Warrior Tanking Questions (Problems?)

[Zulrann]

I just joined a new hardcore progression guild, so I thought it'd be best if I make sure I'm tanking correctly.


Single Target: Conc Blow > Shield Slam > Revenge > Devastate > Heroic Strike (70+ rage dump)
Multi Target: Rend + Thunderclap > Shockwave > Thunderclap > Devastate while tabbing > Cleave (70+ rage dump)


I hold pretty decent threat, maxing about 10-12k~ TPS. I haven't had any aggro issues yet, so I'm not too concerned with that. My main reason for posting is that my raid leader seemed to say that I was pulling "too low DPS" on fights (Heroic Morchok, for example). I was averaging anywhere from 8k to 11k, and didn't have any issues. He (MT, Protection Paladin) was anywhere from 11k-14k.


I suppose the main question I want to ask is whether or not what I'm pulling DPS wise really important. I can't imagine me doing 2-3k less than him is going to make or break anything, and if I'm holding aggro against him and other raid members fine, what's the matter?


Thanks ahead of time for any responses, and feel free to give me any suggestions/criticism on my gear, spec, or rotation.

[klausi]

Do you heroic strike on cooldown? Has Inner Rage a 50% uptime? Your other tank got your vigilance? If your answer is three times yes and you hit your buttons as "hard" as possible there's not much more you can do, a log might help.

Every 1k dps you contribute more to your raid that's 1k less your dps has to bring. Aggro is not an issue with 500% buff, it's your raid's dps that needs a bump. Both of your numbers sound rather low but there isn't anyone ranked much higher on the blocktank side just yet.

[Libellus]

Every 1k dps you contribute more to your raid that's 1k less your dps has to bring. Aggro is not an issue with 500% buff, it's your raid's dps that needs a bump. Both of your numbers sound rather low but there isn't anyone ranked much higher on the blocktank side just yet.

I'm all for tanks going the extra mile and contributing "additional" dps to the raid, but the tank shouldn't be put in a position to make up for a shortfall in the DPS. If the dps is underperforming then it is underperforming and looking to the tanks to pull an extra 1 or2k out of their asses is a) unreasonable and b) probably not going to make that much difference.

There are a few fights, Alysrazor being the most notable, where the onus is on the tanks to do all the dps they can and more, but for the most part we're damage and threat sponges. Any damage we do is a bonus.

[Rowdy]

Tanks do have an obligation to do decent DPS, especially on tight (soft) enrage timers and it can actually help out a lot. Especially if you have two tanks, each doing 3-4k more DPS is huge. And Warriors should be comfortably ahead of Paladins in terms of DPS.

By the way, why shouldn´t you try to maximize your performance on any fight? Thats the spirit that you need anyway.

@Zulrann

A log would really help to find the holes in your play

The priority list looks fine except that you shoudl use Shockwave if you have the buff for it stacked two times. I personally liked dropping Revenge completely (the talent points, too) as soon as I got my 391 weapon. I am not up-to-date, but I think its still viable, although the difference in DPS is not that big of a deal and it heavily depends on the fight at hand. If you have a lot of rage, using Revenge isn´t that good, forexample.

[Tengenstein]

No one is going to argue that DPS should be maximising their DPS without dying, the question is why shouldn't tanks be doing that aswell? and i can't think of a good reason not to, now granted the not dying bit is a little more involved for a tank than for a DPS, but that said and done, once you're already doing everything to maximise survival, what's bad about trying to maximise DPS afterwards? the boss dying faster?


@the OP

No your rotatoin is flumoxed

single target priority is a bit more complicated than "X>Y" briefly it's:

0. Maintain tanking (De)buffs/interupts
1. shield slam
2. Maintain Rend
3. Shorten the CD of shield Slam
4. Put up rend
5. Trucks
6. Dump excess rage


and a more in depth explanation:

0. is basically making sure Demo shout and TC are up at all times on your targets, and that your buffing yourself with shield Block when you have aggro and Recklessness when you need to, or brerserker rage when your not rage capped to pull out more DPS or to break a fear

1. Keep shield slam on CD

2. As long as the target isn't going to die in the 14 seconds you want to keep a rend thats already on you target rolling, you do this by using Thunderclap when rend has < 3seconds left, this will safe clip your rend meaning you don't lose any ticks. If Rend isn't presently on the target this isn't the time to put it up.

3. Shortening the CD of shield slam is good as it means more shield slams, you do this by fishing of SnB procs with Revenge or Devastate if shield slam has more would still be on CD after the GCD of the rev/dev. IF SS only has 1.5 seconds left on its CD any SnB procs can't reduce the CD so all your doing is making it free, there's little point fishing for proc in the third GCD after a shield slam. As to wether to use Revenge or Devastate. Devastate has a higher Damage Per Execute due to the large amounts of +crit chance support it gets from Glyphs and Talents, Revenge on the other hand is only a third of the rage cost, and with the 2pc T13 has a defensive component. so if you don't have rage issues (i.e IR up and HS is being used on CD) and you don't have the 2pc (or if you do and you're in no danager of dying) use devastate. if any of the above are not true (your not fighting the rage cap and your 2pc is gonna save you from death) use Revenge.

4. Put rend up if its not already up. Idealy this is a once per encounter action but, with things like having to be out of melee range for large periods of time, or not being hit capped because your gearing properly sometimes it will fall off. If Rend isn't on the target, and your at the 3rd gcd after a shield slam now is the time to put rend (back) up

5. right so rends Ticking Shield slam will be off CD next GCD, so you can;'t shorten its CD, NOW is the time to bring out the your Trucks. Concusion Blow and Shockwave both hit decently hard on single target. Shockwave has a higher Damage per Execute as it can't be dodged or parried, but CB has an innate double threat modifier that stack with the threat modifier for def stance for a massive 10x the damage done. So for maximal DPS you prioritise Shockwave but for max TPS you prioritise Concussion Blow

6. Dumping Rage. this is done with heroic strike, and you can start doing it at above 50 rage though really giving a single point threshold isn't really much of a guideline .if you're above 50 rage for more than a GCD hit heroic strike, if you 're already doing that and are approaching the rage cap hit inner rage too

On AOE your priority is correct, except that where you "devastate whilst tabbing" you should be doing the single target rotation whilst tabbing, so SS and CB should be in there too as you tab round, not just devastate.

[Zulrann]

Before the amass of quotes, how much is my DPS going to be suffering (compared to the paladin) in the fact that I can't do much of anything if I'm not actively tanking? Unlike a Paladin, I start from empty and work to full, and being hit/blocking is over half my rage gains in itself. I can't do anywhere near my optimal rotation if I can't generate the necessary rage. There's also the possibly of him being able to use Avenger's Wrath on cooldown, whereas Recklessness is hardly comparable, and usually detrimental, seeing as it increases damage taken by 20%.

Do you heroic strike on cooldown? Has Inner Rage a 50% uptime? Your other tank got your vigilance? If your answer is three times yes and you hit your buttons as "hard" as possible there's not much more you can do, a log might help.

Every 1k dps you contribute more to your raid that's 1k less your dps has to bring. Aggro is not an issue with 500% buff, it's your raid's dps that needs a bump. Both of your numbers sound rather low but there isn't anyone ranked much higher on the blocktank side just yet.

I heroic strike on 60+ rage, not cooldown. I don't think I've ever touched Inner Rage, but I've already thought of that, and will be trying that out on today's raid. I also macro'd Shield Block into Shield Slam, so that should increase uptime dramatically. And yes, my raid's OT or MT always has my Vigilance.

I'm all for tanks going the extra mile and contributing "additional" dps to the raid, but the tank shouldn't be put in a position to make up for a shortfall in the DPS. If the dps is underperforming then it is underperforming and looking to the tanks to pull an extra 1 or2k out of their asses is a) unreasonable and b) probably not going to make that much difference.

There are a few fights, Alysrazor being the most notable, where the onus is on the tanks to do all the dps they can and more, but for the most part we're damage and threat sponges. Any damage we do is a bonus.

Well I understand what you're saying, but more DPS is more DPS.

Tanks do have an obligation to do decent DPS, especially on tight (soft) enrage timers and it can actually help out a lot. Especially if you have two tanks, each doing 3-4k more DPS is huge. And Warriors should be comfortably ahead of Paladins in terms of DPS.

By the way, why shouldn´t you try to maximize your performance on any fight? Thats the spirit that you need anyway.

@Zulrann

A log would really help to find the holes in your play

The priority list looks fine except that you shoudl use Shockwave if you have the buff for it stacked two times. I personally liked dropping Revenge completely (the talent points, too) as soon as I got my 391 weapon. I am not up-to-date, but I think its still viable, although the difference in DPS is not that big of a deal and it heavily depends on the fight at hand. If you have a lot of rage, using Revenge isn´t that good, forexample.

I'll drop a log tonight after my raid. I've never been much for WoL, and it seems I didn't rank, so I can't use that. Are you referring to something such as a Combat Log from WoW? I can do that later, as aforementioned. I'll play around with that talent build suggestion, though.

Stuff that's far too long for me to keep in an already long multiquote.

I've already been looking into a rotation such as you've already explained, which I found on WoW's official forums. I'm going to be trying that out tonight for sure.

[Dreador]

I don't get as good results from that rotation as I do from this one

[Rowdy]

whereas Recklessness is hardly comparable, and usually detrimental, seeing as it increases damage taken by 20%.

Use it when incoming damage is stable and use it together with SB or Last Stand + Regeneration. A lot of fights allow it, even heroic modes

[Zulrann]

Use it when incoming damage is stable and use it together with SB or Last Stand + Regeneration. A lot of fights allow it, even heroic modes

Perhaps. I'll try it out now and then on fights.

[Zulrann]

For WoL, is this the type of information people were asking for?

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/l...ses&boss=55265

[Tengenstein]

the one on the offical forums is out of date, since the Rend refresh off TC now needs TC to connect (prior to 4.3 it didn't) putting rend up outside of the 3rd GCD after SS is a DPS loss as is Clipping rend (as the guide suggests).

[Zulrann]

the one on the offical forums is out of date, since the Rend refresh off TC now needs TC to connect (prior to 4.3 it didn't) putting rend up outside of the 3rd GCD after SS is a DPS loss as is Clipping rend (as the guide suggests).

I'll use your priority posted as a starting point for finding what's optimal, then. Thanks for the info.

EDIT: Also, is "Trucks" just shorthand for Thunderstruck?

[Tengenstein]

No. it's short hand for "things that hit like a frikking truck" I.e shockwave and concusion blow, its from back in wrath when due to them being much much higher TPE than the others. THunderstruck isn't a talent I rate very much, not becuase its a bad talent, but becuase unless your absolutely swimming in rage its hard to utilise as well as Imp.revenge. What's the best rotation is very very dependant on your incoming rage, at low rages where you aren't able to HS on CD it best to forget about rend all together which makes TS basically worth 6% more damage to TC and 10% SW damage 2 out of 3 shockwaves, assuming the other tank isn't putting up the debuff(if he is you don't need to and TS is a pure AoE talent), which isn't very good, this is especially true on taunt swap encounters where you have trouble maintaining enough rage to maintaining a basic fish fish truck rotation.


Confused?

at low rage you want Imp.rev and a basic SS>re/dev>rev/dec>truck rotation if you reach the point where you can't dump rage fast enough you switch up to SS>dev>dev>truck, if you still can't dump fast enough you move up to SS> Rend>fish>truck.

so at high rage scenarios you don't need imp.rev, and at low rage you don't need TS, you copuld pull points out of cruelty or Deep wounds, but both are kinda erg place to take it from.

[Zulrann]

No. it's short hand for "things that hit like a frikking truck" I.e shockwave and concusion blow, its from back in wrath when due to them being much much higher TPE than the others. THunderstruck isn't a talent I rate very much, not becuase its a bad talent, but becuase unless your absolutely swimming in rage its hard to utilise as well as Imp.revenge. What's the best rotation is very very dependant on your incoming rage, at low rages where you aren't able to HS on CD it best to forget about rend all together which makes TS basically worth 6% more damage to TC and 10% SW damage 2 out of 3 shockwaves, assuming the other tank isn't putting up the debuff(if he is you don't need to and TS is a pure AoE talent), which isn't very good, this is especially true on taunt swap encounters where you have trouble maintaining enough rage to maintaining a basic fish fish truck rotation.


Confused?

at low rage you want Imp.rev and a basic SS>re/dev>rev/dec>truck rotation if you reach the point where you can't dump rage fast enough you switch up to SS>dev>dev>truck, if you still can't dump fast enough you move up to SS> Rend>fish>truck.

so at high rage scenarios you don't need imp.rev, and at low rage you don't need TS, you copuld pull points out of cruelty or Deep wounds, but both are kinda erg place to take it from.

Ah, I see. Thanks for the information.

And as far as an update goes, my DPS has definitely increased so far. I've tried with my old rotation, and yours (which is hardly perfect, hard to break habits) and yours seems to pull about 500~ DPS more so far, and as aforementioned, isn't being pulled off perfectly. I definitely think macroing Shield Block + Shield Slam together was a very good plan, too.

[Tengenstein]

I'm definitely not a fan of of macroing SB to SS, there's just too many taunt swap encounters for it to be effective, I mean the last thing you want is the other tank to taunt off, you pop Shield Block and sit there with 25% (crit) block chance whilst the other tanks gets wailed on, and then taunt back and have SB on CD for nearly the entire time you're being beaten on. for Morchokk HC its fine, as you get wailed on 100% of the time you're in range to shield slam, and it certainly makes things easier on those fights, but manual controls of SB is going to save your ass.

[Zulrann]

I'm definitely not a fan of of macroing SB to SS, there's just too many taunt swap encounters for it to be effective, I mean the last thing you want is the other tank to taunt off, you pop Shield Block and sit there with 25% (crit) block chance whilst the other tanks gets wailed on, and then taunt back and have SB on CD for nearly the entire time you're being beaten on. for Morchokk HC its fine, as you get wailed on 100% of the time you're in range to shield slam, and it certainly makes things easier on those fights, but manual controls of SB is going to save your ass.

I'll agree that both ways have their pros and cons, but I'm usually forget and Shield Block. Hell, I'm willing to bet the main reason for my DPS bump tonight was because of this macro.

[Tengenstein]

There are several addonsyou can use to set little reminders that something is off CD that you should be using, I personally use power auras classic for pretty much everything, Demo shout equivalent not up, bang huge warning at the top, Shield block available:warning to the right side of my screen, Inner rage available and and i'm about to cap out on rage Icon comes up to the left. commanding/battle shout or equivalent buffs missing i get warning for that too.

[Zulrann]

There are several addonsyou can use to set little reminders that something is off CD that you should be using, I personally use power auras classic for pretty much everything, Demo shout equivalent not up, bang huge warning at the top, Shield block available:warning to the right side of my screen, Inner rage available and and i'm about to cap out on rage Icon comes up to the left. commanding/battle shout or equivalent buffs missing i get warning for that too.

I use Power Auras for my OS, but I've been lazy to get it configured decently for Prot.

[Libellus]

Tanks do have an obligation to do decent DPS, especially on tight (soft) enrage timers and it can actually help out a lot. Especially if you have two tanks, each doing 3-4k more DPS is huge. And Warriors should be comfortably ahead of Paladins in terms of DPS.

I don't believe we have an obligation at all. We have our core role and performing excellently in that benefits the raid in so many other ways (in terms of mana efficency and dps output). You can still, as a tank, deliver on holding threat and soaking damage while playing in an "acceptable" way, but improving on that core role generates benefits across the raid. That is where our obligation lies.

Our DPS is a bonus. Good tanks will always strive to do more and the raid should be grateful for that, it shouldn't be an expectation.

By the way, why shouldn´t you try to maximize your performance on any fight? Thats the spirit that you need anyway.

I agree that a good player should and will be trying to maximise their performance in every fight, regardless of their role. I have no issue with that principle.

My issue is that in the case, the raid leader seems to looking to the tank to make up a shortfall in the DPS, rather than looking at the DPS instead. If there is a DPS problem in a fight, it is the fault of the DPS. Period. If the DPS are not at fault, then the tanks extra DPS is a bonus. It is a nice to have.

[Tengenstein]

I don't think Zulrann's RL is trying to do that at all, he's got 2 tanks ones pulling 11-14k and one pulling 8-11k and saying why is there such a big gap between their performance? are warrior's really 20% behind paladins? and the answer is no there not, yeah we're showing a little behind on the dps but not that much.


IF it detracts from our "core obligations" as you put it then yeah its silly, but our "core obligations" aren't very challenging; Gear right, keep TC & Demo up, hold aggro, move the boss occaissionally,Press CDs appropriately. I can do that no sweat, i can also do my rotation nigh flawlessley. you're not gonna be sacraficing you core obligations, but really you don't need to to pull good dps.

As to whether it should be expected of tanks to pull good DPS, on tight enrage encounters its always mattered, there where fights in ulduar that you didn't take a warrior tank becuase of their low DPS at the time. Now if I'm DPS is falling behind slightly then yes first port of call is get the DPS to pull their fingers out, sort their specs, their rotation wheterver sure, but i can't as an RL say hey there a tank here who could be pulling 3k more DPS if he sorted hi rotation too, lets not get that to happen. Point is its the Raid DPS that matters, that all my raid are playing at their best. 3k more DPS on a 5minute fight is 900k damage. the boss is dying 5-10 seconds earlier in 10 man, if that's the difference between beating an enrage and not, why not do it?

As a Tank I am trying to maximise raid DPS, I don't kite the boss all over the encounter, I don't spin him round in a circle switching directions at random, i try to keep movement to a minimum and make sure the melee can stay behind them without being in fire, and the ranged/healers never have to move at all. why? becuase it increases raid DPS. what's wrong with learning to press the buttons in the right orfer to also increase raid DPS?

A good tank will strive to do more? isn't that exactly what Zulrann is aiming to do in this thread? as to it being an expectation, well as a raid leader i'm going to look and see well i could take Tank A, Tank B, or Tank C, A and B both pull 14k, C only pulls 11k, otherwise they're all knowledgable on the encounter mechanics, none are squishy, the only difference is that that my raid dps will be 3k lower if I take Tank C. No raid leader's gonna choose to gimp their raid. It's an expectation becuase it can be done with only minimal effort and zero trade off on our other skills. its like they where handing out free cars and you could either choose to get free cars with or without a gold bar on the back seat. why would you choose to not get the gold bar?