The Warrior Protector of the Pandarian Mists: A Protection Warrior Guide 5.0

[Brian23]

@Brian23
For 1.
Sadly only pure melee damage so on several special boss abilities (Hard Stare, Triple Puncture) you're better of with barrier if you're in danger of not surviving the very next swing/want to help your healers out/etc. The crux: every time you don't hit block your hardest hitting abilitiy (shield slam) hits for 50% less thanks to a major glyph, so when you're maximising outgoing damage that's a good point to start.

On 10M heroic content there's another problem: the raid damage flying around. While you can block the regular swings from a boss all the cones, dots, auras hurting you come in totally unmitigated. If you use barrier instead you could prevent/absorb over half of your incoming damage (at the cost of a part of your damage dealt, as explained above).

For 2.
Just to give you the picture (numbers from todays raidbot 10HC for the last two weeks):

267k monks
237k paladin
229k dk
215k druid
152k warrior

That's with the data used from the top 100 logs for each class/specc and the picture drawn is just plain horrible. We should end up getting a damage increase in the 2x% area from additional critical strike chance, more enrage uptime, more thunderclap damage and superior Ultimatum proccs. But please do the math, 152 times 1,25 is 190k. Unless they also increase the scaling and/or base damage on all of our abilities we'll have a very hard time competing for the damage charts. On the damage intake side on the other hand we should shine with the new t16 bonus & crit block cap, but Blizzard can't tune boss' around crazy damage intake figures, in the end everyone needs to able to survive a certain situation. And if you don't die from it on the spot you'll have to justify why you'd want to bring a tank that deals x damage when another tank deals y damage (and in this extreme scenarior of warrior vs monk it's almost y=x+a full dps slot).

Ps: I really don't see your argument pro warrior. While playing on a monk you have superior frontload damage reduction against anything (including bleeds~) from stagger/shuffle, superior healing and it's totally controlable with expel harm, guard and purifying brew (especially with current 4 piece). All the hassle with monk is from the pull when you don't have your AM rolling.

My issue with the monk is 2 fold, 1. My guild fell apart after ToES came out and I took the begining of ToT off, so I was trying to get into a guild after everyone had passed us by. No one wanted a Monk apparently, yet when I offer my Warrior with lesser iLvl, they're all over it so that's one reason.

The second is, while I was dealing a crap load of damage on my Monk, I just did not feel anywhere near as strong at what I believe a tanks first job is in a raid, surviving. Now, maybe I just was in bad raid groups as most of the people ended up quitting or leaving the guild at the end. A Monks really only got 4 nice cooldowns Guard, Dampen Harm/diffuse magic, Purifying Brew, and on some fights Zen Meditation. I'm not sure I'd call Elusive Brew a great cooldown cause I seem to be able to keep it up at all times, making it feel like another form of stagger to me. On my warrior, I just feel like I've literally got a button for every scenario.

Biggest example to me is on the third door of Horridon. While, when I ran it with my Monk we'd end up having all 3 Frozen Warlords still up, I was getting absolutely wrecked with all my active mitigation up and rolling Cooldowns. On the warrior, damage intake is a lot smoother, and the amount of cooldowns I could rotate in oh shit situations makes me feel a thousand times better.

My only gripe with Warriors is damage, but that's more me being use to Monks and DK's. I feel its not my first job, but its one of the more enjoyable aspects of doing any MMO.

[Deleted]

No one wanted a Monk apparently, yet when I offer my Warrior with lesser iLvl, they're all over it so that's one reason.

There might be similar issues to DKs in their beginning: lots of people tried it or brought a new monk along and it ended in a disaster for whatever reason and now people tend to stick to things they know to avoid further uncomfortable experiences.

If you're just into pugging some normal modes every now and then every tank will do just fine, just pick up whatever pleases you and if you feel better (even if it's only a psychological thingy) on a warrior, go for it

My only gripe with Warriors is damage, but that's more me being use to Monks and DK's. I feel its not my first job, but its one of the more enjoyable aspects of doing any MMO.

If you're deep into raiding maximising your damage is an important part of of current assignment and you just must imagine that bringing a warrior tank and another tank with 'wrong' gearing (ie: plain stamina or all-out mastery over other secondary stats) might end up dealing combined half as much damage as two dps tanks, basically increasing the burden on each dps by 7/6 or 16,67% in a regular 2 tanks/3 healer/5 dps scenario.

Ps: 3 frozen warlord is just no matter of tank x or y but bad coordination of the test of the team. It's crucial that everyone focus the first big mob per door so they don't get overwhelmed from special abilities later on. And every tank would probably get crushed as well from multiple mortal strikes + dire call as soon as their cooldowns run out

[Brian23]

There might be similar issues to DKs in their beginning: lots of people tried it or brought a new monk along and it ended in a disaster for whatever reason and now people tend to stick to things they know to avoid further uncomfortable experiences.

I can see that logic. Honeslty though, I just feel like everythings extremely hectic with a Monk even though I understand what I need to be doing, Warriors are just so smooth to me.

If you're just into pugging some normal modes every now and then every tank will do just fine, just pick up whatever pleases you and if you feel better (even if it's only a psychological thingy) on a warrior, go for it


If you're deep into raiding maximising your damage is an important part of of current assignment and you just must imagine that bringing a warrior tank and another tank with 'wrong' gearing (ie: plain stamina or all-out mastery over other secondary stats) might end up dealing combined half as much damage as two dps tanks, basically increasing the burden on each dps by 7/6 or 16,67% in a regular 2 tanks/3 healer/5 dps scenario.

Ps: 3 frozen warlord is just no matter of tank x or y but bad coordination of the test of the team. It's crucial that everyone focus the first big mob per door so they don't get overwhelmed from special abilities later on. And every tank would probably get crushed as well from multiple mortal strikes + dire call as soon as their cooldowns run out

Well, I did figure it was a lot on the raid itself at that point but I always felt I was a harm when I was tanking on my Monk so that really ate away at me. Maybe due to them being an odd type of tank chipped away at my confidence, I might pick him back up again after I progress with my Warrior some.

Do we have best in slot lists anywhere? CUrious as to what I should be looking for as far as trinkets and what not go.

[Deleted]

No list that i'm aware of, sorry. So i'll just give you a quick overview:

stamina
1. Soul Barrier (Lei Shen)
Relic of Niuzao (Darkmoon)
Lao-Chin's Liquid Courage (875 Valor + Shado Pan rep²)

mastery
1. Steadfast Talisman of the Shado-Pan Assault (1750 Valor³)
2. Fortitude of the Zandalari (Council of Elders)
Stuff of Nightmares (Tsu Long - T14)
Vial of Dragon's Blood (Elegon - T14)

dps
1. Fabled Feather of Ji-Kun
Primordius' Talisman of Rage
Gaze of the Twins (Twin Consorts)
Brutal Talisman of the Shado-Pan Assault (1750 Valor³)
Helmbreaker Medallion (875 Valor + Operation Shieldwall rep²)
Relic of Xuen (Darkmoon)

Ps: avoid those two 'beauties':
Delicate Vial of the Sanguinaire (Dark Animus)
Ji-Kun's Rising Winds (guess who)

²= i wouldn't spend Valor on a <500 trinket. Either buy Darkmoon or stick with an upgraded blue 471 one for a while if necessary, this one will be avaible for JP with 5.4 and there are probably several other slots to spend your valor on)
³= please note: can't be used together with the other Shado Pan trinket

[Deleted]

"Revenge now generates 20 Rage (up from 15 Rage)."
Blizzards way of trolling us ?

And im confused, did BrM get 23% to kegsmash for it to be nerfed by 18%, meaning they got a 5% buff ?
Or just tooltip confusion ?

[Delath]

And im confused, did BrM get 23% to kegsmash for it to be nerfed by 18%, meaning they got a 5% buff ?
Or just tooltip confusion ?

23% buff, followed by 18% nerf equals original damage.

[Gliff]

We don't need more rage generation.

[Deleted]

We don't need more rage generation.

True, But I won't complain if they give us more, will you?

[Deleted]

True, But I won't complain if they give us more, will you?

ofcourse not...but why are they even tweaking revenge values, fix our freaking damage instead. :-/

[Deleted]

I'd like to understand their way of thinking, as Gliff pointed out our rage generation isn't an issue so why they'd change something on this end? Even more rage? Why not remove the charges/cooldown on shield block to work along that, i regulary don't want to spend excessive rage on barrier due to it's flexible cost.

I really wonder how they operate, isn't there someone in their Q&A team that actually jumps into the game and just get a feeling for the classes/speccs? If you've tanked anything from normal dungeons onwards you'd see first and foremost that tanking multiple mobs on a warrior is.. awkward. Six seconds cooldown on thunderclap and no revenge proccs? Oh yeah, let's hit cleave to keep the other mobs... oh wait, it only hits two targets? My bad. If you gathered enough meleeing mobs on the other hand it's the best feeling in the world altering between shield slams on the thoughest guy and hitting revenge back to back while sitting in endless rage and vengeance empowered deep wounds keep all mobs glued to you.

Or what's with our scaling? They started working on the crit chance thingy which is good but besides that? I picked up a heroic thunderforged onehander in my very first Jin'Rokh kill (thank you bonus roll!) and upgraded from a 504 Sha touched piece, that's a 40%+ points of difference in terms of dps. What happened in the end? My auto attacks increased from 27k to 30k, my deep wounds ticked for slightly more but anything else remained the same. That's a bummer. Then i finally upgraded my shield, from 510 to 543 - but my shield slams damage remained the same (you can argue about the 200 strength gain if you want to ). I can only see a noticeable increase in performance if i manage to use my intervene + /sit macro correctly, that really saddens me. At least they could bring back the bladed armor perk, netting us additional something (crit, attackpower or shiny unicorns, i don't really care) if they don't want our abilities to scale with weapon damage... at all.

edit:

Why not remove the charges/cooldown on shield block to work along that

Thinking about it for some more minutes: This would be really cool, netting us considerable more damage via HR glyph (+ damage reduction) and we can focus our attention during certain situations away from "active" mitigation towards other things. And looking at monk's shuffle uptime or paladins sotr stacking it's not to much to ask for. Currently we're stuck at a 5x% to low 6x% uptime regardless of how well we're doing.

[Deleted]

Well, I might be wrong but aren't they changing Slam so it works for prot, or is that just datamining gone wrong every single time? That might solve the AOE issue you mentioned, it does however cost rage which clearly Thunderclap does not.

As for weapon damage scaling i'm with you there, it's sad how little that does for us. I went up pretty much nothing from a normal Amber Shaper weapon to a heroic jin'rokh. Yet my Pala offtank grabs a new weapon and it's even more retarded to not use him on one tank fights....

Also, Increasing our Rage regen DOES increase our dps, yes Heroic Strike is a dirty word but on paper you could Heroic Strike rage away sometimes as you'd have excess..... And if this slam thing turns out to be prot related the same can be said.

I do agree It's not a route I'd have gone but I also won't complain about it. (yet)

[Deleted]

Well, I might be wrong but aren't they changing Slam so it works for prot, or is that just datamining gone wrong every single time? That might solve the AOE issue you mentioned, it does however cost rage which clearly Thunderclap does not.

Datamining, prot is not getting slam.
my first thought was also more heroic strike use but in the end i'll probably just weave more barriers, specially if we luck out and they change HR glyph to work on barrier (one can dream lol)

[Deleted]

Look at that tooltip again, it also mentions fury Just a datamining error. And please think about it : where and when would you want to fit just another button in? Especially if it would cost rage which is detrimental to our AM. I already mentioned cleave, having that hitting all targets for prot would just fix that more easily if they'd want to.

Yet my Pala offtank grabs a new weapon and it's even more retarded to not use him on one tank fights....

To be fair: paladins are exactly in our boat on this one. They only shine because they scale so well with haste, but a new weapon only increases their crusader strike damage.. which is even more ludicrous than devastate. Well unless they'd use a damaging seal which they regulary don't. If you'd stripe them of haste gear they'd have totally similar scaling issues and i still think that despite adding another 15-20% haste they'll fall noticeable behind monks on 10M due to the latter getting ilvl 580 weapons (lol!) and all of us probably end up being vengeance capped.

[Sunnydee]

ofcourse not...but why are they even tweaking revenge values, fix our freaking damage instead. :-/

but if u get more rage, you can use HS in rotation perhaps? increasing dmg.. not sure its a good idea, but nonetheless an idea

[Deleted]

but if u get more rage, you can use HS in rotation perhaps? increasing dmg.. not sure its a good idea, but nonetheless an idea

Math is my weak point so sorry if its wrong.
Using my last horridon fight which lasted almost 11 minutes.
I used revenge 86 times * 5 = 430 rage / 30 = 14,3 heroic strikes.
Just bit better than 1 heroic strike per minute, which hurts my survivability.
Nah, the tradeoff is not even close to worth it imo.

[Deleted]

but if u get more rage, you can use HS in rotation perhaps? increasing dmg.. not sure its a good idea, but nonetheless an idea

This change nets you about one additional HS every 30-45 seconds depending on your avoidance, assuming that you actually tank something. That's 1,5 additional auto attacks as Eddy likes to state it

[Deleted]

This change nets you about one additional HS every 30-45 seconds depending on your avoidance, assuming that you actually tank something. That's 1,5 additional auto attacks as Eddy likes to state it

I suck at math, couldnt even account for the proc

[Deleted]

To be fair: paladins are exactly in our boat on this one. They only shine because they scale so well with haste, but a new weapon only increases their crusader strike damage.. which is even more ludicrous than devastate. Well unless they'd use a damaging seal which they regulary don't. If you'd stripe them of haste gear they'd have totally similar scaling issues and i still think that despite adding another 15-20% haste they'll fall noticeable behind monks on 10M due to the latter getting ilvl 580 weapons (lol!) and all of us probably end up being vengeance capped.

My paladin uses a DPS seal on fights he can, or phases he can.... Why wouldn't he on fights it's not a problem? Then again, I believe he had a shittier weapon then I did and went to a TF heroic so meh...

[Deleted]

SoT or SoR only deal a marginal amount of weapon damage (12% and 8% respectively) so adding 50 ilvl and several thousand weapon dps is barely noticeable compared to having ie +100k vengeance which is enhancing all of your abilities as well. Afaik Censure (SoT's dot) only scales with attack power and it's the main source of that seals damage.

[Deleted]

I personally would like to see a little more weapon scaling and it not done purely through vengeance although this might be detrimental at high levels of vengeance