prot war - disc priest

[krunar]

Hello Pros
As they say, long time reader first time poster
I am back in wow after almost 2 years mostly to do some arena 2v2 with a friend.
My m8 is running a Dsc Priest and I have a warrior.
For the first 2-3 weeks I tried ARMS and we reached rating …500 (don’t laugh, ok?)
But I noticed that I wasn’t been able to produce significant dmg so I though to give it a try to prot. After 20-30 matches with a mix of prot + pvp and with tanking spec (and tanking UI)…we are still in 500 but things got a little more interesting, so im thinking to give it an extra try and respect to prot-pvp.
Few question I have

• For gear I will go with a pve+pvp gear as most ppl suggest here. I have the nax10 head and hands for the +10% SS dmg. Do u think worth keeping those or go for deadly head and hands ?
• this is the spec I am thinking, with 2 free points to put..somewhere (Blood Craze or Iron will?)

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

since in most cases the other team is ignoring me, I go for Howl for easy aoe slow (hate stance dance) and ignore some self protect abilities like shield specialization. Do u agree with this build?

• after 20-30 matches we show that winning was all about keeping my priest alive. But sometimes when 2 melee focus on him…cant really save him. Any suggestions for stategy for this Dsc Priest –Prot Warrior combo?

PS
Sorry if some of those info have already been posted but in most of the posts the talents where for lvl70. If you think it’s a worthly double post…plz ignore, delete and point me to the correct directions

Thank you

[Bilistein]

I am currently running with this combo and am sitting at about 1k rating. I know this isnt that high but we dont really play much and I am fairly sure we could get higher if we wanted.

Gear wise I use PvE gear where it has block value and to get set bonus's as you said, I have actually been able to gem and enchant my T7 head for PvP rather than PvE as I have another head for tanking. I would reccomend at least trying to get the set bonus from PvP items for the extra resilience.

I do no stance dancing take piercing howl and no need for it. Also make good use of Shield Reflect - more than once I have hexed a shammy with it allowing us a couple of seconds to nuke the other guy or something similar. I try and use it all the time but my partner calls out on vent if a CC is being cast for it but even if it reflects just a missile attack it is damaging them and not you so all good, and yes we have had a guy kill himself cos of it lol. A lot of people do not expect it and are not ready with their trinket or if you have been stunlocking them already they may have used it already which is pretty much game over as they will be on their own by the time they are out. I dont bother with vigilance either if there is a pet then keep it taunted on you and it will feed you revenge hits which is great and the damage you take will be negilble.


In regards to tactics I generally try and burn the healer down or at least keep him occupied whilst my priest keeps himself alive. We have found that in the first stage of the fight he can pretty much ignore me for healing as I will be taking so little damage and if he survives the initial burst from the other team then we are in a good posisition. Quite often even 2 DPS teams struggle to take him down although if it is looking bad I can always intervene back, got a macro set to him, and stun the DPS to give him a little breathing space.

If you want someone to take notice of you try disarming them popping any trinkets you have and/or shield wall and letting rip with a shield slam.

We coordinate attacks on vent and have found that we need to be causing damage on both targets to keep the healer busy and using mana.

He uses dispel and mana drain as well as putting dots up to help out as well and gets maybe about 20% of our killing blows.

Like I said I may not be the best to give advice but what I will say is that we have a hell of a lot of fun in 2s and win about 60% of our games. feel free to armoury either of us our team name is "The Cabrones" on EU Stormrage

Would be good to see if anyone can comment on PvProt after 3.2 as I have not had a chance to try yet

[krunar]

thank you for the answer.
pretty much, based on my short experience i agree with you.
The key point is for the priest to survice the double dps initial attack.
In case of 2 melee i think its better to stick with the priest to protect him.
There are cases where my priest don't even dismount for as long as he can. If they cant stop him, the opponents got bored and switch to me.
Otherwise its better to try to split the opponents.
Healing isnt really an issue and that why i dont really agree with the Enrage Glyph. In 90% of the cases i die second, and that why i am thinking to use the devastate glyph.
I am also curious why u ignore anticipation (a survival talent) but u selected the deflection (which is also survival). And this is my big question right now. Shall i go with talents like those 2 that increase my survivability or prefer more aggressive one (like Imp TC, Imp Rend and incite).
As soon as the opponents, find out that i am prot they don't bother about me, so a more aggressive talent build might be more effective.
and even if they do...i think dodge is better since it applies to range attack and spells.
last one, for 1h weapon: tanking one or dps one?

[rljohn]

I started playing Prot War / Prot Paladin last night at around ~2200 MMR (ignore my 2v2 armory, it was with a friend and hasn't updated). We were actively stomping any team that was < 2k and holding our own very well against 2400+ teams, often taking a character to sub-1000 HP and just barely missing a kill that would have netted us a ton of points.

Armory: The World of Warcraft Armory

Spec: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Let me briefly explain some talents in my spec:
- No Vigilance -> 3% damage reduction for your healer is really not highly important. Instead, I take 2/2 Safeguard so that in the rare case that he is getting pressured hard I can give him a 30% shield wall (on top of argent defender)

- Anger Management: Prot rage generation is not as high as other specs. Every little bit of extra rage helps.

- Tactical Mastery: Stance dancing for Execute, Hamstring and Recklessness. We need to preserve our rage.

- Impale: Self explanatory...10k Shield Slams turn into 12k Shield slams.

- Deflection: 5% Mitigation ftw. 5% additional chance to Revenge, which is a huge hitter and provides 50% stun chance off DR of other stuns. I don't use imp Heroic Strike because Heroic Strike is a huge waste of rage in pvp. I also don't put the pts into Imp Rend because, well, Rend dmg isn't very high without all the arms talents and a big 2h.

- Imp Charge: We are charging on a 15 second cooldown, the extra rage helps vs all classes, especailly mages. Charge -> Spell Reflect -> Shield Slam -> Reflect the Deep Freeze -> Profit

- No Piercing Howl / Fury talents. Just don't have enough talent pts to go around. Take the 5% crit for obvious reasons.

- Incite / Anticipation: Giving Heroic Strike an extra 15% crit chance really helps on that last 10% of a persons life with lots of rage. I don't tend to use Heroic Strike much else...so 3/5 Anticipation works too...I just feel mostly invincible vs melee so the protection isn't that necessary.

- No Improved Bloodrage: Would love to get this talent, just dont have the pts for it.

- Shield Specialization: 5% extra block. With 2500 block value, this blocks a ton of damge =D Also, generates a metric ton of rage.

- Puncture: 1 pt here for more rage when Devastating.

- Safeguard: This is a must to save your partner vs high DPS burst.

Glyphs:
- Shockwave - Use this on cooldown
- Devastate - Quickly apply sunders
- Blocking - Bigger shield slams / reflective damage.

Okay, so, strategy:

Always call out your disarm target so your healer can help burst. I play with a Paladin so he can throw a Wings -> Shield combo and massive hurt.

Double Melee DPS: If these guys open on you, you have won. My paladin keeps me up with ease. Shield Wall, Last Stand, Self Heal, Shockwave, Shield Block, they will LOL tickle your HP and take massvie reflective damage. Shockwave -> Disarm so one takes huge damage.

Double Caster DPS: This can be tricky as these teams have big CC and can lock down your healer. I like to stick to the mage or warlock. Do not get lured into the open too much, be ready to reset back behind a pillar. Spell Reflect on Cooldown and watch for swaps to your healer with INtervene/Safeguard.

Healer / DPS: This is the most popular comp and extremely fun. What you want to do is try to force a kill EVERY TIME you have your cooldowns up. Stick on the DPS while your cooldowns are down. When they are back up, charge the healer. Put up some Damage, and disarm them. Shield Bash the first heal (6 second lockout). After ~5 seconds (assume silence/interupt talents) use concussion blow. This 5 second stun is pretty huge (watch trinket). If their trinket is down, pop recklessness and shield block. Big Shield slam here. Chain the Concsusion Blow cooldown into a Shockwave. If revenge is up (from their DPS), use that. Your partner should be DPS'ing as well. If you are with a ProtHealadin have them throw their shield at the end of Shockwave. Use your heroic throw silence at the end of Concussion blow. Then try to shield bash (or even shield bash silence... this is the last one you can use on DR if you have a paladin). This should force a cooldown every 45 seconds.

If they have a DK, use Afflicted to watch cooldowns and try to reflect COI/Grip. Freedom and dispels helps wonders here.

Gearing:
Stack as much SBV gear as you can. Tattered Castle Drape - Item - World of Warcraft has some good idea of what gear you should stick to. My offset is ArP/Crit pve ulduar gear, and a couple pieces of PvP. I gear 100% Crit while trying to maintain the hit cap. Why? Because you NEED to crit to burst down people. You will NOT win games by whittlnig someone down (unless its double DPS). Your burst needs to crit to get a kill in your kill combos. Make sure you keep Tuskarr's Vitality on the boots.

For trinkets go for Lavanthor's Talisman from Heroic VH + teh LWG Crit trinket. I am currently using Mjolnir Runestone simply because with glyph of blocking I am at the SBV Shield Slam cap. When my trinket procs I go up to like 60-70% armor pen and my shield slam hits like a beast.

Try to use a slow speed weapon (the 1850 axe is great). I have not managed to get an Ulduar shield, so I am using the Furious Gladiator's shield. In four weeks when Anub'Arak 10 man is open in the Colliseum, try to MT this...there is an AMAZING SBV shield Aegis of the Coliseum - Items - Sigrie

You want to use 2pc T8.5, 2pc T7.5. To best utilize this, use the Head/Shoulders for 7.5 and Chest/Legs for T8.5

[Bilistein]

Yeah I love it when dual melee go for my priest - charge and shockwave corordinated with my Priest and we normally have one dead dps and then its pretty much all over for the other dps.

Since replying to this thread and seeing the other replies I am going to be looking at changing my spec very slightly also maybe regem due to the new caps on SBV. I really need to get back on the net at home to look at this properly

Deflection is only taken to get to lower talents and the alternatives are heroic strike which i never use or rend which is a possible swap for 2 of the points. Where as anticipation is not needed to get to other talents so is not taken.

Will post back once I have changed things around.

[krunar]

hi guys,

thanks for all those info
I decide to get a slight different spec (you can check in armory - The World of Warcraft Armory) with PH

we tried last night and after 40 matches we were 19-22 but we managed to get +150 rating (somewhere in 650 now)

What it doesnt sound right to me is the gear...
If i go for SBV i have to do pve to get gear for pvp...doesnt sound right
Besides i would like to limit my wow-time only for pvp...
Any chance for a prot pvp gear with new arena season ?

and a n00b question...
how u can check your Block Value? i check character page and couldnt find anything in the tip...just the Block value rating

[rljohn]

Mouse over your block in game...it will say something like:

Block Change X%
Your block absorbs Y damage.

Y is your SBV.

The reason you want SBV for PvP because stacking SBV will produce massive Shield Slams. It also boosts Damage Shield (20% of SBV returned as damage) so that melee classes get ripped by being on you.

Without stacking SBV your damage will be lackluster. It will be extremely hard to score kills with low dmg.

[krunar]

thank you very much for the tip
I have 1003 block value..and since diminishing returns starts at 2400 i have a long way to go.
My problem is that i am a casual (in theory sometimes) players.
i like arena coz i can play as much as i want and i can stop whenever i want (my teammate is a RL friend so he will understand if i have to leave)
so now in order to be good in arena i have to do raids??
this i dont like

[BJor]

Do you recomend to go over the DR limit? 2400? in block value . or just stay under it?

[krunar]

News from the prot-pvp front!!


So on my first try as prot-pvp warrior i went with THIS spec and after 3 weeks in 500s we manage to get to 620 with a 26-34 record in 1 night.
Nothing big...but hell we are starting to see an improvement.
The reason i went with this spec is PH. In my early days in arena and until i get used of key bindings, abilities etc i wanted to stay in 1 stance as much as possible and not had to switch for hamstring.
something like "the simpler the better" for start

Yesterday i try to tune the spec a little to THIS one.
Blood Craze is a great talent and i was hoping that it will give some extra time to my priest before he will have to start healing me.
The result.... (again in one night) from 627 to 842 with a record 17-4!!!!
Totally amazing for our experience..our gear and from what we had achieved so far
The reason of this small success...everything except Blood Craze. As we were climbing in the rating, i was getting more and more ignored. At half of those matches, i did 0 healing, i didnt even use my LS and Regeneration and most of the time i was having...how it is called....rage starving!!!
I will give another shot but if i still get this "/ignore prot warrior" behaviour.... i will try to re-spec to something more aggressive or to solve the rage issue with imp charge, anger management or Umbridled Wrath (what u think about this one? mostly for Dual welding but...)

My conclusion...
Maybe arms is better pvp spec and will dominate in high ranks...but it requires some decent gear that a n00b entering arena doesnt have
With prot, you can use the easy to get tank gear and most important you can use your huge health pool to actually play and learn.
There is nothing to learn from a fight where a mage nuke you in 5 secs coz your resillience sucks
But after 15min kitting from a discipline priest which i dropped 3 times to 5% and at the end lost...you can learn a lot more.
Prot spec just give you the chance..to actually have a chance in early steps in arena
ofc i can talk crap....but that how i see things so far.

[rljohn]

Do you recomend to go over the DR limit? 2400? in block value . or just stay under it?

I am currently at 2200 SBV simply because the boots and necklace from Ulduar refuse to drop, and I feel like my epic DPS ring/cape provide better dps than the blue SBV equipment.

I recommend 100% that you try to be as close to 2400-2800 as possible (I forget the exact numbers). It will increase your overall damage, and make 10k+ shield slams the norm instead of rare crits when you have shield block activated.

This will allow you to use shield block defensively. Your healer is CC'd and the rogue is on you? Pop shield block and watch your SBV go from 2400 to 4800. Pop a shield slam and it goes up 10% (glyph of blocking) to 5300.

All of a sudden Damage Shield - Spell - World of Warcraft is reflecting 1060 damage on every melee hit...and that rogue practically killed himself!

Anyway, in regards to PvE for PvP...if you want to be a highly successful PvP Prot Warrior you will need to do PvE to collect Shield Block Value gear. Most SBV gear drops from Naxx-10/25 and Ulduar 10/25. There are a couple new pieces of gear from the 10-man colliseum that are beefy as well.

I would recommend pursuing T7 Shoulders/Helm and T8 Legs/Chest first. The two set bonuses are amazing (10% shield slam damage, 10% crit on Devastate). Despite the upcoming T9 I will be wearing these bonuses in PvP because they are that sexy (and 3 of the 4 pieces have shield block value)

Two of these can be purchased with emblems (118 total, this should take you a week or two to farm. Just run heroics like mad. Our guild does timed heroics as a competition, and we can clear dungeons like UK and Occulus in 11-20 minutes. The other two require you to raid...

T8 Legs -> 10-Man Hodir (8.0) or 25-Man Freya (8.5)
T8 Chest -> 58 Emblems of Conquest (you can get these from almost any dungeon now, get this! No excuse!)
T7 Helm -> Naxx 10 (Kel'Thuzard) or Naxx 25 (Kel'thuzad)
T7 Shoulders -> 60 Emblems of Valor (you can trade these from conqeust badges, get this! No excuse!)

If you need to hit a set bonus, Sartharion-10/25 drops the 7/7.5 gloves 30% of the time and this raid is easily puggable. The stats aren't the best, but the set bonus is totally worth it. The T8 gloves from from Freya-10 and T8.5 from Mimirron, both of which are later bosses.

Other gear I recommend you go for:

Necklace of Unerring Mettle - Item - World of Warcraft - Necklace from Kologarn from Ulduar-25
Bindings of the Hapless Prey - Item - World of Warcraft - Bracers from Maexxna in Naxx-25
Dragonslayer's Brace - Item - World of Warcraft - Belt from Razorscale in Ulduar-25
Signet of the Earthshaker - Item - World of Warcraft - BOE Ring (check AH regularly) from XT-002 in Ulduar-25
Inexorable Sabatons - Item - World of Warcraft - BOE Boots (check AH regularly) from Anub'Rhekan in Naxx-25
Lavanthor's Talisman - Item - World of Warcraft - Trinket from Heroic Violet Hold! Run this every day until you have it, no excuses!
The Skull of Ruin - Item - World of Warcraft - Shield from Grobbulus from Naxx-10

At the very least, work on all the BOE/Badge pieces and try to find a guild that runs 25-man. These SBV pieces are usually not desirable by many tanks. I raid as a fury warrior and always get the first SBV drops since nobody wants them.

[BJor]

Okay, thanks for all the help, really helpful : )

The gear shouldnt be any problem and I got most of it since Im the 4th tank in an ulduar raiding guild. Unfortunately I have deleted my old T7 set but it should'nt be any problem to get it back I hope. Im glad you wrote that about teh damage shield talent too since I was thinking about dropping it.

[Bilistein]

Ok well I have respecced slightly and with the release of epic gems and the changes to BV I have changed my priority a little.

Where as before I stacked Str I now stack Crit. I still use 2 pieces of T7 head and shoulders from memory as I have been able to upgrade these for my tanking set so they now have DPS gems and enchants rather than Tanking ones. I have dropped my Lavanthor's trinket though in favour of a DPS one though as I am sitting at about 2400 SBV with no buffs so unless I am mistaken it will not actually do naything other than reduce incoming damage which isnt really an issue. I think taking enough SBV gear to get to 2400 unbuffed is the way to go and then stack crit gear as much as possible on top of that.

Since making these changes though we have not got to play that many games but have upped our win ratio a little and progressed higher than we have ever managed before so it has definatly helped. My crit is sitting at about 24% with somewhere just under 400 resilience.

We actually managed to burst a lock with a tree healing the other day which was nice and yeah rogues killing themselves is fun. We ended up 1v1 and i got a bleed on him and popped Shield wall before i got stun locked but he died first lol

[krunar]

Just two more easy to get items with SBV
The Warlord's Depravityf from ToC HC (5man) If u dont see SBV there..no worries it has..maybe a cash problem since some items have change
and Wyrmguard Legplates
39 emblems

As for pvp...i still have rage problems and getting ignored while my priest is nuked.
Maybe its time for stance dancing and hamsting instead of PH

[rljohn]

Just two more easy to get items with SBV
The Warlord's Depravityf from ToC HC (5man) If u dont see SBV there..no worries it has..maybe a cash problem since some items have change
and Wyrmguard Legplates
39 emblems

As for pvp...i still have rage problems and getting ignored while my priest is nuked.
Maybe its time for stance dancing and hamsting instead of PH

When Intervene and Disarm are on cooldown you should be in Battle Stance for the ArP...

If they are targeting your priest, intervene the priest, disarm a melee and swap to battle.

[rljohn]

Ok well I have respecced slightly and with the release of epic gems and the changes to BV I have changed my priority a little.

Where as before I stacked Str I now stack Crit. I still use 2 pieces of T7 head and shoulders from memory as I have been able to upgrade these for my tanking set so they now have DPS gems and enchants rather than Tanking ones. I have dropped my Lavanthor's trinket though in favour of a DPS one though as I am sitting at about 2400 SBV with no buffs so unless I am mistaken it will not actually do naything other than reduce incoming damage which isnt really an issue. I think taking enough SBV gear to get to 2400 unbuffed is the way to go and then stack crit gear as much as possible on top of that.

Since making these changes though we have not got to play that many games but have upped our win ratio a little and progressed higher than we have ever managed before so it has definatly helped. My crit is sitting at about 24% with somewhere just under 400 resilience.

We actually managed to burst a lock with a tree healing the other day which was nice and yeah rogues killing themselves is fun. We ended up 1v1 and i got a bleed on him and popped Shield wall before i got stun locked but he died first lol

I'm still not sure 100% where the gemming should go here in 3.2...

ArP, Crit and Str are all fairly equal candidates.. =(