Warrior PvE 5 Box Instance Tanking (Post 3.02) - Anyone Have Experience ?

[Flight]

I'd love to hear some feedback on Warrior tanking for 5 boxing instances, post 3.02. Anyone have experience of 3.02 prot Warrior PvE boxing ?

[zaediex]

Don't forget to Thunderclap every cool down. Now that it scales with AP it does quite a bit of damage. Also,the four target cap has been removed so it will hit every mob that's in range. Rage generally isn't an issue anymore if you have more than one mob beating on you.

edit: Ever since the 3.0 patch I find that I suddenly have too many buttons to press on my warrior, but the fact that prot tanking is a blast more than makes up it. ;)

[Aethon]

Have to take another look, is shield block off the GCD?

[Crucial]

Hmm this does sound good. I've got a 30ish pally and warrior tank going to replace a shaman on demand and can't decide which one I want to go :/

[zaediex]

Have to take another look, is shield block off the GCD?No. But there is no time that I can think of that you would want shield block to NOT be up. So my macro first makes sure shield block is up, then does everything else. ;)

I don't want to contradict you, but it should be noted that Shield Block was changed significantly in the 3.0 patch. Shield block is on a 1 minute cooldown now which can be talented down to 40s by putting two points into shield mastery. Shield block still increases your chance to block an attack by 100% but now the effect lasts for 10 seconds instead of 5 charges. The main reason you wanted to keep shield block up at all times before is because it removed the chance that you'd get crushed by a raid boss. However, crushes have been removed so that's no longer an issue.

You may consider mapping shield block to a macro that triggers your block trinkets, like the Autoblocker or the Coren's Lucky Coin from Brewfest, at the same time as opposed to mapping it to your attack ability so they can be used situationally. Personally, I just have mine macro'd like your example.

Here's the macro that I'm using (as posted on www.tankspot.com):


#showtooltip Shield Slam
/script UIErrorsFrame:Hide()
/cast Shield Block
/use 13
/use 14
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
/script UIErrorsFrame:Show()
/cast Shield Slam
/startattack


It's pretty much the same macro without the constant error spam.

[Multibocks]

Well with Shield Block used so infrequently... is it better to drop the +block trinkets and go all AP and Str or +dodge??

[zaediex]

I forgot to mention that you likely want to use it at the same time as your block value trinkets to maximize the amount of damage you reflect with the damage shield talent.

Just some random thoughts anyway.

[zaediex]

Well with Shield Block used so infrequently... is it better to drop the +block trinkets and go all AP and Str or +dodge??

You can think of block as passive threat generation, and mitigation. Obviously it only works against mobs that are meleeing you but high BV can produce some impressive damage. If you're planning on tanking 5 mans, then you're most likely best off to stack strength since it will improve both your block value, and attack power. You may consider poking around www.tankspot.com it's an excellent resource for tank specific questions.

This is the talent build that I'm currently using: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Perenolde&n=Brak

It's always a delicate balance between maximizing your survivability with your threat generation. In 3.0 threat generation was significantly buffed, so that's not as big a deal anymore. I do find myself to be a lot squishier without Defelction and Anticipation so your milage may vary and you might want to socket more stamina if you find you have survivability problems.

[offive]

Warrior tanking is much nicer post 3.0, but it's still not as easy as Pally tanking.

I loaded up Omen and was watching the threat generation on my warrior and pally tanks on different HH farming runs for my alts. My pally easily outpaced both my mages (one fire, one ice for testing) and my ele shaman.

One trick I have been doing on the warrior to boost threat is to place vigilance on the fastest threat generator on the group. I started with it on the healer and my mages caught up, I put it on the highest threat mage and they never caught the warrior on threat. You can play around with the spell, no cool down and zero cost, so if a fight is heavy on healing you can swap it to your healer. I have not used it in raid yet, but if I was a back up tankI might put it on the main tank to keep high on the threat list and reduce the damage on the MT.

Tool tip on vigilance:
Focus your protective gaze on a group or raid target, reducing their damage taken by 3% and transfers 10% of the threat they cause to you. In addition, each time they are hit by an attack your Taunt cooldown is refreshed. Lasts 30 min. This effect can only be on one target at a time.

Stomp all the time, shockwave all the time, and AE tanking is a lot easier than it was before 3.0 on the warrior tanks. Also you can set up a mouse over sunder macro, I have not played with it post 3.0, but I used to load up sunders on CC'd mobs since sunder did not break CC.

[zaediex]

If I was playing my Warrior solo, I would agree with you. However my method takes a lot less micro and lets me have more control over healing and dpsing while tanking. ;)

I built my macro (I like the ui stuff too, I'll be adding that) to make a "one button" tanking macro.

I definately agree with your reasoning for putting it in the macro, I just wanted to point out the recent change. I was maybe a little over enthusiastic in my response. :D I finally felt like I could positively contribute to a post here as opposed to lurking all the time. ;)

[Turenn]

Warriors are still the best tanks in my opinion. I have been using a warrior as tank since I started. With, the latest patch it's just so much more easy.

I only use one macro for tanking.

/castrandom Shield Slam, Devastate, Revenge, Shield Block

When you have more than 50 rage use heroic strike/cleave to dump rage. Don't forget to Thunder Clap, but I wouldn't use TC in a macro, simply because I want full control of when I use it. If the mobs are weak I don't use it. You don't need to use it to keep aggro, shockwave is more than enough to hold healing aggro.

I added the shield block in 3.0.

The treat output is insane, I have NEVER lost aggro since 3.0. Been doing Heroics and 5 manning Kara.

[Tdog]

Don't forget to Thunderclap every cool down. Now that it scales with AP it does quite a bit of damage. Also,the four target cap has been removed so it will hit every mob that's in range. Rage generally isn't an issue anymore if you have more than one mob beating on you.

edit: Ever since the 3.0 patch I find that I suddenly have too many buttons to press on my warrior, but the fact that prot tanking is a blast more than makes up it. ;)Prot warriors are actually so much fun now that I'm considering making one my main in wotlk, assuming they don't drastically change them before I get to 80. I was thinking fury, but prot is just so much more fun now.