◊ Quigon

I kind of like the look of this mod...

In naxx, we had an internal mod that shared information between our warriors, and gave each warrior a bar that updated if a mob had been recently demo'ed or sundered. Back then, and even until recently no one had anything like this because successful sunders were never reported - nor were successful demos... and even in the rare mod case that they were reported by failure to resist (NECB), your information for demo was localized, and not shared. So knowing when a demo or sunder was truly going to fall was hugely important - especially as damage would increase by about a third back then (about 15% now). And losing a sunder application can mean losing a kill.

Although now adays, sunder and demo information is shared finally, timers are internalized, and our devastate makes life a lot easier. Still, this seems like a useful mod. Anyone else have something they like for showing or timing sunder/demo/tclap visually?

 

Liar

Hope I am not derailing too much but this sparked my interest. Why is it "sad" if the higher ilvl shoulder enchant ends up being better than the old Effective Health enchant? Is it because you don't like avoidance gear, or the fact that there is possibly one only "good" choice to gear and that is avoidance stacking? Just curious here.

(In my opinion, both EH and avoidance sets have their place so the Naxx enchants is definitely not useless.)

EDIT: Check out Smarty, Quigon. Link taken from my sig (it's the debuff bars just under my unitframe): http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/5...8230302gq0.jpg

Unexpected TankPoints error Clearly someone doesn't understand how EH works. That, or upgrading from T8 to T9 is optional in beating Arthas. Clearly.

 

Efreet

Well, if one were to go through the effort of getting an effective Naxx pug together and all that work and the enchant was mediocre in the end it's pretty sad. Also pretty sure Maraudor is at least slightly nostalgic and doesn't care too much that a ridiculously accessible enchant is superior to a very hard to get one. I personally have 2 of these and will put one on Twins shoulders but I still hate the itemization of those shoulders for the most part.

I believe they are equal in item level though, observing the "inbetween-ness" of the other Sapphiron enchants to their Aldor/Scryer counterparts. I still think with current gear setups there is only one fight where tank death is a serious issue, and avoidance is obviously superior in that case, so effective health is somewhat irrelevant unless you refuse to gear for Threat in non-dangerous circumstances. Kael is sort of exceptional, but 21.8k or whatever isn't that hard to get at the moment.

 

Fellwraith

One other thing people might want to think about is that your "ratings based" stats are going to depreciate pretty quickly as you level in Lichking. The fortitude of the scourge won't decline in value as quickly since it has an increase to a base stat. I haven't seen a single tanking shoulder piece that's equivalent to the ones off the twins in the current beta, so if you get them, odds are good you'll using them to tank all the way to 80 and possibly into Nax part 2 (the sockets give the twins shoulders a very long life relative to unsocketed blues).

 

Xav

Yes, that's a good point as well. The shoulder enchant on Dreadnaught Pauldrons is what made them last for quite a while in TBC, because it effectively raised their ilvl up quite a bit, and people weren't getting exalted with their factions that quickly. And in WoTLK we have yet to see the new shoulder enchants or where they're from.

As for Debuff mods - I'm not so sure debuffs are actually shared, as I don't know of any lightweight/convenient mods now that do it. My DPS warriors still don't understand debuffing properly and will occasionally let Sunder fall off of KJ while I'm on a dragon, or Demo on Brutallus, etc. I use Smarty, though, to track my own debuffs that I care about (and some other raid-important ones).

If anyone knows of a mod that tracks global raid debuff cooldowns (so I can see SOMEONE ELSE'S cooldown on Demo/TC, etc), then that would be great, pretty much exactly like Quigon said they used to have a private mod doing.

 

Toots Hepcat

Hey gang. GREAT thread, tremendous mathematics and a very open mind towards new ideas. You shame us Enhancers.

I have a question which I hope you'll find interesting, and not too derailing. See, I rolled a prot warrior and tonight he hits 70. I conned the guild into running Karazhan with him on off-tank duty this weekend.

In between raids, I have about 6 hours playtime between now and then. Considering that I am in sub 70 blues aside from hat and gun, what is the most economical use of that time in terms of threat gen? In terms of survivability? Rep runs for Aldor/KoT 'chants? Specific instances for gear? Battlegrounds for [Merciless Gladiator's Hacker] and other goodies (such as the shield)?

 

JamesVZ

Helm - [Tankatronic Goggles] - Engineering
Neck - [Shattered Sun Pendant of Resolve] - Shattered Sun Exalted
Shoulders - [Spaulders of Dementia] - Heroic Sethekk
Cloak - [Cloak of Eternity]/[Devilshark Cape] - Tailoring/Steamvault
Chest - [Breastplate of the Warbringer] - Nagrand Quest
Wrist - [Amber Bands of the Aggressor] - Heroic Steamvault
Gloves - Man I forget.
Waist - [Lion's Heart Girdle] - Heroic Ramparts
Legs - [Timewarden's Leggings] - Keepers of Time Revered
Boots - I forget here too .
Trinkets - [Commendation of Kael'thas][Shard of Contempt] - Heroic Magister's Terrac
Weapon - [The Sun Eater] - Heroic Mechanar -- EDIT: If Orc you would want to use [Grom'tor's Charge]
Shield - [Dawnforged Defender]

Should be a fairly comprehensive list of things you can get with 5 people or less and no badges that should let you tank most t4/t5 content. First badge gear upgrades should be the 35 badge pieces (Wrist/Cloak), then probably Legs.

Official Slackie Fanclub. The dude gets ALL the ladies.

In regards to Icecrown Radiance:

 

Toots Hepcat

So no to the [Merciless Gladiator's Hacker]? I figured the speed, plus the increased stamina, plus the expertise (sprech Orcish), plus the DPS would make it a slam dunk for threat gen. Plus it's considered an offhand, so it's 9000 honor.

For gloves I've got the Felsteel, for boots...MT escort quest?

 

• Smithist

I forget if there's an 'inexpensive'(9k) axe that can be main-handed, but the one linked is Off-Hand specific.

 

Aeverius

[Felsteel Gloves] are a decent set of gloves that can be had cheaply and easily (no, you don't need BS to wear them, just to get the 3-piece set bonus). [Bracers of the Green Fortress] are also easy to obtain with a little bit of gold. I'd suggest the [Flesh Beast's Metal Greaves] from the Mana-Tombs quest as an easy starter set of boots.

[e] Heh, beaten.

Improved Lay on Hands is really fucking good:

 

Mode

Check out Tank Spot's Easy Pre-Karazhan Gear List. Best uses of your time are quest chains and craftables. When it comes to gearing alts fast, 5 man's generally aren't worth it until you've exhausted other possibilities unless you can get a group of people to speed run you through it.

You'll probably end up biting the bullet and grinding out the honor for the s2 shoulders. Shoulders are by far the hardest slot to gear for prot warriors. Your only options are before 25's are the shoulders from the first ZA chest, shoulders from netherspite, or PVP.

 

JamesVZ

You're not going to see a huge difference in threat between that and Grom'Tor's Charge. It'll be there, sure, but I'd spend my time doing other things :p. Getting exalted with CE/Shat'ar/Aldor is a fairly good investment for the flasks.

Official Slackie Fanclub. The dude gets ALL the ladies.

In regards to Icecrown Radiance:

 

◊ Quigon

I was saying it was sad because the way avoidance scales is imo broken, and should be addressed. I also like the older days of armor and sta being king.

 

Liar

The S2 Axe is miles better than Grom'tor's Charge for sure. I suggest investing a whole lot of time on his 1h/Shield combo since these two things are pretty big upgrades overall in terms of threat and mitigation respectively. Obviously, the other slots are important as well but I'd say these two have the biggest effect.

So to sum it up, get the Axe and farm SSO rep. Ideally you would combine SSO rep farming with MgT heroic but obviously you are not qualified to tank it yet. If you don't mind, try getting into guild runs as DPS while you grab your Badges, drops and rep from there until you have good enough gear to tank it yourself. A Darkmoon card for an addition 51 Stamina is also relatively easy to get if you have the cash.

Unexpected TankPoints error Clearly someone doesn't understand how EH works. That, or upgrading from T8 to T9 is optional in beating Arthas. Clearly.

 

Wildstyle

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but i'm pretty sure you can't use an Off hand weapon plus shield as they both occupy the same slot. (ie you need either a Mainhand or One-Hand item to go withyour shield)

 

Mode

Now that we have RAWR!, we can put this sort of thing to the test without screwing around with complex, easily-broken spreadsheets! Tyds is a human sporting an 11/4/46 spec, an avoidance set, and The Unbreakable Will, so let's run with that in Rawr. Completely unbuffed, rawr claims Tyds will output 599 TPS if they can only do a shield slam/revenge/devastatex2 rotation and 848 if they are able to heroic strike on every hit. If we exchange their BT weapon for the Sun Eater, their TPS drops to...

573 limited, 819 unlimited.

Meditate on that.

 

Liar

I am not sure what you are aiming at. You compared [The Unbreakable Will] with [The Sun Eater] which are both mitigation pieces so obviously there won't be much of a difference between these two (for all intents and purpose, the only difference is the weapon DPS). If you were going to do a comparison, do it with [The Unbreakable Will] vs [Dragonscale-Encrusted Longblade] or [Blade of Savagery]. I don't need Rawr to tell me that [Grom'tor's Charge] is a mitigation weapon and [Merciless Gladiator's Hacker]* is a threat item and there is no way that there would be only 20 TPS difference between both (disregarding the fact that the axe is OH only).

*In any case, Wildstyle is correct. There is no 1.5 S2 axe that you can wield as One-Hand/Main Hand and I should have known better to just assume there was an equal speed Axe available. It doesn't really change my point, though. Get a good threat weapon and a good shield first, these investments always pay off longterm.


FWIW, 599 TPS sounds awfully low. I'd have to do this out of memory, but I think I melee for 200-250 white on average (crits included), Devastate for ~200 and Shield Slam for 600. Revenge is 300 damage or something?
Assume I am doing 4 white hits á 200 damage roughly every rotation which consists of 6 seconds, that plus my specials would add up to 2100 damage. 2100/6 = 350 DPS. Add D-stance and Defiance for the 1.495 threat modifier and we get 523 TPS from damage alone. So Rawr is actually going to convince us that the innate threat of a SS/Rev/Dev/Dev cycle only adds up to 76? See why I have a hard trouble believing it?

Unexpected TankPoints error Clearly someone doesn't understand how EH works. That, or upgrading from T8 to T9 is optional in beating Arthas. Clearly.

 

Toots Hepcat

Ah, I apologize for the mistake with the offhand. Back in Shamanland, pretty much every non-fist weapon worth using was converted to one-hand and I sort of forgot off-hands still existed.

Thanks for the great info, especially the hints on hard-to-fill slots. I believe I will concentrate on the M-G shield, because the extra armor beyond what I have is the equivalent of four or five upgrades, and Gromtor's.

 

Mode

My main point was that he shouldn't worry too much about his weapon. He shouldn't ignore it or use a green or something of the completely wrong speed, but it's not worth grinding BGs for it until he's exhausted his quests and craftables when you consider the TPS gain and that low threat will not wipe a raid as often as low mitigation/avoidance would.

Naturally, I too missed that there is no fast PVP non-dagger main-hand. I wonder if we could get blizzard to add that in the next season, like the peculiar...protadin? shockadin? gear set that's there now. Anyway, Rawr claims Dragon-Encrusted comes out to +22/+35 TPS over the unbreakable in your gear set, unbuffed save for 5 sunders (see below).
I ride the slow bus which is why I forgot to include one 'buff' that is always there when a prot warrior is: 5 sunders on the mob. Doing so adjusts your unbuffed TPS to 644/912. Rawr includes missed/parryed attacks, so TPS will be somewhat lower than what envelope math says.

I checked it against >the other up to date TPS spreadsheet<. With your gear set, it predicts 599 TPS - or almost exactly what rawr says you'd do completely unbuffed. Either that's about right or two people managed to screw up in the same way.

 

Liar

Right, so I downloaded Rawr to test some things. First thing I noticed is that it seems to calculate threat (which I still think is too low) vs level 73 raid bosses. Obviously, that means you need 9% hit and 13.75% expertise to cap. Now Toots isn't going to tank raid bosses to start but heroics so I entered my threat set where I capped in hit and expertise to emulate trash/heroic tanking where it's pretty trivial to get capped. I gave myself BS and 5 sunders since you will have these even in heroics.

I am looking at these numbers with [The Unbreakable Will]: 801 TPS / 1093 TPS and 825 TPS / 1143 TPS with [Dragonscale-Encrusted Longblade]. That's a 24 TPS upgrade at the very low end (it should be higher in the real world because of faster HSes but these aren't included here which makes the Warglaive MH the best threat weapon - so yeah...). I fiddled around with my gear, unequipping it and equipping different pieces but no other single item gives this much of a TPS upgrade (even going from no pants to [Felstrength Legplates] is slightly less of a TPS upgrade). Even the flawed TPS calculations of the program agrees: Our weapon is the single most effective slot to get a TPS boost from (barring maybe DPS gear but this is out of the question for Toots anyway).

Again, I stand by what I said earlier: our weapon is our best slot for threat. Even a measly upgrade from an ILVL 141 sword to a 154 one shows this.

Btw, the reason both Rawr and that sheet might show the same TPS numbers might be because they are from the same author or using the same calculations (I tried checking Rawr for a list of authors, but no luck).

And lastly, yes, threat is important. As tanks we have two jobs: Staying alive and keeping aggro. Both go hand in hand obviously since you can't keep aggro if you are dead. The reason people think that staying alive is more important than not capping your raid DPS at 1000 TPS is just because it's more tangible when you see a tank die. The wipes caused by stretched out fights are more subtle (the shorter a fight is, the less can go wrong; think about it the next time you do Council :P) - well until you start doing SW with it's tight enrage timers. Then threat will occasionally be more important than plain staying alive.

Unexpected TankPoints error Clearly someone doesn't understand how EH works. That, or upgrading from T8 to T9 is optional in beating Arthas. Clearly.

 

Efreet

Well, you're comparing a purely defensive weapon to a purely offensive weapon in this case; it may not occur particularly often in T6 or T6.5 gear, but some of the T5 pieces in particular have very large threat gains, foremost being the chest and shoulders. There is also the M'uru trinket, the lower city ring, and things like the Brooch of Deftness or it's reputation equivalent, granted you're not gaining the extra DPS on any of these pieces, but some of them are still going to provide similar threat, and disregarding the Longblade pretty much all of them will (Mallet of the Tides > Brutalizer for example).

 

Obould

Regarding PowerAuras:

I am using it since a long time and made a small video on how i use it. This is still an old version of PA and several new features have been implemented which are not shown.

What i have done is that i created three picture buttons of: DemoShout / ThunderClap and Commanding Shout and placed the debuffs left to my char and the buff to the right side.

Just watch the video: Download Link 12MB, XViD

 

• Goatbert

I've been trying to build a spec that I am comfortable with for 3.0, and I am having some difficulty. It just seems like there is a real shift in the prot tree from threat/avoidance to more of a utility tree with added threat talents, and I'm having a hard time finding a spec I'd feel comfortable with for 3.0 (the content patch that is to come "In the coming weeks"). While I hope we have Kil'jaeden down in the next month, there is a real chance this patch will come out before we down him. My concern is I have no bearing as far as what kind of threat talents I'll need, or what kind of threat my raid will be putting out when you take into account new talents, the changes to blessings, raid wide buffs, the Windfury change. etc.

I guess I'm not really asking for a spec (though I'd be interested to see what some are thinking) but more concerned of how the vast changes for 3.0 to both classes and to raid buffs will affect us before WOTLK.

 

Borodin

Goatbert the thing is there's a Protection Talent revision due soon ("possibly next patch") which we expect to involve quite big changes. So really any builds we come up with now will be redundant.

Expected changes: Expertise back, some Dodge/Parry rage back but probably in the basic mechanics, replacement for Vigilance.
Hoped for changes by many: improvement to Sword & Board and Critical Block. Replacement to Vigilance. New ranks and scaling for Revenge.

But on top of that Blizzard are hinting at entirely new, fun ideas.

 

Taruo

An upgrade that is eaily overlooked would be Warbringer Since you'll be running heroics and the Suneater is not guarenteed to drop (it hasn't for me nor has the KD) once you get exalted with Thrallmar it is viable.