Karohn

I have a question that may be too much of a "should I use this over this?" type thing but maybe not.

For me, odds are I won't be doing any end game stuff beyond Heroics/10-mans until WotLK due to RL time issues and such. I was curious as to whether it would be worth it for me as Protection to stick with swordsmithing and have Blazefury (I'd be able to get some Vortexes probably) as a threat-tanking weapon or just to stick with The Sun Eater and switch to a different prof?

 

Reliknom

One other question springs to mind: is the [Shapeshifter's Signet] worth taking if I already have 27 expertise skill (=6,75%)? Currently I'm using the abyssal lord and hyjal revered rings and am not entirely sure the shapwshifter would be an upgrade over those 2.

"Morituri Nolumus Mori!"

 

Sepulture

It would help you on bosses, but not on trash. Trash seems to have a universal dodge/parry rate of 5-5.6% depending on whether they are L70, 71, 72, or 73.

Bosses are tuned differently. Their dodge rate clocks in at 5.6% (which is correct for a L73), but their parry rate seems to be roughly double 5.6% (I'm not sure if there is comprehensive parsing by boss at this point, but this is the case for all of karazhan, and most bosses I've checked out in WWS).

So, you wouldn't need it on trash, but on bosses you would benefit as much as you would from hit rating (trivial ones that don't hit very hard).

For bosses, there is still plenty of parry left to remove from the hit table, and the benefit will be equal to adding more hit, since expertise rating gives double the threat of hit per rating point (before caps). You also get insta-gib reduction.

Edit: for threat, your biggest bang for your buck will be finding a ranged weapon with a lot of + hit and using the poison vial in place of that vengeance card. You are a good distance away from being hit capped even on L70 trash. Also, consider using a cloak with hit on it, or even farstriders for the block value if you have no such cloak. Also, consider the unbreakable will for your human racial.

PS: Please mail your gear to me across the puddle.

 

Fellwraith

It depends on your rage income, existing expertise, crit, hit, AP, and a number of other variables. You'll want to throw it into a spreadsheet before you jump to conclusions like that.

Devastate only grants 50% of the average damage differential between 2 weapons. Avg damage on a mallet is 164.5, avg damage on the Brutalizer is 160.5. 4 damage difference * 0.5 * 1.3 * 1.15 means you only get 3 more threat per devastate on average. Assuming 2 devastates per 6 second cycle, that's only 1 tps.

Shaving even a tenth of a second off of your swingtimer can have big impacts on your windfury procs and heroic strike threat through the course of a fight. The brutalizer gets an average of ~6% more windfury procs and ~6% more heroic strikes in an unlimited rage scenario. That more than offsets any losses on devastate threat.

 

Karohn

My bad for oversimplifying, I didn't account for harldy any of the variables I should've .

Since I'm new to this whole theorycrafting business, I have a further question on this point just to increase my knowledge on the subject.

Would that push The Unbreakable Will further ahead for him since he's a human? I'm unsure if it only rides on Average swing damage since Brutalizer and The Will are both 160.5 or if the higher top end (but lower bottom) on the sword would have any effect on the threat it generates.

 

Eyegore

As one of the people that brought up said 'lazy' macros (yes I did use the term myself) I feel I should chime in. While the short answer to and objection I may have surely is that you are right and I am wrong, I find that situationally using such a macro makes me a better tank. That is, more successful at my job, obviously not more skilled. In an 'infinite rage' situation said macros will in fact preform the exact same sequence of actions as one would manually, and I for one have through experience learned that it does so with more reliable constancy than I am able to myself. Perhaps others do not find this to be the case, or would not admit as much, but I have swallowed my pride and made this admission. In such situations where one has sufficient rage to approximate it as an 'infinite rage' situation one is also likely to find ones health bar in need of very careful monitoring, in addition to what is going on with the rest of the raid, healers killed/silenced/whatever, and while I may lack the experience of the rest of you (which I expect is painfully obvious at this point) I find I am much less likely to make a raid wiping mistake in such situations when making use of the macro.

I have of course been going through this thread with close attention and recognize that there are many situations where using such a macro leads to suboptimal performance, and I greatly appreciate all the valuable advice that has been consolidated here. But I genuinely question whether I, or indeed most people, could ever get to a place where the simplification of the job of performing the basic mechanics of tanking that such a macro provides in certain high rage situations, allowing more attention to be paid to other variables, would not lead to a more consistently successful outcome. Yes the use of such macros is highly situational, but in some situations I don't see how, for the good of my guild, I can justify not using it; and I do not feel that I am a worse tank for doing so.

Edit* I really don't want to come off as the champion of taking the lazy way out or something, but the above I have found to be true. It is just one tool, and I am glad to have it at my disposal.

 

• Jamor

It's important to note that, even if the Unbreakable Will is slightly better for threat, I will be keeping Mongoose on it, as it's the sword I use in my avoidance/mitigation sets. That is why I was asking about Brutalizer vs. Mallet only.

 

• Arawethion

I like how strongly you make the case for Armor. I remember that old CQ thread as well :-P .

One specific fact that's worth highlighting is that the size of the pre-mitigation spike required to kill you increases linearly with Armor. Yes, it follows directly from everything you posted, but for the purposes of an informational thread, I think it really helps frame the utility of the stat.

Answers to Moonkin questions:
0) Read the TTT/use the spreadsheet: http://elitistjerks.com/f47/t66856-moonkin_pve_dps/
1) Maintain high DoT uptime. Use WiseEclipse.
2) Nothing beats 2T8.
3) Yes, sometimes you cast many Wraths and no Eclipse procs. Deal with it.

 

Buiden

Damn.

I'll be reading over this more thoroughly later, but in short, thanks for compiling a guide for protection warriors that is actually accurate!

 

Olon97

Satrina, does this mean you will update your damage tracker mod for the 2.4 changes to combat log mechanics? I loved that mod in classic.

 

◊ Quigon

Well there are still more things I'd like to add. I should be adding the specifics to sunder/devastate changes in 2.3 for the ramp-up part soon.
And I'd love to add protection DPS and non protection tanking guides.

 

Whiteknight

Thanks for this Quigon - really appreciate the effort you've put into this compilation.

One suggestion I'd add to the threat section: spell reflect. Current testing indicates that spell reflect generates threat at a 1:1 ratio threat:damage, and stance/threat modifiers apply. While spell reflect is certainly a situational tool, because of the large damage output relative to what a protection war is normally capable of, it's almost always the most threat you can generate when it actually is useful. The most efficient threat per rage and time. Meaning it requires breaking the optimal threat rotations both in low or high rage scenarios to take advantage of the threat boost. Fortunately being off the GCD, this decision is usually only a rage production decision, and doesn't require freeing up a GCD.

Generally only useful on trash, I think Gathios is the only boss level threat scenario in the game at the moment. RoS phase 2 is an indirect threat scenario, however you have to use reflect anyway regardless of the implication to threat so it isn't really a good example.

Places I've found this ability useful as a threat tool are:
- Gathios - 7k reflected SoC yields an exceptional amount of threat.
- Necromancers or Banshees in Hyjal trash waves - 2-3k damage per reflect. Often it's possible to reflect multiple simultaneous casts per use thus tanking multiple mobs.
- Shaman trash packs around Akama - the shaman mobs chain lightning for around 4-5k which can be reflected.
- The humanoid trash packs before Illidari council - the battle mages in particular can be spell reflected for ranged tanking if CC is not available. Similarly the Archons.


Longer term - and perhaps out of the scope of a compilation such as this one. I think it would be really valuable to have video footage from the tank perspective showing practical use of high/low rage rotations in real scenarios.

 

Satrina

 

Olon97

Everything I could have hoped for and more, you rock! Once this is live it should definitely merit a link on the first page guide here.

 

Ashlan

"hit rating improves your chance to land taunt, it is currently assumed that hit rating it improves your chance to land a taunt at 15.77 hit rating per percent"

Is there any testing going on regarding this - especially: can we assume that with 9% hit we will never ever miss a boss-taunt again?

 

◊ Quigon

That would be one way to test it.
In Naxxramas, we were almost 100% certain that it was a 17% miss rate on taunt.
5% from tier 3, another whatever percent from the plus spell hit rating ZG trinket.

There was a LOT of math done on this.

Now that it is affected by physical hit rating one of the working theories from IRC is that it is now a 9% hit rating.
But it could still be the 17%(16 reachable) from before.

The best test is: if you still get taunt resists at 9% to hit, either there is a 1% always-resist like spells, or it is higher than 9% for the cap. Fact is, someone has to test it.

 

Xav

Something on the note of taunt resists and it beng based on melee hit rating/chance now...

Having debuffs that negatively affect your chance to hit (Banshee curse in Hyjal) does not cause your Taunt to get resisted constantly. Pretty weird, huh?

 

Reliknom

Other uses of spell reflect:

Robots in TK - Overcharge is the most prominent reflectable ability, but all "charged fist" type spells can be reflected back on them, regardles if you are in Mechanaar or The Eye and if you are tanking them or just hitting them from behind and getting some damage back.
Lots of spells from either nagas or murlocs can be reflected in SSC. The armor and damage reducing spell from lurker trash comes to mind.
All blood elf paladin mobs that stun you (TK and BT) - the stun is a reflectable spell and can save some healers on a pull if the mobs try the "stun the tank and run past him" tactic.
Leviathan mobs before Naj'entus - both the poison and the debuff may be reflected, if they actually target a warrior that is.
Same place - the small poison elemental's nova type spell is individually reflectable.
Demon and broken trash before Akama - most spells are reflectable. Fel immolate, flame shock and the lightning spells are all good targets for this, although catching the shock is mostly about luck.

"Morituri Nolumus Mori!"

 

Nariju

Thanks for this great guide. Though it's huge, it's good to have all in one place.

Since there always seems to be much confusion about the combat table, i'd suggest you correct section VIc.

to rather Miss -> Dodge -> Parry -> Critical Strike -> Crushing Blow -> Hit

As you give examples before and after this section with crushes and crits preceeding normal hit.
Even then i'd change these to crit preceeding crushes because the normal way to avoid crit is not by "pushing it off" the table, but to eliminate it by the way defense works.
And with the 102,4% avoid needed to push off crushes, you have effectively eliminated normal hit as well prior to the crushing blow.
As Satrina notes in her uncrushable guide you *could* push off crushes by allowing a tiny chance to get crit... but who would be insane enough to do THAT?

 

• Mjollnir

*Slightly offtopic*: I missed this change. Do you know offhand which patch implemented it?

 

Borodin

2.3

 

Fellwraith

Are we sure it isn't Miss -> Dodge -> Parry -> Crushing Blow -> Critical Strike -> Hit?

I thought I remembered seeing somewhere that on the twin emps a druid (without defense capping) would get hit with unbalancing strike and could push crit off the table and replace it with crushing blows. I don't think it's feasible to be crush immune without being crit immune. I'll see if I can find the thread, it's going to be at least a year old.

 

Nite_Moogle

This is a pretty damn good indication that taunt is not considered to be a typical melee-style attack and will require specific testing to pin down the amount of hit needed to prevent missed taunts. Ugh.

I think this is correct, and could be checked by seeing what happens if an Evasion-blowing rogues that manages to get pegged (not crit immune but filling most of the table with miss/dodge/parry). I think Crushing Blows supersede crits since a low-level character being followed around by a high level one will get hit by a very large number of crushing blows.

 

• Mjollnir

Isn't this the first assumption (and proof) of the hit table? 102% needed to push off crushing (and hence, everything else)

 

◊ Quigon

Yes, I moved hit around to try to make it easier to understand. If it is placed at the end it is correct. I'll fix that soon.