Warrior Questions

[NiX]

From about level 5 I've been running around with a 2H weapon and never looked back since. I've been in groups with some sword/board warriors and still managed to out aggro them by using sunder/taunt and having enough agi to make me crit at least once on every mob (twice if they dodge and I use Overpower.) The problem is most people ask me if I have a shield and I say no. This leads to them assuming I can't hold aggro or be useful in an instance. Tonight Straz and I were talking about skills that could possibly put me up there with prot warriors without having to throw away the 2H I've come to love.

Right now my current spec is Arms/Fury. Like 23/24 in Arms and 5-6 in Fury (something really low cause I'm trying to get MS.) Straz said he's heard of people saying there are some Prot skills you can use without a shield that pass you off as a full prot warrior. Problem being he's not sure where he heard it or what skills, so I was wondering if anyone here knew what they might be.

Any advice would be good. I don't plan on changing the way I play just so some idiot can be happy knowing I have a shield. Every time someone says "Hey, he has a shield" the person with it ends up causing a wipe or doesn't do much good holding aggro. Doesn't convince me I should switch.

[Trippy]

I'm no Warrior expert but I don't see how having a shield helps with aggro. A shield helps with AC and damage mitigation and caster bashing but the aggro advantage is from the defensive stance not with the shield in particular. It might be at the higher levels the AC bonus and damage mitigation from having a shield is highly recommended to tank the instance bosses but that's beyond my knowledge.

[Fabricated]

Starting out, you don't really get all that much extra AC from shields, nor do you block a whole lot.

Later, the difference between having a shield and not having a shield is the ability to fuck up casters (Shield Bash/Slam), and a good 2000+ AC, which not even level 60 characters can sneeze at. With defensive stance, decent armor, and a good shield you get get damage reduction of 70%  or better. That's a lot.

Also, later on, you will not out-aggro mages, priests or warlocks without defensive stance and revenge (which generates a LOT more aggro than sunder).

[Merusk]

I'm no Warrior expert but I don't see how having a shield helps with aggro. A shield helps with AC and damage mitigation and caster bashing but the aggro advantage is from the defensive stance not with the shield in particular. It might be at the higher levels the AC bonus and damage mitigation from having a shield is highly recommended to tank the instance bosses but that's beyond my knowledge.

A green shield at level 60 has 1700+ AC.  If you get a good blue shield, your shield alone will have almost as much AC as a mail-wearing class. That's a LOT of AC even for a plate wearer. It will block 30 damage on the chance you get a block.  Not a lot of damage, but it helps. Having a shield doesn't help aggro much, and actually hurts if you don't have the fury/ protection talents to gain the added rage. Without rage you're pretty useless at gaining aggro, since all you can do is autoattack.  But, every warrior should have a shield for at least bashing casters and interrupting healers when tanking.  Use one of the item set mods, or create your own macro for shield bash that'll swap you to the right sets so you can bash when needed.

As for the protection talents, most of the ones folks dabble in are shield spec for the 1% block chance and 20 rage and toughness for the 2% armor. If you're not wanting to use a shield ever, you'd want to go after Anticipation, which will raise your devense by 10 (2 levels)  but against elites this means almost nothing, IIRC.  You'll be a more effective tank, but you'll never match a full prot-spec or a warrior with a shield.

  Unless you're in a mixed group of folks you trust and trust you and they're willing to take some damage. (And there's a lot of classes that can take SOME damage if not as much as a warrior/ pally, but they run-around like chickens if they so much as get aggro in a PUG. Fucking hunters and druids.) Then you're going to get bitched at for not being a proper meat shield.   The 'holy trinity' isn't required for almost all encounters in WoW, but that doesn't mean the mindset isn't firmly ingrained in the hardcore MMO playerbase, who are in turn ingraining it into the newbs to the MMO scene.

   My opinion is, if not getting into instance Pick-up groups at higher levels on a regular basis doesn't bother you, or all you plan on your 'end game' being PVP then don't sweat it.  Do whatever is fun for you.

[kaid]

I would strongly recommend even for an arms heavy warrior keep a good shield and good one hander on you and hot key them. There are times later when its VERY handy to be able to pull out a sword and a board to fully use some of the tricks in the defensive line. Is it always neccessary nah but in instances its good to have the option and there is no real reason to limit yourself when there is no need.

As was said shields at high level have a freaking scary ammount of armor on them. Our group got some purple shield to drop and the dang thing had from my foggy recolection almost 3k ac as well as some sick stats. Thats like strapping a freaking shaman to your arm and using him as a shield.

Kaid

[El Gallo]

Protection talents are generally shitty, and the ones past 15 points or so in are pretty much worthless.  There is a reason the most popular talent builds are 31arms/20fury and 31arms/5fury/15protection.  You don't need a single protection talent point to tank anything in the game, though the first couple tiers do help a bit (block, toughness, defiance).  Talents are fine. 

However, you should get a shield.  At 60, my shield is almost 1/3 of my entire armor class.  Not only is it a huge amount of armor, your best aggro-generating ability is revenge.  Revenge triggers off your dodge/parry/block.  You can't block if you don't have a shield.  Moreover, use of the "shield block" skill will pretty much guarantee that your revenge button will light up.

I have been experimenting with dw/2h for trash clearing, trading mitigation for rage, but that's only after becoming crit immune due to +defense mods on gear.  I still don't feel like the aggro is locked down as well without revenge, so I don't know that the trade-off is worth it.  Of course, on trivial stuff/AE pulls, it's Reaper time.  I always break out the shield for the hard hitting bosses.

When you get to your upper 50's/60, start working on 2 sets of gear unless you aren't interested in tanking at all.  One for tanking (+defense/avoidance/hp/ac) and one for damage dealing/PvP (+crit/agi/hp/str/AP).

[Fabricated]

Of course, on trivial stuff/AE pulls, it's Reaper time.

I'm sword spec because I'm fucking sick of seeing the Reaper.

I'm also going Hammersmith with my crafting since no one on my server seems to be a hammersmith (the Hammer of the Titans plan is like 8G on my server, whereas the Reaper's is like 300G+).

[Paelos]

I use that polearm thing from the Korrak quest. It's nice!

[Fabricated]

I use that polearm thing from the Korrak quest. It's nice!

That the Ice Barbed Spear? Yeah, that looks fucking hot, and you can get it as soon as you're high enough to enter the battlegrounds and get the quest (which is like...52 if I remember correctly). Just let the level 60's do all the work.

[Paelos]

I use that polearm thing from the Korrak quest. It's nice!

That the Ice Barbed Spear? Yeah, that looks fucking hot, and you can get it as soon as you're high enough to enter the battlegrounds and get the quest (which is like...52 if I remember correctly). Just let the level 60's do all the work.

Well, the thing is this. I got it on the day the BG opened when everyone wanted to do it. NOW, especially if you are not 60, and you start spamming to kill Korrak in the heat of a battle, people on your team will rip you a new asshole. Rightly so. My advice, wait until you have the horde at their base and then bring it up.

[El Gallo]

Reaper was just a personal example.  I think axes look good on a Tauren, and I am a min-maxing whore to boot.  There are other weapons that work almost as well for MS warriors that are easier to get (the spear and the hammer mentioned; the Warblade of Caer Darrow from the Scholo quests; the polearm from Rend; the axe from the dwarf emperor; the 2 hand mace from the strat postmaster; Twig of the World Tree; and prolly a bunch of others that I can't think of atm).

The sword and axe spec talents are much better than the mace and polearm spec talents though, but YMMV.

[Sogrinaugh]

Unstoppable Force is getting nurfed (needed it) but will still kick ass and is easy to get.  Fucking grinding 800g for a reaper, seriously.

[Zetor]

Actually I think "every warrior that's not 31/20 with a reaper is getting nerfed" is a more accurate description.
From the bottom of my gnomish fury warrior heart, screw you blizzard, screw you in your tiny little cookie-cutter ass.


-- Z.