Warrior tank low-level dungeon rotation

[trololol]

I have never played a tank before and have looked on numerous vanilla forums/watched YouTube videos, but was curious what the best rotation is to use for tanking Deadmines, SFK, Gnomer, etc. Will you keep a similar rotation all the way through ZF? Some have said to sunder a mob, tab to the next, sunder, tab, repeat.. Is it really that simple? I would hate to go into tanking my first dungeon and people "gtfo n00b" the whole time. If anyone could explain how to "better tank" at lower levels, I would appreciate it.

Thanks,
Das Troll

[Armilus]

Unfortunately there is no rotation for tanking and no simple solution. Use Revenge when ever it is up, then use Sunder armor. You need to apply more threat than the healer to all of the targets and more threat than the DPS to the (hopefully) single target they are attacking. Making sure nothing attacks the healer is more important than making sure it doesn't attack the DPS in most situations but try to do both if you can.

If that answer is not useful to you, then you need to learn how threat works and how different abilities cause threat in different ways. I wrote a comprehensive guide explaining all of the game mechanics related to tanking and I really can't make things any simpler or more concise.

Please read the guide in order, once something is explained it is assumed that you understand it from that point forward. I had to avoid re-explaining things to keep the guide from being far longer than it already is. After reading that, my advice at the start of this post should make sense.

[DanielGames]

I apologize in advance for my sloppy, longwinded response.

https://forum.nostalrius.org/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=16499

While the warrior abilities listed here are for max level, it should give you an understanding of how threat works. Buffing, debuffing, and gaining rage all play a role in keeping aggro.

Keep in mind that buffing and healing does less threat per mob when there's more mobs in the pull. I'm pretty sure it's divided between each mob. So while tanking 6+ mobs at once may seem intimidating, also realise that the healer won't aggro them as fast as say tanking 3 mobs.

Your general abilities to spam will be sunder and revenge. Use battle shout and bloodrage while in combat so they benefit your threat. Save shield block for bosses that hit really hard (the giant boar in rfk and eranikus in st come to mind). In most pulls you won't generate enough rage to spam shield block and keep aggro at the same time. Heroic strike only if you're gonna cap out in rage. This probably won't happen until ST. Cleave is useful for keeping aoe threat but I prefer manually sundering/revenging each add every 15 seconds while using cleave if my rage is getting high. Thunderclap and demo shout are good for getting snap aoe threat at the start. In certain aoe situations it's helpful to spam battle or demo shout. Battleshout works best if it affects everyone in your party and there aren't too many mobs while demo shout will shine if there's an absurd amount of mobs.

I'm leveling as pvp arms so my tanking rotation against multiple mobs kinda looks like this:
(zerker stance) zerker rage, (battle stance) charge, thunderclap, bloodrage, sweeping strikes, (zerker stance) whirlwind, (def stance) demo shout, sunder/revenge primary target for a bit, then sunder/revenge adds so healer doesn't eventually aggro. Sometimes I do a 2nd whirlwind when it's off cd and if I have a ton of rage I'll use cleave. I'll spam shouts if I think it'll be beneficial. If mobs aren't hitting me very hard and my rage generation isn't so good, I'll skip the sweeping strikes step. Damage dealers don't want to wait 5 seconds before starting.

A lot of the times I've been tanking I've used my hard hitting 2hander, using sword n board in bad pulls or against mobs that hit hard. I also execute mobs which means going into battle stnace. You might say that the way I tank is pretty unorthidox but I see it as math (plus I love beating everyone in dps when tanking).

All in all, I say learn how threat works if you don't know already. Once you have that down, just have fun tanking. Don't get all stressed out if ppl aggro, that's why you got 1-3 taunt abilities. It's only until late game dungeons where it'll require more focus. Until then just experiment and see what does and doesn't work.

edit:

It's also helpful to know what other class abilities increase their threat. You're going to run into plenty of shaman and priests that use earthshock and mind blast. There's also not too much you can do other than taunt and scramble if a hunter multishots as soon as you pull. These situations don't freak me out so you shouldn't. You're just around to make sure ppl don't die. If dps aren't allowing you to keep aggro but no one is dying, whatever. Let the healer complain first since it's their mana being wasted.

edit2:

unethical was not the right word. I didn't get much sleep.

[Undertanker]

The one thing I see wrong with the above post is "save shield block..... won't have enough rage".

Shield block will trigger your revenge. Revenge does a lot more threat than sunder.

Sunder = 15 rage "assuming you are lvling fury or arms". Shield block is 10, revenge is 5. You've spend the same amount of rage, but generated more threat and took less damage.

Remember this though: Revenge, block Revenge. In that order. Not Block then revenge. You don't want to use your initial rage on a block, what if somebody does a buff, or preheal, or anything that causes a tiny bit of threat, you don't get hit.

You want to take a good first hit and get a rage spike from the damage, then work on the mitigation while holding threat.

Remember abilities that say "generate threat" are > doing damage when tanking until you get a feel for when to do what which you won't have that rage availability til 60. Demo shout spam if somebody ass pulls, and use a weapon in the 1.6-1.9 speed range if you can. Any faster, your white hits won't generate enough rage per hit, and any slower, missing a white hit starts to become very taxing.

Heroic strike should rarely be used. Got extra rage? Disarm, demo shout, battle shout, shield block or do what is called "rage pulling".

Rage pulling is when the current pack you are on is getting close to dead and you have already well established aggro. Why burn your rage on minimal damage or pointless sunders. Just revenge and auto attack. You will have a enough rage to make the beginning of the next pull easier.

[DanielGames]

The one thing I see wrong with the above post is "save shield block..... won't have enough rage".

Shield block will trigger your revenge. Revenge does a lot more threat than sunder.

Sunder = 15 rage "assuming you are lvling fury or arms". Shield block is 10, revenge is 5. You've spend the same amount of rage, but generated more threat and took less damage.

Well I was just speaking from my personal experience. I found revenge proc'd often enough without needing to use shield block and if I used it a lot I'd be rage starved which actually gave me aggro issues sometimes. The day I decided to stop using shield block was the day I realised I've been gimping myself with keeping aggro. It all depends on your gear and the level difference between the mobs and you though. It's situational in low level dungeons imho. If rage generation is poor and the mobs don't hit hard I wouldn't recommend it.

[Undertanker]

Everything about warrior is situational.

Ofc you shouldnt use block if you are starved, but saying just sunder when block revenge lowers damage taken, and allows revenge for more threat is my point.

[Jcvd]

I'm in the process of leveling a warrior myself and have been tanking some instances. Tanking is easy so don't be afraid!

All the technical mumbo-jumbo aside (which is very usefull info!) here are some tips:

Be the leader:
Literally be the leader of the group. Tell ur priest not to shield you before every pull cause you won't get rage, same goes for rogues Cheap Shot (they love that but it sucks), let em use garrote.
Mark mobs:
Mark mobs with Skull, Star, Cross, whatever you want. Bind these in keybind options! mostly people follow these easy mark-ups, but occasionally you'll get the weird guy that always attacks the non-skull mob ... let them know what to do. Let mages / locks / hunters know their mark at the start. I like Star for mages, Moon for locks and Nipple for hunters. Change mobs to skull after a target dies.
Range pull & LoS:
Use a bow - gun - xbow - whatevs to make the pull (after marking) and LoS the mobs so they run to you. Put them in a safe spot so they don't run into another pack when they run away when nearing death.
Don't stress:
There will be "O-shit" moments with a weird pull due to you asspulling (I've done it, everybody did it), to healer aggro because of pre-heals or heals from the last pull (hots and shit), don't stress it will be ok. Gather the mobs with taunt - shield Bash - revenge - ... , don't be affraid to use Blood Rage. Stay cool, 5-mans are very forgiving and mostly people know what to do.
Keep an eye on healer mana:
People are impatient. it's your task to make the run go smoothly, keep chainpulling untill the healer is oom. Don't be affriad to tell people to just drink after the last pull is dead so you can continue pulling.
CD tips:
Keep Battle Shout up 100% of the time. Try not to use Shield Bash for original aggro on healers, but save it to interrupt their heal.

After every run I've done people compliment my tanking, dunno what other tanks are doing cause people seem surprised it's possible.

Question that I have myself: Someone told me that Hamstring is great for quick aggro ... is this true?

[trololol]

Thanks for the helpful tips. Very thorough on all replies!!