Prot warrior OT'ing as fury in ZA

[Shortypop]

Hey all,

Really need some advice, I've been asked/offered to respec fury to OT for some attempts at ZA timed runs.

Last night was our initial investigation - I specced into imp parry, imp tclap, 14 in prot (not last stand) - but defiance and imp shield block; and the rest into fury - fairly standard build up to the upper tiers where I didnt have any points left.

My damage was really low :( Fury gear is about: 174hit, 1.8k ap, 0 ArP, 29% crit, dw'ing mallet of the tides (yeah i know) and rage (or is it fury - whichever is the OH from ZA). Once S4 comes out I'm aiming at the S2 MH.

So, ummm, err, I'm going to be tanking:

- Trolls that come from behind on gauntlet - up to 6 (well thats how many I had on me at the end last night)
- Troll form in bear boss
- Spirit lynx (and saberlashes) on lynx boss
- the odd flamecaster (dragonhawk trash) and one half of the dual bear pulls

Outside the timed event:
- One add on hex lord - we got the ogre last night, I was in fury gear with prot trinkets and one ring - and boy did he hit hard

I'm usually a warrior tank who's main tanked most things, excluding morogrim and anetheron - as I'm on murlocs and infernals. We've also just downed Naj, but havent yet downed Kael or Vashj -- just to give you an idea of my gear.

What I'm asking is
- is it worth me speccing full fury, and forgetting the points in prot - will this make a big difference to me? I was missing a few in precision, the decrease threat skill and rampage
- Worth me picking up the prot skill which increases threat from bloodrage?
- I was keeping sunders on (as much as possible), demo shout up and commanding shout - think this was really messing with me, plus I was finding not being able to spam devastate in fury a serious handicap. I'd get bloodthirst and ww off, see my rage building up with nothing to do hit some heroic strikes and then when I could bloodthirst/ww I was rage starved again.
- If I'm keeping sunders up anyone have a feel for what my damage would have been (relative) if I'd specced my normal prot build and used dev instead?

Atm I'm just looking for any advice - even simple things like how to get a good fury rotation going, or where to practice one :)

PS. I leveled to 60 as an appaling arms spec, and have been prot for the last year and a half - so this is all new to me, I've tried to absorb the Fury guide here, but getting my head wrapped round it all in an actual raid is letting me down.

**small gnome cries out for help**

[shiz98]

Your DPS as "mini prot" can be fairly decent - we had a warrior in our raids do that for a while, and he did ok. Nothing earth shattering, but it was certainly viable DPS. Having to keep sunders up shouldn't be too bad as Fury, as long as you do it only a couple second before the stack falls off. Combining that with Demo shout and Commanding shout also shouldn't have too much impact (Fury warriors keep those up in raids quite often).

What I found worked well for learning Fury is to skip out on heroic strike entirely until you get a good feel for what your rage generation is like. Using heroic strike badly is worse than not using it at all.

Whether you need to go prot basically boils down to whether or not your healers can handle you getting crushed. The trash should give you no problems as even a pure DPS spec. I suspect you'll need the extra shield block charges, unfortunately. If you do end up putting points in prot, Tactical Mastery is well worth it. I don't remember the extra threat it adds offhand, but it's something around 250 IIRC. It becomes your Shield Slam.

Could you DPS just as well as prot though? Maybe. I recall doing around 850 DPS on a mag kill as prot (with a WF), and 900 DPS on Anetheron as Fury (without WF). I stack a ton of ArP though, so the difference would probably be closer. Just make sure your threat isn't going to be an issue while you DPS.

[ebs2002]

You're probably doing a disservice to your raid trying to hybrid like that. If you can tank them as fury, then go with a 17/44 spec. If you can't, go with something like a 11/7/43 build (like what I use), which is great for being an offtank: you get Imp Demo 2/5 (you won't need 5/5 in 10mans at least), you get imp TC 3/3, you have 2/3 or 3/3 Imp HS (depending if you go Anger Management or not), and you have devastate/focused rage.

[Tatt]

Without seeing your spec, make sure that if you do not have flurry maved out that you aren't using a lot of crit gems. Unless you can get flurry procs, I believe strength and AP would allow for more damage then crit. Could be wrong, start the flames, but might be worth seeing how much of a difference it would make.

[rustyboy]

I'd be interested to know what spec warriors have used as OT in a Bear mount timed run if they were full or mostly full fury. Spec, gear and threat rotation used would be helpful.

[Meeks]

I used to offtank in ZA alot. I did it as pure fury and pure arms. Tanked both phases of bear at different times and lynx. You should really have 0 poitns in prot. They are not needed and hurt you far more then they help. Hybrid prot is a dead spec from pre tbc. Of course I also pick up parry and imp thunderclap in my dps builds as I feel they are the best way to spend the points on the way up the arms tree.

[ebs2002]

It may be worth while to go 3pts into Tactical Mastery if your MT doesn't have enough threat on bear, but other than that I agree that there's no reason to have a single point in prot if you're speccing fury or arms.

Just to reiterate: don't underestimate prot dps with the right spec. I regularly top my guilds damage meters on shade when I slap on my fury gear.

[Crimsonstorm]

If youre respeccing fury to increase dps you need to go 17/44.

If youre gonna put 14 in prot, your fury dps will be bad.

12/5/43 or even 17/3/41 are goot prod dps specs, when you need to tank you tnak and when you need to dps you put on your fury gear and dps. (Heroic strike as rage permits, and Devx5, WW rotation)

[Meeks]

It may be worth while to go 3pts into Tactical Mastery if your MT doesn't have enough threat on bear, but other than that I agree that there's no reason to have a single point in prot if you're speccing fury or arms.

Just to reiterate: don't underestimate prot dps with the right spec. I regularly top my guilds damage meters on shade when I slap on my fury gear.

It is not worth it. The talents you have to give up for even three points in prot are far too important for your dps and the threat benefit in just not worth it. You are fully capable of tanking anything with 0 points in prot and it the ONLY viable option if you are also being relied on for dps.