Protection Warrior 7.1

[Guest Nocuro]

Hey =)

I have been warrior tanking since the end of TBC and have used and trusted icy-viens since I discovered it some time during WOTLK...so when WoD was announced ofc I came straight here for some stat priorities.

 

I followed the 'BONUS ARMOUR>MASTERY>CRIT' as stated amd at 1st and everything seemed fine. My guild joked I was the 'squishy tank', and i'd die more often then our DK... but we progressed.

 

But as we moved further into BRF it became more and more regular that my deaths would actually cause the raid to have to wipe...and the 'jokes' turned into genuine frustration as how hard I was to heal...despite having appropriate ilvl gear and good shield block/barrier uptime.

 

When we moved onto HC our progression ground to a halt. (how can you progress when 1 tank is always dead?)

 

 

The 1st issue the healers were having, was that I would take quite low damage a lot of the time (when I successfully blocked) but I would then take huge spike damage (as multiple attacks go unmitigated) that was impossible to heal. It would happen so fast it felt like I just got 1shot, with no time to react or pop my own defensive cooldowns.

 

The 2nd issue was that I had very little spell damage mitigation.

(which was helped by a patch which buffed shield barrier, but still not exactly amazing  )

 

 

In an attempt to try to change this 'spiky' nature, I switched around as much gear as I could and re-gemmed/enchanted everything to the new stat priority of 'VERSATILITY>BONUS ARMOUR>MASTERY'

 

The idea was to sacrifice the chance to block/critically block and exchange it for the flat damage reduction from versatility (which would also improve my spell damage reduction).

In theory I would take slightly more damage through an entire fight... but it would be received in a much more predictable way and eliminate spikes.

 

Let me tell you...the difference is INCREDIBLE! The healers noticed the difference straight away and ordered me not to change it back... claiming I was now a 'joy to heal'. It has eliminated spikes meaning the healers can actually heal me and I have time to pop shield wall or last stand if required.

 

We killed 5 new HC bosses the week after the stat change and moral in the group is at a high as we get back onto the progression ladder.

 

Now our guild only raid normal/HC as we don't have 20 people....and I dont know if the icy-viens stat priority is based on mythic gearing/content. But considering the NOTABLE change in my survivability since moving to a versatility build, I thought I would come here and share my experiences. I don't know if its worth adding an alternative stat priority below your current one? So if anybody else has issues with a mastery build they could also consider the versatility route =)

 

I now prioritise VERS>BONUS ARMOUR>MASTERY>CRIT>MULTI>HASTE

 

Thanks for your time and I hope this is useful =D

 

Nocuro-Doomhammer

[Pandacho 286]

Well, I am not a tank, but I am a raid healer of a prot warrior tank (he's our main tank since TBC). He uses the stat priority that is mentioned on IV: Bonus Armor>Mastery>Crit and we are completely fine healing him (9/10 HC, progressing on Blackhand HC).

What we did for the both our tanks though was assigning external CDs for specific boss abilities like Inferno Slice, Acid Torrent, Crippling Suplex.

Are you sure that your deaths are your stats problem and not of your healing?

[Guest Guest]

Well, I am not a tank, but I am a raid healer of a prot warrior tank (he's our main tank since TBC). He uses the stat priority that is mentioned on IV: Bonus Armor>Mastery>Crit and we are completely fine healing him (9/10 HC, progressing on Blackhand HC).

What we did for the both our tanks though was assigning external CDs for specific boss abilities like Inferno Slice, Acid Torrent, Crippling Suplex.

Are you sure that your deaths are your stats problem and not of your healing?

 

I don't think it was a issue with the healers, as they had no problems keeping our DK tank alive, or our offspec druid tank.

 

We have 8-10 healers so we rotate them... and we would have the same problems no matter which healers we were using. While it is possible that we have 8-10 people who are all healing wrong...I think its more likely the problem was my end.

 

The issue was I would be sitting at around 100% hp... then suddenly id just be dead....and this would be a death from a couple of standard melee attacks, at any random time...not a special attack. No time to ask for an external or click one of my own cds...just instadeath.

 

I'm not a theorycrafter, i'm just a long time player of warcraft who only plays tank... and after changing my stats around my survivability instantly went through the roof.

 

...as in... we wiped on every fight and people were starting to not show up for raids becuase of the painfull wipe nights and no kills.

I went and changed my priorities around.

 

The next day we went raiding again with the same group of people... and killed flamebender hc.

The next raid we killed beastlord hc and oregorger hc....and then next raid we killed operator hc and kromog hc.

And now I will survive from the pull until the kill....where as before even on a successful attempt I would have died at some point and been ressed.

 

I'm not here trying to say that the mastery build is 'wrong'... I'm just stating that if other warriors are also having survivability issues...a versatility build is definitely an extremely viable alternative and I cannot recommend enough that you try it.

 

I really do think its worth at least mentioning it as an option on the prot warrior stat page....as I had to work all this out on my own, change my gear and then actually try it out in raids to see if it had worked.

 

I certainly will not be changing back to a mastery setup any time soon....at least until we see how things are when t18 is released. =D

 

(I would even suggest getting your warrior... who you say is fine to heal...to give it a try. You never know...he may go from being 'fine to heal' to being 'amazing to heal' =D )  I'm not normally somebody who would post things like this on forums....but it has been such a ridiculous and instant improvement... I felt I HAD to tell people to try it =D

[Trybex 0]

Warrior is currenlty 2nd hardest tank in the game. If you're using Versatility build, it gives you a lot more passive mitigation (e.g. you just do nothing and boss hits you). On the other hand, if you're using mastery build, you'll take more damage when you're passivly tanking, but a lot less damage if you're executing your active mitigation correctly. So to sum it all up - Versatility build is only better, when you're experiencing troubles with your active mitigation (correct ussage of shield block and shield barrier). But when you are able to execute it correctly, mastery build will give you much more survivability. Correct usage of active mitigation, can not be taught in my experience. It's just something you have to teach yourself. Good luck in mastering your prot warrior ;)

 

[Pandacho 286]

I agree with Trybex and would really interested to see your logs, Nocuro - to know how exactly you are using the mitigation and surv abilities.

[Guest Nazgrom]

I've used Mastery, I've used Crit, and I've used Vers warrior, and I have to say this.

 

Mastery is kind of in the middle.  You will have some spikes in damage when you don't get a block within 2-3 hits.  Also Mastery isn't the best against fights like Flamebender and Kromog where it has alot of Magic damage.

 

Crit is the most spikey of the 3.  You either are a boss or you get outright 1 shotted.  Crit is really good in fights like Beastlord and Thogar where there are alot of adds though.

 

Versatility is the most balanced.  It's not spikey at all, however you take a constant amount of damage when compared to the others.  It is also the least dps of the 3.  This is good against constant heavy hitters like Gruul and Hanz/Franz.  I haven't gotten 1 shotted on Gruul in Versatility, but I have been 1 shotted in the other 2.

 

All 3 are viable, and each has their pros and cons, it's just upto you to decide.  I think that it's being discussed is proof that blizzard has finally gotten close to where you can build your character anyway you want, there is no more "best spec", which I love.

 

Just my 2 cents on the whole stat priority debate.

[Guest nocuro]

 

Warrior is currenlty 2nd hardest tank in the game. If you're using Versatility build, it gives you a lot more passive mitigation (e.g. you just do nothing and boss hits you). On the other hand, if you're using mastery build, you'll take more damage when you're passivly tanking, but a lot less damage if you're executing your active mitigation correctly. So to sum it all up - Versatility build is only better, when you're experiencing troubles with your active mitigation (correct ussage of shield block and shield barrier). But when you are able to execute it correctly, mastery build will give you much more survivability. Correct usage of active mitigation, can not be taught in my experience. It's just something you have to teach yourself. Good luck in mastering your prot warrior

 

 

 

I keep my shield block on cd and I use my barrier whenever I have rage free and no charges of block. (and of course there are times where I save a block/barrier for a specific ability). I don't think its an issue with what I'm doing. I'm a very experienced prot warrior (rerolled warrior at the end of tbc after druid tanking all xpack) and I only started having these issues in HC BRF.

 

Since my original post I have actually made a mastery set of gear as well, as different builds suit different bosses better.

 

I've used Mastery, I've used Crit, and I've used Vers warrior, and I have to say this.

 

Mastery is kind of in the middle.  You will have some spikes in damage when you don't get a block within 2-3 hits.  Also Mastery isn't the best against fights like Flamebender and Kromog where it has alot of Magic damage.

 

Crit is the most spikey of the 3.  You either are a boss or you get outright 1 shotted.  Crit is really good in fights like Beastlord and Thogar where there are alot of adds though.

 

Versatility is the most balanced.  It's not spikey at all, however you take a constant amount of damage when compared to the others.  It is also the least dps of the 3.  This is good against constant heavy hitters like Gruul and Hanz/Franz.  I haven't gotten 1 shotted on Gruul in Versatility, but I have been 1 shotted in the other 2.

 

All 3 are viable, and each has their pros and cons, it's just upto you to decide.  I think that it's being discussed is proof that blizzard has finally gotten close to where you can build your character anyway you want, there is no more "best spec", which I love.

 

Just my 2 cents on the whole stat priority debate.

 

This is more what I was aiming to say in my original post. That mastery is on paper the best build to go for...but if you are having issues where you keep dieing and you don't know what to do...try a vers build...because it works, it just feels different and my healers love me for it atm =)

[Estarriol 167]

Alternately, instead of trying for a versatility build, you could go with a standard mastery or crit build and use Pillar of the Earth. Mythic would be best, but heroic would work. Instead of radically giving up a massive amount of damage mitigation, you gain a sizeable health buffer via the massive amount of stam on that trinket as well as its versatility and bonus armor.

 

It would still be enlightening to see your logs. Many times, it can feel as though one is executing one's active mitigation at a high level, but logs may show that uptimes may not have been as high or timing was off. Purely using SBlk on CD is fine in most situations, but fights like Gruul and Kromog need very exact timing to account for Overwhelming Blows and Fists of Stone. If your SBlk just happens to not be up for those abilities, you are very much in danger for the next melee swing. Overwhelming Blows in particular tends to line up closely with melee swings.

[Guest Dakkendoofer]

How in the world is ravager better than Gladiator's Resolve for prot warriors??? Extra 5% damage reduction is better than a damage cooldown for tanks.

[Trybex 0]

Ravager gives you 30% parry for 11 seconds, which, sometimes, can do a lot of difference, even avoid some abilities.

 

How in the world is ravager better than Gladiator's Resolve for prot warriors??? Extra 5% damage reduction is better than a damage cooldown for tanks.

[Guest bolger]

No more trybex? Who's the next best?! Thanks for everything you do Ice-Veins' team.

 

- B

[Trybex 0]

No more trybex? Who's the next best?! Thanks for everything you do Ice-Veins' team.

 

- B

Guardian druids have shown themselves too good in this tier, I had to switch a class for a raid progression, unfortunately.

[Guest Xador]

Hey,

 

I recommand using Purified Shard of the Third Moon is pretty neat. It handles like an extra CD.

[Guest Proximity]

Hey,

 

I recommand using Purified Shard of the Third Moon is pretty neat. It handles like an extra CD.

Absolutely. For a war, it feels like heaven. Allows you to stack some rage while having some ridiculous amount of HP barrier for a ridiculously high duration (15 seconds) For any boss fight, it's now in my main cd rotation. Take note that, on top of that, versatility seems to directly increase the amount of shield, so using it at the same time of your ring is definitely a good idea. The cooldown is also ridiculously low... I wonder if they will patch it cause it feels like cheating. You gotta try that out!

[Guest Dayton]

Hello guys I have a question about Blood Gaze which says  it heals you 3% for 3 seconds but the tooltip doesnt actually say that it 3% of max hp and i haven't tested it in pure numbers so if you know the right answer can you say is it 3% of max hp or just you r current (asking because i was thinking about priotising it more over like haste or vers)