Victory!

June 11, 2008 on 2:57 pm | In alts |

I know, where the H.E. double hockey sticks have I been, right?

See this? See it? That’s what I’ve been doing. Finally got the Squeaker to 70! /cheer

I immediately spec’d her prot to scope out the stats and what not.

The armory is down, but here’s what she’s got so far gear wise:

Head: Felsteel Helm
Neck: Natasha’s Battle Chain
Shoulders: Warchief’s Mantle
Back: Bogstrok’s Scale Cloak
Chest: Breastplate of the Warbringer
Wrist: Sha’tari Wrought Armguards

Gloves: Felsteel Gloves
Legs: Felsteel Leggings
Waist: Fearless Girdle
Boots: Flesh Beast’s Metal Greeves
Ring1: Delicate Eternium Ring
Ring2: Iron Band of the Unbreakable
Trinket1: Charm of Alacrity
Trinket2: Force of Will

Mainhand: Crystalline Kopesh
Shield: Platinum Shield of the Valorous
Gun: Gyro-Balanced Khorium Destroyer

All Blue sockets are Solid Star of Elune, all Reds are Regal Nightseye, and all Yellows are Enduring Talasite. The only thing enchanted right now is her shield with +18 Stam.

All in all, she’s got 11.4K HP unbuffed, 484 def (which is 6 from the cap of 490) and as soon as I get home and can look at her sheet I can post her Dodge/Parry/Block ratings. They range from like 12% to like 14% I think?

I’ve only glanced a bit at Tankspot but after yesterday, I now have a direction to go with some of the questions I have.

Yesterday I tanked Steamvaults and Arcatraz. In SV, we had a frost mage Cyfer, the prot warrior Lag in his DPS gear (our raiding MT), Sabbatine in her priestly holy freak suit, and Fio on his resto shammy Gaia. Yea, I know, two healers, but we three freshly minted 70s needed our frags and this was probably the best way to test everything out. Though we did start SV with Doom’s huntard but he had to split after the first boss.

Now, I’ve been tanking on Sasha, my ferlol druid since she hit 70… and holy mother of Gawd is warrior prot tanking SO DIFFERENT! I HAAAAAAAAATE multiple targets. I didn’t seem to get enough rage a lot of the times, I’m not sure what my cycle of attacks should be. I know that Shield Bash to the face = lots of aggro, and is dependent on your block rating. I know Devistate is like my LAcerate and can be spammed for threat, but how much? Lacerate functions like a DoT, but Devistate just seems to reapply the Sunder Armor effect, so when I’m maxed at 5, does it still generate enough threat? Also, trying to fit in a Demo Shout seems almost impossible, I didn’t have enough rage. I was pretty rage starved. I also noticed that I wasn’t taking huge amounts of damage. Gaia and Sabbatine complained of boredom : / Sooo, I’m going to guess that maybe I’m overmitigating somehow… but I need rage, and I need to figure out a rotation that produces a decent amount of threat.

Looking at Omen, I was around 400 TPS… I don’t know if that is good enough. WHen we did Arcatraz, Cyfer switched out for Ferlol Arys, and I switched some of my abilities around on my bars to make them more like what Sasha’s bar looks like. Not exactly the same, because warrior’s have many more buttons it seems. Revenge is a pretty awesome attack, and the fact that I’ve spec’d it to cost 2 rage makes me happy, but even in Arc, I was having rage problems again.

My usual rotation on the bear:

Faerie Fire to pull
Mangle
Laceratex2
Demo Roar
Mangle when the CD is up
Spam Lacerate and Maul if I have excess rage

For Squeake, I had enough rage to start off with a Devastate or two, but trying to build up enough rage for that Shield Slam was tough, though Revenging was easy. I think I just need more practice, and some gear advice.

Things I know I need to get before I try out for Kara:

BETTER TANKING TRINKETS ZOMG XD

The Charm is awesome, and so is that Force of Will, but the Charm is kinda like a baby Pocketwatch, and has no equip ability, while the Force of Will is a lvl 55 blue from BRD. There’s a quest line in Netherstorm, the Dimensius the All-Devouring that has the Dabiri’s Enigma which looks like an attainable trinket. Probably replace the Charm. After that, it’s Shadow Labs for my phallic symbol (or you might call it the Adamantine Figurine.)  Then there’s the Cipher of Damnation quest that Sab and I have already started, we’re on the Tuber’s part (kill me now plzkthx) which will net Sab that awesome Staff of the Redeemer and my new tanking weapon, Grom’tor’s Charge.  Though I think I see axe skill leveling in my future T.T

So, other than some upgrades and a firm and complete spanking in a heroic ( I need one, srsly) I think so far so good.  Now it’s time to go trolling the Tankspot forums… though I must admit, I’m horrible at searching for stuffs…

9 Comments »

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  1. I’s so proud of you! Were just a few months ago you were telling me you COULD NOT level a warrior. Sounds like you knows what yer doing as far as gearing up, so I ain’t gonna give much advice.

    Just a little. Devastate is great for threat generation until you got five sunders stacked, then it’s just a weak attack. But you should have lots of threat by that point. There’s a mouseover sunder macro what works great for multi-mob tanking - get that. Keep shield block up as much as possible - protects you and maximizes opportunities fer revenge. Thunderclap (especially if you spec fer improved) is a great way to get aggro on multiple targets, but it will break cc.

    If yer going inta Slabs, Murmur has the best blue tanking shoulders. Best blue belt be the one from the Arc key quests. Don’t need the Netherwing shield, since ya got the good drop. There’s good upgrades fer the shield and weapon if ya wanna work on SSO rep, but I know you hates doing that. Otherwise, let’s get Squeake to Kara!

    (Okies, ya, that were a lotta advice. Sue me)

    Comment by Ratshag — June 11, 2008 #

  2. You didn’t ask for advice, so please ignore me if you’re not looking for advice from complete strangers :) But I love helping the new tanks in my guild, and I love reading the various AC blogs, so I just couldn’t help myself (Hrm, perhaps I should work on suppressing the tanking talk urge…) :D

    Ratshag hints that SSO rep ain’t your thing, but it’s worth noting that the sword you can get at Revered with them is great for human warriors like you because of the human sword racial. The neck is also nice, especially for Scryers who are exalted (the proc is +100 expertise).

    Polar’s Easy-to-get Pre-Kara Tanking gear guide (linked on Tankspot as well as the WoW warrior forums) was my bible since my guild didn’t run many instances when I was gearing up, but the advice on enchants and gems was especially helpful. He also gives info on quest lines with good tanking rewards (sounds like you got most of them already though!). There are a few good rings from quests that might be upgrades - Andormu’s Tear from COT and Protector’s Mark of Redemption from SMV, maybe?

    Trinkets are a challenge, that’s for sure…Dabiri’s Enigma is fabulous, though! Maybe you were thinking ahead and picked Regal Protectorate from the HFP quest a few levels ago, but most people seem to pick Bladefist’s Breadth instead.

    If you start grinding rep with the Keepers of Time for the helm enchant (Glyph of the Defender…SSO has a reasonable alternative at Revered, Glyph of the Gladiator) at revered, you can also pick up the best pre-Kara legs from them - Timewarden’s Leggings.

    You’re revered already with Cenarion Expedition, I would pick their neck (Strength of the Untamed) over Natasha’s Battle Chain for the increased defense and dodge, but you do lose a little bit of stamina.

    You could get a tailor to make you a Cloak of Eternity - lots of stamina and defense over yours at the cost of a little armor. It’s a good cloak to have around if you are unlucky in SV (bast blue cloak in the game drops from Warlord Kalithresh - Devil-Shark Cape) and BM like I was!

    Again, I hope you don’t mind the lengthy comment, I hope it might help a bit. Good luck as you embark into the wonderful world of warrior tanking! :D Thanks for writing such a great blog, I always read the AC bloggers in my feed reader first!

    Comment by Lysanne — June 11, 2008 #

  3. My main is a prot pally, but I’ve read a fair bit of the warrior theorycraft trying to figure out how to help warrior tanks in my old guild generate more threat.

    Cinderhelm’s guide to warrior tanking is called “Fortifications”, and it has a good section on threat values, but he doesn’t compute threat-per-rage.

    http://www.tankspot.com/forums/tankspot-library/31941-fortifications-warrior-reference-guide.html#5

    There’s also a separate guide about threat:

    http://www.tankspot.com/forums/tankspot-library/33486-lavina-s-threat-warrior-tanking-guide.html

    Basically, if you’re rage-starved, it suggests prioritizing Revenge (every cooldown), then Shield Slam, then Devastate. If you have several mobs, Thunderclap will generate some aggro and slow all of them down; the same with demoralizing shout. On the other hand, this will also reduce how much damage you take, and therefore how much rage you can get.

    Inuro’s Blade is a nice reward from Shattered Sun Offensive at Revered; it looks to be a little bit of an upgrade from Grom’tor’s Charge, including some offensive stats like hit rating and expertise. There’s also a great tanking shield available from SSO at exalted; it’s roughly equivalent to the shield that Nightbane drops in Karazhan, but it’s 100% sure you’ll get it if you can grind or buy your way to exalted.

    Comment by Andris — June 11, 2008 #

  4. I guess I’m even more gabby than Ratshag. Oy vey!

    Comment by Andris — June 11, 2008 #

  5. Don’t know if you actually want any advice but as for what to push there is an optimal threat rotaion. Shield slam, Revenge, Devestate, Devestate. Rinse and repeat that. As for being rage starved the best and easist way to fix that is to shoot the mob then sit. If your healers can hanlde you taking a bigger hit it is the best way to get rage. I find my self sitting for just about every trash pull in kara (you probably wont want to do that when you first get in there though). Other then that welcome to the wonderful world of warrior tanking. It’s one of the most fun things to do in the game in this humble warriors opinion :)

    Comment by Ameless — June 12, 2008 #

  6. Since you already know about Tankspot, that should take care of pretty much all of your tanking questions, but I’ll throw in my two cents to try and be helpful.

    If you feel like you’re rage-starved on multi-mob pulls and your healers say they’re bored because you’re not taking enough damage, you should be able to cut Shield Block and Demoralizing Shout out of your rotation to save on rage. You’ll take more damage, but your healers said they were bored anyways and that’ll give you a decent chunk of extra rage. Demo Shout’s a great move, but unfortunately the threat it generates is divided evenly amongst all the mobs affected by it so you’ll only get a minor amount of threat on each mob (something like 30-50 threat on a 4-pull I believe) when you use it. If you save the 7-10 rage from Demo Shout and wait until you have enough to use Thunderclap (17-20, depending on if you have Focused Rage), then you’ll be getting a lot more threat on up to four mobs for not too much more rage.

    As for Shield Block, it’s good mitigation and the extra Revenge pop-ups are nice, but it looks like you’ve got the defense and avoidance/mitigation stats to get most of your Revenge procs without it, so you can save that rage for another Devastate/Shield Slam/etc.

    Let’s see… other than that, there’s a couple of other things you could try if you feel like you’d like more rage on multi-mob pulls. One suggestion is to go down into Arms a bit and pick up Improved Thunderclap and Anger Management. AM will give you a constant trickle of rage for when you get those parry/dodge streaks and Imp TC will give you almost twice the threat per Thunderclap in addition to dropping its cost to 13 rage.

    Comment by Ragar — June 12, 2008 #

  7. One thing no one has specifically mentioned specifically, but I feel is an important rule to follow: Only use Heroic Strike to burn off excess rage. There are very few exceptions to that rule.
    When I started tanking, I was low on rage because HS was high on my priority list. As Ameless mentioned, your core rotation is Shield Slam, Revenge, Dev, Dev. Those three abilities map well to your 2, 3, and 4 keys, yielding a “2, 3, 4, 4″ rotation. If your connection is laggy, drop one of the Devastates, for a “2, 3, 4″ rotation. I like Taunt as 1, and HS as 5.
    Another ability that helps with rage generation is Bloodrage. I use it as soon as the pull happens, and almost every time the cooldown is up, unless I’m having trouble burning off rage with 2344 and HS.
    Malmheim of Llane

    Comment by Malmheim — June 12, 2008 #

  8. Yay! Congratulations!
    I have a prot pally so I occasionaly have problems with not enough mana. When the warriors in my guild were having problems with Rage starting in Kara, they did exactly what ragar said about picking up Anger management. Also I would suggest Dabiri’s Enigma, and don’t ever throw it away. It makes for a nice trinket for 5 mans, heroics and trash.

    I’ve actually yelled (in a nice way) at my warriors for using too much mitigation on things like trash in Kara. Take the pain!

    Comment by Jinzul — June 12, 2008 #

  9. Start of with Shield Slam always (block value increases shield slam not block rating. block rating is useless for a warrior).

    Get focus rage (the one that decreases rage cost of all your offensive skill) and i would suggest getting improved bloodrage (especially since you are a new tank and starting out)

    So before a pull — pop bloodrage. that should give you enough rage to start off with a shield slam. then devastate to get sunder up to 5 but use revenge and shield slam whenever they are up.

    use heroic strike when you have more than 45 rage to burn. always use shield block (if you are getting rage starved and your healers are keeping you up - dont bother shield blocking). when revenge and shield slam are on cooldowns use devastate.

    Comment by Brigin — June 13, 2008 #

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