sveno

Me being MT of my own guild, I pass T6 loot for other people usually. I just get the badge loot mostly, and while it's not better then T6, it's not an immense upgrade. The set bonus is also crap imo, set bonuses for healers/dps are much better.

Anyway, looking at your gear, how does your gemming work for you? I find I already have moments where I really don't want so much dodge, and I don't have alot really.

 

Nerub

Aggro never was an issue for me, for a boss that does not hit that hard I use more suitable gear like the Commendation of Kael'thas, the Autoblocker or the Badge bracers to name a few.

 

Handyhoof

Nerub: Good eye on the T6 stuff. Most BT tanks will use Silvermoon or Teron's Gloves because Onslaught is a bit meh.

On the hat, I'd recommend giving the T6 a fair shake. It gives you a meta, which is really worthwhile due to the new scaling meta. It's also really high on Mitigation/Time-to-live. If you want to be even more confused. Compare T6 helm to T5. (Trade Shield Block for Dodge? Yes, please.)

 

nfw

I'm concerned that Anticipation is being changed to dodge instead of defense, this would make reaching crit immune in resist gear that much more annoying.

Improved shield bash, a 20 point talent that increases the damage done by a 30 point one? That simply makes no sense.

 

Muggins

When combined with the change to resilience not being used in pve settings it will make it harder to cap no doubt, but we don't know what blizz's plans are for resistance fights in Wotlk and the overall benefit is great.

Its a secondary effect, the main part of the talent is the silence and its already been done before:

Improved Sunder

Reduces the rage cost of your Sunder Armour and Devastate abilities by 1 rage point.

That's a 15 point talent affecting a 41 point talent, don't worry so much about logic of talent placement and be thankful they're buffing a lacklustre talent.

 

Branar

I think it's early to say on Anticipation given that changes to combat table mechanics are at least somewhat expected; it's also entirely possible that they've got the wrong "Anticipation" talent. I'm curious to see how the functionality of shield block changes if they remove or alter crushings as well.

For improved shield bash, it has other functionality as well (the silence effect on shield bash), and I'd rather have where it is than 30+ points into the tree - there are enough very strong talents that make choices deep in the tree difficult and require spending significantly more than 41 (or 51) points in protection.

edit: beaten!

 

Fellwraith

• T6 shoulders are great for everything but a threat set. They have more flexibility than the Supremus shoulders because they have 2 gem slots. They aren't too great for a threat set, you're probably better off with T5 or a set of dps shoulders.
• T6 chest is better than Glory of the defender and I'd be inclined to use T5 over glory of the defender for a threat set
• T6 gloves are situationally useful, I wear them on Brutallus, some people wear them for Illidan to be shear immune. I prefer gauntlets of enforcement from Teron Gorefiend for most fights
• T6 legs have considerably more armor and avoidance than praetorian legguards (I prefer them to the legguards, some people don't). Once you're in Sunwell, Brutallus drops a set of legs that replace both.
• T6 helm is a solid threat piece, faceplate of the impenetrable is a survival piece (replacing the T5 helm). Both are an upgrade over battleworn tuskguard, mostly because of the defense/block value meta gem and the higher armor/stat values.

Most people use at least 2 pieces of T6 for the commanding shout bonus heading into Sunwell. In my opinion, if you have any hope of killing Brutallus before the next expansion, you will have at least 4 pieces (one of which will likely be the T6 bracers).

 

ALEXTREBEK

I do not mean to come off snidely when I say this, but what you are saying here, Maraudor, is not exactly the truth - and, if I may input, actually quite possibly misleads the average reader of this thread. Building on this, I made a post in response to this already, to quickly rehash it however, I'll just say this:

In all matters of correctly assessing the situation: The amount of physical damage reduced by Armor and the amount of HPS necessary to keep a Tank alive in relation to this amount is, and has always been, directly proportional to the amount of Damage Reduction from Armor you have, and not Relative Damage Reduction.

In addition: Armor does not suffer from "basically negligible" diminishing returns, it suffers from serious and profound diminishing returns as a function of reducing incoming physical damage.

However: Armor more or less does not suffer dimishing returns in its ability to increase your survival time without heals, which is the only accurate case in which Armor functions relatively.

(Anyways, personally I am actually a fan of your thread on these forums, but I would like to see that this slight error (or whatever you want to call it) be fixed. =)

All the best,
Alex, Blunted, XI, etc.

 

Riot

Just a quick follow-up to what Mulack was saying - T6 Shoulders indeed aren't the greatest for threat, but they're probably the piece you keep with the other 3 new Onslaught items if you want to maintain the 4 piece bonus.

Overslept, / So tired. / If late, / Get fired. / Why bother? / Why the pain? / Just go home / Do it again. - The Commuter's Lament
Norman B. Colp

 

• Jamor

Plus they look cool.

 

• Jamor

Sorry for the connected posts, but I forgot that I wanted to post about this yesterday.

If they did go to this model, it would have a nice secondary effect that once a prot warrior is done tanking a multiple mob encount, he/she is totally worthless other than debuffs. But if they did the AP based stuff and increased our strength, while at the same time allowing devastate to be used with 2H weapons (perhaps lowering the % to 30% weapon damage with a 2H), it would be a nice buff overall. There is nothing like seeing dual wield prot DPS in tank gear...let me tell you.

 

Njial

After looking at those alpha talents, I feel strange. Instead of the usual man there's a lot of talents that suck, I'm actually wishing I had more talents points. It looks like we are actually going to have to make some pretty significant decisions on some of that stuff.

Duty is heavier than a mountain, Death is lighter than a feather.

 

Skyeh

While the new talents are looking amazing, and if implemented, will make for a lot of happy prot warriors, I was looking over the new posted Kil'jaeden loot, and found the tank selection to be pretty underwhelming. The only real "tank piece" listed is the hat, and it's only a minor upgrade (hit for parry exchange) from the T2 engineering hat. Maybe I'm just spoiled by the three amazing tank pieces Illidan had, but does anyone else feel KJ's loot table doesn't offer much to a prot warrior?

 

Pitbuller

Warrior talent: Anticipation - Thottbot: World of Warcraft
Shaman talent: Anticipation - Thottbot: World of Warcraft
They just messed up with these two similar named talents.

Slow, slower, shaman weapon.

 

Muggins

No, they didn't.

Enhancement -
Spell 16274
Name: Anticipation
Description: Increases your chance to dodge by an additional 5%.

Protection -
Spell 12753
Name: Anticipation
Description: Increases your chance to dodge by 5%.

Note the spell numbers, which match the surrounding talents for those trees.

You can see them here:
http://urlshort.com/wotlk/site/talentlist.php

On a side note aoe tanking is looking to be shaping up nicely. We have Shockwave that doesn't seem to have a target limit other than requiring them to be caught in the frontal cone and dealing large amounts of threat(according to the spell description itself) and Bloodbath to add to the Thunderclap spam, which if you haven't seen it before looks like so:

Bloodbath (rank 1)
15 Rage
5 yd range
Instant
Wound up to 5 enemy targets within 8 yards, causing 244 to 256 damage and causing them to Bleed for 250 damage over 15 sec. If the target becomes Enraged, the Bloodbath bleed effect causes four times the normal damage.

Add to that the change to Challenging Shout being on a 3 min cooldown and i might positively look forward to a Hyjal-style trash encounter without wishing i had a prot paladin along with me.

 

darkra

This is so true...

There is no doubt Burning Crusade was a step forward for warrior tanks. We got a damaging ability to spam, improved magical mitigation, Thunderclap in defensive stance, all great things. The one drawback is that the tanking spec got really fixed, Devastate being an absoloute must it drastically reduced the specing flexibility (I for one remember a lot of endgame tanks tanking Naxxramas in hybrid fury/protection specs).

If the talents we saw from the Alpha client reach retail I think the major decision for a warrior tank will be: ThreatSpec or SurvivabilitySpec. ThreatSpec will include the now useful Improved Shield Bash and Improved Revenge, abandoning (i'm guessing) talents like Anticipation and Improved Shield Wall.

On a sidenote, I'm not sure I like Shockwave. I think it's a weak 51points talent. Sure, it helps with AoE agro, sure, it will be dead useful in 10man raids where you simply can't fit a protection paladin in the raid formation. But why waste such an important slot, when you could just change Thunderclap to make it a more viable AoE tool.

Looking at the talents and the so-far-found skills I can't help but dread the future... I can't find something defining, that would make a protection warrior a must to have in the raid. Feral Druids get magical mitigation and an "anti-caster thunderclap"...I'm affraid that unless the boss have an ability requiring a shield (RoS, Illidan etc.) protection warriors will soon start to feel like dead weight and start dissapearing from the endgame. Why take a warrior if a druid can survive equally well, produce equal (if not better cause they are not quite as rage starved) threat, and you have the bonus of Combat Ress and a half-decent dpser when they don't have to tank...

Future will tell...

In the beginning the Universe was created. This had made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. - Douglas Adams

 

Dra

I don't know about that. I think the targetable 6 second 60% damage reduction abiltiy on a 30 second cooldown will be invaluable and it's the talent I'm personally most excited about. I'm so excited about it that I can hardly believe it will make it through beta in its current state.

 

darkra

You pretty much give your Intervene target a weak Shield Wall... which makes the current state of Shield Wall (and to be more precise its cooldown) depressing on itself

In the beginning the Universe was created. This had made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. - Douglas Adams

 

IVIemnarch

I have a quesetion regarding the warglaive main hand for tanking and if its good or not for a warrior to be using this. I was told by several people that a prot warrior should never be givin a warglaive over a rogue just because its only useful in high rage situations and they are able to spam devistate.

 

Zaroua

The problem with giving a Main Tank Warrior a Warglaive over a Rogue or a DPS Warrior is the fact that what makes the Glaives good is the set bonus, not just the individual pieces. In the hands of a Prot Warrior, the set won't be put to good use, just the main hand. Rogues and DPS Warriors will get the benefit of the set. Doesn't really make much sense to give a Warglaive to a tank from that perspective.


Plus it's bound to create drama or resentment from the people who would've gotten the main hand instead of the tank.

Dogma also claims that God has a sense of humor and at times presents Him as a joker of sorts, thus again lowering Him to human level. While I am certain God has a "sense of humor" since He gave it to us, I find it most difficult to believe He finds humor in sin since He will cast the unforgiven sinner into the lake of fire for eternity. Not very funny at all.

 

IVIemnarch

well im 5th in line right now with 2 prot tanks a rogue and a dps warrior ahead of me. I am a rogue myself and its bothering me that they are willing to give the glaives to someone wholl be main tanking brutallis. I honestly think its hurting the guild but I am not sure if its because i am jealous or am i really right.

 

ALEXTREBEK

I think the obvious solution to your problem is that you need to maintank Brutallus.

If you're looking for an alternate solution however, I'd recommend letting your Protection Warriors know the following:

• A Mainhand Glaive is only useful in low rage situations while in tanking gear. You should probably also let your Prot. Warriors know that in high rage situations they are losing 80.65%* of their threat from Heroic Strikes, while using a Mainhand Glaive.

• This will probably cap their threat somewhere around 950 TPS, on a fight like Brutallus, assuming they're actually using a decent rotation and are grouped with a Windfury Totem, which they probably are not if they can justify giving a Prot. Warrior a Mainhand Glaive over a Rogue.

*(2.8 Speed / 1.55 Avg Tanking Wep Speed) - 1 Hundred Percent = 80.645% difference in weapon swing speeds. In English: That Brutalizencrusted Longblade of yours is 80.65% faster than a Mainhand Glaive.

 

Punscho

Additionally, slow mainhands are good when you are offtanking and only take sporadic damage as you probably will just spam devastate and shield slam because you don't have enough rage for heroic strikes.

Futhermore, the TPS sheet presented in the beginning of this thread is made for answering these kinds of questions.

 

KraxisSingular

Ok, I have a Prot Warrior buddy.

And since he is often forced to do DPS (not that many bosses require hte amont of tanks you need for the trash) the issue has come up regarding enchants for that. Mind you his DPS weapon is the slow SSO Revered sword. I have been arguing that 20 Str is definately going to be best, but some have been pressing for Mongoose.

I argue for the 20 Str because he already gets 10% extra Str. And Mongoose while a nice crit rate on proc is more about mitigation. And I can't honestly tell him to get Executioner on a rep blue. But am I wrong in my assumptions? Are Mongoose also better for DPS?

 

Bovino

Mongoose is a poor enchant, as protection warriors have no abilities or talents that scale with crit. If Executioner isn't a realistic option, tell your friend to get Crusader. I'm not sure if the current DPS warrior spreadsheets model it, but I believe it gives more Strength than Potency, on average.