[Archived] Protection Warrior 5.4

[Damien 1,514]

This thread is for comments about our Protection Warrior guide.

[silverbow25 0]

I'm not entirely sure about this, but based on my very limited test Shockwave has about twice the damage potential of Dragon Roar. If you are using this in Prot spec with a shield equipped then Bladestorm is slightly lower than Dragon Roar and significantly lower than shockwave. It's true that Shockwave will use up a lot more global cooldowns so I don't know how big of a deal that is, but it still seems way better than Dragon Roar.

Edited August 30, 2012 by silverbow25

[Sylverstone 0]

So, is the whole 15,000 stamina true? I have never seen a Prot Warrior gemmed that way, and its hard to find a high end one. I currently am no where near 15,000.

[MadMonk 154]

So, is the whole 15,000 stamina true? I have never seen a Prot Warrior gemmed that way, and its hard to find a high end one. I currently am no where near 15,000.

I believe the 15,000 stamina is an estimate for Mists of Pandaria.

[Vlad 411]

I'm not entirely sure about this, but based on my very limited test Shockwave has about twice the damage potential of Dragon Roar. If you are using this in Prot spec with a shield equipped then Bladestorm is slightly lower than Dragon Roar and significantly lower than shockwave. It's true that Shockwave will use up a lot more global cooldowns so I don't know how big of a deal that is, but it still seems way better than Dragon Roar.

Thanks. I've updated the talents page to reflect this.

So, is the whole 15,000 stamina true? I have never seen a Prot Warrior gemmed that way, and its hard to find a high end one. I currently am no where near 15,000.

Indeed, as MadMonk pointed out, that is intended for level 90. We've fixed the wording though, so it is no longer misleading :)

[Sylverstone 0]

Thanks. I've updated the talents page to reflect this.

Indeed, as MadMonk pointed out, that is intended for level 90. We've fixed the wording though, so it is no longer misleading

I appreciate it because I was freaking out, great arms guide too.

[Fearofhades 0]

Are you Sure that Blocking an attack refreshes Revenge? i haven't heard anything about that, I've been stacking Parry for the increased chance at revenge but if i can Refresh it with block then i really need to switch up my gear

[Faasnu 0]

One thing that I need clarification on is parry/dodge stat weights. Dodge suffers from DR much quicker than Parry and Block now ( at least from what I have read). How then, can parry = dodge? Wouldn't parry>dodge? Thanks in advance :)

[Vlad 411]

Are you Sure that Blocking an attack refreshes Revenge? i haven't heard anything about that, I've been stacking Parry for the increased chance at revenge but if i can Refresh it with block then i really need to switch up my gear

None of the tooltips claim that this is still the case, and from my testing, it doesn't seem to happen anymore. I've searched the guide for any mentions of Revenge's cooldown being reset by blocking an attack, but have failed to find any. If there are any, it is an error that we must correct, so please point it out to us :)

One thing that I need clarification on is parry/dodge stat weights. Dodge suffers from DR much quicker than Parry and Block now ( at least from what I have read). How then, can parry = dodge? Wouldn't parry>dodge? Thanks in advance

I'm aware of the issue. I'll be fixing it in all guides by the end of the day. Thanks for mentioning it :)

[Fearofhades 0]

None of the tooltips claim that this is still the case, and from my testing, it doesn't seem to happen anymore. I've searched the guide for any mentions of Revenge's cooldown being reset by blocking an attack, but have failed to find any. If there are any, it is an error that we must correct, so please point it out to us

I'm aware of the issue. I'll be fixing it in all guides by the end of the day. Thanks for mentioning it

Its under Priority & Reforging,Getting a better understanding, Parry & Dodge Rating. "Parry Rating and Dodge Rating are your next best statistics, with equal value between them. Successful blocks also reset the cooldown of your Revenge, thus increasing your rage generation and allowing you to use Shield Block and Shield Barrier more often."

[Guest Grombrindal]

Hmm, not sure I would agree with using the T4 talent on cd when on a boss, at least not for optimal survival. The only one I would consider doing that on would be Dragons Roar. My reasoning would be that you lose that gcd which could have procced sword and board, thus generating extra rage and giving you more survivability. It would also make the rotation more complex by adding that step in when it seems unnecessary (at least for survival). DPS might come close but it depends on the scaling with vengeance with all abilities, at 85 my SS hits for about 10k more than SW, while Devastate hits for about 4k less than SW (with no vengeance). It would be very close for dps and not enough imo to warrant the added complexity for single target (the caveat would be if SW scales much better w/ vengeance than Dev and SS). I would almost always reserve them for an aoe situation.

Of course that's just my opinion, but thought I would throw that out there.

Grom

[Guest john_doe]

Any reason why Spell Reflection isn't mentioned ?

Is Blizzard getting rid of it ? Apologies as I haven't logged into WoW since they release patch 5.

[Vlad 411]

Its under Priority & Reforging,Getting a better understanding, Parry & Dodge Rating. "Parry Rating and Dodge Rating are your next best statistics, with equal value between them. Successful blocks also reset the cooldown of your Revenge, thus increasing your rage generation and allowing you to use Shield Block and Shield Barrier more often."

Oh, thanks! I've updated that part, including the amounts of Parry and Dodge that you want to get.

[Vlad 411]

Hmm, not sure I would agree with using the T4 talent on cd when on a boss, at least not for optimal survival. The only one I would consider doing that on would be Dragons Roar. My reasoning would be that you lose that gcd which could have procced sword and board, thus generating extra rage and giving you more survivability. It would also make the rotation more complex by adding that step in when it seems unnecessary (at least for survival). DPS might come close but it depends on the scaling with vengeance with all abilities, at 85 my SS hits for about 10k more than SW, while Devastate hits for about 4k less than SW (with no vengeance). It would be very close for dps and not enough imo to warrant the added complexity for single target (the caveat would be if SW scales much better w/ vengeance than Dev and SS). I would almost always reserve them for an aoe situation.

Of course that's just my opinion, but thought I would throw that out there.

Grom

You actually make a good point here. I hadn't thought of it this way, since maximising Devastate (for Sword and Board procs) usage didn't use to be a survivability increase. I do believe you have a point, and I would wonder why you would even use Dragon Roar, since it doesn't provide any survivability (no matter how much damage it does). I'll edit the guide :)

Any reason why Spell Reflection isn't mentioned ?

Is Blizzard getting rid of it ? Apologies as I haven't logged into WoW since they release patch 5.

Spell Reflection wasn't mentioned because it hardly ever works against any meaningful boss abilities. The last time I recall Spell Reflection actually doing something useful was against Mimiron's head, where it allowed you to keep aggro of it from range. Of course, that's before it had an obscene cooldown. This isn't the first time someone has suggested including it in the guide, so I guess I will ;)

[Guest Grombrindal]

You actually make a good point here. I hadn't thought of it this way, since maximising Devastate (for Sword and Board procs) usage didn't use to be a survivability increase. I do believe you have a point, and I would wonder why you would even use Dragon Roar, since it doesn't provide any survivability (no matter how much damage it does). I'll edit the guide

Yeah, the only reason I would think about it is because it's only one gcd per minute instead of SW being 3 per min and bladestorm losing 4 or so all at once. But for maximum survival I wouldn't use it at all.

[Guest Biggmac]

Why under the stat priority section do you put Hit/Exp behind everything else....... Right now as it stands it's no longer just for aggro as it's essential for our rage generation which now directly affects our dmg mitigation through either shield block or barrier.... priority should be Stam>Hit(7.5)= Exp(7.5)>mastery >Parry>dodge..... I might even put the hit/exp caps above Stam....... I might be right out to lunch here, and if I am I need to understand why.

ty

[Turjan 0]

Here is a macro for displaying current combat table coverage in the chat frame. I find it useful to pop this during procs to see how they effect avoidance. I don't know if the formula will need to be updated for MoP, though.

/script DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage("Need 102.4 combat table coverage. Currently at: "..string.format("%.2f", GetDodgeChance()+GetBlockChance()+GetParryChance()+5))

[Boradan 17]

Nice prot guide. Havent logged my warrior since the patch (apart from AH stuff ;) ) as I am concentrating on my Warlock.

However, you should remove 'Raid Defense Stats' from your warrior addons as I wont be updating it for MoP due to the CTC no longer being reachable. It doesnt even work on 5.0.4 and will probably disconnect you if you try to use it ;)

If I get enough demand for it, I MAY change my mind though.

[Boradan 17]

Here is a macro for displaying current combat table coverage in the chat frame. I find it useful to pop this during procs to see how they effect avoidance. I don't know if the formula will need to be updated for MoP, though.

/script DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage("Need 102.4 combat table coverage. Currently at: "..string.format("%.2f", GetDodgeChance()+GetBlockChance()+GetParryChance()+5))

Handy macro at the minute, but will be fairly useless in MoP as the CTC will no longer be reachable.

also, the '5' at the end of the macro needs to be changed to a '7' if you are a night-elf due to their racial of an extra 2% miss

[Vlad 411]

Here is a macro for displaying current combat table coverage in the chat frame. I find it useful to pop this during procs to see how they effect avoidance. I don't know if the formula will need to be updated for MoP, though.

/script DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage("Need 102.4 combat table coverage. Currently at: "..string.format("%.2f", GetDodgeChance()+GetBlockChance()+GetParryChance()+5))

As Boradan below you posted, the "CTC coverage" is going away in Mists of Pandaria, so this macro will no longer be of much use.

Nice prot guide. Havent logged my warrior since the patch (apart from AH stuff ) as I am concentrating on my Warlock.

However, you should remove 'Raid Defense Stats' from your warrior addons as I wont be updating it for MoP due to the CTC no longer being reachable. It doesnt even work on 5.0.4 and will probably disconnect you if you try to use it

If I get enough demand for it, I MAY change my mind though.

Thanks for pointing this out. Obviously, we're aware that CTC is going away, I just overlooked removing the addon :)

I will update the guide asap, thanks again!

[Guest Berthold]

Great Guide! Just want to mention that the latest simcraft shows that Hit and Expertise are good enough to cap, so you might want to update the stat section.

http://hci.rwth-aachen.de/~moellers/wow/prot_90_combined.html

[Guest Kaluun]

Hi, I'm a bit confused regarding your stat priority. I'm glad to see that you have added the explanation of hit / expertise up to the cap versus dodge/parry/block. I feel that - at least when I focus - having achieved the hit cap and going some way towards the expertise cap has really helped with rage generation, and hence with the ability of keeping up the defensive cooldowns. I haven't done any theory-crafting, but I wouldn't be surprised if the increase in active mitigation through shield block and shield barrier afforder by reaching the caps would outweigh corresponding gains in passive mitigation. Does anyone have an insight into this? I notice that Ask Mr Robot offers two different builds, one with Hit/Exp and a "standard" build.

I am quite intrigued though that you place Mastery above Parry. This doesn't make a lot of sense to me, given that block has more diminishing returns than Parry, and that furthermore blocking only happens after dodge and parry, and that block only reduces the damage ...

I mean, Block chance is only applied after the dodge and parry chance. So the total chance of dodging, parrying or blocking an attach is:

(parry + dodge) + block + (1 - parry + dodge) =

parry + dodge + block - parry*block - dodge*block.

Note that Mr Robot also has parry and dodge above mastery at the moment.

I understand that MoP is just around the corner, and much more theorycrafting is going to happen at level 90. But still, I think the stat priority as stated at the moment may be misleading - unless I am missing something?

I for one changed lots of gems from mastery to strength (due to parry being gained from strength, and strength apparently being better than parry at level 85), and reforged quite a bit to hit and expertise, which seems to work well enough at the moment.

[Guest Dalrick]

Gnomes have short-blade specialization as a racial, which increases dagger and one-handed sword expertise by 1% as well.

[Guest Orcorc]

I don't know when his has changed but Revenge isn't refreshed by blocking anymore. It only refreshes when you dodge or parry.

Would that explain why mrrobot has put parry and dodge above mastery now?

[Vlad 411]

I don't know when his has changed but Revenge isn't refreshed by blocking anymore. It only refreshes when you dodge or parry.

Would that explain why mrrobot has put parry and dodge above mastery now?

Blocks not resetting Revenge cooldown was a change that came with MoP changes, since you can have very high uptime on Shield Block now.

Regarding the stats, we will look into it. Thanks :)