Tanking Squishy Warrior

Squishy Warrior

Hey there, im currently being told im a very squishy tank by the healers in my guild bar one paladin, and I dont know what else I can do to reduce my squish, my current rotation is Revenge > Shield Slam > Devastate > Shield block off CD > Demoralizing Shout off CD and other and heroic strike as a rage dump.
for pulling I use Charge > Heroic Throw > normal rotation.

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...lecutus/simple
Thats the link to my toon, if anyone sees anything I can do please say =]

Lecutus

Tell your healers to man up. You're fine in terms of squish factor for tanking all raid content in the game. Unless you're turning your back on the boss or not using your Cooldowns properly, they have nothing to complain about.

You don't mention Rend or Thunderclap. I hope you're doing both as well as Cleaving multiple targets. Calling Heroic Strike a rage dump is a bit of a misnomer, you should almost always have the requisite rage to Heroic Strike and you should be using Inner Rage as well to make it pump faster. None of that has anything to do with your squish factor though.

For major glyphs personally I prefer Thunderclap/Cleaving/Shockwave but to each his own.

Yeah, I use rend as soon as I have built up enough initial aggro then refresh with thunder clap, and I called heroic strike a rage dump cause I dont usually need it for threat and just use it when poss for that little extra dps and aggro.

But I will definitely tell em to learn how to heal.

There's a lot of little here.

1 (in no particular order). Demo shout off CD - I hope you mean as it's about to expire.

2. You're working on normal modes. So, for increasing survabiltiy:
A) Yellow = mastery
B) Blue = mastery/stam
C) Red = Parry/mastery
D) Prismatic = Mastery (when you level JC, your belt)
E) DPS bonus (hit/exp/crit/haste) = mastery

3. You have 100% more parry rating than dodge (900-something to 2000-something) - With lower than ideal mastery - the diminishing returns from parry have probably eaten up a lot of the benefit of HtL - you'd probably be better with, if you're looking at ~2900 dodge/parry mastery, something more like 1300/1600 or 1200/1700

4. I'd encourage you to look for Mastery/(dodge/parry) or Dodge/parry gear and drop the (avoid/mastery)/(hit/exp) gear of the same item level. There are a few pieces that's it's a lateral move-ish, but there are other it's a clear upgrade. Plus it will help you develop threat (I'll hit on this later)

5. Run the TB dailies. Get the mastery/on-use resistance trinket and replace Impetuous. You'll pick up gold along the way from the dailies (help level those profs) and the 321 mastery + magic damage reduction is amazing.

6. Your spec... is sub optimal:
A) Bloodcraze just isn't that good. even at it's best, you're likely to see 900hps at your gear level, maybe as high as 1500hps, but there's a 10% chance of proc and you have to receive damage so dodged/parried/missed = no go and slower swing timers spread out the uptime.

B) Blitz is a PvP abiltiy, you don't need it, even for heroics. There are other tools available and this frees up the talent point.

C) 1/2 in Gag Order is bad. It's a 50/50 whether you get the silence or not. I'd recommend dropping it completely. It has some nice utility in heroics a 2/2 but doesn't do much for Raids and the value can be achieved in other ways in heroics.

D) 1/2 in safeguard (and safeguard in general -there is some value to it when OT-ing certain bosses) is another half-in-half-out. I'd recommending dropping the point completely until you find a need for it in your progression.

E) 0/2 in Heavy Repercussions is not good. SS+HR with SB up is your HARDEST hitting ability threat ability - and can be up as much as 33% of the time.

So... what to do:
i) Arms - 3/3 in War Academy, 2/2 in Field Dressing, 3/3 in Deep Wounds <--- best threat-per-talent point of non-essential talents.
ii) If you choose to drop gag order, 2/2 in Cruelty buffs SS and is a good threat/talent point.
iii) Prot, I'd strong suggestion 2/2 in Heavy Repurcussions, 3/3 in Incite, 0/2 gag order, 0/2 safeguard, 0/2 thunderstruck

This build swaps a lot of partial utility you have now to full threat - but I think you'll find the result is a smoother run. CC can be used when needed to replace any lost CC from the HT silence, and if you do end up really needing safeguard, you can pick it up later.

7) Glyphs - Resonating power isn't good - you should have plenty of threat - the increased are a of affect would be a better one if you're going to buff TC. also, I prefer minor = Int. shout > Beserker rage. I don't have threat issues when tanking, but having that fear to interrupt on trash is nice.

8) Rotation:
A) Trash opening - Charge - Rend - TC, then I like to line 'em up, shockwave 'em so they don't run after DPS targetting the wrong target and then as the stun fades, SB to max blocks and thus rage (15 rage per block) so I can really go to town with Cleave/Rev against packs.

B) Boss opening - HT > Charge + Shield Block > Shield Slam > Concussion Blow ---- SS w/ Heavy Repercussions talented + SB is by far the biggest threat ability with Con Blow #2. After that it's regular sheild slam and then it's depednent on your rage.

Typically however, Rend > Dev. So your rotation will soon become ----> SS > Rev > (TC to refresh rend if less than 3 seconds remaining or Rend if it's fallen off) > Devastate.

You'll want to work Con Blow in off CD above everything but SS with SB up, and after a few hits, you can probably consider Shockwave over anything but shield slam and conussion blow as the clear #3 ability (#4 overall, behind SS w/ SB, Con Blow, and SS w/o SB) above anything else in the rotation.

A better rotation will make the trading of hit/exp a non-issue, you will probably actually see an increase in threat even if you remove all your hit/exp (I run with .64% hit and 3 exp, all racial, and haven't really had sticky points outside of DPS that outgears me or was a little too anxious - and within 10 seconds I can usually handle anything they do).

******

Now, there's one more key thing to the squish (your mastery is low, you can get it higher) - and that is do you use your CD's effectively? Are you using SW before a known damage spike or using SB on CD (or saving for when you know you're likely to be taking a number of hits).

Right now, before diminishing returns, you're sitting at 81% dodge/parry/block/boss-miss, which means roughly one out of every five attacks is hitting you for the full amount unless you have shiled block up, but that's only going to reduce it for 33% of the fight. That's a big chunk of incoming attacks you're taking full, compared to tank that has say, 88% dodge/parry/block/boss miss.

That tank is going to take every 8th attack in full. That's what, roughly 60% fewer full attacks than you will take? The other benefit is while at 81%, your SB gives you ~21.4% block and ~3.6% crit block, the other tank would be recieving roughly 14.4% block and 10.6% crit block, which adds another way of further reducing the damage he takes compared to you.

To give you an idea - I have a 353 item level (~1 level above your average item level) and I'm at ~86% dodge/parry/block/boss miss (11.21% dodge/13.36% parry/56.16% block). I'm taking roughly 25% fewer full hits than you, which will be noticable to healers. I'm logged out in my DPS gear and travelling, so I can't switch it, but if you want, I can link my direct WoW-heroes armory if you want to look at it.

However that difference in dodge/parry/block/boss hit isn't making you squishy. My guess is you may be using CDs reactively rather than pro-actively? Doing so will make you seem squishy, since damage never taken is easier to heal than damage taken.

For the cds, I only tend to use on a dmg spike or when im close to dying, and I did type it wrong demo shout just before its about to run out, thankyou for the advice on the parry/dodge situation that should help with not having a wasted % of it.

A link to your char would be a helpfull guide though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Loganisis

To give you an idea - I have a 353 item level (~1 level above your average item level) and I'm at ~86% dodge/parry/block/boss miss (11.21% dodge/13.36% parry/56.16% block).

just a small correction, but 11.21 + 13.36 + 56.16 = 80.73.

Add another 5% from miss and you're set ;) And if you sum up your armory values don't forget about the additional percentage from battle shout, kings and possible elixir.

Quote:

Originally Posted by klausi

Add another 5% from miss and you're set ;) And if you sum up your armory values don't forget about the additional percentage from battle shout, kings and possible elixir.

^Aye - I did forget that - gots kings/battle/mastery food too. So it actually ends up being more than 85.73 (which is roughly 86%)

http://www.wow-heroes.com/character/...nor/loganisis/

I'm really not in a place to log in to WoW to be able to log out in my tank gear until Sat, so the wow-heroes link is as good as I can do, click on the protection spec to see my prot gear as it will defautl to my fury spec/gear.