That write up you found is pretty good. Some of the abilities have upgraded names, but the core stuff is still the same.
This discussion is also good, but skip the first post until you've read some further comments. You can see there are a lot of ways to set up and tank as a warrior.
I only play warrior as an alt, so take all this with a grain of salt.
When I moved from SK tank to War tank alt, I found it very useful to sit down and write quick notes on all the AA, discs and clickies I had available. Warriors have a lot of stuff. I noted the refresh and also clicked everything to see how long it really lasted and if it went to combat window/buffs/song. I grouped them by two side by side columns.
- Under 10 min refresh - Mitigation/Aggro/DPS/Heal/Regen/AE/Special - These are your mashy things with a few exceptions.
- 10+ min refresh - Mitigation/Aggro/DPS/Heal/Regen/AE/Special - These are your named/large pull things.
1. What is a good starting taunt routine for agro?
I like to start with Slander & Shield Break as they both also give instant aggro + a short duration mitigation buff and get those cooldowns rolling. Phantom Aggressor if available. After that I go with Kluzen's Roar since it leaves an aggro-over-time dot on the mob, then a spammy series of Gut Punch, Knee Strike, Burning Shout, Throat Jab and Taunt if needed.
Percent Boosts:
- Dichotomic Shield is a mitigation ability that also adds 100% to all aggro generated. (1 min/5 min CD)
- Rage of the Forsaken (AA) is 80% aggro boost for 18 secs (2 min CD.)
- Item mod - Make sure you get a face item with +Anger mod. Guardian's Conflag Mask is +22% aggro.
- Spell buff mod - Some of the older war BP's can give you a +15% aggro buff (spell buff.) Enchanter's can buff you with "Horrifying Visage" for +10% aggro buff (spell buff) or "Dreadful Rune" for +26% aggro (super short duration rune spell buff, but nice to start a big named fight)
At 105/110, I really only worry about this for the first 6 seconds. One spammy hotkey or letting KA/MQ2Melee handle aggro stuff and you're good. If you have your KA DPS characters set to assist at 99 or 98, you should have a decent lead. If you get battle rezzed, use taunt first then your aggro generating stuff. The only time I lose aggro would be a group pet with taunt on too.
Watch your endurance burn though. Some abilities like Knuckle Break are very expensive. I keep my war at 15-25% endurance most of the time and rely on Breather to refill between pulls.
Your quick grabs are:
- Taunt (Abil) - Tries to taunt, +9k dmg if you have the Snearing AA
- Blast of Anger (AA) - 36000 instant aggro (1 min CD)
- Warlord's Grasp (AA) - 5000 instant aggro + attempts to pull mob to you (45 sec CD)
- Ageless Enmity (AA) - Perfect taunt + 15k aggro. (3 min CD)
- Unyielding Attention (Combat Abil) - Perfect taunt for 18 secs. AC boost + 55% aggro, plus others aggro generation is -95% for duration. (18 secs/10 min CD)
- Rage of Rallos Zek (AA) - If you have aggro-proc weapons, this will make them 100% proc every swing for 12 secs (20 min CD)
- Projection of Fury (AA) - Aggro doppleganger.
AETaunt (AA) is your go-to, but it has a longer cooldown. Wade-Into-Battle is your other main one. Roar of Challenge is a semi-spammy ability you can hit for big pulls and will aggro at least 3 nearby mobs. "Harmonius" is a nice self-buff for aggro. You can pop the
AE version and you generate free AE aggro every time you get healed by somebody else. There is also a
single target version, good for named or singles.
If you're not worried about breaking mez, you can use your dmg AE stuff. Rampage is your big dmg one and Dragonstrike Blades is your lower dmg-bigger aggro one. Stormstrike Defense Discipline is a nice AE disc, though I'm usually running something else anyways. But if you use it on AE pull, everything that hits you has a chance to stun itself (up to a certain lvl mob) so you're getting free AE aggro.
3. dps routine?
Your biggest DPS boosts are switching to dual-wield or 2H if you don't need your shield mitigation. I swap to dual when there are 1-2 trash mobs left. If you're fighting weaker mobs, you could run either stance all the time.
- War Sheol's Blade is your big one-shot DPS hit/boost
- Cunning Strike is your finishing hit for mbs under 20% health.
- Vehement Rage is +15% base melee dmg & +45 to melee hits but -10% to incoming heals for 30-40 secs. (Meh)
- Battle Leap grants a super long duration 45% increase to base melee dmg, so do it at least once everytime you die/zone.
- Biting Tongue Discipline is a fake-disc so you can run it during your mitigation discs for added dmg on taunts.
- You also have a DPS real disc, Brutal Onslaught, but since you have to drop your mitigation to turn it on, I rarely use it.
- Rage of Rallos Zek with make your weapons proc 100%, so some DPS if you have dmg procs.
Worth some reading. Warriors have so much stuff and you need to be clear on what usefully stacks with what. In particular, notice that some mitigation take damage off the bottom end (ie -10% or -4000 dmg to each hit) and some take damage off the top end (-5k to any hit above 20k or -40% off hits above 10k.)
AC - You will get the most mileage out of this. Warriors have the best soft cap for AC, so its really worth the time to track down every AC boost you can get. Augs, clickies, mounts/familiars, trophies, tribute and such all help a ton.
Self buffs
- Champion's Aura - AC aura
- Field Champion - AC group buff
- Commanding Voice - +20% Dodge buff
- Blade Guardian - Auto-proc a +90% parry buff if you drop below 40% heath.
- Resolute Defense (Combat Disc) - Self AC boost, runs as a disc in combat window.
- Brace for Impact - Chance to defensively proc 16% mitigation runes
Spammy mitigation:
- Slander (Combat abil) - 13k instant aggro + 50% mitigation until 23k absorbed. (30 sec CD)
- Shield Break - Dmg hit on mob + 40% mitigation until 29k absorbed. (15 sec CD)
- Third Spire (AA) - Avoidance, parry and AC boost. Not huge, but its on quick cooldown, so use whenever. (1.5min/7.5 min CD)
- Imperator's Command (AA) - +14000 max health to whole party + AC boost. (1 min/3 min CD)
Lots of ways to set these up, but your core rotation will be cycling through these and you can keep one up most of the time so can run them on trash too:
- Culminating/Last Stand (Disc)- Reduce incoming melee by 45% + random chance to proc 23k runes on yourself. Your best mitigation disc which strangely has a fast cooldown. I tended to save it for named, but you can actually just rotate it in to your regular mitigation and have it back up quickly. (3 mins/10 min CD)
- Resolute Defense (Disc) - Not pure % mitigation, but when you're not in Last Stand, this is a big AC boost disc. You can keep it up permanently, but have to drop to run any other real disc.
- Dicho Shield (Combat Abil) - Take 40% off hits above 11k, +25% total health, 100% aggro boost. (1 min/5 min CD)
- Pain Doesn't Hurt (Combat Abil)- 4k dmg off all hits/spells mitigation. (3 mins/5 min CD)
- Conflag Breastplate (Clicky) - Take 40% off hits above 10k mitigation (3 mins/10 min CD)
- Warlord's Bravery (AA) - 14% mitigation, short duration and long cooldown. (1 mins/15 min CD)
- Warrior's Bastion (Combat Abil) - Absorb 80% of hits above 21k (4 mins/10 minute CD)
My rotation was Resolute Disc running all the time then Dicho->Pain->Conflag BP->fill with these as needed Last Stand/Bravery/Third Spire/Command/Bastion.
Big pull/named:
- Flash of Anger - 6 seconds of 100% mitigation, fast cooldown so use as needed.
- Fortitude Discipline (Disc) - 12 seconds of 100% mitigation, long cooldown.
- Mark of the Mage Hunter (AA) - Absorb 15k/25% of incoming spell dmg until 120K (3 min/20 min CD)
- Warlord's Resurgence (AA) - Instant 20k self heal. (10 min CD)
- Warlord's Tenacity (AA) - Instant 48K self heal and boosts your max health by 45K for 1 min. (20 min CD)
- Resplendent Glory (AA) - +3-15% incoming heals. (2 min/15 min CD)
- Hold the Line (Removed?) - This must have been removed, used to be another incoming heal boost.
- Brace for Impact (AA) - Chance to defensively proc 16% mitigation runes (20 min buff with charges/15 min CD)
- Projection of Fury (AA) - Aggro doppleganger.
Some other tanky stuff worth looking into:
- Raid BP from GoD? - I think it gives you another mitigation clicky, I don't have it yet.
- Violet Conch of the Tempest - 78 ac/13 ds buff that stacks with warrior stuff. Rare drop from any named in Tempest Thule (TDS.)
- Blood Drinkers Coating - From named in Gribbles mission. Clicky that lets you lifetap from you melee dmg.
- Darkened Sebilite Scale Neckguard - Common drop during HH old seb. 30% dodge aura clicky.
- Bloody Orc Signet - Rare drop from lvl 90 "raid" mission in HH Crushbone. 40% dodge aura clicky.
- Chestplate of the Dark Flame - Rare drop from tower camp in HH Mistmoore. Clicky that gives warrior a 1 hour proc buff of 500 dmg + stun. Free aggro. (Not worth it for knights, they get better self-buffs)
- Diplomatic Papers - Absorb 5K per hit until 50k. Getting out dated, but another mitigation. Anniversary mission.
- Other misc clickies here.
