The Warrior Protector of the Pandarian Mists: A Protection Warrior Guide 5.0

[Deleted]

on the changes curious about this one:
-- Reduced internal cooldown on Critical Block from Enrage from 5 sec to 3 sec.

did they switch the skills there?
shouldn't it be: reduced internal cooldown on enrage from critical block from 5 sec to 3 sec? or is there something I'm missing about critical block with enrage

Yes. I'm not aware of any internal CD on Critical block, but on Enrage caused by critical blocks, yes. GC was perhaps a bit tired when he wrote that part...

[Pua]

I am curious about something and wondering what all your opinions are on this since the Shield Block has changed. I know prior to 5.0 it wasn't the smartest idea to macro it to shield slam. But I am curious with the changes; and on certain fights, how crazy would it be to use that macro?

Assuming you don't intend to use Shield Barrier in an encounter and will be tanking for the entirety of it, there's next to no down side in doing it.

[Deleted]

I am curious about something and wondering what all your opinions are on this since the Shield Block has changed. I know prior to 5.0 it wasn't the smartest idea to macro it to shield slam. But I am curious with the changes; and on certain fights, how crazy would it be to use that macro?

You can yes, even though it feels a bit ''wrong''. There's always the risk that you'll pop a Shield Block when there's nothing actually hitting you - which is of course a waste.

[bals]

You can yes, even though it feels a bit ''wrong''. There's always the risk that you'll pop a Shield Block when there's nothing actually hitting you - which is of course a waste.

also you might hit it when you need to keep rage for shieldbar for a high damaging ability in a few seconds

[Deleted]

also you might hit it when you need to keep rage for shieldbar for a high damaging ability in a few seconds

Yep. Needless to say that I absolutely do not recommend this. You can always do it, if you're feeling that lazy.. but it's really not that hard to manually apply that Shield Block whenever needed, so the risk in wasting Rage and losing performance, isn't really worthed or even justified.

[Gum]

I am curious about something and wondering what all your opinions are on this since the Shield Block has changed. I know prior to 5.0 it wasn't the smartest idea to macro it to shield slam. But I am curious with the changes; and on certain fights, how crazy would it be to use that macro?

Dude.. really? just no, theres no point doing that at all.. Theres plenty of times where it would just be a complete waste of not only rage but shieldblock uptime... If you're that lazy or unable to handle such simple things as to pop shieldblock every 6/9 secs, dont bother with tanking will ya? If its done in an attempt to free brainpower to comprehend other fightmechanics.. Try and tell others to either help you keep track of them or simply handling them alltogether.. There should be NO reason EVER to bind shieldblock to shieldslam, unless you insist on doing a subpar job, in wich i see no point in you even asking in the first place.. Honestly im not trying to sound demeaning or anything but why try to do worse than possible on something you willingly spend time on.. I dont get that..

[Daverid]

Thanks for the guide, extremely detailed, everything looks top notch and will definitely help a damn lot of Warriors in MOP

Just a question however; Has there been any theorycrafting done on Weapon Enchants? Colossus VS River's Song?

Naturally Colossus would be better for a Pure Magic damage fight, and River's Song for a Pure Melee. But what about the 'Average' fight? Colossus was proccing alot on the Beta, but still a 7.5k Absorb is extremely weak when you have 300k+ HP. Will it end up just kind of being like a Mending VS Windwalk situation, where you could use it, but RS is just way stronger?

I only ask because Mongoose is definitely my favourite looking enchant in the game, and it would be bloody nice if Colossus was comparable to RS so we could use the 'Mongoose-Esque' enchant

[kopcap]

I see. The main reason why I'd still go for Austere is that even though SB uptime is indeed better with the recent improvements, we still cannot have a 100% uptime (unless there's enough tank switching on a fight, at least 1 every 24 sec - this does allow us to have a 100% uptime, while we are actually tanking - but there isn't always that much tank switching on a fight, sadly).

This is what DS, ER/IV and SBar are for.

The TDR difference between Austere and Eternal (if there's any significant difference at all) is so close that strictly basing your choice on TDR isn't necessary the best approach. You should take into account which one does provide the most worthed use when you most need an extra DR, which is in fact when SB isn't up, and Eternal becomes almost useless.
In that situation, where you're most likely gonna be taking a bit of burst, Austere will still provide all of its damage reduction, whilst Eternal will provide something very close to nothing.

Not quite. Eternal is clearly ahead on TDR by almost two fold. Regarding burst. Instanenously - yes, obv Austere is ahead on full hits. However, having Austere also means you are going to be lower on entering the "no SB" streak. Which will be very evident on sims when they come out.

But beyond the point. You should be pooling SB for high burst scenarios and only letting it fall off when its quite. There are always minor CDs available if you screwed up. So if you really want to max out DR "when it matters", Eternal is an easy choice as long as the damage you are attempting to reduce is blockable.

The reason why I haven't added this Enchantment yet is because, I haven't been able to try it out myself. I can't really say how the choice between Crit, Haste and Mastery is made. I'll be looking more into it. If it turns out to proc your highest stat, then it indeed becomes worthed, and I'd definitely be adding it to the list.

We had a discussion over this last night. Basically mastery is most likely a random enchant because it is missing "the highest stat will always be chosen" as it does on Apparatus and Steel.

Strength enchant will be the default choice for warriors. It is about 50 rating lower than dodge one, but it provides more DPS, bigger SBars and more HtL procs.

[Pua]

Dude.. really? just no, theres no point doing that at all.. Theres plenty of times where it would just be a complete waste of not only rage but shieldblock uptime... If you're that lazy or unable to handle such simple things as to pop shieldblock every 6/9 secs, dont bother with tanking will ya? If its done in an attempt to free brainpower to comprehend other fightmechanics.. Try and tell others to either help you keep track of them or simply handling them alltogether.. There should be NO reason EVER to bind shieldblock to shieldslam, unless you insist on doing a subpar job, in wich i see no point in you even asking in the first place.. Honestly im not trying to sound demeaning or anything but why try to do worse than possible on something you willingly spend time on.. I dont get that..

You can demean him all you like, it doesn't change the fact that it's a perfectly viable thing to do on the stereotypical Patchwerk encounter.

[xebtria]

the reason, shield block was macroed to shield slam, was because shield slam did double damage when shield block was up.
now that is gone, and it only comes back with 50% more damage IF you glyph it.
you don't glyph it, you don't need to do that again.
you glyph it, you could do it, but it is not recommended, because shield block uptime is now the crucial thing to focus on. and you don't want to use shield block when you are about to get magical damage or when you not get hit at all.

and honestly, warriors have BASICALLY 6 buttons to manage now. shield slam, revenge, devastate as standard abilities, Shield Block and -Barrier als defensive rage spenders, and taunt. this is the basic skill set. should not be that complicated to manage. everything else is aoe (DR/SW/TC) or offensive rage spenders (HS/Cleave) or some sort of cooldown.

And that stereotypical patchwerk encounter pretty much doesn't exist anymore, so it is recommended to get used to SB/SBarr without macroing them into anything.

[kopcap]

Or perfectly fail if you take anything slightly harder, ie Ultrax.

[preastlake]

Dude.. really? just no, theres no point doing that at all.. Theres plenty of times where it would just be a complete waste of not only rage but shieldblock uptime... If you're that lazy or unable to handle such simple things as to pop shieldblock every 6/9 secs, dont bother with tanking will ya? If its done in an attempt to free brainpower to comprehend other fightmechanics.. Try and tell others to either help you keep track of them or simply handling them alltogether.. There should be NO reason EVER to bind shieldblock to shieldslam, unless you insist on doing a subpar job, in wich i see no point in you even asking in the first place.. Honestly im not trying to sound demeaning or anything but why try to do worse than possible on something you willingly spend time on.. I dont get that..

You obviously did not read my original post. I said CERTAIN FIGHTS, not all. For the most part I do it during trash and heroics, there is no way in hell I am doing that on a raid boss. And now with how easy it is to change around glyphs and specs I am continually changing my buttons around for each encounter.

No I am not the best warrior on the forefront of raiding, but I feel I am above average. This thread is to give information to prot warriors wanting to learn how to be better. Someone is going to come along and ask that question and it will be already answered for them but thank you for making them feel like a huge dumb ass for thinking that could even be viable.

And thank you for showing them how close minded, elitist people can be.

[Deleted]

This is what DS, ER/IV and SBar are for.

Not quite. Eternal is clearly ahead on TDR by almost two fold. Regarding burst. Instanenously - yes, obv Austere is ahead on full hits. However, having Austere also means you are going to be lower on entering the "no SB" streak. Which will be very evident on sims when they come out.

But beyond the point. You should be pooling SB for high burst scenarios and only letting it fall off when its quite. There are always minor CDs available if you screwed up. So if you really want to max out DR "when it matters", Eternal is an easy choice as long as the damage you are attempting to reduce is blockable.

We had a discussion over this last night. Basically mastery is most likely a random enchant because it is missing "the highest stat will always be chosen" as it does on Apparatus and Steel.

I still stand by my first post, Kop. All that doesn't change the fact that Austere will still be better against a burst of damage, especially if you take into account the extra Stamina it provides. You can't just ignore it. And we both agree that damage burst is what we try to avoid in most cases (after we've reached the EHP requirement for the fight, obviously).

That 324 stamina is certainly not DR, but it's still a great deal of survivability, when compared to 432 Dodge rating.

Furthermore, in my opinion, the extra DR that Eternal may provide is insignificant if it is not applicable in stressful situations, during SB downtime thus. Because being able to reduce an extra 0.5% damage on an attack that has already been reduced by some 30/60% (through blocking), simply won't be as helpful, as reducing this same 0.5% when that attack fully hits you.
And having an extra 1% health from that Austere stamina, is again much more helpful when you get fully hit, not some minor 0.5% Dodge increase when you're already blocking everything.

---------- Post added 2012-09-07 at 01:18 PM ----------

Strength enchant will be the default choice for warriors. It is about 50 rating lower than dodge one, but it provides more DPS, bigger SBars and more HtL procs.

I'm adding the Strength Enchantment, as it's indeed a valid choice.

---------- Post added 2012-09-07 at 09:29 PM ----------

New Vengeance/Shield Barrier add-on added!

[Gum]

Someone is going to come along and ask that question and it will be already answered for them but thank you for making them feel like a huge dumb ass for thinking that could even be viable.

And thank you for showing them how close minded, elitist people can be.

Youre welcome. Trying to be as good as one can be has nothing to do with being elitist, its mearly not wanting to settle for less than you can achieve.

And no Thylacine, its not a good idea on a patchwerk encounter either. It will never be better to mindlessly bind something together than manually do it, unless you arent yourself able to handle it. Thats skillcap for you, while it might not be a huge difference, its there. Saying its perfectly viable, is like saying playing a spec doing 5% less dps than another spec available to you. Yes .. you can do that, but why would you? Im not saying its wrong to start out somewhere, then working towards the goal of mastering the concept of pressing buttons when accordingly instead of mindlessly.. But Giving the false impression that its "The way" or anywhere near close to "the way" of doing it, shouldnt be condoned.

Also the arguement for having spells bound to others in macros for less than raiding, HCs/scenarios ect. i can fully understand, while i would say its a perfectly viable place to learn the craft, others like, i assume you preast, like to you mindlessly get it over with, having to focus on as little as possible, because youre already past the point of needing to learn/master it. If you personally is comfortable doing it? Spreading the idea in a thread where, as you say so yourself, new warriors come to learn from the expirienced ones, wouldnt make much sense to me. No instead you should focus your attention towards helping them achieve the mindset that you have already.. Its like when you learn basic math - Yes you can use a calculator for a 2+5=x . But teaching the new warrior tanks to do it without the calculator is much more rewarding, then later they will by themselves be able to tell when its "okay" to slack and use the calculator and when its not. Thats how we gain a more usefull playerbase - atleast thats how i picture it, So yea, im sorry that you got butthurt over the fact that i dont think its a brilliant idea to allow slacking without knowing the consequences of the slacking - new players wont... But thats really your own problem not mine.

And thank you for showing how ridiculous some act when being opposed.

[Deleted]

Thanks for the guide, extremely detailed, everything looks top notch and will definitely help a damn lot of Warriors in MOP

Just a question however; Has there been any theorycrafting done on Weapon Enchants? Colossus VS River's Song?

Naturally Colossus would be better for a Pure Magic damage fight, and River's Song for a Pure Melee. But what about the 'Average' fight? Colossus was proccing alot on the Beta, but still a 7.5k Absorb is extremely weak when you have 300k+ HP. Will it end up just kind of being like a Mending VS Windwalk situation, where you could use it, but RS is just way stronger?

I only ask because Mongoose is definitely my favourite looking enchant in the game, and it would be bloody nice if Colossus was comparable to RS so we could use the 'Mongoose-Esque' enchant

Glad you liked it!

I haven't seen any TC on enchantments. But I'd definitely go for either Colossus or Dancing Steel. The first will naturally have more usefulness on magic encounters, while the second one will provide a tad less avoidance than River's Song (some 50/100 Rating => 0.1% avoidance), but will still improve Shield Barrier/DPS by a non-negligible factor.

[Deleted]

Well, you have this old piece of data to look at enchantments:

River's Song: 2PPM on melee attacks that land, or are dodged, or parried. (1650 dodge, last 7 seconds)
Dancing Steel: 1PPM on melee attacks that land. (1650 str, last 12 seconds)
Colossus: 3PPM on melee attacks that land, or are dodged, or parried, with a 3-second cooldown. (Absorb 8000 for 10 seconds, was upped from 7500)
Windsong: 1PPM on melee damage, or non-periodic spell damage/healing, with a 1-second cooldown. (Last 12 seconds, +1500 haste, crit or mastery. They are random, and can be up at the same time).

So... careless maths says that even if you are expertise soft-capped, River's song will have like +25% uptime than Dancing Steel. The math behind ~50 rating of difference mentioned early was solid and had into account the expertise thing that favors both River's song and Colossus?

[Deleted]

Expertise and Hit wouldn't be a factor here. Even if you had 0 threat stat, you'd still get your 1PPM every minute, since 77.5% of your attacks would still be hitting (unless the proc chance is so low - what is that proc chance by the way?).

Furthermore, 7*2 = 14. 14-12 = 2. 2 = 16.7% of 12.

So in fact, River's song will have about 16.7% more uptime than Dancing Steel (if you don't get two overlaying procs that is), not 25%.

And indeed, it's still not nothing, but the reason why one would still prefer Dancing Steel is simply because River will only provide about 0.1% extra avoidance, while Dancing provides an extra 3200 AP, which does increase Shield Barrier's effectiveness by (6400*1.05)/10 Absorption per 60 Rage (if I'm not missing anything) - in addition of increasing your DPS.

Even at 500K HP, this still remains more appreciable than 0.1% avoidance, in most cases.

[Deleted]

The proc chance is adjusted for your attack speed, that's where the PPM comes from. If you are using a 2.6 swing weapon, a 1 PPM enchant have a 2.6/60 chance to proc. So you have a 4.3333% chance to proc it in each hit, without any ICD, which will average to 1 proc per minute. With a 3.5 you would get 3.5/60 a 5.833% chance to proc. If you miss attacks, the average of procs per minute will get lower since the chance to proc on hit does not get adjusted. If you were to miss 50% of attacks, you will get 0.5ppm of a 1ppm enchant.

The rough math then came from (2*7secs each minute/(12*0.925 secs each minute)).

In the end str increases SBar value for 0.2*1650=660 absorb @60 rage on each proc.

Well... we are looking at very low increases anyway. But beware not hit/expertise capped tanks.

[Deleted]

The proc chance is adjusted for your attack speed, that's where the PPM comes from. If you are using a 2.6 swing weapon, a 1 PPM enchant have a 2.6/60 chance to proc. So you have a 4.3333% chance to proc it in each hit, without any ICD, which will average to 1 proc per minute. With a 3.5 you would get 3.5/60 a 5.833% chance to proc.

I see. Are you sure of this ? Because if there's no any internal cooldown, then it's all based on how lucky you get, really. Yes it's unlikely, you reach a 40+ sec active time in a single minute, but it can still happen from time to time. Talking about a 1 or 2 procs per minute then becomes very insignificant.

In comparison, when we say a trinket has a 1 PPM, it means it has an internal cooldown of 1 minute, making it impossible to proc more than once every minute. But on the other hand, its proc chance is often so high that unless you remain totally passive, it WILL proc that on time in a minute. I thought it was the same here.

If you miss attacks, the average of procs per minute will get lower since the chance to proc on hit does not get adjusted. If you were to miss 50% of attacks, you will get 0.5ppm of a 1ppm enchant.

Indeed. If it's working this way, then you'll get on average less procs with Dancing Steel, if you're not Hit&Expertise capped.

---------- Post added 2012-09-08 at 04:20 PM ----------

I really haven't seen any TC on this, so I can't say for sure how the proc mechanics is actually working. Do you perhaps have a link to some calculations on this?

[Viin]

I've been using Dragon's Roar instead of Shockwave and I can say I find it much more useful than shockwave, in the sense that everything dies faster and I don't really take damage anyways.

Also, You should post this on the official forums and get it stickied.
EDIT: added stuff