face="Times New Roman" size="3">You have
forsaken the two handed weapon.  You have put aside 'critical
rating' as a luxury you cannot simply afford.  Your armor is
impervious, and made to help you mitigate damage and nothing
more.  You are the tank, and you are the heart of the raid's
body, although it falls onto your healers to keep you
beating.  Now, let’s take a look at what you can do
to make the most of what you're doing and analyze some deeper aspects
of tanking as a Warrior - Glyph Choices and Threat per Second (TPS)
optimization.  

face="Times New Roman" size="3">Tanking
Glyph Setup & Ratings - So many majors, so little
slots  

face="Times New Roman" size="3">***** Glyph
of Blocking.  While a
10% boost to your shield potency may seem like paladin oriented
nonsense, the real power of this comes from 10% stronger shield slams
as a result.  So it's more damage, and a lot more threat since
Shield Slam scales very well with how much damage it does. 
You need this, and it's never leaving your slot.  

face="Times New Roman" size="3">*** Glyph
of Sunder Armor.  Not
only do you get the added threat on the second enemy, but it makes them
obviously more vulnerable to the physical area of effects that get
activated in trash situations like that (blade flurry, whirlwind,
etc).  This shines mostly versus trash, but has some raid
encounters going for it as well.  The sunder applied by
Devastate will hit a second enemy as well, or this glyph would be near
worthless for serious tanks.
  

face="Times New Roman" size="3">**** Glyph
of Devastate.  The
second sunder applies the same bonus threat beyond the five stacks, so
it's more than just a DPS increase for a short period as your sunder
stack hits five faster.  Against bosses that like to target
randomly and not damage you consistently, hammering heroic strike isn't
an option and that is where this glyph really earns its place in your
glyph chart.
  

face="Times New Roman" size="3">*** Glyph
of Cleave. In
encounters with 3+ opponents, tabbing from enemy to enemy and hitting
heroic strike can distract you from your real rotation of threat
generators.  Assuming you can get them all on you to begin
with, you'll have plenty of rage to cleave, thunderclap, and shockwave
your heart out.  Do remember to tab occasionally in encounters
of four or more to ensure everyone is receiving some cleave
love.  

face="Times New Roman" size="3">**** Glyph
of Shockwave. Shockwave
is the highlight of protection, and this drops the cooldown on it by
15%.  Every time Revenge or Shield Slam isn't up, this is our
next choice and lowering the cooldown makes it an option much more than
before.  Some area of effect trash pulls will end up netting
you two shockwaves with this glyph in place.    

face="Times New Roman" size="3">**, or
**** Glyph of
Vigilance. 
The power of this glyph varies depending on the power of your raid's
damaging classes.  If you have people pushing 6000+ damage per
second on a regular basis, you will get a lot of extra threat from this
glyph.  If your guild is still gearing up and mastering their
rotations, you won't get nearly the same threat per second boost, which
is what it all comes down to when weighing this glyph's
effectiveness. 

 

**** Glyph of Heroic Strike.
Let’s face it.  We use this skill a lot in every
encounter that we're constantly being hit, and any enhancement to it
will give us a lot of extra overall threat per second in encounters
that don't have unlimited rage.  You really can't go wrong
with this. 

 

*** Glyph of Revenge. It's
not a bad glyph by any means, but your Heroic Strikes have very little
rage cost to begin with and in most situations you'll have more than
enough rage to throw around to keep the heroic strikes flowing, without
needing a free one every 5 seconds.  This does combo
effectively with the Heroic Strike glyph, Focused Rage, and Improved
Heroic Strike to create a very cheap offense. 

 

** Glyph of Taunt/Glyph of
Mocking Blow. 
With the new taunt diminishing returns between warriors, these glyphs
now have some worth when it's an encounter you need to taunt often
while tanking alongside another warrior. 

 

*** Glyph of Shield Wall /
Glyph of Last Stand. Panic
buttons are great, and if you're to main tank some encounters such as
Sartharion +3 drakes,  these are damn near
essential.  Sometimes, our standard avoidance just isn't
enough.  Having these cycle faster will let us tag back in
with another tank ASAP as they cooldown much faster.  Beyond
the highest burst damage encounters though, these glyphs really don't
contribute to the big picture of your threat and mitigation. 

 

Try many combinations! There
is only one clear cut winner for our glyphs unlike other classes. If an
encounter simply isn't working for you as a tank, from a threat,
taunting, or durability stand point, change up the glyphs and see how
they affect the outcome.  This may be expensive, but so are
repairs for failure!

face="Times New Roman" size="3">TPS
and You - How to avoid the DPS leader's Enrage

face="Times New Roman" size="3">Early in our
raiding careers, we shouldn't have too much trouble holding a boss
tightly.  The damage classes simply don't match our stellar
threat building skills.  However, once that fury warrior
starts using dual Betrayers of Humanity, you're going to have to step
it up a notch.  He has no way to instantly lower his threat
unless he kisses the pavement after stealing the enemy from
you.  I hate to say it, but you can no longer headbutt your
keyboard and hold threat.  It's time to optimize your
rotation.  Before I begin, I want to say that if you have more
than 20 rage, Heroic Strike should be highlighted for your next attack
unless the boss is attacking others and not you constantly. 
Bind it to something comfortable for your hand, you'll thank
me.  It is the only
skill that should be used non-stop all fight above that rage
threshold. 

 

alt="" src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/67735">

face="Times New Roman" size="3">#1
- Shield Slam 

Simply outstanding threat and damage.  Every single time this
skill is up, it needs to be pressed.  I'd even go so far as to
Bloodrage to get the rage to use it if I have to!  All of our
main protection talents enhance this skill, making a great skill even
better.  Listen or watch carefully for your Sword and Board to
go off and hit this immediately. 

 

#2 - Revenge 

Very high damage for a pathetic rage cost and can trigger Sword and
Board.  If the boss is physically attacking you constantly,
this button should be constantly activated and should be your secondary
press when Shield Slam is recovering.  Even if you can't stun
a boss with it, Improved Revenge gives this ability the damage and thus
threat to earn this spot in your rotation. 

 

#3 - Shockwave
and Concussion Blow 

Concussion Blow has taken a hit with 3.1 putting it back on the global
cooldown, but that doesn't stop it being just as good as
Shockwave.  Both are fairly potent attacks based on your
attack power, and will hopefully be used sparingly enough after your
two primary options to not have to resort to your final choice 

 

#4 - Devastate 

It seems funny that our last resort to use our global cooldown is our
41 point protection skill.  While devastate does put out
respectable cheap threat, and even more so with the glyphs that enhance
it, the damage simply doesn't come close to the above skills. 
However, Devastate does have something on the above skills. 
It's based on your weapon damage, so once our one handed tanking
weapons scale further, expect Devastate to rise in our priority
list.  The biggest mistake I see my fellow warriors tanks do
is simply hammer Devastate the entire fight.  You can tell
someone is doing it when Sunder is being refreshed every 2
seconds.  Some even ignore the Sword and Board activations!
Smack some sense into them and link them here!  Have them see
the light!  Or perhaps, offer to tank the next encounter
yourself and compare your threat per second.  The numbers
speak for themselves. 

 

The finest gear and enchantments will only take you so far. 
The player is the one that makes or breaks an encounter when it comes
to tanking, and you have to pay attention and use the correct tools for
the job in your offensive rotation.  If by chance, something
goes wrong in an encounter, and you are the first to die, guess
what?  You did your job.  There are some things
outside of your control, but as long as you are at the top of that
threat list and using the right glyphs for the encounter, you are the
right tank for the job!