Qwik

I would think that Cruelty would still be worth it even if you get Sword and Board and Incite as I see it as 5% chance to get double rage on a white hit. Maybe someone can suggest a better talent to pick up instead?

 

Rott

On the topic of enchants, with threat being so high now, would the 2% threat to gloves enchant be the best available pre-wrath for that slot? Surely 15str is much better than it used to be, with armor and straight stamina also improving in value with the avoidance changes/losses, but 2% threat is worth much more threat now than it used to be.

 

• Jamor

I actually changed my glove enchant from threat to +hit (used to be spell hit). I did it for two reasons. 1) It's going to equate to higher damage over the long haul, and 2) it's actually more useful to me, as a +threat enchant than 2% threat. The only time I have issues with threat is when I miss an attack in the first couple seconds and DPS is going full out immediately (which is pretty much always). In that case, the +hit is far superior threat than 2% -- Once I get going, it doesn't really matter if I have 2% threat or not.

 

Irghen

I think it will come down to the time the threat ceiling looks like puting an obstacle for the damage dealers; currently, at least on live, it feels a little bit wasted since the gap between the tank's threat and the next-on-omen player is greater than ever due to the last changes. However, we haven't seen how our threat will stand against the damage dealer's come level 80. Maybe someone on beta could throw some good insight on that regard.

But yeah, I agree, if we ever need a boost, given the percentile nature of the enchant it would be the correct choice. Also, blizzard seems to be eventually wanting us to wear an upgraded version of the old enchant:

Formula: Enchant Gloves - Armsman - Item - World of Warcraft

And maybe a blue upgrade on those later down the road may be added.


EDIT - I'm a slow typer :S

 

Velict

Tanking threat is, generally speaking, significantly above that of DPS at level 80 from what I've seen thus far in Naxx. Threat generation doesn't look to be much of an issue, at least at beginning-level raid gear in the expansion.

 

Zartion

This is a bit offtopic, but seeing as how the patch has opened up the "Barriers" of tier so to speak, tier four people are doing t5+ much more, t5 doing t6 etc etc.

I've run into a problem of gear switching. I recently picked up Cleaver of the Unforgiving from Zul'Aman, and the Bulwark of the Amani Empire. I was using the Merciless Gladiator's Shield Wall before, and I can't tell if I should be using it or not.

I also have access to The Ubreakable Will, but I like the parry on the cleaver, and the higher hit rating, seeing as how mine is pitiful.


Any suggestions?

 

Liar

I think you missed my point completely. Without TM you are supposed to retain 10 rage when you switch stances. It doesn't matter if you start with 100 rage or 50 rage when you are OOC in defensive stance, but the moment you switch stances you will only have ~8 left because rage decays way too fast without Anger Management. I am not even sure how other Warrior specs without TM can intercept like this because without Focused Rage you will need to save your Bloodrage to pull it off.

Anyways, it's something you will notice alot while grinding since Charge will eventually end up on CD (and considering Prot's ridiculous DPS at the moment I guarantee this will happen sooner than later) so the most logical choice is to intercept to a target, right? Well yeah, see above...

Unexpected TankPoints error Clearly someone doesn't understand how EH works. That, or upgrading from T8 to T9 is optional in beating Arthas. Clearly.

 

Qwik

In your original post, you listed the quick decay of rage while out of combat as a problem with protection warriors. I was simply stating that as a protection warrior I don't have this problem.

Also, while I really don't want to have a debate on when to use intercept in this particular thread, I personally don't ever use it... I think that pulling something with my ranged or just running up to it would be a better option that switching stances and intercepting (read: losing all my rage) if charge is on cool down.

For other specs, I agree with you, this could be an issue, however I'm not having a problem with it as a protection warrior.

 

Battlestar

I have also somewhat run into this problem. However, what I am reading and seeing in Hyjal and BT is that pre-3.0 strategies of stacking avoidance for later encounters should be avoided. Also, how (and how much) threat is generated has changed quite a lot, and I would suggest that maximizing +hit for threat isn't as good post patch either. I am finding that with a good rotation (even without rage-and-threat-helping talents such as puncture and imp HS) I stay far above everyone threat-wise. I wouldn't call your 67 hit and 27 expertise pitiful.

For threat, I rely a lot more on Block Value than I did before (I'm glad I saved a set) since you will be using shield slam much more often - also remember to use Shield Block as a threat boost (it doubles your BV) when the cooldown is up. Basically, I keep two sets now - one Block Value/AP set for trash/threat, and one balanced between stamina/armour/avoid for hard-hitting bosses. You might also want a straight-up stamina set for Kael, if you are working on him.

With that in mind, I would still keep your Cleaver for a threat set to use for heroics, overgeared content, or when you have dps that simply can't control themselves. I would always use the Unbreakable Will for harder-hitting bosses, given its stamina, defence, and (particularly) armour. It looks like you need a couple more points of defence for bosses anyway.

I would also use the Bulwark of the Amani Empire for its Block Value and higher stamina over the Merc. Glad. Shield Wall. You will find that your threat will increase from this change.

Consider taking the last point in Incite, rather than 5/5 anticipation.

Finally, I would also argue that you should replace your avoidance gems for outright stamina. Try to get +15s where you can. Just make sure to keep one yellow/green gem for your head Meta (I use an epic green enduring in my khorium destroyer to get the set bonus).

Hope this helps.

 

Pruka

I was here reading up on how other tanks are liking our new changes. We seem to all agree it's much nicer now and certainly less stressed. My question is (something I dont see discussed) is what rotations are you doing now? Ive still got to get mine ironed out so if I can hear what others are doing I am certain it would help out.

 

Rott

There were multiple posts a few pages back regarding an algorithmic approach to tank rotations due to sword and board. You can't really plan out a strict rotation anymore due to ability procs and such. From what I gathered from those posts, shield slam takes priority over everything else when sword and board procs. Revenge should take priority over devastate.

From my experience doing BT and Sunwell post-3.0, I usually have enough rage to constantly heroic strike but my normal priority for skills is:

Shield Slam->Revenge->Concussion Blow->Shockwave->Devastate

As usual, your mileage may vary.

 

• Jamor

It's actually SnB Shield Slam > Revenge (w/ Glyph) > Sheild Slam > etc...

 

Handyhoof

Actually, the logical choice for me has been "pull with throwing axe and then charge in before they close distance" if I need another second or so for it to come off cooldown. We can charge in combat now, so there's little reason to use intercept unless you need another stun (unlikely). I would pose that the rage loss from intercept would make it not worth using. It may be a personal gameplay style, since I can see the thrill in flying around, but it doesn't seem very smart.

 

Liar

Except that your method is alot slower than mine. Mobs can and will die too fast for you to just keep relying on Charge. A HS and SS crit will do that for you, the mob basically dies on impact and then you have 8-10 secs CD on Charge. Usually when I grind I move into one direction so Charge and Intercept will take me where I want go, at a faster rate than throwing and running to a mob (why would you even waste time standing still, throwing your weapon then move if you are going that way anyway?). Moreover, rage loss is hardly any problem anymore so that is no issue for me.

Unexpected TankPoints error Clearly someone doesn't understand how EH works. That, or upgrading from T8 to T9 is optional in beating Arthas. Clearly.

 

Qwik

It sounds like that your gear is allowing you to instantly kill things. I can't do this and it still takes me a few seconds to kill mobs. When I'm done killing a mob I normally only have a few seconds left on my charge cool down and 60-80 rage, which makes changing stances and intercepting kind of pointless.

You could try throwing something to get back into combat, then intercept, this would allow you to be in combat so you don't have the rage decay issue.

 

Ambika

I've been moving around in my full Sunwell tanking gear (mostly Tier6 with other goodies thrown in) and have not found that I have too much rage, but rather just enough.

I also have the threat vs. avoidance set. Threat is nothing but raw STR/SBV and +Hit gear. I've found that the more +hit I've been throwing on the larger my SS' are becoming. It's become the norm to SS for 2500 and Revenge for 1k.

I've dragged myself through Strat and found I can ALMOST surive like a pladin on allot of the trash pulls. It's tough but if you have either a potion, spyglass of the hidden fleet, trinket from BT or the block heal trinket you can survive quite easily.

 

Skjalg

When you all talk about your having your charge on cooldown all the time, is this with or without the glyph of charging? (reducing cd on charge by 20%).

I've found that while leveling this isn't a topic (with the glyph), but on later gear tiers it might become one...

 

• Jamor

I am def. going to use the charge cooldown glyph for leveling (doing instance grind). In doing some of the 5 mans in Beta, there seemed to be a good many times that I would try to charge to the next pack, and be a second or two from cooldown.

 

Xunwael

I didn't see it mentioned anywhere in this thread, and it must be new unless I've been living in a dream world the last year, but did intervene always reduce the threat of the target by 10%? I had some less-than-hilarious threat reductions in ZA today due to it. Figured I'd save the other tank a couple of times and every time the boss decided that instead of absorbing a single attack I was now worthy of his full attention. The second time I decided to read the tooltip.

On the topic of intercept and rage I currently just charge-intercept-charge from mob to mob and jump around spamming thunder clap 'till I've gathered everything within range. I can only assume that WotLK mobs will be doing significantly more damage than TBC noes, otherwise I don't see a reason to stop pulling before I've gathered every mob that it's reasonable to grab a hold of. I can easily grab a whole scurge invasion crystal and just turn around and slowly kill them with thunder clap, shockwave and damage shield -- or kill them in a few seconds with an aoe class assisting.

"Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice."
- Clark's Law

 

bcswen

The threat reduction from Intervene was only added in this patch, which was why certain strategies that have a DPS warrior Intervene the main tank at certain points of the fight were rendered unusable (or rather less viable).

 

Doh-Doh

Hello, this is my first post here and I'm going to use it on the subject of instant pulling.

Taunt had it's range increased to 20 yards recently, so it can be used as a instant ranged pull now.

Advantages: Instant ranged pull
Disadvantages: Taunt cooldown starts, throwing/shooting adds more initial threat through damage

Compared to the delay of throwing/shooting, Taunt is awesome for pulling pats. I also prefer pulling this way because the flow of pulling just feels better for me.

However, this may lead to bad situations where impatient DPS might pull aggro right after your taunt cooldown timer has started. But still, I tend to pull with Taunt most of the time now, because the cooldown timer hasn't been an issue yet.

I've noticed that most warrior tanks still pull the old way and wondered if this happens by habit or because it's the better pulling technique. I'm interested what other opinions on this topic are, so let me hear your thoughts on it.

 

rok

I personally would not lock my Taunt into CD by using it for pulling, but every rule, self-imposed or not, has its exceptions. So as you said, I would happily Taunt a patrol if an instant pull is required to save us a precious minute or two of waiting. Saving time safely is always my number 1 priority in dungeon runs.

With that said, with patch 3.0.2 and WotLK, I now charge very often, and only use my ranged weapon when it is not safe to charge into the group. From the dungeons runs so far, I noticed that I am able to safely Charge 50% of the time, and resort to ranged-weapon pulling the other 50%. But I perosnally love charging as a form of pull, because it sends me to the group so fast, giving me some extra rage if I had to wait for a mana break or so, which is needed for a very quick Thunder Clap, for example, to get initial aggro on the whole group.

And to touch on the Taunt pulling subject again, I'd say that I almost always try & save my Taunt for semi-emergencies, especially for our Healer, but if I feel it is safe to use Taunt just to pull a mob who was just going to start chasing a DPS member, then I go for it. But the rule I go by is that Taunt is free from CD as often as possible to prevent a 1-2-shot death for a cloth wearer, especially the Healer.

 

panny

I fucking love being able to Charge in combat. Throwing my weapon, then pulling back so they're in position for Charge is great.

 

Kannojo

I discover this, while pugging magtheridon last week while I was explaining the fight. I should have read the patch notes instead of wanting to be delightfully surprised.



I've been charging,T-clap, positioning, and then shock waving.Followed by massive tabbing and rage dumping. Revenge is worthy of it's name which is wonderful. No more need for CC in the games' current state.

I must say that blizzard's attempt to qualify 3 (ATM) classes for an MT position has left the other 2 (Paladin/Druid) a bit lackluster. Perhaps I'm ignorant from not seeing them in action very much. I did notice an increase of Protection Pally TPS and druids now have quite a bit of warrior-like abilities.

Myself and a T6 geared Druid tanked hyjal. Aside from the Infernal spreads and the Adds on the 2 boss fights (Anetheron and Azgalor) the druid was overkill and could DPS most of the night.

Vigilance has thus far been the most interesting asset. It seems a bit too powerful however. Then again the developers stated at blizzcon stated that threat was never supposed to be as an important issue as it had been. All in all I'm very pleased with the direction of the warrior class. I don't like the Grey area that all tank classes are falling into with similar abilities.

 

Beardstorm

I would imagine that between Warbringer, Concussion Blow, Intervene and Mocking Blow a taunt pull would generally not be such a bad thing. You could also pop Bloodrage after Taunt to net you some extra threat, which combined with charge should give you rage for a Shield Slam and/or Thunderclap. I would think that any DPS pulling more threat than that in the time it takes for a mob to run 15 yards (taunt was 20 yard range right?) deserves to die. And theres Vigilance as well so even if said DPS dies, it will refresh your taunt to save the next in line.