A few (mostly prot) warrior questions.

[Ninjatoaster]

Ive been playing wow on and off for about 4 years now, always as a hunter. Recently i leveled a warrior to 80 with the Recruit-a-friend program, (since im not such a big fan of leveling) which i, for the most part, regret. Ive always been Protection, from level 10 to level 80, and don't get me wrong i love Off-tanking for my guild, but as an off-tank, i often feel useless on some boss fights where there is only one target that needs to be tanked. (like loatheb for example) I fell i would be a lot more useful to my guild if i were able to slap on some dps gear and start slamming faces. BUT, like i said, ive been in defensive stance since level 10! so Ive got a few questions on warrior dps, as well as some basic tanking questions. Any advice is greatly Appreciated! (please assume i know nothing! Ive only been 80 for about a week!)

-Arms or Fury?
As cool as crying around 2 giant weapons looks, it seems that fury is all about cleaves and Whirlwinds. As if, the more targets a fury warrior is attacking, the more dps he pulls. But since the only reason i am going dps on boss fights is because there is only one target and thus nothing for me to off-tank, will i be able to pull ample dps on a single target?
As where in arms, you use more slams and rends and basically single target dps

Whichever is best, could you also post or link a basic dps rotation? i understand i wont be pulling 4.5k dps, but id like to pull as much as possible!

-Resilience
I under stand becoming un-critable is a must for a tank for any kind, so getting to 540 def for raiding is defiantly a priority, but can resilience also contribute to becoming un-critable? Not that i would be running around tanking in full pvp gear, the only resilience gear i would have is the stam/resilience shoulder enchant that can be purchased with honor.

-Im not a Paladin!
Multi-target tanking is always hard as a warrior i assume. Any advice?
Right now im spamming cleave (with improved cleave glyph) and Devastate (With the glyph that puts the sunder amour effect on 2 targets) while mashing the tab button till my ring finger is bleeding

-Improved heroic strike talent
From my point of view this is a must! i do my standard rotation; shield slam, revenge, devastate, shock wave, thunderclap .(not in any order, just whenever cool downs are up) and at the same time, make everyone one of my auto-attacks a heroic strike. and i seem to have small problems with rage, but noting big, so im very afraid that's if i loose that talent i will have major problems with rage.

-Strength
it seems almost too often i see tanks with all str enchants and all str gems. why? i know it helps def and block, but i feel its taking the easy way out. i socket my gems carefully for stam, hit/exp, and def.

-Im not hit caped or Expertise caped
Althoughim very close, 19 exp and 5.23%hit. Im sitting at 30k hp unbuffed (without commanding shout) should i sacrifice from of my hp to get exp and hit capped? I really dont want to because i dont have problems with threat and becoming caped wont help my survivability.

-Intervene
Since Wotlk came out, not once have i seen a tank use this move during a fight. i always see them using it to charge at another player when running back from a wipe, so i know its on there action bars! Why? is this move not worth using? i use is all the time, alsmot every time a ranged pulls aggro! should i not be using it, is it a waste? or are my reflexes just better than the average tank?

Thanks again for any advice!
(sorry for the wall of text)

[kingymech]

-Intervene
Since Wotlk came out, not once have i seen a tank use this move during a fight. i always see them using it to charge at another player when running back from a wipe, so i know its on there action bars! Why? is this move not worth using? i use is all the time, alsmot every time a ranged pulls aggro! should i not be using it, is it a waste? or are my reflexes just better than the average tank?



all i can think is the bosses hit much harder so if u use it on a ranged, boss man tags along with you, and if hes AoE then that might be wipe matieral

[Roughian]

Arms or Fury: I felt the same as you, as much as I love tanking I bring more to the raid with a DPS offspec. With a few Naxx10 and some HC pieces I found Fury horrible and got much better results from Arms, but now I have some Ulduar gear I use Fury for easier access to pummel. I think Fury needs lots of +hit at first, Arms is much easier to hitcap with lower quality gear.

Resilience: It can.

Multi-target tanking: Remember to keep TC on cd, but you won't compete with a pala for AOE tanking. If you regularly partner one then get into the habit of picking up loose adds and making tricky pulls. Be the expert. ;)

Imp HS: Keep it, but remember it's a rage dump so if you get rage problems stop spamming it.

Strength: I agree with you, I think there's more important stuff to gem/chant for. I know strength helps block, but I have no idea how it helps defence, unless you are referring to Champion gems?

Hit/Exp: If you are going to do anything focus on expertise until you have 26. If you don't have threat problems then it would seem a waste though.

Intervene: Blue-moon use for me, other ways to control loose aggro, taunt and hammer throw usually stops a stray doing any harm without requiring me to move and thus moving my target(s).

I'm not an expert but it sounds like you're on the right track to me. :)

[minrog]

-Im not a Paladin!
Multi-target tanking is always hard as a warrior i assume. Any advice?
Right now im spamming cleave (with improved cleave glyph) and Devastate (With the glyph that puts the sunder amour effect on 2 targets) while mashing the tab button till my ring finger is bleeding

I solo tanked all the trash in Naxx a week or so ago on my Warrior. I didn't use Cleave and our only deaths on that run were to Whirlwindy things. You won't match a Paladin on sustained threat but Thunderclap/circle backward counterclockwise + Shockwave/Thunderclap was enough to hold every pack that spawns in Naxx. The mobs died before Thunderclap was ready for a third cast and I had to burn Challenging Shout once that night on a spider pack that pulled me everywhere. Since there was only one tank I had two healers on me and the other 22 guys were DPS'ing as hard as they could. If there are two tanks and a more typical arrangement just drop a Tclap/shockwave on the pack to make it easier on the DK or Paladin to hold the guys. :P

[gabbu]

Arms or Fury: No-one can make this call without seeing your DPS gear, for low levels of gear (red less than naxx bis or ulduar) I would go arms, fury need a lot of stats to make it work. If you can link me you DPS I can give suggestions.

Resilience: It only makes you crit immune where as def also gives you dodge, miss etc etc, so def is better but resilience can be usable.

Multi-target tanking: What everyone above said, I have a BV/BR heavy set for trash works like a charm.

Imp HS: Nothing new to add

Strength: As a tank gem for stam, as DPS strength, as arms arpen geming can work too but not at low gear levels

Hit/Exp: If tanking get 26 expertise and than worry about hit. DPS, cap hit first, and try to atleast keep around 20 expertise. Remmeber mobs can dodge from behind to

Intervene: This is a tricky skill, you need a lot of experience and timing to make it work but there are plenty of uses for it. Intervene higher threat DPS on maly right as soon he flies to reduce his threat, intervene to healer when tanking Brundir during overload, lot of adds on a fight run around with chrge.intercept/interven to fly all over the battlefield, the only real advantage a warrior tank has over others is plethora of stuns/interupts and mobility, use it and enjoy it.

Most of the boss fights where we just need 1 tank, like Hodir, I just dual spec to DPS and DPS, that way I can still keep sunder, demo, commading up and I get a break from tanking. Me and our DK tank do this off and on so we both get to show our LEET (Just kidding we are not good at it :( ) DPS

[Chalora]

-Arms or Fury?
I prefer Arms. When it requires only 1 tank, respec to Arms and give the raid a nice raid buff to make yourself useful. If there is already an Arms warrior in the raid, then go Fury and help with any interrupts. If youre a tank and you are just helping out dps, then it really doesnt matter what you spec into. But if you want to be useful, I'd go Arms.

Whichever is best, could you also post or link a basic dps rotation? i
I spam like 4 things, but it also depends on how you use your cooldowns. I think the initial DPS is pretty important. Rend first and always refresh only when it wears off, change to Berserker Stance and Bladestorm, then hit mortal strike, and whirlwind....then quickly use a macro to activate BOTH your recklessness and a haste pot....change stance to Battle. Then do your normal rotations while you refresh rend. If youre the only warrior, make sure you sunder while you do your rotations. Your basic rotations are slam (use swing timer), overpower, mortal strike, or execute....whichever is up. But you have to check your rage and use the ones that will not get you rage starved.

-Resilience
I am pretty sure as long as your resilience and def cap % add up correctly, you are uncrittable. However, you are really squishy.

-Im not a Paladin!
Thats the only thing you can do unless the raid actually listens and focus fires. You have to use TC when its not on cooldown and spam devaste and cleave whenever you can. You should also tab target and do your normal tank rotations...such as SS, revenge, concussion blow, etc. If the raid doesnt AOE and focus fires while assisting off of you, then all you need to do is basically tank the main target and use TC/cleave whenever you get the chance.

-Improved heroic strike talent
You shouldnt have any issues with rage unless you are just not getting hit enough. As long as youre taking damage, you should be getting rage. I would just use 15/5/51 and not spec into heroic strike before Ulduar. Its pretty useless.

-Strength
Def, hit, and expertise come from gear so unless you have pretty good gear...you dont really need to gem for that. I logged out of my dps gear so I guess I cant show you an example, but I only gem for strength and I am capped in expertise, hit, and defense. My gun and two trinkets have no defense rating on them and I still sit at 547. Strength = more threat and dps. Your shield slam hits hard.

-Im not hit caped or Expertise caped
Hit and expertise is all good for threat and dps. The less you miss, the more you hit. The more you hit, the better your threat. I hate seeing miss, dodged, miss, dodged. If you keep missing and if they keep dodging....they get easily aggrod by a hunter who is critting every 2 seconds.

-Intervene
Intervene is awesome! It saves lives and you should use it if someone else aggros. I hardly ever used it tho if you get good threat on your targets.