General:
An Introduction to The Protection Warrior Class
The Main Tank (MT) of any guild is arguably the most important character in a raid. There is no other position or class that is as frequently in the situation where just one simple mistake can cause an entire raid to wipe, potentially ruining an entire guild’s week. Your gear is arguably the most important, your decisions are critical, and having a breadth of knowledge is incredibly valuable to the raid. I have seen guilds improve from average guilds to stellar guilds simply through a change of their main tank. This is not merely my exaggeration. A good tank, a good offtank (OT), good players, and so on is critical to your guild’s success. It has been this way from Everquest, through Four Horsemen, to today with tanking each phase of Illidan.
To this end, as a protection warrior or main tank, it is your responsibility to be prepared. These are some suggestions to min/max your time as a protection warrior.
- If your guild does not provide consumables, either work on them yourself, or work with your leadership to instate a program of donations to provide these for the tanks.
- Know the boss abilities ahead of time – and perhaps speak with your raid leader regarding strategy so that you can mentally work out what you will be doing.
- Know how to maximize your threat. Don’t just mash buttons mindlessly because it has “worked in the past…” that type of reasoning is nonsense.
- Maximize yourself as a tank and a contributor to the raid. This means wearing the right gear, and not letting a better trinket for the situation sit in your inventory due to ignorance.
- Don’t mess with your spec unless you have the gold to go back when it is raid time. Even if it is your character, nothing pisses off a raid more than to hear their MT is currently wielding Mortal Strike, because he had to PvP. If you’re showing up to raids with MS as the MT during progression mode, perhaps rethink your position in the raid. Setup something with the guild bank, or other PvP’ers in your group if necessary to pay for respec fees. Appropriate talent specs are not a small thing when it comes to tanking.
- Come up with a source of gold funding, preferably not through your own professions – your professions are usually better served to tank with. Use an alt to mine, use an alt to jewelcraft for gold. But no matter what, make sure you have a lot of gold as a protection warrior, because your repair bills will always be higher than the rest of the raids – either through more deaths, or higher ilevel and durability cache of items.
- Losing a main tank is a huge blow to guilds. Do your best to prepare your raid for if you’re going to have a real life change, or jump ship to a shiny new guild.
- Being the main tank doesn’t mean you should be arrogant, or an asshole to your guild, or not listen to your raid leader.
- Love your healers, and work with them… never yell at your healers unless you are also the raid leader and it is an issue of improvement. Even then, probably shouldn’t yell at the healers. Competent healers will make you a better tank, and vice versa. Try crossing the barrier and communicating with them.
- Consider having another member of the raid lead the raid. I have raid led as a shaman and a main tank. There is no comparison. It is easier to raid lead as the shaman. Main tanking while raid leading befuddles the mind, and will sometimes lead to confusing and incoherent comments. Have the angry enhancement shaman do it.
Lastly, remember that you are one of the first individuals to die in most situations. In Everquest the warrior would usually hold on to the mobs while the rest of the group made an escape, losing experience for the sake of others. Don’t get angry when this happens. A protection warrior’s death is often the benchmark of where and when mistakes happen during progression. It is usually the accumulation of larger issues such as placement of players, healer mana, lack of focus/confusion, or inadequate gear. Make sure that you understand why you died, and make sure as a protection warrior that you have a working combat log that is readable and filtered in order to assist the raid leader as much as possible with what was happening on your end.
Basic Stats
(assumed level 70)
Strength (str):
1 str = 2 attack power (AP)
20 str = 1 block value
Vitality increases strength by 10%
Agility (agi):
1 agi = 2 points of armor
33.0 agi = 1.0% crit
30.0 agi = 1.0% dodge
Stamina (sta):
1 stamina = 10.0 HP
1 stamina = 10.5 HP with max vitality (or for non-vitality Tauren warriors)
1 stamina = 11.0 HP with max vitality for Tauren warriors
Vitality increases stamina by 5%
Intelligence (int):
Int does nothing.
Spirit (spi):
Spirit increases out of combat health regeneration (barely)
All ratings will display as many significant figures after the decimal as I am certain of (for instance 2 significant figures: 0.12). When known, all significant digits are shown.
Hit rating:
15.7692 hit rating = 1% hit chance
In addition to improving your melee hit rate, hit rating improves your chance to land taunt, and challenging shout; it is currently assumed that hit rating it improves your chance to land a taunt at 15.77 hit rating per percent.
Critical Strike rating:
22.0769 critical strike rating = 1% critical strike chance
Haste rating:
15.77 haste rating = 1% weapon haste
Expertise rating:
3.9423 expertise rating = 1 expertise
Each point of Expertise will reduce the target's chance to dodge and parry your attacks by 0.25%.
The orc racial provides 5 expertise when using axes.
The human racial provides 5 expertise when using maces, or swords.
Defensive rating:
2.3654 defensive rating = 1 defense skill
1 defense skill changes the following by 0.04%:
- Increase chance to block
- Increase chance to dodge
- Increase chance to parry
- Increase chance to be missed
- Decrease chance to be crit
- Decrease chance to be dazed
Dodge rating:
18.9230 dodge rating = 1% to dodge
*See section VIb for a derivation of your base dodge rate.
Parry rating:
22.4 parry rating = 1% to parry
Shield Block rating:
7.8846 shield block rating = 1% chance to block
Resilience Rating:
39.4231 Resilience Rating = 1% less chance of being struck by any type of critical strike, and 2% less damage taken from critical strikes
Resilience is mostly a PvP stat, so it will not be discussed on its own in this guide.