Ok, I run a pretty small guild, so at the moment Heroic 5-man content is all we have to aspire to. Several people have run them successfully in pugs, but we've tried a couple times as a guild and it has been catastrophically bad.
I've had 490 def for a while, and I switched in a couple of PVP items to increase DPS while maintaining the 490 def. As far as other stats, I don't know if I made it worse or better. I really think my gear might actually be fine, so Ive been looking here for macros and other tips I could use to try and improve. However, if anyone has a minute to look at my Armory profile and suggest any changes or upgrades, I'd greatly appreciate it. Also if anyone has any strategies that helped them with the move into Heroics that would be awesome.
Here's my Armory link, I'll try to stay off the riding crop and PVP gear for a while so it will have my normal tanking set shown. Thanks a lot for any advice.
The World of Warcraft Armory
You should be fine in the beginning heroics (SP namely)
Get those badges to replace the PVP items you have.
I ran with similar items my first couple months of Heroics. It may be hard on your dps w/ threat, but it can be done.
Get a faster weapon if you can.
I have Innuro's Blade and Grom'tor's Charge in reserve. I didn't need the def so I went for DPS.
That's a very sly choice for a tanking weapon, I never even considered that! I used [item]Quickening Blade of the Prince[/item] for a threat weapon but that s2 is nice choice!
What problem are you having? Are you having trouble staying alive? Maintaining agro? What heroics have you been trying to do?
Well, it usually goes that I pull, drop a thunderclap to put a little aggro on everything, and start devastating. But it seems like I can never hold it very long before something breaks off and 2-shots the healer.Originally Posted by jlafleur
We first tried Ramps, and after learning that easy reg != easy heroic, tried UB. I don't remember if there were others, and granted, that's not a huge amount of tries, but wiping more than once per pull on average, it seemed a waste to do a lot more. We've been working as a guild on other avenues of upgrading gear but it seems like it might be more skill/technique than anything. I've also wondered if I need to insist on all 3 DPS having some form of CC, but that excludes my druids, pallies, warriors, and usually locks since they only seem to be really reliable vs demons.
Try to start with Slave Pens. I find it a bit easier, and a lot faster than mech.
It's pretty straight forward, but you will need at least 2 cc classes. It seems like one of your problems is here. Insist on bringing a mage and some other cc class. For slave pens, either hunters, rogues or locks are good.
That should leave you with 2 mobs most of the time. Usually i start with shield slamming skull (first dps target), then tabtarget and devastate on cross (2nd dps target). Thunder clap is horrible for threat, dont expect to keep mobs sticking, thats for sure. Then you just have to cycle between mobs with ss, dev and rev.
Your gear looks ok, but you need to replace those pvp items. Your avoidance isn't really all that great. I'd try to replace boots with the sha'tari wrought greaves first.
Also keep in mind that your dps'ers probably are decked in pvp gear and they deliver a lot of burst damage which can be difficult to aggro-manage (for the dps'ers, that is.).
Also, i'd look into respeccing to get anger management, and 5 points in deflection.
I am the spearhead. I am relentless. I am the last line of defense. I am a Warrior.
Um, read everything here.
I don't think the problem is in him dealing threat for threats sake. Problem is, like when I started, is your taking a lot of dmg with your low quality gear that thunderclap doesn't do enough threat to keep healers free. But still point for point in a multi-tanking situation, TC is your best friend. Spam it on every cooldown (careful of CC's in the vicinity).
Start off with TC. Then to avoid some dmg in the very beginning use you Concussive blow on the first mob you see, then Disarm on another and then start banging the target to be nuked. And tell DPS that your threat is gonna be distributed a bit so not to start till they see 1 sunder armor debuff on the target (very nice vicual affect, I use it to let them know it's ok to nuke).
True, but what i meant was that it's going to take more than TC to keep them off healers :-D
I am the spearhead. I am relentless. I am the last line of defense. I am a Warrior.
OK, let me see if I can help.
#1 sword speed, 2.6 is going to create , INCONSISTANT rage generation...
this is going to be your single largest problem....id tank with a green 1.6 speed toilet paper roll tube before i tanked with a 2.6 speed weapon. your unable to start a general...fundamental rage generation rotation.
this is going to later cripple your tanking style. RUN from it ...now.
2...you described your opener, as pull - devestate.... please...
Bloodrage....pull...SHIELD SLAM for the most threat possible. followed by devestate, devestate, revenge, shield slam...rinse...repeat...
the additional threat from the shield slam vs a SLOW to swing devestate...with get you in with a mob...
in multi tanking thunder clap is the best you got...so use it.
other than that....put back on your tanking gear..., drop the defense gems for hit rating.... change the meta to an 18 stam meta.
you are so unbeleivable uncrittable with that much resil, and 491 defense...that its ludacris. to be stacking defense over hit and a faster sword..
so if it were me..
- Helm. for now its fine...but get out of the habit of using a resil glyph...and your shield block value meta.... isnt as good MOST fights, as a 18 stam 5 stun....
- Neck.. Fine.
- shoulders - fine, i see alot of people with em...i never went that way myself, heroic...something in ...down by slabs...but not in slabs... has those shoulders... and T4 from kara.
- back - fine...i like dodge...or defense over armor.
- chest - seen it done...but i hate it....though it does have hit rating. resil (see defense without adding to your dodge, i hate resil...but it WILL push you over the uncrittable mark.) and tons of stam....so..im not sure that their is much better till you get 100 badges or a kara.
- Bracers...- NICE back to real tanking gear.
- weapon - Cardboard toilet paper tube with 1.6 speed...or less...> your weapon....pput back on the inuuros. its 10 BILLION times the weapon.
- shield...- awesome.
- thrower - awesome.
- trinkets....fine..fine..
- rings - the defense one is great... the shield block one...umm....not really....shield block not that awesome keep it for later when your lookin to bump up the shield block value, and rating for now...get something with some HP...dodge...defense...you have been to kara...my goodness...put that one on....
- boots...fine....kara is the first time youll have a chance to upgrade.
- legs....3 different color EPIC gems...and you missd the set bonus.....REALLY?! how...why...3x stam gems....or a 5 agi- 7 stam....a dodge gem...a hit rating gem and a stam gem...but my goodness...if your not going to stack stam.......get agi, dodge, or hit and get the bonus...
- belt ...i guess?! i mean its good stam....but...if you stopped stacking resil...and thinking you STILL needed 490 def...and read up on whats actually needed to be uncrittable as a combo...im not sure i can even think of a better belt...if you can remain uncrittable...till kara...
- gloves....OH>>>NOW you want the set bonus...when its 3 freakin parry...but if it was something like 6 stamina...NOOOOOO....please...strength....get a dodge gem...or another stam gem...
- talent build....- PLEASE go look at a standard 8/5/48 build...but at this point your missing...last stand...and 6% dmg reduction from spells......to lose 2 to the parry talent...and add 3 to heroic strike.....ewww....in your gear, your going to have plenty of rage if youd stack hit rating....dont blow three points on heroic strike....with its simply a rage dump.....not a rotation move.
- and last...just start opening with SHIELD SLAM...not a slow weapon speed devestate..and you, and your groups will be alot happier.
good luck....and though im not the friendliest...i am just trying to help if i can be of more help dont hesitate to ask.
Lots of good advice here, so I'm going to offer this link so you can improve your gear:
Polar's Easy Pre-Karazhan Tank Gear List
I did these quests too when I was just starting and it made a HUGE difference for both me and my team.
Regards,
Ror
2.6 isn't ideal but that weapon has very high DPS, will help with Devastate and white damage (and thus rage a little).
Of course if his problems are the beginning of the pull, then a faster weapon would probably be better, so a missed attack won't screw him over for 2.6 seconds.
The difference in threat from Dev and white damage, from a slow high dps weapon, is nothing from what you will get from the consistent rage generation from a faster weapon. Dps on you weapon is such a little part of the threat you generate - if you want threat, work on getting more expertise and hit rating, that will help you a lot more.
You want a fast weapon, and Inuuros is really really good until you can pick up KD from Kara or the Mallet from SSC
Guys thanks so much for all the great tips. I'm going to try a H SP later tonight and here are the changes I expect to make immediately, before heading in:
Switch back to Innuro's Blade for weapon, unless Grom'Tor's charge would be better. I think the axe scores higher with TankPoints but it .2 slower. Neither of them has an enchant, and I'm thinking to go with Executioner over Mongoose this time.
Check out the 18stam meta for head and hit rating instead of def, now that I know resil combines with def rating. The resil glyph is the closest I can get to a tanking one atm cuz I havent been to CoT yet. Something always seems to mess it up, but it's on the top of my list to run for regs. I'm sure that's prolly unacceptable to some, sorry. :P Also looking at regemming legs and gloves (not sure how I effed up the legs so bad, lol)
Armor is high enough that I'll look at dodge for back, esp with a high armor item already.
Thinking about changing neck to the SSO one for hit, expertise and more stam instead of dodge and unneeded def rating. Not exalted with aldor yet though.
If I were to change my chest, I would prbably revert to the Vindicator's Hauberk with +150 health, I still have it. I lose a craploaf of stam from PVP chest though.
Rings, I don't have the Kara one yet, I got unspeakably lucky and got into a group at Curator, got the Wrynn Dynasty Greaves, and the group broke up before the next boss. My one and only trip to Kara. EDIT: Grabbed a Delicate Eternium Ring from AH, decent amount of stam, agi, and dodge. Best I could find on short notice.
On spec I waived Last Stand becuase I've never gotten into the habit of using it properly, crappy excuse I know. And I now agree with parry vs heroic strike, as I can see my avoidance has gotten low.
As far as pulling, I don't see weapon speed affecting Devastate because its instant, but I do see that its pretty universally agreed that SS is the ideal opener. Also, holding aggro on the main target hasn't been an issue, it's been the off targets, so it still seems Thunderclap is the best/only option to open there. I'm hoping that the devastate mouseover macro will help maintain a lot more threat on those off targets without sacrificing too much on the main one. I've played around with it while helping guildies in some lower instances and don't think I've lost control of anything that was within melee range.
@Tom - you can prolly see, your advice has been very helpful, and in most cases the tone of it was justified, I hate to say.
@ Rorax - I have looked at that list. I'm sorry to say that I have already done most of the outlands quests with the exception of a few in SMV and a couple dungeon ones, and have made some bad choices as far as vendoring old gear. I can think of at least 2 ot 3 items that I'm kicking my own ass for not keeping. First toon, live and learn. Shouldn't be anything that can't be replaced with better by a little bit of progression.
Last edited by Bran; 09-11-2008 at 02:55 PM.
as far as weapon enchant : Tom is an executioner guy....so many slots to easily stack mitigation....
1 single slot to stack threat.......use it....executioner is just shy of double the threat per second mongoose is.....and mongoose...is always gonna proc dodge rating when your already starved for rage.....and now you wont be able to get hit....to get more...GG
and concerning multi tanking....
i will blood rage...T-clap.....devestate....TAB TARGETS devestate shield slam.....TAB BACK ...TAUNT devestate devestate....tab back...shield slam...then at 3 or 4 landed sunders on the off mob...focus on the main one...
remember taunt isnt only for when you lose aggro...gives you a couple seconds...where you...CANT lose aggro.....and if you doing just heroics for now.....look at 1 if not 2 points in taunt....i use 1 in it in my tanking spec...
which i will link..when im specced prot again....i PVP on off days
Hopefully my armory profile will have updated if anyone cares to see the adjustments that were made. Spent close to 3k updating gems, chants, spec, and getting that ring, BUT H SP was a success. With 2.5 CCers (warlock, meh, who I out dmg'd btw) there wasn't much opportunity to multi-tank, but it was good practice. I def see where I need to practice rage mgmt, I had a few times when I wasn't watching my bar close enough and either dumped too much or not enough on heroic strike. No wipes, just some off deaths, mostly due to stupid stuff (body pull, or CC'd the wrong mob).
Opening with shield slam and sticking to a rotation was tough for me, I've only really started reading up recently and have never done it before, but that also highlighted some ways that I need to rearrange my hotbars.
---Question: Do you guys keep auto-attack on key 1, or change it to an ability and just macro everything with /startattack?
I was pretty satisfied that my mage wasn't holding back any, the hunter said he was a little, but I think he had some raid gear. So they of course were intered in the DPS report. All I care about though is the DMG taken report.
---Question: Anyone have any idea what is a 'good' or 'great' amount to hit for dmg taken? I know in a perfect world it would be 100%. On regs I sometimes get as low as the 40s, but for those we are geared enough that everybody thinks they're a tank.
---Question: On mobs that had been trapped a couple times, unfreezing with a shield slam usually was not enough, often had to follow with a taunt. This wasn't the case with sheeped mobs, even though, being killed last, sheep would conceivably have been applied more times. Is that normal?
Thanks again for all the help here, I really think it made a huge difference, and anything further would be awesome.
The hunter trap doesnt come off cd right as it breaks to my knowledge so the hunter has to shoot it and kite it back to a new trap, which will put on more threat then just a sheep.
As an addition Id say to try Mech if you can do sp. Mech is where I got my start, and it has a nice tank sword and 4 badges for a relatively short instance. You can do it nicely with 1 cc like a mage, but a lock makes killing the demons after the stairs much easier as well. A tip for the last hallway is to pull the group by yourself and then run down the elevator (where your group should be standing.) This resets them this way you can mark and cc easily.
Good Luck with upgrades
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