[Rev13]

Hello all, thanks for reading this.

I had my first guild run that included 2 things:

1. A start.....from the start. In previous runs with the guild I have been unable to make the first run, but made the insuing continuation(s). My previous runs, sadly, only included Shade of Aran, Chess, and a 2-shot of Prince. The Prince attempts, I should note, were not MT'ed by our MT, but a PuG tank who outgeared our tank. This is all pertinent to the discussion, because as you may be able to guess, during all these runs, I havent been able to gauge my MT's tps.

2. A chance to show what I can do when kept alive (SHADECOUGH) Even with an MD and an aggro wipe every 30 seconds, I was tps'ing the hell outta some bosses.

Now, one thing that I was keeping a careful eye on was not my threat, but my tanks threat. I dont know how much a warrior tank should be able to put out at the kara level, but it seemed....low. Because Omen fluctuates and is always showing a different tps, I was looking for a tps range, as opposed to a direct figure. The numbers I saw the most of were in the 400-600 range. Bosses were 500-700, with some spikes in tps going into the upper 700's.

What I feel I need to (somehow) make our MT understand is the concept of a threat rotation. Being that I have no idea what a threat rotation is, I come to seek aide. (I use a "shot rotation" so i figure the concept should stick to me quickly) how can a warrior tank at the kara level put out enough threat to let his dps open up?

Here is his armory, and thanks again.

The World of Warcraft Armory

[Cynocide]

There are a couple of things that come to mind on this topic...

1) What is his threat rotation? Does he use shield slam and revenge on every CD?

2) What is the rest of the raid's gear like? He's in a couple blues/low epics and if everyone else has better gear/badge gear, they'll often generate more threat in some situations if they can excel at their class but they still need to play smart when it comes to that.

He has very low hit rating and expertise which will improve once his gear improves and a great way for that is for him to run heroics very often and kara weekly for the badges. The badge gear will not only boost his threat over time, but his survivability.

[Shorty]

Gearwise he's not bad and unless your healers are overgeared he probably cant pick up too many threat stats too easily, getting focused rage (instead of imp shield bash, imp revenge) will help him. Best thing you can do is approach the subject diplomatically, explain that you are having problems remaining beneath him on threat, either suggest he comes here or somehow link the basic guides to him - do you have a forum? Is there another warrior in the guild who could start a conversation on a forum with him - even a fury warrior could play the "newbie tank" - "oh look I found this guide on the webpages and thought it was really interesting!"

[protonly]

His gear is actually pretty good for kara. I'd recommend replacing some of the gems with stam gems (but keep meta bonus) but that's not going to make a huuuge diff in things I think. I recently got the gnome auto blocker and it has made a noticable difference in my shield slams and threat so maybe that is a good addition, I don't know.

Unless the dps are being complete idiots your tank should be capable of doing just fine. He probably needs to work on his rotation (shield slam/dev/rev/rev) and he might not know about the secrets of Heroic Strike. HS is what makes your threat zoom...he needs to work that in when rage permits. Just spam teh shit out of your abilities and should be g2g.

Just needs more reps and they'll get it. It takes awhile.

[Rev13]

Source: Cynocide There are a couple of things that come to mind on this topic... 1) What is his threat rotation? Does he use shield slam and revenge on every CD?

That I do not know.

I will just point out that in the first heroic I ran with him, the healer asked if he was uncrittable/crushable (cant remember which) and he said over vent "what the fuck is that?"

So.....Do I doubt he does? ya.......

2) What is the rest of the raid's gear like? He's in a couple blues/low epics and if everyone else has better gear/badge gear, they'll often generate more threat in some situations if they can excel at their class but they still need to play smart when it comes to that.

Well, his top guild dps'er (uh.....me, it seems) doesnt have a lick of kara or badge gear, and is having these issues.....

Its not that I had to auto shot or FD on every CD, but I just feel like his threat ceiling could be higher with some tweaks, additions.

He has very low hit rating and expertise which will improve once his gear improves and a great way for that is for him to run heroics very often and kara weekly for the badges. The badge gear will not only boost his threat over time, but his survivability.

Should he try to pick up some of those stats now? (HR, Exp)

Gearwise he's not bad and unless your healers are overgeared he probably cant pick up too many threat stats too easily, getting focused rage (instead of imp shield bash, imp revenge) will help him.

So, you want to incorporate 2 rev's into your rotation, but dont want the imp revenge?

[Shorty]

imp revenge just gives you a random chance to stun the mob, which can be useful in heroics, but eventually leads to rage starvation, plus it can make moving mobs a real pain if you've "accidentally" stunned it

Plus, a normal tank rotaion is shield slam (6sec cd), revenge(5sec), dev(gcd), dev(gcd).

[protonly]

OK...is he tanking in defensive stance? He really should remove all the other stance buttons from his bar b/c you have no reason to ever be out of it (avoiding fears, mocking blows are some of the few exceptions but those are only momentary). Summon people while in defensive stance, repair while in it, learn it, love it. I only ask this b/c he didn't know what uncrit or uncrush was. Being in any other stance is like having salvation on you.

Also, there are better talents than improved revenge. Most tanks have the cookie cutter 8/5/48 and I've never seen one that had improved revenge. This build is pretty effective but not the end-all-be-all.

Ditch improved revenge, pick up focused rage (a must have). This should have immediate returns.

The other taletns are kinda subjective. Improved shield wall is a "meh" talent...improved taunt is *very* nice for aggro problems. I love tactical mastery but I don't know if the talent is worth 3 points for tanking...you spend so much time in defensive stance. Improved HS or tclap would prolly help out more.

[Bogota]

Source: Rev13 I will just point out that in the first heroic I ran with him, the healer asked if he was uncrittable/crushable (cant remember which) and he said over vent "what the fuck is that?" So.....Do I doubt he does? ya.......

Bummer. He probibly isn't aware of tanking basics then. I'd direct him (diplomatically) to the sticky in the warrior forums WoW Forums -> Warrior Guide Collection -- Read This Or Die which, if he reads will lead him directly to here.

[Cynocide]

To become a great tank, one must know and understand being uncrittable, effective health, various gear sets for certain situations, etc.

[kolben]

Source: Rev13 Now, one thing that I was keeping a careful eye on was not my threat, but my tanks threat. I dont know how much a warrior tank should be able to put out at the kara level, but it seemed....low. Because Omen fluctuates and is always showing a different tps, I was looking for a tps range, as opposed to a direct figure. The numbers I saw the most of were in the 400-600 range. Bosses were 500-700, with some spikes in tps going into the upper 700's. Here is his armory, and thanks again. The World of Warcraft Armory

At the gear level he's at it's hard to come by any of a Warrior's threat stats, Hit/Expertise/Block Value. 600-800 TPS for T4 content is fine coming from any tanking class.

<Kazeyonoma> Edited to get to the point and not harass people. Kolben he wasn't trying to flex, he was asking for the sake of his MT, his question is being answered. Relax, I know a lot of high stress has built up due to the Beta updates and us not getting reviewed yet, but lets not "search" for class vs class fights. Rev isn't do that so lets not start one. Thanks.

[mero12513]

-editted to reflect Kaz's example-

To answer the actual question, the best place to get a great overview and even better details is Xav's guide: Generating the threat
The basics are this: The warrior rotation is Shield Slam, Revenge, Devestate, Devestate. Repeat until your eyes bleed for maximum tps.
His gear will get more hit/expertise naturally as he gets badge gear and other upgrades. My suggestion would be to point him here. "Hey man, I found this great site: www.tankspot.com It's awesome, you should check it out. He'll find his way to Xav's guide as well as everything else. In about the same-ish gear I was doing about 900 tps on "tank and spank" kind of bosses in Kara, basically because I was reading the threat guides as I ran Kara. Shild Slam, Revenge, Devestate, Devestate. Shield Slam, Revenge, Devestate, Devestate.

The next part is very dependant on what kind of guild you are in and what kind of person you are in general. You can analyze him in high detail by gathering wws reports and using threat parses. WWS is free at Wow Web Stats and you can take a log of an entire raid without anyone having to know that you're doing it. Take his personal performance on any particular boss (maiden, prince, and curator are the good ones in Kara) and plug it into this TPS Parser (found as a sticky in the T&A section). Between those 2, you'll get a more reliable gauge of his TPS than omen will ever give, as well as a breakdown of his abilities and their success rates. In a perfect world, he will have ~2x devestates for every 1 revenge and 1 shield slam, as well as low miss, dodge, and parry rates on those attacks. Hit and extpertise are the only thing that will fix the latter part, so that's not a performance issue.

If you're in the kind of guild that really values performance and wants to improve personal play, give him links to the above so he can see his own performance. Ciderhelm preached in his guild podcasts that showing players wws and letting them analyse their own performance greatly increased their skill in his guilds.

However, be careful here. You don't want to appear elitest (read: douchebag) because you're telling someone what to do. The best way to help anyone is always to show them how to help themselves.

Shield Slam, Revenge, Devestate, Devestate. Shield Slam, Revenge, Devestate, Devestate.

note: probably my longest post ever. Grats me.

[Norrath]

"Threat rotation" is simply another way of saying "ability rotation". A shot rotation is exactly the same.

Secondly, if your tank isn't aware of what uncrittability is (I can understand not knowing crushable)... well, tell him. It's a simple concept that anyone should be able to grasp.

[Horacio]

A good, rough indicator is looking at a tank's rage bar. If its always full and there are threat issues, it could spell out some of the trouble, IE, a good tank works with all thier resources and burns off his rage with more threat moves instead of letting rage accumulate and go to waste.

[Rev13]

I was about to respond as "in kind" as possible to kolbens elitist response (see the above wall-o-text :P), but kaz got to it before me. I digress.

To reiterate, and to explain further:

Our MT/GM is cool. He's a funny guy who genuinely wants to help the guild. This comes out in his actions in-game day-by-day, almost minute-by-minute. Truth is, theres just some things he just doesnt seem to know.

His gear is fine. Needs a tweak of a gem or 2, but I do as well. Heck, most of us Im sure would say we need a tweak here and there. There have been certain issues planted in the back of my head during normal guild conversations that I feared would manifest themselves in a raid, and they mostly did. Namely, his spec choice and his whole idea of generating threat. While the threat generation issue is a major one, it does have a somewhat simple fix: get a threat rotation, use it. When it comes to the spec issues, I confess I know little, so Im not too qualified to tell him what to spec and why, but that doesnt mean I cant point out that somethings wrong, if something is wrong.

One other fear I have, is that when I really start to open up, when I need to open up (folks dyin, last 5%, all the rest) I wont have the room to do so, I'll pull, get splatted, and he'll scream at me for pulling the threat, call me a Huntard, but in the back of my mind I'll be thinking "you need to give me enough of a threat lead to do my job"

Its a tough line, but every post here, save one, has been helpful. The best thing I've learned is to be diplomatic. Thanks folks.

Maybe you'll see Mmpp15 in here before too long

[Rev13]

Horacio, right on time with some sage advice

His rage bar does get a bit noticable from time to time.

[Slobash]

Yeah first sign of trouble is 100% rage 100% of the time. That means plenty of threat to be had but it's not being used.

From a different angle however perhaps it's your raid that needs to be looking at how they can do better as well. You sound like you're riding his threat a lot and holding back on dps, as a hunter you have the ability to drop your threat to zero every 30 seconds. Locks have soulshatter, mages have iceblock, rogues have feint/vanish etc. Most dps classes have an aggro dump of some kind. Shamans can drop tranquil air, pallys can throw around salvation. Making sure your dps gives your MT a lead on threat is important as well.

Your MT obviously needs some subtle and considered pointers and sending him to this site would be helpful but remember to look at other aspects of the encounters and the raid to ensure they're doing their part as well.

[mero12513]

I just took the time to look at his talent build. Imp. Shield bash, tactical mastery and improved revenge are honestly wasted points. Improved thunder clap, improved defensive stance, and FOCUSED RAGE would all be better uses for those.

I don't think there's really an argument about the above from anyone here, but remember that it is up to you to be tactful about pointing out those shortcommings, if it's even your place.

[ebs2002]

Focused Rage is one of the best threat talents, and every warrior should have them.

The only time I wouldn't is if I knew I would ALWAYS be in an unlimited rage situation and I was using an optimized threat rotation with Heroic Strike on every single white hit. But if he's not SS>Rev>Dev>Dev> SS>Rev>Dev>Dev. He doesn't have rage issues now, but once he pulls up a threat rotation and starts to heroic strike over 50rage, then he will, and he'll want focused rage.

Tell him that the biggest thing he should be doing as a prot warrior is using EVERY global cooldown. Don't shield slam and wait 5secs for revenge to light up, then revenge, and then toss in a devastate, ooh look shield slam is back up i'll use it again. The GCD is 1.5secs:
0.0sec Shield Slam
1.5sec Revenge
3.0sec Devastate
4.5sec Devastate
6.0sec Shield Slam
7.5sec Revenge
9.0sec Devastate
10.5sec Devastate
etc.

Throw in HS and his threat should improve considerably

[Horacio]

I noticed an issue on threat with a tank I raided with a while back. The boss was Hydross and I was actually just filling in for the regular MT (I usually played my resto druid in that guild) Despite the fact the other tank out geared me, we had some aggro issues on his (nature) phase while I was fine on the frost phase. I noticed the rage bar and went back the next day to the WWS and sure enough, he was spamming Dev and hardly used Rev or SS and a few HS here and there.

[LittleMan]

500-700 tps in kara with his current gear? I don't see a big problem with that. I hope that average isn't on shade alone.. Shade is not a good place to judge a tanks tps. One big reason for that is he should be in full out dps gear if he has a set. He still has a ton of growing to do gear and experience wise. Go easy on him and offer him supportive information such as a link to tank spot. Remain supportive and understanding. Keep in mind any class can pull threat from an equally geared tank intentionally or unintentionally.. If the tank is not as geared it happens much easier. The skill comes by learning to maximize dps while being successful at not pulling threat. Teach your dps to walk that fine line in a way that leaves them dps'ing instead of becoming a 1 shot wonder.



He is uncrittable and then some however he is not passively uncrushable. Should be fine as long as he keeps his shield block up and so long as hes not parry gibbed or dealing with a fast hitting boss. He will probably eat a crushing blow here and there if any of those apply. Passively uncrushable is not really desirable for warriors. It gimps too many other stats such as threat. His gems and enchant could use some work but I have seen far worse in fully epic warrior tanks so it's obvious he does have some of the basics down, just has to learn how to prioritize and when to ignore socket bonuses etc. It takes time.


At this phase in his gear progression he should be pushing stam as far as possible. As he gatherers badges then he can pick up some of the badge gear that offers loads more threat stats along with more survivability. His spec is a bit rough but he is doing loads more heroics then raiding I can somewhat understand why he chose the talents he did. A little more gear, experience and better knowledge of warrior class mechanics will go a long ways to making him a better tank.



As a hunter are you misdirecting him at the start of boss fights and on every CD during the fight? If not you need to be. If theres more then one hunter in a raid for some reason alternate misdirects. Do everything you can to help him out because T4 content isn't all that grand for decent threat gear till you're just about done with it. Is there a dps warrior in the raids? If so have them in the group with him and make sure they keep battle shout and demo shout up. This can ease just enough burden on a younger tank to allow them to focus more on threat and he can then use commanding over bshout in situations he could use a threat. If his threat is the big issue what steps are being taken during raids to help push his threat to the limit for his gear level via class selection for his group? A warrior, shammy and bm hunter can go a long way in helping push a tanks threat gen.

As far as heroics go.. Heroics are a lot tougher than 10 mans. It's gonna be really scary and frustrating till he is more survivable.
A well geared tank can carry a newly 70 healer through many heroics but even the best geared healer can't carry a newly 70 tank through them.
About the full rage bar. That is gonna happen sometimes. Sometimes a situation doesn't allow us to dump rage fast enough. An examples of that are mobs that constantly stun or use knock back abilities. Then again if he is getting hit hard and often he may not be able to unload fast enough if he isn't using heroic strikes. I still have times I sit at full for a few seconds at a time because If I throw too many heroic strikes in I get knocked out of whack with my rotation. If it tends to stay at 100% most of the time then he just hasn't realize the use and beneficial gain of using heroic strikes yet.. nothing a little information wont fixed..again refer him to this site.

The hardest tanking experiences I have had were as a 13ish k hp tank attempting my first heroics. It's pretty rough on the healers trying to keep us up that early in gear progression too. Quite the challenge for young tanks to get through and the number of would be tanks I have seen who dropped protection for dps spec at this stage is crazy. Just go easy on him, make suggestions, offer him supportive information like a link to tank spot, and lots of encouragement. Let him know how well you think he did when things go well and don't be afraid to point on problem areas as well. Try to balance it out. Now if his gear progresses but his tanking style/ability does not then there may be some cause for concern. But all I see right now is a young tank who has obviously put a great deal of effort to get his gear progression moving.. Still a bit green but we all start that way.

Edit to add the following.

I sincerely hope you have personally discussed this issue with him before posting here. If your GM shares the same concerns he should have as well. I personally would be quite pissed to have a guildie refer me to a site such as this one only to discover they had taken it upon themself to discuss their issues with my tanking without so much as talking to me first. The linking of my armory on top of that would leave me very bitter.