Understanding a Classic WoW Warrior Tank

The OP has covered a lot of important points and I don’t disagree as far as it goes. But I would add:

(1) Tactical Mastery is a very nice quality of life talent, and is fairly essential to the tanking toolkit. I don’t doubt that you can do without it (fury/prot does, for example), but I would recommend picking it up pretty early.

(2) Revenge and shield block are core tanking abilities, full stop. In fact, revenge is your top threat per rage ability outside of perhaps execute. You should be using it often (and it’s much better if you drop a couple of points into Improved Revenge).

(3) If it is safe to do so, you should definitely be charging. It generates a nice bit of rage – try using bloodrage while charging (roughly speaking), thunder clap, and then switch to defensive stance. You don’t need tactical mastery for this since you will spend your rage before switching stances.

(4) Use Bloodrage on or immediately after the pull (note that it puts you in combat so you cannot charge once you have clicked it), and use Berserker Rage just before the pull. The only exception is if you need to hold onto Berserker Rage for the fear immunity, but that is not really an issue in leveling dungeons.

(5) Be aware that tab targeting is dependent on your camera view, i.e. the target that you tab to next will depend on your cone of vision. Personally I think you are better off actually selecting the mobs with your cursor, and using tab targeting as a fall back if you have any difficulty.

4 Likes

You have contradicted yourself in two paragraphs, and are giving poor guidance in general with this.

Rage generation is fine in defense stance, and your healer will thank you for it. Also, charge pulling takes a level of finesse that most new tanks won’t have, most of the time face pulling isn’t a good thing.

OP is smack on with getting a ranged weapon for pulls, only thing i’d add is LoS blocking is key also.

Tanking in battle stance requires gear, talents and experience, and even then it may be too much for a healer to cope with.

1 Like

I have to admit I was thrown off a little by how different tanking is from what I’m used to. Tanks in a lot of games I’ve played boiled down mainly to spamming an area-of-effect aggro spell and making sure the DPSes were all focusing attacks on the same target you were (so you’d build aggro to counteract their aggro). Seems this game’s tanking role requires a bit more thinking-on-one’s-feet of the players. I’d totally be down for trying it, if playing on a keyboard didn’t make me feel like my fingers were slowly becoming animal pretzels. Melee-damage-warrior is much easier for me to pull off.

BS = Battle Shout
DS = Demoralizing Shout

At no point was I saying you should tank in battle stance.

Almost every single time I invite a warrior tank I end up disappointed. I tend to go for druids instead. Druid tank + paladin for salv = basically retail.

2 Likes

That’s an interesting basic set of tools.

I put together a low-level Classic Warrior Tanking Guide, and would love some feedback.

I hadn’t really thought about going into any depth with regards to keybinding as I had assumed that people would already be doing it, but maybe it’s something worth adding.

1 Like

Tell me, what did you just say that’s new to people here?

Thanks for the theead. Ive tanked a couple sm runs… stance dancing… which is ok i guess. But my issue is when theres more than 3-4 enemies on the screen… and this is with dps too… i get confused and lose track of whats going on.

Not sure what to do about this… like once one of the multiple dies. Switching to the next mob can be very unwieldy and quite difficult for me. I see my character standing inert for a moment before i notice im not engaged on the current target after the last one died. Hopefully you understand what i mean… but i wanted to share this… because on a single or even two targets i can keep pace… and follow the action well… but over that its difficult for me. Especially in a group with multiple pc’s running around everywhere.

To clarify this is my first real try at warrior.

2 Likes

Anyone leveling fury cause they dont wanna be bored out of there mind with warrior 2h leveling…

also only really miss anger management while in a group… unless I need to interrupt something while solo leveling the 10% dmg increase is not really worth the 3% crit and access to whirlwind.

Also the fact that OP called revenge, situational kinda undermines his advice.

Nearly every time I have tanked I am starved for rage cause every dps seems to think pull means go and screw attacking skulls I attack what I want. Revenge is your bread and butter when it comes to low rage tanking and is your highest priority move.

3 Likes

Some tips for Warrior Tanks while doing 5 man dungeons:

I almost exclusively tank (at least leveling up) in defensive stance. I understand stance dancing is a thing and has it’s uses, and there’s plenty of reason to pick up Tactical Mastery, but really a warrior tank should spend most of their time in Defensive stance and use ranged weapons to pull rather than charge in MOST cases.

The way I typically tank dungeons isn’t very difficult, it’s just a lot more reactive than other classes rather than a strict rotation. I pull, either with a ranged weapon, or sometimes just by walking into a pack, pop bloodrage, and throw a demo shout, sunder armor down, pop shield block, use revenge as it pops, then I just tab-target through each enemy and sunder/revenge.

Now in most PuGs you won’t have the luxury of DPS waiting for you to get threat before going all in, so as a tank be ready to mark enemies for kill and for CC, and be ready to taunt grab enemies. When you taunt, you should immediately pop sunder armor if you have the rage, or if not then shield block so you can trip revenge so you can get threat that lasts beyond the taunt. As you tab-target you should first and foremost pay attention to who the target-of-your-target is. If you’re tanking successfully then every time you tab target, they should be on you, if they are not on you, and not on an Offtank (Warrior/Druid/Shaman/Paladin) then you should be hitting them with more sunders or revenge or if in dire circumstances use taunt.

Now I know a lot of warriors level as arms or fury and tank in that spec, and you can do that while leveling BUT it also reinforces bad behavior and gets you used to using those talents as well as battle/berserk abilities when those are NOT your primary tanking skills. Charging and Intercepting may seem useful but there’s a lot of different ways to pull that can also be viable, you want to tailor it based off the type of group you are running with (what CC you have available) and the type of pull (IE: casters or melee, whether they have certain debuffs, etc.).

In normal dungeons, losing threat momentarily is almost never a big deal, if you have a rogue or hunter pulling aggro on one mob and getting a beating while you are busy spreading threat to three others, let them take their licks and then go rescue them. Only on boss fights in normal dungeons is losing threat to a DPS/Healer usually a serious issue. The initial pull is always the most hectic, by the end of the fight though you shouldn’t have ANY issue with threat whatsoever and your job just becomes a matter of keeping up sunder, demo shout, and interrupting casting.

Be aware that even if you end the fight with plenty of extra rage your speed through a dungeon is not dependent upon you, but rather the mana pool/regen of your healer. If you notice your healer is low on mana after a fight, WAIT before going into another fight.

1 Like

Do you have enemy nameplates turned on? Many people find that to be helpful when picking up mobs and switching targets.

The ‘standing inert’ issue is common to all melee classes. The easiest solution maybe to make a spammable macro such as

#showtooltip Sunder Armor
/startattack
/cast Sunder Armor

Just replace Sunder Armor with that macro on your action bar. The only purpose of this macro is to start auto attacking a mob whenever you hit the sunder armor button (even if you do not have rage). That is, you just replace your most common melee attacks with /startattack, then /cast the ability. This will prevent you from standing idly in front of mobs like a doofus (I don’t mean any offense – we have all been there).

Finally, try to pick a fast weapon. It will make life easier when tanking multiple mobs, especially in a hectic pull.

8 Likes

thanks man, i’ll do that.

Enemy nameplates was the first thing that came to my mind also.

I also never stay on a mob until death, unless we have issues with runners. If a mob is like 5-10% left, there is no reason to be on it, and I find the next lowest mob, make sure i’m its target… .if not grab it, and either way dump an extra sunder in it to add separation. If a mob goes for a caster but is also like 15-20%… cut bait and let it go. It won’t hurt anyone.

As others have said, i’m sure stance dancing is cute but its largely something you should do after you learn how to lock mobs down without it while completely in defensive stance.

Same thing with Charge. Charge tends to be a crutch for people who haven’t got the timing for working completely in Defensive Stance down yet. If you learn to live without Stance Dancing or Charge… you’ll be much better once you use them.

And if you get Tactical Mastery early, it blocks you for a couple levels from getting what you really need… which is Defiance. I went Parry 5%(from Arms) and Crit 5%(from Fury) and then raced like holy hell up prot until I got Defiance(15% extra threat in Defensive). Once you have that and can Taunt/Sunder effectively… if you’re even, you’re leaving. I don’t care who it is. It makes the tanking agro world a far better place to live in. After that its a race to 1H Spec(making sure to go through Imp Sunder Armor), so that you not only generate more rage and damage, but can grind far better Solo with DW, so you can knock out quests easier during downtime between groups. 1H spec is still the only booster(and 10% at that), that can effect two weapons at the same time.

Shield Block and Revenge per the one guy above? Fine, once you have agro, and a quick Revenge can replace a Sunder in the tab/target… particularly if Sunder isn’t up… but Revenge won’t necessarily be up when you need it to be so it can’t be the core ability like Sunder can… just something you can use if available. Shield Block is a waste of rage until you lock-down agro, and during lockdown you’ll need every rage point available put towards getting there.

Most of your stuff was good stuff. Per this… always keep everything in front of you. If your field of vision isn’t good and spread due to mob placement, get what agro you can, and take two steps backwards and problem solved as the mobs will adjust themselves into a nice pack.

Oh… and as a note… there is nothing more awesomesauce than Challenging Shout to a Demo if a pack decides to bolt early. Situational because of long timer, but when you do it you look like a gd boss of agro.

1 Like

Why are you tanking in prot spec before level 60 lol.

Tactical mastery/Anger management is core to skilled tanking. You should level and tank as arms, only need to go prot for MC if you’re the main tank.

Like, if you need defiance to hold aggro in dungeons prior to strat/scholo/LBRS where dps start getting geared, you’re doing something wrong.

Tanking as arms you want to pull or charge - Sweeping strikes / Whirlwind / macro swap to sword and shield and defensive to BS, maybe DS, and then tab sunder. Throw in a stance dance and weapon swap to whirlwind where possible.

Tanking in prot or fury just drop out the sweeping strikes and focus on getting out an early BS on pull, and then tab sunder and also throw in weapon swaps/stance dances for whirlwind.

If you’re camping in defensive stance, you’re tanking wrong.

8 Likes

I kinda agree with the first idea in your paragraph, “learn how to tank before you worry about stance dancing”, but stance dancing is a mandatory warrior skill for all specs and you should definitely get used to it as prot, its not a cute trick. Mocking blow is very important, being able to intercept runners/face pulls/general mobility, not forgetting about zerker rage and actually using it as a rage generation tool, thunder clap debuff is useful, slowing with hamstring if your dps dont know how to use their slows (if you dont have howl, which I dont)…while all of this stuff might not be super helpful if youre MTing a raid boss, in dungeons its pretty much mandatory to have that utility because sh*t hits the fan in low level pugs no matter how good of a tank you are. Otherwise youll be in situations where taunt is on CD and theres dudes runnin everywhere, you cant mocking blow or intercept them because rip, you lose all your rage without tac mastery and youre not getting hit. Awkward. I get the general vibe youre putting across, but stance dancing is as core of a competency for warriors as our tanking ability priority if not more important for being a “good tank”

Charge is not a crutch at all, charge is extra rage which is more threat. Yeah, dont charge into the pack with pats near it, but you should pretty much be charging as often as you can and then swapping to d stance if youre tac mastery or spending it on something like demo shout debuff or tc debuff before swapping to d stance if youre not TM for some reason. Charge for EVERY pull where you dont need to LoS and you wont facepull a nearby pack. The more rage you can get and utilize, the better. Not charging is leaving rage on the table…for what reason?

I rushed tac mastery and was deep arms all the way until 53 and tanked every single dungeon before that like a breeeeeeeeze. And when I respecced Prot at 53 it was so I could tank full BRD clears and other preraid dungeons for gear while the bosses were still red to me. It was for the mitigation more than the threat. As Prot you should be getting Tac Mastery anyway. I dont see any reason while leveling to rush Defiance over Tac Mastery. If youre not stance dancing, youre not making use of the entire warrior kit and the threat from defiance is unnecessary until much later.

Any lost rage is lost threat, and its not like we are swimming in rage right now. You dont need defiance to tank leveling content, and charge -> bloodrage -> ss -> zerker stance -> ww as arms is better aoe threat than anything prot can do while leveling in fewer globals. This is more important than the mitigation you get from prot until higher levels, unless youre CCing every pull and tanking 1-2 mobs at a time, but even then… you dont need the prot mitigation if youre pulling like that anyway- id rather cleave things down quicker if that was the case because you should be able to tank 2 mobs no problem as any spec.

If youre tanking low level dungeons as prot without tactical mastery, aoe snap threat (and rage generation) is going to be your biggest glaring weakness especially post demo shout fix which is almost entirely fixed by SS -> Whirlwinding on the pull. Yeah yeah threat coefficient, but that opener generates a significant amount of threat on 4 mobs almost immediately…way more than prot could do without consumables in the same time window. Defiance is a great talent, but its not going to help you that much with instant snap aggro which I find necessary with the way the DPS are playing right now. I dont expect mages to patiently wait for me to tab sunder 6+ mobs, and if you can get everything under control within 2 or 3 globals of the initial pull everything goes SOOO much smoother. This also lets you solo without incurring that awful DW hit penalty when youre not tanking dungeons. Win/win.

Do that opener with a 2h, equip your sword and board and go d stance, do the normal tank prio. Best opener available no contest if youre tanking a pack you can take a hit or two from without a shield on which is pretty much all of them before like, Mara and the threat you generate on the pull like that allows mages to go ham the second your charge lands (lets be real, theyre going to do that anyway). Eventually the mobs will hit too hard for that to be safe, but by the time that happens youll be high enough level to just respec deep prot and pick up tac mastery as well if you want to go that route.

Just my 2 cents, different group comps and playstyles ofc, but this was by far the most effective, efficient, and frustration free way for me to tank leveling dungeons. Tanking without tac mastery is…not a great idea.

7 Likes

Straight facts right here.

Gives guide on how to tank while leveling…

Neglects to mention that he his specing prot while leveling which is a terrible waste of talents unless you are pretty much only running dungeons.

Also revenge is almost always up if you have a couple mobs hitting you and a shield block will guarantee that it is up.

If you are leveling arms you should get tac mastery cause there really isnt anything better at that level. And if you have tac mastery stance dancing is key to doing well.

If you are leveling fury stance dancing is not as helpful but can still be beneficial.

If you are leveling prot… dont go giving people advice on tanking while leveling cause you are the outlier and 99% of warriors are not gonna spend 15+ talents for something that is not the majority of how they level.

2 Likes

This here is probably one of the better responses to OP.

Only thing I’d add would be to write some simple macros. Charge -> def stance -> weapon swap is one I use all the time. While you can tank without macros, macros make your life easy. Also, I’ve found that there’s really no difference in durability between tanking as Arms or Prot spec pre-30. As long as you got the sword and board, you’re pretty much good to go.

That said, I’m a noob tank so take it with a bag of salt.

If you’re tanking at any level without tactical mastery, you should stop doing that.

8 Likes

This man doesn’t think Revenge is worth mentioning as a threat generating. Christ.