Protection DPSing

[bacchanal]

An interesting idea - but there's something important to keep in mind.

Unlike dps'ing with arms or fury, there is ADDED threat from your primary dps'ing abilities. Go for it if that's what you really want to do - but even if you COULD come up with dps numbers comparable to other classes/specs, you'd become threat capped quicker due to the added threat values on abilities. Have fun with doing the prot spec dps, but I don't suggest it for any progression raiding.

[Juu]

No, of course, but perhaps I can mitigate it by finding as many pieces without hit/expertise/whatever. Lower it as much as I can.

I just want to be able to switch to dps and pull my own weight if need be. Not be a top dps-er.

I just wanted to know how to do it. I'm focusing on tanking and healing right now, but later I'll want to try dps (without feeling that cringe to act whenever I hear 'LF tank/heals' in trade chat ;D)

Thanks muchly to everyone.

[Synapse]

Put on your ret armor and turn righteous fury off >.>
<.<

[Juu]

Synapse, if you have looked at the rest of the thread, you would know that this is not the correct way to dps in prot spec. I do not appreciate the >.> since you have obviously not read this.

Prot spells benefit more from BV (block value) for dps than pure attack power/crit/strength.

Strength is the next best (or best according to some).

In the end, it is nothing like retribution dps.

[Synapse]

BV is much cheaper than STR, but STR is still better per itemization point. I'd point you to my maintankadin thread, but they've taken the site down for upgrades temporarily. Here's the plot I would have pointed you to though, from the 3.2 analysis:



As you can see, despite getting 3x more BV per itemization point, STR still wins across the board. This means that 10 STR will always be > 30 BV up to 2400 BV, and gets far better afterwards.

Also note that after around 3000 block value, you're better served by stacking hit to the melee cap (8%) before returning to STR again, because the threat you get from the 2 STR -> 1 BV conversion diminishes the same way block value's threat does.

As a side note, this is going to change even more in 3.2.2 thanks to the TbtL change. You'll gain an additional ~1.5-2 DPS per point of STR, making it even better yet than BV (and probably Hit too, even under cap).

I did read, and there is little difference between what I said and what you claim to be the ideal choice.

[Juu]

I see, I see. Apologies, then.

However, retribution gear is still not the best as it does not perfectly match up with our prot skills, correct? It can be used, but is not the ideal choice.

[Synapse]

It brings the problem that there's no plate gear that doesn't work with all those stats we largely ignore in comparison to str.

[theckhd]

In general you'll be better off with ret gear. It has more of its itemization spent on STR, AP, and crit, all of which increase your DPS.

Prot gear has BV, which is good, but not as good as STR, and it will also "waste" a lot of itemization on defensive stats. Even AP, pitiful as it is, is a better DPS stat than defense rating.