You really should consult a spreadsheet for this. The answer will be different for different gear setups such as: What is your current AP, crit, hit or if you need the blue gem to activate [Relentless Earthstorm Diamond] and all that.

For what it's worth, when I was fury I went for the socket bonus since str and crit were roughly the same (the spreadsheet will also tell you what stats are worth) so I went with an 8 str gem, a 4 str/crit gem and a 5 str/6 sta gem effectively "won" 1 str and 6 sta by going with the socket bonus (not to mention I needed that blue gem for my RED).

Spreadsheet: [Warrior] DPS Spreadsheet 2.3 and beyond

Yeah, I've been using the spreadsheet, I just don't have access to my character at this moment. It makes sense to use the base strength + extra strength method and modify it that way.

I'm not sure where it says the value of my stats is. I just see the dps results, not the relative value of crit or ap at my current amount.

If the sockets have no more than one blue, and if the socket bonus is +4 or more strength or crit, I'll match the sockets. For those pants, you could socket +8str, +4str/+4crit, +4str/+6stam and end up with +20 str, +4 crit, and +6 stam. That's almost identical to +24 str, with +6 free stam to boot.

Thanks for the information. This makes a lot of sense. I'd ask for help with what I should shoot for in t5, but the armory has me in non-upgraded gear + random pvp gear right now.

In the Gear sheet where you see your DPS, TPS and input all the gear and such, there is a button called "SEP" in top right corner. Click that to have the sheet calculate you the values.
For this to work you have to use the modded sheet by Grim13, just check the last few pages in the Spreadsheet thread to find a download link.

I apologize if this has been asked already, I honestly put forth effort to look for information before posting. In any case, here goes. Maxdps lists the blessings deck as one of the top Fury trinkets in the game. Does this hold true? I mean it is essentially a constant 120AP buff, but is it really better than Bloodlust, TT, etc? It also has Dragonspine listed very low. Any help would be appreciated

Bloodlust Brooch offers 118AP if you use the cooldown whenever it's up so it's pretty close to Darkmoon without the drawback of having a charge up time which should be quite an advantage on mobility fights. Moreover, you can click the On Use at critical times for maximum effect like Blood Lust + Recklessness + Haste Potion + Execute part and similar (back when Deathwish was in Fury, using it together with the Brooch also worked nicely). Coincidentally, the Brooch has a 2 min CD just like Haste Potions so macroing those together works quite well, too.

This is great info thanks.

So what I take from this is, Bloodlust and Darkmoon are very comparable. So would the Darkmoon Card and DST be a suitable combo? Also, someone mentioned 'stacking ArP after a certain stat minimum'. When does this level kick into effect?

If you want an accurate answer, you should get the Warrior DPS Spreadsheet (http://elitistjerks.com/591550-post434.html), input your stats in the gear tab and click on the button called SEP. These will tell you what stat is going to boost your DPS by the most.

Sure, I could have just made up some arbitrary numbers to tell you when ArP gets better and better, but that would be lying (and yeah, I do get the irony that this is coming from me <_<).

You should never die on Hydross adds regardless of your dps because they are affected by taunt and stun. We have our dps warriors (or crazy prot warriors) just hit as hard as they possibly can while our tanks keep them stunned or taunted. It just takes a bit of coordination with the tanks in your group.

My attack priority changes as the fight goes on. Early on I only use devastate to help the tank stack sunders and let my rage build up a bit. Once he has a good lead on me I'll use whirlwind on every cool down and heroic strike any time i'm above 25ish rage. The real trick as a prot warrior is watching your threat since 2/3 of your damage comes from devastate and heroic strike which are rather unforgiving on the threat. Your attacks are very efficient, however, and with a bloodlust going, I've sustained over 1600 dps for the duration of the bloodlust (at which point I generally pull agro and die if I don't have salvation on)

When choosing prot dps gear, you only really need 9% +hit since most of your damage is special attacks (not that additional +hit is bad). The rest I just go for whatever has the overall highest number of stats or whatever leftovers the dps guys don't want (most fights I am tanking so I'm rather low priority on the dps gear) I count stamina as a useful dps stat when choosing my dps gear because much of the time I will end up having to throw on a shield and help tank anyway (I'm the main tank so I only get to dps when we are training up one of the newer tanks or trying to convince one of the "dps classes" to spec into something useful for raiding)

As a general rule, if the prot warrior is doing more damage than you are, you are doing something wrong.

In response to a few pages ago(sorry, haven't been keeping up with the thread lately):

Unlike popular belief, using a Sword in the arena is still viable. As it stands, Mace and Sword are equal in my eyes. Possibly game breaking stuns versus possible game breaking burst. Personally, I plan to get the sword on my warrior. Being a Gladiator on my warrior, and on a top ranked 3v3 team on the battlegroup since the first week of season three, sword apparently does work.... or my battlegroup is aweful. Not needing a different weapon for PvE is nice, too

I noticed a few people mentioning PvE hybrid builds, and they are certainly still viable. You may not get into a top 20 team without TM anymore, but a flurry build is certainly still good. 33/28 PvE MS is a fantastic build for a lot of setups(double healer warrior comes to mind for 3s, or double warrior triple healer 5s). Also, the Arena gear is a solid substitute for 2h PvE dps... better than tier5 in most cases.

Stacking sunders helps get the tank their 5 sunders faster making their own devastates more effective. Early on in a fight, a prot warrior is going to be a bit short on the rage and their highest threat attacks will be a simultaneous shield slam and heroic strike (upon initial contact with the boss) followed by revenge (if it's up), and then devastate. Devastate doesn't reach it's potential till all 5 sunders are up due to decreased damage.

Also consider that if I'm in bzrk stance with salvation on, I will be generating 56% less threat (see early in the article) and due to defiance, the tank will be generating 15% more agro per devastate.

Finally consider that my devastates (up to 5 stacked total) do more than just add to my own threat, but add to the tank's threat as well because he will be doing an extra 35 damage for each of mine i stack (up to a total of 5 on the target). This means that he doesn't need to waste his rage on low threat devastates but can rather spend the saved rage on higher threat initial attacks and then higher threat devastates once the 5 are stacked.

Saying that an off tank stacking devastate reduces the main tank's threat is like saying thunderclap or demo shout reduces the main tank's threat. If that were the case, no one would ever use a debuff bitch to maintain debuffs the main tank is too busy to do himself.

I understand that as a prot warrior, I have to be especially careful when forced into a damage dealing alternative role due to the high threat nature of my damaging attacks. But it is also my job as a prot warrior (when not tanking) to keep high on the threat so I can take over if the main tank gets into trouble (sacrificing myself if necessary to buy the healers time to get that all critical heal off). And if the main tank goes down at the end of the fight, it would be my job to throw on the shield (regardless of wearing dps gear), pop last stand and shield wall, and give the raid that extra few seconds to get down that last percent or two.

Granted I'm usually the one tanking and not doing damage. I'm just making the argument for those rare times the prot warrior needs to show that he's more than just a damage speed bump between the boss and the raid.

I think what he was alluding to was the apparent fact that the initial 5 devastates not only put out their inherent threat and threat from damage, but the threat a normal sunder armor would as well(this was added with the addition of the sunder armor effect to devastate in 2.2 or 2.3). This is referenced somewhere in the last few pages of The Protection Warrior thread.

I'm at a loss to understand why a warrior (low on rage mind you) would HS off the bat, when the threat from the abilities you get for not wasting HS rage will get you more "snap aggro" anyhow.

Your first priority as dpsing prot warrior should be debuffing the boss with demo and TC anyways, and doing so helps MT threat substantially as well.

EDIT: http://elitistjerks.com/609312-post590.html is the post he was probably referencing.

The reason I generally lead off with a heroic strike is because if I queue it up before I approach the boss, it will trigger the moment I get within striking range (sometimes shield slam or sunder / devastate can lag a bit and give an out of range result while still on approach to the boss). The heroic strike will generate sufficient agro at the start of the fight to prevent any reasonable healing from pulling the boss off me and an immediate shield slam (or any other global cool down ability you wish to use) gives you two practically simultaneous attacks. The basic theory is that if you miss right off the bat, the boss can run free and cause trouble. Adding a running throw from the decapitator gives you a third attack with nominal threat to insure a stable beginning of the boss fight.

I'm NOT suggesting prot warriors choose to use heroic strike in preference to shield slam but rather queue it up along with a global cool down attack to get two simultaneous attacks at initial contact with the boss. The entire purpose is to minimize the risk of a miss / mitigated attack as well as give some insurance against initial contact lag.

My discussion on prot warrior dps is more academic since most of the time a prot warrior will be tanking but the ability to do damage is still important so you can hold your own when you have to.

Here's a question:

My guild is now progressing to the point where Vashj and Kael weapons will be accessable. On looking at the drops, both fang of vashj and rod of the sun king look appealing (my MH is the season 3 mace). Rod of the Sun King could be an excellent weapon based on the extra amount of rage it could provide, while Fang of Vashj sports what I have read to be the best offensive stat (expertise). Searching the forum shows rod of the sun king isnt a terribly great weapon, but I'm wondering if there is someone who uses/used it that can give me their opinion.

To add to my confusion:

Why is wicked edge so high? From what i've read, 15.9 expertise rating is a straight 1% dmg increase by removing 1% dodge from white and yellow attacks, making it a better stat then crit. Fang also has more AP, and I've also read that slower weapons arent that much better then faster ones because of the unsteady rage generation they provide. I bring up wicked edge specifically because I currently have this one. I was wondering what others thoughts are concerning these weapons.

The only thing I can think of is the stat distribution on the axe, next to the slow speed. A full percent crit + 50 AP boosts it's own DPS even higher, making it outweigh any other MH/BT comparable weapon.

I'd say get the S3 (same speed) offhand mace and you're done, save the DKP for the phoenix mount or any DPS drops in MH/BT

I have to disagree here as well. Using Devastate early on will cut on your MTs threat because of the added aggro of Sunder on the first 5 applications.
That being said, I usually don't care much about that myself since helping to apply Sunders boosts my own DPS and that of the raid anyway, you just have to be careful at the first few seconds in the fight which is why I suggest you always start off with a WW, then Dev and burn rage via HS. WW, unlike Dev, doesn't have added threat on it.

That analogy doesn't hold. You use a debuff bitch so the MT can produce more threat with not having to spend GCDs on skills that are less effective aggro moves. Devastate in it's 5 applications is huge threat so it doesn't apply for that.

If
why would
?

Because you Devastate in the MT's place to have Sunder stack to 5. Like I said before, only the first 5 applications of Devastate do bonus threat since they apply Sunder. If you do it for your MT, he will miss out on that bonus which is pretty nice to have early on as a threat buffer.

Just to avoid more confusion, this is how much threat Devastate does:

1st: Damage + 120 +301
2nd: Damage + 135 +301
3rd: Damage + 150 +301
4th: Damage + 165 +301
5th: Damage + 180 +301
>5: Damage + 180

The 301 part is from Sunder Armor which it applies on the first 5 applications.

Mace S3 Offhand has 1.5speed, take the onehand for 2.675 points or take the slow 2.6speed OH Axe for 1.125 Arenapoints.

This seems fairly counterintuitive. I think that the new devastate should either count as using both skills at the same time all the time, incorporating all effects, threat and damage of both, or simply work as devastate always did, with the added effect of applying the sunder armor script effect. If what you say is true, we're now getting the the former mechanic on the first five applications and the latter mechanic after that, which is behaviour sunder armor doesn't even have on its own, so I don't see how it makes sense for the new devastate. I guess this is either sloppy coding, or I'm missing something obvious here.

Now, I realize the way you say it works actually benefits us at exactly the time when threat gen is usually most critical and especially since the only alternative and most logical way the new dev should work is simply by never giving any sunder armor-based threat at all (since applying it all the time would likely be overpowered), I don't want to really complain about it. Just thought this works in a rather strange way if what you say is true.