Agg's Prot War Tanking Guide

[Genesis_Omega]

This is a very good guide for people seeking information who don't know these things, but one thing I saw were small things such as for the easily obtainible stuff, you missed out on the EoT Ring, that the EoT Shoulders are quite good as well if you arent intrested in the T9 stuff (My personal prefernce mind you), and that Kologarn drops a tank sword, neck peice, and shoulders...it is Auriaya who drops the tanking legs. Great read over all.

[Aggathon]

oh wow, I can't believe I forgot Clutch of Fortitude. Good catch Genesis. I'll include the EoT Shoulders too. Edit: The Legs I'm talking about do actually drop from Kologarn25. http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45267. I added the link to them in the post.

[Aggathon]

I added some answers to threat questions in the general questions part (AoE and Single Target Threat issues). I also put up a link to WarTotem's TPS spreadsheet.

[Aggathon]

I added a link to Martie's http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f14/6...bout-caps.html in the general questions part.

[Raij]

Awesome post Agg. Really good to have all this info in one well organized location. Gear guides are good, Chanting section very good, etc etc. Even a seasoned tank can get something out of this. Thumbs up!

[krc]

Very good job Agg, hopefully this will reduce the wave of warrior questions we get on the HALP forum every day.

[Aggathon]

Awesome post Agg. Really good to have all this info in one well organized location. Gear guides are good, Chanting section very good, etc etc. Even a seasoned tank can get something out of this. Thumbs up!

Thanks Raij, I also added a link to your guide as well now.

[Raij]

Awesome, hehe. I read it all, very good read even though I know the info. Refresher courses are good, even after 5 years of warrioring.

[Aggathon]

Added a link to Rawr, I thought I had included it but apparently I didn't.

[Ragamuff]

As a newcomer to tanking this guide helped me alot!

Thank you

[Badga]

Added a link to Rawr, I thought I had included it but apparently I didn't.

Just going to say something real quick about Rawr, it is a solid tool for certain numbers and viewing details, however as a tank I would HIGHLY not recommend using it to factor how you gem/itemize your gear. Note that I say that only from a tanking perspective. I see tanks all over the place gemming for 6 stam socket bonuses and they don't realize that the amount of EH they are losing from doing so it gets quite annoying to look at. Granted it is their gear and they can do what they want with it, I just find it more as a pet peeve to me. As the gear gets better our armor keeps going up and up thus increasing the value of our base stam.

However, it is still the mindset for tanks to GEAR FOR THE ENCOUNTER, I can't stress that enough. This is not meant to bash rawr or other tanks in anyway, shape, or form. There are countless tanks out there that still use the exact same gear for every single fight.

Some of the numbers presented in some of these various threads are highly informative to those that do know exactly how to do the math themselves and to those involved in such efforts you do deserve some type recognition. I haven't been posting as much as I would have liked on many of these threads because I am sure many of the higher end players think the same as I do and that what was once a great site for presenting numbers and theorycrafting is now turning into a bunch of people asking repetitive questions that have already been answered on previous threads but never take the time to read through them. One of the reasons I stopped posting on EJ at the end of BC was because of the exact same reason and which is now pretty close to a "dead" source of information from a tanking perspective. I have just simply stopped reading many of the posts just based on the fact that it is annoying to look at some of them at times. Props to landsoul though if he ever does read this on keeping up with the spreadsheet. Seriously, amazing job and excellent work over the years man.

I apoligize for the extensive post, but I felt like I needed to say what I KNOW many other people are thinking in high end progression guilds. Now that isn't only the mindset from tanks, but I have also heard from healers that I talk to and dps as well. I made sure to talk to several people to get their opinion because I felt it was just me thinking this for a while.

@armlessjoe... lol dude seriously if you have an issue with changing a glyph for a fight then you shouldn't be trying to put in an arguement, because you don't care to use common logic behind your reasoning. If you find it "annoying" to switch them out from fight to fight then tough luck man, that is what it takes. Just because you have done the encounter for months doesn't mean you have either done them to their most efficent manner. There is always a way to muster out more dps or do things better to improve for the next time. I am tired of people having the mindset of well we did it so we are right you are wrong... no sir you are wrong for thinking that. My guild has some of the fastest boss kill records in the world if you look at wmo I guarantee you will see us on nearly every single top dps report is that because we just have better gear.. no. We don't have the mentality of just because we did it means we are right and everyone else is wrong. Even on farm content we still find new and better ways to do fights. Example heroic anub.. this is changed with gear slightly however it is still the same principle. Just because we did it correct one time doesn't mean we do it the same way forever. We still look at combat logs and by changing positioning slighly and our kiting method and cooldown timing we now do it successfully with 1 sumberge as opposed to 2 and has made the fight A LOT easier for us. It is the mindset that we have when doing raids to always do everything each player can to make a fight that much easier or quicker and if that involves changing a glyph then by all means so be it. Our resto shaman has to change glyphs for heroic anub for phase 3 healing, and our dps warrior has to change out glyph of heroic strike with cleaving for many fights and he carries all of them on him at all times, why should any other class or player have an exception to such? Min/maxing is a part of raiding weather you like it or not and being able to do such a task is just humerous to me. You need to change your perspective sir. I apoligize if this comes off as rude to anyone it is not the intention I just am not a fan of people having that mindset.

There are other factors to take into consideration now and new numbers to account for that satrina's formulas do not do as effectively.

I am sure many people understand the basic formula of EH calculating and what have you however it doesn't factor in the amount of other source damage. It doesn't accurately reflect fights that contain BOTH magic and physical damage.

Aggathon solid guide btw, and the link below is also mentioned in your guide so excellent job on that as well ^_^

I am sorry if this went a bit offtopic.

Major props to theckhd on maintankadin, these formulas and information he did an outstanding job collecting and gathering information for what should be the NEW EH formula in my opinion. For those that do not read maintankadin I highly recommend checking out some of the information on there I've found it to be a better source in some situations.

Maintankadin • View topic - "New" EH - incorporating different damage types into EH

[Kojiyama]

You do realize that Rawr, even in Burst Time mode (which is based on formulas found on these forums) often recommends 30 Stamina gems and clearly says for the majority of times that 15 Stamina is better than 10 of other stats.

However, the simple fact that is matching gems generally does offer a survival time increase over pure Stamina stacking if the socket bonus is Stamina. The gain of a couple Stamina is often offset in pure numerical terms.

You can be a Stamina zealot if you like, and choose to ignore the math of course... but that doesn't mean the math is inaccurate.

Personally, I find it a pet peeve that some Warriors are willing to give up 10 Def or Dodge rating just to gain 3-4 Stamina, but each to their own!

Interestingly enough, if you use Rawr in Burst Time mode to optimize a full set just as a matter of curiosity you will see it is nearly identical to the gear and gem selection that virtually every high-end Warrior MT uses... There may be slight differences in gemmings and such, but realistically the suggestions are as close as any other spreadsheet or item list would get you.

My advice is to use the tool and play around with either way and see what the results are. Compare how much damage you take with different configurations and compare to how much Health you have with them. As you say, gearing for the encounter is important but IMO far too many tanks gear by sticking their finger in the air and 'gearing by feel' instead of actually exploring what realistic impact their gear choices have.

At the end of the day, Rawr is a tool and will tell you what you ask it to. If you want to view/sort/optimize for just EH, it will do that. If you want to optimize for Burst Time/Total Mitigation%, it will do that. If you want to have a health threshold on top of that, it'll do that too. If you'd rather optimize for Avoidance %, that's one click away. If you need to meet a minimum TPS requirement, it will do that while it does the other things. It doesn't reflect any specific method of gearing--that's up to you to decide what you ask it to tell you.

[Aggathon]

Gemming for 6 stam is a 9 stamina loss though, not 3 or 4. I have to agree with badga that gemming for a 6 stam bonus is an overall loss in survivability. Numbers may suggest otherwise, and for 1 socket it doesn't much matter, but experience has taught me: gem for EHP. Dodge is not EHP.

Also thanks for the props badga... I think I may actually add that caveat to read both you and Kojiyama's for opinions on Rawr, I personally only use it to see what my stats would be should I pick what *I* want to gear for, I don't really mess around with some of the fancier aspects.

Edit: caveat added in post with suggestion to read both badga and kojiyama's posts.

[Kojiyama]

Well, that's a fair enough standpoint.. but my point is that Rawr is pretty much agnostic when it comes to a specific viewpoint. It tells you what you want it to tell you. If you only want to gear for EH, that takes about < 5 seconds to set up.

(My comment about the 4-5 Stamina was in regard to /facepalming at the number of EH-stacking Warriors who will go so far as to ignore +12 Stamina socket bonuses just for matching gem color in a Helm, and lose 10 Dodge Rating over 3-4 Stamina...which I find quite silly.

I do actually have a specific argument for gemming generalistically though... Often people have been saying 'gear for the fight'--which is a very accurate thing to say. But while we swap gear, trinkets, weapons, shield, etc. quite often, I can't say the majority (or any!) of us swap 2000g worth of gems between every fight based on if there is an advantage to EH, Avoidance, or Survival time. Therefore I see it as pretty logical to stick with the gemmings which increase my overall survival time the most, not specifically using the example of one fight.

It's easy enough to bias our gear in more direct ways--such as swapping trinkets, which is worth upwards of +- 5k health or so nowadays--without fixating the gems to be only good at one thing.

Again... each to their own on this! IMO you'll still be better off using Rawr regardless of how you evaluate items than trying to do it manually by hand or on your head!)

[Aggathon]

The thing is though, if we want avoidance over EHP for a fight, at least this is what I do, I have entirely different pieces of gear that I'll swap in, not just trinkets. I treat it kind of like anub's adds. So really it's about what you would gem your secondary pieces for if you are doing avoidance sets. MOST fights warrant EHP over avoidance, and even those that have avoidance (at least so far) you don't need completely different sets of gear for, switching just trinkets is enough, and some people don't even do that. Thus is the curse of normal modes. I'll get back to you if the demands of hardmodes are that much more stringent.

[Kojiyama]

The thing is though, if we want avoidance over EHP for a fight, at least this is what I do, I have entirely different pieces of gear that I'll swap in, not just trinkets. I treat it kind of like anub's adds. So really it's about what you would gem your secondary pieces for if you are doing avoidance sets. MOST fights warrant EHP over avoidance, and even those that have avoidance (at least so far) you don't need completely different sets of gear for, switching just trinkets is enough, and some people don't even do that. Thus is the curse of normal modes. I'll get back to you if the demands of hardmodes are that much more stringent.

Well, a lot of items are best or at least viable for both avoidance/survival time and EH, so I don't really find it to be quite that straightforward.

I'm actually not so sure about the most fights thing... there's been nothing in ICC so far that is particularly burst heavy or requires more HP than was the norm in TotGC--in fact, most of the fights so far have lower HP requirements than TotGC especially considering all the bonus armor items available lowering the average hit size we take by a substantial amount.

My point is simply that as we never really know what fights we're using gems for (generally speaking) provided there is a net gain in survival, not only are you making your gear as a whole a bit more flexible but you are also increasing your itemization budget by not passing up socket bonuses when they make sense. (And, to be fair, most of them do nowadays--as the majority are Stamina.)

For trinkets, one generally trades of Stamina vs. Dodge/Def at a rate of 3:2... yet for Gems, one trades at a rate of 0.9:1 (or 1.8:2) even in the case of losing 9 Stamina. So if you are seeking extra Stamina, gems are very inefficient compared to swapping gear due to the potential loss of the bonus.

But of course, a lot of it depends on your existing gear and situation. At the end of the day, gems rarely make or break anyhow. There are no shortage of threads on this already, after all!

Regardless of your viewpoint on this Rawr can display either one with only some minor tweaks to the settings. As I said, it's pretty agnostic to this type of thing.

[Badga]

I know and understand rawr fairly well and know about the various features of it, I am still going to have to respectfully disagree.

Every guild has a different way of doing fights and becuase you do a fight such and such way it may require gearing this way or because you bring maybe 1 less healer you need to do something this way or w/e, rawr doesn't account for the unforseen variables that often happen in a specific fight.

As you stated before it will do what you tell it to do, and the only thing I really use it for is for viewing what my stats will be in if i change up this gem here or this enchant there...

There is a lot more to understand about knowing how to gear/gem is what I am trying to make clear.

I would use it as a number informative tool... that is about it.

[Kojiyama]

Well, I would also say that players don't account for many variables as well. Even players that make good decisions don't always understand why they make them, or even make consistant decisions when they are aiming for a specific goal.

That's why spreadsheets and tools are made. Tanks aren't better than other players, and DPS classes almost always understand their class and fights very well--yet almost all of them still check to see what spreadsheets, Simulationcraft, or whatever tells them in order to confirm or build data to support (or contradict) their suppositions.

IMO, too often tanks operate in a way other players don't--often blindly choosing their gear based on what other people do without fully understanding the impact of their choices.

A good example of this is gearing for Anub add tanking. Sure, one could do it manually but plugging in the variables to Rawr takes about 30 seconds and then a 2-3 minute pass of the Optimizer will build a Block set out of what you have available far more accurately than most players would ever be able to do by hand--or, at the very least, much quicker. Trying to figure out the trade-offs, juggle caps, and specifically meet the requirements of that fight is not really easy to do in one's head--at least not optimally--yet tools like Rawr can help a player do so with good effect.

At the end of the day, it provides information in a way most people don't think about. If you just want to look at EH, because that's the most important thing to you, it will show that clearly and do all the leg-work of trying to discover when an Armor trinket beats a Stamina trinket or which pieces beat other pieces. It sure beats plugging random numbers into calculators for every item one comes across!

However, in terms of gearing for survival the math behind it is often misunderstood or not understood at all--which is another reason tools are good. They will allow you to explore that side of thing if you want (even if you don't gear based on it) without having to do the ridiculous amounts of math it would take to accurately see the results of it. Even for a spreadsheet/math type of guy like myself, if I had to do it by hand I would never bother.

I believe there is a lot more to gearing/gemming, as you say--but never knowing the numbers or results isn't going to help the average tank understand them either. To me, it's good to know that trinkets are at a 3:2 ratio while gems are often at 1.8:2 or less. It helps me make informed decisions as to what I want to do with my gear, when otherwise I would just be guessing.

An EH-based example is that of something like the Unidentifiable Organ. Trying to factor out the average EH of that trinket given its specific mechanics is not only very complex, but very gear, fight, and environment-dependant. Sure, someone could make a random guess at the average stacks and the uptime, then try to factor that in with the Armor. Or, one could just look at a tool like Rawr which fairly accurately models the trinket to see more or less exactly how it stacks up to the EH of other items for a given set of parameters.

Beyond that, there's more to Rawr (and gearing) than EH or even survival. Threat is often a question that comes up often--especially in regard to TPS-oriented items, talents, gemming, or glyphing. There are plenty of bad assumptions about those elements as well that tools can help out considerably with--for instance, there was a thread just yesterday asking as to if Deep Wounds was better than Cruelty per point--which is something that becomes very obvious in a tool like Rawr. Understanding the benefits of each raid buffs, talent, or debuff are additional things that can be done to help a player's understanding of how the game works and how external factors--not just simple things like gem choices--affect their tanking.

[Aberen]

I like this guide, did anyone mention that you can easily use a hit trinket if you need to? Probably cheaper and easier than glyphing.

[Bihn]

I like this guide, did anyone mention that you can easily use a hit trinket if you need to? Probably cheaper and easier than glyphing.

Well, the Glyph increases taunt's chance to hit by 8%. That's much more than any hit trinket could offer.