[prot warrior] trying to tank heroics

[gokuson]

Hi everyone, so my RL life friend hit lvl 80 two weeks ago on his warrior. right now he is on a road trip here from washington, and i want to run some heroics using his prot warrior. he has already 540 defense from crafted gear and about 23k hp health. The only problem is the only experience i have with a warrior is my level 4 bank alt. Could anyone here help me out with perhaps a good tanking rotation and prot spec? his name is 'matdaddy' on ravendhold (i don't know how to spell it). anyway i know how to tank all the heroics and entry level raids like the back of my hand on my pally, and i won't attempt 25 man voa with him.

Also i don't know any acronyms for warriors, so bear with me

Just to list some stuff i know about warriors:
Sunder armor, heroic strike, devistate, shockwave, shield block, shield slam, spell reflect, thunder clap, cleave. also if i use demo shout, does it cancel out battle or commanding shout?

oh and heroic throw looks cool.

PS i wont be doing TOC regular on him because i know black heart will drop for him, since i need it on my pally. Thanks


EDIT: here is Chicago

[Jedah]

Tanking heroics is mostly about managing several (3 or 4) targets at once. Warriors are generally not considered the best at this, and therefore need to help themselves out any way they can in this area. I suggest glyphing Cleave, Blocking, and Devastate for heroic and naxx.

Here's a talent spec I would use for tanking heroics: please note, this is off the top of my head, as I don't have access to a talent calculator at work:

Arms
5/5 deflection
3/3 imp herioc strike
2/2 imp charge
2/2 impale
3/3 deep wounds

Fury
3/3 Armored to the Teeth

Prot
5/5 Shield spec
3/3 improved thunderclap
3/3 incite
5/5 anticipation
5/5 toughness
1/1 last stand
2/2 Shield Block Value +30% talent (don't remember name)
2/2 gag order
1/1 concussion blow
5/5 1h weapon spec
1/1 vigilance
2/2 enrage (I forget specific name, but it's the talent that givse you +10% damage on block/dodge/parry)
3/3 focused rage
1/1 warbringer
1/1 devastate
3/3 vitality
3/3 Sword & Board
2/2 damage shield
1/1 shockwave

You should have a few points of wiggle room you can put into improved disciplines / improved revenge / cruelty (Fury) if you please.

Regarding the actual pull, and actual tanking - here are some quick guidelines that should not be considered absolute rotations. Every pull is different.

For pulling 2-4 mobs:
Low rage before pull = charge -> TC -> shield block -> cleave spam while smart target changing (not tabbing) -> TC every cooldown
High rage before pull = charge -> TC -> shockwave -> cleave spam while smart target changing (not tabbing) -> TC every cooldown

Pulling 1 mob (boss)
charge -> shield shield block -> Begin priority system ( shield slam > revenge > devastate )
heroic strike when over 50 rage

This is a very basic breakdown that I just spewed out, and it is by no means an absolute guide. Currently, there are no warrior tanking guides that are worth a damn that I have found (this includes Tankspot) - they are all severely outdated. Warrior tanking is a lot more tactical than paladin tanking in my opinion, where as paladin tanking is more strategic. It will take a lot of practice for him to get good at warrior tanking, so the best word of advice you can give him is don't get discouraged if he isn't very good at first.

Also, heroic throw is a bad joke (compared to every other tanking class's ranged threat capabilities)

[gokuson]

awesome this helps a lot. The reason i want to use the warrior also is so that i can get an understanding about what the warrior tanking class has to offer? any advice on their cooldowns? i assume i want to get the glyph of shield wall, but do they have any other lesser cooldowns like a glyph of salv, or something in that order? and how does their aoe taunt work? thanks

[Jedah]

warriors are extremely weak in the cooldown department unless you glyph for both and put 2/2 improved disciplines, then they're simply on par.

Shield wall is something you'll want to glyph (most likely replacing glyph of cleave) when you start doing more serious raids (ulduar and beyond) because you'll actually need to use it for scripted events (plasma blast, surge of darkness) versus just using it during random "oh shit" moments that are the result of player mistakes.

Challenging Shout (AoE taunt) is simply that... an AoE taunt. It forces all tauntable mobs in a 20~ yard radius to focus on the warrior for 3 seconds and as of WOTLK (someone correct me if i'm wrong) puts the warrior at the top of the threat list just like a standard single target taunt. As such, you'll want to use it sparingly, as it comes with a hefty 3m cooldown. I generally only use it when extra mobs get pulled that I wasn't expecting, or for something like Black Knight P2.

[gokuson]

so i have to glyph to be on par with a pally in terms of cooldowns, i suck at aoe tanking, my aoe taunt is 3 minutes long, and from personal experience i do not put out the dps of a pally tank... can you tell me something good about warrior tanks so that i just don't ditch out today and play on my pally and rogue?

Edit: no AD either, this makes me sad

[Jedah]

You will be extremely hard pressed to find a warrior tank that thinks warriors are in a good state right now.

They can get the job done, but it feels like an uphill battle and we lack a lot of flexibility (both in gear/talent choices and in actual gameplay) that the other tanking classes have.

With that said.... my warrior has turned to main spec fury and I tank on my paladin alt now.

[gokuson]

yeah dude this stinks, maybe i'l just tank in pvp crit and blockrating gear just to get rofl critical blocks, thats the only thing that looks cool from what i see (and sunder armor for melee groups looks like pure win too).

[Kelaan]

can you tell me something good about warrior tanks so that i just don't ditch out today and play on my pally and rogue?

You have 12 second interrupts, rather than 20 (or 40).
Shield Block is, I believe, a mini cooldown, kindof like our HoSalv glyph is.

Not that this makes warrior tanks zomg-awesome, but I've not noticed the good ones I play with having complaints.

[gokuson]

good point, i can't off tank iron council because every time i stun the guy he comes out of it just in time to get a rune under him, and my AS silence is coupled with the slowing effect which makes it difficult to get him out of the runes. Spell reflect and charging stuff should be fun to use also. Thanks for cheering me up. lol

[Argali]

Also OP for warr is their 4pct8 bonus. It's unfair! The slight problem of getting 4pcT8 is laughable considering how good it is.

Anyway, AFAIK, there isn't a warr tanking rotation, but rather a FCFS or flowchart. It should be on tankspot.

[gokuson]

i ended up not even trying because my guild decided to run the new 10 man boss, lol. after that we did heroics with our warrior off tank, and man, it was ridiculus how terrible he could hold aggro against 3 people doing 4k aoe dps. Even with me tricksing on my rogue, he couldnt' hold on to a jackass guildy warrior opening with bladestorm, lol. if i was on my pally tank, that warrior would have been BOP'd every cooldown, hehe

[mavfin]

warriors are extremely weak in the cooldown department unless you glyph for both and put 2/2 improved disciplines, then they're simply on par.

Shield wall is something you'll want to glyph (most likely replacing glyph of cleave) when you start doing more serious raids (ulduar and beyond) because you'll actually need to use it for scripted events (plasma blast, surge of darkness) versus just using it during random "oh shit" moments that are the result of player mistakes.

Challenging Shout (AoE taunt) is simply that... an AoE taunt. It forces all tauntable mobs in a 20~ yard radius to focus on the warrior for 3 seconds and as of WOTLK (someone correct me if i'm wrong) puts the warrior at the top of the threat list just like a standard single target taunt. As such, you'll want to use it sparingly, as it comes with a hefty 3m cooldown. I generally only use it when extra mobs get pulled that I wasn't expecting, or for something like Black Knight P2.

I glyph for shield wall, and leave last stand at 3 minutes. I do have the points in improved disciplines of course. I find this to work pretty well for everything from heroics to Ulduar/ToC-10 progression fights. Third plasma blast requires an external cooldown, yes, but I find 2-minute shieldwall to be an awesome addition to my arsenal. Don't even get me started about the fact that I have to glyph and use two talent points to get what DKs get for free...

[mavfin]

i ended up not even trying because my guild decided to run the new 10 man boss, lol. after that we did heroics with our warrior off tank, and man, it was ridiculus how terrible he could hold aggro against 3 people doing 4k aoe dps. Even with me tricksing on my rogue, he couldnt' hold on to a jackass guildy warrior opening with bladestorm, lol. if i was on my pally tank, that warrior would have been BOP'd every cooldown, hehe

Glyph of Cleave, and make sure the jackass warrior opens with bladestorm *after* I tclap and shockwave. i.e. wait about 3 seconds, and you can have all the fun you want with AoE. I see a lot of QQ about warrior AoE tanking, but I don't have much issue with it myself, unless the DPS is just completely slackjaw-stupid.

[mavfin]

can you tell me something good about warrior tanks so that i just don't ditch out today and play on my pally and rogue?

You have 12 second interrupts, rather than 20 (or 40).
Shield Block is, I believe, a mini cooldown, kindof like our HoSalv glyph is.

Not that this makes warrior tanks zomg-awesome, but I've not noticed the good ones I play with having complaints.

I've seen people say that warrior is (at this time) harder to learn and play well as a new tank than the other classes. However, there's tons of old experienced warriors that have adapted to all the new abilities instead of whining about them. I find tanking on my warrior easier now than it was in Vanilla or BC. So what if other classes have some abilities that make them easier to do some things with. I have abilities I know they'd love to have, too. <shrug> I've been generating threat since 2005, and I'm still doing it. Good players of the other tank classes are welcome to help anytime.

[Kiorken]

I play everyday with my father, who plays a warrior, and my wife, who plays a dk, and we usually try to get him to tank, me to heal, and her to dps. My wife is very new to DK, and honestly isn't interested in threorycrafting, or attempting to better understand class mechanics, and just sort of plays how she feels. That doesn't stop her from occassionally pulling aggro though.
My dad has many complaints about warrior tanking, and honestly, if looks hard. There is a lot more focus on holding AOE agro, and single target isn't the huge warrior only slot it was in the past. Warrior tanking is hard. When I was prot, I had only half the gear quality he had, but I held aggro better, and had better survival via CD's. This certainly not a testament to how bad a warrior he is, because that is far from the truth. He's one of the best warriors I know, and when it comes to tanking, he is the best warrior tank I have seen. The warrior class has issues with tanking. Its a shame too, Warriors used to be the only "reliable" tank way back in the day.