These days though, I never show my helm.

Last post, I talked about consistency and the reasoning behind this decision is no different. When your fellow tanks see your face beside a mob, they let you keep it. When they see some unknown face, they taunt. It’s not a coincidence that when you pick up a new helm all of a sudden the other tanks are taunting off of you left and right.

They don’t recognize you.

A lot of tanks have really quick trigger fingers when it comes to taunting. It’s an instinct instilled in us very quickly as tanks when we learn time and time again just how fast the frailer folk in our parties die when they “tank” a mob.

No Portrait, No Problem?

A number of popular non-standard UIs and add-ons simply don’t show your face to save space, to make things look nicer and to allow you to put your targeting information in the middle of your screen. The trade-off here is that you never build a mental relationship with the portrait of your character. So, you won’t suddenly freak out when you or a tank teammate gets a new helmet, but at the same time, you don’t have anything to visually jump start your gut tanking instinct.

What’s in a UI?

There certainly is an advantage to the different types of information that custom UIs can offer. Being able to significantly reduce screen clutter as well as organize/customize elements in a manner that is easier for you personally to process is a big advantage too. But, the most important thing will always be familiarity more than anything else.

If you never give yourself a chance to become familiar with your UI, you can never take advantage of what your UI has to offer. Basically, stop mucking with it everyday. It’s not helping.

If you’ve never mucked though…

…it’s time to start. Long ago, I wrote “Once you’re comfortable, overwhelm yourself.” I’d like to think this same principle applies to UIs. After all, if you’ve never tweaked your UI then how can you know if you’re utilizing the best UI for you possible. Which is where you guys come in because I’ve never tweaked my UI. (not in any way significant anyway)

Tell me about your UI.

• What do you love about it?
• What do you hate about it?
• What do you wish you could do?

The Ultimate Goal

I want to have a rock solid Tank UI compilation ready for Cataclysm. (Which means you can expect a lot more UI posts here than usual as I embark on this journey)

During the leveling process for WotLK, I went from a hybrid player to someone who utilizes full keybindings. During the leveling process for Cataclysm, I want to be able to share with you my new, tried and tested UI specifically catered to tanking. My hope is that those of you that are using the boring, old Blizzard UI like me will give it a try.

Finally, for those of you wondering… where do I even find UI compilations? Tankspot has a great section of complete UIs from some of it’s best members.

Why this struck me as odd is that we never talked about this.

We just did it.

We were Consistent

And you might be thinking… so what? Or perhaps, even being critical of this behavior and questioning our ability to innovate in the heat of battle. But, this is more than a trivial choice. It influences not only the speed in which we can execute the mechanics of the fight, but also creates a domino effect that influences the rest of the raid’s positioning.

Which isn’t to say necessarily that as tanks that we control positioning completely, but it is to say that one of the most important things we as tanks can do is remain consistent in that positioning.

Where we consistently tank bosses and adds during encounters determines where DPSers and Healers instinctively position themselves in the heat of the moment. A consistent tank simplifies the encounter by removing himself as a variable from it. Consistency is the very reason why pugs can struggle so much on “easy mode” content. As individuals, every member of the pug has different instincts on where people will be in an encounter.

How you can Improve Pugs

Your guild does a fight in an unconventional way… that’s great for you guys, but it’s horrible for you to inflict that on your pug. One of the silliest things I have done this expansion was on Emalon in VoA. I pulled the boss over to the adds just before one of the adds was about to be overcharged. This is done to ensure the melee will be beside the adds when they overcharge. It’s something I did for a while after noticing another tank do it and I thought, “That’s clever. One less thing for everyone to think about.”

It wasn’t clever. It was stupid.

No one does Emalon that way. We nearly wiped because I caught our group totally off-guard. Some pugs had trouble targeting the adds when I did this and in their infinite wisdom decided that they’d just keep dpsing the boss instead. Somehow despite an add exploding at the end, we managed to kill the boss. It probably doesn’t surprise you that I was greeted by a number of complaints by the pugs stating “how bad of tank I was”.

And they were right.

Sure, they shouldn’t have stopped doing the most important part of the encounter because I wasn’t doing it the way they were used to, but let’s not kid ourselves, I was the one being inconsistent.

Be wary of Unspoken Consistency

I still remember back in TBC when I first started leading 25 mans and we were working on Gruul. A lot of guilds approached this fight by just doing it as one big free-for-all. I didn’t. Certainly, I tried that for a bit, but that’s not how we ended up killing him. To kill him, I assigned every single ranged DPS to a clock position around the room in sets of 2. They were to be in that area at all times. Many were critical of me “babying” the raid, but after the fact, they couldn’t argue with the results.

Fast forward to now, we’ve killed Blood Princes many times and as many of you know, one of the major mechanics of the fight is to spread out for a portion of it. Every time I’ve done the encounter, I tank the shockwave prince and when he starts casting the empowered version, I stay on top of him. The melee just knows that I take this spot. Or at least the melee I usual have does. When a new melee DPSer came in last week, I found my spot occupied and as a result, we were both promptly shot across the room.

Now sure, the Blood Princes encounter isn’t particular unforgiving so we innovated on the fly and we killed them and it didn’t matter.

This time.

The Lesson in This

Just as being consistent is important, communicating the way in which you will be consistent is equally important. It’s easy to blame the new guy because he doesn’t know the secret hand shake, but you’re kidding yourself, if you actually think it’s solely his fault. If you find yourself struggling with an encounter, stop praying that everyone will just “get it” and take the time to outline everything you do even if you aren’t the Raid Leader. The domino effect is a powerful thing.

“I tank the boss here, I run here, I use cooldowns here, I celebrate here.”

It’s also probably the most hated add-on on the market right now too.

Which kinda confuses me…

Rewind back to the beginning of this expansion before GearScore was widely use, how did you get into a pug? You needed an achievement. Not just any achievement, but the very achievement that the run itself would have given you. So, if you hadn’t done the run before, you couldn’t do the run. Kind of ridiculous.

This method of doing invites was most common for Vault of Archavon pugs as you were often limited in how much time you’d have to complete the encounter before the bosses became unavailable. Groups didn’t want to have to explain the fight to you and most of all, they didn’t want to wipe. I can remember more than a few times wiping in VoA and watching in horrified amazement as we proceed to rush to beat the clock only to wipe again and again each time less prepared than the last until we were left empty handed, bitter and broken. (literally)

Enter GearScore

All of a sudden, we have a new way to get into a raid that’s based on the time we’ve taken to actual prepare for the encounter. (aka get gear) Better yet, we aren’t expected to know how to do the encounter, we’re just expected to have the necessary tools to be able to. So, you end up with raids filled with people that have the tools to complete the encounter and also raid leaders willing to take the few moments to actually explain how to do the encounter.

But the GearScore requirements are totally unrealistic!

Are they?

Let’s make an important distinction here. Unrealistic requirements are expecting a GearScore that is nearly impossible to obtain assuming that you’ve only got access to the content prior to what you’re hoping to get into. In other words, you shouldn’t need gear from Ulduar to do Naxx. What is the majority of the case is groups expecting you to outgear the encounter.

That is not unrealistic.

Yes, it’s true you could do the encounter with lesser gear, but let’s not kid ourselves, pugs don’t wipe. That’s not going to change. Would you rather be doing heroics or bouncing from one pug raid to the next wiping and disbanding? The “outgear” requirement system for pugs maximizes the chance that you’ll actually complete the raid instance. If you don’t meet those requirements, it’s very simple… run heroics. Emblem of Triumph gear is very strong and a full set of it will allow you to sneak into most raids.

Be the Change

I give everyone that complains about GearScore the same advice, “Be the Change.” In other words, start your own raids. No one is stopping you. And better yet, don’t have a GearScore requirement on them. If more people were willing to do that, GearScore wouldn’t exist. Because let’s not kid ourselves, we hate that GearScore prevents us from getting into runs, but we hate just as much getting into runs and having half the raid not pull their weight.

I started up a 25VoA a week or so ago, I didn’t ask for GearScore and I tell you what… it may have been my first Toravon kill, but I can guarantee it’s also going to be the ugliest Toravon kill I ever have. That’s what happens when the average GearScore of your raid is about 4300. (and there’s no way we’d have completed it even without 2 tanks with 5000+ GearScores)

Acceptance

GearScore isn’t going away because as hated as it is, it does speed up the success rate of pug raids. It does this not just by ensuring the group has a decent quality level of gear, but also by making the formation of groups happen that much faster. There’s no need to inspect someone before inviting or spam relentlessly for enough people with the achievement. There’s just a number. You run your heroics, you craft some stuff and you actually gem/enchant your gear and you hit the number.

Or you start your own raid. But don’t you dare complain when the guy in blues can’t seem to pull his weight.

1. Erratic Boss Movement
There’s no avoiding it… you’re going to have to move bosses sometimes. However, how you do it can make a big difference. If you can develop a rhythm from one attempt to the next then DPSers will pick up on the manner in which you do it and adjust accordingly. Make no mistake a tank with an inconsistent rhythm reduces raid DPS a shockingly high amount. If you’ve ever wondered why PuGs seem to fail even with competent players or your raid fails with a different tank, this is one of the reasons.

2. Too Much Boss Movement
Don’t just move the boss around for the sake of moving him. Just like the above, the more you move the boss, the less DPS the raid can do.

1+2. Out Ranging your Healers
When you move the boss in an erratic fashion and you move him too much, the result is less healing and interrupted heals. Your healers need to know your rhythm just as much as DPSers do and moving the boss too much can be just as damaging to their healing output.

3. Over/Under applying TC/Demo
When we’re doing a fight that encourages us to swap targets, our internal timers can go all out of whack resulting in us either spamming Thunder Clap and Demoralizing Shout or in us forgetting about them. Usually both happen since once we see TC/Demo fall off by accident, we suddenly over spam them both in order to ensure it never happens again. Consider setting the boss as your Focus Frame so you can better monitor this kind of thing even while swapping onto another target.

4. Forgetting Your Personal DPS Matters
When the green ooze is racing towards a player, your dps matters especially on a 10 man level. How quickly you swap to the other dps target can be the difference between the ooze dieing or someone else in your raid.

5. Showing Your Back
When you’re racing around the room after an add, never forget that their is a bigger beast on you at all times. When your back is exposed, you’re avoiding nothing. Sure, it may appear that your healers can handle it, but them having to means that sometimes they’ll be forced to choose saving your life over that of a raid members. When you’re consistently taking shots to the back, your raid will be forced to choose an additional healer over another dps. Always remember that there are more people than just you taking damage at any given time. The more heals you need, the less heals everyone else gets.

6. Forgetting about Shattering Throw
When it’s not your turn to tank, you’ve often got nothing better to do than applying this amazing debuff. I emphasize this ability alone because so often, the window of opportunity to use this is so small that you can easily forget the ability even exists.

Wrap up

When learning new content, we all can forget about the basics at times when focusing on the specifics of an encounter. As important as learning the fight itself is, maintaining a high quality of basic play is even more important. The better you are at the basics the easier the encounter specifics are going to be for you and the rest of your team.

• Concussion Blow: The damage done by this ability has been reduced by 50%, but its threat generation will remain approximately the same.
• Devastate: This ability now deals 120% of weapon damage, up from 100% of weapon damage.
• Shield Slam: The damage scaling from block value for this ability now diminishes faster and diminishes starting at a lower block value. The difference should be negligible for players in high-end tanking armor. In addition, the threat caused by Shield Slam has been increased by 30%.
• Warbringer: This talent no longer allows Charge and Intercept to break roots or snares. Intervene remains unaffected.

Making the Best of the Bad

As a PvEer, it’s never fun to see your class getting mucked with due to PvP reasons, but that’s the cards we were dealt this patch. There’s no point in complaining about it, but it is important to understand how the changes have impacted the proper way for us to play in PvE.

The Concussion Blow nerf means that we can forget about using it anymore for any reason other than to stun something which will come as a relief to many that just ignored using it in their rotation anyway or disliked the complexity of our threat system in general.

Devastate received yet another buff which has had an interesting cascade effect. Revenge really just doesn’t keep up anymore which means that we’ve been gifted 2 free talent points in any spec that featured Improved Revenge. I mean sure, Revenge will still be useful in the rare situation that you’re rage starved, but that’s about it. Now are we at the point where slow weapons finally rein supreme? Nope, Heroic Strike spam still trumps all. (although, you’ll definitely want something nice and slow for Festergut when not tanking)

It’s been a sorry expansion for Shield Slam, once the most beloved Prot Warrior skill capable of putting out numbers that nearly had mages jealous. Now we’re left with the pure business bare bones. Is it super fun still? Not really. Will it still do the job? Absolutely. Keep using it and try avoid whining too much to your guild mates about what’s gone.

Warbringer, oh Warbringer… I can’t help, but wonder what changed so much to make this skill so powerful between the beginning of WotLK and now. (of course, it was gear) As far as raiding goes, the impact of this change will be minimal with really only the Faction Champions fight making you take notice. There are more than a few 5 mans though where it’ll take some getting used to before you realize that hammering the Charge key will not get you out of the snare you’re in.

The Big Picture: Simplicity

A threat system that once featured 5 skills now only features 3. Certainly a nice change for newer players. Better yet, accidentally Devastating instead of Shield Slamming will make less of a difference. Furthermore, if you’re caught using a slow weapon, it’s going to hurt you a lot less than it once did.

So, despite a small list of changes, this patch has some pretty big implications. It’s a pretty huge step towards making the Warrior class much friendlier towards newer players. I know a lot of you are going to hate that. I won’t deny that despite advocating changes to simplify how our class was played that I always took pride in the fact that I was playing probably the hardest tanking class in the game. I’m just not sure that’s the case anymore, but frankly, I don’t think it matters. Muscle memory makes it all easy in the end anyway.

The Big Question: DPS

Did the Devastate give us a massive DPS buff? Nope, not even close. Sorry, gang, this buff is in the low hundreds of additional dps not in the thousand range like you’d be hoping and praying for.

Where do we go from here?

Odd question. Why should where we are going change? You can’t complain both about content being too easy and about your class needing buffs. Sorry, it just doesn’t work that way.

I don’t know about you, but I’m still playing a fantastically, fun tanking class. I’m heading for the Lich King to steal myself the most exciting item I’ve seen in a long, long time. How ’bout you?

Gloves Breakdown

(Old) Ymirjar Lord’s Handguards
1579 Armor
+81 Strength
+148 Stamina
Yellow Socket
Socket Bonus: +6 Stamina
Equip: Increases defense rating by 71.
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 63.
Equip: Improves hit rating by 54.

(New) Ymirjar Lord’s Handguards
2461 Armor
+81 Strength
+148 Stamina
Yellow Socket
Socket Bonus: +6 Stamina
Equip: Increases defense rating by 71.
Equip: Improves hit rating by 54.

Change
+882 Armor
- 63 Dodge rating

Gauntlets of the Kraken
2658 Armor
+120 Strength
+157 Stamina
Red Socket
Yellow Socket
Socket Bonus: +9 Stamina
Equip: Increases defense rating by 63.
Equip: Increases your parry rating by 48.

Tier gloves vs Emblem gloves
+8 Defense rating
+54 Hit rating

-197 Armor
-39 Strength
-9 Stamina
-48 Parry rating
-Red Socket

Glove Thoughts
A 13 point item level difference means that the Tier gloves have a lot of ground to make up to be considered better. Kraken’s wasted itemization in Strength hurts it, but having a Stamina edge with an extra socket definitely slants things significantly in the Emblem piece’s favour. The avoidance advantage offered by the Kraken gloves swings things even further in it’s favour. The tier piece’s Hit advantage is nice from a threat standpoint, but hardly worth cheering over.

Ultimately, Gauntlets of the Kraken are still far superior to the Tier10 gloves and are likely to remain better survival-wise even once you have the item level 264 versions of the Tier10 gloves. The big question you’ll have to ask yourself is whether or not you want more survival or more threat and how much the set bonuses mean to you. On a fight that has a point where the more defensive cooldowns the better, the Tier gloves certainly become the better choice since they’ll allow you to get the 4 piece bonus without using the grossly inferior Tier10 legs.

Chest Breakdown

(Old) Ymirjar Lord’s Breastplate
2526 Armor
+144 Strength
+191 Stamina
Red Socket
Blue Socket
Socket Bonus: +9 Stamina
Equip: Increases defense rating by 76.
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 68.
Equip: Increases your parry rating by 68.

(New) Ymirjar Lord’s Breastplate
3590 Armor
+144 Strength
+191 Stamina
Red Socket
Blue Socket
Socket Bonus: +9 Stamina
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 60.
Equip: Increases your parry rating by 76.

Change
+1064 Armor
+8 Parry rating
-8 Dodge rating
- 76 Defense rating

Cataclysmic Chestguard
3817 Armor
+123 Strength
+207 Stamina
Yellow Socket
Blue Socket
Red Socket
Socket Bonus: +12 Stamina
Equip: Increases defense rating by 108.
Equip: Increases your expertise rating by 82.

Tier chest vs Emblem chest
+21 Strength
+60 Dodge rating
+76 Parry rating

-227 Armor
-16 Stamina
-108 Defese rating
-82 Expertise rating
-Yellow Socket

Chest Thoughts
The Emblem chest offers a lot of everything we’d rather have. It’s way better threat-wise and pretty similar survival-wise with the benefit of being survival oriented towards Effective Health rather than Avoidance. The Tier chest sadly is itemized more towards Strength which is always a bad thing. I think it’s safe to say the item level 264 Tier chest will have similar Armor and Stamina levels. If we’re lucky, it’ll gain a socket too. It’ll definitely be worth using the 264 Tier chest when going for the 4 piece set bonus, but I think that’s about the only time you’ll want to use it.

There’s a very real concern though regarding the massive Defense difference. The crafted legs and boots already have no Defense on them. This could mean that in order for 10 man raiders to complete the 4 piece bonus that they’ll have to drop the crafted boots. This really starts to muddy the waters since that means 10 man raiders will have to use 3 pieces that are 13 levels lower item level wise (boots, chest, gloves) in order to complete the 4 piece set bonus. It becomes questionable at this point whether it’s even worth using the 4 piece bonus.

Overall Thoughts

I still really like this change. I think it’ll be a really positive change for 25 man raiders allowing them to actually justify the use of their 4 piece Tier 10 set bonus. Even though eventually, I think you’ll use the upgraded Tier chest on everything challenging you face, it’s definitely the last piece you’ll want to pick up and really only once you can upgrade it immediately. So, I’d still pick up the Emblem chest first since you’ll use it for any fight that requires more threat/dps or really any fight that doesn’t warrant the 4 piece bonus. The Tier gloves are the more exciting change as you’ll be happy to use them even before having a chance to upgrade them. Having them will allow you to complete your 2 piece bonus while using a helm you’ve picked up out of ICC25.

10 man raiders are pretty unaffected by this change. I just don’t think you want to even consider wearing the Tier chest. It’s less appealing threat and survival wise not to mention completely devoid of Defense rating. The 251 Tier gloves may be a bit enticing now especially to those of you that love Hit rating, but I still think it’s not worth it.

Remember too that with the new patch comes a new PvP boss. Notoriously, these bosses have always dropped the legs and gloves. The legs should not excite you and you really shouldn’t be using them unless you haven’t got around to crafting the amazing Pillars of Might yet. Certainly don’t think that you can just skip the crafted legs because you managed to grab the Tier legs. The gloves are really what you’re crossing your fingers for especially 10 man folk since you’ll be able to sneak into 25 man pugs of the place for a shot at the better pair. 25 man raiders are likely still better off just outright buying the Tier gloves since once upgraded they should prove to be an excellent piece and an easy way to always have the 2 piece bonus.

So, in the end, a nice change, but those of you that already picked up some of the Emblem rewards shouldn’t be too beaten up about it. Both Emblem pieces are still really solid.

We recognize that many plate tanks are making their gear choices based on the amount of armor they’re provided, as this is currently the most preferred stat. In order to make the tier-10 plate tanking sets more desirable, we will be adjusting the stats on the gloves and chest pieces in order to inflate the amount of armor they provide in the next minor patch. This will apply to all item levels of the tier-10 death knight, warrior, and paladin tanking gloves and chest pieces.

Similar items crafted or purchased with Emblems of Frost will continue to be very good and will compare favorably to all but the Heroic difficulty boss loot, so you shouldn’t despair if you recently acquired any of those. (source)

So, while we don’t know the buffs yet, what we do know is that the Tier 10 chest and gloves will probably be pretty comparable when upgraded to that of Cataclysmic Chestguard and Gauntlets of the Kraken. Which is why I recommend just not picking up either of these pieces for the time being if you can upgrade their Tier 10 counterparts. It’s very likely that when this change becomes a reality that you’ll skip getting the Emblem chest and gloves altogether.

What about 10 man folk!?

I wouldn’t change a thing and still stick to the Emblem pick order. The Tier 10 chest and gloves when not upgraded will still be significantly lower item level and as such, you’re better off going with the non-set components. Now true, come hard modes, you’ll be able to upgrade your Tier 10, but that’s still too far off to warrant skipping 2 massive non-set upgrades.

Thoughts on the Change

Excellent.

This basically makes it much easier to use our Tier 10 4-piece bonus even from a 10 man standpoint. Best of all, the 25 man Hard Mode Tier loot will be a no-brainer over the Emblem pieces now which is the way it should be.

The Need for Speed

Whether or not you should have to pull fast is a topic for another day. What we’ll look at today is how to pull fast. What makes those of us that can pull at a fast pace able to and what we’re doing different to stay comfortable while completing instances at pug friendly paces.

1. Don’t Loot
Perhaps the least obvious thing to do, stopping clicking on the sparklies is one of the easiest ways to speed up your runs significantly. At the end of a run, all you’ll be missing out on is some gray items to sell since your party members will ensure any items or gold gets looted. The time you save is probably worth more in the long run than the gray items were worth anyway.

2. Don’t wait for mana
Healers need a bit of mana. DPSers need none with bosses being the exception where you should wait a bit. You should always try to take a peak at your healers mana after every other pull, but make sure you’re moving while doing this. If the healer had to rez someone then you’ll likely have to pause for a second. Using abilities like Shield Block, Shockwave and Shield Wall constantly can ensure that you’ll take a lot less damage and keep your healers mana high always.

3. Don’t be texting people
You’re in a run or you’re typing. Not both. You’re a tank. You don’t have time for that. If someone needs to ask you something, they’re more than welcome to jump on Ventrilo and ask. If they don’t have your Ventrilo access then you probably don’t want to talk to them anyway. If you thought that this was about playing while texting on your phone then please just delete your tank right now.

4. Learn to tank and talk
A continuation of the above. You should expect to have to talk and tank at the same time so make sure whatever keybinding you have setup for talking doesn’t limit your ability to tank in any way.

5. Look ahead
When the mobs are low on health, it’s time to start scouting out what you’ll be pulling next. You don’t need to apply threat to anything with 20% health left since even if a DPSer pulls aggro, it’ll be dead before it does them any significant damage.

6. Don’t wait for combat to end
Not only should you be looking ahead when the mobs are nearly dead, but also already getting in position for the next pull. Whether you pull the next group immediately or not really has nothing to do with waiting to get out of combat and instead whether or not pulling it will keep you in range of your healer. If you have to run down 3 flights of stairs for the next group then there’s no point in grabbing them. If they’re in line of sight, go ahead and do it right away. The obvious exception being, if your healer is completely out of mana, if someone is dead or if the next pull is a boss.

7. Stop Tabbing
Target selection can make or break the speed of your run. If you’re trying to tab through everything to get to the new stuff you want to pull then you’re going to end up wasting valuable time. One click of the mouse should grab you exactly the target you want and ensure the pace of your run remains high.

8. Charge
Whenever possible, charge to pull. It’ll not only give you extra rage, but also get you there faster. This gives you more time to generate threat and the sooner you hit the threat threshold to which you can’t be passed by a DPSer… the sooner you can grab the next group.

9. Pull extra close groups
Simply put, if it’s close enough for someone to accidentally aggro it (or intentionally aggro it…) then it’s close enough to be pulled with whatever else you’re pulling. If it’s a group of 3 or a really ugly group of 2 then use your defensive cooldowns.

10. Don’t Wipe
Yes, it’s obvious, but always remember that if you wipe even a single time then all of the corners you cut to speed up your run have been for nothing. Sometimes, the fastest way to tank an instance is going to be sitting and waiting.

11. Wipe
You’ll never know what corners you can cut until they kill you. Part of what has made the fast pulling tanks so fast is that they’ve killed themselves over and over again pushing the boundaries of what is possible. Forget about your health and just keep pulling. Don’t watch the mini-map and just assume they’re behind you. Don’t ask where to go and just make the call yourself.

Get comfortable with “too fast”

Pulling fast isn’t just about completing 5 mans as fast as possible. It’s an important skill for raiding. Many raid encounters include things like gauntlets or waves of adds. The more comfortable you are at quickly picking up group after group of adds… the easier these types of raid encounters are going to be for you.

So, should you have to pull fast? I don’t know.
Is it worth learning to? Absolutely.

Heroics

Red Sword of Courage
Upon launch this was the must have weapon that you ran Utgarde Pinnacle for over and over again for and if you’ve just hit 80, it’s still a great first item to pursue.

Axe of the Sen’jin Protector / Teldrassil Protector
Acquired via Champion’s Seals from running Heroic ToC5, this pair of axes offers more of a “sure thing” if you’re unlucky acquiring the superior sword above. It should be noted though for those of you that rollled Orcs that this is the better choice due to it activating your Expertise racial.

Lucky Old Sun
Regular Forge of Soul’s recent addition to the Heroic tanking weapon selection. Nice and fast with excellent itemization. It will serve you well for the short time you’ll use it before acquiring any of the upcoming heroic items.

Peacekeeper Blade
It’s kind of a cardinal rule that if something has an extra socket on the rest of the field, it’s going to be awesome. This blade doesn’t disappoint making it easily the best starter tanking weapon you can acquire out of the easier heroics. [Heroic ToC5]

Falric’s Wrist-Chopper
A welcomed addition to the tanking weapon selection if you’re an Orc. (even better than the blade above for us green folk) It’s not really worth pursuing otherwise. (which should come as a relief to those of you not wanting to brave Heroic Halls of Reflection any time soon)

Rimefang’s Claw
The last weapon you’ll ever need from Heroics. Hopefully you won’t have to farm Heroic Pit of Saron too long for it. So well itemized that it trumps many of the weapons that come from raids. (as you’ll see me indicate later with references to “The Claw”)

Naxx

Slayer of the Lifeless
Similar to the Red Sword of Courage and ultimately, better due to it’s slightly faster attack speed. Your time is far better spent though farming “The Claw”. [Gothik10]

Broken Promise
For it’s time it was a horrible threat weapon, (all slow weapons are) but a beautiful survival-based one. The addition of “The Claw” renders this one obsolete. [4Horsemen25]

Last Laugh
At one point, this was the golden standard of tanking awesomeness when you wanted to show off the cool loot you’d acquired around the tanking watercooler. These days, it’s worse than “The Claw” and isn’t even the best Orc weapon left with Falcric’s taking it’s place. [Kel’Thuzad25]

Ulduar

Stoneguard
Exactly what a tank doesn’t need when acquiring early loot… a weapon without defense. Garbage. Peacekeeper’s Blade, Falric’s, “The Claw”, you named it… all render this “never was” even more obsolete than previously. [Kologarn10]

Legacy of Thunder
Really similar to Lucky Old Sun, just way harder to acquire. The days of tanks using this giant lollipop have long past. [Thorim10]

Titanguard
Another relic of the past content patches that we were really, really excited about seeing that we really, really don’t care too much about anymore. The big 3 from Heroics all are better or close enough to this one to make you better off just skipping pursuing it.

Shiver
These days Shiver is the first raid worth weapon to trouble yourself with acquiring over the current Heroic crop. You’ll need to down Hodir10 on Hard mode to do it which isn’t always the easiest feat, but is certainly significantly less challenging than it once was thanks to the accessibility of superior gear.

Sorthalis, Hammer of the Watchers
Easily trumps everything before it on the list. Now you’ve just got to convince your guild to kill XT25 on Hard mode over and over again until it drops. (or you could just work on acquiring the following…)

Onyxia

Barely worth mentioning, the Quels are horribly itemized and you’re better off picking up one of the Big 3 Heroic weapons instead of either of them.

ToC

Ardent Guard / Crusader’s Glory
It’s no secret that I love bonus Armor so it should come as no surprise that I love these items. A nudge worse than Sorthalis, but certainly far superior to everything else before them on the list. [Anub10]

Blood and Glory / Honor of the Fallen
The first step beyond Sorthalis, B&G / HotF will require you to down Anub10 on Hard mode with 25 attempts left on your chest. I suppose one could be excited about getting one of these, but you’d be better off instead having one these drop…

Ardent Guard [H] / Crusader’s Glory [H]
The weapon you want to walk into and ultimately finish regular 10 and/or 25 man Icecrown with. They’re simply that good. Have fun farming Anub10 Hard mode for them over and over again on your ICC off days!

Orgrim’s Deflector / Silverwing Defender
Downing Anub25 on Hard mode is an impressive accomplishment. I wouldn’t say these rewards reflect the tremendous effort required though. Similar, perhaps better, perhaps worse than Ardent Guard [H] so if you’ve already got the 10 man blade, I wouldn’t lose any sleep over not getting your hands on one of these.

Enchanting them…

The inevitable question that never goes away that I should have weighed in on long ago. It’s always been about Blood Draining or Mongoose. It doesn’t seem to matter how many times I look through the research on the numbers, those are the winners. Mongoose is the best overall enchant. Blood Draining is the best effective health enchant. What you use is really up to you. I prefer the latter, but certainly won’t dismiss the former and may very well be caught using Mongoose if my gut leans that way again.

What about ICC!?

Ya, I probably shouldn’t make you wait on those picks…

Putricide10’s Facelifter gets a slight edge over Marrowgar10’s Bonebreaker Scepter. These 10 man weapons will be a welcomed upgrade to anyone not using something from Heroic ToC10/25. Their Heroic versions are about the same as the Heroic ToC10/25 loot so I wouldn’t get too excited about them from a survival standpoint. The upgraded versions do represent a significant dps/threat increase though which is always nice.

Finally, Putricide25’s Last Word should be renamed Last Place since that’s about where it sits even relative to the weaker Heroic loot.

Wrap Up

The 2 most important pieces of loot I’ve talked about here are “The Claw” and Ardent Guard [H] / Crusader’s Glory [H]. The former is the best tanking weapon you’ll acquire from Heroics and is significantly better than most raid loot. The latter represents the best, accessible tanking weapon you can wield when walking into Icecrown. I hope you guys have better luck looking for them than I have!

A bit. Not a lot.

What you give up for Bonus Armor

I’ve been raving about Bonus Armor and the often counter argument is it does nothing against magic damage.

Which is true.

However, what does Avoidance do against magic damage? What does Expertise and Hit rating do? How about Block?

Nothing.

Which is what you give up to get Bonus Armor.

You give up Nothing to get Bonus Armor

So, don’t kid yourself. There really is no reason not to pick up all those fancy high armor pieces. Ultimately, even the magic heavy fights like Festergut and Rotface have an angry boss swinging at you with physical attacks. Utilizing Bonus Armor is stating, I’d rather take less damage than get hit less often. I’d rather increase my chances of surviving a melee swing that lands plus a magical attack combination.

Armor is always useful because you never die to just magic damage. (and if you do, something has clearly gone terribly wrong)

Okay, I’m half sold… what about trinkets?

You got me. Trinkets are a whole new ballgame. If we want Bonus Armor in the trinket slot, we’ll have to give up Stamina. This suddenly isn’t such a sexy trade-off. Which means that we’ll be using 2 Stamina trinkets for these encounters, right?

Wrong.

We absolutely will for Festergut. We won’t for Rotface. The Rotface encounter really doesn’t do the Main tank that much magic damage. It always pays to know the encounter ahead of time. That’s why I linked the research for you at the start of this post.

Finally, I can’t emphasize enough, that even in the most magical intensive of fights, you’ll die not to a magical attack, but to the combination of a melee swing landing in conjunction with a magical attack. So, a straight Stamina trinket isn’t necessarily better than one with a really strong usage. In fact, you’ll find I always prefer the latter.

Read up. Ready up. And best of luck!