Prot War Tanking Guide WOTLK Stacking Stamina

Prot War Tanking Guide

Table of Contents:

I. Introduction

II. General Questions and Answers

III. Gemming

IV. Enchanting

V. Talent Specs/glyphs

VI. Gear

I) Introduction:



This guide is meant to be more of a "nexus" for information, rather than a compendium of all tanking information. Most of what I'm saying has been posted on Tankspot for a while, however I realize how daunting it can be to go to a new forum where there is tons of information scattered about. A lot of people might just say "aww forget it, I'll just make my own HALP! post because I am overwhelmed with the information here." I know I might do that. So, the goal of this guide is to give you the basic information you are probably looking for, and to point you in the right direction for other posts that contain more information to answer your questions.

I’d like to go ahead and preface a lot of what I am going to say with some qualifiers. First, this guide is going to focus on warriors. For pallies, DKs, and Druids the suggestions may differ a little bit. Not all tank classes are created equal and thus, depending on the situation, different classes may need to spec/gem/gear towards different stats, or may be able to spec/gear/gem differently. Also, when I refer to “EHP” I am not talking about “Hit Points” I am talking about “Effective Hit Points” which is Armor +HP. If you have 100HP you have to take into account that you also have 60% or more reduction from armor, so with that 100HP you can actually take roughly 250HP worth of damage, therefore the EHP value is higher than the raw HP value. Plug it into an EHP calculator and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Tankspot’s is pretty stellar and there’s also a mod you can get to view values in game called Tankadin2[1].

I am writing a lot of this because the majority of the stuff that is asked in the “HALP!” forum is really the same questions asked over and over. These answers are given frequently in other threads and throughout the site, but sometimes there’s no one specific thread you can look at. I’m not saying that this post is going to be the compendium of all warrior knowledge or something, however I believe it will give a very good initial guide on how to better your character so that you can be ready for ICC, or whatever next raiding content you are looking to get into. If you still have more questions after reading this, feel free to make a HALP! Post, or post here, or even send me a PM if you want and I shall try to answer with the best of my ability.

I welcome constructive criticism. I am willing to admit I am wrong if proven otherwise. Some things are a matter of opinion and I will try and provide not only my philosophy on tanking decisions, but the other philosophies out there and why I have chosen the path I have. If you disagree, I welcome discourse, however I ask that you please be courteous, try to stick to facts, not engage in ad hominim attacks, and be civil in your discussion of the matters.

I hereby apologize for any bad grammar and/or spelling. However, I don’t apologize for any movie references or a terrible sense of humor. Puns may or may not be free game either.

II) General Questions and Answers

A lot of the questions that have been asked recently focus on stats. “What should I gem for?” “I’m not hit capped what can I do about it?” “What is the defense cap” “When do I stop gemming expertise?” or "How can I get more threat?"

"What is EHP/Why should I stack it?"

Short answer: because I say so. Long answer: http://www.tankspot.com/showthread.p...g-mechanics%29

“What is the Defense Cap?”
There is no real defense “Cap” persay, however there is a defense minimum. When tanking you want to be uncrittable. For raid bosses this is 540 defense (5.6% uncrittable, bosses have a base 5% chance to crit +.2% for every level, so against a level 83 it is 5.6% chance to crit), for heroics it is 535 defense (5.4% chance to not be crit). However, a lot of people use the 30stam/15resil shoulder enchant, and because of the resil it actually knocks down the numbers to 536 defense for raids and 531 defense for heroics. It is more than permissible to keep stacking defense beyond this point since defense still adds to your dodge/parry/miss/block stats. If you want to read more on defense, I highly suggest: Defense.

“How do I get more hit rating? I’m not capped anymore!”
The short answer to this is: don’t. If you are doing your rotation correctly, threat really shouldn’t be an issue. Most people in high end T9 gear are raiding with 30 +/- 6 expertise and 60 +/- 40 hit. It is really NOT A BIG DEAL to be hit capped. I’d recommend looking elsewhere than hit if you are having threat problems because simply put, you just don’t need it. Threat for warriors is interesting because generating 1k TPS more doesn’t really matter as long as it is still higher than the highest DPS’s TPS, and probably won’t be the crux in beating an enrage timer. Threat right now is pretty much like saying, “I don’t have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you.”[2]

Many people get concerned that their taunts are going to miss if they don't have high hit rating.[3] This is true, however, it is far better to simply glyph taunt than it is to sacrifice survivability in your gear. If you are doing a fight that requries a taunt to land, just glyph it. For more on Glyphs, see the Glyph section below. And for more on taunt mechanics see the afformentioned foot note [3].

“How much expertise should I have?” or “What’s the expertise cap”
The expertise “cap” most commonly referred to is the “dodge” cap. Once you have 6.5% chance to not have an attack dodged, then you have reached the “dodge cap” for expertise, which is 26 expertise. The “parry cap” is much higher at 14%, or 56 expertise, however this number is purely academic. Once you have expertise that high, it’s contribution to threat is minimal, and the likelihood that a parry haste might gib you is also minimal, especially in ICC25, where the bosses don’t hit as hard as they would have if Blizzard hadn’t put in Chill of the Throne, but more attacks connect. For the most part 26 expertise is good to shoot for, and it is nice for threat since until 26 expertise it reduces 2 ways a boss can avoid your attack, but as long as you’re not having threat problems I wouldn’t worry about it. If you really need expertise I would use expertise/stam gems to match socket bonuses that yield stamina, preferably +9 or +12.

"Why is my Single Target Threat Bad?"
See: the answers to the expertise and hit questions, and also look at footnote [2] at the bottom of this guide for threat rotation/priority suggestions. I also recommend taking a look at  if you're into spreadsheets!

"Why is my AoE Threat Bad?"
This is a more complex question. There are several things that can be done about AOE threat though. First off, make sure you are doing the normal threat things correctly, namely having a good threat build. You could also use a cleave spec build like you might find in Badga's Anub'Arak add tanking guide that you'll find in the gearing section of this guide. Really the most important thing to AoE tanking for warrios is cleave, and I highly suggest the cleave glyph. As is obviously you should always be hitting thunderclap and shockwave on cooldown, but they are often just barely good enough abilities to hold AoE threat. Now, most situations we're going to be talking about heroics or trash pulls, this is where most AoE tanking takes place. AoE tanking for Anub is a beast all on its own, and if you're wondering about AoE Threat for that, again go read Badga's guide. For heroics/trash what you want to do is tclap -> shockwave -> tclap and cleave whenever you have the rage to, I also highly suggest clicking or tabbing around the mobs with an eye on omen and shield slam/revenge/devastating any of the adds that the DPS are catching up on aggro from. I also suggest assisting DPS, especially if you have a DPS that typically pulls off of you. Make sure you keep vigilance on DPS like this also. I actually kind of like the challenge of not marking mobs and trying to hold AoE aggro on everything no matter what dps is damaging which target. However, if it becomes an issue, I would highly recommend marking a focus fire target and instructing the dps to focus on that. This way you can focus your single target threat on this NPC, and cleave/shockwave/thunderclap will give you enough AoE threat to hold the mobs off healers and give you a nice lead for the next target you are DPSing. Also, there's no shame in asking for misdirects or tricks of the trade if there are hunters and rogues around that can provide it.

“How do I look so far?”
If you follow the advice in this thread, then great! A lot of people want to know if they are ICC ready (or what instances they are ready for), but tbh, gear is only going to go so far, how good your healers are, how well you know your class, how well you know your limitations, and how good you use your cooldowns will make that question far more easily answered. Yes to an extent you do need certain gear levels, but if you follow the advice in this thread to try and min/max your character as best you can, then you can probably tank any normal mode content out there, and maybe even some hardmode content. However, if you cut corners, don’t use epic gems, don’t use the best enchants, and keep with some ilevel 200 gear instead of getting crafted higher ilevel 245 and badge gear, then you’re not doing your guild any favors and it will be a lot harder for you to tank the content.

III) Gemming:
Gemming for warriors becomes very simple: 32stam+2% armor meta gem. This gem requires that you have a red gem, so try and hit a red socket bonus with the highest amount of +stam possible, probably a +9 or +12 gem. Then gem the rest with +30stam gem for your standard EHP set.

It is also permissible and sometimes preferred that if there is a socket bonus of +9 or +12 stam, to hit that socket with a hybrid stam gem for the added benefit of another effect, albeit at a loss of stam. For the most part I prefer to stack stam, but it is very acceptable to do either way imo. Quibbling over very very small differences won’t make a break a fight.

Some fights might encourage more avoidance stacking than stam stacking. What you really want to do is gear/gem for fights. For example come hardmode time, Deathbringer Saurfang may require far more avoidance than EHP, same with the captain on gunship, but for now the safe bet is to do what tanks have always done for progression content at first: stack stam and go from there.

Red hybrid gem breakdown:
10 Expertise/15 Stam - if you have below 26 expertise and feel like you need the threat
10 Dodge/15 Stam - most avoidance
10 Agi/15 Stam - most EHP since agi gives armor and some avoidance too, but not as much as dodge rating, also gives a small amount of crit
10 parry/15 Stam - almost NEVER used, only used if the dodge DRs are high enough that parry becomes better than dodge. For more on this, I recommend looking at Diminishing Returns - Avoidance. This will tell you when parry becomes better.


IV) Enchanting:

A) Cloak Enchants
I’m going to start out this section talking about cloak enchants, because the majority of time that someone posts wanting to know how to change their gear to survive better or what not, cloak enchant change is one of the first things I recommend.

There are 3 cloak enchants: 22 Agi (or 23 Agi for Engineers), 16 Defense, or 225 armor to cloak. I’ve seen a lot of people using 22 Agi. I myself an am engineer and when 23 Agi to cloak came live I was excited, however, it happened right when the nerfed Agi. I guess if you want a threat enchant the extra crit from agi is nice and it has some armor, but it actually provides less avoidance than 16 defense now. This means that the tank enchant at the moment is 225 armor to cloak assuming you are at the defense minimum. It provides a small amount of AP from Armed to the Teeth, and it calculates out to about 500 EHP. This would be as if there was a 20 or so stam to cloak enchant (this varies depending on your gear levels and amount of armor).

B) Shoulder enchants:

As screwy as this may seem, the best shoulder enchant blizzard has given to us warriors is 30stam/15 resil to shoulders. This enchant is beneficial for several reasons. First, it allows us to dip under the 540 defense minimum if we need to. Granted with ToC+ level gear this is never really an issue, but I actually did struggle with it a little back in ulduar, and the 15 resil allows warriors to drop to 536 defense and still be uncrittable. But secondly, and most importantly, it is the only enchant that adds to EHP at all, and it’s over 700EHP at that!!!! 30 Stam is really nice. Take it.

The other alternative is the exalted Sons of Hodir Enchant. It provides 20dodge/15defense to shoulder. If a fight requires stacking of avoidance then this enchant is the way to go, however at this current point in time I would suggest stam.

C) Chest encahnts:
Unless you are needing defense (in which case go with 22 defense to chest) the best choice is 275 HP to chest. It gives the most EHP, almost twice what 10 stats gives you. I think the small avoidance benefits from 10 stats are significantly outweighed by the extra HPS from 275 HP to chest.

D) Bracer Enchant:
40 stam is the only choice here.

E) Boot Enchant:
The options are 22stam and Tuskarr’s Vitality (15stam + minor run speed). Now yes 22stam is obviously more EHP, but the run speed comes in handy on TONS of fights, so I would actually recommend sacking 22stam here for Tuskarr’s Vitality, but I guess technically it’s personal choice. MY recommendation will always be Tuskarr’s though; the utility is just too valuable.

F) Leg Enchant:
Again, one choice, 55stam/22agi. Frosthide Leg Armor: Frosthide Leg Armor

G) Glove Enchant:
Options include: 18 stam, 2%threat+10 parry rating, or 240 Armor. I guess if you’re having severe threat issues use the threat enchant, otherwise go with 18 stam or 240 armor. 240 armor for almost any level/combination of armor/hps ends up being more EHP than 18 stam, however the calculations are usually pretty close and if you are going to be doing a fight where there is any significant amount of magic damage, then 18 stam is the winner, but for the most part in current content 240 armor is the winner. However, if you are an engineer, then 885 armor to gloves is the best hands down. The 645 armor difference at my current gear levels as of typing this is equivalent to about 62 stam in terms of EHP.

H) Helm Enchant:
Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector from revered with the Argent Crusade. The Engineering helm enchant is another acceptable alternative, you gain 8 stam but lose 20 defense.

I) Weapon Enchant:
This is a highly debated topic. The enchants are as follows:
Titanium Weapon Chain: 28 hit Titanium Weapon Chain
Accuracy: 25hit/25crit Formula: Enchant Weapon - Accuracy
Mongoose: Proc of 120 Agi and small haste Formula: Enchant Weapon - Mongoose
Blade ward: Stackable Parry Buff Proc Formula: Enchant Weapon - Blade Ward
Blood Draining: Stacks a buff that heals you if you drop below 35% Formula: Enchant Weapon - Blood Draining

I personally would use: Mongoose for threat, Blade Ward for Avoidance, Blood Draining for EHP.

Blood Draining is a smart heal when you need it, in my opinion in a crisis situation where you drop below 35% health, it might as well be an extra temporary 4k EHP (the proc heals for about 2k HP). This is the EHP enchant. Mongoose has some value when it procs, but for warriors the uptime of Mongoose is too low for it to be useful imo. I don’t have a link to it, but for warriors Blade Ward is more avoidance than mongoose according to current theorycraft.

Some of this is up to debate and personal preference. I am a stack EHP proponent, so I say go with Blood Draining.

J) Shield Enchant:

The choices are as follows:
18 Stam Formula: Enchant Shield - Major Stamina
20 Defense Enchant Shield - Dodge
81 BV Titanium Plating

Again, I would advocate stam if you don’t need the defense, there are times when the 81 BV is very nice for threat though. Some will argue that the value of 20 defense is higher than 18 stam. I personally disagree, but I should mention it’s a viable option or I might risk being flogged.

K) TL;DR version:
Helm:Stalwart Protector
Shoulders:30stam/15 resil
Cloak: 225 armor
Chest: 275 HPS
Bracers: 40 stam
Weapon: Blood Draining
Shield: 18 stam
Boots: Tuskarr’s Vitality
Legs:55stam/22Agi
Gloves:240 armor (or 885 armor if engi)


V) Talent Specs/Glyphs:
A) Survival Spec
The first spec I am going to talk about is the “survival spec.” This is the spec that picks up every possible talent that would help a warrior survive.
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#LVZGV00xZVItMx0didczsGo:dTromz

Now, I personally don’t really like this spec because it wastes a bunch of talent points in Fury for things that in most 25 main raids will already be covered. Pallies will have Vindication for Demo shout, and a lot of fury warriors will roll with at least 4/5 commanding presence, depending on their spec. However if you are lacking these things or are in a 10 man where you are the only person that can give those buffs, then I would probably recommend it. However, I don’t believe it is optimal in most 25 man situations.

B) The standard or “threat” spec *updated for 3.3.3*
The next spec is the “cookie cutter” warrior spec. Some people throw a few points around differently and I will explain the changes, but the base line is http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#LAM00fZhZMItrx0didIzsGo This is the standard deep wounds spec. It maximizes threat and still has a great deal of survivability in it. It is flexible and versatile and is what I have used primarily for most progression fights since Ulduar.

This is not a set in stone spec, there are some things you can change, most notably are the points in focused rage. A lot of times it comes down to personal preference whether or not to use 2/5 shield spec and 3/3 focused rage or to take all 3 points in FR and drop them into shield spec. The trade off is basically that focused rage leads to more rage saved over time than shield spec does rage gained (especially in ICC) but shield spec is still slightly more mitigation. If you have no rage starvation issues at all, then spec 5/5 shield spec 0/3 focused rage

C) Glyphs:
There’s no one specific “these are the 3 glyphs you have no matter what” setup. I actually carry around several different glyphs and switch them out as needed.

If you need a raw survival setup, the best three glyphs are:
Blocking – The extra BV can add up to a lot over time and is very nice while shield block is up

Last Stand – 2 min cooldown with no downside, what’s not to like?

Shield wall – 2 min cooldown, but decreases the effectiveness. Typically 40% is enough and having it being able to be used again sooner is a definite plus, if you think you might shield wall twice in a fight, I recommend it. As a side note this works best when paired with imp disciplines. Some argue take both at the same time or neither, but considering on some fights you may want it but on other fights you may need to put on all threat glyphs or something and drop shield wall for a fight, but not respec, then I'd say it's acceptable to have it spec'd but not glyphed, however if you're going to use the glyph, you should definitely have it spec'd.

Other Glyphs to swap out as needed:
Glyph of Cleaving if there's any AoE tanking to be done

Glyph of Devastate for more threat, this is the best single target threat glyph by far.

Glyph of Taunt for any boss that you may need to guarantee a taunt lands, or at least increase the likelihood of it.[3]

Glyph of Vigilance for extra threat again, I actually almost never carry this glyph around, but it is something that many tanks use.

VI: Crafted Gear and Easy to Get Gear:

A) Crafted gear
There are 4 pieces of crafted gear right now that are very attainable (especially since triumph badges are free flowing) and are very very good pieces to have.

Boots: Spiked Death Dealers: Spiked Deathdealers

Belt: Indestructible Plate Girdle: Indestructible Plate Girdle

Bracers: Saronite Swordbreakers: Saronite Swordbreakers

Chest: Breastplate of the White Knight: Breastplate of the White Knight

If you do not have a piece of gear as good as one of these, then I highly recommend getting them made. It is fairly easy and they are typically big upgrades.

B) Gearing Guides:
There are several gearing guides for all levels already out here on Tankspot. I highly suggest you look at them:
Best in Slot?! Tanking Gear List Compilation! Gives good suggestions for EHP, Threat, and Avoidance.
Icecrown Citadel Prot Gear List Also another very solid guide that gives options for all 3 different kinds of tanking gear
Are the T10 set bonuses worth it? A breakdown of the T10 set and offset pieces for Icecrown
Anub'Arak Add Tanking Guide How to tank H-Anub25 adds, a VERY good guide that has lead to many a successful Anub kill, including my own guild's.
Cider's Easy 540 Defense Gear Guide Very good beginners guide.
Polar's Easy Pre-Naxx Tank Gear List Another very good beginner's setlist.
http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f97/6...ugh-guide.html Raij's guide for ICC gear for 10M only raiders
http://www.tankingtips.com/2009/12/2...st-pick-order/ <- Tankingtips.com's very very good frost emblem pick order guide. Now obviously these choices may vary based on what you already have, but it is a very good tool to help you decide what to get.


C) "Easy to Get Gear"
There is also a lot of gear that is puggable that you can get some very solid gear from, though not best in slot. If you have a modicum of gear and find similar players, then ToC25 is something that is something that you can probably PuG. Anub might be a little hard for a PuG, but for the most part normal mode is very doable. Any ToC25 gear is very good.

Helm: Helm of Wrath: Helm of Wrath If you can manage to get this, then it will save you badges getting the badge helm. It is a very solid helm that you will use until you upgrade to either the 258 T9 or you get an ICC level helm.

Neck: Nexus War Champion Beads This is the quest neck from Saphiron in naxx. All you have to do is kill Saph and Maly (And you don’t have to clear the wings to do saph any more) and you can get this neck. Gem it with 30 stam and it is a very viable budget neck until you can get ToC25 level stuff.

Shoulders: I recommend trying to get T9 shoulders, even if you only have access to 232 level gear, they are very good. However the emblem of triumph shoulders are probably better than the 232 shoulders.

Cloak: If you have the emblems of frost to spare, the new frost badge cloak is VERY good, might even be best in slot until
hardmodes. Otherwise the platinum mesh cloak from valor badges is a very acceptable cloak until you can get a better one from Ulduar or ToC.

Weapons: Rimefang's Claw - Sword
Falric's Wrist-Chopper - Axe

Shield: If you have the cash and can’t find a shield you could buy “Northern Barrier.” It’s a BoE Ulduar drop.
Trinkets: Glyph of Indominability, The Black Heart, and Essence of Gossimir are all very easily obtainable trinkets and are also pretty decent. Glyph and The Black Heart will take you far into content

Rings: These are a bit trickier to get good ones, but there is a decent crafted one to start out with: Titanium Earthguard Ring And the ring that drops in H-ToC5 is also very good: Mark of the Relentless although it doesn’t have any defense on it, so if you are low on defense this may not be an option. However one of the best rings to pick up is Clutch of Fortification acquirable by 35 emblems of triumph. It is one of the best pre-hardmode rings and you will definitely get good mileage out of it. For EHP it is actually better than the 258 H-Band of the Traitor King if the damage is all physical.

Legs: There aren’t very good choices for budget legs. I’d say go for tier 8 or 9 legs or if you can get them from ToC25 try to grab Legplates of Feverish Dedication. There are also Legs that drop off of Kologarn in ulduar25 that are pretty decent(Saronite Plated Legguards). If you can drop the money for them, then you should really go for "Pillars of Might." These are ICC crafted legs that will give you amazing mileage, they are pretty much best in slot: Pillars of Might

Gloves: I’d recommend either T9 gloves or the new frost emblem gloves.

Belt: Indestructible Plate Girdle is one of the better belts you can get until you get the frost emblem belt. It is a crafted item so no raiding is involved, just money and/or farming: Indestructible Plate Girdle

Boots: Spiked Deathdealers are another very good crafted option. You could also craft Boots of Kingly Upheaval, but I don't think it is worth the money and there are other boots that are comparable from raiding content, however if you have the money and don't think you can get better from raiding, then by all means, get them made.

C) Comparing Gear
When gearing for a progression fight, sometimes you might find it hard to decide which piece of gear is better. For that you need to look at the mechanics of the fight(s). But additionally, a good tool to decide which is best is theckHD's N-EH formula, Maintankadin &bull; View topic - "New" EH - incorporating different damage types into EH. <- this is must read material!!!!

Elitist Jerks also just released a new prot warrior spreadsheet for 3.3 http://elitistjerks.com/f81/t84604-t...adsheet_3_3_a/ It is a very solid spreadsheet that can help a lot. Thanks to krc for pointing it out.

Another very good tool for checking out different gearsets is http://rawr.codeplex.com/
It is an out of game tool that allows you to put on different gear and automatically calculate all kinds of fun theorycrafting values, such as EHP, Damage Reduction, Total Avoidance, etc. etc. etc. However as a caveat, you should really use Rawr carefully and make sure you know what mode you're in and also what you are tanking in game, raw numbers can only give so much for a tank. As my signature says, dps is science, healing is art, tanking is strategy. From a pure DPS perspective taking the raw scientific approach is in most cases excellent and should be followed. Rawr is extremely good at that, however Rawr cannot simulate boss fights, the playstyle of your healers, or different strategies for tanking X boss fight. Before you just start diving into Rawr, I suggest you read Badga's post about it http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f97/6...tml#post347107 and also Kojiyama's counter argument http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f97/6...tml#post347194 and be sure to use the tool wisely. It can be very powerful, but be careful in how you use it, raw math is not the only factor to tanking.

I hope this guide helps! If you still have questions ask! Either post in this thread, make your own HALP! Thread, or even if you wish send me a PM and I’ll try to help you out further.

[1] EHP is actually a bit more complicated than just HP/Armor. So, time for a quick crash course here:

Armor is really damaged reduced, which means that any modifier that reduces the damage you take also increases your EHP. EHP is a kind of magical number that is used to equate all of those reduced modifiers to "effective hit points" as if that would be the number of hit points you would have if everything was unmitigated. The calculation is actually something like:

EHP = Hit Points/[(1-%dmg reduction)(1-%defense reduction)(1-%other dmg reduction)]
And you can repeat the (1-%other dmg reduction) for each successive modifer that you have, for example the 10% decreased damage done that priests and shamans do, and the reduction from blessing of sanctuary. This will give you your "Effective Hit Points" number and you can use these values to calculate if armor would be better for you than stamina, etc. etc.

[2] Threat - in regards to hit and expertise as stated above, it is not fully necessary to gear for threat since our innate threat should be enough, as I said, unlike dps it's not about putting out as much as you can, you just have to be able to put out more threat than the top dps. Here are some general tips to help with that.

1) Shield Slam is your friend! Your best friend! Shield slam as MUCH as possible for maximum threat.
2) Manage your rage. If you have less than about 40 rage, then you should save it to ensure you get in more shield slams and devastates thus avoid queueing up another heroic strike. If you have enough rage, then keep HS up as much as possible.
3) The priority should go: Shield Slam -> Revenge ->Devastate while keeping up heroic strike for maximum threat or for maximum DPS use Revenge -> Shield Slam -> Revenge while keeping HS queued up. Shockwave should also probably be used on cooldown. Shockwave might have some hit box issues, so use it wisely(but most of these have been fixed, so it's not usually a concern), but also it is good to use shockwave since it cannot be dodged or parried since it is an AoE effect. However it still applies to melee hit (not spell it).
4) Shield Block is also very nice for threat. I often get 1 shield slam off to activate glyph of blocking, then when the next shield slam comes up, I hit shield block before it and try to get in as many shield slams as possible with shield block up to get a big threat lead at the begining of fights.

[3] Hit rating and taunt. As I said before, for threat purposes hit rating doesn't matter, however there are a few bosses now that require you be able to taunt and not miss, especially in ICC. SaintVigeous originally posted this list here http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f14/6...tml#post348371 and I am going to adapt it here and kind of explain what we mean.

Taunt doesn't work on the hit cap, it works on the spell hit cap, and hit rating calculates differently for spell hit than melee hit. Actually, it's a better conversion. 40 hit is about 1.12% melee hit but it's 1.52% spell hit. However, the spell hit cap is also higher than the melee hit cap (which is 8% for prot warriors). The spell hit cap is 17%, so while hit rating gives you more spell hit, you also need more spell hit to get capped. Here's the breakdown. The +3% hit buff can be provided by shadowpriests or boomkins, however it also depends on them having the spell on the boss. If it's a single target boss that dps will be on anyways, then you probably don't have to worry about whether or not the debuff will be on the boss, however if it's a new add, you might not be able to count on that.

446 No buffs - 17% hit
420 Draenei - 16% hit + 1% Draenei buff
406 Hit Food - 15.48% hit + 1.52% hit from food
380 Draenei, Hit Food - 14.48% hit + 1.52% hit from food and 1% hit from Draenei
368 3% hit buff - 14% hit + 3% hit from buff
341 3% hit buff, Draenei - 13% hit + 3% hit buff + 1% from Draenei
328 3% hit buff, Hit Food - 12.48% hit + 1.52% hit from food + 3% hit buff
301 3% hit buff, Draenei, Hit Food - 11.48% hit + 1.52% from food + 1% from Draenei + 3% buff
237 Glyph of Taunt - 9% hit + 8% from Glyph of Taunt
210 Glyph of Taunt, Draenei - 8% hit + 8% from Glyph of Taunt + 1% from Draenei
197 Glyph of Taunt, Hit Food - 7.48% hit + 8% hit from Glyph of Taunt + 1.52% hit from food
170 Glyph of Taunt, Draenei, Hit Food - 6.48% hit + 8% hit from Glyph of Taunt + 1.52% hit from food + 1% hit from Draenei
158 Glyph of Taunt, 3% hit buff - 6% hit + 8% from Glyph of Taunt + 3% hit buff
132 Glyph of Taunt, 3% hit buff, Draenei - 5% hit + 8% from Glyph of Taunt + 3% hit buff
118 Glyph of Taunt, 3% hit buff, Hit Food - 4.48% hit + 8% from Glyph of Taunt + 3% hit buff + 1.52% hit from food
92 Glyph of Taunt, 3% hit buff, Draenei, Hit Food - 3.38% hit + 8% from Glyph of Taunt + 3% hit buff + 1.52% hit from food + 1% hit from Draenei

So basically in an ideal raid situation where you'd have hit food, either an spriest or a boomkin, and you are glyphing for taunt rather than sacrificing for it with gear (though hit seems to be more innate on T10 level gear than it was on T9 level gear) you need 118 hit to ensure your taunt doesn't miss if you are horde, and 92 hit if you are alliance.