Tank Advice

[Steelraven]

Greetings,

I am looking for advice on tanking. First off a link to my armory profile: Steelraven (http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Blackhand&n=Steelraven).

Advice I'm looking for:

1. How to not be so squishy: I have a decent amount of health, a decent dodge, and I think a decent parry (although they could all be better, I'm working on it).

Armor: 23958
Health: 36097
Defense: 554
Dodge: 25.05%
Parry: 19.05%
Block: 17.51%

I am being told by healers that I take too much damage. I'm working on getting badges running chain heroics in order to get better gear. Am I gemmed or enchanted wrong?

2. Spec Advice: I flat out copied my spec from another tank that I've seen to amazing threat and damage, is there something in it that I'm missing or would help? I mostly do heroics and very very little Raid tanking beyond a VOA or something I can pug. I really like the ability to get some rage from the Unbrided Wrath, and the longer lasting more powerful commanding shout. (6 min ftw).

5/15/51 (http://www.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Blackhand&n=Steelraven&group=1)

3. Multi-Mob Aggro Control: In the new instances there are a lot of casters and mobs who just do not wish to stand still and attack me, they like to run all over and cast at random people. I've been using heroic throw, shield bash, aimed shockwaves and dragging non casters to casters in order to get them all together, and of course spamming thunderclap as often as its up. I also spam cleave like its my job, that does seem to help a lot with multiple mobs.

One of my biggest problems is I will see a mob peel away after a caster, I'll target it, taunt if its up, if not charge, shield bash, thunder clap and drag it back, by then another mob has peeled off and then since most of my cooldowns are down it gets ugly fast. Any advice in those situations other then letting them die?

I am also usually rage starved during long breaks, or pulls where I can't charge, rage potions the answer here or is there something smarter? Bloodrage helps some but I usually screw up the timing with that.

Thank you in advance for any advice you can provide.

[krc]

1. Focus on EH, the only fights that really favor avoidance is Saurfang and the Gunship Battle. For your enchants I would 16 defense on your cloak to 225 armor, your chest enchant to 275 health and your chest gem to 30 stamina, bracer gems to 30 stamina, gun gem to 30 stamina, glove to 240 armor and change one Brewfest trinket to the Black Heart. If you are only doing VoA and heroics than you should be fine.

2. Your spec is fine if you are in heroics but once you get into raiding I recommend this spec Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft (http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#LAM00fZhZVItMx0didfzsGo:cTiomM)

3. For casters use Shield Bash and Heroic Throw, both those abilities will silence the casters allowing you to move them with the melee.

When a mob peels away and your taunt is not up you could try Heroic Throw and if thats not up try this macro from Tankingtips The Art of Warbringer - Warriors - TankingTips.com (http://www.tankingtips.com/2009/04/23/the-art-of-warbringer/) , it will make it so that if you target an enemy it will charge, if charge isn't up it will intercept and if you target a friendly target and use it it will intervene.

The rage starved issue there isn't much you can do about that, try taunt early so you can get a few hits on you.

[Steelraven]

1. EH? (Extra Health?) I'm sorry I dont know that acronym. Why all the extra armor in lieu of the other stats? I will obviously take your advice but I am wondering the mechanics behind it so I can make better gear/enchant/gem choices in the future. I actually already HAVE the blackheart trinket, I had thought the brewfest ones were better so I banked it. I'll put it back on.

2. I actually had that spec from before, whats the benifit of Impale / Deep Wounds over some of the other talents? Also why charge over say Iron Will, reducing stun and fear and such?

3. Ok thank you for the macro and tips! I'll give them a try today, in my heroic marathon.

[krc]

1. EH is armor and health, there is a calculator on Tankspot that can help calculate your EH. Why EH is so useful is because almost every boss that will kill you (with the exception of Saurfang and Captain on the Gunship Battle) will you with burst damage or unavoidable damage. Burst damage is where you will get killed with 1.5 seconds. In that situation the only thing that will save you is EH.

An example would be Gormok, he will kill you like this melee, Impale (Unavoidable), Bleed (Unmitigable) then your healer reacts and you are already dead. In this situation because the Bleed which will do about 20% of the damage the armors EH value gets to be around 14 armor = 1 stamina. And about the Black Heart assuming that what will kill you is 80% mitigable, it's proc has around 7500 armor added at a 15% uptime, which equals around a 1125 armor on you at all times, it would be worth about 80 more stamina which would turn out to be 203 stamina in total.

2.Deepwounds and Impale are very helpful on raid bosses because of all the extra damage they will add. If a tank is doing a rough number such as 2800 dps, without Deepwounds and Impale he would be losing 280 dps which could be the difference between hitting an enrage and getting the boss down.

I would choose Improved Charge over Iron will for the the initial boss pull, occasionally like for instance right when Malygos lands, that extra rage from charge could mean not getting pulled off within the first few seconds and if that would too happen you could wipe because you might not have time to get him in position. Iron will the majority of the time isn't going to make a whole lot of difference unless your on faction champs because of Beserker Rage.

Demo shout and Commanding presence are also a viable alternative to deep wounds.

[Aggathon]

krc's advice is solid, and while he didn't say what it stands for, EH means "Effective Health" which is basically a number used to equate the damage reduced by armor and hit points to see which ends up allowing you to survive more. I also highly recommend the armor enchants since your armor is currently very very low.

[Steelraven]

Thank you for all the explainations, I didnt think 23.9k Armor was real real low, I'll work on that right away.

I appreciate all the advice and hopefully I'll be a better tank because of it!

[Aggathon]

In my EHP set I have about 30k armor unbuffed.