AoE tanking

[Yarock]

The thing that made me quit tanking and go dps was our inferiority in 5/10mans to prot pali's (I'm a warrior). Now it seems the playing field has changed. What I've been thinking about is maximizing AoE threat. I haven't had much chance to actually play the game due to server instability and real life but I was able to run through kara in a couple of hours with a relatively undergeared group of people. I found that my single target threat was through the roof! I would sometimes hit 3000tps (according to the latest version of omen) and stay over 2000tps 90% of the time. This gave me a pretty tremendous threat lead making me think I should actually get rid of my 2 autoblocker trinkets and use attack power trinkets? Our primary AoE skills both scale with attack power making them ideal for trash/AoE situations and save the block trinkets for bosses/single targets?

[Inaara]

I've been chain running heroics to test the effectiveness of AOE tanking and I must say I am quite pleased with the results. I really think it all depends on what you're tanking and what you can handle. When AOE tanking I find myself keeping my back to the targets to always get in damage shield and keeping TC on cooldown. The only problem with that is the massive incoming damage. Fortunately I've had Sunwell geared healers to group with so grabbing 2 packs in HMgt is no problem at all. If damage gets too rough face the mobs and pop SB or hell, even a shield wall. the 5 minute cooldown on SW makes everything a joke, trading 40 damage for 250 is full of complete win.

If your gear can't handle that then as you said AP would be the way to go as they directly effect TC and Shockwave. Since you won't be taking as much hits/blocks the damage shield won't be as effective.

[Yarock]

Ah I missed an important fact: damage shield scales with shield block (20% of your shield block) - so I would be giving up 30-100dmg (if autoblocker trinkets are proc'd) per damage shield proc in exchange for 130-250 extra dmg to my shockwave (which has a 20 second cooldown) and whatever the extra 162-422AP would give thunderclap (I can't seem to find the formula for thunderclap damage).

You said you intentionally get the mobs to attack you from behind - is this to avoid dodge/parries which would not proc damage shield?

[Andenthal]

Yes, I think Inaara means that if your back is to them both Damage Shield will proc more, and you will also be getting more rage. I'm not a huge fan of that myself - just personal preference really.

If you are having rage issues due to high Avoidance, consider dropping Anticipation and/or Deflection. I opted for neither (not raiding right now - going for a leveling spec).

I was able to 2-man the room before Moroes and also the first 4 pulls to Attumen with a Mage friend of mine. (didn't think we could take the 4 pull ) He just simply AE'd everything down while I held on to them. I am very overgeared for Karazhan, and dropping 10% Avoidance helped huge in the rage starvation area.

[Korvid]

I haven't tried AOE tanking yet on my warrior, so I'm wondering what sort of "rotation" ppl are using, or is it the AOE threat more a function of SW,TC and Damage Shield with SS/Revenge/dev on kill target?

[Darksend]

I haven't tried AOE tanking yet on my warrior, so I'm wondering what sort of "rotation" ppl are using, or is it the AOE threat more a function of SW,TC and Damage Shield with SS/Revenge/dev on kill target?

if you are in a group of equal geared dps (and no ret pallies who in run and blow divine storm when the mobs are still 20 yards away from you) your action bar can litterally be

1 cleave
2 TC
3 Shockwave
4 Shield slam

and as long as you mark a skull and the dps stick on skull at the start, you should not be losing agro. My warrior (i hope this link works) The World of Warcraft Armory as you can see its in kara gear mostly. we were doing MrT (normal) with me tanking 2 alt ret pallies (one 68 that we were powerlevling 5 runs = 67-68) sunwell resto shaman and our guilds fury warrior. He is TG spec with duel apolyons off KJ. We litterally pulled 5 pulls at a time and except for one wipe (which i totally ran in with SW still on CD) no one died and on bosses i never lost agro even to the apolyon warrior.

[Glomgore]

Another tip to help out warriors AoE tanking.

Create a mouseover devastate macro, this allows you to keep your TC/SW goin, your revenges/SS's on the main Skull target, and spread devastate around with your mouse.

With this setup and about 2k atk power/700 SBV, I can easily hold the Hyjal trash packs, spreading my dev around with the SS/Rev going to the abomination kill target. Vigilance a lock, and let him open up the first round of AoE.

[Corian]

Thunderclap scales by 12% of your AP.