[Tankz]

Added this spec to my 2nd spec last night, MTed most of Ulduar with it, and my my.. nice TPS (11k+) and good DPS (2700+).

I found it far better for multi tanking too, as you can tab swap reveneges which do FAR more TPS than damage sheild+SW (using TC with it too)

Its more work, but its better results, ill still keep the other tank build for the time i need the sockwave, or devi, but for a pure TPS spec, this just cant be touched.

[Aberen]

I've tried to read through this post to find the information I require but it is littered with pro's and con's about dual specing tank gear. I want to know what type of stats are gonna make my tps/dps as high as possible. Do I put some agility on my gear? do i go with strength? how much health should I keep for 25 man naxx, what should I have for Ulduar 10 man? Sorry for all the questions. It would be sweet if all the answers were put into one reply so it was easy to find. maybe sticky it to the first page or something.

Thanks all for the information so far I hope to maximize this set real soon.

[Kabasha]

After 2 weeks of playing with this build I've found the following to be helpful.

Results:
1. 2400DPS on patchwerk. I was the offtank. I blew past most of the DPS and rode the main tank hard through threat
2. 4000tps is minmal. 6000 is average. I hit 8000tps maximum on patchwerk.

I've used this in Naxx and Ulduar, heroics and regular dungeon runs. farming and quest usage.

1. High Block Rating/Value. I'm at 36% or more.
2. 70% combined Dodge/parry/Block is MIN. Get a mod that allows you to swap gear back and forth. Itemrack, outfitter, equipcompare. See your stats in gear and get as close to 70% as you can.
3. More STR you can gem for the beter.
4. Hit/Expertise: Bare minimum, don't go nuts here
5. 28K HP needed. Bosses hit like trucks make sure you got enough to survive.
6. Enchant for more Hit/Expertise. Allows you to gem for STR/STA
7. Mortal Strike is worthless. Don't bother taking it. I skipped the talent and applied elsewhere.
8. Learn to love hitting 2 buttons or 1 with macro. You can safely ignore everything else besides revenge/HS

You are going to be tanking like a druid. Absorb mega amounts of damage. If you gemmed for AGI you'll gain crit but that doesn't matter as you don't need it. You WANT To be hit as then that will proc revenge and then proc HS. Parry was worthelss as your weapon damage is minimal. Revenge was going off for around 7k with HS in the 1.5-2k mark.

This is a fun build, you can crank out a TON of damage if you got the gear and I was challeging some of the lesser geared folks in Naxx and in the top 10 or so in Ulduar. I don't have WWS to back it up, sorry didn't bother keeping them. Questing you just wander around, take up lots of mobs, 3 hits and they drop. Move and repeat. You don't need shockwave or thunderclap, just keep smashing Revenge and Cleave and you'll do more damage.

[Stilleh]

I got to tell you guys, I really enjoy this build. I´ve had the cookiecutter tankbuild with dw as my offspec and this is just so much more efficient. I´m a casual player in a guild that is doing pretty well in Ulduar for a casual guild. I´m mainspecced fury but when I need to offtank something I do it with the UAbuild. I´ve gotten some real critizism(sp?) from people not wanting me to tank in pugs, but mostly they have no clue or have never ever even heard of this build. I easily do +8k tps on Emalon in 10m VoA while also dishing out +2200dps.

Ciderhelm has said that you should have about 70% avoidance in total. I´m at 77% and I even specced into imp thunderclap, sacrifycing 2 points in shieldblock (and have the cleaveglyph) to get some better aoethreat for running a few HCs and taking on thrash in Naxx.

Now my question is the following. Is there a point when you have to much avoidance for this build to be really effective? Is there a defensive stat that is better than the others for this build?

[Stilleh]

Probably should mention the statsbreakdown...

541 defense
24,89% Dodge
17,35% Parry
34,26% Shieldblock

all ofcourse unbuffed

[Eera]

Source: Stilleh I got to tell you guys, I really enjoy this build. I´ve had the cookiecutter tankbuild with dw as my offspec and this is just so much more efficient. I´m a casual player in a guild that is doing pretty well in Ulduar for a casual guild. I´m mainspecced fury but when I need to offtank something I do it with the UAbuild. I´ve gotten some real critizism(sp?) from people not wanting me to tank in pugs, but mostly they have no clue or have never ever even heard of this build. I easily do +8k tps on Emalon in 10m VoA while also dishing out +2200dps. Ciderhelm has said that you should have about 70% avoidance in total. I´m at 77% and I even specced into imp thunderclap, sacrifycing 2 points in shieldblock (and have the cleaveglyph) to get some better aoethreat for running a few HCs and taking on thrash in Naxx. Now my question is the following. Is there a point when you have to much avoidance for this build to be really effective? Is there a defensive stat that is better than the others for this build?

*Grumble grumble* Sorry the forums seem to have eaten my reply.
Anyway the short version of my answer, truly short, is that from my own experiences with tanking in UA with around 70% or more you shouldn't have any rotation gaps (IE you should never have a point where you are not proccing revenge enough to continue hitting revenge/HS). Because of that I would say that you are best served with going for more stamina to recover lost survivability from speccing out of deep prot.

In more direct answer to your question, there is always a point where you get too much avoidance, passive unhittable was reached (I believe Ciderhelm covered this before) that you simply don't generate enough rage to tank effectively. Is there any real advantage to getting more avoidance? Not really, I'd say you could do with more parry/dodge and a bit less block to add some survivability but that's most likely personal choice. At 77% avoidance, well, see above really, you've got enough to keep your rotation up so why go for more if you can counter your lost survivability?

I did notice that you mentioned taking the glyph of cleave though and use it for aoe tanking, I would personally say that you should never use cleave over HS in a UA build but once more that's most likely preference, I'd like the free chance to proc 10rage

Just my two cents

[Damonvile]

Source: Eera In more direct answer to your question, there is always a point where you get too much avoidance, passive unhittable was reached (I believe Ciderhelm covered this before) that you simply don't generate enough rage to tank effectively. Is there any real advantage to getting more avoidance? Not really, I'd say you could do with more parry/dodge and a bit less block to add some survivability but that's most likely personal choice. At 77% avoidance, well, see above really, you've got enough to keep your rotation up so why go for more if you can counter your lost survivability?

Actually with this build you can't really hit that point. With the revenge glyph and the heroic strike glyph your attacks almost pay for themselves. You need very little rage from damage in,with this build to maintain enough to use revenge/HS. So it's a very good build to stack as much avoidance as you can.

[Eera]

Source: Damonvile Actually with this build you can't really hit that point. With the revenge glyph and the heroic strike glyph your attacks almost pay for themselves. You need very little rage from damage in,with this build to maintain enough to use revenge/HS. So it's a very good build to stack as much avoidance as you can.

Sigh, ok I don't know what it is I have literally rewrote this post about 7 times now so let me say this as simply as can be.
With roughly 60-65% block/dodge/parry I was able to almost constantly keep revenge proced on all fights in naxx (barring the one that does pure spell damage).
If your revenge is up 95-100% of the time will you throw more avoidance at it to fix it? Why? You simply fill that gap with a shield slam, hey your revenge is back. instead of insisting on using a very simple rotation which involves 2 buttons you use 2 and a third should you not be able to use the first two, by adding that one button you allow yourself to gear to add survivability in the form of health or add damage (damage converts to threat also remember, and has an affect on revenge).

Once again I say that personally I see there to be better ideas than simply maximising avoidance for this build.

[tneshi]

This is a damage breakdown for UA as a MT on Emalon 25. I have 65% combined D/P/B. My Armory Link.

53.5% Revenge, used 185 times
29.7% Heroic strike, used 225 times
6.0% Shield Slam, used 21 times
4.5% Deep Wounds (DoT), ticked 228 times
1.5% White damage, happened 26 times
1.4% Thorns, procced 61 times -- So much damage for a fight with only one opponent on me. Insist on getting the buff!
1.0% Rend (DoT), ticked 26 times
1.0% Concussion Blow, used 5 times
Then there are a lot of Sword Spec procs and some Thunder Clap to fill up the remaining 4.2%.

Emalon repeatedly casta Lighting Nova. Then my revenge would normally stop lighting up. That's when I used Shield Slam, Rend and Concussion Blow.
Also this would be the best time to refresh Demoralizing Shout, Thunder Clap and Sunder Armor.

In UA, I have exactly 26 expertise, which is the anti-dodge-cap.

For Revenge, I had:
81.1% Hit
7.0% Crit
6.5% Miss
5.4% Parry

In response to Kabasha: There's no way, I should gem for strength here to improve my D/TPS before reaching the anti-dodge cap or hit caps. Why would you say that? Every DD seeks to have a high hit rating and being a tank, expertise is almost twice as valuable as hit!

Remember, Revenge damage is approximately 1550 plus (strength divided by 5). That's a weak scaling factor.

Instead of the str buff food, I should have used the hit rating food. Crit would affect revenge so much more than str. And you could even go for even more expertise.

[kathaan]

Hey guys,

I have recently decided to try UA as my secondary spec. The first time i used it on Patchwerk 10 man and i pulled 2k+ dps. My TPS was crazy, around 7k+... i was offtanking, but although our druid MT taunted and engaged the boss first, i turned out to MT after all my spec was 37/0/34 at that time.

i tried a couple more different specs afterwards, like 37/1/33 (1 ap for every 180 armor in fury tree) My dps improved only slightly and the TPS was the same. then, i realized that Vigilance, improved defensive stance and Concussion blow weren't really useful at all (after all, i'm only using the spec to MT/OT bosses that don't really require me to move around - i never really used this for grinding or tanking multiple mobs)

my newest secondary tanking build is 37/4/30 (2 ap/180 armor and 2 crit in fury tree). I tanked H Gundrak the other day (i only used this spec before engaging bosses, except for Eck and 2nd boss, cause they move around too much and also use ranged attacks) and pulled 2.4k dps on bosses (1.7k overall). my TPS was off the charts and we finished the dungeon much faster and a lot easier than the groups i'd been in normally do.

all said, i love this build and a lil more dps never hurts. keep in mind though that should you wanna try this, u must have decent gear and a good group (esp. healers). survivability wasn't much of a problem, as i would reach 33k-35k anyways w grp/raid buffs. in addition, i made sure that i spent 1 talent point for Last Stand and i also used Glyph of Enraged regeneration, in case healers found it more difficult to heal me. the other major glyphs are of course Glyph of Revenge and Heroic Strike (you'll see one point in Improved HS in my newest secondary build, and that's only b/c i needed 1 more point to get to UA - normally u don't need HS to cost less rage, as u always use it after Revenge which procs a lot anyways making ur next HS free )

i'll try to record a raid encounter where i use UA and post it on youtube. lemme know if u already posted something related to UA. thanks and have fun!

[Nasilan]

First time posting here, as I have been a reader for a long time. This build has me extremely interested and wanted to get people's opinions and experiences. Has anyone used this for Hodir in particular? Our guild has downed him in 25 man a number of weeks in a row now. While I don't have a huge issue with threat, it is my most challenging threat related fight while I MT. We are actively pushing for the "medium" mode timer (missed it by seconds this past week) and I feel that this build could help for a number of reasons. 1) More threat is obvious so our dps won't have to watch threat as much. 2) Sadly we don't run with a kitty or arms warrior so DPS from trauma should increase nicely. My questions are as follows:

- Has anyone used this build on Hodir? How was your sucess? Or what are people's thoughts who haven't used it?
- His frozen blows? Would those create an issue with getting revenge up as I believe it is a magic based attack
- About 2-3 times a fight I get frozen (not flash freeze the other ability). Would second wind kick in?
- I have both last laugh and titangaurd. Which would be better? It seems with the crit happy build to get trauma going, and heroic strike glyph that it might be better using LL, although it is slightly less dps. Thoughts?

[mistersix]

If you recall in Cider's original post threat issues for Hodir is one of the first places you'll see the benefits of this spec. To answer your questions specifically:

-- Yes. I've used it on Hodir. Yes we've killed him with me using at.
-- Frozen blows is a buff to Hodir not an attack specifically. The buff drops his physical damage and adds a frost dmg component. I'm pretty certain it's all still melee swing as the vehicle for the dmg as I've never not had revenge lit up on him.
-- Second wind does proc.
-- Can't say. Generally the weapon spec isn't the important part of this build.

[Nasilan]

Thanks a lot.

[mistersix]

You're welcome. I've used this and my beefcake spec (05/08/58) on Hodir. Both work. The healers will prefer the extra cooldown help provided by the beefcake but since threat can get dicey everyone else will prefer the comfort on omen from the ua spec.

[Viqq]

Tried this last night in Ulduar and got some pretty rad results.

4-5k dps on most fights, with tps spiking for a good 10 seconds at about 11k.

Healers said that there was really no noticeable difference in healing me as well. I recommend it 100%

[pktan]

Is there any combatlogs to show?

[Stilleh]

I´d still want some more feedback on what I posted earlier in the thread about if you can have too much Avoidance and Block for this build. How much AP would you say is needed or to aim for?

If I logged out in dps gear my stats are 542 def, 24% dodge, 17,7% parry and 35,5% block, 2600 AP

The World of Warcraft Armory

[tneshi]

Source: Viqq Tried this last night in Ulduar and got some pretty rad results. 4-5k dps on most fights, with tps spiking for a good 10 seconds at about 11k.

Based on your armory link, you seem to have a little more hit and much less expertise, similar amounts of crit and AP. Why do you pull off twice as much DPS than I do? :-/

Are you using different gear for UA?

[Laffior]

Let it be known that it is possible to be hit and expertise caped while still holding above 540 defense. While I read one reader say that he/she had ~6% miss, I fund this unexceptable in any tank spec.

[Laffior]

The World of Warcraft Armory

Here is a link to my UA spec and gear.