Understanding a Classic WoW Warrior Tank

[Kelzar-agamaggan (Kelzar)]

Calls anger management and charge a crutch while wasting over 30% of his talent to get defiance(a massive crutch)

[Kelzar-agamaggan (Kelzar)]

He specs prot while leveling so all his info is tainted by the fact that he wasted a LOT of talents to get increased threat gen on everything and more rage from blocking.

[Zengaku-grobbulus]

There is a lot of misinformation. And you usually have people calling out ‘Retail Babies’, all while exhibiting little to no understanding of how a WoW Warrior Tank does what they do.

I’m going to make this extremely simple.

First, remove all your button presses. Clean house.

Now put yourself into Defensive Stance and set keys for Taunt, Sunder, Demo Shout, Bloodrage, and some sort of pulling mechanism(knives or guns).

Now hold agro on multiple mobs. As you figure out what to do with those keys, place them in positions that best suits your left hand. Anybody should be able to work out how to use those keys to put themselves ahead of threat on a group… and if you can’t… do it until you can. You don’t have to have agro on all mobs all of the time… but most of the mobs most of the time.

Once you actually get a feel… add back the situational stuff.

And if you aren’t prepared to use that core in the way it has to be used… or simply do not like doing that(it can be very type-y and require some good micromanagement)… then cut bait and go DPS, or find another class. You’ll simply be a liability and the only agro you’ll generate is with group members. Tanking in WoW Classic as a Warrior is a skill, and it takes practice.

Also realize that Rage Management is a thing, and when you get to the point that you can agro multiple mobs, you’ll want to spend on the front, and build on the back. You want to end a pack with excess rage that you take into the next pack for early threat generation. Spend on engage, build back as they die.

Here is what you do…

Take your warrior. Equip your whirlwind axe. Then use hearth stone.

Log out.

click delete character… and type in delete…

Create new character…

Make a druid…

That’s how you tank.

[Quillim-westfall]

Calls anger management and charge a crutch while wasting over 30% of his talent to get defiance(a massive crutch)

Never once have I called Anger Management a crutch. Its nice to have… but you don’t exactly need it. I see no reason not to get it at the end though. And you TM to get it so /shrug.

Per Charge… if you have to charge you’re point blank not finishing packs at the high-end of the rage bar and are sucking wind, if not dry for the next. So you have to dance to fix that. That is why its a crutch. Rather than teaching yourself proper Rage Management so that you enter a pack nearly full rage, you’re having to dance and use a skill that gives you 15 rage. And one thing begats another. Early agro leads to getting hit during the fight, which leads to high rage at the end that you can take into the next pack.

[Caargon-wyrmrest-accord (Caargon)]

If you can spend little enough rage to hold aggro that you’re going into every pack with half a red bar, your DPS aren’t playing anywhere near their potential.

[Forks-rattlegore]

I tank with a 2h, sweeping strikes, and whirlwind…

In battlestance.

What do you mean theres another warrior in the group with a shield?

[Aemin-skeram]

It just sounds like you dont want to use all of your abilities for some reason. Using berserker rage or charge is not a “crutch”, its knowing your class and utilizing your toolkit. Theres no reason to be prot at those levels and sit d stance unless youre babysitting your healer, I’d much rather hold threat and SS for top dps as arms while leveling for super speedy clears and fast xp in exchange for a tiny bit of extra damage intake (which doesnt matter when the entire pack is dead in like 5 seconds).

I have no rage issues and I’ve been farming Emp since 53, Overlord Wyrmthalak since 55, and Rivendare since 57 so my way seems to be working a hell of a lot better than most of the tanks Ive seen. I use it to generate more rage for more threat and more damage. You always need more rage. If you dont, youre not spending enough. And if youre stance dancing with 50 rage youre stance dancing wrong unless you really need to mocking blow or something. Its not hard to spend your rage before you stance dance if youre above 25. Rage is threat, if you dont need the threat it is damage. You can ALWAYS use more damage. The quicker things die, the less damage you take, the less mana the healer uses.

If youre rage capped and its not a raid boss youre 100% doing it wrong. My dps literally start aoe/cleave almost immediately after I pull and I hold aggro on 6+ mobs at a time with 3 level 60 dps in almost full pre raid bis going HAM even post demo shout fix. Like 800-1k dps HAM on a lot of the pulls. If youre slowly plodding through dungeons then sure, sit d stance and never stance dance while range pulling and marking for cc every pull but I’ll stick to pulling big and movin’ fast

[Quillim-westfall]

Everything not the main is usually hitting me. If a DPS gets frisky… Taunt + Sunder (and an extra one if needed) owns them with zero issue. If its even a concern i’ll tab sunder a second onto the mobs. Either way, you generate agro fairly quick when getting hit and swinging.

It just sounds like you dont want to use all of your abilities for some reason.

My job is to have them hitting me while the dps cuts through them, not pushing buttons so I have no rage. Learn to use enough Rage to get the job done, and then save for the next. Its a mindset, and early Rage near the top of the bar is far more fun than going dry. Charge doesn’t even fix that for me because I want to be dropping like 4 sunders on 4 mobs in the shortest period of time… not scraping the bottom. And how fast I can get that done dictates how well i’ll generate the rage back from them hitting me.

[Limtastic-old-blanchy]

Per Charge… if you have to charge you’re point blank not finishing packs at the high-end of the rage bar and are sucking wind, if not dry for the next. So you have to dance to fix that. That is why its a crutch. Rather than teaching yourself proper Rage Management so that you enter a pack nearly full rage, you’re having to dance and use a skill that gives you 15 rage. And one thing begats another. Early agro leads to getting hit during the fight, which leads to high rage at the end that you can take into the next pack.

I think this isn’t a bad point to talk about. Though I also think it depends if your group wants to chain pull or not. I’ve been in groups where chain pulling is encouraged and this works out. I’ve also been in groups where low level casters need to sit in between pulls.

Chain pulling, I’ve never had rage problems whether going down the prot tree or the arms tree. It’s when I have to start fresh that I feel I’m rage starved.

[Döt-grobbulus]

Charge -> Defensive = 0 rage

If you don’t have tactical mastery, are you even playing a warrior?

It’s quite frankly the most important talent for the class in the game.

[Forks-rattlegore]

Charge -> Defensive = 0 rage.

In general… you should never even think of stance dancing until you can reliably hold agro without it. Once you can… idc… knock yourself out with your ballet manuvers.

But… but… tactical mastery.

Edit: gnome beat me to it

[Cacks-tichondrius]

my pet out tanks these retailers

[Backagain-chogall]

Never once have I called Anger Management a crutch.

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.

I gotta assume you’re trolling…

[Avoidance-mankrik]

I think I’ll just keep tanking the way that i am, but what do i know? I actually use tactical mastery. I guess that means i don’t know how to hold aggro.

[Quillim-westfall]

If you don’t have tactical mastery, are you even playing a warrior?

And actually having fun doing it!

Can’t say that for a lot of these guys that hug TM like a teddy bear and then are likely the same folks that claim how horribad a warrior in group is because ‘the DPS won’t wait for sunders’.

It’s quite frankly the most important talent for the class in the game.

Yeah… not really. Defiance to make your agro sing as a tank is far more beneficial. You simply have to do less and spend less rage to do it.

[Reyoko-pagle]

Most of what the OP posts I agree with except (as others mentioned) revenge. Revenge is the best threat per rage you can use at your disposal.

I also dont like to charge a mob as you can body pull another pack AND the dps generally chases you so they will risk body pulling as well.

I only charge if i am chain pulling an instance im 5 levels above, otherwise it is gun+LoS and coerce the fight where I want it.

[Cagie-smolderweb]

Push V to turn on enemy nameplates

When you are trying to switch targets, click the name plate instead of the character models. MUCH easier to keep track of what is going on and select targets.

[Döt-grobbulus]

Defiance to make your agro sing as a tank is far more beneficial. You simply have to do less and spend less rage to do it.

Defiance is an 11% threat gain. Not bad, not amazing.

Tactical mastery to allow you access to mocking blow, pummel, and thunderclap is much higher priority.

I never even spend a single point in prot till my 50s, mid 40s at the earliest. Especially on a PVP server. If you’re on a carebear server, then you can get away with doing it earlier.

[Quillim-westfall]

Defiance is a 11% threat gain. Not bad, not amazing.

Try it some time. Also remember its across all manners of threat generation. Pre-defiance, the challenge class was the enhancement(I think that’s the right spec) shaman with Rockbiter. Before Defiance it was workable but a bit of a pain at times. After… see ya and I wouldn’t want to be ya.

[Kelzar-agamaggan (Kelzar)]

Yes defiance is better for tanking but most of the time you are not tanking and thats 15 talent points that could be spent MUCH better