Metaplanar Babel

A guy going by the name Dayne over on the WoW warrior boards posted a great guide to being a warrior. I have taken his words to heart. Beware.

Quoting the full text below the “fold” so it doesn’t get lost to forum pruning at some point in the future.

Dayne’s Warrior Survival Guide

Now, before I begin this, let me state that by Survival, I do not mean mobs not killing you. That’s easy. The warrior has the unique perspective of being the person who, in most situations, has direct control over the flow of a battle. This is why most of the good warriors are arrogant, uptight, and impatient pricks. They’ve seen all the bull$!@% before, know it for what it is, and would rather just plow on through it. The survial portion is that of your sanity. You have a firsthand view of how and why things go wrong, and are often the first victim of someone elses stupidity. I’m here to help with that.

Being a good warrior isn’t about pressing the sword when you were creating your character. It isn’t about clicking on Tauren for the hp bonus, or Orc for the stun bonus, Troll because they look cool, or Undead because you think you’re evil when you’re really the Diet Coke of evil. (I don’t care about the pansy alliance races.. they all have the same label attached to their foreheads… LUNCH)

Being a good warrior is all about attitude. You’re aggressive. You want to hurt things. You want them to hit you as hard as they can so you can laugh in their face and spit in their eye. You don’t want to be a wall between the mob and the rest of your cohorts, that’s sissy talk. Sure, you play it up like it’s all noble, but the reality is that it’s personal between you and the mob. One of you is going to leave combat as the others #@%$!. The caregivers can go play priests.

As such, I have laid forth the following nine commandments. Live by them. Prosper by them. Make others weep by them.

1. Your duty as the tank is to get as many people killed as possible. Seriously. You thrive on death and carnage, whether it’s that of your foes or friends, it doesn’t matter. As a matter of fact, you should bind your Charge macro to /y VISCERA! VISCERA! VISCERA! Why do you want people dead? Well, if it’s the bad guys who are dead, phat loot. Everyone likes new shinies. You are obligated to #@%$! about the lack of plate drops. If it’s your friends who have died, well then, they’ll have learned a lesson - they don’t like being dead. Repeat lesson as necessary until such time as they either leave your purview entirely or start thinking to themselves ‘How can I avoid ending up like Blankman’s rogue on Golemagg?’. You are in the unique position to *enforce* a doctrine of natural selection. This is better for you (as it nets you more shinies) and better for them, as it not only nets them more shinies, but saves on their repair bill (sadly, you as the tank, have no such luxury - your bill sucks no matter what. Comes with the territory.)
2. If the hunter/mage/whomever is confident and competent, let them pull. You’re a lazyass who always forgets ammunition anyway, and you don’t like going into kissass mode to mooch from your group/guildmates very often. However, if they are not competent, tell them to back the hell up and you’ll show them how it’s done. Intelligent yet incompetent would-be pullers will pay attention, learn the pulls, learn the pathing, and thereby benefit from the gift of your instruction. Everyone else will just whine about what a non-nice person you are.
3. Your priest does not need full mana for a pull. Neither does your mage. Or your druid. And certainly not your hunter. Chances are, once you’ve done a run a few times, you know how much mana it takes to survive each pull. Continue pulling until such time as your healers fall below that threshold, and then only long enough to meet said threshold. Eventually your mana users will learn to plant their butts on the ground the millisecond they are out of combat.
4. You’re a snob. You only deal with elite mobs. The rest of the yard trash is someone elses problem, so for Thrall’s sake, don’t try dragging that NPC around with you while you chase down their pet. Let the bloody mage handle it.
5. Loot the damn dog. Now. Seriously. (ed. note: I don’t really know what this means yet. *shrug*)
6. You didn’t take first aid and level it to 300? Ok newb, go roll Alliance, we don’t need your kind around here.
7. Thou shalt not Intercept before the Blink. Trust me.
8. While it is, on occasion, ok to tank in zerker stance with your 2hander, it is generally frowned upon. Why? Well, it tends to make people uncomfortable. They seem to think you can’t hold aggro by putting out massive amounts of damage. Making other people uncomfortable is good (sometimes that natural selection policy needs a little… reinforcement). The real reason you do not want to tank in zerk stance with a 2 hander is because word will get out. And then others will start doing it. And then some damn fool will make a video about it, and then the nerfbat descendeth. The next time I get nerfed because of what some damn fool showoff did, me and Mr. Reaper will be paying a business call.
9. I know, I know. You think Revenge is worthless. All it does is a piddly little amount of damage, so it’s obviously no help at all in holding aggro, right? Yeah, well, wrong. Revenge is your best tool for counteracting the high burst damage that the mag… er other classes may occasionally put out. Learn to use Revenge religiously. Oh, and the proper order is ShieldBlock/Taunt/Revenge, *not* Taunt/ShieldBlock/Revenge.

Class dismissed.