WoW Guide:Gombol's Tanking Guide - Talents

If you have a Warrior and are thinking of trying out tanking, or perhaps looking to improving you current talent set up, take a look at the guide below.

Tanking is something you need to get right. If you fail at your job as a tank your whole party or raid go down with you. Talent specs are crucial when perfecting your tank, so here is a guide to speccing for optimal performance; keep those mobs attacking you with ease!

Refer to the Warrior Talent planner to see all Warrior Talents mentioned below.



Specs:

Maybe you just hit 80 and are re-speccing, maybe you've been raiding as arms or fury, or maybe just finishing Northrend and wanting to go straight into heroics or raids. Now, before we get into the good, solid tanking spec let's take a quick glance down the trees and point out some alluring talents to avoid.

Arms tree:

More or less the ONLY talent you want in here (as protection) is the parry talent (unless like me, you've found yourself with a spare point, which I threw into imp charge) Yes, parry isn't the Best stat ever, because every time you parry, the mob resets its swing, but, more avoidance = less damage, meaning happier healers. That's more or less it in arms, nothing more you want.

Fury tree:

Two talents, both on tier one you want here, Armoured to the Teeth (3/3), and Cruelty (5/5), both will help with threat generation, and soloing, the reasons being:

Armoured to the Teeth is 3 AP for every 180 armour, meaning a LARGE amount of AP, and more Threat, because Thunderclap, Shockwave and Concussion blow get + damage from AP (as stated by their tooltip) and because you should always be trying to keep Thunderclap up (slower attack speed = less damage) it will do a nice amount of damage. Shockwave, owns for AoE tanking, even though its a Cone in front of you, just curve around the mobs, trying to keep them in front of you and use it, they will get stunned, nice high threat and less damage for a few seconds, even though it doesn't always stun bosses, its worth using on boss fights for threat gen.

Protection:

Here is the long winded part of explaining specs, in protection you want most of your points, what I have is as follows (will explain why as well):

Improved Thunder Clap (3/3): Why choose it? 4 less rage cost, meaning you can use the rage you've saved on something else, 30% extra damage, more threat of course, and a total of 20% slower attack speed, meaning mobs/bosses will attack slower, meaning less damage.

Shield Specialization (5/5): More block rating, meaning you will block more often, and each time you block, you will gain 2 rage, and if you block lots, you'll be getting a lot of rage.

Anticipation (5/5): 5% dodge, you would be silly NOT to take it, nothing much you can say about it.

Incite (3/3): Some people don't see the point in maxing this out, I think its worth it personally: 15% + crit? Would help LOADS on your threat gen, and well worth the points.

Toughness (5/5): 10% armour increase, and 30% reduction on movement slowing effects, take it because armour = mitigation, and that means less damage from physical attacks.

Shield Mastery (2/2): 30% increased block rating, and 20 second reduction on the cooldown of shield block. Block Rating means you take less damage when you block, but also means your shield slam does more damage, and the 20 second reduction is nice, since a lot of the trash / bosses hit nice and hard now, so its best to use it whenever its off Cooldown.

Last Stand (1/1): Self explanatory, its one of your scare buttons.

Puncture (3/3): Sunder armour, useless when you get devastate, but less rage cost of devastate means you have more rage to play with.

Improved Spell Reflection (2/2): This is awesome now that it was buffed, 4% avoidance (to spells only) and the reflection on party members, Herri tested this; it has a min and max range: "A party member didn't receive the buff while in trade-range (~11 yards). It worked while in duel-range (~10 yards)"

Gag Order (2/2): 10% damage to shield slam and the silence, even though this doesn't look or sound really good, note this: " Heroic Throw abilities a 100% chance to silence" Meaning... That's right, a ranged silence, worth it on those pesky casters that wont come to you.

Concussion Blow (1/1): Now that this does damage AND said damage scales with AP, you can now use this on bosses (or stun immune mobs) to cause extra threat!

One-Handed Weapon Specialization (5/5): 10% increased one handed weapon damage, worth it since being in defensive is -10% damage, meaning if you're in defensive you'll only loose 1% damage.

Focused Rage (3/3): -3 rage cost on ALL abilities, that means EVERYTHING you can do takes less rage to use: you have even more rage to use.

Vigilance (1/1): Quite self explanatory, the target takes 3% less damage, 10% of their threat is transferred to you, if the target is hit by a mob your taunt CD is refreshed.

Improved Defensive Stance (2/2): 6% less spell damage, but you also get a +10% damage increase whenever you block, dodge or parry.

Vitality (3/3): 6% stamina increase and 6 Expertise, no reason not to take it.

Critical Block (3/3): Gives a chance to block 30% more after blocking, I believe this is an invisible buff, so don't watch out for one, also gives a 15% crit on Shield Slam, meaning more threat.

Devastate (1/1): Your MAIN damage and tanking ability, it applies Sunder, and damages your target. Get asap, swap your sunder from your bars and whack this ability in its space.

Warbringer (1/1): Thanks to this, I personally NEVER leave defensive any more, being able to charge in defensive is awesome, it enables you to charge in, get rage from the charge, and use an ability without having to change stance and loosing some rage. Also gives your Charge, Intercept and Intervene abilities a root / movement impairing effect remover, which is very handy.

Damage Shield (2/2): More or less a personal Ret Aura, every time you're hit (including blocking) you deal damage equal to 20% of your block.

Sword and Board (3/3): Increases crit on devastate by 15%, and has a Chance to proc a free shield slam that costs no rage, and it procs VERY often as well, so well worth the points, but be sure to try and use it when it procs too.

Shockwave (1/1): Bread and butter of warrior AoE tanking, sure, its a Cone, but if you're smart enough to try and keep the mobs in front of you, it can be used often, even if you just want a stun, causes nice high threat. Even useful on bosses for when you want that little bit extra threat.