So many warriors...yet so few tanks?

I know about hamstring and it’s great, but If I wanted to roll in battle stance I would have gone arms, not prot.:neutral_face:

Everything you just said is wrong. Warriors have almost no down time unless you’re trying to fight stuff that is over your level/gear and beats you into the ground every pull. If you’re having that hard of a time, then you quite simply don’t know what you’re doing.

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I rolled my third toon as a warrior (now my main) specifically to assist with the tank shortage. By level 30 I’d had enough with the mages, warlocks and other warriors who were too excited to get their dps meter going to let me do my job despite pretty specific instructions. Then they get mad when I can’t get aggro because they won’t let me get hit for a few seconds before unloading.

It’s not worth the frustration and I respecced to solo level to 60, at which point I will spec tank again and run exclusively with my guild and irl friends who know how to run a dungeon. Y’all dps mongoloids make it too much of a headache, and they way dps pulls threat immediately it’s obvious you’re happy to do the tanking yourself anyway.

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I am prot, but rarely in defensive stance when questing. I can see where that would be very difficult. As a protection warrior, you really need to be changing stances. And when questing out in the world, I think you will find it much easier to use a decent 2H weapon (here is a link to a weapons progression for alliance: <Blizz would not allow me to link it but do an internet search for ‘classic warrior weapon progression’> – I cannot vouch for the guide but those weapons do work).

I don’t claim that this is optimal but it works well for me so far (level 46):

  1. charge or pull in battle stance
  2. Make sure you have battle shout up (use an addon to track it if necessary, but do not be in combat without your party buff active).
  3. Rend
  4. Sunder once (this may not be worth it, but I like to cast one sunder armor)
    5a. Before level 30, just heroic strike the mob to death (use hamstring or re-apply rend if necessary).
    5b. After level 30, switch to Beserker Stance and use Berseker Rage
  5. Whirlwind <these should be 6, 7, and 8, but Blizz is auto-formating my list incorrectly>
  6. Heroic strike if you need to, until the mob reaches execute health.
  7. Execute and loot.

We spec prot for tanking in dungeons, not for questing in the world. Outside of dungeons, you will probably want to play as a gimpy arms warrior. But it’s not bad or difficult at all as long as the mobs are not more than 2 levels above you (because then you will miss a lot and have a very, very slow swing timer).

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So when I make a group as a feral tank I tell the dps to let me get aggro before they go ham. When they dont i give them a warning. My guild heals will back me up. The heals tells the dps that wasting mana makes the instance last longer. So far my best groups might have 1 mage. My ideal group at 45 is a Feral druid “me” Marks hunter for buff, paladin ret or heals, priest, lock. Lock can aoe really well and imp buff is amazing. Fort, pally and druid buff are the bees knees. The group flys bye with just the heals healing me and the lock.

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Wuut, if anything they are treated like special award recipients. I play a warrior and i do a lot of tanking but one thing i’ve seen too much is stubborn “dps warriors” that just refuse to play the role they should always be ready to perform.

Yesterday I was looking for a ZF group, as soon as I join I see this other warrior that I assume was there to DPS. I’m fine with that, but it just mesmerizes me that they’d rather sit there for hours looking for a tank instead of just putting on a shield and getting things done.

If you want to be the next Maydie or Pat then more power to you, but if i can tank just fine as fury/arms, they can as well.

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Warrior is significantly harder when you ignore a large portion of your toolkit. The thing to remember is that in classic you are playing a class, not a spec.

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I considered trying to tank in Classic, but gave up on the idea. I used to tank in WoW, waaaaaay back in WoTLK and was told I was good at it, but I’m aware even then tanking was very different than Classic tanking.

It’s less fear and nerves for me when it comes to tanking, I just got tired of people. My breaking point was FF14. I focussed on tanking in all group content and even there, you had the usual idiots that will find some reason to blame you despite you doing everything you should and can do to hold aggro.

My last tanking attempt was a simple dungeon run were I got into an argument with a White Mage healer who refused to do anything but stand around and heal, which in FF14 basic content means your just standing there 70% of the time. Even then, she somehow let me die multiple times. It was the first group argument I got into in the game, and the last.

I still played the game for a good while, but I was sick of dealing with entitled/lazy people that insisted on either making everyone else’s job harder, or blaming their mistakes on me, or sometimes the healer. You can only take so much before you lose the drive.

From years of mmo tanking experience, I blame the community. People just have a real sense of entitlement around tanks for whatever bizzare reason.

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On behalf of every one you harrased with unsolicited whispers and party invites, go to hell.

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A single invite is nothing. A simple, “no ty” is enough for them to move on. It’s not like they’re spamming you.

I’ve actually run a few dungeons because I got asked to randomly.

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Warriors don’t like tanking.
I had two in a group earlier today and neither one of them would do it.

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It’s probably because it gives them more responsibility. I actually plan to tank a lot of dungeons on my Warrior to get gear.

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I think this was summed up best in another post.

Tanking a pug in classic is PvP. You’re constantly fighting the group.

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Short answer it’s really annoying to Tank for the Sperg’s

I am a tank and I rather Quest than do dungeons.

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DPS somehow cannot grasp the concept of letting a tank soak threat for 2-3 seconds before they attack.

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We’ve three specs, one likes to be the hero, the other two like to just have fun in an ‘all care no responsibility’ like fashion.

Besides most of the ‘good’ warriors level with their pocket healers and breeze past the level/content of any one typically LF Tank for x

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I find tanking much easier if you mark the mobs and establish a kill order.

Skull first, X second, whatever else 3rd or CC.

If the group AoEs or goes out of order, just let them die and quit.

You’ll have a new group in no time and they’ll just whine about you being a bad tank until you block them.

Not worth the hassle of DPS morons with ADD issues. They shouldn’t be accommodated. The tank is the group leader.

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It’s simple. Most warriors are only interested in swinging their 2 handers and doing mindless dps. Period. And I can tell you some of them have almost zero knowledge of tanking and pay zero attention to party members getting attacked by elites. How I wish I have a taunt button so I don’t need to rely on these so called tanks.

I’m spec’d fury and have no issues tanking dungeons. I’m surprised at the amount of other warriors not willing to tank at all, why not just roll a rogue then?

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This is my first time rolling a warrior and i’m having fun with it but I’ve never tried tanking. I’ve noticed that even in groups while questing it’s really difficult to generate any rage and it’s really frustrating not being able to use your abilities.

My other reason for never trying to tank is simply that everyone expects the tank to know the routes through every dungeon, all the short cuts, what to skip, ect…Having mained a lock for BC-Cata, i’m just as guilty of assuming the tank just knows.

On another note,i think all dps should try rolling a warrior just to see what it takes to generate threat and how trying to burn down mobs before the tank is able to get aggro is so frustrating for them.

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