Protwar, what's best?

[Deleted]

So, first I want to ask for a few armory links of warrior tanks who already kills at least the first three bosses.
Second, I killed the first two with a hit/expertise+stamina build. Capped everything, and I did experience some difficulties, like high damage in me. Right now, I'm trying the build that Ask Mr Robot provides. Mastery>Dodge=Parry>Hit/Expertise. I got 10k less HP, no big deal, but I have 2 % expertise and 4 % hit... I'm kinda worried about this, how is rage management with this kinda build, did anyone else try it? Post you experience and builds please.
On the third boss with a new build I miss a lot, and he parry and dodges me quite often.

[chaddd]

Right now, I'm trying the build that Ask Mr Robot provides. Mastery>Dodge=Parry>Hit/Expertise.

There is also the hit=exp build via the dropdown arrow.

[Porcell]

Honestly, figure out what works best for you.

I might catch a lot of flak for this, but I'm running hit and expertise capped (somewhat into the Parry expertise cap also) and stacking stamina gems. I'm pretty much ignoring mastery, and I hate using Shield Block, so I'm exclusively using Shield Barrier. So far I'm doing great, 4/6 on 25m normal modes at the moment, being held back by some undergeared and weak DPS at the moment on Elegon. Haven't really heard any complaints out of my healers at all and WoL looks good as far as I'm concerned. While wiping on Elegon I tied a pull using Shield Block. Next pull after that I went back to Shield Barrier. The two pulls were otherwise near identical (both were 14% wipes to hard enrage). The shield barrier pull mitigated more damage than the block one.

[Deleted]

I am trying to figure out what's best for me, I just don't have the luxury to test it in my raid group, that's why I'm asking here.
When I was using hit=exp+stamina build, I had insane damage coming in me, but I had no problems with rage. Now I'm using the mastery>dodge=parry>hit=exp build. I kinda have enough rage, less damage now though, and the misses are kinda annoying but it's usable nonetheless.
I'd like to see protwars armory links too, anyone?

[Porcell]

I am trying to figure out what's best for me, I just don't have the luxury to test it in my raid group, that's why I'm asking here.
When I was using hit=exp+stamina build, I had insane damage coming in me, but I had no problems with rage. Now I'm using the mastery>dodge=parry>hit=exp build. I kinda have enough rage, less damage now though, and the misses are kinda annoying but it's usable nonetheless.
I'd like to see protwars armory links too, anyone?

What is your qualitative assessment of "insane damage" coming in? Because the difference between builds is maybe a few percentage points of avoidance difference, which (should) be compensated by the increased rage from the hit/exp build. Are you using shield block or barrier, or both? Are you seeing that "insane damage" at any particular time, or is it random spike? I mean, in my current setup I have like 560,000 health or so, spamming shield barrier to soften as much as possible, and I'm not really seeing anything overly dangerous as far as spike damage is concerned. I'm giving up about 2.5% pre-DR avoidance to reforge ~2300 rating into hit and expertise.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...rcell/advanced

http://worldoflogs.com/guilds/36359/

^If you want to dig.

[luckybeer]

From EJ:

Shield Block seems to be designed for melee heavy fights and Shield Barrier for more magic damage heavy fights. Yet, they turn out a little bit different.

Theck's and my own work both show that Shield Barrier reduces melee damage taken ~10% more than Shield Block if you are getting hit very regularly, i.e., your vengeance level is on par with the incoming damage. However, if you are just started tanking the boss, or he does a very strong melee attack only once in a while, shield block will be your choice directly before the attack.

Apart from the total amount of damage taken, the spikiness is another major factor. Shield Block will smoothen it out every 6 of 9 seconds, but leave us "naked" the other 3. Shield Barrier will reduce damage to (up to) 0 damage while it is up. Thus, as Theck pointed out, using 60 rage shield barriers will give a spikier damage income. However, we can also use shield barrier for only 20-60 rage and thus flatten the incoming damage. Using this, they seem to be rather similar.

Lastly, with high vengeance stacks we are doing considerable damage. Especially when using Glyph of Heavy Repercussions, using Shield Block gives you ~10% more dps due to more critical blocks,i.e., more rage and higher enrage uptime, making it a viable choice if damage done is of more concern than damage taken.

Conclusively: It depends :-) Start of the fight or seldom melee spike damage, use Shield Block before the spike.
Heavy magic damage or just regular damage, use shield barrier. Moderate damage: use Shield Block for more damage done.

And do not forget, we can also gather rage and use both.

[Lefrog]

From EJ:

Shield Block seems to be designed for melee heavy fights and Shield Barrier for more magic damage heavy fights. Yet, they turn out a little bit different.

Theck's and my own work both show that Shield Barrier reduces melee damage taken ~10% more than Shield Block if you are getting hit very regularly, i.e., your vengeance level is on par with the incoming damage. However, if you are just started tanking the boss, or he does a very strong melee attack only once in a while, shield block will be your choice directly before the attack.

This right here. There is really no best build right now because it heavily depends on fights.

Stoneguards - Constant high vengeance due to rend makes SBar > SBlock, especially on heroic.
Feng - High vengeance due to dots and lack of high melee damage makes Sbar better.
Garaj - Most of Garaj damage is blockable. Add that to the relatively short enrage timer and Sblock is the clear winner on this one for me.
Kings - Not a tank damage heavy fight. I seem to take less overall damage with Sblock because most of my inc damage is blockable, and there is enough downtime between boss abilities to keep a higher Sblock uptime.
Others-Haven't experimented yet.

[fearom]

From EJ:

And do not forget, we can also gather rage and use both.

This is where it's at. So far I haven't seen a reason to gem/reforge too heavily into hit, I did pick some up; going for exp cap appears to be the absolute winner. Rotating your SBar and Sblock depending on incoming damage is without a doubt the best way to mitigate damage. Obviously the more often you can get them both up the better it is. Elegon is a perfect example, his melee hits like a truck but his breath and AE effect also do ridiculous damage but can be avoided if you can produce enough rage. Don't use heroic strike unless it procs, spam as much devastate as possible (when all else is on CD) and don't let either block or barrier drop whenever possible.

In regards to your character just dump your hit and go for EXP.

Essentially you can have zero exp and hit and still produce enough rage to tank and mitigate a moderate amount of damage. The problem is that stats are not high enough at the moment to warrant anything as being your "primary" stat outside of crit block, which also requires too much mastery to get to a decent level anyway.

So it's sort of like you can go for avoidance(parry/dodge), or mitigation(block/crit block), or absorb, or go for exp/hit caps and have mitigation and absorb all year round.

Keep enough rage to ensure you have sblock up, then 'bleed' off excess rage for sbar, but also keep enough rage for sbar on big elemental damaging abilities.

[Deleted]

What is your qualitative assessment of "insane damage" coming in? Because the difference between builds is maybe a few percentage points of avoidance difference, which (should) be compensated by the increased rage from the hit/exp build. Are you using shield block or barrier, or both? Are you seeing that "insane damage" at any particular time, or is it random spike? I mean, in my current setup I have like 560,000 health or so, spamming shield barrier to soften as much as possible, and I'm not really seeing anything overly dangerous as far as spike damage is concerned. I'm giving up about 2.5% pre-DR avoidance to reforge ~2300 rating into hit and expertise.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...rcell/advanced

http://worldoflogs.com/guilds/36359/

^If you want to dig.

Thanks for the links.
Right now I have 537k fully buffed. I mostly get a lot of damage on the first boss, not so much on the second, and the third and forth are just easy. I rarely use Shield Block (almost never), with every 60 rage I use Shield Barrier. But that Shield barrier is gone in a few (sometimes in one) hits. And during this time, when the barrier is down and I have 0 rage, because I spent 60 rage on the barrier, I'm getting some bad damage. The downside of my current build, is that in this situation I may make a few misses which costs me rage and time to get it for shield barrier.

From EJ:
Snip

Thanks for the tips, will consider them in the next fights.

This right here. There is really no best build right now because it heavily depends on fights.

Stoneguards - Constant high vengeance due to rend makes SBar > SBlock, especially on heroic.
Feng - High vengeance due to dots and lack of high melee damage makes Sbar better.
Garaj - Most of Garaj damage is blockable. Add that to the relatively short enrage timer and Sblock is the clear winner on this one for me.
Kings - Not a tank damage heavy fight. I seem to take less overall damage with Sblock because most of my inc damage is blockable, and there is enough downtime between boss abilities to keep a higher Sblock uptime.
Others-Haven't experimented yet.

Used Sbar on every boss you mentioned. Only had problems with Stone Guards, Garaj is okay with Sbar considering other save abilities. But thanks for the tips

Snip

I see where you're going with, makes sense. I have yet to try out Elegon, because only today we killed the fourth boss, but I guess I'll test out this full exp cap variant as well.
Btw, should one spend less than 60 rage on Sbar at all?

[Lefrog]

Thanks for the links.
Right now I have 537k fully buffed. I mostly get a lot of damage on the first boss, not so much on the second, and the third and forth are just easy. I rarely use Shield Block (almost never), with every 60 rage I use Shield Barrier. But that Shield barrier is gone in a few (sometimes in one) hits. And during this time, when the barrier is down and I have 0 rage, because I spent 60 rage on the barrier, I'm getting some bad damage. The downside of my current build, is that in this situation I may make a few misses which costs me rage and time to get it for shield barrier.

As far as I know, Sbar uses the formula of either 2.5*STAM or 2*(AP-STR*2) whichever is highest for 60 rage. So at the minimum you will get 2.5*STAM, which is equivalent to that 1 hit you are seeing, otherwise it is basically 2*vengeance+AP buffs. If you plan on using Sbar appropriately you really need to have a good vengeance monitor addon/frame so that you aren't wasting 60 rage on a week Sbar.

Used Sbar on every boss you mentioned. Only had problems with Stone Guards, Garaj is okay with Sbar considering other save abilities. But thanks for the tips

I was just experimenting around, and given eventual gear gains and RNG, I don't think a well played Sbar build vs. a mastery Sblock build is going to make much difference except on a few fights that are completely gimmicky.

From my perspective though, if you don't ever use Sblock it makes mastery just about worthless and therefore makes Sblock worthless as well, whereas if you go with a mastery Sblock build for fights that are good towards it you can still pop a 20-60 rage Sbar during high vengeance with just about the same effect, especially since I gain more rage via crit block enrages this way. Again, this part is just from personal experience.

[Satori]

I agree it's mostly per fight.

Stoneguard: Barrier
Feng: Barrier
Garajal: Block imo, since Shadowy Attacks ignore absorbs
Kings: Block probably, doesn't really matter
Elegon: Barrier
Will: Block. You can have 100% uptime and all damage done is physical