[GUIDE] Warrior: Skill Intensive Tanking

[Maelwys]

Very informative thread and good stuff for new warriors and veterans alike. Btw do you have any tag macros?

/micon
/mk target
/ac "Tomahawk" <t>

something along those lines. I can't seem to get it to tag properly. It always prompts the "Mark" window and I have to manually select a target icon however when I use repose on my cnj I use the exact same macro and it instantly tags it and sleeps it. Am I doing something wrong? also I'm on PS3 so stuff like this is a God-send and I only just recently discovered the use of macros when I wrote a few for my crafting classes. Thanks

Your "/mk" line is missing some information.

You'll want something like "/mk attack1 <t>" in there.
Note that you can turn OFF marking (in case the target you're attacking has another mark on it) via "/mk off <t>"

My Marking Macros generally have several lines in them, using both <mo> and <t> and firing on whichever is applicable:
/macroicon [Abilityname]
/mk off <mo>
/mk [MARKTYPE] <mo>
/mk off <t>
/mk [MARKTYPE] <t>
/ac "Ability" <mo>
/ac "Ability" <t>

--------------------------

I'm still working on my macros.
For some reason there's a bit of odd behaviour with things like:
/macroicon "Cure"
/ac "Cure" <tt>
/ac "Cure" <t>
/ac "Cure" <me>

You'd expect this to work as follows:
(i) If cast on an enemy, heal the enemies target.
(ii) If cast on a friendly target, heal that friendly target.
(iii) If cast on nothing, heal me.
(What it actually does is if cast on a friendly target, it heals me...)

If you swap the second and third lines around, then if cast on an enemy target, it always heals me (not the target's target).
It seems to be always skipping over the third line, regardless of what the third line is. Hmmm...

[Exrage]

If you swap the second and third lines around, then if cast on an enemy target, it always heals me (not the target's target).
It seems to be always skipping over the third line, regardless of what the third line is. Hmmm...

First up, excellent marking macro for Marxam and thank you for sharing it. Second up the targeting <t> is looking for enemy scripts, there hasn't been any response from the developers (that I know of) to address the issue of sticky targeting in relation between enemy and party members. Also if you swap the second and third lines it will always heal yourself first without ever looking for the target per the macro logic. My best guess would be to look around in the advanced UI and see if there's something you can click to swap from tabbing enemies or party members to targeting both simultaneously... sorry I can't be of more help and let me know if you find an answer.

[Hanabira]

I dont understand why you would put your points in str for the purpose of bigger self heals and hate generation, but not take internal release.

[Exrage]

I dont understand why you would put your points in str for the purpose of bigger self heals and hate generation, but not take internal release.

Hana this is just a general guide for starter tanking, if you're with a solid group that *never* pulls aggro because they give you a second or two you can probably swap provoke out for internal release as an STR warrior but I personally would never give up the "oh shit keep aggro" button that prevents a wipe in fights where staying on the boss can be difficult like up to 50% on Garuda HM. Remember the trick to a good guide is simplicity with an active "Q&A" session where you can address the reasons for why you don't include something or amend the guide later on if public opinion disagrees with solid stat data to back it up.

[SummerWolf]

Im slowly leveling a warrior, simply because everyone thinks they are bad tanks.

Considering you are dropping your points into strength, the part I seem to disagree on is featherfoot. Its 15% more to dodging for 15 sec with cooldown of 90 sec.

Vs Internal release at 20% crit chance for 15 sec cooldown of 90 sec. If you pop your selfheals cooldowns, your crits will heal you more and it has a chance to crit on second wind as well. It would raise enmity and the cooldown is shorter.

Whats your take on that one? Otherwise I think everything else is spot on with how I view the warrior.

[Exrage]

Whats your take on that one? Otherwise I think everything else is spot on with how I view the warrior.

A common question I get and I think I answered a post or two back, the answer is use it if you wish but I wouldn't sacrifice featherfoot for it. Your reasoning is sound but you have to remember which is more important, healing the damage you've taken or negating it completely? Currently our dex establishes a healthy 19% dodge rate as our gear specifically focuses on buffing our parry (negates damage off hits) instead of simply dodging them, feather foot turns our 1 in 5 chance to completely negate an attack to a 1 in 3. Statistically speaking this is *slightly* more favorable than increasing your healing by a a third for the same duration and this is assuming you use it properly in a DPS/High damage smash rotation everytime it becomes available.

It's really your call brudda, as you're going from beginner tanking to advanced tanking.

[RhazeCain]

It's been mentioned briefly already, but I really don't like the idea of Inner Beast on the Heavy Swing macro.

1. It removes Wrath stacks, thus less incoming heals for a while. Also, crit rate down.
2. It disables a panic ability while Wrath rebuilds. When I get hit for 70% health, Inner Beast is the button I reach for.
3. You may be in a situation where Inner Beast available but you really want to build agro via HS > SS > BB. Having Inner Beast go off first delays your enmity combo. Unless you have a vanilla Heavy Swing button somewhere else. For example, running between AK trash packs with DPSers that can really challenge your enmity.

Use Inner Beast any time Infuriate is up, sure. Use it to save yourself from spike damage. Don't use it immediately every time available.

[Exrage]

Use Inner Beast any time Infuriate is up, sure. ... Don't use it immediately every time available.

This is a good point and again one that comes up commonly to me, but to the new tanks learning rotations how do you tell them to know when to use their wrath and when it's statistically better to save it? You're holding a 10% crit bonus with 5 points of wrath when you can raise it back up to 6% with a single DPS/Main combo while also hitting with your largest damaging/healing/enmity ability. If I wanted to include every boss fight and when it's best to use inner beast I'd kind of take the work out of being a warrior.

Learning how to clutch is the finer point of making a great warrior tank, but not something one can demonstrate in a quick down and dirty guide to the basics, and you'll also notice that I mainly put it as a specific "PS3 ONLY" macro simply because they don't have many buttons to spare compared to PC jockeys.

[Marxam]

@Maelwys thanks will try that out now. Also I can't use the <mo> due to the fact that the mouse speed on the PS3 is stupidly slow and with no option to change it but its a good alternative for pc user.

[Corkafish]

It is definitely important to hold onto Wrath stacks, and use Inner Beast when Infuriate is available to self-heal and then immediately get back to 5 stacks. This is a gain in both DPS and survivability. The only exception to this is that I tend to use Infuriate, Unchained, Berserk when pulling, once the mobs are activated. The buffs are a nice boost to your initial aggro, not to mention the amount of damage you will do in the several seconds afterward.

I believe the proper use of both Featherfoot and Vengeance is during phases when you have lots of adds on you, as the more frequently you are attacked, the more effective those abilities are. Alternately, Vengeance is also good to use 5 seconds after activating Berserk so that you continue doing damage during the Pacification effect.

If you want to chain off-GCD cooldowns together in a macro, use /wait 0.5 between the actions. Any shorter and they won't all activate.