Newish prot warrior, what can I do better?

[ralwn 1]

Logs are for first 8 bosses (was on monk tank for furnace)

Warcraftlogs

AMR logs

 

Armory link (my multistrike is too high but nothing I can do about that. I don't have much choice in gear atm)

 

I play monk / dk / druid tanks and this was my first week tanking H BRF on the warrior. What am I doing wrong? What can I do better? Any replies are very much appreciated.

 

Gruul: My overwhelming blows didn't reset. I believe I used lots of shield barriers because I was being yo-yo'd down to 20-30% every few seconds from the overwhelming blows. What should I have done differently? (This group's method was taunting into the soak group with tank swaps after every 2 inferno slices)

 

Maidens: I had Sorka + both boats. Felt like she was trucking me, were my shield blocks not used at correct intervals?

 

Hans / Frans: Does demo shout not work for crippling suplex? I went into one with just demo shout and shield barrier and left it at 5-10% hp 

Edited May 17, 2015 by ralwn

[Vespasian 1]

I can't help you with Maidens since I don't have much exp for it, but I have some tips for gruul and hans/franz.

 

Gruul: We use a very similar tactic, but you tankswap the boss after every 3 inferno slices. This allows time for overwhelming blows to actually fall off, and the only thing you have to do differently is pop a decent CD or get an external like PS for the 3rd slice.

 

Hans&Franz: Demo shout does work on the suplex, but it's quite weak, we tend to stack CDs for it, my group has two bear tanks, who pop all their CDs since theyre usually up for the next one, but if your comp has disc priests / BM hunters / Paladins / Rdruids or anything else with a decent external DR then you should set up a system to use them. (Vigilance is excellent for this on the other tank). Most suplexes we see tend to hit for very little after CD's are used and our disc throws a big shield up. Your mileage may vary based on comp but just a demo shout and Sbarr probably isn't enough.

[Furiacki 1]

Gruul: swap at 3 stacks of slice as the above poster said.  Pool your rage to 120 just before each slice and use the following rotations for soaks:

1. Shield Block/Shield Barrier (the initial physical damage is blockable)

2. Same as 1 + Demo

3. Same as 1 + Shield Wall.

 

You should (almost) always prioritize block over barrier.  An exception as an example would be the Suplex you mention on H&F.  Pool your rage and use a barrier if it seems the external/personal CDs are not enough.  On the external CD note, your H & F kill had ONE defensive cast on you (PS).  With two resto druids each can IB a tank every single suplex, you can demo every one, and shield wall every other I believe (though not terribly necessary).  

 

Looking over your IM kill it appears you need to use your AM a lot more.  You had 25% uptime on block and very few barriers cast.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/4BZa6x1PwAm2drFH#fight=26&type=auras&source=12

You also used Heroic Strike 115 with only 9 ultimatum procs.  Prot warriors do not spam HS anymore, but rather ONLY use with ultimatum procs (unless taking zero damage). Unyielding strikes as a talent is a small mitigation loss when managed perfectly, and a significant one when played poorly and does not offer too much of a damage bump over the other two talents. 

 

In a similar length kill I had 15% higher block uptime and cast it 15-20% more.  I also used all my excess rage on barrier instead of HS and I 56 casts vs your 17.  That is a ton of damage on a fight where you are always tanking something.

 

I did not review details of any other fights, but in summation: Drop unyielding strikes (I prefer sudden death) and focus on block effective uptime (when you are taking physical damage). Cast barrier to prevent rage capping unless you aren't taking ANY damage then HS to prevent cap.  HS's damage is really weak anyways (6.9k average each for you) which is why unyielding strikes isn't all that great even when played perfectly.  Get your external CDs assigned before the pull, warriors are extremely dependent on them, far more so than any other tank class currently.

Edited May 18, 2015 by Furiacki

[Estarriol 167]

Also, a note on Hans and Franz, since the Crippling Suplex takes approximately 14 eons between when they pick you up to when they smash you, your Shield Barrier for the Suplex will be tiny. So tiny that it will be near baseline (probably around 40k in your gear). You should still definitely use SBar for the Suplex, but you'll also need hefty CDs. Use Shield Wall AND Demo Shout AND SBar for every Suplex. Use Last stand as needed during the plates and stampers phases.

 

Also, not going to go into deep detail for Maidens, but I would expect almost 50% uptime on SBlk for that fight since you're tanking full time. You had 25%.

[ralwn 1]

Thanks a bunch guys. Perfect timing on all of your posts. I'll work to get that stuff fixed for tomorrow's raid.

 

I should have better specified my spec. I used Anger Management most of the time with glad stance thrown in there at some points. Depends on how comfortable I was with my CD management for a fight or not. Didn't even realize ravager had a mitigaton component... I always figured it was just the equivalent of a monk's chi explosion.

 

Unyielding Strikes was an unfortunate holdover from my days as glad and never got around to replacing it because I couldn't find a place for execute on my bars. I'll fix that!

Edited May 19, 2015 by ralwn

[ralwn 1]

I see 18 uses of Shield Barrier with an average size of 55.2k. In 685 gear, I would expect to see closer to 100k average size. You also had 25% overhealing, which means 25% over your SBars went unused. Overhealing in SBars is equivalent to rage waste and indicates that you used an SBar when it was unecessary and could have put that rage into damage with no survivability loss. The fact that your average size is so low means that you either used SBar at less than 60 rage or when you were not actively tanking. Given your overhealing, I would expect the latter. It looks like you were using Sbars to soak the DoT from Inferno Slice. The DoT is so minor that standing in ground-based HoTs will deal with it for you, so you might as well get the extra damage in. You're wasting rage with those SBars that you're using to soak the DoT and it take your healers no extra effort to deal with the 23k ticks from the DoT.

I wasn't purposely using barrier to soak the dot. The numbers were low because I was taunting into the raid for the inferno slices with no resolve (I personally prefer running the slice into a stack group myself for this reason)

 

Was also prioritizing barrier over block when soaking slices. I'll reverse that order.

 

Really liking these metrics you guys are providing for judging performance. Doing my best to soak it in, thanks!

Edited May 19, 2015 by ralwn

[Estarriol 167]

I wasn't purposely using barrier to soak the dot. The numbers were low because I was taunting into the raid for the inferno slices with no resolve (I personally prefer running the slice into a stack group myself for this reason)

 

Well, that wouldn't have left you with overhealing, though. Overhealing on your SBars means that your SBar wasn't fully used and expired, which you can see in the logs that you had several hundred thousand damage left over after absorbs were taken into account during your Inferno Slices.

[ralwn 1]

I'll need to get a weakauras to show me my current barrier strength or something.

Edited May 19, 2015 by ralwn

[Estarriol 167]

I'll try to remember to throw you my WA when I get home, but that one actually tallies all absorbs currently on me. For current SBar remaining and for SBar size estimate, I use protwarbar.