[Connandy]

Here is a presentation of an approach to tanking that, while not novel, is not often talked about, since it is in no way the way to go to tackle progression content. The purpose of the build is to lump together a few un-maximized warrior functions in an all-around useful package you can use effectively on many occasions:
-provide blood frenzy for the raid
-do decent dps (lower-mid tier of the dps pack, excluding dead meat) while dps'ing
-decently tank non-critical target (tunable threat and survivability)
-tank non-progression content

Talent
Talent-wise, every talent is chosen based on three criteria:
-threat while tanking
-dps while dps'ing
-survivability

The two pillars of this spec are blood frenzy (which is quite uncommon in raid warrior dps spec) and improved shield block (as good as it gets uncrushability-wise). Those two bar the way to the common warrior dps route of Flurry (which is already a lackluster with blood frenzy, being capped at 3/5). That leaves us with a 32/0/11 + 18 talent tree.

The bulk of threat generation is based on tactical mastery, offering 1.63 damage to threat bonus to mortal strike and bloodthirst while in defensive stance. While bloodthirst is more than competitive at high AP value (0.45x catches up with 0.17x+260+210 at about 1680 AP), AP is the first thing to go in tanking gear, so MS becomes the better choice, most of the time, even disregarding blood frenzy. MS becoming the core tanking ability, it makes sense to boost it with the talent, especially by getting the cycle shorter.

Here is what I use.
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Gear
Gear as you would for prot-spec tanking, with the following considerations:
-shield block value is less valuable, as it is a pure survivability stat now, instead of having a threat component as well
-even more so the the usual warrior tank, shield block rating doesn't much use (it is trivial to get uncrushable with improved shield block on)
-slow weapons are desirable: 2.6 speed vs 1.6 speed is 100 pre-armour damage on MS, which is pretty much about 100 post armour threat (63% pf damage goes through armour, MS has a 1.63 threat per damage bonus) every 5 seconds. While heroic strike is excellent TPS (63% better 1.6 vs 2.6 speed weapon), its threat per rage only come close to MS with a fast weapon and heroic strike talents (estimated rage loss per hit of 6). That is not considering the benefit of impale and crit compounding with tactical mastery. The bottom line is: MS TPR is 10% to 92% better that HS, and you can rarely affort both unless you're in a 25 man, and even then, you risk rage starvation. If you can use all your MS cooldowns and heroic strike all the time, you're better off with a fast weapon though.
-avoidance vs EH : same as usual, but since you are never really used to push content, you can afford to get socket bonuses through avoidance/stam gems in red and yellow sockets (i.e. you won't have a hard time reaching EH minimum)
-crit and AP become threat stats : while you overgear content on trash clear for instance, have an alternate set mixing gear from your regular dps set. Having some pvp gear can keep you uncrittable with pretty high threat stats (1200 AP, 25% crit)

Special tricks
Use 2h weapon whenever the mob is not hitting hard (boss in casting animation, anything hitting for less that 1.5k a hit without a shield and can't crush). It is 24% more, but a lucky crit with a 2h can get you far (your threat generation is spiky, live with it). Also consider it on elemental damage mobs. While trash threat is nothing to call home about, looking for phases when you can build threat and the boss won't hit you in any case is like being your own distracting shot:
-Hex lord in ZA, when he casts spirit bolts: you can get 2 MS there
-Zul'jin transition: while he is switching phase, a good MS can keep your healer safe
-Hydross, Leo demon phase, void-walker like bosses in 5-mans: they don't mind your shield anyway, get the better threat generation
Of course, be very quick to switch back to shield and improved shield block cast.

What works
Consider your gear loses a tier with this build. If you can get badge pants and belt, and snag 2-3 tanking items from BT/MH (a third T6 so to say), you will not have major problems with ZA and lower. I have yet to see this build used in a main-tank capacity in 25 man, but for progression content, your high TPR makes you a good choice for off-tanking (Supermus, where threat is good in case the main tank dies, Bloodboil, where 2h can get you back in the race if you are lagging far behind).

While dps is not great, if you are diligent with death wish, you can be decent by yourself, and blood frenzy is worth a lot (420 raid dps on a Teron kill, with phycal dps around 1500, about 120k damage in all).

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What are your thoughts? Any number seem wrong or out of the blue?

[ebs2002]

I'm curious about some of your talent choices. Why Imp Overpower? I can't see it getting any use at all; when are you in battle stance? Wouldn't it be better spent in Imp HS or Iron Will?

I also noticed you went with Anger Management. Is this worth it in this spec, over a point in Imp Demo or an extra prot talent?

[Connandy]

Imp. overpower becomes less useful by the time because of expertise, but it's still good to justify the occasional stance change to renew improved thunderclap (while on dps duty). This may currently be a mistake but I consider heroic strike a rage dump and use it sparringly (more than 60 rage). Other necessity of battle stance is rend renewal.

Investing less in Iron Will is an option, as there is very little benefit tanking/dps-wise.

As for investing in other trees, I don't think there would be anything better the 5/5 improved MS for 5 points or less over there, 5% crit is very useful all around, so the only option (keeping that) would be to remove endless rage for 1/5 improved demo shout or 2% armor value. Endless rage is actually useful while dps'ing, I believe the others significant enough to lose the dps/off-tanking advantage. I do leave demo shout duty to fury spec warriors and/or warlocks, they're happy not worrying about thunderclap.


I do agree improved heroic strike might benefit more, maybe take away points in overpower and iron will to get it.

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Point by point:
-Imp overpower ties in with blood frenzy and improved thunderclap. It's also a good source of BF maintenance by itself.
-improved heroic strike is a good idea, but even 3 talent point is around 8% rage efficiency benefit with my this build (double that with a fast weapon). in any case, it's a decent rage dump as is before a stance switch for overpower or thunderclap.
-I consider Iron Will somewhat useless filler, but it has its uses in Hyjal (warstomping boss and doomguards).
-I guess you said Anger Management (which cannot be converted to another tree) and meant Endless Rage. Yea, dps-wise I think it's worth it, but I'm not good at number crunching for dps.

[Melange]

Hey Connandy,

I did part of a ZA with you as this build, and while you certainly did fine with it, I still don't understand it. We have a warrior, Thikkor, who does both tanking and fury. Whenever we need him to tank, we just have him respec and take 100g out of the guild bank. I really think that that's the best way to handle it. (I respec a lot as well, but for me it's to resto from feral.)

I guess the point of your build, in my mind, is to get Blood Frenzy on the mob, without taking an MS warrior. I think that the largest thing you lose here is 5/5 Commanding Presence and 5/5 Imp Demo Shout. You probably have a fury warrior who has both of those, so you're really not losing that much, as I see it. At the same time, I think that they would be better to have than your points after 33 in arms and your points after 3 in prot. You say that you are not maintanking any raid bosses, with the exception of ZA, so I question the need for Imp Shield block. If you don't get it, you could have a build like this:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

At that point you are really not losing much at all from the standard MS build, and you gain the ability to tank trash and offtank bosses with TM.

[Connandy]

Basically, I don't like to respec, but I agree it would be more optimal to respec every time. The habit came from when I didn't have the gear to maintain both a prot build tank set (fast main-hand and high block value gear for threat) and a TM tank set (slow main-hand, high AP/crit gear for threat). When I did switch back and forth (a VERY long time ago) I didn't see major (and that's relative) difference between the two, prot spec does very little to compensate gear in regard of survivability passed improved shield block and last stand, once you are over the EH minimum for the encounter (10% armor and 5% stam does help with that).

About shouts, the thing is that, these days we run with a lot of warriors. Tonight for instance, we had three warriors with commanding presence in the raid (being a low pop guild with more or less regular attendance, we do with what's around and sometimes get raid makeup stretching encounter requirements).

Getting shield block is for uncrushability, which allow me to do tank 10 mans, Sanguinar back in the days and the occasional Bloodboil (which I think I've tanked half the kills I've been to).

Just as important, for threat race and critical to tank anything is the defiance talent. Having my 600-1100 TPS turn into 522-956 would not be realistic for any threat sensitive fight (and beside 3rd and up tank on trash, which tanking job is not?). DPS wise, 24 expertise rating as a freebie is not a total loss.

Third is last stand, which saves me regularly both when tanking and dps'ing, and gimmick fights like Mother Sharaz where you have good reason to want a free 5.5k hp heal.

So 3rd tier of protection is for defiance and last stand, imp. shield block is my ticket for ZA and Bloodboil tanking. Flakiness in attendance means you never know if you will have to tank or not in the next two hours.


I like the build you linked, standard BF slam builds irked me for a long time because the 5 points sunk in Enrage for a partial Flurry. If I did go down that road I'd probably go:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
With cleave leaving a bad aftertaste (never really impressed me, mostly good on trash, but having only one warlock tonight in Hyjal made me wish for more multi-target power). But I don't think it would be possible to do decent threat with TM without defiance. (tanking with MS depends on TM, but tanking depends on defiance). But don't forget that deeper Arms has its benefits dps wise, and a better MS cycle is much more reliable than the potentially better slam cycle (which get screwed if you start losing white swings or have to move).


Where the guild is at the moment, I prefer to keep the utility of arms/prot. Maybe I will repec to a BF/slam build (yours or the one I linked, maybe even booming voice instead of cleave, or get 3/5 flurry, ditching TM) if it looks like we're short on dps (I heard Sunwell would be the next check). So far we've been pretty good as a guild on dps checks (Prince's weapons, Teron, RoS).

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Corrected threat from defiance (30% to 15%), might change my stance on TM without Defiance.