There are times prot warriors need to DPS in instances. It might be because we're on Shade of Aran. It might be because we have two prot warriors in the raid today and the fight only needs one tank (it really sucks to waste tank loot, and we can hardly run a separate Kara for each warrior in the guild).

Assume for a moment our prot warrior has a heavy prot spec, no deep talents in either arms or fury that affect their DPS more than 5% crit (if they even have that), but of course they will have every relevant prot talent that could up DPS.


This is a continuing bugbear with our warriors and always has been. Our MT, for example, insists on Aran that his best DPS is actually from going 1h/shield, using shield slam whenever it's up and otherwise devastate spamming (and shield-bashing as his interrupt, in that fight). Others of course think the way to go is more conventional DPS moves with a 2h or duel wield and using pummel as their interrupt.

What is actually the max DPS mode for prot warriors, given 2h and duel wield weapons of equal quality?

i like to go with my strengths, when you're prot your main offensive ability is shield slam. so i take every piece that i have with SBV on it and then every other piece i use dps gear.

I top DMs on Aran by gearing like I'm fury and going to town with devastate and HS.

Assume for a second we have no DPS warriors at the moment (and usually only ever had one at a time) and therefore our prot warriors usually have really good DPS gear by default. Varies between them, of course.

Cool. They pretty much all have a really good 2h due to Blizzard's obsession with making sure 2h weapons drop in every instance like candy, but I daresay their 1h weapons aren't that bad either (although only 1 king's defender to date, sigh).

dios: Just to clarify, I assume that's duel-wielding?

With my limited dps gear, I have found dual wielding to out damage a 2h as a full prot warrior. For starters, lets assume that you find a really slow 1h weapon and stack out for as much attack power as you possibly can (without sacrificing crit or hit). With full raid buffs, you should be able to achieve over 2500 atack power and possibly as high as 3200 given really good attack power gear. The best weapons i can seem to find have about a 2.7 attack speed for one handers (though 2.9 would be better). You're going to want to dual wield for extra rage even if your off hand weapon isn't that great.

Lets say you get 2800 attack power with full buffs and have a 2.7 speed weapon. Lets also assume that both of your weapons are bout 80dps normally. We will also assume you have enough rage to devistate every second.

2800 attack power = 200dps

Main hand: 280dps
Off hand: 190dps (cause you're not dual wield spec)
Devistate 553dps *

Base DPS: 1023dps
(add 10% due to 1h specialization if you took it = 1125dps)
(subtract 20% due to misses if you don't have a lot of + hit = 900dps)

Now you get to factor in your crit and hit and if your shaman throws windfury etc. Enemy armour will affect this as well. Your effective dps will probably be somewhat lower.

*Devistate Calculations:
2.7 speed 80dps weapon = 216 damage
200dps from ap @ 2.7 = 540 damage
Total /2 cause of devistate = 756/2 = 378
(add 175 damage per hit for 5 sunders = 553)

Now compare the same gear with a 110 dps 2h weapon:

Weapon damage: 310 dps

Your options for bonus damage are basically heroic strike, slam, and whirlwind.
Even if you squease an extra 200dps out of that, i think the dual wield benefits greatly out weigh the 2h.

**edit due to mistake made on devistate calculation**

Same here, I have about 13% hit and about 25% crit in zerker stance, with around 1700 AP with battle shout, other than my weapons i have no epic dps gear. I use Decapitator and that dagger from Moroes, stack sunders to 5 and then spam devestate and HS, sprinkling in pummels when needed.

It probably did help me that i cleave tank 2 elementals when we're short a warlock >.>

I am a prot warrior who has tried 2H and 1H for DPS. I have the 2h-er from Opera. Prot warriors with a 2h-er have no rage dumps. Swings are too slow for HS to unload rage. Devastate works only with 1h weapons and is a huge bonus of extra damage. Finally, prot warriors get +10% damage with 1h weapons. The very best damage we can get is dual wielding, but 1H and shield is not THAT far behind dual wielding, and in fact on Shade of Aran I use the shield for interrupts. I don't use berserker and pummel because I like the extra hit points I am getting from my shield and I don't like taking extra damage whenever I get targeted with a spell from Aran. Later I continue to need the shield while I OT two elementals.

As prot Warrior, I DW whenever I need to DPS and, like mentioned above, I act as though I'm Fury spec. I just cannot find any justification or even fun in using a 2hander as prot spec. When I got Gorehowl and decided to skill it up to cap, I wanted to scalp myself not having an instant attack to spam. For that reason alone, DW wins. Devestate is an insanely rage efficient move and ensures that Sunder never drops. An extra 10% damage from both your weapons doesn't hurt either.

In regards to Aran, I usually come third DPS beneath our decked out Rogue with every Karazhan drop and a Feral Druid. If I don't have to pick up one of the Water elementals, second. I like to wear Boots of Elusion and Argussian Compass for run speed, trinket proc and a big chunk of stamina too so I lose a little DPS there. I personally cannot see why you'd want to add 2 seconds onto your interrupt ability and lower your DPS by sticking with sword 'n' board but to each their own.

Yep, dw devastate does a lot of dps if you gear up for it, but you're also a glass cannon. I stack strength, hit, and crit (in that order).

I'd never wear my dps suit farming. You'd never build to 5 sunders to maximize the devastate damage and your incoming damage + lower health/mitigation make it impractical. I have a raid dps suit, a solo dps suit (more balanced, with a shield, maximizing block) and a tanking suit.

Buffed for Aran, I have about ~22-2500 AP (varies with UR procs), 27% crit with LoTP, and 10% hit. I've got a 71dps 2.6 speed mh and a 88dps 1.6 speed offhand. Hopefully I can luck into a decapitator this week since our enhancement shaman got his last week. I pretty consistently hit about 670-700dps for the shade, but he's also got shite for armor.

I've also started messing around with Romulo's poison vial since we have so many instant attacks. It's not a great item for a rogue, but I want to do some PPM testing on it before I consider it worthless for a warrior.

I'm currently spec'd 0/28/33 for 2H Fury/Protection. I went this way because I still do alot of solo grinding and I found that I couldn't kill 2 npc's if my life depended on it when I was 12/14/35 (okay, maybe I could, but it took me forever).

With my current build, with untalented whirlwind and improved slam, I can still pump out 450-600dps on single target lvl70 npc's (ie shadow moon valley). To clarify even further, I'm using the Singing Crystal Axe and have ~6% to hit, 1250AP unbuffed and ~25% to crit in zerker stance. For raid situations, my crit chance is much higher due to various buffs and pots I use to increase performance.

I also have a set of DW gear that is basically your typical blues from TBC what yields ~1275AP unbuffed, 10% to hit and I believe around the same crit chance (~25%). My MH is the reflex blade and OH is the fast sword that drops in Black Morass that has 1.4speed (latro's shifting sword I believe). Anyhow, my dps wasn't as consistent as it was with the 2H'er and for multiple npc pulls, it wasn't even close dps wise. I'm not sure it's a fair comparison since I have an epic 2H wpn so take it for what it's worth.

Hm. I was wondering about this myself, and from some rather poor testing (Prince DPS!), my 1h combo (Fireguard + 71dps 1.6 speed claw) is a useful bit of extra DPS over Lionheart Blade. Would I be better off picking up a slow 71dps main-hand (Edge of the Cosmos, Reflex Blades, etc) for Devastate spam, and off-handing the Fireguard?