80 war tank advise

[mjwelsh1978]

hello
im a lvl 80 war tank with 570 defense and 25k health

The World of Warcraft Armory

i understand i have a lot room for improvement and would like some help in to where i can start..

do i try for heroics, raids or toc??

i tried a h toc and got wiped straight away, should i do normal toc and build up or start doing easy heroics like nexus and farm for epics??

am i ready for heroics looking at my stats?

any help would be appreciated

thanks mothman.

[Insahnity]

You have a more fundamental problem, you don't really understand how to gear as a tank. I suggest you read some guides on this site, and work from there, there is a lot to learn.

To start:
-Defense is important, but only to 540. After that, until you learn more about gearing as a tank, stop!
-Stamina is very important, and as a warrior you will be desperate to get it. As a hint, you are permitted 3 JC gems and those are best utilized as 51 stamina gems, rather than 34 defense.
-As a tank you need 2 jobs: Survive and hold threat. Once you clean up survival issues, you will need to gear for threat. I see you are trying by putting in attack power, the meta gem, and so on but it's the wrong way to go about it. Get a tanking meta, tanking enchants, etc. and then research tank threat stats.

As for ToC, it's a bit misleading. Regular ToC is as hard as all other heroics, and H ToC is at raid difficulty, not heroic difficulty. As is, before doing anything else, learn about tanking on this site, then run heroics and regular toc. With enough time, you will know when you are ready to head for H ToC.

[Wars]

Insahnity hit on almost all the key points. The best thing you can do is to talk to other tanks and to read guides on how to tank and how to gear a tank.

Ask questions, hell PM me and ask me anything you want. Ask people about certain pulls that give you trouble, some combinations of abilities and how to start a pull to ensure you will keep aggro until things are stabilized.

540 defense is the minimum to be at. It is not considered the best bang for your buck in enchants/gems after 540 though. I would definitely give yourself more effective health and soaking power with stamina.

You can gear yourself up very easily these days, dailies, boe epics, emblems, etc etc. Once you get some knowledge and understanding of your role and how to complete that role, you will feel great about it.

Again, need anything answered specifically? Just ask.

[Insahnity]

Insahnity hit on almost all the key points. The best thing you can do is to talk to other tanks and to read guides on how to tank and how to gear a tank.

Ask questions, hell PM me and ask me anything you want. Ask people about certain pulls that give you trouble, some combinations of abilities and how to start a pull to ensure you will keep aggro until things are stabilized.

<snip>

Again, need anything answered specifically? Just ask.

I just want to add to War's offer, we are generally helpful, and if you want to be a really skilled tank, we can get you there. However, we do expect you to get some basic understanding before asking questions.

The analogy is showing up at a highschool (tankspot) with a primary school education. We have articles here to bring you up to entry point for here and help you graduate, but be sure to read those before asking more questions.

If you need some help finding a guide about a specific topic, please ask!

Also, Tanking is 1 part gear, 1 part tanking instinct and 1 part knowing the fight. I've pointed to tanking instinct, Wars talked about knowing the fight, and gear will come naturally if you can master the other 2.

[mjwelsh1978]

thank you for your advise it is much apreciated. i have now changed my meta to defense and also looking at respecing my jc gems to stamina, after that i will check my defense and see where i can improve my stamina using enchants and my existing gem slots without going below 540. next plan is to learn a good rotation to keep threat onto me. i usually always try to start with a charge for the stun then devastate x2, shield block,thunder clap, demoralizing shout, then rotate between revenge, shield slam and shield bash.

im gonna have to spend a lot of time reading up on rotations as i feel this is my main let down at holding threat.

again any advise is always helpful
mothman

ok a quick update, after redoing my enchants and gems ive knocked my defense down to 549, my health has gone upto 26k almost 27k and ive also added an extra 2% threat to myself via the armanent enc on my wrist. i think thats a good improvement and the best i can achieve for with the armor i have at the moment. next is to learn to hold the threat i get.

[Kyp]

I would also consider respecing to the standard cookie cutter 15/5/51 spec. You're missing what I consider vital talent points (last stand, vigilance, Incite, Imp. TC)

Since your tank you should be telling the dps'ers who to attack so I always mark skull as main target.

AOE Packs I usually mark skull on the caster and charge in, thunderclap to grab agro then move slightly so Shockwave hits all (you will see what I mean, takes a little getting used to). Then start Shield Slam>Revenge>Devastate on skull while queing Cleave and Thunderclapping every cooldown. Once the skull is dead, mark another skull and do the rotation again.

TC+Cleave spam will give you enough agro so that the healer wont pull, but wont protect the dps'ers if they start hitting the wrong target. Keep a skull marked at all times and keep an eye out for the agro lost warnings.

Boss/Single mobs just follow the Shield Slam> Revenge> Devastate + Heroic Strike (when you have enough rage). You might want to include thunder clap and demo shout against harder hitting boss' if your gear is a bit sub par.

I use shield block as on "oh shit" button more than an threat building thing, but thats just my playstyle.

Tanking is an art, the more you do it the better you will be.

[Griff]

I would also consider respecing to the standard cookie cutter 15/5/51 spec. You're missing what I consider vital talent points (last stand, vigilance, Incite, Imp. TC)

Kyp hit the nail on the head here.

Last Stand: If you're stepping foot in a raid and even dreaming about tanking any bosses, not having last stand is just irresponsible. I couldn't count the number of times last stand has been the difference between a wipe and a bosskill if I had several extra sets of hands to count on.

Vigilance: Vigilance is your friend - learn it, use it, love it.

Incite/Imp TC: Its always worth taking talents that markedly improve key tools that you will use regularly as you tank. Especially if you're doing heroics - being able to generate snap aggro on a mob who's running past you to some facepulling healer is very useful and having said snap aggro with 15% more crit is even better.