Looking for advice: Prot warrior PvP at 85

[Aenys]

Hey hey!

I’ve been levelling my warrior alt for the past few weeks; at first, I did it only out of sheer curiosity: having been a caster-heavy dude for the whole of my WoW career, warriors had always felt so uninteresting to me. However, as soon as I got into the 40’s I came to realize how utterly wrong I was: warriors are awesome fun, a refreshing change from my main (a balance druid).

That being said, at least for now I’m enjoying protection and tanking so much more than arms or fury. I love all the different abilities and perks, charging into a group of mobs, mass them about me, Rend, spread it thru Thunderclap, Shockwave once positioned, then interrupt a caster, stun another, disarm a hard hitting one, spell reflect a cast, etc. It’s all hectic but loads of fun.

So it drove me to wondering: how are Prot warriors at PvP? I’ve met a few while on my moonkin and always ended up going all furious at how annoying they were, not letting me breathe at all – let alone get a cast going. So my questions would be as follows:

1) Are prot warriors viable at battleground PvP? That’s what I would focus on at 85, at least at first.
2) How is the survivability? Enough to be of help without a healer?
3) How is the damage? While control seems excellent on a prot warrior, are they just an annoying fly that keeps buzzing round people or can they actually dish out decent damage?
4) What should a PvP prot warrior focus on gear-wise? PvE gear with all the defense stats or PvP one all the same?
5) What stats should a PvP prot warrior focus on?

Thanks in advance for your time. Before I came here pestering you with all these questions, I did browse a bit but could find no decent post on prot PvP.

[Zarleck]

To answer your questions (to the best of my ability)
1) Protection warriors can be quite useful in battlegrounds, especially because you can be a very effective flag carrier.
2+3) As Protection, you trade some damage for more survivability, so you should be able to hold your own without a healer for longer than, say, an Arms or Fury Warrior. However, since the Vengeance nerf, you'll find that your damage has been significantly reduced. You probably won't be able to kill a healer on your own, but the excellent control through stuns and silences makes up for it (in my opinion.)
4+5) Depends, but Ayraswag's youtube videos might prove useful: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3313035630#1

Please bear with me if I'm wrong on any of these points.

[Aenys]

Thanks a bunch!

So Prot remains one of the most solid specs to lock out a caster/healer?

[Redmage]

Arenas: no.

BG / rBG: Yes, but mainly only in flag carrying ones. Your damage is pretty much never a factor, your only usefull for your mobility / survivability while carrying the flag. And if your not carrying the flag your using all your silences / stuns to annoy the crap out of their healers.

[Hybridpsycho]

You should definetly go PvP gear even if you're prot, resilience is just that good.
Not sure exactly what other stats but I would guess that resilience obv come first, and if you're going to do some serious FC'ing in RBG's I think (don't quote me on this) hit & expertise would be a good idea 'cause your survivability relies on all your direct skills going home per se.

[Tehterokkar]

PvE Gear will not help you against 80k Shatter Combo

[Aenys]

Excellent!

So if I've got it right: Use PvP gear all the same, focus on carrying flag and/or keeping healers/casters locked out. Sounds good to me! Let's hope I make it to 85 soon

[JohnnyBravoEU]

Yeah, and if u ever want to do some actual dmg, pop vigilance on whoever is taking hits. U still gain vengeance from that :X

Did a normal TP last night, popped vig on one of the healers and hid untill i had around 13k ap from vengeance, and then i popped my little macro with dps trink/Shield block/recklessness, swapped to Bers.stance for the extra 10% dmg. + CS, and started spamming 70k -120k shield slams! gotta love it