The Protection Guide - Cataclysm Edition

[Deleted]

Eh, those two points would be better off spent in diferent areas. Threat is not really an issue and I would personally rather see healers not have to worry about their mana as much.

When I spec for talents that increase my damage, I no longer only think about threat but also my damage output. Enrage timers are quite tight, even more so on heroic difficulty, and tank damage adds to the pile. While you're not suppose to focus on doing damage, it matters that you putout as much as you can.

[Deleted]

Anything more recent than that? I'm sorry but the Soul Reaper example is getting a bit old and even in that content, in ICC, Soul Reaper was pretty much the only good spot to use it and even than only on 25 heroic.

Uhm, lesse. I haven't done Cho'Gall or Nefarian yet, neither do I know anything about which mechanics we'll see in HC modes. I can't think of some brilliant use of it. I guess it's solid to put on the OT on the green phase of Maloriak, on a raid member with low health during Feud on Chimaeron, it has the potential to save someone during Atramede's air phase. But having said that, I don't have Safeguard in my spec atm. I do however eagerly await an encounter to counter with it.

[Deleted]

Uhm, lesse. I haven't done Cho'Gall or Nefarian yet, neither do I know anything about which mechanics we'll see in HC modes. I can't think of some brilliant use of it. I guess it's solid to put on the OT on the green phase of Maloriak, on a raid member with low health during Feud on Chimaeron, it has the potential to save someone during Atramede's air phase. But having said that, I don't have Safeguard in my spec atm. I do however eagerly await an encounter to counter with it.

Kk, I think I will rest my case then

[videotape]

First, wonderful guide. Some changes you might consider:

It might be worth adding that expertise and hit should largely be ignored - or at least taken only incidentally to mitigation stats - at the moment. Sure they buff threat, but threat doesn't need a buff; buff something else instead. I'm raiding with ~2.5% hit and 6 expertise right now; a missed interrupt very rarely occurs and has yet to cause a wipe. To some extent this is a personal preference, as many people are religious about their threat stat caps. The reality of current content is that mitigation is most likely much more valuable.

Glyph of Shockwave is great for additional AOE threat. Swapping out the TC glyph (+2 yards) or - as I prefer - the Resonating Power glyph (rage is not a problem in any AOE situation) gives you more Shockwaves. More Shockwaves make me happy.

Sharp diminishing returns on mitigation stats might also be worth mentioning. Even at current gear levels, stacking Parry in favor of Dodge (for Hold the Line procs) is not necessarily the most optimal approach. Without getting too mathy, I recently managed to improve my overall mitigation by undoing some of my Dodge-to-Parry reforging.

[shadowkras]

that's great but at best it's an optional talent.

Which was my point, i never said it was mandatory, but its not even mentioned in the guide.

I disagree that it requires any real skill to use.

And i disagree that it doesnt. Its one extra button to press, somewhere in page 1 you will see a topic about warriors smashing their keys and how hectic tanking is, most of those people wouldnt be able to use intervene on the right person in the right time. You need to be mindful of the boss abilities and when they happen, you need to be mindful of the position of the target, or you will turn the boss and cause nasty things (like i intervened the wrong person in an heroic the other day and caused a breath on all party).

Anything more recent than that? I'm sorry but the Soul Reaper example is getting a bit old and even in that content, in ICC, Soul Reaper was pretty much the only good spot to use it and even than only on 25 heroic.

There are plenty of examples, soul reaper is just the single example that this talent completely trivialized a boss ability.

You want current content?
On magmaw when the other tank is about to get mangled, in case you are 2 tanking it.
On omnitron, tanks are usually relatively close to each other.
On conclave, you can use it on a melee dps to reduce damage taken by spores, each use mitigated about 30-40k damage on my kill shot, and it wont move you if its used on a melee, as they are close enough.
On halfus, use it anytime, really, it has plenty of opportunities to cast it on offtank,and reducing melee damage taken by 30% for 6s every 30s actually helps the healers a lot (it mitigated 200k damage last night, and i didnt use on cooldown) . Just be mindful of threat if he has the mortal strike debuff or you might pull threat if the other tank is being lazy with his TPS.
On valiona+theralion, you can intervene someone on melee that is about to get hit by meteorite, it wont reduce a lot, but every little bit helps.

Get the module for recount called RecountDamageReduction, open the lua files and add safeguard in there, it will start logging it and will display you how much damage it is being reduced when the target has the safeguard buff on them and take damage.

And no i have not done any other bosses, as my server is among the top 30 worst pve progression servers according to wowprogress, its not really that easy to find people full 346-359, much less skilled players.


@Hit & Expertise
People dont like hit and expertise, yet they say that threat talents are mandatory, i smell contradiction here.

[Deleted]

First, wonderful guide. Some changes you might consider:

It might be worth adding that expertise and hit should largely be ignored - or at least taken only incidentally to mitigation stats - at the moment. Sure they buff threat, but threat doesn't need a buff; buff something else instead. I'm raiding with ~2.5% hit and 6 expertise right now; a missed interrupt very rarely occurs and has yet to cause a wipe. To some extent this is a personal preference, as many people are religious about their threat stat caps. The reality of current content is that mitigation is most likely much more valuable.

Glyph of Shockwave is great for additional AOE threat. Swapping out the TC glyph (+2 yards) or - as I prefer - the Resonating Power glyph (rage is not a problem in any AOE situation) gives you more Shockwaves. More Shockwaves make me happy.

Sharp diminishing returns on mitigation stats might also be worth mentioning. Even at current gear levels, stacking Parry in favor of Dodge (for Hold the Line procs) is not necessarily the most optimal approach. Without getting too mathy, I recently managed to improve my overall mitigation by undoing some of my Dodge-to-Parry reforging.

Expertise can certainly be ignored, unless your raid for some reason need the extra few k a Protection Warrior can push by gathering this stat. Hit, on the other hand, should not be ignored unless you have other doing the interruption for you. The Hydro Lance on the Council encounter rips perhaps 70% if not more of a player's health. Missing an interrupt of the minion summon on Maloriak can completely screw your tactics, and keeping the Arcane Annihalator on the Omnomnom Whatever System under control will make your healer's lives easier. It's about 900 rating points to get capped. It's a lot of rating points, but never missing interrupts is worth it imho.

How much avoidance did you gain by balancing parry and dodge? I had a 0.01% gain per reforge when I made an attempt earlier on...

[videotape]

It was slight. About 0.012%. It still turned out to be better than the average avoidance I would have retained with the slightly higher Hold the Line uptime. The optimal Parry/Dodge ratio will change as both stats increase, but it will also be affected by Block% due to its influence HTL on mitigation.

EDIT: On your point about Hit, that's where I think it becomes a matter of opinion. I would rather focus on mitigation and bring other people for dedicated interrupts. Fair point though.

[Mendan]

Great guide, but your guide makes it sound like all pulls that aren't boss fights you charge in and tank everything like in WoLK. This mentality still persists and drives healers like me crazy, so many tanks make no use of CC and don't watch for npc abilities (obvious crap on the ground, cone attacks, etc.) and force the dps and healer to carry them through the dungeon. I suggest adding either what to open with if you're pulling at range or how to best let CC pull and pick up everything off them.

[Swbd4L]

Expertise can certainly be ignored, unless your raid for some reason need the extra few k a Protection Warrior can push by gathering this stat. Hit, on the other hand, should not be ignored unless you have other doing the interruption for you. The Hydro Lance on the Council encounter rips perhaps 70% if not more of a player's health. Missing an interrupt of the minion summon on Maloriak can completely screw your tactics, and keeping the Arcane Annihalator on the Omnomnom Whatever System under control will make your healer's lives easier. It's about 900 rating points to get capped. It's a lot of rating points, but never missing interrupts is worth it imho.

I disagree here, I have 1.2% hit and 9 expertise, and even then I barely ever see a missed shield bash. Even if ignacious charges me and I get nocked away, Intercept > Shield bash, still always make it there and its really never misses. more mitigation is more imporant... seriously did you guys all miss my wall of text on the page before this one? man...

[Vraizan]

Very nice, my warrior is only 64, but so far I enjoy warrior tanking immensely and this guide really helps The single target prio list was really helpful as I wasn't entirely sure whether to be using thunderclap frequently or not

[Rayliel]

I wouldn't really call this a guide, more of a brief and incomplete overview of basic protection warrior abilties, talents, glyphs, and stats with some being left out. Disarm, an amazing CD when usable, is not even mentioned once, your glyphs section does not show all there is to offer, and your rotation is lacking a couple of abilities. There is also rarely an explination on why X move/talent is better than Y move/talent or the neccessary reason for having Z. Useful strategies such as useing Heoric Leap as a Defensive cooldown are also not included. All in all, its not really a guide, its more of an overview of the spec than anything else.

Lastly about the guide, your stat priorities are wrong. Stamina should never be geared for. The danger of getting 2 or even 3 shot rarely exists anymore. Higer Hp pools versus lower avoidance just makes you a mana sponge in essence decreases the chances of your's and the raid's survival.

Two more quick notes on response topics. Safeguard isn't used mainly because of Intervene's threat reducing component. While it is a huge source of mitigation when used on the current tank, it wreaks havoc on threat over the course of a fight. If used on CD over the course of a 5 minute fight, you've reduced the tanks threat by 10% 10 times. Its a huge loss that adds up. This combined with you actually taking the hit from intervene makes this talent fight dependant and situational, which is why its considered optional and not mandatory.

Impending victory's problem lies not so much with how little it heals, but first in the amount of DPS you must sacrifice while using it (most enrage phases of the current bosses are DPS burns with the raid taking the most damage, not you as the tank making your increased DPS more valuable than your personal survival) and with how inconsistent it is. Healers cannot rely on this proc heal, and getting it generally results in causing as much or more overheal than it actually heals.

[shadowkras]

If used on CD over the course of a 5 minute fight, you've reduced the tanks threat by 10% 10 times. Its a huge loss that adds up.

While true, on the first few fights it is not an issue.
On halfus, all dps will be on drakes/whelps for a good minute or two, by then the tank will have near a million threat lead. On magmaw, if the top 2 dps jump to do the chains, their threat is completely reset, and usually melee dps will jump as ranged doesnt have 100% uptime on boss, so you have a huge threat lead there aswell. On conclave, they drop the current tank threat everytime their tank jumps over to another plataform, so your ideal use there is on melee dps, which will benefit you if their threat is reduced by 10%. Omnitron, after each of them has already spawned once, threat stops being an issue, you will have a huge threat lead on all of them.

As for impending victory, personally im disapointed with it, the proc should be 100% or you waste too much dps by trying to keep yourself healed, it already has a very low uptime, but the last 20% is usually when healers are about to go OOM.
Then again, bloodcraze and field dressing also disapointed me. Im only keeping field dressing because of the bonus on enraged regeneration and victory rush procs when the fight has adds.

[Blackmask]

I have someone in my guild who has tanked for quite a long time. She states that only new warrior tanks charge bosses due to the fact that it will throw the positioning off of the boss possibly cleaving or killing the rest of your group on the first pull.

[videotape]

I have someone in my guild who has tanked for quite a long time. She states that only new warrior tanks charge bosses due to the fact that it will throw the positioning off of the boss possibly cleaving or killing the rest of your group on the first pull.

There is no absolute in this case. Both Charge and Heroic Leap have important uses in certain boss-pulling situations. There is no one-size-fits-all approach. Rules that begin with "always" or "never" are seldom worth adhering to.

I handle most pulls like WotLK pulls, usually with a maximum of one or two CC per group, usually dependent on the number of casters/ranged being pulled. I frequently am complemented by healers on just how easy I am to heal.

"Stamina should never be geared for" is a patently false statement. Absurd, really. Mastery is as important if not slightly more important at times, but Stamina is by no means unimportant. The all-or-nothing attitude is truly a mark of ignorance.

[DomBomb1]

Very nicely written, and it seems we agree on the most parts... One question though: You put Revenge as a part of the "rotation", have they added Revenge to GCD, and taken away the glory of the macro?

Revenge has been on the GCD for a loooong time.

[Deleted]

I disagree here, I have 1.2% hit and 9 expertise, and even then I barely ever see a missed shield bash. Even if ignacious charges me and I get nocked away, Intercept > Shield bash, still always make it there and its really never misses. more mitigation is more imporant... seriously did you guys all miss my wall of text on the page before this one? man...

You cannot "disagree" on something like this. Whenever you press your Shield Bash ability there's a 6.8% risk it'll miss and, potentially, cause a wipe. Even if your stars always align making you never miss anything, this is not the case for everyone else. If you and your raid rely on your ability to interrupt spells you really should make sure it'll never fail. Expertise has nothing to do with interrupts.

I have someone in my guild who has tanked for quite a long time. She states that only new warrior tanks charge bosses due to the fact that it will throw the positioning off of the boss possibly cleaving or killing the rest of your group on the first pull.

That's the most weird reasoning I ever heard. There's absolutely not a single reason in Azeroth not to charge the boss at pull.

[MonsieuRoberts]

Cool guide, nice work!

[Dashield28]

That's the most weird reasoning I ever heard. There's absolutely not a single reason in Azeroth not to charge the boss at pull.

If you consider Northrend Azeroth, which it technically is, Kologarn in Ulduar is one reason for not charging a boss... I remember when in my old HC guild our MT charged him the first pull ever, he fell down into the hole.. we wiped due to 15 minutes of uncntrollable laughter.

[puritysdisciple]

I have someone in my guild who has tanked for quite a long time. She states that only new warrior tanks charge bosses due to the fact that it will throw the positioning off of the boss possibly cleaving or killing the rest of your group on the first pull.

I have been warrior tanking since classic. The only time you run a risk of killing your group is if you are unaware of a geometry flaw in the boss' room. On nearly all bosses charging into them will automatically cause them to move forward slightly putting you "behind" them. This is the fastest way to face a boss away from your group and keep them safe.

[floormat88]

i suck at tanking right now this might help me