Low DPS/Threat, need suggestions.

[Astrian]

Armory Link (http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Vek%27nilash&n=Astrian)

Prepare for a little QQ. I consider myself to be a relatively well-informed tank. I check several forums regularly (EJ, Tankspot, Wowhead) for advice and statistics, so that I can do as great a job as is reasonably possible for my guild. Yet, as I group with other tanks of different class in 25-man raids, I find myself, quite frankly, unable to compete with them (regardless of their gear, almost) on AOE threat and DPS of any sort. I am hesitant to blame this simply on the warrior class, as I am well aware of the love we got at the end of Burning Crusade. That leaves me with... well, me. I will list some pertinent information for those of you who might be able to help:

-Def Capped +
-No rage issues
-Priority rotation (SS>Revenge>Dev, TS/SW/CB as allowed and HS constantly)
-Hit and Expertise gemmed (this is recent and I'm not fully capped for either)
-Large stockpile of purple tank gear, chose most of what I'm wearing for the hit/expertise

I did about 1100 DPS the instant I set foot into 10-man naxx, relatively fresh out of 80. Despite fully gearing through 10-naxx and about 80% through 25, my DPS rests comfortably at... about 1100. On a good day I can run 6-7k TPS, but it must be reliant on crit strings because other times I see around 2-3k, and that's just pathetic. What am I doing wrong? I'm getting really frustrated with my inability to improve and it's making me seriously consider giving up the warrior tank, which I think would prove detrimental to the guild. I will be happy to provide any other information you might need. Thanks in advance!

[Edit: Having done a little more research, it seems having a combat parse for something like patchwerk would be helpful, so I'll try to get one of those up asap]

[chun]

I'll give it a shot. Hope this helps :)

The first place I looked was your hit and expertise. You have 195 hit,
and 35 expertise. Those are both good numbers and should allow you to do
well more than 1100dps.

So the question becomes.. is this 1100 dps overall, or on bosses?
I'm assuming this is 1100dps WHILE TANKING, not offtanking or pseudo
dpsing.

Your crit chance looks low to me. You seem to be about 5.3%. I tend to
run at 10% or more. When tanking trash swap in a threat trinket. Something like
the "mirror of truth" works nicely. If your healers are comfortable healing
you, keep more threat stuff on and less avoidance stuff.

For trash: Charge -> tclap -> ss/cleave -> shockwave /repeat
For bosses, you have the rotation, but make sure you are prompt on using
heroic strike. Use WWS to look at the "normal swings" you have on bosses, you should try to lower this number.

TLDR: I think your crit is low, this is leading to less deep wounds procs
which means less damage. You may also be not using cleave and heroic
strike enough, but that would be a guess.

Good luck!

[Squirrelnut]

Looked over your gear, some things I disagree with such as using 27defense JC gem but on the whole nothing really bad. Next main thing I looked at was your spec and that is the first thing I would look into modifying.

Crit is very important as it allows for deepwounds to do its thing and you have 0 in Cruelty. Go with the 15/5/51 default, it is the ideal for most things Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft (http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=LAM00fZhbZMItrx0zidIzsGo)

Also if you get a chance keep an eye out for Legplates of Sovereignty - Item - World of Warcraft (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40589) and Sabatons of Endurance - Item - World of Warcraft (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40297) as they are pretty much best in slot for Prot warriors. I try to keep the T7.5 2 piece bonus so you could throw on the Chest or Gloves to go with your shoulders or perhaps switch in the T7.5 helm if you can and replace some of your hit gems with more expertise to make up for it.

I too am hunting the expertise hard cap of 57 and hit cap of about 263 but have had terrible luck getting those legs/feet to drop for me

[Astrian]

Thanks for the input so far.

@Chun: I spam HS or Cleave so hard in high rage environments that I'm amazed I don't have carpal tunnel syndrome. I will doublecheck with a wowwebstats parse as soon as I can get one for a valid instance, but I don't think that will turn out to be my problem.

@Squirrel: Thanks for pointing out that +27 def gem, I could swear I had gotten rid of that already. Will replace it post-haste. I don't have either of those items but will keep an eye out.

@both: My base crit chance is low, yes, but don't forget all the built-in crit from talents. Most of the important abilities crit around 25-30% of the time, leading to a good deal of bleed procs. I will remove my points in imp spell reflect (it's helped out in maly but now that the guild knows it it shouldn't be necessary) but I'll be surprised if the 2% crit increase I can afford will push me up to ~2k, where I see every other tank as soon as they put on a purple, seems like.

[Squirrelnut]

I too am reaching closer to the expertise hardcap/hitcap (not there yet still need t7.5 helm and sabatons of endurance) but even with high end gear, gems, glyphs, appropriate spec & prioritization SS > Revenge > Concussion Blow > Shockwave > Devastate spam HS I still see various other tanks come in with worse gear, less knowledge and still pull similar TPS and more DPS.

As a warrior it seems we just need to be more skilled, more knowledgeable & better geared. Its the tradeoff for having mobility and being secksy :)