pve warriorFollow

I just started a week ago and this talent system is still kind of new to me. I was thinking of playing a warrior with some of my pals and I'm still kinda confused on how to build a good pve warrior. One of my friends has a protection warrior going, so he suggested looking into arms/fury builds. Problem I have is that I won't always be playing with that friend, and probably be duoing/trioing with my girlfriend (druid) and other friend (rogue) or be in a full party with them (druid & rogue). I see lots of builds for pvp or soloing, but not so much for non-full groups.

So I guess my main concern is being able to keep aggro if I choose arms/fury. I've read that a aggro is obtained through damage as opposed to a "taunt button" like in EQ (which is where I'm coming from). But if aggro comes from damage, won't a rogue/mage out aggro me based solely on the fact they're gonna do more damage? Or does rogue/mage damage not generate as much aggro per damage?

My next concern is if I forsake the protection talents, will I be able to stay alive? Perhaps with arms/fury build, I could swap out to a shield? I've read in some posts that fury/arms wars get splattered in higher level dungeons. If I'm grouping with my friend it doesn't matter since he's doing a prot build, but I forsee actually playing with him to be a rather infrequent event.

Anyway, sorry for the long post. Hope someone can give me some answers or show me where I can look for some.

Thanks in advance.

If you are fully PvE, then go protection spec. People will tell you that a arms/fury spec can tank just as well as a prot spec, it isnt true. I have a arms/fury build at level 40, and it is starting to get hard to control aggro and all of the guys while staying alive.

Pardon the noob-ness,

I was playing with my rogue friend last night and I was having difficultly keeping the mob on me. It kept turning to face the rogue. Right now we're still kinda low level so the rogue didn't really get pwned. But I'm worried when we get to harder content that I won't be able to keep aggro. The taunt skill only seems to turn the mob to me for a few moments, are there other skills I can use to generate hate? Is there a site that lists how much hate each skill generates? Also for multiple mobs, which skill should i mash to keep the mobs on me?

The most important thing to do if you're having trouble holding hate is make sure you're in defensive stance. Not only do you take less damage but you generate more threat as well. Revenge is very good for generating hate, and it's very cheap ragewise, so always use it when it comes up. After that I like to demoralizing shout once and then just sunder armor.

There's only so much you can do, part of the burden lies in the rogues hands as well. He shouldn't be using expose armor as that shuts down your use of sunder armor. He shouldn't be going all out at the start of the fight, if doing so is pulling hate. As you say it's not so bad now, but later on he will go down like a ton of bricks. Now, healers will keep him alive but it will drain their mana pool or pull the mob to them, which is _really_ bad.

If you have to ask him to not engage for a few seconds so you have time to lock in hate then do so, but if you put your talents into the prot tree and make sure you have a good one-handed weapon it shouldn't come up much.

Taunt does not generate any long-term hate at all. All it does is force the mob to hit you for the next 3 seconds, after that it will go back to fighting whoever is at the top of its hate list. It's very much an emergency measure and not the meat and potatoes ability that Provoke was in FFXI. 3 seconds will be enough to hit it a time or two and nail it with at least one sunder, so you'll normally be able to get back to the top of the hate list in that time. Unless, that is, other people are also pushing out the threat at the same time to stay on top.

You may want to mention to your rogue friend that when you take hits you generate more rage. Then tell him the more rage you have the more you can do in a fight, which will result in making more threat. And that when you have more threat he can do more damage without danger. So if he holds off a bit on blowing all his energy he will end up being able to go off later in the fight when it will be safe.


For multiple mobs you need to remember that each mob has it's own hate list. Most things in a fight will only affect one mob, so the user will only rise on that one mob's hate list. Healing is the big exception here, as it will create hate for all the mobs.

When you pull a mob in an instance any nearby mob that sees it happen will come along. Also, some mobs are hard-coded to link no matter what, so even if they're far away or whatnot they'll come along. Mobs in these cases will attack the first PC they see (normally the puller) but don't have very much hate for them. So most of the time you want to be pulling so they start on you, but you can also easily use bloodrage and demoralizing shout to make them hit you.

Now you need to stay at the top of all their hate lists. For the sake of arguement, say you have a mage and a rogue in your party. Say they attack different monsters, that means you need to generate as much hate as each of them on both monsters. This is not an easy thing to do, it's almost certain one or even both will pull hate off of you as a result. Therefore it is of utmost importance that everyone else in the group attacks the same monster. This way their hate will all be on one list, so you only need to beat one of them, not both of them.

Once that's figured out you need to stay above them on the main target while also staying above the healer on every other target. Demoralizing shout is good for getting above the puller, but it doesn't make that much hate. I tried just using all my rage on shout, it doesn't work very well. Thunderclap is better since it also does damage, but the downside is it can only be used in battle stance. Cleave is great if there are no immobilized mobs within range, as a couple cleaved shots with a nice slow 1-hander will lock down most mobs for you. You can also switch targets to manually get a couple swings in on the extra mobs, but you need to be careful the rogue doesn't outaggro you on the main mob if you do this. If you have the rage, switching for one hit and a sunder is generally good enough on mobs that have been shouted and clapped, though.

A big way to make sure the healer doesn't pull hate from you is to need less healing. The longer you can go before the first heal the more time you have to get some hate on all the mobs. The less healing you need overall the less work you need to do putting more and more hate on the extra ones. As such, it's very important to always use a shield when tanking. Make sure all your gear is up to date, and concentrate on AC, +def, and stamina. Also, try to convince your healer to use renew as the primary healing spell.

Crowd control is very important and you should make sure everyone in your group uses all the abilities they have to do so. Good communication is key here, but it's infinitely easier to keep 2 mobs on you than it is 4. Sap/sheep/freezing trap/sleep/banish/mezmerize are all important to keep in mind. Especially with freezing trap you need to make sure the whole group understands not to engage until you see who is frozen. (This means you should fight back a ways and actually pull the mobs.)

Finally, if you want to have a good emergency button in case adds show up or something goes wrong, be an engineer. Bombs of all kinds are great for getting hate on all the mobs, and target dummies have saved me from wipes many times.


An 'optimal' fight would probably go something like...

You start standing behind the casters in battle stance, with the melees up ahead. Further ahead is a freeze trap, with a hunter on it. The hunter shoots one of the mobs with a normal shot and then runs back towards you. After you see which mob is frozen, target another one. When they get near the melees, charge to get the rage, and immediately hit demoralizing shout. Use bloodrage, then thunderclap. Switch to defensive stance, sunder armor the main target and then cleave.

Experience will tell you if you need to switch off to get a hit or two on the other targets or not. Play around a bit when you first get together with a group, you'll find out pretty quickly if people are pulling hate off the main target or if the healer is putting too much hate on the extra mobs. Don't be afraid to adjust your plan based on your group. Also, keep in mind that priests have fade, so you can err on the side of letting the healer pull hate while you learn how the group will go. Just be sure you hit any mob that moved before they faded, and don't count on fade for the whole instance.


Teamwork, quick reflexes and cool heads are all you need to prevail.

I get pretty annoyed by rogues using expose armor in instances when I'm actually tanking (not a problem when you're tearing up random mobs while questing though, rogues can take a few hits).
the reason you're losing agro after taunt wears off is because of the way taunt works: when you taunt the mob ignores the threat the two of you have put on it for as long as the taunt lasts. After that it will go after the person that's creating the most threat. Taunt doesn't actually add any threat at all. so after you taunt you have to use skills (sunder armor being the most common because it's an instant cast and stacks 5 times)
Mocking blow can't be used in defensive stance btw.

I dunno I'll admitedly say no, i haven't tanked MC. That being said i just don't see how planning your speccing around what, a future Uber guild may or may not want you to spec, 40 or 50 lvls down the line. Rember your first respec is 1 gold your second is 5 gold. I say Spec what feels best to you if you feel like changing it down the line go for it its 1 gold big whoop