"How can you be a protection warrior at level one?" I hear you all asking. It's a matter of heart. Of drive. Of the mentality of a protection warrior.
Leveling from 1-70 while protection specced was a pain, but it allowed me to practice my tanking skills on the way to 70. I tanked everything from VC to Gnomer to BRD, on up through all of the Burning Crusade instances as I leveled through them. And now I find myself the warrior tank in my small guild of friends who is the best geared, and is one of the go-to guys when we do our ZA attempts.
Being prot at heart has its advantages.
Leveling from 1-70 while protection specced was a pain, but it allowed me to practice my tanking skills on the way to 70. I tanked everything from VC to Gnomer to BRD, on up through all of the Burning Crusade instances as I leveled through them. And now I find myself the warrior tank in my small guild of friends who is the best geared, and is one of the go-to guys when we do our ZA attempts.
Being prot at heart has its advantages.
Not So Protcore
Posted 06-23-2009 at 09:15 AM by Thireas
I have returned to tanking.
I've jumped the prot-ship and landed in feralville. I started my druid, Phai, mainly for feral DPS, which has been my primarly role. However, with dual specs, I decided I'd make her a tank as well. I've found that I enjoy tanking as a druid more than I enjoy tanking as a warrior. For some reason or another, I can't figure out warrior tanking in Wrath of the Lich King. I've found myself wishing for the old days of BC when people still used CC and kill orders were standard.
But we must evolve, I suppose.
I had started creating a tank set for my druid, but hadn't tanked anything beyond a normal level 80 instance (which was cake, by the way) when a guild Ulduar run fell through due to lack of raiders. It has been happening more and more lately. (I'm chalking it up to summer. I don't blame people for wanting to do things other than raid when it's still sunny out at 8:30 - raid time - and warm and nice and all).
But to get back on track, we decided on some Heroics. I healed a couple on my main - my resto shaman - then got in on a Heroic Nexus run with my druid. The guild master, on his Death Knight (dual'd DPS and tanky), as well as one of the raid leaders on his main (a dual Ret/Prot pally) inquired as to why I wasn't tanking this. They knew I was getting a tank set together, and had recently had my shaman make the Polar pieces.
I told them that I didn't think my tank set was up to snuff, to which they replied that I'd never know unless we tried, and we're all dual specced anyway, so we can just switch to one of them tanking if it goes poorly.
It did not go poorly. It went very well, in fact. Nexus is one of the easier heroics, so I don't know how I'd hold up in UP, or HoL, or OK, but I was apparently fairly easy to heal. This suprised me, considering I had only 26.5k health, 24.5k armor, and 32% dodge. Threat wasn't an issue unless the ridiculously geared ret pally had a string of crits or I screwed up the pull. It helped that I know how the place should go, since I've healed it so many times.
Since then, I've tanked HVH a couple times and HUK once. I failed at kiting Xevoss (or whatever his name is), which was no fun, but I'll learn.
Gear Troubles
Gearing a feral druid for DPS and tanking has been interesting. And by interesting, I mean slightly frustrating.
The Polar pieces are a no-brainer for a starting tank, as are the Valor Medal of the First War, Essence of Gossamer (HAN), and Keystone Great-Ring (HDTK). Unfortunately, I have yet to get those last two pieces.
Otherwise, it seems that I really just want my DPS pieces with a few different enchants and gems. But who wants to wait for the same drops from Heroic Gundrak twice? Or the same drops from anywhere, really. Rep items and crafted items aren't that bad, but again, I don't really want to have to craft things twice.
P.S.
Flight Form is ridiculously good.
I've jumped the prot-ship and landed in feralville. I started my druid, Phai, mainly for feral DPS, which has been my primarly role. However, with dual specs, I decided I'd make her a tank as well. I've found that I enjoy tanking as a druid more than I enjoy tanking as a warrior. For some reason or another, I can't figure out warrior tanking in Wrath of the Lich King. I've found myself wishing for the old days of BC when people still used CC and kill orders were standard.
But we must evolve, I suppose.
I had started creating a tank set for my druid, but hadn't tanked anything beyond a normal level 80 instance (which was cake, by the way) when a guild Ulduar run fell through due to lack of raiders. It has been happening more and more lately. (I'm chalking it up to summer. I don't blame people for wanting to do things other than raid when it's still sunny out at 8:30 - raid time - and warm and nice and all).
But to get back on track, we decided on some Heroics. I healed a couple on my main - my resto shaman - then got in on a Heroic Nexus run with my druid. The guild master, on his Death Knight (dual'd DPS and tanky), as well as one of the raid leaders on his main (a dual Ret/Prot pally) inquired as to why I wasn't tanking this. They knew I was getting a tank set together, and had recently had my shaman make the Polar pieces.
I told them that I didn't think my tank set was up to snuff, to which they replied that I'd never know unless we tried, and we're all dual specced anyway, so we can just switch to one of them tanking if it goes poorly.
It did not go poorly. It went very well, in fact. Nexus is one of the easier heroics, so I don't know how I'd hold up in UP, or HoL, or OK, but I was apparently fairly easy to heal. This suprised me, considering I had only 26.5k health, 24.5k armor, and 32% dodge. Threat wasn't an issue unless the ridiculously geared ret pally had a string of crits or I screwed up the pull. It helped that I know how the place should go, since I've healed it so many times.
Since then, I've tanked HVH a couple times and HUK once. I failed at kiting Xevoss (or whatever his name is), which was no fun, but I'll learn.
Gear Troubles
Gearing a feral druid for DPS and tanking has been interesting. And by interesting, I mean slightly frustrating.
The Polar pieces are a no-brainer for a starting tank, as are the Valor Medal of the First War, Essence of Gossamer (HAN), and Keystone Great-Ring (HDTK). Unfortunately, I have yet to get those last two pieces.
Otherwise, it seems that I really just want my DPS pieces with a few different enchants and gems. But who wants to wait for the same drops from Heroic Gundrak twice? Or the same drops from anywhere, really. Rep items and crafted items aren't that bad, but again, I don't really want to have to craft things twice.
P.S.
Flight Form is ridiculously good.
Total Comments 3
Comments
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Sounds like you overgeared the instance by quite a margin and had a fun time. I tank all heroics on my warrior with 25k hp - even duo'ing some bosses in HoS with a ret pally last night. Prot tanking is fine once you get over managing your threat to be greater than everyone elses. You only need to hit the other mobs in the group when other peoples threat gets near yours. With 26.5k hp you should be in Naxx!Posted 06-24-2009 at 02:58 AM by Daggus 
- I don't think that's actually true. For a warrior, 26.5k HP is great, but for a druid, I feel like it's kind of low. Since druids can't block or parry, HP becomes a lot more important, in conjunction with armor and dodge.
A more experienced bear can correct me, but I think I would get crushed in Naxx.Posted 06-24-2009 at 07:09 AM by Thireas - You're fine for tanking heroics. My druid was built the exact opposite as yours. I hit 80 thinking I would be a tank. I geared him for tanking and I'm pretty sure I made people heal me through H AN when I had like 24k health (but this was just a few weeks after the release of wrath... sooo...) Now my druid is specced full dps, and offspec resto. I can still tank heroics no problem, even without any bear talents.
Posted 06-24-2009 at 04:37 PM by Insom
