Loosing Focused Rage for 5/5 Shield Specialization

[Dalha]

This was just a thought that came to my mind during a boring lunch at work, and it made sense to me, but i just wanted to see what everyone else thought about it. I'm using a basic 15/5/53 as my main tanking spec, which is what i class as my basic all purpose spec, im also using a UA offspec for the specialized fights, and also for a nice change to tanking mechanics. Anyway, although i do raid 25man and 10man content, usualy in a maintank role, i enjoy 5mans, and most weekends i can be found doing heroics with friends, but in these heroics im really rage starved, despite me charging between packs like cat on steroids, using shield block as much as i can and berserker rage (when shield block is down).
It does really become frustrating for me, since i can't kick out the threat i should be capable of due to the rage hold backs. Anyway, with my UA spec, having the 5 points in Shield Specialization i've found (when i've forgot to change specs) that i've got infinite rage despite following what would be my regular trash rotation, Shield Slam, Sunder Armour (Due to the spec), Revenge, Cleave constantly and Thunder Clap. So.. excusing the long winded jibba jabba, would replacing the points in Focused Rage for 5/5 Shield Specialization work in a raid situation as far as rage starvation goes, or is Focused Rage a lot more effective, does anyone have any statistics to go with this, or is anyone running with this spec?

Here is a quick link of the spec im thinking of; Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

[Arikak]

Hey Dalha,

I use a 5/5 Shield Spec with no Focused Rage for MTing raids. It easily provides enough rage. Only thing I noticed is that sometimes I have to watch my HS spam just a bit more since I tend to get over ambitious with the Devastate and HS spamming.

And for reference here are my two prot specs:

Heroics, and pretty much every thing outside ToGC:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Max survivability MT spec:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

The first spec and glyphs is just godly in 5 mans and on trash, and nice in OT roles (big adds on Anub etc.)

[Kamani]

You use one ability every 1.5 seconds. You use another ability every swing. 1.6 on average. But I'm lazy so I'm rounding it to 1.5.

Ability spam yields 4 RPS savings with Focused rage. Subtract a bit because of lag.

Say a mob swings on a 2 second timer. You have 25 dodge, 20 parry, 20 block(completely arbitrary.) .65 of the time you will receive 5 rage. The average swing yields 3.25 rage from avoidance. That's 1.625 RPS.

On a pure rage per second analysis, Focused rage wins. To clean up dry spells, I'd say it's close. 5 more rage on one miss, or 3 more rage on every ability. It's personal opinion. I'm a FR person.

[Powhound]

That spec is almost exactly what I use and in heroics I have no rage or threat issues as long as mobs are attacking me.

I do highly recommend you pickup Glyph of Devastate over cleave. Cleave is good but effectively useless on boss encounters or single target. Dev is also effective against trash allowing you to get sunders up on all targets quickly.

[Dalha]

Great feedback, although i wasn't expecting anything else from Tankspot members. Arikak, your point of view from your Survival spec is really helpful, but, it seems you get spiky rage bursts (which, yes is a common warrior thing) with your 5/5 Shield Specialization, which was something i was hoping it would remove.

Thankyou Kamani for your mathematics, i think you've proven that keeping with 3/3 Focused Rage does give higher sustained rage generation. It seems the only way that we're going to ever be in the perfect rage situation is getting both 5/5 Shield Specialization and Focused Rage, but is it worth loosing deep wounds, armoured to the teeth, or improved disciplines for... personaly i don't think so.

Indeed Powhound, Shield Specialization would be a dream in heroics simply because of the 3-4 mobs hitting you the majority of the time, i can just see that full rage bar now.... dreamy! However i think this thread has shown, in a raid situation it isn't the best approach to rage management. With your Cleave and Devastate discussion, it's mere personal preference; i don't mind pressing Devastate 5times to get 5sunders up, and in raids i run with a warrior offtank, so between us, we are pretty much a glyph of Devastate! i just find the 3 target Cleave's a really handy thing to have in heroics, and in some raid situations, where i'm off-tanking adds it is also useful.

Anyway, in conclusion, keep focused rage, it's far better for your overall Rps (Rage per Second) during single target encounters, and in heroics, just use the rage generation abilities we have effectively. Or... get a tanking offspec solely for trash

[Strit]

I don't have a threat build yet, but I do have my standard tanking spec, based on survivabilty and rage generation/conserving. I have 5/5 Shield Specialization and 3/3 Focused Rage. I'm almost never under 50 rage at any giving time in a group. But I don't have the threat talents, so I might be respeccing to get those at some point.

[Arikak]

Glad I was of help.

I think ultimately speccing as a warrior comes down to what works for you.

For me the Shield Spec v. Focused Rage came down to answering the question: what am I trying to do?

With the max survival build Shield spec provided "nearly identical" results as Focused Rage did for rage intake yet provided that extra bit of mitigation which is what the build is all about.

The rage dry streaks are almost always my own fault since I lead raids and sometimes I get distracted yelling at the dps. Except for Jarraxxus; stupid guy needs to swing more often.

On a side note:

I can't say I have noticed a threat difference not having Deep Wounds compared to my old standard (15/5/51) build that I ran before I had two prot specs. Especially since I used a couple of those freed up points to round out Cruelty.

As for the Devastate glyph: it actually increases the threat from devastate *probably* (http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f14/5...devastate.html) in addition to applying Sunder x 2.

All just thoughts worth noting as you work out what works for you!

Happy tanking!

[kroxix]

I've been using 5/5 Shield Spec over 3/3 Focused Rage pretty much since TOC opened up fully. The only time I notice rage problems are on bosses that don't melee much (Jaraxxus comes to mind)...but still I see no threat problems even when I notice my rage bar dips low.

I also am sitting at around 29% dodge and 21% parry, 42.5k HP unbuffed. So with a 50% parry/dodge, I am seeing good returns on 5/5 shield spec.

I've been using a 15/3/53 build for pretty much all of TOC (3/5 in Heroic 25) and will be using a fight specific build for Heroic 25 Anub'Arak

[Celandro]

Drop improved revenge and 2 points in cruelty and you can run 4 points in shield spec AND 3 points in focused rage AND 2 points in shield wall.

Revenge is obsolete except in extremely low rage situations where shield spec is better anyhow.

[Kazeyonoma]

or run 5/10/56 and get everything you need in prot, get 3/3 attt 2/5 cruelty, and 5/5 improved demo.

Sure you won't get DW, but smart vigilance usage and a tight threat rotation and you shouldn't have too much trouble throttling dps. I know I don't.

[Hamburglar]

Improved Revenge also increases its damage output which increases your overall threat. 5/5 shield spec is not needed if you aren't having rage/threat issues. Why give up a core prot dps talent?

[kallen]

or run 5/10/56 and get everything you need in prot, get 3/3 attt 2/5 cruelty, and 5/5 improved demo.

Sure you won't get DW, but smart vigilance usage and a tight threat rotation and you shouldn't have too much trouble throttling dps. I know I don't.

This is what I use as well for my TOC tanking and dont have any problems with it at all. Dont really see much of a change in TPS from the DW spec I use for Heroics and anything under TOC.

[araisbeck]

What about this? Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Has both 5/5 Shield Spec and 3/3 Focused Rage. With this I would think you would almost never have Rage problems. With Glyph of Devastate, and possibly Glyph of Sunder Armor, you should be able to easily keep threat, and so Vigilance is not needed.

[Kazeyonoma]

vigilance is just too good for 1 point to not have since it just funnels dps as tps into you.

Also not having 2/2 improved disciplines in modern day content (hardmodes) is probably ill-advised...

[araisbeck]

My build is for 5-man Heroics though. Is Vigilance still a necessity?

[bacchanal]

Improved Revenge also increases its damage output which increases your overall threat. 5/5 shield spec is not needed if you aren't having rage/threat issues. Why give up a core prot dps talent?

The primary reason why is with a lot of the theorycrafting and number crunching going on, it's appearing that particularly since the last patch where devastate damage was being upped to 100% weapon damage, it's outstripping revenge for TPS, even with improved revenge (and especially if you have 2pc T8 or T9 [or both]). With that in mind, the only advantages to taking improved revenge would be:

a) Wanting to do more DPS but less TPS by including it.
b) 5 man content where stuns are useful.
c) Low rage situations, as was mentioned earlier.

I dropped imp revenge from my own spec, so that I could pick up some more mitigation talents. I also took a point out of cruelty, because to get all of the finer talents in prot, it was essential. Here's what I'm rolling with right now:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

There is some speculation out there of a pure devastate/heroic strike threat rotation where shield slam becomes unnecessary - but at that point, there's not too many more talent points freed up, as shield mastery still provides a bonus to mitigation with the increase in block value and reduction of cooldown.

[bacchanal]

My build is for 5-man Heroics though. Is Vigilance still a necessity?

I would keep it, because it's especially useful when you're trying to keep AoE threat off of overzealous dpsers. Use it on whoever can do the most area effect threat - lowering their threat by 10% and increasing yours by the same amount on these pulls is quite useful. Particularly because you won't get much better for a single point.

With a 5 man heroic build, I'd recommend keeping improved revenge (the spec I posted last post didn't have it as it's more of a raid threat build) as the stun is too good to pass up. One note for heroics - the earlier math on the impact of shield spec and focused rage on threat assumes a single target hitting you. With AoE pulls [like you'll find in many heroics], there's a bias towards shield spec.