Warrior Tanking

I'm not a big fan of using macros for the sake of using abilities that you forget to use.

It sacrifices control for convenience. You don't necessarily want to use all of your abilities on cooldown like that, so why would you glue a bunch of abilities to your Heavy Swing? And what if you only want Thrill of Battle without Convalescence or vice versa?

Glueing abilities together is simply a substitute for executing your abilities in a more controlled fashion. It might not seem like a huge deal, but it puts you at a disadvantage, one way or another.

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Originally Posted by bokchoykn

I'm not a big fan of using macros for the sake of using abilities that you forget to use.

It sacrifices control for convenience. You don't necessarily want to use all of your abilities on cooldown like that, so why would you glue a bunch of abilities to your Heavy Swing? And what if you only want Thrill of Battle without Convalescence or vice versa?

Glueing abilities together is simply a substitute for executing your abilities in a more controlled fashion. It might not seem like a huge deal, but it puts you at a disadvantage, one way or another.

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I agree. However I know a lot of people have trouble remembering to use foresight while keeping their rotation going. It is probably better for them to get used on cooldown no matter what than to not get used at all because the WAR does have a lot going on just maintaining their rotations.

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Originally Posted by Versiroth

Good job on the guide!

Some Macro's I have found useful.

/macroicon "Skull Sunder"
/ac "Mercy Stroke"
/ac "Skull Sunder"
/wait 2
/ac "Blood Bath"


/Macroicon "Foresight"
/ac "Foresight"
/wait 2
/ac "Awareness"

/macroicon "Thrill of battle"
/ac "Thrill of battle"
/wait 2
/ac "Convalescence"

These three macros allows me to keep these abilities on CD without having to waste time or crossbar space (I use a 360 controller on PC).

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1. I definitely wouldnt macro Thrill of Battle and Convalescence like that. But if you had to, id probably switch them around. And I would also take the wait off. If youre in a bind, and your Thrill of Battle is on cool down, youre going to have to wait 2 seconds before Convalescence pops. Which could definitely mean life or death

2. A lot of your Wait 2's can be changed to wait 1. But if youre just trying to be safe about it, thats fine.

Would also like any feedback. Its a way to Max out my damage while benefiting from Bloodbath. The Buff string is a bit lengthy, though.

When I am at 5 Wrath Stacks,,

Bloodbath - Berserk - Unchained - Infuriate

My Bloodbath and Berserk are macrod in this manner:
/ac Bloodbath
/wait 0.5 (still lost on whether or not we can do half seconds, but worse case scenario, it get rounded up to 1)
/ac Berserk

ill sit on 5 Stacks for the crit bonus until Bloodbath has ran out. If im in a big mob, ill use Steel Cyclone for that nice AoE damage and healing.

Thank for the guide, learned a lot from it.
I do however feel that holmgang has some if only rare usefulness, where it can save the party when the healer is a little busy and ur getting rammed into oblivion.
I haven't tried it in pvp though, I have a feeling it would be very usefull. Anyone with experience in pvp?

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Originally Posted by MrDiezel

1. I definitely wouldnt macro Thrill of Battle and Convalescence like that. But if you had to, id probably switch them around. And I would also take the wait off. If youre in a bind, and your Thrill of Battle is on cool down, youre going to have to wait 2 seconds before Convalescence pops. Which could definitely mean life or death

2. A lot of your Wait 2's can be changed to wait 1. But if youre just trying to be safe about it, thats fine.

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With wait 1, I found that the second ability didn't trigger a lot of times. Also, again, alone, Thrill of Battle is an ok heal and it raises your max HP, but that's it. Adding in convalescence, to me, makes the extra HP mean more because it's easier for your healer to use that extra HP. Also, Thrill of Battle goes first because I only use it when I need the heal. If my HP drops down to 2-3K, I go ahead and pop it.

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Originally Posted by bokchoykn

I'm not a big fan of using macros for the sake of using abilities that you forget to use.

It sacrifices control for convenience. You don't necessarily want to use all of your abilities on cooldown like that, so why would you glue a bunch of abilities to your Heavy Swing? And what if you only want Thrill of Battle without Convalescence or vice versa?

Glueing abilities together is simply a substitute for executing your abilities in a more controlled fashion. It might not seem like a huge deal, but it puts you at a disadvantage, one way or another.

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The only thing's I'm using on CD in my macros is Mercy Stoke, which should be used on CD and Blood Bath, which isn't all that good anyway and is best used on CD during a long fight. I mean, why would you save Blood Bath? As far as my other Macro's go, again, by themselves, Foresight and Awareness aren't anything great, but together, it raises your defense a little and makes it harder for you to receive a critical hit. I've already explained above why I think ToB and Convalescence go together perfectly, IMO as well. The macros simply make using these abilities more convenient.

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Originally Posted by bokchoykn

I'm not a big fan of using macros for the sake of using abilities that you forget to use.

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Neither am I, but I make sure to remember to use all of my CDs regularly. The only macros I've got for my WAR are announcement macros that let my healers know when I've activated one of my big CDs (Vengeance, ToB, Conv, Holmgang) and when they fall off (I just love /wait). While it hasn't helped *me* appreciably, it's been a huge boon to my healers because I've seen a steep drop off in overhealing and panic since I made 'em.

Thank you for writing this. I had a pretty decent understanding of Warrior just from learn-by-doing but I felt it was somewhat insufficient. I've been reading gear threads and tanking threads and they almost always degenerate into MMO jargon about mitigating your rotation to glargacept your blargey-blargh VITSTRPAR or whatever, or people end up dick-fencing about stats, and I can't comprehend what's going on because my eyes are rolling so hard. Your write-up is pretty clear and easy to follow and some concepts are starting to click with me.

Wow! Thanks for this I've been looking everywhere for a WAR guide :) I'll be 50 tonight hopefully :D

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Originally Posted by Versiroth

The only thing's I'm using on CD in my macros is Mercy Stoke, which should be used on CD and Blood Bath, which isn't all that good anyway and is best used on CD during a long fight. I mean, why would you save Blood Bath? As far as my other Macro's go, again, by themselves, Foresight and Awareness aren't anything great, but together, it raises your defense a little and makes it harder for you to receive a critical hit. I've already explained above why I think ToB and Convalescence go together perfectly, IMO as well. The macros simply make using these abilities more convenient.

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Mercy Stroke shouldn't be blindly used on cooldown. Against EX Ifrit, during the final nails phase, I would rather put that extra damage towards a nail than on Ifrit himself. Against EX Titan, I'd rather use it on a Gaoler, Gaol or Bomb than on Titan himself.Against EX Garuda, I'd rather use it on one of the sisters than on Garuda or a plume. Of course, there are exceptions to these rules as well. You don't have that flexibility if your macro automatically blows your Mercy Stroke on anything in front of you that is at under 20%

Bloodbath is best used in periods where you'll be dealing the most damage, but you're right that it sucks and there's nothing to save it for. But consider this: When you someone Provokes a Spiny Plume from you and isn't quite in range for Tomahawk/Shield Lob, they get a +1 Enmity lead on you. If you blindly pop Bloodbath with your macro, you gain 70 Enmity on that Spiny Plume. If you're unfortunate enough on the timing, the Spiny stays on you even after the Provoke. The other tank has to dangerously run through the green circles to get into Tomahawk/Shield Lob range. Inversely, if you Provoke just as the other tank pops a cooldown, and you can't get in range for Tomahawk, the proper response is to blow a bunch of defensive cooldowns to get it back. If your Bloodbath is on cooldown, you no longer have that option.

As you can see, having them separated gives you choice and it gives you control. Having them glued together gives you convenience. There is no tactical advantage of gluing abilities together. It's merely a shortcut and a substitute for micromanagement and skill.