Topic
My tanking SUCKS now.
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Edited by Soniks on 2/17/12 4:17 PM (PST)
First of all, I came from an 85 Hunter. No, not a huntard, a hunter. I think you can read.. as long as I'm not another fool with a strength ring and cloth britches, I am obviously doing something right when my ilvl is 2x more than your IQ. What I'm saying is, I didn't switch characters and not know what the hell I was doing when I started. Well.. I didn't really switch but.. that's a different story..
Now, I've had this warrior for about a month. Maybe a little longer. I play with my girlfriend, she's a pally, and essentially, we go hand in hand. But I think I'm studying her healing capabilities a lot more than I'm studying my own. I watch as I pull how her mana stays the same (almost), how much I am healed, others. I have an addon that shows me a percentage in a little box for anyone that's on the healer role, not sure what it's called, but her mana only loses about 2% of it's meter unless the pull is complete... crap. If she goes below 98 or 97%, I know something I'm doing is wrong. Every single dungeon after Hellfire Ramparts and Blood Furnace (which, also, might I mind you, are two of my favorite BC dungeons of all time), my tanking, has seriously gone to.. I can't help but say it like this, complete !@#$. When I charge, adds already start attacking the DPS. I can charge to a mob of 4 things, actually, okay, scenario. 4 murlocs. I charge to the one second on the left side. They attack me for a moment, just a very brief second, and then everyone has aggro, even after I hit an AoE (I know rend -> thunderclap, but I sometimes do thunderclap as a charge->shield slam->thunderclap to pick up the aggro of a big pull. Is this bad at all? To be quite honest, I've become quite confused about the newer warrior talents and abilities past 60, which is also ironic. But I've always been fine using the same abilities ever since I had unlocked them. I've become even more confused about the talents, but, I know enough about them that while in defensive stance, these talents will get me through anything solo... charge->devastate/chance->devastate/chance->boards and I'm good for the rest.. but.. something is just not right. I don't know what to do anymore. I resorted to some talent trees on wowhead but they made it even worse. I switched back to the ones I first started with. I've noticed that a lot of my tanking problems occur when someone doing a f-ton more DPS than me is in the damn place. Either someone in full BoA, or some guy in god damn PvP gear. I can do about 1.2/3k in a LK randy while something in PvP gear does 2.8k... how is that right? At all.. These are the abilities I use in defensive stance. I'm fine in battle, don't use berserker at all. Also, I have Insc, because gathering profs are ridiculous, and I have dodge on my BoA shoulders and also use strength scrolls to help out a little (+ LiitA dodge cologne, as you can see), but it still does not suffice. http://cataclysmic.info/WoWScrnShot_021712_182936.jpg Help me out.. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Even after crafting the cobalt stuff. It's just not working. |
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Your initial AOE grab isn't effective. A Thunderclap by itself absolutely will not hold mobs to you over a dps class aoeing. You should be able to charge/rend/thunderclap and have the mobs stick to you long enough to shockwave. Sometimes I'll get an over anxious dps that lets a multishot fly right after I charge or a druid hot ticks. Even if mobs are running away from me, if I've managed to get the rend down, my TC will pull them back. If I haven't hit rend yet, the dps is tanking.
If you really have agressive dps, you can TC first, but then you need to shockwave, not shield slam. then rend/TC. I dislike this method because many times the mobs aren't quite in a cone in front of me yet and I miss one with shockwave. So I almost always charge/rend/thunderclap/shockwave and everything is on me for the rest of the fight. The biggest key I've found to being a warrior is to be out ahead of everyone. Don't let dps sit around. Last mob of previous pack dead or close to it, start moving to next one and charge/rend/TC/shockwave. You'll get your initial grab down before they have a chance to pull off you. |
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After you charge->rend/t-clap, start tabbing with cleave. Preferably glyphed cleave. You'll do fine.
Tabbing around cleaves is very important for AoE threat for warriors. |
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In one of my most recent dungeons, I was stuck.
There was me, Protection Warrior. There was DPS1, Arms Warrior in full PvP. There was DPS2, Fury Warrior in full PvE blues. DPS1 would take aggro every time.. there was honestly no exception to anything I did, taunt, heroic throw, nothing. He kept aggro. When DPS1 attacked, DPS2 also got aggro as well. DPS1 went afk for about 5 minutes. No one took aggro but me.. not even DPS2. Another recent dungeon, heroic. This shammy refused to stop taking aggro. Whether he pulled or not (and he was pulling during almost the entire dungeon), he had aggro. I'm one talent away from shockwave. I could have gotten it this talent point, but I wanted to cap my sword and board. It helps on small mobs/solo. |
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Glyph of Cleave? Sounds good to me. Looking into it.
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Respec, get shockwave. You really should have had it at 69.
I'd say take the point for it out of Incite. |
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Get to the mobs before the DPS do, that's the best way to maintain threat because DPS will absolutely not wait for you to rend a target and spread it before opening up. Glyph of long charge helps with this. I personally don't bother rending on the first thunderclap. The opener I use is thunderclap - shockwave - rend + cleave - thunderclap. You can toss in a shield slam between the thunderclaps while waiting for thunderclap to come off cooldown if you have the rage.
The hardest part of this is just aiming the shockwave cone. Ideally you should visualize it before charging in. The most common mistake with this is standing too close to the group you've shockwaving, cones are narrowest at the origin point and the best way to miss mobs is to be standing right on top of them. Pick a mob on the periphery of the pack to charge, thunderclap, take a step back and then shockwave. You'll still occasionally miss one or two mobs but you have taunt and heroic throw to pick up a straggler or two that you might have missed. If aiming the shockwave is too much trouble just make sure you get to the mobs before the DPS and rend before the thunderclap, and follow it up with shockwave after the thundeclap, which you should either respec into or just grab it at the next talent point you get. Save some rage for each opener. You don't need to DPS each mob to the final second on each pull, when you've got a mob or two that are almost dead you can just let yourself swing and build up a rage bar in preparation for the next pack, and start moving to the next group immediately after the last group is dead (or as it's dying). Should also mention that the people who out-gear you tremendously aren't the people you generally need to worry about. Worry about losing aggro to the degree the person who pulled it is incapable of handling it. The DK with full pvp gear will eat the mob he pulled alive, let him have it. Finally look into the cleave glyph, it'll help. |
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Save some rage for each opener. You don't need to DPS each mob to the final second on each pull, when you've got a mob or two that are almost dead you can just let yourself swing and build up a rage bar in preparation for the next pack, and start moving to the next group immediately after the last group is dead (or as it's dying). I do this as much as I can, even on low health tiny adds that magically appear like the leeches. I now have Major Glyph of Cleaving, Glyph of Long Charge Prime Glyph of Devastate, Glyph of Shield Slam Minor Glyph of Command Going to get battle glyph next. All good ideas? |
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Edited by Tiayat on 2/17/12 5:58 PM (PST)
Get Shockwave, man. It will buy you time to corral adds.
Charge>Rend>Tclap OH! mobs still attacking dps/healer, face the mob, SHOCKWAVE to stun, so you have time to re-TCLAP/taunt/cleave whatever. Plus Shockwave also helps your survivability somewhat. If you're overwhelmed by multiple mobs, Shockwave stunning them will buy your healer time to top you up. |
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Edited by Muspel on 2/17/12 7:20 PM (PST)
In one of my most recent dungeons, I was stuck. This is because of Vengeance. As a tank, when you take damage, you get an attack power buff, which will substantially increase your damage. If someone else is pulling threat before you can take some damage to build up vengeance, you won't be able to get aggro back very easily, because without Vengeance, your attacks don't hit very hard. In other words: The arms warrior was doing enough damage to pull off you with vengeance. You were doing enough threat to hold off of the fury warrior with vengeance. The fury warrior was doing enough threat to pull off of you without vengeance. |
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I can't help but say this... but... like a boss. |
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I don't suppose it's possible for you to get the heirloom weapon?
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Was trying to. Almost had enough darkmoon tickets for it.
But, I want to say thank you to all of you for your tips and suggestions. Everything is great now, and the only time anyone gets aggro is if it slips me by just a little. It's not bad at all, though. |
I really don't know what you're trying to say here, especially the ilvl/IQ thing. Are you saying that people who read your post have an IQ of ~55? (your warrior's ilvl is 113, dude) Or are you saying that your hunter has an ilvl of ~200? I can't figure out if I'm supposed to be insulted, or "impressed." Either way it's a really bad start for someone coming here asking for help; that whole first paragraph only seems to accomplish making you look like a douchebag, and IMO your post would be much better if it wasn't there at all. So then there's this: Why would you say: these are the abilities I use... and then not list any abilities? There's no abilities listed in the paragraph before that, and none in the paragraph after. I'm at a loss; what is the purpose of this sentence? And then you say "I'm fine in battle, don't use berseker at all." Are you saying you're changing stances while tanking? Because if you're having trouble holding aggro, that's why. There's no good reason any Warrior tank at your level should be out of defensive stance, ever. Your 500% threat modifier is only active while in defensive stance. Okay, lets go back to your AOE rotation you mentioned earlier:
Generally your AOE rotation should go: Commanding Shout, (or Battle Shout) for rage, then Charge -> Rend -> Thunder Clap -> Cleave (if you have the rage) -> Shockwave. After that, just do Thunder Clap > Revenge > Shockwave on cooldown, Cleave when you have excess rage, and Devastate/Shield Slam as filler. Also, you really should spec into Improved Revenge, and glyph for Revenge as well. Revenge is a pretty big deal, and it will do a significant portion of your dps especially at lower levels. |
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Edited by Adillysse on 2/18/12 6:47 AM (PST)
As above - talent/glyph Revenge {at high levels it doesn't scale, but at low levels it hits like a *truck*, and costs very little rage} Glyph Cleave. Also - Glyph of Sunder Armor works with Devastate.
...and learn to quickly tab around, spreading major attacks (devastate, SSlam, Cleave) as you go. Yes, yes, yes... In a perfect world, you can toss a skull on the primary target, and your damage dealers will hit that. But the world is definitely NOT perfect, and there are plenty of damage dealers who take pride in hitting off targets, pulling agg on the Tank, and them spending the rest of the instance ridiculing the Tank for sucking. Seriously: They do it on purpose. They will not stop. And the more upset you are about it, the more they'll laugh. So get used to it. And Learn to tab~target quickly and effectively. You will also want/need to try and get a few seconds of quality time with groups whenever possible. With a little head start, most threat issues disappear. But there's a balance - Keep an eye on healer mana and distance. Tidyplates Threat plates can show you which mobs you have what amount of Threat on. Or if (like me) you don't like the clutter, then learn to keep half an eye on Omen as you tab around. If you're having Rage issues, then (1) you're using Heroic Strike/Cleave too much and/or (2) you haven't paid attention to your shield blocking talents (which I see you have). Checked your spec: Mostly OK - Lose Field Dressing and Safeguard in favor of 2/2 Imp Revenge. And Shockwave *is* that good for initial threat - You want it. Sacrifice a point in Shield Block for now in order to get it. |
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Yeah, it was in regards to my hunter. I'm just tired of people calling me a huntard. It's overplayed and stupid. So then there's this:These are the abilities I use in defensive stance. I'm fine in battle, don't use berserker at all.Why would you say: these are the abilities I use... and then not list any abilities? There's no abilities listed in the paragraph before that, and none in the paragraph after. I'm at a loss; what is the purpose of this sentence? There's a link with a screenshot lol http://cataclysmic.info/WoWScrnShot_021712_182936.jpg Okay, lets go back to your AOE rotation you mentioned earlier:4 murlocs. I charge to the one second on the left side. They attack me for a moment, just a very brief second, and then everyone has aggro, even after I hit an AoE (I know rend -> thunderclap, but I sometimes do thunderclap as a charge->shield slam->thunderclap to pick up the aggro of a big pull. Is this bad at all? Yup, this is pretty much what I do. I never really have a problem with rage, unless someone is pulling. Even when someone else is taking aggro or multiple people, it's never a problem, only if someone pulls instead of me. But I command/battle shout whilst in pulls as well just to build that extra rage in case.
The talents and abilities after level 60 really confused me. I see revenge activating in fights, but I have no idea what it is. LOL |
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Edited by Hooves on 2/18/12 11:49 PM (PST)
It's basically Shield Slam cleave with a slightly fickle requirement to activate.
(in reference to Revenge) |
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Taunt a lot, there is no shame in taunting, especially at lower than 85. Also - when you really want aggro say "afk 1 min" then pull (works better if the healer expects this). :-)
Warrior tank gets better at 85 - it starts off awful then gets great then really sucks then you hit 85 and get some gear and you're okay again. |
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Taunt a lot, there is no shame in taunting, especially at lower than 85. Also - when you really want aggro say "afk 1 min" then pull (works better if the healer expects this). :-) Ugh. You have no idea how much I taunt and heroic throw. My biggest problem is with spellcasters (IDR if I mentioned that in my OP). I do everything I can to them to interrupt.. but the pull is still ridiculous if it's really big. Hellfire Ramparts is okay, because they're small pulls if you don't go zig-zag the corridor ^v^v^v^v^, but a place like Auchenai Crypts.. my pulls are ridiculous messy and all over the place until some of the adds die. "when you really want aggro say "afk 1 min" then pull (works better if the healer expects this). :-)" I would love to do that.. except, I can't do it all the time of course. :( |
