Stratholme, Blackrock Spire, Scholomance

[mfzmm]

The mentioned instances in this posts topic are my life atm in world of warcraft.

I am posting all of my comments and concerns in your forums because i have been following your guild progress for quite some time and would appreciate some input from Nurfed who are in my opinion the absolute Autority in WoW

Currently I am the PvP/PvE raid leader for my up and coming guild Casterly Rock on Lothar Server(http://www.wowrankings.com/guild_profile.htm?name=Casterly Rock&s_id=35).

I am a level 60 warrior and am completely defensive oriented (thus making me useless for PvP) for the simple fact that there are only FOUR REAL TANKS that i know of on my server and on every instance run or instance raid i have been on i have been the main tank. My Char:(http://www.wowrankings.com/viewb.htm?id=3277) I know there are tons of items that i should have already from brd and other places... i just havnt had the opportiny to get them yet..

I am always looking for new strategies and group builds for 5 man groups and have noticed the following. A group that is good in one instance may not be good in another because of the types of mobs being faught and was wondering what group builds you use for the three main instances.

I also noticed in your victory screenshot over Stratholme you had from what i saw a priest 2 casters, a shaman and a warrior... how did you do it???? i brought a group of 15 to the end of the instance for the first time on our first try but not knowing the door would close behind us we got split up, nonetheless we where still a group of 10 but could still not beat it and got wiped right away. We did however manage to beat the scarlet area boss without difficulty .. getting there was also tough and i would like to know what strategies you used.

The most experience i have is with lower BRS ... my best group i have gone with has made it 1/2 past the spiders but i have no way of controlling aggro and whatever happens we cant keep the casters alive.

Currently my group setup is me (warrior) priest warlock mage and paladin/warrior.


Plan of attack is simple... if surrounding area is safe.. priest sheilds me i charge then immediately switch to def stance and do Demo shout and other debuffs... one mobs gets sheeped one gets mind sooth and we deal will the rest of the mobs accordingly. This strat works well for approx 5-7 elite mobs pretty much any level... however we have trouble dealing with large groups of 20 or more lvl 57's like the spiders in lbrs. what should i do?


I know that your guild is pvp based so all the warriors do not go def but go for damage dealing ... how do you manage without having a real tank???


Thank you so much for reading this.... Luther of Casterly Rock

[Blacktastic]

It is more effective to keep aggro by physically attacking, not just debuffing. Make use of cleave, whirlwind, sweeping strikes to hold aggro with multiple mobs.

[mfzmm]

hmm good point .. ill try and get my hands on a good 2h weap .. maybe a dreadforge... ill switch back to arms/zerker asap and try it out

[Dashiva]

It sounds like you are having a problem holding aggro, and somehow think that Protection spec does anything to help you hold aggro better.

With the exception of the Defiance talent, nothing in protection spec is going to help you hold aggro better, it will help you tank better so slightly its almost insignificant, that is all.

All of your focus should be on damaging the primary mob as often as you can, damaging extra mobs every so often, using Sunder Armor religiously on the primary target, and using Demo Shout at the start of a fight to grab that primary aggro on everything.

If you are still having problems 1) you need more practice and 2) go do the quest from Maraudon to get the Thrash Blade.

Protection spec is unjustifiable in my opinion, the bonuses while tanking are small, and the disadvantages you have in non-tanking situations (like PvP) are large.

[mfzmm]

i dont need more practice trust me ... there is nothing i can improve on, i am using the protection to the best of my ability, i just geuss its not worth using ...


I already got trash blade a long time ago and find that my epic krol blade with 41 dps 1h and 1% extra chance to crit is better

if you are judging me on my wowranking items those where my items almost 2 weeks ago ... i have better now

[mfzmm]

i am now aware that ms build is still better than def in high level instances a s a tank even though i dont have a sheild

[Thrain]

i dont need more practice trust me ... there is nothing i can improve on, i am using the protection to the best of my ability, i just geuss its not worth using ...


I already got trash blade a long time ago and find that my epic krol blade with 41 dps 1h and 1% extra chance to crit is better

if you are judging me on my wowranking items those where my items almost 2 weeks ago ... i have better now

Do you realize how terribly insecure this sounds? If you have "nothing" to impove on, then raiding Onyxia should be a daily practice for you.

Anyways, I don't understand what the problem is...

A priest, imp-sap (or even normal sap) rogue, mage can disable 1-3 mobs (usually 2) before any fight begins. A priest/arcane mage destroys non-elite swarms in strat/upper brs. The warrior's roll in all of these instances seems pretty much straight forward.....wait for sap/poly/shackle..charge any casters left...taunt while rogue/mage destroy...attack any loose ends that start aggroing priest/mage. A good rogue should be ok with evasion/feint and posisbly vanish if shit hits the fan.

What was the question again?

[Dashiva]

i dont need more practice trust me ... there is nothing i can improve on, i am using the protection to the best of my ability


i brought a group of 15 to the end of the instance for the first time on our first try but not knowing the door would close behind us we got split up, nonetheless we where still a group of 10 but could still not beat it and got wiped right away. We did however manage to beat the scarlet area boss without difficulty .. getting there was also tough

One of those statements has to be horribly wrong, and it sounds like the first one.

[Razo]

however we have trouble dealing with large groups of 20 or more lvl 57's like the spiders in lbrs. what should i do?

My group sounds a lot like yours, def spec warrior and such, and this is how we did it. It is really easy.

First of all, there shouldn't be 20 spiders there at one time. Initial pull is 2 elites plus a bunch of spiderlings. Mage sheeps one elite, you tank the other. Kill spiderlings with AE. Kill the spider you are tanking. Kill spiderlings with AE. Etc. If mana becomes an issue, can either keep the last elite sheeped while spirit goes to work, or single target kill the babies. They really aren't too bad when there are only about 7 of em up at once.

And I'd just like to add, you can't use Soothe to split up mobs who are within agro range of each other. A mob's initial agro ignores soothe.

[Tlear]

LBRS is really pretty simple. As was described spiderlings can be aoed but you dont really need to do it. We done it before with warrior, hunter, druid, 2 paladins(both dont have consecrations). As you can see all the CC we had was hunter trap and paladin repentance(6 sec mez) lol, it is still doable.

[Razo]

Druids can CC spiders just fine, Tlear. :)

[Zuberi]

To echo what others have said...

1) Protection spec is terrible. It in no way makes you a "real tank". The plight of the WoW warrior is not that we take too much damage, it's that holding aggro is difficult. More damage makes holding aggro a *hell* of a lot easier, because Arms/Fury have something Protection does not: good abilities.

2) You can improve on a lot of things. I've become a better player every day since hitting 60, and I've never gone to heights of suckyness like wiping on Baron with 15 people.

3) Spiders in LBRS are a pretty unusual challenge because it's a large group of mobs, but not one that is good to AE. The general srategy (assuming only one mage/druid/hunter) is mez one, tank the other, and have everyone else assist the rogue and kill the little spiders one by one. Charge the big spider, demo shout, sunder it a couple times you keep him on you, then move on to taunting the little ones. I use a weapon switch/whirlwind macro here; it's not unusual to crit the little spiders for 700-800 with a dreadforge, which builds plenty of aggro. Piercing howl is also great, because it builds minor aggro as well as making the spiders take more time to reach healers if you do lose it.

[mfzmm]

hmm lol itseems i got flamed for saying i dont need anymore practice ... should have phrased that differently. i took the statement about how i needed more practice a little too hard i geuss. but i mean there isnt much more i can do to hold aggro any better in defencive stance... cept refine small things ... i have the strat down.. however none of this matters anymore because i took your advice and switched back to arms and am already noticing a big change... i now understand that its not that my increased damage with 2h that offsets the lack of a sheild. but my ability to attack more mobs with cleave and whirlwind...i think the missing thing the last time i tried 2h was that i didnt know how useful whrilwind is.


and i know my other post contradicts my first but im never afraid to admit that there is always room for improvement and ask for advice.

thanks for your help

[koz]

and i know my other post contradicts my first but im never afraid to admit that there is always room for improvement

There sure is! Now put away the 2hander when you tank, use a shield since it will mean the priest wont have to heal so much...which makes his job easier, and it makes yours easier, so you dont have to chase mobs that chase him!

Koz (warsong)

[mfzmm]

ok lets see if i have this right. After one day of going back to 2h i realized that there was a whole world of playstlye that i had missed.

Atm this is what i do lets say soloing single mobs in epl:

Charge
ms
zerker stance
bloodthirst
battle shout ( if it isnt on)
then i pretty much try and use ms whenever possible
use pummel/sheild bash , overpower when necessary

one question though ... if i am consistantly keeping my rage up should i just use intercept on the next mob and stay in zerker stance?

and would using demo shout just slow me down cuz i wouldnt gein as much rage from bloodthirst?

[mediocre]

ok lets see if i have this right. After one day of going back to 2h i realized that there was a whole world of playstlye that i had missed.

Atm this is what i do lets say soloing single mobs in epl:

Charge
ms
zerker stance
bloodthirst
battle shout ( if it isnt on)
then i pretty much try and use ms whenever possible
use pummel/sheild bash , overpower when necessary

one question though ... if i am consistantly keeping my rage up should i just use intercept on the next mob and stay in zerker stance?

and would using demo shout just slow me down cuz i wouldnt gein as much rage from bloodthirst?

If there is more than one mob, demo shout is the first thing you do post charge imo

[Zuberi]

The key with the 1h/2h dilemma is you don't have to make a choice. Tank with 1h and have a macro that equips you 2h for whirlwind, then switches back. Works great.

[mfzmm]

Yeah... i have already thought of all the crazy macros icould make ... i just dont know anything about them.



can anyone point me in the right direction?

[Firecrak]

Theres no need for macros.

Get this:
http://www.curse-gaming.com/mod.php?addid=208

and its dependancy:

http://www.curse-gaming.com/mod.php?addid=111


1 button, 3 sets of weapons, bam. Done :)