New to tanking?0

[Amedis]

I've noticed that a LOT of new people playing warriors have trouble tanking, especially in instances.

This guide is designed to get you on your feet and going down the path to tanking like a real pro, being the kind of warrior anyone would love to group with.


First of all, the basic concepts:

HEAT:

Heat is what any activity against a mob generates, attacks, heals cast on people that the mob currently 'hates', debuffs and the like all generate heat. The mob focuses its main attack on the current target with the most heat. As a tank, it is your job to keep the 'aggro', the focus of the mob's aggression on you at all times, and off of the less armored, more damaging characters like rouges and mages, and the healers.


Most people do most of their heat through damage, not true for a warrior.

First of all, you have several things that give you a bonus to threat (heat) generation:

First, there's the built-in 10% (more if you have defiance talent) bonus for simply being in defensive stance, so all of your attacks and abilities will create 110% normal heat. For this reason, you want to spend most of your time in an instance in defensive stance. Def. stance also reduces the damage you take by 10%, making it easier for your healers to keep you alive, and using less of the healer's vital mana supply.

Quick note here: Be kind to your healer, the less heals they have to cast, the less heat THEY generate and the less mana they burn. Use def. stance, and use a shield with a 1-handed weapon, both give you extra damage avoidance and mitigation that translate to more survivability and less healing required.

Back to heat:
Then there are abilities that generate heat FAR in excess of the damage done. "Revenge" only does a dozen or so damage, but generates as much heat as a axe to the head, and it's cheap to use (in rage cost) as well. You can also use Shield Block to create the opportunity to use a revenge. Shield bash not only interrupts spellcasting, but if used to disrupt a caster mob's spells, will make them absolutely LOATHE you. Sunder armor also creates a LOT of heat, and is a staple in most tanking stratagies.

Using revenge and sunder armor along with normal attacks is often more than enough to keep nearly any mob 'locked' on you even against damage dealing allies several levels over you.

Instant aggro abilities

If you LOSE the focus of the mob for any reason, you have several 'instant focus' abilities that force the mob to focus on you, no matter what. They often work by setting your current "heat total" to whatever the current highest is +1, and some (like mocking blow and challanging shout) prevent the mob from changing targets for a certain period as well.

If you're using sunder armor, revenge and attacking consistantly, you ought to have no problem... but mistakes happen, pets accidentally growel, healers have to spam flashes if something goes pear-shaped, ect.

Your first line of defense against a breakaway mob is yout taunt. No rage cost, on a quick cooldown, it's perfect for snaring the attention of a mob. If someone else pulled the mob, and you need to get its attention to start tanking it, taunt is perfect. You can use it fairly often, but try to leave it open in case the mob makes a break for your healer.

You also have mocking blow at mid-levels to force a mob to focus on you. To do this you need at least 4 levels of the "tactical Mastry" talent (EVERY tank should max that out! it allows you to switch stance to use your whole toolkit), if you have more than 20 rage, you switch to battle stance, quickly pop your mocking blow, and then flip back to defensive, building up a little rage so that when the 9-second lock that the mock gives you is up, you can start spamming a lot of sunders and revenges to keep its undivided attention.

Your weapon of last resort is Challanging shout. It's on a 10-second cooldown, but it requires little rage, and it forces EVERY mob in a wide area to focus on you for a lockout period simular to a mock. It's great if you're tanking a lot of mobs (see the second part of the guide...)

With these basic tactics, you ought to be well on your way to tanking most early instances, be sure to stay tuned for more advanced tips and tricks.

That is the copy/paste version of this guide. Heres my 2 cents.

"HEAT": Uhh .. Im going to assume by his defenition that he means what many of us refer to as "Threat" or "Aggro". Like the writer of this guide said, it is the tanks job to keep aggro on him/her self, to keep the rest of the grp alive.

More on "HEAT": The writter of this guide is really irritating me by calling it heat ... Anyways. Keeping aggro is quite easy when focusing on a single target such a a boss.

Charge > Defensive Stace > Taunt > Sunder x5 > Revenge when possible. Simple.

When tanking more then 1 enemy, you will want to use AoE abilitys. Thunderclap, and demo shout to name a few. With multiple enemies something like this is used.

Chage > Thunderclap > Demo Shout > Sunder while alternating enemies > Taunt while alternating > Revenge whoever whenever.

Simple really.

If you really need to get aggro off some one, use abilities such as "Challenging Shout" Which will bring ALL enemies around to running at you, and "Mocking Blow" Which will cause the enemy selected to focus attacks on you.


Thats abilities .. Now armor and equip.

1. 1h wepond and sheild
2. As much stam and +def gear as possible.


For the record, 1 stamina is 10 health, and every +25 defendce is +1% chance to dodge, parry, block, and all that other nonsence. Also gives -x% chance of being hit with a crushing blow, what ever the hell that is .. As blizzard, since its not really clear anywhere >.<

Also, quite simple.

This is my simple version of this dudes guide. Hope it helps you new tanks haha.

[pwner]

For tankign u also want some agility for more dodge and teh crit chance is like a hot knife threw butter makes it even easier to hold aggro. But other than that great post +rep

[Amedis]

Thank you. Really, agility isnt a big deal imo. I have many warriors, one of which is just resently 60 (been on 1 zg raid, thats the only raid), and getting alot of tanking gear. I have about 375 defence, and 5k life. I have no problem dodging or anything like that. With enough +Def, you dont need agility.

[pwner]

I think that some agil is still important but yhou dont need to be decked out in it

[juanes]

Defense and stamina are more important than anything else, def so that u miss hits and stamina so u dnt get raped when u do get hit

[dmusgrave]

Tanking 101... we aren't talking DPS warriors... we are talking MEAT SHIELDS.

A single mob is easy. Sunder 5 times, revenge, etc. and you shouldn't lose the mob unless someone crits REALLY hard before you sunder. If the mob starts to leave you, taunt.

Tanking multiple mobs is a little more tricky. Tab through the mobs, stacking sunders on each mob... again taunting if you lose one. It's much easier if your group focuses damage on a single mob, but this rarely happens.

You can't hold EVERY mob EVERY time. It's better to lock aggro on 3 mobs and let the other group members deal with a 4th than try to hold all 4 and lose them all. Focus on holding the mobs that are most "dangerous" to the group.

Train people to run TO you if they have a mob on them, not away from you.

Sunder armor has diminishing returns after 5. Once you have 5 stacked on a mob use revenge, shield slam, etc. to hold aggro, and re-sunder as they drop. Revenge is, in fact, the most rage efficient threat generator you have.

Heroic strike is on a seperate cooldown from your other aggro holding abilities. When you get beyond 5 man instances learn to use it, and love it. Heroic strike is your best friend, particularly on mobs that are tough to hold aggro on. Spend the talent points on improve heroic strike and thank me later.

Dodge and parry have diminishing returns after 17 percent. That should be your goal in both stats.

Block is always nice.

Most endgame warriors try to keep defense at 420 plus.

If you want to be a REALLY good tank, check out some protection builds. Yes, you can tank as an arms or fury warrior... but not as efficiently as a protection warrior... and you aren't as easy to keep healed. My current build is 1

Shoot for 200 plus unbuffed Fire Resist when you roll into MC as a tank.

Here are some end game build ideas for ya...

My current build, this is a "main tank" build...

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/...50110530210151

A second tank would look at something like...

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/...00110530200151

And the other tanks... that would normally DPS but might step in to tank now and then would probably go with something like...

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/...00110500200000