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

[Deleted]

Just a quick question: Is Heroic WUE better than the Kormrok mythic trinket/ HC anzu trinket? I only have access to these because the mythic trinket from kilrogg just won't drop...

Hc WUE > M Stone Sigil
Anzu > all

I'm assuming you're at or past mythic Gorefiend. For the first 5 mythic bosses M Stone Sigil might be on par with / better than Hc WUE.
For Iskar you can switch out Hc WUE for a more dps oriented trinket like TTT or Unending Hunger

[booi]

When talking about theorycrafting its pretty important to use the correct terminology. I think there is some confusion in general between smoothness and relative weighted reduction in terms of smoothness;

For example - a boss with 300k melee swings;

Avoid nothing - block nothing. 300k every single melee hit. First derivative of Damage / Time is linear = completely smooth damage intake
Avoid 50% - 300k roughly 50% of the time = Not smooth but higher damage reduction
Avoid nothing - Block 50% - 300k Melee swings with 50% blocked = Smoother than avoiding 50% but less damage reduction

Love you to death Eddy, but I'm going to disagree with you on this one.

TMI's language about smoothness is a reference to reducing the frequency and magnitudes of spikes. ( http://www.sacredduty.net/theck-melo...ence-document/ )

A tank with no avoidance and no block is not 'smoother' with respect to TMI than a tank that has some block or some avoidance. Yes, your damage intake is flatlined when you turn your back to the boss, but that doesn't make you easier to heal. Our reference to smoothness is with respect to the TMI index, which should correspond to "easier to heal".

When talking about crit being smoother than mastery (outside of shield block), i say that because crit is better at reducing the frequency of spikes, and crit is better at reducing the magnitude of spikes (avoids reduce more than blocks, and we get more absorbs through shield barrier).

By a literal definition, having no mitigation and flatlining your damage is smoother, but in the context of TMI, it is not.

[Deleted]

Love you to death Eddy, but I'm going to disagree with you on this one.

TMI's language about smoothness is a reference to reducing the frequency and magnitudes of spikes. ( http://www.sacredduty.net/theck-melo...ence-document/ )

A tank with no avoidance and no block is not 'smoother' with respect to TMI than a tank that has some block or some avoidance. Yes, your damage intake is flatlined when you turn your back to the boss, but that doesn't make you easier to heal. Our reference to smoothness is with respect to the TMI index, which should correspond to "easier to heal".

When talking about crit being smoother than mastery (outside of shield block), i say that because crit is better at reducing the frequency of spikes, and crit is better at reducing the magnitude of spikes (avoids reduce more than blocks, and we get more absorbs through shield barrier).

By a literal definition, having no mitigation and flatlining your damage is smoother, but in the context of TMI, it is not.

Yes but I'm not talking about in terms of TMI. TMI is something on its own.

[booi]

Yes but I'm not talking about in terms of TMI. TMI is something on its own.

Just for the sake of clarity then, my previous references to smoothness are with respect to TMI. I'll try to be more clear in the future.

[Deleted]

We all probably know this, but I think it should still be pointed out.

"Smoothness" as defined by Eddy is very worthless without the necessary DR to avoid making the tank become a "sponge". Sponges can be very bad for a raid, especially during progression, as hijacking the attention of 2 or more healers as a tank is always a bad thing for the rest of your raid. This can even cause plenty of wipes (due to random DPS deaths) before RL's actually notice what's going on, and act upon it.

I guess that's why something like TMI was created, as it allows to take into account the "good bit" of smoothness, while lowering/preventing "spikiness" as much as possible. Spikiness should be defined as "the frequency at which one goes from high HP to low HP in a very short period of time, unexpectedly or not".

TMI allows to benefit from smoothness while trying to reduce spikiness as much as possible. That's why it's so interesting, and IMO, should be the major interest of any progression tank.

[Deleted]

Im curious about that critical block thing...
You all said there is no reachable Mastery cap, but in fact, when you have 50% Mastery, you have around 48% Block in Total and 50% critical block. At this point when you press SB you have 148% block, which results in 48% extra critical block. Plus the 50% critical Block from Mastery results in 98% Critical bock during SB, right?
So if you go above mastery of about 51% you would exceed the 100% Critical Block chance, which makes your Mastery less valuable.

I don't know if i'm right, so i would like to hear your comments on this.

[booi]

I asked graf to look into this earlier this xpac, and the conclusion was that extra block during shieldblock is no longer converted I tocrit block.

[Deleted]

Im curious about that critical block thing...
You all said there is no reachable Mastery cap, but in fact, when you have 50% Mastery, you have around 48% Block in Total and 50% critical block. At this point when you press SB you have 148% block, which results in 48% extra critical block. Plus the 50% critical Block from Mastery results in 98% Critical bock during SB, right?
So if you go above mastery of about 51% you would exceed the 100% Critical Block chance, which makes your Mastery less valuable.

I don't know if i'm right, so i would like to hear your comments on this.

Excess block during SB hasn't been converted to Crit Block since Cataclysm.
This is because dev's truly don't want block to have any "cappable" feature. They even went on to put it on a second die roll to make sure of it.

[montross50]

Hey there, starting progression on mythic Tyrant and can't find the best answer to my question.

Which would be the best trinket combo for progression (this is all I have atm):
1. Heroic Anzu's
2. Heroic Class trinket
3. Heroic WuE
4. Mythic Sigil
5. Mythic Tyrant's Decree (lol)

Also should I use AM/glad/ravager?

Thanks for any help just trying to figure it all out.

[Toroq]

Hey there, starting progression on mythic Tyrant and can't find the best answer to my question.

Which would be the best trinket combo for progression (this is all I have atm):
1. Heroic Anzu's
2. Heroic Class trinket
3. Heroic WuE
4. Mythic Sigil
5. Mythic Tyrant's Decree (lol)

Also should I use AM/glad/ravager?

Thanks for any help just trying to figure it all out.

Mythic Tyrant is one of those fights where it's relatively easy to get killed even when you outgear the fight due to the p2 & 3 auras.

I'd recommend Heroic Anzu's + Heroic WUE, possibly mythic Sigil over Anzu's, but WUE is far too valuable for survivability on that fight. Class trinket is essentially worthless because the thing that will kill you is melee hits in late p2 and p3. Tyrant's Decree I don't think needs an explanation for why it's bad on that fight.

Gladiator's Resolve is the safest lvl 100 talent to pick. Having a constant 5% damage reduction on that fight is pretty strong.

[montross50]

Thanks for the input that's what I was thinking but wanted to get an outside opinion.

[Breccia]

I'd recommend Heroic Anzu's + Heroic WUE, possibly mythic Sigil over Anzu's, but WUE is far too valuable for survivability on that fight.

Seconded: I've recently run the numbers on WUE and it proves its worth in almost all realistic situations, but it'd be even stronger in such cases as Phase Two, which damn near scream "use this trinket in this fight or you're wrong"

[Deleted]

On what fights do you use/feel you can spend rage on Heroic Strike for inc DMG? I often find myself busy spending rage on Shield Barrier since there is almost always some sort of Raidwide aoe dmg going in on, or shit to not step in, or things to dodge. I just dont seam to find the time or opertunity to HS.

Whats your opinion?

[Deleted]

if you're busy preventing damage then don't use it. When you're not actively tanking you can usually use HS to prevent rage capping. Also shield barrier won't do much when not actively tanking since Resolve will be low/0%.
Keep in mind that HS doen't do too much dmg, so you might be better off improving the rest of your rotation first.

[Toroq]

Basically any time I'm not tanking anything I'd rather spend rage on HS than Barrier. Even if there is AoE damage, chances are it's low enough where it won't matter and/or will be healed up by incidental healing such as a paladin's Beacon. As mentioned above your Resolve is also likely low enough while not tanking that your barrier won't actually absorb much more than the baseline value anyway.

Sometimes I also use it while tanking to only dump 30 rage over dumping up to 60 with barrier. E.g. on Mannoroth I might heroic strike if I'm at ~100-110 rage and Glaive Combo is coming in shortly, to make sure I will be as close as possible to 120 for Block + Barrier, while wasting a minimal amount of rage.

[Deleted]

Ahh very good point regardin resolve, didnt think about that. And yes its true, the raid dmg is usualy taken care of by a Disc Shield or any other AOE Heals or Dots beeing in place.

Makes sence to pay attention to HS it when not activly tanking, rage wasted is lost DPS.

How do you utilize Laststand 4-set bonus to Barrier?
I was thinking of the lazy mode to macro it so its used before i use Barrier. And then it will be used kinda on CD.
But Im not sure how strong a full 60 rage barrier is with full resolve and the Last Stand Bonus? Mabye its so good you should use it in senarios with high none physicall dmg?

[Deleted]

Basically any time I'm not tanking anything I'd rather spend rage on HS than Barrier. Even if there is AoE damage, chances are it's low enough where it won't matter and/or will be healed up by incidental healing such as a paladin's Beacon. As mentioned above your Resolve is also likely low enough while not tanking that your barrier won't actually absorb much more than the baseline value anyway.

Sometimes I also use it while tanking to only dump 30 rage over dumping up to 60 with barrier. E.g. on Mannoroth I might heroic strike if I'm at ~100-110 rage and Glaive Combo is coming in shortly, to make sure I will be as close as possible to 120 for Block + Barrier, while wasting a minimal amount of rage.

Good strategy although for myself going hyper defensive I'll always dump into barrier preferably as unless the raid is fully topped your received smart healing can then go elsewhere.

Mannoroth is a great example of where you are forced to pool rage and delay active mitigation so you want to ideally hit 120 rage + pop SB + SBar the moment that first glaive combo finishes casting. Its very easy however to delay too much and start losing performance both defensively and offensively.

- - - Updated - - -

Ahh very good point regardin resolve, didnt think about that. And yes its true, the raid dmg is usualy taken care of by a Disc Shield or any other AOE Heals or Dots beeing in place.

Makes sence to pay attention to HS it when not activly tanking, rage wasted is lost DPS.

How do you utilize Laststand 4-set bonus to Barrier?
I was thinking of the lazy mode to macro it so its used before i use Barrier. And then it will be used kinda on CD.
But Im not sure how strong a full 60 rage barrier is with full resolve and the Last Stand Bonus? Mabye its so good you should use it in senarios with high none physicall dmg?

Use it as you would before, but just make sure to weight barrier more heavily in your play style particularly if there is magic damage incoming. You can be expecting to get 400k+ barriers and 600k ones if you use the ring. I would personally advise against macroing it and just having manual control over it.

The only problem with using barrier heavily is that it sets you up badly for when it expires due to its relatively low absorb amount and duration vs block. You will be fine while its up but you will be rage starved for when it ends unless you play intelligently and ignore the last possible barrier as you will need to be able to use block as soon as your barrier expires.

[Astynax]

Do you guys use anything to track resolve? I havent planned for maxing it in depth and just use barrier based on timing on boss abilities or if getting close to rage cap. IMO only time to HS dump is when theres no raidwide damage and tanking absolutely nothing. I feel like some added self sustain is worth way more than a single 8-10k attack

[Eatdamuffin]

Do you guys use anything to track resolve? I havent planned for maxing it in depth and just use barrier based on timing on boss abilities or if getting close to rage cap. IMO only time to HS dump is when theres no raidwide damage and tanking absolutely nothing. I feel like some added self sustain is worth way more than a single 8-10k attack

I do use a resolve tracker but really it's not that useful for us most of the time unlike say a Blood DK. I mean it's nice to try to barrier when your resolve is high but most of the time, the timing is off anyway and it'd just be a waste of rage.

[Deleted]

Tbh a resolve tracker is mostly unimportant for a warrior as you will tonic on emergencies so resolve is irrelevant and you will use barrier regardless of resolve. I do however have a weakaura that estimates my barrier size which I find quite useful to avoid munching with lower power barriers.