Glyph of Shockwave for AoE tanking?

[Harmacy]

I'm currently at 76 on my warrior (I level slowly), and thinking about my spec for when I hit 80.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#LAM00...x0zidIzsGo:NMd is currently what I'm thinking of. (I have Imp Revenge because I doubt I will ding 80 before 3.3.3 hits)

My question is, is the Shockwave glyph worth it for a fresh 80 tanking heroics? I know it's near useless to a raider, but I feel it would help me with AoE threat much more than the alternatives. Cleaving and Blocking are pretty much no-brainers for my situation, but I dont see much for the third slot - Devastate would help with single-target threat, but I doubt that will be my main concern. Shield Wall is nice but I doubt I would need to pop it very often until I get into raiding (and likely not until ICC at that).

Is the Shockwave glyph worth using? How would it stack up against Vigilance for 5-mans?

(I did read Agg's awesome guide, and while it was very helpful it left this glyph out - I'm wondering if that was an oversight or if it's too bad to merit consideration or something, maybe I'm missing something but it seems pretty good for starting out)

[swelt]

I think it comes down to this: will glyphing shockwave actually let you use shockwave more?

When I run an instance, I find the mobs are all but dead before my shockwave has cooled down, but it's ready for the next pack. I tend to run with groups that massively outgear the instance. As a levelling tank or a fresh 80, you may well find that your groups do take a while to burn through the mobs and that you do get an extra shockwave off from glyphing. What would suck would be if, having just used shockwave on a pack you already had solid agro on, you pulled a next group and found that shockwave was on cooldown.

More often than not, threat is only an issue at the start of a pull. The trick to avoiding problems is to get all the mobs together (probably thunderclapping early), positioning them quickly in your frontal cone and getting 1 solid shockwave. Glyphing shockwave doesn't change that. It just helps you sustain that AOE threat, if those packs are living longer.

[Rithiel]

The snap threat you gain from Shockwave and Thunderclap is still not going to preclude the need to tab+hit the mobs.. that is just part of tanking on a warrior. That said, it's not a terrible choice if you are just running heroics; although I would suggest the Glyph of Sunder for AoE tanking over it.

[Bodasafa]

I actually find the reduced CD on shockwave to be very beneficial in all content. However I run x2 prot specs.

[SixStringsXD]

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#LZGxc...ibIzsGo:dMNm0M

This is what I use as my heroic farming spec - focuses on offensive dps while maintaining survivability for heroics. You don't need last stand or improved disciplines - with having improved battle shout along with cleaving and glyph of cleaving holding aoe threat is simple. You reduce the rage cost of your abilities as well as reducing the cooldown on shockwave. Notice I didn't get vigi or concuss blow - you don't need these for heroics.

Now as soon as you gear up, you can simply switch the spec to a 15/3/53 spec and raid tank. What I am trying to show you is aoe tanking as a warrior is siimple and you can easily do 3.5k+ dps while doing so, but don't go and tank raids with this spec :P

Now go farm heroics to get all your t9 and t9 off-tier items then switch your spec and you are ready to go!

[Güth]

Personally I'd only use the Shockwave glyph if there was some form of non-stop adds in a long fight. At short fight times (5mans) the glyph does little.

If you Shockwave once every 20 seconds (3 times per minute) and think glyphing would help, you can Shockwave once every 17 seconds (3.5 times per minute, but realistically that's still 3 times a minute as you can't have half a Shockwave execution) and unless it's being used on cool down without downtime I don't see a reason to glyph for it.

[jh7468]

I think the most important part of your question is the fact that you are not 80 yet. Like swelt points out, most groups massively outgear the instance, and therefore (as a new lvl 80) will massively outgear you. Holding AoE threat will be your biggest problem when you start. The only reason to use shockwave is to get the whole mob attacking you, and although you may not take advantage of the glyph more than once or twice a run, it's probably worth it until you gear up enough to not have to worry about aggro.

And as Rithiel says, tab+hit will be a part of your life as a tanking warrior, particularly at the start of your new life as lvl 80. The problem with cleave on AoE is that, even if it's glyphed, you still need to tab on most groups because there will either be more than 3 to hit (like some VH mobs) or they won't all be in front of you (HoS is especially irritating). It's also an aggro drainer and if you're not careful, you could blow through your rage quickly.

[Harmacy]

Thanks for the input guys. Do you think that Vigilance would be a superior choice, if Shockwave is of limited use?

And yeah I'm aware that tab-targeting is part of tanking, I have to do it on my Paladin to some extent and am getting used to doing it even more on my warrior. I have to say, I'm liking the mobility of TClap. In most situations it's not as powerful as Consecrate, but it definitely has its shining moments.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#LZGxc...ibIzsGo:dMNm0M

This is what I use as my heroic farming spec - focuses on offensive dps while maintaining survivability for heroics. You don't need last stand or improved disciplines - with having improved battle shout along with cleaving and glyph of cleaving holding aoe threat is simple. You reduce the rage cost of your abilities as well as reducing the cooldown on shockwave. Notice I didn't get vigi or concuss blow - you don't need these for heroics.

Now as soon as you gear up, you can simply switch the spec to a 15/3/53 spec and raid tank. What I am trying to show you is aoe tanking as a warrior is siimple and you can easily do 3.5k+ dps while doing so, but don't go and tank raids with this spec :P

Now go farm heroics to get all your t9 and t9 off-tier items then switch your spec and you are ready to go!

I don't like this spec very much, Imp Cleave is nice but it doesn't affect all your abilities like Impale/Deep Wounds. Add to that the fact that it really doesn't scale, and it seems inferior to me. I also think that Last Stand is absolutely required, even if you don't use it much it makes for a wonderful "oh crap" button and is well worth the points - and Vigilance is a ton of threat, definitely worth the two points.

[jh7468]

The first thing I do is look for a mage, and slap vigilance on. I have the glyph and it's an immense help for threat. After a couple mobs I can see if there is a "showoff" in the group, and switch who vigilance is on. Also, when I get to the boss, aggro isn't as much of a problem so I put it on the healer.

[Reev]

The glyph of vigilance would be a reasonably good glyph to help you against overzealous DPSers, as would Glyph of Devastate. As posters above said, the rhythm of heroics is such that you'll rarely get an opportunity to make use of that 3 second reduced cooldown from the Shockwave Glyph. If you're tab Devastating, as you should be, Glyph of Devastate will help you hold threat better than Glyph of Sunder.

If you end up having trouble holding aggro still with all that, you could get away with dropping Glyph of Blocking and just using BOTH the Vigilance and Devastate Glyphs.

As you said earlier, you're much better off grabbing Deep Wounds, as it is one of the best if not the best optional threat talent we've got. In fact, I seem to recall GC saying the other day that warriors are balanced around the assumption that we take Deep Wounds.

As far as my heroic spec, I do it in the same gear and spec as I do raids, and I only occasionally get rage starved, but still hold aggro just fine. For my set, it's the typical 15/2/53 build with glyphs of Shield Wall, Devastate, and Taunt. With the exception of devastate, none of those glyphs will help you in heroics, though.

[Unger]

You might not like imp cleave, but when you couple that with the glyph of cleave that allows you to cleave an additional target, its fantastic aoe threat.

For heroics, I would take the cleave glyph over shockwave.... if you spec into imp cleave all the better, but its prob not necessary. The key, imo, is to find the mob that your strong dps is focus firing (if they are). If they are AOE'ing, you can prob get away with Tclap and cleave. Moving around a bit will help get other mobs cleaved if you have more than three.

Good luck.