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

[idefiler6]

How are you finding the ease of use of ER? Do you have to pop zerker to enrage or do you spend the rage? I'm going to do some of my own testing Sunday when we go back in. I had been doing SW exclusively and soloing heroic end bosses when the group failed and all died. It's OP if the damage is low enough but I'm not seeing the benefit when I drop low in a raid, so either ER or IV will most likely be my go-to.

[Deleted]

How are you finding the ease of use of ER? Do you have to pop zerker to enrage or do you spend the rage? I'm going to do some of my own testing Sunday when we go back in. I had been doing SW exclusively and soloing heroic end bosses when the group failed and all died. It's OP if the damage is low enough but I'm not seeing the benefit when I drop low in a raid, so either ER or IV will most likely be my go-to.

Good question, i mean i felt that i had enough rage to kind of squeeze it in between two shield block's assuming a sword and board proc or two. Otherwise i tend to know when i want to use it so i made sure to hold on to berserker rage for a little longer. It wasn't an issue at all to me, but i do kind of recommend hit and expertise capped with enrage regeneration to minimize the shield block downtime had you used it at full cost.

[Pua]

I still feel Second Wind is the better choice, Tek, purely because it's free and actually has a larger activation time than I thought on Stone Guard (only boss I've worked on so far). I'm totally willing to accept that Enraged Regeneration isn't bad, though, assuming you're willing to hang onto Berserker Rage.

Seriously, I just wish they'd dish out Blood Craze class wide and come up with something else in tier 2 entirely. If they insist in our self-heals being so weak in comparison to every other tank, just take the tier out and give us something better entirely.

[Morgromir]

Why would you list TC as a free attack, when it costs 20 rage? While its imperative that the debuff is constant, it doesnt really fit in that box now does it -

Unless something has changed and i missed it, shouldnt we place it down in ragespenders?

Once you pick prot specialisation it has no rage cost anymore

[Deleted]

I still feel Second Wind is the better choice, Tek, purely because it's free and actually has a larger activation time than I thought on Stone Guard (only boss I've worked on so far). I'm totally willing to accept that Enraged Regeneration isn't bad, though, assuming you're willing to hang onto Berserker Rage.

Seriously, I just wish they'd dish out Blood Craze class wide and come up with something else in tier 2 entirely. If they insist in our self-heals being so weak in comparison to every other tank, just take the tier out and give us something better entirely.

Well that depends entirely on what healers you are playing with. I don't think there was a single moment were i dropped below 35% long enough for it to even tick. And if i did it was probably already a wipe. In short i find second wind of no use at this point, and between IV and ER i feel that ER can actually save you or serve like some kind of proactive minor cooldown. If you find use for Second Wind then great, it's much nicer to sometimes have something passively work as well or better than another button on your bars.

And holding on to Berserker Rage once every minute is actually kind of easy, and it's not like you're sacrificing a noticeable amount of survivability by delaying it for a bit.

[Pua]

Well that depends entirely on what healers you are playing with. I don't think there was a single moment were i dropped below 35% long enough for it to even tick. And if i did it was probably already a wipe. In short i find second wind of no use at this point, and between IV and ER i feel that ER can actually save you or serve like some kind of proactive minor cooldown. If you find use for Second Wind then great, it's much nicer to sometimes have something passively work as well or better than another button on your bars.

And holding on to Berserker Rage once every minute is actually kind of easy, and it's not like you're sacrificing a noticeable amount of survivability by delaying it for a bit.

Fair shout - I might find that when my healers are more geared/accomplished, I'll notice a difference.

[idefiler6]

Once you pick prot specialisation it has no rage cost anymore

This was answered the day it was asked on the first page of posts. Is it really necessary to reply to it now?

[xebtria]

has anyone else noticed that Shield Barrier seems to not scale with AP anymore? I only absorb 50520 dmg when I pop it at 60 rage, and it doesn't matter if I have 4k, 6k or 30k ap via vengeance...

question is now, is this a bug or is this an intended nerf?

[idefiler6]

105k right now...on non quest mobs.

[xebtria]

well, I tried some things. I looked manually during a dungeon. I had vengeance add 18k AP, 20k and 21k AP, and at all times I had exactly 55570 from absorb shield.
then I headed into s boss fight (2nd in mogu'shan palace). Vengeance added 31k. at one time, SB absorbed 58824. next time, again +31k from vengeance, SB absorbed 64775. after boss was dead, one of his minions still alive, I was back at 20k AP and 55570 Absorb.

then I did some dummy testing.

completely unbuffed:


60 Rage, no further buffs, no procs:


60 Rage, Battle shout:


60 Rage, Commanding Shout



And at all times, the shield absorbed 50520 dmg. I would at least expect with battle shout (you see the AP increase in the char screen), that the barrier goes up ... a bit.
Considering, even with 17k AP I get a 50k shield, I dare to say, that with 31k extra AP via vengeance (=48k total), the shield should be a bit bigger then 64k.

some weird stuff is going on, and considering today's raid, I'm really concerned, that this will not turn out well. because in a raid environment, even 10 man non hc, a 60k absorb shield is nothing. If that continues to be the case, I'm going to be a happy shield block pressing tank once more, even if 70% of incoming damage is bleeding or magical.


I already created a ticket, but waiting time is 7d11h, so I don't expect any serious answer. tbh, I rather a silent fix during next week's maintenance, and if that happens, my ticket will still be open.

[Deleted]

Your shield barrier is either your stamina*2.5 or 2*AP via vengeance (more or less). If you have 18k, 20 or 21k AP yor shield barrier absorb is coming from your stamina, that's why it don't change.

For example, I have 23224 sta unbuffed. My SBar will be of 58060 minimum. Once I reach 29k AP via vengeance, my SBar start to get higher. Until then, is my stamina the one giving the minimum, and having 10k or 20k AP from vengeance don't do anything to it.

PD: After a couple of weeks of raids, I'm loving protection warrior, and tanking Mogu'san Vaults. It's 10 years ahead of what cata was for tanking, specially DS. Having >8< CDs to use (trinket, healthstone, demo, shield block, demo banner, shield wall, enraged regen, last stand, rallying), some for everyday mitigation, others for big shit incoming, others for emergencies, plus avatar and reck, and using the rage and rotation for useful things (both as dps and mitigation)... A shout out for blizzard for this one. And thanks for will of the emperor, I love to have a tunnel vision boss for tanks and this one it's really good at it.

[xebtria]

Your shield barrier is either your stamina*2.5 or 2*AP via vengeance (more or less). If you have 18k, 20 or 21k AP yor shield barrier absorb is coming from your stamina, that's why it don't change.

For example, I have 23224 sta unbuffed. My SBar will be of 58060 minimum. Once I reach 29k AP via vengeance, my SBar start to get higher. Until then, is my stamina the one giving the minimum, and having 10k or 20k AP from vengeance don't do anything to it.

hm ok.. so I have 20208 stamina, which times 2.5 is 50520, which explains the shield so far.
so now I have to get approx. 25k AP (from vengeance), until it starts to get higher?

I just saw, that I failed at the picture with commanding shout - I had still battleshout there. did commanding shout, about 2k more stam, and therefore about 5k more shield (that 55570 from the previous post). It all starts to make sense now

the last question I have now is:
well, my stamina is at 22228 with buff, therefore my barrier is 55570. that now tells me, that I need approx 27.7k AP from vengeance to actually increase my barrier's strength further. Now... IF that then happens, I hope that the strength of the shield then is determined by the TOTAL attackpower, not by the AP from vengeance only, am I right on that one?

[Deleted]

No, the actual formula is 2*(AP-str*2), so the AP that counts towards the Sbar is only the one that comes from vengeance (and the 10% AP of strength you get from Battle Shout). That's one other reason for don't seeing anything while trying it on dummies (the main one being that I don't think that you have gotten enough AP to surpass the contribution of stamina).

[Puntr]

Doing some quick math using the values from your armoury (Stam = 20208 and Str = 8542)

SBar = max(2*(eAP-(Str*2)), Stam*2.5)

so

Stam*2.5 = 50520

now we want

2*(eAP-(Str*2)) > 50520

since we want to have a shield > 50520 we are going to add 1 to 50520

2*(eAP-(Str*2)) = 50521
2(eAP) - 4(Str) = 50521
2(eAP) - 17084 = 50521
2(eAP) = 50521 - 17084
2(eAP) = 67605
eAP = 67605/2
eAP = 33802.5

so you need an effective AP of 33802.5 to surpass the shield amount of Stam*2.5

my math might be off a bit but you get the idea

[tzadikx]

nice guide

[Odina]

No, it is missing because it is a cone, it doesnt cover the entire area and the cone distance isnt that far. You are assuming all your shockwaves are hitting all the targets in your 5mans, and i doubt they are. We all used SW for years and we all have seen it missing targets because of the cone shape.
Even if you aoe silence casters, many trash packs have mobs that simply hit from a higher distance or are archer mobs.
.

Perhaps it's because I played a mage for so long before swappign to war and jump strafing COC was a way of life for me but I find SW easy to use. If you can't hit all the targets in a trash pull with SW I must ask... are you strafing or do you just charge in TC hit SW and go "ability sucks didn't hit everything!". I mean it takes a touch more setup than dragon roar to hit everythign but really whats so hard about charge, start to strafe and hit TC then turn fase all the adds comming after you mad as hell in a cluster and SW? Used like this I have a group stun every 30 seconds that totaly rocks for chain pulling and can do it twice as much as DR! For 5 mans SW is win/win while DR is Win/wait30 more seconds +knock adds back .

[susanmiller2012]

Hi there,
Indeed, choosing between ER and IV can sure be a bit tricky. I haven't seen any encounter that clearly benefits one more than the other, though.

With that said, many people don't value the additional HoT form Enraged Regeneration, as they consider it to be too low... you won't find any more specific reason than that however, ; )
Whereas others, I included, find it to be high enough to actually matter as a panic button, or to support another defensive CD with the 5 sec HoT.

ER sure needs you to be Enrage, as spending 60 Rage on it, is absolutely out of the question in most cases. But that isn't really an issue, with a proper use of Shield Block, you'll be enrage often enough. And Berserker Rage can also be kept aside for it, if you'll be using it soon.

IV usage restrictions aren't negligible neither. e.g.: you'll always need some Rage to use it, and if for some reason you can't be in melee range, because of an AoE on the ground, or you're kiting, or whatever, it automatically becomes unusable. And the fact that it requires a GCD can also be annoying in a moment of stress.

With that said, it also has a shorter CD, and thus can be use twice as much, which will surely have some benefit when frequent self-healing really matter.
ER is really best used as a panic Button, thus, while IV will be more interesting if your personal self-healing really matters frequently. But yeah, the difference isn't much at all.

Simply mind blowing stuff here.. am just eager to explore this asap.. thanks a heap!

[shadowkras]

Perhaps it's because I played a mage for so long before swappign to war and jump strafing COC was a way of life for me but I find SW easy to use. If you can't hit all the targets in a trash pull with SW I must ask... are you strafing or do you just charge in TC hit SW and go "ability sucks didn't hit everything!". I mean it takes a touch more setup than dragon roar to hit everythign but really whats so hard about charge, start to strafe and hit TC then turn fase all the adds comming after you mad as hell in a cluster and SW? Used like this I have a group stun every 30 seconds that totaly rocks for chain pulling and can do it twice as much as DR! For 5 mans SW is win/win while DR is Win/wait30 more seconds +knock adds back

Nowhere i said "im having problems with shockwave", though people are eager to assume so.
I was pointing out the major issue with the skill and mentioned the facts that it HAS missed mobs and will miss mobs regardless of what people come here and brag about being the best warriors in the world (of warcraft).

Its not the player skill being discussed, its the ability. It is obvious that if you have the time to turn around, line up all melee mobs then shockwave, it will never miss.
But things arent always like that. There have been numberous raid situations where you couldnt line up all mobs to stun them with shockwave (nor situations where they can be stunned).
I want to see all these badass warriors stun all mobs when there is a stream of adds spawning from different corners or some of them are ranged and cant be silenced.

Currently im going with 2 prot specs, one has dragon roar and the other has shockwave.
I feel twice as more confortable grabbing adds with dragonroar than i am with shockwave, and iv used it for years. It just feels clunky now, i have to line things up in order to damage them and it feels like time wasted. But oh well, the stun is still very handy.

Discussing of which is better feels as smart as discussing apples vs oranges.

[idefiler6]

There is no need for 2 prot specs ever anymore. You can now change talents while in a raid.

[FuriousG]

<snip>
I feel twice as more confortable grabbing adds with dragonroar than i am with shockwave, and iv used it for years. It just feels clunky now, i have to line things up in order to damage them and it feels like time wasted. But oh well, the stun is still very handy.

Discussing of which is better feels as smart as discussing apples vs oranges.

Have they fixed the lack of threat generated from Dragon Roar? I had heard earlier that it was not adding anything to the threat table..never actually used it myself as Prot