I’ve recently picked my warrior back up, and started tanking for the first time since BWL, and I’m having a really hard time of it. Now I’ve read guides so I know what I have to be doing, and I set up a bunch of weakauras to help. The problem is that there’s so many things going on that I can’t keep track of it all. I have to be doing damage/getting threat, I have to be mitigating damage (popping cooldowns for both), and I have to be paying attention to the actual mechanics happening on screen. Now I feel like I can really only do 2/3 at a time. I can get threat while paying attention to mechanics, I can mitigate while paying attention to mechanics, or I can get threat while mitigating, but not all 3. It’s like rubbing your belly while patting your head, and jumping up and down at the same time. How do you do it all?
A smart set of keybinds tends to do the trick.
I’ve personally always been a fan of setting up most of my on GCD abilities onto keyboard keybinds and rotational oGCDs or utility onto my mouse extra button keybinds (6/2 button config on the G604).
It’s just like driving a manual car you’re steering with one hand, changing gears with another. It eventually ends up building muscle memory the more you play with it.
In terms of WA’s, a minimalistic ‘hud’ which works like your Car’s Dashboard that shows the following, Rage, Health, Ignore Pain, Shield Block and defensive cooldowns will help keep your eyes off the keyboard itself and allow you to focus more about what’s happening.
I personally have been updating and adjusting a hud pack from Ipse on wago that I took off there since legion as it’s not as intrusive as other huds on wago. Since i’ve tailored it to my own preferences and what I want to show it’s worked well for me, so if you’ve got an idea on what you’re wanting your little hud to look like you can always learn a little about WAs and edit the hud you pick out from wago to your liking. I’m personally not a fan of a lot of the ‘newer’ ones on there, they’re poorly configured screen wise and try to be flashy when that extra distraction is unnecessary. Be warned though any older huds not updated from TWW will have legacy coding in the WA so they’ll need to be updated and will require a little extra on your part to get them working, while also adding in talents/etc that have been introduced since that you want to track.
I’ve done all those things, I’ve keybinded everything and have weakauras for all the things you’ve mentioned. But still I can only do so many things at once.
I have learned and Adapted on my Warrior as times gone on and I have basically Mained Warrior more than my Paladin or any other class.
Far as Learning it Guides might help but Capping it first then Learning Builds for Talents and then Finding Training dummies such as Tank ones and DPS ones to Hone your abilities and cooldowns is your Best bet. Prot Warrior is to me about keeping up Ignore Pain as often as Possible and Shield Block/Shield Wall etc when those are also Needed. Talents play a key role in your Play Style and what content you choose to do. I have got 1 Setup for Prot and 1 for fury I have never Touched Arms since that spec is just a waste of time to learn or play and I just generally look down on as a failure.
And having 2-3 Talen tree builds and I guess appropriate gear on you for different occasions is also Key. But yes Learning From Practice on Test Dummies or from just Diving Right into the Deep end is the best way to be a moderate to great tank.
I hope that Helps I do play every class which can Tank and I learned them all the same way not by watching videos or reading someones guideand there Perspective but by Actually Playing the game. I know it will be difficult early on but once you have the Hours in it becomes second nature.
You say that, but then say you’re not used to them.
You say that but you’re focusing too much on them as opposed to using them as a glance to check the status of cooldowns/resources as you play.
You can do a lot more than you give yourself credit for with practice and muscle memory.
Learning as you go is apart of it, just because you’ve set everything up does not mean you have the skills developed yet these take time.
I’ve been practicing a good amount just with the questing content, doing big pulls and what not to get a feel for the rotations. The problem with practice dummies is that they don’t have mechanics like mobs and bosses in a dungeon would have, so really that goes to the 2 out of 3 things I mentioned. But you may be right about just going into the deep end, maybe practice is the only thing that will make this easier. As it stands now though everything seems so incredibly complex, especially coming off a stint of HC Classic.
I play like a new person somewhat would Spells and ABilities on my numbered part of my Keyboard no Keybinds and only Macros I have are Target macros or action macros for Rares or mobs I am farming.
Sure Keybinds and Macro’s make it smoother but I am no slower on either Warrior Spec over say someone who Sweats PvP or Mythic + etc.
I will admit I have had practice as an Enhancement Shaman. We have a lot to keep track of and yea playing a class like that gives you practice with classes that have a lot going on and to keep track of
Practice.!
Simple more or less it’s 3 buttons, thunderclap, ignore pain, and shield block
Keep those 3 up like 80% of the time you will be fine, other abilities will help and can be thrown into the mix but that is where i would start
I can’t hold aggro with just thunderclap. I need to throw at least revenge in there too and shield slam for rage generation. Maybe this is a gear difference?
Sounds more to me, like youre dealing with what new tanks always deal with. That being, “Add-On UI Overload.” You really dont need ten million things running at once. I can only speak from a Prot Warrior perspective though as i reply here.
First off, run only what you need and not what you want. The reason why the Prot Warrior rotation is so easy is because you have alot going on balancing cooldowns and mitigation abilities. Are people gonna pull threat off you? Yes, they will. Its up to you to get it back.
Second, and this is the one thing that DPS players just cant get through their skulls. YOU ARE NOT A DPS CLASS. Your DPS is a byproduct of just gaining threat and agro on as many things as you can so that they dont attack your Squishies.
Third, and last thing. Watch the mana of your healers in between pulls. If you are keeping 100% uptime on Shield Block and your healer is running out of mana in between pulls, thats a healer issue and not a tank issue 90% of the time.
After those three things you should just focus getting a “feeling” of what you need to do. A strong feeling and muscle memory is 95% of what a Prot Warrior needs to be a good all around tank.
Of course you have to use other abilities
But the focus should be on ignore pain and shield block uptime, and using thunderclap on cool down. Everything else can be added after that.
I set up the weak auras because I couldn’t keep track of everything without it. It’s certainly better using them than without. I also know I’m not there to do DPS but also damage=rage=ignore pain/shield block. If I’m not doing damage I can’t keep up my mitigation.
As for healer mana between pulls, I’m not sure I can even really do anything about that. The meta seems to be to blast through dungeons at laser speed and if I stop for a second to take a breath either for myself or for the healer then someone else starts pulling, every time.
@Thugbug Isn’t my first priority to keep threat though? What good is ignore pain and shield block if the mobs are attacking everyone but me?
Can’t keep threat if you’re dead (a very common occurrence when you don’t have defensives rolling).
If you open with Charge > Shield Charge > Thunderclap that should be enough to keep initial threat while you group mobs. It’ll also give you your Shield Block and enough rage for Ignore Pain.
From there pop Avatar and Demoralizing Shout and threat should be a non-issue.
Right, my point was that thunderclap, ignore pain, and shield block weren’t enough all on their own.
Correct. Shield Charge however does AoE damage, which should be enough to hold them in place for a second.
If thats not enough than your DPS just needs to do the old style of counting “One-hippopotamus, two-hippopatmus” and than begin DPSing.
In M+ you die if you drop your shield block and if your ignore pain drops your health rapidly depletes. If you are 80 just play mountain thane the whole mechanic revolves around a skill you already are using thunderclap and majorly buffs it. On large pulls use your thunderclap once hit avatar and clap two more times. The first two after avatar are enhanced and do a ton of damage. Thunderclap doesn’t need rage it generates it. You should have plenty to use for Ignore Pain and Shield Block, and if you want, you can shield charge in giving you shield block automatically. Mountain thane uses thunderclap on cd and shield slam on cd.
I’m using mountain thane. I think a lot of y’all are misunderstanding my question. I’m not asking how to play prot, I’m asking how you keep track of it all. Like how do you take it all in without getting overwhelmed.
I will say that since I asked this that practice has helped some, but sometimes I start panicking and button mashing and my brain falls behind everything going on.