[6.0 Guide] Protection - "We still have heroic strike, don't be jealous"

[booi]

I'll preface this by saying that I have not had the opportunity to test the set bonuses at all on the ptr. But at face value I really don't think the set bonus is significant. If the higher ilevel pieces didn't have such poor itemization, I'm not sure I'd even consider getting the bonus.

Perhaps if you're not used to tracking and calling for externals, or If the players you play with are not reliable when you're calling for externals, there is some value add.

The biggest trouble I see with four set is that coming out of last stand you'll want to have saved enough rage for a shield block to chase it. The only way you can really expect to have 60 rage coming out is by not hitting shield barrier for the final six seconds before last stand ends. The only way you can guarantee to have 60 rage coming out is to not hit barrier for the last 9 seconds of last stand.

Both of these scenarios fight against the value of our 4 set bonus. If the 4 set had cut the cost of shield barrier in half as opposed to doubling the size of the shield, it would make the set bonus a lot more playable.

But I mean, that has always been the nature of shield barrier. Deciding to hit shield barrier is often a decision to delay shield block because of the high rage cost tied to it. If there was a minor major glyph that made your max shield barrier 30 rage instead of 60, I'd likely play with it even though it would cut my max shield in half.

[Deleted]

I would say that it isn't worth skipping considering most of the tier pieces are well itemized bar the chest. From playing on PTR it basically meant I could avoid calling a CD while last stand is up because my barrier practically never broke

[Gliff]

Well, and here i was hoping they would change the prot set bonus. it just blows my mind how they let the monk one that reduces Guard CD throu but give us one of the worst ive seen in a long time.

sure, the last stand barrier has its time and uses, but in comparision is just feel left out and get the feeling that they never player a prot warrior.

I'm sorry but this post sounds like it comes from someone who has not used the set bonuses in a raid setting. It is very strong without being crazy overpowered like the original T18 bonuses were.

Last Stand went from being a 30% heal on a 3 minute cooldown to being Warriors best personal CD. It's probably the best tank CD in the game now even including externals.

[Deleted]

I'm maining Fury but there's a large chance I'll be tanking for the first few weeks, we're gonna use Personal Loot (dunno lol) on Tier bosses - is it worth me bonus rolling for tier to use as Prot over T17M?

Reading this thread, looking at a yes. But I see no specific answer to T18HC > T17M?

[Deliverer]

I would never skip tier 18 4 set for a bunch of extra crit and mastery on 2 piece of tier.. you absorb pretty much everything for 20 seconds every 1 and a half minute. And yea i'm pretty sure 4 set and class trinket are a must have and coin.

[jayg2772]

I would never skip tier 18 4 set for a bunch of extra crit and mastery on 2 piece of tier.. you absorb pretty much everything for 20 seconds every 1 and a half minute. And yea i'm pretty sure 4 set and class trinket are a must have and coin.

The 4p iece is awesome when its up 15 sec it last though. For ticking magic damage the trinket will probably be the better choice but dropping alot of stats for it

[Enyasi]

I wonder what will we be gearing toward in 6.2. I'm kind of a newbie with Sims, so I've got (for 6.1) something like this:



Are those stats ok or should I change something? Thanks in advance.

[Detritivores]

Seems fine to me. I honestly just make sure my stat weights are in the correct order (and that haste and multistrike are orders of magnitude lower than the others) and call it a day. I would bump your versatility up to near crit/mast. I'm sure someone who does math can come along and give a better answer though.

Also, from my understanding, we will reach a point in 6.2 where crit overtakes mastery, I think due to crit block capping. I haven't seen much discussion on this though, and would be interested if anyone wants to elaborate.

[Deliverer]

Seems fine to me. I honestly just make sure my stat weights are in the correct order (and that haste and multistrike are orders of magnitude lower than the others) and call it a day. I would bump your versatility up to near crit/mast. I'm sure someone who does math can come along and give a better answer though.

Also, from my understanding, we will reach a point in 6.2 where crit overtakes mastery, I think due to crit block capping. I haven't seen much discussion on this though, and would be interested if anyone wants to elaborate.

Éddy and Eman have been on final boss few weeks ago.. It was episode 81 and they talked about it; i think it was interesting.

[Detritivores]

Éddy and Eman have been on final boss few weeks ago.. It was episode 81 and they talked about it; i think it was interesting.

Yes, I think they were responsible for making me aware that it will be a thing. I was wondering if anyone could elaborate on why and how they pegged 50% or so?

[Emancptr]

I wonder what will we be gearing toward in 6.2. I'm kind of a newbie with Sims, so I've got (for 6.1) something like this:

Your numbers are a little off. I'm not sure what you're using to calculate your stat weights, but it doesn't look like Simcraft. If you're actually interested in getting accurate stat weights I highly recommend downloading and learning to use Simcraft. Note: While all your stats are in the right order it's incredibly important to know the exact weight of your secondary stats (Mastery/Crit/etc) versus Strength when comparing items of different ilevel (Even moreso for determining upgrades in HFC when comparing 5 ilvl difference).

Here are my current stat weights from simcraft (6.1) for Damage Taken Per Second (DTPS). Note: Haste and Multistrike are both much more valuable when looking at a Damage Done Per Second weight (DPS).

Also, from my understanding, we will reach a point in 6.2 where crit overtakes mastery, I think due to crit block capping. I haven't seen much discussion on this though, and would be interested if anyone wants to elaborate.

This was mentioned briefly on Final Boss, but I didn't really flesh out the reasoning. This is going to be rather lengthy, so skip to the bottom if you're looking for a TL;dr on which will be better.

Let's start with why mastery is so good right now. Part of the reason that mastery is incredibly good in BRF is the T17 4-piece bonus. The T17 4-piece bonus makes a critical block reduce damage by 70% (normally, a critical block reduces damage by 60%). 10% difference in the damage that we take from a critical block is a significant amount.

Additionally, we get more Shield Blocks from our T17 2-piece. This means that people regularly see 45-50% uptime on Shield Block in BRF. T17 2/4-piece both increase the value of mastery dramatically.

Let's take away those T17 bonuses and see what the value of crit verus mastery is:



As you can see, critical strike is actually already better than mastery if we ignore T17 set-bonuses. Note: They're very close in value when looking at DTPS stat weights, but critical strike vastly outweighs mastery when looking at DPS.

So, the next logical question is what happens in BRF. In BRF we're going to lose our T17 set-bonuses because the T18 set-bonuses are worth getting. This means that our Shield Block uptime will drop from 50%ish to 38-42%ish, and our critical blocks only block 60% of the damage.

Furthermore, we get another 10-20 ilvls (during progression) and 20-30 ilvls (during farm). This part comes with a huge caveat as I haven't done all the sim work on the gear for the next tier. My intuition says that critical strike and mastery are going to be very close. I wouldn't be surprised if critical strike is slightly better for the whole of next tier. But there is a distinct possibility that balancing critical strike and mastery will be important.

Tl;dr

Critical Strike is already marginally better once you don't use/lose T17 2-piece and 4-piece. Critical Strike and Mastery will probably be very balanced at the higher gear levels if you only consider DTPS (Damage Taken Per Second). I think Critical Strike will always be better if you value the DPS aspect of it.

edit*

I think that there might be an artifact around 50-60% where mastery doesn't become worth stacking, but I haven't done all the sim work to verify that. I think the more important point is to realize that mastery was very good because of T17 2/4 piece, which we won't have going forward. As a result, Critical Strike becomes better baseline.

[Ashenia]

Éddy and Eman have been on final boss few weeks ago.. It was episode 81 and they talked about it; i think it was interesting.

Aye, it was a good ep. I know all about Guard now. ;D

https://youtu.be/EPyrY3rJLbA?t=2517 - that should be here, chat about stats.

[Deleted]

So, the next logical question is what happens in BRF. In BRF we're going to lose our T17 set-bonuses because the T18 set-bonuses are worth getting. This means that our Shield Block uptime will drop from 50%ish to 38-42%ish, and our critical blocks only block 60% of the damage.

Uh, the base uptime of shield block should be just over 50% (because of starting with 2 charges) even without T17.. since it is 12sec recharge and 6sec duration..

[Emancptr]

Uh, the base uptime of shield block should be just over 50% (because of starting with 2 charges) even without T17.. since it is 12sec recharge and 6sec duration..

I mean sure, if you want to talk about a hypothetical world where you use Shield Block on CD regardless of whether or not you're tanking the boss. Then, it is possible to have 50% shield block uptime without T17 2 piece. Theoretically, with T17 2 piece it's possible to have 60% uptime on Shield Block. The reality is that nobody has that uptime on Shield Block (even warriors playing incredibly defensively). Notice how I didn't say that we go from 60% uptime to 50% uptime when we lose T17 2- piece.

I said the percentages that you quoted for a reason. Those numbers are based on current and ptr log analysis. If you're actually interested in looking at Shield Block in a practical application sense in BRF and HFC then you're probably going to see the 38-42% Shield Block uptime that I mentioned. This is a combination of losing the ~8% Shield Block uptime that you get from T17 2-piece and the rage prioritization of Shield Barrier while using the T18 4-piece.

Note: I understand that the T17 2-piece proc wasn't always effective uptime and could be wasted, but it is still a reason why Mastery is currently better than Critical Strike in BRF.

[Detritivores]

All the words...

Haha I can see why you didn't necessarily delve into this on Final Boss. Thank you for explaining more here.

The part about the set bonuses raising mastery's value significantly makes perfect sense. I think my follow up question though is whether or not that just puts us back to Highmaul where we knew crit simmed slightly ahead of mastery, but a lot of us, myself included, shifted to mastery regardless because the damage intake felt subjectively better (Eddy and Brutal mentioned this on the show as well). Alternatively, I understand barrier is going to be significantly more useful in tier 18, so would the added rage income from crit cause it to pull farther ahead I wonder? At any rate, it will be interesting to see how it all turns out for us.

Unrelated question going into HFC. Will we break our t17 4 piece for the t18 2 piece? Or wait until we can swap 4 piece for 4 piece? I am assuming we will wait, but curious what everyone is planning on.

[Emancptr]

I think my follow up question though is whether or not that just puts us back to Highmaul where we knew crit simmed slightly ahead of mastery, but a lot of us, myself included, shifted to mastery regardless because the damage intake felt subjectively better (Eddy and Brutal mentioned this on the show as well).

In my opinion, this was mostly a result of having very few secondary stats to allocate. In 640ish gear you only had 30%ish Mastery even while stacking it. Whereas in current gear levels and gear levels going forward you're seeing upwards of 50% mastery. This comes back to my feeling on stacking mastery exclusively. Mastery feels really good when you have very little of it, but it doesn't feel as strong at higher gear levels.

Alternatively, I understand barrier is going to be significantly more useful in tier 18, so would the added rage income from crit cause it to pull farther ahead I wonder? At any rate, it will be interesting to see how it all turns out for us.

Another reason mastery was very good in Highmaul/BRF is a lot of the damage was blockable. Mastery gives the majority of it's benefit against blockable damage (Mastery does give AP, which works on Shield Barrier). Critical Strike generally pulls ahead on un-blockable damage. I would estimate that half of the fights in HFC (a majority of the later fights) have 40-50% un-blockable damage. Either being magical damage or physical damage that isn't blockable. This heavily favors a critical strike setup using shield barrier.

At the same time, critical strike doesn't "pull farther ahead" at higher gear levels because some of the value of critical strike is tied into parry (diminishing returns).

Unrelated question going into HFC. Will we break our t17 4 piece for the t18 2 piece? Or wait until we can swap 4 piece for 4 piece? I am assuming we will wait, but curious what everyone is planning on.

Do it on a fight by fight basis. T18 2-piece is better on fights where you need externals and/or have a lot of un-blockable damage. T17 4-piece is better on fights with a majority of blockable damage.

At ~10 ilvl difference (even using non-set pieces) the raw stats will outweigh T17 4-piece regardless of fight type in my opinion.

[Detritivores]

That all makes very much sense. Thanks, Eman.

[Chewtoy]

Anyone have an active bis list started at all?

[Deliverer]

So since patch 6.2 comes next week and testing is pretty much over i wonder what i will be playing between monk and warrior.. i like both and didn't switch over to monk this patch but if monk tank will be that far ahead with 4 set i might change this time around. i thought they would be tuning down 4 set for them because it seems too op in my opinion but they did not.

[Detritivores]

"It's always a good time to be a prot warrior." -Sco #believe #rezScoagain