Dear Dps,

I get it that you have worked so hard to get your gear up and buff your new found gear score up to the highest nominal value you can. I understand that you are a face melting caster that wants to be at the top of your recount in every encounter. I think it’s great that you are an overachiever; this game needs many more of them. But come on, we are in heroic UK, not ICC, not ToC, and not Ulduar. I am not pulling Patchwerk, I am pulling 6 mobs…  I just got all of my T-9 set and wasn’t wasting the money on Epic gems that I will trash when I get my T-10. I know how to tank very well and I am fully aware of threat/ aggro management. I see that caster over there just fine he is pew pewing me as long as he is not touched. I am tabbing through the 5 others and spreading out the threat so you can unleash hell on them. Just do me a favor….. NOT IN THE FIRST 2 SECONDS OF THE PULL!!  Why it is so important to your ego that you have to pull 5k dps in Heroic UK. This run is only going to go as fast as the healer and I pace it anyway.  So sit back and enjoy the ride I will wake you up when we get there.

Do you have Omen? If not you are an idiot… It’s great that you picked the stand still and face roll class of this game and that you can come up with witty things to say like “WTB Aggro for Tank” or “I will just shot with a wand”.  Play with your brain and not you face and keyboard. If you give me time to get good threat and then when I have it, Put your hands on your lap, lean back in your chair and slam your face as hard as you can on that keyboard and roll it side to side until you desk is saturated in drool for all I care. Those recount numbers that are up as high as you inflated ego. The ones you are going to die for. OH-NOOOO!!!! GUESS WHAT!? You just pulled these mobs off me and they are heading straight to you. By the way, you are wearing toilet paper these mobs are going to bend you over like a juvenile in federal prison. Remember those witty comments you made, those are keeping me from taunting those bulls away from you so enjoy. I am going to save the Divine Intervention for the healer because he understands that he rolled a class that has to play with his brain, and if it all hits the fan he is going to save me a long run back here. I got him covered.

Don’t get me wrong I have a lot of friends that play your same class. I just don’t think their dps is as high as yours because they have a very big and basketball shaped head that rolls perfectly across the keyboard. It’s because they know their job and can do it well. They understand that this is a Cooperative excursion into this instance. They have a Team mentality. That mob that the hunter pulled, I know it’s coming right back to me because he is was watching Omen and is misdirecting him as we speak. That mob that left me and was headed to the mage, no worries, she is freezing him in place right now and it will be there for us to deal with when we burn these down. 

What’s that? Oh yeah mobs aren’t supposed to get away from me. That’s right, tanks can’t make mistakes. That would be unacceptable. Almost as unacceptable as your stupid ass not noticing that you are standing in yet another colored, fiery, misty area that spawned right under your feet while your rolling your hollow melon head all over your keyboard and it kills you, right?

Don’t worry, I am not putting you on my ignore list. I hope to see again you soon….

Regards,   

Merkavah – Paladin Tank on Area 52 (US)

Real life and responsibilities have taken up most of my time over the last few months. Working for the “Man”, paying “Uncle Sam” and ducking “Big Brother” is a very busy combination.

I did squeeze in the time to level my Paladin to 80.

I wish I would have leveled a paladin to 80 to begin with. my first toon was a warrior to 70 who I never ran an instance with at all. My second was a rogue, then a hunter and finally a priest to 70. Once I hit 70 with all of them I decided that a priest was what I wanted to go to end game with. When I got to the end game raiding with him i realized that he is a single target healer at best and as far as dps goes, nothing great always ended up middle of the recount meter. Now that I have a paladin I am having an easier time tanking and it is very easy to dps on par with the rest of the raid. This gives me time to work on the guild recruiting and other in game stuff without pulling my hair out and constantly being alt tabbed looking for information on the class and spec.

We moved our guild over to another server that was horde heavy because we didn’t have a very big pool of people to recruit from. Aggramar is about 4:1 with the larger population belonging to Alliance. We have the complete opposite situation on Area-52. I was lucky and had 4 officers come with me but filling the last 5 raid spots is proving to be a challenge. All things considered it is going fairly well.

Needless to say, I plan on putting up many of the posts I have written over my 2 month derailment from the game and this blog. Most of them are gear guides for Retribution and Protection spec that are similar to the posts I have recently published for shadow priests and protection warriors. I also spent the time writing tactic guides for all the Wrath of the Lich King content from 3.2 and 3.3 Heroic ToC, Heroic FoS, PoS, and HoR. As well as raid tactics like an Ulduar Boss guide for the entire zone and a Trial of the Crusader Boss guide. I wrote them to use in my guild as well as have one place to send people who ask instead of 10,000 different resource sites through out the WoW community.

So hopefully if I do have any followers or occational readers, you stick around to check them out and let me know if they are usefull at all.

This is a list of gear to give you some direction for either being a retribution paladin as you main spec, off spec to grind reputation dailies, or to get you ready to do heroics for emblems and raid gear. I haven’t gotten to 80 yet with my paladin but I like to look at Wowhead to get an idea what I need to be working on before I actually get to 80. You can stack and compare stats and spend the last 2 or 3 levels getting ready to do the run for them or just save them up as you are leveling. All of this gear can be obtained without grouping for anything, so if you are an anti-social gamer or if you don’t like to PuG, then here you go…

Head

• Spiked Titansteel Helm – Blacksmithing (Bind on Equip)
• Helm of Command – Blacksmithing (Bind on Equip)

Neck

• Titanium Impact Choker – Jewel Crafting (Bind on Equip)
• Susurrating Shell Necklace – 10 Champion Seals (Alliance) or Choker of Feral Fury – 10 Champion Seals (Horde)
• Choker of the Betrayer – Quest reward from Betrayal – Zul’drak

Shoulder

• Spaulders of the Giant Lords – Sons of Hodir (Revered)
• Polished Spaulders of Valor - 40 Emblems of Heroism (Bind on Account)
• Gold Star Spaulders – Oracles  (Revered)
• Savage Saronite Pauldrons – Blacksmithing (Bind on Equip)

Back

• Cloak of Bloodied Waters – Auction House (Bind on Equip)
• Ice Striker’s Cloak – Leatherworking (Bind on Equip)
• Frostguard Drape – Tailoring (Bind on Equip)
• Cloak of Holy Extermination – Argent Crusade (Honored)

Chest

• Whalebone Carapace – Kalu’ak (Honored)
• Savage Saronite Hauberk – Blacksmithing (Bind on Equip)
• Links of the Terrified Deity – Quest reward from Convocation at Zol’Heb – Zul’drak

Bracers

• Wristbands of the Sentinel Huntress – 40 Emblems of Valor (bind on Equip)
• Cast Iron Shackles – Auction House (Bind on Equip)
• Vengeance Bindings – Blacksmithing (Bind on Equip)
• Savage Saronite Bracers – Blacksmithing (Bind on Equip)

Gloves

• Zeliek’s Gauntlets – Auction House (Bind on Equip)
• Gauntlets of Vigilance – Quest reward from The Reckoning – Storm Peaks
• Savage Saronite Gauntlets – Blacksmithing (Bind on Equip)

Waist

• Belt of the Titans – Blacksmithing (Bind on Equip)
• Girdle of Valorous Defeat – 10 Champion Seals (Alliance) or Clinch of Savage Fury – 10 Champion Seals (Horde)
• Clasp of the Fallen Demi-God – Quesr reward from Gal’Darah Must Pay – Gundrak

Legs

• Legplates of Bloody Reprisal – Wyrmrest Accord (Exalted)
• Savage Saronite Legplates – Blacksmithing (Bind on Equip)

Boots

• Battlelord’s Plate Boots – Blacksmithing (Bind on Equip)
• Death-Inured Sabatons – Knights of the Ebon Blade (Exalted)
• Spiked Titansteel Treads – Blacksmithing (Bind on Equip)
• Iron-Spring Jumpers – Auction House (Bind on Equip)
• Berserker’s Sabatons – Auction House (Bind on Equip)

Rings

• Inscribed Ring of the Kirin Tor – Purchasable – Dalaran
• Inscribed Band of the Kirin Tor - Purchasable – Dalaran
• Ring of the Kirin Tor – Purchasable – Dalaran
• Band of the Kirin Tor – Purchasable – Dalaran
• Titanium Impact Band - Jewel Crafting (Bind on Equip)
• Signet of Bridenbrad – Quest reward from Light Within the Darkness – Icecrown
• Stained-Glass Shard Ring – Auction House (Bind on Equip)
• Signet of Edward the Odd - Auction House (Bind on Equip)

Trinket

• Darkmoon Card: Greatness – Quest reward from Darkmoon Nobels Deck – Darkmoon Faire
• Crusader’s Locket – Quest reward from Defending the Vanguard – Icecrown
• First Mate’s Pocketwatch – Quest reward from The Jig is Up – Howling Fjord
• Goblin Repetition Reducer – 70 Venture Coins
• Fezzik’s Pocketwatch – Quest reward from The Last Line of Defense – Icecrown

Weapon (2H)

• Titansteel Destroyer – Blacksmithing (Bind on Equip)
• Claymore of the Prophet – 25 Champion Seals (Alliance) or Greatsword of the Sin’dorei – 25 Champion Seals (Horde)
• Runeblade of Demonstrable Power - Knights of the Ebon Blade (Revered)
• Bloodied Arcanite Reaper – 65 Emblems of Heroism (Bind on Account)
• Whale-Stick Harpoon – Kalu’ak (Revered)

Libram

• Venture Co. Libram of Retribution – 30 Venture Coins
• Libram of Furious Blows – Quest reward from Get Me Outa Here! (A), Quest reward from Return My Remains (H) – Borean Tundra

This is the first post of two I will be making to get to geared to raid. The next post will be retribution gear from heroics and emblems to get you into raiding to get the good loot.

We recently have been suffering from raid drought in my guild for a few different reasons. Lossing members and officers is normal for a rainding guild. We took a hit this summer and 50% of our raiders never came back after the summer was over so we tried recruiting new ones, we hit the pug circuit and trade chat and picked up a bunch of raiders, just not so many good ones. After my co-lead left I re-assigned officer positions and re-arranged the guild again. For the first time I think I have found the right mix of officers. Each has individual qualities that the guild needs and together they are a great match so I saw no reason we wouldn’t get back to where we were before the summer of 2009.

With all of the re-mixing, our raid schedule was been thinned down to 1 Onyxia, and 2 Ulduar nights per week. All of this down time has me wanting to level another alt to 80 and with the changes coming in 3.3 and then the expansion I figured this would be my last chance to spend time leveling. I rolled a Blood Elf Paladin on the same server as my guild. I have a warrior tank and a disc/shadow Priest but I was always curious about paladins. they are a hybrid class that can tank, heal and dps the best part about them is they do all three rolls very well from what I see. I thought about it for about a month and couldn’t decide between a Warlock, Mage or a Paladin. Finally I decided to level the paladin to 80 with mining and enchanting until I had all the ore I needed to drop mining and max out jewel crafting. When I am done I am going to level the warlock to 60 and park her in the outlands and save the mage for the expansion. I have a 71 Blood Elf hunter I am going to switch to Undead when race changes become available. All that will be left for me to do is get my rogue up to cap then, He is sitting in northrend at 70 at the moment. Not really in a hurry for the rogue to be raid ready because all of the rogues I have raided with have one talent that they use during every encounter – Die Fast. It maybe because I haven’t ever seen one in a raid that knew thier class well enough but he is on the bottom of my list of priorities as of now.

So while I had the time I did some research on the server we are on and found out that over the last 6 months we have lost over 5,000 horde. We are out numbered by Alliance 2.5:1. This was a bitter sweet revilation, I was glad that the reason I couldn’t find raiders wasn’t because my guild had a bad reputation but that there wasnt many raiders to be found period. I am going to give it a bit before I make any major changes. The 10 man content seems to be more fun to do and 10 mans arent hard to put together, Plus most of the people in my guild have family and friends on this server and to be honest I really wouldnt like playing the game as much without them. So for the time being i am going to level and learn a new class so be ready to see some Paladin posts in the near future.

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.

Hit

* 263.00 hit is the cap with 6 points between Shadow Focus and Misery (w/ Draenei in group)
* 289.55 hit is the cap with 6 points between Shadow Focus and Misery
* 314.78 hit before you can go to 5 points between Shadow Focus and Misery
* 341.02 hit before you can go to 4 points between Shadow Focus and Misery
* 367.25 hit before you can go to 3 points between Shadow Focus and Misery
* 393.48 hit before you can go to 2 points between Shadow Focus and Misery
* 419.71 hit before you can go to 1 point between Shadow Focus and Misery
* 445.94 hit before you can go to 0 points between Shadow Focus and Misery

Stat Priority

1. Hit (until cap)
2. Spellpower
3. Crit
4. Haste
5. Spirit
6. Intellect

Percent Values

1% hit = 26.23 hit
1% haste = 32.79 haste
1% crit = 45.91 crit

Psuedo Point Values

* 1 spellpower = 1 PP
* 1 intellect = 0.21 PP
* 1 spirit = 0.21 PP
* 1 spellcrit = 0.71 PP
* 1 spellhaste = 0.65 PP
* 1 spellhit = 1.31 PP

Casting Priority List

1. Shadow Word Pain (only with 5x weaving stack and crit buffs)
2. Vampiric Touch
3. Mind Blast
4. Devouring Plague
5. Shadow Word: Death (only when there is between 1 and 1.5 seconds before the next non-mind flay should be cast)
6. Mind Flay

Spell Coefficients

Devouring Plague- 18.49% (per tick)
Mind Blast- 42.80%
Mind Flay- 25.70% (per tick)
Mind Sear- 71.43%
Shadowfiend- 65.0%
Shadow Word: Death- 42.96%
Shadow Word: Pain- 18.29% (per tick), 110% (overall)
Vampiric Touch- 40.0% (per tick)

Gems

1. Runed Cardinal Ruby
2. Potent Ametrine
3. Purified Dreadstone

Meta

Chaotic Skyflare Diamond

Glyphs

Major Glyphs:

1. Glyph of Shadow
2. Glyph of SWP
3. Glyph of SWD
4. Glyph of Mind Flay

Minor Glyphs:

1. Glyph of Shadowfiend
2. Glyph of Fading
3. Glyph of Levitate

Talent Specs

14/0/57- Get Meditation and Inner Focus in the Disc tree.

Best Enchants (non profession)

Head- Arcanum of Burning Mysteries
Shoulders- Greater Inscription of the Storm
Cloak- Greater Speed
Chest- Powerful Stats
Wrists- Superior Spellpower
Gloves- Exceptional Spellpower
Waist- Eternal Belt Buckle
Legs- Brilliant Spellthread
Feet- Icewalker
2 Hander- Greater Spellpower
Main Hand- Mighty Spellpower

Mana Regen

-Intellect is first priority because both Dispersion and Shadowfiend return mana based on mana pool. It also increases crit chance.
-Spirit is second because it increases spellpower as well as mana regen
-MP5 is third because it does nothing but supply mana regen.

Apprentice Enchanting

Materials:

1 Copper Rod
49  Strange Dusts
1 Lesser Magic Essence

Leveling:

1-2: 01 x Runed Copper Rod

2-50: 48 x Enchant Bracer: Minor Health

Journeyman Enchanting

Materials:

1 Silver Rod
76  Strange Dusts
12 Greater Magic Essences
25 Lesser Astral Essences
9 Simple Woods

Recipes (not trainable):

• Enchant Cloak – Minor Agility – Horde: Kulwia in Stonetalon Mountains. Alliance: Dalria in Ashenvale.

Leveling:

50-90: 40 x Enchant Bracer – Minor Health

90-100: 10 x Enchant Bracer – Minor Stamina

100-101: 01 x Runed Silver Rod

101-110: 09 x Greater Magic Wand

110-135: 25 x Enchant Cloak – Minor Agility

Expert Enchanting

Materials:

1 Golden Rod
100  Soul Dusts
5 Vision Dusts
2 Greater Astral Essences
10 Lesser Mystic Essences
1 Iridescent Pearl

Recipes (not trainable):

• Enchant Bracer – Lesser Stamina – Horde: Kulwia in Stonetalon Mountains. Alliance: Dalria in Ashenvale.

Leveling:

135-155: 20 x Enchant Bracer – Lesser Stamina

155-156: 01 x Runed Golden Rod

156-185: 29 x Enchant Bracer – Lesser Strength

185-195: 10 x Enchant Bracer – Spirit

195-200: 05 x Enchant Bracer – Strength

Artisan Enchanting

Materials:

1 Truesilver Rod
143 Vision Dusts
140 Dream Dusts
2 Greater Mystic Essences
5 Lesser Nether Essences
5 Greater Nether Essences
15 Lesser Eternal Essences
1 Black Pearl
20 Purple Lotus
10 Crystal Vials

Recipes (not trainable):

• Formula: Enchant Shield – Greater Stamina -Horde: Daniel Bartlett in Undercity. Alliance: Mythrin’dir in Darnassus.
• Formula: Enchant Bracer – Greater Stamina – World Drop, Check AH. Cheaper to Level 245-285.

Leveling:

200-204: 04 x Enchant Bracer – Strength

204-205: 01 x Runed Truesilver Rod

205-230: 25 x Enchant Cloak – Greater Defense

230-235: 05 x Enchant Boots – Stamina

235-240: 05 x Enchant Chest – Superior Health

240-245: 05 x Enchant Boots – Lesser Accuracy

245-250: 05 x Enchant Shield – Greater Spirit

250-260: 10 x Lesser Mana Oil

260-265: 05 x Enchant Bracer – Greater Intellect

265-285: 20 x Enchant Shield – Greater Stamina

Master Enchanting

Materials:

1 Arcanite Rod
1 Fel Iron Rod
1 Runed Truesilver Rod
1 Runed Arcante Rod
122 Illusion Dusts
383 Arcane Dusts
8 Greater Eternal Essences
20 Lesser Planar Essences
8 Large Brilliant Shards
5 Large Prismatic Shards
1 Golden Pearl
15 Nighmare Vine
15 Imbued Vials

Recipes (not trainable):

• Formula: Enchant Cloak – Superior Defense – Lorelae Wintersong in Moonglade.
• Formula: Runed Arcanite Rod – Lorelae Wintersong in Moonglade.
• Formula: Enchant Chest – Major Health – Qia in Everlook. Alternative for 285-300 if Small Brilliant Shards are to expensive.
• Formula: Enchant Shield – Major Stamina – Madame Ruby at Shattrath City.
• Formula: Superior Wizard Oil – Madame Ruby at Shattrath City.

Leveling:

285-290: 05 x Enchant Cloak – Superior Defense

290-291: 01 x Runed Arcanite Rod

291-300: 09 x Enchant Cloak – Superior Defense

300-301: 01 x Runed Fel Iron Rod

301-310: 09 x Enchant Bracer – Assault

310-315: 05 x Enchant Bracer – Brawn

315-325: 13 x Enchant Gloves – Assault

325-335: 10 x Enchant Shield – Major Stamina

335-340: 05 x Enchant Shield – Resilience

340-350: 15 x Superior Wizard Oil (Its yellow so you might need to make extra.)

Grand Master Enchanting

Materials:

1 Adamantite Rod
1 Eternium Rod
1 Titanium Rod
6 Arcane Dusts
754 Infinite Dusts
48 Greater Cosmic Essences
6 Greater Planar Essences
10 Crystallized Waters
48 Dream Shards
134 Eternal Earths

Recipes (not trainable):

• Formula: Runed Adamantite Rod – Vodesiin in Hellfire Peninsula.
• Enchant Cloak – Mighty Armor – Vanessa Sellers in Dalaran. Costs: 4 x Dream Shards.
• Enchant Gloves – Armsman - Vanessa Sellers in Dalaran. Costs: 4 x Dream Shards.
• Enchant Boots – Greater Assault – Vanessa Sellers in Dalaran. Costs: 4 x Dream Shards.

Leveling:

I suggest you put the enchants on a Vellum, These enchants will sell on AH due to the fact that most of them are the current end game raiding enchants.

350-351: 01 x Runed Adamantite Rod

351-360: 09 x Enchant Cloak – Speed

360-375: 18 x Enchant Bracers – Striking

375-376: 01 x Runed Eternium Rod

376-380: 06 x Enchant Bracers – Striking

380-385: 05 x Enchant Bracers – Exceptional Intellect

385-395: 10 x Enchant Boots – Icewalker

395-415: 23 x Enchant Cloak – Superior Agility

415-420: 05 x Enchant Boots – Greater Spirit

420-425: 05 x Enchant Shield – Defense

425-426: 01 x Runed Titanium Rod

426-430: 04 x Enchant Shield – Defense

430-435: 05 x Enchant Cloak – Mighty Armor

435-445: 10 x Enchant Gloves – Armsman

445-450: 05 x Enchant Boots – Greater Assault

Someone sent this to me last year and when I was cleaning out my computer last night I found it and laughed my ass off!! So I decided to repost it incase there are people who haven’t seen it yet. I don’t know who to give credit to but it is truely epic. Some of you won’t get this, but that’s okay, some of you will…

US Democracy Server: Patch Day

Version 44.0

President

* Leadership: Will now scale properly to national crises. Intelligence was not being properly applied.

* A bug has been fixed that allowed the President to ignore the effects of debuffs applied by the Legislative classes.

* Drain Treasury: There appears to be a bug that allowed loot to be transferred from the treasury to anyone on the President’s friends list,or in the President’s party. We are investigating.

* Messages to and from the President will now be correctly saved to the chat log.

* Messages originating from the President were being misclassified as originating from The American People.

* A rendering error that frequently caused the President to appear wrapped in the American Flag texture has been addressed.

Vice President

* The Vice President has been correctly reclassified as a pet.

* No longer immune to damage from the Legislative and Judicial classes.

* The Vice President will no longer aggro on friendly targets. This bug was identified with Ranged Attacks and the Head Shot ability.

* Reveal Identity: this debuff will no longer be able to target Covert Operatives.

* Messages to and from the Vice President will now be correctly saved to the chat log.

* A rendering bug was affecting the Vice President’s visibility, making him virtually invisible to the rest of the server. This has been addressed.

Cabinet

* There was a bug in the last release that prevented the Cabinet from disagreeing with the President, which was the cause of a number of serious balance issues. This bug has been addressed, and we will continue to monitor the situation.

Judiciary

* Many concerns have been raised regarding balance issues in the Supreme Court. This system is maintained on a different patch schedule, and will require longer to address.

* A large number of NPCs in the Judiciary were incorrectly flagged “ideological.” We are trying to identify these cases and rectify this situation.

Homeland Security

* Homeland Security Advisory System: We have identified a bug in this system that prevents the threat level from dropping below Elevated (Yellow). The code for Guarded (Blue) and Low (Green)has been commented out. We are testing the fix and hope to have it in by the next patch.

* Torture: This debuff is being removed after a record number of complaints.

* Item: Large Bottle of Water is incorrectly generating threat with TSA Agents when held in inventory. We are looking into the issue.

* Asking questions about Homeland Security was incorrectly

triggering the Chain-Jingoism debuff.

Economy

* Serious on-going issues with server economy are still being addressed. We expect further roll-backs, and appreciate your help identifying and fixing bugs. We can’t make these fixes without your help.

PVP

* Reputation with various factions are being rebalanced. The gradated reputation scale was erroneously being overwritten by the binary For Us/ Against Us flag.

Quests

* The” Desert Storm” quest chain was displaying an erroneous “Mission Accomplished” message near the beginning of the chain.

* The quest chain that begins with “There’s no cake like

Yellow Cake” and terminates  with “W-M-Denied” has been

identified as uncompletable, and has been removed.

Reagents

* Many recipes that currently call for Crude Oil can now be

made with Wind, Solar, Geothermal and Ethanol reagents. We hope to roll out even more sweeping changes in the next patch.

Events

* The “Axis of Evil” event is drawing to a close. Look forward to the “Rebuilding Bridges” event starting in January.

Onyxia’s Lair is in Dustwallow Marsh, outside of Theramore. You should have a flight point to a camp near here from leveling. Inside this catacomb you will find the brood mother herself, Onyxia. After carefully calculating her plans for many years, she entered into a pact with her elder brother, Nefarian to take over for their missing father Deathwing and gain control of the entire flight. To this end, she has begun manipulating many mortals and dragons alike to her own ends and wields considerable political power over many groups.

Raid Build:

Don’t take this fight for a face roll, Buff up and have some fire resistance plans in place for the fight. This is not the best fight for melee dps so take as few as you can and the ones you do bring make sure they understand exactly why this isn’t a melee friendly fight.

• 10 Man: 2 Tanks, 3 Healers, and 5 DPS (as many ranged as possible). Use 3 healers if the group is doing this raid for the first time, this is a survivability fight more than a dps race. Once your raid groups have this fight down to a one shot run drop a healer and down her with 2 heals.

• 25 Man: 3 Tanks, 6 Healers, and 17 DPS (more ranged then melee). The 3rd tank helps a lot for adds in phase 2 but like the 10 man when your raids are downing her in the first few tries drop a tank and a healer and put 2 more dps in to shorten the fight.

Raid Leader’s Assignment Cheat Sheet (Scaled for 10 man fight):

• Main Tank: Tank Onyxia for Phase 1 and Phase 3 towards the back wall, tank whelps in Phase 2. Call for AOE on whelps as needed; if DPS is slow on Lair Guards you may need to hold a 2nd for a brief time.

• Off Tank: Dps Onyxia in Phase 1 and Phase 3 (tank whelps if needed), tank Lair Guards in Phase 2.  Warriors make good OT’s for this fight because of their disarm ability.

• Ranged DPS: DPS Onyxia Phase 1 and Phase 3. Phase 2; AOE initial whelps, switch to Lair Guards when they spawn (every 30 secs), then DPS Onyxia. Help on later whelps as necessary. Stay away from the Blast novas from the Lair Guards.

• Melee DPS: DPS Onyxia Phase 1 and Phase 3. Phase 2; kill guards and whelps as they spawn. Run away on Blast Nova. Warriors and Rogues can help a lot by disarming the Lair Guards.

• Healers: Phase 1: All healers on Main Tank. Watch the pull, a knock back can put the tank out of range. Phase 2: Most healers on guard tank, One on whelp tank and raid. Most raid damage on this fight is avoidable, so if the raid pays attention the healers workload will be low but this is based on your raid’s skill at avoiding deep breath and Blast Novas. On Phase 3 have one heal raid plus Off Tank and best two on Main Tank.

Strategy:

Phase 1:

Tank will pull Onyxia to the back wall of her lair. Onyxia is tauntable, and has a bunch of frontal cone attacks (including a knockback) and a tail sweep in Phase 1, so DPS/healers stay to her sides. At the east and west of her lair is a tunnel with whelp eggs, which will spawn whelps if someone ends up over there (usually tail swiped)…the Off Tank needs to pick them up if that happens. If everyone positions correctly, the only person taking damage will be the MT. At 65% HP, Onyxia will take off and start Phase 2, which is the challenging part of the fight.

Phase 2:

This phase will start when Onyxia is down to 65% and end when she is down to 40%. There are 3 types of targets during this phase.

Whelps: Onyxian Whelps will Spawn at the beginning of Phase 2, on the left and right of the raid out of the tunnels. Have both tanks take a side, round them up when they spawn, then drag to the center for AOE. Watch for any that peel off you and head to a healer. More will spawn, roughly, about every 60 seconds. Whelp tank needs to grab these and group up for AOE. Melee will be tied up with Onyxian Lair Guards. Have ranged switch to AOE’ing whelps when needed.

Lair Guards: Onyxia will summon 2 Onyxian Lair Guards every ~30 seconds from the entrance to the Lair while in Phase 2. They use Cleave, Blast Nova, and Ignite Weapon, all of which are devastating to melee. Blast Nova is an attack that has a 5 second cast time and cannot be interrupted. When you see the cast bar start, move away IMMEDIATLY. Tanks can stay and the healers wont have a problem if they only have to heal the tank through the blast nova. If dps doesn’t move out of the Blast Nova someone will die so make sure the melee and ranged dps are very aware of this attack at all times in Phase 2. Tank them in the center of the room right in front of tunnel where you entered her chamber. So the healers and DPS need to stay away from this when dodging Deep Breaths, You don’t want ranged dps or healers running away from a deep breath and straight into a blast nova. Take down the Lair guards as fast a possible, having 2 Onyxian Lair Guards up for to long is not good, they hit hard enough in tandem to drop the tank quickly. In 25-man, assign a disarm rotation this will significantly limit the melee damage done to the tank. This phase is where 90% of the pugs will fail.

Onyxia: She will fly around, dropping fireballs on random raid members, A Deep Breath will precede this warning, “Onyxia takes in a deep breath…” When you see or hear that warning, STOP whatever you’re doing, and run to the outside walls of the lair not in the cave where the welps are. The deep breath will go in a line from her current location to the wall. If you have dps or healers that cant dodge this then you will fail at this spot most of the time. Ranged should be DPSing her down when not helping kill the whelps and Lair Guards that are up. Once you get her to 40%, you start Phase 3.

Phase 3:

Onyxia lands. Unlike the original version of the fight, Onyxia will no longer wipe aggro between phases, which means that your tank from Phase 1 should be the first person she goes to in Phase 3. Tank her in the same spot you did in phase 1. During this phase she gains an AOE fear, a light raid damage attack, and a few whelps will wander in from time to time. Use can use Fear Ward, Tremor Totems, Berserk or racial abilities for the fears. These are minimal the raid but can be a problem for the tank, when the tank fears into the raid she will breathe and take out raids very quickly. This phase isn’t too hard if the tank and healers are on point and focused, but the transition can be difficult. Typically there are still few adds floating around that need to be killed, healers are out of position, the raid-wide fear, etc. It’s a good idea to save your CD’s for the transition from Phase 2 to Phase 3. Burn her down and loot her corpse.

Loot:

She Drops Enlarged Onyxia Hide Backpack, Ashen Sack of Gems, Until 3.3 she will drop 3 Emblems of Triumph every time in both 10 and 25 man.

She will also drop Head of Onyxia every time, which will begin the quest – A Most Puzzling Circumstance. The rewards aren’t all that bad either. You can pick one of these at the turn in;

Polished Dragonslayer’s Signet

Sparkling Onyxia Tooth Pendant

Purified Onyxia Blood Talisman

The rest of the drops you can look at here for 10 man drops or here for 25 man drops. but the most enticing thing she very rarely drops is the Reins of the Onyxian Drake. it has a very low drop rate at 0.2%.

Achievements:

Many Whelp! Handle It! (10 player) This achievement requires you to cause 50 Onyxian Whelps to hatch within 10 seconds after she takes off for phase 2, and then manage to kill the boss! This will probably be messy in terms of timing and execution

More Dots! (10 player) – This achievement is essentially an Onyxia speed kill, requiring you to defeat the boss in a mere 5 minutes!

Onyxia’s Lair (10 player) - This achievement is awarded for simply defeating Onyxia in either 10 or 25-player difficulty.

She Deep Breaths More (10 player) - Defeat her without anyone in your raid managing to get hit by this Deep Breath and you will be rewarded with this achievement.