The Warrior
A guide to the Druid class by Grey Lord Brennan.
Introduction
So you think you
want to to be a tank? I hope you didn't enlist for a brochure, or suckered in by
a recruiter, because your mommy doesn't work here. You belong to me now! I'm
Drill Seargent Hawk and it's my job to whip you sorry pukes into shape and and
train you for war!.......
(((Sorry I couldn't resist)))
Do you think I'm funny? What are you smiling at? Do you want to kiss me or
something? Suck in that gut and stand at attention private. Listen up
sweethearts it may just save your life or the life of your battle buddies.
The first thing you must consider when becoming a Warrior is understanding the
difference between Threat, Aggro, and Rage.
Threat
Threat is what you've done to make the monster mad at you. Some also call it
"hate". Imagine the monster has a hate list and everyone in the group
is on it. Now every time you cast a spell or swing a weapon a meter moves up
that increases how much hate you've created. The person with the biggest bar
will most likely have aggro. If you are the warrior you want to try to keep your
threat above everyone else's. If you are not the warrior you need to be careful
not to make the monster mad at you. If the group isn't careful it makes an
already tough job even harder. If someone in your group is too gung ho, or over
jealous about making big damage too fast then you WILL loose aggro.
Aggro
Aggro comes from the word aggression to show WHO the monster is mad at. The term
aggro was around long before Drill Seargent Hawk was fighting wars. Aggro is not
the same as threat. Some abilities cause aggro but don't effectively generate
threat. Taunt is the best example. This is a useful tool if the warrior looses
aggro to some trigger happy mage, or hunter a well timed taunt will force the
monster to face back on the warrior. Now you have aggro again. However this is
just a temporary state. You must do something to generate more threat and the
mage / hunter / whatever must do something to reduce the threat he's producing.
Otherwise in a couple seconds your taunt will wear off and the monster goes
right back to where he was before you taunted. Contrary to what some people will
tell you taunt does NOTHING to generate threat, and it does NOT help you hold
aggro on a monster that is already attacking you. If you taunt a monster that is
already attacking you, you just wasted your taunt.
Rage
Rage is what I feel makes warriors have such a hard time generating threat. Rage
is our power resource pool where we are able to use our different abilities.
Unlike all other classes we start out with no rage. We must build up rage and if
we are not doing anything to build rage, we begin to lose the rage we've already
worked to get. A warrior with no rage can generate very little threat.
Abilities and Tactics
There are many warrior abilities to choose from when considering Threat, Aggro, and Rage. You will not have all of these abilities until you have grown into a veteran warrior. Just because you have learned a new ability, doesn't mean you know how or when to use it:
Revenge is
probably the most solid threat generator a warrior has. However, it requires a
bit of time to Shield Block -> Revenge, as well as the extra Rage cost for
shield block. Overall best rage to threat ratio is in Sunder Armor.
Always let the warrior throw out at least 2 Sunders before you join in with
heals buffs or attacks. Even with 5 Sunders in place you still need to be
careful how much damage you unload. My advice to warriors is to keep 5 Sunders
on any mob that you want to tank. In addition, throw out Shield Block or Revenge
if it's up, I like to keep a Rend (bleed) running actively as well as Battle
Shout. and Shield Slam (for disrupting spell casts).. Then and only then if
there is spare rage I'll use abilities like Demoralizing Shout or Heroic Strike.
The downside to Battle Shout and Sunder armor is that Sunder lowers the mob's
armor lvl, which seems good because now you and your group can kill it faster.
But, it makes those rogue and hunter crits hit that much harder, thus increasing
THEIR threat that much faster. The same effect for Battle Shout. Though it helps
you and your group mates kill faster, it also produces more damage output for
rogues and hunters and in turn increase their threat generation.
Stances
The next thing I want to talk about are Stances. Any class that attacks with
melee is given a certain amount of threat, based on the damage they do. For that
reason a rogue would generate threat much faster than a sword wielding mage, or
a hammer priest (melee threat only). The warrior class is supposed have an
additional 80% threat generation for his damage done. So just wielding one
sword, a warrior should generate threat faster than a rogue with one sword and a
sword mage (again melee only, and auto attacks, instant attacks and abilities
change the threat by changing damage). The slight disadvantage for a warrior is
swinging a 1h sword and shield vs a rogue with 2 weapons is that the warrior is
doing far less damage so he needs the additional threat generation to hold aggro.
Now comes the nice bonuses. In Defensive Stance a warrior is supposed to
generate a whppping 130% additional threat for the damage he does. 145% with
Defiance. In my opinion if you don't want defiance, you probably shouldn't be a
protection warrior. So you can use this 145% additional threat generation to
your advantage with certain tricks. Things like Rend, a shield spike, life steal
weapon procs, anything that does damage, though it may be small can be added
into your total damage which in turn helps you generate a LOT more threat.
You'll never kill a big boss with Rend and a shield spike; the damage is
laughable. But, the the damage converted by 145% over time combined with your
Sunder, Concusion Blow, Shieild Slam, Revenge et. ........ becomes a lot of
threat.
Your job is not to kill the monster. You're job is to keep him off your
group-mates.
That brings me to my last comment. If you want to be a good tank, use a shield
and defensive stance. I know plenty of 2hand and DW furry, and arms warriors who
do FINE at holding aggro. But, if you are in defensive stance and holding a
shield your healers will see the difference.
Good luck, make Drill Seargent Hawk proud. I look forward to the day when you
soldiers are out there saving my keister on the front line. <salute>
"What makes the green grass grow?"
Blood, blood, blood, Drill Seargent!
Now get down and give me 50.
Grey Lord Hawk
Editing by Templar Sturn