My problems with rogue are pretty simple and also pretty much unfixable. Mostly, I just suck at it, and what I personally consider to be a good rogue rotation (stealth, pickpocket, open box gleefully, rinse, repeat) is not something the greater rogue community or WoW designers agree with. They seem to want me to engage in combat and crap, but I JUST WANT THE GOLD, GAWD.
SCREW YOUR STANDARDS
I jump how high I want!
Cav and Goa have both leveled rogues and have tried to help me in the past, but rogue is not really their true calling. Cav is the Eternal Warrior, for although he might play other classes from time to time, he always, always comes back to his one true love. Goa would be the same, if he didn’t have that alt-itis problem. Even so, he rocks Warrior. Beating crap up is what they DO.
Once they got wind that I was debating deleting my rogue altogether, the substance of our conversations changed a bit, something like: MAKE A WARRIOR. YOU’LL LIKE WARRIOR. REALLY. YOU’RE GONNA MAKE A WARRIOR RIGHT? HOW ABOUT A SPACE GOAT WARRIOR? YAY SPACEGOATS. WHAT, TROLL? WELL, THE ANIMATIONS SUCK BUT FEMALE TROLL WARRIORS ARE RARE. AS LONG AS IT’S A WARRIOR, THAT’S THE IMPORTANT PART. YOU SHOULD GO ARMS. YOU’LL LIKE ARMS. HAVE YOU MADE THAT WARRIOR YET? PROT’S OP UNTIL 40. DID I TELL YOU THAT ALREADY? SHIELD SLAM MAKES GROWN MEN CRY IN PVP. WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR SPELL REFLECT BEECHES HAHAHA WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR WARRIOR BAM! I hadn’t even deleted the rogue yet!
So yeah, they wore me down. Cav promised to make a rogue to level with me (seems ironic, somehow), but refused to go goblin (too short), so we settled on the only race we both like: Forsaken. My warrior is Arms, even though the DPS queue will take forever.
This Look Is Tragic
MOG ME NOW, PLEASE
Oh, c’mon now, it’s not that bad. The looms are “classic!” Stop hiding your face.
Well, I Guess
Uh, on second thought …
Oh. Well. Y’know, since he’s not exactly leveling the rogue and a guildmate wants to make a goblin, I think I’m going to make a goblin too …
PIXELBY PRESENT YEAH
I like how the goblin /flex is like, three times longer than anybody else’s.
PIXELBY REPORTING FOR DUTY
Cav Does What He Wants
Screw your concept of warrior tanks!
Anyway, I’ve heard people say that things are kinda stinky for warriors, and that people think warrior tanks are kinda stinky too. I can’t speak about warrior end game or raiding, so here’s my theory as to why there might not be many low level warrior tanks: it really sucks at low levels. So you DPS instead, and then after awhile, that’s exactly what you get used to.
I had a suspicion that lowbie warrior tanking would be a big bad pile of awful, because I did a bit of it back in Cata. I hoped that maybe it changed with all the patches since, but no – I did one dungeon (Deadmines), and I ran screaming.
Some of it was old hat sorta stuff, the kind I just didn’t feel like dealing with for 90 levels. The hunter was pulling some of the things. The healer was pulling the rest of the things! There was no point to telling them to stop, since I’d never see them again and the next party would just be more of the same.
But those old hat problems contributed to the lowbie warrior tank problems. I could not Charge any of the things once they got pulled because THEY WERE TOO CLOSE, and if I tried to charge before they got pulled by other (ranged) people, THEY WERE TOO FAR. Charge has a cooldown too, of course.
Perhaps worse, you don’t have any sort of AoE when you start, so you end up with mobs all over the damn place, and I couldn’t get them back. Warrior tanks don’t get their first multiple-target thing (Thunder Clap) until level 20, by which time you’ve already felt like shooting yourself in the face for taking this up. (WTB Avenger’s Shield, which hits three targets and which Protection Paladins get at level 10. SUPER UNFAIR.)
Tab targeting in Deadmines is a crapshoot because you’ll often tab target totally useless explosive barrels halfway down the hall. (Actually, tab targeting in general is a crapshoot because you’ll often select the mob standing a bazillion feet away that hasn’t aggroed instead of the mob that happens to be RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU, trying to kill you.) As a result, trying to switch targets to Taunt was totally futile because by the time I selected the RIGHT target attacking the healer, the thing was already dead. After while I stopped bothering, under the “you yank it, you tank it” philosophy. HE KNEW WHAT HE WAS GETTING INTO.
What also made it difficult as a noob was how I couldn’t freely use what skills I had. Not only did I have to deal with cooldowns, I had to deal with generating Rage first instead of consuming something already available like mana, which is a New Thing for me as a tank. (p.s., not Charging means 20 less Rage right off the bat!) Rage regeneration in Defensive stance felt too slow to keep up with all the chaos of EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE. Screw that. Seriously, man, I’m not touching that with a 20 foot pole that’s got a skunk tied to the end of it. Maybe in the future, tank-type warriors can start off with full rage or something. You know, like they’re always angry, and the only way to make them less rage-faced is to let them beat the crap outta something.
NOBODY DESERVES GNOMEREGAN
Remember, friends don’t Gnomeregan friends.
p.s., So deleting the rogue enabled me to rename Electrika to use the rogue’s much cuter name (Bombelina). Sure, my blog tags and categories are confused as hell with all the renaming, but eh, who actually reads all the old crap anyway?
That Was an Accident! 
Auch, painful experience.
Lowbie tanking on pretty much all tank classes sucks monkeyballs. You just have to stick it out until you gain some levels. Actually Warrior tanking (higher levels) is a lot more fun. You have charge pretty much all the time if glyphed, making it nice and easy to rush ahead and get aggro on things.
I much prefer Warrior tanking over say DK tanking. A lot more engaging, more diversity, more cool buttons to press.
What makes tanking a real PITA is at level 90, without a party of friends, it will be a cold lonely goddamn annoying experience in LFD and especially in LFR.
But but, I swear it didn’t suck this bad on the paladerp! Run in, toss Avenger’s Shield, and all the mobs are yours. With warrior, it was like, CRAP the healer pulled again! WHY DOES CHARGE HAVE SUCH A TINY CHARGABLE WINDOW!? I NEED AOE. ACK!
I fully admit to chickening out on tanking LFR. /truestory
Yeah, Warrior tanking takes more effort. I wouldn’t go as far as saying it takes more skill, but definately more active effort from your part. I noticed this to compared to my DK.
Tanking in LFR is for that special breed of tanks.
If warrior tanking takes more effort, I would have wound up having problems anyway, due to my inherent laziness. Good to know I gave up ahead of the inevitable!
No no no. See, the rage resource system is designed to screw you at low levels given that it relies on active generation and you don’t yet have the abilities to keep it coming in, and AoE and ranged abilities period are at a premium.
That makes paladins godlike early on, and brewmasters aren’t in a bad place thanks largely to getting Keg Smash and Breath of Fire early, but bears and warriors? You cannot understand the frustration unless you’ve played all five tank specs. (yeah, dks don’t really count since they only arrive on the scene around 58, but even they get to wait ’til 60 for their signature AoE – Death and Decay)
Hunters, man. Just… hunters. *thousand yard stare*
As a hunter, I say it’s not my fault they didn’t give Charge a 40 yard range.
As somebody who relies on Charge for Rage, godammit.
I see … good points. I only ever really tanked on Warrior and DK.
But still, you can’t judge Warrior tanking based on low level experience. The whole tanking experience is kinda screwed up anyway at low level dungeons (and high level dungeon to for that matter).
But low level experience is all I got!
And if it sucks super bad at low levels, what’s to inspire you to keep going to 90 (or eventually 100) with it?
Hmm, super difficult question.
Because Warrior is still perhaps a ‘classic’ tank?
Bear tank = nature calls. Tank with the power of the beast. I know I’m not keen on staring at a bears butt all the time …
DK = halloween tanking. Tank with vicious plagues and blood related things. Also, why would you need a shield. Big sticks only! Sounds cool if you are not in to the classic sword/shield look thing.
Paladin = shiny happy people tanking. Tank with divine light like a true disco ball. Also a kinda classic tank approach, but more magic and blingbling based.
Monk = for people who like Kung Fu panda? Seriously, what can I write about Monk tanking? You throw beer kegs at shiat. How serious tanking is this? Skip please (drama bait beware!).
Warrior = raw metal banging tanking. Classic sword and shield. You know, knights and all those things from the past.
Of all the tanks, I like Warrior tanking the best, because of the style and mobility. But the nature of the game currently (and our fellow players) puts you at a disadvantage often. This is where the ‘more effort’ thing comes in to play.
I’d settle for any decent ranged pull, not even the ne plus ultra that is Captain America. Heroic Throw is a joke… it’ll get their initial attention, but provides basically zero threat. Oh, and it needs to be glyphed for the silence/interrupt that AS has as an innate perk.
Tanking gets much better around Blackfathom/the higher levels of Generic Werewolf Horror Castle, when you actually have something to hit other than Shield Slam and HS. Up until Devastate you’re totally reliant on those and *sunder armour*. I mean, wtf. Sunder doesn’t even do any damage.
Warriors: redheaded stepchildren of a design team obsessed with magic and sparkles.
People actually use Sunder Armor? Wat
Maybe they could give us an instataunt battle shout of some kind.
It’s 3x cheaper than Heroic Strike, so you can use it more than once every epoch, and the debuff actually provides a fair bit of aggro. I found tabbing madly while spamming it to be the only way to maintain aggro on groups in deadmines, timesink caverns and early keep runs. Embarrassing as hell, a bit frustrating, but it works.
Warriors used to have an instataunt AoE. They turned it into a banner instead.
Ok, time to admit that I think the warrior banners are WTF stupid. “Banners” just don’t seem … heroic, really, or particularly warrior-like. They’re not really all that terrifying either, and though there’s that one to Demoralize the enemy or something, I feel more demoralized than the boss does because it’s like … small. And a banner. Kinda like the ones you see in parades, but with less confetti. And I can’t see that banner over all the crap going on, anyway.
They exist for one reason, and one reason only: that little line at the end that reads “Warriors may Intervene to a friendly banner”.
Basically, warriors are designed in such a way as to be *completely hosed* in any situation where they don’t have backup. Even their mobility suffers from this – not only are they the slowest class outside of combat, but their in-fight mobility relies on there being a target – friendly or otherwise – standing *exactly* where the warrior wants to go. The banners are a sort of cop-out way of giving the warrior a way to charge somewhere without having a party member.
It’s weak, it’s sad and it’s almost heartbreaking – how many other classes get to go ability-placement-target-second ability in order gtfo? It also makes it really obvious where you’re trying to go in PvP, if you even have time to get that all off before exploding.
Still, beats the broken uselessness that is Heroic Leap. (if something on the warrior skill list has Heroic in the name, you know it’s stupid and awful…)
The background was probably meant to be the orc blademasters who ran around with banners in WC3. Because this expac needed more orc flavour or something. Pity those blademasters carried the banners *with* them…
I dunno, Heroic Leap seems to serve a purpose (even though I don’t have it yet). Cav uses it all the time to jump on me and (theoretically) squish me into itty bitty pieces with his big plate boots, and he uses it to catch up to me if I get too far ahead using Ghost Wolf.
I’d be nice if they added something so you could just Charge in whatever direction you were facing, kinda like Blink.
Directional charge is not gonna happen, since monks got that. Some sort of dragon kick thingy. Infinitely better than HL because a) it doesn’t require a stupid targeting reticle while moving, b) it actually works when there’s an itty bitty little heap of mouse droppings (that you can’t even see on your screen, but it must be there because *something* is causing that “ground too uneven” message) in the way, and c) IT ACTUALLY WORKS DID I MENTION THIS.
Hmm, wtb goomba stomp upgrade. Maybe on some class reward boots. 😀
Flying Serpent Kick of Doom, I think.
But mages got a directional move thing too! Why not MOVEMENT FOR THE MASSES!?
I get a message about there being no path rather frequently … THE MOB IS RIGHT THERE. RIGHT THERE!! But no path. Wat.
I don’t want mages’ direct move thing. x_X
My wife’s managed to accidentally teleport through walls. into the chest on spoils, through the floor in shrine, through the floor in *raids*… and almost any time when it might be actually *useful* the thing either ‘ports her *behind* where she started or maybe half a step forward. Old code… it’s almost as bad as Charge and HL.
I’m just sayin’, the concept of “fast movement in one direction” is not unique to one class – therefore, Warriors should totally get something snazzier/quicker/easier than having to target a banner to move.
My mage has never done anything awesome or funny (or, I guess, kinda bizarre) with Blink. When I teleport with it, I teleport face first into walls and other objects and cease moving forward immediately.
If blink hasn’t failed you yet, you haven’t maged enough. Try blinking out of the entryway in Shrine… it tends to drop you through the floor. 😀
Yeah, I know, but every time anyone suggests a convenience change to be similar to another class, there are two standard excuses that come up: a) “we don’t want all classes to feel the same” and b) “ability bloat”.
Leit, my man, you are so negative on warrior tanking … duuddee whyyy.
Ok, you are correct in pretty much all your points, but whyy.
I have to disagree with you on Heroic Leap though. It is the awesomest of skills. I would trade Lay on Hands for it any day. What? LoH? Yeah, LoH. Heroic Leap is just to cool to pass on (if you’re not in a heroic progression raid team /cough).
Banners don’t suck, they are underwhelming. It would be a lot cooler if for instance clicking skull banner would summon a minion that carried the banner with it while following you. Also, the minion should be a copy of your character race. You should have the ability to tinker its gear (looks), and it should shout undecent things at random people all the time. Finally, you should be able to sacrifice it for a big final burst of uberness. Goddamn, I should be in game development …
I’m negative because I play a warrior. It’s a class passive. 😛
(disclosure: my warrior tank has been my secondary since ToT, and is the only toon other than the pally wearing anything from SoO)
Warrior tanking is in a much better place this tier than it has been in a very long time. It feels really solid. That said, we’re talking about levelling here. Warriors do have a very sparse convenience kit, and that’s amplified at low level, where their skill selection is basically a desert within another larger desert.
But it gets better! Warriors are a class that are inherently enjoyable. Shield slam has the *heaviest* feel of any skill in the game, and playing a warrior has the visceral feel of chopping wood with an old-fashioned double-headed axe, or galloping a horse.
It’s just hard to enjoy all that much when the other guy is using a chainsaw and a Ducati.
So correct, I totally forgot about the feeling of the Warrior as a tank. It does indeed feel like you’re connecting more on mobs with abilities like Shield Slam.
So basically what you said, only you said it better 🙂
Yeah, I don’t feel like a heavy hitter yet. o_o Thankfully, at this point, my heirlooms keep me from being the worst DPS! 😀
Also would buy a chainsaw weapon. DUAL WIELD CHAINSAWS YES I THINK SO.
You don’t feel like a heavy hitter because you’re not using SHIELD SLAM.
Go grab a glyph of the Subtle Defender and try a dungeon or two dps’ing in prot spec. Link the glyph at the start of the dungeon so as not to be throttled by both tank and heals. Trust me, it’s much more satisfying than fury or arms. 😀 Also, if you somehow get threat, a) your damage will go up and b) you have the abilities you need to survive!
Seriously, prot does more damage than either dps spec until somewhere in the wrath level range, depending on gear.
Can it be a murloc carrying the banner?
This made me LOL and I’m going to share it with my guildies if it’s all right: “Maybe in the future, tank-type warriors can start off with full rage or something. You know, like they’re always angry, and the only way to make them less rage-faced is to let them beat the crap outta something.”
I HATE low-level tanking. I refuse to do it unless it’s like, the-tank-left-and-someone-needs-to-do-it-and-if-you-can-heal-me-I’ll-pull-things-until-we-get-a-new-one.
Have at it! Seriously, it would be so much easier if they did have full rage to start with – the first few seconds of any encounter are always the most stressful and crazy because you’re trying to get it under control – it’s when you NEED resources the most, not when you want to be generating them.
I’ve done that kinda low level tanking too. Usually goes like this:
1.) /SIGH THE SIGH OF A THOUSAND SIGHS
2.) Ask the healer if he’s got my back
3.) Pray to Gawd he does
4.) Turn on Defensive stance because WTF am I doing I don’t know BUT I don’t wanna wait either
5.) CHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGE
Tanks seem to drop group a lot from around the level Dire Maul to ZF. I mean, they’ll drop before, but in those specific levels I’ve seen groups run through four tanks before making the end. Works out fine if I’m playing a boardie, but less ideal on a rogue. 😦
Plate 5eva (that’s more than 4eva ❤ )
You see ’em zone in, realize where they are, and then dump the group on the spot. Blackrock is also painful.
Well, Cav *is* kinda stinky, but his tanking is good.
Also, I rogue like you. If it can’t be pickpocketed, I don’t want anything to do with it.
I sometimes felt horrified by the things that did have pockets, like the ogres in Dire Maul.
WTB mind bleach.
I am trying to level a Warrior but I just don’t get it. Okay, it might be that she’s Fury and I refuse to use two one-handed weapons as I have a two-handed heirloom that I want to use. I’m giving her until level 38 when she can use two two-handers. Rogues I’m cool with, I’m beginning to think I’m just a leather wearer at heart with just that one stray cloth wearer, Warlock. But I want to wear plate and beat up things!
Fury levelling:
1) Hit Bloodthirst!
2) Erm…
3) You know, it’d be great if I had any of the cool procs that define the spec…
4) Or the abilities to set up a burst window…
5) Ooh, BT is off cooldown again! Hit that!
6) Heroic strike aaaand out of rage
7) Shake life back into your poor atrophied fingers.
Pffft are you kidding me? I can distill it into one, single step:
1.) Autoattack
DONE
And yet people don’t like arms because it can’t dual-wield oversized axes.
I wonder, if (as the joke goes) one big weapon is compensating for what’s in your trousers, is two compensating for cup size…? 😛
EVERYBODY’S COMPENSATING FOR SOMETHING
Well heck, then I’ve been doing it right, lol. I thought that had to be wrong.
I find plate hard to mog as well, but that may just be due to ears. Large, green ears. And maybe being really short.
But plate has so many great looks! Like spikes! And chains! And… spiked chains! On fire!
(seriously i would not give up heavy boots for the world.)
I guess it’s the races you play that make a difference – I tend to hate bulky gloves, for example, because they emphasize a goblin’s already enormous hands. Plate’s got a lot of ’em!
Yeah, the death knight starter blues tend to leave goblins looking a little like a very evil crab.
Have you tried sniping the pally gear? 😀 Hpalas tend to have armour that’s more skintight. There’s even a couple of pieces that are blatantly the same skin as a bulkier model, but painted onto the character mesh instead.
Little pinch?
I do have some sets planned for my DK that aren’t bulky (http://prinniepowah.wordpress.com/2013/08/17/mechalis-transmog-plans/), it just takes more work to satisfy the “creativity” I am cursed with.
I see two sets, both with bucket gloves?
But they aren’t REALLY buckety, like some, and they’re dark. Everybody knows that dark colors are slenderizing/minimizing/flattering/whatever.
If this one makes it she’s going to be looking for modest plate as she’s a lady of a certain age.
I tried tanking on my warrior a bit when he was low level. And he leveled with a mage so it was always sort of tanking. And poor guy, the whole time I play him, every single time I go: ‘Why oh why is he not a paladin?’ Rage tanking sucks. I do not like it and don’t blame you a bit for running away from it.
Hopefully you’ll have more fun with the dps spec. And find some awesome mogs that look great on a goblin. 😀
Paladins are probably the easiest tank to start off with – I didn’t really have trouble as a paladin until I hit Cata/Pandaland, at which point I could no longer hit worth crap and couldn’t maintain aggro (never mind trying to tank heroic dungeons with ToT geared DPS).
“Paladins are […] the easiest tank”.
That’s all you really needed there.
I have not read the rest of your post yet, because that rabbit gif is making me giggle too much. People *really* try to train their rabbits to do agility/obstacle courses?! aksjg;sa;kgj;lsajg;lsaj f;lj;laksgj;a
Clever rabbit, doing the thing its own way.
I’ve only done Warrior tanking up to level 60, and yeah… it was a horrible mess.
60 is where you get Shockwave, though. (or Dragon Roar, if you insist on hitting things *really close* behind you.) Don’t underestimate the joy of stunning a nice hefty wedge of mobs.
I’d say prot starts getting decent at 50, when Sword and Board comes into play. More of those hefty Shield Slams = win. It also gives you some rage to work with. Unfortunately, by that point a lot of folks are already hating the warrior experience, and it’s going to be difficult to reverse 50 levels of “oh god why am I playing this”.
Yeah, pretty much. I was anxious to get to 60 so I could get Shockwave… and then as soon as I got there, I was so worn out that I stopped playing the character.
Well, that and I’d reached my leveling goal for the character, for the time being. I wasn’t excited enough about getting Shockwave to keep going. I’ll come back to her eventually, and then having Shockwave will be awesome.
Taking a break is sometimes the best way. Come back later and love it for its merits, without the baggage. 😀
Problem is a lot of people remember the bad times, sort of look at the toon in the select screen, and go “eeewww”. Or just delete it outright. Give brown dots a chance!
I blame Blackrock.
Yeah, I’ve been told to at least get to 60 before declaring that warrior doesn’t do it for me.
./trudges forward gamely
APPARENTLY THEY DO. Oh internets, the things I would not know without you!
Totally not an expert on warriors but having been on the receiving end quite a bit, prot is pretty good* in pvp at low levels due to scaling issues. Being smacked in the face for your entire health is not amusing at all and I suspect mostly why I hate warriors. The downside though is everyone else on the opposing team will gang up on you for a playing a warrior.
*for pretty good read amazingly stupidly overpowered.
I’m gonna be making a warrior! *cough whentheystartinstant90 cough* Warrior buddies yay!