The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Lessons from Trial of the Crusader/Grand Crusader

This week The Care and Feeding of Warriors talks about what the latest 10 and 25 man raid can teach you on its highest difficulty setting. Matthew Rossi has gotten his face pushed into the floor a lot this week. It's okay, he probably needed a touch of humbling.

So yeah, turns out the plants inside the Crusader's Coliseum taste awful. Must be all those yeti, worms and magnataurs they let traipse around in there.

This week, after our usual clear of Trial of the Crusader we got serious in TotGC, as Matt Low tells me is the proper acronym. After some bad experiences we got the Beasts down with minimal fuss, and Jaraxxus took us a night but eventually died. Faction Champions, on the other hand, just stomped on our heads over and over and over and over again. Eventually they went down, and we called it a night exhausted but glad to be done with the whole thing. Why do I mention this?

Because one of the things I've come to realize is that I'd gotten soft, or more accurately, I've grown comfortable in a tunnel vision, spam my rotation and shut up world. Whether tanking or DPS, warriors are notable as a class with a purity of focus... pretty much everything we do is physical in nature, with the exception of a few bleeds thrown in... and yet, a pretty widely varied toolbox to pull out. With Icecrown on the horizon and patch 3.3 on the PTR, it seems like a good time to discuss warriors as a general tacklebox.

Lesson One: Know all your abilities

Whether a tank or a DPS, warriors have a wide suite of abilities. One of the first things I did upon tanking Jaraxxus (after cursing his ridiculously easy to misspell name) was start trying out abilities on him. Can I Spell Reflect the Fel Fireball? No? Can I Shield Bash it? Yes. Good to know. (Seriously, I'm kind of tired of Spell Reflect not working on spells.) Can I Intervene to the target of Incinerate Flesh and take it instead? Seems like a no. Also, it moved him out of position and made picking up the Mistress of Pain harder for the OT, so I probably should have cleared that with the raid before I did it. The lesson there is, knowing your abilities doesn't mean you need to use all of them.

This is something I'm often guilty of forgetting as a DPS. Warriors have a very broad toolbox... Pummel, Intercept/Charge (especially with Juggernaut or Warbringer), Berserker Rage for a fear break, various talents like Bladestorm or Heroic Fury to clear snares/roots, Disarm, Thunder Clap/Demo Shout, Sunder Armor, Hamstring and the Piercing Howl talent... not many of these are unique but as a warrior in a raid, you should still be aware of them and be ready to disarm, interrupt, debuff and snare even if it will hurt your personal DPS.

It's also worthwhile to consider talents that don't add any damage like Furious Attacks. Sure, you're thinking, other people can apply that debuff and there's always a rogue around with Wound Poison. Until you find yourself the only melee left on the resto druid cause everyone else is either dead or off stunlocking some other healer and you find yourself in the position of actually being glad you have a healing debuff. (MS would have been better, I admit.)


Lesson Two: Please pay attention

It's been said before and it will probably be said again. If you are tanking, please, please, please avoid tunnel vision. It's very easy to fall into the rhythm of your rotation and just stand there spamming your threat moves as fast as they are available, but please, look around. Look at the boss, look at the raid, look at the adds, and for all that you love best look at the floor. You know death is coming from the floor eventually.

Situational awareness is one of the absolutely key factors for any class, of course, and warriors are no different. Since we lack a direct movement speed increase, we need to be able to be on the ball when getting in or out of an area is important. Do not stand in front of the giant yeti. Do not stand in clouds of crap spit on the ground by giant worms. Do not stand there and Legion Flame everyone to death. Do not stand in the Infernals. Do not stand in the Bladestorms, Hellfires, and other assorted badness. Do run over and switch your Light/Dark Essence as appropriate. You can't sprint and they didn't give us Heroic Leap, so you need to be on the ball... and also aware of how you can cheat.

I'm talking about Intervene here. Need to get from point a to point b fast and there's no mobs in the area to use? That is why you have 9 or 24 other saps...er, I mean, fellow raiders to make use of. One of them has probably already sprinted or blinked or used that weird demon circle thing over to where you want to be, just use him or her as your handy platform to safety! Or danger. Whichever. Intervene is handy for so many things once you really get the hang of it (this falls under Know all your abilities) and can really be an asset to a warrior who sees a yeti charging - just macro it to someone relatively close but out of harm's way and hit that button.


Lesson Three: Play to your strengths

Warriors are designed to be Tanks and Melee DPS. That's what you do. In a big, sprawling, chaotic PvP fight like Faction Champions, there are things you can do a lot better than, say, a mage. Be willing to take the DPS hit and go in there determined to snare, disarm and generally annoy the crap out of the arms warrior. Take away his toys, keep him hamstrung and demo shouted, and even taunt him if you have to to buy a squishy clothie a few more seconds of life. (Don't just randomly do all this stuff, but please bring it to your raid leader's attention in a polite way if you think it can help.)

The warrior toolkit is often cited by other tanks as one of the broadest in the game. They're not wrong. While it can be said that warriors at present are the #2 choice at everything, it can also be said that they're the most broadly well designed and flexible tank, neither overly dependent on cooldowns (but having quite a few good ones) nor gimmicky mechanics (while still having access to a few that seem somewhat strange). Warrior tanks on Anub'arak's adds with block sets is one example of a warrior doing something particularly well: don't be upset that you're not on the boss, be glad you can make part of the encounter easier.

Next week, Armor Pen. It was far more math intensive than I expected, so I wanted to take my time and be sure to get it all right.

Check out more strategies, tips and leveling guides for Warriors in Matthew Rossi's weekly class column: The Care and Feeding of Warriors.