General things you should know about Warrior Tank
Stats
Here is our general stat priority, and a breakdown of each one.
Phys Resist > Armor > Deflect Crit/Insight (to 15%) > Support Power/Tech > Health > Shield > Grit > Deflect/Insight
Phys Resist – Absurdly powerful. Phage Maw is the only boss that doesn’t have a physical autoattack, and he can’t be Warrior tanked anyways. Many bosses deal a great deal of damage to the tank via blanket raid damage, but those penetrate 75% armor/resist anyways.
Armor – Reliable mitigation. Great stat, not complicated.
Deflect Crit – This is not something you should gear for, because we have access to a total of 11% from AMPs. 2% per Support T1 and 5% from Full Defense. Just make sure you reach the crit cap (15%)
Shield – Shield is cool, but it isn’t great for Warrior tanks right now. There’s a couple of reasons why. 1. Your shield cap is irrelevant without a Medic healing you full time, because outside of a chain of deflects, you can’t possibly generate enough shield by yourself for it to matter. 2. Because of Fortify, lower shield cap means you have more opportunities to be over 50% shield and having the armor bonus for more auto attacks. Fortify is also irrelevant without a Medic healer.
Support Power/Tech – Pure threat. It’s very important that you maintain enough SP to be able to hold aggro on most boss fights.
Strikethrough – This is not listed in the stat priority as it is not at all common on tank gear, making it nigh impossible to reach the cap. It is however not bad to have where you can get it.
Health/Grit – Getting fat looks cool and all, but tank healers in Wildstar aren’t at the point where they can take you from 50% -> 100% with a single non-crit. Building for HP is just going to bother your healers. If bosses start to hit really fucking hard in 40m, Health/Grit give the maximum possible EHP value, but in all content I’m aware of (including 40 man) you don’t need a huge amount of health.
Deflect – Procs Atomic Spear and prevents some damage. Scales terribly, but the amount we get from AMPs is nice. Generally a stat to avoid.
Gearing and Rune slots
There are three simple questions to ask in order to decide whether an item is an upgrade to your current one
1. Do you gain phys resist/armor?
2. Do you stay above deflect crit cap?
3. Do you maintain or gain support power?
If the answer to all three questions is yes, it’s probably an upgrade. If you’re unsure, though, feel free to ask.
What rune slots do I want?
Doesn’t really matter, but you need a good quantity roll, and you want to avoid multiple sockets of the same type. DPS shit their pants over triple Fire sockets, tanks do not. A perfect group of 4 sockets would be 1 Earth, 1 Fusion, 1 Fire, 1 Air.
General rune slot usage
Fire – Resist Physical > Health > Shield Cap
Air – Resist Physical > Deflect Crit > Shield Cap
*Earth – Resist Physical > Armor
*Life – Health > Deflect Crit > Grit
Fusion – Resist Physical > Armor > Deflect Crit/Health
Water – Armor > Grit
*Logic – Armor > Deflect Crit > Shield Cap
Omni – Resist Physical of any kind
Get Shield Spec 4 using *Logics, if possible.
Get Weapon Spec 4 using *Earth, if possible.
Get Protect your Neck 4 using *Life, if possible.
Ability Overview – What you should and should not be using.
Gonna try and keep this concise.
Menacing Strike – Always T8. This ability takes up like 70% of our globals, is our main threat ability, and does the majority of our damage.
Jolt – T4 tech debuff is a large raid DPS increase. Use it. T8 is alright, but I find that you’re better off spending those 5 ability points in tiers for other abilities to increase threat.
Plasma Wall – Great ability. Hardly used because of threat issues. T4 is alright and has some synergy with Atomic Spear. T8 is very niche, and I haven’t found a use for it yet.
Atomic Spear – Great threat ability, when you actually deflect. It’s a part of most builds because it’s basically free threat when it procs. T4 and T8 should be flipped, but neither are spectacular.
Polarity Field – Good for threat. Great on multiple targets. T4 is awesome, T8 could be alright, but there are issues with its telegraph being small and boss hitboxes being large. Good uptime when you can use it, though.
Expulsion - Surprisingly useful in some situations. Unsure why this is a support ability rather than utility.
Atomic Surge – Generally mandatory, as our only Intimidate. T4 is dumb, T8 might see use if it was the T4 instead.
Bum Rush – Sometimes useful, but you can’t really go dashing places while tanking a boss. More usable when you need a movement cooldown than a defensive one. T4 is good, T8 is weird.
Shield Burst – Currently a pretty bad ability. I’d use it if there was absolutely nothing else useful to put in an LAS slot. T4 is shit, T8 is worse.
Bolstering Strike – I’m yet to use this much, but I want to say it’s good. Need to go over threat numbers. Biggest problem is fitting it into an LAS, with Jolt being mandatory. T4 is okay, T8 is cool. Kind of iffy because of Medic’s Reboot.
Plasma Blast – Taunt. It’s good. Short cooldown, great raid utility. T4 is retarded and blows, T8 is good, the only issue is having the ability points to get to it without losing threat or something else.
Kick/Grapple/Flash Bang – Not much to say here, just that interrupts are good. Use them.
Defense Grid – Incredibly strong raid utility, can be used as both a raid cooldown and personal cooldown. T4 and T8 both blow.
Sentinel – Could potentially see some use of this in the future. Only usable when you’re not tanking anything, but its utility and uptime are great. T4 and T8 are both pretty garbage.
Rampage – Usable for threat at lower gear levels. Reaching higher levels of SP will make it useless.
Dungeon Builds
AMPs
I’ll list two potential AMP builds.
Overwhelming Presence build – This is particularly good if your group does not contain an Esper, and if it does, they can run mind burst rather than telekentic storm.
Power Link build – Best when you’re the only Warrior in the group, but it isn’t necessarily worse if there’s another.
Extra points can be spent on crit, deflect crit, or Bolstering Strike if you want it. Really we have a lot of flexibility, so feel free to experiment.
LAS
Interrupts are a huge part of doing 5 mans most efficiently. I would recommend almost always for you to run at minimum 2 interrupts for trash and most bosses.
Something to note: Jolt T4 can make a big difference in some group comps. If you have an Engineer DPS in your group, you’ll want to use it on trash. If you have a Medic, both bosses and trash. If you need the LAS slot for something else, it isn’t the end of the world, just keep that in mind.
Standard - Always Polarity Field 2 targets where you can. You should have fairly frequent Atomic Spear procs, which is nice.
Bolstering Strike variant – If your group is better off with Jolt (as mentioned above), I would just drop BS in favor of taking the debuff. Your LAS is generally non-flexible for most situations in 5 mans.
The base build doesn’t really change between bosses and trash. Add/remove interrupts, movement ability, cc break, etc. as needed. Intimidate is semi-optional if you’re super confident about threat not being an issue.
Raid Builds
Again, Jolt T4 is 100% necessary unless you have no Medic DPS. At that point you may be able to drop it. Expect to use it in every build.
AMPs
Is a Medic healing you?
Yes
No
Use extra points on deflect crit if you need it, shield capacity, or move stuff around and get some T4 utility. Add Bolstering Strike if you plan to use it.
LAS
For trash, you can go off the dungeon build. Don’t neglect interrupts.
Boss builds
- no BS
- with BS - If you need T4 PF, move single tier points from Jolt/BS to get it.
As usual, add taunt, interrupts, cc break etc. as needed.
Boss breakdowns
Genetic Monstrosity – Threat is the biggest problem here. You’ll probably find yourself trading threat with the other tank to keep it off the DPS, so having Intimidate + taunt is useful. Bum Rush is good for movement.
X-89 – Max threat again. Use taunt to mitigate the shout’s damage to the raid. Take Bum Rush to get back to the boss immediately after shout, and to pro small bombs off the side. Bum Rush + Leap is viable here.
Gravitron Operator – Run taunt for the cast where she pulls the entire raid. Not much else to take otherwise. Shield Burst/other utility here.
Kuralak – 2 interrupts to be safe. 1 for kicking DNA siphon, the other in case you need to kick an egg immediately after. Bum Rush/Leap if you’re kicking the boss at one of the pillars.
Phagetech Guardians – Grapple the ranged add into the boss for cleave. Take other interrupts for kicks.
Prototypes – Bum Rush for kiting boss 3 (protector), if you need to. Also interrupts if you have to kick boss 1 (commander).
Phage Maw – You should be DPSing here. If for some reason you cannot DPS and are not sitting, just go damage stance, keep Jolt up, and do max damage
Convergence – Depends on what you’re tanking. Take cc break if Ersoth is in the boss composition to break eggs cast on you.
If you are tanking Fleshmonger, you need 2 interrupts. You’re responsible for kicking every cast (strain rage + leap). He hurts, so run plasma wall in place of polarity field, and take Jolt T8. Cycle through innate, d grid, and plasma wall. Try to have a cooldown up as often as possible.
If you are tanking Golgox, take leap unless there’s no Noxmind. Also take taunt. Any time Noxmind casts Rot on Golgox, you need to move him a fair distance in order for the people on Golgox with you to more safely dodge both Rot and stack for the smash. Be careful not to get people cleaved. D-grid every other stack, and taunt every stack to reduce the damage your soakers take. Have a DPS warrior cycle d grids with you.
If you are tanking Noxmind, just avoid eyes, keep Noxmind faced in a direction that will minimize the amount he rotates to cast Rot on other bosses, and of course don’t die to Rot yourself.
Remember to cycle taunts with the other tanks during Golgox’s teleport phase to reduce raid damage and help out your healers.
Malfunctioning Gear – Taunts don’t work here. Your job is to cycle soaking puddles with the other tank or tanks (3 is probably recommended). Try and keep the Jolt debuff up. Run Plasma Walla, Shield Burst, Emergency Reserves. Maximum damage reduction. Soak as many puddles as you can without getting yourself 1 shot by repeat. Use innate/plasma wall while soaking, and you’ll be able to soak a lot at once. Don’t go overboard. 8-9 is about the limit.
Malfunctioning Battery – Single tank fight. If you’re tanking, use taunt to mitigate raid damage.
Dreadphage Ohmna – Bum Rush, Grapple, Kick and taunt are all recommended. If you are not main tanking, your biggest responsibility is assuring that the big add you’re tanking in phase 3 does not 1 shot someone. Basically just taunt it as soon as its erupt telegraph appears – it’s hittable at that point. Then Bum Rush in and go ham. Threat can be an issue on these.
- Warrior tank is generally the most beefy of the three tanks. We have access to a lot of “free” resistances and avoidance within our AMPs. A Warrior tank’s role is generally to tank the hardest hitting mob or mobs in any given encounter, due to our high mitigation and the ability to reduce our damage intake by a lot with the use of tools like Plasma Wall.
- Items can have ‘extra’ armor rolls in addition to their base armor (it will appear just as a much higher base roll though). There is at least one item for every single slot, out of Dungeons, and GA20 that has this specific stat roll.
- It takes 120 Deflect Rating for 1% Deflect.
- It takes 63 Deflect Crit for 1% Deflect Crit.
- Dungeon Bosses have somewhere around 12% Crit Chance.
- Raid Bosses have somewhere around 15% Crit Chance. I have never been crit in GA running ~15% deflect crit all the time.
- Boss Critical Severity is ~165%.
- Taunting a mob reduces its damage dealt to other players by 25% (35% at T8). This is a huge raid utility and should be utilized whenever possible.
- T4 Jolt is a thing, and it’s good. Get used to using it.
Stats
Here is our general stat priority, and a breakdown of each one.
Phys Resist > Armor > Deflect Crit/Insight (to 15%) > Support Power/Tech > Health > Shield > Grit > Deflect/Insight
Phys Resist – Absurdly powerful. Phage Maw is the only boss that doesn’t have a physical autoattack, and he can’t be Warrior tanked anyways. Many bosses deal a great deal of damage to the tank via blanket raid damage, but those penetrate 75% armor/resist anyways.
Armor – Reliable mitigation. Great stat, not complicated.
Deflect Crit – This is not something you should gear for, because we have access to a total of 11% from AMPs. 2% per Support T1 and 5% from Full Defense. Just make sure you reach the crit cap (15%)
Shield – Shield is cool, but it isn’t great for Warrior tanks right now. There’s a couple of reasons why. 1. Your shield cap is irrelevant without a Medic healing you full time, because outside of a chain of deflects, you can’t possibly generate enough shield by yourself for it to matter. 2. Because of Fortify, lower shield cap means you have more opportunities to be over 50% shield and having the armor bonus for more auto attacks. Fortify is also irrelevant without a Medic healer.
Support Power/Tech – Pure threat. It’s very important that you maintain enough SP to be able to hold aggro on most boss fights.
Strikethrough – This is not listed in the stat priority as it is not at all common on tank gear, making it nigh impossible to reach the cap. It is however not bad to have where you can get it.
Health/Grit – Getting fat looks cool and all, but tank healers in Wildstar aren’t at the point where they can take you from 50% -> 100% with a single non-crit. Building for HP is just going to bother your healers. If bosses start to hit really fucking hard in 40m, Health/Grit give the maximum possible EHP value, but in all content I’m aware of (including 40 man) you don’t need a huge amount of health.
Deflect – Procs Atomic Spear and prevents some damage. Scales terribly, but the amount we get from AMPs is nice. Generally a stat to avoid.
Gearing and Rune slots
There are three simple questions to ask in order to decide whether an item is an upgrade to your current one
1. Do you gain phys resist/armor?
2. Do you stay above deflect crit cap?
3. Do you maintain or gain support power?
If the answer to all three questions is yes, it’s probably an upgrade. If you’re unsure, though, feel free to ask.
What rune slots do I want?
Doesn’t really matter, but you need a good quantity roll, and you want to avoid multiple sockets of the same type. DPS shit their pants over triple Fire sockets, tanks do not. A perfect group of 4 sockets would be 1 Earth, 1 Fusion, 1 Fire, 1 Air.
General rune slot usage
Fire – Resist Physical > Health > Shield Cap
Air – Resist Physical > Deflect Crit > Shield Cap
*Earth – Resist Physical > Armor
*Life – Health > Deflect Crit > Grit
Fusion – Resist Physical > Armor > Deflect Crit/Health
Water – Armor > Grit
*Logic – Armor > Deflect Crit > Shield Cap
Omni – Resist Physical of any kind
Get Shield Spec 4 using *Logics, if possible.
Get Weapon Spec 4 using *Earth, if possible.
Get Protect your Neck 4 using *Life, if possible.
Ability Overview – What you should and should not be using.
Gonna try and keep this concise.
Menacing Strike – Always T8. This ability takes up like 70% of our globals, is our main threat ability, and does the majority of our damage.
Jolt – T4 tech debuff is a large raid DPS increase. Use it. T8 is alright, but I find that you’re better off spending those 5 ability points in tiers for other abilities to increase threat.
Plasma Wall – Great ability. Hardly used because of threat issues. T4 is alright and has some synergy with Atomic Spear. T8 is very niche, and I haven’t found a use for it yet.
Atomic Spear – Great threat ability, when you actually deflect. It’s a part of most builds because it’s basically free threat when it procs. T4 and T8 should be flipped, but neither are spectacular.
Polarity Field – Good for threat. Great on multiple targets. T4 is awesome, T8 could be alright, but there are issues with its telegraph being small and boss hitboxes being large. Good uptime when you can use it, though.
Expulsion - Surprisingly useful in some situations. Unsure why this is a support ability rather than utility.
Atomic Surge – Generally mandatory, as our only Intimidate. T4 is dumb, T8 might see use if it was the T4 instead.
Bum Rush – Sometimes useful, but you can’t really go dashing places while tanking a boss. More usable when you need a movement cooldown than a defensive one. T4 is good, T8 is weird.
Shield Burst – Currently a pretty bad ability. I’d use it if there was absolutely nothing else useful to put in an LAS slot. T4 is shit, T8 is worse.
Bolstering Strike – I’m yet to use this much, but I want to say it’s good. Need to go over threat numbers. Biggest problem is fitting it into an LAS, with Jolt being mandatory. T4 is okay, T8 is cool. Kind of iffy because of Medic’s Reboot.
Plasma Blast – Taunt. It’s good. Short cooldown, great raid utility. T4 is retarded and blows, T8 is good, the only issue is having the ability points to get to it without losing threat or something else.
Kick/Grapple/Flash Bang – Not much to say here, just that interrupts are good. Use them.
Defense Grid – Incredibly strong raid utility, can be used as both a raid cooldown and personal cooldown. T4 and T8 both blow.
Sentinel – Could potentially see some use of this in the future. Only usable when you’re not tanking anything, but its utility and uptime are great. T4 and T8 are both pretty garbage.
Rampage – Usable for threat at lower gear levels. Reaching higher levels of SP will make it useless.
Dungeon Builds
AMPs
I’ll list two potential AMP builds.
Overwhelming Presence build – This is particularly good if your group does not contain an Esper, and if it does, they can run mind burst rather than telekentic storm.
Power Link build – Best when you’re the only Warrior in the group, but it isn’t necessarily worse if there’s another.
Extra points can be spent on crit, deflect crit, or Bolstering Strike if you want it. Really we have a lot of flexibility, so feel free to experiment.
LAS
Interrupts are a huge part of doing 5 mans most efficiently. I would recommend almost always for you to run at minimum 2 interrupts for trash and most bosses.
Something to note: Jolt T4 can make a big difference in some group comps. If you have an Engineer DPS in your group, you’ll want to use it on trash. If you have a Medic, both bosses and trash. If you need the LAS slot for something else, it isn’t the end of the world, just keep that in mind.
Standard - Always Polarity Field 2 targets where you can. You should have fairly frequent Atomic Spear procs, which is nice.
Bolstering Strike variant – If your group is better off with Jolt (as mentioned above), I would just drop BS in favor of taking the debuff. Your LAS is generally non-flexible for most situations in 5 mans.
The base build doesn’t really change between bosses and trash. Add/remove interrupts, movement ability, cc break, etc. as needed. Intimidate is semi-optional if you’re super confident about threat not being an issue.
Raid Builds
Again, Jolt T4 is 100% necessary unless you have no Medic DPS. At that point you may be able to drop it. Expect to use it in every build.
AMPs
Is a Medic healing you?
Yes
No
Use extra points on deflect crit if you need it, shield capacity, or move stuff around and get some T4 utility. Add Bolstering Strike if you plan to use it.
LAS
For trash, you can go off the dungeon build. Don’t neglect interrupts.
Boss builds
- no BS
- with BS - If you need T4 PF, move single tier points from Jolt/BS to get it.
As usual, add taunt, interrupts, cc break etc. as needed.
Boss breakdowns
Genetic Monstrosity – Threat is the biggest problem here. You’ll probably find yourself trading threat with the other tank to keep it off the DPS, so having Intimidate + taunt is useful. Bum Rush is good for movement.
X-89 – Max threat again. Use taunt to mitigate the shout’s damage to the raid. Take Bum Rush to get back to the boss immediately after shout, and to pro small bombs off the side. Bum Rush + Leap is viable here.
Gravitron Operator – Run taunt for the cast where she pulls the entire raid. Not much else to take otherwise. Shield Burst/other utility here.
Kuralak – 2 interrupts to be safe. 1 for kicking DNA siphon, the other in case you need to kick an egg immediately after. Bum Rush/Leap if you’re kicking the boss at one of the pillars.
Phagetech Guardians – Grapple the ranged add into the boss for cleave. Take other interrupts for kicks.
Prototypes – Bum Rush for kiting boss 3 (protector), if you need to. Also interrupts if you have to kick boss 1 (commander).
Phage Maw – You should be DPSing here. If for some reason you cannot DPS and are not sitting, just go damage stance, keep Jolt up, and do max damage
Convergence – Depends on what you’re tanking. Take cc break if Ersoth is in the boss composition to break eggs cast on you.
If you are tanking Fleshmonger, you need 2 interrupts. You’re responsible for kicking every cast (strain rage + leap). He hurts, so run plasma wall in place of polarity field, and take Jolt T8. Cycle through innate, d grid, and plasma wall. Try to have a cooldown up as often as possible.
If you are tanking Golgox, take leap unless there’s no Noxmind. Also take taunt. Any time Noxmind casts Rot on Golgox, you need to move him a fair distance in order for the people on Golgox with you to more safely dodge both Rot and stack for the smash. Be careful not to get people cleaved. D-grid every other stack, and taunt every stack to reduce the damage your soakers take. Have a DPS warrior cycle d grids with you.
If you are tanking Noxmind, just avoid eyes, keep Noxmind faced in a direction that will minimize the amount he rotates to cast Rot on other bosses, and of course don’t die to Rot yourself.
Remember to cycle taunts with the other tanks during Golgox’s teleport phase to reduce raid damage and help out your healers.
Malfunctioning Gear – Taunts don’t work here. Your job is to cycle soaking puddles with the other tank or tanks (3 is probably recommended). Try and keep the Jolt debuff up. Run Plasma Walla, Shield Burst, Emergency Reserves. Maximum damage reduction. Soak as many puddles as you can without getting yourself 1 shot by repeat. Use innate/plasma wall while soaking, and you’ll be able to soak a lot at once. Don’t go overboard. 8-9 is about the limit.
Malfunctioning Battery – Single tank fight. If you’re tanking, use taunt to mitigate raid damage.
Dreadphage Ohmna – Bum Rush, Grapple, Kick and taunt are all recommended. If you are not main tanking, your biggest responsibility is assuring that the big add you’re tanking in phase 3 does not 1 shot someone. Basically just taunt it as soon as its erupt telegraph appears – it’s hittable at that point. Then Bum Rush in and go ham. Threat can be an issue on these.