Tank instances? And do quests? I have a pocket healer and I don’t want them to be too stressed. So if having TM lessens that, then im wondering if I should respec again. If its not a game changer while leveling, then I guess I can work up to it.
Im just wanting to know how crucial it is in a leveling atmosphere. I won’t get it maxed until 36 right now.
I don’t mind stance dancing… particularly if stuff is trivial, and sadly there is no way around not having TM because you do really need Anger Management as a tanking warrior by 60, and TM is a requirement for that.
But this idea that Defensive Tanks go flippy stances all over the place is sad. Its not only not needed, but will hobble you by forcing you to work with only a quarter of your rage bar.
TM does nothing for agro. People switch stances to Charge for Rage.
Personally… i’d suggest going Prot to learn how to keep agro off the healer and dps. Then if you want do the dancing or Arms to roll trivial instances.
None of it is that crucial. People spec any of the 3 and are able to reliably level. Just find what you like and fits you. If you like playing it, you’re likely to level faster than not.
Ah ok, thanks.
Another question if you don’t mind, how important is anticipation to get? I’m seeing builds where they have it and some where they don’t. Is it something you only get while undergeared?
Fair enough. At this point in Classic, I’d say most people who are tanking (maybe I’m wrong) are doing so, while talented in a DPS tree.
While a lot of people seem to be talking about Arms, and praising Tactical Mastery, for leveling and tanking some lower level instances, it’s definitely not strictly necessary for tanking low level instances, though can be good to have situationally, as mentioned abov.
In my defense I stopped playing this game almost 10 years ago.
Macro guides are a bit thin or buried from Ive seen.
Get to 60, abd experiment along the way.
That’s what Im telling myself :p. Darn RL time hijinx slowing me down
If it helps, this Prot vs Arms thing has been a war since the day the game was released. This went on alllll through Vanilla. It was only solved by Blizzard simply burning the forest down, removing the trees, and going with some slap-happy combo in Retail that gives you so much threat the mobs think you’re Hitler.
Yeah… a lot of macros are sort of preference dependent, and there’s some great information on them with a pretty easy Internet search:
For example, for some basics, https://www.wowhead.com/making-a-macro-commands-modifiers-warcraft-guide is an ok starting point.
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Macro_commands goes much more in-depth.
Depending on personal preference for key bindings, and addons, variation in macros will inevitably crop up as well. For example, I tend to use alt, ctrl, and shift on my key binds, which doesn’t really play nicely with using them as modifier keys in Macros.
Are there any specifics you’d like to see covered in greater depth or detail?
I did actually play for a bit in 2012, but I can’t remember intercept. I remember heroic leap, but not intercept. Was it still in the game then?
The only time you should not have tactical mastery is if you’re the main tank for boss encounters in a top-end guild with high-end dps that warrant you being a 0/31/20 fury tank or a DW fury tank.
But current phase 1 bis will not warrant that unless you start going for speed clears which would require as much DPS as possible from everyone (including the tank) on boss encounters.
If for some reason you are leveling as prot (which you shouldn’t be, but whatever), you should dip down into arms for tactical mastery first, and then go into prot. A sane person would level as arms and tank as arms all the way until they are about to go into their first raid.
Fact: Defiance is more of a crutch than tactical mastery. You’re totally off-base by calling tactical mastery a crutch when you need defiance to hold threat.
This guy takes macros to a whole nother level.
I just don’t think I want things automated to almost one damn button. Even if it works.
Maybe…a bartender setup example so people can see possibilities.
Perhaps include target marking as some newbs may not know about it.
I think macros that take advantage of stance specific abilities, or any example pathing to the skill tree?
Im glad you are writing it because I am not making sense. 
I’d like to grab some bartender profiles. You should be able to share them and use other peoples…
Probably true… but then I’ve been a tanking warrior in group for like 15+ years in various games. So Prot simply fits me. Its why I don’t suggest it for everyone, but if you really want to get your Tanking Boots on, there is only one way and that’s to dive in to Prot. Relying on TM will simply give you bad habits.
Once you know what you need to know? I don’t care if you stand on your ahead and give the mob the finger. Whatever works for you.
Do you not take a lot of extra damage in dungeons if you do this?
I hit level 49 last night, leveling Arms the whole way, and I’ve tanked every instance the Horde get quests for all the way up to Maraudon last night.
I do quests and dungeons to keep a 1 handed weapon and shield up to date, and I tank with them, using Defensive stance, expect when I need to swap stances briefly for specific things.
Neither damage nor threat have really been an issue, save an Uldaman run when we were way underlevel for the last bosses, and a little bit last night when I had a level 53 shaman, and a 54 hunter dpsing in Maraudon, I had to Mocking blow to keep threat way more than I’ve had to before, but we made it work.
No. Dungeons up until ~level 50 don’t do enough damage to need extra mitigation beyond equipping a shield.
I have the same problem re: modifier macros. They just dont work for me because I already bind my modifiers.
That said, I’ve been having a lot of success just rolling a whole bunch of abilities into a single binding, but situationally dependent on [Stance:1/2/3] or whether I’m in combat or out of combat (charge vs intercept macro).
whoa holy cow literally man do you even warrior? charge ds, sweeping strikes, zerk stance, ww, cleave to victory ez peesy!