The only way I feel comfortable describing Cataclysm’s newest Protection Warrior build is: Flooded.

Then again, maybe I only need 39/41 points?

Oh, right… there’s 2 other trees to spend points in :/

Yup, the best way to handle a flooded talent tree is to just avoid talking about it and instead we’re going to focus on what I think is one of the coolest new talents they’re considering for Cataclysm.

Incite

Yes, it already exists right now, but Cataclysm’s remake of this talent ..read the full article

While I’m not a fan of Cataclysm’s potential new talent, Hold the Line, I can’t deny that it’s interesting as the community seems split right down the middle on whether or not it’s viable.

Here’s the version as of this post:

Hold the Line Improves your critical strike and critical block chance by 10% for 10 sec following a successful parry.

So rather than stick with my gut, I decided to create a Hold the Line “Critical Block” simulator and see just how good ..read the full article

A.M.A.Z.I.N.G.

Long ago when Blue posts talked about wanting to make every talent attractive come Cataclysm, I had my doubts and with the old 76 point talent trees my doubts were probably justified. Enter the new 41 point trees though and it’s a whole new ball game. Obvious talents exist certainly, but everything (other than Safeguard of course) looks incredibly attractive. (and who knows… maybe Safeguard will be good this time around) Cookie cutter specs will eventually arise, but the way ..read the full article

Ruby Sanctum’s Halion encounter as well as the mini-bosses that go along with him has proved to be quite an interesting challenge set of challenges. While the actual mechanics of the Halion fight in particular aren’t necessarily amazingly difficult, he certainly hits hard so don’t expect to have too much success tanking Halion if your group isn’t geared enough to progress through ICC. Since I found some of the mini-bosses a tad on the annoying side, I’ll be going over ..read the full article

Clearly things are going to change as Cataclysm’s Beta progresses, but for the time being, it’s fun to follow along and take our best guesses at what we’ll be playing with in the future.

MMO-Champion.com has been kind enough to supply us with an early Cataclysm calculator to play around with so here goes…

8/8/60 Major Glyphs: Shield Wall, Enraged Regeneration, Blocking Minor Glyphs: Command, Thunder Clap, Charge

This spec focuses on survival with a slight emphasis on aoe threat.

Blood Craze’s ..read the full article

The healers feel it… The other tanks feel it… You feel it.

You’re all wrong.

The reality is that when it comes to the damage you take (or should I say the damage you don’t?) there is positioning, there are a few debuffs and there is the timeliness of cooldown usage.

And that’s it.

The difference in gear and/or class is rarely significant. Execution is everything and yet, is so often ignored and shunned.

When things go wrong, most ..read the full article

Unless you’re one of those people that doesn’t enjoy following along with the hype of a new expansion, you’ve probably already read Wowhead’s coverage on new Cataclysm information. The highlight for me was Downshifting. The ability to take a 25 man raid and break it into multiple 10 man raids. I’m not only excited about this because it gives casual guilds that raid like mine more options, but also because it’s pretty big news for hybrid tanking.

All ..read the full article

After 3 years, I’ve covered and rehashed an uncountable number of topics. It’s truly a testament to the art of tanking and this game in general that I can still click these keys. It’s especially surprising to me that I’ve never took the time to pay tribute to the camera man. Sure, we’ve hinted at the help he offers, but we’ve never really stopped to say thank you.

No one asks about him.

Hold down your left mouse button ..read the full article

Whether you’re specing for the fight or just putting your personal twist on a spec, it’s important to understand what makes up the core of a spec and what points you’re allowed to be flexible with. The Impale/Deep Wounds spec has definitely been the most popular Warrior spec of this expansion so it’s only natural that we take a look at how to properly customize it.

The Impale spec is probably the ugliest version of the Deep ..read the full article

Along the twitter streams, I got hit with the signature line “10 mans are easier for 25 man geared tanks”. Now, had we been talking about Naxx, Ulduar or ToC, I maybe could have agreed, but we weren’t.

The reality is the difference between an ICC25 geared tank and an ICC10 geared tank is negligible. The difference between the 2 gear sets boils down to…

It’s no big secret that Heroic Strike won’t be an “on next attack” ability in Cataclysm. There’s a very good chance that Cleave is going to get a similar treatment. Which begs the question…

Will Heroic Strike and Cleave be on the Global Cooldown (GCD) or not? One might make the debate that by being off the GCD (like Shield Bash) that they’re more powerful, more convenient while being on the GCD (like Concussion Blow) they’re ..read the full article

Easily the most popular spec this expansion has been the Deep Wounds spec (15/5/53 being the current iteration I’d recommend) offering Warriors a strong boost to our damage and AOE threat. That doesn’t make it the only option though and certainly not the correct one in all cases. The Lich King himself being a perfect example of this.

Safeguard is one of those highly situational protection talents that rarely is worth having in our arsenal. Lich King’s Soul Reaper ..read the full article

My last post addressed getting into raid tanking for those of you stuck in the 5 man scene and really was geared more towards those of us that aren’t in an established guild. But, what about those of us that are in established guilds? How do we get a chance to tank? Perhaps, the most importance advice on that subject was brought up by Tinaria in a response to that last post.

You don’t impress people by being awesome, but by ..read the full article

I’ve covered the topic of making the leap from 5 mans to raid tanking more than a few times, but with such a vast topic, there’s always another trick out there… you just have to find it. Today, we’re going to look at Fans and Favourites and why both of them are so effective at getting you into raids.

What? You don’t know who your Fans and Favourites are? Okay, I’ll break it down for you.

Fans: DPSers that think you’re an ..read the full article

With every patch comes undocumented changes, but I’ve got to hand it to Blizzard, this time they’ve really caught me by surprise. It turns out that the Kael’thas encounter in Tempest Keep now has a chance to drop a permanent copy of the legendaries used in the encounter. For those of you unfamiliar with them, here they are:

Yes, it’s a lot to take in because while these weapons certainly lack the stat bonuses ..read the full article

(Image ninjaed from the fine folks at rawrcast.com)

Just a heads up, I’ll be discussing the current and future state of tanking with Lore from Tankspot.com and Arment from the Reawaken guild on US-Staghelm on the Rawrcrast show on Friday, April 2nd at 7pm CST. (LIVE) Feel free to show up and join in the chatroom fun or leave me some questions that I can blindside my fellow participants with.

Note: If the question is too Warrior specific, but really, really good ..read the full article

With Patch 3.3.3 hitting the live servers today, the first thing I did was go respec my 15/3/53 spec into a 15/3/53 spec. Out went Improved Spell Reflect and in came the new and significantly improved, Improved Revenge.

I can’t say enough good things about the change to Improved Revenge. Not only does it give a massive boost to the already massively boosted damage of Revenge, but it’s secondary bonus is also a lot more enticing. If I have to choose ..read the full article

While certainly we all love Best-in-Slot lists and Pick orders, what is always lost amongst these is how to deal with the every day situations where we must choose between one average item and another. What stats are valuable? In particular, which 3 stats are valuable?

Every item these days you’ll notice gets 3 tanking type stats as well as some amount of Strength and Stamina. These 3 stats can be any of the following: (more…)