Tanking SpecFollow

Hi I'm Reno from the Guild SteaLth on the Zul'jin server. I'm a 66 warrior who just recently respecced to protection under peer pressure and I was wondering if guys could look at my tank spec and make any suggestions.

5/5/47
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/warrior/talents.html?050000000000000000000000500000000000000000000050500333022123531351

Appreciate the help..

i would def. not go with either


@zorq
whats the point of TM in prot specced? also, lol anger management? cmon, you're getting hit by bosses for thousands of damage theres no point for it. grab imp. blood rage and put the last 2 points somewhere else (imp hs would be the best) if you need the rage for abilities.

reno, you HAVE to have last stand
i mean... it's one of THE best survivability abilities of any class and going down that far into prot you're nuts not to get it.

also, imp revenge. only works on some mobs, never works on bosses, there's no real point for it in comparison to other things.

you also HAVE to get imp shield block and have that up during your whole fight as thats the only mitigation you get when you actually get hit.

imp shield bash is pointless because 99% of all bosses are immune to silence, just like taunt. grab imp TC for the multiple mobs, you shouldn't be spamming taunt anyways, if you are, theres something more wrong with the idiots you're playing with than you ;)

this is the build i'd reccommend
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/warrior/talents.html?250003000000000000000000500000000000000000002055511030002103531351

it's the build that my old guilds mt (#2 server wide) used for just about ever. a good idea, is to have someone with imp. demo shout also to keep that up on bosses [usually arms warriors or off tanks in 25 mans]

you have all your must haves right there. the 5% crit makes a huge difference with revenge / shield slam and of course, devastate. HS should obviously be your rage dump and it will also be huge to have your threat stay up.

thats not a damage dealing tank spec, if you want a damage causing tank you'd make something like http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/warrior/talents.html?050000000000000000000000555000022501005300002055511030000000000000

deep wounds will not do anything for your threat in prot spec, your ap is too low, you do less damage in defensive stance and your crit is almost non-existant in prot gear.


rend does NO damage at all and does pretty much nothing for threat, TM again, has no reason of being in there, you don't have imp. op which is the only reason you will be stance dancing just about ever with a warrior except for the whole get out of fear thing on nightbane for which case the tiny amount of rage you save is pretty much worthless.

1h spec is FAR better than both deep wounds and rend combined and will up your dps the most. this will also trickle over for when you will DW with 2 one handed weapons.

look at the build that i put up in my previous post, thats proven to be the most TPS causing build (due to my last guilds MT respeccing almost weekly to figure out how to throw the most out) and this was without gear upgrades for him when we were learning the fights. that spec did the best before with "crappy items" and still does most now.

fine, since you want more than 35 points, drop devastate because it only does more threat than sunder after you are hitting for over 250 i believe was the number and put it into something useful.

lol bloodcraze?

hahahahahAHAHAHAHAHA

sorry...

your goal is to hit the defense rating "cap" which makes you UNCRITTABLE against mobs. WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU GET THAT TALENT?!?!?!?

you'd be much better off getting http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/warrior/talents.html?050003000000000000000000550000000000000000002055511032000103501351


your goal is to do the most THREAT possible as a tank, if you want to MT then pick an MT build, if you want to do both, you're off tanking, so pick an OT build. you can't mt and dps, sorry :/. as far as "added survivability" that's your secondary goal which you're going to achieve through stam gems and etc. your healers shouldn't be barely having enough mana to keep you up, if they are, there's something really wrong either with your gear or theirs or the group makeup.

99% of raiding guilds out there will have more than one tanking warrior, and hell, more than one warrior in general. if he's a 2h warrior he can take demo shout since everything else for him is pointless in the fury tree out of the talents available at that tier.

if he's an OT with defiance, there's no reason for him to not get demo shout, unbridled wrath isn't going to help him much. those 5 points that you're putting into demo can be much better used getting "secondary" talents... meaning a bonus to "survivability" such as imp shield wall / imp defensive stance.

most bosses you will be facing won't be using spells on you anyways, and imp shield wall in kara isn't going to get much use where the fights never get to the OH sh*t level for that amount of time.


Edited, Aug 12th 2007 7:09pm by russki

actually if you have a weapon thats quick and you're playing your warrior correctly you will be out of rage quite often in between hits at the only place that matters, BOSS fights.

if you can't hold onto to your mobs with imp. thunderclap then you either have split dps (your groups fault) or you can't pump our enough TPS (yours)

Edited, Aug 12th 2007 7:42pm by russki

uhm, demolition really posted the only endgame tanking build i've seen listed on this crazy forum thus far. I prefer to move some points from improved bloodrage to tacticle mastery and from improved sheildwall to improved sheild bash, because i like to pvp every now and then.

as far as a "dps tank" build, wouldn't work for raids, but should for non-heroic 5mans (i've tanked nonheroics as arms).
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/warrior/talents.html?050002000000000000000000550000550001000000000355511031000100501200
might be viable, of course use a sheild when tanking, and and dual weild with some +to hit gear when dpsing/soloing. one hand weapon specialization does affect your offhand too. only problem is not having an instant attack ie ms, devistate, bloodthirst.

~zkxkty undermine

Edited, Aug 13th 2007 4:41am by wooglinbx

This is my warrior's build. It takes the improved demo shout talent instead of the extra points in the prot tree, and so far its working out quite nicely. The 2 points in taunt are purely personal preference and are mainly there as a backup in case of a crappy pug, you could just as easily place them elsewhere according to how you play.

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/warrior/talents.html?050003000000000000000000550000000000000000000055511030020120531351

I think Xordon's builds are very solid, because I have used some of them (or similar before his post). For those of you who do a tanking build I would suggest spending the points in Imp Bloodrage as it helps with your opening attacks.

As Xordon said, you really don't need 30 or more points in the prot tree to tank a non heroic, or OT Kara.

To Russki, Imp Revenge is not a bad idea pre-Kara. I've seen it work plenty of times in pugs in most instances. You have to think, the longer the mob is stunned the more DPS you can do it. I completely understand that its not a viable talent for the bosses, but it proves to be worth it for other mobs in the 5 mans, and if you're prot specced early (pre lvl 70) that means you still have some lvling to do and quite possibly some solo'ing as well, therefore the stun proc will be advantageous at that time. Once you get better gear and pug with a few decently grouped people with substantial DPS you won't have to rely on it as much and can spec out of it. It's recommended that you respec out of it for Kara.

Other than that, refer to Xordon's post.

EDIT: Shield Bash is pretty effective in 5 mans. Once you get to kara..not so much.

Edited, Aug 14th 2007 3:31am by PigeonMan

Edited, Aug 14th 2007 3:31am by PigeonMan

Imp Bloodrage is good for opening fights. For example, you pull a mob, hit bloodrage and by the time the mob gets to you you can Shield Slam/shield block>proc revenge...yadda yadda. TM's ability isn't really needed when tanking as you will be getting hit for thousands; therefore you will generate rage. I guess knowing the mechanics would help, such as getting hit in defensive stance gives you rage. =)

AM is really good for people who are not getting hit. DW warriors tend to have enough rage though, but for 2h warriors it's very nice. For a tank, you'll have no rage problems unless you greatly out-gear the instance (in which case you probably should swap some tanking gear for DPS gear, in favour for rage gen and TPS).

Heroic mobs and raid mobs hit like trucks, so you'll have more than enough rage while the fight lasts. When the fight ends, however, your rage is going down quickly. This is why most tanks get Imp. Bloodrage and pop it after they're out of combat. This way you'll (almost) never have to start with an empty rage bar, and you won't have to charge pull for initial rage. And since you're not charge pulling (when possible) anymore there's no reason to get TM, although if you've got 490 defense with only your tanking gear; you might as well. In my honest opinion there's no reason to not get Imp. Bloodrage in a tanking build unless you're really low on defense (and even then questionable...).

Was that all I was gonna say? Hm... Ah well!

Edit: No!

@ xorq: 1% crit = ~1.3% TPS increase in defensive stance (meaning that if your current TPS is at 500, 1% crit will up it by ~6.5 TPS). Nearly all your abilities are affected by crit (sunder being the only one that's not that I can think about atm) and there fore 1% crit = 1% DPS, and your threat is 130% of your DPS in defensive stance, assuming you don't count Defiance. If you do, and are at around 500 TPS, 1% crit will be a little over 7 TPS increase.

In short: 1% crit = 1.3% TPS in defensive stance without defiance.
1% crit = 1.45% TPS in defensive stance with defiance.

Edited, Aug 14th 2007 7:19pm by Xordon

thanks for the help guys i'll take everyone's advice and come up with something whenever my realm decides to live again

if you crit, you do more damage, causing more threat [for exact math, please talk to xordon]

the reason why i made the point about devastate, is because if devastate is hitting for less than 250, you will be doing more threat by spamming sunder, however if you are devastating for over 250, it IS better for threat, critting it would be FURTHER better as the increased damage = additional threat.

and yes, most of the builds i linked are for a mt raiding/heroic running tank.

I'm a firm believer that if you want to farm / solo / whatever, you can go respec, an hours worth of primal (air) farming should make you more than enough money to respec into something for a few days, and respec back.

that formula looks newer than the one i've seen

wouldn't that mean though that you are hitting for over 250 most of the time? (with sun eater + one handed spec + 800 ap <which is a bit low for raid-buffed>)


also, can you do a threat formula for shield bash? :)