For DW TG the consensus I've seen on the beta forums suggests that MH: exe, OH: Savagery is the way to go at 70.

My thoughts:

- I'm not sold on the value of Imp Disciplines or Imp Spell Reflect. Retaliation isn't terribly strong and only gets weaker with increasing avoidance, and while Shield Wall is useful I can't see it being worth two talent points to use it one more time every twenty minutes. As for Spell Reflect, as far as I'm aware reflections off party members still don't pass their threat to you, and 4% miss is considerably less reliable and therefore generally less valuable than 4% damage reduction.

- Like you I also find Vigilance and Shield Spec debatable. I'm happy that Vigilance passes threat to the tank now but from what I can tell TPS isn't a huge issue anymore so the value of even more threat is debatable. The taunt refresh effect is weaker than in seems since it requires the target to actually take a hit to proc, which generally involves undesired side effects like death. Shield Spec is obviously the weakest avoidance talent, and probably the weakest required talent in the tree. Obviously its something you want to max out if you're looking for highest possible mitigation, but considering that block doesn't involve diminishing returns it will be the cheapest mitigation stat to gain from gear and 3 points for an addition 3% block is probably too expensive an ivestment for any kind of farm content.

- If you limit Prot to 51 points you'll have just enough left over to max out Deflection and Cruelty. However, I'd recommend maxing AttT over Cruelty. Even with the change from Strength to AP (removing its contribution to block and shield slam), maxed AttT still gives me (with 16,000 armor) an impressive 269 AP, which (napkin math here) handily beats 3% crit, especially considering how many Prot abilities scale directly with AP.

For reference: This is the spec I'm thinking of at 70.

It has been said in some posts few pages back.
Executioner is not changed (yet?) and is a flat 840 ignore armor, making it most likely the best weapon enchant for melee dps class.

What I don't know is if ArP rating works on the value AFTER this buff (probably not btw), but surely is better than mongoose by a small % (I don't have consistent data on this so i won't say any percentage) especially in raid environment where ArP is less effective.
Mongoose wil probably affect indirectly your Deep Wounds damage (cause of more crit) while Executioner won't because bleeds already ignore armor.

I'm not sure that higher damage on hits (thanks to more Armor ignored) will increase DW damage too; if this is the case (and if anybody can confirm/deny this please do it then Executioner is even better.

Thanks Danin -

Good input on AttT. Big help. Good input on Vigilance and Shield Spec also...confirms my thinking there.

I'm not sure I'm with you yet on Imp Disciplines. Given that the CD is dropping to 5 minutes on Shield Wall, knocking another minute off the CD makes it more likely you could use it twice in alot of boss fights. That feels pretty good to me. Thoughts?

Could you provide log (WWS?) for analysis of new behaviour?

My main is an enhancement shaman, and I've yet to read the entirety of this thread, but I'm looking for a little quick advice about leveling my primary alt from 70 to 80. My warrior has been protection since shortly after hitting 70. My protection gear is mostly ZA/Badge gear with a couple of kara pieces still. Having played a premade 80 prot warrior on beta (in the crap pvp gear), and seeing the large amounts of damage, mitigation, and control in the spec, I'm wondering if it's a viable way to level. My DPS gear consists largely of things nobody else wanted from ZA and kara runs. A large percentage of it is leather. I have ~350 badges with which to possibly get 2-handers for titan's grip or just one to level as arms.

My current prot gear: The World of Warcraft Armory

Maybe resocketing and enchanting for strength and crit would be a way to go? Mixing in some plate dps gear that has more of a focus on dps stats where I can get it? I know if anyone can give me a succinct and intelligent answer it will be here.

I dont really see how you can pick savagery over mongoose really. 120 agi AND ~40 haste rating are according to my spreadsheets (and general numbers found in this thread) around 0.63x120 +40 *0.92 = 112.4 STR equivalent. While 70 ap is equal to around 0.46x70= 32.2 str. As long as mongoose uptime is higher then 29% its better. Base uptime is 25% for a 2h Offhand. And with WF/flurry haste/gear haste stacking to almost 1.8 multiplier even with some misses thats better.

I'm aware of the cooldown, I meant that the reduced cooldown from 2/2 Imp Disciplines equates to 5 Shield Walls per 20 minutes instead of 4--that is, an additional Shield Wall every 20 minutes.

Well the AGI buff is only on proc, so you don't always have it. Also it is now reading as 2% haste which would be ~32 haste rating when proc'd. Really you would be looking at .63*40 + 8*.92 = 32.56. Add that in with the fact that it often procs when you don't want it to (like at the end of the fight), and the mats to get it... savagery is pretty close if not the same for cheaper.

As a general question to you arms warriors out there. Are you planning to get improved shouts? or how else would you spend your points outside of arms?

Haste is also only on proc.


If you're talking about level 70, which i hope you are since i haven't really looked into level 80 builds yet, then no; we wont be getting Commanding Presence since then we can't get Wrecking Crew. Arms Warriors will have to rely on Paladin's Imp. BoM.

This is a base template:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
From here theres 2 talents im not sure about:
Sudden death i haven't tested since it was buffed 2 days ago, not sure if it's worth taking.
Improved Demoralizing Shout i'm not sure if 2/5 is even needed, i've not kept myself up to date with other class' changes (afaik faerie fire > CoR now so CoR is not used, therefore no need for 5/5 imp demo).



Also (about prot now), i cannot see why people are having a hard time justifying putting a talent point into Vigilance, it's way more threat/talent point than any of the 10+ other threat talents you're putting points into (focused rage, 1h spec, cruelty etc)...

Not at this point, but I haven't done Naxx or anything like that. I can't see survivability being such an issue that you would need to use Shield Wall that often.

If you're a raiding Arm Warrior, mix/max Raid setup gonna need you with 5/5imp Demo. But if Bosses AP scale not changed at lv80, 2/5 imp Demo is way to go since guilds gonna use FF over CoR(they not stack anymore).

From what I've seen on the PTR, the dps warrior spec of choice at L70 for raids will be this:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

You stay in battlestance, keep rend up, pop MS when it's off CD, Overpower and Execute when they light up. The high crit rate on talented overpower makes the ability scale very well with deep wounds (which still rolls 100%, all previous damage is incorporated into the next 6 ticks).

You'll want to spec axes, and probably lean the previous crit/AP balance a tiny bit more towards crit because of deep wounds and axe spec.

I was doing well over 2,200 single target dps on the PTR with just an enh shaman, no consumables, no heroism or recklessness, and no other raid buffs. This was with my crappy ArP gear and sword spec using Cat's edge. It's quite amazing, you have an ability up almost every GCD. You won't notice how good it is if you don't have an enh shaman in your group. It requires a lot of rage to fuel the cycle, even with endless rage. With axes, glyphs, the right gear and buffs, I imagine you will be able to compete for top spots on the meters.

Can someone answer me - 20-21 % hit will be enough or not for a 0/53/8 build.... I will use S4 sword MH and OH - Cataclysm, i can hit cap (24%) by regem all items with +hit gems, but my crit will decrease to much - about 2.5%.

Efficient Leveling:

So in response to my question about leveling as prot people were saying it was very viable. So here's the next thought . . . in what gear will this leveling be most efficiently accomplished:

DPS Gear/Dual Wield/Zerkstance
DPS Gear with Shield and Slow Wep/Protstance
Prot Gear with DPS gear switched in for the totally avoidance based pieces of prot gear/Protstance

At this point I'm thinking of going with my T6/SwP DPS gear, while wielding Vanir's Right Fist and Sword Breakers Bulwark. I figure the high strength on the DPS gear will translate well to shield slams while also providing the AP needed to do some damage. The Prot talents combined with def stance and a shield should limit the incoming damage.

Am I missing something here? Will there be a more efficient way to level with a prot spec?

I don't have access to beta so I have to rely on the folks here who have the access to figure this out.

I'm trying to find the source for the 3% base crit increase and the changes to agi scaling. In Whitehoofs thread for combat ratings the agi-crit conversion seems to be unchanged at lvl 70. Are you sure the extra base crit and changed agi scaling also applies at lvl 70? For that matter, does anyone have link to a page where the base crit in TBC is discussed (i.e. is there a formula)?

Hit will be a more valuable than crit by a pretty huge margin with a 53/8 spec (about a factor of 1.5 better according to my figures, although others have different values). Don't worry too much about losing crit, hit is just a better stat really.

1. I would recommend taking the points out of Incite and Improved Disciplines. Threat is so ridiculously easy to generate that 15% crit is not going to break the bank, nor do I expect that you would need to Shield Wall more than once every 5 minutes.

I would still consider Shield Spec to be a great talent, as it adds a nontrivial amount of mitigation and synergizes with Critical Block.

2. I would still max out Toughness after removing the points in Incite and Improved Disciplines, although you could just as easily put them into Armored to the Teeth as well.

3. I don't see why Vigilance is being considered a bad talent. Redirecting 10% of your top DPSer's threat to you seals your own threat lead, and would probably be terrific in smoothing tank transitions.

4. You can probably afford to lose the points in Improved Revenge unless you plan on leveling/soloing in Prot Stance.

EDIT: The build I'm describing would look something like THIS

I will change gloves enchant for sure, but didnt know about surefooted incoming changes!
Also, are you sure for 3% base crit increase?
And one more question - did Enrage give me more DPS then imp.WW - if we talk about Sunwell Platue where most of the encounters have AOE dmg (exept Bruttalus fight)?

Thats strange math.

a) I said ~40 for the simple reason that mongoose does % buff thats multiplicative with haste not additive. so with >20% haste like ill have with TG (given superior 2h weapon stats), mongoose 2% is actually close to 40 haste in effectiveness.

b) as for 2nd part the 112.4 str is clearly said to WHEN mongoose is up. Now the 112.4 will be multiplied by % of uptime. Spreadsheets and testing actually show mongoose on OH with 1h as around 32% uptime for me, and thats with way lower haste/no wf effect. 32%*1.23 (haste + wf effects)= ~40, and the way superior haste would make it ~44%. 0.44*112.4 = ~49 str equivalent.


Furthermore, I posted math few times that even with current armor rules mongoose is damn close to executioner regardless of hand. With armor on mobs going up and new armor pen rules (when executioner proc REDUCES your ArP effectiveness), executioner effectiveness is going down substantially. I havent done all the math yet. but mongoose MIGHT be better then executioner as it is as well - making double mongoose, the main choice for TG (Mongoose is already enchant of choice at 70 for arms - simply because of huge uptime, and what 4% extra crit does for your SD and deep wounds damage.

So - for 0/53/8 you sugest 2xMongoose?

I'm getting Mongoose > Executioner > Savagery for MH vs 6200 and 7700 armor bosses in my spreadsheet (but it's a very close call between Executioner and Mongoose). The Mongoose uptime is 33% in my sheet (with WF haste), i.e. giving an average multiplicative extra haste of 0.65% and 39 agi.

With Mongoose as MH enchant, the strongest OH enchant is Savagery. Another Mongoose enchant is close behind and Executioner slightly below that.

It should be noted that the differences are very small, and likely depends on the current gear you have (e.g. more hit than I have, 12-13%, will make Mongoose/Executioner gain), but I find it unlikely that Executioner can ever beat Mongoose.