Oak and Iron guard me well

[Twelvesoft]

You introduced me to a new word, Elucidation. For this, I thank you.

[Estarriol]

I found it recently and decided it needed to be everywhere. I'm going to make it a star.

[Hip]

Whats up Estar,

I'll get to your logs tomorrow, and I will be thorough.

That is what I love about my class, it doesn't allow for complacency. I do not have an ass-saving Lay on Hands, Purgatory, Ardent Defender, bubble, or anything of the sort. I must simply make sure I don't get to the point of needing those. Warriors, for me, are very lively, engaging tanks.

And this is essentially it what I'm looking for.

You say you want to show you're skilled beyond your experience and we'll see. You've also mentioned that you've read other tank apps and seen some of my comments. I should hope that I will find you've posted logs that reflect my other critiques. It would be odd to have read those other threads and still be lacking on; CD usage, environmental damage taken, buffs/debuffs cast/gained, and how you're using your rage, etc.

It's pretty easy to be average at this game/tanking, particularly in a 10 man environment. It is a bit of a leap to 25s

Fortunately tanking is rocket science, but if it were, it appears you'd have an advantage there.

my dear Fatal Americans

This concerns me a bit. Loyalty is great and it shows that you're committed to the guild/raid leader to transfer servers to keep the team together. However, how much of a pull will you feel to reunite/stick it out with the team if/when an opportunity arises to make a change of guilds?

The weakest point of my class are the lack of self-heals. It is sometimes frustrating to be so dependent on outside sources to stay alive outside of my mitigation. I don't have the option of healing myself when I'm low, other than Second Wind, and I don't have the option of using self-heals to prevent myself from getting low as ER and IV are on a decently long CD or a fairly small heal, respectively. I do not, here, count my absorb as a heal as it cannot bring my health up. Additionally, Last Stand is a nice 20% heal with the 20% increase in max health, but it, too suffers from the long CD. The same can be said of Rallying, but with the added disadvantage of taking a major raid CD away.

There are tools/tricks in the prot war arsenal to use these skills along with Healthstones and pots to gain some fairly significant self-healing. I'd also be curious to hear your thoughts on the set bonuses for next Tier's gear.

The set I currently have on in the armory is by far my favorite set, but it too suffers from the bane of ill-matching shoulders.

Shoulders

http://www.wowhead.com/item=71413

Axe

http://www.wowhead.com/item=29165

Set

http://www.wowhead.com/compare?items=12409:25024.-18:25025.-31:10382.1573:32082:12406:71413:29165

(also game and match)

<3

Hip

[Estarriol]

This concerns me a bit. Loyalty is great and it shows that you're committed to the guild/raid leader to transfer servers to keep the team together. However, how much of a pull will you feel to reunite/stick it out with the team if/when an opportunity arises to make a change of guilds?

I'm not entirely certain I understand what you're asking here. Assuming you're asking me if I will feel the need or desire to go back to them in the future should they ask, my answer is a definite no. I've set plans with them on alts and other games (such as League of Legends) so that we may retain our friendship, but I would not be leaving them if I had any intention of going back. I feel about them the same way that I've felt about every guild I've left- grateful for their friendship and the time learning in the guild, but excited to be moving forward. I have met some incredible people in my guilds and I continue to do LFRs and dungeons with them, but I will not go back to a guild I've left as my loyalties have shifted to a new guild and to go back would be regressing, in my eyes. Additionally, it would be unfair of me to cause the turmoil my leaving is causing only to come back and cause even more for my new guild and for the old guild having to find a place for me. However, I feel this is secondary to the fact that my goals the goals of my current guild no longer align. I want to progress, they want to raid twice a week and be happy with whatever is the result. Finally, I don't want to switch guilds again. I'm looking for a home, not a hotel.

You say you want to show you're skilled beyond your experience and we'll see. You've also mentioned that you've read other tank apps and seen some of my comments. I should hope that I will find you've posted logs that reflect my other critiques. It would be odd to have read those other threads and still be lacking on; CD usage, environmental damage taken, buffs/debuffs cast/gained, and how you're using your rage, etc.

I view it as an interesting opportunity for introspection. The other apps I've read have all been today, in point of fact I found out about this guild sometime this morning. I read quite a few things I took note of and will certainly be keeping my eye on this coming Thursday when I raid again, although those raids will be on normal in the wake of my pending departure.

There are tools/tricks in the prot war arsenal to use these skills along with Healthstones and pots to gain some fairly significant self-healing. I'd also be curious to hear your thoughts on the set bonuses for next Tier's gear.

Absolutely. I'm not saying warriors have no self-heals, but there are certainly situations where having a WoG-like ability or a Deathstrike-like ability would certainly be very nice indeed. As for the set bonuses, they're clearly trying to make warriors use Demoralizing Shout more and more. With Incite now being dependent upon it and the 50% increase in rage gen from the 4 set, Demoralizing Shout looks like it will be a massive CD now and with a very short CD... tasty. I'm thrilled about that. I find it interesting that they're bringing back the increase in rage gen that they stripped from Avatar, but I'm liking how they brought it back. I think it will also add another dimension to the consideration between the immediate benefit of SBar vs. Sblk. Given that Block lasts a static 6 seconds, with 2 charges being usable within 15s, I'm not sure that this would be a great boost to one's ability to block, unless one is running into rage starvation issues. However, it would be a massive boost to Barrier, giving a much larger boost to the uptime of the absorbs in high damage situations. The two set bonus is something I would like to see in action. Right now, it looks like it may be worthwhile to change out one of my glyphs (I'm thinking Incite, as I will no longer get free HCs with it) for Glyph of Victory Rush, depending on whether or not the procced VR will benefit from the glyph. I'll be very excited if it does and from the wording of the four set, I'm thinking it will. A 30% self-heal approximately 1 out of every ten Revenge/SS is something I look forward to seeing. It would be interesting in application as I'm thinking it will allow me more leeway as to when I'm able to safely use Vigilance. Taking 30% of someone else's damage when I'm able to heal myself for 30% of my own health would certainly reduce the danger of using it in high damage situations. Even if it does not benefit from the glyph, I'm certainly not turning my nose up at the increased heals.

[Hip]

Blade Lord 2/19/13 Try 5

I chose this fight as it was the most recent night on the logs, and the most significant pull, the fight lasted 7:58.

Let’s look at rage usage and active mitigation selection.

I can prove a gain of 1880 rage (1075 from SS, 555 from Revenge, 160 from enrage, 70 from Berserker Rage and at least 20 from charge)

You cast SBar 15 times (let’s assume all 60 rage shells) and SBlk 3 (55 rage with set bonus). Meaning your Rage income expenditure was 1065 on Active Mitigation.

That leaves us with 815 rage left.

I see 24 casts of execute (there is a considerable execute phase where no active tanking goes on), at a minimum of 30 Rage per Ex, 720 Rage on execute leaving at least 95 rage left unused. This all looks decent in terms of your Rage income usage overall, but that's almost a full rage bar left unspent on something (perhaps stronger executes).

Let’s take a look at those active mitigation choices.

Are you using any add-on to track your Vengance/what method do you use for determining how strong your SBar is going to be?

SBar had the potential to absorb 1,456,897damage (average bubble of 97,126.6) with a fairly low uptime of 12.6% and a high overheal of 37.7%. Meaning over 1/3 of your SBars went unused, so only 907,646.8 actual absorption). Effectively you benefited from only 7.8% of the fight under effective active mitigation (12.6% uptime x .62 not wasted on overheal) using SBar as you did.

Without actually being there to see it, I would attribute this to mistimed usage of the spell while the boss is away Unseen Striking or the other myriad and annoying things he does during the fight. So you were either hitting it too early before he came back from these mechanics and it fell off, or too late and a significant portion of the bubble remained when he left to go do something else.

You did a much better job of this on your Garalon pulls. SBar uptime was low, which is fine on that fight as it should be -> Cast the bubble -> Gar breaks it almost instantly with his Swipe.

SBar is up for 6 secs max when cast so finding an effective rhythm for usage in encounters such as this, where over 2 seconds of every cast isn’t wasted, is important, so whatever you did on Gar, apply it to Bladelord.

You took 4,970,842 damage in melee swings. SBlk usage for this could predictably resulted in 2,155,605.6 damage mitigated by your shield (total damage x .3 (normal block) x 1.4455 (crit block at 44.55%))

(Yes, I am making some assumptions about effective uptimes while the boss is off Windstepping/Unseen Striking, as well as assumptions regarding actual Crit Blocks vs. % on the character sheet, but hey you’re in my forum >.>). THerefore SBlk could have proven to be a more effective use of your active mitigation and reducing your damage taken. Particularly

The only thing that really saves you in this critique is your usage of Shield Wall and Last Stand, at 3 uses each and at 6 Overwhelming Assaults taken that would equate to one big CD per Overwhelming Assault, which, if I'm assuming correctly, is good.

Looking at some other spell usage I see 3 Demo Shouts, which is low, for the CD but probably not terrible given the nature of the tank swaps. 2 uses of Rallying Cry which is solid, you tried to bandage yourself which is hilarious, and 4 casts of Vigilance (nice to see you have your tanking buddy’s interest in mind).

Offensively I see 8 casts of Incite vs. only 6 uses of Deadly Calm. These should be used simultaneously to get those free HS/Cleaves. 2 Shattering throws is on point with the CD, provided you're not casting those while actively tanking. I don’t see any Heroic Leaps and only 2 Heroic throws, there’s plenty of room to improve there on those free damage abilities while you’re not actively tanking/pooling rage/reserving SS and Rev until you need the rage income again.

Overall I’d say things look good. But to stand out as a tank your active mitigation use needs to improve significantly. Yes you lived until the end of the fight, but you took attention away from healers by mismanaging your SBar/SBlk.

Will of the Emperor

It’s a bit hard to tell what’s going on here, but I see two areas of improvement

You are taking quite a bit of damage from Titan Gas phases. Be sure you’re saving/stacking your CDs for this time, rotating your Last Stand/Shield Wall/Demo Banner (using the ability with the shortest CD first, always), and ensuring you've got Demo Shout up on the boss and SBlk up on yourself for the beginning of very Gas Phase.

It is possible that you could go to SBar a bit later in the Gas phases, but SBlk is the clear choice up front as you’ll go long periods of no damage taken, so no Vengeance/little bubbles. Personally I’d stick with SBlk almost exclusively (paired with other CDs during Gas) on this fight as it will help smooth out the damage income for healers.

Also on 21 pulls you took 11 hits from the Emperor’s Combo mechanics. Maybe you took some of these intentionally to wipe, but, zero would be best.

Miscellaneous Feedback

Mostly what I see is good, and I’d say you’re on your way to being the tank you want to be.

I do see a few silly deaths, you got hit by 1 Pining Arrow, back to back deaths to Flanking Orders, you stood in a Spark on Elegon, those special attacks on WIll. Overall your survivability is good and you’re generally one of the last ones standing on your pulls. But you could improve on avoidable damage.

Warriors have amazing mobility already, be sure you're taking full advantage of things like Heroic Leap and Intervene to both raid members and your Mocking Banner.

CD usage us mostly in-line, but could improve. A trend I see in many tanks, and in particular Warriors is to use their Offensive CDs on CD, but bank their defensive ones. You are using Shattering throw, Deadly Calm, Incite and Berserker rage very consistently. I want to see that same level of coverage on Demo Shout and last Stand (provided you’ve got the set bonus).

Yes you should be saving a CD for those OH SHIT moments. But more regular coverage of defensive CDs reduces/eliminates those moments. If you know a fight has a hard hitting mechanic (Overwhelming Assult) then save CDs accordingly. If a fight doesn’t don’t let those CDs go unused.

Lastly your gearing/geming strategy seems a bit in-between. You're mostly Mastery stacking, but using a fair amount of Stam only gems, then I see this dodge/SBV meta. Geming dodge really never works and you're using a significant number os SBars so that 1% Block Value is also mostly wasted. The parry geming is also something I'd forgo. If you have a red slot you want to get a socket bonus from I would personally go Str/Stam. Raid buffed Str gives you .98 of the value of geming parry, but will also give some contribution to AP/SBar.

Thanks again for you app and let me know your thoughts.

Hip

[Ashin]

Tanks should just apply to us for the Hip-session to be honest.

[Kayvern]

I love reading Hip's reviews even though sometimes I have no idea what he is talking about it's a bit magical. And welcome to the forums Estar!

[Hip]

Tanks should just apply to us for the Hip-session to be honest.

Perhaps we could get our website/mumble funded this way? I have fun doing it, but it's a project for sure.

[Noesis]

Perhaps we could get our website/mumble funded this way? I have fun doing it, but it's a project for sure.

And I'm sure everyone greatly appreciates it. Thanks Hip

[Alaska]

Hey Estar, welcome to the boards.