Prot warrior feels thread

[Reinholder]

Going in to mythic prog I'm starting to get a bit worried about how prot performs from a survival point of view. Just feel like even if I execute everything near perfectly I'm still going to take a more severe beating that other tanks. My co-tank is a monk and I'm finding that there are things that kill or chunk me to the point of near death that he can literally self absorb with guard.

Like inferno slice on gruul for example, while he take more damage overall from the ability he can also absorb a huge chunk (occasionally all) of it where I'm left taking it to the face. For most fights my shield block uptime is within the 40-50% range (depending on the fight and time on target etc) and I feel like I'm generally doing as much as I can to mitigate damage taken, but when I look at warcraftlogs and see that I got 95% rank for tank survivability while my co-tank gets 45% and we have the exact same DEHRPS (or whatever its called now) score, it worries me (I know the survivability thing in warcraft logs is a bit experimental but still it's a measure).

I guess going in to mythic I don't want to be a burden if basically any other tank class could come in an tank and have stronger survivability than me. Anyone else feeling my feels?

[Cosmophile]

Sco did it pre-buff.

I believe in you.

[Deleted]

IMO prots are strong. Ofcourse Monks have cheesy mechanics that can negate complete boss abilitys, but that aint gamebreaking.

[Cybrus]

I've only been able to do normals, but my raid group is killing off H BRF tomorrow and I'm actually excited! On most of the normal attempts, I've been able to score up in the 99% as a 681 in the (681-687) bracket. Rocking the four piece with some pretty awesome gear and I feel that extra tap of 5% armor equaling out to around 2%-3% more physical damage mitigation, probably more as the tiers scale... Feels good. *Nods* On top of that, moved to the Mastery build, and with that 23% increase to shield barrier, I'm really liking it.

[Deleted]

I've only been able to do normals, but my raid group is killing off H BRF tomorrow and I'm actually excited! On most of the normal attempts, I've been able to score up in the 99% as a 681 in the (681-687) bracket. Rocking the four piece with some pretty awesome gear and I feel that extra tap of 5% armor equaling out to around 2%-3% more physical damage mitigation, probably more as the tiers scale... Feels good. *Nods* On top of that, moved to the Mastery build, and with that 23% increase to shield barrier, I'm really liking it.

Well, 681 is 110% overgeared for normal, and 681 will also be pretty easy in HC.

Mythic on the other hand, it seems warriors can struggle a bit atm..

[Cybrus]

Well, 681 is 110% overgeared for normal, and 681 will also be pretty easy in HC.

Mythic on the other hand, it seems warriors can struggle a bit atm..

True. I figure though that with the ilvl brackets integrated into the rankings, it still shows a healthy interpretation of how you're managing for your gear level. At the same time, I know that the high-end tanks probably don't even bother with normal anymore, so therein lies the problem. Here's to being optimistic with my heroic clear tomorrow!

[Deleted]

It bugs me that I have to call out for externals more than other tanks. I really think that the prot warrior kit is missing a minor anti-magic cooldown and I blame spell reflect for squandering that spot.

I would like to see spell reflect tweaked the same way some stuns have been. If a boss is immune to stuns, stuns like stormbolt do more damage instead. If a bosses spells are immune to reflection, spell reflect should reduce their damage a bit instead. The short CD on reflect means that damage reduction would have to be fairly minor, and it would probably have to remain a single, direct target spell. What I'd also like to see would be a glyph (lets call it Glyph of Spell Deflection) that increases the CD to 30 or 40s (matching things like AMS, Guard), removes the reflect part and makes it a straight 'magic damage reduction from all spells for X seconds'. The glyph might need to be protection only for pvp balance issues.

[Jackielope]

Monks are noted as basically trivializing many of the BRF mechanics, so it's not surprising that you feel worse compared to them. From what I've heard, the playstyle change from MoP to WoD especially with Purifying Brew and Guard made some people freak out when they didn't really need to and thus Guard was buffed and hasn't been changed.

[arisoh]

It bugs me that I have to call out for externals more than other tanks.

This. So much. At most, my monk co tank gets a Sac occasionally. Me? ALL THE POSSIBLE ONES.

I felt especially worse after I tried out my Blood DK the other day and realized that my strongest CD on my warrior- Shield Wall, exists in a DK's toolkit as Rune Tap which while only lasting 3 secs, has 2 charges with a 40 sec recharge compared to 3 mins. Cinderwolf stacks? After shield wall, it's all externals. On a DK? Rune Tap + Boneshield, then AMS, then IBF + Rune Tap.

Then also the fact that while as a warrior, you may have survived the boss' special attack, but if the healers wait a little too long to heal you? Death. While DKs can DS heal, Death Pact or even trigger Purgatory which might be enough time for healers to get a heal off.

I'm only 8/10H on my warrior. I'm not a super player, and my healers are pretty good. But there's less leeway for mess ups on this class than on my dk's or my monk cotank, and it's stressing them out.

[Teye]

We just got two major buffs. We're in line with other tanks now. Stop.

[CamelLogic]

We just got two major buffs. We're in line with other tanks now. Stop.

Major? The added 5% to Def Stance was pretty good. The 24.4% to Shield Barrier wasn't close to major, the ability is still weak. Nothing was a major buff.

[Deleted]

The 5% to def stance isnt wasnt even flat 5% DR it was a buff to the passive ability improved defensive stance wich now gives us 10% extra armor while in def stance and the physical dr from that passive is at most 1 - 2% physical dr.... wow so major gamebreaking.... not.

[Beastyn]

Shomari, can you post your armory?

[Deleted]

The 10% armor increase was kinda odd as our problems lie in handling magic damage. Barrier is like worth zero and 24% of nothing is still nothing.
I like the idea of an improved spell reflect though, as many users have suggested here and in other threads.

[rystrave]

I have some feels about my warrior too. She's been my main since I started playing and for the first time ever I feel like I'm under performing against other tanks. I was recently removed from a raid team because I 'wasn't doing well.' RNG hasn't been my friend this expansion and I'm still wearing gear that is shit for protwarriors because I can't get anything else to drop.

Raiding on Tuesday went well, and I noticed less damage taken. I need to fall in love with tanking again and I hope these changes help.

[chaddd]

I have just been testing out Exorcist raid tools and Hermes. I have just been calling for the externals now and not leaving it up to our healers to apply when they think I need it. It has been helping out quite a bit and I have been taking less damage over the night than our BrM (currently doing M HM / H BRF).

[uchiro]

We just hit 5/10M last night and as a day 1 prot warrior with monk co-tank I can definitely vouch for the differences between the two as you push mythic progression. That being said, it's not like we can't progress because I'm a prot warrior, but you definitely have to be very mindful of personal and external cd use. I think monks definitely trivialize encounters the way they are now.

Sometimes I do feel that any mistake on my part is an easy death, so there is very little room for errors tankin as prot right now and the small buff to shield barrier didn't make a noticeable difference. I pretty much just have to use externals all the time.

I think there are a few tweaks that blizz could make to move us more in line in terms of magic damage but they seem to have very little incentive to do so, so we just have to make the best of our situation. If you are lucky enough to have a monk co-tank then just build the fights around that and you will have pretty much all the externals to use on yourself, so use them properly and you will survive.

[Mokuna]

I just feel like i'm playing an oudated tank, i completely rely on my healers (shield barrier with max resolve absorbs like 1 melee hit and enraged regen is a ridiculous heal compared to what other tanks can do), my mitigation is good in certain situations, completly useless in others, and it's not gonna improve a lot with gear (the max uptime on shieldblock will remain 50% or slightly above with some t17 2pc procs), i have to call for externals for almost everything since i have no answers like a big absorb or a relevant cd other than shield wall, when i'm in trouble i can just roll my mitigation call for externals and pray for the best, feels like a passive tank.

It's really a shame after soo where shield barrier was really good, and malkorok's trinket could actually allow you to roll your cds everytime you needed it, i barely called for any external, i had no worries about healers really focusing on me, if i played right i'd just live whatever

It feels even worse when you play other tank classes, dks while not really strong can sustain themselves a lot and have an insane amount of cd to counter mechanics (especially rune tap and anti magic shell), the gameplay is way more active and independent(not getting heals? just death strike 2 or 3 times)

Monks can cheese everything with cds and pop a guard for 1.5 times their healthpool if they're in troubles, not to mention the avoidance and the stagger mechanic
Paladins get more and more uptime on shield of the righteous (close to 100% in some cases), which makes them really strong, and they also have selfhealing and a lot of cds, including a 30 seconds wall (which you can adapt if you need magical or physical reduction), utility and special cds like a bubble or lay on hands.

I can't really talk about bears, i know their situation isn't bright neither but i don't play one.

Warriors don't feel to be in that bad of a state but it feels really limited and that's what bothers me the most, most of the time my survivability isn't even on me

[Erlaya]

The 5% to def stance isnt wasnt even flat 5% DR it was a buff to the passive ability improved defensive stance wich now gives us 10% extra armor while in def stance and the physical dr from that passive is at most 1 - 2% physical dr.... wow so major gamebreaking.... not.

The net result of the buff is actually closer to 3-4% reduction in physical damage.

If you had 50% Reduction before the change and you moved to 52% reduction after the change, the net result is actually a 4% damage decrease over the damage you were taking prior to the buff. This is why more armor is always better, because each bit of armor is actually better than the previous bit. Case and point being if you are reducing 98% and increase by 1% you just cut the damage you were previously taking in half.

The shield barrier buff was the right amount in my mind. If you buff it too much it becomes too powerful when combined with blocking on physical damage, this buff pushed me from being able to absorb ~1.7 attacks with shield block up to being able to absorb ~2.3 attacks. If this increases significantly more warriors will push too far ahead of the other tanks in terms of physical damage reduction. Shield barrier is not the answer when it comes to magic damage. Instead there needs to be something new or changed (aka spell reflect) that actually reduces the damage you take from magic damage only. Another option is to offer a glyph to demo shout which changes it to a charge(2) based system with a 1 minute cooldown but it only affects magic damage taken.

Actually thinking about it I think Demo shout on a 2 charge based system would be really good anyway.

[Deleted]

Stil not anything game breaking though, what they need to do is stop making abilities that cant be blocked(because this is just blizzards way of trolling warriors considiring paladins Am is just a flat physical reduc and it stil works) and actuely improve our magic mitigation like changing spell reflection and such or perhaps make us actuely able to block magic dmg wich imo is our fucking birthright and not that of paladins.

i mean that way our mastery is actuely not useless on magic fights (dont coem to me that it increases ap and thus shield barrier because Shield barrier is utter crap)

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We were designed around having highest flat reduction and able to smooth out dmg, why isnt it applied to magic dmg? it really pisses me off.