mans, they are far stronger than they were in raids.

Im specced FFB and this week i topped Patchwerk DPS (one of the rogues was a dribbler and died so as a result rogues didnt get that hack/bug combo point thingy and i was able to beat them)

Unfortunatly this spec is sort of dire for 5 mans and doubly so for trash because you just dont get the time that the spec needs to do the bigbignumbers it can provide so I get beaten all the time by other classes in 5 mans.

Hmm, we need a sticky for wws reports so people can see what classes actually do what damage without resorting to stories about green geared pugs!

RecessionHead

Not to be outdone by neutral zones, beer and frost mages - I switched on pvp while questing on Saturday and Sunday and had a great time! Nailed a dwarf pally and a particularly painful hunter! and made for a much more interesting days of questing. Prot spec is now great for pvp ! and it was just such a nice feeling to watch the Pally bubble up and heal twice, and I still danced on his grave! And of course, can always switch pvp off when wanna concentrate on something ...

Anyone on Quel'Thalas - u see a horde tank roaming the countryside with pvp on , its probably me :-)

On the stats discussion - got a nice shield and concentrating on def and shield block now based on the previous comments from Karl and its workin very nicely thanks!

Also, to note the +crit% on heroic strike has got me using it a lot more now - the beasties are fallin much quicker...

first guild instance run tonight since we setup guild 3 weeks ago - should be good - i think draktharon keep for starters just to get the practise in - mostly 75s and a 76 (me!)

Mr. CooL ICE

I reached 80 on Sunday and started doing heroics as soon as my defense was 540. But I'm wondering what way I should aim to gem my items and what other stats I should aim for. My char can be seen here (my waist has a +8 dodge/+12 sta gem not shown)

I got to revered with AC to get the head enchant and am doing my Hodir dailies for the shoulder enchant. My HP currently sits as 24.7k unbuffed. Should I aim to increase this or increase dodge and/or parry?

I'm currently trying to farm UP, AK and VH for the tanking sword, wrist and legs

Karl Hungus

LordChessington wrote: »

I reached 80 on Sunday and started doing heroics as soon as my defense was 540. But I'm wondering what way I should aim to gem my items and what other stats I should aim for. My char can be seen here (my waist has a +8 dodge/+12 sta gem not shown)

I got to revered with AC to get the head enchant and am doing my Hodir dailies for the shoulder enchant. My HP currently sits as 24.7k unbuffed. Should I aim to increase this or increase dodge and/or parry?

I'm currently trying to farm UP, AK and VH for the tanking sword, wrist and legs

Well Mr. Chesstington, first things first I'd say you could do something with your build, puncture is pretty wasted points as there's no real rage starvation any more, with heroic bosses I find I'm burning 100 rage most of the time. I greatly recommend a Deep Wounds build like this one, you'll see a nice jump in the amount of threat you're causing, and definitely helps with a bit of AOE tanking. The bleed effect from deep wounds procs from everything, which makes it just incredible, so right across the board, you'll get it from thunderclap, shockwave and even damage shield.

Wouldn't really bother with +dodge gems, take the +8 Defense/+12 stamina ones where needed, but with good gear and some nice enchants, you shouldn't really need more into defense, and can bulk up with some 24stam and 16str gems. Work on getting some Hit Rating and Expertise too, don't be afraid to enchant and gem for that, so you can have as little as possible misses and dodges/parries from mobs and bosses.

As far as gear goes, get rid of the cobalt bracers right away. I'd say get the T7 set from Emblems first, and then get the necklace and belt after that.

Check out Azjol Nerub for this belt and this trinket. This ring from Old Kingdom is worth looking out for, as is this one from Drak'Tharon. Eternally Folded Blade from the normal Halls of Lightning is worth a look if you can't get the one from Utgarde Pinnacle.

If you have the cash, I think that Darkmoon Card: Greatness is all round one of the most fantastic trinkets you can get. Massive increase in damage all across the board, scales with Deep Wounds nicely, and gives a huge boost in threat, I'm seeing 2k crits from Shockwave, and even a 9.4k crit from shield slam while this baby was active. The uptime on the proc is huge as well, wowhead says 33% of the time it's on, and it feels like more sometimes. Getting that trinket was the largest jump in damage output I've seen in the game.

Here is me btw, so you can see how I'm geared and specced. Might give you some ideas.

Oh, I've actually found some use for Vigilance at last! When we were doing Naxx, I was the offtank, and we kept wiping on the last boss in the spider corner, so after a while I said why don't I stick vigilance on the maintank? We didn't wipe that time. Same with Sartharion, couple of wipes when the MT died fast, vigilance'd him again and he didn't die. So yeah, there's definitely good raid applications for that particular talent.

Ivan

With all due respect Ken, that is some of the worst advice to warrior tanks that I can think of.

Threat is not and will not likely be an issue until well into Ulduar. Gem/Enchanting or even talenting for Strength/Threat is ludicrous at this stage. Further compounded by the fact the person you are advising is just newly 80.

Defense and stamina are the best tools available to a tank for the forseeable future. Defense is the best scaling stat at the moment for tanking, as it isnt being diminished. Block is a very close second and in some cases, first; choice. Once crit immune stamina is always more valuable than either until well into the 30k raid buffed region.

This is our current main tank http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Thunderhorn&n=Gholam

Try his spec or dont but I would at the least, take a look at the itemisation/enchant choices. Personally I prefer 12 defense on bracers and 22 defense on chest as they give the highest item points value compared to 18 stamina and 275 health respectively.

Expertise is great once you start getting into the high end area but as a paladin I can skip it as I get 10 expertise skill from a glyph.

Here's me:
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Thunderhorn&n=Nunca

but I'd pretty much ignore that

Karl Hungus

Ivan wrote: »

With all due respect Ken, that is some of the worst advice to warrior tanks that I can think of.

It sounds like bad advice, but it's not. Just about every tanking resource I've been reading have been raving about the Deep Wounds spec, and I'd especially like to point you to posts like this. I can point you towards 50 different posts and articles about the same thing, and the consensus is; this is one awesome spec.

Now, with your main tank, I can't say he's got a great spec because points in puncture is simply wasted points. Aside from the fact that rage starvation just isn't an issue, devastate is much lower on the rotation than it was, and with the glyph stacking 2 sunders per hit, all you really need to do is keep it topped up, so those 3 points are just going to waste. Likewise, 4/5 anticipation is missing out on 1% dodge, and he's also missing out on improved thunderclap.

Anti

Im curious, you two oobviously seem to know a hell of alot more about tanking then myself. What do you think of my gear/enchants. Granted i am missing the shoulder enchant as i dont have the rep. And yeah i know my wrists are pretty crap, but ive been very unlucky with drops in raids and heroics

I know my tallents slightly different to what you guys use, but i find it works great for me. I am never low on rage and have not had any threat issue even on dps races like patchwerk or holding aggro while kiting on grobbulus. With raids buffs im hitting 34/35k health, so could i drop some stamina gems and maybe stack some +def gems ?

http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Moonglade&n=Maerwynn

Karl Hungus

Anti wrote: »

Im curious, you two oobviously seem to know a hell of alot more about tanking then myself. What do you think of my gear/enchants. Granted i am missing the shoulder enchant as i dont have the rep. And yeah i know my wrists are pretty crap, but ive been very unlucky with drops in raids and heroics

I know my tallents slightly different to what you guys use, but i find it works great for me. I am never low on rage and have not had any threat issue even on dps races like patchwerk or holding aggro while kiting on grobbulus. With raids buffs im hitting 34/35k health, so could i drop some stamina gems and maybe stack some +def gems ?

http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Moonglade&n=Maerwynn

You've 3 points in puncture, and no points in focused rage? Oh man, that's bad! A talent that reduces the rage of 1 ability vs. a talent that reduces the rage of all abilities, you should respec and fix that immediately!