Okay, I'm posting this here because... I dunno, it just doesn't seem fit elsewhere, plus it'll probably contain a lot of ranting on my part, so to be safe, I thought it best. If you really want to move it, that's fine. Beware of babbling >_>

Here's the situation... my guild's a rather dinky guild (I'm an officer of the guild btw), we had 2 kara groups going but now we only have 1, and we rotate people in and out of it. It's a good group of people, we're just... lacking certain classes. We're finally up to Prince progression-wise, but having some difficulty on him. We have downed Illhoof/Aran, we have not downed Netherspite yet. We have not downed anything in Gruul's.

The group that first tried Prince 2 weeks ago wiped once at the start of phase 2 and had to call the raid due to respawns, I wasn't there to see the attempt.

This past weekend I ended up filling in a healer spot because no one else was around to help heal. I'm feral, and I didn't repsec or anything, I just helped heal with my spec, and it went surprisingly well even with my kinda bad healing gear. Until we got to Prince. The 3 of us healers just could not keep the tank up (prot warrior) during phase 2. I assumed it was my spec/gear limiting me, so after like 4 wipes we decided to replace me with another holy pally that just happened to sign on at the right time.

I ended up being reinvited to the raid because one of our DPSers had to go, so I was on pewpew duty, which I was much better at. We had to reclear at that point, then we tried again. I was happily pewpewing away, we had some issues with the tank not moving around in the correct way to get away from an inferal (he doesn't have a mic so it's often difficult to communicate well) but he eventually got it right, and we got through phase 2 this time. Prince was at around 20% when the tank died suddenly, so of course I shifted into bear and tried to get him under control. Well, I had salv on for all of the fight up until that point, so by the time he aggroed onto me, he had killed 2 of our DPSers and 1 of our healers. I took him to a corner and everything seemed under control, we got him down another 10%. Then we had more bad luck with infernals and our remaining DPS went down. All that was left was me and 2 pallies, and we managed to get him to 6% (though it took forever >.>), then another infernal landed on top of my head, but I noticed it way too late and we ended up wiping (it was my first time attempting to emergency tank the fight, pretty sure I wouldn't let that happen again, but bleh). We tried 3 more times but wiped each time, usually during phase 2 again, with the tank dying early and stupid bad luck with infernals. I'd pick Prince up, but by the time I did, too many peope were down (I died once to bad timing with an enfeeble too >.<). So we called it, cause people were getting tired and frustrated at that point.

The next day I took a look at the wow web stats page report thingy and tried to figure out why the tank kept dying. I don't know too much about warriors but it seemed partially due to bad luck with infernals and chains where he'd get crushed for 5.5kish a hit. I then decided to armory him, because I couldn't rmember what level of gear he had, but had assumed it was decent... Here (http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Cenarion+Circle&n=Thadorack)

Now, I dunno that much about warriors which is why I need some advice here... but frankly I was a bit dissappointed with what I saw. The spec seems a little awkward (bit leaning towards arms if you ask me), and well, he's lacking enchants and blue gems like crazy. I realize you don't need to be geared to the teeth for this fight, but since it was our first kill... eh, it just seems like the MT should try their best to get the best they can, y'know? We weren't flasking or anything either, and I don't even think he used any pots besides def/stoneshield, and his HP just seemed so low to me. Btw, we had no one keeping up thunderclap to my knowledge, we had no shammy in the group for GoA, we had no hunters, but we did have 2 locks, so he had his commanding shout/imp buff/devo aura, and then a curse of weakness debuff up on prince.

Anyways, I'm sure you guys saw this coming a mile away (teehee, hard to bat around the bush on a druid forum eh >.>), here's my armory, in tank gear: wee (http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Cenarion+Circle&n=Setah). I'm at almost 27k armor, 14k hp, and 31% dodge w/just motw, and uncrittable of course, with the res.

I tank heroics a lot, I love tanking, but sadly I don't get to MT kara because we do have 2 prot warriors that alternate weeks (one of em's this guy, the other one is slightly better geared). But um, without trying to sound selfish or greedy... shouldn't the best geared tank tank new encounters that you continiously wipe on? And okay, I'm no expert on warriors, but it seems like my gear's somewhat better...

I've heard such an array of stuff about which tank's best for Prince... some people say "RAWR WARRIOR ONLY", some are like "well, hey, whoever your best-geared tank is", so I'm not real sure what to think. I know I'd take more crushings than he would, but on the combat log the highest crushing prince hit me for (and that was in half DPS gear, luckily I thought to leave some of my high armor DPS gear on) was 3200ish, which doesn't seem bad to me.

y guild's not really against me tanking... I love my guildies to death... it's just... I dunno, I guess they don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, so as long as we have a prot warrior around, they get to do all the MTing, since I'm so versatile. And I love being versatile, but sometimes I hate it too. It bothers me in this case, it really does, because I honestly feel like we could have downed him within a few tries if I had tanked from the start. Am I crazy for thinking that? Be honest with me here. I realize I have the power to suggest a change to our policies on such matters since I'm an officer, but I just don't know if I'm simply being selfish about it, or if what I'm thinking makes sense. If me and him go into Gruul's lair, which of us should tank? Which of us should tank prince so we can down him finally? Is it out of line for me to suggest I tank more often on first attempts to make encounters smoother, at least until the warriors gear up better, or do I just need to hush and get used to only tanking 5-mans and trash?

/salutes those that actually read the entire thing, and /thanks those that offer advice :)

Ah yes. That is a hard(and old ^_^) question. Which is the better tank - Warrior or Druid?

Simply put: By now most people should be aware that Druids can tank as well as Warriors and that for 80-90% of all boss fights it does not matter which one is up there. It simply is a question of group setup (Druids can do lots of damage when not tanking, Protection Warriors do almost no damage).


There are some encounters where Protection Warriors are better suited (any boss that fears often or does lots of magical damage). Also there are encounters where Druids have the advantage (bosses that do lots of physical damage or fights where you need to build lots of threat fast).

Equipment being equal, you should choose the Protection Warrior for the Prince. He can almost completely negate crushing blows, which really comes in handy in phase two (you only got 3200 crushings, because you only took over in phase 3. In phase 2 he hits harder and faster). For the Prince, I'd say the Warrior should have 16k HP fully buffed (and of course enought def, block and parry).

Your equip looks quite good. You might try to get the Wastewalker Gloves and a better belt. Also switch out the Badge of Tenacity for the Violet Badge (or something else with lots of stamina, there are several available). You have more than enough AC and could use some sta.
Another idea would be to use more +12 sta gems, for example on your Heavy Clefthoof Vest. You can replace the +hit gems. +hit is very nice, but 12 sta give you more benefit than 8 hit. In raid instances holding aggro rarely is the problem. Good mitigation (which you have) and a big health pool are more important. This will give your healers more time and they can use more mana-efficient spells that way.

The equip of the Warrior is not that bad as well. He could lose some defense in my opinion and go for more stamina. I asked one of my guildies about the talents and they are OK for tanking (here is his profile (http://armory.wow-europe.com/character-talents.xml?r=Nozdormu&n=Abodun)).

To give you my opinion regarding your questions:
- Gruul should be tanked by the Warrior and you should be OT (because Druids have it easier to build threat without being hit by the mob). Also if the MT dies in the fight it is not that big a problem usually, because the OT can take over.
- Simply try out how it works with you tanking the Prince and you will have an answer to that question. If the climate in your guild is ok, experimenting should be no problem. But you could improve your equip a little as well.
- Several guilds use Druids for first attempts because they can bring more HP and AC to the table (and much more dodge). Also they build up more threat. Both is useful for fights you do not know well.

I know that did not answer all of your questions. But if you want to tank in raids, you should bring up the topic IMHO. Tell the people in you guild you want to be MT. Just because Blizzard did not give Protection Warriors a means to do anything other than tank, they do not have a monopoly on that role. It is just fair that you get a chance as well.
If you did a good job in heroic instances enough of your guildies should support you as a tank.

Wow, no shield specialization or improved shield block? I kinda figured that was a "uh duh" talent. And yes, he is in desperate need of better gems and he needs to Lrn2GetEnchanted.

Here is my Prince experience. The real "test" of the tank and healers comes in Phase 2, which he dual wields, hitting MUCH faster. This is where shield block spamming, shield wall, last stand, etc REALLY help. A bear with really good dodge, should work as well.

There's a way to "ezmode" prince. You have the raid stand just inside Princes room to the right ( as you come out the door ) of the door. The tank moves just outside of max range ( which is just past a little indentation in the wall that runs out from next to the door ) and tanks him against the wall. The ranged and healers move in and out of range as infeeble, etc comes around. Worst case an infernal can drop on the tank, or in between the tank and raid ( at which point the melee kind of sits out for a bit ).

As per who should tank. IMO it's up to whomever the raid feels most comfortable with. Some healers group with said tank more than another and get used to how he takes damage. A priest friend of mine that I run a lot of heroics with has found it easier to heal me, over a better (IMO) geared druid, and I think it's simply being used to how I take damage and being able to be proactive about it.

Hope this helps.

Oh, and I hate you and your badge of tenacity....I still haven't been able to get mine >.<

TLDR...

Just kidding~

Yea I'm not too well educated on Warrior talents but Shield Specialization and Imp. Shield Block are imo must haves for protection warriors who are very serious about raid-tanking.

I've as a healer and a tank/dps always preferred to have whoever was more comfortable tanking and whomever the healers preferred (after all they're the ones keeping them up). As Big9er mentioned, teamwork and experience together plays a big factor on who they are more comfortable with.


ps. nice badge.

/salutes those that actually read the entire thing, and /thanks those that offer advice :)

Not only did I read the entire thing, but all of the replies that came with......and, wow! I learned a lot! I'm not even close to experiencing Kara yet, but reading all about your experiences was really cool. Obviously, I can't offer much in the way of Kara advise, but I do want to say that....

I love running dungeons with Warriors....

I have a couple of Warrior buddies who are very talented tanks. Although I am feral specced (KITTY ROCKS!), I am SO much more comfortable, therefore better, as a healer. They know I am feral, and they still invite me as their main healer to every instance. Why? Because they know I can handle it.....

y point is, you mentioned versatility. That's a Druid's strength. You name it, we can do it. Your guild sounds like a fair bunch...remind them of this. Surely, with your talents and xp, they cannot deny you the chance to MT. Let's face it, Plan "A" hasn't exactly worked yet, so why not use Plan "B"? What's the worst that can happen, that hasn't already yet?

Also, Trixtaa makes an excellent point about being comfortable with one's role. After several failed attempts, I would think that your Warrior would appreciate you taking over as MT. He most likely just doesn't want to admit it...

Anyway, I can't wait to get to where you are. Thanks for letting me have a glimpse at what's to come. :)

I didn't look at your warrior tank's gear in great detail, but one thing I did notice right off the bat is that his defense is 550. 490 is the magic number for warrior defense; at 490 the tank becomes immune to crushing blows from level 73 mobs (raid boss level)... anything higher than that is sacrificing other useful stats (Like stamina, his health is a bit low for a KZ MT) for unnecessary gobs of defense. I know you said that the tank died from a crushing blow, which is why I immediately checked his defense in the first place. Very strange. With his defense, he should not be getting crushing blows, ever.

Here's a link to our MT (http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Scarlet+Crusade&n=Karwyn) if you want someone to compare to. Granted, we tease her about her Star of Elune addiction and I don't claim her gear is the be-all end-all of tanking gear (everyone has room for improvement) but she is what I consider to be a 'professional': extremely knowledgeable and extremely competent. It's also important to realize that tanking isn't all about gear; it's also about knowing when to use your cooldowns, potions, etc to keep yourself alive--not just blindly relying on healers to keep you up while you spam sunder. :)

That said, the Prince is a darned tough fight for tanks -and- healers. Keep at it, you'll get it.

(I also have a 70 warrior, can you tell? :D)

Ok don't ever confuse Critical hits with Crushing blows. You can become Crit immune. You can never be Crushing Blow immune. Unless they've changed something and I missed it.

I will doublecheck with my experts but I'm pretty sure it's crushing blows they've been going on about.

Please hold, your inqury is important to us; a representative will be with you shortly...

Ok, ignore me. It IS crits, my mistake. I could post a long rambling article from my guild forums about exactly why and the math of it but.. that wasn't within the context of the question. :)

Still... 490 Defense is the magic number! I stand by that at least. :D

Crit immunity is 490 for warriors and 415 for druids with Survival of the Fittest.

Paladins and Warriors can NEARLY be crush immune, but as I recall for warriors that comes with the spamming of shield block and is HIGHLY dependent on the attack speed of the mob ( for the cooldown of shield block ).

Paladins have an easier ability to be crush immune, but at the sacrifice of other stats they need ( usually ).

http://www.wowwiki.com/Crushing_Blow

Yeah, Pallies are the ones that have an easy time with avoiding crushes (I'm leveling one atm >.>). I dunno why the warriors I know have more than 490 def, but they do... I asked one of them about it one time and he said that it helps them, somehow, can't remember how exactly. I just keep looking at Thad's 13k or so raid health and cringing, I KNOW warriors can get druid HP, and right now he's not even at my unbuffed while buffed.

Gearwise... yeah, I could use some upgrades as well admittedly.

I added those +hit gems to my chestpiece back when I was getting annoyed at making a pull in a heroic, missing that first mangle, then wiping us as a result (back when heroics were really tough for us). During raids missing isn't nearly a problem like it is in 5-mans, and it isn't that much of problem in 5-mans anymore, plus I can just swap some gear around. So I might change those gems. :)

I keep running heroic ramparts for the belt to replace the silly green one, but it won't drop for me. :(

Hoping for tier4 gloves to use for tanking (since they're nice now :D), but god dang, I've never rolled higher than a 25 on them I swear... I've seen them drop at least 5 times too. >.< Lost on them last week to a DPS warrior who left the guild 3 days later... yeah, luck's really on my side with tier drops it seems. :(

Helm-wise, I'm waiting for either tier4 or the savage gladiator one, both would be huge upgrades. i'm trying to get myself into a weekly Gruul's group just for some experience plus a chance at tier4 (I even have the cloak off Illhoof in the bank waiting for when I replace a heavy clefthoof piece), but no luck with that yet.

The badge was a really lucky fluke... I had just gotten home from being out of town a week, signed on, and a guildie asked me to come DPS for one of those dragon fights in Ogri'la, so I say sure, get down there, tell 'em "maybe I'll be really lucky and the badge'll drop", and um, it did. xD I was amazed. I only had about 100 shards from casually farming it, too. I've got the Moroes pocketwatch in my inventory for when I need it, but I really like the use ability on the badge. Plus, I dunno, I'm starting to realize that getting to 30k armor while keeping my sta/dodge is probably a good idea. I would like more sta, thinking about trying to collect one of the new darkmoon decks for the 51 sta part.

Thanks for the advice, guys, I'll definitely talk it over with the other officers. If we have problems next time we try the fight, we can at least try me tanking, seeing how it goes. :) Thad usually isn't afraid to say "hey, let's have Setah try and tank this fight" when we start having difficulties, but he never did say that this time, but then again I was healing half the time too, so I can't really blame him for that.

One question:


There's a way to "ezmode" prince. You have the raid stand just inside Princes room to the right ( as you come out the door ) of the door. The tank moves just outside of max range ( which is just past a little indentation in the wall that runs out from next to the door ) and tanks him against the wall. The ranged and healers move in and out of range as infeeble, etc comes around. Worst case an infernal can drop on the tank, or in between the tank and raid ( at which point the melee kind of sits out for a bit ).



I haven't seen this strat mentioned anywhere, but it sounds like one that just may work, at least until we get the fight down the first time (thanks :D). Max range for the tank would be... with his back against the side wall, the wall that's running perpendicular to the entrance/opposite side? So the raid would be facing the tank's side? Am I understanding that correctly?

You are correct
------------------|
.........................|
.........................|
.....................P.t| <- Prince & tank
.........................|
.........................|
.........................|
........................r|<- raid stading next to the wall
....................___| right at the bottom of the ramp.

elee will have to run back to the raid during enfeebles, and ranged MAY have to take one step back and be right up against the door, but other than that it doesn't require a lot of moving so you can at least get down the phase changes & see how the damage changes as well.

Hm okay, yeah, that may help us out for getting a better feel of the fight... thanks :D

Crit immunity is 490 for warriors and 415 for druids with Survival of the Fittest.

Paladins and Warriors can NEARLY be crush immune, but as I recall for warriors that comes with the spamming of shield block and is HIGHLY dependent on the attack speed of the mob ( for the cooldown of shield block ).

Paladins have an easier ability to be crush immune, but at the sacrifice of other stats they need ( usually ).

http://www.wowwiki.com/Crushing_Blow

You know, reading this I have a question. Is it possible with just a small amount of +Feral Weapon Skill to become crit immune. If I understand this article right, its only when their weapon skill is more than yours that you get the crushing blow. If you maintain a +Feral Weapon Skill of at least +8, you can totally wipe the chance of a crushing blow off the board from lvl 73 mobs. Am I reading that wrong?

You are correct
------------------|
.........................|
.........................|
.....................P.t| <- Prince & tank
.........................|
.........................|
.........................|
........................r|<- raid stading next to the wall
....................___| right at the bottom of the ramp.

elee will have to run back to the raid during enfeebles, and ranged MAY have to take one step back and be right up against the door, but other than that it doesn't require a lot of moving so you can at least get down the phase changes & see how the damage changes as well.
y guild's team struggles with Prince weekly. Not because of Prince, but the infernals. If we get lucky on infernal placements, we kill him. If we don't get lucky we wipe. We usually wipe, more often than not it's at a painfully low percentage (Monday we had a bad first attempt, followed by a 2% wipe, another 2% wipe, an 8% wipe, then a string of frustrating attempts: pally gets locked, out, you name it). We've tried placing the raid right at the door, and the MT to the left (facing out of the door), which is where I believe you are mapping. We haven't had any better luck there than anywhere else (and we've tried everywhere).

Hoping for tier4 gloves to use for tanking (since they're nice now :D), but god dang, I've never rolled higher than a 25 on them I swear... I've seen them drop at least 5 times too. >.< Lost on them last week to a DPS warrior who left the guild 3 days later... yeah, luck's really on my side with tier drops it seems. :(
T4 Gloves are not that good for tanking, actually. For a nice overview of the items that are useful for ferals, look here (http://www.gurgleblaster.net/emmerald/Bear_Mitigation/Hands.html).

That list has not been updated since tier 4 gloves were changed from 24 crit to 24 agility. Since the change, they are awesome tanking gloves, with more armor/agility/stamina than Verdant Gloves. Probably ranked close behind Gloves of Dexterous Manipulation, but I prefer tier 4 for the two pieces set bonus (and my Gloves of Dexterous Manipulation are socketed for DPS where they are significantly better than tier 4).

True, I did not notice because I have not used the list in the past few weeks.
But still the Wastewalker Gloves are almost as good as the Gloves of Dextrous Manipulation and fairly easy to get. Which was my point actually :)

Gloves of Dex are nice tanking gloves simply for the avoidance factor. But, as we all know, we tank with our face. While I do use my Gloves of Dex for some fights ( Gruul OT'ing for example, b/c avoiding a 10k hit makes the healers :) ), in general I use my T4 gloves. The AC, Stam and Str play very well into aggro generation and overall mitigation as opposed to avoidance.

I used wastewalker for tanking for a loong time, then I switched to verdant cause I felt I wanted more armor, then I got my badge and the dex gloves, so I basically decided since I was getting armor from the badge that I could use the dex gloves for more dodge/sta until I get tier4. I like tier4, I like the set bonuses, so right now I'm trying to get a few pieces of that, which'll up my armor to high enough where I'll be happy, plus give me nice stats to boot. :D I'd like more dodge, sure, but I'm pushing armor/sta up first, I'd like to get closer to 30k armor/20k health buffed, I'm close but not quiite there.

Gonna give OTing Grrul a shot today with another guild. My guild isn't going to Kara this week, so I downed a few bosses with the other guild yesterday, and hm, they seemed to really like me, I guess they don't have a good feral tank in the guild, although they're further progressed than my guild. I finally actually got to MT a boss in kara besides the stupid fights like attumen and opera, haha (curator, lol, their healers seemed to love me... I love the reaction when a healer's never healed a decently-equipped bear before xD). They've been unable to get Gruul past 20% or so because of not having a good offtank I think, so hopefully it'll go well with me there. I've never actually tried that fight, I had assumed it'd be best to stack armor/sta for OTing him, is dodge more important, or just a mix of em all?

I've only MT'd Gruul so far, but I'd say stamina > all (> Gnomes ^^) for the OT.
Also you should have decent strength because you need to build a lot of threat without being beaten by the boss.