Tanking issues since Cata (Cata patch)

Pitbull

Pitbull

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Hi Guys,

I played a bit of WoW on my Warrior this weekend.

They have changed so many things that I'm having endless problems keeping aggro of just one mob not even to mention multi-mob pulls. It started going a bit better since I got some help from friendly Pugs. Now previously if you had 5 sunders on a target that guy aint going no where. Now you can only put 3 and even with 3 you still have to push out lots of combo's to keep the mob's attention. Now currently my rotation are as follows: . Charge, rend, thunderclap, shield slam, devastate, devastate, and what ever proc's I get. Then just cycle through devastate, shield slam.

WTF changed so heavily that I can't even keep one mob on me any more. I did notice that rend keeps good aggro on Multi-mobs. If I can keep it up with a thunderclap here and there. The shouts don't do nothing to their aggro no more. And I'm stuck having to work taunt in between every second button. I'm definitely doing something wrong and would love your help guys please? :p
 
reroll dk, solo everything, including LK. blood strike ftw.

OT: never played a warrior, so dont mind me, its monday. yuk
 
i must say most of the tanks i see these days are death knights or paladins, and the warriors i see tanking usually have the highest DPS in the group so keep all the agro. DK and Pallies seem to have alot more aoe effects which give them all the aggro.
 
Right, your rotation is ok for AoE, but you will lose aggro with that on single target where dps go ape**** on that single target.

Try this on single target.
Charge -> shieldblock -> Shield Slam (sb boosts ss if you specced right) -> Revenge (if procced) -> devastate/heroic-strike -> Repeat from start with this order as priority.

AoE pulls:
Charge -> Rend -> thunderclap -> shockwave -> cleave -> repeat but now you can skip rend.

My Devastate and Heroic strike are in the same macro.

Tanks that tell me they don't need heroic strike to keep aggro (on single target), haven't played with the top dps'ers on their realm at least. I personally find myself needing it to stay ahead of the pack, and with lots of incoming rage it usually aint a problem.

Also, if your gear is not too bad, and your healer is on 70%+ mana go and chainpull. Chainpull so that your rage and vengeance buff dont fall off.
 
Ive noticed its a lot easier to tank with my dk than with my druid. The druid I need to touch as many of the mobs as possible and my crowd control sucks. With my dk I just spam blood boil and run around singing lalalalala.

I have to chain pull with my druid to quickly run stuff and keep my rage going.
 
A very usefull tool for spec/glyphs/gear/reforge ect http://www.askmrrobot.com/wow

Only problem I have with Mr.Robot is the statement below. Still see alot of tanks struggling with aggro due to being under hit/exp cap. My advice look at hit and expt, your avoidance will be less but you wont have any aggro issues.

Default
The default weights are designed to minimize total damage taken. Threat-related stats are weighted intentionally low, as it is generally a non-issue for most tanks these days.

Combat Table Coverage
These weights are designed to maximize combat table coverage (CTC), with the goal of avoiding or blocking every attack. You may take slightly more total damage than the default weights, but you will have fewer spikes.
Click to expand...
 
I completely ignore exp/hit on my tanking gear and my aggro is just fine...I tank for people doing 26k dps (38k if they blow cooldowns) just fine on my warrior.
 
Tinuva said:
Right, your rotation is ok for AoE, but you will lose aggro with that on single target where dps go ape**** on that single target.

Try this on single target.
Charge -> shieldblock -> Shield Slam (sb boosts ss if you specced right) -> Revenge (if procced) -> devastate/heroic-strike -> Repeat from start with this order as priority.

AoE pulls:
Charge -> Rend -> thunderclap -> shockwave -> cleave -> repeat but now you can skip rend.

My Devastate and Heroic strike are in the same macro.

Tanks that tell me they don't need heroic strike to keep aggro (on single target), haven't played with the top dps'ers on their realm at least. I personally find myself needing it to stay ahead of the pack, and with lots of incoming rage it usually aint a problem.

Also, if your gear is not too bad, and your healer is on 70%+ mana go and chainpull. Chainpull so that your rage and vengeance buff dont fall off.
Click to expand...

It used to be so much easier as the abilities used to indicate that they cause high amounts of thread or it generates threat. Now no more such descriptions. So what is causing the Threat? Is it your damage combined with certain abilities? Your Experience or what. I need to know how threat is now generated so I can try and get some sort of idea what I'm working with :p
 
Pitbull said:
It used to be so much easier as the abilities used to indicate that they cause high amounts of thread or it generates threat. Now no more such descriptions. So what is causing the Threat? Is it your damage combined with certain abilities? Your Experience or what. I need to know how threat is now generated so I can try and get some sort of idea what I'm working with :p
Click to expand...
Well Blizzard isn't very clear on what generates threat, all they are clear on, is that more Vengeance = more threat. If you hover over the Vengeance buff you get, you will see it applies a modifier to your attack power, ie. increases it, so that will indicate more dmg = more threat, for most tanks actually.

My rotation I gave you, is in my experience what helps me keeping aggro, and as long as it works I ain't changing it. I will however say this, when 4.0 pre cata patch hit, it took me a damn long while to get used to the new way of tanking, but now that I am used to it, its ok. I think it only started feeling ok at level 82 again, at 80 it wasn't so easy.

oh ps. you can actually use shockwave on single target rotation, it works pretty well and includes a stun to save you from taking dmg.
 
Tinuva said:
Well Blizzard isn't very clear on what generates threat, all they are clear on, is that more Vengeance = more threat. If you hover over the Vengeance buff you get, you will see it applies a modifier to your attack power, ie. increases it, so that will indicate more dmg = more threat, for most tanks actually.

My rotation I gave you, is in my experience what helps me keeping aggro, and as long as it works I ain't changing it. I will however say this, when 4.0 pre cata patch hit, it took me a damn long while to get used to the new way of tanking, but now that I am used to it, its ok. I think it only started feeling ok at level 82 again, at 80 it wasn't so easy.

oh ps. you can actually use shockwave on single target rotation, it works pretty well and includes a stun to save you from taking dmg.
Click to expand...

I forgot to include it, but it is in my rotation. After I applied rend and thunder clap. I move back a bit to group them all up then shockwave. I have seen this works nicely.
 
Yeh don't forget Shockwave and instead of HS use cleave. Blood and Thunder is awesome aoe threat! Don't worry just takes sometime to get back in the swing of things with new way of tanking without having to spam HS :P

Also if you trust your healer pop recklessness for that initial agro. Don't forget Retaliation. Since you can use these in any stance now :)
 
I actually picked up that tanking is allot easier given the following things:

1. You have a good MH weapon. My Aggro increased dramatically when I exchanged my WoTLK 1h for an Axe that dropped in one or another dungeon.
Seems like your difference in DPS does make a huge difference, where it used to be abilities only.
2. I made it very clear to the guys in my PUGS that if they pull it, they tank it. They need to attack my target.
Then just keeping up rend with thunderclap kept the adds glued to me like a turd on a woolen blanked.

Going allot better thanks to you guys. Still a little work to be done, but it has definitely improved allot.
 
Pitbull said:
I actually picked up that tanking is allot easier given the following things:

1. You have a good MH weapon. My Aggro increased dramatically when I exchanged my WoTLK 1h for an Axe that dropped in one or another dungeon.
Seems like your difference in DPS does make a huge difference, where it used to be abilities only.
2. I made it very clear to the guys in my PUGS that if they pull it, they tank it. They need to attack my target.
Then just keeping up rend with thunderclap kept the adds glued to me like a turd on a woolen blanked.

Going allot better thanks to you guys. Still a little work to be done, but it has definitely improved allot.
Click to expand...

Damn I missed this thread :(

What talents are you using?
 
Pitbull said:
I'll try get it on WoW armory quick. Some tips on there would be appreciated as well.
Click to expand...

The nice perk with prot is you fill in all the core talents (eg: last stand) then can specialize your role (aoe/single target) with the filler talents :)
 
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Pitbull said:
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/bronze-dragonflight/Skuimbal/talent/primary
Click to expand...

Update glyphs for prot is the first thing that screams at me, might be an armory glitch but it looks like you've got Arms glyphs?

Glyphs;
Best Prime are: Devaste, Shield Slam and Revenge
Best Major: Thunderclap improves your range (by 2yrds), Cleave (best glyph for aoe imo, increases number of targets hit by 1), Shockwave (best aoe threat/stun out of all the tanks)
Minors are up to you, I like using: Commanding, Battle Shout and Intimdating Fear (keeps them from running in fear, instead they are CC'd in place for 8 seconds, gives your healer a bit of breathing room in case the **** hits the fan. I hear Demo shout is also rather good (reduces the damage the targets do)

Talents;

Shield Mastery is rather important! I'd take a point out of Shield Sepcialization and drop Impending Victory completely (5% spammable heal is only justified for soloing Old content), as handy as Blitz is, Field Dressing is better (you get +6% more healing from healers, your Enraged Regen and your Victory Rush)... Deep Wounds is what you want to fill out in the Arms tree... your threat will be so much better ;)
 
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Oculate said:
Update glyphs for prot is the first thing that screams at me, might be an armory glitch but it looks like you've got Arms glyphs?

Glyphs;
Best Prime are: Devaste, Shield Slam and Revenge
Best Major: Thunderclap improves your range (by 2yrds), Cleave (best glyph for aoe imo, increases number of targets hit by 1), Shockwave (best aoe threat/stun out of all the tanks)
Minors are up to you, I like using: Commanding, Battle Shout and Intimdating Fear (keeps them from running in fear, instead they are CC'd in place for 8 seconds, gives your healer a bit of breathing room in case the **** hits the fan. I hear Demo shout is also rather good (reduces the damage the targets do)

Talents;

Shield Mastery is rather important! I'd take a point out of Shield Sepcialization and drop Impending Victory completely (5% spammable heal is only justified for soloing Old content), as handy as Blitz is, Field Dressing is better (you get +6% more healing from healers, your Enraged Regen and your Victory Rush)... Deep Wounds is what you want to fill out in the Arms tree... your threat will be so much better ;)
Click to expand...

I actually forgot about the Glymps :D Now that is a good tip. Will read through the rest quick.
 
Lol, looking at my talent now. I can see why I did a 20k shield slam yesterday.

Heavy Repercussions - When your shield block is active your shield slam hits for 100% extra damage.
I saw it and thought: "WTF, must be a bug". Now I actually know something I didn't.

Helps to actually take time to read through every talent carefully.
 
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