Tanking, What you need to know + macros.Follow

Alright I just decided to make a tanking guide because I've seen a lot of guides out there that miss out on either early tanking or late game tanking. This guild will pretty much encompass all of the above. If I missed anything please replay I'm trying to be as detailed as possible. Questions are welcome. Trying to keep it short and to the point, I'd ramble on for pages if you'd let me but...no.

Contents:

1. Starting a tank & Tank Mechanics
2. Gearing a tank before raids
3. Different tanking specs
4. Do's and don'ts of tanking & Tips and tricks
5. What stats after 490 defense rating?
6. Caps you need to know/reach
7. Gems and enchants
8. Skill rotation
9. Useful macros
10. End game tanking




1. Starting a tank

First tip you need to know, tanking till 70 will not make you a pro at tanking heroics, in fact the mechanics are so different that the game itself completely changes so you'll need to adapt and learn. Here are some game mechanics I'm gonna explain to the best of my knowledge.

Threat. How threat works is complicated but let me sum up the general idea, the more damage and skills you use against a certain mob the more threat you build. The mob will target you over other players that may not be able to take a hit or two so it is imperative that you build as much threat as possible so your dps can really let lose and move the process along faster. Threat is not only based on what skill you use it's also based on the damage you do. Skills that will be your most vital for threat build up will be devastate, shield slam, revenge, heroic strike. Please don't spam heroic strike it will leave you rage starved on trash mostly, only use it as a burner. Losing aggro will most likely get a party member killed so make sure you have taunt keybound close to you and a mocking blow macro!

Dodge/block/parry are basically your bread and butter as a tank, when you hit 70 you should have some blues if you've been a tank for a bit, your stats will start looking better and better the more gear you have. The more stats you have the less you get hit, the less you get hit the less healers have to spam you with their heals to keep you up. Defense rating gives you all of the above stats.

2. Gearing a tank before raids

For heroics a good goal is to get 490 defense rating, once you hit that softcap you are officially uncritable and can work on other stats like dodge or stamina. I don't recommend enchanting till you reach blues or maybe even epics depending on how fast your guild is progressed. Once you've reached 490 defense rating you can rest easy your job just got a lot easier. Now you can finally get into the heroics and get those much needed badges of justice!
The problem is heroics are much harder, in regular instances a mob can run around for a minute and usually you'll be okay but in heroics rest assure your party members cannot take more then 1-2 hits till they're down so make sure you learn to mark your targets and make your party members aware of what they need to cc and what the kill order is.
As for gear your best bet is to get Atlas and just look at all the last mobs in every heroic, aim for epics and try to do those certain heroics once a day if possible. You'll gain quite a bit of badges by doing this but try not to waste them, usually the cheapest badge gear gets replaced (I personally replaced around 200 badge items I picked up so I've learned my lesson the hard way). Try to make it so those instances you run have blues that you may need also, even if it's a huge boost or a small one, try to do as many heroics as you can once you hit the 490 cap and don't forget to check your reputation vendors for a lot of goodies!

3. Different tanking specs

This is what i currently use: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=LA0fzZZ0EtoIMzcest

Specs are usually different everywhere you go so I'm just gonna give you advice on every skill point there is, yes or no you decided in the end.

I'm pretty much showing you guys my current spec but i will go into details about most of the talents.

Anticipation 5/5 Every prot warrior should have this, No excuses, party like a champion.
Toughness 5/5 Good mitigation no matter what, pretty significant armor boost shouldn't go without it.
Shield spec 5/5 Good rage generator, a must again for pretty much any prot warrior.
Improved shield block 1/1 An addition block, that also helps you make uncrushable, for 1 point, spec into this or quit.
Defiance 3/3 This is a much needed talent that will help a lot on threat generation for boss fights and even trash.

Here's where the talents get a little more flexible

Last stand 1/1 I have this on my warrior, works good in a pinch, Helps a LOT in higher lvl encounters. For 1 point it's really worth it.
Improved revenge 0/3 A skill mostly found in lower lvl builds and possibly for heroics, anything past that 3 points is really not worth it.
Improved sunder armor 3/3 You'll end up using devastate quite a bit, helps with threat and really helps save you a lot of rage.
Improved disarm 0/3 I don't really see a viable use for improved disarm since mostly you'll forget using it anyway. Not to mention the very little amount of people that you can disarm in the first place, it helps if your cc dies and you need to tank an extra mob that's hitting too hard but besides that you'll rarely see disarm being used, not to mention improved disarm.
Improved taunt 2/2 A really useful skill for any tank, you may not be able to taunt many bosses but on trash it's a must, Later in your raiding life you may give it up if you end up having good TPS. (threat per second)
Improved shield wall 0/3 I personally don't use it anymore since i have the hp and stats to mitigate most things but when venturing into kara you might want to spec into this for the prince fight phase 2, it gets really healing intensive and for first timers damn near impossible.
Concussion blow 1/1 Helpful skill on trash and invalueable considering the next skill it opens up. shield slam is a must and so is this.
Improved shield bash 0/2 Again one of those talents you may wanna spec into at a lower lvl build, just for heroics and such but really no need for it past any heroics at all, I will tell you why further down.
Shield mastery 3/3 More mitigation the better, the higher items you get you'll get more block making this talent a lot more valued.
One handed weapon spec 5/5 10% more damage from your main hand, good threat build up, good rage build up, can't complain against this talent but spec however you want in it.
Improved Def Stance 3/3 I consider this a really important talent considering warriors have very little spell mitigation, and by very little i mean none. Spell reflect is your only saving grace and there are certain fights where any spell absorption helps.
Shield slam 1/1 Pretty much your biggest threat skill. A must for any tank, scales up with block and does damaged based on that.
Focused rage 3/3 Helps with threat build up, 3 rage less stacks with improved sunder armor, making your devastate hella cheap, worth the points.
Vitality 5/5 Health is important, the more the better.
Devastate 1/1 For one point no warrior should go without this (prot warrior that is.)

Now it's time for the rest 14 points.

Improved heroic strike 3/3 When your heroic strike costs 9 rage you just must have it, builds up quite a bit of threat and lets you spam heroic strike most of the fights.
Deflection 5/5 This is again one of those must talents, parry is never bad.
Improved thunder clap 3/3 Helps a lot with mitigation and AOE tanking, when you're not too skilled to keep good treat on more then 2 targets spamming thunderclap will do the job most times.
Iron will 2/5 Personally i tossed that in there it doesn't really serve much purpose.
Anger management 1/1 The more rage the better

Why not spec into fury?

For a main tank going to spec into fury is pretty pointless, now as an offtank you may wanna go for improved demoralizing and commanding presence but as a main tank you just don't have the points to spare. Also that 5% extra crit will help with threat issues so spec into cruelty if you see yourself having problems but besides that fury is a pretty big waste for a prot warrior.


4. Do's and don'ts of tanking & Tips and tricks

1. Bosses are immune to all silence and stun, sometimes taunt and interrupt.
2. A good tank is a prepared tank, take a few minutes to read over the boss fights and get the basics at least.
3. Make use of all your protection skills, keep your commanding shout up at all times!
4. For any raid make sure you come prepared, flasks and food unless your guild provides.
5. Don't forget about trinkets, dodge/block trinkets can greatly help even on trash, use them if they're on a 2 minute cooldown and if you're not close to a boss, also try to learn how long each fight takes place and know when to pop them.
6. Once you get to 25 man progression or za, make sure you always have your geared gemmed and enchanted with the best. There is no slacking on this one every little point helps.
7. Be wary of cc around you, try to move your targets back so you can use all your abilities.
8. Thunderclap can only hit 5 targets so make sure you don't have more on you and keep decent threat on all targets when it comes to aoe tanking.
9. Mitigation, The more the better. Your best mitigation skills are thunderclap and demoralizing shout.


5. What stats after 490 defense rating?

The two big contenders here are dodge vs stam. I'd rather not type a huge essay about this if someone's already did it before so here.
http://evilempireguild.org/guides/after490.php

If you can balance both out do it, if not go with one or the other.
Block is one stat that you should never strive to stack because of shield block pretty much. Also going past 490 defense rating doesn't give enough dodge/block/parry to be worth the effort so don't go out of your way to stack defense either.

6. Caps you need to know/reach

Defense rating: 490 for uncritable, a must.-
Hit rating: After 95 hit rating (with 3/3 precision) hit rating no longer effects yellow attacks. But as a tank you can't spec precision, a very lower end raiding gear will give you any hit, so the more the better but again don't strive to reach this.
Expertise: After 23 points the boss won't be able to dodge your attacks anymore so expertise is pretty invaluable. Also most bosses hit you 40% faster right after they parry your attack, so the more expertise the better. There is no actual cap but bosses being unable to parry you helps a lot on healers mana conservation.
Armor: Caps at 75% mitigation, that's somewhere around 31,672. You'll never get there so no worries.

7. Gems and enchants

When it comes down to it, it depends on the fight and your current stats, if you need more dodge get dodge gems, more stam get stam gems. All you need to keep in mind is for any serious raids you must keep your enchants up to date on all your equip, don't forget anything keep everything enchanted and gemmed.

8. Skill rotation

This again comes down to a matter of personal opinion but here's some tips to get you started.
To keep uncrushable first of all make sure you have shield block up all times, But start off a pull/boss with a few devastates, one or two should be fine before you move to your rotation.
What I've found that works perfect in boss fights is hitting shield block and shield slam everytime they're up. Making sure the target is fully devastated and refreshing it half way. Using revenge everytime it's up. Keeping commanding shout up. And burning all extra rage on heroic strike. Making sure to keep enough rage for shield slam of course when it lights up. If you have a choice between a cooldowned shield slam and a revenge do revenge since it's only 5 rage and it's more rage efficient, then hit shield slam after. As long as you find something you're comfortable with it you can try out different things just watch omen and see your TPS (threat per second)

9. Useful macros

Interven's Target's Target: One of the most useful macros you can have, your hunter got might instead of salv and you can't keep up? Your mob makes a dash for your hunter and with just 1 click you can intervene him without switching targets, letting you save your hunter and taunt your target back!

#showtooltip Intervene
/cast [nostance:2] Defensive Stance; [help] Intervene; [target=targettarget, help] Intervene

Mocking Blow: You lose aggro and your taunt gets resisted? No problem. I honestly don't understand people who say their taunt gets resisted and yet they don't even attempt to mocking blow.

#showtooltip Mocking Blow
/cast [stance:1] Mocking Blow; Battle Stance
/cast Defensive Stance

Berserker rage: There are plenty of mobs/bosses (nightbane) that tend to fear a lot, Once you learned which they are this macro works perfectly to avoid pulling something more and endangering your party

#showtooltip Berserker Rage
/cast [stance:3] Berserker Rage; Berserker Stance
/cast [noequipped:shields] Battle Stance; Defensive Stance

10. End game tanking

First thing's first, being uncrushable is a MUST for all tanks that are getting into any 25 mans. Even kara.
Being uncrushable for a warrior is really easy, all you need to do is have 102.4% block/dodge/parry put togather. And that includes shield block.
So a warrior becomes uncrushable almost naked with talents and improved shield block. The idea is to always hit shield block, make sure you always have it up unless you have 102.4% of block dodge parry without it.
It's a must to always read up on boss fights, take tips from other tanks that have done these fights as well.
The 2.4% is because raid bosses are 3 lvls higher then you always.




I will updated more when I have time, I started this out of boredome and got carried away.

Edited, Jun 6th 2008 5:23pm by ScorpionBlue

Edited, Jun 6th 2008 10:56pm by ScorpionBlue

This should be deleted, When you got bored you should have went to bed

So, Mr. Experienced Tank, tell me what is wrong with this statement:



There are plenty more points in which I can point is is either bad advice or wrong advice, but I am not going to waste anymore of my time here.

its not as simple as saying "100% block/dodge/parry put together".

You claim to know your stuff so i am going to assume what you mean is "100% block/dodge/parry put together against an equal level mob, this however, is different against a raid boss who is effectively level 73, in which case the difference in the mob weapon skill compared to the player level requires additional avoidance (2.4% to be exact) to obtain uncrushability in a raid environment."


Now, would you like me, a barely kara ready tank, to rewrite the rest of your guide for you?

Hey, i didnt even read it, and hell i wouldnt have said anything if you hadnt gotten all high and mighty in your last post.

the posters on these boards are VERY critical of guides. mainly because they dont want people to get bad info. So yeah expect to get some **** if its not perfect.

SS is more threat than revenge.

Also i dont see many tanks starting off pulls with devastates. Its usually SS. And they normally stick with the idea that SS>Revenge>Devastate.

did you actually read those things you linked? they specifically talk about this and the uncrushability problem you had.

yeah it does more threat per rage, revenge costs like 2 rage? lol. but thats not what you said. :P

its all about what you say.

There are some problems I did notice:

Anticipation is actually a waste of a talent in my opinion. Anyone who raids or even is starting heroics should be able to get 490 defense without it. That stated, I agree that stacking defense past 490 is not worth it. Those points are better spent in Bloodrage and Tactical Mastery in my honest opinion, as rage conservation and stance dancing are a huge part of tanking.

Imp. Taunt: For inexeperienced and inefficient tanks. You should not need a Taunt more than as a oh **** button, sans special occasions. It's also for lazy tanks doing instances below their capacity. Would rather have them in Cruelty. Damage dealt is a big part of rage generation. More rage = more threat building abilities.

Imp. Defensive stance: 6% is not enough to talent. Not in my opinion. I would much rather throw those into Cruelty.

My favorite tank build is as follows: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/warrior/talents.html?tal=300000000000000000000000550010000000000000002305511033002123001351

Notice that 6 points are missing. Those would be as follows:

2/5 Deflection, 3/3 Imp TC, 1/1 Anger Management.

Or currently: 1/1 Piercing Howl (Awesome) 5/5 Commanding Presence (Awesome)

----------

Macros are actually helpful, that was good.

Boredom has no "e" at the end... :D

And... after 490 def stack stam is a good rule of thumb. Especialy those +15 gems!! Remember avoidance is nice but you don't want your healers to have to depend on good timing of heals during spikes where you don't avoid. You want that health to provide a cushion, no matter how small. That is why Taurens are so desireable.

Other than that, good luck to all tanks out there!

Something I do that really helps me for multi-target tanking in raids (which does happen, particularly for off-tanks)

Macro every skill with something like this:

#showtooltip <skillname>
/cast [target=mouseover,harm,exists,nodead][target=target,harm,exists,nodead][target=targettarget,harm,exists,nodead][] <skill name>

This allows you to mouseover a target for a quick shield slam or devastate without having to change your active target, it allows you to use your skill on your regular target, if your target is friendly, it'll check your target's target, and lastly it'll just try to use the skill.

For skills in your rotation if you are the main tank you can add the line:

/cast shield block

between the toolip and the skill cast. Why do this? it makes sure that shield block is always up. It does so at the cost of one skill in your rotation, but if you're main tanking shield block is typically more important than your regular taunt rotation.

Oh, and speaking of rotation, not sure if I saw it, but the max threat rotation is: shield slam, revenge, devastate, devastate

The best point in that rotation to do other actions is the second devastate, you've built a bunch of threat with the last 3 moves, and your next move is your highest threat move.

Make sure you have a shield spike on your shield, for a bit more damage and a lot more threat! Further, if you have the gnomer auto-blocker (and if you don't, get it, it's a great threat trinket) you're shield slam macro should look like:

#showtooltip Shield Slam
/use [harm,nodead,equipped:Shields] Gnomeregan Auto-Blocker 600 < or the trinket slot number if it's always in the same place>
/stopcasting
/cast [target=mouseover,harm,exists,nodead][target=target,harm,exists,nodead][target=targettarget,harm,exists,nodead][] Shield Slam


Never ever put the /cast shield block line in your shield slam macro if you have the auto-blocker. YOu absolutely want to get the maximim use out of htat trinket every 2 minutes that you can. No tank, with equally well-geared dps party members, ever has enough threat.

Ummm, yes and no.

490 is the minimum, and once you've hit it you can stop gearing specifically for defense. However, defense is still beneficial past 490. Specifically, you get 0.04% dodge + 0.04% parry + 0.04% miss chance, or 0.12% pure avoidance, per point of defense skill. That translates to 0.050% pure avoidance per point of defense rating (0.12% avoidance per defense skill / 2.36 defense rating per defense skill).

What stops working is critical avoidance. 0% is 0% and you can't go negative. But that doesn't make defense worthless past 490. In many cases it will provide the best return on a piece of gear. Two otherwise identical pieces of gear.

Dodge gives 0.053 pure avoidance per point of dodge rating, or 1% dodge per 18.9 dodge rating.
Defense gives 0.050 pure avoidance per point of defense rating, or 1% avoidance per 20 defense rating.
Parry gives 0.042 pure avoidance per point of parry rating, or 1% parry per 23.6 parry rating.

Defense sits right in the middle of those two.

So consider two pieces of gear, each are exactly equal in terms of armor, hps, and other stats. One has +10 defense and the other has +9 dodge. Which to choose? The defense one! It is better, even if you are past 490 defense.

What about one that is +10 defense and the other is +11 parry? The defense one is still better.

It is simply not true that defense is worthless past 490. It is true that you shouldn't gear for it over things like armor value and hps and total avoidance. But don't discount it in gear calculations either.

Edited, Jun 10th 2008 11:40am by kingpatzer