What is prot missing that makes it bad?

[Bullerick]

For example in Mythic+, what are we lacking? Or what abilities/numbers need adjusting? I'm asking because I'm hoping for a nice warning for when I hit level cap and maybe I'll be able to practise a certain build beforehand. Thank you

[Deleted]

Better sustain, smaller gaps in mitigation, a wee bit of utility (Shield Slam dispell) and a community perception

[dwarfeckiy]

When 8.1 hits it's gonna be community perception mostly. And i'd rather not get any sustain due to insignificant dtps prot warrior has compared to tanks that are based on self-sustain.

[ReD-EyeD]

A death grip

[stross01]

For example in Mythic+, what are we lacking? Or what abilities/numbers need adjusting? I'm asking because I'm hoping for a nice warning for when I hit level cap and maybe I'll be able to practise a certain build beforehand. Thank you

There are no alternative builds. You take the same talents as everyone else because there is no other option. Not choosing the cookie cutter talents essentially means you've taken no talent in that row at all because of how little impact they have.

Death Grip, a Spell Reflect that lasts the full duration, a means to heal even the smallest bit of damage, traits that aren't feast or famine (Deafening Crash) > (everything else), removing Demoralizing Shout and Rallying Cry from the global (maybe Avatar), and a scaling mitigation of any kind.

[Meiffert]

There are 2 key design issues currently.

1. Talents
There are (unwanted) talent synergies, which means that some talents work better together. That might seem like a good thing, but what it does in reality is that the Anger Management + Booming Voice + Bolster + Unstoppable Force + Into the Fray is by far the best talent setup, which also makes it the only talent setup.
Then we get balanced with this setup in mind making any other talents unusable.
That is a big issue because in some type of fight you'd really want to play Heavy Repercussions for example (Fetid Devourer), but you can't because all of your other talents and class design is dependent on Anger Management. This heavily cuts down on our options (other tanks can pick favorable talents for different fights making them stronger in those situations).

2. EHP (effective health pool)
We don't take a lot of damage overall, which means we require little external healing. Even though we lack self-healing, we still need less healing from healers than most other tanks.
But the problem is that our damage taken isn't constant. Instead we take very little damage with cooldowns and Shield Block up (especially with some critical blocks, our HP bar literally doesn't move), but then drop by 50 % from a single attack when we don't block and have no cooldowns.
There have been some hotfixes (and more changes coming in 8.1) addressing this issue to be fair by increasing our stamina and passive damage reduction (that works outside of cooldowns/Shield Block), so we should be better at this front.

Unfortunately we were hoping for a bit more deeper changes (at class/spec design level rather than just numbers). One good option could be a new mastery that would work outside of blocking (because we are already "safe enough" when an attack is blocked, critically blocking is just a nice bonus) and redesigning of our talent tree.

For example in Mythic+, what are we lacking?

Compared to the popular tanks in dungeons specifically I'd say the piece of utility that we miss is a repositioning tool (a knockback, grip, or at least a ranged silence/interrupt).

[Toppy]

• Lack of self heals which is the most effective means of mitigation.
• To much reliance on active mitigation to the point that when we don't have a shield block up we take far to much damage; an issue not shared with other tanks.
• Completely none-existant utility for mythic dungeons where utility is king: at most we bring stuns, which other classes can bring, better.
• Lack of sustain damage.
• Complete lack of choice in our talent options
• Our primary magic mitigation not only goes away if it reflects a spell, it's ok at best and not nearly enough.
• Our secondary mitigation is just outright weak, even with it now being off GCD.
• Having to choose between damage or shitty mitigation (revenge vs ignore pain)
• Low HP

[Deleted]

For example in Mythic+, what are we lacking? Or what abilities/numbers need adjusting? I'm asking because I'm hoping for a nice warning for when I hit level cap and maybe I'll be able to practise a certain build beforehand. Thank you

No ranged interrupts(avenger shield, sigil of silence)
No re-positioning tools (grip, massgrip, sigil of chains)

slower and less durable than Brewmaster

[Psidum]

All of the above. In addition I find warrior has good tools for mobs directly in front of it but no real way to deal with mobs at range. This in addition to single charge on thunderclap makes it highly difficult to pull multiple groups and/or string pulls together which is required to time high keys.

Oh and magic damage to warrior tank being the equivalent of salt to a snale ...

[Bullerick]

All of the above. In addition I find warrior has good tools for mobs directly in front of it but no real way to deal with mobs at range. This in addition to single charge on thunderclap makes it highly difficult to pull multiple groups and/or string pulls together which is required to time high keys.

Oh and magic damage to warrior tank being the equivalent of salt to a snale ...

Speaking of magic damage - does Ignore Pain mitigate magic damage? Because in that case it SEEMS like a pretty good mitigation ability. I'm not sure if it doesn't scale well or what's going on but to me it seems like a decent ability.

[Toppy]

Speaking of magic damage - does Ignore Pain mitigate magic damage? Because in that case it SEEMS like a pretty good mitigation ability. I'm not sure if it doesn't scale well or what's going on but to me it seems like a decent ability.

It does it just cant differentiate and gives jack all for protection since blizzard more than halved its effectivness from Legion.

[Termak]

Dont get resources while kiting, lack of range in general compared to many others.

[Toppy]

A simple way of looking at it, is to imagine Warrior as what the framework of a tank would look like. The basics are there, but everyone else gets stuff added to it while Warrior just stays at that baseline.

[stross01]

Speaking of magic damage - does Ignore Pain mitigate magic damage? Because in that case it SEEMS like a pretty good mitigation ability. I'm not sure if it doesn't scale well or what's going on but to me it seems like a decent ability.

My Ignore Pain absorbs 30k at 386 ilvl, 30k dmg prevented from a spell hit is pretty much nothing prevented, especially considering it takes a global to put it up and many globals to generate the rage it took.

Edit: corrected for posterity.

[Deleted]

My Ignore Pain absorbs 30k at 386 ilvl, 50% of it being 15k. 15k dmg prevented from a spell hit is pretty much nothing prevented, especially considering it takes a global to put it up and many globals to generate the rage it took.

And this is exactly why prot warriors are percieved so badly, because players like you.

If you took a time a actually read the thing, you would realise that it absorbs 50% of the incomming damage up to 30k damage absorbed, NOT 15k

Also dunno why you absorb only 30k with 386 ilvl when I can absorb 46k with 379 ilvl

[Anuibus]

And this is exactly why prot warriors are percieved so badly, because players like you.

If you took a time a actually read the thing, you would realise that it absorbs 50% of the incomming damage up to 30k damage absorbed, NOT 15k

Also dunno why you absorb only 30k with 386 ilvl when I can absorb 46k with 379 ilvl

The ilvl of your weapon matters more than one might think. Wowhead has the IP formula as attack power * 3.5, but its actually (Strength + WeaponDPS * 6) * 3.5 * Versatility. Then of course the % increase from mastery, versatility, and battle shout on top of that.

[Keren]

1. Talents
2. EHP (effective health pool)

Compared to the popular tanks in dungeons specifically I'd say the piece of utility that we miss is a repositioning tool (a knockback, grip, or at least a ranged silence/interrupt).

I think these 3 points are pretty good feedback.

[Deleo]

People saying too much damage taken or damage spikes are just wrong. The top 2 mythic+ tanks both take huge spikes and yet they are top tier mythic+ tanks.

DK is up there because itll do insane self healing to the point it is almost self reliant + some utility
DH is there because it has huge utility, mobility and AoE DPS + good enough self reliance/healing
Warrior is not there because it has almost zero utility and zero self reliance despite the fact that it takes much less damage than any of those other tanks

What Im trying to say is you can make warrior ok for mythic+ with small changes. but unless they go through some serious design changes thats all they r gonna be. OK Mythick+ Tanks

[Psidum]

Until they come up with a real solution for magic damage warrior tanks will not have broad viability across dungeons.

I can understand why they are not willing to buff ignore pain. They buffed the equivalent at the end of MOP and as a result we ignored shield block all together and instead focused on absorbs. I don't really like ignore pain but the only alternatives are heals or a % based damage reduction on non blockable damage neither of which they want to give us.

They gave paladins % based damage reduction (including magic) through their mastery plus they can block magic damage and heal, its so crazy that the same developers could look at warrior and paladin and go 'yeah these two classes have a workable model for magic damage' and yet here we are. At the very least they should have ignore pain scale similar to dk/dh heals but only based on non blockable damage, it still wouldn't be great but would be a shit load better than what we have now.

And what is the deal with crit. Two expansions in a row where its a trash stat. You have highly RNG loot you can't control, you open your cache and there is a titanforged crit ring :\. Half the time getting gear is a kick in the nuts. This alone makes gearing my warrior a miserable experience compared to other tanks let alone the imbalance atm.

[stross01]

And this is exactly why prot warriors are percieved so badly, because players like you.

If you took a time a actually read the thing, you would realise that it absorbs 50% of the incomming damage up to 30k damage absorbed, NOT 15k

Also dunno why you absorb only 30k with 386 ilvl when I can absorb 46k with 379 ilvl

You're right. My crusty tired posting was wrong. I will correct it.

However, let me solve the second incredible mystery that will shock everyone: you have an Ignore Pain trait on your chest and likely more mastery and versatility than i do. With Battle Shout and double 385 str trinkets, I'm at 32,578 per Ignore Pain.