[Clyde]

Toughness is the, er, tough one, isn't it?

The real question to me is the target audience of the guide. When doing raid content, Toughness is key. But is it as key when doing non-heroic five man content? How about for a tank with inadequate defense? Yes, it clearly ups effective health, but in lower grade content effective health may not be the best choice in all circumstances.

Toughness strikes me as a highly scaled attribute. For a raid geared tank, it provides immense benefits. But for a starter tank working with a mix of quest greens and auction house gear, the benefit is less. For a team such as the one I worked up with, where I had a five man team with a pair of solid healers, I was much more worried about aggro than surviveability.

At least for now, I'm leaning towards keeping it optional.

Let me ask it this way... which of the following would you rank below Toughness, if any...

-- Last Stand
-- Improved Shield Block
-- Defiance
-- 1H Specialization
-- Shield Slam
-- Focussed Rage

For me, I see the last five as just absolutely essential, and the first one as being too good to pass up at its low price. Toughness is close, I think, for most tanks. I think it's a rare build indeed that would bypass it, and perhaps it's absolutely required for the mid to high end content. But I'm not quite sure it hits that same exact level of value that the above ones do.

[Clyde]

Source: Paruhdox If you played in Naxx you would know Toughness is key, ever try to tank a hateful strike on patchwerk with out 10k hp and toughness. It doesnt work, I have just under 18k armor now so take away toughness im sitting at 16k its a huge drop, its like having a perma stoneshield potion

If I was tanking Naxx, I would agree that Toughness is key... in Naxx, or in Gruul's lair, or in Black Temple. I certainly wouldn't want to take a Patchwerk hateful strike without it. But what about in normal mode Mana Tombs?

I think Toughness' importance increases as the tanking difficulty increases, but at the low end there are other options.

[Aelvain]

Glancing blows now only occupy ~25% of the combat table - tanking warriors should hardly have to worry about reaching a crit cap.

[Clyde]

Source: Aelvain Glancing blows now only occupy ~25% of the combat table - tanking warriors should hardly have to worry about reaching a crit cap.

Oh! Good point. I had noticed the change, but forgot that I had mentioned it when I wrote my Cruelty entry. Updated. Thanks much!

[Crimsonstorm]

Imo, toughness should be essential for all tanks. its one of the best talents in the entire tree. undergeared tanks who are doing 5 mans need it desperately to try and not die in their instances, just as raid tanks need it.

Show me any prot talent spec without 5/5 toughness, for any level of tanking, and I'll find points in that build which should be moved into it.

[Crimsonstorm]

Source: Clyde Let me ask it this way... which of the following would you rank below Toughness, if any... -- Last Stand -- Improved Shield Block -- Defiance -- 1H Specialization -- Shield Slam -- Focussed Rage For me, I see the last five as just absolutely essential, and the first one as being too good to pass up at its low price. Toughness is close, I think, for most tanks. I think it's a rare build indeed that would bypass it, and perhaps it's absolutely required for the mid to high end content. But I'm not quite sure it hits that same exact level of value that the above ones do.

For a 5 man tank, who never raids, Imp Shield block/Shield specialization is not essential, since there are no crushing blows. For any tank who fights lv 73 mobs, it is essential.

The only one of those I might put under toughness is last stand, (but for 1 pt, its awesome as you say). However, there are still a bunch more prot talent point to be spent after the ones listed, and I think toughness is the most critical of the ones that are left. Basically, I would extend the list of essentials to include it.

[Sojin]

Hey Clyde, I really like what you have written here. I have read a couple of different posts on talent specs and they are either confusing or contradicting in some way... there is an obvious range of choice to be made when making a spec, and right now I'm in a transition position where I have been doing heroics and I will still be doing heroics, but I will be raiding Kara once a week.

So I was wondering what would be for me a good spec. here is what I have so far.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

I think this works for me, I didn't get vitality because I don't have too much gear yet, so its not really much of a scale maybe like 550 hp. If you need armory just let me know I'll find it. (I don't know when/how armory resets so I don't know how updated it is, since right now I'm not wearing my tank gear.

But yeah again, I really like what you have written here, really understandable and well thought through. gj man.

[Baceramus]

Uuuuh.

Whats with the thread necromancy?

[Abrinis]

Hey Clyde,

Good post here with some usefull information, aside from agreeing with the other guys on toughness, I am wondering about this spec you posted.

Goal - Single target aggro generation Defiance (3/3) (Req.) : +15% to all aggro Shield Slam (1/1) (Req.): significant instant aggro attack One Handed Specialization (Req.) : +10% to all weapon damage Shield Mastery (3/3) (Free) : +30% to Shield Slam Devastate (1/1) (Free) : Renew sunder with instant attack Cruelty (5/5) (Free) : +5% to crittable melee aggro if no crit cap Vitality (5/5) (Free) : +5% to AP from Strength Improved Thunderclap (3/3) (Req.) : +160 aggro per T-clap Commanding Presence (5/5) (Free) : 6.5 DPS

I am trying to figure out how you managed to get defiance, improved thunderclap3/3 and still managed to get commanding presense 5/5

to the best of my ability can only manage a 2 and thats if I loose some of my thunderclap ability or devistate.

[Insin]

Source: Clyde Improved Sunder Armor (3 points) : Reducing the cost of Sunder Armor from 12 rage to 9 (since we assume Focused Rage) is of great use when Devastate is not available or in multi-tanking situations where Sunder can be places on many different targets. In situations where Devastate will be available and used instead it may only save 15 points of rage over the course of the fight. But when multitanking that savings can go up significantly.

Just a note, improved sunder armour now affects both devastate and sunder, that plus Focused Rage really helps.