[5.4] Protection Warrior

[Deleted]

Thok's is amazing and should be considered for all situations and scales very nicely with vengeance

Juggernauts trinket is also extremely potent DPS-wise coming in second to Skeers when reforged to parry when playing at ~300k Vengeance.
As for its survivability value, I believe its true potency will be in 10m where you aren't getting spam healed as much although the heal isn't truly groundbreaking.

There is one fight however where it shines extremely brightly and that is Malkorok on HC, when using this in 25hc I am usually top on my healing taken at around 60% making it extremely potent at keeping the shield up

[Valdayne]

Thanks for the responses, I'll probably go IJ+Thok. Also I should have mention that we're 10 man with a rdruid and disc priest healer.

[Deleted]

Hello guys,
it's been quite a while, almost half a year I'm still not best friend with Nat Pagle and today i've tried to catch up and read through the last few pages but with all the recent beef it's hard to get a full grasp of what's going on on the regular tanking stuff nowadays if anything.

I want to get back into tank business and got a nice opportunity: my first 25m heroic raid since early T11 days. I still remember most fights from a 10m heroic perspective but this will be a "20m mythic combined two raids thingy" ™ where nobody has a really good idea of what's really different and important. Anybody willing to give me a few pointers? I don't expect us to clear the whole thing this week, maybe somewhat like 10-12 bosses.

1. Giving Gliff's armory i assume avoid is viable for 25m, but is it as good for "semi-progression" for a somewhat unexperienced tank? I've really no idea what melee swings might come at me and our team will most likely sit at ilvl 565-575 so pushing for enrage shouldn't be an issue. So here's the thing: i could reach 19.500 mastery rather easily and grab 4 piece down the road, trading 16.000 avoidance and 1.000 stamina for that (20k-ish health). But that's approximately -20% crit chance & -14% avoidance.
2. Can we duo tank Malkorok during Battle Rage with glyphed shield wall + protector trinket and multiple sacrifice/barkskins or does our whole raid have to play the regulary mechanics? We'll have no monk tank present, most likely warrior & guardian, maybe a prot paladin and/or blood dk mixed in but not to sure about that.
3. Any fight where we can bring third tank to make things easier? Thinking of Shamans (seperating both bosses, leaving each team with half the abilities to deal with), Nazgrim for easier add handling and what's about Norushen? Will there be multiple big add spawns at once? If so how many?
4. Any other fight that changes drastically from the different raidsize? I'd imagine quite some fun on Sha of Pride with many more prisons, a barrage of rifts and several pac man runs at once.
5. What's with Thok? After Klaxxi that's probably the fight i'm most afraid of, is solo tanking a solid option for 25m or should we just bring at least two tanks due to the risk of getting globaled? Is it even possible to handle him with a mastery build, maybe lacking the crucial rage gen to spam barrier nonstop? At least on 10m i remember to stepping away from casting shield block altogether after 6-8 stacks and just sticking to barrier because i couldn't block his roar.
6. Is there any fight at all where i could make real use of the cooldown reduction of the malkorok trinket? I remember it was somewhat handy on Siegecrafter but after picking up a reasonable dps trinket i never looked back (i always used Juggernaut, having some sort of selfheal besides 2p and ER every other minute just felt good), handling the robots more realiable was just better. Oh and speaking of Siegecrafter, we used something like 3/1, 4/3, 5/4, 0/5, rinse and repeat on the stacks including a cloak procc IIRC - is that possible/useful/okay as well on 25m? Do the robots have more healthpoints and do we need our rdps to swap to them during 'Death from Above'? I've been running with Dragon Roar + Stormbolt, utilising a sawblade + skullbanner/reck on lower stacks which regulary sealed the deal with a combo of stormbolt while charging in + shield block/shield slam + dragon roar during the weakened phase.

Please remember we'll be somewhat competent but yet still mostly unexperienced in regard of handling 25m version so i'd like to reduce the hassle of tank death/tanking issues to a minimum instead of min/maxing, guaranteeing a smooth run on our side.

Last but not least a shoutout to the guys still sticking around and the ones lost down the road

[Promdates]

1) Avoidance is pretty much the way to go. The benefits you gain from that outweight the benefits from mastery. Not to mention, you will personally do more damage via crits, and gain more rage from those crits.

2) It's easy to solo tank Malkorok's blood rage by yourself. I did it by getting outside Vigilance, Hand of Sacrifice, Pain Suppression and using Shield Wall and Rook's trinket (if you don't have Rook's trinket, you're going to have to use more outside CD's to survive it.) Duo tanking it, just means having to use more cooldowns on the two tanks instead of just chaining them on one.

3) Shaman and Nazgrim are two fights that 3 tanking isn't an issue. Most people 3 tank shaman because it makes it considerably easier. We personally 3 tank Norushen as well and rotate between downstairs/boss/add control. It's not "optimal" but it works for us.

4) Siegecrafter and Paragons are the two big ones that come to mind as far as difficulty from raid size. Apparently Siegecrafter is easier on 25 than 10, while Paragons is the direct opposite.

5) Two tank Thok on 25H, there's no reason to single tank it unless you're a monk with high mastery and 4p.

6) The trinket allows you to use your abilities more often per fight, which is helpful on every fight. There's no one fight that screams USE THIS TRINKET HERE. Bots have more HP on siegecrafter, and I believe most 25H teams do a 6/7 stack rotation. You can find the guide for it on these forums, maybe a page or two down.

[Deleted]

1. Giving Gliff's armory i assume avoid is viable for 25m, but is it as good for "semi-progression" for a somewhat unexperienced tank? I've really no idea what melee swings might come at me and our team will most likely sit at ilvl 565-575 so pushing for enrage shouldn't be an issue. So here's the thing: i could reach 19.500 mastery rather easily and grab 4 piece down the road, trading 16.000 avoidance and 1.000 stamina for that (20k-ish health). But that's approximately -20% crit chance & -14% avoidance.
2. Can we duo tank Malkorok during Battle Rage with glyphed shield wall + protector trinket and multiple sacrifice/barkskins or does our whole raid have to play the regulary mechanics? We'll have no monk tank present, most likely warrior & guardian, maybe a prot paladin and/or blood dk mixed in but not to sure about that.
3. Any fight where we can bring third tank to make things easier? Thinking of Shamans (seperating both bosses, leaving each team with half the abilities to deal with), Nazgrim for easier add handling and what's about Norushen? Will there be multiple big add spawns at once? If so how many?
4. Any other fight that changes drastically from the different raidsize? I'd imagine quite some fun on Sha of Pride with many more prisons, a barrage of rifts and several pac man runs at once.
5. What's with Thok? After Klaxxi that's probably the fight i'm most afraid of, is solo tanking a solid option for 25m or should we just bring at least two tanks due to the risk of getting globaled? Is it even possible to handle him with a mastery build, maybe lacking the crucial rage gen to spam barrier nonstop? At least on 10m i remember to stepping away from casting shield block altogether after 6-8 stacks and just sticking to barrier because i couldn't block his roar.
6. Is there any fight at all where i could make real use of the cooldown reduction of the malkorok trinket? I remember it was somewhat handy on Siegecrafter but after picking up a reasonable dps trinket i never looked back (i always used Juggernaut, having some sort of selfheal besides 2p and ER every other minute just felt good), handling the robots more realiable was just better. Oh and speaking of Siegecrafter, we used something like 3/1, 4/3, 5/4, 0/5, rinse and repeat on the stacks including a cloak procc IIRC - is that possible/useful/okay as well on 25m? Do the robots have more healthpoints and do we need our rdps to swap to them during 'Death from Above'? I've been running with Dragon Roar + Stormbolt, utilising a sawblade + skullbanner/reck on lower stacks which regulary sealed the deal with a combo of stormbolt while charging in + shield block/shield slam + dragon roar during the weakened phase.

1. Avoidance is king. Good deeps, always mitigation on hand due to the massive rage gain.

2. You can solo tank it with the rook trinket. If you do not have it it is harder but doable as long as you have a shit ton of CD's.

3. 3 Tanks on Garrosh and Shamans helped us in 25man. Don't like the 3 tanking on Garrosh but the DPS check is not tight at all on 25man (neither is it on 10man after the nerf) so safety first I guess.

4. Not really. Your damage is fucking bonkers on paragons (think 750k+ dps) but other than that the mechanics are still the same, difference being you have a billion cooldowns to call for rather than 1 or 2.

5. 2 tanking it is a good idea but you can 1 tank it. We 2tank mostly for consistent positioning.

6.

Warrior - other tanks
1 - 0
2 - 0
3 - 0
Shredder spawns
3 - 1
3 - 2
4 - 2
5 - 2
Shredder spawns
5 - 3
5 - 4
6 - 4
Shredder spawns
6 - 5
6 - 6
0 - 7
Shredder spawns
1 - 0
2 - 0
3 - 0
4 - 0
Shredder spawns
4 - 1
4 - 2
5 - 3

and so on.

I never saw the need for storm bolt personally and I currently hold the rank 1 on 10man by a fair bit. But do whatever brings the shredder down comfortably.

[Odina]

WB Kalus!!!

1) Avoidance has been a godsend and the dps we can do with riposte = happy war! We swapped from a 10 man to a 25 man while we were progressing on Garosh N so I got to experience all the Heroics I have done as 25 man progress and avoidance was just fine for all of them!

2) We are currently working on mal and to be honest solo tanking him seems to be the easiest part of the fight as all you need to do is ensure you the tank has rooks and then coordinate CD's on the one tank. The meat and potatoes of getting that fight down seems to be everything else :P

3) We 3 tank the following :
-Norushen : The increase in adds from 10 man to 25 man while keeping the same amount of tanks in both threw us off at first so having a dedicated "add tank" from a dps war that went prot for the fight turned it into a joke.
-Shamans : for obvious reasons... 2 tanks up 1 tanki running around kill kill kill!
-Nazgrim again 2 on boss one on adds just cleans it up!

4) So far not much has really changed for the fights I have done be it 10 or 25 man from a tank pov!

5)Not there yet

6) I like the trinket but as things come to be more on farm I just swap out for a dps trinket... I find it useful for "o shit" moments that tend to happen more during progress but once that is out of the way back to the bags it goes!

7) Once again welcome back

[Alonzo33]

Thok's is amazing and should be considered for all situations and scales very nicely with vengeance

Juggernauts trinket is also extremely potent DPS-wise coming in second to Skeers when reforged to parry when playing at ~300k Vengeance.
As for its survivability value, I believe its true potency will be in 10m where you aren't getting spam healed as much although the heal isn't truly groundbreaking.

There is one fight however where it shines extremely brightly and that is Malkorok on HC, when using this in 25hc I am usually top on my healing taken at around 60% making it extremely potent at keeping the shield up

i think that Thok's is the worst when u talk about defensive value.
skeer's is better because u benefit both from proc and static state defensivly unlike thok's one

[Deleted]

i think that Thok's is the worst when u talk about defensive value.
skeer's is better because u benefit both from proc and static state defensivly unlike thok's one

Eddy is always focused on dps side of things, but dont forget it still has a strength proc(hc upgraded) which is about 10% parry for me. More rev procs, more rage, more htl. I'm guessing skeers is better for survival, but not by miles. Honestly never gave it any thought.

[Deleted]

Of all of them I would have to say that Thok's is the weakest defensively. However when you balance things out, the sheer amount of DPS that it brings tends to make up for that tradeoff

[Sal the Shieldhog]

So I'm going to be coming back to WoW soon, and I've started to look for guilds (primarily Alliance, since I'd rather play that than Horde).

I'd prefer to tank, but I can DPS. The problem is, when I left I was only 1/14H (stopped in early October, due to real life issues, with a brief week or two in early December), and I don't think any guild would take me, considering my gear wasn't much (~548 Prot, ~562 DPS). I'm capable enough in both specs, I feel; I was leading the guild I was in at the time on normal Garrosh progression (in both 10 and 25, and at the time I had ~535 ilevel), but I don't have many logs to prove myself, and I wish to get back into capable raiding ASAP.

Do you guys have any tips for me? As it were, my plan was to come back, get some logs of myself tanking or DPSing and get back into the game a bit (probably a bit rusty), and then apply to the various guilds I've been looking at.

I'm not sure if anything major has changed since I left, but my character armory is http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...smash/advanced

I was focusing mainly on the avoidance route, because it's awesome. So many Revenges and huge Rage gen. As it was, I was hemming mainly for Dodge/Parry for yellow/red sockets and exp/stam or stam gems in blue sockets of I was under the cap (I was doing 25s, the other tanks I figured it'd be better to get more health than more avoidance just in case; although considering the gear the healers are likely to have, I can probably switch those out for more avoidance, even in 25s).

I, unfortunately, only have 1 piece of tier, so I don't have the 2 piece set bonus to back myself up with healing. Hopefully I can get a piece ASAP when I get back in so that'll bolster me further. I still have quite a few pieces of ToT gear, so I need to replace those ASAP; most of the SoO gear I have is mainly avoidance though, so I'm happy about that.

About trinkets: I have those 2 on the armory for tanking, and I have the normal Galakras and Thok's for my DPS specs. Would those be useful, or should I just mainly focus on getting my survivability up before I shift focus to more on damage? I'm using the ToT trinket because, before that, I had some T14 trinket that was stamina and mastery. I needed expertise, so I just reforged some to parry, and figured the proc would benefit both defensively and offensively due to the parry gain, however minimal it might be. Largest reasoning was still the large amount of expertise, though.

But yeah, that's basically it. Any tips or tricks you guys could give me to help me get back into the game quickly?

[idefiler6]

Your ilevel is fine really. Just apply. I would run flex or LFR to fill in the 2set if you can, though. I think you're too worried about getting denied at the door that you don't even think you should app. I think you should.

As far as armory, put parry gems in your prismatic sockets and get your hit capped.

[Deleted]

Your ilevel is fine really. Just apply. I would run flex or LFR to fill in the 2set if you can, though. I think you're too worried about getting denied at the door that you don't even think you should app. I think you should.

As far as armory, put parry gems in your prismatic sockets and get your hit capped.

What idefiler6 said, I've just been on a recruitment frenzy for the upcoming Mythic (and prolly swapping to 25 untill then at some point -.-) and I've taken in a few people of your experience and gear levels. Aswell as people actually well below it (people without the legendary meta even because they've been away long).

I'm sure there are guilds that wouldn't... but they are out there surely.

[Deleted]

Of all of them I would have to say that Thok's is the weakest defensively. However when you balance things out, the sheer amount of DPS that it brings tends to make up for that tradeoff

So, since we're gearing some rerollers and what not, I got the Flex Thok this raid. I have a normal Skeer at the moment and I asked some guildy (so fuck If I know how to sim, or really care enough to learn) and he couldn't find the Flex Thok... so simmed normal thok vs normal skeer...

And he's coming up with a 1K dps difference... every fiber in my body says that's just flat out wrong but he had the same issue on the HC versions and what not...

Am I just... overestimating how much that Thok trinket should be doing or is my guildy simcrafting wrong (or simcraft just wrong)?

[Khorm]

So, since we're gearing some rerollers and what not, I got the Flex Thok this raid. I have a normal Skeer at the moment and I asked some guildy (so fuck If I know how to sim, or really care enough to learn) and he couldn't find the Flex Thok... so simmed normal thok vs normal skeer...

And he's coming up with a 1K dps difference... every fiber in my body says that's just flat out wrong but he had the same issue on the HC versions and what not...

Am I just... overestimating how much that Thok trinket should be doing or is my guildy simcrafting wrong (or simcraft just wrong)?

Probably right. The majority of DPS that both bring is through the crit, Thok through Amp and Skeer through straight crit chance. Thok is giving you a solid 209% damage each time you crit the entire fight. Skeer has the potential when the proc is active of turning that 100% attack into a 200% through increased crit chance.

[Deleted]

So thanks a lot for your kind words and insight, it was quite helpful. Killed ten bosses in the first night without any issues, finally got rid of my last ToT item and grabbed some warforged stuff down the road. Malkorok was actually easier than on 10m due to the amount of externals, i had two vigilance, two demo banner, four sacrifice and a barkskin at my disposal allowing me to cover the whole phase without really dropping at all.

To be honest i'm kind of shocked about the 10m vs 25m differences because there are basically -none- from a tank pov. With the sheer amount of smart heals there was nobody needed to keep me topped directly. Beacon, earthshield and i was ready to go. The damage intake was noticeable higher so i got somewhat spikey but nobody had to adjust and started to flash, i was topped off in a blink of an eye anyway.

I always wondered about the actual numbers when comparing those fights so i figured i could post them here if anyone else is interested:

(only posting melee swings for obvious reasons, starting with 10m)
immerseus: regulary solo tanked him with a monk, so no comparison possible unless i could manage to find a log from six months back
protectors: 85k vs 120k (tanking he)
norushen: 125k vs 210k
sha of pride: 45k vs 140k
galakras: 120k vs 240k (only last phase)
juggernaut: 160k vs 240k
shamans: 80k vs 90k (both times tanking Haromm, seperated)
nazgrim: 220k vs 320k (but also tanking adds on 10m, so numbers might be screwed)
malkorok: 220k vs 260k (taking way more stacks on 25m, so numbers might be screwed again)
spoils: about 50% more damage intake across the adds
thok: regulary solo tanked him with a monk, so no comparison possible
siegecrafter: 240k vs 330k

For Thok: i can see me solo tanking it with some planning ahead (externals for 4th or 5th+ stacks), the additional vengeance should be terrific. But i wanted to play it safe so we played with three stacks and that's about it. As long as you got the kiting down to a clear plan it's not really different to tanking 10m, only with bigger numbers. But i could say that about any fight i've seen this id.

---

I'd like to add on that heated discussion from a few weeks back regarding Siegecrafter and killing a shredder through the heal http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...1#post25072819
I pulled him just to see what might happen, killed first robot on 25m heroic before 4th overload while tanking it on top of the boss without further help (actually the rest of the dps was afk), but i had a 4th stack when Death from Above happened and a ton of vengeance of overcome every part of healing - i didn't even need to pop a stormbolt. Dragon Roar (~8m) + Shield Slam *crit* (~ 7.5m) was almost enough to kill it alone with only 20m health total. That's about twice the damage i dealt on 10m with five stacks but robots there only had 2 million less health before any nerfs. But i can really see him pull this off with all cooldowns on a regular base, ilvl shouldn't really matter for that one, should it?

--

What happened to going for crit instead of avoidance? I remember argueing heavily with someone about that before i left & i saw riposte dropping on quite a few occassions through the fights with no option of getting it back reliable (intervene = 1:2 chance) when there was a lethal tank debuff present. And i talked to another prot warrior, he said that he went for crit after reaching 45% avoidance. Is that just an abitrary number he made up or found somewhere over the internet or is there something about that? Is this just a mind construct about DR? Toying around with AMR i could get my crit up to 25% raidbuffed and still sit at 45% avoidance but this would only put me ~ 5% crit ahead of an avoidance build (after riposte) at the cost of almost 10% total avoidance which adds a lot of direct defense + rage gain.

--

On the trinkets: Skeer's rage gain/burst phase is totally unreliable. There are quite a few occassions when burst is handy and Skeer without the procc is just 5k-ish additional vengeance, a value you should hardly notice if at all - especially on heroic mode and/or 25m. That's why i'd vouch for Thok any day.

But for the simming vs a T16H25 boss dummy with my gear it's shockingly close so we might be totally mistaken here:
Thok: 645.742 dps, 66.576 dtps, 136.261 hps (70.871 aps), 383.4k TMI
Skeer: 646.594 dps, 66.195 dtps, 136.933 hps (71.844 aps), 172.6k TMI

And for T16H10:
Thok: 551.333 dps, 56.318 dtps, 113.595 hps (58335 aps), 1224.6 TMI
Skeer: 551.233 dps, 56.112 dtps, 114.208 hps (59122 aps), 1305.3 TMI

[Deleted]

Any1 tips on 10man HC garrosh p1. The adds seem to fixate like retards.

[Warriorsarri]

The adds on heroic fixate on the person that stands closest to them, meaning if you have 1 person standing closer to them then the rest of your raid, all of them will be on him/her.

[Sal the Shieldhog]

Sorry for not replying for a while!

Thanks to everyone who replied to me ^__^

When I get back, I'm just going to give it a shot and see how it goes. Thanks for the advice

[Deleted]

The adds on heroic fixate on the person that stands closest to them, meaning if you have 1 person standing closer to them then the rest of your raid, all of them will be on him/her.

Yeah but they seem to fixate so randomly I clearly stand next to 3 of them when they come to the middle yet they still fixate to raid members behind me

[Promdates]

Yeah but they seem to fixate so randomly I clearly stand next to 3 of them when they come to the middle yet they still fixate to raid members behind me

I've tried to game it before, and they end up just going to someone else in the raid. We've never been able to consistently get the adds on either of the tanks on every pull.