A Warrior and his Gear

One of the best things a Warrior can do is put together multiple Armor sets tailored to the current progress of his/her guild. I've been called a loot whore by many a guild mate, I prefer the term Gear Maximizer. The way I look at it, it is up to me to make sure that whatever I am doing, be it Tanking as protection or DPSing as Fury, that I am maximizing my contribution to the raid. My wife sometimes tells me I am obsessed with it, and I just try and tell her that it's my hobby. Some people knit or collect stamps, I collect gear for my Warrior.

Now the one common thing in all of these gear sets is hitting the minimum 490 Defense so you can stay uncrushable with Shield Block up against bosses. Read on for more about different sets of gear you can expect to collect.



Max Armor/Stamina Set

This will be your bread and butter set of gear and your main priority in gearing for. Having the largest health pool and greatest amount of Armor you can get will give your healers an easier time when learning new encounters and help pull you through some of the high damage spikes of certain bosses (Gruul) and even allow you to last long enough to keep yourself alive when your healers get incapacitated (like in the Maiden fight with Repentance).


Max Avoidance Set

As your guild progresses into higher level content and your healers become more proficient at keeping you topped off, you can start to sacrifice some of your health pool to maximize your Avoidance. A good article about this topic can be read over at TankSpot. This set of gear is all about maximizing your ability to avoid damage all together. Great for bosses that hit fast but not exceptionally hard. Avoidance tanking gear will stack Dodge, Parry, and Block Rating to try and minimize the amount of Damage Taken during the fight. Using this type of tanking gear is situational depending on the damage output of the boss you are tanking.

Resistance Sets

As the guild progresses you will run into encounters that may require certain resistance types to make the encounter much easier. During encounters where the majority of damage taken is not Physical all of your Mitigation and Avoidance stats are rendered useless against those attacks. Your only recourse is to put together Resistance sets. The best guide I have found on resistance sets for TBC is located over at TankingTips.com. Head on over there and take a look at some of the gear that is available and start collecting depending on what encounters are up an coming in your guilds future.


Wrap Up

Those are the major categories of gear sets you should be collecting as a tank. Obviously for your DPS set should be geared for your Spec. Stack Str/AP/Hit for Fury and Str/AP/Crit for Arms. If I ever go back to DPS I'll probably post about gearing up for that. I guess the main point I am trying to get across here is that as a Warrior you need analyze your performance after a wipe and make some gear adjustments if necessary. get yourself a good gear management addon like Outfitter and let it do a lot of the work for you. I have pre-defined gear sets for certain encounters, dungeons, PvP/Arena, Fury PvE DPS, Fire Suit, etc... it makes it a lot easier to stop by your bank and drop a whole set into the bank and pull another one out.

25 Man Raiding - Are we ready?

Now I know my guildmates are going to read this, and some may agree or disagree, that's fine. This is just my opinion. The question I am trying to answer today is:

When is a guild ready for the 25-man raids?

I am going to use Gruul's as an example 25-man raid since it is the first intended 25-man encounter from what I understand. I am going to split this up into two sections. First we'll go over the group makeup and then gear requirements.

Check out the full post to read my complete ramblings on this topic



Group Makeup

In general you are going to need something close to the following group makeup:

3 - 4 Tanks
6 - 7 Healers
15 DPS

Just a note on tanks... Warrior, Pallies, and Druids are all viable tanks for 25 man raids. In some cases, such as the High King Mulgar fight other people will be tanking other than the usual tanking classes. A Mage will need to be tanking the caster, and 2 Hunters will be tanking the Shaman. Plan ahead and put together a set of high Stamina gear for tanking these fights and you will be doing your guild a big favor. It is the tanks responsibility to be aware of the encounters the guild is planning on tackling and gearing accordingly.

Having a good healing team for 25 man raids is imperative. Ideally you will have a healing team consisting of Druid, Shaman, 2 Pallies, and 2 Priests. If you feel you need a 7th healer shoot for a 2nd Resto Druid. More importantly than what classes you bring is how well your healers can coordinate their healing. There is a major difference in healing in 25 man raids. Its a switch between reactive healing and preemptive healing. When the bosses hit hard enough to one shot a tank who is at 75% health you need to make sure they always have a heal incoming that will top him off before the next attack. There are all kinds of addons that can facilitate this kind of coordination.


Now as far as the DPS goes you will want both melee and ranged DPS. Although I would lean heavilly on more ranged DPS. Maybe 4 or 5 melee DPS to 10 Ranged DPS. The important thing for the DPSers is to learn to maximize your DPS. Do some research, tweak your spec, try different DPS cycles, whatever it is you need to do to increase your DPS. If your attempts are failing due to Healers running out of mana (given sufficient gear), or you are hitting the Enrage timer, then those are big indicators that your DPS is lacking.

Gear Requirements

So what are the gear requirements for beginning 25-man raiding? I don't think there is any hard and fast answer to this question because I have seen under geared players far outperform people who were geared to the teeth. There are some guidelines though for tanks to make sure you are able to sufficiently handle the punishment you will take. The following is what I would consider minimum for doing Gruul for a Warrior, I don't know much about Pally or Druid tanks but I imagine the stats are not that far off (note these are all unbuffed stats):

14,000 Health
15,000 Armor
17% Dodge
17% Parry
25% Block
490+ Defense

For a Warrior fully raid buffed this will land you over 19,000 Health which is plenty for Gruul's. These stats are easily hit with gear out of Kara + Badge reward gear.

As for Healers I think you will be wanting to shoot for a +healing of 1300+ and 100+ MP/5. This should give you enough healing power and mana regen to last the duration of these fights.

Your measure for weather or not your DPS is sufficient or not will be if you can bring down the boss before you healers run out of mana. If your healers have sufficient gear and you are struggling to complete the encounter before they run out of mana then your DPS needs to go and get some better gear or improve their DPS through respecs, changing their DPS cycle, etc...


How do we progress into the 25 man content?

If you look at the group breakdown for a 25-man raid it is basically 2 well balanced 10 man raids + extra DPS classes and a healer or two. What this means to me is that if you guild can field 2 Karazhan groups each week that can both clear to at least the Prince in Karazhan then you are ready to make the jump to 25 man raiding.

IMO a guild that is trying to make the transition to 25 man raids should have two Raid Leaders, each responsible for leading their own Kara group each week. IMO the 10 man raid teams should be static, no switching of rosters each week. This way you can tailor each 10 man raid's schedules to be optimal for those on that team. Maybe an early crew and a late crew, or a T, Th, F team and a W, F, Sat. team. In any case the Guild Leadership should take steps to set it up so that both teams will prosper in Karazhan. Another good reason for having static teams is that it doesn't hurt to have a little friendly competition within the guild. Which team cleared it the fastest this week? Fewest amount of wipes? Most amount of loot awarded to a single person? It's all in fun after all...

It is difficult to gear up 25 people in one 10-man raid a week and it will leave a lot of people on the sidelines, by having 2 teams you keep everyone involved and gearing up each week. If your guild is short a few people and are having trouble fielding a second team for Karazhan don't be afraid to recruit some new players to help close the gap. There are a lot of great people our there in small guilds looking to move ahead in the game and would be willing to make a move into a fun and friendly guild trying to make the switch into 25 man content.

Some Item Analysis

So here I am trying to gear up for tanking past Karazhan. My biggest weakpoint currently is my chest piece. I am still wearing Jade-Skull Breastplate and I could not decide if I should be saving badges for the Chestguard of the Stoic Guardian or waiting for a Panzar'Thar Breastplate drop off of Nightbane. It seemed like an easy decision at first since the Chestguard of the Stoic Guardian looked more like Paladin loot than Warrior loot. Read on for the full comparison...



Panzar'Thar Breastplate
1450 Armor
+51 Stamina
Yellow Socket
Blue Socket
Blue Socket
Socket Bonus: +4 Block Rating

Equip: Increases defense rating by 26 (10.99 @ L70).
Equip: Increases your shield block rating by 24 (3.04% @ L70).
Equip: Increases the block value of your shield by 39.

Now with 3 +12 Stamina gems in it you are looking at +87 stamina on this piece along with the other stats. You could go for the socket bonus if you need the block rating I guess and lose some stamina but in general I thing the extra Stamina is worth the +4 Block Rating socket bonus.

Chestguard of the Stoic Guardian
1607 Armor
+60 Stamina
Red Socket
Yellow Socket
Blue Socket
Socket Bonus: +6 Stamina

Equip: Increases defense rating by 22 (9.3 @ L70).
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 38 (2.01% @ L70).
Equip: Increases damage and healing done by magical spells and effects by up to 35.

At first glance you think, bah Tankadin loot with a wasted on equip bonus. But looking again you see a nice socket bonus of +6 stamina. Lets see what we can gem in there to get it. Obviously a +12 Stamina in the Blue socket, maybe a Shifting Nightseye in the Red Socket for a +4 Agility and +6 Stamina, then in the Yellow socket throw in a Thick Dawnstone for 8 Defense (if you need it) otherwise maybe go for a Glinting Noble Topaz for the +4 Agility +4 Hit Rating maybe.

That will net you the +6 stamina socket bonus for a total of 84 Stamina, 4 agility, and 30 Defense (if you went with the Thick Dawnstone otherwise 8 agility, 4 hit, and 22 Defense). If you want to forgo the socket bonus and go for pure stamina you end up with +96 Stamina on this piece.

As you can easily see the Tankadin intended chest piece is far superior due to higher Armor, higher Avoidance, higher +Stamina potential, and far easier to obtain at 75 Badges vs. a low percentage drop off of Nightbane that you will have 1 shot at each week. Time for me to get going on my heroics and farming badges in Karazhan. I should have it in no time.

Karazhan Clear

My guild on Vek'Nilash (Sarcophagus) vanquished Netherspite last night! That marks our first full clear of Karazhan. One thing I learned from a tanking perspective it is important for your tanks to know how to jump in and out of the red beam to be able to tank Netherspite for a full portal phase without getting much more than 30 stacks of the debuff.

So for you Warriors that are new to the technique what you want to do is take two or three ticks of the red beam then jump out of it for a few seconds and then get back into the red beam before you end up with the Nether Exhaustion debuff. Doing this allows you to simplify the fight greatly. The way we did it involved the tank who was not in the red beam to just take the green beam at all times during his non-red phase. Healers can still pop into the green beam for a second to get back to full mana, but they have to be careful to get back out of the green beam before the tank who is supposed to be absorbing the green beam gets Nether Exhaustion.

Once you get the hang of it I think the fight is pretty straight-forward.

Because It Is Hilarious

This was too funny to pass up linking too. So without any further ado I bring you:

Karazhan Bingo

Enjoy!

Persistence Pays Off

After what I counted to be 30 runs the Sun Eater finally dropped off of Pantheon the Calculator in Heroic Mechanar. I've been in sore need of a tanking weapon upgrade for a long time and it was great to see it finally drop.



I'd like to thank all of my guild mates that have been helping me run Heroic Mech lately to farm it out. In particular my wife Evandiya for staying up later than usual to complete these runs, Morok and Romulan for almost always being there in one form or another, Profchaos for pwning the demon pulls, as well as Kam and Zor for filling in on some of the later runs we did. I swore that last night would be my last run of Heroic Mech regardless if the sword dropped or not. I'm sure I'll go back if people REALLY need me to go, but I'd like a change of scenery for a while.

Mining Etiquette & Flak Fire

So the other day I was doing my daily quests out in Blade's Edge Mountains, minding my own business. I am trying to banish my demons just like everyone else when out of nowhere comes some dwarf paladin on his epic mount bouncing on top of me. 2 seconds later he flies off and I am like well that was weird. Then I hear the Flak Fire charges go off all around me and one eventually hits me. He continued to do this over and over again until I got good enough to avoid being hit by the Flak Fire.

Then I think it was yesterday I am just heading out to do a bit of Aether Ray Wranglin' when I see a mineral vein pop up on my map. I head on over there and sure enough it is being guarded by 2 of those flayer type mobs. I pull and go stand next to the node while I fight them, and sure enough a Night Elf Warrior comes flying in and starts mining my node! I /rude to him he finishes up the /laughs at me.

Now these are the times I wish I played on a PvP server. But I am not on a PvP server I have to make due with what is available to me. Namely passive aggressive behavior. Turns out our Flak Fire friend did his bombing run prior to doing his banish demons daily. And I hadn't... So I proceeded to do the very same thing back to him... over and over and over again.

The second guy.. the vein stealer? He hadn't wrangled his aether rays just yet. And as it turns out all of the Aether Rays he tried to wrangle died before he got the chance to do so. Maybe it was me executing them... /shrug

They say two wrongs don;t make a right, but hey it sure made me smile on the inside. Maybe next time they will think before they grief someone.



Full post text

Back to Tanking

After a long hiatus from tanking I am now back to Protection spec. Now that my wife's Priest is 70 it makes it much easier to get 5-mans together when all we need is 3 DPS. And I think it will benefit the guild more in the long run.

After my first few raids / heroics it feels like coming home. Always loved tanking, and while I had a great time DPSing with my Warrior I think Tanking is more of a challenge and it pushes me harder to get better gear.

Nightbane Down!

My guild over on Vek'Nilash threw together an impromptu Karazhan raid to make our first attempts at Nightbane last night. After a great first attempt and a few wipes *cough* tank in zerker stance *cough* we brought him down. Not bad considering none of us had ever done it before.

Fury Warrior Karazhan Tips (Part 2)

Last night we did from Curator up to Chess with a quick attempt on the Prince but it was late so we didn't try more than once. So with everything fresh in my mind and a cup of coffee to help I figured I would bang out the second part of my Fury Warrior guide to Karazhan which covers Shade, Illhoof, Chess, and the Prince.

Once again it's a long read so hang in there!



Trash up to Shade

Your typical trash here, just realize that a lot of the mobs are stunnable so take advantage of it to help save the squishy people. DPS Away an if a tank or a CCer goes down on some of the larger pulls you should be able to switch to defensive and tank away without too much trouble. A lot of magic damage up there so the Armor and Defense doesn't do you much good anyways.

Shade of Aran

I love this fight. It keeps the whole group on its toes while basically being an all out DPS fest. Stay close to Shade the whole fight unless you are running to the walls to avoid an Arcane Explosion. Make sure you coordinate with the other melee on who is interrupting Fire and who is Interrupting Ice spells. Let the Arcane Missles go unless they are going to kill someone.

When the Elementals spawn you should be assisting the Main Assist (or if you are the Main Assist get a target quickly) and burn them down. One of the things I am learning on Shade is that if Shade is casting Blizzard when the Elementals are up get in behind the Blizzad as it goes around the room and take down the first elemental you can get to.

Remember to save your Healthstones until right after you get hit with the Pyroblast. If the Pyroblast didn't kill anyone I hit Recklessness right away to burn him down as fast as possible. If a few people dies I might hold off on it until I see how the DPS is lookin'.

Illhoof

This fight is a lot of fun for a Fury Warrior I think. The only one who out damages me on this fight consistently is the Warlock and the Seed of Corruption for obvious reasons. During this fight I heavily recommend using Sweeping Strikes -> Whirlwind/Cleave as often as Rage allows for. You will get killing blows on the imps constantly and you will be spamming Victory Rush on the Boss every few seconds. If for some reason Victory Rush isn't up throw a Heroic Strike or two in there.

Make sure you create a macro for /target Demon which will allow you to get on the Demon Chains as fast as possible to try and save whoever is being sacrificed.

Trash up to Chess

This is probably some of the easiest trash in the dungeon IMO. As long as you have a Priest or two and a Pally or Hunter to Fear / Trap, you can plow through the larger pulls relatively quickly. Once through the larger pulls you have a decent amount of single pulls to clear to the Chess Event.

Chess

Not really much to say here just make sure you learn what each piece does and how to use their abilities. Be aware that the move and face commands are on a painfully slow timer. So moving next to an enemy piece is likely to get you pounded on without you doing anything until you can turn your piece to face the correct direction. This is really a very easy challenge. I've only seen it failed once.

Prince Malchezaar

While this fight favors the Ranged classes a Fury Warrior can still stay in the top 3 DPS easily on this fight. Run out when you get Enfeebled then Intercept back in. Your Intecept timer should be up every time. If the Enfeeble doesn't hit you pop Berserker Rage, position yourself with your back against the wall as best as you can and eat the Shadow Nova for a full Rage bar. During Phase 2 I usually pop a health potion when this happens just so healers don't have to worry about me.

Phase 2 is pull out all of the stops time. Use all of your cooldowns (if you are confident in your group throw Recklessness now as well) you want to burn him down through Phase 2 as fast as possible. In Phase 3 switch to two fast weapons and bring on the Executes. If you get the flying Axes hitting you switch to Battle Stance quickly so you aren't taking extra damage. Other that the Infernals dropping from the sky its actually a decent fight.



Well I hope this guide has been useful to someone! I had fun putting it together and once I get some experience in taking down Netherspite and Nightbane I'll put together some tips for them as well.

Spending time with my Druid

I decided to hold off on Part 2 of the Karazhan Tips article until after another good run through there so I have it fresh in my mind. So today I thought I would just post a little about my new favorite ALT. Now I am not really an ALT person, I like to spend the majority of my time on a single character and really maximize their potential with the best gear possible with what is available to me. My Druid however has sparked real interest in me.

I have a lvl 29 twink Feral Druid over on Durotan (Hendarg) that I love to PvP with. I never thought I would have the ambition to level another character to 70 but lately the constant respeccing with Swath has been bugging me and I'd love to have a tank or healer I could play on the side for 5-mans or to bring on Raids when we needed an Off Tank or healer. Overall I've been very impressed with the Druid class so far (as of this writing I am level 30) and I am really looking forward to leveling with him. If I stay focused I estimate another 2 months to 70 (yes I level slowly).

I guess my plan is to raid with Swath and gear up my Druid on the side until he is a viable option to bring as well. That way I'll be able to be more flexible as to what the guild needs for our runs.

Fury Warrior Karazhan Tips (Part 1)

Now that I am Exalted with the Violet Eye and have brought down all the bosses in Kara other than Netherspite and Nightbane I figured I would post up some of the tips and tricks I have learned running as a Fury Warrior in Kara so far. It's a long post so settle in and read on!



Attumen Trash Mobs

Mobs are stunnable so you can use Intercept to help mobs that break Crowd Control early. Just make sure to turn off Attack when you intercept to avoid breaking the new CC when it hits. Just intercept and then get back to the mob you are supposed to be DPSing. This is great for helping Hunters whose traps break early and their timers are almost up. Good group communication will help a lot here.

Midnight / Attumen

The most important thing to remember on this fight is that as a Fury Warrior you likely have a high Hit Rating as well as the half forgotten Defensive Stance in which you can Disarm. Help the tank that is holding aggro on Attumen by running over and Disarming him every time your timer is up. I put the Revenge skill on a side bar just so I can watch the cool down timer expire while I am in Berserker Stance.

Other than that this fight is just a straight up DPS fest. I tend to end up capped on threat when we are burning down Midnight. After he mounts up I tend to ramp up my DPS slowly so when I pop Recklessness at 20% I don't pull aggro before the timer is up or he dies.

Moroes Trash Mobs

I love the AoE pulls, especially if we have a Pally tank. What I do on these is pull aggro immediately on one of the non-elites and hit Berserker Rage to increase my Rage generation. Then I pop Sweeping Strikes, Whirlwind, and then spam Cleave throwing another Whirlwind every time I can. Chances are when the mobs get low you will drop one and the you can spam Victory Rush and drop a few in rapid succession.

Don't pull aggro on the Valets or Stewards as they are certainly capable of one shotting you when in Berserker Stance.

Moroes

Make sure you are DPSing the right targets, Intercept Shackles or Traps that break early to give the Priests/Hunters that extra second or two to get their mobs locked down again. Watch your threat once you are beating on Moroes. A few unlucky Blinds/Gouges on the tank and you will have Moroes beating you down.

Maiden Trash Mobs

What I like to do here is aggro the wolfhounds that spawn hit Berserker Rage, Sweeping Strikes and go to town with the Cleaves helping bring down the main target while holding the wolfhound away from the squishies.

Maiden of Virtue

I love this fight, well any fight where rage is basically unlimited. Just stand behind the Maiden and do as much DPS as possible. If your DPS is over and above your raid tanks ability to generate threat, wear one or even two of your threat reduction trinkets if you need to.

Opera Trash

Avoid pulling aggro on pretty much anything in this section. A lot of the mobs are un-tauntable so if you do chances are you are going down in a hurry. (I die a lot in this section because I am trigger happy). When fighting the performers stand in the spotlight that comes down on them, it will increase your DPS by a decent amount.

Opera (Crone)

During the Crone event tank Tito when he spawns, he doesn't hit hard and with Berserker Rage up he will drive up your Rage generation quite a bit. Another tip here is to throw some quick DPS on Roar as soon as he is up to get initial threat in on him. That way every time the fear breaks on him he runs back at you instead of going right at whoever is fearing him (in our case almost always a Warlock). You will occasionally end up taking a hit or two from Roar on a resisted Fear, but thats what they made Healthstones and Pots for. When I see Roar beelining for me I switch to Defensive stance (which pulls out my shield auto-magically) just in case he makes it to me.

Opera (Big Bad Wolf)

On the Big Bad Wolf fight break the fears and follow him all the way around the room when he is chasing someone. Stay to the middle of the room and you can hit him the whole way around easily. Easy fight.

Opera (Romeo and Juliet)

I am exhalted with the Violet Eye and I have yet to see the Romeo and Juliet event at the Opera. Once I do and come up with some tips for it I'll post them up.

Trash up to Curator

Be aware of the untauntable mobs and watch your threat. When the big arcane constructs hit you or the tank with the overcharged debuff (I forget what it is called) move away. Be aware that you cannot generate any Rage on the large Arcane Elementals in the pulls right before the Curator so concentrate your DPS on the smaller guys and fill your Rage bar to dump on the big guys.

The Curator

A Fury Warrior is an ideal candidate for soaking up the Hateful Bolts on this fight. It caps our Rage pool and we have more than enough Health to soak it up. With the additional damage taken during an Evocate is is the ideal time to use Recklessness. I usually wait until the 2nd, or (if DPS is slow) the 3rd Evocate, to pop Recklessness. During an Evocate your Heroic Strikes and Bloodthirsts will be critting for almost 5k each. I use a 1.4 Spd Dagger in my main hand during this fight to get as many Heroic Strikes as possible in during the Evocate. Normally the Curator goes down on this fight just as my Threat is about to pass the Main Tanks, I take it easy during the non-Evocate stages of the fight to make sure I have enough of a buffer to allow for a Recklessness boosted Evocate phase. No one should even come remotely close to you in damage on this fight. Another fight where it may help to wear threat reduction trinkets if you need them.

Fury Warrior Karazhan Tips (Part 2)

Tanks Breaking Crowd Control

This is a repost of something I posted a while back on our guild forums. It is important enough to repeat however so here we go...

One thing I have noticed in recent PUGs, Heroic, and even some raids is that some Warriors don't break Crowd Control properly.

The ONLY reason you should ever be breaking crowd control with a ranged weapon is if getting that close will aggro more mobs. Otherwise a Shield Slam will always be your best bet when breaking crowd control. With a decent hit rating for a tank your Shield Slams will rarely if ever miss and it is not uncommon to see 1k+ Shield Slam crits. With the extra threat it generates and the large damage potential it is the best skill you have for breaking crowd control.

Read on for more...



Just make sure to build some rage on up on the previous mob before it dies. And you can easily fire off a Shield Slam -> Shield Block -> Devastate -> Revenge combo to put you sufficiently ahead of the group on the threat meter.

Another thing to note is if you know the mob is going to make a beeline for someone squishy, due to threat issues, you can do a couple things to help save that person from being hit. Taunt before breaking the Crowd Control if the mob is tauntable. If they are still after a squishy and are stunnable hit 'em with a Concussion Blow to give yourself a few more seconds of threat buildup. If by that point you still don't have aggro, then what you have is a case of noobaggro and there is nothing you can do but let the noob die. (Sadly this is me in more cases than not, I blame my uber DPS)

Warrior BG Power

Love seeing Warrior domination in Eye of the Storm. We had a couple good healers in this match if I remember correctly. The trick to getting a healer to tag along with you in EotS is to save them from being killed as often as possible. Intercept, Intimidating Shout, Hamstring, Piercing Howl, whatever you can do to keep people off of your healer. Do that and they will very quickly realize that keeping you alive is in their best interests.

A good damage dealing tip for EotS is heavy usage of Sweeping Strikes and Whirlwind / Cleave. People tend to bunch up a lot when fighting for the nodes, use this to your advantage. As the fight for a node begins build up some rage, and when you have a good 3+ targets nearby Piercing Howl -> Sweeping Strikes -> Whirlwind -> Cleave Spam. If you are lucky one will go down and you can get a free Victory Rush in there.

Entering Zul'Aman

Well my guild Sarcophagus over on Vek'nilash made our first exploratory run into Zul'Aman last night to basically see where we stood in terms of our gear vs. the instance. In an unfortunate turn of events I had to respec to Protection to off-tank for the run. This was not my first time in there as I had been in there with a previous guild, but still have not made it past the bear boss. With all that being said let's look at some of what I consider to be the stats to shoot for to begin Zul'Aman as both a tank and a Fury Warrior.

Read on for more...


Protection Stats (unbuffed)

15,000 Health
15,000 Armor
490 Defense
18% Dodge
18% Parry
25% Block


Now these are all just a little higher than what I have on Swathcutter right now, which in all seriousness indicates I am not ready to tank in ZA. The goal here is to get the biggest health pool possible to avoid dying from the very spikey burst damage you will encounter in the dungeon. A good example would be the 2 pulls prior to the bear boss with the riders in them. They hit for a good 1-3k on a normal hit, when they throw that debuff on you though you will be taking anywhere from 4-6k a hit.


Dual Wield Fury (unbuffed)

12,000 Health
100+ Hit Rating
30% Crit Chance
1900 Attack Power
Weapons: 90DPS +

Now on Swathcutter I sit at around 160 Hit Rating, 27% Crit, 1900 AP, and 154 Armor Penetration. I like the extra +hit and I think the drop in % Crit is worth the trade off for the Armor Penetration. Raid buffed it is not uncommon to see my AP hit over 3,000 with Mark, Kings, Battle Shout, Rampage stacked, Hourglass proc, etc. I found once my AP started peaking over 3k I really started to pull ahead on the dmg meters. What I would give to have a shammy in my group!!

Now about the weapons, I would recommend a 2.5 Spd or slower MH, but as for the OH I think that is a play style decision. Personally I prefer the smoother rage generation the fast off hand provides even though the current school of thought is that two slow weapons of the same speed will maximize DPS for Fury Warriors. I am in sore need of a MH upgrade for my Harvester of Souls, and I am current using the Gladiator's Quickblade as my OH weapon which should last me a while. Get the best available to you and put +20 Str on them. If you can afford it you can go with Executioner MH and Mongoose OH if you like as well.

Back to Karazhan

Later this week we will head back to Karazhan and work on our gear some more so we can make another good attempt in ZA in the future. Hoping to get Netherspite down this week!

The Warrior Dilemma - Respecs

I constantly find myself respeccing. I raid as a Fury Warrior to maximize my PvE DPS and in doing so I consistently end up in the top 3 for DPS for our Kara raids. When it comes time to do my Arenas I find myself respeccing to Arms (mace spec) so that I can be most effective for my team. If we are short tanks one night I may go respec so that I can Main Tank. I have gear enough to play any of these roles, but yet I am still hindered by my Talent Spec.

On one hand I could stay Fury all of the time, but let's face it, the spec is no longer viable in PvP. In PvE Dual Wield Fury is the way to go for melee DPS no doubt. However we lost both Death Wish and Imp. Intercept from our Fury tree which took away any previous justifications for staying Fury for Arena / PvP. These days the Hybrid Arms / Fury specs are ruling the Arenas / BGs.

On the other hand I find it incredibly difficult to play and Arms spec in PvE and provide consistent high DPS. The major issues I find with this spec in PvE are lack of smooth rage generation vs. life expectancy of the mobs. Meaning when fighting trash mobs I feel like I never have enough rage to use as many Whirlwinds, Slams, or Mortal Strikes as I would like. Mortal Strike however is an incredible skill for Arenas and Battlegrounds, don't queue up without it.

I realize there are other classes out there that are in the same boat, but I still don't think the difference in specs is as dramatic as it is with the Warrior class. All I can say is thank god for daily quests!