[lurker253]

I have been looking at all the information and am planning on switching to a 12-7-52 spec. I also use some macros to aid my tanking. I know that can be a contentious discussion but I wanted to see what people thought. Nothing that violates Blizzards ToS or anything.

The reason that I ask is that I believe I am hitting the rotation that you speak about above but want to see if there is anything I could tweak.

I am generally using the attack macro to attack which is just a devestate with bloodrage so that when it pops up I am never starved of rage. I have this keybound to one of my mouses thumb buttons. When I have massive rage I can hit hit my heroic strike num button in combination with this thumb button which seems to deal a lot of damage.

The other macro I have is for threat generation which is going to cast shield slam and revenge one after another and shield block whenever it is up.

So if I am reading your rotation correctly, I get 5 devestates on the mob using the first macro and then build aggro using my second macro.

The reason that I really like this set up is that it gives me the ability to launch these two plus the ability to point and click attacks and push buttons.

My general attack macro mapped to thumb button 1:
/cast bloodrage;
/cast devastate

My threat builder mapped to thumb button 2:
/castrandom Shield Slam, Revenge
/cast Shield Block

[mamamudpoot]

Hey its my first time posting. I really like the info here. I have an observation and question.
My build is Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
I hope that worked. I specced thisway cause I underestimated the amount of threat I could generate. I was trying to hold aggro in pre wotlk with highgeared peeps that would sit on auto fire for 2-3 min. Now I notice they are no where close. I am level 79 but will put my last point in impale. I also notice if I charge into an aoe tankin mob I can keep up to 5 mobs by using thunder clap first then I have to back up a few steps to get all the mobs in front of me to shockwave. If I get it off before the druid uses his holy moses huricane lightning mess then I am holding them. Holy cow. I never been able to do that before. Disclaimer (only working up to 5 mobs) more than 5 I'm losing some to aoe damage and to healers. But then I charge them and WHAM!, the pack I aoe runs behind me like a bunch of chihuahuas. HAHA hilarious. I noticed at level 70-76 or so I was almost equal in damage to my dpsers. Holy Crap again! I use to worry about out dpsing the healer. HAHA

OK serious questions. Is it possible for a protection warrior to hold more than 5 trash mobs during all out warlock, mage, druid aoe? (like the massive spider ambushes in that cobweb guantlet dungeon) ( i forget the dungeon name) Does my technique or my build need to be changed to do it better? Last question is, if our damage mitigation is subject to diminishing returns will there be a point in the end game to get rid of the anticipation and deflection talents for something else?

Overall I feel like a big dog on the block. I love it. I always die when dueling. I suck at pvp. A rogue 3 levels higher than me picked a fight with me and I finally won. No more 10 minute fights and I die. Now 3 minutes and I win. I stunned a couple peeps like a rogue in pvp, I can't remember what I was whackin, I think horde priesty, and actually killed them hahaha. Used like charge with little stun, then revenge stunned them, the concussive blow, then interuptted there cast, then they were dead. I think I might have spell reflected somethin in there. HAHAHAHA WOW!!

[Gellor]

I greatly prefer getting conc. blow & vigilance over 2 in Imp rev. I just feel that i get more TPS from vigilance than the 20% damage on revenge. Has anybody calculated how much TPS a vigilance target would have to pump out for it to outstrip 20% extra damage of Imp Rev? I have a feeling it isn't going to be much.

Edited: Forogt to apply def stance threat modfier.

Did some quick napkin math. Assigned an average value of 1800 damage to a non crit revenge (3960 on crit) over 60 seconds, having 4 of the revenges crit (33% crit), this gave the 12 Imp revs an extra 6408 damage (13,287 threat) over normal revenges or 221.5 TPS. Now if you have a point in Conc blow and Vigilance, you can get in 3 Conc blows in a 60 second period (0/30/60 secs), and say 2 non crit for approx 1600 and a 3200 crit (just guesstimating here as generally my conc blows hit for slightly less than revenge) , that's 6400 damage/ 13,270 threat there, so from a dps/threat point of view imp rev gives an extra 8 damage/17threat over 60 seconds. Throw in vigilance, and it seems to me to be a no brainer as to which 2 talent points are best. Admittedly the above pretty rough napkin math, but i think the fundamentals are valid, in that con blow & vigilance are superior to imp revenge.
Every minute after this you only get 2 Conc blows per minute, so Imp rev does pull ahead, and gives roughly an extra 50 dps/100tps before vigilance, given that revenge is lit up on every CD, which isn't a certainty.

[CKaz]

Per Cider's news item I'm glad to see DW take hold.
It was great to be a part of this small swing, maybe next time around I'll be in a position to help test end game scenarios :}

So just to update the thread, 15/5/51 is rapidly gaining acceptance.
Now how you shave a couple points off Prot is up to you - a little utility, off of shield spec, etc.

But for the 15/5 its Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Frankly 15/3/53 still looks pretty good if you just can't bring yourself to shave the two Prot points off tho, either
[You'd lose the two points in Cruelty]

[Fengorg]

Great guide. well written.

[Itsnotmyfult]

I would like to add some of my knowledge, as limited as it may be.

Rank 1 Damage Shield does not work.

I go with a high threat spec, Deep Wounds has done 7.1% of my damage in Naxx as OT, 11.2% as OT turned MT (MT was deep fury) in VoA. DW also procs off of Damage Shield, and 15% crit on almost all tanking abilities, it's up all the time. I might not need it, but being under-geared and maintaining 3k tps makes me happy.

I have used Vigilance on the MT as OT, but it seems the permanent threat gain from Taunt is more than enough. Also, using this on AoE casters in Heroics is helpful. Also, for the inconsiderate fury warriors and unholy DK's that insist on maxing out DPS at the start of each pull by agro-ing everything but skull.

Warbringer.... Amazing! I agree that this was a sort of an apology. Now we just need Execute in Def stance.

Focused Rage instead of Cruetly because of Heroics, and like I said, >3k tps in Naxx without Cruelty.

5/5 One-handed Wep Spec is only 9%...

Replaced Glyph of Revenge with Glyph of Devastate. Agreed that Devaste isn't as huge for front-stacking threat in heroics, but this glyph makes it viable to use devaste. For example, two mobs and 3 Devastates later (with Glyph of Sunder), both mobs have 4 stacks of sunder on them. Scenario: Charging in on skull, using GCD with Devaste while mobs gather around for their dose of Thunderclap, makes it pretty easy to ignore skull for a few seconds to spam devastate or whatever. GoR was nice for lvling as prot, but in Heroics or Raids, Glyph of Revenge is pointless, since Berserker Rage and the harder hits makes rage endless. But getting more front-loaded threat on mobs in heroics where it takes about 25 seconds a pull puts us back on par as with Tankadins in BC Heroics.

And last thought, it's nice that you can you spec for mitigation and still get most of the threat talents you want, makes it possible to raid and do Roics with same spec without question.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

[Mindy]

The guide only directs people looking for information about glyphs to a guide that doesn't talk about them at all :P Even so, I thought it would be nice to hear input on what glyphs would be good for prot wars, like the following (please correct if any of the info is wrong):

- Glyph of Blocking - 10% more block value after using shield slam for 10 seconds is a must. Basically gives you more mitigation and threat for the duration of any fight save the first seconds before you land your first shield slam.

- Glyph of Revenge - Free heroic strikes after you land a revenge for excellent rage efficiency. From my experience it works very well in 5-mans, but not so much in 25-mans as rage is less of a concern.

- Glyph of Heroic Strike - Gain 10 rage when you crit with HS is in the same boat as the previous. Due to talents boosting HS crit, it works out nicely.

- Glyph of Sunder Armor - Sunder another target when you use sunder/devastate. Makes life simpler for multi-tanking, although it may get overshadowed in the upcoming 3.0.8 patch.

- Glyph of Devastate - Apply 2 sunders per devastate, allowing you to get to 5 stacks of sunder quicker. If you think about how often you use devastate (that is, not often at all now), it looks like it will get you that DPS boost quicker in longer fights.

- Glyph of Cleaving - (pending 3.0.8) - Hit 3 targets instead of 2. Great for AoE tanking. Looks like a new favorite if you do lots of trash tanking.

- Glyph of Thunderclap - Increases the radius by 2 yards. Theoretically allows you to hit more targets. From my experience it's shines when you use that first tclap to pick up mobs after a pull.

- Glyph of Bloodrage - (pending 3.0.8) Removes the health cost of bloodrage. A free rage boost. Can't complain with that. Looks more of a PvP glyph, but I personally use it in all situations (it's already solid at 50% cost pre 3.0.8)

- Glyph of Charge - Increases your charge range by 5. With warbringer (and possibly glyph of rapid charging), you'll see good mileage from this one. Excellent for grinding, dailies, PvP, and several PvE encounters (4h to name one).

- Glyph of Rapid Charging - Reduces the cooldown of charge by 3 seconds. More of a PvP glyph. The value of this glyph increases if you have the improved charge talent. It's good for grinding too if you have a good set of gear for fast mob killing.

- Glyph of Last Stand - Reduces the cooldown by 3 minutes, but reduces the HP gain by 10% as well. While that latter note sucks, the huge reduction in cooldown works well with enraged regeneration (which looks at total HP when calculating healing ticks).

I did not mention glyphs that obviously would have no use for prot wars (like glyph of MS lol), but if I missed anything, feel free to add information.

Right now I use for all situations (as my playstyle is more of a general "tank anywhere + PvP if need be" setup):

Major - Blocking, Sunder Armor, Devastate
Minor - Charge, Bloodrage, Thunderclap

Come 3.0.8, I'm going to change to:

Major - Blocking, Cleave, Devastate or Last Stand
Minor - (no change)

[holmedog]

I wanted to point out that a lot of people are forgetting the other thing vigilance does, resets taunt.

Sounds useless, but on a fight like archavon if you already blew mocking blow and get a resisted taunt, your raid is going to hate you.

[ryofu]

Can someone pls post a link the the discussion on deep wounds?

I have read on MMO champion that Deep wounds is going to be nerfed but cannot seem to find any info on how they are planning to nerf it. Can someone pls post this info or a link to that discussion too?

regards

[Galdor]

Source: Mindy *** Right now I use for all situations (as my playstyle is more of a general "tank anywhere + PvP if need be" setup): Major - Blocking, Sunder Armor, Devastate Minor - Charge, Bloodrage, Thunderclap Come 3.0.8, I'm going to change to: Major - Blocking, Cleave, Devastate or Last Stand Minor - (no change)

Just to note, that both Sunder Armor and Devastate will become useless after first 3 uses of devastate - you will have 5 sunder armors on the target, so 3 GCSs~10 seconds from the fight.
As for rage starve - you can starve if you want to.. but imagine a boss fight without white hit, it is a lot more DPS and TPS = using heroic strike all the time. This can be possible with glyph of revenge and you will use it all fight long compared to the 10 seconds of devastate glyph usage.
So, i prefere those:

Major - Blocking, Revenge, Sunder Armor
Minor - Charge, Battle, Thunder Clap

For minors, battle is useless when you have a palas buf Might, but same goes for Bloodrage glyph when you are not pvp-ing and you have a healer watching you.. on other words, except Charge and Tunder Clap all other minor glyps are useless..

[Viagran]

Hello all,

I have tanked for as a warrior for a long time. But I always want to learn better ways of spreading out threat/survivability/. Reading sites like this makes me better and more informed as to my mistakes and things I could improve upon.

I use generally 3-7 macro's to tank. The main ones are:

Revenge/Heroic Strike ( I have the glyph )
Devastate/Heroic Strike
Shield Slam/Herioc Strike
I always Shield Slam when the proc comes up.
I have Shield Block up generally following with a Shield Slam.

These macro's tend to always keep my rage under 50 on boss fights or even less. Threat generation was never an issue but what can I do to increase my DPS?

Generally on boss fights, my rotation will be
revenge/hero macro when revenge is up.
Shield slam/hero macro when it is off of CD.
Devastate/Hero in between.
Keep concussion blow on cooldown along with Heroic throw.
I also try to keep rend going.
If I have plenty of rage I will also shockwave/hero

Can someone give me some thoughts as to what I can do differently for more DPS?

My gear is not great yet of course. But I am not a hardcore player. Just a casual gamer. I tend to get anywhere from 1250-1450dps in raids.

Any help from my fellow warriors would be greatly appreciated.

Viagran.

[dankingg]

First off I wanna say that this is an amazing guide, I learned a lot from this guide. Thank you for posting this extremely helpful guide. My warrior alt is lvl 71 and im currently using the 12/7/53 spec although im only at 9/0/53, when i tried some of your rotations i found that i was eating up alot of rage, now im only fighting lvl 70+ non elites but i didnt focus to much on dev and i started using alot more heroic strikes. i found that i wasnt getting as many SaB procs and therefore i was doing less damage and killing slower. Before i would use SS as often as a could along with Rev, then just go to Devs and just wait for SaB(throw in conc+shockwave) and it seemed to be working fine. any suggestions on what to do? my original way seemed to be working but i know your way makes sense.

[dankingg]

Source: dankingg when i tried some of your rotations i found that i was eating up alot of rage

I did a few nexus runs today and this works perfectly in a dungeon/raid type situation i was gaining alot more rage from being hit and mobs were lasting longer, so thanks for the help and great guide.

[Karnivore]

Well, Ive had my tank on Hyjal for 3 years, but have been playing other toons, The tank was my first toon , but he's still sitting at lvl 58. So, this came in handy for speccing and helpful on other notes as well. Great insight. Keep it up.

[Surfie]

I have a question -- it seems I have almost 1% less crit than a warrior like Xav.

I have Accuracy, plus I have more base agility.

I thought all warriors, regardless of race, get a base 5% crit from agility.

I know I'm missing something but would like anyone's help in figuring out what that is.

[Grgruch]

I have been tanking for almost 2 year now. I have never had much of a problem holding aggro and my build is 6/0/65 with increased radius glyph on thunderclap and the extra target for cleave. I have successfully tanked with no addons this entire time putting all my trust into research of boss fights and video from this site. However this may work for heroic runs I have started to run 10/25 man raids alot now that I am geared well enough to handle these encounters.

I notice on the videos that there are mods that tanks are using that i would love to know what they are to help me out with this. Please help a tank preferom better. What mods do you guys use?

[var2ezis]

So i looked at the link on the gear guide and i was just wondering all you tanks that MT 25 man naxx and are geared and ready for 10/25 man uldar what is a good number for hit and expertise?

[Glaive]

Although Im rather new at the tanking bussiness ( mostly I play a different class from warrior ) Ive been reading all these guides you guys have posted.

Ive see all the posts about specs for a protection warrior, but in all of them Ive felt umconfortable for one reason or another due to gear level and maybe some inexperience.

I decided to take a good look at what was happening when I tank, and have come up with what I believe is perhaps a balanced spec for starting tanks like me.

If you are getting into heroics, getting into 10 man raids, and even dabbling on the odd VoA 25, assuming are defense capped and already own a couple of the "must have" epic items for starter tanks, you may find you run into the usual problems of loosing some mobs from packs, getting flattened by a boss when you least expect it, etc.

This is my take on the prot spec for all those that like me enjoy tanking but arent on the gear level that end game tanks are at.

Forgive me if this spec has a similar one posted here, but honestly, I didnt find it, so Im sharing it with you in the hope that it will be of some use to someone.

Take a look also at the glyphs chosen and used because they are chosen based of tons of posts chosen here, and addapted to provide utility in most situations. The Glyphs settings is probably nothing new, and Im not going to even try and take credit for the choice selection, its not mine, its from these forums.

Glaive's Gear Up Tank spec with improved survivability - Lvl 80 - Heroics & 10 man raids starter spec

Take note that this spec sacrifices a bit on crit chance and deep wounds as a trade-off for improved blocking to cause more enrages and hence more chance to help you healers keep you alive through the use of enraged regeneration.

These last sacrifices on the spec, coupled with the lower cd time of shield wall after the patch 3.1 comes out will become the "oh crap" defense system of this spec which will more than once save the day until you get the gear you need to use the cookie cutter spec for tanking posted on this guide.

Ive experimented a bit with improved spell reflection, and you could take 2 points from Shield specialization and spread them across Improved spell reflection and Improved disciplines for increased survivability ( small gains though they may be ).

The lowered CD time of 30 secs for improved disciplines may not seem much but it will save you in some ocasions to be able to pop a second shield wall faster.

The improved spell reflection option is not to have more threat but to provide a bit more protection to other melee dps on the boss or mob you are tanking in a heroic instance or even a 10 man raid.

Hope this helps someone out there

Any and all comments are and will be appeciated

(Note: Im unsure if this isnt better off in the armory section... maybe Im posting in the wrong place, so please forgive me if I am ).

[CKaz]

Hey Glaive, seems like a good spot and I agree - its pretty easy to go 53/54 points in Prot for more Tank-ability. I differ slighty here though in my spin on this variant - 2 cruelty instead of 2 DW. Why?

Well sometimes I do run with CC'ers and as fun as DW is, along with its little extra plus for AoE, I don't always want ticking DoTs. I know crazy talk, and in the land when you're AoEing everything down, please do. But occasionally I get in groups with more dps/cc than heals - indeed my one healer may be off-spec - so it gives me a little more flexibility when grabbing attention and then a mob or two may get iced/need re-icing after. Since DW has been taken down a peg or two anyways, it doesn't seem a bad thing. Again, that's only if you're not fully joining into the AoE fest that predominates most runs - I just PUG a fair bit.

[And at least in Northrend all your DPS aren't necessarily DKs anymore ]

Keeping in mind the mob can DW itself on hitting you, I'm comfortable with the tweak. Going further, and this is a 'me' thing, I'd rather go 3 points into DW or go home. If you're gonna tick, TICK

[Spartank]

You've definetly changed my view on my current talent spec (Which isn't horrible, in my opinion, but was done without the help of any guides or second-persons.) I'm changeing to - http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/warrior/talents.html?tal=35020000200000000000000000000030200000000000000000 0000000053351225000012521330113321

-

THANKS FOR THE GUIDE!!!!