ICC Prot Warrior Tanking

I've been doing Warrior tanking for a few months and have had alot of fun with it. I don't have any problems in Heroic Dungeons, with ICC-5 ones included. I've just started raiding recently though (as the off-tank), and have noticed some survivability problems.

We did ToC-10 a few weeks ago for the weekly raid, which was up to Jaraxxus. He wasn't a problem, however the beasts, especially Gormok seemed to do me in alot. I do understand that Gormok just does ALOT of damage, and also do know that I should have disarmed him (which I read before, but forgot to do). But in general it seemed that I was constantly at a lower health than our MT (paladin).

We did Ulduar the next week, up to Ignis the Furnace Master, again with me as the OT. The adds weren't horrible, but they did come close to killing me several times in the fight. Even against the trashmobs leading up to him (The big ones right outside, can't remember the names of them) were keeping me at a relatively low health with some big spikes.

(EDIT: I didn't realize the adds had an AOE explosion on death. I was critting them with shield slam to bring them down after turning them brittle, so I guess that explains that part!)

Our guild is planning to start doing ICC 10 mans this week or the next, and I'm worried that I wont be able to pull my own weight and tank effectively. I'm just wondering if there is something gear wise that I am doing wrong, and wondering if anyone can give me some general tips to being a better warrior tank.

Here's my character on the wow armory http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...n=krisdedfield. I recently re-speced, replacing improved spell reflect with improved disciplines mostly, for survivability hopefully. I also replaced a few of my glyphs (Revenge for blocking, Heroic Strike for Shield Wall), which I realize could also be part of the problem.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Edit: Link :)

I'd change some of those gems with +def on them to +stam or +exp/stam, and then swap out your chest/shield enchants to get the defense back up to 540 as needed.
Get an enchant on that weapon ASAP.
I'd also recommend a few small gear upgrades...lose that poor sad titansteel shield wall and get either the HOR one (good luck with the drop rate my friend), or if you can swing it the ToC 10/25 ones.
Get the Boots from ToC while you're at it, Or H-FoS at the very least.
Any gear ilevel 232 or higher should have epic gems in it.
Save frost badges up and replace the belt and cloak
Lose the +doge/stam gems and replace with +stam or if you must +exp stam
Get an enchant on those bracers

Consider a 15/5/51 Deep Wounds build for threat.

You're a little weak for ICC 10. Frankly if Beasts is killing you....work on that content first before you worry about ICC. Maybe just do some rep runs n there for Ashen rings.

Well, knowing when/how to use your cooldowns will help. A few questions:

Do you use Shield block/shield wall?

Do you know when to use shield block/shield wall?

Do you know when to disarm?

Do you use your shouts?

I highly recommend using power auras to remind you of important cooldowns and debuffs. At minimum you should have something in your UI to help remind you to keep Demo shout, your thunderclap debuff and commanding/battle shout up.
Shield block should be kept up as much as possible. Some tanks macro it to shield slam, revenge, devastate and so on so they don't have to remember it. Many others will say thats a bad idea and you should use it as a mini cooldown for when you need bursts of threat or expect a spike in damage. Personally, I think the survivability increase of shield block isn't all that great, but you need to make your own decision on how to fit it into your playstyle.

A lot of tanks make the mistake of saving their cooldowns for some emergency and then blow them all at once when they get dangerously low on health. That's a bad idea. You should learn how to anticipate incoming damage and use your cooldowns proactively. I macro Last Stand and Enraged Regen together in a castsequence macro and have glyphed shield wall. For one spike of damage i'll pop Last Stand and Enraged Regen, next time I'll hit shield wall. The cooldowns aren't very long so there's no reason to hold back. Some good examples include : A healer getting spiked on Lord Marrowgar, Festergut on his 2nd and 3rd inhales, etc. For ToC 10 I'll pop a cooldown if I get the paralytic toxin, so I have a chance of surviving an extra few seconds if whomever gets the bile is a little slow getting it to me, Or if for whatever reason the other tank is slow picking Gormok off me and I take a few extra stacks of impale.

If you manage your skills wisely I don't see why you wouldn't be able to handle at least the first 4 or 5 bosses in ICC without trouble.

From a playstyle standpoint, what these guys said absolutely. Also, do NOT underestimate the value of the ability shield block. It is a fantastic ability and it is my opinion that the proper use of this ability can really separate an OK tank from a great tank.

From a gearing standpoint:
Helm: you need a new one asap. Faceplate of the Honor Bound is probably the easiest one you can get, either that or get helm of wrath from Ony25 (which IMO is the best iLevel245 warrior helm). If you get the faceplate of the honor bound then put a 10 defense 15 stam gem in there, your helm enchant (37 stam/20 defense) is fine, do that again, but use the 32stam+2% armor meta gem, it is significantly better than the one you are using.
Shoulders: me saying "get epic gems" is going to be a common theme here and I'll start off here. get a 30 stam gem and change the enchant to 30 stam/15 resil (PvP reward, 10k honor from the capital city honor vendors in org).
Cloak: Is good for now, but you can get better. You might look towards getting the frost emblem one.

Side note before I forget: for your frost emblem pick order, I highly suggest the one from www.tankingtips.com, and I'm 99% sure I have the link in my guide (which is in my signature).

Chest: I would suggest trying to get "The Breastplate of the White Knight" made. It is better than the teir piece by a good amount, either that or go for cataclysmic chestguard once you have the frost emblems for it. Shoulders and gloves are the only 2 warrior T9 pieces that are really worth it. The enchant you are using is correct, but I would suggest all +30 stam gems (same for cata chest or bp of the white knight).

Bracers: Both of these gems should be +30 stam, and you need to get the +40 stam enchant to bracers. The saronite swordbreakers are very good and you'll get a lot of mileage out of them, spend the money to beef them up as much as possible.

Weapon: I'd highly suggest you put blood draining on that

Shield: This needs to be a high priority item to replace. I don't know what level of raiding content you have access to in general, but if you can get to 1800 in arena, then you can pick up the wraithful gladiator's shield wall. That shield has soooooo much stam and armor that it is something you won't soon replace. Other than that various shields include:
Wall of Terror from KT in Naxx25
The Northrend barrier (BoE so you can buy it on the AH)
The shield that drops off of Hodir 10, I forget the name, but it is very good.
ToC25 - Beasts drops a very solid shield
ToC10 - Anub'Arak drops another very solid shield
18 stam is the correct enchant

Trinkets: Good, but I would suggest dropping the black heart for glyph of indominability. The large amount of static armor is > the black heart.

Rings: Mark of the relentless could probably be replaced. If you can get ahold of the Ashen Verdict rep ring for ICC, then I suggest picking that up. I think Juggernaut's band is also BoE so you might be able to buy that. There's also the ring from Ony25 that is very good, and the ring for ToC-10 twin valks that is an upgrade to that.

Boots: Spiked Death Dealers (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45560) are very good and easily crafted. I suggest you make these until you can get better drops from a raid. If you have the money then you could also make the boots of knightly upheaval instead, but those are going to be far more expensive.

Legs: Here is where I would HIGHLY suggest dropping the Gs to get Pillars of Might crafted. They are absolutely amazing and will not soon be replaced by you. They will probably cost you around 8k to make depending on server economy, but it is sooooo worth it. Gem with all +30stam gems and enchant with the same enchant you are using now. If you can't get those made, then put epic versions of what you have into your pants.

Belt: Get this crafted: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45551 and gem it with a +10expertise/+15stam gem in the red slot, and then 2 blue +30 stam gems. This will be a good place to activate your meta and is a good intermediary belt until you can pick up the frost emblem one (which you should probably enchant the same way).

Gloves: Switch both gems to +30 stam gems and enchant with 240 armor.

These are some very extensive but necessary improvements to your gear that you should really make if you want to get deeper into raiding. These changes will increase your health and armor by a lot and make it way easier for your healers to keep you up in general.

Is it Hodir or the cat-lady (Auriaya) that drops the shield?

^Cat lady, though IMO Cat lady's shield is not as good as the badge purchased shield.

JUst out of curiosty krisdedfield how long did it take you to get that stam trinket (the 228 stam one from frost badges)? I assume you been saving up from daily quests and maybe weeklys, i just wonder how long you took? Read tanking tips too to get the most effecient frost badges purchases, it must take you ages to get a frost badge piece, so you defo dont wanna make a bad decision there.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MellvarTank

Is it Hodir or the cat-lady (Auriaya) that drops the shield?

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I think Hodir 10 hm drops a pretty awesome shield as well. http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45877

As far as abilities go, I keep shield block up whenever possible, which is a bit easier with the 10 cooldown reduction from the tier 9 set. Same goes for the Thunderclap, demo shout, sunder, and commanding shout buffs. I don't have any problem keeping threat (and if I'm not careful, I'll pull threat from the MT), so I'm not worried about deep wounds.

As far as all the crafted items, that's what we're working on. Money is the biggest problem, but it's getting there.

Just for clarification, armour is better than stamina, correct?

No, neither is better, both are important. You can reduce a 10k hit to 1k, but if you have only 900 health you die. Similarily if you have 10k health and take a 20k hit, you die. The idea is having enough armor and health to take a full hit on the chin, but the armor reduces it enough to make it manageable.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Inaara

I think Hodir 10 hm drops a pretty awesome shield as well. http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45877

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Ya, that's the shield I was talking about.

As far as armor vs. stamina: both increase "effective health" which is HP/(1-%reduced by armor) = EH

Roughly speaking the calculation is about 11 armor is equal to about 1stam for a quick and dirty way to eyeball it.