Protection warriors are simply not fun to play at the current state, no wonder there is a lack of tanks. I've put my warrior on hold until they hopefully do something about it.
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Banned
I leveled my warrior for the sake of playing Fury and only Fury. While doing quests and dungeons, however, I managed to get a full tank set and decided to make a Prot off-spec since the one-hour waiting as a Fury Warrior was pretty frustrating. I made sure to watch some guides and train on normal mobs, even though I've been playing warrior for the majority of my 11 years of WoW experience.
Due to threat frustration and being called bad by people who never follow marks and never wait for initial threat, I vendored all my tank gear 2 days later. Fastest 80g in my life. I am never ever going to tank again on this expansion and I don't know why I even tried, knowing too well how ****ed up warrior tanking is on TBC, losing aggro mid-fight from a DPS that literally spams just 1 button while I'm bashing my keyboard like an angry feminist under a sexist post.
I prefer waiting 1 hour for a DPS spot than getting instantly invited into the nightmare that is TBC warrior tanking.
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My main in retail has been always Warrior tank, and even TBC were the hardest times, they were also the most gratifying.
Here you have a lvl70 build for maximum threat, while retaining the minimums of the prot tree. It should be enough for dugeons.
http://armory.twinstar.cz/talent-cal...33000120501351
For raids, I´d swap the 3 points in fury to shield mastery. Here you have some hints about warrior tanking.
- First of all, this in not wotlk. Eternal rage and unending aggro granted just for being prot still don´t exist, and the aggro management is a work for BOTH the tank and the DPS´s. You must try to maximize it without comprising your survivability, and they MUST not trespass your aggro.
- You are the tank, and in TBC this means you are the boss. You are expected to form the group, guide it, set the priorities and he speed of the run. If someone is not happy with your work it risks himself to be kicked and wait another hour to get a group.
- Thunderclap is not your only AOE aggro. Demoralizing shout, even if it does not damage, it builds threat.
- Ask the aggresive CC ( as in sheep ) to be applied AFTER you pull with gun/bow. This way the initial attention remains on you.
- Expertise is very important
- Agility is highly desirable in any piece. Each point of agility adds +crit, +dodge, and 2 points of armor ( this last usually little known ) Agi is just a tank stat.
- You are THE tank. Pallies may have better AOE tanking, but they lack good non-impairing or aggro resetting last resort buttons like last stand or shield wall. In my times we said:
Warrior = Tank
Paladin = Hyjal trash.
This being said; this is how it was, and this is how TBC lovers like it, don´t ask it to be changed.
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@Fermin - I think the key issue is not maintaining agro once it's established, but rather gaining the initial agro with no/low rage while also dealing with DPS/Healers who are entirely clueless about how crucial it is for them to not generate threat on the start of a pull. This issue is made worse by the fact that they do not need to do this at all with Paladin tanks, who have amazing initial agro on unlimited mobs.
During retail TBC people were well trained to play with Warrior tanks, but here the majority of players probably didn't even play TBC during retail. Once a Warrior has decent initial threat and is generating rage from that threat it's generally not an issue (unless the dps goes wild attacking offtargets or using AOE) and it's definitely not an issue on bosses at all where Warrior threat is quite superior.
Are we generating less threat than retail? It's so hard to make that judgement when retail was a decade ago, I certainly don't think our single target threat is lower than retail, but on multi target packs? I'd not be surprised if that was the case, healer threat is a huge issue and I would say in TBC I had less trouble than I had now tanking multi packs, and I suspect that might have more to do with rage generation than anything else since the core of the issue happens to be not being able to use any abilities due to low rage generation, thus being completely unable to react to a situation and causing a snowball effect.
Even when tanking Prince, a boss who was smashing my face in I was not swimming in rage and had to make choices, and honestly if my memory serves me right I would have had near unlimited rage while tanking Prince during retail, of course the rage income is strong enough there that threat is zero issue, but Prince absolutely smashes the tank to pieces, it's a huge contrast to trash.
Edit : To reply to other pieces.
1. Expertise being important is obvious, but Expertise is not a commonly found stat pre-Sunwell, it's not really relevant, you're absolutely most likely to have little to no Expertise in T4-T6.
2. Demo Shout does generate threat and is the only option above 4 targets, however it doesn't generate enough threat to hold off a healer, so it's not that relevant as a tool for threat.Edited: June 19, 2017
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Yeah well if you are stuck with ******ed dps then thats not really your fault, in tbc threat is a big deal and Warriors have problems tanking multiple mobs but excel in singletarget tankning. If the dps knows what they are doing and follow the marks it shouldent be much of a problem i'd give you some tips.
1. Pull in zerker stance with ranged weapon
2. Use zerker rage
3. Swap D-stance and use Bloodrage
4. Use demo shout when lets say 3 mobs come
5. Shieldslam/Revenge Skull, swap to X Revenge/Shieldslam switch to unmarked, Devastate/Revenge
6. Thunderclap, Start hitting Skull again and spam Cleave as you should be bathing in rage by now
7. Rise and repeat
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There does seem to be a bug I'm noticing, sometimes Devastate will land while the Sunder Armor effect misses or gets dodged, which means the Sunder Armor aspect of Devastate is applying as a separate attack and not working properly, I went to make a bug report about this and one already exists and in greater detail.
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this doesnt feel like tbc tanking to be honest. i tanked on a warrior in tbc and i had a ton of fun. i tanked tonight on a 70 warrior and no ty. never tanking on this server. i like to have fun when i play.
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No, everything seems to be okay. I play War Tank and for me the threat is just fine. I don't see any real problems to build a decent threat in every situations in dungeons or raids. The coefficients are fine and rage generation (even if it's low and could contribute to the "struggling feeling") seems accurate too.
Maybe you don't have a pally's consecration or the insane threat of a druid but as a warrior you have a sh*tload of CDs and that's your main strenght : Concussive Blow, Intimidating Shout, Taunt, Mocking Blow, Armstring, Disarm, Challenging Shout... War Stomp (Tauren). Your possibilities just become insane when you learn to correctly use each one of these. It requires lots of practice for sure but it makes you able to do miracles in many cases.
If major threat issues still occur, I would rather give a look on the DPS' behavior. Back in retail TBC they acted more carefuly and they lost this habit due to the massives threat boost for tanks that occured in later XPACs. DPS here just need to learn threat mechanics again.Edited: June 29, 2017
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i played prot warrior during all of tbc. in the start of tbc warriors didn't even have thunderclap in defensive stance.
a good warrior is perfectly capable of tanking 5 man dungeons. i can give you some tips, however:
before a big pull always wait for your bloodrage and berserker rage to come of cd.
use berserker rage before the pull, then switch to defensive, shoot with your ranged and press bloodrage.
don't shoot the skull target in the start.
the mobs mostly won't come all at once, so you need to be quick. on each mob a special attack should be used (use your tab key well).
in the start it's often easier to just let the dps burn down the skull and just taunt it and use your CDs on the other mobs.
thunderclap is not an aoe tanking ability, thunderclap means you get less rage and it doesn't even hold aggro against healers so don't use it for threat keeping purposes but for damage mitigation.
actually prot warrior is the most difficult, skill demanding and diverse protection specc in tbc. it is also the most viable. prot paladin may be fun but it is less demanding in 5 mans, and truly 5 mans are just more fun to do as a warrior because you need to actually be good at it.Edited: July 1, 2017
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I feel like I can apply most of the info in this thread to bear tanking as well, seeing as how on my ele sham, I pull aggro from them quite easily...
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You do dungeon with Paladin, they never lose agro unless they go oom (some bosses).. You do dungeon with Warrior or Druid and they lose aggro on every single pull with more than 2 mobs if CC is not used. It's mostly down to other players though, it takes a long time to apply threat to multiple targets and threat is extremely sensitive. Unless the other 4 members of the group adjust their positioning and damage/healing output to help the tank it's impossible.
The realistic situation of what you deal with is you need about 6 seconds GCD limited from the first hit to put basic threat on 3 targets to hold off a healer. What usually happens is the healer pre hots or heavy heals early (like casting a heavy heal just as the mobs are first hitting the tank) and in that 6 seconds the main target has already been taken to 40% health by the dps, there is no way in hell you can manage all of this with limited rage, extremely limited AOE threat and a 1.5s GCD.
So what happens is you lose agro, and then because the dps/healers aren't positioned well they add extra work for the tank.. A lot of them running around like headless chickens when they get threat (whether through overagro or through mechanics that incapacitate the tank such as fear which drop threat).. This reaction from them though is caused by playing with tanks who simply do not react to them getting threat, meaning these players learn if they don't run and try to kite they will die, so of course when they play with a tank who knows how to deal with it they still react as if the tank is going to do nothing.
Pretty much dungeon tanking as a Warrior is a nightmare, I do a lot of tanking and dps in dungeons and quite literally no Warriors/Druids can hold threat, none of them.. And that's obvious, we are playing with minimal CC because we can get away with it, and when playing with minimal CC it's better to zerg down important mobs as soon as possible and try to hold together the chaos than it is to let the tank go through his motions of getting threat.
So we're in this taunt tennis, zerg mode gameplay which Druids/Warriors simply aren't cut out for. I clear all the heroics I run with no issues, whether I tank or DPS, but damn there are always a lot of deaths when a paladin isn't tanking.
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I've found no issues with Warrior tanking. The only potential issue I've noticed is that it feels like Holy Paladin threat values aren't accurate: Paladin heals are supposed to generate half of the threat that heals from other classes do to prevent them from heal-tanking. But then again, I have neither ran with many Holy Paladins or thoroughly tested this, but it's just a gut feeling based on 3k Holy Lights ripping aggro off after a Thunder Clap on a 4 mob pull, which should be impossible.
In any case, for people who have forgotten what TBC heroics were like: you ran most of them with a hard CC class (Mage, Warlock, Rogue, Hunter) and you had at LEAST one other class/spec that could do "soft" CC like Ele Shamans for kiting, Priests for AoE fear/MC, Paladin for on-demand stun or Druid for Cyclone/Roots/Hibernate. Adequately geared players running heroics didn't have tanks handle 4 elites at once while cleaving/AoEing. Long story short: you either CCd or people died.
The "alternative" is to bring a Prot Paladin, but Prot Paladins were incredibly squishy without a DPS Warrior to babysit them with Demo Shout. Prot Paladins are far better on Warmane for heroics than they were on retail simply due too many heroic mobs hitting like wet noodles/having their damage values way off compared to retail. But it still doesn't mean that CC shouldn't be heavily used when there's a Paladin tanking.
Either way: CC stuff, let the mobs reach the tank and kite/stun stuff better and aggro becomes a non issue. Funny thing is that the loss of DPS from not being able to AoE, go crazy right off the bat or applying snares/stuns generally results in faster clear times because your healer isn't OOM after every pull and because people aren't dying.
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So far other then the mentioned issues of building threat with little rage at the beginning of the pull, tanking seems fine. I just literally tell all the DPS and healers not to pre hot, and wait for two+ sunders on marked target to dps. Usually works out fine. Sure when the hunter hits multishot 3 seconds into the pull **** is gonna hit the fan, but this is why I tell the DPS outright if you pull aoe threat and we wipe its on you.
Don't pre hot me, don't spam aoe 3 seconds into a pull, attack the marked target. Warriors suck at add tanking, but are gods at boss tanking. Just accept this.
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Banned
I switched back to tanking some 2 weeks ago due to our guild needing a main tank. I have kind of sucked it up and started tanking again. However, the aggro issues do remain. Yesterday we wiped on Ramps HC because my Shield Slam missed and I avoided the first 3 attacks of the boss (0 rage). Every single time when there are more than 2 mobs, I easily lose aggro to the healer, an ele shaman or any DPS that decides to AoE. Basically, people die all the time and I just run around with 0 rage, spamming Taunt and Mocking Blow on cooldown. PUGs don't follow marks and they don't CC if they can get away without doing it.
So yeah, don't say warrior tanking is "fun". If that's "fun" for you, then you're masochistic. It was fun on WotLK and Cata, where your spells actually do something, where your Shield Slam and Revenge hit like a truck, where you have Glyph of Cleave, and where you have Shockwave and Damage Shield. On a side note, I'm currently leveling a paladin for tank. Which is pretty much like what I described above about warriors, but on TBC. So why not?
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To everyone who have problem with aggro. There are 2 possibilities, your dps have low damage in which case you wont have issue with aggro, and the case where your dps actually do damage. In this case
0) If you know its going to be a difficult pull. Range pull it then Bloodrage then Commanding Shout on all 5 member, it will give you a small headstart in case your healer have a death wish and has prehotted you
1) Thunderclap as soon as possible
2) Stun the focus on your 2nd GCD, and have your dps go all out during stun
3) While focus is stun spread your threat on big hitters (Cleavers / Melees mobs) you spam Thunderclap as soon as up and spam Devastate + Cleave tabbing (more rage worthy than Shield Slam in case you get missed / miss a lot) them. You dont need a lot of threat on all of them, just enough so your healer do not get targeted.
Cleave on big pulls (5+ mobs) is better than Heroic Strike because your healer have to start healing you fast and you only have that much GCD, so its better to spread less threat on more target than a lot of threat on one target. Remember to tab after every Cleave OR GCD used, both are on different timer, allowing you to build threat on up to 3 target every 1.5s
4) Now that your healer is safe and that the stun is wearing off (5s = 3 GCD so 6 to 9 mobs with at least some threat on them) taunt the focus back on you and Shield slam it + Heroic Strike
5) Focus should be almost dead by now if not, give it another Devastate / Heroic Strike and continue alt tabbing the rest of the mobs.
Rinse and repeat, on big pull you should have someone ready to slow the mobs, giving you time to stun / taunt whats trying to go through you. Mocking Blow in case you miss a lot or taunt is resisted (remember that Mocking Blow is NOT a taunt, so you have to get 1st on aggro table by the time Mocking Blow wears off or taunt it). AoE taunt is your panick button when you dont know whats best to do next anymore, press it and try to calmly analyze your priorities. Intercept / Intervene + taunt when you feel you start to lose control, it will even temporize some of the damage you are taking.
In case you have a lot of small mobs like the last room in AC hc and no real threat, do not forget Demoralizing Shout since your Thunder clap cannot hit that many target and no matter how fast you tab monster, you wont be able to build threat on all of them by the time your healer has to start healing. My advice is just to keep as many as you can and let whatever get past you to your dps to handle, mobs are weaks they should be able to handle 3/4 slowed mobs at a time (its important they do not AoE at first, they have to wait whats going on the healer and snipe said mobs).
People say warrior prot is fun cause it has the highest APM of all classes (far above rogues) since every GCD you have at least 2 actions as well as having an important on the fly decision making component.
A good tank isnt necessarily always top threat on all mobs, a good tank is someone who still have everyone alive by the end of the fight.
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