The Protection Guide - Page 28

Eyegore · 02/01/08, 1:58 PM

Originally Posted by Elderin

I may have a dumb question.

We have a Prot Warrior and we want to maximize his DPS while he remains Protection. We need him to continue to tank Karazhan, but we need him to DPS in Gruul's Lair and SSC.

Does anyone have a suggestion for a spec that will maximize a Warrior's DPS while allowing him to MT Karazhan?

As was just pointed out the best answer really is to have him respec when he needs to dps, I would recommend paying for his respec costs from the guild bank if possible as it is to help the guild. While prot dps can indeed be passable, fury is better. If you still need to do karazan then I expect ssc would be progress level stuff for you, and you shouldn't cut corners on progress work. Of course your mileage may vary and all, but to me doing 2 jobs sub optimally to save respec costs is a farm content only type proposition.

Elderin · 02/01/08, 2:13 PM

I appreciate the input.

I should explain that my guild is rather small (37 members with 64 characters) but active (we boot people out if they don't show up for raids for a long time). So, some of our members (our Warrior tank, for example), still needs gear from Karahzan, but we want him also to show up for Gruul's. He's particularly helpful on that last pull before Gruul, where we get three mobs.

Tylerlee · 02/01/08, 2:35 PM

You can dps pretty well in Prot Spec, just get dps gear and gem correctly, get a decent group, get your pots out. i managed 991 dps on Winterchill, 889 on Kazrogal (with stuns) and im STILL using tier 2.5 boots becaus ive never had much luck being the MT and Boots dropping, with the best gear im pretty sure i could do well over 1k on most fights.

Main tips, spam Dev, Heroic when you have rage, Whirlwind every time you can and dont forget BoS

Qed · 02/01/08, 3:52 PM

If you put together a set of DPS gear, you can do surprisingly well as protection. There are a few things to note though. In general, you want fury warrior gear, but you will want to focus on slightly different stats. With no flurry, you you don't have quite the same returns from crit rating. With heroic strike taking up a reasonable number of your attacks, you don't have very good returns on hit rating either. (A caveat: If you assume 0 incoming damage, you will find that a spreadsheet overvalues hit rating, as extra damage will let you use heroic strike more and thus will decrease the value of +hit). On the other hand, you gain an additional +10% strength from gear.

With all of this considered, you will probably be stacking strength more on a dedicated protection dps set than you would with another spec. It's probably worth doing if you consistently tank one fight and then dps the next (Mount Hyjal comes to mind), but if you have a night where you're just going to be dps, I'd suggest going fury.

As an example of what protection dps can do:
WWS

Olon97 · 02/02/08, 6:42 PM

Some perspective from the DPS calculator side of things.

With a DW oriented gear set pretty much at the level being talked about (T4/badge/arena/honor mix), about 2800 raid buffed AP and 36% crit (based on my warrior alt's gear), my DPS spreadsheet estimates the following:

0/31/30 - 942.2 DPS
8/10/43 - 952.2 DPS
5/41/15 - 1062.7 DPS
17/44/0 - 1171.4 DPS

The interesting result there is that due to the +10% strength and devastate, a deep protection build is predicted to be close to or better than 0/31/30 for dps. The 5/41/15 holds up fine MT'ing kara (& OT'ing Kara) and has an edge on full protection DPS-wise, and of course the respec per-raid with traditional PvE DPS fury build yields the best output.

Dave Lister · 02/02/08, 10:03 PM

*edit*
Answered my own question, post not needed.

Rott · 02/02/08, 10:22 PM

Originally Posted by Dave Lister

I'm looking at getting a new neck. I'm currently using the [Barbed Choker of Discipline]. At our current level of progression my choices are to hold out for the [Frayed Tether of the Drowned] off FLK or [now that I have sufficient badges] buy the [Brooch of Deftness].
I'm leaning towards the Brooch for extra threat as I think I have a sufficient defense rating at the moment, just looking for a confirmation.

*edit* Not sure what happened with the formatting but the posts I was looking at appear to be normal now. Odd.

Go with the Brooch. That and the badge bracers will last you well into t6 content. I took the frayed when it dropped a week before the new badge gear was released and I don't think I've used the frayed at all since. I use the neck from the kael'thas quest reward for hard hitting bosses like Azgalor but for everything else you won't beat the brooch.

Dave Lister · 02/02/08, 10:25 PM

I looked at it again and it seemed pretty obvious, thank you for the response though.

◊ Quigon · 02/03/08, 2:57 AM

No reason to edit it out though. Other people might have the same questions.

Derrewyn · 02/03/08, 7:29 PM

What do you think about that sword calle Dragonscale-Encrusted Londblade on the "possible" Sunwell loot picture?
Just for the report it's a One hand Sword with 113-200 damage (108 dps) 1,5 speed +36 stamina, 25 haste rating and 25 expertise rating. Which stats make this beauty to probably the best TPS weapon if it exists.

I'm really interested how much TPS this weapon could offer compared to lurker mace?

I guess this sword is probably better for a tank to do TPS with it than to a rogue/dps warrior to do DPS, since there are and will be better DPS weapons out there.

Xav · 02/03/08, 8:15 PM

It is a massive threat weapon upgrade to the Lurker mace, for humans, and obviously for the rest of the races, over Brutalizer. Orcs may still get more threat out of Brutalizer though.

I don't really think there's much point to speculate and discuss based on a supposed loot picture that could very easily be fake.

Sepulture · 02/04/08, 5:20 PM

One of my pet peeves about Healthstones, Nightmare Seeds, and the use effect from the Shadowmoon Insignia is that any one of them alone really doesn't do enough to serve as an effective "oh shit" button.

Chances are, if you are sitting there with 1000 health waiting to die, a Master Healthstone alone isn't going to be enough to help you survive one more 5-7k damage attack.

That's why I replaced these various items with this macro:

#showtooltip
/use 14
/use Nightmare Seed
/use Master Healthstone

This is with the Shadowmoon Insignia in trinket slot 14. It the Shadowmoon Insignia (+1750 health and maximum health), and a Master Healthstone (+2,080 health minimum), or a Nightmare Seed (+2,000 health and maximum health) all in one button press (+3,830 health and +1,750 maximum health OR +3,750 health and maximum health).

This serves as a true second last stand on a much shorter cooldown. I keep the separate icons out if I'm trying to improve my survivability proactively over a longer period of time, but when things get rough, this macro is a great way to spam all 3 at once.

◊ Quigon · 02/04/08, 9:35 PM

With HP gear and all that popped (plus a few other things) I am pretty sure a tank can pass 40k.

Touf · 02/04/08, 11:16 PM

Originally Posted by Sepulture

One of my pet peeves about Healthstones, Nightmare Seeds, and the use effect from the Shadowmoon Insignia is that any one of them alone really doesn't do enough to serve as an effective "oh shit" button.

Chances are, if you are sitting there with 1000 health waiting to die, a Master Healthstone alone isn't going to be enough to help you survive one more 5-7k damage attack.

I personally prefer using the smaller ones when I hit 5K or so. You're in just as much danger.

• Zak · 02/05/08, 5:32 AM

In a similar vein, I changed my Last Stand button to a macro which activates Last Stand and both trinket slots. I normally run with Autoblocker and Scarab of Displacement, so if you don't use activatable trinkets this is obviously not much good to you.

Borodin · 02/05/08, 8:44 AM

Originally Posted by Quigon

With HP gear and all that popped (plus a few other things) I am pretty sure a tank can pass 40k.

Someone asked me my "max buffed HP with all cooldowns used" last night and I made a similar estimate. No Raid tonight so will maybe do a wee test.
Whatever score I reach will be easily beaten by the Stamina Gem stackers of course.

Reliknom · 02/05/08, 9:58 AM

A funny thing about random in-game questions is that people always ask about my HP. And I'm sitting there thinking that an honest answer should look at least like X1 in agro gear with X2 avoidance, Y1 in mitigation gear with Y2 avoidance, and so on. So nowadays I just tell them it's between 20-24k raid buffed.

BTW it always baffles me how some people know net to nothing about this game. Questions from lvl70 characters about where TF, various set items or even the bear mount comes from seems somehow so disappointing.

Borodin · 02/05/08, 11:46 AM

Originally Posted by Reliknom

A funny thing about random in-game questions is that people always ask about my HP. And I'm sitting there thinking that an honest answer should look at least like X1 in agro gear with X2 avoidance, Y1 in mitigation gear with Y2 avoidance, and so on. So nowadays I just tell them it's between 20-24k raid buffed.

BTW it always baffles me how some people know net to nothing about this game. Questions from lvl70 characters about where TF, various set items or even the bear mount comes from seems somehow so disappointing.

True, it rarely goes beyond "HP?" and sometimes "Armour?" and then "nice".
Probably for the best really as if they sound like they have a clue about the mechanics they get dragged into a discussion about armour sets, TankPoints, Effective Health, returns on Avoidance and so on.

Hmm I wonder if TankPoints could be made to report in a whisper/party/raid your details just like those old TalentWhisper mods..

"Greetings my name is Borodin and here are my vital statistics:
WALL OF STATS
Thank you come again"

Merple · 02/05/08, 12:01 PM

Originally Posted by Borodin

Hmm I wonder if TankPoints could be made to report in a whisper/party/raid your details just like those old TalentWhisper mods..

"Greetings my name is Borodin and here are my vital statistics:
WALL OF STATS
Thank you come again"

Honestly, any class could use this. I'd take it as a healer, and I'm sure you could make an argument for just about any class to be able to give a "Me-in-a-can" report.

Xav · 02/05/08, 5:32 PM

I don't even know what my max HP is with everything popped and on, since it's never lined up that way. And it's also never needed, yet anyway, but I doubt something will be tuned around having a burst of 40k+ hp. Whenever the random lowbies/level 1s ask a question like that I just say whatever my HP is and leave it at that, cause it really is easier than rationalizing why your hp isn't as high as it could be or what have you...

"Yes. Bye!" and such!

Relik, there's a ton of players that don't know the slightest thing about the raiding game and simply treat world of warcraft as a game you play a few Battlegrounds in, then log off and go watch some prime time TV... All they know about raiding is that might be where the shiny items come from!

Diamedes · 02/05/08, 8:02 PM

I don't have the gear to really go over 50% avoidance but I know many in this thread do so Im wondering for those who have mixed and matched gear and played with various levels of avoidance(miss/dodge/parry combined), have you come up with a good amount that you're never taking crushes due to shield block being down but also not too high where you're being rage starved too badly?

Me personally Ive been in the 40-48% range and at the low end I noticed I definitely take a few more crushing blows over the course of a fight than where Im at now at 48%( I only took 1 crush my last prince fight). My gut feeling right now on 25's is that avoiding around 50% of the attacks will allow you to avoid your 1 of 3 attacks in your 5 second shield block window most of the time and still take enough hits to not be rage starved. What do you guys think, has anyone had success with avoidance past 50-60% even or is there a limit where you're just too rage starved for it to be viable?

uw10isplaya · 02/05/08, 9:05 PM

It follows that if you can increase your base gear level to a high enough level, you can become crush-immune without ever having to hit shield block. This has been done on live servers, and is readily achievable, but often one must sacrifice aggro and mitigation.

You simply need your miss, dodge, parry, and block to reach 102.4% in order to become uncrushable. I do not recommend this strategy to tanks with the current set of gear, unless it is just to be as a gimmick. In terms of crushable avoidance, shield block rating is by far and away the cheapest point to spend on your item budget to achieve crush immunity – this is because it only allows for blocked attacks, and not total avoidance.

You may want to say that getting the 102.4% through gear is not recommended for the common tank. A main tank in an elite (or anyone that can go through BT) guild can aim for shield block rating + value, armor, and hit points and develop an amazing set of gear that maintains a fairly constant rate of incoming damage. In terms of overall mitigation, going for shield block is inferior. However, it was apparent quite early that hit points and armor were more important than evasion, to avoid spikes and smooth out the incoming damage. If you closely examine the current end-game raid gear, it is logical (unless the fight requires an evasion-oriented set of gear) to assemble a set high in shield block. There is plenty of high-itemlevel gear to do this without sacrificing armor and hit points. The end result is that you have the armor and hit points of an elite tank, but you exchange evasion for shield block. While not using shield block is a nice bonus, it is a drop in the water (for lower-level raids/instances, the extra rage is quite nice) compared to the effect it has on smoothing out damage spikes.

galzohar · 02/05/08, 9:16 PM

Going for passive crush immunity does hardly nothing to smooth out damage spikes on fights where those actually matter, as on those you will be using shield block. The only point for this kind of set is to avoid parry gibbing or otherwise fast-attacking bosses, but all in all I've yet to see someone show how this could save you better than simply having more HP, expertise and avoidance.

uw10isplaya · 02/05/08, 10:22 PM

CTProfiles.net: World of Warcraft Profiles � Federer � Main

I ebay'd a long time ago, so I stole a 70 warrior with my favorite athlete's name and put in some hypothetical gear. As you can see, weapon expertise and hit points are both at a premium (the weapon expertise doesn't show up on ctprofiles, but the neck-piece, bracers, axe, and gauntlets all have expertise rating). I put that list of gear together quickly, and since I can't play the game, I can't check the actual numbers in-game to see if the passive crush immunity is reached. If not, there are plenty of options to boost avoidance without too much sacrifice. This is just to show that you can get up there without sacrificing the 18stamina/15stamina gems throughout, the weapon expertise to reduce parries, and the armor and hp of high level items.

Hypatia · 02/06/08, 2:14 AM

Off the cuff, I'd say that gear leaves you about 14-15% short of passive crush immunity fully raid buffed. I don't see any enchants on the gear, so maybe 12-13% short with enchants. That's quite a bit of work left to do. (Apologies if my math is wrong—like I said, that's off the cuff.)