Alright. If you're reading this, you need to know how to hold threat and not die as a protection specced warrior. These two skills are what we call tanking. Part of it is gear, part of it is entirely up to you. We'll be looking over that second part for now, as Not Sucking = More Justice/Valor Points = Better Gear = Even Less Sucking = More Justice/Valor Points, and so on and so forth. To start with though, just so you realize I have a smidgeon of knowledge about what I'm typing out here, I've prepared a list of why Tranq Is Better At Tanking Than You Are.

Tranq Has:

•   Tanked While AFK
•   Tanked While Disconnected
•   Tanked While Answering The Door (And further whilst paying for the pizza)
•   Tanked A Heroic Without A Healer (Twice)
•   Tanked Without Losing Threat On People 3+ Levels Above Tranq

You wanna do those things too, you say? Well, listen the hell up then.

We're going to start with gear. But Tranq, you said gear was beyond my control! No, I did not. This is why you suck. The quality of your gear is beyond your immediate control, but what you need to use is not. Wearing leather means you're a bad tank. Including druids, as they've yet to reroll warrior. You want plate. This should be obvious, but I'm not going to assume anything with you. Strength and Stamina are the warrior's stats - absolutely no other stat matters for us, with the minor exception that Agility slightly boosts our crit rate. Strength means you hit harder, generating more threat; Stamina means you can absorb more damage - a dead tank means a dead group in 90% of scenarios. We'll talk about the other 10% later. There are three types of Plate in the game - Caster plate, designed solely for Holy Paladins, Tank Plate, and DPS Plate. Caster plate has Intellect and occasionally Spirit on it, both of which, as we covered before, are absolutely useless to Warriors if they're not on your healer. The only time you should have caster plate is if you intend to give it to a holy paladin, vendor it, or DE it. Tanking plate and DPS plate are deceptively similar and, in early gearing, can be quite interchangeable. Due to the removed necessity of Defense as a stat, you could, theoretically, tank wholly in DPS plate and not suck terribly. However, there's a fine line between sucking only moderately, and not sucking at all. Actually, it's less of a fine line and more of a large stone wall that seperates good players (like Tranq) from suck players (like you).  You'll know right off that a piece is Tanking gear if it has Parry, Dodge, or bonus (green) Armour on it. DPS gear focuses more on crit, expertise, and haste ratings. While all three of those are good for tanking as well, since missed hits generate neither rage nor threat, they're not quite as high a priority. Again though, starting your tanking career, you may need to fill in your gaps with DPS gear. Something particular to Warriors and no other tank - Dodge rating is beyond useless to us; if you have it on gear, Reforge it the hell off. A small amount is acceptable, but as of 4.0, Dodging an attack prevents any rage generation from that attack. No rage = no attacks = no threat = dead group = dead tank = wipe you caused for not knowing what the hell you're doing.

Abilities are next on the list. Warriors have perhaps the largest selection of actual abilities, tied with maybe hunters, rogues, and druids. Why? It's quite simple - each of your stances and specs are entirely different to the others. You will have at any given time 3-4 abilities that can only be used in your current stance, whereas other classes are limited solely by spec; a frost mage  can cast Fireball at any time, it's just pointless for them to do so.  For you to cast Whirlwind, you must sacrifice all but 25 Rage, and switch to Berserker, then back; taking extra time that you really can't afford in most situations. Considering that without Defensive Stance, you'll be taking +10% incoming damage, and losing your bonus to threat generation, it's just not viable to stance dance for abilities. This means that you have to make do with what you have, and figure out exactly how to use each of your abilities. Luckily for you, Tranq is going to explain them in detail, in small words for your suck-riddled mind to comprehend easily.

1. Heroic Strike & Cleave. These abilities are not on the GCD, meaning they can be cast at any time, so long as you have the rage and they're off their internal cooldown. It means you can pair them with say Revenge or Thunderclap, and cast both at the same time without getting a "You can't do that yet" error. The two abilities share a 3 second cooldown of their own, and are otherwise instant. Heroic Strike deals a substantial amount of damage to a single target, Cleave deals somewhat less to your target and his closest ally, or his closest two allies if you glyph for it. Other warrior specs use these abilities as rage dumps, but, if you're not a failure of a tank, you should have fairly high rage at all times from incoming damage, turning these abilities into something more important.

2. Shield Slam. This is your main threat generating ability. There are only two times this ability should not be on cooldown: when Thunderclap is about to fall off, or when Demoralizing Shout is about to fall off, as they're important to your continued survival, and by proxy, the survival of your group. When you have Shield Block up, and are not talented like an idiot, Shield Slam will do double damage with each hit, which pairs extremely nicely with the inherent bonus threat and high damage the ability already has. In almost every case, a single Shield Slam is more than enough to force an NPC's attention back to you, regardless of how much DPS someone else is doing. Take note that Shield Slam also dispels a magic ability with every hit. On a six second cooldown and low cost, this is one of the best dispel mechanics in the game.

3. Devastate. If you're a low level character, you'll only have Sunder Armour, which is not nearly as useful or good as Devastate, but that is still important to keep on enemies. Less Armour =  More Damage = More Threat = Fewer Dead DPS = Group Not Wiping. Once you get Devastate though, Sunder Armour becomes obsolete and absolutely useless - all glyphs and most talents that apply to it, apply to Devastate as well. Each swipe of Devastate removes 4% of the target's armour, up to 3 stacks, and 12% in total. This is exactly the same as a druid's Faerie Fire, a rogue's Expose Armour, and several hunter pet ability. However, for the latter two, using those abilities are large DPS decreases. The druid ability applies easier and faster (3x in a single shot, if feral), but only bear druids tend to use it, meaning you'll only see it if one of you is offtanking. Devastate also does bonus damage for each application of Sunder on a target, which is why you'll still see Sunder stacks even if someone Exposes/Faerie Fires the enemy. It's a low cost, mid-damage ability that you should use any time your other abilities are on cooldown; Sunder lasts long enough that it's hard for stacks to fall off if you're not an idiot. It can also proc Sword & Board, giving you a free Shield Slam.

4. Revenge. This is the second most damaging ability you'll find yourself using. It pairs brilliantly with Heroic Strike in single target settings, and Cleave if there are two or more enemies. It costs 5 Rage, and has a 5 second cooldown. Only useable after you Dodge, Parry, or Block an attack, if you're tanking this means it'll be available nearly all the time. Talents vastly increase its damage output, as well as giving it a cleave effect; if you aren't specced like an idiot, Revenge will deal high damage to two targets, for only five rage. I have it macroed to fire Heroic Strike at the same time, dealing a massive amount of damage to a single target, and slightly less massive amount to his nearest friend, for only 35 Rage; the cost of a Devastate and Shield Slam combo. Note that this can proc Sword & Board like Devastate. Always use Shield Slam before Revenge, otherwise you may waste the Sword & Board proc.

5. Thunderclap, Concussion Blow, & Shockwave. Throughout Wrath and TBC, warriors struggled with AOE tanking. Tranq managed to do it, but even his mighty skills were tried during these dark times. Now, however, Warriors are not only the best single target tanks, as they have been since launch, but are now the best AOE tanks as well. All thanks to Thunderclap, Shockwave, and two important talents - Blood & Thunder, and Thunderstruck. Thunderclap is a point blank area of effect (PBAoE) ability that damages every target within a fairly large range. With Blood & Thunder, it reapplies Rend to every target it effects if even a single one of them had it on them before. Note that I say reapply, not apply - this also refreshed Rend on your main target, meaning that once you've Rended a target, you should never use that ability during the fight again. Thunderstruck allows Thunderclap to give you a stacking counter; when it reaches three, your Shockwave will do very high amounts of damage in a frontal cone. This cone is immediately in front of your character in a deceptively large arc, perhaps as large as 90 degrees. A favourite tactic of mine is to jump, spin, and fire Shockwave midair; it allows you very precise mouse-control of its direction, letting you stun a wide area behind you without breaking stride in the event you have to run from something. Thunderclap also applies a 20% attack snare to almost every enemy in the game, raid bosses included. All tanking classes have this ability, but only Deathknights and Warriors are able to apply it in a wide AOE. This adds to multi-target survivability, as a paladin or druid could only slow one attacker, while the warrior can Thunderclap all of them. Use Shockwave only when fully charged, it has a 20 second cooldown, which is just enough time to charge up another one - 6 second cooldown on Thunderclap, 6*3=18, throw in some GCDs or latency and every time you have Shockwave available, it should be charged if you need the AOE damage. Against single targets, don't waste your Rage, only Thunderclap when the debuff is about to fall off, and don't bother Shockwaving. Concussion Blow is a seldom used ability, essentially a single target Shockwave with a slightly longer stun, and much longer cooldown. Used most often in PvP, or if you absolutely HAVE to stun an NPC right away, generally to stop it doing something. Keep it on your bar, but don't worry about it too much.

6. Shield Bash & Heroic Throw. If you aren't an idiot, which we're stressing rather a lot in this guide, you'll have Gag Order talented. This adds a 3 second silence to both Heroic Throw and Shield Bash, while also halving the cooldown on Heroic Throw to 30 seconds. You won't notice it so much on Shield Bash, which is perhaps the best interrupt in the game with 12 second cooldown, and a full six second lockout, but the real importance is in Heroic Throw. This enables you to pull casters without Line of Sight, or interrupt a crucial cast if Shield Bash is down or you're out of melee range. This has no range minimum either, so you're perfectly capable of throwing a silence at something in melee if you need to, though most dungeon and raid bosses are immune to outright silences - Heroic Throw has no interrupt mechanic, only Silence, so it loses some functionality against bosses. Still, it has no rage cost, meaning it's free, ranged damage, something Warriors lack in.

7. Spell Reflect. This is, bar none, the most amazingly fun and powerful ability in the game if you're able to handle it properly. Talented properly it has a six second cooldown, and five second duration. For these five seconds, a single spell or spell-like ability will be reflected right back at the attacker. Even spells that aren't interruptible can be reflected in many cases, allowing you to not only avoid a 60k fireball, but to deal 60k damage to the boss instead. As an added bonus, whenever you reflect a spell, you get +60 rage, giving a total increase of 45. Amazingly useful from the moment you get it. Keep this ability hot keyed and within finger's reach at all times, you never know when you'll need to reflect something. With its short cooldown, coincidentally the length of a Shield Bash lockout, you can very effectively lock down a caster from having any chance of getting a successful spell off - either you interrupt it, or reflect it. If you're in an instance, and know that a certain monster casts something that usually hurts a whole lot, try Reflecting it some time. However, Spell Reflect will NOT protect you from Area of Effect spells, unless they are targeted directly at you;  i.e, Living Bomb can be reflected, but Flame Strike cannot.

8. Berserker Rage. This is another incredibly useful ability that is exclusive to Warriors. Every 30 seconds (20 for Fury, but we aren't talking about those heathens), the warrior is simply immune to fear/sap/incapacitate effects. It costs no rage, and has no ill effects. You can use it when already affected by fear/sap/incapacitate and it'll break the effect, allowing you to essentially be impervious to most forms of NPC CC. It's glyphable to grant you 5 rage on use, but that's rather useless. An entirely different purpose for the ability is to unlock Enraged Regeneration on demand, and it's for this reason that I have the two abilities right next to each other. Furthermore, when under Berserker Rage, damage done to you will generate even more rage, particularly nice for tanking. More reliable than Tremor Totem, and much more frequently available than Fear Ward.

9. Disarm. Exactly what it says on the tin. This is a minute cooldown ability exclusive to Protection. It removes a single target's weapons for ten seconds. Not remarkable, and not particularly powerful, it does have some niche usage in certain raid fights where disarming a boss stops or prevents a powerful attack; say, for example, the first boss in ToTC's Impale ability. Rogues get an improved version that lasts longer and disarms Shields as well, so it's usually best left to them, though Disarm effects aren't on diminishing returns, so you can chain it fairly effectively in some circumstances. Overall worth reminding that it exists, like Tranquilizing Shot for hunters - very important when it's necessary, otherwise useless.

10. Charge, Intercept, Intervene, & Heroic Leap. With Blitz, Charge will stun three targets and give you 25 rage overall, making it the premier opening ability. As well, Protection has a talent called Warbringer that allows you to Charge in combat, in any stance, as well as using Intercept in any stance. These mechanics are deceptively useful. Not only are you able to enter combat quickly, but you're also immune to knockbacks and abilities that throw you into the air, as you can simply charge or intercept right back to the target, even midair. It also allows Warriors unmatched mobility, as they can charge from target to target. Since Charge is off the GCD, a favourite tactic of mine is to Charge to one NPC, and mid-charge, Intercept to another, stunning up to four targets and causing them all to group of easier. Charge will not stun bosses in most scenarios, so you'll often find yourself facing the wrong way having charged through them when pulling; this is why Charge has a stun in the first place, to guarantee players or targets are where they were when you charged, to prevent over or undershooting them. Intervene is a relatively useless ability in most circumstances - if you see something is about to attack someone other than you, and you have time to Intervene, you also have time to Taunt it instead. However, with Warbringer, Intervene also breaks all movement impairing effects on you, giving it slightly more usefulness, beyond using it to catch up to people who Sprint or Dash ahead. Heroic Leap is our 85 ability, and it has... some use. Most frequently you'll use it to get out of the fire, as it doesn't require a target for you to run to. It does, however, require line of sight and for you to target the ground, meaning it can take a bit of extra time. Another use is to leap away from something and immediately Charge back, building rage and restunning, or Shockwaving, running away, and leaping back for extra AOE damage. Overall though, Leap is a PvP tool.

11. Shouts. We have five shouts; Challenging, Intimidating, Demoralizing, Commanding, and Battle(ing). Each one has a use, and is very specialized. Intimidating and Challenging are used as cooldowns, and are very useful when they're needed, but generally don't find much use in tanking if you're doing your job right. Intimidating in particular is more use for PvP and stealing herb/mining nodes from Alliance pricks. Challenging you should only be using if one of the idiot DPS pulls an extra pack and immediately starts AOE'ing it; it'll grab everything in a medium range and force it to attack you, giving you time to get Thunderclap and Shockwave off. Demoralizing Shout is an important tanking ability that reduces damage enemies deal by a solid 10%, which can be equated to an extra 10% damage reduction to you; all tanking classes have this to an effect, but again, only DKs and Warriors can reliably throw it out in AOE from. Commanding and Battle shout are group enhancers; Commanding offers the same amount of stamina as Power Word: Fortitude, and a Destro warlock's imp. Battle Shout offers the same amount of strength and agility as Strength of Earth totem and Horn of Winter. Neither of these shouts stack with their counterparts, so you should use whichever is not available. If both are available by other people, let them do it, as your shouts have a relatively short duration. They do grant 20 bonus Rage though, so using one before charging into a group can give you an extra bit of immediate threat generation, even if the shout effect itself is overridden by someone else.

12. Cooldowns. Warriors have a large volume of cooldown abilities, emergency buttons to use when things suddenly become less than ideal. Perhaps your healer forgets that standing in the fire marks them forever as an idiot, or perhaps the boss hit an Enrage phase. Either way, these abilities are on relatively long timers, and are consequently powerful. Last Stand is a hallmark ability, copied by Hunters, Feral Druids, and Blood DKs. It grants you 30% of your total HP for a fairly long period of time. Not only does it heal you that amount, but it also raises your maximum by that much, enabling you to keep an extra buffer of HP during particularly chaotic fights. It synergizes incredibly well with Enraged Regeneration, which consumes an Enrage effect on you (hint, Berserker's Rage) to heal you for 30% of your maximum HP over ten seconds. Since Last Stand boosts your max HP, using it before Enraged Regeneration means you'll actually heal a substantial amount more than you would have otherwise. Items or abilities that boost max HP are also very useful for Enraged Regen. Shield Block and Shield Wall are easily confused in most cases, as they both end up with you taking less damage, though in entirely different ways. Shield Wall, talented, has a 2 minute cooldown, and grants a straight up 40% damage reduction. Shield Block boosts your chance to block by 25%, on a 30 second cooldown, while also doubling Shield Slam's damage and therefore threat. An interesting thing about Shield Block is that, if your total block + avoid % is pushed up to 100% by it, you'll get the extra as critical block chance. What's critical block? Well, I'll tell you, in our mechanics section.

MECHANICS!

So now you know what your abilities do, and how you should use them. Right? Wrong! That's why you suck! Knowing what your abilities do is only part of tanking, knowing how they work is equally important. Threat generation is a tricky business. Every action taken during combat either raises or lowers threat on one or all targets. Healing draws threat to the healer from everything in combat, AOEs and direct damage attacks deal threat to anything that takes damage from them. While both of these scale with how much damage or healing is done, healing threat is virtually never a problem, even less so in Cataclysm where the healer won't be just firing off heals every single GCD. Problematically, though, healers generate threat to everything in combat, while  you only generate threat on everything you're fighting (and that's fighting you), meaning that if adds are spawned in a fight, it's very likely that they'll run straight to the healer. You need to know the adds are going to happen, where they're coming from, when they're coming, and how to hold AOE threat to stop your healer getting their face smashed in. No Healer = No Heals = Dead Tank = Dead Group = Wipe Because You're A Failure... unless you're Tranq, who has tanked heroic bosses with no healing in the past. Generally the highest DPS numbers generate the second highest threat. Second highest? Yes, because, if you aren't a total failure, you'll be generating the most threat. Now, occasionally I've seen people complain that DPS are pulling too much, and they want them to curb their damage. This is one of the stupidest things I've heard. Their job is to kill the monsters, yours is to make them not die. If you tell them to do their job worse, there's a problem. Most DPS classes have an actual threat reduction talent, rogues in particular have a built in -20% threat gen mechanic that Blizzard doesn't actually tell them about at any particular time, but that's there all the same. Add to this multiple threat drops for most (Note, MOST classes, Warriors and DKs do not possess anything), if the DPS is doing their job, you shouldn't be worrying about them. If they ARE pulling threat, you need to reevaluate your tanking ability (Hint: you suck).

AoE is the one specific time when it's slightly possible for DPS to overcome you in threat. That is, if you're not a warrior. If you are a warrior, you should be topping the DPS charts. I'm serious. As Defensive Stance grants us triple threat generation, the best way to ensure you're keeping threat, is to do as much damage as you're able to, which is quite easy at the moment, since prot abilities actually rely less on gear than most DPS specs do. This is because of a wonderous mechanic added in Cataclysm called Vengeance - every time you take damage, you get 5% of it in Attack Power, to a cap of 10% of your maximum HP. Let's say you have 125K hit points, that means you can boost your AP by a maximum of 12.5k - which, since you're going to have relatively competetive AP already, means you'll be putting out between two and three times the damage per swing that a dedicated DPS class can manage, so long as you continue to take damage yourself to maintain Vengeance. Since almost all of the protection abilities are modified heavily by AP values rather than weapons or gear, we're able to output stupidly high numbers when Vengeance is stacked up good and high; 50k Shield Slam crits, 100k (combined) Shockwave crits, 20k Revenge crits, etc. Most DPS can't match our numbers when we have enough Vengeance on us, meaning we'll be holding threat very steadily. Vigilance underwent a slight overhaul during Cata, having been turned from something you put on the highest DPS, to something you put on your off tank or most squishy party member. Since I did this anyways during Wrath (arguing multiple times with raid leaders that 3% damage reduction on the off tank negated the 10% threat transfer, especially if they could Vigilance back), I haven't noticed much of a change. One thing to note is that 20% of their damage taken counts towards your Vengeance stack, which is particularly good if they're tanking something themselves in a raid setting, or just standing in the fire too much. If it's the latter, they'll still die horribly, but at least you'll get bonus AP out of it.

Parry, Dodge, and Block are the three avoidance and mitigation abilities, with Armour % also thrown into the mitigation category. As I said before, only stupid-as-hell warriors stack dodge. It's for druids, paladins, and DKs - they actually get helped in some manner when they dodge an attack. For us, it's a negative stat, as a dodged attack generates no rage. You also take no damage, so having a minor % of dodge is acceptable, but stacking it leads to rage starvation, so we keep as little as we can on our gear. Parry also ends with no rage generation and no damage taken, however, we have a talent called Hold the Line which boosts our block % for a few seconds after parrying, so it's much preferrable to Dodge, if still not a particularly high priority - note that more than one talent point in Hold the Line isn't necessary, you should only place a single point into it, to get the full benefit. Cata tanking is about absorbing hits, rather than simply avoiding every attack - we have much higher HP, and bosses won't be one-shotting us if we don't have stupid high avoidance %. This means that Block is the best tanking stat for warriors, as it offers a 30% damage reduction. Moreso, Warriors have an additional Block mechanic that nobody else has - Critical Block. You cannot see this % anywheres on your character sheet, but trust me, it's there. What a critical block does is prevents 60% of an attack rather than just 30%. We had this as a talent in Wrath, but it's been rolled into our Mastery Stat, alongside Block Rating. Gear no longer adds specific Block %, it adds Mastery. Every point of mastery grants an extra 1.5% chance to block, and critically block, meaning you'll have very high block chances if you get decent gear. Mine sits around 45% at the moment, and I'm not even in tier equipment. The way to calculate your Critical Block chance is to take your overall block %, and remove 15%. That'll end up with how often you'll block double damage. If Shield Block manages to push your overall avoidance+block above 100%, any of the remainder +% it gives turns into bonus Critical Block %, so that it's still very useful at high gear levels, beyond doubling Shield Slam's damage. Of note, there is a Meta Gem that adds +5% block value - it's worthless. As Block value is fixed at 30/60% now, you'll only turn it to 31.5/63% reduction. You can achieve more than that via the +2% Armour meta, which scales on gear and provides its damage reduction at all times. Speaking of Armour, it's important, but it's a part of gearing and not something you can directly influence. The best way to ensure you're maximizing your armour value is to have the proper, active Meta (Austere X), always wear plate, and always have a tanking shield equipped. Your shield is easily 30% of your total armour value, and if it hasn't been ingrained into your stupid, stupid head by now, your shield is your best friend. Watch 300 some time, get a feel for how important the shield is to a melee combatant. It offers you offense, and is a very large portion of your defense. Bears dodge, Paladins bubblehearth, DKs parry, we block. Shield Slam, Shield Bash, Shield Wall, Shield Block. Shield shield shield. By doing quests you'll be able to get a 333 tanking shield by the time you hit 85, which you'll be using until you get a badge shield, or convince something to drop for you.

Stamina is something that deserves a mention, though it should be common sense. In Wrath, socketing for Stamina was the simplest and best way to do things. In Cata, you want to balance it out with mastery, hit, expertise, and crit. Generally speaking, our gear is colour-socketed in a relatively intelligent manner. You're going to want X & Stamina gems if at all possible, and +60 Stamina gems in your blue slots. Socket bonuses are no longer worthless, some are as good as socketing an extra gem entirely, and should be activated when possible. Keeping your meta active takes precedence though, for the Austere one you should be using that means at least two Yellow/Orange/Green gems. Again, sockets on gear are going to be scarce in the beginning, so don't worry too much. We have very high levels of health now, so a few thousand here or there isn't as important as it was in Wrath, where a boss could bring you to 10% in a single hit. Expertise, hit, and crit are important too - if you aren't hitting an NPC, it's hitting someone else. 8% is the Special/1H hit cap, which you should get as soon as possible. If you Miss a Taunt on a boss running towards your healer... it's not entirely your fault, but you still look like an unskilled noob. Expertise helps mitigate this as well, as it lowers the enemy's chance to dodge/parry/block your attacks. Melee DPS only has to worry about dodging, since nothing (including you) can Parry or Block from behind, but as you'll have the NPC facing you, it's a much higher cap of approximately 11% if I recall correctly. This is helped greatly if you're a race with a bonus to Expertise. Which means Orc using an axe or fist weapon. Half the alliance races get boosted Expertise with one handed weapons, but only Orcs receive any expertise for the Horde. Of course, other races have good racials too; Tauren get a bonus stun, high Nature resist, and increased HP (scaling with gear), Goblins get a lot of convenience abilities, Undead get shadow resistance and the ability to break most forms of CC, Trolls get shorter movement impairing effects, regeneration, and Berserk, and Blood Elves get a silence as well as Arcane resistance. Apart from expertise, Orcs also receive a 15% reduction in Stun length on them, and Blood Rage, which increases attack power by a not insubstantial amount, letting you do more damage. What race you choose is largely up to you, as all of them have some tanking merit, though it seems Blizzard prefers Alliance tanks, since their racials are in general better for tanking, ranging from +Hit to extra damage mitigation.

Rotation.

Warriors don't have a tanking rotation. We operate on a priority system instead. In fact, all specs of Warrior use priority system over set rotations, since our Rage mechanic is somewhat chaotic, and abilities are not entirely predictable. For tanking, the rotation is built around Shield Slam, as it is the best damage and threat generation ability we possess. Once it's on cooldown, Revenge & Heroic strike are your next choice; I have them macroed to fire at the same time, as they pair nicely. Devastate follows, and then Thunderclap if either it or Rend are about to fall off. Demoralizing Shout is the second last ability, followed by Rend. If at any time Sword & Board procs, you should use Shield Slam, unless Thunderclap or Demoralizing Shout are about to fall off. If you're tanking a group, the focus instead becomes Rending once to get it onto an enemy, followed by Thunderclap to spread it. I have Cleave macroed to Thunderclap to fire off an extra burst of AOE damage. Shockwave if you have three charges is next on the list, followed by Demoralizing Shout. Revenge when nothing else is available. You should be doing enough damage from the Rend and Thunderclap abilities to keep anything glued right to you, with Shockwave as added insurance. Additionally, since you need to build charges, you can fire a Shockwave immediately after you Charge to keep things tightly grouped for the followup Rend & Thunderclap. By the time you have it fully charged up, it'll be ready to cast again.

General Information

There are a few things you need to learn to get a feel for. How quickly you generate rage is dependant on gear; slower weapons generate more rage per swipe, and deal more damage from Devastate, while more incoming damage generates more rage as well. In the past, tanks often had to actually remove or downgrade their gear in order to be taking enough damage to have consistent rage generation, so as to hold threat. Now though, every block gives you a bonus 15 rage, and with the high frequency of blocks, you should have little trouble keeping high reserves. When things are getting bad enough to warrant a cooldown is something else you need to figure out. Always use Shield Block first, as its cooldown is the shortest, and thus the least wasteful if you wipe or the crisis is averted somehow. Positioning is important as well, never let things get behind you. As stated before, the reason DPS stays behind bosses is to prevent them blocking or parrying their attacks - and this also applies to you. Furthermore, you can't dodge from behind either, Bosses can. This is particularly important in AOE fights, as just a few things hitting you from behind are enough to bring your health down too fast for the healer to compensate for. Enemies will always turn to face you, so you're able to rotate and orbit around them in such a way as to direct their movement, while never facing away and exposing yourself. Situational Awareness is the term for being aware, of your situation; i.e., knowing exactly what's occurring around you at all times. You have relatively few active tanking abilities, meaning you don't need to focus on weaving a complex rotation like some other classes do, granting you the ability to watch and listen for what's going on. This is why tanks are often group or raid leaders, they control the fights and it's absolutely essential for them to know what's happening, so they can react before things go bad. DPS, more often than not, stand in fire not because they don't realize it's bad, but that they don't realize it's there at all, too caught up in maintaining a zenlike combat trance to notice their health dropping. However, whereas a dead DPS only hurts the raid, a dead tank wipes the raid. One more thing to consider is Inner Rage. Not strictly an 'ability', nor truly a combat mode, this can either drive you into critical rage starvation or improve on you damage and therefore threat when required. I don't use it often, but it's there if needed.

As for the 10% of scenarios we described earlier? Sometimes you're able to die without ruining the encounter. Sometimes it's required. If the boss has 1% HP left and enrages, if you die, your group can still manage to kill them if they're competent. So long as you down the boss, dying is not something to feel bad about; only if you get other people killed when you could have avoided it. It's your job to know a fight, know how to control it, and know how not to die. If you aren't doing any of these, don't expect to stay in a group for long.