The concept and general description…
For all of this to work you do have to have a base fund, the bigger the better. Aside from that I’d HIGHLY sugguest just taking some time when you play for a couple of weeks just watch the AH prices and some trade chat so you can get a feel for which items in particular are sought after and at what prices. The basis of this strat is to basically daytrade some of the more highly sought after items. I started off somewhat small and have "graduated" to some high ticket items since I am quite comfortable with my ability to recognize which items I will be able to resell for a good profit and I know that I have the patience to hold out to do so. Personally I prefer weapons and armor but this can be applied to other high commodity items as well.

If you want to make a noticeable amount of money you will have to focus on rares and epics and ensure that there is enough of a price difference between what you are paying and how much you can sell it for taking intto account the possibility of multiple days’ listing fees. I currently only deal in items that sell for at least 50g and on which I will make at least 10-15g however keep in mind that this is simply a baseline and I frequently make over 50g per transaction (the most I’ve ever received from a single item is 125g minus listing fee and AH fee).

If you have the patience to do so you can also increase your profits by selling through the trade channel where you won’t have to deal with the AH taking their cut or having an auction expire however keep in mind that you do want to keep items moving as quickly as possible while still making your profit as having liquid funds is essential to keeping money coming in.

While I am, of course, in this to make money I also give people the best deals I can (again, liquid funds are much more useful – profit is profit and you want to keep in mind that holding out for 5g more when you’re making a good 25g on the sale already may simply result in you having the item for an extra few hours during which time you may miss out on another deal because you didn’t have the funds to buy…. Again, this becomes all a matter of your understanding of what you need to have on you to keep business moving.

For these high ticket items, unless the particular item moves VERY quickly on your server, you will have to undercut the competition for the most part… ideally there will be no competition (however this is where your knowledge of the items value comes into play very significantly). If there is no competition the key point to keep in mind is people’s need to have things right away, but also realize that people aren’t stupid…. If you list an item for 100g min bid and have a 130g BO 9 times out of 10 you won’t get boughtout unless there is high high demand for the item. People aren’t stupid and an extra 30% off what they "could" get it for is alot… so, as a rule of thumb either keep your MB and BO the same or keep them more reasonably close… even though someone wouldn’t pay the 130g with a 100g min list it at 120g with a 130g BO… this 10g jump is less than 10% difference (which also means that if 1 person bids on it anyway the next "min bid" to put on it would be 132g so you’re going to get boughtout if there’s multiple interest in the item).

You’re patient… your buyers, however, often aren’t…. 24hour listing keep you visible for maximum exposure and also result in more buyouts… that "Very Long" tag means 8-24hours remaining and if someone wants your item then more often then not they’ll pay that extra little bit of gold to have it then and there

Tuesday is patch day! Try to time your auctions well and keep in mind that you’re losing out on some of your money by listing on Monday nights…. The AH timer continues to run while the servers are down so you’re losing out on a good chunk of the time you paid for your auction to be listed… don’t get me wrong though, if you’re not going to be able to get on Tuesday when the servers are back up to relist then by all means go ahead and list Monday nights…. I find Tuesdays to be a good time for the auction house especially after a patch where people will download it and logon to check out changes (and inevitably check out what goodies are listed for them on the AH

Again, I don’t think this is for everyone as it does involve a time investment on your part as well as a starting bankroll, however for those who think they might like trying their hand at the market I wish you the best of luck and I hope this information is of some use to you. I know to some of you this seems like "obvious" information but believe me, I find myself helping my guild more with auctioning than with leveling because to them it’s just a big mystery…

Levels 15-16: Flame Throwing is nice because range is convenient and lets you get in more fireballs when fighting mobs. Also, Ignite can be put off since your Intellect (and thus crit rate) is still pathetically low.

Levels 17-21: Ignite is a raw damage increase for when you crit.

Levels 22-26: Improved Arcane Missiles because it’s time to build Arcane to get Instant Arcane Explosion for use in instances.

Levels 27-31: Arcane Concentration to get clearcasts.

Level 32: Evocation for mana regen once every 10 minutes… at this level it’s going to be around 100% of your mana pool, which is very nice. Be warned, it starts fading away from there around level 40ish and at level 60 you can expect about 50% of your mana pool back from Evoc.

Level 33-37: Improved Arcane Explosion is very good for the instances you’ll be doing at around this level and up — Gnomeregan, Razorfen Downs, Uldaman, Temple and on up really appreciate it.

Level 38-39: Incinerate to make Scorch more useful in Instances, since you’ll now be able to scorch for a clearcast to fire Arcane Missiles on.

Level 40: Pyroblast because it’s the best place to drop a point in Fire and you might as well get it. It’s really not that great… though it is slightly more mana efficent than Fireball

Level 41-45: Improved Scorch because Scorch is very much an PvE Instance spell and this talent makes it all that much more mana efficient. Impact won’t really do that much for you in instances and Blast Wave isn’t worth the points in Flamestrike for its PvE utility.

Level 46-48: Critical Mass for more critical strikes… damage increase.

* CT_RaidAssist – http://www.ctmod.net/downloads.ct
* Ventrillo – Official Site http://www.ventrilo.com/download.php
* Drakonid Kill Counter – Download http://www.curse-gaming.com/mod.php?addid=2642

Facts:

* There is no one way to do Nefarian phase 1. Some guilds AoE both gates, some guilds Assist both gates, some guilds do a "throne strategy" in which they set up at the base of Nefarian’s throne and simply AoE all the drakes at that location. However, the following Nefarian strategy of Phase 1 AoE’ing one gate and Assist Training another gate will always work with a balanced raid, and is perhaps the most simple and intuitive method to do Nefarian. However, there’s always a lot of thoughts on just how to do Nefarian
* Nefarian (as of v1.9.3) respawns after 15 minutes after you wipe, no matter which phase you wipe in.
* If you don’t have an Onyxia Scale Cloak equipped, you will die during the transition from phase 1 to phase 2. (Unless you’re a paladin and can bubble!)
* It’s Nefarian. Not Nefarion. Spell it right!

Consumables:

Flask of Titans (for MT + OT)

* Phase 1 (all about increasing DPS!)
o Elixir of the Mongoose
o Elemental Sharpening Stones (or Dense Sharpening Stones)
o Greater Arcane Elixir
o Brilliant Wizard Oil
* Phase 2 (rogues need survivability)
o Greater Shadow Protection Potion
* Phase 3 (AoE’ing the constructs)
o Stratholme Holy Water Engineering Bombs – EZ-Thro Dynamite II for the non-engineers
o Thorium Grenades / The Big One for the engineers.
o Crystal Charge (10 Red & Yellow Crystals from Un’Goro)
o Limited Invulnerability Potion

Phase 1 – Drakonid Zerg

Phase 1 is arguably the hardest part of the entire Nefarian encounter. To summarize, the key to succeeding phase 1 is that on the AoE side drakonids are always kept under control by the warriors so that no drakonids escape the AoE area, and on the assist train side, that the drakonids are simply killed fast enough not to overwhelm the raid. Phase 1 ends when 20 drakonids of each color are dead, or roughly when ~42 drakonids are killed on the drakonid kill counter.

When the event is started by one person talking to Nefarian, Nefarian will exclaim "Let the games begin," go into a shadow form and becomes invulnerable. He has 4 attacks:

* Shadow Bolt (highest aggro, usually a healer)
* Shadow Bolt Volley (infrequent)
* Mind Control
* Fear (infrequent)

Nefarian will spam shadow bolt on the highest aggro person, which will often turn out to be a healer. That healer will have to be aware of his own spiking health. The only other attack of concern is mind control. If someone is mind controlled, then that person should be sheeped immediately if possible (if he isn’t standing in AoE) because the mind controlled person can quickly wreck havoc by AoE’ing the group, or killing away at the healers, or whatnot. The person who is mind controlled gets a huge boost of damage and can dispatch the raid if not controlled.

At the same time, drakonids will begin flooding into the room from the left and right gates. One color spawns from the left gate; one color spawns from the right gate. These colors are fixed and will remain the same from the same gate for every future try, even if Nefarian is attempted on different days (as long as the entire instance does not reset). There are five different colors of drakonids, and one fixed spawn – Chromatic Drakonids. It is important to split up the raid to take advantage of the weaknesses of these colors of drakonids.

* Blue Drakonid – Mana draining attack, "aura" of -50% attack speed. Resistant to Frost
* Red Drakonid – Short-Range Cone AoE fire attack DoT in the direction it is facing which stacks and hurts quite a bit. Resistant to Fire
* Green Drakonid – Single target sleep which essentially stuns those near the dragon occasionally for 2 seconds. Resistant to Nature
* Black Drakonid – Single targeted fire blast attack which hurts. Resistant to shadow and fire
* Bronze Drakonid – Has a weak direct damage shock which also debuffs the target with -50% Attack / Casting speed. Resistant to Arcane

In general, there are certain colors that you should AoE, and certain colors that you should "assist train". AoE means mages Blizzard and Warlocks Rain of Fire, whereas "assist train" means one rogue is designated as the main assist, and all rogues and hunters assist the MA to quickly down the drakonids one at a time.

* Red: AoE (with blizzard)
* Blue: Assist Train
* Bronze: AoE (blizzard + rain of fire)
* Green: Assist Train
* Black: Assist Train

However, then it turns out that sometimes you will get two sets of colors that both ideally either get AoE’d or Assist Trained. There are basically two colors where you must NOT either assist train or AoE:

* Red: Do not assist train. The AoE fire aura really hurts and will require too much healing.
* Blue: Do not AoE. They are resistant to frost. Blizzard won’t hurt them too much.

Breakdown of colors and what should happen to each color:

Meaning, if the drakonid color combination is bronze/black for example, the raid should AoE the side the bronze spawns on, and Assist-train the side the black spawns on.

In all cases where red is being AoE’d, warlocks should be helping by DoTing the drakonids in the AoE with shadow spells – Corruption and Curse of Agony. They don’t Rain of Fire because Red drakonids are resistant to fire.

Advanced Note: In your first couple Nefarian attempts, you’ll want to have the first "attempt" just be a wipe by everyone getting naked, seeing the colors, and setting the AoE and Assist groups on their optimal sides. However, after enough successful Nefarian kills, one can take Nefarian down on the first try all the time even by setting the groups up in the worst possible setup (for example – AoE’ing the blue side, and Assist Training the red side). In this case, one can try to beat Phase 1 by just Flamestriking blue drakes, and easing the healing load on the assist train side through the liberal use of healing consumables. But really, there is no particular drake color where AoE does not work, or assist training does not work – there’s just "optimal" ways of dividing up the raid.
Phase 1 – Warrior Guide

Summary: The warrior’s job on both sides is very important – simply, it’s to keep the drakonids from going after the healers, who will be a constant aggro magnet through their healing.

The ideal warrior team is 3 warriors per side. The warriors set up an order and cycle through this as the drakonids stream out. The reason you do an order and not just free-for-all tanking is that as the encounter progresses it gets more and more difficult to "grab" the drakonid as it comes out because the drakonids are going to be more and more likely to be very upset with your healers. Taunt is therefore invaluable in grabbing the drakonid at the start and allowing you time to apply a few sunders, heroic strikes, shield slam, taunting blade etc. It’s also helpful because it ensures a few seconds of the drakonid beating on you and thereby supplying you with some rage. By having an order you pretty much ensure each warrior enough time to have their taunt cooled down so they can catch their next assigned drakonid. One last thing to be aware of is that while the small drakonids spawn at a set interval, there are also going to be at least three chromatic drakonids per side (if you see more than 3 during stage one you are killing much too slow). The first of these will spawn right at the start so warriors in the 1 and 2 slots per side will be having a drakonid right from the get go. The other two will usually spawn just before or just after one of the colored drakonids so communication is the key to ensuring a body on every drakonid. How you set up your communication is up to you but the way my team does it is the player grabbing a drakonid calls out the person’s name who is after them in the tanking order.

Taunts are occasionally resisted and that is why it is helpful to have a druid in bear form ready to taunt an escaping drakonid and bring it back to the warriors. It is a bad idea for a warrior to leave the killing area to chase a drakonid since you will often be pulling mobs with you that could do any number of bad things to those who you are trying to protect in the first place.

Unless you have 7 warriors for this, your main tank is likely to be needed for the warrior rotations. If he is then it is very important for you to try to get the mobs off him when he needs to leave to greet the landing Nefarian. If you are doing this without fear ward then you need to do the same for whoever is going to be your off tank. It is a good idea to make sure you have your OT and MT on different doors so that you have two warriors per side to try to clean the mobs off them. The MT should be on the Assist side because it is easier to break off to catch Nefarian.

Phase 1 – Positioning

The healer clump in the middle should be in range to heal the people from both gates. The Mages & Locks should stay a good distance away from the drakonids that come out from the AoE side and AoE from there. Hunters are the same – stay a good distance away from the drakonids that come out from the Assist side and shoot from there. A bear druid will stand watch on both sides to pull drakonids back to the warriors if any get loose. It is important not to spend time chasing any drakonids that run loose, because that will waste too much time – let the bears pull the drakonids back to the warriors.

AoE Side

AoE side: The first two drakonids should be focus fired by the mages and warlocks. However, past that, the casters should just constantly rain area of effect spells down upon the drakonids. The warriors will have the tough job of keeping all the drakonids in the position; healers should be aware of when they have aggro and should keep their aggro levels equal. In the event that a drakonid breaks loose and goes after the healers, the bear form druid will taunt and pull the drakonid back into the AoE. TALENTS will help a lot here. Mages with improved blizzard and one hunter with entrapment constantly lay traps / feign death will make the drakonids easier to control within the AoE spot.

Assist Train Side

Assist Train side: As each drakonid comes out, /assist the MA and kill it FAST. The MA must be quick on switching targets, and he will pick colored drakonids before the chromatic ones. There is no cap on the amount of drakonids that can spawn – simply that they stop spawning when 20 of each color are dead. If there are ever 5 drakonids or more out at any time on the assist train side, it means that you have killed them too slowly and you’re pretty much screwed. If this is the case, you’ll need to use more consumables, extra buffs, need more DPS on that side, etc.

Tips:

Learning Stage 1 will be a gradual process. There are a number of things that can go wrong:

* Drakonids are leaking to the healers.
o Solution: Usually it is one healer pulling the aggro, have that healer cut down. It could be a warrior problem, make sure the warriors are on top of their taunting chain. The druid in bear form can help taunt a couple back but if there are a lot of drakonids leaking then there’s something wrong.
* Drakonids are overwhelming just the AoE side .
o Solution: Make sure the drakonids really are all being controlled within the AoE spot. Maybe there isn’t enough AoE power (our guild uses 5 mages / 3 warlocks there usually and it is sufficient) in which case you can help by giving each AoE person Greater Arcane Elixirs. If that still isn’t enough, you might want to just simply bring more Mages and Warlocks to Nefarian.
* Drakonids are overwhelming just the Assist Train side.
o Solution: Make sure the MA is switching targets well before each drakonid is dead, make sure everyone is on top of assisting and killing quickly. If the drakonids are running towards healers, a lot of DPS is lost so make sure the drakonids are caught well by the warriors. If they simply are not dying fast enough, this is usually a DPS problem; use more consumables to increase DPS, bring a warlock over from the AoE side to help damage, or just bring more rogues/hunters to the raid.
* Drakonids are overwhelming both sides.
o Solution: Keep working on it! It’ll be smoother and smoother as warriors work together better to keep the drakonids in control, druids get quicker at pulling drakonids back if they slip, healers realize their place in aggro, and the assist train becomes a well-oiled machine in killing one drakonid after another in a machine-like manner.

At approximately 42 drakonids, (when 20 drakonids of each color is dead), Nefarian will land. Congratulations, you have finished the hardest part of the Nefarian encounter – hopefully, your entire raid is intact (you shouldn’t have more than 2 deaths in phase 1, and those deaths should be rare occasions where Nefarian’s mind control hits an unfortunate target). Have the MT / OT break off at the "Nefarian landing in 10 seconds" message along with about 6 healers to heal the tank. Nefarian will land as his dragon form while breathing a shadow flame which will hit the entire raid (hope you have an Onyxia Scale cloak on!) The rest of the raid finishes off the rest of the drakonids. They will stop spawning. Then, the raid should get into Stage 2 positioning.

Stage 2 – Positioning

The positioning is basically all ranged & healers stand at max range from Nefarian so his Bellowing Roar AoE Fear (Range: 30 yards) doesn’t hit you. The rogues are on the other side of Nefarian and are outside the range of heals: they are responsible for keeping themselves alive.
Stage 2 – Abilities

* Cleave: Rogues shouldn’t be getting hit by this.
* Tail Whip: A stun if you stand behind Nefarian, by his tail. Rogues shouldn’t be getting hit by this either.
* Shadow Flame: Very high shadow damage cone in front of Nefarian.
* Bellowing Roar: A periodic AoE fear centered on Nefarian with ~30 yard range. All ranged / healers need to stand at max range to avoid this fear. Quick-Reflex Stance dancing & a quick Off-Tank will be required. Or a dwarf priest.
* Healing Curse: Nefarian occasionally casts a curse which reduces healing on the MT by 75%. This needs to be removed ASAP.

Stage 2 – Warrior Guide
This is most complicated when you have no fear ward and so the below is assuming you do not have it.

When Nefarian is going to cast a fear, the ground will shake just like it does for Onyxia. From Ground Shake to Fear, you have 2 seconds to change stances. That is not much time at all, especially if your MT just used an ability and is on his global cooldown, but it is very possible for your MT to be able to switch to berserker stance to pop their berserker rage. Possible doesn’t equate to success every time, nor does Nefarian help by his unpredictable fear timer. The point here is that your MT will miss fear sometimes – while he is feared, Nefarian will ignore him until the fear times out and switch to the person he hates the most who isn’t feared. If your raid likes living, this must be your off tank.

The off tank will spend the entire rest of the fight being unconcerned with damage and only with generating enough threat to be higher on Nefarian’s hate list than any healers or any DPS that is not getting feared. Because you will sometimes see more than one fear in 30 seconds, the cooldown time for your MT’s berserker rage, it is important for your off tank to be ready to use his berserker rage before the fear goes off so that aggro will transfer smoothly from the feared main tank to the immune-to-fear off tank. The off tank will then immediately run to the spot where the MT was tanking. When the fear breaks from the MT, Nefarian will switch back over so the MT needs to get himself back into position ASAP.

Even with fear ward it is recommended to have an off tank for the situations where fear ward is on cooldown and the MT is either unable to get into berserker in time or has his rage on cooldown for some reason.
Class Call-Outs:

At a set interval, roughly every 30 seonds, CT-Raid will announce ** CLASS CALL INCOMING ** and a few seconds later a random class call will occur.

* Druids: Druids will be stuck in cat form. Can’t heal in cat form so paladins/priests have to pick up the healing. Just sit around… Jump… Look pretty. Resist the temptation to go up and melee, as a fear could bring you into Nefarian’s Shadow Flame Breath.

* Hunters: Your ranged weapon will break. This effect is permanent. Therefore, whenever ** CLASS CALL INCOMING ** is announced on CTRA, you should remove your weapon and put it in your backpack. After the class call is given, put it back on and start firing again. Alternatively, if your hunters are rich, they can place a repair bot and just always fire and simply repair when their hunters break. This will increase DPS.
Tip: To remove your ranged weapon and put it in an inventory neatly in one button, here’s a nice macro:
/script PickupInventoryItem(18);PickupContainerItem(0,10);UseContainer(0,10)
(0,10) means bag space 0 (counting from the right, so 0 would be the original backpack), 10 is the bag slot, starting from top left.

* Mages: You are still in control of your character, but you will cast instant random polymorphs on the raid. These must be dispelled/cleansed instantly, ESPECIALLY if the MT gets hit by one. The talent Ice Block works to remove the debuff, so picking up the talent will be extremely valuable.

* Paladins: Will cast Blessing of Protection on Nefarian, rendering all attacks useless. Take a nap.

* Shamans: Corrupted Windfury and Healing totems are placed which help Nefarian and not the party.

* Priests: Your heals will DoT your target so stop healing. Druids/Paladins/Shamans need to pick up all healing when this occurs. The moment he calls out the priest call all heals (except renew and shield) will give corrupted healing, so instead of waiting for the priest call to stop (by then it will be too late and the main tank will have 3 corrupted heals on him), priests should stop healing whenever ** CLASS CALL INCOMING ** is announced.

* Rogues: Nefarian will turn to you and you will be teleported and rooted either in front of Nefarian or in the back/side of Nefarian. If you take a shadow flame you’re going to die, unless you have a Greater Shadow Protection Potion’s effect on you. If you get teleported in front of Nefarian, the main tank should run through Nefarian and turn him 180 degrees.

* Warlocks: Warlocks summon a small zerg of infernals that have a light AoE fire aura. Easily AoEable. Mages will arcane explosion these.

* Warriors: Warriors will be stuck in berserker stance. DPS needs to lighten up since the MT will be generating 20% less agro than usual. Healers amp up the healing a lot since MT will be taking 20% more damage than usual.
Tip: Perhaps the most devastating thing that can happen is the warrior call combined with the healing curse. Just spam heals whenever the warrior call is given, and make sure the healing curse is quick to come off.

Stage 3 – Construct Zerg

Nefarian Stage 3 occurs when he reaches 20% HP. All the corpses from the previous zerg come back to life as Constructs (similar to those in the Scholomance basement). They have very little HP and are easy to AoE down.

Preparation: Set up half your casters to AoE the left side, half your casters to AoE the right side. Have them wand to regain lots of mana from Nefarian 30% and onwards. Assign one mage each with Improved Blizzard to start blizzarding on top of the corpses so the moment they pop up they will be slowed. Assign one or two healers to each side to heal the warrior tanking the zerg.

When Nefarian is ~22%, the raid should be getting into position to prepare for Stage 3.

Warriors: All warriors will cease DPS and run through Nefarian to park them in front of the zerg. We will set up a chain Challenging Shout/Shield Wall rotation. You will have ~50 mobs beating on you for ~200 dmg per hit, so that’s why you will need shield wall.

Melee DPS: Rogues can either help out with AoE’ing the constructs by throwing Stratholme Holy Water or engineering bombs at the constructs, or just keep whacking away at Nefarian. Initially, the rogues should bring Stratholme Holy Water to help AoE until your raid is familiar with this phase.

Casters / Ranged: Frost Nova rotations + snare effects and AoE the constructs into the ground. Casters, use a Limited Invulnerability Potion and go nuts! Healers: When the Stage 3 zerg occurs, send one or two healers to each side to help heal the warriors tanking the constructs.

After the zerg is finished, this fight is just a continuation of Phase 2 with no extra surprises thrown in. Keep cracking away steadily and take down the last 20%!

I’ll be thinking mainly about 5 man instance groups, although a lot is still more than relevant in the raid instances, what you learn at low level will see you through to molten core with ease.
I’m not going to go into tanking talent builds, as my views are that 31/20 is just as good as any other and that prot isn’t needed it just helps a little, I’m just going to cover the absolute basics that will give people a good basis for them to start on. However, I do make a few assumptions, mainly that you have tactical mastery, which if you don’t, you will need to go and get. You cannot tank without it. Actually, you cannot do anything as a warrior without it. (well, you can, just not efficiently)

Firstly, we have the 3 most important aspects of tanking.

1 – First and foremost, use a shield!

This may seem like a given, but you’d be surprised at how many people try to tank with a 2 hander. The excuses for this range from "I do more damage like this" "I don’t have a shield/one hander" or "I generate more threat with a 2 hander". All of these are rubbish. Firstly, you are a tank, not a rogue or mage, you’re not there to do damage. If you don’t have a shield or a one hander then do not try to be main tank. As for generating more threat, that’s the worst excuse as shield bash generates way more than any attack with a 2 hander will, and as the name suggests, it needs a shield.

The main reason why you should always use a shield is the damage reduction. A priest will have a hard time keeping up with the heals if you insist on using a 2 hander. At 60 my shield adds around 12% extra damage reduction.
Secondly, revenge, I’ll cover this skill in more detail later, but needless to say shield = block = revenge.

(I know that when you’re a pr0 ub3r tank you can use a 2-hander and think you’re just as good as anyone else, but really, you’re not. Lets leave it at that and no "I cn tnk wid a 2hndr" posts please)

2 – Be defensive!

Defensive stance is a must. Not only does it reduce the damage taken by 10%, it also generates additional threat, and has a few nice abilities that are great for holding agro. I’ve grouped with many warriors that refuse to tank in defensive stance, to them the 10% less damage they give is more important than the 10% less damage they take. These are bad warriors. Most of your time should be spent in defensive stance. As a general rule, if you can do it in defensive stance, then do it in defensive stance. This goes for everything from sunder armor to demo shout. While it may not be much doing these in defensive stance adds extra threat that makes it harder for you to lose agro.

3 – Protect your priest.

If something is beating down on your priest, get it off them, your sole job when your priest is losing health is to get whatever mob is on them off them and onto you. If the priest goes down, you go down. The ways of doing this vary greatly, and depending on the situation. If your priest is close you can just switch target, taunt and then build agro on that mob until you’re sure it’s on you. If your priest is far away your main goal is to get to them as soon as possible. My favoured technique is to switch to berserker stance, intercept, then back to defensive and taunt. If there are multiple mobs on your priest you’re going to want to follow this with a battle stance, mocking blow, or in worse situations, challenging shout.
As a warrior your priest will be relying on you to keep them free from agro, just as you will be relying on them for healing. If they have agro, you can’t be healed.

Once you know the 3 basics you have the foundation of knowledge you need to enter the world of a tank. However, that’s just the beginning.

There are 3 stages in tanking that you’ll encounter, each of these is as important as the next, and to be a complete tank you will have to master them all.

Getting initial agro

There is nothing more important than getting initial agro on a group of mobs, without agro you gain less rage, which makes it harder to get agro. It’s a viscous circle that basically means that a bad start can mean a bad finish.

-Start with a charge if you can – This doesn’t just give you rage, it has a stun chance, which = threat. If you can’t start with a charge (like if you have to pull mobs towards you) then blood rage is a good skill for getting you some much needed rage to start throwing out the agro building moves.
-Follow up with a demo shout – This doesn’t just reduce their attack power, it allows you to get a little agro on each of the mobs so they are less likely to take an immediate interest in your priest.
-Try to fit in a Whirlwind – don’t overlook this skill. It may be in berserker stance, but attacking 4 mobs = threat on 4 mobs.

This should take around 5 seconds, and then and only then should the rest of the group attack.

Threat building

Once you have the initial agro on each of the mobs you’re going to want to keep increasing your threat so as none of them come off you and attack someone else. Luckily as a warrior you have several key skills that are useful for building threat.

Sunder armor,
Revenge,
Shield bash,
Disarm.

These are the 4 key agro building tools you have available to you, and you should have everyone on your hotbar in easy to use positions.

Sunder is our spammable skill that builds a fair bit of threat, you’ll find yourself using this a lot as it has a low rage cost, and builds a nice amount of threat. All the mobs that you are tanking should have sunder on them.

Revenge is a great skill that builds a lot of threat. It can only be used after you dodge, block or parry, but after a couple of revenges Ragnaros himself won’t be able to pull a mob from you. This should always be used on the main target when it’s available. It’ll make them stick to you like glue.

Shield bash doesn’t just interrupt spell casting, it makes them hate you as well! It builds threat on non-casters just as well as casters. This is another skill that you should be using mainly on the main target; it’ll keep them on you even when you’re building up threat on the other mobs.

Disarm is great for reducing the amount of damage you take, but also for building threat. There’s a lot of mortal strike speced mobs out there, and we all know how nasty mortal strike is, disarming them stops them from using it on you, and also makes them hate you for it.

To make sure you keep enough agro on the main target you need to spend most of your time building threat on that. However, you cannot ignore the rest of the mobs.
Between each threat building attack on each of the mobs not being attacked, you should do at least one on the main target. That means no matter how many mobs are on you, you still spend half your time making sure you can keep the main target on you, and the other half building threat on the others to ensure your priest doesn’t pull agro with a heal.

You may be wondering how you’ll keep track of which mobs you’ve been building agro on and which you’ve let slip. For this I recommend the sunderthis add-on. It allows you to show the currently sundered value above a mobs target box. That way if every time you cycle through a mob to build agro on it you sunder you can keep a count on which mobs have had more of your time than others, and keep your threat level pretty even on each of them.

Getting back the agro

At some stage or another, either through a trigger happy mage, gung-ho rogue, or you not having enough threat to cover that big heal from the priest (it’s never the priests fault, if the priest gets agro, it’s your fault), you will lose agro. It’s no big deal, as long as you know how to get it back.
The obvious choice here is taunt. It does exactly what it says on the tooltip and makes them attack you again. If it’s just one mob that turned away then all well and good, a quick taunt and back to threat building we go.
However if things have gone more wrong than that you may need to draw on a couple of other skills.

-Mocking blow, in battle stance forces a mob to attack you for 6 seconds, just enough time for you to get off a few sunders, maybe a revenge, and a shield bash.

-Challenging shout makes all mobs attack you for 6 seconds, in which time you’ll need to cycle through all of them and fire off those sunders.

-Or, in the worst possible situation, where everything has gone wrong and it looks like nothing will get all the mobs on you, we have the patent pending "oh !&$%, everything’s gone to $!@%" method of getting agro back, the one chance only, no turning back, uber threat building combination of… challenging shout retaliation! That’s right folks, if things go wrong we don’t go down without a fight, warriors never say die, back against the wall, or a corners even better (we don’t want any attacks from behind now) and hit challenging shout… then retaliation, then sit back and watch the numbers fly, and imagine your threat level skyrocketing. If that doesn’t save your group from a wipe on a bad pull when your cloth wearers are all taking hits then nothing will. (try not to make a habit of that though… at once every half hour it’s not really a spammable tactic)

Main Assists

A lot of people seem to have the idea that the main tank should also be the main assist, the guy everyone assists to find the mob that people should do damage to. This isn’t true, in fact this is probably the worst way of doing things.
The main tank and the main assist should always be 2 different people, generally a damage dealer should play the part of main assist.
This is due to the fact that as a tank you will never be targeting the same mob all the time. You will need to constant rotate between each of the mobs on you to keep building threat on each of them. If you sit there attacking the one mob that everyone is attacking as soon as a heal goes on every one of the other mobs will run straight at your priest, and remember what we said about protecting your priest? And if you’re acting as main assist as a tank then people could have a different target depending on when they decided to assist you, and there’s nothing worse than trying to keep 2 mobs on you that are being spammed with high damage attacks.

The way that I find a lot easier is if one of the other members of the party is the main assist, and everyone has their assist macros set to them even you) This way you wont have your party complaining that you keep switching target and they don’t know who to attack.

Pulling

Always pull.
This is one of the most important parts of tanking. Pulling means that the mobs will initially target you, it’s easier for you to build agro if they are already attacking you rather than having to pull them off someone else. You will get to learn when and how to pull.
The other main benefit of you pulling is that in the worst case scenario, when a pull goes bad, when you pull the entire room because you didn’t see the patrol and you have 10 mobs beating into you, you can die alone. It will save you from a wipe. However, make sure your group knows this is the case, you don’t want your priest healing you on a really bad pull and the whole group having to go down. Making a macro to say something like "bad pull DO NOT heal or attack" to warn your group of a really bad pull will save lives.

When and where to pull

Always spend a moment to look for any patrols.
Only when you are sure that there are no patrols should you consider pulling.
Only pull things that have a clear path towards you. This is really a no-brainer, but pulling through other mobs pulls them too.
Always try to pull around a corner. This stops any ranged mobs from staying ranged on you, they will lose line of sight so will have to come into your melee range.
Learn the patterns. There is always a pattern. Learning it makes your job a lot easier, if you know when and where each patrol will be coming, you know when to pull each group, or when to wait and pull the patrol instead.

You and your ranged weapon

Get the fastest weapon you can, damage is irrelevant, stats are nice but not needed.
Get to know your ranged weapon, this may sound strange, but you need to know how long it takes from you hitting the button, to it actually firing. Nothing is worse than hitting fire at that perfect pulling position, then having to wait for your bow to fire by which time that nasty patrol is back down this end of the room right next to the group you were trying to pull. Knowing your firing speed can be the difference between pulling a group of mobs, and pulling a group of mobs plus a patrol.

Group Leadership

It’s easier as a whole if you take control of the group. You are the one that should always be first into a fight, so you are the one that should decide when and how that fight happens. Many a time you will encounter people who want to be in command. People who will want to pull, don’t let them.
The most important aspect of being a tank is being able to control your group. You need them to follow your lead, otherwise things will go wrong. Once you have ran an instance a couple of times you will be in a lot better position to lead than anyone else, use this to your advantage.
You should be responsible for calling the shots, if you want a sap you should say, if you want a shackle or sheep pull, you should call it. However don’t think that just because you are ready the rest of the group is. We have no downtime, we can keep up with the Duracell bunny, and unfortunately your casters can’t. It’s paramount that you keep an eye on your casters mana bars. If it’s empty then you’re on your own, and we all know how well a warrior does against multiple elites with no healing. Always make sure that no one is sat down drinking when you go off to pull the next group of mobs.

And that’s about it. I’m sure there are some things that I’ve missed, but that’s all I have for now as it’s nearly 4am. Feel free to comment about anything or add to this with your own tanking tips.

Note on sunder – Alot of people have been saying it’s been stealth nerfed to generate less threat, I haven’t noticed this, I generally don’t need to spam it more than 5 times on a mob to hold agro anyway, and as such it is still working well for me.

Ok… well last night i posted asking for a good spot.. and it seems that noone had any good spots to reply with.. so i went out searching and came up with your grinding areas for 20-30. [I am a mage (tailor/enchanting) so i went looking for humaniods

(if the links dont let you get them.. i will try to get them up somewhere asap)

ONLY horde can use the silverpine and the barrens area... but the alliance can also use the HIGH place in STONETALON

[Grind Area Level 19-22] [Silverpine Forrest]
the first area that is just amazing for grinding and getting your linnen AND wool (both drop about the same amount) up then this is your first spot.. Once you hit 18 or 19.. (i didnt go till 20 so be careful at lower lvls)… head over towards the Undead City.. take the road that goes along the left side heading south into [Silverpine Forrest]… once you get there just take the road south… and keep going… you are going to go all the way till you are about to get into [Hillsbrad]..

Becareful if you are 18-19-20 lvl… along this road walk a 19 & a 20l guy… they walk with each other.. 1 is usually wizzard (lvl 20) and the other warrior (19)… and they aggro nicely…

now once you get up the road near Hillsbrad you will see that there are 2 roads that come together… if you didnt notice.. right before this.. there is a little tent and a BUNCH of guys walking around off to the left… its slaughter time… they are spread out enough where (as a mage) i could pretty much not aggro anyone… i STRONGLY suggest not going after the guys in the left side of the tent.. there are usually 3 wizzards there.. you might see 2.. but there is a 3rd one that is hiding behind the wagon.. just dont mess with them.. specially lower lvls…

here is a screenshot…

http://www.redutopia.com/black.php?image=10045

i suggest.. anytime you get 2 mages on you.. just run them out.. they have short follow distances…

i estimate about 1/3 drop either wool or linnen (and usually in a 2x stack)…. you will get on avg about 30 copper a kill.. and not get many green items.. i think i found like 10 in 3 hours or so i was there….

i would stay here till lvl 22 or maybe 23… i was gettign 80-105 exp per kill at 22 (80 for lvl 18′s 105 for lvl 20′s)… and i could run though them pretty dang fast at lvl 21-22…

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[Grind Area Level 22-25ish] [South Barrens]
http://www.redutopia.com/black.php?image=10044

while running south.. at the green/yellow x i put on that map.. get the first quest from this guy here (i know u are grinding.. but you are killing the guys he wants you to kill.. so you get 2K exp for grinding extra

ok now that you got the quest.. head on down to the red circle… its a little mining area on the left last the hill that gose up to the hold. head on down… now.. u have to work your way ALL the way to the back…to kill a lvl 26 guy.. becare.. he is pretty hardcore… so just hangout and kill if u think u need to lvl up before you go after him…

if you are just killing guys…. this is your warning RIGHT HERE… BIG BOLD WARNING… these guys respawn REAL fast.. and they aggro from pretty long ranges sometimes.. so becareful.. if you fight your way to the back just killing for exp… watch your back.. makesur eyou dont get closed in by like 8 guys all around you getting ready to aggro.. that is just a HUGE waste of time… (its a long run from Camp T)

ok now taht you killed a lot of guys.. and you are lvl 23 or 24… go finish that quest at teh same guy if you havent already… now he will ask for 6 things of 3 differnt items… you get these from the guys up the hill at the keep/hold area… this is the blue area maked on the map….. go kill…. get the stuff.. go finish that quest (dame vguys yellow x) then he gives you dynomite.. run back to teh red area.. the first little tower you see.. on th etop is a plane.. run up to teh top.. and click on it.. blow it up.. go back for reward (ring!!) and exp…. then head back to teh Keep and grind your arse to 25ish….

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[Grind Area Level 22-25ish] [Stonetalon Mountains]
http://www.redutopia.com/black.php?image=10046

ok head on over to the Sun Rock Retreat (there is a fly path here so get it!!)

get the quest to kill blood stone harpes and slayers and somthings elses… (get it from teh guy to the right of the in when you walk into the city (i think he is a tauren)…

now head over the bridge and out the back way (red line on map) to the Charred Valley….

kill… dont be dumb.. there are LOTS AND LOTS of mobs here.. they go insane.. and chase you… their aggro area seems HUGE!!! so dont be dumb.. just kill everything.. to get to teh guys you need to… lvl up here a long time.. it worth it.. decent drops.. TONS of guys….

(sorry it kinda got weak at the end..i just got to this area and so i am still exploring it.. and trying to find the ins and outs of it…)