Improved spell reflect versus one hand specialization

[Feldheld]

Most warrior tanks I checked out on the armory chose full five points in the one-handed weapon specialization talent. Is +10% damage really worth 5 talent points?

The same prot warriors usually dont invest any talent points on improved spell reflection. Leads to my second question: what does "reduces the chance you'll be hit by spells by 4%" exactly mean? Does it improve the success chance of the spell reflect ability or does it reduce the general hit chance of any spell attack against me?

Also I rarely see warrior tanks use the head gem "+32 stamina and reduce spell damage taken by 2%". Is spell damage that little of an issue in raiding or dungeons? Or does spell damage reduction just suck for some reason?

[Powell]

edit; rephrase

you shouln't spec for 4% chance to be missed by spells, for the same reason you shouldn't gem for avoidance.
stamina as a pure mitigation stat is a far more reliable means of mitigation then avoidance.

and the 10% dmg bonus is always awsome, for both TPS and squeezing in that extra bit of dmg.

[Shelly]

Oddly enough I like improved spell reflection. It's a great talent that comes in handy for heroics and raids, although it loses a lot of oomph on boss fights.

However you should always get 1-hand spec. That's 10% more damage across the board for you, in the "old days" this meant it was what got rid of the defensive stance penalty (also it was needed for threat as threat was much harder to come by at the time), now it along with your enrage from improved defensive stance gives you 10% more damage while taking damage in defensive stance. That's pretty nice.

[Coreva]

Its worth the 5 talent points when your already being docked damage for being in defensive stance, you have to balance threat talents with survival ones. This one is very lackluster though as survival as its completely based on rng. Most tanks also prefer the meta with 2% more armor over the 2% spell damage reduction as you receive a much higher amount of melee damage in raids.

[Feldheld]

Well Ive never encountered serious threat issues in dungeons so far, maybe its different in raids, never done any. Also, 10% extra damage is less than 200 dps on my warrior. Maybe I should give it a try and maybe notice the difference , I just find it hard to believe.

[Griefel]

Rule number one in WoW: never assume something about raiding with only 5 man experience, you will fail miserably.

[Pickwickman]

AoEfest lolroics =/= Singletarget balls-to-the-walls tanking.

[zerf]

200 dps means you're doing ~2k overall? that's pretty low. As long as you don't sacrifice survivability, extra dps is very welcome. Hell, most dpsers will go as far as squeeze out every single dps point they can. Anyway most boss spells can't even be missed.

Nobody uses "+32 stamina and reduce spell damage taken by 2%", because most bosses do heavy melee damage, where extra armor is godsend.

[Shelly]

AoEfest lolroics =/= Singletarget balls-to-the-walls tanking.

No, but prior to the Revenge buff it was pretty much an even toss-up (at least for me) between improved revenge and improved spell reflection. Now with the revenge buff it's revenge all the way.

I do hope in Cat that they get rid of improved disciplines when they clean out the talent trees, they need to make it baseline 3-minutes for Shield Wall, Recklessness and Retaliation, and that I think would make improved spell reflect more interesting again.

[Feldheld]

200 dps means you're doing ~2k overall? that's pretty low.

I think thats quite normal for a warrior tank at my gear level (gearscore 5k). I dont think Im slacking. I prioritize on aggro and positioning of mobs (TC, shockwave, demo shout), then I spam devastate, cleave (glyphed), revenge, HS (makroed), all on keyboard (done lots of pvp in the past), and Ive never, not a single time, got any complaints about my DPS.

My philosophy of tanking is not to max out my own DPS but to help the DD to max out their DPS. I think you get on a slippery slope when you start judging tanks by their DPS. Of course every extra bit of damage can be nice but there lures the temptation to sacrifice more important bits of your tanking job to improve your DPS epeen.

Nobody uses "+32 stamina and reduce spell damage taken by 2%", because most bosses do heavy melee damage, where extra armor is godsend.

2% extra armor means 500 armor when you got already 25000 armor. These 500 extra armor will gain less than 0.5% extra melee damage reduction.

So you need at least 4 times as much melee damage as spell damage average to justify the +2% armor gem. Whats the usual relation of melee vs spell damage? Is melee damage really that dominating?

I know there are a lot of ways to avoid spell damage (dispell DoT, reflect, interrupt ...) but all those highly depend on the skill level of your group, so I (as PUGger) always found every little bit of spell damage reduction helpful.

[Deleted]

Actually, with the current healing model, where you're constantly (over)healed, you should strive for reducing spike damage as that's what would kill you. ICC-bosses melee every 2 seconds, for ~10-30k damage. I haven't seen stats for the ratio of spell dmg/melee dmg, but I assume melee pulls ahead a lot. This damage is predictable, though, you won't go down from melee alone; you die when spell damage spikes you to low/negative health. 2% spell damage may well be the most safe option, but 2% armor will reduce more damage overall.

In previous expansions and (hopefully) the coming, healer mana conservation were/will be relevant, making armor a better stat as you need less healing.

[zerf]

ICC level tank will be rocking 32-37k armor unbuffed. For 35k armor, it's +700, which is worth around 70 stamina in terms of EH.

Physical dmg dominates in ICC, therefore -2% spell dmg meta is very situational (use it for sindragosa maybe).

[Griefel]

ICC level tank will be rocking 32-37k armor unbuffed. For 35k armor, it's +700, which is worth around 70 stamina in terms of EH.

Physical dmg dominates in ICC, therefore -2% spell dmg meta is very situational (use it for sindragosa maybe).

For normal and heroic 10, you're better of using frost res gear for Sindragosa, and in heroic 25 man she melees way too hard for anything else besides armor to matter.