Warrior specs and Gear- an intro

[Yukirina]

BEWARE THIS IS A LONG POST

Ater going into consideration of being prot spec to better tank, i've decided it's better to consider this after i have done some research on the matter. I've never gone prot so i wouldn't exactly know how it is, hopefully mag and gutka can fill us in that. This guide i hope would serve to better tank.I'm basing this on my experience and also from questions i've asked..

Going into protection tree isn't a must to be a great tanker but it helps alot. However it is important to note.. MTs and serious OT should concentrate on prot. However as i don't have the experience of that i will leave that to Mag. The most important skills to learn to love using when generating threat are slunder, herioc strike (hs), shield block, revenge, taunt... and in a mob of more then one... thunderclap and demoralizing shout can be very helpful. Though the way we decide to spec and gear can influence which moves we decide to do...
1. slunder is instant and will you best friend in the world, it causes major amount of threat and also decreases armor that allows you to cause more dmg and thus gain even mroe threat.
2. hs is decent depending on how you're geared, even though it is a good threat producing this move however it depends on the speed of your weapon, i generally would recommend for those who use a fairly fast 1hander to use this quite often if you have good aggro (5 slunders imo) but those of slower 1h that have a nice chunk of rage then go right and use it. I have learned of the usefulness of this move a while back, it continuous builds aggro on top of the slunders
3. shield block and revenge goes in hand in hand quite nicely- shield block if your specced for it in the prot tree (highly recommended) can block for a very good % about more then 70% chance of blocking when activated... this block usually sents you up to revenge. Revenge is a nice threat builder. With both hand in hand, you are likely to decrease the dmg to you while increasing theat.
4. taunt- useful but be wary for it has a 10second cooldown... i've learn to use this if i know i have good aggro on another mob, generally i use taunt if i'm tanking more then one and if it's attacking the healer or some other cloth wearer. I use this with challenging shout depending on the situation... with challenging shout it gives time to assess the situation on who to taunt next and how to produce enough threat to maintain all hate on you. Always follow taunt with slunder...

5. hamstring/disarm- on a sidenote in my experience using these also seem to create some sort of threat, i have used only hamstring a couple times that holds a good aggro. a must on runners... disarm... they hit u for a hellava lot less and it pisses them off too...
There are other moves that i don't use quite often so i would rather not comment too much on those.

I at the moment is a Mortal Strike (MS) warrior with talents scattered in fury and prot to be all around dps/tanker. From my observations it has worked well in doing both... i'm not the highest dps and i am not the best tanker but the way i've worked it allows for both. Currently i'm specced in mostly arms with weapon spec in axes and 2h, my fury includes cruelty and unbridled wrath, prot i'm in shield spec, imp shield block, anticipation and defiance. This is working out well for me because of the way i am geared with a very fast axe (bone slicing hatchet/ seraphil) faster rage building + unbridled warth = nice rage build up and allows for faster HS

Protection spec i was warned against because it made it veryvery slow to kill things when you're soloing and people like seeing those high dmg numbers when they hit, i am am one of them... gotta be happy when u crit for over 1000 easy... but i've realized that a mix of proc and the other trees come for a nice dmg/tanking specced... granted u won't be doing crazy amounts of dmg but u sure can take those hits...
my considered spec is ARMS: HS-3 , deflection -3
FURY: cruelty -5 wrath-4
PROT: shield spec- 5 imp shield block -1 (i was advised to just put 1, putting more doesn't help because it just increases the time it blocks, by then u could already have another shield block) anticipation- 5, toughness-5, imp bloodrage- 2, last stand -1 (this move is highly advised to have for those sticky situations) imp revenge- 3, defiance-5, imp slunder -3, imp taunt-2

i've been thinking about this type of spec but was advised to not go into it unless i have the gear to back it up. Warriors are very gear dependent. Depending on how you prefer to play and your specs the right gear can make you one tough cookie. Although its advised you have more then one set of gear- pvp gear and tanking gear, or in my case i have an overall gear- a mix of def and dps... the armor rating and stuff like that i don't know how to calculate... there are many sites that can explain it far better then me... armor helps esp with toughness on... stam is important- more health = more life, the other stre, agi etc are self explainatory. One thing i advise.. dun't overlook agi... it helps u dodge like crazy, and doging/parrying/blocking a good amount is xtremely imprtant.... the one thing i've debated the usefullness is defense... it is useful, it won't make a difference if you're 310 defense but when u get above 350 it starts to work it's magic, at 400 it's veryvery hard for mobs to crit you, at 440 it's damn near impossible to crit you at all... but many def gears have lil or no stats on them so i advise to be a nice mixture of stats and defense... but that is my opinion. In the zg runs i have tried using my tanking gear then my full blown def where i can be at 399 def <--- annoying that i'm missing 1 point, anywyas i've asked the opinions of the people healing me whether it was easier to heal me or not depending on gear, to them it seem to be slightly easier with the def stuff on, i also notice that i dodge like a fiend... (this was against the snakes of the snake boss in zg). that was my experience. Howeve i've felt it's much better to be all around and depending on situation to slap on some def neck or trinket.

what i've listed here seems more of a OT (offtank) kind of discussion. So far SSX has two prot warriors and thus seeing that we mainly stick to 20man raids, it's enough for now but as always i'm looking for ways to be a tank. The MT (maintank) busniness should be discussed with Mag and if you're desperate....gutka =D... i've talked to other MTs of big guilds and each one relies on different stratgies to hold aggro and different builds and strengths. The point is by having this infomation is to find the way you feel most comfortable in tanking etc. Most important in tanking is that u must pay ATTENTION.

that is all i have for now about specs... though it's not alot.. all these are my opinion and experiences... i will put up a list of gear and any information later on... if anyone can add to it please do... it's better to be informed... The other classes i don't know too well... just a bit of this and that... if anyone can start one or something it would be great =D

on the side note - wow.com forums are a great source of info


Okay part two; Ive taken this from the Archons website, courtesy of Barb (warrior supreme =D). This is a list of gear that is recommended for tanking. They also include the types of enchants recommended on each. Ive also included some new items like the stuff from .5 gear. Most of armor that require blacksmiths can be made by me or jonis. For references on what is available refer to the thread on crafts lists. Any revisions or suggestions please note down.

Headgear

Preferred Enchanted Thorium Helm - http://www.thottbot.com/?i=37364
Craftable by an Armorsmith - Requires Arcanite Bar x 6, Enchanted Thorium Bar x 16, Essence of Earth x 6, Large Opal x 2 & Azerothian Diamond x 1
Lesser Arcanum of Constitution applied to this would be a bonus.

Golem Skull Helm - http://www.thottbot.com/?i=7381
Drops from magmus in Blackrock Depths
Lesser Arcanum of Constitution( http://www.thottbot.com/?i=25312 ) required on this item if

Gyths Skull- http://www.thottbot.com/?i=19206
Drops from the dragon that Rend rides on. It comes with all types of resistances. Comes in very handy. BTW he drops a lot of nice resist things including a great one for druids.

you wish to use it as your main tanking headgear.
Requires Libram of Constitutionx1( http://thottbot.com/?i=14354 ), Black Diamondx1( http://thottbot.com/?i=6917 ), Lung Juice Cocktailx1 (Quest reward from the Blood Elf npc's located south of the graveyard in Blasted Lands), Night Dragon's Breathx4( http://thottbot.com/?i=6414 ) & 30 Gold, delivered to the High Elf Npc Located near the Horde Wind Rider in Burning Steppes at Flamecrest Point.

Necklace

For Tanking;

Preferred Medallion of Grand Marshall Morris - http://www.thottbot.com/?i=10553
Random World drop from level 55+ mobs, most likely found on the AH

Strength of Mugamba - http://www.thottbot.com/?i=51834
Accquired from Zandalar Warrior Quest giver when you have reached friendly reputation level with Zandalar Faction

Evil Eye Pendant - http://www.thottbot.com/?i=35743
Drops from Immol'thar in Dire Maul West

For Resistances;

Required Drakefire Amulet - http://thottbot.com/?i=4829
Acquired by completing the Quest Chain thats for the Onyxia key

Optional Eidolon Talisman - http://thottbot.com/?i=35806
Drops in Dire Maul West from any of the Eldreth prefixed mobs

Cloak

For Tanking;

Preferred Redoubt Cloak - http://www.thottbot.com/?i=36081
Drops from Dire Maul North Tribute Chest, only has chance to drop through the completion of a perfect tribute.

Cloak of Warding - http://www.thottbot.com/?i=35977
Craftable by a Tailor - Requires Bolt of Runecloth x 12, Guardian Stone x 4, Arcanite Bar x 1 & Rune Thread x 2

Sergeants Cloak - http://www.thottbot.com/?i=34287
Accquired from achieving Sergeant rank in pvp

+70 AC enchant is Mandatory for all the above cloaks - http://thottbot.com/?sp=20015
Requires 8 Illusion Dust

For Resistances;

Preferred Smokey's D#@!& - http://thottbot.com/?i=38728
Accquired from the completion of the Eastern Plaguelands quest called "When Smokey Sings I get Violent" which is the follow up quest from previously completing "That's asking a Lot"

Fluctuating Cloak of Fire Resistance - http://www.thottbot.com/?i=35973
Drop from Prince Tortheldrin in Dire Maul West

Wildfire Cape - http://thottbot.com/?i=20121
Drops from Upper Blackrock Spire from Pyroguard Emberseer

+7 Fire Resistance Enchant is Mandatory for the two above cloaks - http://thottbot.com/?sp=13657
Requires Lesser Mystic Essence x 1 & Elemental Fire x 1

Optional Pale Moon Cloak - http://thottbot.com/?i=37238
Drops from Stratholme Baron Side from Maleki the Pallid

Fluctuating Cloak of Shadow Resistance - http://www.thottbot.com/?i=35765
Drop from Prince Tortheldrin in Dire Maul West

Eidolon Cloak - http://thottbot.com/?i=36051
Drops in Dire Maul West from any of the Eldreth prefixed mobs


+10 Shadow Resistance enchant is Mandatory for the two above cloaks - http://thottbot.com/?sp=13522
Requires Greater Astral Essence x 1 & Shadow Protection Potion x 1

Shoulders

For Tanking;

Preferred Stockade Pauldrons - http://www.thottbot.com/?i=9980
Random World drop from lvl 55+ mobs, most like found in the AH

Bulky Iron Spaulders - http://thottbot.com/?i=35751
Drops in Dire Maul North from Any of the Guard prefixed Boss Mobs

Bile-Etched Spaulders - http://thottbot.com/?i=35747
Drops from Immol'thar in Dire Maul West

For Resistances;

Preferred Dark Iron Shoulders - http://www.thottbot.com/?i=8450
Craftable by a Blacksmith - Requires Dark Iron Bar x 6 & Heart of Fire x 1

Chest

For Tanking;

Preferred Ornate Adamantium Breastplate - http://www.thottbot.com/?i=17848
Accquired from completing all of Tirion Fordrings Quests who is located in the Eastern Plagueland

Kromcrush's Chestplate - http://www.thottbot.com/?i=35754
Drops from Captain Kromcrush in Dire Maul North

Enchanted Thorium Breastplate - http://www.thottbot.com/?i=37666
Craftable by an Armorsmith - Requires Arcanite Bar x 8, Enchanted Thorium Bar x 24, Essence of Earth x 4, Essence of Water x 4, Huge Emerald x 2 & Azerothian Diamond x 2

Deathbone Chestplate - http://www.thottbot.com/?i=18831
Drops off of any of the 6 pre-requisite bosses you need to defeat to summon Darkmaster Gandling in Scholomance (this has been changed to include mana regen. So its iffy on warrior or paladin. It is up to your decision)

For Resistances;

Breastplate of the Chromatic Flight - http://www.thottbot.com/?i=6423
Accquired from completing the quest chain that starts from Awbee in Upper Blackrock Spire, Located after the Rend Blackhand Encounter.

Dark Iron Plate - http://www.thottbot.com/?i=19652
Accquired from learning the profession of Armorsmithing and the plans to make this item as the craft is bind on pickup - Requires Dark Iron Bar x 20 & Heart of Fire x 8

Hydralick Armor - http://www.thottbot.com/?i=3923
Random World drop from lvl 51+ mobs, most likely found on the AH

Any of the Three above chests are preferred due to their nature of availability

+100 Health to Chest enchant mandatory on all the above chests - http://www.thottbot.com/?sp=20026
Requires Illusion Dust x 6 & Small Brilliant Shard x 1

Bracers

For Tanking;

Bracers of Heroism- http://www.thottbot.com/?i=53156
From the .5 set chain quests

First Sergeant Plate Bracer's - http://www.thottbot.com/?i=35778
Accquired by reaching First Sergeant rank via pvp

Vigorsteel Vambraces - http://www.thottbot.com/?i=10600
Drops from Darkmaster Gandling in Scholomance

Fel Hardened Bracers - http://www.thottbot.com/?i=37376
Drops from Lord Hel'Nurath from Dire Maul West summoned via the Warlock Mount Quest

Any of the above three bracers are preferred

+9 Stamina or +3 Defense Skill Enchant is Mandatory on the above bracers - http://www.thottbot.com/?sp=20011 or http://www.thottbot.com/?sp=13931
+9 Stamina requires Illusion Dust x 15
+3 Defense Skill Requires Greater Nether Essence x 1 & Dream Dust x 2

For Resistances;

Emberplate Armguards of the Bear - http://www.thottbot.com/?i=3721
Drops from Lord Incendius in Blackrock Depths

Emberplate Armguards of Stamina - http://www.thottbot.com/?i=17116
Drops from Lord Incendius in Blackrock Depths

Either of the above bracers are preferred

+9 Stamina enchant is mandatory on the above bracers - http://www.thottbot.com/?sp=20011
Requires Illusion Dust x 15

Gloves

Preferred Stonegrip Gauntlets - http://www.thottbot.com/?i=38415
Random world drop from lvl 58+ mobs, best found on the AH

Force Imbued Gauntlets - http://www.thottbot.com/?i=35863
Drops from Illyanna Ravenoak in Dire Maul West

Desert Wind Gauntlets - http://www.thottbot.com/?i=52033
Accquired from completing the quest "Vyral the Vile" in silithus which is a chain from "Twilight Geolords" in the same Area

+7 Agi enchant is mandatory on the above gauntlets - http://www.thottbot.com/?sp=20012
Requires Illusion Dust x 3 & Lesser Eternal Essence x 3 (or Greater Eternal Essence x 1)

all this and more can also be found on http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/threa ... 594562&P=1

[Barbarher]

Who need Gutka if we have you tanking.

prop.

[Gutka]

Please don't do what Gutka did in his first protection spec attempt.. The idiot put 41 points into protection... and tank like a turtle.

Since MT is MAG, I'm secondary, and you can secondary or MT as well.. we pretty much have the same gear, except the DAMN trinket...

I think you should stay with the 31-5-15 spec unless you really want to Tank, then we can exchanges places ... DPS and able to tank is a good thing to have

Or another option is to go with a scattered Tank Spec using all 3 trees of the talents, imo.

[Magdalena]

Ok, trying to add my input here without the benefit of the tree to see, so starting with the aggro generators I use...

First off, in larger instances I never get out of def stance, and likelyhood of tanking more than one mob is next to none. I can think of 1 exception, panther boss in ZG if you're on adds.
Taunt - used as first strike, gets mob facing me immediately and starts build-up of rage. Never used again unless for some reason I lose aggro, in which case used to grab it back only. Start using other aggro abilities asap or you'll lose the mob as soon as taunt wears off, even if you previously had its aggro. Very dangerous if you already have the aggro as it seems to wipe you even with everybody else at the end unless you've added aggro after using it.
Sunder - Use it always, always stack to 5 and keep it up through the entire fight, this is your best friend.
Shield Block/Revenge vs Heroic Strike - these depend mostly on how much rage I have and how hard I'm being hit. If I have full rage, I'm alternating all 3 Shield Block>Revenge>Heroic Strike. If I'm running low on rage I use revenge if it pops up on its own otherwise heroic strike unless I'm taking heavy dmg.
Shield slam is used when I've got full rage to kill to make sure that mob isn't going anywhere or if an unruly dps isn't watching their aggro and pulls the mob's fury but sunders are already up and i'm silenced for example. This ability gains more aggro quicker than anything other than taunt, but it costs a lot and is not sustaining aggro like sunders.
Disarm - Usually doesn't work on bosses, but on those that it does it can be a lifesaver. It does cause decent aggro and saves your healers some mana, keeping you needing less heals. Hint: Use it at Tiger boss, I found you can disarm them.

AOE - Panter boss adds... I had time to watch on this fight... one warrior was in offensive stance using thunder clap, the other in zerker using whirlwind, piercing howl... thunder clap seemed to be holding a lot better, and slowed those that did get loose, also the dmg taken difference was definitely visable. Used to have piercing howl myself but found it almost never worth the points.

If you're tanking, its highly unlikely you're ever going to end up high on the dps charts no matter what spec you are simply because you should be in defensive stance that entire time which reduces the dmg you deal. It is however true that full prot spec gives up a lot. While other classes can respec appropriately and still be a challenge on the pvp field as well as be able to handle themselves easily solo, this is not the case for a war. Warriors have huge sacrifices they have to make... plain and simple the pvp is gone and farming for yourself is a thing of the past as it takes forever to kill things. In all honesty, my recommendation would be for people that have multiple characters to have their war prot spec and switch out with one another so they can each have a chance to play characters that are more fun and enjoyable. Unfortunately we don't have many of those right now so its not a viable option yet.
That being said, full protection shows most in boss battles, whether rotating boss aggro or having several bosses to fight at the same time. Trash/Adds mainly try to get a little way into it... last stand, improved armor, improved shield block, and improved defense are good concentrations. Other than that, just make sure while you're tanking them you stay in defensive stance the whole time.
I personally keep points in Arms to keep from losing rage if I change stances... primarily for charge/switch stance at start of battle and for smaller instances.
I've gone through about 4 different build-outs and still have a few small areas I'd change on prot tree... starting with don't waste points on improved revenge, most upper lvls resist it and when it does stick it's hardly ever useful.
Also on Arms tree, the one that gives a chance to bleed on melee swing, avoid that talent as well. The problem is it's a bleed effect you can't turn off, in a 40-man there's a problem of watching how many debuffs you have up on the mob, don't want your bleed effect knocking something like sunders off or preventing new ones from being put on.
Further specifics, I can go through each tree with you and point out some of the pros and cons of each, but easier to do on ventrillo...

Hey, idea for anybody interested - have a warrior meeting and chop apart the talent tree piece by piece... I can give usefulness for tanking and end-game and rage can likely slice 'em up for dps usefulness...

warning, this will likely take a while but probably very useful for all of our warriors...

[Brandonheat]

Your all can thank me for this.

Pally tank build http://www.wowhead.com/talent/?axxzMZV0tIezmoV0b

hehe, in case you need a "emergency save the the group from wipes" tank

[lili]

And by that, Andy, I assum you mean "DI somebody who can raise and sacrfice myself" tank right? lol

I'll probably follow suit and post up a mage one since I've gotten asked the questions before but I don't know if I can keep up with Yuki's leangth. That's just impressive. And I hate posting links lol. I loved programing but after I decided on medicine even html programing and looking up stuff seems to be way too much time spend. Probably because there isn't enough time in the day to read the amount I need to read for the patient with diabetes, hypertension, end stage renal disease on hemodalysis, systolic and diastolic heart failure, HIV positive not on HARRT threapy and now have AIDS, and is still smoking crack every chance they get. Humm yeah that's all one patient, oh I forgot the old myocardio infarctions, the hep C and B infections, and going blind from the diabetes. Yup that's my typical patient. I am so glad I'm going into ob/gyn cause there usually isn't a 80 year old with heart failure and end stage renal disease having a baby.

I had a bad day and needed to vent. I'll start working on the mage stuff now.

[RagingDeath]

well that is verrrrrrrrrry interesting weili hehe i have much respect for your knowledge. MAD PROPS FOR MED STUDENTS! I am basically arms tree and 5 in one of the other 2 cant remember. I really love having the ability to have tons of rage built up. Rage=damage. I like tanking once in awhile but obviously cant last as long as u guys because my lack of prot spec, but any warrior can off tank easily. But there is prob a very balanced tree spec out there that would help. I am for picking apart the trees as well.

[Magdalena]

Ok, this is a long one, took me a while to find it, but helped a lot in knowing where your aggro comes from and different effects, like why it's so tough to get aggro back once you've lost it and why letting the warrior build up aggro before firing away is so important to prevent them losing it...

Enjoy...

It's often said that we will never be able to work out the way threat and hate lists and mobs' AI works, because it's too complicated and unknowable, that we'll only ever have crude approximations and guesses. I've conducted some decent, rigorous tests, and i have what i believe is a good list of hate values and explanations of gaining and losing aggro and the behaviour of taunt. I am also able to debunk a few myths about how threat works.
1) Definitions

We define "aggro" to be who the mob is attacking. We define "threat" to be a numeric value that each mob has towards each player on it's hate list. Note, as we shall soon see, even for a normal mob, the target who has aggro is not necessarily the player on it's threat list with the most threat.
We define arbitratily that 1 point of unmodified damage gives 1 point of threat.

2) How to get aggro
Simply put, for a mob to change aggro to a new target, the new target must have over 10% more threat than the mob's current target. E.g. mob is attacking player x. x does 100 damage to mob, then stops. Player y starts hitting the mob. The mob will start attacking y when y does over 110 damage.
Proof: this is easy to demonstrate. Get two players both doing autoattack on a mob (not warriors of rogues; we'll see later they complicate things). Have player 1 do a certain amount of damage, then stop. Have player 2 keep attacking till he gets aggro. You have an upper and lower bound on the threat required to get aggro - 1 attack before he got aggro was not enough, but the attack that he got aggro was at least enough. With low damage attacks (i.e. fists only), you will get a very good value of 10%.

Update: Suppose a mob is attacking player 1. In order for the mob to switch to player 2, he must do more than just exceed the threat of player 1. If he is in melee range of the mob, he will draw aggro when he exceeds 110% of player 1's threat. If he is outside melee range of the mob, he will draw aggro when he exceeds 130% of player 1's threat.
If player 2 has exceeded 110% threat but not 130% threat, they will draw aggro immediately if they do a threat-generating ability within melee range of the mob, but proximity alone will not cause the mob to shift to them.

3)Threat modifiers from Warrior Stances
In Battle Stance and Berserker Stance, all threat from a Warrior is multiplied by 80%. In defensive stance, the multiplier is 130%. With Defiance, it is 145%.
Proof: a simple modification of the above proof. Get a warrior to do, say, 1000 damage in defensive stance, without defiance. Get a non-warrior to take aggro with white damage. You will find it does not happen before 1430 damage. The warrior's 1000 damage caused 1300 threat in defensive stance, and the 10% barrier means you need more than 1430 to gain aggro.

4)Threat never, ever decays. Here is test data. Warrior does 83 damage on mob in battle stance, gains aggro. From above, we know it will take more than 83 * 0.8 * 1.1 = 73.04 threat to gain aggro. Warrior waits for 5 minutes getting beat on. Then mage starts attacking slowly. Mage does 73 damage, but does not gain aggro! Mage does another 2 damage, and does gain aggro. From the warrior's initial hit to losing aggro, the time taken was 496 seconds.
As an upper bound, assume maximal threat decay. i.e. the mage only needed 73.000000001 threat to gain aggro. Then the warrior's threat had decayed to 66.36363636, from 66.4. This means he went down to 99.945% threat in 496 seconds.

At this maximal rate of hate decay, the time taken for the warrior's threat to decay to 90% of the original value would be 26.5 hours. In fact, if a warrior logged in as soon as the server came online after the weekly reset and hit a mob, his threat would not decay to 50% before the server reset next week. I think this is enough to rule out threat decay.

5) The amount of threat caused by skills
Note: the following values are given in raw terms. In reality the warrior must have either a 1.3 or 0.8 or 1.45 modifier on these, depending on his stance and talents.
Note: * All abilities do not include threat generated by their damage. This will be discussed more later.
the following list is not exhaustive, but includes all the major tanking abilities.
Sunder armor: 261(259.5-261.5)
Heroic Strike : 145 (143.9 - 148.
Revenge: 315 (313.9 - 318.3)
Revenge(stun) : 25 (23.4 - 29.1)
Shield bash : 180 (175.4 - 180.3)
Shield slam : 250 (estimated from Cop's data. More on that later)
Thunderclap : 130 (126.9 - 134.
Demorializing Shout : 43 (42.8 - 43.

6)Healing, "you gain x ___", etc
Each point of healing, when completely unmodified by talents, gives 0.5 threat. Replace the proof for (2) by the second person only healing.
Note: overhealing doesn't count, only the actual amount healed. This is easy to demonstrate.
Abilities that put "you gain x mana" in the combat log give 0.5 threat per point gained; life is the same. Examples would be drinking potions, but not natural regen, or the Shaman's mana spring totem.
Abilities that put "you gain x rage" in the combat log give 5 threat per point gained. However, this is not modified by warrior stance. Such abilities include bloodrage, improved blocking talent, unbridled wrath, and 5/8 Might.
Like healing, these only give threat if you are below the maximum.

7)Explaining Cop's 4.0 damage to heal ratio
Cop stated that in his tests, each point of damage by the warrior took approximately 4 points of healing by the priest, for the priest to get aggro. Here's how:
Warrior in defensive stance, with defiance: 1.45 multiplier
Gaining aggro from Warrior: 1.1 multiplier
Priest with discipline: 80% threat
Healing: each point gives 0.5 threat
Together, 1.45 * 1.1 / 0.8 / 0.5 = 3.9875. Pretty darn close to 4.

8)Threat from pulling?
There is no threat associated with pulling. The smallest amouts of threat we could generate drew aggro from a body pull, no matter how long we waited after the pull. Pulling with damage did not effect the results of tests such as in section (2) at all.

9)Taunt
Casting taunt causes three effects.
A) The warrior is given as much threat as the person who currently has the mob's aggro. Obviously if the warrior has aggro, this will do nothing. Also, this effect will not lower the warriors threat. For example, if player 1 has 100 threat and aggro, a warrior could have 105 but not aggro; after taunt he would still be on 105 threat.
B) The mob recalculates its actual aggro target. If the warrior was on the mob's hatelist before the original aggro target, the mob's actual aggro target will switch to the warrior. Otherwise, the mob will remember it's original target.
C) The normal taunt debuff. The mob is forced to attack the warrior, even if the warrior is not its actual aggro target.
The threat that the warrior gains from (A) is permanent, regardless of the outcome of (B). Note that it will not necessarily give the warrior the equal highest threat on the mob. If player 1 has 100 threat and aggro, Player 2 has 109 threat but not aggro, and the warrior has 0 threat, then the warrior is given 100 threat, not 109, so he could easily lose aggro to Player 2 after taunting.

10) Implications
a) Regaining aggro. Considering the 10% rule, if you lose aggro naturally, someone will have at least 110% of your current threat. To regain it, you need 10% of that, or 121% of your current threat, at an absolute minimum. So don't lose aggro, it's hard to get back! Not that you didn't already know this, but still.

b) Taunt is potentially your highest threat move, because it gives permanent threat. The longer other people have been beating on a mob while you were not, the more threat you will gain by taunting. But from the 10% rule, you will need to do a lot of work to get aggro if the mob has been attacked for a decent amount of time without you.

c) Heroic Strike should not be used as a primary threat ability. Suppose you are tanking a level 62 mob. Let's give him 8,000 ac raw, and even assume he has 5 sunders stacked, for 5750 final ac, so he will take 48.89% of damage. A 15% crit rate is balanced by the 10% penalty to damage in defensive stance, and a 10% chance of a glancing blow chance for 50% damage. Then you can expect the 138 damage from Heroic Strike to contribute 67.5 damage on average, for a total of 212 unmodified threat. This is still only 82% of the threat a sunder would give. Even with a 1.3 speed weapon, you will still do 94% the threat of sunder per time interval.
Best practice is to spam sunder, and use HS in between to soak up excess rage.

d) Revenge ftw. You can expect to do about 345 unmodified threat with Revenge, including damage, against the mob in the example above, which is exceptional for the low rage cost, even throwing in 10 for a shield block. However, there is a rage cost of shield block, in that you will block more attacks, so take less damage, so gain less rage from damage. Two blocks for 180 damage and you can say goodbye to another 4 rage.

e) Demo Shout ftl. Demoralising shout does one sixth the threat of a sunder. Even spammed in defensive stance with defiance, you're doing no more threat than 42dps on each mob. Besides picking up whelps in Onyxia and tanking panthers in the Panther boss encounter in ZG, i can't see a compelling reason to use this.

f) Shield Slam ftl. Given the 6 second cooldown, there is no improvement in threat per second by using shield slam. With shield slam: 3 sunders and 1 shield slam every 6 seconds. About 212 threat per second, unmodified. With the 30 rage from the shield slam you can cast 1 sunder and about 1.2 heroic strikes, assuming you have the talents (which you would with any shield slam build), and are losing 3 rage per Heroic Strike from lost white damage rage (i.e. assuming 90 modified damage per hit). The 4 sunders and 1.2 heroic strikes every 6 seconds gives about 215 threat per second.
The only improvement is if you are spamming both sunder and HS, and want even more threat. Suppose we have a 2.0 speed weapon, HS spam and sunder spam. That's about 280 unmodified tps. Changing one sunder for a shield slam gives us 318 unmodified. However, the same effect would be achieved by changing to a 1.4 speed weapon and casting HS more often. And these values aren't taking into account autoattack damage, which makes the margins comparatively smaller.

g) There's no amazing super secret randomised blizzard aggro algorithm. The concepts are simple and the values can be fitted with nice numbers. Even formulas for threat-reducing knockbacks can conceivably be worked out, if threat values are carefully monitored.

Implications Updated Jan 19. Updated Jan 21. Note this section is just my opinion.
a) Let the tank pull! Then he will be first on all the mobs' hatelists, and his taunts will always return aggro to him.

b) Given that targets at range will only draw aggro when they have more than 130% of the mob's target's current threat, it's important for a tank to keep the mobs well away from the casters. If a healer does draw aggro and you taunt it off him, make sure you also move it away.

[Brandonheat]

wow, being a warrior is harder then i thought. Pallies were just Shield+hearth

[Gutka]

Here's my latest spec. http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/cla ... 0500222000

I don't feel like putting in 40+ points into protection tree.

[Yukirina]

i like the respec you posted if i do respec it'll probably end up more or less like that except i would be putting more points into wrath then shield bash it'll end up being http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/cla ... 0500220000

not much of a diff... it seems that it works well enough

[sakuragi]

Your all can thank me for this.

Pally tank build http://www.wowhead.com/talent/?axxzMZV0tIezmoV0b

hehe, in case you need a "emergency save the the group from wipes" tank

that can't be ur built.....i tought u went retrib all the way....hmmm...

[Brandonheat]

thats not my build, but its still a pretty good tank build for pallies

[Gutka]

Since when can pally tank ??? probably lvl 59 and below... :-)

[sakuragi]

thats not my build, but its still a pretty good tank build for pallies

so what does ur built look like???

[Brandonheat]

thats not my build, but its still a pretty good tank build for pallies

so what does ur built look like???

BEHOLD !!!!

http://www.wowhead.com/talent/?axxZV0xZxbttMcqo

[sakuragi]

thats not my build, but its still a pretty good tank build for pallies

so what does ur built look like???

BEHOLD !!!!

http://www.wowhead.com/talent/?axxZV0xZxbttMcqo

quick question on that...i didn't think repentance is useful since it only works on humanoids....is that really helpful???

i was looking at taking the point out of repentance and putting it in blessing of kings......
that close to what i have or what i would have...

[Brandonheat]

I thought it was not worth it before, but I decided to try out it out and it SUPER useful in PVP. Not so much in PVE. Its like an second hammer of justice, I use it to stop people from caping the flags. AND it allows you to have a mini stun lock as well:

Hammer of justice
Release SoC
Repentance
Release SoC

[requiemdreamer]

Alright you two. Let's try and keep this to warrior spec's.

[Barbarher]

If you really take a good look at the spec.. that looks like a pretty nice warrior spec.

[Magdalena]

Ok, at home today with a little time...

First, here is my current Spec:
Magdalena

If I end up respeccing again, here are the changes I would make after playing this for a while:

Protection Build


For those not going as deep in the protection tree, here are the key survivability elements:

22 protection
(this one is for maximum threat generation and damage reduction without going too deep, Improved shield bash added in there because it seems to come into play in some cases such as ZG mobs that heal themselves along with rogue's kicking.) If just looking for MC, the improved shield bash can be dropped off, and you'll still have enough damage mitigation to be a good selection for tanking dog packs, etc.

The one talent I spoke of earlier that every warrior needs to ensure they don't have when going into 40-man raids is Deep Wounds, the smaller amount of damage this ability does is not worth a dot slot or sunder slot in a 40-man raid, and since it is something the warrior can't control when it happens it is the one talent that has to go bye-bye.

Hope this helps any others revisiting their spec selection for the bigger raids, and let me know if you have any questions on any of these.