Yogg-Saron is not your average tank and spank type of fight.  In fact, there is an entire phase were we aren’t really tanking anything at all, that phase being Phase 2.  Here is some advice for how to remain “useful” during this Phase and really help your raid do what needs to be done.

1. Interrupting Diminishing Power. The Crusher tentacles have a channeled ability called Diminishing Power that, while active, reduces all damage raid-wide by 20%.  This can stack if you have more than one Crusher up at a time.  Tanks should be running around and interrupting this ability to keep the raid-wide DPS as high as possible throughout this phase.  Heroic Throw is amazing for stopping the channel without getting in range of the Crusher’s punishing melee damage.  Note: shooting it with a gun will not stop the cast, you have to use a melee ability to successfully interrupt.
2. Sunder Armor and Shattering Throw. When a Crusher becomes active your first priority, after stopping Diminishing Power, is to get five Sunders up on any of the Crushers that are being actively DPSed.  While this will only directly help your Hunters during the brain phase, once the tentacles are stunned and your melee can jump on they will already be hitting a fully-debuffed tentacle.  Remember to put up Shattering Throw on the tentacle once they are stunned as well and you can really watch your melee just go to town.

If you have any more tips for tanking Phase 2 of the Yogg-Saron fight, feel free to post here.

Popularity: 24% [?]

Say hello to my new favorite progression enchant, Blood Draining!

How it works is that as you attack the target you gain up to five stacks of a buff called Blood Reserve, which combined can heal you for up to 2,200.  That doesn’t sound like a whole lot but then again the amount healed isn’t really the best part of the enchant.  The best part is that the enchant fires off automatically when you are reduced to under 35% of your total health pool.  That means that it works much like the old Commendation of Kael’thas but instead of giving you dodge raiting it fires off a little extra heal for you.  Does the 2,200 number not excite you?  Well let’s look at some numbers:

• Runic Healing Potion: 2,700 to 4,500 health.
• Super Healing Potion: 1,500 to 2,500 health.

The effect of a full five stack of Blood Reserve going off and healing you is equivalent to drinking a nearly maximized Super Healing Potion!  “That’s not amazing, it’s just a Super Healing Potion,” I hear some of you saying and while it’s true you might be forgetting two things:

1. It’s automatic. You never have to think about using it, it just fires off the instant you fall below 35% health.
2. Potion Sickness. The days of being able to chain-chug pots as an oh-shit button are gone.  We know this and we aren’t happy about it but we’ve adapted.  I just recently looked at a WWS report from our Auriaya kill this week and I noticed that a healthstone I used gave me 4,337 health but, again, I could only use it once and I had to trigger it.  I regained a total of 8,828 health from Blood Draining over the course of the same fight, that’s the same amount of healing as if I had used an additional two healthstones!

Bear in mind, however, that while Blood Draining is fantastic for progression fights where your raid might be a little under geared or new to the content that you’re attempting, it will be very much wasted if you are doing farm content since it will rarely, if ever, proc.  If you are looking at farm content, look at other enchants.

Popularity: 70% [?]

In this Suggested Reading post is Veneretio’s post over at TankingTips.com entitled “How good is Defense?“.  This is a very good article showing that with diminishing returns from parry, dodge and miss, the good ol’ defense stat is better then ever for guarenteeing you are maximizing your avoidance (dodge, parry and miss) and mitigation (block chance) then it ever was before.

Great post, Vene!

Popularity: 32% [?]

There has been a lot of false information spread around the bowels of the internet lately about what the actual stat caps are for a tanking warrior at level 80.  I’ve read up on TankSpot, Elitist Jerks and Something Awful (I highly recommend all of these links, by the way) to bring you the end-all-be-all of what you should be looking for as a tank in terms of your stats.

Defense for raiding: 540
Defense for heroics: 535
Hit (level 83 boss): 295 raiting
Expertise (remove dodges): 25
Expertise (remove parries): 57

If you would rather look at raiting required then these are the numbers you need:

Defense: 689 defense rating
Expertise (dodge): 205 expertise rating
Expertise (parry): ~500 expertise rating
Hit: 295 hit rating

Here’s stat conversion at level 80:

1% hit = ~32.8 hit rating
1% dodge/parry reduction = ~32.8 expertise rating
1 expertise = 8.1975 expertise rating
1 defense = 4.9 defense rating

Popularity: 20% [?]

This topic recently came up in a thread on TankSpot so I figured I’d give it a go myself in writing something up about it, perhaps I’ll even make it an on-going series of subject matter here provided anyone is interested.

There are exactly two instances I can think of off of the top of my head where it is okay to taunt a mob off of another tank.  Hopefully you guys will help me think of a couple more.

1. Boss strategy. When a boss encounter calls for it, like Vashj.  When the main tank gets rooted (pre-Warbringer anyway) or stunned during Phase 1 or 3, it’s important for the OT to immediately pick her up.
2. To preserve another tank. When you might be out of range of healers and the tank that has a mob is about to die.  A good example of this is the Infernals that drop during Kaz’rogal and Azgalor trash in Hyjal.  Another example was on our Illidan kill last night; one of our Flame tanks went down and I stepped in long enough for the first one to die, then the living Flame tank taunted it back off of me.

This means that if the situation you find yourself in doesn’t fall into one of the top two categories, do not taunt off of another tank. I don’t care if you’re a better tank or better geared or whatever the excuse is, it is a slap in the face of the other tank if you do this.  On a very basic level you are saying to that tank that you do not trust them to do their job.*

We all accidentally taunt, just because you do doesn’t make you a terrible tank but please apologize for it.  A quick, “sorry about that, Bob the Tank” in Vent can help smooth it all over and stop a potential flare-up from occurring.  And believe me when I say that they will know what you’re apologizing for.

There is one situation in which taunting off of another tank’s target is acceptable, though it still isn’t the best idea in the world, and that is AOE tanking.  As far as I’m concerned in these hectic situations as long as the mobs are not on the DPS or the healers it not a problem and you should not take someone taunting off of you personally, you should be happy that you are all doing your job and not allowing the raid to take unnecessary damage.

*If you really don’t trust the other tank, instead of taunting off of them stop bringing them to raids.

Popularity: 16% [?]

With the advent of patch 3.0 and the upcoming expansion, no doubt everyone reading this is well aware that the way Warriors have been tanking has been completely turned on it’s head.  I went from putting out around 1200 to 1300 TPS on a boss to around 3000 TPS pretty quick and I’m sure most of you have seen a similar increase.  Our “oh crap” buttons are on lower cooldowns, our talents are fun and exciting, our gemming choices are actually going to be choices and our AOE abilities have been buffed to the moon.  That’s all well and good but the problem facing many is this: how do you use all of these new abilities to their maximum potential?

Single-target Rotation

There really isn’t a way to say, “do this, then this, then this” anymore since everything a tank does now is based entirely on circumstances.  I know in many ways this has always been the case but it’s never been like that more than it is now.  That said, your priorities should always be:

• Shield Slam, including Sword and Board procs. If Shield Slam is up, use it.  No excuses.  This ability does the most damage and puts out the most threat of any move in our threat arsenal.  Learn it, live it, love it, use it.  Often.
• Revenge. If Revenge is up and Shield Slam is on cooldown, use Revenge.  Revenge costs only two rage with Focused Rage talented and does a ton of damage which means tons of threat.  If you have Glyph of Revenge (and you should) you will also use Heroic Strike immediately after Revenge.  In fact, to make sure you never miss a Heroic Strike I recommend using this macro which I blatantly stole from Kadomi who stole it from someone over at Veneretio’s site, TankingTips.com:

/castsequence reset=2 Revenge, !Heroic Strike

• Devastate. If Shield Slam and Revenge are cooling down, start throwing out Devastates.  Make sure you use
• Shield Block. I don’t use this necessarily every cooldown, but it’s pretty close.  I want to make sure that I’m using it when Shield Slam is available, otherwise I’ve wasted precious seconds where I could have used another Shield Slam or a Sword and Board proc to push out even more threat.  Shield Block is especially useful to use at the beginning of a pull so that your DPS can lay into your target right away.
• Shield Bash. If you have two points in Gag Order your Shield Bash increases the damage your Shield Slam does to a target by 10%.  That’s like having the T6 4-piece set bonus with the push of a button.  Try to throw this up early in a fight to get maximum use out of it and don’t worry about it affecting your rotation because Shield Bash is off of the global cooldown now!

Multi-target Rotation

Here we are as warriors, no target limit on Thunder Clap and with our cool new ability Shockwave.  This means we can do instances in the same way that only Protection paladins used to be in the past – with absolutely no crowd control.  That isn’t to say it was impossible, I’ve done a dungeon without crowd control plenty of times and I’m sure most of you have too; the difference is that now it’s fun and it’s manageable.

• Charge. This step is actually optional and not recommended in a sitation where you could aggro further groups but man is it fun.
• Thunder Clap. You want to lay out a Thunder Clap immediately to get a handle on the mobs and to get that cooldown ticking away.
• Shockwave. Pile the mobs up in front of you and give ‘em a Shockwave to the face.
• Cleave. Cleave repeatedly, over and over until the cooldown is down for…
• Thunder Clap. At this point, you rinse and repeat until everything is dead.

Don’t forget you have other abilities you can be using during this time as well!  Use Shield Block to make Damage Shield hit harder, throw out Shield Slams and Devastates as well.  Above all else, always be doing something to maximize your threat.

Note: If you woud like to take a look at a more in-depth video about pulling, look no further than the Video Pulling Guide by Ciderhelm of TankSpot.

Popularity: 18% [?]

I was looking through the gem list over on WoWHead today and I have to say that I’m very, very impressed with what Blizzard is bringing to the table.  While the standard gemming practice in the Burning Crusade, is (at least until late-T6) to stack stamina, stamina, and some more stamina while forsaking all socket bonuses, I do not foresee this being the case in Wrath of the Lich King.

Why do I think this, you ask?

Tons of Stamina is on Everything

Every single piece of tank-like gear I have found is loaded with stamina, for instance:

• Tempered Titansteel Helm (crafted): 168 stamina
• Tempered Titansteel Treads (crafted): 120 stamina
• Titansteel Shield Wall (crafted): 69 stamina
• Armored Titanium Goggles (crafted): 111 stamina
• Slayer of the Lifeless (Naxx 10-man): 57 stamina

That’s a ton of stamina, and all of those items are able to be obtained very early in the Wrath of the Lich King raiding game.

But most importantly, we will not longer need to have massive stamina pools because…

Read More

Popularity: 20% [?]

Old and Busted: Powerful Earthstorm Diamond

New Hotness: Eternal Earthstorm Diamond

It’s no secret that with patch 3.0, a lot of tanking warriors are going to have some problems getting back to the defense softcap.  We’ll be swapping in some trinkets with high defense rating (read: Scarab of Displacement) permanently, the problem with this is that it’s going to drastically cut down on our ability to freely swap out items for added versatility depending on the situation we find ourselves in.

Enter the new Lord of the Warrior Tanking Meta Gems, the Eternal Earthstorm Diamond!  She’s quite the beauty, no?  With the +12 defense raiting it’ll help you get back up to 490 defense and the 10% bonus to Shield Block Value will be absolutely amazing for our our future threat and survivability.  The best part is that it’s a percentage so it’ll just keep getting better as your gear improves.

Popularity: 6% [?]

We all know the great stigma attached with running in pick up groups for instances; the people are morons, the people there can’t play their classes, the crowd control is terrible, etc, etc.  This stigma is there and well-known because, well, generally it’s deserved.  I hear constant complaining about running in PUGs but there are two streaks of silver lining in the murky cloud that people don’t often see.

It Will Make You a Better Tank

The bottom line is that when you have to deal with the Mage that just has to Pyroblast when you pull or the Hunter that can’t trap or the Warlock that DoTs everything so he can top the DPS meters it makes you a better tank.  You learn to use all of your abilites and how to use every single trick you have to keep mobs stuck on you.

I was recently asked by a guild member, who just dinged 70 and wants to tank, for some tips of the trade.  I told him to go PUG.  PUG a lot.  PUG until your eyes bleed because the things you learn while PUGing are invaluable and will serve you for as long as you play the game and continue to have bosses punch you around.

I believe this topic has been hit on by other tanking bloggers but the other reason that people go to PUGs and is often overlooked is because…

It is a Valuable Recruiting Method

Yes, you will run into many groups where you can’t stand a single person in it.  But every now and then you’ll run into the diamond in the rough; that player who is in the guild that recruited him when he was level 1 but who knows how to play his class and is great to be around.  The type of person you want to bring into your guild.

Popularity: 7% [?]

With the 3.0 patch looming on the horizon I am looking at my talent spec and thinking, “what am I going to do?”  I’ve have a pretty solid idea of what my level 80 spec is going to be, but my level 70 spec is another matter entirely.  The truth of the matter is that there are so many amazing new talents in the Fury and Protection tree that I end up going crazy and pulling my hair out trying to decide which ones I want.

• The Defensive Build (5/3/53). Since I’m the main tank for my guild and we’re going to still be taking on new content once the patch hits, this is definitely the spec I’m going to be taking.  I’m giving up five points in Cruelty to pick up five points in Parry and thus keep my avoidance up but I still get the myriad of excellent threat and survivability talents in the Protection tree.  I purposefully left out Vigilance, Concussion Blow and Improved Spell Reflect.  While these are talents I really want to pick up as I level, I want to see how the gave has changed before putting points into them at level 70.

• The Offensive Build (0/8/53). The same as the defensive build above but dropping the five points in parry to keep five points in Cruelty.  I imagine this being the build for OTs until the release of the expansion because of the higher threat that could be generated via the additional critical strike chance.

What’s your level 70 tanking build going to be like and why?

Popularity: 5% [?]