Warrior Threat Issues in ICC

Hello, I have been playing warrior for about a month (1-80+ raid time) so my knowledge of the class is limited. My guild is currently 10/12 in ICC and I have been having some threat issues in 10man as a warrior tank (obviously on bosses). While DPS don't pull complete aggro from me, top DPS will usually pull higher TPS. This issue mostly exists with a hunter in my group.

Just for a little background, when I start my "boss rotation" I will charge the boss and immediately shield slam for a big threat jump while I position the boss, after that I will take care of getting my sunder up to (5) with devastate. After this, I will just use shield slam, thunderclap, concussion blow and revenge whenever they are available (as well as devastate to refresh my stacks). This usually sets me up with pretty high initial threat, but the high DPS classes in my group are usually able to pull near the same amount of threat near the mid point of the encounter, and on occasion more than me near the end.

I keep shield block up whenever its available for that little extra bit of threat and mitigation.

Keep in mind that I'm not an experienced warrior user, and I leveled as fury so the prot spec and play style isn't really something I'm extremely comfortable with yet. Any advice or tips would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Rotation for bosses should be Shield Block > Shield Slam > Revenge > Shockwave > Devastate. Keeping tclap and conc blow on CD is gimping your threat for sure. Don't bother with conc blow unless you need to stun something, tclap every 30 seconds to keep the debuff on the boss, otherwise don't touch it. Can we have an armory link to make sure nothing about your spec or glyphs need tweaking?

Actually shockwave is the highest threat (isn't it, or did that change and i dum?) and imo you should save shield block for times when you need it, but if you do need threat it is a good button to hit.

But ya, everything else.

No problem,
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...r&cn=Zygomatic

Shockwave is and isn't your biggest threat. Shield Slam, Revenge and Sunder do more threat if they land which is the big caveat. Shockwave can't be parried or dodged so it's a nice opener with trigger happy dps so you don't have to worry about parries or dodges (Shockwave can actually miss but the chance is very slim). I use Shockwave in my rotation beacause I'm usually running with low expertise and hit so I figure that Shockwaves threat is good on the overall too.

I presume you are putting Vigilance on your Hunter? Aside from that, as noted above Shield Slam > Revenge > Shockwave > Devastate are the only abilities you worry about from a threat-rotation point of view (remember guys, this is threat, not damage we are maximizing here). Also remember that with your Glyph of Devastate it only takes 3 Devastates to get to 5 stacks, so honestly I wouldn't worry about prioritizing it if threat is an issue, as you'll get 5 stacks in the first 12-15 seconds anyways.

Concussive Blow is just not a part of our boss rotation after the 3.3.1 nerf. Thunderclap is useful for the haste debuff, but not for threat, so only reapply it when it falls off. And if you haven't already, bind Heroic Strike to your mouse scroll wheel so you can make sure you are heroic-striking every GCD that you are above 40 rage...which should be almost the entire fight. Heroic Strike spam is a huge boost to single-target threat.

Is your hunter putting MD on before you pick up boss as with that initial boost to your threat he shoudnt really catch you back up tbh. Also chuck Vig on him and as long as you have not got a stooopidly low expertise you should be fine.
Remember your dps are getting a 10% buff now whereas your threat isn't.
I've had a couple come close in our ten mans but with these steps you will be ok.
Good luck.

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Originally Posted by Aggathon

Actually shockwave is the highest threat (isn't it, or did that change and i dum?) and imo you should save shield block for times when you need it, but if you do need threat it is a good button to hit.

But ya, everything else.

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Well the exact prio of the 3 abilities is debatable, but all of them are much higher than Tclap and Conc blow....As long as those 3 are on CD above dev you're more than likely fine. Only thing I'd change is glyph of cleaving to something useful on bosses, unless that's just temporary for trash.

If you wonna know what move does the most threat with your gear ... see sig.

Generally it is Shield Slam > Revenge > Shockwave > Devastate.
Keep Shield Block up on the CD and only demo & TC to refresh the debuff.
If there is a Ret paladin in the raid, don't bother with Demo shout, and try to replace a Devastate when you TC for minimal threat loss.

Also, I would advise to replace the Glyph of Blocking with a Glyph of Shield Wall, but that can be debated.

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Originally Posted by boogi

Shockwave can't be parried or dodged so it's a nice opener with trigger happy dps so you don't have to worry about parries or dodges...

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Shockwave can be dodged, but not parried.

As mentioned above, In addition to your rotation, spam HS when tanking bosses. Rage shouldnt be an issue for you on boss fights, its a bucket load of threat added

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Originally Posted by WarTotem

If you wonna know what move does the most threat with your gear ... see sig.

Generally it is Shield Slam > Revenge > Shockwave > Devastate.
Keep Shield Block up on the CD and only demo & TC to refresh the debuff.
If there is a Ret paladin in the raid, don't bother with Demo shout, and try to replace a Devastate when you TC for minimal threat loss.

Also, I would advise to replace the Glyph of Blocking with a Glyph of Shield Wall, but that can be debated.

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I get angry because every single ret in my guild has pursuit of justice instead of vindication. I just want to make them all splat.

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Originally Posted by Dreador

I get angry because every single ret in my guild has pursuit of justice instead of vindication. I just want to make them all splat.

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Well if they're top DPS, just let em pull aggro once in a while on a farm fight and blame it on having to refresh Demo too often :P (make sure to tell the other threat wh***s to be careful ofcourse ). Sometimes people don't want to play team untill you teach them to :)

Were i you I'd drop your glyph of cleaving and add in glyph of vigilance, that will DEFINITELY help you on threat. Also, there're a few fights where i toss vigilance around a couple of different people.

Usually i put it on our top DK first b/c he has silly burst aggro, then about 30-45 seconds into the fight i toss it onto the mage (first mage i've ever seen who out TPS's hunters o.O)

As for the rotation i do very similiar to you shield slam>revenge>shockwave>devastate. I never use conc blow, i never am in a rush to stack sunders, and i always keep TC and demo shout up . I never really have much of an issue with threat.

Hope that advice helps! Good luck in there!

edit: I also am spamming heroic strike about 95% of the time

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Originally Posted by Dragaan

Shockwave can be dodged, but not parried.

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Eh? How so?

ok this is how i teach all the new warriors in my guild in the easiest way to pull threat as a warrior .... step 1. glyph of devastate and heroic strike, step 2. macro/bind your heroic strike to your devastate, step 3 open with heroic throw, shield block, shield slam and spam the hell out of your macro and pop everything else as it comes off cd but always revert back to smashing your macro in between ... spaming that dev/heroic strike macro alone should hold about 7-8k tps pretty consistently, so its easy to pull high threat as your moving as well ... as u should know u can still attack a boss when ur strafing if he is in malee range

so as an example just say you had the number 2 as your macro and 5 as every other ability u have (for the sake of the demonstration) your start should be 555 22222252222225222222222522222222222225222252222222 252222225222222, if u spam it fast enough u will devastate every time the gcd is up and you'll heroic strike with every white swing and when sword and board proc u quickly hit it then instantly straight back to the macro as with all your other abilities ... if any one can pull off u doing that they must be pulling like 13k dps and have no threat reduction abilities because we have people in our guild that can pull 11k dps and no one comes close to pulling off me.

and yes you can do this with just devastate as well but the heroic strike binding makes a lot of difference if threat is what your after.

What the guy above is saying in you need this macro:
/cast Devastate
/cast Heroic Strike.

Boss rotation is:
Charge/SS/macro, and spam revenge when ever it's up.

Trash rotation is:
Charge/clap/SW/macro (you probably won't need this for trash), and spam revenge and clap when ever it's up, don't forget to tab target to track threat and spread the revenge love around.

My warrior is an alt and has a slightly old school build (5/15/51) which is better for survivabilty because of imp demo and CS.. and staying alive is your job, not dps. Personally I think warriors who think they need bleeds to hold aggro/dps are misguided.
I'm no pro but 10k tps on a boss is normal, 15k+ is not unusual.
I'm actually gonna get around to dropping Vig at some point because I just don't need it.

Macro-ing heroic strike to anything is a great way to run yourself dry on rage. Also the post above mine is incredibly uninformed. The Deep Wounds bleed is a free way to add plenty of extra DPS to the boss. No one said it was anywhere near "necessary", but it's been a staple in the cookie cutter warrior build for the entire expansion, because the alternative 5/15/51 is useful on a handful of hardmodes. Also dropping vigilance is...silly. It's free threat, and the number of uses is unlimited.

I can't say I've ever had rage problems.. mebbe in vanilla but not since then that I can think of. Our dps are pretty brutal so I can't say raid dps has been a problem, and even though they're good they've never pulled off this "alt".. Do you have a problem holding lolaggro?

Also isn't it your job to stay alive? last time I checked more health and dmg reduction help that better than deep wounds.. It always makes me lol when tanks go to the trouble of adding stam enchants to shoulders and gloves but somehow justify skipping imp CS.

Sure 5/15/51 is a personal preference, but at least I have a solid argument why I would choose it..

Excuse me, I typo'ed. What I meant to say was the alternative 5/15/51 build is only necessary on a tiny handful of hardmode bosses, namely Sindragosa and Lich King. I did give a valid reason for choosing this spec most of the time...simply because you reject my reality and substitute your own is no reason to say my statement is invalid. So you prefer 500~ extra HP, that's great and I'm happy for you. I didn't say I have trouble holding lolaggro, that's your assumption, though I mentioned nothing about threat, I mentioned DPS and why it's a bad reason to drop vigilance from your spec, it just has too much utility. What are you going to do with 1 point anyway? 1/2 reflect? 1/2 disarm? Oh, I got it. 1/2 imp rend, right? Please.