Warrior tanking - spiky damage? Assistance needed.

[Aminah]

Hey fellow warriors!

I am looking for help, and I hope one of you skilled warriors with a keen eye for warcraftlogs will be able to provide some.


I am a prot warrior, and my healers think I am taking too much spiky damage for a warrior in brf; to the point of questioning if I know what I am doing.

I run as a OT together with a pala MT so when you check logs bear in mind that I am idle at start of flamebender (though I am technically on Aknor, but just for 5 seconds), and idle at start on beastlord. On Blast I'm on guards, and on Maidens Sorka.


They have asked me to seek help here on the warrior forums to try and discover why I am taking so much damage. Am I lacking externals, doing something bad, or what?


I feel I am doing ok, constantly improving, but this feeling of spiky dmg just won't go away.


My gear right now is full of crit if you're checking armory as I have been running as gladiator the last few raids, but as a tank I had enchanted/gemmed everything mastery.

Logs:

Kinda farm bosses
warcraftlogs.com/reports/bFC3P6MvWj8cLXZQ#fight=6&options=130

Progression on Blackhand
warcraftlogs.com/reports/Jrf89ycmqhGgM7Tj#type=damage-taken&fight=4&options=130

Armory:
/wow/en/character/ragnaros/Amby/simple

[Emancptr]

Your damage intake is on-par (sometimes even better) than the Paladin you tank with. I would say you're playing your class at around the skill level of your progression. A lot of people just like to use buzzwords about warrior's taking spiky damage, but our damage intake is arguably smoother than any other class (monks being the exception). We just don't have the self-healing that other classes have.

That doesn't mean you can't improve a ton. Your biggest problem (and the problem most common at your skill level) is rage generation.

1) You use Devastate way, way too much. You're Devastating 2-3x more than you should on any given boss.
2) You don't Shield Slam/Revenge enough. All those GCDs you use on Devastate should be used on Shield Slam/Revenge. Shield Slam/Revenge need to be used anytime they're up. On most fights you could double the amount of Shield Slams/Revenges you cast. There are periods in fights where you use 10+ Devastates in a row, but don't use Shield Slam/Revenge for 30+ seconds.

If you make the change to use fewer Devastates and more Shield Slam/Revenge you would almost double your rage generation. An additional, 500-800 rage on every fight would mean more shield block/shield barrier usage. This would further smooth your damage intake.

Additionally, you could get better at using CDs. You use Demo Shout and Ravager sparingly. You could also use more Shield Walls and Last Stands on most fights, but this isn't a huge problem.

As far as Blackhand is concerned, I'm not sure why you took off your 4-piece. Blackhand is one of the fights where protection 4-piece shines. Blackhand is also one of the fights where I regularly encourage players to run more HP to deal with Smash/player error. If you have a 670+ pillar of earth it's an exceptional trinket for Blackhand.

Otherwise, just the notes above about rage generation. Your Shield Slam/Revenge usage is at it's worst for Blackhand progression. There's fights where you use Shield Slam 20 times and Devastate 100+ times.

[Aminah]

Wow, what a thought-out analyse of my gameplay Emancptr! Thank you so much for spending your personal time to look through the logs!

A pretty clear issue to put the finger on so to speak.

I will try and see how it goes when I await Shield Slam and Revenge to come off CD instead of hitting devastate so much. I was in the belief(-dis) that I gained more by being more active (devastate), than patiently waiting for SS/Rev.

As for 4-piece missing, I wasn't aware that I didn't wear all 4. How can you see that in warcraftlogs?

I have already made a weakaura alert for ravager so I think I got that covered now.

[Deleted]

In addition to your weakaura for Ravager, have the same for Demo Shout and also make sure that Revenge and Shield Slam are both somewhere really clear on your UI. Both on CDs and both can have the CD reset. In theory, Revenge should be being reset more often than not when a boss takes a swing at you.

The problem you seem to be having is fairly common in my experience. I tanked with two other Prot Warriors and both do more Devastate dmg than me, but far less Revenge and Shield Slam. I think it's just about knowing when they have had their CD reset and using them ASAP.

Once this is solved, the extra rage will mean that you can keep a charge of Shield Block on perma cooldown, and still have plenty of Shield Barrier in between to soak up the big hits (read: smoothen your dmg)

Good luck Warrioring!

Mongleberry @ Emerald Dream

[Emancptr]

I will try and see how it goes when I await Shield Slam and Revenge to come off CD instead of hitting devastate so much. I was in the belief(-dis) that I gained more by being more active (devastate), than patiently waiting for SS/Rev.

It's fine to hit Devastate in the downtime between SS/Rev, but you need to be making sure that you're not hitting Devastate when you get procs or when SS/Rev is coming off CD in the next GCD.

As for 4-piece missing, I wasn't aware that I didn't wear all 4. How can you see that in warcraftlogs?

Oops, the Blackhand attempts where you weren't wearing 4 piece were from the first logs you linked. The second logs, the Blackhand progression logs you are wearing the 4-piece.

You can check logs by looking at player buffs. You get a defensive buff called Shield Mastery (note: the text for this on warcraft logs would make you think it's for the 2-piece, but it is actually the 4-piece buff) whenever you Shield Block with 4-piece. See below for example.

warcraftlogs.com/reports/Jrf89ycmqhGgM7Tj#type=auras&fight=13&source=1

[Aminah]

You can check logs by looking at player buffs. You get a defensive buff called Shield Mastery (note: the text for this on warcraft logs would make you think it's for the 2-piece, but it is actually the 4-piece buff) whenever you Shield Block with 4-piece. See below for example.

I was aware of that, checking them for trinket procs, uptime etc, but didn't think that the 4pc proc showed up, but I see now it says 4pc on the right side

- - - Updated - - -

The problem you seem to be having is fairly common in my experience.

I am glad to learn that

Thanks for helping out. I do have Demo Shout on WA, but I think I must make it bigger and more flashy.

[Breccia]

If you make the change to use fewer Devastates and more Shield Slam/Revenge you would almost double your rage generation. An additional, 500-800 rage on every fight would mean more shield block/shield barrier usage. This would further smooth your damage intake.

I can't find anything smarter to say than this, so "ditto but 90 mins late"

Additionally, you could get better at using CDs. You use Demo Shout and Ravager sparingly. You could also use more Shield Walls and Last Stands on most fights, but this isn't a huge problem.

You don't really know how good a tank is doing until things go very poorly. Hard to judge major cooldown usage in a fight that didn't require them much.

[Aminah]

Hi again,

After redoing my weakauras a bit, and focusing more on rage generation (less devastates), I think I am now heading in the right direction.

I logged a pug today in highmaul, just Tectus, and from what I can see I didn't do too bad. I was rage capped a few times, which I will look into. However, are there any other pointers to improvements?

warcraftlogs.com/reports/4j1HxC8zYTmVJQBv/#source=15&type=summary

[Emancptr]

Looks a ton better than your earlier logs. It's hard to evaluate easier/old bosses because you're most likely more focused on your rotation and not worried about boss mechanics. What's important is being able to play similarly on a progression boss. You have the basics, everything I post below is nitpicking/optimization.

SS/Rev:

Usage is way better, but you're still 5-10 Shield Slam and 10 Revenge casts off of perfect play.

Cooldowns:

You were better about using your Cds more often, but you ran into a problem.

You use Armor Pot, Trinket, Ravager and Bloodbath all while there is nothing to hit.

Right at the 4:30 mark the Shard of Tectus dies and Motes of Tectus are spawning, but all your cooldowns are up. You get almost nothing out of your Bloodbath, and your Ravager doesn't do a ton of damage. Furthermore, if you look at the graph as a whole you'll see that your CDs don't "overlap" very well.

Ideally, everything should be overlapped as much as possible. It should be cast Armor Pot -> Trinket -> Bloodbath -> Ravager. Especially, on an easier boss like Tectus this will help to maximize damage. On harder bosses it might be important to stagger Pot/Trinket, but you should always Bloodbath -> Ravager. You appear to cast in the reverse order.

On that same note, you don't want to overlap defensive CDs. Here, you overlap Ravager and Shield Wall both times you cast it. On a fight like Tectus, you should consider yourself almost immune to damage when ravager is up. It's much better to stagger defensive CDs and will be important on something like Blackhand/Kromog.

Rage Management:

As you said, you capped rage a little bit. You wasted 174 rage over the whole fight. Not the end of the world, but definitely something to work on. You can definitely heroic strike in a couple of those scenarios. It looks like you only heroic strike when you get a proc, but as your get more comfortable you can use it more. Especially on a cleave fight like Tectus, you can gain a lot of dps from Heroic Striking when you have excess rage.

[Aminah]

Thank you again so much for the help. You raise some good points which I will start working on immediately.

I think perhaps Sudden Death/Execute is the guilty culprit for the missing Rev/SS. If I don't use Execute I might as well go with Heavy Repercussions, or what do you think?

This is my Starter macro:
#showtooltip Charge Boom
/startattack
/cast Berserking(Racial)
/cast Avatar
/cast Bloodbath
/use 13
/use 14
/cast Charge
(I have Berserker Rage separate as I only use it when not enreaged)

When I leap in, like on this fight, I use Ravager immediately, and then the Starter Macro. This led to Ravager being cast pre Bloodbath the entire fight. Very good of you to pin-point that. I will add a "/cast Bloodbath" on my Ravager button to remedy this.

I only used Heroic Strike when Ultimatum proc'd yes.

[Emancptr]

I wouldn't switch from Sudden Death to Heavy Repercussions. It's a pretty significant DPS loss, and you're not playing Sudden Death poorly. The biggest thing is don't panic and hit Execute as soon as you get the proc. You have 10 seconds to use that Execute. There will be a point during that 10 seconds where you can use Execute without delaying a Shield Slam/Revenge.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of starter macros/grouping a ton of abilities together in a macro. There will always be an exception where you want to use abilities separately and having them bound separately so you can do that is much better. If you're set on those macros though putting Bloodbath into your ravager cast will work.

I know that you only used Heroic Strike when it procced. My suggestion is to use it more frequently (i.e. without procs), especially on a boss like Tectus where glyph of cleave can be very strong. It'll also help prevent you from capping rage. You could have gotten 6 more Heroic Strikes on your Tectus pull without any loss in survivability (the 180 rage you wasted due to being capped).

Side Note: Looking through logs again, I noticed you could use Thunder Clap more. Glyph of Resonating Power makes Thunder Clap a dps increase over Devastate on 2+ targets. On Tectus the Shards + Motes are a great time to be using Thunder Clap on CD (provided SS/Revenge are already on CD), but you only used it 6 times.

[Braglol]

I think Emacptr and everyone else covered this pretty well, but you should be tracking your Externals more, on some attempts you overlapped strong Externals like PS with your own Shield Wall. Also, your Berserker Rage usages seems to be a bit random, I would suggest grabbing a WA for that as well.

[Khelon]

Sudden death as a tank is only good at fights where your group really needs single target damage in a short time frame (and if you are not taking any dmg). The only fight I found myself using that talent would be kromog mythic as I do not want to use any rage on shield block during pillar phase & free executes help a lot for that situation.

[Braglol]

Sudden death as a tank is only good at fights where your group really needs single target damage in a short time frame (and if you are not taking any dmg). The only fight I found myself using that talent would be kromog mythic as I do not want to use any rage on shield block during pillar phase & free executes help a lot for that situation.

What?? Sudden Death is a free execute that is a huge single target gain over HR... Its also completely random. You are spreading misinformation by saying that Sudden Death is only good when you need single target in a certain time frame, as SD is ALWAYS better than HR if you want to do more damage. Sure if you want to "set it and forget it" then play HR, but saying that HR is better and you can only see yourself using SD on ONE mythic fight(where you should us it on all), then you are just being ignorant.

[Deleted]

Sudden death as a tank is only good at fights where your group really needs single target damage in a short time frame (and if you are not taking any dmg). The only fight I found myself using that talent would be kromog mythic as I do not want to use any rage on shield block during pillar phase & free executes help a lot for that situation.

Hmm, I don't think that's the correct approach to go with. You are going to have downtime where Revenge/Shield Slam are on CD where you'll have yourself using your filler Devastate. You can use your Sudden Death proc here instead which gives you more single target dmg. I'd recommend you stick with Sudden Death for the majority of the BRF Encounters :P Just my two cents atleast.

[Khelon]

What?? Sudden Death is a free execute that is a huge single target gain over HR... Its also completely random. You are spreading misinformation by saying that Sudden Death is only good when you need single target in a certain time frame, as SD is ALWAYS better than HR if you want to do more damage. Sure if you want to "set it and forget it" then play HR, but saying that HR is better and you can only see yourself using SD on ONE mythic fight(where you should us it on all), then you are just being ignorant.

Because SD is uses a global cooldown that otherwise could be used on devastate to reset your shield slam. This is effectivly stealing rage from you instead of giving you free damage. By all means use SD if you think its better, but I think of my survivability is the most important thing. And if I want to spend my rage on damage I would use heroic strike.

Kromog mythic is only one example, because pillar phase is a part of the fight where you take 0 dmg, and whatever damage you do outside of that phase is not more important than getting through it. If you want more examples I dont mind giving you a few.

Gruul - When not tanking boss
Oregorger - When not tanking boss
H&F - Never
Beastlord - when not tanking anything
Flame bender - When not tanking anything
Operator thogar - When not tanking the boss
Blast furences - Whenever you need more dmg on primals and your other tank can handle adds
Iron maidens - Never
Blackhand - a little if you can stick to balcony.

This is all personal opinions & the dps difference is VERY MINIMAL, but I dont think SD is worth a global cooldown use, not when a chance for shield slam reset is just so much better.

Im wondering if some of you forget that shield slam can do 2 things. Give you a free heroic strike and up to 35 rage which 30 of them can be spent on heroic strike if you take 0 dmg. If your rng sucks both of them are going to have the same results anyway.

[Braglol]

Because SD is uses a global cooldown that otherwise could be used on devastate to reset your shield slam. This is effectivly stealing rage from you instead of giving you free damage. By all means use SD if you think its better, but I think of my survivability is the most important thing. And if I want to spend my rage on damage I would use heroic strike.

You also don't use Dragon Roar or Ravager at least looking at your best Gruul log. You also died twice, without ever using Demo Shout and using a healing tonic with 0 resolve so it gave you 16k HP. You choose to use GR over Ravager though Ravager is actually a strong ability because of the tight enrage timer(you were enraged for 8 seconds) and the ability to avoid Overwhelming Blows. You died multiple times without calling for an external or using a personal(that you had) even though you value your survivability over everything you seem the be missing some pretty key components to warrior tanking, a lot of which is managing your cds, especially on a fight like Gruul.

[Khelon]

You also don't use Dragon Roar or Ravager at least looking at your best Gruul log. You also died twice, without ever using Demo Shout and using a healing tonic with 0 resolve so it gave you 16k HP. You choose to use GR over Ravager though Ravager is actually a strong ability because of the tight enrage timer(you were enraged for 8 seconds) and the ability to avoid Overwhelming Blows. You died multiple times without calling for an external or using a personal(that you had) even though you value your survivability over everything you seem the be missing some pretty key components to warrior tanking, a lot of which is managing your cds, especially on a fight like Gruul.

Gruul is by far not my best boss at all. My guild was using wrong tactics, and whenever I did not have a cd I did call out for one in TS but ended up not getting one. Not everyone have players who instantly will react when they hear you talk in TS.

We changed to 2 tank strategy with taking 1 swipe per group instead of 2 in some and 1 in another. And because our brewmaster tank came back from over a month of break the fight becomes a lot easier. Im not a main tank and Im not perfect but I do my best to improve on it and as I stated in my last comment its all opinions.

Go check any of my other logs instead of that fight if you really want to look at my preformance, as I personally think Im horrible at that encounter anyway.

And I didnt use roar because same reason as SD, I dont want to waste global cooldown on it when devastate can enrage me and give me more rage to spend.

[Emancptr]

This is all personal opinions & the dps difference is VERY MINIMAL, but I dont think SD is worth a global cooldown use, not when a chance for shield slam reset is just so much better.

Im wondering if some of you forget that shield slam can do 2 things. Give you a free heroic strike and up to 35 rage which 30 of them can be spent on heroic strike if you take 0 dmg. If your rng sucks both of them are going to have the same results anyway.

Except, Sudden Death isn't a minimal DPS gain and you're not getting nearly as much rage from the Devastates as you think. Sudden Death is 1-1.5k dps above Heavy Repercussions, and you lose minimal rage.

Sudden Death dps increase math:

Note: All numbers taken from these logs.

Procs: 2.5 per minute
SD Damage: 58k per execute
Total Damage: 145k per minute (58*2.5) [SD DMG * Procs]

Heavy Repercussions:

Shield Slams per minute: ~10
Shield Block %: ~50% (this is playing very defensively)
Shield Slams buffed by Shield Block: 5 (would take very in-depth sims to faithfully recreate this, but it should correspond to Shield Block uptime*Shield Slams)
Shield Slam Damage: 35k
Total Damage: 52.5k per minute (35*5*.3) [SS DMG * #SSbuffed * Heavy Repercussions buff]

Damage Difference: 92.5k per minute (1.5k DPS)

More in-depth Sudden Death Math:

The above math is overly simplistic and doesn't account for some of the points that you mentioned earlier. So, this math will try and touch on the rage gain/Heroic Strike usage.

Each Devastate you do is worth 12.25 rage (Note: My crit levels not yours. You would get less value). Math below:

[Base Rage of Shield Slam + (% Chance of Sword and Board Proc)(Rage value of Sword and Board proc) + (% Crit)(Rage Value of Enraged)][% Chance of Sword and Board Proc] -> [20 + (.5 * 5) + (.2 * 10)][.5] -> 30.6 rage

So, you lose 30.6 rage per minute using Sudden Death. It's important to note that you only see this rage benefit by using Shield Slam when Sword and Board procs. Thus you end up spending two GCDs to generate this rage, instead of the one GCD used on Sudden Death. One of your arguments against SD is that it requires GCDs, but when played optimally it doesn't interfere with Shield Slam timing.

If you used the rage generated on a Heroic Strike: 9k damage
If you used the rage generated on a Shield Barrier: 50k absorb

On a typical boss fight Sudden Death is worth 750k damage. The rage you generated by not using Shield Barrier is worth 350k healing or ~100k damage if you used it on Heroic Strike. That is an abysmally poor tradeoff.

Im not a main tank and Im not perfect but I do my best to improve on it and as I stated in my last comment its all opinions.

Spreading "opinions" that lead other players to play sup-optimally/poorly is not a good thing. If you're not a main tank, and you're not sure that your "opinion" is correct don't suggest it to other players.

Sudden Death, when played properly, is universally better than a Heavy Repercussions build. I would only suggest using Heavy Repercussions if you're struggling to manage Sudden Death procs. As mentioned in my earlier posts, this is not the case for Amby.

[Braglol]

Im not a main tank and Im not perfect but I do my best to improve on it and as I stated in my last comment its all opinions.

Except its an 'opinion' that is not supported by any form of math or logical thinking. You are just throwing this 'opinion' out there with not support for your argument. Playing sudden death is better as emancptr has gone pretty in-depth about in the post above me. You are not trying to improve as a player but are rather hindering yourself because you believe that your opinion is correct while all the math will say it is not.