New Warrior Tank in WoW: Seeking Guidance for Low-Level Content

[Farol-firemaw]

Hello everyone!

As a relatively new player in World of Warcraft, I’ve decided to face my fears head-on and dive into tanking. I chose to roll a Warrior and am excited to learn the ropes of this challenging role. I’ve opted to start with WotLK Classic to experience the older content before moving on to Cataclysm and eventually retail.

However, I’m encountering a bit of a roadblock: I’m not quite sure about the optimal rotations and strategies for tanking in low-level content. Any tips, tricks, or advice from experienced Warrior tanks would be greatly appreciated! I’m particularly interested in learning about:

1. Essential rotations for low-level tanking: What skills should I prioritize?
2. Gear and stat priorities: What should I look out for as I level up?
3. Tanking mindset and strategies: How do I effectively hold aggro and manage multiple mobs?
4. Transitioning to higher levels: How does tanking evolve as I progress?

Also, I’m curious about any differences I should be aware of when eventually switching to retail WoW.

I’m eager to learn and grow in this role, so your insights will be incredibly valuable to me. Looking forward to your responses, and thank you in advance for your help!

P.S. If you have any resources or guides that you think might be helpful, please feel free to share them!

Best, [A New Warrior Tank]

[Funkykittié-ravencrest]

Hi,

First things first, my perspective comes more from a veteran warrior player, that don’t really dabble with low-level content (other than dungeon farming it to level). So keep this in mind, my advice might not be too easily adapted before you reach the endpoint.

1. Core for protection warrior is shieldblock uptime, you want it to be as high as possible (at the end you should have 100% uptime). It reduces most damage you will take as a warrior, and also core to how warrior become so invulnerable tanky against non-magic foes. You can increase the uptime with talents that improve shieldblock duration or with more haste (reducing its CD). So be on a look out for those talents in particular. Tip: You can use shieldblock while one is running, to add to the maximum duration, to allow seamless overlaps.
   After shieldblock, comes the core rotation of shieldslam to generate rage, thunderclap to generate rage, and ignore pain and revenge to spend rage. Use Ignore pain to reduce all damage taken, so try to keep it up at all time. Then if you are overflowing with rage and you can’t press shieldslam or thunderclap, do some revenges for damage.
   Ignore pain can be stacked, so don’t worry if you overlap the shield duration. Main reason you click ignore pain is simply to spend rage effectively.
   Now - all your CDs, just use them on cool-down till you get a feel of them. Avatar/Demoshout is ‘always’ just sent as soon they are ready. Spell Reflect can just be used if there is magic going on (you will learn its minmax over time, but it can also be used as a generic magic damage reduction). Shieldwall you can just use when you think you going to take a lot of damage (pulling a lot of mobs), then keep last-stand for when you want a semi-efficent heal. Victory Rush, once you got it, can just be sent on CD if you damaged.

Key to note - you will simply learn by doing. As long shieldblock is up, you have done 70% of the job, just remember not to put your back to the enemy.

2. Gear is quite simple: Highest ilvl you can get your hands on. Shield is prio, and will because of shieldblock be your most impactful item. Then comes weapon for threatgeneration. Now, if you compare two items, all stats are “equal”, but haste till you get 100% uptime on shieldblock is big. As I will try to stop repeating - but it is so core - shieldblock is alpha and omega for prot warrior.
3. Tanking mindset is kinda simple, are there casters? Well, you should line-of-sight them when possible to gather them. Or you can slowly gather them with the help of your and others interupts. Anything that isn’t magical damage or damage over time effects, you can basically sum up as: ignoreable. Just pull them and let them hammer at your shield.
   You will learn what mobs do what, over time. So learning by failing, will help you to improve when to use what ability and how to problemsolve with your kit. Just don’t underestimate how tanky warrior is. As that is the one thing prot-warr got going for it.
4. As you transition, you will get a decent feel of how to make mobs move to where you want them. What can hurt you. What you can ignore and pull into the next pack.
   Once you know your foes, focus on learning how your fellow players work. They seem quite irrational, but you will see patterns. Use pings to tell them you want to move over somewhere to Line of Sight, or mark high-threat targets (like casters and healers) with skull - this will make sure they are going to kill it first.
   After that, it is basically just a slow process of acquiring experience playing the game. Gradually improving.

Now, for recourses: Wowhead.com is a great source with guides that will answer most of your questions. You can go to the skyhold discord when you are max level’d and you feel you need some advice beyond the guides.

I must mention, before they strike - try to do your best to ignore the doomers, with all their gloom. Hopefully they will not leave their imprint and you will instead find enjoyment in playing the class. Focus on yourself and what you can improve, instead of “all the weaknesses” and “problems”.

All that said, I wish you the very best - I hope and pray your journey in WoW will be a happy one

[Raijin-earthen-ring]

Get the LiteButtonAuras addon so you can at least see when your block and ignore pain are active. The default UI is awful for tracking stuff.

[Mãrc-ravenholdt]

You can do older content via Chromie in your major city (Stormwind/Orgrimmar) so I don’t see any reason to play outdated version of the game if you intend to play in retail after.

Now onto your concerns:

1. Rotations don’t really exist in WoW, that’s more a FF14 thing, here you have openers and then a priority system, you choose what spell to cast depending on the situation, for example if you’re taking damage you spend rage on Ignore Pain / Shield Block and if not, then you spam Revenge / Massacre for dealing damage.

Always keep Shield Slam on cooldown (pay attention to resets), followed by Thunder Clap, and try to have as much uptime as possible on Shield Block. If you have already active Shield Block and you have spare rage, then you use Ignore Pain.

2. You want as much Haste and Versatility as possible, crit/mastery aren’t bad but you only want those after you start having diminishing returns on the 2 first.

3. Mindset is kinda complicated, for me it makes it easier to assume everyone is stupid and even if I communicate properly they will miserably fail the easiest of the tasks, therefore I don’t expect anything from anyone.

About holding aggro there isn’t much to it, you charge in, Thunder Clap + some defensive and you start priority list from there, if some DPS gets aggro off you, just taunt or change your main target to autoattack it and get threat.

4. Tanking, in the sense of just holding mobs around you, gets easier as you level up simply because you unlock new talents that will make you way stronger, but it is important to understand that at lower levels you can only learn the basics of tanking like holding aggro, interrupting enemies, using defensives, etc.

At higher levels in M+ when true endgame begins you’re gonna have to think about many external factors (DPS cooldown timings, % on m+ routes, timers on tank busters, etc etc).

In raids for the most part you just taunt swap with your co-tank every 15-20 seconds depending on the boss mechanics and that’s about it, sure it gets a bit complicated at higher difficulty modes when bosses can literally one shot you unless you stack defensives but there isn’t much else to it.

[Farol-firemaw]

Thank you all for your insightful advice. I’ve read your suggestions multiple times, absorbing them to enhance my WoW experience, and I’m truly grateful. My journey with WoW began during the WotLK era, yet I never fully delved into its depths. I was more focused on leveling quickly than experiencing the endgame, PvP, or dungeons. I would try and beat my previous /played time to max level, But now I have the time and eagerness to immerse myself fully, especially with Cata Classic on the horizon, which will change Azeroth as I remember it and I might never experience WOTLK or how WoW used to be so I’m trying run through this content first, As well as reading about the lore and patches over the years to try and understand what is happening as WoW and the story has changed drastically in the past decade

Currently, I’m deeply engaged with WoW, having invested in its comics, magazines, novels, and lore videos. I’m meticulously going through every quest, reading each one to try to get a feel and understanding of the world and the characters in it as great as retail is, it will be a hollow experience if I have no idea who everyone is and I don’t have a connection with any lore character

Although I’ve reached level 65 in retail WoW, I felt disconnected from the evolving story and mechanics. Thus, I decided to return to Classic, using it as a study tool to grasp the evolving lore and updates.

Regarding tanking, I’ve always been drawn to this role in every game since the early 2000s. However, being somewhat shy and fearful of negative judgments, I hesitated to step into this leadership position. I believe in understanding various classes and roles to be a well-rounded player, to empathize with their needs and strategies.

Today, I embarked on my first dungeon as an orc warrior, filled with anxiety. I kept this forum open on another monitor for guidance and meticulously studied the dungeon map to plan my route.

As soon as I joined, nervousness washed over me. In the initial encounter, I struggled to gain aggro, momentarily freezing in panic. But, dismissing the thought of giving up, I found my rhythm. Despite moments earlier having the thought of leaving the dungeon and accepting tanking isn’t for me after a hunter pulled the first 3 mobs and took all the aggro, I then noticed the group wanted to kill fast and could kill fast so when I held aggro and the mobs was on 10% or less I would run off and prepare the next group so we had a continuously pace to the dungeon

After confessing to my group that I was new to tanking and WoW, their positive feedback was immensely reassuring. This experience was a significant step for me, feeling an exhilarating sense of control and strategy that I hadn’t experienced as a DPS character.

I’m thrilled about my new role as a tank, eagerly looking forward to mastering dungeons, learning more about my class, and adapting to diverse situations. It’s a journey of not just learning the game, but also personal growth in taking charge and understanding the dynamics of random LFG dungeons.

And a step towards my ultimate goal to be a raiding at high levels one day