Prot: Haste vs Mastery

[Joeydivision82]

Question for you Prot Warriors. I've had people tell me that Mastery is better than Haste and that Haste is better than Mastery. They both seem to be pretty good, but I would like to get a better understanding so I know which gear to use.

I know Icy Veins isn't always 100% accurate, but it says Haste is better and the explanation sounds pretty spot on for reduced cooldowns for survivability, but then Mastery buffs Ignore Pain.

For the record, I am pretty new to Prot Warrior tanking, but have experience tanking as a Blood DK.

[siusang]

haste feels better and is more fun. that is my answer

[dp_gonzales]

Prot Warrior excels at blocking and deflecting physical attacks. So the question you need to ask yourself is: do you want to specialize and be the very best at the thing you're good at, or do you want to sacrifice that specialization for general thickness? Are you confident enough in your skills to properly link Shield Blocks for maximum uptime, or do you want wiggle room at the expense of uptime?

If you stack Haste as a priority and Mastery second, you can approach 100% uptime on Shield Block. This means you will be blocking all attacks, all the time. If you stack Mastery first and Versatility second, you will be much tankier in general but you won't be able to keep up Shield Block. You'll take less damage from things that aren't physical attacks, of course.

I would consider what content you are doing and what obstacles you will be tanking. In general, the vast majority of fights have you tanking an enemy who is beating on you with constant melee attacks while you avoid standing in purple goo. This is why the common recommendation is to focus on Haste. However, if you were more interested in soloing old content than doing current raids, for instance, then Haste would be nearly worthless as you would not need Shield Block at all.

It's worth noting that Fury loves Haste and likes Mastery, and Arms loves Mastery and likes Haste. Going the Haste/Mastery route will help you towards gearing either off spec while focusing on Mastery and Versatility will not.

[Joeydivision82]

Prot Warrior excels at blocking and deflecting physical attacks. So the question you need to ask yourself is: do you want to specialize and be the very best at the thing you're good at, or do you want to sacrifice that specialization for general thickness? Are you confident enough in your skills to properly link Shield Blocks for maximum uptime, or do you want wiggle room at the expense of uptime?

If you stack Haste as a priority and Mastery second, you can approach 100% uptime on Shield Block. This means you will be blocking all attacks, all the time. If you stack Mastery first and Versatility second, you will be much tankier in general but you won't be able to keep up Shield Block. You'll take less damage from things that aren't physical attacks, of course.

I would consider what content you are doing and what obstacles you will be tanking. In general, the vast majority of fights have you tanking an enemy who is beating on you with constant melee attacks while you avoid standing in purple goo. This is why the common recommendation is to focus on Haste. However, if you were more interested in soloing old content than doing current raids, for instance, then Haste would be nearly worthless as you would not need Shield Block at all.

It's worth noting that Fury loves Haste and likes Mastery, and Arms loves Mastery and likes Haste. Going the Haste/Mastery route will help you towards gearing either off spec while focusing on Mastery and Versatility will not.

Damn, this is exactly the type of response I was hoping for. Thanks for the info, I really appreciate it and your break down helped a ton.

[donko]

Damn, this is exactly the type of response I was hoping for. Thanks for the info, I really appreciate it and your break down helped a ton.

While I agree that you can play whatever you feel is more fun...

The advice regarding mastery as a viable option is pretty bad tbh. A large part of what our mastery does directly conflicts with shield block (i.e. they both do the same thing) shield block can be maintained at 100% fairly easily without too much gear. Under many gear simulations haste will be anywhere from 2 to 3 times more effective then mastery per point for reducing incoming damage. By choosing to stack mastery over haste you would almost certainly be subjecting yourself (and your healers) so more strain. In addition, the point of stacking mastery second if you go the haste route is probably a non issue, the other 3 secondarys are all pretty close. Meaning wear whatever gives you the most haste and secondarys are somewhat irrelevant. I'm 870 ilvl and my normallized stat weights are currently:
Haste .74
Arm .69
Mast .29
Crit .28
Vers .25

Feel free to run sim craft on your own toon to figure out your stat weights, this is truly the only way to determine whether pieces are upgrades or not. Quick google search turned up quite a few links for guides on how to sim yourself (can't post links ). Then once you have your stat weights, addons like pawn or statweightscore can make it very easy to see what is and is not an better gearing option from within the game itself.

Hopefully this helps

[dp_gonzales]

Simcraft is not accurate for tanks or healers, and my post didn't say to stack Mastery. It said to stack Haste.

[Lysozyme]

https://goo.gl/5U3IGC

Stat info can be found there.

Haste is slightly worse than mastery on average but vastly superior for smoothing your damage intake, and better for damage done which you may or may not consider important.

[Ssateneth]

haste will increase your shield block uptime, which makes it so your ignore pain lasts longer (a 2m ignore pain will take 3 blocked 1m hits to deplete vs only 2 unblocked 1m hits)

If you can get haste + mastery gear, you are golden.

[Ivanstone]

A large part of what our mastery does directly conflicts with shield block (i.e. they both do the same thing)

The entire point of Mastery is to make Shield Block better. They do not do the same thing. Nobody stacks more Mastery to block attacks when Shield Block is down. You stack Mastery to gain more Critical Blocks when Shield Block is up and to increase your Attack Power.

Its almost like Haste and Mastery have a symbiotic relationship. There are limits to the amount of Haste you can stack and there's almost no limit to the amount of Mastery you can stack.

The only disadvantage to Mastery is that it receives no additional interaction with Neltharion's Fury but neither does Haste.

[donko]

Simcraft is not accurate for tanks or healers

Sim craft doesn't provide healer sims at all so I guess that parts correct. For tanking it simulates melee physical mitigation which is what was being discussed, so i thought numbers would be nice.

and my post didn't say to stack Mastery. It said to stack Haste.

actually it said either was an option, I'm just pointing out that the two options are in no way equal. There's a reason why no one has mastery gems and enchants on their shit. do you?

If you stack Mastery first and Versatility second, you will be much tankier in general but you won't be able to keep up Shield Block.

This sure as hell sounds like you saying Mastery into Vers is an option.

They do not do the same thing. Nobody stacks more Mastery to block attacks when Shield Block is down. You stack Mastery to gain more Critical Blocks when Shield Block is up and to increase your Attack Power.

I said part of mastery does the same thing. The part that increases your block chance, this benefit of mastery is completely lost when you have shield block up, which is pretty much all the time if you take heavy rep. And while true that neither haste or mastery work with nelth's. Haste synzergizes with vengeance, ultimatum, renewed fury, BSC, and anger management. Mastery only works with scales of earth and the proc rate sucks.

[Matthias]

What about damage optimization?

My friends tell me my tank damage is rather low, and my friend who plays DK and Druid always does great damage. A friend tells me to go for around 20% crit. Right now I have so much damn gear in my bags because I'm not sure if I should get rid of it because it may be better for DPS.

[Ivanstone]

I said part of mastery does the same thing. The part that increases your block chance, this benefit of mastery is completely lost when you have shield block up, which is pretty much all the time if you take heavy rep. And while true that neither haste or mastery work with nelth's. Haste synzergizes with vengeance, ultimatum, renewed fury, BSC, and anger management. Mastery only works with scales of earth and the proc rate sucks.

Nobody cares that Mastery increases your block chance. No one. Its there to increase your Critical Block Chance and your Attack Power. That is why you stack it. That's why its the best stat. It synergizes with Scales of Earth, Indomitable, Never Surrender, Dragon Scales and also makes Haste more valuable.

Currently, every Warrior will take some Haste (25-30%) but that's not that big of a number to reach. I almost reached it accidentally. After that you should be stacking Mastery.

[Rexawl]

Having 30% haste is very fun to play. Always on Shield Block, and all you hear is clap*clap*clap from blocking enemies.
I try to maintain it on 29-30% and get mastery from everything else. Game-play seems more solid, without high peaks of panic, without "what should i choose". The best compare for me, playing with 30% haste is like sailing on a river without waterfalls, you just maintain Shield Block on CD (even without Shield Slam +1.5 sec), maintain ignore pain, once in a while pushes SS, Revenge and have no worries.

[dp_gonzales]

What about damage optimization?

My friends tell me my tank damage is rather low, and my friend who plays DK and Druid always does great damage. A friend tells me to go for around 20% crit. Right now I have so much damn gear in my bags because I'm not sure if I should get rid of it because it may be better for DPS.

Crit is real bad for Warriors. Like, real real bad. For Prot, it does two things: proc free Focused Rages to fuel Vengeance, and increase your chance to Parry. Well, we're *already* blocking every attack thanks to our Haste stacking, so Parry is worthless. And we have Battle Cry so we can crit on command. There is no reason for you to have Crit on any of your gear if you can choose it. If you want DPS without also being terrible, stacking Haste is still the way to go since it reduces the cooldown on Shield Slam. Your two DPS buttons at the moment are just Shield Slam and Devastate (which you use to reset the cooldown on Shield Slam). Mastery increases your attack power, so it's still going to be second best for DPS.

The thing is... Prot Warrior single target DPS is abysmal. It just is. You'll probably deal a little over half of a similar geared Prot Paladin. There is no real reason to even try and bridge that gap. Be the best at what you're already good at, which in this case, is floating around 90% HP and blocking every attack.

[Matthias]

Crit is real bad for Warriors. Like, real real bad. For Prot, it does two things: proc free Focused Rages to fuel Vengeance, and increase your chance to Parry. Well, we're *already* blocking every attack thanks to our Haste stacking, so Parry is worthless. And we have Battle Cry so we can crit on command. There is no reason for you to have Crit on any of your gear if you can choose it. If you want DPS without also being terrible, stacking Haste is still the way to go since it reduces the cooldown on Shield Slam. Your two DPS buttons at the moment are just Shield Slam and Devastate (which you use to reset the cooldown on Shield Slam). Mastery increases your attack power, so it's still going to be second best for DPS.

The thing is... Prot Warrior single target DPS is abysmal. It just is. You'll probably deal a little over half of a similar geared Prot Paladin. There is no real reason to even try and bridge that gap. Be the best at what you're already good at, which in this case, is floating around 90% HP and blocking every attack.

We have Battle Cry yes....but it's on a 1 min CD and only last for 5 seconds. Additional crit could make Shield Slam more valuable since you have a 15% chance to crit with Shield Block up. Also haste or not haste with Heavy Repercussions I have no problem keeping up Shield Block. Not to mention it's not like your tanking 100% of the time.

[dp_gonzales]

I mean, if you really insist, you're welcome to stack crit. You'll just... not have any of the actually good stats, then. I've said my piece. If you're not convinced by me, the warrior discord, Icy Veins, the stickies, and the big prot warrior thread, then I guess you should just do what you want to do.

[Matthias]

I mean, if you really insist, you're welcome to stack crit. You'll just... not have any of the actually good stats, then. I've said my piece. If you're not convinced by me, the warrior discord, Icy Veins, the stickies, and the big prot warrior thread, then I guess you should just do what you want to do.

I don't stack crit, I just try to sit around 20%. I just simply don't understand why we need so much haste. The idea is to keep up Shield Block.....but with Heavy Repercussions I don't find it hard to do period.

[Valech]

I don't stack crit, I just try to sit around 20%. I just simply don't understand why we need so much haste. The idea is to keep up Shield Block.....but with Heavy Repercussions I don't find it hard to do period.

It applies to situations of constant tanking, not bosses like nythendra obviously. It narrows down to plain math if you can keep up shieldblock 100% or not. It´s not a thing of feeling.

[RodneyStanger]

I don't stack crit, I just try to sit around 20%. I just simply don't understand why we need so much haste. The idea is to keep up Shield Block.....but with Heavy Repercussions I don't find it hard to do period.

You'd need upwards of 30% haste to have actual 100% Shield Block uptime, and even then it's not for certain. Either way crit is in no way helping you. You mention crit would be more valueable due to the bonus crit chance while Shield Block is active, which is just plain wrong, I don't understand how your thought process was there.

Bottom line is you can do whatever you want, but don't expect people to agree with your wrongness.

[Matthias]

It applies to situations of constant tanking, not bosses like nythendra obviously. It narrows down to plain math if you can keep up shieldblock 100% or not. It´s not a thing of feeling.

Yeah I think the idea behind my friends Theorycrafting is that there are a lot of situations when your not tanking 100% of the time, between transitions and tank swaps.

You'd need upwards of 30% haste to have actual 100% Shield Block uptime, and even then it's not for certain. Either way crit is in no way helping you. You mention crit would be more valueable due to the bonus crit chance while Shield Block is active, which is just plain wrong, I don't understand how your thought process was there.

Bottom line is you can do whatever you want, but don't expect people to agree with your wrongness.

I'm simply saying that when Shield Block is up you get 15% critical strike on your Shield Slam, which gives a higher chance to proc Ultimatum. I'm only talking about eeking out extra damage through crit. If I'm worried solely about survivability then yeah off course I'd go for the most Haste.