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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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This man doesn’t think Revenge is worth mentioning as a threat generating. Christ.
Pretty much everything you said is right, and the macros thing is pretty much just personal preference as long as you can stance dance/swap weapons quickly, I just use a weapon swap macro and then bind stances into the abilities I want on my global bars + bind stances in a reachable place. I dont always want to put on a shield when I go in dstance, so I give the control to myself. I’ve also been stance dancing for over a decade so its a lot of muscle memory that I havent felt the need to break lol
Only mandatory macros are /startattack imo
I always prefer having a shield at some point since, at my low level, I only have shield bash for an interrupt.
Definitely have not developed the weapon swap muscle memory yet XD It’s macro crutch for me - though I have my current weapons on my side bar in case the macro breaks or I want to manually go 2H in def stance.
Some other tips I found handy during my 35 levels of tanking stuff:
1: Make macros to make your stance dancing easier. I have a macro that switches me to zerker stance and immediately Zerker Rage so I can generate more rage while tanking. I have dedicated buttons to take me to Arms and Prot stance (can also make macros that lets you switch to 2h automatically while in Arms or 1h/shield while in Prot, I have ANOTHER macro that switches weaps for me so I don’t use this).
2: Key mapping like OP said is very important. I make sure I have similar abilities on same button. ie, my Taunt in Prot stance is set up on same button as my Mocking Blow in Arms stance, so if my Taunt misses, I can switch to Arms and hit the same button for Mocking Blow.
3: Don’t be afraid to stance dance. In fact, you’ll have to if you’re any War tank worth your salt. Like I mentioned, Zerker Rage is very important to use. It has a 30s CD so you can pretty much use it once every pull and it helps a lot with rage generation. You can also switch to Arms quickly for a TC or Zerker for a quick WW or to Intercept a mob running away. With that said, it’s pretty much MANDATORY that you get the Arms talent that lets you keep 25 rage while switching stance. You’ll need this no matter which spec you play, PvE or PvP.
4: Make a skull marking macro and use this on every trash pull to let the DPS know which mob you’ll be concentrating on. This helps a lot for keeping threat. If they are attacking a non-skull mob and rip threat, at leas you know it’s not on you.
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As I’ve stated, ultimately i’ll get it for Anger Management near level cap… but its by and large a cute trick until later levels. If you rely on it To Tank, thats called a crutch. Why have it? So you can generate rage with Charge or Zerker Rage?
Ok… then you don’t understand how to generate and sustain Rage without Charge or Berserker Rage. There is literally nothing that you need to tank packs from 20-60+ that can’t be run out of Defensive. And until you can do that, you’re simply patching over weaknesses.
Stuff happens. Part of getting good is minimizing that happening by controlling your timing and pulls and by and large the tempo is set by the tank. Have I had stuff go sideways from time to time… sure. Everybody has. But every time it was largely due to blown timing and that gets rarer and rarer. But you do have an out with Challenging Shout. Hopefully you get to the point where such things happen longer than 10 minutes at a time and then you can just CS past it to get back into cycle. Most pulls are mundane.
And i’m challenging that philosophy. If you find it mandatory, its because you have weaknesses in your tanking game that have to be covered up. You have absolutely zero Rage Management as you’re sucking wind at <25 Rage. The only thing dancing does is exacerbate that because it’ll always keep you <25 Rage.
Its completely a crutch if you need to switch stance to generate rage. Either you aren’t using your buttons efficiently, or your timing is off so the mobs aren’t hitting you. I can end with 80-90 rage and take that into the next pack and be chain sundering the engage. Early rage spent > all when you want to have agro on packs. Why would I waste that rage getting it clipped to 25 and going Dancing with the Stars? If you’re playing at the low-end of the bar at <25 rage… you’re doing it wrong.
How about just giving us a picture of your setup and explaining it a little?
I’d actually like to see how someone else does it.
Because how I work with my UI tends to be unique to me. I will explain some stuff about the core though.
Generally Sunder is ‘2’ and I can Tab 2 Tab 2 or Tab Tab Tab efficiently to see if i’m on agro.
Simply Bloodrage(it can be anywhere) and pull with a knife or a gun. Demo for agro and then tab sunder through the pack. Find the main and Taunt + Sunder to get it if you don’t have it. If a mob goes to bolt for some reason… Tab to it and Taunt + Sunder. Be working the next mob as the previous one is close to death.
The key above all else is high rage as the pack dies(and there are exceptions to this 50+ as groups often can’t take more than a pack before medding in some places like ST… but early dungeons are usually chaining packs). If you can’t manage your rage, practice until you can. You then take that rage into the next pack and are peeling down 80-90 rage at the start, not the 12 or 15(lol… and I find it dubious you’d have saved 25) that Charge provides.
Once you have agro, the mobs hitting you should push your Rage back up for the next pack while they die. If you manage to get them on you, stand there and swing. Between swing and hit rage you’ll get back up near the top easily.