This kind of attitude exists on retail too and I still don’t understand it. Sure, if the tank is dying or making stupid pulls, going slower etc while 2h or dual wield tanking, then they probably shouldn’t do it. But if they are speeding up the run while doing it, why do you not like it? I’ve encountered this on retail when I queue as tank while in dps spec for a heroic dungeon, and then just blast through everything because I’m overgeared. Most of the time nobody is bothered, but sometimes you get the odd, “YOURE NOT A TANK!”, as if that has any bearing on the situation at hand.
Or, sometimes I’ll queue as dps, but just pull things as if I’m the tank, and people will get mad telling me to let the tank pull. Why would I let the tank pull a pack at a time when I can just go pull 10 packs without a healer and be fine?
Looking at your gear, it looks like you just grinded grand marshall and then put on your quest dungeon set and jumped in a raiding guild that already had everything on farm…
2h tanking is fine if your team knows what they are doing.
Sadly, most of the time dps is SO bad at managing their aggro, and figuring out what to do with it once they got it, it’s not viable most of the time.
One thing you forgot about using a shield though is shield block procs revenge which is high threat and its only 5 rage. I personally like to use sword and board in early levels and I don’t ever have threat issues unless there are people 3 to 4 levels higher then me in the group and really its just a bit more work to keep the mobs, not terrible. Otherwise its fine. I’m specced arms with anger management for rage management and sword spec for extra attack procs. Also I use a fast 1 hander. I’m sure two handed tanking would be fine too with some certain situations but I literally chain pull with hardly any down time for the healers and very minimal threat issues. At 58ish ill probably respec prot. According to skarm fury prot is only good in AQ/P3ish with good amount of hit and crit. He even mentions starting out using the spec with a shield. I also would think dual wielding early on would probably net a lot of missed attacks for lack of hit. In BC I would tank 5 mans with dual wield when I was over geared from black temple sunwell etc. because I needed more rage. Also one thing to note which is very important imo, tanking with a shield will be most of what youll be doing in endgame until AQ P3 fury prot builds so might as well get good with that methodology early on. Why tank with a two hander if you are a new tank when you ultimately need to be learning how to use a shield? You can hold threat fine, you just need to learn the ins and outs of doing it with a shield on.
It is incredibly common in my experience. I play a rogue and in several runs I’ve done (SM cath and RFD most recently) the WW axe weilding warrior dies after body pulling a group and I end up evasion tanking on my rogue until I eaither clean up the mess or I also die and we wipe.
I sword and board because frankly its less stressful for everyone. I also have points in Prot.
It saves the healer mana. And if you PuG what could go wrong will go wrong. I don’t use all my rage for a reason because i know someone is going to do something dumb.
If i’m last on the dps meters i couldn’t care less. That’s not my job. If the healer is alive, doesn’t have to drink the entire instance, and there are no wipes, and we’re still chain pulling, then things went fine.
The damage meter obsession is really the cause of a a lot of contentious topics like AoE from mages and DW Fury warriors.
I don’t think anyone is saying it isn’t viable.
Just like people saying the same about hybrid specs. It’s just that it’s not optimal depending on who’s point of view you look at it. When I tank, i look at it from a healers point of view.
It may take a bit more thought, but as a sword and board tank, if you can manage your rage properly, i should say it’s less stressful for everyone else. lol. But here’s the deal. In PuGs, i pool rage. I frankly don’t care if the healer shows up higher on the dps meters. I don’t have the add on either way. But my job isn’t there to do damage. If one sunder each is enough to hold aggro across a pack, i’m not doing anything else with my rage.
PuGs will do stupid things. When they do these dumb things, I’ll have enough rage to do what I want. When I tank, usually the healer doesn’t need to drink much - if at all.
See, that’s what I’ve been told but, well, see my original post.
Again, I’m not saying it can’t be done or isn’t being done, I’m just saying I haven’t SEEN it done… done well, at least. I think a lot of it is just education. Not more than two nights ago I had a conversation with a warrior tank in my guild and he was completely unaware of aggro generation of shouts. Or at least when to use them in order to maximize AoE threat. 10 min convo and he was like, “OMG THIS IS SO MUCH BETTER!”
So I guess having a convo can go a long way but at the same time, I’m a #%^*ing Warlock. I shouldn’t need to teach you YOUR class. I also shouldn’t have to have a 10-15min convo with every #%^*ing tank that I group with.
I tried using shouts for aggro. I think Demo shout aggro was nerfed and I just didnt seem to be able to generate enought aggro with battle shout to compete with mages. Sweeping strikes,whirlwind, cleave and tab sunders just seemed to work better for me personally. But i would say as long as you are holding aggro, keep doing your thing!
I didnt finish Grand Marshall in Vanilla. I finished Lt. Commander. I completed the obtaining all the PvP set from rank 1 to 14 in BC. I was invited from the Highend PvP group if I wanted to become Grand Marshall, I said no as I prefer to raid. My rank 10 is just from PuG’ing.
I was well known in Llane server where I carried a lot of PuGs on Strat 45 min run. I was responsible for my guild to beat many bosses in ZG as DPS Warrior/Offtank. When we first killed Hakkar, it dropped Zinrokh, Destroyer of Worlds… and they gave it to me. When the guild broke, I applied online to a very serious guild. It’s like applying for job as I submitted my resume… telling them that I have full set of Tier 1 and Tier 0.5 gear with enormous amount of Fire resist. Becoz I was a bit popular, many of its members knew me and they invited me to their guild even though their Warriors slots were already full. Their main tanks asked me if I knew the first BWL boss fight. I answered them… the 1st boss is easy. The 2nd boss is not. I didnt know they havent beaten the 1st Boss. So I showed them how to tank the adds correctly. When we killed their first BWL boss kill, it dropped the Untamed Blade. I had zero DKP from them becoz I was a new recruit but they gave me the Untamed Blade. I was grateful. Raiding guilds were grateful to me. I was flattered… They knew my DPS and offtanking. We reached Naxx40 killing 6 bosses there before BC came.
Me carried? Ask them why they gave me Zinrokh and The Untamed Blade.
Do you want to learn more on how to do 2H tanking properly? Read my posts. Youre telling every Warrior to sunder on 2H weapon? YOU ARE WRONG. One day you will die as a tank if you dont listen to me. Dont blame the healer. It’s your fault.
Why not do it properly like Pros?
This is how I do it against group of mobs: (With max points in tactical mastery)
Start with Zerk stance…
Zerker Rage
Intercept
Whirlwind
if I overgeared the mobs, I continue with my AoE DPS rotation
if I get overwhelmed, I switch to Defensive stance (still has Rage becoz of Tactical Mastery)
switch to shield + 1H
apply sunder to each mob
You keep on insisting to sunder on 2H weapon when you can stance dance to Defensive stance, swap to shield +1H and start sundering… With this, you have HIGHER ARMOR becoz you are on shield. You are on Fast 1H Weapon to easily relay your threat to multitargets. And if youre not overhwlmed, just AoE DPS nuke leaving behind the AoE DPS of the Mages.
All of you argue with others and say people can play how they want and why do you care, then these topics surface with the exact opposite arguments made by the same people who yell at people for telling others how to play.
" Arms/Fury/Protection 31/5/15. [This build](http s://classic.wowhead.com/talent-calc/warrior/Bfz9zECEATAB8w) was the meat and potatoes Warrior build of classic WoW . This was the build you picked if you were going to do some tanking, some PVP, and you weren’t the main tank of your raid guild or just didn’t want to have to switch specs around constantly."
…
" Arms/Fury/Prot 11/5/35. [This](http s://classic.wowhead.com/talent-calc/warrior/AvAwATAF_xzw0hA) was a main tanking build that basically traded away offense for defense.
…
this was purely about threat and survival, and any farming or otherwise playing outside of a dungeon or raid would often require you to spend gold on a respec (no multiple talent specs back then) or to have friends who would come kill stuff while you tanked it."
I’d suggest reading that for anyone that wants to know about the different warrior spec paths.
^^ Never played Vanilla and has no idea how well the above can hold agro compared to a shield user. When we did Ony in Vanilla our guilds Prot Furry warrior could hold agro very well and most of the time out lived our shield using tank.
This is not retail, other specs do exist and are valid for tanking.
Yet he holds agro far better reducing the healing needed for dps.