Prot PvP Viability and how talents stack on SS

[Berin]

Hey all,

Out of interest and a general sense of boredom waiting for Sunwell to come out I've started playing around with theorycrafting and gearing for prot PvP. The potential to take advantage of the disproportionate scaling on shield slam seems as though it could be a very viable spec were enough SBV stacked with adequate crit. I was just wondering if anyone with more experience could offer a little insight into the spec.

Firstly I am wondering if anyone has figured exactly in what order the following are applied to a shield slam - Impale, Deathwish, 1H Spec, Shield Mastery, BG Zerker/Stormpike buff. I would naturally think that the order would go along the lines of Shield Mastery --> 1H spec --> Deathwish --> Impale --> Zerk Buff, but this is really just a guess and theorycrafting spits out much smaller SS crits than I am actually getting in BGs (predicts 3K or so unmitigated damage at about 400 SBV, with enrage in place of Dwish, and I've crit upwards of 4200 on casters).

Secondly has anyone gone to the trouble of significantly gearing/gemming/chanting to maximize prot PvP performance in the way of T5+ gear? I plan to continue scaring up 5 pieces of T4/5 gear for the SBV + Agil/Str as well as several key pieces from ZA/Heroic Badges when the next patch hits and I'm basically wondering if this is worth bothering to do. If anyone has had a serious go at maximizing the potential of prot PvP, what results have you had and how much have you geared.

Cheers to anyone that can offer decent insight for me, even if the entire idea of legitimate prot PvP may seem a tad retarded.

[Chisgule]

Heya!

I posted two threads in this forum (Theory, Articles, and Guides), both of which received little/no feedback. This suggests to me that there is very little appetite for discussion of prot pvp = ) That said, take a look at my posts, which are still on p1, and let me know what you think.

I put some thought into how 2.3 changes the landscape, as well as the question of gearing, and I've come to the following conclusions:

1) The new devastate *should* be highly valuable, and will probably become your most used ability in pvp
2) If specing 0/20/41, the pvp gear may be OK for prot pvp. This build obviously functions better in a 2v2 scenario, where you will actually see use of enrage/blood craze. Devastate benefits from the AP and crit.
3) If specing 2x/y/3z, you'll want to stack block gear. A quick calculation of dps suggests that block value is the most important stat, which means that crit really takes a back seat due to itemization. I think the result is a lack of viability of this build, since the whole point of the impale line is to boost crits (which will happen and an increasingly rare rate, and are negated by resil anyways). I suppose this might be more fun to play if you're with a feral druid for the elevated crit rate.

I haven't had time to play-test these builds, so I am not speaking from experience.

Edit: I guess I should say, I haven't prioritized play-testing these builds. While normally my shaman buddy likes to sell 2v2 games, yesterday we ranked a team up from 1825-2068 (16-0), and ended at 2102ish (26-4). I was 33/28/0, he was resto. In the process, we faced the #1 2v2 team. MS helps a lot against druid HOTs... but 100% chance to dispel a HOT could be neat too. The control that a prot war could exercise over a 2 dps team is very intriguing, especially given that a warlock + rogue gave us the hardest time (we went 1-2 against them).

[Wargaszm]

Ive messed with the prot PVP spec and scored with 1100 SVB a crit for 4800 against a target no w/o res and without serking. but that was only once and when it came down to it the average was in the 14-1500 range just because your crit rate is complete crap. The most valuable part of a warrior in PvP is to basically piss peopoe of so that you become the damage sponge while you stun people as u walk past and have the clean up crew people hide behind the brick wall you turn into.

Now if DW and Enrage could stack and then go and get some zerking then this is more viable because that can just wreck someones face. Alas that is not a option.

On the other hand it did give me the chance to get back at mages and other cloth classes that can on average WTFPWN a warrior if they have even the smallest knowledge of there class. Rogues and hunters are a complete joke warlocks tend to be a 50/50 mage u can win more than loose, enhance sham are LOL, pally, druid, resto sham and shadowpriest tend to be the issue in this spec for pvp and they still take forever to kill you ... people normally get the chance to rez twice and run to you by the time they can kill you.

I didn't enjoy this in pvp that much, i much rather grab a big axe and spec 31/30 as things tend to drop swiftly. MS+Flurry=Yummy.

[Chisgule]

pally, druid, resto sham and shadowpriest tend to be the issue in this spec for pvp and they still take forever to kill you ... people normally get the chance to rez twice and run to you by the time they can kill you.

What's prolonging the fight here? Is it the heavily stacked defensive stats, are you sitting in D-stance spamming shield block, or is it more a function of your spec (or all of the above)? I assume that resil would work as a substitute for the defensive stats with regard to increasing survivability. Does that sound right?

I would agree that in AV it's more desirable to spec for quick kills.

[Berin]

@ Chisgule

Just in response to your saying SBV is the single most important stat in PvP as a prot. After spending the weekend testing I feel that it's quite important to stack a decent amount of crit in order to make sure you can actually burst.

I spent this past weekend prot PvPing in a mixture of S2 Gladiator Gear and SBV gear socketed and chanted for DPS. I was averaging 2500-3000 SS crits depending on the target. I topped out at 4200 in WSG with zerk buff and often times running over 3K without deathwish. I was running about 440 SBV, 640 with autoblocker up. I was also in the neighborhood of 25% crit, 28% in zerk stance and about 130 resilience. On top of that my weapon damage was about 600 average, critting for 1200, which meant I could deal decent damage through HS/WW and whites.

Also with respect to best spec for prot PvP, I've been looking at this tool for 2.3

http://www.war-tools.com/?p=vt&i=41035

And I'm personally leaning towards a spec of 21/5/35 in which I get Impale, Deathwish, Deep Wounds, Imp HS, Imp OP, Deflection and Iron Will in the arms tree. I only take Cruelty in the Fury tree, then spec into the first two tiers of Protection, Last stand, Imp SBlock, Imp SBash, Conc Blow, Shield Mastery, SS, 1H Spec and 1/3 Focused Rage. After looking at devestate I just didn't feel is was worth losing either cruelty and deathwish or basically the last 6 points spent in arms tree to get. My gripe with devastate is in a PvP situation you're rarely going to be able to hit a target with it for max sunder stacks before you are ganked or kill them anyways.

Anyways this is just a few thoughts I had before leaving for work this morning. Feel free to discuss.

[Chisgule]

I spent this past weekend prot PvPing in a mixture of S2 Gladiator Gear and SBV gear socketed and chanted for DPS. I was averaging 2500-3000 SS crits depending on the target. I topped out at 4200 in WSG with zerk buff and often times running over 3K without deathwish. I was running about 440 SBV, 640 with autoblocker up. I was also in the neighborhood of 25% crit, 28% in zerk stance and about 130 resilience.

...My gripe with devastate is in a PvP situation you're rarely going to be able to hit a target with it for max sunder stacks before you are ganked or kill them anyways.

Anyways this is just a few thoughts I had before leaving for work this morning. Feel free to discuss.

Those are some very impressive SS numbers given your crit rate, although your resil is alarmingly low. I assume that you're talking about battleground pvp, rather than arena pvp, where 350+ resil is standard.

Did you play in the arena at all? Given that you're not using sunder, I'd assume that you're not in an arena, where my experience has been that sunder against any target that lets you stay toe to toe is absolutely critical. With my 33/28/0 build I almost always sunder my target to 5... and so with a prot build I'd anticipate the changes to devastate being fantastic - especially with that elevated crit rate.