Floor eating more often than not as a prot warrior

[Bragoon]

Lately it feels like I am dying a lot easier to everything compared to other tanks in my guild. etc.

The other tanks are a druid and paladin, and we are all pretty much at the same stat levels.
My armory is ^ there, can anyone look at it and see what I am doing wrong?

[Squirrelnut]

Your gear looks VERY similar to mine, I tend to think the only thing may be taking a spec like 5/10/56 so that you get imp demo shout and full Shield Specialization. I also went back to imp disciplines and glyph of shield wall so that I can use more aggressive cooldowns. I think a lot of Warriors tend to be too cautious with their cooldowns/trinket use. Beyond that just ensure Demo Shout/Thunderclap/Commanding Shout are up 100% of the time and if you still have issues its your healers / class imbalance (unless standing in fire lawl).

[Eravian]

Your gear is better than mine, but I can relate to your problem... my guilds main tank is a paladin, and I swear his health bar doesn't jump around nearly as much as mine when he's taking hits from a boss... he is better geared than I am, granted, but avoidance, etc. wise we're similar. I've started to conclude that it may be as simple as higher levels of actual armor - the druid especially. Not sure what the armor rating is on the pally tank, but if it's higher by even 500-1k, it can make a big difference. Also, pallies DO have bubbles and other tricks up there sleeves that help them out a bit, plus a nearly unlimited amount of mana... and, in a pinch, they can throw a Flash Heal on themselves that'll help them survive a little (although it's rare that they would need to bother... and problematic for your raid if they do. lol). Those all could be factors.

[Synapse]

Tankadins don't heal themselves in any situation where healing is stressful, Eravian. Even a gcdlong cast like Flash of Light means taking a hit(or many) with 10% avoidance instead of 50%. That "feel" of jump derives mostly from ardent defender and holy shield: We always keep holy shield up which means almost all(if not all) hits we take are blocked. Ardent defender smooths down the last 30% of damage that it takes to kill us.

All other tricks can be shared with other tanks(in fact, sacred shield is more effective when cast from a holy)

[Eravian]

No, I didn't mean to suggest that they do (because I agree, I've never seen one do it), was only commenting that they could, in theory, if they lose a healer to hold out for a while longer (although even then, I've never seen one do it). Although you're comment on blocking raises a valid point as well - although Block isn't the most ideal stat always, shying an extra 2k of hits adds up to substantial damage reduction over time. Depending on what your Shield Block Value is, Bragoon, that may be part of the reason the pally lasts longer, at least.

[Taei]

Which encounters (or type of encounters) do you feel squishiest on? Hard hitting bosses? Bosses with lots of raid damage? Large packs of trash?

Your gear is certainly more than fine, but like Squirrel says, I would recommend Glyphs of Last Stand as well as Shield Wall with Imp Disciplines, giving you 2min CDs on each, and using them often, along with your Heart of Iron use.

Paladins and Druids theoretically take less damage (certainly less spikey) than Warriors, you could just be experiencing that. Or could just be bad luck + paranoia

[Insahnity]

Uh yea, a paladin or druid tank healing themselves is as likely as a warrior or DK tank bandaging themselves. Think along that context. The only time I have ever heal as a tank is as a druid, I can on rare occasions to pop a Tranquility in between pickup of boss adds. Even as a tank it's pretty godly (but situational).

We do get some heals by way of judgement of light, but its really piddly amounts (2% of total heals, i'd say), and same goes for druids with Imp LotP. If you are in a raid with a paladin or feral druid with ILotP, you get the same benefit too. And yes, the two effects can stack.

On ToC or VoA, when I have accumulated enough of a TPS lead and it doesn't appear that the DPS won't catch up (busy with adds like snobolds or jaraxus minions, on the other jormungar, etc.) I will switch to seal of light instead of vengeance. Yes, this means I lose some DPS adn threat, but you are still doing some holy damage with judgements (not as much, but enough). I've pushed out 1k heals that way (seal + judgement of light), which is actually significant, and can help things out with frazzled healers. Again, this would be situational, our DPS wasn't riding my threat, indicating low raid DPS, and we didn't down the boss, but it did help give some breathing room.

[Synapse]

No, I didn't mean to suggest that they do (because I agree, I've never seen one do it), was only commenting that they could, in theory, if they lose a healer to hold out for a while longer (although even then, I've never seen one do it). Although you're comment on blocking raises a valid point as well - although Block isn't the most ideal stat always, shying an extra 2k of hits adds up to substantial damage reduction over time. Depending on what your Shield Block Value is, Bragoon, that may be part of the reason the pally lasts longer, at least.

The sole exception would be Lay on Hands(though that's castable on anyone), which has saved me quite a few times when healers have a BSOD and forget to heal themselves in ToC5.

[Insahnity]

No, I didn't mean to suggest that they do (because I agree, I've never seen one do it), was only commenting that they could, in theory, if they lose a healer to hold out for a while longer (although even then, I've never seen one do it). Although you're comment on blocking raises a valid point as well - although Block isn't the most ideal stat always, shying an extra 2k of hits adds up to substantial damage reduction over time. Depending on what your Shield Block Value is, Bragoon, that may be part of the reason the pally lasts longer, at least.

Again, healing would strictly be limited to a Lay on Hands, but as a tank it would be like a cooldown (equivalent to frenzied regen/enraged regen, only better with a longer CD).

The mitigation by Shield block is supposed to be compensated in other ways (Savage defense by druids, Parry from Strength for DKs). But at the end of the day, either due to fast hitting/multi mobs against druids, or huge DR penalties on parry, these tanks are still very spiky. A holy shielded pally or shield blocked warrior have greater uptime, so the damage intake is less spiky.

[Hengist]

Warriors have much lower EH than both druids (higher health, higher armor, more reliable block mechanic) and paladins (higher health, AD adding 15% more EH and more reliable block mechanic). Its not kind of difference you would really notice one asy content, but on Algalon or hc Beasts it become pretty clear tank classes are not quite balanced in those aspects.

[Insahnity]

You also forgot that although paladins start out lower than warriors at the beginning, they scale health much faster at the top end, which is where at level 80 we all are at.
Blood and Unholy DKs have more EH as well, whereas a frost DK is closer to a warrior. I always liken a Blood DK to a bear, A frost DK to a warrior, and an unholy DK to a tankadin, in terms of tanking style.

[Bragoon]

Wow, thanks for all the answers.

These fights I feel most squishy on are in fact H-beasts, H-10 anub, and algalon.
:/

[Sunders_medivh]

I just experienced what you described yesterday when my guild first attempted H-beasts 25. We started out with a 3 tank rotation - pally, druid, warrior and I would always either died immediately when it was my turn or blew all CDs just to stay alive and then died when it was my turn again. We had to resort to a 2 tank rotation to get to phase 2.

I think what Hengist says makes the most sense though and I thought I was crazy when I felt like a piece of paper at times in a lot of encounters.

Oh I wanted to ask, is there something else to do? I have all the debuffs I can possibly place on the boss, but it definitely doesn't seem like I stand a chance. Is it really just speccing for improved demo shout and improved CDs? It doesn't seem realistic to be expected to live and die on CDs - granted I use them plenty, but when I'm out, I'm obviously screwed. Is it simply gearing choices?

[Dragaan]

This is what I said in a previous post from a warrior who said he was squishy:


I've been tanking as a warrior for years. I've successfully tanked all of BC including sunwell pre-3.0, and all current hardmode content except anub25. I have always prided myself as being a very durable tank. Healers used to tell me how much easier I was to heal compared to other top-end warriors and even feral druids in sunwell. During Ulduar progression, I never even noticed a difference between myself and equally-geared DKs (except for their ability to use 1min cooldowns to cheese some fights). Ever since 3.2 tho, healers are always commenting on how squishy I am compared to our paladin tank on just about every fight. I don't know if you are comparing yourself to other tanks or not (or if your healers are), but if you are tanking side-by-side with an equally-geared paladin you ARE squishy in comparison. Sad but true.

Ride it out and pray to the wow Gods that they buff protection warriors for Icecrown.


This is just how it is at the moment. Paladins are much stronger tanks atm, so it's not necessarily your fault if you are harder to heal or dying more than other tanks in similar gear. Just wait till the pally tanks in your guild get their 4p t9 bonuses.....