Protection: Tattered Banners and Bloody Flags

[ragebarr 153]

Hey, Esta is back on Icy-Veins! =D

[Larssen 7]

That really depends on your offtank. If, for example, you're tanking with a monk, you will never need to apply weakened blows yourself as they do it as part of their rotation. Pretty much the same with DKs and I think druids. I don't think paladins do it (I'll check if I remember) as part of their single-target rotation. It also depends on how hard the boss is hitting you. If each melee hits extremely hard, use TC (as long as it's not already on from your offtank). Most of the time, I'd say go for Devastate.

 

Just to clarify this, as of the 5.4 patch, Prot paladins will apply Weakened Blows through Crusader Strike as part of their single target rotation. It would be nice to see Blizzard roll this into our Devastate ability as a "quality of life" buff to save the occasional GCD, even though we'd still be using Thunder Clap even on single target fights for the Deep Wounds effect.

Edited September 8, 2013 by Larssen

[Estarriol 167]

Devastate applies Deep Wounds. ^.~ That is a good point, though. Thanks for bringing it up. =) It definitely would be nice of Blizzard to add that in, but if not, I'm not going to complain about the massive buffs we've already gotten.

[Estarriol 167]

About halfway updated, but I'm out of time and damns today.

[Estarriol 167]

Found both time and damns. Guide is updated. Added quite a bit to the mitigation section in particular.

[Estarriol 167]

Added clarification to balancing dodge and parry DR to the Gemming section.

[nefigah 26]

In a low-damage situation like a 5 man dungeon, is it normal to have low vengeance such that SBar absorption is based off my stamina instead of my AP? And is it weird if SBlk blocks less damage than a 60-rage stam-based SBar?

[Estarriol 167]

At decebt gear levels, it's not odd at all. I have around 54k stam unbuffed, which makes my baseline Sbar around 135k. This means I have to have 75k vengeance in order to be using vengeance based Sbars. Heroic five man dungeons don't give anywhere near that. Even tier 14 heroic bosses don't always give that. As for SBlk, if you're getting so little vengeance that you're using baseline SBars, then you aren't getting hit very hard, so 30% of every attack isn't going to add up very quickly. Also take into consideration the amount of avoidance you have. You won't block a hit you don't take. Even so, I use SBlk in dungeons for the damage output boost. Your mileage may vary, but in those situations, having higher damage output is more useful than minimizing your intake.

[nefigah 26]

Okay, awesome, that's what I was hoping :D My gear isn't quite decent, but at 511 it's still quite a bit over what the 5 mans were designed for, so that makes sense. I was just practicing choosing which mitigation to pick, and was surprised at how big unvengeanced SBars were

[Estarriol 167]

Unpinning because irrelevant.

 

Farewell, 5.4 guide!