You are not alone. Since 4.0.1 I have had problems being a tank.
My survivability on content I’ve run doesn’t seem to be an issue. Zel could speak more to that as she usually is healing me, but I definitely feel like I’m just as durable as before.
My problem has been on threat generation. I’ve always had some problem being an AoE tank. In wrath that was a weak area for warrior tanks. Some rose to the challenge without a problem, others had more stress on trash pulls than on boss pulls. Since the patch I’ve noticed that on boss fights threat seems to be more of an issue for me. Previously on a Patchwerk-style boss I’d take a quick lead on threat and just pull away the further the fight went on even against the best DPS in our guild. Now I can’t say that anymore, and it is frustrating. Anytime you are comfortable in a role and things change and you can’t do what you did before as well, it is a bit unsettling.
Why can't I get threat like before? It makes me sad.
So tanks trying to find themselves in this new world order, take comfort in the voice of other tanks who are less confident than they were a month ago. And like anytime I don’t know how to do something in WoW I use Google Fucking Search. When I feel I’ve got my groove back I’ll come back with a flowchart or a description of my system to help. Until then, stay strong and keep on shield slamming.
I don’t play the prot warrior nearly as much as the well geared paladin, but I have seen the same thing. I attribute at least some of it to the noobness of my warrior abilities however.
One thing I’ve experienced, as a bear tank, is that there’s almost no way to hold aggro in current heroics against highly geared dpsers, due to getting almost no vengeance, cause of all the absorbs bears get. (Not that it appears to matter, who has threat in heroics. :/ )
In raids, though, vengeance really helps enourmously, giving dps almost as high as some of the worse dps in the raid. To really stack vengeance fast and consistently high, I’ve begun to stand in fire and not use cooldowns anymore, so I get more incoming damage. Perhaps that’s something you could try, install a vengeance addon that shows vengeance as a bar and try to keep it consistently high by doing stuff that gets you hit. (Tank with your back.
)
It’s nice to see some “challenge” being reintroduced into the game though. Controlling threat, reducing aggro, dps’ing smart, not just full out, was the name of the game before Wrath. I for one look forward to dungeon parties and raids having to actually research and think about how best to handle trash pulls – instead of simply how well geared the tank is relative to the dps – to dictate success or failure from a threat standpoint.
It will be nice that DPS are forced to “play smarter” and watch their threat. Of course, I’m terribad dumb dps and become roadkill more than is healthy. ArcaneTinkerTank refuses to taunt off me, since I won’t heal his mage when he goes aggro-naut. I guess that’s fair.
I’ve not had a bit of trouble on my paladin, who is the best gear, but I’ve been struggling on my warrior. I can still do it, but my taunt finger is getting carpal tunnel.
Seeing the nerfs to warrior damage abilities today kinda makes me want to put her on a shelf for awhile. I know they were aimed at DPS warriors, but it can’t help.
Yeah seeing all those damage reductions on the patch notes has me almost afraid to tank anything on my warrior.
BLIZZARD YOU AREN’T HELPING!
Today’s picture made me smile. Oh boy paper bag on the head…easily amused today…
That little unhappy face just cracks me up!
I had a lot of threat generation troubles early on with the patch. Old habits die hard and I expected icy touch to be the primary threat generator; my fingers were used to pressing that button to generate threat. Of course, that’s not how it works now and it took me a little while to get used to a new style where Heart Strike was the big threat generator, and Death and Decay would be used on single target mobs for better threat generation.
I think it’s a lot better now that I’ve gotten used to the new style, but before I was often without a rune to spare and unable to keep up with almost anyone on threat. It was tough to break old habits.