Defensive Stance

[Thawwing Light]

I give roughly a 0% chance of me trying to change your mind here :P
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My 11/29/11 mirrors this setup, save I use full Anger Management and TM. This thread is making me reevaluate my own use of TM, and you all do have a point - my thrown daggers work better than charge pulls in instances that are actually difficult.

Still, what I'm wondering is where those points would be better spent. All I can think of is -

-Finishing off Toughness (nice passive, not overwhelming)
-Getting Shield Discipline (is this worth it? I thought it was passive when I first saw it, so that says something about my opinion of it)
-Get Cheap Sunder (probably more of a Rage saver than TM will ever be in parties)
-Get Anticipation (can be had from gear, but I've heard that despite that fact, it may be worth it.)


Anyway, I'm curious about what comes out of this. Cheap Sunder, Toughness, and Shield Discipline would be personal choices if I ever ditched TM and AM. My problem is that I love Anger Management's undocumented 'feature': In battle, you get 1 rage every 3 seconds.

The reason for this, near as I can tell, is because of the way rage decays: normally, out of battle, you lose 3 rage every 3 or so seconds. With Anger Management, 1 rage of this loss is countered, and you only lose 2 rage every 3 seconds. However, in battle, you don't lose rage, but Anger Management is still active, and you gain 1 rage every 3 seconds.

This may not seem like a lot, but to a 1 hand + Shield warrior desperate for rage can certainly notice this while trying to keep up rage spamming Shield Block and Revenge. This also combines nicely with Bloodrage's placing you in battle for 10 seconds while its rage gain tics - if you use it out of battle, you get 23 total rage.

All in all, Anger Management is even stronger than it appears on the surface. I forget who pointed this out to me, but I can really feel the difference since I sprung for it.

This, ultimately, is a rage boost I'd miss ;].

[mjdoom]

Hmm, I'll just point out here that I personally have Anger Management and I like it. I enjoy that passive rage generation. However, this post was just about the 11 points going for Piercing Howl and the 5 points in deflection and there is no way I can argue with that. As it stands right now unless I get convinced that shield discipline and/or defiance is worth it I intend to keep anger management even after I respec at 60.

- mjdoom

[Artega]

But then, for some reason, even the 'best' tanks there seem determined to never use Sunder Armor or Revenge, never leave Battle Stance, save all their rage to execute one target, and seem to think the occasional thunder clap is enough to hold aggro over a priest spamming heals on their two-hander-wielding selves.  (Which it might be, considering the moment something goes wrong the 'tank' is no longer taking all the hits.)
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/rant

Okay, I see a lot of this, and I'm going to spell it out for you:

You do not need a shield, and you do not need Defensive Stance.

While both certainly greatly increase mitigation, they also greatly reduce damage output. Just because you're the tank doesn't mean you can't be a damage-dealer, too.

I have tanked the entirety of all three sections of Dire Maul, both sides of Stratholme, the bulk of Scholomance, and many areas of Upper Blackrock Spire without ever using a shield, and without using Defensive Stance.

I have chain-pulled in an attempt to force my healer(s) to run out of mana, and I can't do it. I cannot take damage faster than they can heal it, and there is NO downtime.

While you'll do just fine doing the usual turtle-mode style of tanking, be aware that it ISN'T the only way to tank, and that you can tank without shields and without Protection talents perfectly well.

/endrant

[Kevin]

I agree here too. I'm personally not really good at main tanking when not doing the turtle thing but I believe it can be done and it is aided by proper talents, which I don't have on Gnolack. Way up in the thread I had made some contrary statements to that, but I've changed my opinion on that. I'm don't think you can tank well in Battle/Berserker if all your talents are in the Protection tree though. You need more damage than that will allow you to put out and I think this is where some of the "you can only tank in defensive stance with a shield on" comes from.

I'm not convinced that an Arms/Fury is a better tank than a protection spec, but they can certianly be very good. If a paladin can tank it an Arms/Fury should be able to do just as well if not better really.

[Bob the Beholder]

/rant

Okay, I see a lot of this, and I'm going to spell it out for you:

You do not need a shield, and you do not need Defensive Stance.

While both certainly greatly increase mitigation, they also greatly reduce damage output.  Just because you're the tank doesn't mean you can't be a damage-dealer, too.

I have tanked the entirety of all three sections of Dire Maul, both sides of Stratholme, the bulk of Scholomance, and many areas of Upper Blackrock Spire without ever using a shield, and without using Defensive Stance.

I have chain-pulled in an attempt to force my healer(s) to run out of mana, and I can't do it.  I cannot take damage faster than they can heal it, and there is NO downtime.

While you'll do just fine doing the usual turtle-mode style of tanking, be aware that it ISN'T the only way to tank, and that you can tank without shields and without Protection talents perfectly well.

/endrant
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Okay, so I was really just ranting about certain warriors, without bothering to put in the part where I realize that there are several ways to tank and I shouldn't go about bashing anything that can be legitimately effective.

Obviously, with your list of accomplishments, you know how to tank. Every single warrior I've ever partied with on my pvp server does not. (Minus maybe one I ran with in SM the other day--he was pretty good.)

Certainly it's possible to hold aggro relying on a heavy two-hander's damage. But my complaints are mainly about the seeming impossibility of finding someone who can manage more than the usual, solo-tastic, 'offload all possible damage on one-target, ignoring anything that might happen to other party members' performance. My warrior uses defensive stance and a shield, and actually makes an attempt at keeping the rest of the party alive, so that's what I automatically compare sub-par tanks with.

[towelrod]

I have chain-pulled in an attempt to force my healer(s) to run out of mana, and I can't do it.  I cannot take damage faster than they can heal it, and there is NO downtime.

/endrant
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How do you do that? I've had plenty of fights where the main healer has gone oom while the warrior is taking on 3 elites at once. Usually those work out ok, because either there is a backup healer or the fight is almost over when he goes oom. But how can you handle that many hard hitting elites without the healer at least needing to drink after the fight?

[Artega]

How do you do that?  I've had plenty of fights where the main healer has gone oom while the warrior is taking on 3 elites at once.  Usually those work out ok, because either there is a backup healer or the fight is almost over when he goes oom.  But how can you handle that many hard hitting elites without the healer at least needing to drink after the fight?
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I've never really asked, just accepted that it's very hard for me to die. I know the priest I party with is heavy into Holy, so he's got great mana efficiency, and I know he has Robes of Insight, though I don't think he's ever NEEDED to use the activation.

Sometimes Shammies or Druids assist in healing, too. At least, I sometimes see what looks like Healing Wave or Healing Touch on me from time to time.

I don't pay too much attention to the how and why; just how much mana they have starting, how much they have ending, and whether or not it's time for the next pull :)

I generally use a Dark Iron Pulverizer for non-boss mobs, for a shot at the godsend-like 8 second stun, so that might contribute a little. I'm not sure. I'll talk to my priest and find out what his talents and equipment is like.

EDIT: Perhaps I wasn't totally clear. By chain-pulling, I mean pulling the next group once the first group is gone, not pulling multiple groups at once. That would likely mean certain death, mana efficiency or not :)

[Olon97]

I generally use a Dark Iron Pulverizer for non-boss mobs, for a shot at the godsend-like 8 second stun, so that might contribute a little.  I'm not sure.  I'll talk to my priest and find out what his talents and equipment is like.

That would make your example something of a special case rather than general evidence of "2H arms/fury tanking is just as effective". Frequent use of the Pulverizer in practice makes healing you more like healing a prot build with concussion blow and revenge stuns than trying to heal your run of the mill 2H tanking rambo.

That said, I enjoy bringing out my Malown's Slam on many pulls, and am ever so slowly saving up the dark iron for a pulverizer of my own. :)

[Ynir]

Spangles has been raiding daily for many weeks in defensive stance. She switches stance into berserker only to fire her gun, then switches right back to defense.

She sees no reason to switch otherwise, the main issue being time. Time to check the backfield for breakout mobs. Time to look for unsuspected incoming. Time to break into CC'c mobs that seem ripe for it. Stance switching intterupts the high speed process of targeting and triage. There is always enough rage to get off a taunt or sunder. DPS and personal health are taken care of by others, and are of no concern.

The picture is not so clear cut in 5 man, where she longs to kill faster. Other party members are usually happy for the guaranteed aggro lock, however.

I hope that as defense warriors who published in this thread respec, they will publish the final talent configuration here, as following someone's timeline is somewhat difficult.

[Artega]

That would make your example something of a special case rather than general evidence of "2H arms/fury tanking is just as effective". Frequent use of the Pulverizer in practice makes healing you more like healing a prot build with concussion blow and revenge stuns than trying to heal your run of the mill 2H tanking rambo.

That said, I enjoy bringing out my Malown's Slam on many pulls, and am ever so slowly saving up the dark iron for a pulverizer of my own. :)
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Well, before I got my pulverizer, I used my doomsaw.

There is a quite large difference between the two, as a single 8 second stun pretty much shuts down a particular mob :)

Of course, I switch back to my doomsaw for bosses, or occasionally pull out my heater and beater if it's a messy boss battle (such as Rend or Drakkisath), since I can't stun THEM.

[swirly]

So I've been building a defensive warrior on Terenas and enjoying it alot. I pretty much never leave defensive stance (I don't even really know what most the abilities in the other stances do, thats how little attention I give them). I also only ever play with a 1 handed weapon and a shield. I'm building a very one sided kind of warrior. I enjoy it though and thats fine. My computer lags way too badly for me to do any PvP and so thats not a consideration at all for me.

I actually find it kind of interesting how many people seem to complain about playing a protection speced warrior using 1H/Shield while soloing. I've found it to be great fun and haven't noticed any slowness at all. I think some of this may be because I have a different frame of reference than most people. My other main character is a priest who is built much like the last to die build. So while she does have mind flay and some points in improved mind blast, she doesn't have the other shadow damage increasing talents. I think that playing this character (and enjoying it) has made me more used to what others would consider slow play. So then the transition from this to my warrior leaves me without the slow play feeling that others seem to have. I guess my point here is that the other characters you play will greatly influence your feel for things. So if you are used to playing a rogue or other higher damage class, you will notice the speed change of playing such a warrior alot more than if you are used to playing a holy priest.

Anyway, thats not why I'm posting this. I'm posting this to get some thoughts on some talents that I am debating. I'll throw up my build now and put question marks where points are needed that I am unsure of. So basically, if its not a question mark then I am 100% sure I want that ability.

Shield Specialization Rank 5
?? 5 points somewhere
Improved Shield Block Rank 1
Defiance Rank 5
Improved Revenge Rank 3
Improved Sunder Armor Rank 3
Improved Taunt Rank 2
Improved Shield Bash Rank 2
Concussion Blow Rank 1

Cruelty Rank 5
Improved Demoralizing Shout Rank 5
Piercing Howl Rank 1

Deflection Rank 5

?? 8 points somewhere

So basically, I have 5 points to spend in some variation of anticipation, toughness, or improved bloodrage so as to get to the next level of talents. Then I also have 8 points to spend in whatever I feel like. Skills that look tempting to me being anticipation, toughness, improved bloodrage, last stand, one handed specialization, and more in improved shield block. So basically I have 13 points to divide up between those skills.

Currently I'm thinking 5 in anticipation, 5 in toughness, and 3 in one handed specialization. I keep looking at last stand and one handed spec and wondering if they would be better to get/max though. I could take 5 out of either anticipation or toughness, max one handed spec, pick up improved bloodrage, and get last stand. I also keep finding myself debating if more points would be useful in improved shield block, though I am leaning towards just the 1 point. It seems to me that in instances I will either be fighting multiple mobs and so have a higher chance of getting both blocks in or I will be fighting one mob and the group can handle it anyway without needing to worry about saving the rage of recasting shield block or anything like that. So then, is solo the only time when more in shield block is useful? If so, then it seems unlikely to be worth taking points out of something else.

So basically what I am looking for is some thoughts/advice/analysis of those skills. In the end game, is toughness or anticipation more worthwhile? Is last stand worthwhile or would those points be better spend in toughness/anticipation/one handed spec. Is one handed spec more useful to max than toughness/anticipation? Are there enough times when more than one point in improved shield block would be helpful to make it worth the points?

Some of these things have been hit on throughout this thread somewhat already, but I still find myself debating which way to go so I figured I would bring it all back up and see what people say