Standard Information

Builds

2/4/35

One key decision is between Incite, Cruelty, and/or War Academy.  In my experience Heroic Strike and Shield Slam do similar damage during the course of a fight, and a point of Incite is worth about 10% crit on Heroic Strike, so it's pretty clearly better in any situation where you're using Heroic Strike instead of Cleave. Devastate generally comes in below both of those, so War Academy is probably your last option.

The more optional talents in the prot tree would be Gag Order and Thunderstruck, but I find them useful.  Don't underestimate Heavy Repercussions; double Shield Slam damage makes for great snap aggro in the beginning of a fight.

Gear

Gear List

• Strength grants a small amount of parry, about .25 parry rating per point.
• Parry is just as good as dodge before diminishing returns, so it's good to keep them equal.
• Mastery is your best stat, it adds block and critical block and has no diminishing returns.

Mastery is your highest priority, followed by Stamina, Dodge, and Parry.  Dodge and Parry should be kept roughly equal to each other, after maximizing Mastery.  Reforge your hit and expertise into Dodge and Parry selectively to keep them as equal as you can.

Reforging

Here are some reforging priorities:

1. Reforge any hit or expertise into mastery.
2. Reforge dodge or parry into mastery, whichever is larger on that item.
3. Reforge any hit or expertise into dodge or parry.
4. Reforge parry to dodge or vice versa to keep them roughly equal.

Gems

• Red Slots - parry/mastery
• Yellow Slots - mastery
• Blue Slots - mastery/stam
• Be sure to meet your meta gem requirements, if you have one
• With the increased stamina on trinkets and gear, it has been increasingly common to gem mastery over stamina.  This will help save your healers mana, and make damage taken smoother.

CTC / Mastery Cap

With 397-ilvl gear in 4.3, you may quickly end up at the hard(er) cap for mastery.  This is when your dodge+parry+block = 97.4%. You then have a base miss of 5% that brings you to 102.4% avoidance, where you can no longer receive an unblocked hit.  Adding mastery beyond this point only gives you more critical block, it no longer adds to your block, and is therefore no longer optimal.

Once you hit the cap, you'll want to maintain that 97.4% by first shifting your gems from a mastery focus to a stamina focus.  After that, start reforging for more dodge and parry, and less mastery.

Instructions

The standard ability priority is:

1. Shield Slam
2. Revenge
3. Thunderclap/Demo (refresh as needed, Rend first if there are adds)
4. Battle/Commanding shout (refresh as needed)
5. Devastate
6. Heroic Strike/Cleave (off GCD, doesn't interfere with your regular rotation, be careful not to spend too much rage on it)

• Don't forget to use Victory Rush if it lights up.  Try to time it so that it doesn't overheal.

Important Tips

• Heroic Strike is not on the global cooldown, so you can press it at the same time as another ability and both will go off at the same time. Cleave is the same.
• Thunderclap and Demoralizing Shout are incredibly valuable for your survival. Keep them going.  I use an addon called TellMeWhen to show me when another class has equivalent debuffs applied.
• Be pro-active with your cooldowns. Cooldowns aren't just a backup ability for when your health drops to 20%. Just heard over vent that a healer is out of mana? Pop last stand. Deadly boss mods telling you a healer got stunned or teleported or something? Get that shield wall going. Maexxna enraged and the web wrap is coming? Enraged Regeneration could save your ass.
• Shield Block has a very short timer. I simply use it whenever it's available. I have it macroed to my Shield Slam, Devastate, and Revenge keys.
• Thunderclap and Shockwave both scale with AP, so be sure you have battle shout up when you do AoE tanking.
• Vigilance is most useful on another tank.  It gives you extra AP from Vengeance when they get hit.  This can help you catch up with a tank who landed the first hit on a group of mobs, or just give you more threat/damage when you each have something to tank.
• Cleave is very important for AoE threat.  You should be glyphed to hit 3 targets and be hitting it as often as possible without robbing yourself of rage for thunderclap/shockwave.
• Shockwave is what separates the good players from the weak. Positioning is everything. You basically need to be moving backwards WHILE you shockwave. This means you need to map it to a key that you can hit at the same time as S. I use X.

Other Tips & Tricks

1. Taunt doesn't cause any threat. - Taunt gives you exactly as much threat as the person who currently has aggro, and then gives you aggro. If you taunt at the very beginning of a pull, all you have done is wasted your time (which is precious in the first few moments of a pull).
2. Learn the taunt-slam. - Taunt only gives you exactly as much threat as whoever you pulled from. They will get the mob's attention back in 3 seconds unless you do something to keep it. Shield Slam is the best. Sometimes I even let shield slam cool down a second or two before I taunt. If you are forced to taunt quickly, remember to throw aggro moves on as quickly as you can. Don't taunt a stray mob and turn back to what you were doing without putting more threat on it, unless you know it's going to die in that time.
3. Begin combat with Shield Slam. - You need to be able to start fights with Shield Slam. Commanding or Battle shout will generate rage when you can't charge. Also remember you can make the pull, run back a bit, and then charge in when the mobs have run close enough for the charge to be safe.
4. Missed aggro moves only cost 20% of the rage. - Missed that opening shield slam? You're in big trouble when your mages' fireballs hit, but you should still have most of the rage you just failed to spend on shield slam. Use heroic strike along with revenge or devastate to get your threat started.
5. There's a threat buffer before aggro is pulled. - When do you lose aggro on a mob? It's NOT when someone gets more threat than you. There is actually a buffer area where they can have more threat but you retain aggro. At range, your party members will need 30% more threat than you in order to pull (10% if they're standing in melee range). The buffer doesn't help much at the beginning of a fight but it does as time goes on. Also, it is important to keep mobs out of melee range of your casters.
6. For long pulls, use Commanding/Battle shout after the pull (not before). - Generating 30 rage = 150 aoe threat. This ensures the mobs will run at you instead of a random dps who was standing nearer. Also, your dps warriors will often shout after the pull, and they don't want aoe aggro so you need to beat them to it.
7. Getting 2nd aggro - There will be times in raids when you are supposed to maintain the 2nd spot on a mob's threat list. This means you need to use your most rage-efficient threat. That means shield slam and devastate. Try not to heroic strike too much if the rage cost will break your rotation.  You can also place Vigilance on the other tank to get some Vengeance from the damage he takes.
8. Avoid fear - Berserker rage can be used in defensive stance. You can use it while you're feared to break out. Make sure you keep the button somewhere where you can get to it quickly.
9. Charge in combat - With Warbringer, you can charge in Defensive stance and during combat, so remember to use it. Great for returning to bosses that knock back, or picking up stray trash mobs.

Macros

Here are a few macros I use to maximize Shield Block and trinket uptime.  I only use my top trinket on cooldown.  If I have a trinket with a powerful on-use ability that I want to save, I put it in my bottom trinket slot.

I also use Inner Rage on cooldown, I macro it to Heroic Strike.

Occasionally I will find myself rageless and hopelessly trying to Thunder Clap a group of mobs.  It's handy to put /startattack in front of it, so that I'll at least find a target and start hitting it with white attacks to generate rage.