Yakra's Theories on Tanking (Updated 7/28/09)

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Post by Arideni

Interjecting here, swc14737 you must realize that Sunder Armor provides a boon to not only your own damage afterwards, but to your other physical DPS as well. Using any less than 5 is actually less effective!

In terms of actual number of Sunders on a target, it doesn't matter in relation to anything else. What does matter is establishing initial aggro, so that you have plenty of rage to hold it, then actually keeping that aggro until it is no longer needed (e.g. the creature dies).

From a Protection warrior standpoint, you don't need any Sunder Armor to hold a mob. However, that's quite different way of tanking for non-3x Protection warriors attempting to tank (read: DPS specs use a different technique for tanking than Protection).

The above statement about tanking without Sunder Armor is old & outdated. Any Protection warrior currently playing will have numerous applications of Sunder Armor on any given target due to the fact Devastate applies it's own inherent debuff of Sunder Armor now.

Yakra: I would love to really cover a good 5-man etiquette guide, but recent computer problems are preventing me from really having access to a reliable computer of my own. Go ahead & write up some good info!

Some points to include: standardized marking styles (with example macro for warriors to spam /party chat to help standardize this), proper etiquette & behavior concerning invite/kick of party members, afk players (5 min rule & tips on "the silent type" who never talks after joining, cuz he went to eat supper for an hour), bringing appropriate class types for a hassle-free experience, different types of CC & tips on implementing oddball classes (how to bring that rogue/hunter/enhancement/retribution friend without messing up group makeup) & just generally how to get along (no one wants to hear "lolz WuT up daw9, i gotz maaad pyroblazt skillz, hope u kin tank gud LOLZ"). My two copper, =P

Here's an example of a (simplistic) macro ('/p' is shorthand for '/party'):
/p Skull dies first, 'X' dies next & Star is CC (crowd control) -- Kill the unmarked last.
I'm a big fan of the Skull-Cross-Star triple play as you can see above. Originally, the concept went on to elaborate that Square (an ice cube!) is used for Traps & Moon (go to sleep) is for Sap (lights out!). I removed that for simplicity in the example.
Needless to say, couple this with 5-6 keys on your numberpad & you have Arideni's Marking Made Easy™, rofl, as seen on TV!

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Post by Arideni

Yakra: I think you should shorten your macro somehow, or place it on one line. Consider this: 4-5 lines of text come up in the chat buffer. The average DPS player, often using Ventrilo, will probably skip right over & never read all 5 lines, if any. They're more likely to read the whole "message" if it's in one line as opposed to spread out. What do you think of this? Does it matter? I'm interested in your thoughts!

The idea of 1-2-3 targeting is a great, easy to remember way to implement targets. Glad to see you enjoy that methodology as well. The easier the method, the more likely it is to be adopted. Great work on your guide, hopefully we can all enjoy some easier experiences through work such as this for new & upcoming tanks!

Yakra, back in 2.1 there was a little trick. I'm not entirely sure how it worked, or why it did (not accurately, anyway). Anyways, the trick was this: Demo. Shout on a Sapped creature. When the creature breaks Sap, it will run to you instead of the healer. Supposedly it works for sheep, etc. also.

Try that out, see if it still works. I don't have much information on this, it's just a "tip along the way" I learned, but if it still works & we can find some information on why it works, great to put in your guides about CC & tanking.

Post by Theaspire

Ive been a warrior since open beta in 2005/06. I was the OT for the guild Lost Anarchy on Ner'zhul. We were 2nd worldwide to down kel'thuzud before BC came out and 1st worldwide alliance. That being said I have alot of experience with tanking, and through my many years of tanking I have never ever once, but more than 3 points in the protection tree. According to my threat meter (KTM) the best threat generator is sunder armor. The breakdown is like this.

Sunder armor = 15 pts
Devastate = 10 pts
Shield Slam = 25 pts
Heroic strike = 15 pts
Revenge = 10 pts.

Now this was back in the first few months of BC and im just now getting back to playing wow, so the numbers might have changed. But as you can tell sunder is the most rage to threat efficent. since sunder armor is 15 rage and has about a .5 sec cooldown you can spam spam spam spam. Now shield slam is decent, however the 30 rage thing kills it for me. Heroic stike would be amazing threat generator if it wasnt timed by your next swing, I can get off 3 sunder armors by the time 1 heroic strike gets off. so 3x15 = 45 (sunder) vs 1x15= 15 (heroic Strike). Agian in my experience as an end game OT, I have found that nothing beats the sunder/revenge/shield block combo. I never have gotten agro pulled off me, in spite of warlocks doing 8K SB and mages doing 7K fireballs. Things have changed and undoubtly the game mechanics have more than likely changed since I last played. But this was my theory and it always worked for me.

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Post by Arideni

Yakra: Thanks for your thoughts, ) I figure that in PUGs you're often faced with a wall of blue text anyway, so you wouldn't want your message to get lost in that. I think we can safely say that it comes down to more of a preference. Perhaps simply a note of when to use the macro could clear this up; some players would stop reading chat once they're fighting, so it may be relavent to mention that.

Theaspire: I believe all of your information was correct at one point in time or another Theaspire, but there have been SO many changes to date that almost everything you said either doesn't apply or is obsolete.

There is a huge WoW presence online (well, naturally!) & the math has been done time & time again. So, that said, there's really no point in trying to dispute things everyone else already knows. The last thing I wish is to discourage you from posting, especially as my own presence is diminished we need more seasoned, experienced veterans such as yourself to help spread the word. We also need that word to be up-to-date as possible.

Shield Slam, as Yakra covered, totally encompasses Sunder Armor in every way. There are actual values of threat, as tested extensively & able to be tested by anyone else, which are all correct within 1-4 points. It is also improbable that these values are wrong. For example, Devastate itself can never cause less than the same threat as Sunder Armor. Since Devastate, as of very recent changes incorporates Sunder Armor (when <=4), one can easily conclude that Devastate will always deal more total threat than Sunder Armor. This is a known fact & requires no testing, no values or formulas from Blizzard to realize. It's an example of how all information is determined & accepted.

To go further into actual testing, it's simply a matter of using abilities & weapons or armor that have flat values of their own for a starting point. From there, one would simply plug the numbers in & scale them up, etc. This is simplified, but there's no need for algebra here really.

Head over to www.tankspot.com & get up-to-date on mechanics changes if you need to. There's an entire article documenting Devastate since 2.3 & an excellent thread you can search for entitled, "New Initial Threat Rotation?"

Post by ArkwelUS

Thanks alot man, I just respecced my warrior prot and this helps a lot. Seeing as I leveled arms, I didn't know how to tank. I've been practicing at ~level 64-66 dungeons, but still havn't been able to generate enough threat. Thanks to post 2, I have gained constant agro. I had been forgetting about Demo shout and thunderclap, so I wasn't able to double or triple tank. Now I can, thanks dude.

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Post by Cannibal

Excellent manual for new beginners as tanks as well as the tanks who already have knowledge. I have already cleared Karazhan & raiding Zul'aman and with each post and argument I learn/improve my technic thanks for the great collaboration between Yakra & Arideni. Keep up the good work.. /Salute & /Bow

Post by Lightrain

I don't know if I just missed it or what, but I'm tired of reading and need to get to work... LOL! I tried heroic ramps (I'm holy pali) with a warrior that clamed 499 def and 14k armor and showed 12k hp. He was getting crushed harshly by the mobs, and we gave up before even taking the first pat. What are the BASE stats I should be looking for for heroic tank? I ran slabs with a druid showing 17k hp and we never once struggled thru a mob. I want to know what stats are needed to keep a tank from getting crushed for half his hp so I can make sure I don't have another 20g repair bill after too many wipes. Maybe it was the cc we had, but i almost didn't even have to heal that druid except on the bosses and demon/caster mobs.

Thanks for the help!

Post by Arideni

Lightrain: There are several unknown factors that probably have created that highly visible difference between the PUG warrior & the druid tank. One example that comes to mind easily is armor. The warrior could be stacking stamina or defense so highly that his/her armor is insufficient. The warrior could also be (poorly?) geared for "avoidance" causing him to take huge hits when not avoiding; druids typically have high armor due to their inherent multiplier.

Heroic Ramparts is one of the hardest hitting, burst-damage Heroics in the game. Don't be too shocked that some players will take very punishing damage there. It could be the warrior, or it could be your perception of the warrior. If one normally heals players with Tier 4-equivalent gear, then anything other than said gear would present quite a noticeable difference.

You definitely do not need any raiding epics to perform well in Heroic Ramparts. I would say, without any other information, the warrior tank was probably using unbalanced gear, or gear not suited for mitigation (big "no, no" for melee sections of many Heroics).

Post by Lightrain

Yeah, it's not that I didn't want to heal it, or that the war was not good at his job. He was taking hits for 3k or more, and I don't think we had enough cc to handle the remainder of the mobs, so he was taking 2 target dps. I don't claim to be well geared being mostly s1 myself with some enchants and full top heal gems, and working on s3 and heroic armor for the remaining 2 pieces and a trinket(the remaining still being descent heal gear from instance boss drops), but when half the tank's hp drops off while you are casting flash of light, it raises some serious concern... and being that it wasn't caster dps he was taking, which (probably like my paladin when I was prot) is really mean to your hp. Melee dps should be tankable though. Especially for a 4 or 5 mob pull. Isn't that what the tank is for? I saw a mage take 2 hits from one of those guys before...

So, back to my question. When looking for a prot warrior, what stats should he/she have to tank heroics and not get crushed? After that fiasco, I am going to be checking my tanks on armory before letting them procede.