Prot DPSing when no OT required

[feilong]

I've been reading through the threads trying to find something relevant I swear I read something once about this but can't seem to find it.

As a prot warrior I'm running 15/4/52 and so is my OT. I've noticed when he's OT dpsing his DPS is really low and was wondering what he could be doing differently. A couple of questions:

Assuming he's not going to have to pick up the boss at any point, what gear should he be using. He's got a pretty decent DPS set built up. Should he be wearing some of or all of this gear?

Is dual wield or sword and board better for OT dps?

What stance is more appropriate to DPSing as prot? Assuming the MT is keeping up debuffs (or someone else for that matter) is zerker or battle better as prot?

And finally what kind of dps rotation can us prot warriors use to dps? Is it mainly just devastate spam with shield slam/WW(or OP) thrown in when up?

[Conreeaght]

Honestly, all the tanking I've been doing - it's been mostly MTing. So being put in an OT position without rage, I rarely know what to do. It's kinda wierd actually.

I do know this:
Battle stance is out, if you've started along the LK gear path, you'll be banking more and more expertise gear which makes overpower not even worth the stance.

Zerker will keep your threat down, if that's important (not really imo, without rage/revenge it's not like you'll be overtaking the MT)

Staying in defensive stance does give you the chance for a salvage should things go bad for the main tank. This is what I usually do, basically sit back, try for some ounce of dps with devistates, SnB procs, (and using shield block to increase the damage) and I swap my revenge button for a 'pickup' macro which smashes taunt, shield wall, and a /rw saying I've picked it up.

In addition, I wear my trash set with the high block value, strength, stamina, and armor. It does slightly increase my dps. However it does feel like you're having a pillowfight with the boss rather then actively participate in killing...

[rubinxt]

on fights like loatheb i just throw on an ap/crit trinket and gnomergan auto blocker
while wearing all my shield block value set
procing my trinkets everytime its available and spamming heroic strike
imo devastate doesnt put out enough dmg to really use as effective dps and waste of rage
oting majority of the time ur gona be rage starved

[Naka]

http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f177/...-rotation.html

[kolben]

Dual Wield in Berserker stance, preferably in DPS gear but go with whichever set has more total Attack Power.

Try it out for yourself on a target dummy sometime and compare the results.

[Everest]

Been experimenting a bit with this, both in raids, and on training dummys.

Mainly to try to see if MH + OH with devestate spam, would beat MH + Shield, where you can use shield slams. Dont got any exact logs to show, but have found that i can pull about 2.2k dps with MH + OH in dps gear, and about 2.4k dps with MH + Shield, also in dps gear.

Dps gear will benefit you more than blockvalue, mainly because the extra AP from stacking strength will grant you enough rage to pull of a devestate or a shield slam on every gcd. Using devestates is important, with a slow wpn it is significant dmg, but the real reason is the 30% chance for Sword and Board. In blockvalue gear you will become extremely ragestarved, it will be hard to pull off a devestate every gcd, and that leaves you with less Sword and Board proccs, or not enough rage to do a Shield slam if S&B fails to procc.

Some tips you can give your OT to help his dps as a prot warrior.

- Stay in zerker stance ( you wont trigger enrage in def stance without beeing hit)
- Even if you are in zerker, dont be tempted to use whirlwind, its more dmg than a devestate, but also costs alot more precious rage, and has no chance of proccing Sword and Board.
- Switch to def stance to pop shield block every cooldown, then go back to zerker for the shield slams right after.
- Slow mainhand also helps, you will never be doing a Heroic Strike anyway, and the slow speed will increase your devestates.
- A final tip is that if there is any way to get something to hit you ( weak cleaves, adds, whirlwinds) going def stance is the best, since you will get enrage proccs, and you will be able to use revenge, the only issue here is that in full dps gear you run the possibility of outaggroing the tank)

[Berzerker]

what kind of gear for an S&B "dps" set? I was originally favoring +hit gear previously figuring to just do 2 1-h weaps for dps, but I have been thinking a set with high str (for AP/SBV) and some crit would probably do better going the S&B route.

[Everest]

Strength seems to be the stat to focus on yes.

Ofc hit and exp is important, but capping these is really easy.

And because of the very low rage generation as prot in dps gear, strength will pay back more than any other stat. Crit/Arp etc wont be useful until you can maintain a full rotation without ever having to wait for rage.

[DwarfTank]

I'm a standard warrior OT for my guild and find myself in this exact situation on fights like Heigan, Loetheb, Saphiron, Patchwerk (we use a dk to OT there), etc. I've studied my dps using WWS reports over a the course of several weeks comparing my dps for shield slam based dps versus dual weilding as a standard 15/5/51 prot spec.

I've found that dual weilding is far more effective for pushing out dps when doing pure dps as prot. My most effective rotation is just spamming devestate and heroic strike. Dual weilding also keeps my rage bar up far better than using a shield and chewing up rage with shield slam but not getting hit.

[Jivatma]

<3 Sapphiron's frost aura for rage generation. i'm not huge into perfecting 8 different dps'ing tank sets for this boss or that boss. but as an OT, i just hop into fury stance and dps rotation as usual with prot, substituting revenge for whirlwind. if i ever need xtra rage i just back up a bit and then charge right back in. and if i'm really worried i'll just dps and chase aggro on MT in case of wipe (which has happened before) bosses like loetheb and heigan and patch are a bit different ofc. hehe