Back from your fury vacation already? It sure was fun seeing all those numbers pop up all over the place every time you hit Cleave or Whirlwind wasn’t it?

But maybe you’re not ready to tank again quite yet.

Maybe you’re still craving more, I’m sure you’re itching to introduce yourself to other living, breathing digital people who’ll soon be left on the ground in little pieces in your aftermath.

So let’s take a look at the life of an Arms PvP warrior and take an extended break. Don’t worry, your raid will be there when you return.

While there are some variations in the spec based on preference, THIS is the basic spec that you’ll use. A few of the variations comes from whether or not you prefer to have Improved Hamstring in arms or Blood Craze in fury but other than that, they all play basically the same.

Psst.

Hey you.

Yeah you, the one sitting there all bored with your weapon on the ground and your shield on your back.

You don’t look like you’re having a good time at all. Yeah, yeah, I know that you’re fine tanking and you’re perfectly willing to help out your guildies and tank runs for them and all but you’re bored.

No, don’t try to deny it. You’re speaking to a fellow tank here remember? Here in the tanking brotherhood we don’t lie to each other. We share each others burdens and try to make life bearable again so here I am, your ever faithful servant with a little series of articles to try keep you amused.

Here in this first article, we’ll deal with the most likely path you’ll take when you need a vacation from tanking those bosses and that is, of course, fury.

Do you know what’s a problem that I’ve seen so many tanks have?

Something unexpected will happen in a raid and they’ll drop dead. Immediately afterward, someone will always ask the question.

“Are your cooldowns still up?” And of course, the tank replies in the affirmative which means that the death and the subsequent wipe could have been avoided.

Do you know why this happens the way it does? It’s primarily because a lot of tanks out there don’t LIKE to use their cooldowns.

Yeah I said it. I’ll say it twice if it’ll get through to you guys. Most tanks, do NOT use their cooldowns properly.

Off-tanks are a lot like the unsung heroes in our raids aren’t they?

The main tank is the hero, for sure, hanging onto the biggest, scariest mob while the rest of the raid does their thing and where’s the off-tank in this whole thing?

He’s up there if you actually take the time to look for him. He’s up there standing right next to the main tank, not really taking much of the hits, largely feeling pretty useless unless the main tank happens to bite the bullet and then he’s got his five minutes in the sun to shine.

That’s the way that it used to be.

The role that the off-tank used to have in our raids were largely very small ones. The off-tank is the one that grabbed a lesser add or two when the fight started and then their job was done inside thirty seconds, leaving nothing for them to do until the boss died.

As you may have noticed, we have had a few guest bloggers over the past couple of months. LordSnow will be joining the staff and bringing regular tanking updates. I have enjoyed his posts thus far and look forward to many more informative and entertaining posts in the future!

LordSnow was sucked into World of Warcraft during his early years in university and hasn’t looked back since. Initially beginning his WoW career as a face melting, warlocky force of doom, he eventually got suckered into switching to his warrior as a main to support the tanking needs of his current guild.

Since then, he plays around on his warrior, longing for the simple days of being a simple warlock with simple desires.

I’m here to talk to you today about one of the unsung heroes in the protection warrior talent trees.

Taking a look at it, we can see that what it adds to the Intervene ability is a simple scaling damage reduction of 30% for the next 6 seconds. It seems a good talent on paper but the fact that it’s attached out our Intervene ability is what makes a lot of tanks hesitant to pick it up on the way down the tree.

Taking a look at Intervene, we find an ability that’s also sadly underused. Most tanks only use it for the defensive portion, to intercept one hit directed towards a fellow party member. The best part of the ability, and most often useful, by far is the 10% reduction in threat it provides.

Sadly, this isn’t an ability that you’re free to use as the main tank, namely because you always tend to be busy.

We come at last to the death knight, the red-headed stepchild of the tanking family that nobody really likes but everyone has to put up with because despite all of their flaws, they’re still part of the family.

During the course of Wrath, death knights have enjoyed an interesting spot in the tanking family. While, largely speaking, they haven’t been exactly the most popular tanks to roam around during the expansion, they’ve had a very cozy niche spot in the world of tanking archetypes.

They were built more as AOE tanks like the paladins but not quite as good. They had a great potential for mitigation like the bears but again, not quite as good and they had a decently sized toolset for a variety of tanking situations like warriors but…not quite as varied. They were a perfect jack of all trades type tank.

Ah, welcome to the gravy train…at least for the duration of the current expansion.

Without hope of competition, paladins are undeniably the strongest tank in the current expansion so if you’re already playing one or already in the process of levelling one up, you’re in luck as you’ll have at least a couple months more of riding the gravy train.

So by now you’ve realized that your protection Paladin has about 6-7k mana unbuffed at level 80, and all of your abilities for tanking but the average melee swing, require mana. So let’s go over a way to keep your mana pool alive and full so your not having to sit for mana after each pull.

With this discussion I will go over some basic talent tree specc’ing for your mana regen, as well as your Paladin’s Seals and Judgements.

Lets touch basics first, your talent tree. If you tab over to the Protection tree on the 1st column 7th Tier down you will have the passive talent called, Spiritual Attunement

Yes, this really is what will fill your screen about 90% of the time if you choose to be a bear in the upcoming expansion.

Nah, I’m just kidding but to be fair, druids do have a slight issue with being a bit more…chubby than their plate wearing counterparts so if you’re planning on running around as a druid come Cataclysm and you’re a bit leery about controlling a character that looks as though they should be skipping on those extra midnight snacks, this isn’t for you.