[psinister]

Hi all,

I need to bounce some ideas off the more experienced people at TS.

----[TLDR version]----
Considering a 12/5/44 spec and the stat scaling (str/AP scales better than SBV) would the following better:
- buffing threat through Str/AP
- prioritizing devastate, revenge, heroic strike over shield slam in threat rotations
- while balancing the buffs to stam/armor/avoidance

than say.....
- stacking stam/amor and later adding in avoidance
- prioritizing shield slam and revenge over devastate and heroic strike in threat rotations

To maximize tanking performance (survivability and threat generation)??
Here is the spec to be used for raid tanking as well as heroics: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft.

Keep in mind the following:
- SBV stacking only buffs shield slam damage/threat and reduces damage on a block.
- Shield slam is cooldown dependent and missing a shield slam is missing a big chunk of threat
- stacking stamina/armor adds to survivability but does not nothing to increase threat output.
- stacking avoidance adds to survivability, can reduce rage gain and threat generation
- stacking some Str/AP increase damage/threat of devastate, HS, white attacks, cleave, and adds a small amount of SBV (SBV = STR/20).
----[End TLDR version]----

...............The longer version is below.

----[Background info]----
My threat generation is really bugging me right now. I linger in the 600s to 700s TPS mostly. I get spikes of about 1100-1250 TPS from shield slam crits and HS crits. However, even with recent upgrades I encounter large avoidance streaks in both raids and heroics. I prioritize shield slam, revenge and then devastate and heroic strike. If I encounter an avoidance streak I switch to devastate spam to keep building threat until my next shield slam or revenge is available.

On most trash I don't shield block as I want the incoming damage for rage, but I keep shield block up when tanking bosses. The exceptions are the bear mounted troll trash on the way to the bear boss in ZA, and some times on trash in Gruuls/SSC/TK.

My guild is lacking raiding enhancement shaman, but if there is a resto shaman in the raid I usually get earth shield. So I rarely get windfury, GOA or strength of earth totems. If I have a paladin in my group he is either prot or holy so I get kings and probably light. If I'm lucky I will get might. No raiding Ret paladin in my guild for improved might. The paladin generally use devo or concentration aura. Usually we have a druid so I will get GoTW or MoTW. If a warlock is added to my group it is purely for the imp. stam buff. The imp. fire shield buff is viewed as an unimportant secondary bonus. Most warlocks in my guild are demo sac. destruction specced (0-21-40) and are sporting 900-1100 spell damage unbuffed. Even the raiding boomkin in my guild is sporting 1100+ unbuffed spell damage. I can usually count on a priest of some spec in a raid and get the fort buff.

In heroics I tend to use +20 stam food as my only consumable. For raid bosses I tend to pop a flask of fortification and stam food (+20 or +30 stam). For raid trash I either use stam food, nothing, or pop my flask early. I recently made a stack of adamantite sharpening stones as it is pretty easy to farm up the mats for them. I may build up a stash of +hit food as well.

To avoid armory confusion due frequent gear switching, I'm including the following links to 2 pics of my stam gear used on bosses:

http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c3...erMeleeTab.jpg
http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c3...sterDefTab.jpg
----[End Background info]----

In my stam gear set I use for tanking bosses I have around 440-475 block value. So giving shield slam a high priority in my rotation might not be the best thing as it isn't hitting for 1500-1800 unless its a crit while raid buffed with the auto-blocker popped.

I switched to a 12/0/49 spec to see if it would give me more rage. The spec is ok but I'm going to switch to a 12/5/44 spec.
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Next, I looked at my stats. I have a very small amount of attack power as I've prioritized stamina/armor over everything else. I'm not gemming for avoidance right now. I noticed that my devastates, revenges, and heroic strikes aren't doing much damage. So I started thinking that stacking shield block value is only buffing shield slam threat/damage, while stacking strength/AP buffs practically all other attacks which will increase threat. Strength/AP scales much better than block value. Food and raid buffs don't increase SBV directly while Str/AP can be directly increased through buffs.

So????......
Is there a point where buffing my survivability (stam/armor/avoidance) can negatively affect tanking performance? I *think* the answer is YES. Too much avoidance = rage starvation and potentially a loss of threat generation. Too much armor/block value = not enough incoming damage = lower rage gain and reduced threat output. The armor/block value issue is mostly seen in heroics, lower content or raid trash.

I could use more hit rating and expertise. Which leads to my current plan of grinding badges for:
1 - Sunguard Legplates - Item - World of Warcraft
2 - Brooch of Deftness - Item - World of Warcraft

So???....
The current mantra is stack stamina (use stam gems and enchants basically) and be happy with the bonuses that come with the gear. Don't stack hit rating, strength or attack power for tanking. However,
stacking *some* Str/AP leads me to prioritize devastate, revenge and heroic strike over shield slam. It makes me less cooldown dependent.

Speccing into focused raged, Imp. Sunder Armor, and Imp. Heroic Strike suggest prioritizing toward using those abilities (and the 2 rage revenge) and buffing damage/threat output of those abilities.

I'm *NOT* suggesting that I gut my gem slots and replace all them with 8 Str gems. However, how does one go about balancing the buffs to survivability and buffs to threat stats? Would the use of a mix of the following gems make sense:
(str/stam) - Sovereign Nightseye - Item - World of Warcraft
(str/stam from H-SV)- Shifting Tanzanite - Item - World of Warcraft
(agi/stam) - Shifting Nightseye - Item - World of Warcraft
(+15 stam) - Solid Empyrean Sapphire - Item - World of Warcraft
(dodge/stam) - Regal Nightseye - Item - World of Warcraft

Keep in mind that once I have the badge neck/legs/gloves/ring my next upgrades will come from:
- ZA bear boss boot drop
- Red Havoc boot pattern
- ZA dragon hawk boss dropping the shield
- ZA Hex lord dropping helm
- SSC/TK drops
- T5 tokens

Looking for serious input....

[Morgo]

buffing your attack power does very little for threat, since most attacks have a fixed threat value affixed to them, which accounts for most of the overall threat. So, to increase your threat generation, it is more important to land the attacks, then to make them bigger. This is why hit and expertise are the way to go, not STR.

The one and only well-scaling attack we have is Shield Slam, and this is the reason why SBV is superior to STR in terms of threat increase.

And yes, it is true that better gear decreases your threat generation since you don't get enough rage. This should only happen while tanking trash or heroics, in other words, content that you already outgear. As long as you are tanking bosses at your progression level, you should take enough damage that rage is not an issue.

I say generally, because even on those bosses, you can have an avoidance streak, which you have to adapt to by stopping to use HS, and use revenge, shield bash, devastate if you are missing the rage to SS.

But, even at only 400+ SBV, SS is still your best TPS move, never miss a chance to use it.

So, i would guess that your low treat output is due to either HS'ing too much or too less, since you always want your basic SS,Rev,Dev,Dev cycle to connect, but never sit at 100 Rage, either.

For me, I went from 800ish treat to at least 1k on "normal" bosses, and 1200+ on rage-rich encounters like gorefiend, just by working on my HS usage, while making ASOLUTELY sure that my basic rotation connects. Still improving though, with every fight, I have more SS/Revs and less Devs, while keeping my HS ratio at at least 65%.

[Bodasafa]

Ap/Str is not a gem for a warrior tank.

Once you gain some more expertise/hit items you will notice a differance. I personally am going to be socketing x3 +10 hit gems in my gear to be hit capped in the near future after I get a few new drops. Aside from that +12 or +15 stam gems are the way to go.

[Megatrohn]

An executioner enchant will probably do more for your threat generation than strength gems actually.

[geros]

couple of things after looking at your armory:

The World of Warcraft Armory

hopefully that is it.

A) Snag the shield block value meta gem. It's quite good in conjunction with T4 helm.
B) Snag the Shattered Sun Offensive neck until you have plenty of badges to burn on brooch.
C) Girdle of the Fearless is the best badge upgrade period. It should be #1 on any pick order unless you are wearing greens in other slots.
D) These are all threat boosting badge upgrades to consider before you start socketing for threat:
Bracers of the Ancient Phalanx - Item - World of Warcraft
Sunguard Legplates - Item - World of Warcraft
Girdle of the Fearless - Item - World of Warcraft
Bonefist Gauntlets - Item - World of Warcraft
Farstrider Defender's Cloak - Item - World of Warcraft

Also nightstrike from normal MgT and Shard of Contempt from heroic MgT are excellent TPS upgrades.

E) as it has been said before, think about AP/str last on threat. Think about expertise and hit first, SBV, then worry about other stats. Bosses have a 9% chance to miss your special abilities, ~5% to dodge and ~15% to parry them. Minimizing that ~29% chance to not land a revenge/shield slam/dev is more important than scaling the damage you do with those attacks.

F) I don't ever like 12/xx/xx builds. 11/xx/xx builds are usually just as fan-freaking-tastic. The general point is that you're using heroic strike as a rage dump. You are throwing it into the rotation when you are going to have so much rage that a boss hit will put you past 100 rage, thus wasting it. Players that put 2 points into it are aiming for Anger Management, they generally don't care that heroic strike costs less rage. imp HS is better spent than imp rend.

12/0/xx builds also aren't optimized for TPS. 5% crit probably doubles your crit percentage and a fair percentage of your threat output comes from regular old white swings. If you aren't willing to take cruelty with 12 points in arms, I'd suggest going 8/5/xx instead of 12/0/xx because your TPS will likely be higher with a full 5% cruelty. When you spec Anger Management, you're likely cutting back on a mitigation talent(2/5 imp demo, IDS or something) , but it's kind of silly to sacrifice a TPS talent when you go AM.

[psinister]

Thanks guys for quick replies...

As a background task I'm saving up the mats for an executioner enchant.

I actually misread the formulas for calculating the damage generated by heroic strike. I thought that heroic strike was normalized, but it isn't.

I was also not focusing on the just the innate threat values of our abilities, such as the 196 innate on HS, and 307 innate on SS, but more on the total threat generated. Total threat being innate threat, threat modifiers plus the damage caused. If I left my gear the same and just switched my King's Defender for The Brutalizer (The Brutalizer - Item - World of Warcraft), it would be expected that I would have a harder hitting heroic strikes and generate more threat per heroic strike with The Brutalizer. The innate threat values are out of our control. The damage component of the total threat generated is what we have control over.

However, increasing hit and expertise are my current goals to shoot for. I'm probably not going to see my TPS increase a lot until my yellow attacks have a higher chance to land on the target.

Geros: I logged out in my high block value gear, which I don't use on bosses. The two screen shots I linked show me in high stam gear which I use on bosses:
- SSO exalted neck and shield
- badge bracers, belt, and cloak
- ZA shoulders
etc.

The sunguard legplates and brooch of deftness are my next badge upgrades.

[Thist]

I have threat set, boss set, half-half set, stamina set (and passive uncrush for fun, thats what is showing for my armory right now) and change as needed. I am pretty proud of my threat set - 142 hit, 48 expertise - I don't need md's on VR and can easily grab multiple tank targets in tk/ssc. The order for making a nice threat set is: expertise soft cap (23), hit-cap (142), expertise hard cap (46). Then stamina then shield block value. You only socket for stamina. I made this set with only access to tk/ssc loot (and never downed kael or won anything from vashj) and below. You can hold aggro against people in t6 too. :-)

[clavarnway]

Source: geros F) I don't ever like 12/xx/xx builds. 11/xx/xx builds are usually just as fan-freaking-tastic. The general point is that you're using heroic strike as a rage dump. You are throwing it into the rotation when you are going to have so much rage that a boss hit will put you past 100 rage, thus wasting it. Players that put 2 points into it are aiming for Anger Management, they generally don't care that heroic strike costs less rage. imp HS is better spent than imp rend.

As an aside, why do you not like 12/xx/xx builds? I like Anger Management, it's free rage - I feel I have all the talent points I "need" for tanking what I tank, which is mostly heroics, but also occasionaly Mag and Gruul pugs (this is just an alt).

How much of a % reduction in incoming melee dps are we talking about with 2/5 Imp Demo?

I'm sorry for the off topic post.

In regards to the OP, I don't see any value in stacking AP/str, as doesn't really help most of our threat abilities. Would rather have stam honestly.

In Heroics I try to not use CC when possible, as I find I just don't have enough rage if I cc and only have 2 mobs hitting on me - the nice side effect is that the run goes much faster.

[geros]

In regards to my dislike for 12/xx/xx builds, you've got to take a point that can be better used somewhere else. You've got to be missing at least one point from the following areas if you've got 12 in arms.

The only real openings you've got in the prot tree really include:
-1h spec
-Imp Def Stance
-focused rage
-Shield mastery

the only opening on the fury tree really is:
-Cruelty

I'd take a point in any one of those choices over 1 additional rage per heroic strike. The purpose of heroic strike is to burn rage that you'll otherwise waste and it doesn't take a GCD. The purpose of the rest of those talents outside of IDS is to increase the efficiency/dmg of all your GCD abilities. IDS provides utility to not dying.

I prefer 11/5/45 or 11/4/46 or 11/7/43 to anything starting with 12/xx/xx. It depends on where you are and what kind of magical dmg you are taking to how you want to go with IDS.

For 2/5 imp demo shout, I'm not sure what the actual mitigation is between the untalented and talented. The only time I've ever run without it would be when there is a fury warr present for 5/5 and CoR. I'm sure there is some maths around here for it though.

[psinister]

12/5/44 removes imp. def. stance and imp. shield wall. 11/7/43 is a good spec. I forget where I read it, but 2 points in imp. demo shout are bigger gains per point than points 3-5. It is an issue of diminishing returns after the first 2 points.

I went 12/0/49 because I wanted to see if I would get more rage while grinding heroics, as well as have imp. shield wall and imp. defensive stance. I'm not a fan of Imp. Def stance after trying it out. Only useful on reducing magic damage and looks like more of a knee-jerk response to a similar paladin talent in their protection tree. However, Imp. Def. stance is great in TK where there is plenty of encounters involving a lot of fire and arcane damage.

[clavarnway]

If I was still running Heroic Magisters daily I would consider speccing into it as well - it seems only useful in TK and Magisters that are anywhere near my gear level.

[geros]

I'm not sure if it has ever been proven 100% if bosses have on average roughly ~350 AP and do not benefit from further points in imp demo or whether it is just a quickly diminishing return after 2/5 reduction without using CoR. I haven't looked into it for awhile. The other 3 points give you some breathing room back to the "diminishing return" zone when you apply CoR though.

edit: in terms of IDS, I've grown not to like it so much. Even on bosses with fairly "large" amounts of magic damage, a WWS parse reveals that I've taken a buttload more physical damage. The 5.4% or less of magic mitigation is likely easily absorbed in overheal from most cases. On 100% progression content(outside of DPS check bosses) you shouldn't need to worry about TPS and can go full mitigation spec if need be. Just how I feel about IDS.

[Zain]

Source: geros The only real openings you've got in the prot tree really include: -Imp Def Stance

The reason most warriors don't pick that up, is because unless you're on a certain boss fight (Eredar Twins, Illidan, etc etc) It's 3 wasted talent points.

The avg boss doesn't do enough magic dmg for it to be worth mitigating. I personally am not picking it up until we start doing serious Twins pulls. Up until then, the only time i've ever picked it up, was way back when we were first learning Illidan, and I only ever specced it the 1 1/2 nights on our first pulls. Once we downed him that one time, i was back out of it.

Pretty useless talent for 90% of bosses =P

oh, and OP: Please don't ever put +str gems in your tanking gear. You'll be a laughing stock by any experienced tank, and that's only something deserving of people who are ignorant in the ways of the tank. =D

[psinister]

I got lucky just before the servers went off-line for maintenance. I was able to pick up the Red Havoc Boot pattern, craft them and got them enchanted. I'll pick up the Jungle Stompers later. I still have my Battlescar boots as well.

As for being a laughing stock, I'm not afraid to try, test, and employ a non-standard approach. Following and using an established method is for getting a job done quickly/easily or having a very high chance at success. There is nothing wrong with looking for alternate methods and pushing the envelope. After all warriors are still a melee class with weapons used to hurt things.

Even though I'm open to trying new approaches, I'm not comfortable with incorporating strength gems into my tanking gear. I'm not comfortable because of the following:
1 block value = 20 strength
500 block value = 10,000 strength.
1000 block value = 20,000 strength.

Before trying something as balsy as socking STR gems in tanking gear I would seek feed back from forums like tankspot.

[Foolishness]

I have put some str and crit gems in some of my OLD gear which is use EXCLUSIVELY for light trash tanking.

And the only reason i have used str and crit gems is because my hit rating in that set is already maxed out.

Hit expertise and BV always come first for me with threat

[Finelle]

Strength is not used to scale Block Value. You're correct in that it would take an absurd amount of strength to contribute any meaningful amount of block value. However, Block Value as a stat is not to be underestimated. The amount of attack power needed to render Devastate superior to Shield Slam is huge and will definitely cut into survivability significantly.

The Dragonhawk shield is anexcellent shield to illustrate this. It has massive block value and solid tanking stats. You should be able to notice a threat increase after obtaining it.

I favor a 12/7/42 build because Imp Defensive Stance is lackluster at best. Same with Imp Shield Wall. I use Shield Wall as an emergency cooldown and five extra seconds doesn't make or break an ability that is used to let healers get back on their feet. If ten seconds of Shield Wall isn't enough for healers to sort things out and top me off, then I have bigger problems that five more seconds won't solve.

[psinister]

My reference to the block value to strength conversions was a reference to gear stat items. An item with 29 block value is roughly the same as that item having 580 strength. 580 strength on an item would put it in the legendary category, yet there are rare and epic items with shield block values between 20-40.

I might toss in some +hit gems in my older gear and use it in heroics as a prior poster has done.

The subtle point of my original post is that I was looking for an alternate method, instead of stacking block value, in order to boost threat. So far the method seems to be to get hit and expertise capped.

[username17]

If you want threat and survivability get stats that give you both.
Expertise, SBV, and Agility.

Expertise decreases the chance that your attacks will miss or be parried.
That's threat and not getting parried is surviability.

Shield Block Value increases the damage of Shield Slam and increases the damage blocked when Blocking

Agility increases your Armor, Dodge, and Crit.
I don't suggest that you gem or focus on Agility though.