Prot Warrior - is mastery worth reforging?

Takethecake made some lovely graphs in this thread http://www.tankspot.com/showthread.p...echanics/page8

With those current values: avoidance>mastery untill 4600 combined ratings, mastery>avoidance between 4600-5400 ratings but dont exceed the softcap of 77,4%, after 5400 total ratings mastery all the way.

Basicly you need a fair amount(4600 ratings) of avoidance before diminishing returns make it worse then mastery. After the softcap you diminish the value of shieldblock while avoidance gives around 0,7% dodge/parry at that time mastery gives 1,5% block so it pushes more block from shieldblock into crit block. At 5400 total ratings the exponential scaling of mastery and the diminishing returns on avoidance make mastery better again.

Having Mastery over avoidance also affects your Vengeance stacks. A block means you are taking damage, gaining Vengeance. Avoidance means no Vengeance. Keep this in mind, it has an impact on your threat to an extent.

What about reforging to get hit cap as protection?

War! What are your thoughts on Cata gemming and reforging?

My personal preference will be:

0) Get to 85 & get basic tanking gear crafted.
1) Gem Stamina + color in all sockets for the bonuses, most likely going for Dodge > Parry in gemming, depending on the gear available.
2) Reforge all Mastery to Dodge & Parry untill I hit about 2000 rating with each of them, after that, keep up that level of full avoidances while adding Mastery. New gear will no longer be gemmed avoidances ofcourse.
3) Once I hit unhittable, check if/when Mastery becomes worth less than avoidance, then simply stack more of the best stat in question.

I have yet to decide on survival vs threat, I haven't had enough 85 experience to have a clear view on that. Most likely, I will choose gear with hit/expertise rather than gemming for it. Prefered slots will be MH weapon, ranged weapon and perhaps a ring or trinket that also has mastery on it. (So I can swap for defensive gear if required)

On beta what I did was gem pure stam other than a combo that was > 15 stam bonus. There are a few 35 stam bonus sockets on t11 that are worth getting. You need 1 yellow gem for the meta, so I used a Parry/Mastery gem. Avoidance is very low, even in t11. Why are you taking Dodge over Parry when Parry needs to be a bit higher for Hold the Line?

In terms of survival vs threat, you actually have some great options in terms of enchants. I will post more on that later, but gemming wise I'd go all survival, and swap around gear/enchants for the threat aspect.

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Originally Posted by Raij

On beta what I did was gem pure stam other than a combo that was > 15 stam bonus. There are a few 35 stam bonus sockets on t11 that are worth getting. You need 1 yellow gem for the meta, so I used a Parry/Mastery gem. Avoidance is very low, even in t11. Why are you taking Dodge over Parry when Parry needs to be a bit higher for Hold the Line?

In terms of survival vs threat, you actually have some great options in terms of enchants. I will post more on that later, but gemming wise I'd go all survival, and swap around gear/enchants for the threat aspect.

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Because the basic T11 setup gives you more Parry Rating than Dodge. I'll definately stay with more Parry than Dodge rating, but not over a hundred more.

Prior to t11 however I believe they are pretty even, we'll see.

I don't see Hold the Line as mandatory. Nor do I see why you'd have to choose between dodge and parry when gemming, as dodge is now yellow alongside mastery. Otherwise, all makes sense.

True, forgot about stat changes.
HtL is not a survival tool, it's pure threat, the Crit block is just icing on the cake.

War, thoughts on Impending Victory? I see it as a colossal waste of points.

IMO, it is definitely a waste of points.

I honestly cannot see a single use for it. Your threat generation should be very high on a boss sub 20%, the heal is minimally useful, and in a current rotation you won't hit devastate near enough for it to proc VR consistently. I really wonder what the reasoning about having it in game is. Hell, even in PvP it seems pretty useless.

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Originally Posted by Raij

War, thoughts on Impending Victory? I see it as a colossal waste of points.

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Then there is nothing wrong with your eyes.
The damage is not worth it and the healing it does ... well might as well take Blood Craze (if you don't have it) or just some threat/rage ability and kill stuff faster so you can bandage. Only in extreme situations where healers are constantly running OOM would this ever matter, but even then speccing for threat and gearing for more survival is a more suitable option. The same goes for the Rage requirement (surely if you can keep aggro with normal rage for 80% of the fight, the last 20% won't be a problem?)
Unless Cataclysm is filled with bosses like Murmur or Vaelstrasz, I don't see the point ever taking this talent, it's a waste talent space atm.

A better talent would have been:
Impending Victory
Using Devastate on a target with 20% or less health has a 50/100% chance of healing you for 60% of the damage done over 5 seconds.

Same healing at end-fight idea, but directly incorporated in Devastate without it being totally passive (e.g. if it was white swings) and somewhat equal HPS from it. Also not too spammable because it's a HoT (to compensate for not having to use VR on a GCD).

Well, there was no shortage of suggestions about Impending Victory on beta.. and it was basically commented as being a weak talent from the moment it was patched in. Sadly, nothing was ever changed with it after being patched in--perhaps someday. :P

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Originally Posted by fabribat

What about reforging to get hit cap as protection?

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Most tanks will want a hit-capped gearset for interrupts. From what I've seen testing raids on Beta there's many fights that need reliable interrupts: Tron Council, Ascendant Council, Nefarian, Maloriak, Halfus Wyrmbreaker and Cho'gall. On some of these fights the tank may be the only interrupter actively on the mob that needs interrupting. Also it seems like most DPS specs don't have Hit rating as the top stat before cap so if DPS can't get enough hit from gear and reforging it will be a DPS loss to gem hit and they can't interrupt reliabily.

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Originally Posted by Quewatoka

Also it seems like most DPS specs don't have Hit rating as the top stat before cap so if DPS can't get enough hit from gear and reforging it will be a DPS loss to gem hit and they can't interrupt reliabily.

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I am pretty sure hit is a very strong stat for all DPS classes that are below the cap, the spell power to Int changes might change things a bit for casters but melee and hunters hit will most likely be the best DPS increase until capped like it is at 80.

Based on starting 85 raid gear (346 blues) it is going to be very hard for tanks to be hit capped, avoidance levels are going to be very low anyways and I am not sure it will be worth it to reforge 400-500 dodge/parry rating to be hit capped.

Any feedback of the different tanks (especially warrior) who did Heroic Dungeons and raid, about the damage taken? The stat priority?

I just did a couple of heroic dungeons (Grim batol and Hall of origination), and for sure you will need CC for the trashs mobs, bosses hit quite hard and the mana pool of the healers are really short ...

I think that it is the end of stacking stamina on your stuff (at least at the beginning) and start to play with avoidance stats. Moreover on the stuff (ilvl 333 and 346) there is a lot of mastery, according to the graphs it's useful to reforge it into parade and dodge. Any thoughts about that or others things?

Yea,

As i have not played for a while and had no real opinion yet on the cata changes i came here and followed some basic advice her from i think Wartotem. Stacked my mastery into parry dodge only have about 1500 of each made sure iam hit capped 1.5% off on raid bosses anyway. Not took gemming or enchants seriously at all yet put some stam in and activated some slots. Iam in 333/346 mostly, cant get a talent build iam happy with yet either.

Have done some heroic no problem staying alive even if i have to pick up full packs threat is a none issue aoe damage is silly. Done some raiding today also and keeping me or the deathknight alive was not a issue and mana was fine to last the fight aswell we did not kill anything but that was more a lack of overall raid gear.

What i dont like is my health is so up and down take massive spikes all the time i like it to be more controlled than that.

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Originally Posted by Rickdick

Yea,

As i have not played for a while and had no real opinion yet on the cata changes i came here and followed some basic advice her from i think Wartotem. Stacked my mastery into parry dodge only have about 1500 of each made sure iam hit capped 1.5% off on raid bosses anyway. Not took gemming or enchants seriously at all yet put some stam in and activated some slots. Iam in 333/346 mostly, cant get a talent build iam happy with yet either.

Have done some heroic no problem staying alive even if i have to pick up full packs threat is a none issue aoe damage is silly. Done some raiding today also and keeping me or the deathknight alive was not a issue and mana was fine to last the fight aswell we did not kill anything but that was more a lack of overall raid gear.

What i dont like is my health is so up and down take massive spikes all the time i like it to be more controlled than that.

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I've found my experience to be basically the polar opposite, and frankly everyone I've talked to is having the same experience. My HP goes down slowly it's takes an extreme number of hits to kill me. However healer mana is a HUGE concern. I've moved to stacking avoidance and basically ignoring stam and finding that it significantly improves the situation.

Withe the current state of very slow tank death, combined with very limited healer mana pools and 0 burst damage I think stam is more or less pointless and has little to no effect on survival.