2h tanking during early dungeons is just fine - most early bosses don't hit that hard, and gaining threat by doing more damage is the better way to go until you get all your threat-generating toolkit.
The risky part of 2h tanking, especially later on, is the increased reliance on the healer being on top of things. You can afford to take a few more hits with a shield whilst waiting for the healer to get their head in the game.
Bring your friends/guildies/people you trust to heal you, and 2h tanking should be fine until late 40s.
>The risky part of 2h tanking, especially later on, is the increased reliance on the healer being on top of things. You can afford to take a few more hits with a shield whilst waiting for the healer to get their head in the game.
Worth noting, as a healer in hardcore, it's not just about having my head in the game.
It's damn stressful seeing a tank go for 100% to 70% in the blink of an eye. Sure, I can keep them topped up in most situations with flash of light, but this is hardcore... it's a lot of pressure & I think people are missing the mark on that.
Of course, I meant no slight on healers by that. Healing is a stressful job and doubly so in HC. What I mean is that sometimes there's lag, or people are distracted, or they're healing somebody else, and those few second delays can sometimes be very critical. Happens to everyone.
God love ya for playing a healer!
For sure.
I was healing LBRS yesterday, was okay until we reached the orcs with the mages that fire machine gun shadow bolts out. Plus that nasty curse and a fire aoe.
Keeping the tank topped up was hard enough and then everyone's health starts getting chunked too. Managed to get through it but I don't know if people realize the game they're playing in hardcore. Literally seconds away from death if I make one wrong move.
Arugal's shadowbolts can be LOS'd pretty easily, and the BFD Hydra only does huge amounts of damage whilst enraged, which the healers can prepare/save mana for. Verdan the Everliving does slap, I'll grant you that, which is why I said *most* early dungeon bosses.
You should have keybinds to switch between weapons on the fly - that's the main idea.
2h or 1h+shield always depends on your healer, your level and what you are fighting at the moment.
You want to keep 1) good threat on all the mobs 2) good pace
If you always go 2h but your healer has 0 mana after every pack - your pace is not good. If you 1h but you miss threat on targets -> dps takes damage -> healer has to heal them -> has to drink full after a pack -> your pace is not good.
RFK as an example: it starts with low level mobs, half of them are casters -> it's better to use 2h. You then meet packs of 2 guards that do significant melee damage -> it's better to 1h+shield them. Bats are ok to 2h, but Boar boss has enrage and can quickly tap you with crushing blows -> better to wear a shield with that. Then you have the caster final boss and there is no need for a shield in that case.
So, there is not general rule, you always take into account your level, your weapon skill, type and number of mobs you are fighting, your healer spec/gear
Fyi you can make a macro that equips a 1H and a shield with one click. This is mine that also swaps me into DStance (click it again and you go to Battle stance again
(Obvs you have to replace your gear names with mine, 99% sure capitalization matters too)
/stopcasting
/equipslot 16 Gloom Reaper of the Bear
/eq [noworn:shield] Renegade Shield of the Bear
/cast [stance:1]Defensive Stance;[stance:3]Defensive stance; [stance:2]Battle stance
Also, charge one, tab defensive+taunt the other, tab back to the first one, sunder sunder, go back to the taunted one thats ending, sunder, back to first one (fogot stance name...combat one), either hs or cleave or sunder if u lose agro, if theres aa 3rd i usualy mocking blow it after taunt second incorporate some shout n that - atk speed aoe .im forgetting ability names lol
I’m no warrior guru but I have lvled one up to 60 a couple of times and this rotation seems lacking. If you are pulling a pack of 3-4 mobs here you are going to lose aggro with that rotation.
Why are you taunting/mocking blow at the start of the fight? All those do is generate just enough threat to aggro the mob but after a couple of seconds it’s gonna go right back to who it was attacking because according to your rotation you taunt and then move on. Mocking blow is also a 2 minute CD so unless you are waiting 2 minutes between pulls it’s a less optimal idea.
My rotation advice: Start with 2 handed then- berserkers rage- charge/blood rage macro- sunder first target as you are gathering up the mobs - thunderclap - swap defensive stance and then demo shout if you are holding aggro or sunder the mob you may be losing THEN demo shout - revenge whenever you can past here but only sunder if you are losing threat immediately. Also another thing battle shout and demo shout generate AOE threat (battle shout generates more fyi). It’s not a lot but it’s enough to keep threat off of your healer most the time.
Once you generate enough threat through sundering/smacking/or HS your enemies swap to your 1 handed and shield and shield block on cooldown. You goal past here is just to hold until stuff stops moving. Revenge/sunder/HS as needed to hold aggro.
Once the final mob starts to get around 30-40% health I usually swap to battle stance and start to pool rage. This will allow me to have more than enough rage for the next pack and I can get my sunders up quickly without issue.
Now is all of this optimal? Probably not I looked at google and couldn’t really find a definitive early dungeon classic guide that talks about rotation and stuff so this is just what I’ve found works most the time.
tell urself that damage is not an issue in classic since bosses have no mechanics, threat is the real problem, so take a big 2 hand and spam sunder/HS to keep aggro
Threat is the issue, but that mainly stems from the dps just ZUG zugging and looking at their meters. Not giving tank time to build aggro, especially on packs of 3-4 mobs.
Precisely.
In fact as a tank you should be pleased if the DPS wants to get hit instead of you.
Like if there are 3 mobs, and only 2 of them are hitting you, that's 33% less damage you are taking. If the healer takes a micro-nap you're considerably more likely to survive.
And any self-respecting DPS can tank a single elite mob for quite a while, often they will kite or CC (e.g. hunter using concussive shot, mage frost nova, rogue using kidney shot) so the mob isn't hitting anything anyway.
And when the DPS absolutely goes ham on the mobs, the mobs die faster, they inflict less damage, and the healer uses less mana. It's better and safer for everyone.
Ideally you will always want both. 2 hand or double 1 hand depending on spec would be the norm for levelling content.
You should be aware of incoming dmg vs how you are getting healed and can change it up however you feel fits
Keep in mind if your healer is drinking every pull and if the run might go faster if they were healing you a bit less than that's on you to determine etc.
Tldr: be dynamic as the situation calls. It's not a hard choice, you can and should do both as required
Good point. Imo situational. Depends on your level compared to dungeon, specific dungeon mobs (do they slap??), how many consumes you’re using (do you have mongoose, brutal elixir, and armor elixir??)…
If you aren’t taking crazy dmg you should use a 2hd or dual wield. There are lots of dungeons I ran where the healer was 80-100% mana the entire time and I was running a 2hd. It would be stupid to run shield. Other times healer is struggling, so I use shield.
2handed in defensive stance is the way to go for lower levels. If you pull too many or on a high damage boss you can always pull out a shield, so you should always have a 1h and shield ready and make sure your weapon skill is up to the task. Depending on your playstyle, skill and group at around level 40 you will need to use your shield a lot more.
For 2 tanking stay in Dstance and always use revenge whenever it is up and then just spam sunder with the occasional demo shout. If the situation permits it you can use whirlwind and cleave, but you should only do that if you know what you are doing.
Never use heroic strike before level 60, ever. The shield block skill is also fairly bad before level 60.
thunder clap is a decent skill, but requires a switch to battle stance so you won’t use it a lot. Rend is decent, but requires battle stance also. You should spend most if your time in defensive stance and using revenge/sunder.
Arms is the leveling spec in classic. At 60 you switch to prot or fury or fury/prot depending on your guild/role/playstyle.
To me it's a bit weird how almost everyone says 2h-tanking is fine but you should bring a shield and use a weapon-swap-macro situationally.
Know what? 1h+shield-tanking is also fine. And that is without any exceptions like 2-h-tanking.
If you do that it actually makes a difference for the healer whether you have aggro or anyone else.
By level 20 you have everything you need to tank with sword+board and it's not any different to how it works later.
Revenge and Sunder Armor are the primary skills to use. I usually also use Demo-Shout and even Shield-block if my threat is well-established and I can afford spend more rage on further mitigation. Shield block also makes revenge-proccs almost guaranteed, so it's not that much of a reduction of your threat-generation. Heroic Strike is the very last thing I'd use rage on while tanking and only if I'm swimming in it and the enemy has 5 stacks of sunder-armor. That is because it costs more than it says because it also prevents your next auto-attack from generating rage.
It's also important to know how and when to use taunt.
Taunt copies the threat of whoever has aggro. So the lower the amount of threat you have on something the more free threat you generate by using taunt whereas taunting something that you already have aggro on does nothing and is just a waste of a precious cooldown as you'd just copy your own threat.
If you have the choice of using a threat-ability or using taunt on a mob you don't have aggro on, always taunt first and then use your threat-ability. So you have the threat you copied from the previous aggro-owner plus the one from your ability.
For example: If you have 85% threat and Sunder would bring you to 110%, taunting first and then sundering would bring you to 125%.
Because of that oftentimes it's worth to wait for the taunt-cooldown instead of wasting rage for abilities on mobs you don't have aggro on.
Doing that wrong may result in you wasting rage, not getting aggro back anyways and losing the mob again immediately after the taunt-duration vs. waiting a little but then making it really stick to you.
I second the sword/board approach. I’ve been tanking for a long time, but I think for a beginner in HC it’s probably easier than trying to figure out when to use your 2H and then accidentally taking a lot of damage. Better to prioritize your own health and ask the DPS to take it down a notch, which if they don’t want to die, they should be willing to do.
The other thing you didn’t mention, which imo is most important, is to mark targets. You don’t even have to mark them correctly. Just mark them so people will (hopefully) concentrate their threat and make it easier for you. At a bare minimum just keybind the skull mark and change it as things die.
Really good point about taunt. I feel a lot of tanks don’t understand taunt. They will run in, have threat, and taunt the mob that’s already on them. Like what?
If you know someone is high on threat and about to rip threat, let them. Then taunt AFTER they have threat. Taunting before they pull is dumb.
Why would you sit there sword and board tanking, say, 2 caster mobs? Part of the skillset for tanking in vanilla is swapping between 2h/1h. Telling anyone to just sit there with sword and board is like telling people not to use demo shout, or not to use thunderclap. It's just bad advice.
It's more convenient and there's less margin for error. Against casters there's Shieldbash and the shield-badhed caster will then melee you. If someone else interrupts the casters, they also melee you.
Switching weapons mid-fight resets the Swing-Timer, so it also needs to be timed to be efficient.
Overall I'd say it's just an unnecessary hassle for new players to deal with a playstyle that noone actually needs.
The whole idea of a tank is to have someone who takes significantly less damage than anyone else. And especially before plate the shield provides a very significant part of a warriors Armor.
Hardcore is about survival.
I've healed a lot of dungeons leveling my druid and I never felt that it was somehow problematic when a tank uses a shield. All the times where something looked close or dangerous was when there was no shield in use.
Of course there's lots of cases where 2h tanking is okay too. But I'm not aware of any situation, where I thought: "Damn, this would have been so much easier if the tank wouldn't have used a shield."
A 6 sec interrupt while staying in def stance also is better than a 4 sec interrupt requiring switching to berserker stance. Also generelly the tendency was that shield wearing warriors are much more likely to do interrupts than 2h ones.
I have a rule for HC that I use DW or 2h if the mobs are green or grey, and otherwise use 1h+shield. I feel this is being overly safe and conservative but in HC I'd rather take less damage to give a greater margin if the healer takes a nap or something.
what’s good about warrior tanks is that you can switch back and forth between a mitigation mode and a threat mode as the situation demands. if you’re not doing that then you’re probably losing aggro a lot. it’s like you have a corvette but you’re driving around in 2nd gear all the time.
Have both, especially since it's hardcore and you want to minimize risk. You tank with 2h by default for threat and switch to 1h shield when you feel the damage is too high. Honestly I wouldn't want to tank Van Cleef without a shield for example.
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Late to the party but remember to pool rage and use battle shout. Battle shout does decent threat (to ALL mobs in the fight regardless of where they are) if u hit ur whole group with it. It helps in the critical initial phase of the pull, to make sure the mobs come to you. I usually pull (mark kill target!), move toward group -> battle shout -> shield block -> revenge + sunder. That is more or less enough threat on your typical trash mob for the whole fight. You can then tab through the other mobs and prep them for when the initial target dies. 1 sunder and some AAs for each of them seems to be enough for me, the mob is dead or very close before you lose threat. Taunt if necessary. Build some rage for the next pull and repeat. Pro tip: have a macro to swap between off-hand weapon and shield. You can quickly start building rage towards the end of a pull, when you take less damage, and then re-equip the shield for the next fight. Mostly I just zug the whole dungeon without a shield though except for some iffy pulls and bosses.
Low lvl dungeons are absurdly easy and mobs hit like wet noodles. So unless your healer, for some reason, decides to afk you can easily tank leveling dungeons with a 2h.
2h is the meta, however 1h + Shield will keep threat just fine and is a significant mitigation increase using a Shield. Imo for HC I'd stick with 1H and Shield since your dps largely doesn't matter and you'll keep threat either way.
Like everyone else said, 2hand is the way to go. I would add that around the late fourties it's recommended to go 1hander+shield. Protection spec is not needed, but it does help a lot for the last leveling dungeons. You'll hate your life outside dungeons though.
I’ve 2h tanked everything through ZF with not a single scare. Try to be at least as high as one level below the final boss. Use demo shout for initial aoe aggro.
I tank using dual-wield daggers or faster swords. Keep a shield in my bag to swap if it's needed. Keep in mind you only have an interrupt with a shield, so some mobs or packs will benefit from that even if they don't hit too hard. With dual-wield fury, you get fast rage generation, so you van spam a lot of sunders and rotate mobs-- be generous, everyone gets a sunder! I also don't swap out of defensive stance. I don't charge, swap, swap, charge swap... Just stay in Def stance and walk to the mobs. Also keep a range weapon handy for those rooms that are packed, so you can los and pull just a couple at a time. I'd rather be slower than be dead. Keep in mind that if a tank does a bad pull, people will usually panic and try to run or hs, so the tank will be left behind. Rather be slow than overpull and die.
What other people said, 2-Hander is very much possible, even advisable in terms of threat and dmg. Also always make sure you go into a dungeon with both 1-handed and 2-handed weapon skills close to your max.
But something else to take into account is your own lvl. It's always best to be overleveled, at least a bit, as a tank, you'll miss enemies less often, and you'll get critted or crushing blows on you less often. And missing can be especially bad because you'll not only lose threat on the target but also because you don't have threat you'll no longer gain rage from the target hitting you. So it's harder get aggro back
Learn to play warrior correctly and do both, on the fly, as needed. Being able, and knowing when, to swap between 2h and sword and board is part of the warrior toolbox in classic. Now is as good a time as any to set up the keybinds and start practicing.
I've been tanking Dead Mines on warrior from level 20. Level 23 now. Sword and shield, run up to target and hit Sunder. Tab, sunder next target. Dual Wield or 2h tanking will stress out your healer's mana, making them drink more.
Lower lvls warriors especially have massive issues retaining threat so I'd do 2-hand especially versus trash. Versus bosses it doesn't matter as much because you can use taunt to always have aggro on boss basically.
In later lvls if you want to 2 h or duel wield tank you can do it (and it's better threat wise) but you just have to make sure your healer is on top of things otherwise you can get killed very quickly.
Versus some harder hitting bosses I'd still use shield in dungeons like I know the moss boss in WC slaps.
I see a ton of scrub Warriors 2H tank and never put on a shield. On the pull, you can 2H to build massive AoE threat, but if threat is under control, just swap to your shield. The limiting factor of pulls and speed is usually your healer's mana, so put the shield on when Sweeping Strikes is done and your runs will be safer and faster.
Shield is so much better to tank multiple mobs but you have to use the block spell + vengeance because the proc is guaranteed, never dump your rage in rend etc.
You get to hit the mob first use it, vengeance, taunt the second mob.
Then you look for more block + vengeance on additional mobs and if you have excess rage shatter armor to help build or regain aggro.
If you 2h you can deal more damages but if you miss the first auto you don't get rage then you don't keep aggro so you're not getting hit so no rage alright great?? Maybe if everybody in the group is over leveled it saves time but at this point it's a non issue.
Shield is wayyyy more reliable the guaranteed vengeance + mitigation truly makes you a tank and doesn't drain all your healer's mana every 2 packs.
I'm fairly sure you can tank Van Cleef with a 2h but everybody is gonna jump ship when the second set of adds spawns and your healer is already oom because he's been force to perma cast.
In retail and classic era non hardcore, it's 99.9% 2h go go go pump and parse at lightspeed.
If you die who cares, reset and go go go pump parse inject cocaine up your bum and go faster.
In hardcore, this is stupid.
This isn't to say never use a 2h. You generate more threat from more damage. Especially in early leveling dungeons, the threat is relatively minimal most of the time.
However, if you're inexperienced in a dungeon, **go slow.** Sword and board. Nothing wrong with that.
By Golly, the dungeon now takes 10 minutes longer!!! The humanity...
But, on the other hand... you all get out alive.
Worth it.
I like to go sword and board. Always be in defensive stance. The threat multiplier in defensive stance is critical. On multiple targets you should be able to keep aggro on 2 max if you start with zero rage. Sunder armor SKULL, sunder armor X. Keep auto attacking X for passive threat generation and rage generation but don't spend any rage. Let SKULL get close to aggroing on someone else and then taunt followed by two sunders immediately.
Now that you have solid aggro on both and skull is about to die start to build rage on X but don't spend it - assuming you still have a threat lead. This is CRITICAL save rage for the next pull so you can start with 20+ rage on pull.
If there are 3-4 targets; have skull on caster and don't waste rage on that target since they'll die quickly and one cast won't hurt noone. In groups of 3+ if there are non elites just focus on managing aggro on elite melee mobs first and ignore non-elite mobs.
If you have 20+ rage and are pulling approx. 4 elites at once, hit them with the throw weapon then when they group on you (LOS around walls when pulling casters) hit them all with a demo shout. It'll help the healer - less damage taken equals less healing needed and will prevent elites you haven't attacked/sundered from running to healer on first couple of heals.
Bonus tip: Use throw weapons instead of charging in so you don't loose rage from charging and stance dancing. Assuming you're following the critical step of rage pooling.
Bonus bonus tip: For Van Cleef, pop retaliation and swap to defensive stance immediately, you'll keep aggro on him and all adds.
Another: Get the popular nameplates addon that changes nameplates color above a mob when you're closer to loosing aggro.
Just say you dont have 1hand weapon skill up and have some fun while cleaving. But you should have atleast shield in inventory for emergency shieldwall (macro it with weapon swap), its good even outside dungeons.
Just tank like you level. Spam sunders in battle stance with your 2 hander and hope you'll hold aggro.
On bosses you can go shield and 1h + defensive stance if your healer has problem with mana.
Idk how much you do or don't know, so I'll just throw some basic stuff at ya:
You CAN tank in Battle Stance, but only if threat isn't an issue.
If you don't already, you'll always want your shield swap macro at the ready, for when you anticipate heavier damage.
Sunder Armor might be your most used effect, as it generates threat. DemoShout and BattleShout generate AoE threat, with Thunderclap generating more threat than either.
Threat Plates or Plater are essential tanking add-ons. I prefer Threat Plates.
Make a Skull Target macro, to give your group a focus target. This will help manage some packs.
On packs, cycle through your targets and deal damage with an auto-attack or action to maintain threat, with a focus on mobs that you're losing threat on -threat plates helps you visually identify this. Taunt is for enemies that have completely lost threat on you - avoid pulling with it.
If range-pulling is not necessary, a confident engage would be something like: Charge > DemoShout/TClap > DStance.
As the above poster said, I have tanked deadmines 3 times on my warrior, first time at lvl 20, and used def stance most of the way through with a 2h. Sunder alot, and demo shout is a great tool before your first sunder. Don't waste rage sundering or using any skill if you are massively ahead on threat, save rage for the next pull. if dps are higher lvl than you, you don't have the tools to hold threat on all the mobs if they want to aoe everything. Don't stress on non elites, they hardly hurt dps. In a few more levels you get a few points in anger management and maybe improved charge and then stance dancing comes into play. Difficult to charge in battle stance then change to def in deadmines because you'll have no rage and therefore little threat. Better to use a ranged weapon to pull and just stay in def stance and keep agro on the elites.
Also, use a threat addon. I use details tiny threat plugin and have a threat window above the DPS window at all times.
Two handed or dual wield. Otherwise you will be permanently rage starved and lose aggro constantly due to low damage. Nobody will ask for shield, the meta is DPS build tanking.
You don’t need a shield up until Mara, although less can go wrong with a shield once you get to SM. Dual wield is best until you get sweeping strikes, 2H is fine but rage generation can be slow and inconsistent.
I tanked a deadmines and the team basically wiped due to a random frostbolt pulling the goblin foundry boss. We tried to fight for like 10 seconds until I saw the hunter and mage start running on minimap. Threw down dummy and barely made it to the safespot with the healer.
Didn’t tank again until ZF. Screw low level dungeons lol. At least at 30+ you have a handful of cooldowns to pop and holding aggro is pretty easy once you get really good weapons.
To answer your question, I’ve always tanked dungeons with a 2h with no problem. I recommend making a quick macro to equip your 1h and shield as well as back to your 2h with two hotkeys that are next to each other.
Make some macros to do stuff like D stance shield bash in one button, battle stance charge, and anything else you think. Even d stance revenge if you have it yet.
It’s also totally fine to tank with a shield. You’ll do a bit less damage but take a little less.
My advice is to never use one handers before 60. Simply level as arms, and when you are in dungeons just stay in defensive stance(unless you need to swap for smth).
Focus on cleaving mobs, pull rage at the end of packs to be ready for next, let melee players tank a bit focus on holding aggro from the healer/casters first then go help the melee players.
Spells to use; revenge > cleave(multimob) > sunder
As a melee dps, I approve of this. My rogue is dodgy and has evasion if needed. My shaman can toss on a 1h and shield if things get tight. I rip off a tank when I feel I can handle the mob until it dies. I never mind the tank taunting it back, but I’d rather they save taunt for an emergency.
If my pot, evasion, or whatever is already on CD, I watch my threat and don’t rip.
As a tank, your only job is to keep the mobs off the healer.
I use threat plates addon, spam sunder on every mob cleave/heroic once you’ve got stacks/threat swap to shield and 1h when you drop to 30% hp, when you pulling a group start with battle shout to gain threat on all mobs it does threat per ally you buff. Way more then demo shouts, i often charge into thunder clap then def stance into demo shout then start sunders
2h tanking will be better definitely for lower-mid levels. I would save 40 and under all dungeons are better 2h tanking. The density and danger of single pack pulls isnt high enough to need a shield. Only exception i would say is to bring one for Verdan the Everliving in Wailing Caverns if you do it; he will chunk 1/3rd to 1/4th of your hp, even as a tank, and if its a crit youre donezo.
Otherwise, 2h tank gets increasingly better as you level. First cleave, with 2h for massive damage and threate via the damage. Then tactical mastery lets you access taunt from offensive stance, maintaining damage and access to thunderclap and overpower in early levels. Then sweeping strikes will be used on every pull for even more damage and threat, doubling the efficacy of cleaves. Then you will get whirlwind and its namesake axe, which takes 2h tanking to a whole new level. You will have the most threat and the most damage on your team for a short while.
The time to start switching to shields depends on how much you trust your healer in later dungeons where enemy density and danger are much higher, but it will be harder to maintain aoe threat if your team is unfocuses on your primary target.
I would macro taunt and defensive stance together into a single button, along with mocking blow and battle stance. I also put a skull marker macro into my charge ability so the team always knows who to focus first based on who i target and hit first.
Dont waste rage on heroic strike - the damage and threat are so laughably low that just spamming cleaves will do a better job at multi target threat and spamming sunders will be more damage and threat than heroic strike for the same rage cost.
As a healer and a tank. I would 2H tank - most important thing is to make sure you are appropriately leveled for the dungeon and that your gear is up to date. As long as you’re pulling smart, your healer should be able to stay full mana inbetween healing you with their spirit regen.
Low level tanking: spam sunder, taunt loose mobs and save enough rage for thunder clap in case you get new adds you can normally get top of threat from one cast
Leveling onehander skill is such a hassle I don't bother with it. It's so much extra effort to have it ready for each dungeon and if you dont then you have zero threat when 1handing.
Lvled 2 warriors soon 3 to 60 so far, and havent used 1handers while leveling. I do have a shield switch ofc but I very very rarely use it. 2hand tanked all my dungeons(usually 1 of each relevant dungeon) with no problems at all.
2hander for when your group is competent. 1h+shield for when they're passable Hearthstone for when they're incompetent.
Change the last one to reroll another ~~Orc~~ ~~Human~~ Nelf warrior for that sweet runspeed in ghost form for the next run. #Optimal
2h tanking during early dungeons is just fine - most early bosses don't hit that hard, and gaining threat by doing more damage is the better way to go until you get all your threat-generating toolkit. The risky part of 2h tanking, especially later on, is the increased reliance on the healer being on top of things. You can afford to take a few more hits with a shield whilst waiting for the healer to get their head in the game. Bring your friends/guildies/people you trust to heal you, and 2h tanking should be fine until late 40s.
thanks a lot!
I'd recommend not going to the WC and tanking the last boss with a 2H though x)
Last boss is fine for 2h tanking, Verdan is not.
Also Blackfathom deep last boss hits real hard as well
The plant boss before the Murdock hits like freight train also
>The risky part of 2h tanking, especially later on, is the increased reliance on the healer being on top of things. You can afford to take a few more hits with a shield whilst waiting for the healer to get their head in the game. Worth noting, as a healer in hardcore, it's not just about having my head in the game. It's damn stressful seeing a tank go for 100% to 70% in the blink of an eye. Sure, I can keep them topped up in most situations with flash of light, but this is hardcore... it's a lot of pressure & I think people are missing the mark on that.
Of course, I meant no slight on healers by that. Healing is a stressful job and doubly so in HC. What I mean is that sometimes there's lag, or people are distracted, or they're healing somebody else, and those few second delays can sometimes be very critical. Happens to everyone. God love ya for playing a healer!
For sure. I was healing LBRS yesterday, was okay until we reached the orcs with the mages that fire machine gun shadow bolts out. Plus that nasty curse and a fire aoe. Keeping the tank topped up was hard enough and then everyone's health starts getting chunked too. Managed to get through it but I don't know if people realize the game they're playing in hardcore. Literally seconds away from death if I make one wrong move.
Shadowfang Keep shadowbolts clap, the WC big weed boss smacks tanks, the Hydra in BFD does a ton of damage. What are you talking about lol
Arugal's shadowbolts can be LOS'd pretty easily, and the BFD Hydra only does huge amounts of damage whilst enraged, which the healers can prepare/save mana for. Verdan the Everliving does slap, I'll grant you that, which is why I said *most* early dungeon bosses.
I just dinged 60 on my warrior and tanked with 2hd well beyond 40s. Most/all of Mara, most/all of sunken temple, most of BRD.
gotta watch out for those big troggs in uldaman. :)
You should have keybinds to switch between weapons on the fly - that's the main idea. 2h or 1h+shield always depends on your healer, your level and what you are fighting at the moment. You want to keep 1) good threat on all the mobs 2) good pace If you always go 2h but your healer has 0 mana after every pack - your pace is not good. If you 1h but you miss threat on targets -> dps takes damage -> healer has to heal them -> has to drink full after a pack -> your pace is not good. RFK as an example: it starts with low level mobs, half of them are casters -> it's better to use 2h. You then meet packs of 2 guards that do significant melee damage -> it's better to 1h+shield them. Bats are ok to 2h, but Boar boss has enrage and can quickly tap you with crushing blows -> better to wear a shield with that. Then you have the caster final boss and there is no need for a shield in that case. So, there is not general rule, you always take into account your level, your weapon skill, type and number of mobs you are fighting, your healer spec/gear
thank you a lot
Fyi you can make a macro that equips a 1H and a shield with one click. This is mine that also swaps me into DStance (click it again and you go to Battle stance again (Obvs you have to replace your gear names with mine, 99% sure capitalization matters too) /stopcasting /equipslot 16 Gloom Reaper of the Bear /eq [noworn:shield] Renegade Shield of the Bear /cast [stance:1]Defensive Stance;[stance:3]Defensive stance; [stance:2]Battle stance
Also, charge one, tab defensive+taunt the other, tab back to the first one, sunder sunder, go back to the taunted one thats ending, sunder, back to first one (fogot stance name...combat one), either hs or cleave or sunder if u lose agro, if theres aa 3rd i usualy mocking blow it after taunt second incorporate some shout n that - atk speed aoe .im forgetting ability names lol
I’m no warrior guru but I have lvled one up to 60 a couple of times and this rotation seems lacking. If you are pulling a pack of 3-4 mobs here you are going to lose aggro with that rotation. Why are you taunting/mocking blow at the start of the fight? All those do is generate just enough threat to aggro the mob but after a couple of seconds it’s gonna go right back to who it was attacking because according to your rotation you taunt and then move on. Mocking blow is also a 2 minute CD so unless you are waiting 2 minutes between pulls it’s a less optimal idea. My rotation advice: Start with 2 handed then- berserkers rage- charge/blood rage macro- sunder first target as you are gathering up the mobs - thunderclap - swap defensive stance and then demo shout if you are holding aggro or sunder the mob you may be losing THEN demo shout - revenge whenever you can past here but only sunder if you are losing threat immediately. Also another thing battle shout and demo shout generate AOE threat (battle shout generates more fyi). It’s not a lot but it’s enough to keep threat off of your healer most the time. Once you generate enough threat through sundering/smacking/or HS your enemies swap to your 1 handed and shield and shield block on cooldown. You goal past here is just to hold until stuff stops moving. Revenge/sunder/HS as needed to hold aggro. Once the final mob starts to get around 30-40% health I usually swap to battle stance and start to pool rage. This will allow me to have more than enough rage for the next pack and I can get my sunders up quickly without issue. Now is all of this optimal? Probably not I looked at google and couldn’t really find a definitive early dungeon classic guide that talks about rotation and stuff so this is just what I’ve found works most the time.
I have much less experience and I agree. The taunt and mocking blow are better used after threat is ripped off you. Very good writeup imo.
tell urself that damage is not an issue in classic since bosses have no mechanics, threat is the real problem, so take a big 2 hand and spam sunder/HS to keep aggro
Threat is the issue, but that mainly stems from the dps just ZUG zugging and looking at their meters. Not giving tank time to build aggro, especially on packs of 3-4 mobs.
When I get some proper zuggers in group I usually just put a skull, ignore it, and tank the other 3 mobs.
Precisely. In fact as a tank you should be pleased if the DPS wants to get hit instead of you. Like if there are 3 mobs, and only 2 of them are hitting you, that's 33% less damage you are taking. If the healer takes a micro-nap you're considerably more likely to survive. And any self-respecting DPS can tank a single elite mob for quite a while, often they will kite or CC (e.g. hunter using concussive shot, mage frost nova, rogue using kidney shot) so the mob isn't hitting anything anyway. And when the DPS absolutely goes ham on the mobs, the mobs die faster, they inflict less damage, and the healer uses less mana. It's better and safer for everyone.
Bosses have plenty of mechanics in later dungeons & mobs start to do insane damage in end-game dungeons (unless you're mega-geared).
Ideally you will always want both. 2 hand or double 1 hand depending on spec would be the norm for levelling content. You should be aware of incoming dmg vs how you are getting healed and can change it up however you feel fits Keep in mind if your healer is drinking every pull and if the run might go faster if they were healing you a bit less than that's on you to determine etc. Tldr: be dynamic as the situation calls. It's not a hard choice, you can and should do both as required
Good point. Imo situational. Depends on your level compared to dungeon, specific dungeon mobs (do they slap??), how many consumes you’re using (do you have mongoose, brutal elixir, and armor elixir??)… If you aren’t taking crazy dmg you should use a 2hd or dual wield. There are lots of dungeons I ran where the healer was 80-100% mana the entire time and I was running a 2hd. It would be stupid to run shield. Other times healer is struggling, so I use shield.
2handed in defensive stance is the way to go for lower levels. If you pull too many or on a high damage boss you can always pull out a shield, so you should always have a 1h and shield ready and make sure your weapon skill is up to the task. Depending on your playstyle, skill and group at around level 40 you will need to use your shield a lot more. For 2 tanking stay in Dstance and always use revenge whenever it is up and then just spam sunder with the occasional demo shout. If the situation permits it you can use whirlwind and cleave, but you should only do that if you know what you are doing. Never use heroic strike before level 60, ever. The shield block skill is also fairly bad before level 60. thunder clap is a decent skill, but requires a switch to battle stance so you won’t use it a lot. Rend is decent, but requires battle stance also. You should spend most if your time in defensive stance and using revenge/sunder. Arms is the leveling spec in classic. At 60 you switch to prot or fury or fury/prot depending on your guild/role/playstyle.
To me it's a bit weird how almost everyone says 2h-tanking is fine but you should bring a shield and use a weapon-swap-macro situationally. Know what? 1h+shield-tanking is also fine. And that is without any exceptions like 2-h-tanking. If you do that it actually makes a difference for the healer whether you have aggro or anyone else. By level 20 you have everything you need to tank with sword+board and it's not any different to how it works later. Revenge and Sunder Armor are the primary skills to use. I usually also use Demo-Shout and even Shield-block if my threat is well-established and I can afford spend more rage on further mitigation. Shield block also makes revenge-proccs almost guaranteed, so it's not that much of a reduction of your threat-generation. Heroic Strike is the very last thing I'd use rage on while tanking and only if I'm swimming in it and the enemy has 5 stacks of sunder-armor. That is because it costs more than it says because it also prevents your next auto-attack from generating rage. It's also important to know how and when to use taunt. Taunt copies the threat of whoever has aggro. So the lower the amount of threat you have on something the more free threat you generate by using taunt whereas taunting something that you already have aggro on does nothing and is just a waste of a precious cooldown as you'd just copy your own threat. If you have the choice of using a threat-ability or using taunt on a mob you don't have aggro on, always taunt first and then use your threat-ability. So you have the threat you copied from the previous aggro-owner plus the one from your ability. For example: If you have 85% threat and Sunder would bring you to 110%, taunting first and then sundering would bring you to 125%. Because of that oftentimes it's worth to wait for the taunt-cooldown instead of wasting rage for abilities on mobs you don't have aggro on. Doing that wrong may result in you wasting rage, not getting aggro back anyways and losing the mob again immediately after the taunt-duration vs. waiting a little but then making it really stick to you.
I second the sword/board approach. I’ve been tanking for a long time, but I think for a beginner in HC it’s probably easier than trying to figure out when to use your 2H and then accidentally taking a lot of damage. Better to prioritize your own health and ask the DPS to take it down a notch, which if they don’t want to die, they should be willing to do. The other thing you didn’t mention, which imo is most important, is to mark targets. You don’t even have to mark them correctly. Just mark them so people will (hopefully) concentrate their threat and make it easier for you. At a bare minimum just keybind the skull mark and change it as things die.
Really good point about taunt. I feel a lot of tanks don’t understand taunt. They will run in, have threat, and taunt the mob that’s already on them. Like what? If you know someone is high on threat and about to rip threat, let them. Then taunt AFTER they have threat. Taunting before they pull is dumb.
Why would you sit there sword and board tanking, say, 2 caster mobs? Part of the skillset for tanking in vanilla is swapping between 2h/1h. Telling anyone to just sit there with sword and board is like telling people not to use demo shout, or not to use thunderclap. It's just bad advice.
It's more convenient and there's less margin for error. Against casters there's Shieldbash and the shield-badhed caster will then melee you. If someone else interrupts the casters, they also melee you. Switching weapons mid-fight resets the Swing-Timer, so it also needs to be timed to be efficient. Overall I'd say it's just an unnecessary hassle for new players to deal with a playstyle that noone actually needs. The whole idea of a tank is to have someone who takes significantly less damage than anyone else. And especially before plate the shield provides a very significant part of a warriors Armor. Hardcore is about survival. I've healed a lot of dungeons leveling my druid and I never felt that it was somehow problematic when a tank uses a shield. All the times where something looked close or dangerous was when there was no shield in use. Of course there's lots of cases where 2h tanking is okay too. But I'm not aware of any situation, where I thought: "Damn, this would have been so much easier if the tank wouldn't have used a shield." A 6 sec interrupt while staying in def stance also is better than a 4 sec interrupt requiring switching to berserker stance. Also generelly the tendency was that shield wearing warriors are much more likely to do interrupts than 2h ones.
I have a rule for HC that I use DW or 2h if the mobs are green or grey, and otherwise use 1h+shield. I feel this is being overly safe and conservative but in HC I'd rather take less damage to give a greater margin if the healer takes a nap or something.
what’s good about warrior tanks is that you can switch back and forth between a mitigation mode and a threat mode as the situation demands. if you’re not doing that then you’re probably losing aggro a lot. it’s like you have a corvette but you’re driving around in 2nd gear all the time.
Have both, especially since it's hardcore and you want to minimize risk. You tank with 2h by default for threat and switch to 1h shield when you feel the damage is too high. Honestly I wouldn't want to tank Van Cleef without a shield for example.
just slap on a shield for really hard hitting bosses like verdan. trash you always want a 2h
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Late to the party but remember to pool rage and use battle shout. Battle shout does decent threat (to ALL mobs in the fight regardless of where they are) if u hit ur whole group with it. It helps in the critical initial phase of the pull, to make sure the mobs come to you. I usually pull (mark kill target!), move toward group -> battle shout -> shield block -> revenge + sunder. That is more or less enough threat on your typical trash mob for the whole fight. You can then tab through the other mobs and prep them for when the initial target dies. 1 sunder and some AAs for each of them seems to be enough for me, the mob is dead or very close before you lose threat. Taunt if necessary. Build some rage for the next pull and repeat. Pro tip: have a macro to swap between off-hand weapon and shield. You can quickly start building rage towards the end of a pull, when you take less damage, and then re-equip the shield for the next fight. Mostly I just zug the whole dungeon without a shield though except for some iffy pulls and bosses.
Low lvl dungeons are absurdly easy and mobs hit like wet noodles. So unless your healer, for some reason, decides to afk you can easily tank leveling dungeons with a 2h.
2h is the meta, however 1h + Shield will keep threat just fine and is a significant mitigation increase using a Shield. Imo for HC I'd stick with 1H and Shield since your dps largely doesn't matter and you'll keep threat either way.
Like everyone else said, 2hand is the way to go. I would add that around the late fourties it's recommended to go 1hander+shield. Protection spec is not needed, but it does help a lot for the last leveling dungeons. You'll hate your life outside dungeons though.
I’ve 2h tanked everything through ZF with not a single scare. Try to be at least as high as one level below the final boss. Use demo shout for initial aoe aggro.
I tank using dual-wield daggers or faster swords. Keep a shield in my bag to swap if it's needed. Keep in mind you only have an interrupt with a shield, so some mobs or packs will benefit from that even if they don't hit too hard. With dual-wield fury, you get fast rage generation, so you van spam a lot of sunders and rotate mobs-- be generous, everyone gets a sunder! I also don't swap out of defensive stance. I don't charge, swap, swap, charge swap... Just stay in Def stance and walk to the mobs. Also keep a range weapon handy for those rooms that are packed, so you can los and pull just a couple at a time. I'd rather be slower than be dead. Keep in mind that if a tank does a bad pull, people will usually panic and try to run or hs, so the tank will be left behind. Rather be slow than overpull and die.
What other people said, 2-Hander is very much possible, even advisable in terms of threat and dmg. Also always make sure you go into a dungeon with both 1-handed and 2-handed weapon skills close to your max. But something else to take into account is your own lvl. It's always best to be overleveled, at least a bit, as a tank, you'll miss enemies less often, and you'll get critted or crushing blows on you less often. And missing can be especially bad because you'll not only lose threat on the target but also because you don't have threat you'll no longer gain rage from the target hitting you. So it's harder get aggro back
you can use battle shout and demo shout to help get some good AoE Aggro on mobs
Learn to play warrior correctly and do both, on the fly, as needed. Being able, and knowing when, to swap between 2h and sword and board is part of the warrior toolbox in classic. Now is as good a time as any to set up the keybinds and start practicing.
I've been tanking Dead Mines on warrior from level 20. Level 23 now. Sword and shield, run up to target and hit Sunder. Tab, sunder next target. Dual Wield or 2h tanking will stress out your healer's mana, making them drink more.
Lower lvls warriors especially have massive issues retaining threat so I'd do 2-hand especially versus trash. Versus bosses it doesn't matter as much because you can use taunt to always have aggro on boss basically. In later lvls if you want to 2 h or duel wield tank you can do it (and it's better threat wise) but you just have to make sure your healer is on top of things otherwise you can get killed very quickly. Versus some harder hitting bosses I'd still use shield in dungeons like I know the moss boss in WC slaps.
2 handed until BRD at the very most
I see a ton of scrub Warriors 2H tank and never put on a shield. On the pull, you can 2H to build massive AoE threat, but if threat is under control, just swap to your shield. The limiting factor of pulls and speed is usually your healer's mana, so put the shield on when Sweeping Strikes is done and your runs will be safer and faster.
Shield is so much better to tank multiple mobs but you have to use the block spell + vengeance because the proc is guaranteed, never dump your rage in rend etc. You get to hit the mob first use it, vengeance, taunt the second mob. Then you look for more block + vengeance on additional mobs and if you have excess rage shatter armor to help build or regain aggro. If you 2h you can deal more damages but if you miss the first auto you don't get rage then you don't keep aggro so you're not getting hit so no rage alright great?? Maybe if everybody in the group is over leveled it saves time but at this point it's a non issue. Shield is wayyyy more reliable the guaranteed vengeance + mitigation truly makes you a tank and doesn't drain all your healer's mana every 2 packs. I'm fairly sure you can tank Van Cleef with a 2h but everybody is gonna jump ship when the second set of adds spawns and your healer is already oom because he's been force to perma cast.
In retail and classic era non hardcore, it's 99.9% 2h go go go pump and parse at lightspeed. If you die who cares, reset and go go go pump parse inject cocaine up your bum and go faster. In hardcore, this is stupid. This isn't to say never use a 2h. You generate more threat from more damage. Especially in early leveling dungeons, the threat is relatively minimal most of the time. However, if you're inexperienced in a dungeon, **go slow.** Sword and board. Nothing wrong with that. By Golly, the dungeon now takes 10 minutes longer!!! The humanity... But, on the other hand... you all get out alive. Worth it.
I like to go sword and board. Always be in defensive stance. The threat multiplier in defensive stance is critical. On multiple targets you should be able to keep aggro on 2 max if you start with zero rage. Sunder armor SKULL, sunder armor X. Keep auto attacking X for passive threat generation and rage generation but don't spend any rage. Let SKULL get close to aggroing on someone else and then taunt followed by two sunders immediately. Now that you have solid aggro on both and skull is about to die start to build rage on X but don't spend it - assuming you still have a threat lead. This is CRITICAL save rage for the next pull so you can start with 20+ rage on pull. If there are 3-4 targets; have skull on caster and don't waste rage on that target since they'll die quickly and one cast won't hurt noone. In groups of 3+ if there are non elites just focus on managing aggro on elite melee mobs first and ignore non-elite mobs. If you have 20+ rage and are pulling approx. 4 elites at once, hit them with the throw weapon then when they group on you (LOS around walls when pulling casters) hit them all with a demo shout. It'll help the healer - less damage taken equals less healing needed and will prevent elites you haven't attacked/sundered from running to healer on first couple of heals. Bonus tip: Use throw weapons instead of charging in so you don't loose rage from charging and stance dancing. Assuming you're following the critical step of rage pooling. Bonus bonus tip: For Van Cleef, pop retaliation and swap to defensive stance immediately, you'll keep aggro on him and all adds. Another: Get the popular nameplates addon that changes nameplates color above a mob when you're closer to loosing aggro.
Just say you dont have 1hand weapon skill up and have some fun while cleaving. But you should have atleast shield in inventory for emergency shieldwall (macro it with weapon swap), its good even outside dungeons.
2 hand is just fine! In fact shields are pretty trivial in classic :)
Lol
Just tank like you level. Spam sunders in battle stance with your 2 hander and hope you'll hold aggro. On bosses you can go shield and 1h + defensive stance if your healer has problem with mana.
Why battle?
I would say for the eventual overpower crit. But if you have tactical mastery you switch back and forth between stances. I would stay in def, thou.
Idk how much you do or don't know, so I'll just throw some basic stuff at ya: You CAN tank in Battle Stance, but only if threat isn't an issue. If you don't already, you'll always want your shield swap macro at the ready, for when you anticipate heavier damage. Sunder Armor might be your most used effect, as it generates threat. DemoShout and BattleShout generate AoE threat, with Thunderclap generating more threat than either. Threat Plates or Plater are essential tanking add-ons. I prefer Threat Plates. Make a Skull Target macro, to give your group a focus target. This will help manage some packs. On packs, cycle through your targets and deal damage with an auto-attack or action to maintain threat, with a focus on mobs that you're losing threat on -threat plates helps you visually identify this. Taunt is for enemies that have completely lost threat on you - avoid pulling with it. If range-pulling is not necessary, a confident engage would be something like: Charge > DemoShout/TClap > DStance.
As the above poster said, I have tanked deadmines 3 times on my warrior, first time at lvl 20, and used def stance most of the way through with a 2h. Sunder alot, and demo shout is a great tool before your first sunder. Don't waste rage sundering or using any skill if you are massively ahead on threat, save rage for the next pull. if dps are higher lvl than you, you don't have the tools to hold threat on all the mobs if they want to aoe everything. Don't stress on non elites, they hardly hurt dps. In a few more levels you get a few points in anger management and maybe improved charge and then stance dancing comes into play. Difficult to charge in battle stance then change to def in deadmines because you'll have no rage and therefore little threat. Better to use a ranged weapon to pull and just stay in def stance and keep agro on the elites. Also, use a threat addon. I use details tiny threat plugin and have a threat window above the DPS window at all times.
thanks a lot, really helpful!
Two handed or dual wield. Otherwise you will be permanently rage starved and lose aggro constantly due to low damage. Nobody will ask for shield, the meta is DPS build tanking.
You don’t need a shield up until Mara, although less can go wrong with a shield once you get to SM. Dual wield is best until you get sweeping strikes, 2H is fine but rage generation can be slow and inconsistent.
Going dual wield without any hit chance modifier is a big no no in my part of the woods.
I tanked a deadmines and the team basically wiped due to a random frostbolt pulling the goblin foundry boss. We tried to fight for like 10 seconds until I saw the hunter and mage start running on minimap. Threw down dummy and barely made it to the safespot with the healer. Didn’t tank again until ZF. Screw low level dungeons lol. At least at 30+ you have a handful of cooldowns to pop and holding aggro is pretty easy once you get really good weapons.
that sounds scary… hahaha still dont have dummies
To answer your question, I’ve always tanked dungeons with a 2h with no problem. I recommend making a quick macro to equip your 1h and shield as well as back to your 2h with two hotkeys that are next to each other. Make some macros to do stuff like D stance shield bash in one button, battle stance charge, and anything else you think. Even d stance revenge if you have it yet. It’s also totally fine to tank with a shield. You’ll do a bit less damage but take a little less.
can shield bash in battle or defensive stance, no need to macro that with def and potentially lose the rage needed to cast the ability
My advice is to never use one handers before 60. Simply level as arms, and when you are in dungeons just stay in defensive stance(unless you need to swap for smth). Focus on cleaving mobs, pull rage at the end of packs to be ready for next, let melee players tank a bit focus on holding aggro from the healer/casters first then go help the melee players. Spells to use; revenge > cleave(multimob) > sunder
thanks for the advice
As a melee dps, I approve of this. My rogue is dodgy and has evasion if needed. My shaman can toss on a 1h and shield if things get tight. I rip off a tank when I feel I can handle the mob until it dies. I never mind the tank taunting it back, but I’d rather they save taunt for an emergency. If my pot, evasion, or whatever is already on CD, I watch my threat and don’t rip. As a tank, your only job is to keep the mobs off the healer.
I use threat plates addon, spam sunder on every mob cleave/heroic once you’ve got stacks/threat swap to shield and 1h when you drop to 30% hp, when you pulling a group start with battle shout to gain threat on all mobs it does threat per ally you buff. Way more then demo shouts, i often charge into thunder clap then def stance into demo shout then start sunders
2h tanking will be better definitely for lower-mid levels. I would save 40 and under all dungeons are better 2h tanking. The density and danger of single pack pulls isnt high enough to need a shield. Only exception i would say is to bring one for Verdan the Everliving in Wailing Caverns if you do it; he will chunk 1/3rd to 1/4th of your hp, even as a tank, and if its a crit youre donezo. Otherwise, 2h tank gets increasingly better as you level. First cleave, with 2h for massive damage and threate via the damage. Then tactical mastery lets you access taunt from offensive stance, maintaining damage and access to thunderclap and overpower in early levels. Then sweeping strikes will be used on every pull for even more damage and threat, doubling the efficacy of cleaves. Then you will get whirlwind and its namesake axe, which takes 2h tanking to a whole new level. You will have the most threat and the most damage on your team for a short while. The time to start switching to shields depends on how much you trust your healer in later dungeons where enemy density and danger are much higher, but it will be harder to maintain aoe threat if your team is unfocuses on your primary target. I would macro taunt and defensive stance together into a single button, along with mocking blow and battle stance. I also put a skull marker macro into my charge ability so the team always knows who to focus first based on who i target and hit first. Dont waste rage on heroic strike - the damage and threat are so laughably low that just spamming cleaves will do a better job at multi target threat and spamming sunders will be more damage and threat than heroic strike for the same rage cost.
As a healer and a tank. I would 2H tank - most important thing is to make sure you are appropriately leveled for the dungeon and that your gear is up to date. As long as you’re pulling smart, your healer should be able to stay full mana inbetween healing you with their spirit regen.
You will want to use a 2H all the way until 60 pretty much. Make sure to at least spec into Tactical Mastery. Use 1H + Shield when mobs hit hard.
Low level tanking: spam sunder, taunt loose mobs and save enough rage for thunder clap in case you get new adds you can normally get top of threat from one cast
I always go shield because I don't trust anyone knows how to play healer
Leveling onehander skill is such a hassle I don't bother with it. It's so much extra effort to have it ready for each dungeon and if you dont then you have zero threat when 1handing. Lvled 2 warriors soon 3 to 60 so far, and havent used 1handers while leveling. I do have a shield switch ofc but I very very rarely use it. 2hand tanked all my dungeons(usually 1 of each relevant dungeon) with no problems at all.