Prot Warrior Tanking in 10 ToGC woes

[elting44]

Hello everyone, long time reader and first time poster. I am a prot warrior in a relatively small guild. Our guild has recently started progressing into Trial of the Grand Crusader 10-man. We do not do 25 man content outside of the occasional Ony or Voa PuG.

Here is my armory:

The World of Warcraft Armory

The other tank in my guild is a Pally, has almost identical gear/stam/avoidance as I do.

My problem is my survivability, Gormok gibs me with 2 stacks of Impale. If I take the first 2 impales, the other tank taunts as he is casting the third, and vice versa. What happens is shortly after I get the second impale, I am dead. We had to bring in a 2nd pally to tank in order ot get to Jaraxxus.

I can shield wall at the end of the first set of impales, and last stand during the second, but I keep ending up with my CDs on CD and me being dead.

How are you other prot warriors survivng this? Is it my gear? Or am I missing something in strat? the 2nd pally that we brought in was in 200-219 gear, and had no problem surviving, whereas I am a Warrior in 219-245, (except for my bracers, 10 man ToC Northrend beasts, and 10 and 25 Flame Lev have been showing me no love) and I am getting mt face pushed in.

[Aggathon]

You are WWWAAAAAYYYYYY low on HPs dude. I'm not even entirely sure how. Stop gemming for socket bonuses. You want 1 gem that's stam/red (probably dodge) and the rest should be +30 stam. You're engineering so get the engineering armor to gloves enchant asap. Change cloak to 225 armor, shield to 18 stam, chest to 275 hps, and get the 30 stam 15 resil PvP shoulder enchant (10k honor from the vendors in org).

As far as spec goes you should also pick up improved disciplines. Either drop 2 points in shield spec or in focused rage, I myself prefer 2/5 shield spec, 3/3 focused rage, and 2/2 imp disciplines.

Trinkets are good, you're probably gonna want to keep the ony one until you have more natural defense. If you have the means to get them I'd say craft the saronite swordbreakers for your wrists.

I'd also suggest looking into getting the indestructible plate girdle, much more stam.

If you don't pick up glyph of shield wall DEFINITELY drop cleaving for Last Stand.

Weapon Enchant: Blood Draining... NOW... DO IT. But while we're on the topic of weapons, get a new one.

As far as strat goes: you shouldn't need any cooldowns for the first and even second set of impales because he barely has any stacks of his buffs up then. The 3rd set is the ones you'll need cooldowns on.

[Airowird]

Your spec & glyphs seem ok and your gear seems good enough, except maybe the hit gems (expertise gives equal threat even after 26 and reduces parry gibs).

Other than that it seems to be mostly a healer problem. Although Paladins can bubble out of the impale, they try not to because it hinders the use of their shield wall-like ability. Maybe the Paladins are dropping lower on HP and are gaining benefits from the Ardent Defender talent more?

Either way, there is very little you can do to improve except get more HP to buffer the damage & healing.

[swelt]

Expect this thread to get moved to "Halp" section, but you should also check out the CC section of the strategy forum as well.

Your overall level of gear looks OK, but for the beasts you really want to be gearing for max effective health. Items like the onyxia blood talisman are really not helping you, you'd be better off with any other stamina/armour trinket. Your armory currently shows you with a dps mace, I trust you have something with more stam for tanking. The new craftable bracers might well be worth shelling out for, depending on your server economy/your resources. You are an engineer, but aren't using the awesome armour on glove thing? Glyph of cleaving out for glyph of last stand perhaps?

All that said, it's likely not just to be a gear thing. Are you keeping demo shout (or vindication if with pallies) up? Are your healers ready for switches, but also keeping hots on the tank with the dot? Are you timing your cooldowns appropriately to the encounter (he hits harder the longer it goes on, so early impales don't need cooldowns, later ones can have).

[elting44]

Thanks, I was not gemming for socket bonuses as much as under the impression I was needing more hit. I will change the glove enchant.

I use the ony blood trink for the avoidance, I have black heart and direbrew for stam.

I didn't see that I had the mace equipped, I use it for Devestate spame in Heroics, I have Gleaming Quel'sarar that I use most of the time.

I will change glyphs too, thanks

[swelt]

Quick scan of your guild indicates neither of your guild prot paladins have vindication. Might wanna talk to them about that.

[Arvandor]

Our very quite geared tanks (47k hp buffed) have been gibbed by Gormok through healspam. Bad RNG on Gormok can cause quite literally unavoidable deaths, depending on your group makeup.

Having a priest to help with external cooldowns while the tanks are out of their own might help, but the time we downed him we managed without (two trees and a paladin.)

[Izgard]

Do not gem or enchant for defense unless you are below 540, gem/enchant for stamina primarily.

If you have hit problems enchant weapon with 25 hit/ 25 crit

For Red slot use

Stam/Exp if below 6.5% expertise
Stam/Dodge if above 6.5% expertise

Unless you are having issues with threat get the leather working patch for gloves for the +18 Stamina

As others have mentioned

+ armor to cloak
+ stamina to chest
+ stamina to shield

Get Glyph of command instead of battle.
Glyph of shield wall and last stand


If you want you can go to a more defensive spec, spec down into Imp Demo shout, reduces damage from boss significantly. Drop Deep Wounds and Impale, take imp shield wall. Drop Focused rage, you probably cant use all the rage you have currently anyway.

Couple of things u can do is, use minor cooldowns for 2/3 impales, like trinkets, shield block. Time them so if possible they will last for 2 impales, not that you have any trinkets sorry with cooldowns.

Healers should be ready for impales, they have to be ready to land big heals as soon as that impale hits.

GL. You should be able to tank this fine, my pally tanked it with 29k hp unbuffed. And its not a class thing.

[Haur]

Impaler fight is very simple and predictable and people saying that is not just didnt put enough attention ot it. First and foremost important thing is his dmg increase over time, people ignore that (i did also so dont feel bad about yourself), usual strat is to go with 2 tanks taking 3 stack each, i will assume you have pala but if you dont it just requires extra healing. Our setup is pala and me (warrior).
I start and tank, when 5 sec to third impale i use shield block, damage so far is low so no real risk to die, when 5 sec until 4th impale, pala takes over and tanks until 3 stacks on him. He seems to take hits better, tho we have same gear so no cds are used. 5 sec before 7th impale, i taunt (healers know this and are prepared so there is no risk to die on switch). For 7th impale i use shield block, for 8th impale i use last stand, for 9th impale i use shield wall (no risk dying with this), few sec before 10th impale pala boubles me, cleaning my debuffs and taking over. He has never died taking last 3 impales, but we just use ps/gs on second impale and waiting for possible avenger proc for last one. After that he boubles, i tank usualy one more impale, he dies we clean snobolds that are still up and go clean to worms.
All people need is to realize that impales DO hurt and you need cds for it.

[Fledern]

a) Attack power debuff. IMPORTANT. I usually tank this on my warrior (50K hp raidbuffed) and i can still drop pretty low. While tanking on my DK (46K raidbuffed), i died every single time the warrior let his demo shout drop off.

b) Blood draining enchant. Worth its weight in gold. As i said, i can go in with 50K hp 10man buffed but i still get a ton of blood draining procs on Gormok. It's a lifesaver.

c) We taunt off each other at the 27 sec mark. The impales land on an exact timer, it doesnt matter if you pull early (ie with still the last seconds of your impale still ticking - it'll clear off). 27 sec mark allows us to skip any knockdown interrupts on the taunt. We also ALWAYS announce the taunt starting with a 4 sec lead time (as in "Taunting in 4, 3, 2, 1, NOW). This gives healers time to finish off their present cast and be ready for the switch

[Xianth]

Sadly I'm at work so I can't check you armory but a few things that may not have been mentioned already:

- Make sure you have at the bare minimum 36k unbuffed - having the health to not be one shot is what will fuck you time and time again on beasts.

- Chug indestructable pots, you can use one before combat and one during combat but as long as you have one up for gormok you shoudl be ok, it helps mitigate his impale strikes.

- It's not really the bleed that will kill you, it's the impale hits later on couple with a normal hit or bleed tick that could. You need to use you CDs to counter this - the impales are like clockwork every 12 seconds so you need to be super accurate. we use a 2 impale rotation and if i'm tanking first i'll use my shield wall 1 second before the new impale impale if i'm tanking for the 3rd time (gormok @ 4 stacks of enrage), this means it overlaps both and negates a lot of those 30k+ hits. Cooldown use is pretty much the crux of this fight for a warrior.

- Spec into imp demo (if you havn't already), it helps a lot with reducing both impale and melee damage.

- I find the Black knight trinket helps; obviously the stamina gain is nice but as you're switching it's generally proccing for your stint of tanking and that armor helps negate those big spikes from impale further. It won't help with the bleed but the bleed won't kill you if the impale strikes are dealt with properly.

- If things get hairy later on in the fight with gormok (say 4/5 stacks of enrage) you can get a paladin to bop the bleed off you when it's not your turn to tank, ideally though it wants to be used when you're not gonna be tanking gormok anymore to clear the bleeds for the next phase.

- Make sure your healers are aware of the impale mechanic and are suitabley lining up their biggest heals to drop just after impale hits (also the raid healer can help with pre shielding, pre PoMing, pre hotting, etc.).

[gacktt]

You're pretty undergeared and using a dps weapon, he doesn't hit so hard in 10 when you are using the appropriate 232 level gear, or if you overgear it. Use indestructible potions.

[Ezimodnar]

Quick scan of your guild indicates neither of your guild prot paladins have vindication. Might wanna talk to them about that.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Seriously. Prot Paladins without this talent make me want to slap them in the face. Same with Ret paladins who don't take it when there is no Prot Paladin in their raiding guild.

[kolben]

Reading a lot of "you're underegeared" posts. For 10-man? Are you joking????

You don't need to outgear the content before you go do it... this boss was killable in ulduar10 gear without any serious issue.

You're gear is fine for tanking ToC in 10man, elting44.

If you have another Paladin in the raid they can Hand of Protection you after the taunt to clear the impale. If you have a few of them, rotate through them. Prot Paladins proc Ardent defender on this fight which is pretty much auto-live. Try using your cooldowns for the impale that you don't have a hand of protection for.

You're experience with the lesser-geared Prot Paladin that you brought in is the current state of Paladin tanks. I am not interested in baiting a simple game mechanics debate in your post - so I'll just say that it's partly the state of the Protection Paladin spec and partly their differences in attitudes to mitigation, "auto-live" from Ardent Defender doesn't hurt either.

[drae]

Reading a lot of "you're underegeared" posts. For 10-man? Are you joking????

You don't need to outgear the content before you go do it... this boss was killable in ulduar10 gear without any serious issue.

You're gear is fine for tanking ToC in 10man, elting44.

I don't believe 10m HEROIC gormok is tankable in 10m Ulduar gear.

I find the easiest way to do this is with a 2 impale rotation.

You should be able to survive the first round of impales with little more then shield block and maybe an avoidance trinket.

The second round of impales I use last stand and my other (If i only have one on-use trinket equipped I'll use it here) trinket.

Shield wall the third round of impales. If you shieldwall ~1s before the first impale your SW will cover both. Use shield block as well.

Thunderclap and Demoshout add a big margin for error, but contrary to previous posters I do not believe Imp. demoshout to be a requirement.

Indestructible pot is a good idea, however; the damage at the beginning of the fight does not really warrant double potting. I'm pretty sure armor does not effect the damage of impale, tho I could be mistaken; I have not directly tested this myself, I have heard no definitive answer, only "word around the campfire". I would still wear the black heart and a (brewfest?) stam trinket.

It's really very important to be topped up before an impale lands. Make sure your healers understand that you HAVE to be topped.

Personally I prefer a DW build for all my tanking, I have yet to see an encounter where a "Progression" build is worthwhile. Imp. Disciplines is a must imo. As for enchants and gems, and shield mastery vs. Focused rage; I concur with Aggathon.

Personally I use glyph of taunt, shieldwall, and devastate for this encounter, however glyph last stand may benefit you instead of devastate.

Finally this whole "Paladin tank is better for Gormok" crap is just perception.

[Xianth]

I'm pretty sure armor does not effect the damage of impale, tho I could be mistaken; I have not directly tested this myself, I have heard no definitive answer, only "word around the campfire".

The ability of impale application is a physical attack based on 150% of weapon damage and is therefore mitigated by armor. The damage from the stacking bleed dot is not.

But you remind me about one other thing worth mentioning, make sure a healer with the -10% physical damage buff is keeping it up on the tanks if your raid setup allows it.

[Khordam]

I know in normal mode, Gormok can be disarmed. Try that as a way to reduce impale damage towards the end of the fight.
Secondly, I don't think I've ever remembered to do this yet, but does the dwarven Stoneform racial clear those bleeds? That would allow a dwarf to keep going for twice as long if the other tank happens to die (or be undergeared).

[drae]

and the -3% (either BoS or... whatever the one Disc. priests provide)

and thanks for teh info on impale!

[Rafus]

no, dwarf racial doesn't work nor is it possible to disarm him on heroic mode.

[Gid]

Stoneform unfortunatly does not work to clear the bleed , would be lovely ( and alittle unfair since its his primary sorce of damage) if it did.
As for the disarm, once again..unfortunatly in the heroic 10 man version, he cannot be disarmed.

When i tank him on my warrior in heroic 10 i'm using my cd's on the second or third time around the rotation and also being coverd by external cds ( pain suppresion ect)
nothing that hasnt already been mentioned.

Currently having difficulty on the 25 heroic version of the same fight, might have to look into blood draining , no idea why i havnt thought of that yet, thanks aggathon for bringing that to my attention