Reply With QuoteGotcha, so a glyph of Shield Wall, Devastate, and block along with putting the two points in Improved Disciplines. Sounds good!
Glyph of Devastate is a solid threat glyph and would serve well in a balanced set of glyphs.
Gotcha, so a glyph of Shield Wall, Devastate, and block along with putting the two points in Improved Disciplines. Sounds good!
If you're only going to have one of either shield wall or last stand, then I'd say last stand.
Go read this -> http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f97/6...ing-guide.html
Glyphs are better situationally for different things, I outline the glyphs and various uses, it's up to you to decide which ones are better for what fight.
For example: for my main "max survivability" setup, I use blocking, shield wall, and last stand. If I need threat I switch one of them out for devastate. Which one depends on what I am doing. We actually have 2 fury warriors that are very good with sunders, so I actually almost never need to use devastate in a raid because I put 1 up then before devastate comes up in my rotation again there's 4 more up anyways. This may differ for your raiding situation
However, my glyph setup for anub'arak adds is very different, I go with taunt, cleaving, and blocking. If you want max threat then blocking, devastate, and vigilance is probably the way to go. If you are on a boss where you need a taunt to land, glyph it.
There's not a set 3 glyphs that you are going to put in your glyph spaces and just keep there forever and ever and ever imo, at least not if you want to optimize your tanking ability.
[Today 09:38 AM] Reev: The older I get, the more I think those Greek philosophers were just annoying hipsters.
Why Last stand though? Isn't the ability to have less damage taken every 2 mins better than having your health increased? And if not, why?
because the last stand glyph has no downside, whereas shield wall is -20%, tbh it probably doesn't matter eitherway, and it kind of depends on how you use your cooldowns. Last stand can also act as kind of a heal, and gives your healers a much better buffer. Last stand is always the first oh shit button I hit. I actually don't have shield wall key bound, because typically I save it for specific times and am proactive about its use and am more conservative with it than I am laststand. The second I go "OH CRAP" I just instinctively reach for my last stand button. I suppose it could depend on playstyle and be kind of 6 of one half a dozen of the other.
[Today 09:38 AM] Reev: The older I get, the more I think those Greek philosophers were just annoying hipsters.
The way I use it is to proactively plan out where you use your cooldowns.
Every time you have to move or healers are going to have to move, or get feared, or there is a transition in positioning.
That is probably the most common time for tanks to die, during movement transitions while they're moving a boss(marrowgar p2>p1).
If you know where you are going to hit your cooldowns, and you can hit them every 1 minute, 0:00(last stand + enraged regen), 1:00(shield wall), 2:00(trinket then last stand), 3:00(shield wall)
If there's a soft-enrage: You hit deathbringer saurfang's 30% mark and he's got 85 or so BP(he's going to hit moderately hard).
If there is predictable incoming damage:
Heroic Northrend beasts, I take impales 5, 6, then 11, 12. With 1 second left on the timer I use Trinket(anything I'm using atm) Last Stand and Enraged regen. This takes care of both of the Impales.
For 11, 12, I pop shield wall just before #11 and then it makes #12 trivial.
This helps because when Dreadscale pops up, Last Stand is back up, and healers getting into positioning on that, +me taking Molten Spew, + melee damage is an easy way to die.
There are many many reasons to keep both of them and use them often. You're just that much easier to keep alive. It's YOUR job to stay alive, not the healers job to keep you alive.
Alright, that does sound like a good idea. I hate switching glyphs out though, cause it's harder for me to adjust so I think I'll do Last Stand, block, and devastate. Thanks guys
If your a main tank and often have the DPS/Heals to fill in, you can just as easily have your offspec become another tank spec with another set of glyphs more suited for a different kind of fight.
I'm still waiting for when an inscriptionist can drop a book to change glyphs on the spot.
You can change your glyphs at will anywhere as long as your not in combat or staging for an arena. The Book or Lexicon of Power is not required and Im not even sure its in the game anymore.Originally Posted by Eoika
There is something so appealing about backhanding someone across the face with a shield.
Early in this thread, I kept hearing talk about "oh shit" buttons. I'd say that a well played tank doesn't have "oh shit" buttons anymore, but rather proactive cooldowns to be used when the expected damage is high, the expected healing is low, or just to help the healers out when there's no expectation. If you wait to use your cooldowns reactively as an "oh shit" button, you aren't using them to your raid's best advantage.
To come back to the Original Topic;
Imp. Spell Reflect has 2 portions; the 4% miss and the party/raid reflection.
Unfortunately, neither one has any significant impact.
The 4%miss is a nice overall damage reduction, but can't be relied on for big hits (think Sartharion breaths), where healers will anticipate on you taking damage anyway.
The reflection is a nice thing, if it wasn't for the fact that most meaningful boss spells can't be reflected or Grounded by Shamans. In fact, the ONLY significant spell so far I've found that can (and should) be reflected is the one from Mimiron's head in Ulduar. But as you will either be tanking something else while a ranged (usually Warlock) tanks the head, or you will tank it yourself with spell reflect & taunt, the improved is not useful there either.
It's a pretty useful talent for PvP, as you have more debuffs such as CC flying around that can miss/be reflected, but in PvE it lacks the power to trump other talents.
Back on the Imp Disciplines & Glyphs discussion;
Bears have a 20% reduction, DKs 30% and Paladins 50%, they all do fine with their CDs, why should you as a Warrior need the 60%
Furthermore, both glyph and talent are an overal increase;
Comparing to an ability on a 1min CD, how much dmg reduction would that ability need to do to average out the same? (Assuming same duration)
Base SW: 60% / 5 min = 12% / min
Glyphed SW: 40% / 3 min = 13.33% / min
Talented SW: 60% / 4 min = 15% / min
Glyph+Talent: 40% / 2 min = 20% / min
In other words, taking Imp Disciplines is a 25% increase after which the Glyph is worth a 33.33% increase in overall efficiency. The glyph alone is an 11.11% effiecency increase. This is ofcourse assuming it's used on the cooldown, the availability of cooldowns on certain fights might affect the effective use here.
Personally, I use Shield Wall proactively for when a large spike will come in (boss ability, healer occupied for whatever reason, picking up an extra mob temporarily, ...) and I use Last Stand as emergency button and extra HP buffer for my healers.
The reasoning behind LS is that it neither prevents, absorbs or restores damage you take. It temporarily adds 30% of your HP bar at the end your healers can use and will have to fill up again before the LS runs out. It does improve all abilities that heal relative to your max HP by 30%, which is why I have it macro'd with Enraged Regen nowadays. It restores 39% of my normal max HP over 10s and gives my healers a buffer of 30%. Together they are a powerful cooldown, but because ER is a 3min CD, I see little use in improving LS to 2min.
Personally I use Glyph of Devastate (>5% TPS increase single target btw), Taunt and either Cleave (heroics) or Shield Wall (raids). I prefer to change target once every 20s and Devastate that one to keep up Sunder than glyphing it, Taunt I use because I kept forgetting to glyph it where needed and Cleave/SW is simply because in heroics I'm better off getting 60% reduction as I won't be needing the faster CD and Cleave helps a lot on secondary threat ofcourse (more than Sunder btw).
Anyway, I think there's plenty of arguments in this thread to base a decision on, go with what helps your raid the best.
Protection Warrior Spreadsheet
Since the newer content has a lot more spell damage flying around, I found it's much easier to tank with imp. SR right now. Before, I would never put points into it. But because it seems you can reflect even boss damage, it's helpful in more situations right now even in ICC.
That being said, once people are over geared for the content as will undoubtedly happen. I will most likely spec out of ISR and get something else.
I'll echo what Aggathon said above, and suggest that you make peace with your 'hate', carry around different glyphs, and adapt to the situation. Glyphs are cheap and very easy to replace (just takes a couple seconds). I personally carry around 10 different stacks of glyphs. Proper use of glyphs is a powerful tool every tank should have in their arsenal.Alright, that does sound like a good idea. I hate switching glyphs out though, cause it's harder for me to adjust so I think I'll do Last Stand, block, and devastate.
If you're looking for a balanced set of glphs, LS, Blk, and Dev are a fine mix of survivability and threat. However, as you tank harder content you'll want to take advantage of optimal glyphs. For example, on many fights you'll really want the Taunt glyph (like Saurfang and Northrend Beasts). Glyphs can even be 'fun', I love using the Cleave glyph in 5mans (even built a spec around it
I second with Wartotem on the effectiveness of Improved Spell Reflect in PVP vs. PVE encounters. This ability comes in real handy in PVP (WSG, EotS) when you're carrying a flag or supporting your team's flag carrier.
When it comes to abilities like Shieldwall and Last Stand I find them much more useful when I use them proactively versus reactively in raid encounters. Ever since I glyphed for the reduced cooldown on shieldwall and fully talented for Improved Disciples I've noticed that my survivablity has gone up.
Wartotem's post has a very nice effiecency analysis. I'll try and look at this from a survivabilty perspective. I made my own post for the math behind Last Stand and Shieldwall as my reply did start to become rather lengthy. I'm pretty much reaffirming some of what Wartotem said although I do disagree a bit on his take on the value of improving laststands frequency of use.
So I've been playing around with the recommended talent setup, and using glyphs of Shield Wall, Last Stand, and Block. I do enjoy the less damage I take, and it seems even in heroics I still keep up on AOE threat. The less sunder stacks is annoying, but I think I've adjusted to it nicely.
Along with the glyph comments of me carrying them around, I'm on a server that is full of retards so prices of these glyphs are outrageous. I've only been carrying around glyph of devastate, but I find I really don't need it that much even though it's wonderful on threat.
Also, glyph of taunt? I can see how this needs to be put in on northrend beasts, Saurfang, etc. But I don't see why I'd need it that much. Like I said, really trying to stick to a certain glyph type.
EDIT: Laststand + Enraged Regeneration. Should I swap out glyph of last stand and just stick with using these two together? I've been doing it with the glyph, and seems to work find. What do you guys think?
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