Prot Warriors in SoD - 5/5/5 talents?

[Grinning Serpent]

Warrior looking to be a little spare with the level 25 cap. But I started with one in 2004 and I'll start with one here, too. I'll be playing Prot like always. Seeming like 5/5/5 is going to be the best way to go, for +5% parry, +5% crit, and then either +5% block or +10 defense with a value point in whatever (since we can charge in defensive stance with a rune, probably 1/2 improved charge?) It's possible to put all points into Protection, getting 5/5 Defiance for extra threat output and with a point leftover for either Improved Shield Block or 1/3 Improved Sunder Armor (since Prot will all be using Devastate rune, probably), but would this be worth losing 5% crit and 5% parry?

[Nyxblow]

Dude, it's level 25, you can use any talent build and you will be just fine.

[Grinning Serpent]

That's not the question I asked. I asked, which do you think will be the most effective? Is the extra threat from Defiance even relevant at such a low level?

[Kathandira]

That's not the question I asked. I asked, which do you think will be the most effective? Is the extra threat from Defiance even relevant at such a low level?

Since Dps will likely forgo their threat reduction skills if they are able to reach them, tanks may want extra threat.

[Ssateneth]

Bro, quit trying to min/max the fun out of the game and do whatever talents you think will be most fun.

[Flozzie]

Lol wtf???

[Vankrys]

I don't think there is enough defense gear at level 25 for warrior and paladin tank to push critical hit of the table.
Rogues, warlocks and druids however have a flat 6% reduction of crit chance against them on their runes. They might be the best tank.

That being said, if you're serious about warrior tanking, you may want to grab Last Stand.

[Grinning Serpent]

I don't think there is enough defense gear at level 25 for warrior and paladin tank to push critical hit of the table.
Rogues, warlocks and druids however have a flat 6% reduction of crit chance against them on their runes. They might be the best tank.

That being said, if you're serious about warrior tanking, you may want to grab Last Stand.

Yeah, I'm hoping that they change something somewhere to give Paladin and Warrior that crit reduction. It seems odd to not give it to them when they give it to the other tank options.

What makes Last Stand attractive? It has such a long cooldown in classic.

[Sydrache]

Yeah, I'm hoping that they change something somewhere to give Paladin and Warrior that crit reduction. It seems odd to not give it to them when they give it to the other tank options.

What makes Last Stand attractive? It has such a long cooldown in classic.

Warriors and paladins wear plate lol. They clearly put this 6% in knowing they will desperately need if at 60. Bear gonna be the new bis tank imo

[Grinning Serpent]

Warriors and paladins wear plate lol. They clearly put this 6% in knowing they will desperately need if at 60. Bear gonna be the new bis tank imo

Not at 25. I guess I'd need to go look at item stats on wowhead, but the armor difference between mail and leather is less than the difference between plate and leather right? I think I remember being around like high 30's to low 40's with mail+shield and like high 40's to low 50's with plate+shield? It's been a *long* time since I played vanilla though.

[ZazuuPriest]

Bro, quit trying to min/max the fun out of the game and do whatever talents you think will be most fun.

perhaps they find having the most useful talents the most fun? not everyone can celebrate mediocrity

[Grinning Serpent]

I tried prot spec early leveling in vanilla classic. Crit/parry are great, but I found that holding threat was damage based at level 25. If you put too much mitigation on(a shield), you don't do enough damage to hold threat, because you don't have the higher tier set of talents to use, along with the lack of defensive itemization.

Sad to say, bears will be the meta tank for level 25. Their mitigation is baked in and can do more damage than a prot warrior in prot gear. There's just not enough talents to get you to a proper "meta" prot warrior at 25. Your tanking will be with a 2-handed weapon, and perhaps a shield for bosses.

Until warriors get Shield Slam(and/or perhaps Devastate rune), you won't be using a prot spec to tank well. You certainly can tank, but it can be unpleasant without 5/5 crit talents, which makes getting the higher tier prot tree talents more difficult. I will admit that Improved Bloodrage is surprisingly good at low levels. It gives you more ways to generate rage, which at low levels and with too much mitigation, you'll never have rage.

EDIT - sorry, added more, you got my theorycrafting juices going!
If you forced me to go prot at level 25, I'd probably choose this:
https://www.wowhead.com/classic/tale...--502300005001

I can see an argument for losing the point in Improved Taunt for Improved Revenge, but only if you're employing a tanking strategy that pulls more mobs than normal onto you, which expects you to have prot gear. Unless they re-do early game itemization, I don't see there being any good prot gear to be worth it, besides a shield. You'll be getting mostly STR/STAM at that level traditionally, which all warrior specs will find useful anyhow. The 5 points in cruelty outweigh the prot benefits of increased threat. Not to mention, this build is atrocious for soloing.

That's not to mention our lack of AOE abilities in defensive stance. Best we get is cleave, and it's 20 rage, which is *rough* to find in a defensive stance(you'll have thunder clap, but it's battle stance only, and without Tactical Mastery it becomes useless). You'll be busy saving up auto-hits to bank the 20 rage to use later, and then a mob peels off you from healer aggro. It's brutal that early, trust me. The only thing saving this build at level 25 is a total re-haul of itemization in classic.

Unfortunate, but them's the breaks. So warriors will probably mostly be using two-handers and letting others do the tanking? It's possible to go pure Fury and get a point of Enrage, which together with Consumed by Rage would give you decent uptime on the effect for Raging Blow spamming (depends on the cost of Raging Blow, I guess. I don't see costs or cooldowns on rune abilities, I guess because there's no datamining available.) So maybe go full Fury, use 2H when it's an option and a shield when necessary, and go Raging Blow/Devastate or Endless Rage/Consumed by Rage? Without knowing rage costs it's hard to guess what the playstyle would be like, but I'm guessing you'd Devastate as needed and otherwise try to pool up to the trigger point and then dump with Raging Blow? But then again, Devastate is *more* than 100% weapon damage, so if you're in a situation where you'd be using a shield, you'd always want to use it over Raging Blow. I read that we'll be able to swap runes around freely, so I guess you'd swap out Devastate for Endless Rage in places where you won't be using a shield and dump Raging Blow for... Flagellation, I guess? if you will be using a shield.

https://www.wowhead.com/classic/tale...001_051k71pa1t as an example. Since we are banking on eating crits anyway, Blood Craze helps with sustain, Improved Demoralizing Shout increases it to -93 AP. Getting an updated rank of Demo at lvl 24 is pretty nice here. Guessing we'd still sit out the big tanking tasks, but it would let us slap on a shield and handle small fry without much trouble. That was a meta build for Warriors in Classic in general, wasn't it? The deep Fury build, where the idea is that you were 80% of a DPS most of the time and you could toss on a shield and be 80% of a tank as needed?

I haven't paid much attention to PvP talk, but might be a decent idea for PvP as well. You'd get Piercing Howl and dump the value point into Unbridled Rage maybe. Pack Warbringer, Victory Rush, and Frenzied Assault. Warriors will need babysitting like always, but that was always the case... getting the Warbringer trait will make them much more capable of staying on people, and Warriors have always had excellent damage output and decent durability in the -19 bracket... they just need a pocket healer, unlike the more popular classes like Rogue and Hunter.