The Biggest Myth about Protection Warriors
mictavis recently left this comment in Part 1 of Maximizing your Boss Threat,
“Yes you are correct that more rage may be available due to being undergeared but this also means that shield block value, expertise, hit rating, attack power and other threat generating stats are likely lacking lacking and the additional rage will not be converted into nearly as much threat.”
…and he’s so right.
Incoming Rant.
I’m Sorry Sally, but Better Gear does not equal Less Threat
There seems to be this standard that because you can do 1000 TPS on Boss A that you should be able to do that same amount of threat on Trash Mob B from Regular Instance C.
That’s just not a fair assumption to make. We aren’t dpsers. I’m sorry, we just aren’t. However, if you measured back in the day the threat you were doing to Trash Mob B in Regular Instance C using your crappy Blues and Greens, I can guarantee that you are doing a lot more threat today in full epics then you were doing back then.
And…
Now you can tank multiple mobs and you can generate more threat on all of those mobs than you could on a single target back in your crappy gear.
Wait, no I can’t.
Well this is why way, way back in the day I wrote an article on The 3 set of Tanking gear. I wonder how many people actually bought [item]Farstrider Defender's Cloak[/item]?
The #1 Rule: Gear for the Content
Just because you have to wear a threat cloak, 2 threat rings, 2 threat trinkets, a threat gun and a DPS belt and you can’t wear your 18k armor, 17k health, 65% Avoidance, end-game “I’m never going to die so don’t even try to kill me” tanking set doesn’t mean that you are some how getting cheated by the game.
And if that still doesn’t work…
Meet my friend, the X button.
The X key on a standard Blizz setup of the game makes you sit down. Now doing normal content that your gear is intended for it’d be suicidal to press such a button because as you may or may not know when you get hit sitting down, you get crit.
And please don’t say to me, “But, But Vene!!!! I shouldn’t have to do this!!!”.
Why Not?
You use Bloodrage to hurt yourself and generate rage don’t you?
End Rant.
February 19th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
In addition to sitting down, getting crit, and receiving more rage… you will also gain DOUBLE reputation from that mob.
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February 19th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
LOL well you’ll just have to hope that Siouxzen drops by to tell the story behind that one…
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February 19th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
“But, But Vene!!!! I shouldn
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February 19th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
didnt know about getting critted when sit
good to know.
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February 19th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
I agree, Carry extra threat gear, get your defense lower than the crit cap. IN my threat gear i still have a butt load of HP and armor, but my defense goes down quite a bit and i am rolling a few pieces of DPS gear.
And yes, I did get the farstrider defenders cloak, AND the gnomeregan autoblocker… 2k Sheild slams are teh hawt!
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February 19th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
A “Vene story”…
So we all decided to level alts, Vene chose a mage. I’m sure you all remember finishing an instance with only one bar left before you ding. To get the easy exp, you turn in cloth to a major city for experience and rep, bam, you level! Well, Vene had one bar til level 34 so he could train. We were in Org and I told him if he turned in cloth to the Darkspear Trolls by the mage trainer, you get double exp. I specified that it was a bug that only worked with the Darkspear Trolls.
Now, after playing several jokes on Vene over the past year, he laughed and told me I was wrong and just trying to mess with him. It went on with me trying to convince him for about 15 minutes and him telling me I was full of it….but, in the end…HE TRIED IT. The funniest part was when he stood up and Speidel (on his alt) was standing right behind him.
Just to prove how convincing I can be, for about 3 months, I had Vene believing that “Shiny Fish Scales” sell on the AH for 8g each!
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February 19th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
a bit OT, but why do tanks always choose a mage to level as an alt? I chose a mage. The MT on my ally guild chose a gnome mage, and you too vene. what gives? XD
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February 19th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
I also want a mage, might be the whole ‘they aoe like madmen!’ thing.
Also, get some pvp gear and substitute defense for resilience, stay uncrittable, get more rage, make more threat.
And please, if you’re overgearing content don’t CC, just have them all hit on you.
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February 19th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
You also get hit more in the back… and if there are lots of melee and you turn bosses a lot or ask them to stand in front like nubs then the boss should get in some nice ouchy parries… careful bout getting them all cleaved to death though, thats only funny to you.
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February 19th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
Irghen, I’m always in instances where I don’t want CC, which I state, and then the mage (of course) sheeps and the hunter lays a ninja trap and yells, “WHY DIDNT YOU TELL ME WE WERE PULLING… TRAP IS NOW ON CC”
Great point vene. Also, I have just put executioner on my King’s Defender because I have started my own guild (after a lot of deliberation) and we are only doing Karazhan and i totally out-gear it. So I put my threat set on.
I was, just today, abused with no remorse by a mage who claimed to have a “tank with 15k unbuffed hp” and that “Mongoose is unconditionally better than executioner, and executioner is BY FAR the worst tanking enchant” /facepalm. With executioner, i can get my shield slams hitting for close to 1k non crit in my threat set. If I pop my SBV (Gnomeregan Auto-blocker) trinket after an executioner proc i can hit almost 1.2k non-crit.
revenge hits for north of 800, crit sometimes too… sorry, a bit of venting/ranting
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February 20th, 2008 at 6:20 am
This post isn’t completly accurate. Most people here have been tanking since the very beginning. They aren’t making things up. Yes more gear is less rage and less threat … in the old days. When it was hard to get threat items, without nerfing your threat output.
Imo there is always been a moment in gearing you where you are getting better gear but fewer threat. Blizzard has made this gap between ‘crappy’ and ‘imba with decent threat’ much smaller thanks to the introduction of new stats and items.
Back in the old days gearing meant fewer threat, now this ‘moment’ is imo easely come by.
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February 20th, 2008 at 6:37 am
I understand - i have a block / threat set. I know i can sit down to draw agro.
However that doesn’t change the fact that i carry 54 pieces of gear, not counting my resist gear. It doesn’t change the fact that I can’t put on my “best” gear for a 5 man without resorting to “tricks” to hold aggro.
Your kidding yourself and doing the community a disservice by even hinting that this is a player problem. I don’t see the mages changing gear for a 5 man. I don’t see my healers changing gear either. My friend’s pally doesn’t “gear down” to tank. Nor does our guild’s Feral tanks.
Why should warriors have to resort to carrying a “threat” set and sitting to get crit in order to build the rage we need to get agro?
The only facts i see - is that the warrior rage mechanic is broken.
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February 20th, 2008 at 7:15 am
I’ve been an avid user of the X key for some time now but it’s never been fair that something like that should be necessary.
Every other class gets better at their job in all instances as their gear improves. Everyone but us. Getting less rage because we receive less damage has always been an inherent flaw in the design of our class.
After TBC came out I made a post on the Warrior forums about 2 things I could see changed that would greatly balance protection warriors.
The first suggestion was that rage gained be based completely off incoming damage. Whether the damage was avoided by dodge, parry, power word shield, or any other mechanic is completely irrelevant. The fact that the damage was sent your way means you gain rage. Now of course that would greatly increase the amount of rage a warrior would gain in every single situation so the current rage per damage mechanic would have to be tweaked so that rage generation would be back to normal. But all in all this change would mean that improving your gear would not hurt you at all, it would only help. Like every other class in the game. This would also make rage generation much more consistent instead of droughts and floods.
The second suggestion was Thunderclap in defensive stance.
I won’t claim to be the guy who brought you that because I never even got a blue response. But I think the first change I mentioned is something Blizzard should have done from day one with warriors. Just like thunderclap in defensive was.
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February 20th, 2008 at 8:22 am
@Link: Our job gets better too. You simply don’t remember how hard your job was back then. We get the benefit of not having to use thunderclap, demo, commanding shout or shield block just to live. We do generate more threat than we did back then too, I think many forget just how little threat you generate in blues and greens regardless of incoming damage.
@Diel: The fact that you carry 54 pieces of gear has nothing to do with this. You had to carry those anyway for 25 man content. If part of that gear you are carrying is for 5 mans then you are being silly. You can put together effective 5 man sets using your standard threat gear that you’d use for a 25 man boss. You can combine it with the Fury gear you should be carrying anyway for even more threat if you like.
Your friends pally certainly does “gear down” (if you call putting on better threat gear that) by not using his uncrushable set and putting on full spellpower and stamina gear. Feral tanks definitely throw on their dps gear and tank in bear form when doing 5 mans they outgear.
Why should warriors have to get crit? Well I answered that already, why should you have to use bloodrage either then? You aren’t resorting to carrying a threat set, you already had it on you for other content.
And ask yourself this, is it fair that as a warrior tank you can single handedly pull 4 other people that are grossly undergeared and unaware of how to play their class through an instance? DPSers can’t do that. Healers definitely can’t either.
And as far as doing the community a disservice, the only disservice I believe I could do is not giving people my honest opinion.
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February 20th, 2008 at 9:49 am
Here is a fun example - with full raid buffs in my threat gear I have 19.9k hp, 18k armor, around 45% avoidance, 22% crit, 138 hit and 750 block value. Now in terms of ‘gearing down’ I am certainly not putting on greens and hoping for the best - I have a wide range of gear including a couple pvp items and two items from Karazhan. I ‘geared down’ to such an extent during trash that one of the officers of my guild, in all seriousness, accused me of wearing shitty gear to save gold on my repair bill.
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February 20th, 2008 at 9:54 am
I still don’t understand why gearing down is a problem. Do you -want- to tank heroics in your Archimonde gear? I sure don’t. It’s more fun to slap on gladiator gear and a few hit / expertise pieces and go to town.
Different gear for different places. And if your other classes are doing that, then they’re just not being creative. There are lots of uses for a veng geared mage, over a dead one in squishy PVE gear. Ferals and Paladins definately have advantages while switching out more threat / avoidance / etc.
So yeah, my gear gets ‘better’ for tanking heroics as I do BT. I just don’t wear T6 tank gear, I’ll wear T6 DPS gear. Take more damage, do more damage. Unless you’re getting healed by a L64 priest!
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February 20th, 2008 at 10:28 am
Vene, you’ve got some good points here on how to work around this and I appreciate it.
No matter how you want to justify it though, Tanks are the only role that have to downgrade their gear or resort to game mechanic tricks in order to do instances they outgear.
Yes, I do them myself too, but it’s still a broken system any way you look at it.
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February 20th, 2008 at 10:38 am
Its simply not possible to tank a regular 5 man or a heroic in T6. Especially not if you are there with T6 dpsers. Karazhan in T6, I can work my ass off to produce roughly the same amount of threat as I was putting out in T4.
Frankly, the fact that there is such a swing depending on your gear choices makes it more interesting IMO. So I am certainly not complaining about it.
But just because there is an easy solution and warrior don’t usually make a big deal of it does not mean that there isn’t a fundamental problem. Every other class in every other role can get best-in-slot items across the board and they will use those 17 items for every pve scenario and they will have consistent performance. But a warrior wearing best-in-slot gear will experience a drastic shift in performance depending on what type of pve they are doing.
Its not a game breaking problem, but there is definately something to it. IMO the solution is to give rage for avoidance and tie it to a deep protection talent so that it doesn’t unbalance pvp. If Focused Rage did something like grant 1/2/3 rage when an attack is dodged or parried then my best in slot gear would be viable at any level of content. It would also make it much easier for a prot warrior to play solo without having to carry around a set of dps gear. I think it would be equivalent to giving healers +damage along with +healing.
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February 20th, 2008 at 10:41 am
//No matter how you want to justify it though, Tanks are the only role that have to downgrade their gear or resort to game mechanic tricks in order to do instances they outgear.//
No. We’re not. Why would you want to wear invincible gear on content you out gear? It’s a low damage encounter. So wear DPS gear. Wear PVP gear. Wear PVE TPS gear. You don’t need to ‘downgrade’ gear. You just wear different gear. A priest with T6 sure isn’t healing heroics in the gear they use for spamming CoH on a 10 minute boss fight. They’ll toss on some survivability, and maybe some DPS gear so they can mindflay when they’re bored.
Mages can toss on their veng gear and AOE out of the gate, rather than being bothered to wait on tank threat.
It’s not broken that different items work better for different encounters.
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February 20th, 2008 at 11:21 am
I have a miter saw that I really, really like, but I don’t try to hammer nails with it. I also don’t complain that nails aren’t made right because I can’t drive them with a miter saw.
Use the tools that are right for the job.
Not wanting to carry around gear, or have to get it out of the bank (god forbid) is not a problem with game mechanics.
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February 20th, 2008 at 11:26 am
This isn’t really an issue with tanking as much as it is in theorycrafting. Every single mob can have a different set to make a DPS deal with it better, to make healers be able to heal and dps more efficiently, or what have you. It’s just most apparent with Tanks, because if we lose efficiency people pull aggro or we die. The focus is all on us. If a mage is wearing +spellhit gear that he needs for raid bosses instead of raw damage gear for 5-man trash, you won’t really notice his DPS has taken a hit.
That said, I enjoy putting on my shield block gear to see 2k+ shield slam crits and to try to out-DPS the non-guilded Hunter who doesn’t raid.
One final note: I also made a mage alt. Weird.
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February 20th, 2008 at 11:27 am
Tanking in better gear has a much easier solution than spamming the x key. Just make a macro to equip a second weapon, then go to town. If the mobs get to be too much, throw on the shield - you’ll (obviously) have enough rage to maintain threat.
While you do lose shield slam/bash, very few DPS in regular instances can keep up with your threat from revenge and sunders. Getting crushed helps with rage too
Boshaft - US - Terenas
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February 20th, 2008 at 11:37 am
I’ve been known to use the X key to sit down on the job in PvP in order to pop Enrage. Not a tanking comment I guess. But another grand use for the X key
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February 20th, 2008 at 11:59 am
I’m not denying that things have gotten better. But would you rather drive a brand new top of the line car that was designed well? Or a poorly designed car with a bunch of patchwork fixes?
I am grateful for all the buffs blizzard has given us but I refuse to say there is no flaw in our design. When the devs sat down and originally wrote the Warrior constitution they didn’t plan for us to take off our iLevel 140 Black Temple End game ultimate gear and put on a bunch of iLevel 100 black value / expertise gear to properly perform in old content.
Lord knows we carry enough difference sets around as it is without having to carry an old content set.
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February 20th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
@Kavel
What class has to carry around a bunch of lower iLevel items for use in old content? Your analogy can be used in the reverse. A rage fix (Your hammer) would have done the job that 15 warrior balancing changes (Your saw) have.
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February 20th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
//Why would you want to wear invincible gear on content you out gear? //
Um…For the same reason a T6 mage would want to keep wearing his awesome DPS gear to take out some revenge on mobs in an earlier instance? Isn’t part of the point of going back to a lower instance seeing how much you can dominate a place that once gave you a hard time? And by dominate, I don’t mean that I suddenly want to turn into a damage dealer or DW to maintain any threat. Why does the job completely change just because I’ve advanced in gear? I still want to be a tank, just like the DPS’ers in my part are still DPS’ers, exactly like they were before. Only now they are essentially in God-mode in the place, and I’m close to worthless because no damage = no rage.
Asking me to remove my best tanking gear to replace with trash so that I actually take damage feels about the same thing as telling a mage he has to remove his best DPS gear and replace it with something that gives him hundreds less DPS. There’s a big difference between tweaking a little +hit/ +dmg and intentionally dropping your armor and avoidance by huge amounts.
Yes, all classes could tweak their gear a little bit to be slightly more efficient in a lower instance. But if all the others wore their highest value raid gear with no switching out of anything, they will still rock the place out leaps and bounds ahead of their performance when the dungeon was appropriate for them. Tanks have to do a major gear overhaul or do ridiculous things like sit. How does that even seriously compare to bloodrage? Built-in rage ability is not the same as “Hey, mobs, I’m a bit rage starved. Could you crit me real quick while I use a trick that was obviously not intended for this situation?”
We work so hard to get gear to enable us to avoid and mitigate damage. It feels very dirty to me to intentionally increase that damage taken just so we can do the job that was a lot simpler before.
All that said, I don’t mind having to switch out a few pieces for different situations. That keeps things interesting. But I think it currently takes too much gear shifting for rage-based classes to be effective in lower-level areas.
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February 20th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
You don’t have to put on lower iLevel gear. You can generate rage by doing damage, too. Try iLevel 140 DPS gear.
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February 20th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
@ Link
1) iLevel has nothing to do with what’s the best gear for a given situation. You can’t just say item X is a higher iLevel than item Y so it should therefore be better in every conceivable situation. You’d punch somebody in the mouth if they showed up to tank Hydross in Season 3 Arena gear, talking about item levels.
2) Either you didn’t get my analogy or I don’t get yours. In my analogy, Miter saw = raid boss tanking set. Hammer = threat/5-man set.
3) Even assuming you are correct that the true injustice here is not having more empty bag slots, the only solution you need are bigger bags. Don’t complain that the rage system or warriors are broken - just say you want a 28-slot gear bag. IMO, I’d take it, but the game is broken because I don’t have one.
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February 20th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Now thats a great idea. 28 slot armor bag. give me 2 please
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February 20th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
I don’t think that power tools analogy works as stated. Tanking gear is tanking gear so you should be comparing hammers to hammers, not miter saws. Here is my take on it: You have a hammer and a sledgehammer to drive a nail. The sledgehammer will drive the hell out of it but there is a pretty good chance that you will break the board in half if you aren’t extremely careful. But if you scale back and use the regular hammer then you will have no trouble. Meanwhile the mage has a book of matches and a flamethrower and its his job to start a fire. If he uses the matches, the fire will start. If he uses the flamethrower, the fire will start faster.
The point is, the mage has the option of scaling back his gear if he feels like it while the tank is required to scale his gear back if he wants to be able to perform his job.
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February 20th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
@ Kavel
The situation didn’t change. The instance didn’t change. The only thing that changed is that I now have gear that allows me to avoid more damage, which is a very bad thing when that’s my main source of all abilities. Yes, I do believe that the higher the item level, as long as you’re still doing the job that item was really intended for (ex: tanking), it should be better in just about every situation. A DPS player’s high ilevel gear *is* better in pretty much every conceivable situation.
Season 3 Arena gear was never made to tank hydross. I understand that you’re saying that ilevel 151 tank gear was never made to tank normal Ramparts and so shouldn’t be used to do so. However, a mage’s 151 gear loses basically no efficiency when used in normal Ramparts. And the more dmg they do, the more tricks we have to use to keep up.
That’s the main problem.
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February 20th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
@Rochelle
That was exactly the analogy I was looking for. Well played.
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February 20th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
You can’t say that the mage’s job is just to do as much DPS as absolutely possible because you’d punch him in the mouth too if he started every pull with a POM>Pyro. The mage isn’t doing his job if he’s burning down the house trying to light a candle or the fireplace. If the mage’s job is to light a fire regardless of the consequences, then the tank’s job is just to drive the nail regardless of the damage to the board.
Everybody has to treat a 5-man instance differently than a raid. We’re not getting the short end of the stick because the way we do that is by swapping gear.
P.S. I don’t think anyone is saying to save your old “of the Bold” gear to replace T6 for everything but BT. You’re talking about choosing slightly lower-level items with those levels budgeted toward aggro-generation (hit rating, expertise, block value, AP, whatever) over higher-level gear weighted toward survivability (defense, dodge, block rating, etc.)
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February 20th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
I have a 70 priest. Every single of bit of +heal gear I get, I can wear. Anywhere. Everywhere. Anytime. There is ONE notable exception. I sometimes pop on 2 to 3 pieces of pvp gear for a stam set. 2 to 3 pieces MAX. for raid trash pulls. I lose about 100 to 150 +heal total, from a self-buffed max of 1998 +heal. At that level, the missing +heal is negligible in most cases. Sure, my top end gheal crit is a couple hundred points off and I go from ~800 renew ticks to ~700 but my ability to heal has not been seriously hampered. However, for most things, 5mans, heroics, kara, mag, gruul, etc,., I never THINK of taking off my best heal gear. Why? My job is seriously cake with my best stuff on. For giggles, I asked to single heal the raid through attumen and moroes. I did, too. I couldn’t do that in my old gear.
Please explain to my prot warrior why he shouldn’t have that luxury. Barring resist and dps sets there is, or rather should be, absolutely no reason to carry around old crap much less use it to keep doing my job. I have worked hard to gather the best gear I can. Why buy a Mercedes if you have drive your Escort to park efficiently at your office?
\\And ask yourself this, is it fair that as a warrior tank you can single handedly pull 4 other people that are grossly undergeared and unaware of how to play their class through an instance?\\
Fair? Hell no. IT IS OUR JOB.
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February 20th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
For some reason people keep talking about wearing trash gear.
Just look at the helm slot. T6 hat is great for tanking lower level content. Faceplate isn’t. Where’s the problem exactly?
Energy / mana is a linear bar.
Rage isn’t. It’s tough to get worked up about not getting hit and not doing damage. You’re a warrior, do one, or the other, and all your problems are solved.
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February 20th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Most tanks aren’t fortunate enough to maintain two sets of T6 gear nor do I think that should be necessary. Other classes do not need that many sets of crazy epic items. 5-mans SHOULD become easier if you’ve mastered Kara and SCC. It’s called progression. I don’t understand why anyone would see a problem with things becoming easier the more you play the game.
\\You can
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February 20th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Mages are supposed to know how to hold back. That’s why everybody (including the mage) gets a threat-meter for raids.
Yes, the mage’s job is to do as much damage as possible. Without dying. That means without pulling aggro. That means holding back.
Why don’t we look at it another way:
If it’s you with a bunch of alts/undergeared folks, then you can essentially pull them through the instance. They have to learn to not pull aggro off your target, and honestly you should be able to hold aggro with just your 100+ dps tanking weapon, even if you’re not getting hit much. I tank non-heroics with my level 67 rogue friend, I hardly take any damage, and I can hold aggro just fine through white damage and shield slam/revenge as it’s up.
If it’s you with a full group of T6 folks, gear down and you still shouldn’t die with a +2000healing healer.
Or, if you want to keep QQing, roll a mage instead and spare the rest of us.
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February 20th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
And that is why I don’t like using an analogy to make an argument - it always gets convoluted.
A mage that opens with AP POM pyro while wearing blues is going to pull aggro just as fast as a mage wearing T6 and the mage doing that will pull aggro in BT and SSC and Karazhan and Hellfire Ramparts.
So lets assume the mage isn’t playing like an idiot and lets accept that his one and only job is to do dps. The mage in T6 will be able to dps harder and longer than the mage in T5 or in T4 or in blues in every possible pve scenario. Better gear = better dps = better mage.
Now I know you aren’t suggesting that I wear my ‘of the bold’ gear, but even so, going from T6 to T5 is still downgrading my gear. And going from T6 tank gear to PVP or T6 dps isn’t exactly downgrading but it is switching from tanking gear to something other than tanking gear. Bottom line, I cannot wear best-in-slot gear and play to my maximum in every pve scenario while every other class can. Like I said, it is by no means a game breaking problem - I got used to having less than 10 open bag slots a long long time ago - it is just a hassle and to deny that an imbalance exists is just goofy.
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February 20th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
“5-mans SHOULD become easier if you
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February 20th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
So you mean normal 5-mans aren’t tuned to full-T6 tanks?
SHOCK HORROR! THE SYSTEM IS BROKEN!
Where exactly does this Rage “fix” end? Do you want to be able to get enough rage for a full 1000 tps cycle with 25k armour and 95% avoidance while tanking Hogger? Line’s gotta be drawn somewhere, and Blizzard have designed the system very bloody well as far as I’m concerned.
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February 20th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
I did not mean that they weren’t easier. My point was in response to those saying 5-mans are in a different class than raids and require different tools. Other classes don’t need drastically different tools for 5-mans, and I don’t believe I should have to either.
This isn’t about not knowing how to gear down for a 5-man. Most of us figured out really quickly how to do it. It’s not even that difficult. The problem is the glaring class imbalance. Why should I need non-tanking gear to tank a lower 5-man? The mage doesn’t need non-DPS gear to use his abilities. There is only *one* tanking set among the tiers. The other set is for DPS warriors whose main job is *not* to tank. They may as well be a totally separate class, and I shouldn’t need that gear any more than I need a druid’s gear. I don’t care how easy it is to swap gear around. All I would like is to be able to use my best tanking gear to tank anywhere, anytime, just like any of the other non-rage classes can use their best DPS gear anywhere, anytime.
Again, it’s not that we don’t have ways to deal with it. It’s the class difference that bothers a lot of us. It’s just flat out a lot simpler to deal with for everyone else.
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February 20th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Every time you refer to threat gear as non-tanking gear, god kills a kitten.
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February 20th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Nobody is saying that there are not work-arounds. Nobody is saying that they don’t know what those work-arounds are. Swap in PVP gear, swap in DPS gear, stack hit rating, expertise and SBV. We know. Nobody is saying that doing so will make anyone quit playing their warrior.
This is the argument: implementing those work-arounds is both necessary and a pain in the ass and no other class is subjected to the same thing.
For a warrior rage = damage. No rage = no damage. A prot warrior playing solo in tank gear will end up with little to no rage which is why it takes forever to kill something. Again, just like tanking lower instances, you can use the work-around of bringing along a set of dps gear. That is exactly what healers used to do. They used to carry around extra dps gear when they wanted to play solo. They had a work-around and although it was easy, it was still a pain in the ass. Then Blizzard gave them +dmg along with their +heal. Now they don’t need two sets of gear anymore. What I am talking about is a change to rage generation via incoming damage such that I get more rage when wearing high end tanking gear. Just like healers got damage with their high end healing gear.
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February 20th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
If I wore my threat gear to tank a boss I would go splat.
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February 20th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
About a month ago I wrote a big long thing about what I think the current problems with the warrior class are. One of the things I talked about was how avoidance isn’t as good as it should be which I think is relevant to this discussion. http://www.tankhard.com/smf/index.php/topic,36.0.html
The other issue I talked about wasn’t really a warrior problem but just tanks in general - the parry gib.
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February 20th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
Well of course you would, I never suggested otherwise.
I was taking a shot at the suggestion that gear that helps generate threat isn’t tanking gear.
A tank’s job can essentially be broken down into 1. stay alive, 2. hold agro. Any gear that helps you achieve both aims in any given situation I therefore class as tanking gear.
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February 20th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
I think we need to stop trying to compare ourselves to other classes. That’s not really what this is about. There are differences between classes because….
That’s the point of classes.
However, if you must compare classes consider this. Our level of threat in 5 mans hasn’t increase dramatically, but it has increased. Just the same as a mage’s level of survivability in 5 mans hasn’t increased dramatically, but it has increased. Now you don’t hear mages complaining about how they seem to still die in Karazhan, Gruul’s Lair, etc just as easily as they used to.
The point is without a doubt if you know what you are doing the gear you have today will let you generate more threat, tank more mobs, and survive longer with a less geared healer than the gear you used to have. (you’ll also have to press less buttons making your task of tanking easier albeit it not as easy as you’d like) Yes, it’s not to the same extreme as a mage, but we are not mages. We never will be.
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February 20th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
As a priest, I DO change my gear for a 5 man if it’s going to be one big pull. I put on the old school stuff, lots of mana regen. No use in all the stam since I’m not getting hit and the 280 mp5 means no drinking. It’s the mages that worry about mana since warlocks can lifetap for it.
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February 20th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
How is wielding a 2nd weapon of a higher ilevel than your shield “undergearing”?
And if you dont have one… get one, geez, it’s a requirement for raid situations where you dont have to tank something. GET A DPS SET.
That comment about other classes not having to carry 5 sets of gear around is BS, our guild’s feral tank runs out of bag space every time we set foot outside shattrah. And he doesn’t complain about “having to wear and show off” his fully epic’d dps set to tank heroics either.
One of the biggest boons of being so gear dependant is that we can customize our characxter with some gear changes. Other classes can’t do that. Shamans at most can choose between different trees sets and only carry some extra trinkets for when they have to heal or so; yeah, they get more free space but I get to have a different experience each time I’m tanking by just moving around my weapons, rings and trinkets.
If you dont like to carry around stuff, wel.. have fun in your boring world where you sit down in a corner while the rest of the raid is going nuts on Aran.
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February 20th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
So the point to this in ALL of the ranting is… Know what you are wearing and which instance you are when you are a tank in addition to using the tools available to you as a tank to generate threat, survive, etc….
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February 21st, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Oh, sneaky Venny decided to put up a poll to fan the flames some more!
How am I, as an angry warrior, supposed to get irritated by getting missed? How do I get worked up into some battle frenzy (and generate rage) when my opponent is so inept that he can’t hit me? If you’re not getting hit, or not doing damage, you’re not -really- in combat. And we all know what a warriors rage bar looks like while not in combat.
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February 21st, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Why has no one mentioned the easiest way for warriors to get rage that is not a glitch, not an exploit, not even really a trick, and works regardless of what set of gear you’re wearing. And it can all be wrapped up into a simple macro that all warrior tanks should have anyway for tanking things like Nightbane.
/cast berserker stance
/cast berserker rage
/cast [modifier:alt] defensive stance
You’re in and out of berserker stance lickity split, and, gosh, you still have 9 seconds left on the buff while in the stance you need it in. You can do this as often as twice a minute if you *really* need to. Not to mention that talents like Unbridled Wrath and Anger Management exist for a reason. Sure, it does nothing if the attack is dodge or parried, but you’ll still see improved effect if you block or, heaven forbid, somehow take a non-mitigated hit.
I am also aware of how annoying it is to have two and a half bags full of gear (and I would love that 28 slot armor bag). If we’re going to continue to compare warrior tank gearing with other classes, we might as well look at the inventory. I can think of two other classes that take a big hit to inventory space because of their mechanics: the hunter and the warlock, and they both get their specialty bags for that reason. I wouldn’t see it being that uncalled for to simply give warriors a quest to get an Armoire of Invulnerability to carry their various sets in. I know I carry on me a full tank set, full DPS set, a nature resist set, a fire resist set, an arcane resist set, and a whole array of trinkets for various situations (including both Darkmoon Card Vengance and Madness for when I need to max my stam).
And for lower level content in general, honestly, if you’re wearing a T6 tank set and you’re going through ramps, throw on an OH weapon and tank it in berserker stance. You might actually find it fun, you know, the extra 10% damage taken giving you rage, the extra 3% crit giving you rage, and using whirlwind in place of thunderclap. Fury tanking, got to love it.
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February 21st, 2008 at 9:41 pm
If you are avoiding attacks then berserker rage doesn’t do anything. If you are getting hit you have more than enough rage already so berserker rage is superfluous.
And thanks for the tip about DW tanking, nobody has thought of or mentioned that already.
@Irghen - what you are talking about is other classes carrying around extra gear so they can play a different role in the group. So its totally irrelevant to tanking because we aren’t carrying different gear around to fill different roles, we have to carry around different gear to fill the same role in different places.
I think people are missing the point. The fact that you have to carry around extra gear is a hassle and nothing more. The core problem is that current mechanics make avoidance a stat that gets worse as you get more of it.
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February 22nd, 2008 at 12:01 am
Rochelle keep it civil.
Agreed avoidance does get worse as you get more of it for threat, but at the same time there are other ideologies for gearing yourself such as stacking armor and stamina. Not to mention, I don’t feel it’s a hassle at all. A lot of the recommendations people are making is simply to wear the gear you carry around with you all the time.
The hassle would be if we needed to use something we weren’t already carrying around which simply isn’t the case. Regardless, I think we are starting to beat this topic to death. I’m fine with people continuing to discuss it, but keep it civil.
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February 22nd, 2008 at 2:01 am
@Angrygnome: Actually tanking in Zerk stance is NOT a good idea. The threat you generate while in zerk is only 0.8x compared to the almost 1.5x you generate in defensive stance (with defiance ofc).
And trust me: wielding an OH wearing tank gear will not make you out-dps-threat your T6 equipped mage!
About the rest: actually I agree avoidance is a stat that gets worse as you get more of it IN CERTAIN SITUATIONS.
It’s also very true that warrior is the more gear-dependent class, this also means that in being a good warrior is involved the ability of choosing the better gear for every situation.
Only negative point i see in this is the bagspace issue. ^^
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February 22nd, 2008 at 3:31 am
@Khail: Angrygnome wasn’t suggesting tanking in Berzerker Stance. He was suggesting using a macro that puts you in ‘Zerker so that you can use Berzerker Rage and then switch back to Defensive Stance. I only recently started doing this and I find it is useful for generating a lot of rage quickly.
While I agree with Rochelle that it’s not absolutely necessary to do this, I can’t think of any reason why not to do it. It’s free rage, assuming you get hit. So if you have a string of avoidance at the start of a pull, then Rochelle is right, it will be largely useless as the Berz Rage will wear off in a few short seconds. If you don’t have that avoidance string, then it’s well worth it IMO.
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February 22nd, 2008 at 3:34 am
@Khail: Wow my foot sure doesn’t taste good…..I just read the rest of Angry’s post and he sure did suggest tanking in Berzerker Stance. Sorry dude, I stand corrected. Disregard the rhetoric I posted a moment ago….
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February 22nd, 2008 at 6:53 am
Berserker rage may be superfluous on boss fights, but the main point of this discussion is tanking fights we over-gear and need all the help we can get as far as threat is concerned.
As far as the mechanics go, it’s 1am and I need sleep, so I’m probably missing something but the way I see it is this:
If blizzard altered the game mechanics to allow avoidance to generate rage or whatever, they’d have to re-arrange a bunch of other mechanics and possibly even re-tune encounters, all for the sake of gimping your TPS back down to where it is now because that’s where they’ve decided it should be. To do anything else would completely mess with the dynamics of every threat-sensitive fight in the game.
Obviously to accomplish this they would have to reduce the amount of rage you get when hit to balance out the rage you’re now getting from not getting hit, and of course the amount of rage you get from an avoid couldn’t be a set number, it’d still need to be based on the power behind the incoming blow (otherwise fast-hitting bosses + high avoidance would be an imbalanced ragefest).
Sooooo if we get less rage from being hit and we get tiny amounts of rage from avoiding weak attacks we end up exactly where we are now that massive overgearing = low rage = low threat = carry a threat set.
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February 22nd, 2008 at 9:54 am
The macro I supplied at the beginning of my post is meant for use in two situations: 1) fear dodging fights and 2) quick rage spikes. Most of the time that’s all you really should use berserker stance for when tanking.
However, I am also a big fan of fury tanking when you’re in the right instance for it. I can fury tank any 5-man pre-BC, and it’s fun because I’m racing the DPS without the aid of my def stance +threat buff. Once you’re geared enough you can do it with the earlier BC instances, as well. For heroics and raid, no, fury tanking is generally suicidal. I would never go into zerker stance in the Maulgar fight for more than the fraction of the second it takes me to pop berserker rage (for the fear immunity).
There is, however, the odd fight or two in BC raids where, if you’re well over geared, swapping the shield for an OH is useful for more than just rage generation. I know how annoying it is when those etherials before Netherspite disarm you. Devastate still works with only an OH weapon equiped, though, so you can still continue that part of your rotation rather than waiting for your shield slam/bash to come off CD.
@Glakatak: I’m sorry about the confusion my post caused you. The last paragraph of my previous post was in reference to instances that you could probably solo or two-man, such as Strath or UBRS. Places you’d run for shits and giggles, or to help gear up friends and alts. Sometimes it’s nice to go into an instance and just destroy the place. I know I enjoyed myself when I went through with a friend to do the last part of the Ony attunement with them.
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February 22nd, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Wouldn’t being a warrior tank get really boring if you could not play around with different gear pieces all the time?
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February 22nd, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Tried the sit down trick whenever I’m rage starved and notice DPS catching up. Works wonders. Just don’t do it on bosses
Take a crit ftw \o/
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February 22nd, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Sorry about that, I was a little salty after an ugly raid. I pvped away my frustration though.
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February 22nd, 2008 at 3:55 pm
As for avoidance - rage, I think if the amount of rage you get from the avoided attack was a fixed and low number it would be a godsend. I am thinking of something around 4 rage for attacks avoided. That would be enough to at the very least keep shield block active through an avoidance streak. I can’t count the number of times I have had an avoidance streak that lasted 5 or 6 swings and ended with a crushing blow because I didn’t have the rage to shield block. As it is now, if I run into an avoidance streak like that, I can switch to auto-attacks only and my tps goes to hell but I can keep SB up or I can keep generating threat and hope for the best. The problem really isn’t really big until you are wearing T6 gear which is loaded with avoidance. I don’t think I could get less than 50% avoidance if I tried. With my standard boss fight gear it is close to 65%. T6 gear forces you to have high avoidance but at the same time punishes you for having it. And it comes at a time when all your dps finally catches up to your threat. All through T4 and T5 content you can hold aggro with your eyes closed because the dpsers just don’t have the gear to come close to the threat cap.
And it really wouldn’t require encounters to be retuned because the dual wielding bosses in T6 don’t have a DW +hit penalty and they hit hard and fast enough that you are swimming in rage anyway.
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February 23rd, 2008 at 2:15 am
see, now, this is what I love about warriors.
The fact that we are versatile classes and that we never have to deal with the “1-button-mash” of some sort.
Theory aside, having lots of different sets of gear to deal with different locations/situations makes the game fun!
I am most certainly not a BT geared tank and I wont be for a very long time, but this versatility with a problem to deal with and many many ways to fix it is what got me back into WoW and back into my warrior.
Oh, and another thing. If you are starved for rage/not outputting enough threat; get executioner! Trust me. It works. And if you don’t trust me, trust Vene!
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February 23rd, 2008 at 9:33 pm
Rage comes in from damage. As you get more better gear your ac mitigation gets better. So as you wear better gear you mitigate more damage. That’s how it works.
That’s why you wear different gear for the encounter.
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February 24th, 2008 at 2:34 am
Dont know really if its necessary to be crited to maintain aggro.Depends really on the kind of encounter.
1st in general good geared tanks party with dsers from guild whose damage will prolly kill the trash before they aggro
2nd if you pary with low dps ppl then your low TPS due to lack of rage should be enough for keeping aggro
3rd taunt,mocking blow,and challenging shout always help..In certain trash that i know dps will aggro i try to let them aggro at start so they develop some threat and then taunt tank it which will offer me the amount of threat i need..Besides as i said trash usually die before ppl aggro
4th i admit a X button could help i just dont think its really possible..Besides if ppl are so lame and cant understnd that tey need a tank they shouldnt even party
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February 25th, 2008 at 7:37 am
I’m certainly not a T6 geared tank yet, but I’ve found that with a little tweaking, you can keep your tanking armor on, and still maintain loads of aggro. So here are the things I do when I want to tank a heroic, or heck, even when I’m just tanking trash in Kara now:
1) Move a few talent points around to get anger management. To be able to still get that extra raid, without actually having to be hit, is pretty nice, and it allows you to go non-stop from pull to pull. As it is, you shouldn’t have points in talents such as improved taunt, shield bash, revenge, or improved defensive stance for most situations.
2) Get a DPS weapon and slap executioner on it. I threw executioner on my Decapitator, and when it procs, your DPS are not going to catch up to you. It really is a pretty nice increase in threat.
3) Get a shield and put a felsteel spike on it. I have both the S1 and S2 shield. My S2 shield is my boss tanking one, where I have the +18 stamina. But I put the felsteel spike on my S1 shield. If you have a fairly high shield block rating, then go grab a huge mob in shattered halls, and watch as they stay on you just by blocking them.
4) Darkmoon Vengeance - although the damage it does is not fantastic, the fact of the matter is it still helps to build aggro on mobs that may not be the main target. It may build rage faster, but if all you’re trying to do is hold aggro, it doesn’t hurt.
These are the only things I really switch around when I’ve overgeared an instance. And it does work wonders. At this point, this is all the gear I throw on for Kara for every single fight except Prince phase 2, or Nightbane. Unfortunately, I don’t think my DPSers have actually realized how much room they have to DPS before they catch up. We really should be clearing in a faster amount of time.
So just my two cents.
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February 26th, 2008 at 10:27 am
I have been reading this site for about 6-8 months and I respect the work done here. I have posted a couple of times, but mostly I am content to refer other tanks to the site and to visit frequently to see what new juicy tidbits Vene has come up with.
I will have to limit the amount I do that in the future. The original post is borderline irresponsible and harms the greater warrior tanking community. Suggesting user error or sitting down is a band aid solution in the gaping wound that is expansion tanking. We should all demand better options to be able to play this game. dumbing down gear is insulting and makes tanking, already a hard job, even harder in low rage situations. I wonder how it would effect many of you who have said you are not yet T6 geared tanks to know that even at T6 content, one cannot wear the best tanking gear (in terms of ilvl) on all encounters because it will result in losing threat.
Tanking gear should not have to be geared down to tank lower content. You might switch trinkets or rings, but a hi tier Chest should serve you in all tanking situations.
The problem with gear itemization is unique to tanks and no other class has to deal with the insult Blizzard has given us. Neither Mages, Hunters, nor Warlocks need to carry multiple sets to accomplish the same goal (survival and dps may be different goals, but most people I know use PvP gear for that, Pvp gear cannot accomplish threat, threat and threat are the same goal). Yes, Threat and survival are both part of the tanking goal, just like AP and crit or spell dmg and spell crit are part of the same dps goal for melee or casters respectively. casters do not LOSE spell crit when gaining spell dmg (even though certian peices may not offer as much), but more avoidance actually makes you lose threat, not just switching out stats.
The Hardware analogy was actually apt. Sledgehammers and hammers are not the same, when you buy a new hammer, it should replace the old hammer.
Why not just use a few other peices? This mentality should be seen as hurting your dps. The best threat peices should not be DPS armor peices, but they are. Most of the examples people can give of massively increasing their tps (a decapitator with executioner or better rings) come at the expense of your raid dps’s itemization. This might be put to a head when your tank in a raid says he or she would like to spend dkp on a DST or even a blade of savagery.
You will still need different peices of gear and different sets even if tanking stats always increased threat and mitigation/avoidance at the same rate. I also find the theorycrafting part of the game fun and enjoyable, but a T5 helm should be better than a T4 tanking helm on all counts for tanking, and the same should be true of higher tier tanking peices as well.
You are wrong if you do not think a T6 geared toon can carry the rest of a party through a normal 5 person run. Try taking a T6 healer through normal slave pens, no one will die. A T6 dps and everything will die before it kills the party. A T6 warrior and you will all die. Why is this? Your Helaer will have plenty of work to do as the other party members draw aggro easily from the mob. and the hi end tanking peices will do no good dps against even that low level of an instance. Dual Wield is no solution as one of our highest threat moves involves a shield. Tanking in zerker stance is not tanking. I used to do MC with a prot/Fury build, and I kept aggro by being almost the highest dps. Those days are over. Rogues can tank that way also, its not a solution. If you need 5 Large Prismatic Shards, you should be able to take 5 of your raid members on a instance run and quickly DE everything. If you take a T6 warrior tank it will take longer and you better leave the raid dps out.
Shield Block Value was supposed to solve this problem back when AQ40 was released. However, Blizz was inconsistent on putting block value on higher end tanking peices. Your own post on BV here reveals that. IF Blizzard thought BV was the key to threat and threat was critical to tanking, the highest ilvl peices would have the most BV on them. In almost every case they do not. In fact as you gain avoidance (and thus have the need for doing more threat with your highest threat attacks because they will be limited) you lose BV, AP, and Crit.
Expertise is supposed to be the new solution to this problem. Expertise is great but more than this is needed because (1) other dpsers are gettign expertise as well, so this is not a threat-only stat (consider rogues with expertise maxed out), (2) Avoidance still lowers expertise’s value (no rage= no shield slam, dev, or anythign else), and finally (3) not being dodged/parried does not increase the threat value of your attacks it only increases their liklihood to land, I realize this is crucial, but expertise comes at the expense of AP, Str, Agi and in many cases BV (look at the peices) thus expertise must be weighed versus more powerful threat moves. The earlier thread in which a reader posted that there was no significant increase in tps at 27 expertise indicates the gains so far are minimal. I believe the gauntlets of enforcement are the only item that currently give any expertise and a threat increasing stat (BV).
I am not sure how much I need to argue this point as many, including myself, have done so on the warrior forums. I believe the petition to change this facet reached over the Blizzard page limit and was extended several times.
Perhaps the best way to prove the point that we are getting the shaft is to consider what Blizzard does say is important and what stats increase as item level increases.
Since TBC we have seen an explosion of the green stats on gear. We are now privy to understanding that certain green stats benefit certain classes more than others. We have seen the development of:
+Healing
+Spell Damage
+Spell Crit
+AP
+Crit
+mp5
to name a few
Certainly there have been similar increases in tanking green stats
+dodge
+parry
+Shield block rating and
+shield block value
Aside from BV (which I already said has been applied inconsitently) all of these stats are based on avoidance or mitigation.
Why is there no + threat green stat? Blizz said before TBC they did not wish to put Attack Power or strength on Tanking armor because it allowed tanks to do dps and hold aggro. Why not change the threat coefficient?
If Blizzard remains unwilling to allow rage to be determined by incoming damage (not reduced by mitigation or avoidance), and if they continue to see rage as necessarily active and not passive (having an attack dodged does not anger a mob, a ridicuous analogy), then could they at least develop a new green stat
+ Threat generated
to be developed on a rating system to allow each threat generating attack to produce more threat.
I realize that such a stat would have to be factored into an item’s budget, and it thus may lower the possible maximum avoidance and mitigation attainable. However, as most tanks need to wear dps or lower level gear even on boss fights in BC, it seems this might allow you to wear all your best mititgation gear and keep threat up. It would not allow you to wear tanking gear while farming, PvPing, or doing other tasks, but it would allow you to consistently wear higher ilvl gear when tanking regardless of if it was a BT raid or a regular 5 person instance.
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February 26th, 2008 at 10:50 am
//The original post is borderline irresponsible and harms the greater warrior tanking community//
//If you take a T6 warrior tank it will take longer and you better leave the raid dps out.//
Now you’re just being silly. The charge that Venny has harmed the warrior community is ridiculous. Indeed, he’s contributed to it a great deal.
The game presents challenges. If you’re not up to being creative enough to adapt to them, that’s a problem with -you- not Venny, or Blizzards game mechanics.
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February 26th, 2008 at 11:13 am
^^^^
/WIN \o/
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February 26th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Pretty much exactly what I said. Based on that I think the solution I proposed above would work nicely.
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February 26th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
@Spanglish:
I see no issue with not getting to use the highest ilevel of gear for tanking at every level in every situation. I see gear selection as part of the skill of the game. I don’t believe that Blizzard determines what is the “best” gear, I believe we do. (It’s one of the very reasons this site can even exist)
The reality is that a lot of what we discuss here regarding tanking is very subjective and the fact is the longer I write the better chance that eventually I’m going to write something you don’t agree with and I’m simply not going to apologize for having a bias. Sure, I maybe didn’t need to be as aggressive with this topic as I was, but it was something I felt strongly about. We’ve seen numerous people here agree with me and numerous people here disagree with me (something I easily could have hidden, but didn’t) and in general I’ve felt it’s been a very productive discussion.
If you believe that this wasn’t a valuable topic to discuss and that 1 post you don’t agree with trumps 90+ you do, well that’s a little disappointing, but I can’t win them all and it’s not going to deter me from continuing to doing my best to offering value to the readership here.
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February 26th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
We still love you.
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February 26th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
“The original post is borderline irresponsible and harms the greater warrior tanking community”
/cast Defensive Stance
There are some very nasty things I feel like saying in response to that but I’ll leave it as: You’re taking your frustration out on the wrong guy.
Your whole argument is that what Vene is posting about shouldn’t be necessary and the game mechanics should be altered to accomodate tanking low-end content in high-end gear. Well if that’s your opinion that’s your opinion, but you can’t possibly insult someone for offering information that assists us in dealing with reality and playing the game the best we can with the hand we’re dealt rather than being lazy and blaming the devs for our low tps.
“I believe the petition to change this facet reached over the Blizzard page limit and was extended several times.”
Well in that case Blizzard have obviously decided for whatever reason that the suggestion is not worth implementing, so maybe it’s time to face facts and give up. You could even direct all those people who signed the petition to Vene’s post for some tips on handling reality
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February 27th, 2008 at 7:03 am
//I see no issue with not getting to use the highest ilevel of gear for tanking at every level in every situation.//
Here lies the main divider I think. I *do* see an issue with that and will always see an issue with it unless Blizzard somehow compensates me for my most difficult-to-get gear being useless in lower situations when all other non-rage classes can use theirs.
Given the special nature of our job, I think some tanks sometimes tend to succumb to macho-tank syndrome. Signs include bragging about repair bills, constantly yelling at party members, demanding heals, carelessly displaying arrogance, and other general douchebaggery. While I’m not saying this describes everyone who disagrees with me, I do think part of the reason some tanks don’t care about ‘downgrading’ gear is a feeling of “Hey, I’m a tank. The harder my class is than all the others classes make me special, and I can impress all my guildies with how hard it is to be me to they’ll respect me and want me to be their raid leader because I’m so badass.”
I personally feel tanking is *plenty* hard and interesting enough without having to worry about changing out half/entire sets of gear to run lower level content. Granted, I also feel tanking is by far the most rewarding class and generally is the most respected. I wouldn’t switch back to my mage for anything.
Yes, there are class differences for a reason. But I really don’t think our high ilevel gear being ineffective in normal dungeons should be chalked up to ‘just a class difference’ unless we have another extra advantage that all those other classes don’t get. With most class difference, you give up something to gain something else. Here, we’re just losing threat with harder-earned tanking gear and getting nothing in return (IMO, even all the intangible benefits of getting to be your group’s main tank do not adequately make up for this).
//Now you don
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February 27th, 2008 at 8:26 am
Sigh
Our High ilvl gear isn’t useless in low level instances. Lots of it is great.
You’re not going to wear your high avoidance set.
[item]Gauntlets of Enforcement[/item]
[item]Onslaught Greathelm[/item]
[item]Pepe’s Shroud of Pacification[/item]
[item]Kaz’rogal’s Hardened Heart[/item]
[item]Band of the Abyssal Lord[/item]
[item]Band of the Eternal Defender[/item]
[item]Onslaught Waistguard[/item]
All items that’ll do just fine.
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February 27th, 2008 at 9:23 am
@ Vene: I wouldnt expect you to apologize, nor did I ask for it. I said I respect what you do here, but in this case, you are wrong. You labeled this “The Biggest Myth about protection warriors?” And said that “Better Gear does not equal less threat? Sorry, but you are wrong, skill beign equal, higher ilevel gear currently employs more avoidance and you lose threat stats as it goes up. This is documented in every case be it BV, AP or Crit. There is Blizard’s new solution- expertise- and as I said it is wonderful. But expertise alone is not enough and we should ask for more than that.
Your post does not actually refute this, it just suggests ways around the problem (like sitting down). And while I do respect your attempt to help warriors, I think it far more important to first and foremost say this is a problem and then after that say here are some ways to deal with it. Ignoring the trend in itemization is the problem here, not the suggested solutions. But indeed all of these reponses have been in response ot whether this is a problem or not.
@ Talisman: I guess you can say nasty things, but I don’t think my post was a flame. I made my statement at the beginning, but then went on to prove my point. If I insulted anyone I apologize, but if opinions are just opinions there was no insult. And I do have a problem with handling reality.
@Link: I agree that having rage based off of incoming damage would be great. I signed my support of that suggestion and the dodge/parry creating threat (this suggestion was tied to a change in the protection tree to make that a talent so that rogues do not get it). However, I have heard no movememnt on that issue since then. I suggested a green threat stat as another idea to kick around. It made senser to me given itemization but perhaps it is unworkable I would love to hear opinions about it.
@Kavtor:This is a wonderful example. thanks for posting it. You list the [item]Onslaught Greathelm[/item], and I believe in terms of theorycrafting it has some good threat. However, compare it to the higher Ilevel [item]Faceplate of impenetrable defenses[/item]. You will see you lose Str and Agi for Stamina in the white stats. You will gain BV. However, if BV is the best threat stat, why does the Faceplate and the Onslaught (bother hi end tanking items) have less than [item]Battleworn Tuskguard[/item]? In case you are interested, this trend has been longstanding as the T4 hat has white stats and BV while the T5 hat has no BV (I think T4 had more threat, but that was an opinion). T4 chest has BV and white stats, but T5 has hit. T6 has BV, buyt not as much as T4. I could go on, but I think you see the point.
You also mention the [item]Gauntlets of Enforcement[/item] and they are awesome one of my favorite peices. However, if you want the stamina boost from the [item]Faceplate of the Impenetrable[/item] and the 4 peice bonus from T6 (Which is a threat bonus, btw). You will need to wear [item]Onslaught Handguards[/item]. Please notice that they have no expertise and less BV than the enforcement gauntlets.
You mention rings also. But unfortunately you do have to swap those out occasionally to attain more threat. You will need to choose between hit and BV on most high level rings. If you wanted AP or Str, you are out of luck.
Shields are a great example to prove my point. Shields almost always have higher BV and higher armor as they go up in ilvl (the exception is [item]Bulwark of the Amani Empire[/item] which has more BV than [item]Bulwark of Azzinoth[/item]. How would we respond to Blizzard if they placed a highher ilvl shield that required more work, a raid shield perhaps, but had less Stamina or less armor? I do not think the warrior community would look upon this too well. We certainly would not think Blizzard has done us a favor.
What would we think of armor that has less armor for higher ilvl? or if stamina went down as tier items went up? We would politely or unpolitely say that this is not an upgrade. And that for me is the dividing line. I have never believed that tanking is only about survival. Tanking is not only about avoidance, nor is it only about mitigation. In my mind it is two things: getting a mob to focus their attention on you and surviving its attention. Current Itemization only focuses on half of what the goal of tanking is. It is inconsitent at best on threat.
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February 27th, 2008 at 9:29 am
My Apologies, I should have logged in to check the name of the Illidan helm and I messed up the item brackets for the gloves.
They are:
[item]Faceplate of the Impenetrable[/item]
[item]Onslaught Hanguards[/item]
Sorry, I could not find a way to edit the post once I saw the mistake.
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February 27th, 2008 at 9:35 am
//You
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February 27th, 2008 at 10:52 am
The [item]Onslaught Greathelm[/item] is better for threat than the [item]Battleworn Tuskguard[/item]. No avoidance, strength, and agility (crit)
To get 4pc for threat (and bigger shield slams) you’d wear [item]Gauntlets of Enforcement[/item], not the [item]Faceplate of the Impenetrable[/item].
Venny’s argument is “Better Gear does not equal Less Threat”
Your reply is “Sorry, but you are wrong, skill beign equal, higher ilevel gear currently employs more avoidance and you lose threat stats as it goes up. This is documented in every case be it BV, AP or Crit”
Which I disagree with. 4pc T6, with enforcement is near as high an ilvl combo as you can get, and it does very reasonable TPS, even in low rage situations. There’s no need to go for the stamina boost of Faceplate for blue content. it’s a wasted stat. 4pc T6 is better gear, and it does more threat.
You’re trying to make the argument that you want to use your Faceplate for blue content. That’s fine. But it hasn’t any stats that benefit blue content. I can accept the argument that that’s how you would like the game to work. Unfortunately it goes against Blizzards basic design philosophy for warriors. You’ve got to be actively engaged in either dealing, or receiving meaningful damage to generate rage. If you’re not actively engaged in meaningful combat, your character isn’t engaged to his full potential either. It’s the very thematic class design that you disagree with.
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February 27th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
@Kavtor: Again, thanks for the reply. These are good points. Are you sure 21 points of BV and 2 sockets is not as much threat as 23 Str and 28 Agi? If you really wanted BV you could socket with Str and it would be pretty close (tuskguard has more white sta even though most socket it with even more). IF BV is the threat stat on Tuskguard, why wouldn’t we expect to see more of it on T6 or the faceplate? My argument is simply Blizzard cares not for your threat in their itemization.
And was part of your point that onslaught has more threat because it has LESS avoidance (dodge on tuskguard)? That is exactly the point we are discussing, more avoidance often results in less threat.
What, in your estimation, is the use for the faceplate? Here is a helm that drops off of Illidan, the last boss we have at the moment. In my mind, it has stats for blue content (Sta, Defense, Dodge, BV, Shield Block Rating). IMHO those are necessary in blue content. However, you are quite right that to get the most threat from 4pc T6, you need to wear the T6 hat and the gauntlets of enforcement. The faceplate is then only usable in the as yet unseen encounters of sunwell plateau or it will actually hurt your threat on your farm content. Are you really saying the congratulations Blizz gives tanks for completing BT is a peice of gear to sit in the bank? I waited a long time for this helm to drop. I love it. I wear it on Bloodboil and Archimonde. Oh and once I put it on during Supremus to hit 25k Health. Unfortunately, thats it.
You make a very apt point about tanking is being actively engaged in either dealing damage or receiving damage. The rub I see is that higher ilvl tank peices actually work against the player in that regard, they prevent them from taking damage, and in most cases, prevent the tank from dealing large amounts of damage.
Blizzard doesnt want tanks to deal large amounts of damage, and I am fine with that, but survival based on avoidance has become problematic.
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February 27th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
A slightly related note. Kavtor, your logic on the tuskguard and onslaught helms was well put. Will you ditch your [item]Destroyer Legguards[/item] for [item]Praetorian’s Legguards[/item] when they drop? Hit is great, but you will give up Str and BV.
I find it odd that in order to wear [item]Onslaught Legguards[/item] you will ned to drop 18 Str and 4 Agi and gain only 9 BV from Destroyer.
One of the following must be true:
A) BV is king and the gain in BV is worth .0something crit and 36 AP (which again would mean Tuskguard trumps Onslaught and Faceplate in the hat department, and you still lose threat because [item]Unwavering Legguards[/item] have more than either)
or
B) The white stats are more important. but then why take Str off of Onslaught legs? And it is not just the legs. No Str on [item]Onslaught Chestguard[/item] or [item]Onslaught Shoulderguards[/item] no BV either by the way. In fact, by any measure at all, Threat goes down from T5 shoulders to T6 as well as Abyssal Fury.
Or possibly
C) Blizzard does not care or is inconsitent about threat stats on tanking gear. Again, skill being equal, higher level gear generates less threat.
Balance you say, balance is the key. But this entire discussion is nothing if not to say avoidance is given too much weight versus threat. With current gear choices, I can break 55% miss, dodge, parry. However, I am struggling to break 1000 BV (yes, I lack a few peices, ironically, the lower ilvl pieces evade me).
Several solutions have been put forth, and it is not that the content is unbeatable, clearly it is. But better tanking gear should be better tanking gear, not just more survival gear.
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February 27th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
I completely agree with Spanglish here. He used a lot more words than I did though.
There are a lot of mentions of taking T6 gear to blue content, but that is an exageration. I can’t even wear T6 gear in T6 content. Fr the most part I can wear my highest ilevel gear for bosses, but for trash and the first three Hyjal bosses (also trash?) I leave on my ‘threat gear’. Since we are farming content now, my priority has shifted from staying alive to generating as much threat as humanly possible. My healers are better geared so I can take liberties with my gear and don’t have to worry about survival. The dps is pushing to kill the boss faster than last week so I have to really work for it. I have 5 pieces of T6. These days I only actually wear 1 piece when threat is a priority.
T5 chest has more hit and it has str and agi
T5 shoulders have block value
T5 two piece bonus applies to shield slam damage when properly timed
Gauntlets of enforcement are just plain better
And Helm of the Illidari Shatterer puts both tanking helms to shame when it comes to threat.
The best tanking gear sucks for tanking anything except progression bosses.
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February 27th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
I was leaning towards T6 over tuskguard because of the 4pc bonus more than anything, I think that throws it over the top.
I’m not sure about Praetorian’s. I’m not that excited about loosing 2pc T5 just yet, fortunately, some of my other tanks can use that upgrade more than I right now, so I’m not too worried.
The gear I used to learn Mother Shaz a few days ago doesn’t look at all like what I use on most bosses. (to hilariously results when she didn’t hit me for the first 24 seconds of one attempt)
I just think it’s silly to be frustrated by what is one of the fundamental design choices of the class. That said, It would surprise me if there wasn’t a ‘Second Wind’ style talent added in WotLC for rage on avoidance. The theory being, you’re so irritated that your opponent is unworthy for true combat (since he can’t hit you) that you get more rage. It would help, but I still think you’d generally still have a TPS set, and a survivability set.
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March 4th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
Wow - I leave you all alone for a week or two, and BAM a small war breaks out, I love it! Great discussion on all sides… The best idea of the day is a gear bag. I just broke into Hyjal and 4/5 t5 and I am carrying around SO much junk that I may as well just get a caddy… anyway, love the site, love the discussion, and I’m just gonna keep all my gear until I decide what I like best hehe…
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March 11th, 2008 at 10:49 am
I am an aspiring prot warrior wearing most of the gear from Kara (Except that damnable chest piece from Nightbane…why wont it ever drop when i am there?) and the boots from ZA. I also have my set of Nature Resist, DPS, Max threat gear, ect… I have the 20 slot bag from ZA and cannot fit all my gear into it. Yes you can argue all day that game mechinics are broken , and that we are being replaced by pally and druid tanks…but the fact of the matter is that for me that just makes it more fun. I love going and showing that warriors can tank anything and i mean anything a druid or pally can and usually generate more Threat than they could ever generate. And most importantly i also love being the most versatile tank i possibly can be. The best way i have found to tank a lowby instance is to just throw on my DPS gear with my glad shield and a DPS weapon and tank it like that. I find myself in normal SL, SH, and even ramps and have no probs staying alive and still holding aggro on multiple mobs.
Mostly it just makes me sad to see WARRIORS whining about… “Oh the game mechanics is why i can’t hold aggro…Oh I’m to OVER-GEARED to tank this or that.” Do you realize what you are saying warriors…You’re complaining that you don’t take enough damage…How funny is that.
It really all comes down to you…I have seen warriors in T5-6 that have no idea how to play their class….All they Know is devastate/SS/SBlock and thats it. They have coasted along on the backs of better tanks to get their gear and have no idea what to do with it. Warriors IMHO are the most complex and one of the most versatile classes in the game. We are DPS/Tank/CC(Off-tank). We are the class that can make or break a raid. From what i have seen a decently geared prot warrior can make up for undergeared healers and undergeared DPS. So please don’t get angry with the system for how are abilities work…If for some reason you can’t get the job done…research your butt off and figure out what it is going to take to make the encounter go the way you want it to. If that means farming for a week just to be able to get the mats to get the resist gear that you need for one fight…do it…complaining about it isn’t gonna make the boss any easier to kill.
And if by the off chance that any other classes are reading this post…please be understanding of your tanks and what we have to go through and what we have to do to be ready for the raids (i.e. Getting Pots, Elixirs, Stones, Food, highest repair bills of any class bar none, ect…) Remember that we are the ones that keep you from meeting the Spirit Healers, so be kind and remember that all classes have to work together to make a successful encounter.
Sorry for the rant and good hunting to you all.
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March 11th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
I woudln’t consider swapping between a “threat” and “avoidance” set “down grading gear”. Just wearing the right gear for the right situation. I can easily slap on my threat gear and tank kara easy with out having to put on dps gear, it’s just getting your DPS to understand what /assist means and that they Blade Flurry, CoC, Multi-Shot, Hurricane, AoE in general, at their own risk and that i won’t be held accountible if they can’t focus fire shit down and just use those abilities to see how high they can climb the deeps meters. I’m definately an advocate of letting a DPSer that pulls aggro on an off mob or thinks they can tank one with evasion, dieing. They learn their lesson when they’ve died 3 times pulling trash to attumen.
And I only pull the “over geared” card out when i really don’t want to do something and want to be semi-nice about it.
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March 20th, 2008 at 7:33 am
I maintain a threat, avoidance and EH set. I have no qualms about throwing on DPS gear to tank lower instances.
The overgearing argument is really the case of using a saw to drive nails, as someone put it earlier. Your job as a tank as far as gearing goes is to select the best piece of gear in all 17 slots. Is an armor penetration fury chestpiece considered tanking gear? YES! Use it to tank stuff you need more threat and rage on!
You argue that if I buy a chainsaw, I should be able to toss away my handsaw. But that argument really only works if they are meant for the exact same thing. They aren’t.
Hell, I use a blue belt in my threat set because it has block value. I swap in armor penetration pieces when I need even more threat. Lose uncrittability? Sure, I’ll take that crit and raise you a 1.7k Slam crit in your face.
It’s not downgearing. It’s appropriate gearing.
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March 24th, 2008 at 2:05 am
I am playing a paladin tank and thinking about making a warrior alt. That’s because my gear’s improvement only depends on our raid progression now and I loved tanking so much that I want another class to do -merely- the same thing.
While I was reading these posts I kept thinking about “what about other classes?”. Better gear and less-to-no damage taken is always a problem. I see some of you don’t like calling choosing appropriate gear a gearing down but that’s what I need to do to tank heroics and most of Karazhan. Just to give you an example, paladins rely on their mana to cast spells that make threat. Real tanking gear of paladins generally involve no intellect bonus. So after some point you have a chance to find yourself with your base intellect value. A paladin-only skill grants us mana equel to %10 of the healing we recieve but that HAS to be a non-overhealing. With a decent avoidance chance, you take less-to-no damage, do not recieve mana from over-healing, burn out as soon as possible, can’t hold agro of that crappy level 70er mob and by the time get insulted by that hunter who doesn’t know what feign death can be used for.
Dps classes may choose to gear down to lose a big chunk of their hit rating/spell hit rating. Healer classes may choose to ger down to lose a big chunk of their mp5. Tanking classes have no option but to gear down.
So here is my suggestion: if you don’t feel like downloading an addon like outfitter, don’t even bother! If you already did but don’t feel like hitting that hotkey, don’t even bother! If your taunt is in cooldown while a mob is beating up the rogue in your group, don’t even bother to look that way! There are so many people crying out like “lolzomg ther r NO tanks in zis server?? gogo prot n00b warr u cant dps anyway” and when they find their prescious tank, they don’t respect his/her part of the game mechanics, this time crying out “aggroo!! get this off of me n00b!!”. Ignore or let them die first, then tank the mobs the way you want!
You must be proud if you can’t build rage/recieve the mana enough to keep agro. A happy healer is way more important than a happy dps, in heroics/5-mens.
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April 1st, 2008 at 9:13 am
Here’s a funny fact: I change gear in 5 mans, yes, I do. Even heroics. And I out DPS a lot of the PUG DPSers. As a tank. Not a druid or even a paladin, a warrior tank.
/flex
Imo, lots of block value and hit with the occasional bit of PvP plate to keep you crit immune/high hp with lots of crit and a good, hard hitting weapon.
See, I moonlight as an arms pvp warrior. I used to spend half the week arms spec, and the raiding half of the week prot spec (being good at both and enjoying both) so it’s not such a big deal.
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May 14th, 2008 at 10:36 am
I wouldn’t say it’s imbalanced. Even if tanks are the only people that have to gear down for lower content, that only applies when you’re doing content below you.
For all dps classes, they have ALWAYS had to hold back. They don’t change their gear, but they have to hold back their dps. If a rogue or mage maxes out their dps as hard and fast as they can, what tank can hold that aggro?
DPSers *always* have to be careful and hold back their skillzzz, in balance, warriors may have to change gear (”gear down”) to hold threat, but at least you have no restraints - you just go all out trying to hit as hard as you can.
Summary - while we hold back our T6 gear, DPSers hold back their T6 dps. Balanced imo.
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June 25th, 2008 at 7:44 am
WOW for amazing end game tanks with an enormus understanding of game mechanics you guys really are not creative. Vane thank you for not give in to the We have to gear down stuff.
lets take an example for Reg MgT. the EAL ROOM (a warrior tanks worst nightmare) Assuming 150 dmg/per hit on a 2 sec swing and 65% avoidance in order to tank 100 worms the tank will be getting
150*.4 = 60 / 2 secs = 30 dps/s/worm * 100 worms = 3000 DPS taken (easly out heald by a T6 healer)
assuming a druid healer with 30% less threat (only one i know well)
3000 HPS * .7 *.5 (healer threat mechanic) = 1050 TPS for the healer divided by 100 worms is 10.5 TPS per worm
assuming that Demo shout is 56 threat this would only need to be cast 1 out of every 3 CD’s
Also it should be noted that this warrior is creating 56*100/4.5 = 1245 TPS with out using any rage
you dont even need the sporegar shield or metal spike.
now to address the rage problems
In fact tanks should not have to gear down but casters and healers have to gear for MP5. When you are in T6 gear all Heroics should be speed runs. IE no sitting healers and casters need to use the HPM and DPM efficient spells (this will reduce TPS from casters while making it possiable to do the next trick)
Now that we have the no sitting requirment covered comes the interesting part. MAKE A BUDDY in the first pull, prefiably a mob that has no abilities that hits hard and fast. no one is allowed to kill or attack your buddy now all you have to do is make sure that u have enough threat to keep his attention vs healer and since threat is a simple accumilator he will follow you where ever you go keeping you in combat and continulsy building up your rage. thunderclaps and demo shouts should be enought to keep his attention but if the need arises burn some excess rage in him. If your gear is so good that this is not enough rage make 2 buddies
My only problem is tanks are required to have 5-6 sets of gear they REALLY need to implament a gear bag with 30-40 slots in it.
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June 26th, 2008 at 9:47 am
Nich Says:
“lets take an example for Reg MgT. the EAL ROOM (a warrior tanks worst nightmare) Assuming 150 dmg/per hit on a 2 sec swing and 65% avoidance in order to tank 100 worms the tank will be getting
150*.4 = 60 / 2 secs = 30 dps/s/worm * 100 worms = 300