Off-spec Tanking as a Warrior

So today I buckled. I went prot on my alt. This makes sense for me (all he does is instance grind) but I don’t SUGGEST it for anyone doing quests. It is plenty easy to tank as arms (and I’d assume fury) you just need to understand a FEW things.

First off, and this is a big one, taunt is not an aggro generator. It’s an aggro DUPLICATOR, but it generates no aggro, and is supposed to be used only if you’re not on top of the threat meter. It will duplicate the person who has the highest threat, and then it’s your job to push it up past that. This can be done with any of your abilities, but its best to use high aggro ones such as sunder.

There are two really good uses of taunt. The first is obvious, saving whoever got aggro. Taunt, sunder or shield bash (shield bash costs less than sunder, and does a fair chunk o’ threat, so it’s a good way to just get you some damage so you can get threat so you can really lock the mob down) and go on your merry tanking way. Another use that I like is to taunt a CC’d mob (forcing it to stick to you) break the CC and then proceed on not having to chase a mob half way across an instance because SOME FOOL decided to attack a sheep wildly before it got sheeped.

Oh yes, I hate it when that happens. NOT THAT IT EVER HAS. *cough*

Now, spamming sunder is good and all, especially for trash mobs, but when you’re on a boss, you get your five sunders up, and it still has a fair chunk of health. Darn that boss for being so health-filled! :)

So what do you do? Sunder is ok to reapply (and I did for my first few boss fights) but look at your tool tips. Remember that skill you used to use to deal damage? It was called heroic strike. And it’s your friend again.

I linked the lowest level, and even it “causes a high amount of threat”. Up till level 66, it deals damage, and causes threat. At 66, it gets a bit more damage if you’ve happened to shield slam a mob lately (or get some other daze applied to it) but other than that, its high damage (higher if the mob is dazed) and high threat.

That is TOTAL win for you, Mr. Arms (or Fury) Tank. Heck, its total win for any tank needing to dump rage. But more importantly, it gives you something good to do on boss fights. Couple that with MS or BT (depending on spec) after 5 sunders, and you should be able to keep aggro.

Besides spamming sunder, and the heroic strike/spec special spam on bosses, there isn’t much to tanking as Arms or Fury. It’s a bit more tough (no extra threat, no extra health, no extra damage reduction, no extra armor bonus, no last stand) but its still VERY doable. Until 70 at least ;)

A few tips. If you’re Arms, and have blood frenzy, keep rend up at all times. I know, it’s rend, it sucks, but it gives 4% extra threat. And once you get spell reflect LOVE IT BIG. It’s amazing, and can save you from nasty 2k hits (1st boss in SP you can spell reflect his lightning bolts, saving you 2k health and dealing him 2k damage). Also, couple shield block with Revenge (I didn’t mention revenge did I, use it, it’s 5 rage for nice threat) as a block triggers Revenge and Revenge is good to throw out ;)

I wanted to go really in-depth into this but then I realized there wasn’t much to it. If you bound every key to sunder you could probably slam your head against the keyboard and not do TOO bad. At least if the rest of your group doesn’t suck.

I need to go get myself into an instance now, 5% off from my Crystalblade of the Draenai :)

Alts alts alts!

So I mentioned in my first post that I had a retired 70 hunter. I’m going to bring him out of retirement I think, maybe just for a bit, and PvP with him.

My alt warrior, Gisli, is 65, has tanked the first four outlands instances as Arms, needs a new sword for tanking, and finally gotten the plate gloves off of the first boss in BF. In that same run only myself and a healer from my guild (an epic healer at that) were left alive on the last boss after miscommunications and big shadow bolt nova hits on the last boss. The boss had around 40%-50% life. We killed him.

I created a dwarf hunter on my brother’s server. Going to level him as survival, the only hunter tree I haven’t dabbled enough in.

My rogue can pick 225 boxes. Woot! I could have him sit in Org and offer to open those up for a tip, would probably net him a bit of cash.

My priest is rotting. Oh poor priest. I should play him some day.

I’m hanging up my hunter on Area 52 for the two ally hunters I have. Just can’t seem to get into leveling him as BM. Oh well.

I deleted a level 3 warlock on Area 52, just because I could. Really, I had no reason to, I just did it.

Alts are wonderful. I’ve got a PvP toy, another PvP toy that will probably be a heroics toy, a rogue (everyone needs a rogue! Lock picking ftw) and some others that are just random mess around alts. And they’re a great distraction for when I just don’t feel like standing around Shatt pretending I’m doing something.

I’m going to write up a little bit about tanking as Arms tomorrow at school, or maybe the next day as I really want to go into it a bit, but all this week I plan on having SOMETHING up every day, so there will be at least SOMETHING tomorrow. Let’s hope I can keep that rolling past this week ;)

Zul'Aman

So I like Kara’s design, it’s pretty, it’s interesting, and it’s easy. Terribly, terribly easy. With the exception of Netherspite (get in the damned beams!), Nightbane (why do the skellies always kill the squishies?), and MAYBE Curator (if your gear is lacking and such) than there shouldn’t be that many problems. I’m not saying it’s a walk in the park, but its nowhere near the next 10man.

Zul’Aman. It’s not pretty, it’s still interesting, and it’s much harder. I’m not saying it’s necessarily hard, but the difference between it and Kara is astounding.

I ran ZA for the first time last night. Whoa. That was fun. I’ve not been in a really challenging instance since the last time I had a bad tank in a heroic. And we had two good tanks. It was cool; I actually had to pay attention.

All right, maybe I’m exaggerating about not paying attention, I mean, I have to make up for the other healers not being overly geared. Which is another thing I loved, I was, by far, the worst geared healer, and I was still pumping out good heals per second. I was at roughly 600HPS for most of the instance. The other paladin was around 650-700. The priest started low (500) but after the bear started to shoot up and ended at around 725HPS.

And I picked up a new chest piece (woot for a PvE epic chest, with mad MP5) but more importantly, woot for playing with a group at or above me in gear. I loved it. I want that. That was fun and that was engaging.

What is the reason for today’s post? Well, besides that I need to post something (I’ve been gone for too long! My 4 readers might start to miss me! :)) I wanted to note how matching your gear to what you’re doing and who you’re joining is only going to make you enjoy your time in game more.

If you’re in a guild, and you’ve got the same gear level as them, don’t leave! Work with your guild, which I hope you enjoy, making all of you better, and you’ll have lots of fun doing it. Trust me. Otherwise, you’re probably a greedy raider, so leave, and let all the decent people get their gear :). BUT if you’re looking for a guild, and you’ve left another guild for any reason, and you have pretty good gear, go with your gear level. You’ll make friends wherever you go. Unless you met some amazing player who’s all mighty and powerful and makes you so happy to be graced by their presence, even though their gear sucks, you want to be matched by your gear. It will help you get a bit more enjoyment out of the game.

I really liked going to Kara with my guild. I loved ZA with my friend’s guild.

It’s just that simple if you’re looking for a guild :)