I have a guild member in my guild that has his warrior alt on another server that is in one of the types of guilds I most despise in this game. You probably have one on you server and are hopefully not in one. This guild is filled with people who think they are too good to take the time to help their members who are trying to learn the in and outs of a new classes. Here they sit with a maxed out finely tuned warrior and they can’t take the time to help out someone, like my guildie, who wants a warrior too and wants to learn how to be a good one. Maybe they are worried about someone taking their spot or maybe they are bitter because it took them so much time to research the class that they feel they have to make someone else do the same tedious work they did. Maybe they bought their character on eBay and have no idea why it works like it does they were told their rotation and gear and spam buttons they are told to. Which ever one it is, it’s ridiculous. I won’t get onto a soap box about this in this post. I am writing this to help people like the guild member I am talking about not to rant about guild politics.

I have a lot of characters and when I decide to level a new one I always know matter how much of a pain in the ass is level them in the spec I am going to raid with. For the main reason, is it lets me learn the talent tree and see specifically what talents are useful and what talents are not. I did this with my shadow priest and I did this with my warrior tank. One thing I learned from this is that I have the same 9 point I need to get 100% clarifications before I truly feel comfortable with my class.

Talent Spec- When you first hit 80 as a protection warrior you should be puging a lot of 5 man heroics to learn the mechanics you need to learn so you can move on to raiding. By now you have realized that a protection warrior is a harder than most class to tank with. It is not a 6>9>6>9>6>9>6>9 tanking rotation (no offence paladins) you will need to have a very good threat and damage mitigation spec. No matter how you cut it the best point for point spec right now available for new level 80s is 15/3/53. It will give you plenty of threat to keep mobs. When you add right glyphs to this spec you will have plenty of damage mitigation as well. Below is a break down per tree of what to pick up and the Glyphs that will work out the best for now.

Level 80 Warrior (15/3/53)

Arms (15 points)

• Improved Heroic Strike – Rank 3/3
  Reduces the cost of your Heroic Strike ability by 3 rage points.
• Deflection – Rank 5/5
  Increases your Parry chance by 5%.
• Improved Charge – Rank 2/2
  Increases the amount of rage generated by your Charge ability by 10.
• Impale – Rank 2/2
  Increases the critical strike damage bonus of your abilities by 20%.
• Deep Wounds – Rank 3/3
  Your critical strikes cause the opponent to bleed, dealing 48% of your melee weapon’s average damage over 6 sec.

Fury (3 points)

• Armored to the Teeth – Rank 3/3
  Increases your attack power by 3 for every 108 armor value you have.

Protection (53 points)

• Shield Specialization – Rank 5/5
  Increases your chance to block attacks with a shield by 5% and has a 100% chance to generate 5 rage when a block, dodge, or parry occurs.
• Improved Thunder Clap – Rank 3/3
  Reduces the cost of your Thunder Clap ability by 4 rage points and increases the damage by 30% and the slowing effect by an additional 10%.
• Incite – Rank 3/3
  Increases the critical strike chance of your Heroic Strike, Thunder Clap and Cleave abilities by 15%.
• Anticipation – Rank 5/5
  Increases your Dodge chance by 5%.
• Last Stand – Rank 1/1
  When activated, this ability temporarily grants you 30% of your maximum health for 20 sec. After the effect expires, the health is lost.
• Improved Revenge – Rank 2/2
  Increases damage of your Revenge ability by 20% and gives a 50% chance to stun the target for 3 sec.
• Shield Mastery – Rank 2/2
  Increases your block value by 30% and reduces the cooldown of your Shield Block ability by 20 sec.
• Toughness – Rank 5/5
  Increases your armor value from items by 10% and reduces the duration of all movement slowing effects by 30%.
• Improved Disciplines – Rank 2/2
  Reduces the cooldown of your Shield Wall, Retaliation and Recklessness abilities by 60 secs.
• Concussion Blow – Rank 1/1
  Stuns the opponent for 5 sec and deals [0.75 * AP] damage (based on attack power).
• Gag Order – Rank 2/2
  Gives your Shield Bash and Heroic Throw abilities a 100% chance to silence the target for 3 sec and increases the damage of your Shield Slam ability by 10%.
• One-Handed Weapon Specialization – Rank 5/5
  Increases physical damage you deal when a one-handed melee weapon is equipped by 10%.
• Improved Defensive Stance – Rank 2/2
  While in Defensive Stance all spell damage is reduced by 6% and when you Block, Parry or Dodge an attack you have a 100% chance to become Enraged, increasing Physical damage caused by 10% for 12 sec.
• Vigilance – Rank 1/1
  Focus your protective gaze on a group or raid target, reducing their damage taken by 3% and transfers 10% of the threat they cause to you. In addition, each time they are hit by an attack your Taunt cooldown is refreshed. Lasts 30 min. This effect can only be on one target at a time.
• Vitality – Rank 3/3
  Increases your total Strength and Stamina by 6% and your Expertise by 6.
• Warbringer – Rank 1/1
  Your Charge, Intercept and Intervene abilities are now usable while in combat and in any stance. In addition, your Charge, Intercept and Intervene abilities will remove all movement impairing effects.
• Devastate – Rank 1/1
  Sunder the target’s armor causing the Sunder Armor effect. In addition, causes 100% of weapon damage plus 202 for each application of Sunder Armor on the target. The Sunder Armor effect can stack up to 5 times.
• Critical Block – Rank 3/3
  Your successful blocks have a 60% chance to block double the normal amount and increases your chance to critically hit with your Shield Slam ability by an additional 15%.
• Sword and Board – Rank 3/3
  Increases the critical strike chance of your Devastate ability by 15% and when your Devastate or Revenge ability deals damage it has a 30% chance of refreshing the cooldown of your Shield Slam ability and reducing its cost by 100% for 5 sec.
• Damage Shield – Rank 2/2
  Whenever you take damage from or block a melee attack you cause damage equal to 20% of your block value.
• Shockwave – Rank 1/1
  Sends a wave of force in front of the warrior, causing [0.75 * AP] damage (based on attack power) and stunning all enemy targets within 10 yards in a frontal cone for 4 sec.

Glyphs

• Glyph of Devastate (Major Glyph)
  Your Devastate ability now applies two stacks of Sunder Armor.
• Glyph of Blocking (Major Glyph)
  Increases your block value by 10% for 10 sec after using your Shield Slam ability.
• Glyph of Shield Wall (Major Glyph)
  Reduces the cooldown on Shield Wall by 2 min, but Shield Wall now only reduces damage taken by 40%.
• Glyph of Bloodrage (Minor Glyph)
  Reduces the health cost of your Bloodrage ability by 100%.
• Glyph of Thunder Clap (Minor Glyph)
  Increases the radius of your Thunder Clap ability by 2 yards.
• Glyph of Battle (Minor Glyph)
  Increases the duration of your Battle Shout ability by 2 min.

Hit- Hit cap is 263 or 8.00% this is defiantly important but it is not high on the priority list. You don’t ignore this stat but you don’t give up anything as far as defense, stamina, or strength for it either. The amount of times you would miss being 1 or 2 percent away from the hit cap are not going to affect your threat that much when you are just starting out. You have a host of other abilities to use if that would happen. If you are using your rotation correctly then you have built the threat up and should be so far ahead of the dps in the group you would have to do allot more than miss every once in a while to lose a mob.

Crit- This is never a bad thing but it doesn’t play to big of a part considering you will get a 15% base critical strike from all the talents you are specd in and if there shaman in the group you will get 3% from totem of wrath and what ever else you may have as far as buff or pots up. As a tank you will want to do damage but you are more focused on building threat to hold aggro.

Expertise- This will be low at first but will increase over time unlike crit and hit you do need the expertise and when you have some you will see a noticeable difference but it is not crucial for you starting out.

Defense- This is the most the important stat for an 80 level protection tank when you first hit level 80. You get a base of 400 and have to get to 540 to be un-critable which means you need to be at 689. You will need this to do heroics and raids without question. Its ok to have a little more but don’t waste gem slots on it when you are capped. If you have gemmed to get capped then as you gear gets better start replacing those gems with avoidance or stamina gems.

Gear- A lot of you gear that you will need can be obtained from regular 5 mans and heroics. If you were fresh out of questing and still have greens and some blues the regular dungeons will give you good blue upgrades. Go to WoWHead and go to each slot and sort it by item level and piece the set together and formulate a rotation of 5 mans to get what you need. When you are comfortable with what you have after running the regular dungeons for gear try out some of the easier 5 man heroics. I have a pre-raid gear list that is good for beginning raiders, with the exception of the neck slot there are plenty of choices for every budget. There are drop pieces from regular or heroic 5 mans emblem pieces and crafted pieces to pick from. Take a look at it here.

Gems -Stamina (blue), Defense + Stamina (green) or just Defense (yellow) if you’re under 540 Defense or hit if you are under 263 Hit. Expertise + Stamina (purple) or Dodge + Stamina (purple). When you are starting out DO NOT put epic gems into you lower level starting gear. For example; you will pay around 18 gold for a +24 stamina blue gem and about 175 gold for a +30 stamina epic blue gem. The difference in price and stats is not proportion and not fiscally responsible, especially on a piece of gear you will replace on the next run (hopefully). When you are raiding and will be stuck with a piece for a month until you get a drop you are looking for or save up enough emblems for a piece then spend the gold into the epic quality gems. For your meta slot get Eternal Earthsiege Diamond (When you are over defense cap get Austere Earthsiege Diamond, this is a good way to dump defense rating when you are over the cap and free up a gem slot for something else.)

Enchants-

• Head: Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector
• Shoulders: If you need Defense, 20 Defense / 15 Dodge, if not then 30 Stamina.
• Back: If you need Defense, 16 Defense rating, if not then 225 Armor.
• Chest: If you need Defense, 22 Defense rating, if not then 275 Health.
• Bracers: If you need Defense, 12 Defense, if not then 40 Stamina or even Enchant Gloves – Threat.
• Gloves: 240 Armor
• Belt: Eternal Belt Buckle and gem it accordingly
• Legs: Frosthide Leg Armor Note: If you don’t plan to keep the legs long then just Jormungar Leg Armor
• Boots: 15 Stamina + Run speed or 22 Stamina.
• Shield: If you need Defense, 20 Defense rating, if not then 18 Stamina.
• Weapon: Blood Draining or Mongoose. If you don’t plan to keep the weapon long then just get a Titanium Weapon Chain.

Here is a priority list to help you decide which armor you need and when:

Highest priority -<Defense-Stamina-Avoidance-Hit-Critical Strike>- Lowest priority

Rotation- Warriors are a class that is on a priority system so there is no set rotation. We have a list of abilities that we need to keep on cool down as much as possible. Once you have threat on the group.

Single Target Tanking-

Shield Slam > Heroic Strike > Concussion Blow > Revenge > Devastate then keep them on cool down with Heroic Strike and Devastate in between. Remember your Battle Shout, or Commanding Shout, Demoralizing Shout, and Thunder Clap for mitigation of damage. Shock Wave is great if the target is stunable to open you a spot to refresh them.

Multiple Target tanking-

Just check out my post on AOE tanking here.

**Just a note on researching your class online –

This game has a huge community behind it so there are a lot of sources. Having this community to find things out is a double edged sword, if the information is good it will have an underlining consistency from all the sources, if the information contested then you need to use the source that has the deepest roots. By deepest roots, I mean one that has been around a while where they are consistently updating and has the most solid information. The best example of this trend I can give is death knights. There are very few good sites about Death Knights because the class is new so in this case I would go with the information on Elitist Jerks because of their standing in the community and how often they are correct in general. On the other hand there are a ton of sites about druids, warriors and priests. Where there are a lot of sites about a particular class there should be a consistency between all of them. There will always people who trail away from the main stream of thinking when it comes to class examination but for the most part they are all on the same line, just with a few personal tweaks or adjustments.

With that being said, Just keep in mind – Consistency and tons of content are not a measure of correctness. You have to do what works best for you and your play style.

After leveling a Fury/Arms – Undead warrior to 71, I parked him in an inn in Howling Fjord and only logged on to him to max out his Blacksmithing. I leveled and raided with a Shadow/Discipline – undead priest for about a year. Then my guild lost one of our tanks to another guild that wasn’t hit with the summer slump as bad as we were. I rolled a new blood elf paladin because I had only seen paladin or DK tanks in the raids for so long and heard from most of them that warriors were not set up to tank large pulls or do anything that didn’t involve a single target. While leveling the paladin I remembered quickly how much I hate leveling (after 17 levels). Every time I logged on I saw my warrior sitting there at level 71. We needed a tank in short time so I decided to take another look at the resources that are available in the World of Warcraft community for warriors, Tankingtips.com and Tankspot.com to get him tanking raids ASAP. Unfortunately, I quickly came to the realization, like I did with my shadow priest and his dps rotation, that there is no “click – 5,3,5,3,2,2 then rinse and repeat” answer to tanking. It was monitoring a priority system just like my shadow priest.

I don’t think this is the fix all for that but I do know that 99% of the time I AoE tank with this and have no problems. I also do not claim to be an expert on warrior tanking. This works for me and my play style and may not work for others but in some cases it may. So enough background and onto what I have learned since I have been tanking with my warrior.

Paladins do NOT corner the market on AoE tanking….

To start with – you need to have Warbringer and Shock Wave in your talent spec, if not respec add them because they are a must for protection warriors.

You need to also –

• Evaluate who is what in the mob pack. Ask yourself – “Which are the casters classes?” “Which are the melee classes?” ”Does one have an ability that would move them to the top priority on the kill list?” So on and so on.

• Mark the mobs with the raid symbols and let the group know what the kill order is. This is not so much for times when you out gear the rest of you raid or party it’s more for the opposite. When they are dropping uber-dps randomly on the group of mobs you are trying to keep aggroed on you, things will go bad fast. So save yourself the headache and plan it out and let them know what to do. The fact is, as the tank, you are going to be the group leader 99% of the time. If you are the main tank and you need to lead on your terms because you will be setting the pace of the run.

• Know if any pats are going to path by you. There is nothing worse than gathering a group of 3 or 4 up and seeing 3 more strolling your way. Knowing if there are anymore mobs that could get added to the group you are already handling can prevent extra stress you could do without.

• Be aware of any Line of Site issues that you can foresee. I.E. – In Violet Hold, the healer can’t heal you if you are at the top of the steps on the right in front of Moragg if they are at the deck. It is also helpful to know if Line of Site can help you with your pull.

• Be sure that Vigilance is up on the next highest threat producing party or raid member.

Step 1.) Use Charge and Battle Shout at the same time into the group of mobs and hit Thunder Clap on your way in. I do this with the help of a simple macro; you can put Charge and Battle Shout into one button.

This works great to make sure that you never forget to put up Battle Shout on any pull. Many warrior tanks forget to use it on every pull because of the amount of things you have to watch it gets forgotten. I guess you can substitute for Commanding Shout for the same reason too.

After you Charge and Battle Shout in then Thunder Clap, look for any casters that may have not come to you with your initial charge that may be hanging back and casting, use heroic throw on them. If there is more than one caster, Taunt the one you did not hit with Heroic Throw put up Spell Reflection. All of this needs to be done in the first 3 seconds of the pull.

Step 2.) Back up a couple steps so that all mobs are in your frontal arc and drop a Shock Wave. This will gather them up a little tighter so you get all of them in the blast area of Shock Wave because even if they aren’t able to be stunned it will deal some substantial damage to them anyway.

Step 3.) Put a Demoralizing Shout on them while they are stunned cast another Thunder Clap. Demoralizing Shout is for pure damage mitigation and it also adds a bit of threat, but mainly its damage mitigation. It makes it a little easier on your healer since you are taking damage from a pile of mobs.

Step 4.) AFTER or at the SAME TIME that the group comes out of the stun from your Shock Wave, hit the main target with a Shield Slam and Shield Block. I use a macro for this too.

These will cast at the same time and if you have the Glyph of Blocking, even better. If you use the “?” as the icon for this macro then you will see the Shield Slam icon and you will be able to still cast Shield Block even if the Shield Slam is on CD and it will save you another button to click.

Hitting your Shield Block ability accomplishes several things. First, it gives you damage mitigation; +100% chance to block double your normal value. Second, it gives you more threat since you’re blocking everything that doesn’t miss you outright and mobs are taking damage from your Damage Shield talent – and taking more damage since that talent is based on your block value, which you just doubled by hitting your Shield Block. Third, the Shield Slam you throw for the next 20 seconds hit that much harder since they’re also dependent on your block value for their damage. You also want to wait until the Shock Wave stun wears off so that you maximize all three of these effects. It makes no sense to shock wave while you have Shield Block up since you’ll stun the mobs for a decent chunk of the duration of the effect of your Shield Block ability.

Step 5.) Cleave a couple times to spread more threat around if you have the rage for it, preferentially targeting the mob you have marked for first kill.

This is cementing aggro on your kill target with this step. Any single target DPSers in your party are likely close to your threat on the first kill mark, if they’re not AoEing the whole group of mobs. So you focus it first Shield Slam, Revenge, Devastate, and it’s yours. When Sword and Board procs, prioritize your use of Shield Slam over Revenge or Devastate then Revenge over Devastate.

Step 6.) Now that the whole group is agrroed on you, go into your normal rotation of skills using a few Cleave instead of Heroic Strike and substituting a Thunder Clap every 6 seconds for a Devastate, tabbing through the mobs as you go. The Glyph of Devastate is nice to have here as well because it puts 2 sunders on for the price of 1 and twice the threat on return. Pay attention to those casters so you can use Shield Bash to interrupt any casts when your Spell Reflection is on CD. Use Shock Wave and Thunder Clap every time they come off CD.

This is your cleanup phase where you’re just making sure nothing gets loose, keeping an eye out for casters and trying to reflect/interrupt what spells you can, taunting any mobs that make a break for one of your casters or healers as well as helping DPS the mobs and continuing to mitigate as much damage as possible.

This is a solid gear list that will have you geared without the enchants or gems to get you Def and Hit Capped, depending on the combination you use you may need to do some figuring to get yourself to 540 (Raid defense cap) or the 535 (Heroic defense cap). The hit cap for us is 8% (264 HR). This gear list will put you in good enough gear to make it possible to off-tank 10 man Naxxramas, 10 man OS and any Heroic without getting you on the ignore list of every healer on your server.

I had someone in my guild, with his Death Knight, main tank 10 man Naxxramas and I off tanked it. Needless to say I cleaned up on loot and replaced a lot of it and was able to gem and enchant for strength and avoidance instead of hit and def to meet the caps.

In all with the way blizzard has made the fast track for people to catch up gear in 3.2.2, it shouldn’t take more than a few days to get your self geared to be ready to OT or MT most of the 10 man Raids expect H ToCr.

Head:
• Tempered Titansteel Helm – Crafted by a blacksmith.
• Helm of the Crestfallen Challenger – Heroic ToC.
• Conqueror’s Siegebreaker Greathelm – 58 Emblems of Conquest.

Neck:
• Titanium Earthguard Chain – Crafted by a Jewelcrafter.
• Shard of the Crystal Forest – 19 Emblems of Conquest.

Shoulders:
• Crusader’s Square Pauldrons – BoE drop in CoS (reg or heroic).
• Regal Aurous Shoulderplates – Heroic ToC.

Cloak:
• Cloak of Peaceful Resolutions – Honored with Wyrmrest Accord.
• Platinum Mesh Cloak – 25 Emblems of Valor.

Chest:
• Breastplate of the Solemn Council – Revered with Wyrmrest Accord.
• Conqueror’s Siegebreaker Breastplate – 58 Emblems of Conquest.

Wrist:
• Tempered Saronite Bracers – Crafted by a blacksmith.
• Bindings of Dark Will – Heroic CoS.
• Bracers of the Herald – Heroic OK.

Gloves:
• Mercy’s Hold – Regular ToC.
• Gauntlets of the Royal Watch – 28 Emblems of Conquest.

Waist:
• Waistguard of the Risen Knight – BoE drop in H DTK.
• Ancient Aligned Girdle – Heroic AN.
• Shieldwarder Girdle – 28 Emblems of Conquest.
• Indestructible Plate Girdle – Crafted by a blacksmith.

Legs:
• Legguards of Abandoned Fealty – Regular ToC.
• Wyrmguard Legplates – 39 Emblems of Conquest.

Feet:
• Boots of Heartfelt Repentance – Heroic ToC.
• Spiked Deathdealers – Crafted by a blacksmith.

Rings:
• Titanium Earthguard Ring – Crafted by a Jewelcrafter.
• Signet of the Accord – BoE drop in Obsidian Sanctum-10.
• Keystone Great-Ring – Heroic DTK.
• Mark of the Relentless – Heroic ToC.

Trinkets:
• Seal of the Pantheon – Regular HoL.
• The Black Heart – Regular ToC.

Main Hand:
• Red Sword of Courage – Heroic UP.
• Axe of the Sen’jin Protector or Teldrassil Protector – 25 Champion’s Seals.
• Peacekeeper Blade – Heroic ToC.

Shield:
• Titansteel Shield Wall – Crafted by a blacksmith.
• Royal Crest of Lordaeron – Heroic CoS.

Ranged:
• Armor Plated Combat Shotgun – Crafted by an engineer.

I am posting this as I learn so if I make any mistakes or assume something out of sheer noobness then I will go back and correct it. I plan to post a talent spec post and a glyphing post next. After that I will be posting some other thing that may help a new tank out so that you spend more time tanking and less time alt+tabbed out researching what to do next.

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