[Warrior] - Potion Usage
 

With advent of Patch 2.1, we've been encouraging all of our raiders to use flasks/elixirs/pots more regularly since gold is easier to come by and the consumable mat requirements have been reduced. On unbeaten content, we're mandating that folks drink something as we learn new encounters.

Now since we started using WWS, we've also been able tell which players are actually taking this consumable use to heart. Among the non-converts is our Main Tank, a protection warrior; he uses a Flask of Fortification, occasionally some +stam food, but never uses potions. This infuriates our primary OT, a feral druid. First, this feral druid regards Blizzard's unwillingness to let druids use pots when shapeshifted to be grossly unfair and therefore can't understand why our Main Tank doesn't take advantage of his ability to use pots. Second, this feral druid spent a year healing this same protection warrior through BWL/AQ40/Naxx and has groused about the warrior's infrequent potion usage.

So before I go wading into this, I thought I'd see what the generally accepted wisdom is. Should a Main Tank warrior be using health pots ever? Is it a viable means of preventing a really bad series of hits and a missed heal from turning into a wipe or is it a waste of mats?

Perhaps in the alternative, on heavy physical damage fights, should the warrior be taking Ironshield Potions at every cooldown? Or is that extra 2500 armor also low benefit for high cost?

Yes. (but I have to admit, your MT shouldnt get that low, and if he does, its probably because the boss has such burst damage that he'd die anyway)

I couldnt imagine our MT do anything but chain chug ironshields on tidewalker and gruul/maulger back when we took some time to down them. Even as pala tank on Morogrim adds I chain them.

Your guild bank should get 100 or so Ironshields combined for your MT, give them to him, and instruct him to chain them on any fight with heavy physical damage. (sup Morogrim)

Health pots aren't something that a MT should tend to use, simply because of ironshields sharing the same cooldown. If a boss has heavy, heavy physical damage output such as morogrim or the shaman add on fathomlord (completely and utterly RIDICULOUS), then chain downing ironshields is the way to go. On other bosses where it's more of an execution fight, ironshield's become a bit less useful, but they still "help" overall.

One can say that, well, every little bit helps but, in all truth, if you're MT is constantly dying, the health pot probably isn't the problem, healing is. An MT already has last stand, SW, 2-3 healthstones and maybe nightmare vines, which is quite a bit of back up already.

I'm not a prot-spec warrior, but as an OT I take pots reactively. I've gotten pretty bad about hitting them in time lately, but I'm working on that. I think that most tanks that i know use one pot or another.

yeah, as a MT I don't use health pots except under rare circumstances. I do however take ironsheild or rage potions when needed. last stand, shield wall, and seeds/HS are a better choice IMO.

As others have said, in many cases ironshields are dramaticly better than flask of fortification, and should be used preemptively. Beyond that, haste/rage potions are interesting choices for certain encounters where agro is sketchy and you are either cooldown or rage limitted. Health potions and resistance potions are generally a bad idea as you will have other cooldowns that do the same thing.


To answer your initial question: It's ridiculous that he's not using potions of some sort, as your healers (and probably mages/hunters) certainly should be.

It's just a random cost of raiding, and truthfully the current alchemy situation is so dramaticly improved that I'm surprised he's not happy to spend only a few potions.* With the recent rise in ilvl on gear, it's much cheaper from the raid's point of view to flask and use potions than to wipe, so even from a "saving money" standpoint he'd be better served with the potion brigade.


*That said, I'd be very happy to see ironshields/mana pot chain chugging addressed at a later date by blizz as it's pretty clearly overpowered compared to equivalent items/flasks.

With the exception of Gruul's lair where I'll use an Unstable Flask of the Beat, I use either a Flask of Fortification, Major Fortitude + Major Agility or Major Fortitude + Mastery for every single boss fight in the game. Which combination I use for which fight varies on what sort of fight it is but I have little concern for the cost these days.

With regards to potion usage, as has already been stated, Major Healing Potions aren't really something you'll ever consistantly use.

Morogrim and Magtheridon are the only two fights I still chain-chug Ironshields on and I think I could actually get away with doing it on the latter now. However I find the fight very uncomfortable and want the only excuse to redo it all being on clicking incompetence.

I tank both forms of Leotheras so I use Mighty Rage Potions for the Demon phases. Having to go farm 15+ Gromsblood every week just so the DPS can continue to disregard the pros of having a Warrior tank to lament the loss of a Warlock's infinite hate is lots of fun, let me tell you.

Completely unnecessary but I use Haste Potions to build extra hate on Void Reaver when I'm not the current tank.

For Hydross, you could use Heroic Potions but, again, not really necessary.

If the fight doesn't massively benefit from the 2500 armour an Ironshield grants, there are plenty of ways to get creative with your potion cooldown if you take a stepback and analyze what each is throwing at you.

Before each boss fight I throw down a Major Fort+Elixer of Mastery. I spend the majority of the week getting mats for it and and Tuesday (today) I have our resident elixer masters make them for me before the raid and that will last me week to week.

On some fights if I'm an OT and I don't need to have those extra HP's or STR such as Aran, I'll put on Major Agility and goto town.

It really is circumstancial to the boss fight and your role in question. I won't use flasks unless absolutely neccessary.

It all comes down to the fact that a protection warrior can't farm consumables at the same rate other classes can. While a feral druid can easily farm the gold for the consumables needed, it will take a protection warrior double the time.

I'm not saying prot warriors can't farm(i've made videos to the contrary) but your guild bank should help your MT with pots and possibly flasks. The MT has to show tremendous dedication to the guild to be in the position he is in.

An MT cannot:

PvP effectively without dumping 100g every time he wants to do so.
Obtain DPS gear with relative ease, especially weapons, as he will be low on DKP.
Farm as effectively as any DPS class.

Right now, I happen to be my guild's MT, and I do chug Ironshields, and Flasks, usually provided from my own gold. I also respec constantly to PvP, and maintain a good damage set(i've been fortunate enough to get all the drops I want from karazhan and some items nobody needed from gruul's and Mag), with 37% crit and 1700 AP(axe spec). But this aside, most MTs will need help with providing their own ironshields and flasks.

That's a crutch. You can make 100g just doing the dailies in less than 2 hours, even protection-specced. And there's no reason why a tank can't go dps-spec once or twice a week to farm and pvp whatnot just as a dps warrior can spec protection for tanking heroics and OTing in a raid as needed.

As far as DKP, it's again a matter of equality. A tank may have to wait for others to gear up first on the dps side but when it's time, they can usually get items on the cheap.

Also, a tank can use their professions to help. Trade that alc master some sharpening stones or class-food from fishing/cooking for pots.

Not taking a pot when needed is akin to not being buffed. I don't think people would do a boss fight without Kings or GoTW, and neither should they on a flask or pot.

Ironshield pots are anything but low benefit for the cost. With a raid buffed 20k+ health pool that pot is more effective than a flask versus physical damage burst, and even Ironshield spam throughout an entire wipenight will not run up to a significantly higher material cost than the flask. It's easily one of the most cost-efficient consumable raid buffs out there, any tank worth his salt spams it every cooldown on new physical damage content.

This is also a matter of how your guild is organized. For example Marks of Illidari are collected by our guild bank and whenever we have to flask single key persons (usually tanks) in the raid, those persons are compensated with marks from the bank.

I remember killing Gruul pre nerf cost me 900 g in consumables only, including the countless dry runs in the 1.5 weeks it took us to kill him, when i was the only one constantly buffed to the top. Still those dry runs (and my longevity during them) allowed us to pin down our tactic. MTs are a single point of failure, buffing them to the max (out of their own effort or out of guild effort) shouldn't be a question at all.

That being said, stoneshield or ironshield potions are the way to go as soon as you are tanking. I rarely remember taking health potions as tank, but for all the (mostly pre nerf) hard hitting mobs, stone/ironshield potions were a significant key: Prince, Nightbane, Maulgar, Gruul, Magtheridon, Morogrim, Karatresh were all bosses we probably would not have downed first time without ironshield or stoneshield potions on tanks.

I do not understand how devs could overlook ironshield potions when they introduced the instance bound potions (nethergons for TK and cenarion salves for SSC) in 2.1., especially regarding the limited farming capabilities of protection warriors.

I agree with the majority here. I used Stoneshields in Kara when we first did the prince as well as for Nightbane as well as a flask. Because I wanted to succeed. Nowadays due to nerfs (I didn't kill the old release Nightbane but only the on prior 2.1) and item upgrades these fights are easy, sure. But fights like Morogrimm and Karathresh (killed him yesterday for the first time, me tanking the boss) require some armor potions in order to ease the load of the healer. My lone paladin yesterday needed everything I could do in order to keep both of us up. I think this is one of the aspects that distinguishes me from my co tanks who tend to refrain from pot usage as far as I can see.

I also have always a stack of rage potions in my bag when raiding. I like the idea regarding the use of haste potions (and I don't think that those are used by our DPS, the only thing I see them using were LW drums).
However I do get some support from our guild and single individuals that I greatly appreciate. Having something like instance bound Ironshields would be pretty nice though (atm I'm sitting on 15 coilfang armaments I don't really need because health potions are in general useless for someone with a raidbuffed healthpool of about 19k.)

However I also echo the sentiment that the dailies will only keep parts of your bills paid if you are serious about raiding as well as PVP. Fortunately adamantite ore is still selling pretty good :)

Let me put it this way: If ever druids are allowed to buy drink potions in forms, I'm going straight to the AH and buying every single reasonably priced ironshield potion I can find. And I'm already fairly close to the armor cap, a warrior doesn't have to worry about that.

While it's true that a health potion could save a death, if your healers are letting you get to that point, you can't guarentee that it won't happen twice in two minutes. Give them an easier job by taking less damage each hit.