Cata changed the warrior tank's dynamic of threat generation, how to gear for it, and thus how to play it. I've never been a fan of "must do" rotations for tanking as I've learned that rotations limit the tanks ability to be nimble. I'm being told to max Blood & Thunder and gear properly so I can Charge | Rend | Thunder Clap | Cleave | Shockwave | Devastate to get initial aggro... then spam Rends, Thunder Claps and Shield Slams to keep it. These are predominantly AoE attacks and I'm finding they create more problems than they're worth in densely populated areas where CC is important. The problem is that at least the Charge | Rend | Thunder Clap | Shockwave rotation actually works best for getting initial aggro, but (as mentioned) is worthless in crowded CC pulls. Does DPS need to cool their heels so the tank can build threat? Is there a single target rotation for getting aggro?
McTankor... here is how it was explained to me. Achieving balance between block, parry and dodge is no longer the objective. The introduction of Mastery has created the game's dynamic shift to more specialized attacks, which causes spikey outputs for all classes. To keep up, the tank also needs to specialize using Mastery. And for we prot warriors, that means critical block - even at the expense of stamina (which hasn't pleased our healers very much.) Stacking critical block is our method of "keeping up with the Joneses" to not only compete with the threat generated by dps & heal crits, but to also mitigate damage with bigger blocks while doing more damage ourselves. More dps = more threat. As a prot warrior I am finding it difficult to wrap my head around leaning on dps as our primary threat engine.
I guess nobody gets on this anymore but I was wondering what the best prot tank rotation is?
