Warrior Tank Guide

A tank is a character whose primary role is to absorb damage and prevent others from being attacked. Tanks are “meatshields”, so to speak, putting themselves between the mobs and the more vulnerable party members. The tank assumes the aggro of the mobs and tries to keep them off other group mates. With everyone nuking the same target (directed by the main assist), the mobs go down faster and there is less damage done to the group.

Because of the constant abuse upon their armor and weapons, high repair costs are a fixture in a tank’s life. An often-used abbreviation for tank is “MT” (main tank). The tank’s role must not be confused with the “MA” (Main Assist). Also used to contrast from a damage dealer or a healer.

In a classic tank-and-spank fight, the tank should be the only one taking damage, and therefore be the only one who needs healing. Even in more complex fights, the healer should be able to concentrate most of their healing on the tank with healing on the rest of the group being significantly lighter most of the time.

If the healer is healing everyone in the group, then either the tank is not generating enough threat or the other members in the group are generating too much threat by dealing too much DPS and pulling aggro off the tank. This has to be watched or the group will likely wipe.

Protection-specced Warriors with appropriate gear are the classic boss-encounter tanks in the game. They have great damage mitigation vs. single targets, and a large and versatile array of tools for tanking, which include: threat-generating tools such as Revenge, Shield Slam, and multiple taunts; many mitigation abilities; and finally a few panic buttons like [Shield Wall], [Shield Block] and [Last Stand]. A warrior tank has the fairly useful ability to break fear effects at will. Warbringer makes warriors the most mobile tanks in the game.

Problem areas include AoE threat generation. Warriors are certainly capable at this, but they must work for it. They lack a spammable or fire-and-forget ability. Warriors also tend to have somewhat smaller health pools than other tanks, though the difference is not too large.

A tank is what a player becomes when he finds himself holding threat (or aggro) of a certain Mob or Monster, and taking it’s damage, preventing the other players of the party or raid from taking direct damage. That would be my definition anyway, and it can often change depending of the fight. There are two “known” jobs in which a tank can perform:

Main Tanking:
Basically, the “Tank” job, you will be directly responsible for the security of your group, through mitigation, positioning, and making sure to hold enough threat so that other players in your raid can do as much damage as they can without getting aggro. Truth must be said, sometimes this position is quite wanted by some people in order to gain a kind of “fame” or “respect”. If you intend to do this job, leave that aside, and concentrate on doing your job the best that you can for your group.

The MT’s job can be quite stressful as well, and is probably one of the jobs that will you make hate this game if you weren’t “born” for it. You must be active and vigilant throughout the whole instance, if it’s a raid it can take several hours, and you cannot go away for a minute without warning, because people will die due to that. A rogue can go away a moment without telling anyone and most of the time no one will discover, you, on the contrary, go away a moment and everyone will know you were not on the ball. Yes, the job sounds scary, but you decided to take the responsibility.

Off Tanking:
Okay, not as bad as the Main tank, but you still have quite some responsibility, especially if the MT decides to stop living and wants to play with the worms on the floor. I often find myself with OTs that are not doing what I believe is a secondary part of tanking, but rather doing DPS. This is a misconception of the job, although it is true at the same time. An Off Tank on the same target as the MT is trying to build threat on it, so that in the case that the MT dies, he will be holding threat.

But that’s not it! A Main Tank is in defensive and can hardly move away from it. It is the OT’s job to Thunder Clap the target (an excellent skill many times not used), since it must be done in Battle Stance, or in some rare cases where the Mob is positioned in such a way that it’s too far away from the Main Tank, yet the Main Tank is hitting him, and he can’t use Demoralizing Shout, then you’ll have to provide that as well. If you have been entitled with this position, then remember youre the Main Tank’s mate, and he relies on you for certain things he can’t do. Help him in the best of your abilities, his job is hard enough as it is.

Generating threat and holding aggro

Holding aggro and Rage generation are very tightly linked for a warrior. A tanking Warrior gains Rage mostly from being hit by mobs, and uses this Rage to fuel abilities which in turn will create more threat, helping to hold aggro – and raising the damage ceiling for your DPS before they need to worry about pulling aggro. A fundamental key to understanding Warrior tanking is thus to understand how to efficiently convert Rage into threat.

A tanking Warrior’s group will need to help with this, as (particularly at the start of a fight) it is imperative to hold back and let the warrior establish aggro on all mobs in the pull and to generate enough Rage to keep it.

So we got to this, which is quite simple to explain quickly, but so hard to understand. There is a post in the Warrior forums that explains quite well the value of certain abilities through testing. There is even a mod by Kenco that will measure your threat. Studying these values certainly helps, but it’s not all that it takes to hold aggro. Taunt spamming every time it’s up is not the answer either, this ability is dangerous to use.

The best way to hold aggro, is whatever you make out of it. You are able to study it as well as you wish and still be surprised every now and then. I will cover the use abilities in it’s own section and explain how much threat each of them produces and how they are best used (in my opinion), but in this section I will mention that a great combination of them will do wonders. Sunder is one of the best abilities we have to hold threat, and as you should know by now, after 5 sunders, it still produces the SAME amount of threat.

You do not need to be protection for tanking and holding threat well, in fact, you may find it easier to hold threat with other specs while keeping Defiance. That’s going to be highly depend on how your guild/raid/party plays, and there is no absolute truth about it, simply because the situations vary so much. One thing is true though, if you understand all of the threat terms well, you will have a much easier time adapting to a style of play or another, and do your job way, way better.

In battle or Berserker stance, a warrior produces 80% of threat per damage point or innate threat of abilities. Defensive stance produces 130%. Defiance adds 15% to this. This information is not all that useful on a daily basis unless youre calculating your threat, so by saying that “You produce much more threat by being in Def. stance” and “Defiance helps produce more threat” you’ll be safe. Knowing those numbers though, is usually something good to remember and will tell you, just so you know exactly how much more threat you need to be making in different conditions.

No matter what, all of this doesn’t matter if you don’t have rage. Rage is how warriors produce threat, and without rage, then you’ll have no threat generation. So a few things on this:

Taunting, make use of this skill when needed, but remember that if something bad happens, you need to have it presented. Using it to force the target to hit you and gain rage is great, or to hit shield block and a rage and keep it on you, or whatever you may think of. Taunt will also equal your threat to that of the highest target, but then you will have to make up a 10% of extra threat to keep that target on you. This is what we call the “10% rule”.

This rule is very simple, and it just means that even if you have more threat than another target on a certain mob, it must be 10% higher to that of the person who currently has aggro to gain aggro, else, it will stay on it’s target. Taunt will automatically reach that person’s threat level, so you can make the other 10%.

On controlled fights where you must switch aggro and the mob is tauntable, remember this and start saving rage right before youre making a switch, so that you can make it clean, and by clean I mean taunt, spam your abilities, and keep aggro, instead of watching the target bounce back to it’s original target after you taunted.

Now let’s talk about white damage. Many people don’t think that much about it, but this is quite a huge amount of threat. Remember all those percentage numbers that Defensive stance and defiance add to your abilities? Well, they also multiply the threat of your white damage! So let’s try to understand this, because it is not easy to. You have abilities with innate threat, with Sunder and Heroic strike being great examples. Sunder Armor deals no damage whatsoever, but it’s obvious it produces threat (261 in comparison to damage without any modifier). Heroic strike, deals damage, so on top of it’s innate threat (145 with no modifiers at rank 8), it will be dealing that extra damage that is also multiplied by your threat modifiers.

Quite damn nice isn’t it? HS rocks! Why use Sunder at all?! Well, first of all, Sunder is an instant attack, whereas HS is not. Second, Sunder raises the damage of your abilities and the threat you will cause on a fully sundered mob with other abilities (not to mention the rest of your party’s and raid’s damage). And third, which is what interests us in this paragraph: HS uses your next swing attack, so you will not be hitting with white damage, which not only gives you it’s normal threat, but also adds rage by hitting, while HS only removes. So with slower weapons like Spineshatter, HS becomes less attractive as rage generation is not normalized. You will be getting more rage per white hit, and, although slower than with a white weapon. It is really going to be dependent on how much rage you have to decide whether you will be using HS or not.

So yes, DPS does in fact matter while tanking, but threat producing abilities are needed to hold aggro, and produce a higher amount of threat (although not all that much). This bit of knowledge will help you throughout the rest of your tanking career, every 1.9, 2.0, 2.3, 2.6 secs or whatever your tanking weapon speed is. HS will sometimes be good to use, and other times it’ll be best to save it so you can obtain more rage per hit. The only exception is once you have unlimited rage, and there is only one fight in this game that has that description, Vaelestrasz the Corrupt in Blackwing Lair.

Dual Wielding along with 2H tanking is something that may not sound so bad after studying it for a bit. As we know by now, rage is our primary source of threat, and white damage helps as well. So, although personally I have not tried utilizing the 2H method because of my Protection spec and devoted love to fury while leveling, I will leave that for whoever wants to comment on 2H tanking and go ahead with dual wielding tanking. Basically, throughout trash mobs in many instances you will find yourself more suited using two weapons than a shield and a single weapon, if your party is very aggressive. By aggressive I mean that they will start attacking the mob as soon as it’s pulled, and they will not be waiting for you to have a comfortable amount of threat. Dual wielding you will be obtaining more rage to use, and producing more threat through white damage. You may find it useful while OTing too, since you have to stay on top of threat versus all those damage mongers and you won’t have the benefit of being hit on by the mob and gaining rage through that. Have your macro ready to switch to Shield though, no matter what the situation and place, things can always get freaky and that extra bit of mitigation could save someone else.

Remember that your job is to protect. Your healers may complain sometimes “why aren’t you wearing a shield?” and thinking “uh oh, we got a tank who wants to be a DPSer”, you can either explain to them how threat works, or ignore them and keep doing what you must do to protect your party. This is situational as well, like most of what is explained on this guide, because every guild is different, and players play differently. So get yourself a great offhand weapon that will give you rage and a bit of extra DPS for all the time you’re not on bosses, as long as your healers can afford it (they should). Theory-craft only can teach you to a certain point, so go out there and smack some beasts!

Basic Warrior tanking abilities

The tanking Warrior will find themselves using a small number of abilities over and over again to maintain aggro on the mobs their group is fighting. They are not the only abilities used by a tanking Warrior (certain fights might call for a tank to use nearly every ability in the Warrior spell book) but they are the ones used the vast majority of the time.

Sunder Armor and Devastate

Sunder Armor (or Devastate for 41-point Protection-tree Warriors) is the bread-and-butter Warrior tanking ability. Unless a high-threat cooldown ability is presented (Revenge, Shield Slam) it should be used to generate threat.

Sunder Armor can be used at any time and is only on the global cooldown. It can be spammed (used repeatedly), which creates a lot of threat quickly regardless of weapon type or enemy. Since Patch 2.3, a tanking Warrior that has Devastate should use it in practically every situation where earlier Sunder Armor would have been used, as it is functionally equivalent to Sunder Armor but also causes damage and thus more threat. Although the Rage cost of these abilities is somewhat high, it can be decreased by talents.

The [Glyph of Sunder Armor] further enhances the effectiveness of Sunder Armor/Devastate by affecting another target. Note that this glyph only duplicates the Sunder Armor effect (of both skills), not the damage caused by Devastate.

Using the [Glyph of Devastate], Devastate will apply two stacks of sunder armor. This glyph is considered one of the core tanking glyphs, as with [Revenge] and [Shield Slam] always having a higher priority then Devastate it is pretty useful to stack up Sunder Armor as fast as possible. Even if the debuff is stacked to the max, this glyph raises the threat generated by Devastate considerably, so it is not wasted on bosses.

The effects of the above mentioned buffs do not multiply, so having both glyphs would only apply two stacks of Sunder Armor to the main and one stack to an additional target. Thus the [Glyph of Sunder Armor] is not considered very important in most situations compared to other presented tanking glyphs.

Revenge

Of all a Warrior’s abilities, Revenge creates the most threat per Rage. However, it can only be used after a successful dodge, block, or parry (but as such you can almost guarantee it will be presented soon after activating Shield Block) and it has a five second cooldown. Even with the extra Rage for the Shield Block, Revenge is a highly efficient threat-generating ability, especially at the beginning of combat, and ideally should always be on cooldown. The [Glyph of Revenge] grants a free Heroic Strike after using Revenge. This helps to create even more threat.

Shield Slam

Shield Slam is (since 3.0) trainable by all warriors at level 40. It is an extremely high-threat ability with a substantial damage component, but has a relatively high Rage cost. If Rage is no problem, it should be used whenever it is off its six second cooldown, as of all the Warrior abilities it generates the most threat. Shield Slam’s damage and threat raises with your block value stat, which enables a warrior to generate excellent threat while gearing very defensively, something not all tanking classes can do.

This ability becomes very important when the warrior has [Glyph of Blocking], which raises the Warrior’s block value by 10% for 10 secs. This period is larger than the cooldown of Shield Slam, as such will effectively add a permanent 10% boost in block value, highly valuable to a tanking warrior.

Thunder Clap

Although some caution is necessary when using Thunder Clap, it is a potent tanking ability with a short (four second) cooldown and vital for AOE tanking. Unlike most Warrior tanking abilities, it is a multiple-target attack, and as such should not be used around crowd controlled mobs, as it will cause damage that will probably break the CC. It affects all targets in range, including the Warrior’s current target if hostile, and causes a small amount of damage and some plus threat. It is a crucial ability for holding aggro in any situation where multiple mobs must be kept away from DPS and healers.

However, an additional benefit of Thunder Clap is in its damage mitigation effect. When affected by a successful Thunder Clap, a mob will have its attack speed decreased by a certain percentage, which is increased through a talent in the first tier of the Protection tree. Wise tanking Warriors might findk to affect as many of the mobs hitting them as possible with this debuff, as maintaining it throughout an encounter can result in a considerable reduction in damage taken by the tank.

This skill can be enhanced via Glyph of Thunder Clap increasing its range and by Glyph of Resonating Power which reduces the rage cost.

Shockwave

Along with Thunder Clap, Shockwave is an effective threat generating ability, dealing damage to all targets in front of the caster and combined with a 4 second stun on targets, which improves damage mitigation. Combine with Shield Block to allow an incoming damage pause, allowing healing.

Heroic Strike

Heroic Strike is not a global cooldown ability, and as such can be used in conjunction with other tanking abilities. It works with a Warrior’s autoattack to cause extra damage and threat on the next successful autoattack. When used on every swing of a fast weapon, it can generate a quite a bit of threat. However, it is a relatively Rage-expensive ability, as not only does it cause Rage to be consumed when it hits but it also keeps the attack from generating Rage for the Warrior to use. Many Warrior tanks only use Heroic Strike when an encounter is well underway and they have a large pool of excess Rage (50 or maybe more) that they will lose if they do not use it before hitting the 100 Rage cap. This is generally only seen on boss fights and in raid encounters.

Cleave

Usually ignored, Cleave hits like a Heroic Strike on pulls that have multiple mobs. Like Heroic Strike, it should only be used to burn extra rage, but can be incredibly useful for keeping threat on two mobs (three with Glyph of Cleaving)

Shield Bash

Many warriors overlook the fact that Shield Bash causes a fair amount of threat – almost as much as a successful Sunder Armor – and causes a small amount of damage as well. In situations where Revenge is on cooldown or inactive and the Warrior lacks enough Rage for a Sunder Armor or Devastate, then Shield Bash should be used if possible – unless of course if the target is a caster, where it must be reserved for spell interrupts. However, on non-casters it is still a valuable skill for threat generation, well-worth mixing in with your Revenge, Sunders/Devastates, and Heroic Strikes.

It should also be noted, that with the talent Gag Order Shield Bash silences the target for 3 secs, making it a great tool to pull multiple casters together along with Heroic Throw.

Demoralizing Shout

Demoralizing Shout has a massive benefit against raid bosses. It’s probably 20% less damage from a typical boss and literally like 50% against say Thorim’s Unbalancing Strike

Shield Block

Block doesn’t really stop that much damage from bosses nowadays but it is extremely useful for triggering Revenge, and gives you the edge against large groups of adds that don’t hit hard.

The tanking priority system

This section describes the priority system used by tanking warriors as of Patch 3.5.

As a tank you have two major responsibilities in your group. The first one is to survive, the second one is to maintain aggro on your target(s) to prevent the death of your healer(s) and to a lesser (but not neglectable) extend of the damage dealers.

To the first point you contribute actively by using your defensive cool downs if needed, the second goal is the bread and butter of a tank and is accomplished by using your threat abilities in the correct priority.

Single target threat

Unlike, say, Arcane mages and Tankadins , Protection Warriors do not have clear rotation. It is rather priority list. Apart from burst threat, single target threat is easy to maintain for a warrior even against better geared dps. The priority of single threat abilities is as follows:

[Revenge]

• If speced into Improved Revenge (what is considered a no brainer nowadays) Revenge is the top damage ability with an amount of threat almost equal to a Shield Slam. In addition it has an incredible low rage cost, so you should use it whenever possible. Revenge also can proc Sword and Board, what resets the cool down of your best threat ability [Shield Slam] and sets its rage cost to 0.
• The drawback of Revenge is, that it can only be used after you block, parry or dodge an attack. With current avoidance percentages this mostly is no problem if you get attacked fast enough.
• However there are bosses, that attack really slow (here [Shield Block] can help to trigger revenge) or solely cast spells. In these situations you may have to fall back to other abilities.

[Shield Slam]

• Shield Slam generates the highest amount of threat on a single target. The cost of Shield Slam is pretty high, but against a heavy hitting boss this should be no problem. Using [Bloodrage] and / or (improved) [Charge] you can and should start a fight with a shield slam to generate a high amount of burst threat.
• Shield Slam gets a massive threat boost if shield block is active.
• Shield Slam can come off the gcd and cost no rage if [[Sword and Board] procs from [Devastate] or [Revenge], so keep an eye on that.

[Devastate]

• Devastate applies the Sunder Armor debuff, deals damage and generate a great amount of threat. It should be used whenever Shield Slam and Revenge are not presented.

[Heroic Strike]

• Whenever you have enough rage to burn, you should use Heroic Strike along with your other abilities to increase threat. Incite even raises it’s critical strike chance so in high rage scenarios like a boss fight you should use HS constantly. Therefore a lot of warriors bind their HS to the mouse wheel to keep it going easily along with the key bound abilities.

[Mocking Blow]

• Often overlooked, this ability can not only help you with regaining aggro on a lost target, but can help you starting a fight where you have problems generating burst threat.
• It is a fixate, what means, that the mob affected by it does not attack another target for 6 secs, no matter what the aggrolist says. This way you have time to use 2 to 3 abilities to maintain aggro on a target under heavy dps.
• In addition with both glyphs used, it also generates a lot of threat itself and may even excel a normal Shield Slam (without active Shield Block).
• It’s also worth to mention, that this ability can be used if silenced.

[Heroic Throw]

• While this ability has a long cool down, don’t be shy to use it on enemies out of melee range. Especially casters can be controlled with it, as it can silence them if improved by Gag Order.
• It has no rage cost, and generates a great amount of threat, so it may also come handy if you can not throw out a devastate.

Multi target threat

Maintaining multi target threat means a lot of work for a warrior. Especially if you’re running with well geared dps. However you have lot’s of tools to master even these situations.

Looking forward to the Cataclysm addon, Blizzard stated that the way warriors are AOE-tanking today is the way they want to feel it for every tanking class. Fortunately they said they want to reduce AOE-heavy trash pulls a lot too.

[Shockwave]

• Shockwave affects every enemy in a cone before you and in addition to dealing damage stuns them. That means mitigation along with AOE-Threat. Learn to position yourself correctly and use it whenever possible.

[Thunderclap]

• The most used ability for AOE-Tanking affecting every target in a radius, applying a attack speed debuff it should be used whenever off cooldown when Shockwave is not presented. It is buffed by Incite and is extremely useful along with a Deep Wounds spec, as it can apply the DOT on every target around you it crits yielding constant threat.

Switch Targets

• Fighting against multiple mobs means you will most likely have to switch targets, applying your single target abilities while you wait for Thunderclap and Shockwave to come off cool down. This is especially true, if your dps is going all out on AOE damage ore worse, everyone focus fires a different target.

Improved Revenge

• Improved Revenge is considered a must have even for single target specs, so it comes in handy, that it buffs revenge to affect an additional target. As long as there are only two targets, Revenge is still your top priority ability. Even if you have more targets Revenge is pretty useful if Thunder Clap and Shockwave are on cool down. You’ll be switching targets anyways, so the additional target will be another target now and then too.

[Cleave]

• Cleave affects two targets or three if glyphed. It is the Heroic Strike for multi targets. As you will have a lot of rage in multi target scenarios, you should use it constantly once you reach an amount of rage youre comfortable with. Consider binding it to the mouse wheel too. Be careful though, as you can easily run out of rage if you don’t stop using cleave as soon as the number of targets is decreased.
• It is also affected by Incite and plays along very well with a deep wounds spec.

[Demoralizing Shout]

• While not generating a lot of threat the shout can be useful to generate initial aggro picking up new adds entering the fight if nothing else is presented. It also helps to reduce incoming damage.

Passive Effects

• Some things may help if youre AOE-Tanking a lot. For example if you run Heroics to gear up.
• The already mentioned Deep Wounds spec can help a lot, Damage Shield, Incite and any talents improving blocking are good choices too. The glyphs: [Glyph of Cleaving], [Glyph of Thunder Clap], [Glyph of Resonating Power] and [Glyph of Blocking] may contribute too. Also consider [Glyph of Devastate], as it generates more threat with a main ability and additionally lets you apply Sunder Armor faster.
• [Titanium Shield Spike] is a great choice for a shield enhancement and if youre capped on Defense and have a decent amount of Effective Health, consider to improve expertise and hit rating to increase threat generation.

General abilities

Away from the standard abilities, there are other spells, that you should use on a situational basis. Wielding the complete warrior arsenal is pretty hard to master, but it has the potential to keep every situation under control.

1. Survival

Most important away from holding aggro is to survive. This is mainly the job of your healer, but there are times, once you have to use your defensive cooldowns. Some boss abilities for example require the use of a cooldown, no matter how good your healer is. And then there are the panic situations of course, where something went wrong, but sometimes even these situations can be survive using your full arsenal. Shield Wall and Last Stand are quite obvious survival abilities along with any tanking trinkets. To a lesser extend Shield Block can also mitigate some damage. In critical situation Intimidating Shout can save the day, but you have to be careful with it, as you fear the mobs and you may have bigger trouble after the break.

2. Threat

Maintaining a high amount of threat is clearly the best way to hold aggro, but sometimes you just can’t do that. Be it an aggro resetting boss ability, incoming new adds that are just too hard to pick up or the good old “DPS goes all out before any threat could be build up”-situation. In all those cases, where you can’t hold a target with your normal threat building abilities, there are a few tools, that can draw the attention of that mob heading for your squishy group members back to you.

[Taunt] is typicaly the first choice. It sets you’re amount of threat equal to the player at the top of the aggro list and lets a mob attack you for 3 secs.

[Mocking Blow] was already mentioned above and [Challenging Shout] is basically a 6 secs AOE fixate.

3. Movement

With the Warbringer talent you gain a lot of mobility. You are able to use [Charge] in combat and Charge and [Intercept] in defensive stance. Use them whenever you need to grab a target and have no ranged abilities presented. Be carful though not to get out of heal range or to drag AOEing mobs to your squishies.

Warbringer also lets [Intervene] remove movement impairing effects, so you can use it for that if need be.

Charge and Intercept can also help on a multi mob pull.

If you spec into the Arms tree, consider picking up Improved Charge. It generates enough rage with a Charge to use a Shield Slam as initial move.

4. Spell Interrupts / Reflects

Concussion Blow, Shield Bash, Heroic Throw, Spell Reflection and even Shockwave, Charge and Intercept can interrupt spell casting.

Though a lot of bosses are immune to interrupts, these abilities can be extremely usefull on Trash pulls or to keep adds from casting. Some heavy boss spells can even be reflected to generate aggro or at least to not take damage.

5. Debuffs

Thunder Clap and Demoralizing Shout apply debuffs that help you survive. On bossmobs you should have them up constantly. On large groups of mobs or mobs you have trouble to stand against they can definitely give you an edge.

Disarm can reduce the damage taken by trash mobs a bit and while most bosses are immune to disarm, it really can shine in situations where you can use it on a boss.

6. Buffs

Commanding Shout and Battle Shout buff your whole group depending on if you want to have more damage potential or maybe more health. Keep them up constantly. Do not forget Vigilance. Put it on the target that is most likely to draw aggro or that under no circumstances should die. It refreshes your Taunt if yout target gets hit and reduces the damage taken by the buffed player.

It also transfers a percentage of threat to you from the target.

It is even possible to put it on another tank if threat is no problem to constantly have Taunt off cool down and reduce the damage he takes.

Taunt

Taunt is one of the signature skills of a warrior, but should not normally be relied upon as an aggro holding ability. The primary effect of Taunt is to force the target into attacking the warrior for 3 secs. Prior to patch 2.0.6 or so, this was all that taunt did, the warrior had to use the three secs to build enough aggro so that the mob would stay on him. Since that patch though, taunt also gives the warrior the same amount of hate as the mob has on its current target.

Most warriors choose to save taunt for such special situations and emergencies. There are many situations where taunt is the key to survival for the whole group. Such situations include:

• aggro on the main healer
• mobs without an aggro list (like Lava Annihilator, Berserkers in Zul’Gurub)
• mobs with a knockback.

In lower level instances, Taunt is an anti-newb talent for Warriors. If you’ve got an inexperienced Hunter or Mage who just has to pull, Taunt means that said player can, and if you’re standing in front of the group, you can use Taunt to grab the mob as it runs toward whoever pulled it.

If said newb pulled multiple mobs, that can still be ok as well. Taunt the first mob, and let it hit you until you get enough rage to Sunder. Then cycle to the second mob, Sunder twice, then back to the first mob, and keep Sunder cycling as necessary. Thunder Clap can also really help there as well, but watch for CC.

A word about Multi-Mob Tanking

These days in WoW Paladins are the best at multi-mob tanking, period. This is not likely to change anytime soon, so, as a warrior tank, you must be able to compensate for this fact. Just because paladins are the best at it right now doesn’t mean that warriors can’t do it, it just requires a little more effort. There is a method of warrior tanking that can make multi-mob tanking not only doable, but fun and exciting. That method is commonly referred to as Tab-Target tanking. This is the method of tanking when after the warrior tank gets initial aggro (via Charge, Taunt, Heroic Throw, etc…), they then switch targets by tabbing to the next target and performs a high threat ability, i.e. Shield Slam, Revenge, etc… This way you keep all the targets aggro’ed on you and can now effectively tank multiple targets. Thunder Clap is the bread and butter multi-mob tanking ability for warriors, however, it cannot be solely relied upon to get the job done. This is a skill that requires some practice to master, but will leave the warrior tank looking like gold once it is.

Talent spec and gear

A warrior who wants to main tank should spend at least 41 points in protection, up to 56 are not uncommon. See the Warrior builds article for a more complete discussion. For a list of equipment, see WotLK tanking equipment (warrior).

Traditionally (for example in games like Everquest), a tanks performance is determined by his amount of health (= stamina) and the quality of his armor. WoW adds to these two basic stats the avoidance stats like defense, dodge, parry and (to a lesser extent) block. The crucial difference between druid and warrior tanks is that warriors cannot hope to catch up with druids in health and armor (druids will always be superior in that respect), but a warrior’s true strength lies in the avoidance stats.

In general, higher health and armor make a healer’s job easier – there’s more tolerance for errors (or for incoming damage spikes) with more health, and damage reduction by armor is smooth and constant. Healers usually don’t like the avoidance stats very much, because they give a spiky and uneven damage distribution. However, the total amounts of damage reduction which a highly avoidance-based tanking class (such as the warrior or paladin) can reach with avoidance and armor is closer to the damage that can be soaked by high effective health tanks. In other words, a properly geared warrior can effectively absorb damage just as good as druids, even though a decently geared druid’s healthpool might suggest otherwise. Healers who want to perform at the peak of their ability just have to adapt to the spiky damage flow.

Thus the avoidance stats are an integral part of the warrior class, and an itemization which concentrates on stamina and armor alone will never realize the full potential of a warrior. Spiky damage is more of a challenge for the healers, but that’s what sets apart a great healer from a bad one – a great healer is able to draw maximum advantage from the mana breaks offered by a series of dodges and parries, and is also able to quickly react to a sudden increase in damage.

Stamina

Despite the above reasoning, Stamina is still the primary stat for any tank. It should be as high as possible, but not at the cost of sacrificing avoidance or mitigation. Stamina is very important to a point, that point is being able to survive a round of max damage from a mob. After that, stamina simply acts as buffer for the healers to give them breathing room. Efficiency is better than a buffer!

Armor

A high armor class is the best source of damage reduction. It’s consistent so healers love it. An equal amount of damage reduction through higher armor will always be just a little bit better than an equal amount of damage reduction through avoidance. Unfortunately, Armor has a kind of “diminishing returns” effect built in and a cap (at 33k armor), a point of armor spent near the cap is about 1/3 as effective as a point at the beginning of the curve, see the Armor article for details.

One problem for warriors and paladins is that the presented plate gear does not offer very much choice. There are hardly any pieces which have plus armor, whereas nearly every plate item sports Stamina and some avoidance statistic.

Avoidance and Mitigation

Dodge, Parry and Block are the stats which give an advantage to a warrior over a druid. 1% avoidance is just a little less efficient than 1% mitigation from armor. Not being hit has normally beneficial effects beyond the pure damage avoided, because some mobs can proc nasty effects on hits. Only through avoidance can Warriors realize the full potential of their tanking capability. Note that dodge and parry both avoid 100% of the damage.

Dodge: 39.35 Rating = 1% at level 80

Parry: 49.18 Rating = 1% at level 80

Why is parry a bit more hard to get than dodge? – When you Parry, your next attack comes a bit faster.

What should I favour over the other? – Well, between an item with 40 Dodge and an item with 40 Parry, favour Parry if you have a slow weapon (speed > 2.5 sec). Also remember that Parry and Dodge are subject to diminishing returns while Block is not.

Block is often lumped in with avoidance but is actually not the same. Avoidance results in a missed attack that does no white (normal) damage. Block reduces the amount of damage taken (sometimes to zero) but does not avoid the attack.

Defense

The best way to look at defense is to see it as 1% damage avoidance every 37 points.

123 defense rating gives:

• 1% Chance to dodge
• 1% chance to parry
• 1% block
• 1% chance to be missed
• 1% crit reduction

Defense is subject to diminishing returns.

It is extremely important for a tank to reach 540 defence skill (5.6% critical chance reduction). This makes the tank uncrittable (immune to Critical hits) by raid bosses (resilience stacks and has the same effect). Many raids insist upon the tank being uncrittable, as critical hits cannot be anticipated and an untimely critical hit may cause the raid to wipe.

Block

The effect of Blocking comes from two stats – Block Rating and Block Value. Block Rating raises the chance of a block occurring while Block Value raises the amount of damage that is absorbed by blocking. At face value, a successful Block will negate some 800-900 hp from an attack which usually does some 3000-5000 damage. It is good mitigation, and over the course of a full boss fight, a warrior can block thousands of damage. Based on the damage reduction alone, block is a nice stat which should be taken if possible, but isn’t worth taking over Dodge and Parry because it doesn’t avoid 100% of the incoming damage, rather it just reduces the damage by strength/2 boosted by the Block Value stat.

16.39 Block Rating = 1% at level 80. So it’s easy to get block, but doesn’t do much without strength or Block Value.

Before patch 3.0 Block was important because increasing it to very high levels allowed warriors to avoid Crushing Blows, however mobs now need to be 4 levels above you in order to crush you. Since raid bosses are only 3 levels above you, crushing blows were effectively removed from raid encounters, making Block much less important.

Expertise

Expertise reduces the chance for a mob to parry or dodge you. This just like Hit Rating is good to have up to a certain amount. 6.5% of expertise is minimum (soft cap), you can also consider taking it up to 10.5%, considering that the mob has 6.5% chance to dodge you, and 14.5% chance to parry you(parry varies per boss). Note that if the boss parries the tank, then the boss’s next attact will come faster, making expertise more important especially against slow but hard hitting bosses. if expertise < 6.5% then expertise is more important than hi

Hit Rating

Some amount of hit rating is generally needed for an endgame warrior tank to stay effective. Suggested hit chance for tanks is 7% (230 hit rating) considering that a draenei is in your raid group. 8% hit chance is the cap (263).

Agility and Dodge

Agility is primarily useful for a warrior in its increasing the chance to dodge an incoming attack. At lvl 70, 30 points of agility will result in about a 1% increased chance to dodge, thus 30 points of agility are roughly as useful as 20 points of dodge rating. Since the amount of agility needed for 1% to dodge raises with level, agility is probably more useful prior to lvl 70, near the endgame dodge rating will prove to be more efficient.

Agility also raises a character’s critical strike chance, but few tanking warriors will choose to rely on critical strikes to hold aggro.

Naxxramas 10man tanking

A warrior can probably farm Naxxramas 10 when he has:

• 540 Defense rating
• 60% Armor damage reduction
• 25K health
• 20% dodge
• 15% parry
• 5% expertise
• 5% hit rating
• 2500 Attack power

Gems

The role of gems is to give you the stats youre missing. Don’t go stacking on avoidance or stamina once youre lacking in expertise or hit rating, you won’t be able to hold aggro.

Enchants

• Factions: Argent crusade (revered) & Sons of Hodir (Exalted) sell tanking enchants for head & shoulders
• Leatherworkers: Leg armor enchants.
• Blacksmiths: Titanium weapon chain, Gem socket for belt
• Enchanters: All kinds of enchants

Potions and elixirs

Flasks and elixirs don’t do as much difference as they did pre WotLK, but they can help in some situations. Note that you can only have 1 battle elixir and 1 guardian elixir.

• Indestructible potion
• Elixir of Expertise (battle)
• Elixir of Accuracy (battle)
• Elixir of Defense (guardian)
• Elixir of Agility (battle)
• Elixir of Strength (battle)
• Lesser flask of resilience (battle + guardian)

Secondary tank

Off tanks in Wrath of the Lich King raids – and even in lower-level raids with the changes to all class mechanics since Classic WoW – will want to have a great one-handed weapon and shield. In Wrath of the Lich King, few if any encounters that require an off tank won’t require that tank to be wearing their best tanking gear. Vault of Archavon as of patch 3.3 is a good example of the several different functions of an off tank:

• Archavon: Tanking the boss when the main tank is crowd controlled, or has had their aggro wipe (in this case, both)
• Emalon: Tanking the extra adds that the main tank cannot safely take at that gear level – as well as grabbing new adds that spawn during the fight
• Koralon: Absorbing Cleave-style damage that would otherwise also be applied to the main tank – effectively halving the damage they take
• Toravon: Taunting the boss back and forth as he applies a [stacking debuff] that would otherwise overwhelm the main tank

• In the cases of Archavon and Toravon, the two tanks should have similar gear levels to each other, unless one is highly overgeared for the raid (neither should be undergeared for this) as there is no real “off” tank. Both need to be just as able to survive the boss as the other.
• In the case of Emalon, they should still be close to each other in terms of gear – determining who is on the adds should depend on which tank has the better AoE control and which is better for single-target tanking, not by their gear. Warriors probably shouldn’t be on the adds unless both tanks are warriors.
• In the case of Koralon, you don’t really need a true off tank – a cat druid going into Dire Bear Form would likely be able to survive the Meteor Fists, and other tank classes could theoretically just pop their emergency buttons and stand next to the main tank for the same result. However, this isn’t advisable. It adds risk where it isn’t necessary. However, an off tank warrior or paladin could remain in their Prot spec and switch weapons/stances, a bear druid could go into cat form, or a death knight could enter Blood or Unholy Presence until it is time to help the main tank. While this does help the DPS finish the encounter more quickly, the function of an off tank is to help prevent a wipe as best as possible, not to end the encounter as quickly as possible.

Incoming search terms for the article:

• Warrior Tank Guide cataclysm
• warrior tanking
• 4 3 valor pick list for warrior tank
• wow threat warrior transfer
• wow cataclysm warrior guide
• What tank has the mitigation edge 4 3 WoW
• warrior tank rage
• warrior tank point guide
• Warrior Tank Guid
• warrior tank cooldowns

Related Articles:

	Upcoming Cataclysm Tanking Changes As the release of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm draws near, we continue to fine-tune various class abilities. Based on feedback and our own testing, we’re in the process of assessing and amending tanking...
	Cataclysm Class Preview: Warrior World of Warcraft: Cataclysm beta will bring with it several changes to class talents and abilities. Here you will get a glimpse into some of the changes we have in store for the...
	Rage Normalization in Cataclysm We are going to take the opportunity in Cataclysm to try and fix some of the problems with the Rage mechanic for both warriors and druids. Some of these problems include: Warriors/druids in the...
	World of Warcraft Paladin Guide The paladin is a hybrid class with the ability to play a variety of different roles — including healing (holy), tanking (protection), and DPS (retribution). They have auras, blessings and seals that provide useful...
	Warrior Builds Guide Warriors have the choice of three talent trees: Arms, Fury, and Protection. Arms is known for Mortal Strike and Bladestorm which makes it popular for PvP, along with Juggernaut, which enables you to use charge while...
	Protection Warrior Tanking Guide This guide is meant to be more of a “nexus” for information, rather than a compendium of all tanking information. Most of what I’m saying has been posted on Tankspot for a while,...
	Gurtogg Bloodboil Gurtogg Bloodboil is a (presumedly) fel-sworn orc boss in Black Temple. The fight is a battle for survival combined with a tough healer gear check. Depending on the relative gear levels between healers and...
	Ascendant Lord Obsidius Ascendant Lord Obsidius is the fifth (including Beauty) and final boss in the Blackrock Caverns. He appears to be a corrupted Earthen of some sorts, proficient in the arts of Shadow and Twilight...