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I think long and self aggrandizing posts are weird, so Ill be concise and honest.

Professional Information:

I am a serious minded player who has been tanking since Vanilla. I tanked Zul'Gurub to Nefarion in Vanilla, Kara to Tempest Keep in BC, I took a break during WotLK but pug tanked through Sindragosa, tanked normal T11, some heroic T12, and all heroic T13 content in Cataclysm.

I also have 9/9 Gold in challenge modes. Not sure if anyone in guild is into those or not, but it's something I enjoy and would be happy to run with anyone interested.

I don't have alot of tanking experience outside of WoW. I played an inquisitor in SWtoR (Darth Darktoot on The Fatman), a Lancer in Terra, and a Chosen in the ill fated Warhammer MMO.

Currently I am the main tank for a guild that is fracturing due to pre 5.2 malaise. I have 8/16 HM experience, and I am looking for a guild that loves to raid!

I love, love, LOVE tanking! I'd tank even if there were no loot or e-peen involved. If it's a challenge to live through then I'm on board to throw a shield in front of it!

If you pick me up pretty please don't make me dps. When I dps the keys all turn to vipers and they bite my face. I am capable of doing average numbers when called upon although I havent geared for it nor have I DPSed as an off spec since Cata.

Armory: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/bleeding-hollow/Barr%C3%ACcade/advanced

WOL: http://www.worldoflogs.com/guilds/202184/

Battle Tag: Insanoflex#1178

Personal Information:

My name is Kyle, I live and work in Italy. I speak just enough Italian to leave native speakers staring at me with a bewildered look on their face (I assume they are awestruck at how awesome I am at it) and order food.

I like rubber duckies and hate babies. I love swimming in the ocean, running, and eating oreos in my underwear while watching farscape.

I'm married, 30, and unashamedly (at least on the interwebz) a blizzard fan boy.

This seems like a skilled and fun group and I hope I get the opportunity to hurl my body in front of bosses for you. Hit me up any time if you have any additional questions

.

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Concise works. Welcome to the site and thanks for the app - I'll be interested to hear Hip's review of your logs.

My first question is about your living in Italy (something that is going to make several of us very envious, by the way). What do you do, and how did you land there? Talk to me about your internet connection - I'm worried about having a main tank with a heavy ping. Aside from that, how do you manage the time zone differences? Attendance is of course crucial to us.

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Concise works. Welcome to the site and thanks for the app - I'll be interested to hear Hip's review of your logs.

My first question is about your living in Italy (something that is going to make several of us very envious, by the way). What do you do, and how did you land there? Talk to me about your internet connection - I'm worried about having a main tank with a heavy ping. Aside from that, how do you manage the time zone differences? Attendance is of course crucial to us.

I'm here with the Military, my ping is stable at 140ms to the Chicago servers where Stormreaver is based.

I go to sleep and get up early for raids. I currently raid M-TH 1:30am-4:30am my time. Raiding your times 9p-12aEST (3:00a-6:30a my time) wouldnt be that different. I would have to leave early on rare occasions (once or twice a month) with several days forewarning for duty, but that should stop within the next month or so.

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Whats up Barricade,

Thanks for putting in the app, it's a good one, to the point with some personality thrown in there. Also I'd like to say thank you for serving in the military, what branch of service? Air?

I'll get to your logs at some point today, but i have a few questions off the top for you.

I see you've gone for hit/expertise hard cap, how's that working out for you? Have you tried playing with lower levels of hit/expert and higher avoidance? What's your rationale for going to the hardcaps?

Tell me about your add-on; what are you using to track multi-target threat, CD uptime/availability, buffs/debuffs?

Warriors have been powerful this tier; whats a fight you feel you've really been able to showcase/seems tailor made for warrior tanking?

However not every fight will play to your strengths, whats a fight you've struggled with?

The reality is you will need to do serviceable DPS on at least some fights each tier. There will be fights that call for only one tank or just don't suit the warrior tanking toolbox. What can you do to improve your DPS output, but more importantly shift your mindset on DPSing?

Whats something you do as a tank that separates you from other tanks? Brag a bit.

Grats on the oldschool Quel'Serrar.

For now I'll have to say arriba dare-chi

Hip

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Whats up Barricade,

Thanks for putting in the app, it's a good one, to the point with some personality thrown in there. Also I'd like to say thank you for serving in the military, what branch of service? Air?

I'm a communicator in the Navy stationed in Naples

I'll get to your logs at some point today, but i have a few questions off the top for you.

I see you've gone for hit/expertise hard cap, how's that working out for you? Have you tried playing with lower levels of hit/expert and higher avoidance? What's your rationale for going to the hardcaps?

I like the way barrier driven by hit/exp works vs the way warriors used to in previous patches. I wasn't going for hard cap outright, it just happened to work out exactly with mister robot. I don't mind dropping below the caps so long as I'm within a %. What I like about hit/exp stam over mastery stam is that it puts YOUR survival in YOUR hands. Going mastery stam with block runs alot like cata and earlier warriors did, providing your healers with a predictable stream of damage, but ultimately leaving you at the mercy of their skill level.

I don't say that to disparage my current or future healers, but if I'm going to succeed or fail I would rather it be as much in my hands as possible.

Im not sure what you mean by going higher avoidance. If you mean leaning heavier towards dodge/parry, I haven't seen anyone using that strat on a mitigation tank yet. To my knowledge, and I may just may not have run across the numbers yet, dodge/parry have steeper diminishing returns than Mastery but I have seen people continuing to mastery stack and I understand the rational behind it. Everything you put into mastery goes straight to crit blocks once you start shield blocking. It is a strat I plan to explore once 5.2 hits as they are nerfing the contribution of vengeance to AP as it relates to your barriers... Sorry I didn't mean to open up the block v barrier debate again here. Both seem to be working for people, I just like barrier better and feel its more versatile.

Tell me about your add-on; what are you using to track multi-target threat, CD uptime/availability, buffs/debuffs?

I use tidy plates/threat plates for multi targets. If it's red its loose, if its yellow I'm losing it, and if its blue its mine. I primarily make custom prompts through power auras for my uptimes and notifications, but I also use coolline to give me a macro level view as to where my cooldowns are.

Warriors have been powerful this tier; whats a fight you feel you've really been able to showcase/seems tailor made for warrior tanking?

However not every fight will play to your strengths, whats a fight you've struggled with?

So I thought about this for awhile and I'm really sorry for how I'm about to answer this. What fight seems tailor made for warrior tanking? Garalon, what fight do you struggle with while warrior tanking? Garalon.

Here is why. During our kills we had the tanks do the initial two kites. I've done it on both my warrior and my paladin. While NOT kiting my warrior does amazing. The damage is predictable and all I basically have to do is build to 60 rage for a big barrier before each swipe and hit mini cool downs on crushes. However while kiting I am completely useless as we put the kiter tank further form the boss than his soaker counter part who remained in melee range. If I cant punch it I cant build rage, if I can't build rage I cant defend myself. Unlike paladins who can still throw out a judgement or an avenger shield to gain some holy power now and then warriors pretty much always need to be in melee.

So in summary fights that don't allow warriors to go toe to toe with something are rough, but anything with fairly predictable damage spikes we do well at in my opinion.

The reality is you will need to do serviceable DPS on at least some fights each tier. There will be fights that call for only one tank or just don't suit the warrior tanking toolbox. What can you do to improve your DPS output, but more importantly shift your mindset on DPSing?

I think I oversold the whole "I hate dpsing" think in my OP... Let me be clear i dislike doing it and I'm no super star, but I recognize that no tank is best for each fight all the time and you need to be able to play your other trees. While I haven't dpsed this expansion yet, I am confident that given the gear I can learn enough to do appropriate dps when the fight requires it. I am always open to advice on either of my specs and I certainly try to implement advice given by good dps warriors.

I OTed for a DK during dragon soul and I went dps for 10m zonozz and 25m yor. I did average numbers, but all the other melee kids made fun of me :(.

Whats something you do as a tank that separates you from other tanks? Brag a bit.

I think many tanks get into a DPS mindset when tanking. That is to say their litmus test for success is am I staying alive and taking as little damage possible in the same way DPS asks itself "am I putting up the biggest numbers during the fight?"

While I do make mitigating damage, keeping aggro, and staying alive my biggest priorities I also try to ask myself how I can help the other tank and the raid stay alive and do their jobs better. It's not just knowing how to keep yourself up during a certain point in an encounter, but also helping others do their jobs as well. It's not enough to just switch to blowing rage on heroic strikes during burn phases its losing a few seconds of personal dps to toss out a shattering throw and skull banner to boost everyone else's dps during that phase. It's not enough to be happy that your damage intake is low during a defensive hunker down, but also watching health bars and dropping a rallying cry or a vigilance/safeguard to another raider who is in danger of dying.

A regular tank pats himself on the back for taking low damage during garalon and bitches out the kiter who dies to pheromones and wipes the raid. A good tank sees that kiter dying and tosses them a vig. Sure you take a bit of that damage but your kiter just might complete their round and you might prevent a wipe. An average tank pops last stand during unseen strike and feels uber when they're the last man standing, a good tank pops rallying cry and a demo banner to keep everyone else up.

In short I think that group minded tanks are always better than self minded tanks.

Grats on the oldschool Quel'Serrar.

Thank you! :D Many a dire maul run to get my compendium and a near death to ony breath led me to getting this old school tank right of passage. Getting it was actually one of the first times I got to MT a raid boss in the "good ol'" 40 man days

For now I'll have to say arriba dare-chi

Hip

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Im not sure what you mean by going higher avoidance. If you mean leaning heavier towards dodge/parry, I haven't seen anyone using that strat on a mitigation tank yet. To my knowledge, and I may just may not have run across the numbers yet, dodge/parry have steeper diminishing returns than Mastery but I have seen people continuing to mastery stack and I understand the rational behind it. Everything you put into mastery goes straight to crit blocks once you start shield blocking. It is a strat I plan to explore once 5.2 hits as they are nerfing the contribution of vengeance to AP as it relates to your barriers... Sorry I didn't mean to open up the block v barrier debate again here. Both seem to be working for people, I just like barrier better and feel its more versatile.

Basically yes, if you find yourself with enough rage you could either stack some dodge/parry or if you continue the Barrier route, stack Strength to build your base AP. Just tossing out ideas.

Here we go.

After further review, I’m curious about your talent and glyph choices. Is this the “normal” set-up you use in a raid? Talk to me about the utility you see out of a glyphs like Bull Rush and Incite as well as talent choices like Piercing Howl and Dragon Roar

On to fight specific thoughts.

ToeS from 2/12

Protectors of the Endless

Looks like you spent a fair amount of time tanking Asani, yet I see zero interrupts? That’s a concern for me as a Prot warrior could very easily have 3 interrupts at their disposal. What was going on in that fight that you didn’t use any of those tools? Asani cast 166 water bolts during the fight.

Your active mitigation use also puzzles me. I see 61 casts of shield barrier and zero casts of shield block, what was going on there? I can appreciate the scaling value of Barrier once you build vengeance, but there are many points early in encounters or in lulls of damage taken where a Block > Barrier.

Overall your CD usage has me concerned. In a fight lasting 7:58, I see only 1 use of Demoralizing Shout, 2 uses of Last Stand (and you have the set bonus lowering the CD to 2 minutes) zero uses of Shield Wall, zero Uses of Rallying Cry, etc.

I do see 2 uses of Vigilance and 2 uses of Safeguard which is good to see you have your tanking partner’s life in mind.

Your rage use is also curious to me. You seem to be quite focused on DPS output and using your rage on Heroic Striking. I see 8 uses of Battle Trance (which tells me you could easily track and use Demo Shout effectively) 37 Heroic Strikes and 1 Cleave vs. 25 Ultimatum procs. Thoughts?

Your CD usage on Tsu Long looks a bit improved, with 3 Demo Shouts and a Shield Wall tossed in the mix, but still 20 Shield Barriers and Zero Shield Blocks, the add phases and tank swaps would dictate Block imo.

Still digging you use of Vigilance and Safeguard I must admit.

On to Sha, again the same things. I am seeing 30 Shield Barriers and zero shield blocks (tank swaps, Thrash bursting your bubble) and zero Shield Walls. 5 Demo Shouts this time, so that’s more in line with what I’d want to see.

Going back to HoF on 2/7

Wind Lord

Looks like you solo tanked this one?

55 Cleave casts on 13 Ultimatum procs, 6 uses of Deadly Calm. Hit/expert cap and a plethora of Revenge procs would lead to a heavy Rage income, but I’m concerned about a trend of offensive mindset.

Demo Shouts hit a total of 35 targets which is good, should equate to 5-6 uses on a 6 minute fight.

33 Shield Barriers, zero Shield Blocks (initial pull, once adds die and boss pauses to do specials)

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