Hello everyone. Thanks in advance for any comments and advice.
TL;DR version: I’m seeking advice on the feasibility to tank in fury spec during leveling and level 60 dungeons and OT in raids.
Full version: I leveled and raided on my hunter back in vanilla and got part way through Naxx before TBC came out. I feel like playing hunter, I missed many of the finer details of vanilla mechanics so I want to level a warrior this time around, but I don’t want to fully tank, which is why I want to see how feasible it is to tank in fury.
My plan is to level in fury spec and tank instances along the way. I’m fairly confident this should not be an issue. My concern is that once I hit 60 and starting level 60 instances, BRS, Scholo, Strat, etc, will I have a lot of issues with surviving and holding threat? Also, I would like to join a raiding guild as a DPS war/ OT when needed. Is it feasible or acceptable to be in a raid in full fury spec and then put on a shield and some prot gear and OT adds (Lucy’s add, Garr, etc). I recall wars back in my vanilla raids used to do this, but I am not sure.
i tanked most of the dungeons i ran up to 60, at 60, and even maintanked some raid fights in vanilla as arms spec. as backagain just said, bring a shield, a 1 hander, and any tank gear you have and you will be fine. save any gear with high armor/+defense/+dodge/+parry/+block you get, it takes up a lot of space, but it works!
i even tanked a lot of encounters with my 2 hander out, sometimes in my tank gear, sometimes in a mix with my dps gear, usually just trash, but some of the fights in MC can be tanked with a 2 hander. i even 2 hand tanked ragnaros a few times just for the lulz after i got my sulfuras and argued “it has fire resist on it!” and my guiild rolled my eyes and made do. tanking in vanilla wow is mostly about holding threat and minimizing your chance to get crit(+defense gear). if your healers are up to it, you can legit tank with a 2 hander out.
There is no problem at all with this while leveling. You can safely be Arms or Fury (your preference) and tank dungeons all the way to your BiS list.
Once you are 60 and headed into raids you will most likely take some variation of 0/31/20 (I prefer 0/32/19… same thing). That gives you everything you need in the Protection Tree for tanking level 62/63 (??) mobs.
Pick up a couple +hit items as a tip, they make the spec work really well.
For phase 1 a fury/prot hybrid is prob gonna be the strongest tank build since there is a lack of block value and shield slam needs gear to scale to be worth it.
Yup, it’s totally viable and actually encouraged for dungeons and raid OTs. 0/31/21 Bloodthirst is pretty straight forward. I like 3/3 Improved Revenge for dungeons, and many OTs like putting 1/2 Imp. Taunt and 2/3 Imp. Sunder. From this build you can be very flexible, and change it up to best fit your play-style and max synergy with your MT.
Thank you everyone for the replies and advice! Looking forward to a classic tanking adventure
And thanks Cabernet for the advice! And thanks for the offer I already rolled my characters on Whitemane and also I’m on the west coast so I can’t make those raid hour
Most people will be running the hybrid build. Either the Arms\Prot or the Fury\Prot.
When you’re referencing something like tanking Lucifrons adds, it’s actually really common to either have the off tanks pick up the adds and not use shields. The healers just spam heal the tank, and it reduces overheal by not using a shield, but the added benefit of having so much higher burst threat that instead of the add being alive for 40+ seconds while you establish threat, it’s only alive for 25 seconds.
It’s ultimately by a guild by guild basis. Some will have both adds tanked by pure DPS tanks, others will have the first priority one tanked with a pure DPS tank, some might opt into a feral since they do higher threat.
You put points into Fury while you level, and spec into 2H Fury (basically skipping DW specialization). Bloodthurst\MS is way better than getting defiance a few levels early.
You technically don’t need defiance because it’s generally pretty safe to assume that everyone is in garbage gear, and most of a Warriors threat generation is flat threat from sunder\demo shout.
Edit - Don’t need defiance as in you can spec pure DPS and it shouldn’t matter to much pre-60. By 60 you can either opt to respec into a hybrid build or stay as pure DPS. You can even get away with a pure DPS build at 60 for quite a while if you run with groups with enough CC, the only main defensive benefit you’re getting for the most part is an extra charge on shield block, about 4-5% mitigation from armor, and marginal defense which won’t prevent crits at your gear level anyway.
Fury prot is a hybrid spec. It works great when everyone is collectively geared enough and your healers are able to pick up the slack of lost mitigation. Theres defence gear on mail and shamans can tank with enough healers so…lol. I try to make a healers job easier by have the mitigation and spec and letting the dps do what they do. Tanks are supposed to focus on other stats as they progress but I disagree with the notion fury tanks are as effective as prot tanks. As long as your guildies don’t mind compensating for your lack of damage mitigation, all is good. And besides, what healer doesn’t like a constant stressed out mana starved fight? Put a mf in plate and they think their unstoppable. I wish dps warriors could heal so we could just have all dps warrior guilds and the rest of us could have fun again.
This is the meat right here.
Sure you can be fury, but what does your healer think?
How much time do have to wait for the healer to drink cause they are OOM after every fight?
I leveled as prot since day 1, if you have a solid group it’s a lot of fun, and makes all the content easy mode.
That’s irrelevant in practice. Healers are a dime a dozen. I can go to /4 LF1M healer and get half a dozen whispers instantly. So, it actually doesn’t matter what healers think.
