Warrior tanks having rage problems?

[ruffrydax]

I have not hit level cap yet - so I am not sure how things will be at 80, but currently at 74 I have no rage problems to speak of, should we eliminate talents like puncture and focused rage from our builds, are these talents really needed?

I am thinking about specing like this: 12/8/51 Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft at 80, if rage is not a problem.

I think with tactical mastery, warbringer, improved charge and toughness will provide enough synergy to at least make pvp fun.

Any thoughts on this build?

[veneretio]

I don't have rage problems per say... but I can still starve myself which tells me that these talents are still valuable. I can not imagine a spec without Focused Rage. It may be the strongest talent we have in our entire tree and if you don't use it, I think you'll very quickly notice the difference.

My question to you is, how often are you Heroic Striking/Cleaving? Do you use these skills a lot, or rarely ever? Because I suspect that "no rage problems" really means, you just aren't spamming these abilities nearly as much as you could be.

[Dreador]

I do 12/8/51 as well, but in arms I take Deflection, Imp HS, Imp charge and Impale. Tac mastery seems a waste even moreso now that we don't need to stance dance to use zerker rage. Focused rage is something I couldn't really see myself getting rid of in a typical tanking build because of its uses across the board, thats a TON of rage being saved. As it's been said countless times, regardless of your rage generation if you can't spend it all you are doing something wrong.

[Horacio]

/agree with Vene.

Focused rage is too strong to pass up, IMO but I'm considering robbing a point or 2 from puncture to stick elsewhere. Not ideal but to get what I want its the most logical spot.

I have had a few rage problems but I've geared myself to run with the extreme mixed bag of people in my guild, IE, some weaker healers. That, and I am a shameless spammer for Cleave and HS.

[1stormchaser]

What I've found out, is when I start a battle with "Charge" (thank goodness we are capable of this in any stance and even during battle) is I have no problems with rage at all. But, if I start hitting from a "stand still" position it usually takes a good ten seconds to build rage to a point where I can use it and if tanking in an instance, lack of rage sometimes ends in a wipe. So I always make sure my charge is ready before I engage.

[Sparan]

Honestly, I'm still having a miserable time with rage starvation in raid situations, despite my absurdly low expertise and hit. WTB BoSanc

[Optimoos]

despite my absurdly low expertise and hit

Um, despite? This means that your white attacks which should be generating rage for you are either being dodged, parried, or are missing, and you get no rage. This is a problem, not a good thing. Granted, the majority of your rage is coming from incoming damage, but still...

Anyway, I have yet to encounter a situation in wrath where I feel helpless to perform my duties as a tank due to low rage - I'm only 75 and doing dungeons, I guess we'll see what happens at 80.

[veneretio]

I'm still having a miserable time with rage starvation in raid situations, despite my absurdly low expertise and hit.

I don't understand what you are saying here.

It seems you are implying that by having low expertise and hit that you should have greater rage, but actually the opposite is true. The higher your expertise and hit, the more often your auto-attacks will land, and the more rage you'll gain.

edit: looks like you beat me to it, Optimoos

[holmedog]

I posted this in another thread, but I'll repost here. It *IS* better to take cruelty than Focused Rage right now. This is per the threat theorycraft tool that is on these boards:

Using this spec: (Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft)


Over 5 minutes:

2172 using 3 FR with 2% cruelty
2487 using 0 FR with 5% cruelty


Image so you can see my setup:

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Again, it's worth noting that with glyphs, I think the TPS gap will actually widen (heroic strikes are going to be free after revenge, regardless of what they would have cost, 10 free rage after HS crits and it will crit more often with 5% cruelty).

Of course the optimum thing would be to have both 5% cruelty and 3/3 FR. But, with an impale spec, that isn't possib

[Glomgore]

I think when I get to a steady raid point, like I was in 3.0 where I'm not running heroics anymore, and I 9/10 times will have sanct available, that is the time to drop focused rage. I figure with the two glyphs effecting revenge so much, that the 12 points in arms will do good, however testing will have to prove.

[Solanthious]

It's not that we are raged starved per say, it's the problem of being out geared for the number of mobs that you're pulling. For instance when I do not pull more then 2 mobs, I have trouble with rage. I am mostly Heroic geared and 2 mobs does not provide me enough rage for my normal rotation, so I remove 3 abilities from the rotation. Example:

In situations where I have less then 2 mobs, I do not use Shield Block or Heroic Strike or Shockwave and stick to a Devastate > Shield Slam > Revenge > Thunderclap rotation. Now if I pull 3 or more mobs, I go back to my Devastate / Heroic strike > SS > Revenge > TC > SW.

As your avoidance goes up you'll find that 3 mobs and SB keeps you from gaining rage, and so on and so on. The mobs that are in the heroics are not as hard as their TBC counterparts were, and the only way to stay ahead of the rage starve issue is to do nothing but multi pulls.

[Lexxaa]

i only ever find myself rage starved if i go ballistic with cleave on a large pack of mobs and mess around like that..

i dont have puncture - i dont think its really necessary these days, focused rage is of course important and getting impale and 5/5 cruelty with it is pretty damn nice

im glyphed for revenge and heroic strike, so every time it crits im getting lots of rage back, esp if it didnt cost me anything.

[Art]

Protip: If you're having problems with rage, try to build berserker rage into your normal rotation. If fact, if you use it before blood rage, the damage delt by blood rage gives you even more rage!

[Moldran]

I'm hardly ever rage-starved while tanking and can usually go with my max TPS/DPS rotation (including HS spam, conc blow and shockwave).
Some bosses like Noth do indeed rage-starve you, but that just means that you have to switch your rotation to not use Heroic Strike (and Devastate instead of Conc Blow/Shockwave).

I'm not finding myself rage-starved in heroics even with 1.6 speed weapon cleave spam, if we don't use any CC.

For Puncture and Shield Block Talent I definately felt the difference after speccing out of them.
But the benefits of Impale (DPS & TPS) are much better than those few rage points, 12/8/51 is more enjoyable and more damage for the raids .