WoW Classic - Warrior Tanking F.A.Q
This page is part of my Classic WoW Warrior Tanking Guide and it's nothing but a list of frequently asked questions that many people have when just starting out with learning how to tank. If you'd like more information about tanking than what's provided on this page please follow the link provided.
Should I go Fury Prot?
Depending on your guild and its unique set of problems will determine if a Fury Prot spec is right for you. If you don't have enough DPS that are pushing the limits of your threat generation then you won't want to trade off survivability for more threat generation. Keep in mind too that Fury Prot spec is built around heavy consumable usage. If you don't plan on coughing up 100 - 200g + per raid night then this class/spec is not for you. Last but not least, if you do plan on going Fury Prot it's imperative that you understand the basics of tanking first.
What Talents should I use?
Warriors have a few different talent choices when it comes to tanking. You can go Deep Prot, Fury Prot (1h) or Fury Prot (two 1hs) as well as Impale Prot. Depending on your guild and what you personally want to accomplish determines which build you'll want to choose.
Deep Prot: Anger Management/Tactical Mastery in Arms, Cruelty in Fury and the rest into Protection
Fury Prot (1h + Shield): Down to Bloodthirst in Fury; rest of the points spent in Protection
Fury Prot (DW): 32 Points into Fury and the rest into Protection (Dual Wield Mastery is selected)
Impale Prot: 19 Points into Arms, 5 into Fury and the rest in Protection
What Abilities should I use?
This depends entirely on your spec and situation. Below I have included two succinct lists of what abilities you should use depending on your spec and your situation. Of course, your mileage may vary.
Mitigation Tank Combat Rotation: Shield Slam, Shield Block, Revenge, Heroic Strike
Fury Prot Tank Combat Rotation: Bloodthirst, Revenge & Heroic Strike (while tanking)... Bloodthirst, Whirlwind, Heroic Strike (while DPSing) - Shield Block when using a shield for harder bosses too
You may notice Sunder Armor is not a part of either rotation and that's because you really only want to use this ability when there aren't 5 sunders on the target or to refresh your the Sunder Armor debuff on the boss. There are some niche situations outside of this that you'll want to use Sunder Armor too. Such as if you need to generate threat and you're not being hit so you need your "white attacks" (meaning regular melee attacks) to generate rage. In this situation you won't be able to use Heroic Strike to dump your rage since you won't be able to generate any rage by doing that. A specific example of a fight like this is Onyxia during Phase 3.
What Race should I play?
Obviously, the best race for you to play will depend on your faction. For Alliance arguably the best race would be Humans for Mace & Sword Racial. For Horde it would be Tauren for pure mitigation tank, Troll for a Threat tank or even Orc if you wanna save a buck on Edgemaster's Handguards. Keep in mind that if you pick a race like Orc that has the Axe racial, it'll confine you to using weapons of that specific type otherwise you'll have to buy an Edgemasters at 60 to make up for your lack of Weapon Skill.
What is a Glancing Blow?
A Glancing Blow occurs when you're fighting an enemy that is your level or higher level than you OR when the enemy you're facing has a higher Defense skill than your Weapon Skill. Glancing Blows can only occur on your white damage attacks and will reduce the overall damage of the attack. By default, a Glancing Blow has a 40% chance of occuring when you're fighting a boss. Higher Weapon Skill reduces this chance significantly. For more information about how Weapon Skill scales check out my Warrior Math Compendium.
What is the Hit Cap or how much Hit % do I want?
Your Hit Cap changes depending on your Weapon Skill and whether or not you're Dual Wielding as Fury Prot or not. Without any Weapon Skill you'll have a default 9% chance to miss with your main hand attacks. If you are an Orc using Axes or Human using Swords then you'll only have a 6% chance of missing your main hand attacks. Off hands require a higher Hit % than your main hand does with (I think) a 25% chance to miss by default. However, there is a "cheap" way to make your offhand never miss by queuing up Heroic Strike, more on that later.
300 Weapon Skill: 9% Hit Cap
305 Weapon Skill: 6% Hit Cap