WarTank 101: The Primer

[Loganisis]

Do you have a link to the mechanics? Wowhead and others don't list the hit table. I'm just curious because I don't remember ever seeing it happening.

[Tschus]

I can confirm that shockwave/thunderclap can miss. Happens quite often when I am tanking maloriak adds.

Edit: Here's the result of a test I've just done on a dummy:
Shockwave_test.jpg

[Naka]

I don't have a link, but you can also just check any random WoL log with a warrior tank. Assuming the guy is not hit-capped.

[Kataclyzm]

Hi m8

Wanted to ty for the effort of making this 101 guide....

[Droyed]

Thank you for this great post. This is a fantastic source of information for my warrior tank. I really appreciate your work. I have been building my warrior around your recommendations.

[syrn1k]

Thank you for your work!

Hope to become better tank now

[Contravene]

Oh man this is perfect thank you very much. I read your posts on this forum helping others I want to tank you for your work too. I am sure you appreciated by all of us.

*scribed*

[Loganisis]

Thanks all. I do still plan on updating this and fixing the mistakes that have been pointed out (shockwave missing O_O is possible), it's weird, I sat down and wrote this all in one go, but the idea of editing it... take a lot more energy XD.

[Grancabro]

"So , to recap - you don't need hit or expertise to maintain threat."

But those "caps" on Hit Rating and Expertise are Escencial? Im start to check this on my gear (tanking gear) almost every piece got Expertise; yesterday I loot "Dragon Bone Warhelm" and got Expertise and Mastery, now tell me, is a helmet for DPS then? I start to forge my items whit less expertise and get some mastery. Am I doing right?

Can U check my armory and tell me if Im doing something wrong? http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...ancabro/simple

I take like reference the rotation on maxdps for warrior tanking, sometimes I use something different combination, depend of the Treath I got on the boss.

Is a nice POST, I spend hours try to find something interesthing THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!

[Loganisis]

But those "caps" on Hit Rating and Expertise are Escencial? Im start to check this on my gear (tanking gear) almost every piece got Expertise; yesterday I loot "Dragon Bone Warhelm" and got Expertise and Mastery, now tell me, is a helmet for DPS then? I start to forge my items whit less expertise and get some mastery. Am I doing right?

Can U check my armory and tell me if Im doing something wrong? http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...ancabro/simple

I take like reference the rotation on maxdps for warrior tanking, sometimes I use something different combination, depend of the Treath I got on the boss.

Is a nice POST, I spend hours try to find something interesthing THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!

Exp/Mastery is actually gear I would call DPS gear before I would call it tank gear. However, if it does have huge amounts of mastery, it can be a suitable tanking piece. Because Mastery is universally useful, there is more overlap than there has ever been in gear for plate wearers. Dragon Bone has a huge amount of mastery, so no issue with using it as a tank helm and refeorging he exp into dodge or parry.

But Hit/Exp is NOT essential for tanking. Outside of very limited case for starting hardmodes it's really sub-optimal to gear for hit/exp.

I don't mind offering suggestions, but I'd prefer you created a new post in the HALP section so this can stay clean, more for questions/discussions on why things are the way they are.

***

I purposely am not very detailed about threat because I know I don't understand the rotation as well as some (see Wartotem's spreadsheet for a far better discussion on threat) but this is more of a guidleline. If you use a different priority system - which fights and why?

[HellRaver]

What about 5 mans vs dps that outgear the tank? Wont hit/exp be more usefull in that situation?

[Tengenstein]

What about 5 mans vs dps that outgear the tank? Wont hit/exp be more usefull in that situation?

If the tank doesn't outgear the instance then he still shouldn't be going for threat over survivability. Once he does out gear it then yeah sure go for threat stats. the only time i'd advocate a tank going for threat stats are either when they're doing trivial content, or if their raid is struggling to beat enrages

DPS that outgear the tank should know how to manage their threat. No one cares that an arms warrior is pulling 36K on Venoxis. It's Venoxis.

[kopcap]

All weapons are long normalized, outgearing a warrior tank is myth. The less gear you have, the more rage you produce, the easier it is to maintain threat. Your gear in 5 man dictates how fast you can move across the dungeon, not much else.

ps And an arms warrior who pulls 36k on Venoxis does not need a tank in the first place, so it does not even matter.

[Babum]

Any reason this topic isn't sticked, or immortalised in the library?

Love this primer, thanks Log

*Edited to fix iphone autocorrect*

[Loganisis]

Any reason this topic isn't sticked, or immortalised in the library?

Love this primer, thanks Log

*Edited to fix iphone autocorrect*

Probably because it still has a few too many errors I need to fix/clarify first XD

[Sebadoh]

Hey, I have a quick question.

Does Vigilance's taunt refresh mechanic proc off of spells too? Or is it just melee (or ranged) physical attacks?

Also, which Horde race has the coolest attack and avoidance animations? The warrior I'm leveling is a female tauren, and while having udders is amusing and all, the animations are a bit lacking. Also, War Stomp is lame.

[Tengenstein]

Vigilance refeshes of pretty much any direct damage ability.

I personally favour Goblin females. They're just so cute when they're angry.

[Tsy]

Going to the next level: CDs, Positioning, and Incoming Damage

First, the unhittable 'soft cap'. The unhittable soft cap is 72.4%.... This means that in order to guaranteed that the boss misses or you dodge/parry/block every attack, you need dodge + Parry + block = 97.4 [counting Shield Block] with the base 5% miss chance of a boss making it an uneven 102.4%.

First I just want to ask if this is still accurate information? I only recently leveled my warrior to max level and now that I'm starting to get some introductory gear I was looking for some benchmarks.

Also, just a couple of questions specific to my newbish tank, if this is the wrong forum, I apologize.

My toon is here: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...ptard/advanced

Some caveats: I understand from your post that because of Vengeance, hit and expertise are much less important, because when you hit, you will HULKSMASH, which makes up for your misses. However, I still find, especially at the start of an encounter, I have some serious TPS issues especially if I miss a Shield Slam or get dodged/parried.

Would it be beneficial then to maybe stack hit to the 8% cap for specials, and get *some* Expertise, assuming you have reached the "unhittable" soft cap? When Vengeance is stacked to max it may be unnecessary, but it takes several GCDs for that to happen, and it takes even more GCDs if the mob turns and stars bearing down on the Arcane Mage who just crit for 45k.

Also, and lastly, I didn't have the mats for Windwalker or Landslide enchant, as sexy as it is, and mending just seems rather useless. Is Blade Ward still a decent enchant? It seemed way more beneficial than using a Weapon Chain.

[kopcap]

Short answer - no. In 99% cases hit and exp is the lazy way to fix your threat, making you look better and shifting the burden to the healers. Fixing rotation is the right one.

Maelstroms for windwalk is a couple hours worth of farming for any tank who can do trolls dungeons.

[klausi]

Exp vs Hit:
It's a one roll system, just rolling w100 and have a look:

1-8 miss (8%)
9-22 parry (14%)
23-28 dodge (6%, actually it's 6.5% but i want to keep it simple)
29-38 crit (10%)
39-100 hit (62%)

If you up expertise to the softcap it looks like that:

1-8 miss (8%)
9-16 parry (8%, actually it's 7.5% but i want to keep it simple)
17-26 crit (10%)
27-100 hit (74%)

If you up hit to the softcap it looks like that:

0-14 parry (14%)
15-20 dodge (6%)
21-30 crit (10%)
31-100 hit (70%)

You're spending 120 rating on 1% hit and 30 rating on 1 expertise.

8% hit = 960 hit rating
26 expertise = 780 expertise rating

If you up hit instead of expertise before the softcap you're spending more rating on getting less in return, expertise is twice as good until 780 item rating*. So if you want to up threat you're almost always better off upping expertise. Only exception: you need your thunderclap/icy touch/whatever to hit for a certain mechanic. But notice: taunt can't miss any longer.

* math is rather simple:
780 hit rating = 6.5% hit while 780 expertise rating = reducing both dodge and parry by 6.5%.

---
Everyone has some serious tps issues if their inital attacks miss, upping your offensive stats for heroic dungeons can help on this. For raids it's rather simple: if any DPS tend to draw aggro two seconds into the fight have them count to five before hitting any button.. that should solve all aggro problems if you play it down correctly (with 0 hit/expertise).