[WotLK] 4.0 Warrior FAQ - Page 2

Fellwraith · 01/17/10, 9:21 PM

Originally Posted by Jumai

I'm also not sure when if ever the devestate glyph will cause devestate to generate extra threat with the new implimentation.

What do you mean? The devastate glyph increases the non-damage threat for each devastate to 10% of AP from 5% of AP. It's been that way for most of the expansion as far as I know. When you're at ~7k raid-buffed AP in ICC gear that's a meaningful amount of bonus threat.

Cosa · 01/18/10, 4:41 AM

Q: But slower weapons do more damage with Devastate!
A: Stop worrying about Devastate. Slow weapons reduce how often you can Heroic Strike and Cleave. Stick to fast weapons.

Somehow should be added that slow weapon + shield is good in situations where you are not tanking, in those situations you are not using fast weapon + heroic strike, but devastating in order to get shield slam procs and waiting for your time to tank. (Festergut, Putricide25 3rd tank if warrior). You need to be fast on switching weapons aswel.

Psy7th · 01/18/10, 5:29 AM

540 defense is the level of defense required not to get critted by a raid boss. However reading 540 in the character sheet doesn't ensure that the character is uncrittable because of stat rounding.
Maybe you should specify as well that the defense rating should be at least 689.

Krazen · 01/18/10, 10:23 AM

A couple suggestions:

1. Add something about glyphs to the dps specs. I know they're in the spec, but it might be easier to see it in text.

2. Add something about the usage of Execute as fury.

3. Add something about consumables for all specs.

4. Add something a question addressing which weapon to use in the MH and which to use in the OH on a more general basis (you have this for Bryntoll).

5. Add something about the usage of Cleave for both dps specs.

Jumai · 01/18/10, 12:57 PM

The new prot talents look good, but taking improved disciplines without glyphing shield wall doesn't make sense. Really for progression content glyph of shield wall is nonoptional.

The aoe threat section should probably mention shield block (for increased returns from damage shield). Just be sure to do it while shockwave is on cooldown.

landsoul · 01/18/10, 8:12 PM

Some nitpicks:

For Arms, Bladestorm should not be used on cooldown, rather on cooldown between TFB usage.

For Fury, Don't use Recklessness on cooldown. Only use recklessness after the 2nd BT in your particular period. In most cases recklessness as a GCD is only worth roughly 1 1/2 of an ability. (assuming 50% crit). If you use it and delay your BT-WW rotation it won't gain you much at all.

Haste > hit as fury. Haste will have no less than 0.7 SEP with average gear, while Hit is more around 0.4 or 0.5. Hit=Haste only over crit cap.

You should never ever in any gear level have to spec improved berserker rage. If you are hit/exp capped you should be able to use all BT-WW-Slam. Zerker rage takes up too much GCD space and risks loss of DPS with delayed rotations and slam loss. If you don't have the rage, you shouldn't have been heroic striking and you should have saved your bloodrage for this time.

For fury, during execute phase use every GCD for damage and use your strongest DPS ability BT>WW>Exe/Slam. Slam>Exe after 245 gear level/good weapon. Heroic strike if only you have 80+rage or really good gear.

Shattering Throw? DPS loss. Only 3% DPS increase or less (armpen capped). Use only after 2nd BT in rotation when you don't have a proc stack and also during heroism/lust/burn + Only if you have several physical dps classes in raid.

Krc · 01/18/10, 10:20 PM

I wouldn't say only stamina but include armor since it is part of the same gearing of EH and does not rely on randomness. I would put something along the lines of adjust your stamina to armor ratio depending on how high the percentage of burst that kills you is magic through the rough ratios done by TheckHD on Maintankadin Maintankadin • View topic - "Total" EH - incorporating different damage types into EH.
A shorter alternative would be simply read the link.

JamesVZ · 01/19/10, 12:26 AM

Originally Posted by Krc

I would put something along the lines of adjust your stamina to armor ratio depending on how high the percentage of burst that kills you is magic through the rough ratios done by TheckHD on Maintankadin

Thus far we've seen very few if any raid encounters in Wrath of the Lich King where magic damage played a significant role in a tank's death outside of abilities that you needed cooldowns to survive anyway. Magic damage can't burst, and thus it's typically either inconsequential or counterable by other means during progression.

Beyond that, there's not a whole lot of wiggle room for stamina gain. You have your trinket slots, and a few pieces of gear with more sockets than others, and that's about it. We're talking about maybe a 4-5k swing in HP as a Warrior, which is pretty minor in the face of mostly non-reducible magic damage. On the flip side, the encounters we've seen thus far in ICC put serious pressure on the tanks solely through melee damage, all of which is reducible by armor.

The point here is that you should gear for armor first, ignoring things like the badge stamina trinket in favor of a set that will serve you better throughout the zone, which is typically going to be an armor set. The 'magic damage burst' theory is great on paper, and it's a fine bit of math I'll grant you that, but the reality of the situation rarely plays out to take advantage of it. For the upcoming tank, things like the badge armor trinket will go miles towards putting them at an appropriate spot to tank things like Gormok's Impale or Marrowgar's Saber Lash, much more so than a secondary raw stamina trinket where they don't even have access to the top tier ones for quite a bit.

EDIT: Also should mention somewhere that chugging Indestructible Potions like candy is probably a good thing to do as a tank. If you drink a potion right before combat starts, you can drink another in combat and get 4 minutes of uptime on it. This is generally enough to cover most danger areas of boss encounters.

Jumai · 01/19/10, 6:42 AM

Originally Posted by JamesVZ

Thus far we've seen very few if any raid encounters in Wrath of the Lich King where magic damage played a significant role in a tank's death outside of abilities that you needed cooldowns to survive anyway. Magic damage can't burst, and thus it's typically either inconsequential or counterable by other means during progression.

I'm prioritizing armour too but this seems extreme. Magic damage can and does cause damage bursts, usually by lining up with other damage. Plenty of recent encounters have multiple sources of non-physical damage that can line up with each other and/or a melee hit to cause trouble.

toxin/bile, spew, slime pool
fel lightning, fel inferno, fel streak
freezing slash, leeching swarm
frostbolt volley, vengeful blast (ghosts), death and decay, mind-controlled magic dps attacks
gastric bloat, gaseous blight, spore damage

..not being terribly familiar with rotface or professor, I don't want to put my foot in my mouth but I doubt they wouldn't make the list. By the looks of it the two new fights in the crimson hall will be throwing around some important non-physical effects too.

landsoul · 01/19/10, 6:43 AM

Should say agi = 2 ap = haste for Fury, since they are all very close and sometimes one over the other.

landsoul · 01/19/10, 6:47 AM

Only an overpower from a dodge should be put before MS. No where I ever said Overpower>MS. MS is actually a pretty high priority because it's cooldown can be clipped whereas other abilities can be saved and used later.

KhorakSenjin · 01/19/10, 9:29 AM

I am a bit shocked to see the preferred fury spec recommend Unbridled Wrath (chance to generate more rage --- you shouldn't be raged starved in a raid) and Heroic Fury (solidly a PVP talent) over Booming Voice and Commanding Presence - which boost our only unique raid buff (commanding shout).

Has the value of UW somehow been increased, and our shouts decreased?

Fellwraith · 01/19/10, 9:37 AM

Originally Posted by Jumai

Really for progression content glyph of shield wall is nonoptional.

While this was mostly true in Ulduar, it's really not true anymore. The glyph is totally optional, it just depends on the fight. There's lots of fights where you'll probably only get one use out of shieldwall during the stressful time for healers, glyphing it doesn't buy you a second use of the ability and is actually sub-optimal (e.g. Festergut, Steelbreaker, Putricide P3 burn, Anub'arak during leeching swarm, etc.)

All the standard prot glyphs are useful for different fights. I think the FAQ is absolutely right that your glyph choices are subjective. The reality is that you're probably going to swap them quite a bit during the course of an instance clear if you're really trying to min/max.

Shha · 01/19/10, 9:41 AM

Unbridled wrath is my spec i use on cleave heavy fights - since it was proven that it procs off every hit. It also can be perceived as -2 rage off heroic strike (both mh/oh hit giving 1 rage), which sort of smoothes out the rage generation.

With all that said - UW is a shitty talent. You take if someone else covers commanding, and thats about it.

As for heroic fury - I found its unnecessary in TOC, and sometimes in ulduar, its so far pretty amazing talent in ICC - for pve of course.

I would recommend to use a simple macro of :

/castsequence reset=1 Intercept, Heroic Fury,Heroic Fury

instead of your intercept

The a bit strange syntax is actually pretty reasonable.

1 tap = intercept
double tap = intercept + instant refresh

the 2nd heroic fury in the rotation is simply to "block" it, so multiple taps when you spam intercept while getting into range, wont cause you to intercept/refresh/intercept-mid-intercept - which is otherwhise possible.

MatsT · 01/19/10, 10:20 AM

The arms rotation is somewhat weird:
Overpower (If <1.5 seconds before a TfB proc), Rend (Do Not Clip) > Overpower > Mortal Strike > Execute > Slam
If there is less than 1.5 seconds left before next TfB proc, rend must be up already, Therefore the rotation can be simplified to:
Rend (Do Not Clip) > Overpower > Mortal Strike > Execute > Slam
The extra overpower would only be needed in case the rotation turns out to be something like:
Rend (Do Not Clip) > Overpower (If <1.5 seconds before a TfB proc) > Mortal Strike > Overpower > Execute > Slam