Prot Warrior Stat Building. ?s

[penance 0]

I have been doing a Str/mastery build mainly on my warrior, and I've been getting weird responses why i do that on my guild and server. I talked with another much higher geared warrior today, which he stacked all parry and dodge. He told me the reason he did that was for higher reposte procs, which makes sense however i dont like the RNG of extra crits for a prot warrior. I enjoy a less RNG with my blocks since they have a higher chance to crit block then a lower crit. He also told me that most prot warriors now dont do a mastery build anymore. 

 

I really enjoy my current build. I know what Str does as well. the 3 in 1 combo. Higher pure attack power ( higher threat), more parry ( higher avoidance) and more powerful shield barrier ( more absorbs). When i checked on AMR the difference in parry from a parry and mastery to a str and mastery gem is only a fraction of a percent. I'm willing to give up a fraction of a percent for the Str/mastery gem. Below is my armory and would apprciate any input or suggestions for my gemming. ( ignore the rings gem, im going to replace it soon anyways and dont want to regem twice) 

 

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/stormrage/Zeronesis/advanced

[ragebarr 153]

Parry from Strength isn't taken into account when riposte procs. 

 

And pretty much all the prot warriors out there will tell you that the Parry/Dodge build is smoother than the mastery build.

 

The reason behind that is that the rage income of the build is really high compared to the mastery build, so you can afford to cast a lot more Sblk and SBar than you could using the mastery build.

 

Also, if I recall correectly (an actual prot warrior feel free to correct me on that) the Str from gems doesn't directly increase Sbar's absorb. Only the bonus 10% you get from Battle Shout actually increases your SBar.

 

On top of that, gearing parry/dodge will give you much higher riposte uptime, and therefore a much higher crit chance, which results in more ultimatum, and ultimately, in higher damage and threat than the mastery build.

 

There's a thread discussing prot warrior gearing on this forums here: https://www.icy-veins.com/forums/topic/3002-54-protection-gearing-suggestions/ that might explain it better than I can do it.

 

Estarriol is also maintaining a guide here on IV with still more info: https://www.icy-veins.com/forums/topic/2048-protection-tattered-banners-and-bloody-flags/

[penance 0]

I'm on my phone right now so its not going to be long. the extra str does actually increase your shield barrier.it scales up with attack power. like how it works with vengeance. I even watched it increase when I replaced a parry gem with the str gem. when I get the gold I could try it out and see for my self.

[ragebarr 153]

Even if it does (which I'm pretty sure I read somewhere it doesn't but I could be wrong) Parry/Dodge is going to do much more both for your survivability, threat and damage.

[penance 0]

with this 2nd opinion I'm going to try that build. I'm pretty sturdy already with the mastery build. I'm just so accustomed to it already and I'll need to double check the shield barrier str thing as well when I get home. if your right then I'll definitely do the build you suggested, if it does increase then I'll be less inclined to change my str/mastery gems.

[penance 0]

I looked it up on AMR. i would lose just under 28% mastery, and 1500 AP. just for a 3% gain in parry and a 5.4% gain in dodge. for the avoidance build. My brain cant justify that... 

[ragebarr 153]

It doesn't seem like you'd gain much parry because the strength you use currently gives parry. However, Riposte doesn't benefit from that Parry, it only gets benefit from actual Parry rating, of which you'd gain close to 4k (+5.5k dodge) by going avoidance. Yes, you'll have less crit blocks, but you'll still be able to mitigate a lot of damage with SBlk, and the bigger rage income you'll have from the build will let you cast way more SBars than you could before.

 

Doing these changes, riposte would give you a bit above 7k more crit than what it already does, which is about as much mastery rating you'd be losing by switching builds. You'll also gain ~9.5k combined parry/dodge for a loss of ~7.5k mastery rating.

[Dots 0]

Ragebarr is correct about SBar not scaling with strength, you only get 10% of it because of the 10% attack power buff. The SBar formula specifically excludes the rest of the attack power you get from strength.

The rest of his comments about Riposte, rage gen, etc are also spot on. Prioritizing Parry/Dodge is better in almost any situation now.

Edited October 5, 2013 by Dots

[penance 0]

Sbar scales with how much stam you have first, then it scales with AP once AP becomes AP>Stam. its a bit weird, yes i was wrong just thought i should put that formula out there. 

 

Well I'm going to redo gemming and reforges now. I hope it works out like you guys say. it was fun having almost constant crit blocks with a bunch of adds with the trinket usage. 

[Estarriol 167]

The calculation of SBar is max((AP-APfromSTR)*1.8, stam*2.5) meaning that it will choose to calculate based on whichever is higher. Before Riposte came into the game, that infintesimal amount of AP from strength was useful. Nowadays, the rage generation you get from hard parry/dodge is incredible. It gives you enough to be able to layer your SBlks and SBars, giving you really smooth, even coverage. It really interesting to play around with and definitely benefits from a wholly different build than a mastery-centered set would. Don't just judge it mased on having peices with avoidance gems and mastery main stats. Go full, hard avoidance if you can. The difference is shocking and very fun.

[penance 0]

Well it is very fun. I completely reforged and regemmed (for the most part), many..many crits. 

[Jessix 0]

Okay, so I should go for Parry/Dodge over mastery. Is there a certain gear level I should go for? I'm filling in for my guild with my tank while we try to find a real tank (I'm a Warlock at heart) so I'm only at i530 about.

 

If I were to go parry/dodge now would spike damage be pretty bad after Nazgrim for instance? Dark Shamans already feels kinda iffy with all the tank damage going around.

 

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/shadowsong/Asakura/simple for reference if you want.

[ragebarr 153]

For fights with a lot of magic Damage (à la Dark Shaman) Parry/Dodge will be less spikier than mastery, so if you're spiky there it's most likely because of your low ilvl giving you lower stam and a non optimal use of SBlk and SBar.