what to improve as prot?

[Pladesmeden 0]

I just started to look at logs, and would like some1 with more knowledge than me to take a look at my logs. should i regem and reenchant to crit instead of mastery?

 

i know i need 2pc, but we have chosen to give it to others first.

we have had some problems whit ppl coming on raid, so we have our first hc on tomorrow.

what to improve? what mistakes am i doing?

 

logs are from normal

 

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/ravencrest/L%C3%ADx%C3%AD/advanced

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/ryTvYgtzVFMmCK4Q

 

thanks for the help :)

[Estarriol 167]

The relative benefit of crit compared to mastery depends on how much crit you can get and the diminishing returns on parry. When you're low ilvl, crit and mastery will give nearly equal % parry and static block, respectively. With decent stats on your gear, crit and mastery will start to break even around ilvl 685 or so. So it's really up to you whether you're rather stay the course with your gear or switch to crit. You'll lose a few percent static block and gain a few percent of crit and parry.

 

I'm starting on the fight you linked, which is your second wipe on Blast Furnace.

 

Your defensive CD use was quite sparse. One use each of Shield Wall, Last Stand, and Enraged Regeneration is far lower than I woud expect on a 8 minute fight. You had two uses of Vigilance, which is good to see that you're considering the survival of your cotank, but it's strange that you're more vigilant (ha) in your use of CDs for another than you are in your own personal CDs. You did use Demo Shout 7 times, but that was your only consistent CD usage.

 

Of your offensive CDs, I see you chose Dragon Roar and Bladestorm and used those 7 times each.  I'm curious why you didn't take Ravager? It's a fairly add-heavy fight, and you seemed to have considered that with Bladestorm. If you're concerned about the loss of survivability, Bladestorm is more likely to have a negative impact on your survivability than is the choice of Ravager over Gladiator's Resolve.

 

Looking at your Buffs tab, your Shield Block uptime is significantly lower than I would expect. Depending on how your group does Blast Furnace and whether or not you're tanking the Guards during the second phase, I would expect to see several different patterns of use. Regards of that, I would expect to see fairly consistent usage during the beginning of the fight, since you have adds on you the whole time. From the graphs, I can see this is not the case on this fight. Your most consistent usage seems to be in the part of the fight with the Slag Elementals. From your armory, I see you're specced into Heavy Repercussions. Thus, it seems you're using Shield Block purely as a DPS increase instead of using it defensively, or (best of all with HR as your talent) using it for both increased damage output and increased survivability.

 

From your healing tab, I see you have no uses whatsoever of Shield Barrier.

 

I also see that you have a death on this fight. Your death was due to several reasons that you were directly responsible for. The first was the fact that you did not actively mitigate any sort of damage during the time period of your death. According to the log, you had not actively mitigated any damage whatsoever for 65 seconds before you died. The second reason is that you did not use a single cooldown while you were dying. Shield Wall had been off CD for 3 minutes. Last Stand had been off CD for 2 minutes. Demo Shout looks like it was on CD, but otherwise you had all of your CDs available for use. The final reason is that you were standing in Rupture for the duration of the death log (10 seconds).

 

For an 8 minute fight, I would expect to see somewhere around 330 GCDs used. From your logs, I see that you used 233, so you're missing out on quite a few GCDs. Your Revenge, Shield Slam, and Devastate uses all seem low to me. These three abilities are your only rage generators and should be high on your priority, yet you have more uses of Thunder Clap than you do of Revenge, which has a similar CD and can proc. Your Thunder Clap uses are almost even with your Shield Slam uses, when Shield Slam can proc and is your single highest rage generator.

 

From your Resources tab, I see that you generated 2325 total rage and wasted 193 rage, or 8.3%. That amount of rage waste is substantial. Any rage waste is significant since it is such a huge portion of our effectiveness. Additionally, you could have had much more rage generated on this fight. 193 rage may not sound like a lot was wasted, but keep in mind that's nearly two full rage bars. You could have had 3 more Shield Blocks, which since you had 11 uses total for this fight would have greatly increased your SBlk uptime overall. You could have had 3 Shield Barriers to counter some of the magic damage you took or even some more damage output. Using it on survivability would have been best of course, but it still represents a loss of possible damage.

 

From your Damage Taken, I can see that you took 17 ticks of Rupture and 7 ticks from the Slag Pool in the middle of the room during the second phase. As discussed earlier, the avoidable damage you took was a major contributing factor in your death.

 

One rather odd thing I'm noticing is that you're taking damage from Foreman Feldspar's Hot Blooded late into the fight. The miniboss is killable and taking him out early in the fight allows significantly less damage to go out on tanks and the raid in general. I would suggest that your raid prioritize killing him during the first phase.

 

The consistent trend on this fight is that you don't seem to be putting much thought into your survivability. Your priority seems to always be damage. However, you're still wasting rage and GCDs, so you're not effectively getting the damage output that you could be, either. Ultimately, your survivability should be your first and foremost concern, particularly on progression. Keep in mind that your decisions don't just affect you. A death of yours has a high probability of causing your raid to wipe. Additionally, paying no attention to your defenses means that your healers have to pay even more attention to you. They likely aren't able to look away from you or you're very likely to die. This means that they can't pay attention to other raid members who may need them and it also has a very high mana cost. Your decisions as a tank always have a trickle-down effect upon the rest of your raid. If you take less damage, your raid is more likely to be successful. I also want to point out that despite the fact nearly all of your rage was used on Heroic Strike, it was still your lowest contribution to damage other than Heroic Leap, Heroic Throw, and Victory Rush.

 

This may bring up the question of "how do I accomplish that?" The most important part of tanking is good decision-making, which has broad implications. It means that you're making good decisions for where you're standing, making sure that you're not taking avoidable damage from ground-based effects and also making sure that you're positioned so that melee can reach the boss or adds you're tanking without standing in avoidable damage themselves. More personally, good decision-making means that you are choosing how to use your rage. You're making sure you have a good uptime on Shield Block while also making sure that it's up when you need it. Additionally, it means that you're paying attention to what type of damage you're taking. If your incoming damage is purely magical, then Shield Block will not help you at all and you need to account for that. It also means that you're consistently using CDs and not letting them sit around off cooldown. Don't leave yourself completely bare, but also make sure you're using CDs to prevent spikes and emergency situations. Good decision-making also comes down to GCD utilization. You need to think not only of what's happening right now, but also what will happen in the future. Will using this ability cap your rage? If yes, or potentially yes, you need to used a Shield Block, Shield Barrier, or Heroic Strike. If no, use away. If you're using Heroic Strike to control rage waste, why? If you're using it to prevent a cap because Shield Block will be off CD in one GCD or less and using a Shield Barrier will cause you to need additional CDs to generate enough rage to use SBlk once it's off CD, then that's a legitimate usage and a good decision because SBlk's damage smoothing and overall mitigation will be higher than SBar (assuming that you're taking blockable damage). If you're using it to prevent a cap because you think you don't need the survivability, you may need to reassess that decision. If you are tanking, or taking DoT while not actively tanking, then you do need the survivability. Even if you outgear the content.

 

Also keep in mind while considering your survivability that warriors are defensively weak at the moment. You absolutely do need to help your healers out and keep your survivability as a priority over damage output. However, learning to make good decisions and judging priorities quickly and effectively will also lead you to greater damage output through better use of GCDs and ability priority.

 

Here's what I want you to take away, though: by seeking help, you're on the right path. Willingness to improve is an essential trait for success in anything you do, particularly raiding. A lot of these things are hard to hear and I tend to be very blunt in my assessments. Keep in mind that by not holding anything back, I'm trying to show you the respect you deserve. Hiding or glossing over anything doesn't help you in any way. Ultimately, you can improve on everything here. Set goals for yourself and hold yourself accountable.

 

Here are the areas I suggest you focus on first in rough order of priority:

• Active mitigation. This is your highest priority. Make sure your rage is always going into survivability (through Shield Block or Barrier) if you're taking any damage. Make sure you have something tracking shen SBlk is active and when it's off CD.
• Cooldown usage. Make sure that you're cycling cooldowns well. On fights will predictable damage spikes, you should have a plan for your CD usage. Put as much effort into managing your defensive CDs as you do your offensive ones. Track your CDs.
• Avoiding avoidable damage. I highly recommend GTFO. It makes horribly obnoxious noises whenever you're standing in something you shouldn't be. You can also use WeakAuras to give you visual or audio reminders as well. I often use both addons.
• Good GCD usage. This includes prioritizing rage-generating abilities. You need to use all of the GCDs that you feasibly can manage as well as making sure that your choice for each GCD is a good one.
• Eliminate rage waste. Rage, like GCDs, is precious. Make sure you're using all of it for best survivability and damage.
• Believe that you can do all of this. This one is bigger than people give it credit for. This is probably an immense amount to take in, but you can make baby steps (or leaps and bounds!) every week in your performance as long as you keep yourself thinking and trying and improving. If you're mathematically inclined, think of tanking as an iterative process. Every week, you play, then reflect on your performance and make goals for yourself, then go back and try again.

[Grakzul 1]

Estarriol, you are ready to open a Tank Clinic. And you would be an awesome therapist !

 

I'm regularly browsing this forum and even if i don't post often, I always learn interesting things just by reading the problems other warriors can encounter. 

 

This is particularly true for this topic. It gave me some ideas and I'm looking forward to applying them soon, for instance I'll try to spend less rage on DPS abilities, and more on active mitigation. This may seem obvious for most of us out there, including me, but I realize that I could do way better.

 

 

 

• Active mitigation. This is your highest priority. Make sure your rage is always going into survivability (through Shield Block or Barrier) if you're taking any damage. Make sure you have something tracking shen SBlk is active and when it's off CD.
• Cooldown usage. Make sure that you're cycling cooldowns well. On fights will predictable damage spikes, you should have a plan for your CD usage. Put as much effort into managing your defensive CDs as you do your offensive ones. Track your CDs.

Have you got some tips for tracking SB and/or defensive cooldowns ? I am currently using Weak Auras for SB. As I pop it, there is a depleting bar which shows how many remaining seconds of SB I have left. But I usually forget about it as things require more and more attention elsewhere on the screen. I tried to add a sound alarm in WA as SB fades, but it doesn't work well. So any tips/aura string would be welcome!

 

As for the Defensive Cooldowns, I do not track them specifically, which is a shame. Is there an addon for this?

Edited February 25, 2015 by Grakzul

[Pladesmeden 0]

Estarriol, thanks you su much for your time!

i have read your post, and where enjoying it.

 

I where tanking firecallers, and where helping on primal elemetalist, that was why i decide to go for more damage. and why my shield block wasn't so active. but i see your point!

Guess we called a wipe around 7.20 or so.

 

i not sure that this fight where the best to see my fails, or meaby it was? becourse there where so much in that fight i could improve.

 

i drop a new log tonight after our "first" hc run.

 

again thank you so much.

[Estarriol 167]

Estarriol, you are ready to open a Tank Clinic. And you would be an awesome therapist !

 

I'm regularly browsing this forum and even if i don't post often, I always learn interesting things just by reading the problems other warriors can encounter. 

 

This is particularly true for this topic. It gave me some ideas and I'm looking forward to applying them soon, for instance I'll try to spend less rage on DPS abilities, and more on active mitigation. This may seem obvious for most of us out there, including me, but I realize that I could do way better.

 

Have you got some tips for tracking SB and/or defensive cooldowns ? I am currently using Weak Auras for SB. As I pop it, there is a depleting bar which shows how many remaining seconds of SB I have left. But I usually forget about it as things require more and more attention elsewhere on the screen. I tried to add a sound alarm in WA as SB fades, but it doesn't work well. So any tips/aura string would be welcome!

 

As for the Defensive Cooldowns, I do not track them specifically, which is a shame. Is there an addon for this?

 

I track pretty much everything prot warrior related with ProtWarBar. It's something that you couold absolutely reproduce in WeakAuras, but it'd basically be a pain. I use PWB to track SBlk when SBlk is active, when SBar is active (both have timer bars that decrease as the duration reduces), and raw amount of SBar left. I also use it to track Resolve and my estimated SBar size. It has options for cooldowns and trinkets, but to be honest (and I'm a bit embarrassed to admit this), I actually just track my CDs using my ability bar. I have OmniCC, so the CD counts down in seconds which allows me to judge and plan accordingly. This method probably won't work for most people, so I recommend playing around with PWB.

[Estarriol 167]

Estarriol, thanks you su much for your time!

i have read your post, and where enjoying it.

 

I where tanking firecallers, and where helping on primal elemetalist, that was why i decide to go for more damage. and why my shield block wasn't so active. but i see your point!

Guess we called a wipe around 7.20 or so.

 

i not sure that this fight where the best to see my fails, or meaby it was? becourse there where so much in that fight i could improve.

 

i drop a new log tonight after our "first" hc run.

 

again thank you so much.

 

Feel free to select a fight or two you'd think it would be best for me to analyze. It's hard sometimes to pick which fight to do and doing all of them isn't feasible due to the length of time it takes me. @.@

[Pladesmeden 0]

I got a new fight here, where i felt i did pretty good, but if you could take a look, and give some feed back it whould be awesome. i have listen very much to what you have been saying, and have change the prio for my ability order.

Edited March 12, 2015 by Pladesmeden

[Estarriol 167]

Logs? It'll take probably a week or so for me to get around to it. Finals week is nigh.

[Pladesmeden 0]

lol totally forgot to link the log.. how could i do that.

 

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/nTrph2Gt3F7LD9mN#fight=18&type=summary

[Estarriol 167]

No worries! I'd forget my own head if I didn't keep it on my neck.

[Darich 0]

It seems like you didn't use shield block in the first minute of Kromog kill, why is that? It's totally worth using while you're offtanking as it's blocking the splash.

 

Also, I'd advice you to try Sudden Death on Kromog, while wasting your GCD it's a DPS increase on single target.

[Pladesmeden 0]

Im not sure abourt the shield block there. there is something abourt the Hands but there are first around 1 min. If i look at damage taken from fist of stone (the aoe) there haven't been much damage taken from that spell in min i didn't use shield block. :S

[Estarriol 167]

Since you've already seen one of my logs reviews, I'm going to streamline this one. Basically, if anything seems abrupt or rude, that's not my intent. I'm just trying to save a bit of time.

 

Shield Wall - Low

Last Stand - Low

Demo Shout - Acceptable, but could be better

Trinket - Acceptable

Ravager/Bladestorm/Dragon Roar - Acceptable, but could be better

 

I know there's already been some discussion on your Shield Block usage, so I'll skip that for now.

 

You have very few Shield Barriers, but the average size is good.

 

For your damage taken, you said you weren't using SBlk during the start of the fight because Fists of Stone isn't a large amount of damage. However, it is by far your largest source of damage taken. You took 4.32 million from FoS and only 2.3 million from melee attacks. Thus, making sure you have SBlk up is still very important because it sill reduce a large amount of damage. Keep in mind that even if your damage taken isn't fatal to you, it's still draining healer mana and it also takes their attention. If another raid member is taking damage and your healers can't look away from you, then you'll likely be the cause of death of one of your friends. Even when it seems like your decicions are minor, your position as a tank means that every choice you make has cascading effects.

 

Your rage use could still use quite a bit of work, you wasted 265 rage out of 2385, so just under 10%. Make sure you're always using your rage because it is how you can be effective for both defenses and your damage output.