• giansm

Is this true? Does the lack of Bloodthirst and Improved Berserker Stance change the value of attack power in a meaningful way? Similarly does the lack of Flurry change the value of crit enough to impact gear choice?

 

Olon97

It looks like dr_AllCOM3 has broken down and included WW/devastate spam rotations into the latest Beta version of his DPS spreadsheet (link), so soon enough you'll be able to play around with numbers from various gear configurations and see for yourself. (note: Current version has a bug where WW damage is used for every damage tick of that prot cycle instead of 1 WW and devastate spam until the WW cooldown is ready again... so prot DPS numbers may be a tad... big).

 

Whiteknight

Minor point, but for completeness the Consumables section should mention [Spicy Crawdad] for general tanking purposes, and [Spicy Hot Talbuk] to go with your threat suit if you're not hit capped.

 

Xerophyte

It might be worth mentioning the Amazing Gunter and His Never-Ending Crawdad Supply in Zul'aman while we're on the subject. Substituting the boredom incurred by fishing for the little buggers for the lesser bore of occasionally logging on in ZA and buying 5 crawdads for 8s/piece is a decent optimisation, really.

 

Sepulture

Scroll of Protection V is worth 300 armor, and Scroll of Agility V grants 20 Agi. Both stack with standard raid, food, and flask buffs.

 

Zindel

Protection warriors can indeed do some nice damage. This is from 30 minutes ago. The kill is 7 minutes flat so it wasn't a slow kill either. The protection warrior (Alexandr) was also in charge of keeping demo shout up. It had something to do with the melee's shaman dying early so they missed windfury, while the Alex was in the tank group so he kept windfury throughout the whole pull. Nevertheless, it's quite nice to see him ending #1 damage as a pure tank spec.

Wow Web Stats

 

◊ Quigon

Considering how many of those I have eaten (both on purpose and on accident), it is amazing it isn't included. I will put that in on the next pass.

You're welcome to provide a primer to this - but this is already one of the "to-do" parts of the guide, indicated a few times on this thread.

And yes, you can reach very solid DPS under the right circumstances as prot.

As to Olon and Tactical Mastery - I'm still not convinced a fury warrior will typically have it. They tank so rarely - that I think it would be prudent to do the math both ways.

Also, you talk about the spreadsheet and shield slam in your post. I'm talking about shield bash here. Is that a typo? The excel I have, unless its been updated, does not even include shield bash.

Assuming the last few lines are all typos, you also are missing the other point that it costs 33% less rage, which is critical in most tanking situations - throwing in a quick shield bash is superior for rage management and aggro versus waiting for the rage to accumulate for another sunder, unless that rage comes extremely fast. Passing even 1 global cooldown hurts your threat quite badly. It seems all around much better, as the actual threat per hit in normal (~11% crit) situation is extremely close to sunder in TPS, and way ahead in TPR.

Anyway Olon, I'm not trying to give you undue shit for your contribution (you can see how many "corrections" and "suggestions" you get even for a relatively small guide, not that it is incomplete) - I'm just ironing out each point through constructive criticism and points that I've seen from my own experience - maybe I'm totally off base. But your part will get amended in soon and it will add to this guide quite nicely (and then we'll need to rename this topic and guide). Perhaps The Protection Warrior and Tanking Guide?
Perhaps someone a bit more right brained than I could help come up with a better title.

About scroll of protection - that was in the first version. I haven't the foggiest idea why it is gone now. I'll paste back in the original doc for that section. Have everyone in your guild send you these scrolls, they are not as reasonably farmable or obtainable solo.

 

◊ Jameson

Are you sure he was in full tank gear? 904 seems like a pretty high average HS hit for a prot warrior in prot gear. My Heroic Strikes don't hit that hard prot specced in full fury gear.

 

JulianMaiev

He meant tank group.

 

Zindel

I meant tank group.

I'd like to go back to the argument of 4/5 T5 vs 4/5 T6. I am a very aggressive warrior and honestly could not convince myself that T5 is better than T6.

Let's agree that we're talking about the first 5 in BT and the first 3 in Hyjal, as you need mitigation gear for Archimonde/Azgalor/Shahraz/Council/Illidan and avoidance for Bloodboil. Let's also agree that you can get healed just fine using either set, and that you're socketing stamina everywhere. Let's also agree that we're not going overboard with gear by using dps pieces or an awkward spec, we're still tanking a T6 boss here. And let's assume you are hit capped elsewhere and the 20 hit on T5 chest is only going to allow you to eat 30 stam food instead of 20 hit food.

Now comparing the set bonuses, 2 piece T6 is irrelevant to threat. 2 piece T5 and 4 piece T6, assuming you will shield block before shield slamming, will give you roughly the same damage on your shield slams. The problem here is that your shield slams essentially cost 27 rage if you're using 2 piece T5 vs 17 rage for the same threat if you're using 4 piece T6.

The question is, is the 4 piece T5 bonus enough of a threat gain to justify having to spent 10 extra rage every 6 seconds? I found the answer to be no unless you can benefit from the faster swings with heroic strikes, which requires good incoming rage from the boss, which is not the case with the bosses we're talking about here since they all have weak melee damage.

I'd love to be convinced otherwise (I like the looks of T5 better anyway), is the extra rage from more swings/extra threat from more swings really enough to justify having to deal with 27 rage shield slams? I'd love to see some math or testing or even reasoning behind it, but from me testing both armor sets, I seemed to have better TPS with the T6.

 

Punscho

How about "Warrior - Tanking & Spanking". That covers dps aswell :-]

 

Moogul

Is it me, or would you not be using shield block every time it's on cooldown anyway, making the idea of '27 rage' shield slams a bit misleading? Unless you've achieved passive crush immunity in those sets (I'm not sure how feasible that is), surely you want to be using shield block anyway, so the only difference for t5 is that you need to be a little more careful with timing.

 

Zindel

I was talking about the easy, weak hitting bosses. With the exception of Gorefiend and P3 RoS, I rarely if ever shield block on those bosses. I'm usually rage starved so taking a crushing is usually a good thing.

 

Olon97

I think you're right about more warriors remaining pure fury in practice, if only out of habit, regardless of my theory as to what might be optimal for a 3rd DPS warrior (after the full prot MT and the MS blood frenzy debuff-bot) in a feral-light raid team. Edgewalker's point about the subjectivity of tanking is well taken. I've added a comparison TPS chart with the math for 17/44, as well as mention of TPR considerations for pure DPS builds in the general advice part (including warning about losing valuable GCDs on untalented MS/BT). I'm worried about duplicating the other rank lists (snap threat / TPR) bloating out that section too much, but would be easy enough to do.

I do quickly point out afterwards the 6.8% increase in spreadsheet DPS from 17/41 vs 5/41/15 and the 31% increase in low rage TPS from 5/41/15 vs 17/41, to leave a little hint of personal bias in there.

Yup, I completely swapped "shield bash" and "shield slam" in that reply (edited to reduce any future readers' confusion). I updated the TPS excel myself (for shield bash), assuming armor independent damage (personal tests confirmed), dodge/parry/block (50 default value)/miss/crit factors, 230 bonus threat (before def stance and defiance), and def stance / defiance multipliers all included. I have shield bash ahead of sunder everywhere applicable now, and totally agree that a lost GCD is much worse than doing ~0.2 (or whatever the difference is now) TPS.

 

Praemonitus

In regards to Archimonde, my guild has found it highly successful to resort to a Druid tank then to use a warrior tank, myself (as MT) included.

My gear is here...
The World of Warcraft Armory

Reasoning behind this is that I regularly take between 7-8k hits back to back to back and even with 22k raid buffed HP, it's simply 'not' enough, even chugging Ironshields.

I use Moroes Lucky Pocket Watch and Scarab of Displacement in my trinket slots and have the standard nightmare seeds for "oh shit" scenarios etc... My spec (for him) is slightly changed to include 5/5 anticipation. Outside of that, there's not a whole lot I can do about gear for extra mitigation. Is anyone else dealing with this? Honestly when you die 'a lot' and a druid comes in with 50-60% dodge and we 1 / 2 shot him, you really have to wonder. What is the ideal group composition? Should I have a GoA for the extra dodge? Prior to this thread I hadn't paid too much attention to group composition, however desperate times call for desperate measures.

Thanks in advance

 

Xav

Asik, I use a combination of both. My threat gear for generating as much threat as I possibly can without using "retarded" gear, is The World of Warcraft Armory

If armory didn't update, it's T5 Chest/shoulders, T6 Helm/legs, [Gauntlets of Enforcement] 2% threat, [Brooch of Deftness], [Bracers of the Ancient Phalanx], [Shapeshifter's Signet], [Band of the Abyssal Lord], [Glyph of Deflection], [Gnomeregan Auto-Blocker 600], [Mallet of the Tides] with executioner, [Girdle of Stability], [Pepe's Shroud of Pacification] +12 AGI

Maxes hit, and as much expertise as possible (-8.75%), and using pieces with str/agi for more threat.

I find the minor damage gains from shield slam with T6 to not outweigh the threat I gain from being hit capped in T5, and the extra crit/AP from T5. The loss of armor also causes me to get a bit more rage, and the loss of avoidance with it too. I also gain block value.

This gear setup isn't so bad that the bosses own me, but it does maximize the stuff you need to put out as much threat as possible without putting on actual DPS pieces.

Things I still need to truly max out the set is the shield from Kaz'rogal, which would let me change some sockets, and put a block value enchant on the shield, and to finish skilling my enchanting to 375 for double 4 stats to ring enchants.

However I end up still using Moroes' trinket on threat fights often because I want an oh-shit button just incase.

 

◊ Quigon

Zindel, all I can say is based on my own experience: The difference in threat in the "Aggro" gear is rather extreme, especially in situations where you're not trying very hard, or where you are not generating as much rage. Its not like the old days of taking off your gear to get more rage or anything - but the procs are nice, as is the extra rage gen.
Then again, the difference in avoidance gear when you're after that is pretty extreme too - and as for blocking, when aggro was a concern I wouldn't block except before shield slams. You can time it quite easily in fact, and isn't required on top of that, just another rage burn.

T6 4 piece bonus will add maybe 70 block value worth of aggro. Just do the math, 70/6 is about 12 TPS. Thats assuming you are always on time with shield slams (which isn't realistic). Its just not worth it: ESPECIALLY when you consider you would be giving up either Illidan's helmet, or the gauntlets of enforcement. Both are vastly superior for mitigation, and the gauntlets are superior as well for aggro!

Remember the damage that kills you is typically burst. This is not calculated properly in most math models. I truly believe expertise IS the best tanking stat - perhaps enough that shapeshifter's signet should be considered an avoidance tank ring.

Xaviera: For some reason your the shapeshifter's signet is showing incorrect results. It is 20 expertise, but I assume you know that already, just pointing out it is linking to the old item... even a direct item # link doesn't work:
[Shapeshifter's Signet]

I think I'll mention the threat enchant to glove, and executioner explicitly in the threat gear selection section - execution isn't discussed until later, but it really is great for threat.
Also, for those thinking the "aggro gear" listed in the guide, and basically repeated by Xaviera above, is weak - I've tanked every boss in the game wearing it at one point or another in this aggro gear (accidentally on Bloodboil, and not yet on Shahraz), and it worked out perfectly fine. The worst is probably Teron because I explicitly do not shield block on him just because I'm suicidal there and think 10k+ crushings are fun. Then again I've not yet died on Teron either, and would use aggro gear before avoidance gear on him every day - of farming (NOT PROGRESSION). Progression on teron I'd recommend avoidance - avoidance reduces your crushing blows by not using up shield block charges, and contrary to what you might think, Teron is a fight of attrition for a guild learning it - reducing MT healing helps the raid healing a lot.

 

Mem

@ Praemonitus: I've tanked Archimonde in very avoid oriented gear as well as in a stamina oriented setup. My general feeling is that avoid is much much better in terms of keeping you alive. Generally your HP should be high enough to soak 2 melee hits coupled with a doomfire or grip tick. This can be archieved by having about 20k hp fully buffed and using Ironshields. 2k Hp more won't save you from any trouble in my experience. Having 10 % more avoid will however reduce the chances that you are getting threeshot to an abolute minimum (wednesday I had like 20,5k hp but 34 % dodge, 23 % parry and about 7 % enemy miss (through defense), using agi elixir and 20 agi food. I don't think our hunter used a sting and but we might have had an insect swarm active, no totem though). You might want to try this one out.
I'm really looking forward getting a pair of the Enforcement gloves which will enable me to resocket and reenchant my t6 gloves for my avoid setup (socketing it with 10 Dodge and 15 Agi will prove superior at least for a pure avoid setup).

I also agree on the notion that the stuff mentioned above isn't really making you softer - you want to get hit more often and expertise is really amazing for TPS. I'm using a similar setup as Xav mentioned minus some stuff that I still miss (like the gloves) and it works pretty well for most bosses where aggro is a concern (the only one I wouldn't use it is obviously Bloodboil).

 

• Mjollnir

I've thought about this and done some leisurely testing this past week- between 17/44 and 12/5/44. Perhaps, if anything, the value of crit is lessened due to Flurry not being at your service.
Through Vitality, a Prot warrior in DW Fury gear achieves *nearly* identical AP levels (assuming gear is properly gemmed/enchanted with str- as it should be). DW because Devastate is your only spammable ability. Perhaps a Prot warrior in Fury gear that is heavily Str obsessed- ignoring crit value? With the new spreadsheet and some ingame feel, I'm sure it won't be long before dedicated Prots figure out ideal gearing. The rotation, however, doesn't change much from the aforementioned Dev/WW spam with HStrike for rage burnoff.

 

• Ren

For a human, I think the stats/1.4 speed of [Blade of Savagery] outweigh the 4 expertise on [Mallet of the Tides]. A [Felsteel Shield Spike] is probably more TPS than 18 block value. And you can be hit capped in 4pc T6 without gemming for it; I feel squishy enough right now that I don't want to downgrade my gear anymore.

One thing you might want to add Maraudor: pulling trash with a quick throwing weapon ([Serpentshrine Shuriken]/[Twisted Blades of Zarak] etc) is far less annoying than with a 3.00 bow.

 

Xav

The Blade of Savagery might be more threat, yeah, however, you're losing a fair bit of tank-ness by wearing it. That, and you'd have to take one from a rogue or something potentially, but it is something I want to try out if it ends up being on rot.

I doubt a Felsteel spike is more TPS than 18 block value enchant because you aren't going to be blocking many things at all, actually, in a threat suit, whereas you WILL be shield slamming every 6 seconds.

I'm also curious how you manage to be hit capped in 4 piece T6 without gemming for it, unless you're not maximizing other stats like expertise/block value where there isn't a better alternative. Though, Kaz'rogal's shield which I did say I still need, is quite a nice boost to hit, so yeah I suppose you could get pretty close. Also, the T6 pieces I swap out have very weak extra stats for threat, no strength, little to no agility, no block value.

Oh yeah and on pulling, I should scan the guide and see if it includes The Decapitator - AMAZING weapon for a warrior to pull with, I use it to pull Gathios to myself on Council when we only have one hunter misdirect, for the priest tank, so I just equip the axe before the pull, toss it, and quickly swap to my real weapon. I think it's a 40 yard range, too, and a solid 500+ threat.

 

Tamral

I have to agree here, and you're the first person that has ever agreed with me on the Shapeshifter's ring. Until I got the expertise gauntlets off of Teron, I was using the Shapeshifters ring over the Ring of Sundered Souls/Seventh Ring of the Tirisfalen for all of my avoidance tanking.

What people don't realize, hit wise, is that with 127 hit rating and 25 expertise, even though I have next to no AP (520 or so unbuffed), 11% crit unbuffed, and only 370 or so shield block value, I can maintain an incredible amount of threat because my attacks almost never miss.

I've been going absolutely batshit crazy with my matrix state equations from earlier in this thread, however, because something is not quite making sense to me. By all means, statistically, the shapeshifters ring should still be better than the Ring of Sundered Souls, because it would increase my expertise to 30, but I am finding it to be the other way around, especially on bosses like Azgalor and Kazrogal, but the data is showing me clearly otherwise. Not sure if it's just dumb luck at this point, but it is pointing at the possibility that the random number generator used in combat may be time weighted to balance results based on initial inputs.

I avoidance tank with about 31% dodge, 18.5% parry, and 23% block with 370 block value, 503 defense, and 21.5k HP fully buffed in my full avoidance set.

Against a boss, my total avoidance SHOULD be (30.4+17.9+10.5) = 59.8 or roughly 60%.

With 8291 total data points at present:
4955 attacks were "avoided" - 59.7%
3336 attacks were "hits"

All peachy.

Of the data points, there were
1127 incidents of 2 consecutive hits.
361 incidents of 3 consecutive hits.
71 incidents of 4 consecutive hits.
10 incidents of 5 consecutive hits.
1 incident of 6 consecutive hits.

Why is this significant? Because in theory, if you were just struck twice in a row, it should have no bearing on the next attack. You should still get hit 40.2% of the time. If the last 3 attacks hit, the same principle applies. But it's not making sense at all.

In theory, there were 1127 data points recorded after 2 consecutive hits. 40.2% of those next points (or about 450) SHOULD have been hits. However, only 361 were, meaning, after 2 consecutive incoming hits, my avoidance was effectively 68%.

of the 361 points recorded for 3 consecutive hits, based on independance of events, 145 of the next attacks should have been hits. however, only 71 were, rendering my avoidance to be 80.4%!

After 4 consecutive hits, my recorded avoidance was 86%, and after 5, 88%.

Now, before you can chime in that it could have been due to me dying after a third or fourth consecutive hit, eliminating the chance for a further data point to be calculated, this was recorded during a time in which I only suffered 1 death, after 3 consecutive hits from Azgalor during a silence.

Am I going insane or has anyone seen anything of this order? Because if there is a nonlinear trending skew to the "random" roll, then a lot of the theorycrafting needs to be redone with that taken into account. The problem is, I DONT see this pattern at ALL on trash, only on Bosses.

I'm going to keep collecting some data points because I have never seen any documentation or anything to the effect as to how/why this happened, and I'm somewhat assuming that its either dumb luck, or not a large enough sample size, but I'd appreciate any info anyone might have.

 

• Ren

Armory updated; I'm at 145 hit rating (141 once I manage to finagle a Blade of Savagery), 32 expertise (-8% dodge/parry), 436 block value.

 

◊ Quigon

Tamral,

I think you're probably seeing bias based on diminishing potential - get a much higher sample set.

Further, I haven't done the avoidance math on the ring, but shapeshifter's ring doesn't have to be superior in raw stats to be better, if it simply reduces burst. Typically burst kills - and that isn't often measured appropriately when determining an optimal gear set.

 

Xav

Talking about being hit capped in full T6 without gemming for it, without mentioning beforehand that you have a Madness of the Betrayer, is a little silly :p. Yes, having the absolute best most amazing DPS items that don't sacrifice a piece of "tank" gear to put on, is going to be excellent for your threat suit! There's obviously room for improvement in basic threat suits that I listed, or Quigon, but we wont be seeing most tanks with Madness of the Betrayer, Blade's of Savagery, etc, until a while more - although I'm sure since sunwell is still months away, we'll get them eventually. You know guys I also do really sweet devastates with my Warglaive of Azzinoth...