The Ironsong Tribe

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Guest

Was wanting suggestions and a critique of the spec I came up with for tanking before I swapped over to it.

Basically, I'm opening this up so you guy's will tear it apart and tell me what I did wrong. D:

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Of course, I have reasons for all of the decisions I made with it, which is why I want help making it better. *nods*
Its viable. However I would take points from Improved Heroic Strike and Improved Disciplines and put them in ARmored to the Teeth and the last point at your discretion.

This is the most common spec you will see or slight variations of it, such as yours ....Deep Wounds Spec

However I use a Cleave spec as shown here....Cleave Spec which I find just as sufficient as the "Deep Wounds".

Kosath is the Master, seek his advice.

Guest

Can't take points out of Imp Heroic Strike without putting them in either Imp Rend, Imp Charge, or Tactical mastery. Otherwise I'm two points short of impale and deep wounds. Honestly considering putting them into tactical mastery or improved charge, though, with Glyph of Revenge on hand proccing free heroic strikes.

Improved disciplines, I don't mind taking points out of, but having your big 'oshit' buttons on hand more often can't be bad.

I'm wary of taking points out of shield spec, though, which is what I see half-maxed most often, because I don't know about other tanks, but I've had running out of rage cause more than a couple wipes. I'm actually speccing out of anger management and other rage-generating abilities, too.
Are you going to be doing more dungeon tanking, or looking into raid tanking?

For dungeon tanking, I use, High Damage Multi mob build on my warrior.
Axulia Wrote:Can't take points out of Imp Heroic Strike without putting them in either Imp Rend, Imp Charge, or Tactical mastery. Otherwise I'm two points short of impale and deep wounds. Honestly considering putting them into tactical mastery or improved charge, though, with Glyph of Revenge on hand proccing free heroic strikes.

Improved disciplines, I don't mind taking points out of, but having your big 'oshit' buttons on hand more often can't be bad.

I'm wary of taking points out of shield spec, though, which is what I see half-maxed most often, because I don't know about other tanks, but I've had running out of rage cause more than a couple wipes. I'm actually speccing out of anger management and other rage-generating abilities, too.

Then I would suggest that you at least take the two points from Improved Disciplines and put them into Armored to the Teeth. Shield Wall isn't something you should be using very often, and the cooldown is short enough that if you ever had to use it, the next time you need it, it should be done. Last Stand should be an alternative before or after you use Shield wall since the cooldown is much shorter.

The reason being is that abilities like Revenge, Thunder Clap, Heroic Throw and Shockwave are modified by attack power, and Armored to the Teeth will increase your attack power and ultimately help you keep threat via more damage, and the mobs on you to generate more rage.

Thats my understanding of it at least.
You can check out my spec if you like.

I would say a couple of things about your spec.

Do you get stunned/charmed while tanking to warrant using Iron Will? Do the mobs you are fighting stay alive long enough for Deep Wounds to actually make much of a difference?

I opted out of that kind of build to focus on raw damage from the initial hits. My revenge hits often crit for close to 8k and they hit an extra target. 5% more crit from Cruelty and a sizable amount of AP from Armored to the Teeth seems to make a big difference.

All this advice should be taken with the knowledge that I only use this spec for doing Heroics.

~Daichallar
A couple things about your choices Axulia:

Axulia Wrote:Can't take points out of Imp Heroic Strike without putting them in either Imp Rend, Imp Charge, or Tactical mastery. Otherwise I'm two points short of impale and deep wounds. Honestly considering putting them into tactical mastery or improved charge, though, with Glyph of Revenge on hand proccing free heroic strikes.

Basically deep wounds is for thunderclap and shockwave, not really for single target damage. It helps to hold aggro on multiple targets. If this is the route you want to go and you need those other 10 points in arms, then I do recommend improved charge and improved heroic strike.

Iron will: This is for pvp, not really for tanking. Stuns are rare now, and charm never seems to happen to tanks.

Imp Rend: You will always have something else you need to use every global cooldown cycle.

Tactical mastery: You won't be stance dancing ever.

Improved charge: This is where you want your points. A tank's most risky point is with initial aggro and starting rage generation. Always charge if it's possible (it usually is in heroics) and use bloodrage as well.

Improved heroic strike: Given your other options for 3 points, this is the one to take because you will be spamming it while single-target tanking.

Quote:Improved disciplines, I don't mind taking points out of, but having your big 'oshit' buttons on hand more often can't be bad.

This one will be a personal choice. I live without it pretty well, although it would be useful for certain bosses.

Quote: I'm wary of taking points out of shield spec, though, which is what I see half-maxed most often, because I don't know about other tanks, but I've had running out of rage cause more than a couple wipes. I'm actually speccing out of anger management and other rage-generating abilities, too.

Okay, bottom line here is that if you are having rage generation problems, it means things aren't hitting you and you should look toward threat generation. The extra from shield block isn't going to do much in the grand scheme of things. Also, of all the types of mitigation, shield block doesn't scale well at all with boss damage. Most warriors simply ignore it now, and blizzard has said they aren't happy with how the system works for it. There will be changes in the next expansion.

Now, looking toward threat generation, armored to the teeth and cruelty are the way to go. The attack power increase from armored to the teeth is actually very big and no warrior should be without it regardless of spec. Leftover points should go to cruelty if you haven't put them in improved disciplines, as more crits are always useful for pretty much any tanking ability you may use.

Beyond those tweaks I think your spec looks good.

Guest

YAY! I has a measure of approval from Kosath!

The reason I took points out of cruelty is because from the tooltip change (Or maybe I hadn't read it close enough before) It only counts for weapon strikes, which would help tremendously for single-target, which I have no problems with. I'm not sure if shockwave counts as a weapon strike (Though I'm pretty sure it's melee) And I KNOW thunder clap doesn't. So, by my reasoning, having it there to increase the chance for my AoE to proc deep wounds... not so good.

I did, however, not know that tanks got a decent amount of rage for crits, or melee strikes at all, really. I'm usually spamming heroic strike, anyway. I need to put cleave somewhere more accessible on my bars, too.

Wasn't too worried about damage dealing so much as survivability, and my single-target tanking is awesome as is. Multi-mob is really the tricky bit, but I'm not too bad, I think.

I'll just do some trial and error, I guess. Definately going to put the points into imp charge, though.

((Also, the stance-dancing I was thinking of was festergut. Didn't know of any other places where it was applicable, but I figured that was enough to at least consider it))

EDIT: Spec revamp -
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