My Warrior "Raid MA Tank" Talent Build

[Xellor]

Arms Talents (5 points)

Deflection - 5/5 points
Increases your Parry chance by 5%.



Fury Talents (30 points)

Cruelty - 5/5 points
Increases your chance to get a critical strike with melee weapons by 5%.

Unbridled Wrath - 5/5 points
Gives you a 40% chance to generate an additional Rage point when you deal melee damage.

Blood Craze - 3/3 points
Allows 15% of your Health regeneration to work during combat for 20 seconds after being the victim of a critical strike.

Improved Battle Shout - 2/5 points
Increases the Attack Power bonus of your Battle Shout by 10%.

Enrage - 5/5 points
Gives you a 40% melee damage bonus for 4 swings any time you are the victim of a critical strike.

Improved Demoralizing Shout - 5/5 points
Increases the attack power reduction of your Demoralizing Shout by 25%.

Flurry - 5/5 points
Increases your attack speed by 30% for your next 3 swings after dealing a critical strike.



Protection Talents (16 points)

Anticipation - 5/5 points
Increases your Defense skill by 10.

Toughness - 5/5 points
Increases your armor value from items by 10%.

Defiance - 5/5 points
Increases the threat generated by your attacks by 15% while in Defensive Stance.

Improved Taunt - 1/2 points
Reduces the cooldown of your Taunt ability by 1 second.



I tried creating a tank that was stable for tanking and this is what I came up with. During OB I was able to get to lvl 26 and had 16 points in the protection line and 1 in fury. This gave me a defense rating of a warrior 2 levels above me and a 10% boost on my AC which ended up at 1988ac and 1431hp. Also while in defensive all my attacks generated 15% more hate than a normal attack. Also by being in defensive I was able to gain a 10% damg reduction, although I did incur a 10% damg-dealing reduction. All in all, I just wanted to be able to hold agro on mobs my level + a few and be able to take the heavy hits of elites and bosses.

The reason I placed so many points into my rage tree, is to compensate for my damg-dealing reduction of 10%. Rogues, mages, and some other classes often out-damage a warrior signifigantly. This makes generating as much hate per hit vital to ensuring you hold agro on a high level raid mob, and thus remaining in defensive stance imperitive. By increasing my % chance to land a crit from a base of around 5% to 10%, without agility, I am able to almost guarantee constant crits (btw, all you warriors know that even at low levels 10+ you got atleast 1-5 crits in a short fight, and that's with about 5% chance). With this boost, plus agility, I will be landing TONS of crits. With the rage talents, every time this happens, I gain 30% haste for the next few swings. In addition, every crit done against me, and I'm sure raid mobs will crit almost non-stop, I gain 15% of my out-of-battle regen for 20 seconds and my next 4 attacks deal 40% more damage.

Basing my character on the end-game content, I should be able to nip at the heals of damg dealers in terms of damg, and have signifigant hate generation and defense for tanking. What's your guys thoughts? Any rumors on talents I have chose that just don't really work the way they sound are intended? Xellor out!

[Xellor]

***REVISED***

Character type: Level 60 Warrior


Arms Talents (5 points)

Deflection - 5/5 points
Increases your Parry chance by 5%.



Fury Talents (30 points)

Cruelty - 5/5 points
Increases your chance to get a critical strike with melee weapons by 5%.

Unbridled Wrath - 5/5 points
Gives you a 40% chance to generate an additional Rage point when you deal melee damage.

Blood Craze - 3/3 points
Allows 15% of your Health regeneration to work during combat for 20 seconds after being the victim of a critical strike.

Improved Demoralizing Shout - 5/5 points
Increases the attack power reduction of your Demoralizing Shout by 25%.

Piercing Howl - 1/1 points
Causes all enemies near the warrior to be dazed for 6 seconds.

Enrage - 5/5 points
Gives you a 40% melee damage bonus for 4 swings any time you are the victim of a critical strike.

Booming Voice - 1/5 points
Increases the duration of your Battle Shout and Demoralizing Shout by 10%.

Flurry - 5/5 points
Increases your attack speed by 30% for your next 3 swings after dealing a critical strike.



Protection Talents (16 points)

Anticipation - 5/5 points
Increases your Defense skill by 10.

Toughness - 5/5 points
Increases your armor value from items by 10%.

Defiance - 5/5 points
Increases the threat generated by your attacks by 15% while in Defensive Stance.

Improved Taunt - 1/2 points
Reduces the cooldown of your Taunt ability by 1 second.



I had to work piercing howl in there. The AE agro from it and Demoralizing shout are pretty much a warriors only options as far as non-melee skills, for holding agro. This is a must IMO for agro control tanks.

In some ways I coppied alot from Indalamar's second PvP build (which relies on passive DPS talents from fury vs. MS). But instead of putting the last 15-20ish talent points into Arms for additional maneuvers or such, I put them in protection b/c I plan on staying the defensive, even during solo.

I noticed that equiping a 500ac shield at my level added about 9% damg reduction in my character stats. Most tanks use a shield to keep about the same damg reduction, but guys like Indalamar, remain in battle stance. The 10% while in defensive makes up for the loss of a shield and allows me to dual wield for the same additional stats, or better/more combat effects to piss the mobs off while keeping the same base DPS line.

[Cowgomoo]

im just a newb to WoW, only made lvl 18 warrior.

i had around 1440ish ac, and 684 hp.

Personally, i prefered the sword/shield, because i spent a few points in shield skills, and it caused me to null more attacks instead of taking the damage reduction of your defensive stance.

To top things off, i'd fight in defensive stance, spamming shield block/shield bash/that counter attack.

I was able to hold hate off a 25 pld just for kicks (i enjoy a suicidal challenge) so im happy ^^

[Xellor]

I debated a shield, but it seems the higher I leveled, the less it helped. The reason for defensive stance + dual or 2h is I kept the same damage reduction but I was also able to do about 50% more damage dualing in defensive than with sword/shield. The last few hours of beta, I was able to keep 4 mobs on my NOT using any AE skills VS a lvl 32 rogue while I was at lvl 26.

So yes, I will take slightly more damage than a tank with sword/shield, but I won't have the problems Indalamar is having VS. tanking 1 mob at end-game. (I hate using him as an example... but he does know the ins and outs of the class, only one thing, he builds his character for PvP, not PvE)

Sticking to either dual or 2h. Without one of the two you loose too much DPS to gain rage on big stuff to hold agro. I won't need much rage, since my build is off passive skills mainly.