When I initially intended to write this entry, hit rating and expertise, while nice, were pretty low on the tank's list of important stat requirements. Most of a tank's attention was toward survival and threat was usually a minor issue. The whole entry was going to be about why not to worry about hit, as so many tanks seemed to do, and to accept it when it was on gear, but to never gear with it in mind. But now that patch 4.0.1 has dropped, the World of Warcraft is a different place, and suddenly hit and expertise are back in a big way.
Threat in all it's forms has changed, and with it so must we. Our AOE capabilities have remained mostly the same, but unfortunately, no one else's has. I personally have found paladins, mages, and death knights to be more troublesome than they used to be, sometimes even in single target situations. My first random when the patch dropped was pretty pathetic. I had thought with the normalization of rage, I perhaps wouldn't need the rage talents. Boy was I wrong. I was completely rage starved the entire run. So I changed my talents to receive more rage when I charged or blocked, and as a whole my starter problems were alleviated. Still though, at times the dps would catch up to me, and I realized I needed more hit rating and expertise. If you can't hit, you can't deal threat. Before, a simple Revenge was sufficient enough threat to overcome most problems, and missing often was rarely a problem, before long, I had so much threat as to be boring. I would throw in random abilities just to mix it up. Now that threat is designed to be something tanks are supposed to work on the entire fight, suddenly hit became so much more important. Not to mention, the basic design philosophy for warrior tanks has changed. I'll illustrate that philosophy below.
Essentially, warrior tanks have now become all about their shield and mitigating damage, rather than avoiding it completely. I've heard of a lot of tanks gemming for dodge and parry, and reforging for them as well. That would be a mistake, since when we avoid an attack, we get a grand total of zero rage from it. With the normalization of rage, we want as much rage as we can possibly get, and avoidance will simply hurt that. No rage means no threat. No threat means everyone dies.
Our mastery stat is Critical Block, which means the more mastery we stack, the more we block. Mastery is designed to be a stackable and desirable stat from 80-85, so we can see how our design is being pushed toward block. Now a lot of tanks may reject that logic right offhand because block has been a fantastically sucky stat for the last several years. However in patch 4.0.1 it's received a massive overhaul, and now mitigates a flat 30% of the incoming damage one receives, with 60% being reduced with a critical block. This is what warrior tanks are all about now. In Cataclysm, our health pools will be ridiculous, 150,000+ and that's just to start the expansion, and enemies will be hitting less hard then they currently do (relatively). What does that mean? Less spike damage, and therefore, less reliance on dodge and avoidance as a whole. Mitigation of the incoming damage will be how to survive, and the best way to get rage in this world will be through one of the best new talents we have available. Shield Specialization. We stack block, we live longer, we get Shield Specialization, we get massive rage the more we block. Block block block. Mastery mastery mastery. It may seem like we take more damage now, and for a time, we will. Because Wrath of the Lich King raiding isn't built around the idea of tanking like that. Entering Cataclysm will be where the changes really start to gel.
Leave avoidance to the bears, leave parry to the death knights, and revel in the glory of your shield! Remember the best reason to be a warrior, an unstoppable fighting machine that brings the battle to the enemy, charging in and shouting, not dealing with sissy dodges when a simple block will do. Bask in the rage that blocking will pour upon you. With that rage, pummel your enemies in the face and for crying out loud don't miss!
The first problem you must fix is to never waste the rage you have, and to get more expertise and hit. Expertise first, as it's still better than hit. Reforge your armor to mastery, and dump all that dodge and parry, with the Icecrown debuff gone, you won't miss it anyway. With the loss of Damage Shield I even put Titanium Shield Spike back on my shield to further aid my threat gain on trash. These simple changes made sure I was always on top of my threat, and never lacking for rage.
Thanks for reading, and stay tuned next entry for: Vengeance And Vigilance.
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