Filed under: (Warrior) The Care and Feeding of Warriors

The Care and Feeding of Warriors is here to hurt things this week. Hurt them, make them bleed, make them die, stand over their corpses and find something else to kill. Hear the warsong hammering in your ears? Let it out. Let it out and show the world your rage. Matthew Rossi knows that sometimes, dead is better.

Last week, we talked about Protection. Protection warriors are the tanks of the warrior class, the guys who stand up there and bang on their shields and bang their shields into things ranging the gamut from large horrible squamous tentacle monsters in Old Kingdom to giant walking bone piles in ICC. And that's fine: somebody has to keep the monsters and bosses of the game focused on a hard target so the rest of us can kill it. It's good to see prot warriors alongside bears, walking corpses and daisy picking fancylads doing the tank job. (I kid you paladins because my heart is black and full of envy.) It's good that there are warrior tanks.

But that's not you, is it? You haven't read this far because you want to tank. If you did, you'd have clicked that link and been on your merry way. You don't want to tank. You don't want to stand up front and keep monsters attention focused like some kind of giant nursery school teacher for the horrors of Azeroth. No, you don't want to tank.

You want to kill things. You want to rip them into bloody gobbets and leave their ruined, looted corpses in your wake. You want to wear two huge weapons crossed on your back and reach up to draw them forth as soon as things get ugly, which can't come soon enough in your opinion. You want to get on up there and rip things heads clean off. You're the kind of person who thinks Grom Hellscream had a good idea but didn't go far enough with it.

Come right this way. Fury is the spec for you.

The Care and Feeding of Warriors is WoW.com's weekly column for warriors. This week, we jump on the bandwagon. Matthew Rossi tends to miss jumping on bandwagons, fall, and hurt himself, followed by a lot of swearing. It's actually somewhat entertaining to watch.

There is, ultimately, only one thing warriors actually do.

We hit things. We don't poison them, we don't electrocute them, we don't burn them or freeze them or hit them with diseases or the Holy Light. We just hit them.We don't turn into anything, we don't stand back and let an animal hit things for us, we just plain hit things. We hit things and get angry, and we get hit and get angry about that, too.

That being said, warriors can specialize in one of two ways to hit things. One is to heft a big two handed weapon (or two of them) and hit things to death. The other is to put on the heaviest armor we can find, strap a car door to our arm, and get things to hit us as hard as they can, and then hit them back.

This week, we look at protection, the "Is that all you got? Is that it? COME ON!" spec.

1. What is protection?

Well, read the above. Now we'll go into more detail. The warrior protection spec is the oldest actively used tanking spec in World of Warcraft. Tanking is the role in a five man, 10 man raid, or 25 man raid (and originally 10, 15, 20 and 40 man raids as well) where one player deliberately attempts to hold a mob or multiple mobs attention so that they do not attack the healers and/or damage dealing players. To do this, tanks need to work on two separate but equally important aspects of play.

1. They must hold aggro. Aggro (derived from aggression) is the hostile attention of the mob or mobs in question.
2. They must survive the damage inflicted on them by the mob or mobs long enough to be healed.
3. No, really, you need to do these two things. Otherwise, you're not tanking, you're just a greasy stain on something's fist and/or other means of killenating.
4. Yes, I said killenating. What, you're too good for made-up words?

I want Last Word. Yes, I know everyone hates the proc. I look at it and say "remember Heartpierce" and keep on wanting it. (I've actually considered picking up a Heartpierce for tanking heroics with but they didn't buff the rage gen when they buffed the energy and daggers have crappy coefficients for warriors.) I half expect to see that mace get buffed to add 200 str when it procs. If not, not. I still want the great ugly thing, even if I'll probably pick up a rogue offhand axe to use as a threat weapon.

None of this has much to do with what we're here for today, namely clearing out the Plagueworks, hopefully with as few attempts on Putricide as possible so we can save them for Lana'thel over in Crimson Halls. (No bets on what next week will be about.) I'll probably also mention some loot they drop, but don't expect a comprehensive loot list, this is more about the strategy and tactics of killing some really rather disgusting bosses.

The Care and Feeding of Warriors is WoW.com's weekly column for all things angry and clanky. Matthew Rossi writes it, when he's not busy being angry and clanky.

Dev Chat Update: While today's post is about fury, it's worth mentioning that in addition to nerfing Shield Block's contribution to Shield Slam, we will supposedly see a threat buff to the ability. Hopefully it's a scaling, and not a static, threat buff, something that adds X threat for every Y block value or something. They'd also supposedly like to add sustained damage to prot for PvE without PvP burstiness, which would be nice if it happened..

Lately I get plenty of tanking action in raids, to the point where I honestly don't want to do it in PuG's. When musing about it the other day I realized that I'm too used to hard modes and progression when tanking: I demand perfection of myself to such a degree that I get tense and stressed over the smallest error in execution. This is possibly admirable (when not taken too far) in a raid setting on a new boss where strategies are being tested and modified constantly and everything's on the razor's edge between being able to pass the checks inherent to the content.

It's not when you're PuGging Halls of Lightning for a couple of extra Emblems of Frost.

In fact, what can help you get past Rotface is downright madness causing when heading down to Loken. At this point, Loken holds no surprises, and neither does the trash. Being a tanking perfectionist just leads you to tend towards freaking the heck out over stupid crap bored people do, and that's turning the game from fun to a drag for yourself. (It probably does for them, too, but they can look out for themselves.) Lately, I've taken to running the random daily and any 10 mans I PuG on my own as DPS, just to get a break from my own self-imposed desire to try for flawless execution. (I'm not saying I ever accomplish that, by the way, just that I want to.)

And I have to say: fury got good again when I wasn't looking.

Every week, Matthew Rossi writes The Care and Feeding of Warriors. Every week, he claws at his feeble brain to come up with a header paragraph, which really is kind of unfair. Warriors shouldn't have to think. Do you have any idea how many blows to the head we take?

So yeah, turns out I should probably have shut up and not told you guys that prot was actually good at PvP. Sorry about that. I'm not going to actually freak out until I see how they plan to balance prot so we're not good at PvP anymore, since I barely even PvP and am far more concerned with prot as a PvE spec, that is to say, tanking with it. If they make a bunch of changes and my threat stays the same and my survivability stays the same and I'm not seeing any major hits to my tanking, then whatever, I'm sure there will be enraged prot warriors still but I won't be one. If, however, I see a 2k threat loss and I'm dying like a chicken trying to tank a bloody heroic, then yeah, I'm gonna be upset.

I'll probably skip 'fevered pet' and move straight into 'enraged mouth breathing' territory. I can think of all sorts of ways to tweak prot in PvP that wouldn't have much of an effect in PvE, and I know the folks at Blizzard are better at class design than I am, so waiting and seeing is the order of the day. That being said I do find it irritating when we get told over and over again that we're fine until suddenly we're not. Just saying, some consistency would be nice.

The Care and Feeding of Warriors this week goes back to Icecrown Citadel to discuss the last two currently accessible encounters, the Gunship Battle and Deathbringer. Matt Rossi kind of wishes the Deathbringer fight was just against a great big talking axe. We don't have enough boss fights with inanimate objects.

Okay, so you've done the first two bosses in the place. Now what? Well, now you launch yourself via poorly designed goblin explosives between flying boats and you fight the son of possibly the greatest living warrior on the face of Azeroth. And then if you're Alliance you turn the whole thing over to a gnome with a frying pan and go raid Trial of the Grand Crusader for another week, I guess. Horde are presumably too clever to trust the opening of Icecrown to breakfast technology. Or too hungry. At any rate you're stuck with the same content as the rest of us.

So let's get on with it, shall we?

Wow, that was a year, huh? From the dizzying highs of fury spec in Naxxramas to the somewhat less dizzying highs of Ulduar, arms' constant evolution and protection spec's astonishing makeover as the expansion launched, 2009 was a year that saw warriors sway from top DPS and solid tanks as if in some kind of gale force wind. Armor Penetration went from a stat we'd take if we had to and is now one of our top DPS stats, Block got a makeover that led to changes in how abilities like Shield Block and Shield Slam calculate, and in general we saw the effects of stat inflation on gear really have an effect on us and how we stack up to other classes as tanks and DPS. If you were a tanking warrior in Naxx on January 1st. 2009, for example, you may have had upwards of 35k health. (To be honest, it's hard for me to remember, it may have gotten up to 38k if you stacked stamina.) Now, a geared TotGC tank walking into ICC can pretty easily hit 54 to 55k health fully raid buffed.

And it's only going up from here. Icecrown Citadel promises much improved itemization as well as crazy old school procs that should have warriors, be they DPS or tanks, salivating.

Warriors have definitely had their ups and downs this year, but I think we can say we're ending the year on a fairly high note. Fury DPS has managed to get back to a competitive place with the new weapons, arms still lags behind but has solid PvP and PvE uses, and protection is quite possibly the single strongest tanking class by virtue of sheer flexibility: other tanks may have more health, more armor, or more AoE threat, but protection's suite of abilities includes standouts like Shockwave, Vigilance, Spell Reflection and Warbringer, making it possibly #2 in every single tanking category when no class can claim to be #1 in them all. Let's look at some changes and how they shook out for warriors.

The Care and Feeding of Warriors is WoW.com's column about aromatic essential oils for use in baths and to spruce up the house. Unfortunately I don't know anything about those so I'm going to have to talk about playing a warrior in World of Warcraft instead. My hands are tied, I'm afraid.

Before I get to the meat of the discussion this week, which is tanking/DPSing the four new encounters in Icecrown Citadel, let me just say that I'm still ridiculously excited about running PuG's on both my Alliance and Horde warriors using the new Dungeon Finder. I tweeted this week that my tanking perfectionism is getting in the way of enjoyment for me so I slapped my DPS gear on and took the breaks between PuG's as excuse to do things like eat, read, use the facilities (where those aromatic essential oils lurk in wait... the spearmint one is very nice, actually)... it's reduced my stress factor considerably, and I'm pleasantly surprised at how solid my DPS is considering that I haven't work on my gear or spec in a while.

Well, okay, except for Halls of Reflection, where I had a run that consisted of me being afraid to even hit Whirlwind for fear of instantly pulling aggro. What was that guy doing?

However, this column isn't about the new five mans, or PuGging. Let's get to the meat of the post and talk about our quartet of encounters in ICC.

The Care and Feeding of Warriors is WoW.com's coverage of all things clanky and angry. Matthew Rossi decided he would give PuGGing another try last night with the advent of patch 3.3 and the new random dungeon interface. He choose...poorly.

What I really dislike is when someone tells me something which could not possibly be true and expects me to believe it.

Let me back up and provide some context. As those who read my twitter know (@MatthewWRossi for those of you just dying to keep up with my once every few days tweets) I had resolved to run the new random dungeon on my underplayed Horde alts, who needed the gear more than my Alliance toons anyway. And so I brushed my tauren fury/arms warrior off (thick layer of dust and all) and ran four random dungeons back to back to back to back in the small hours of the morning, gathering enough Emblems of Triumph to buy him a new pair of shoulders from scratch and everything. Thrilled with the success of the experiment, I decided to try a few Alliance side as well.

Sometimes, we should leave well enough alone. It's okay sometimes to stop when something has gone really well, to say "wow, this was really fun and fast and painless" and not to push our luck. Because what came after wasn't just a PuG. It wasn't just a bad PuG. It was the kind of bad PuG where people tell you bald-faced and impossible lies and make you ashamed to be playing the same game as they are.

The Care and Feeding of Warriors is WoW.com's column about how to weave colorful flower arrangements. We may also talk about warriors, to be honest I woke up this morning after about four hours of whacking gigantic undead spider things with a shield and I had no idea what my name was anymore or what I was doing. I think I may be the Kwisatz Haderach... or maybe just William Lee.

Okay, this time let me just say that the past two weeks have been kind of a small revelation for me, in that I have reluctantly done things like play a lot of Warsong Gulch and done 2v2 and 3v3 arena matches. I did these in my prot spec, which I usually consider a full PvE spec, I didn't even tweak it for PvP.

I crushed fools. Please, keep in mind I am not good at PvP. I'm not one of those warriors who will brag often about how awesome he is in Arenas (because I'm not) and as far as battlegrounds are concerned, well, I enjoy them but I don't really think going to Alterac Valley and tanking Drek and his Warmasters counts as PvP. Fun, yes. Lots of fun. It's sort of hilarious when people keep asking "Who's tanking?" in AV and someone else will notice my health and the shield I have on and volunteer me for the job.

The Care and Feeding of Warriors is about tree sloths. Why do you do this to me? We all know it's about warriors as written by an extremely hairy man who crouches in a dark corner of his apartment muttering about block value vs block rating until his wife hits him with the hose. Matthew Rossi fears the hose.

Completely unrelated to anything even tangentially warrior in WoW: Dragon Skin Armor. We're one step closer to gigantic magical battle axes being viable in modern warfare.

Since it's a holiday in the States (which I'm from, although not currently residing in) and because I'll take any excuse to gorge myself on turkey flesh and loll around in a swollen food coma (like, say, last week, when I used the fact that I'd washed red clothing with white clothing and now have a lovely pair of bright pink underwear and I don't care if you know) I thought this week we could compile a list of things we, as warriors, can be grateful for. If it's really an issue for you, assume it's Pilgrim's Bounty of something.

Anyway, let's you and I get our best grateful faces on (that's me being grateful up there, in case you couldn't tell) and discuss things we as warriors can appreciate.

Charge/Intercept/Intervene - I'm not sure what people in Azeroth actually pray to when they pray to the Light... it seems like an abstract benevolence slightly akin to the Force from the Star Wars series...but whatever it is, thanks for Charge and its iterations, boy howdy. No other ability can be seen to be as iconic and representative of a class (only Death Grip and Totems come close) as the warrior ability to get from point A to point B in order to put point C into something, or prevent point D from going into that helpful person in a leather miniskirt or what have you.

The Care and Feeding of Warriors continues looking at gear and class design this week with a discussion of DPS warriors itemization and how they interact with encounters. Matthew Rossi has had a lot of time to think about this stuff since he switched back to tanking.

If you've been looking over the itemization on Icecrown Citadel gear you may, like me, have noticed that some of the items that one could conceivably acquire are itemized more straightforwardly. We'll use Shadow's Edge, the precursor to Shadowmourne, as an example. If Shadowmourne didn't exist, people would look at this weapon with its 3.7 speed, two red sockets, ArP and Crit Strike rating and massive native strength and would be going ape over it. It's difficult to get, but I expect every single serious DPS warrior, be he arms or fury, will at least do the chain for Shadow's Edge if there's any way he or she can do so. Of course, the face that you will need to beat two bosses in 25 man difficulty and then get 25 of the IC equivalent to Crusader Orbs indicates that not every serious DPS warrior (especially not serious DPS warriors who exclusively run 10 mans) will be able to do so. Furthermore, with Icecrown progressing via gates it will be a few weeks before you even get the chance to kill these two bosses, meaning that you're not going to see a Shadow's Edge (much less a Shadowmourne) on your server within days of IC going live.

In the meantime we can consider weapons like Quel'Delar (a quest reward) and the CItadel Enforcer's Claymore (from 10 man IC) as examples of less compelling itemization. For a fury warrior the fact that they're swords isn't an issue, but for arms it's still an issue. Furthermore, they're just not as well itemized in general. They're only iLevel 251, of course, so it's not really fair to compare them to TotGC 25 drops like Decimation or the Dual-Blade Butcher. (The Butcher/Justicebringer from TotGC are itemized pretty solidly for a warrior.) However, Icecrown/patch 3.3 still keeping mixing it up in itemization terms with drops like Bryntroll, which just leaves me scratching my head. Honestly, I can't imagine switching out my TotGC 2h for Bryntroll, with the 3.4 speed, lower stats, and the proc over stats like crit, ArP or hit. Heck, I'd rather have haste than that proc, But the same instance difficulty also provides us with Cryptmaker.

Yeah, I scratched my head too. I would be remiss if I failed to mention Landsoul getting a shout out, since he's worked so tirelessly on DPS spreadsheets for us.

Very often, what seem to be class balance issues or problems with a class or spec aren't, in fact, problems with that class/spec at all. They are instead consequences of encounter design or gearing issues. One example of this is the current state of the DPS warrior: on paper, there's nothing really tremendously wrong with either arms or fury for DPS in PvE content. Having used arms to great success in PvP recently, I sat down and really looked at what was hampering me when I switched to it for PvE DPS, and the problems I found seemed to be as follows.

The Care and Feeding of Warriors is our weekly column about pie baking competitions. No, no, I'm just kidding you, it's about warriors, be their tanky or DPS. Matthew Rossi is feeling fine after a solid month of near continuous beatings from various creatures, constructs and undead beetles.

One of the interesting things about being a raiding tank again after about a year of DPS is how you come to enjoy being hit in the face. Or wherever they're hitting you, really... tonight I spent a lot of time using Spell Reflection to keep a giant robot head angry at me while the floor erupted in flames all around. That treacherous floor, always erupting in flames when you stand on it. Quite honestly, at this point it's really all I expect from the floor. If it's not on fire or seething void energies then icicles are falling down on it or there's paralytic poison or it just plain disintegrates and I plummet into a subterranean lair.

As I've relearned tanking (since not only do we have a lot more tricks than when I was last tanking in raids, but there's a whole different skillset when tanking for 9 or 24 other people compared to 4 other people) I've had a lot of discussions not only with tanks of other classes, but also with warrior tanks from other groups, since I'm the only raiding warrior tank in my current guild. So now seems like as good a time as any to discuss what's going on in tanking.

Every week Matthew Rossi slaves in his kitchen over a hot stove, primarily because he needs something to nosh on while composing The Care and Feeding of Warriors, WoW.com's column about warriors. Also, he's chained to the stove. No no, don't ask, it's a long story.

Cooldowns. Those abilities that provide a sizable benefit to a character when used, but cannot simply be used over and over again due to a time-based limitation on their use. As far as I know, every class has a few. For warriors, being a two role hybrid, cooldowns can be further broken up into tanking and DPS related, with some overlap (the famous and oft-neglected Retaliation comes to mind as a cooldown that can be used in either role to some extent).and it's often the most basic and yet most easily overlooked aspect of warrior gameplay.

While for a DPS, cooldowns are useful and even can be said to be required for top performance, for a tanking warrior's cooldowns only grow in importance the more cutting edge the content becomes. Wrath of the Lich King stands out, a year or so into its development cycle, as having shifted tanking away from a process of gearing to either survive or completely avoid big spiky damage in the form of critical hits/crushing blows to a process of gearing to survive big spiky damage through stamina and, more often, cooldown usage. Whether it be Gormok the Impaler's Impale, Onyxia's combination of Wing Buffet, Cleave and Fire Breath, or Mimiron's Plasma Blast, you as a tank will often be called to do anything in your power to make healing you through massive amounts of damage easier. Sometimes, it won't be enough.

So let's talk about cooldowns.