Xi's Guide to Warrior Tanking

Listen up, Hombres. I know I usually don't do this for anybody but fury warriors, but a few people I know want to learn how to tank like a boss. And because pugging a Fury Warrior is the WoW equivalent of being the fat kid on the playground, I have extensive experience tanking both pug heroics and a smattering of 10 and 25 man content. Now to figure out where to begin...


Part I: Talent Build

This is the tanking build I use. It is by no means "standardized," but it holds a lot of utility for heroics and raids, and is rather balanced between threat generation and damage mitigation/avoidance.

Take special note of the glyphs. I absolutely love the Glyph of Revenge, as well the Glyph of Blocking.

Part II: Rotation

I talked about rotation a lot in my "How to Fury" post, and it's no less important here. It is the thing that makes a tank stand out in a raiding environment, although, admittedly, it is slightly less important in heroic tanking situations. The single target rotation is "First-Come-First-Serve," and attacks should be prioritized in the following order:

1. Shield Slam! (Every time it's up)
2. Revenge
3. Devastate
4. Heroic Strike above predetermined rage threshold (I like 65, personally)

It should be noted that Shield Block should be used prior to Shield Slam every time it's up, unless you are saving it for defensive purposes.

Tanking multiple mobs uses the same type of rotation, except you should use thunderclap and Shockwave as often as they come up to add to your group threat. Your rotation will likely be altered depending on who is in your group, who's being an ass hat, who's attacking off targets, etc.

Part III: Addons and Macros

One might wonder how to keep track of all the procs in a build that uses Sword and Board and Glyph of Revenge. It's simple, really.

I absolutely abuse Power Auras Classic, for both my dps and tanking needs. I keep the 65 rage threshold animation from my fury rotation turned on, and add animations for Sword and Board and Glyph of Revenge. Terribly terribly useful if you have trouble seeing your body amidst all the aoe effects.

It's also worth mentioning that Omen isn't a bad addon to have, although it's not nearly as important to a tank as it is to DPS.

Now for my favorite part: My macros!

Shield Slam!

#showtooltip Shield Slam
/use Gnomeregan Auto-Blocker 600
/use Coren's Lucky Coin
/use Lavanthor's Talisman
/cast Bloodrage
/cast Shield Slam

Yes, I realize Coren's Lucky Coin isn't something that people can find anymore. But I still have mine and I'll use it until they remove block from the game.

The reason we have this novel condensed into a macro is to keep you from needing to think too much about your special block trinket use and rage generation. I have the same utility built into my Bloodthirst and Whirlwind macros, to increase rage generation passively, without ever having to glance over and check to see if Bloodrage is off cooldown.

Charge

#Show Charge
/cast [help, exists] Intervene; [harm, exists] Charge; Intervene

Charge and Intervene, in a nice one button package. Win.

Mouse-over Devastate

/cast [modifier:ctrl,harm,nodead]Sunder Armor;[target=mouseover,harm,nodead] Devastate

This macro isn't nearly as important as it was in BC. But it is still pretty useful to be able to reach and click with a secondary mouse button and hit a devastate while you're heroic striking the main target. Seriously useful in heroics, not so much in raids.

Part IV: Gearing up

Gearing up to tank heroics is easier than it used to be.  The hard and fast rule is that you -must- have 535 defense to tank in heroics (and 540 in raids).  Other than that, it's whatever gear you can strap on until you can find yourself in a position with enough gear to optimize your tank suits.

Some general tips:

  • In the beginning, gem for stamina (unless you're not def capped)
  • Block value is really nice to have in heroics, but isn't so useful in raids
  • Austere Earthseige Diamond is probably the best meta for tanking.  Eternal Earthsiege Diamond is an interesting substitute if you're not def-capped or really like block

When you get there, you'll want to try TankPoints. This wonderful addon allows you to determine mathematical survivability against your predetermined amounts of incoming damage. That sounds like a mouthful, but basically you tell it "He's gonna hit me for a truck load" and it tells you "Oh, well this piece of gear is better than that for this amount of damage." As a baseline, the numbers originally packaged were 10505 for heroics, and 24365 for Naxx.

Closing Thoughts

I think the most important part of tanking is something that is difficult to teach. In a group of five strangers, they will look to you for guidance. You will, more often than not, be the designated party leader, and you must deal with the situation with a confidence and awareness that isn't easily described or taught.

Do not be afraid to make mistakes, but don't be afraid to ask questions, either. Take your time in dungeons if you're learning the pulls, and it isn't a sign of weakness to use the CC in your party.

Tanking as a Dk.

I've gone fully from healer to a DK tank, and its been a learning experience... I do great at AoE tanking but it seems I fall apart at single target, I don't know if it is my spec or maybe my rotation is weak for single target... but I'm dieing to figure it out......

I mean is there some attack that DK's have that can really front load the threat over a bunch of hair trigger dps that would run ahead of the tanks if we didn't keep them on a leash? and seriously would it kill some dps to wait a moment before whapping a target before it gets to a tank..... really dps........ Dead dps doesn't ya know dps....... can't kill the boss if your killed.... It shouldn't be numbers people it should be getting the boss down.

It's Bacon!

As Xi pointed out, I'm the D in "DXL" and I play the tankadin. I'm also the glue the keeps the group together. :P Xirella got me to come to wow a few years ago now from another game and I haven't stopped playing since. I'm normally not a progression person, but Xi and Lexi got me into it and now there's nothing I enjoy quite like tanking raid bosses (something that unfortunately I don't do enough of). I've been pretending to build a ret set lately, but I'm thinking it might just be easire to build a healing set (we have one healing pally, but tons of plate dps) so we'll see how long that lasts.

This post

Xi is right as for what I bring to the group.... I am the healer... A shaman one and I'm most likely the only healer to get the killing blow on Zul'jin as the last man standing in a ten man. before wrath came out.

I also have been doing a bit of Death knight tanking lately and I gotta admit they are solid tanks...... If only I could get a better 2hnder to drop... it really seems they have dried up for our guild.

On that subject we gout our first Vezax kill on sunday.

First Post

When you work with a group of people long enough, things start to become second nature. For myself, Dayn, and Elexin (Lexi), there isn't much in the last year or so that we've done without one another. Sure, life gets in the way sometimes, but the important thing is that we're a team. So, in the spirit of a team, I thought it'd be neat to have a team blog. Because that's how we roll. I'll start.

I'm obviously the crazy one of the bunch. Seriously. I run Whirlwind of Doom, which contains "How-tos" for Fury warriors, as well as rants that sound like you pricked a sailor in the foot with a chainsaw. I'm also the one you want in a street fight. If it can be used as a weapon, I know how to use it. XD

Hopefully, my cohorts will follow suit. Until then, I got nothing.