Gone 3 months, converting ALL stats to mastery??

[trueX]

My buddy who has just finished leveling his 80 warrior around the time I stopped playing 3 months ago after getting 5/5 264 and all off set items. I now re-activated, picked a decent spec I THINK and then he said. "You need to reforge all to mastery"

So he had me go back and do each item, drop the largest stat (USUALLY dodge) and convert it to Mastery, he is trying to explain why but I dont see how just blanket stat removal for mastery is the best choice.

I am currently under the hit & expertise cap and was thinking should I keep just reforging for straight mastery and then regem to hit the exp cap or back undo some of the mastery and hit my exp cap NOT using gems.

Just coming back and cant seem to get a straight answer

16.81% dodge now (after reforging)
20.39% parry now (after reforging)
42.94% block now (after reforging)

Here is my armory: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...onmaw&cn=Phyta

[Reev]

Probably best to continue to gem for Stamina. Avoidance will cause you to take less damage than mastery, but mastery will give you a smoother damage profile, which is easier to heal. Try to keep your dodge/parry close together with slightly more parry than dodge. Reforge for hit/expertise ONLY if you're having trouble holding aggro. I have 18 expertise and 5% hit, and I'm holding aggro just fine as is.

That's pretty much the consensus as I've seen it thus far.

[trueX]

I used to MT for a larger progression guild so feel free to check my spec and give me advice as needed as I just picked the best one I could find that seems to make sense here on the forums. Mostly now I login and tank the daily/weekly and am getting back into ICC 10/25 Boss lockouts for fun.

Not really looking for a 5 man solo or dungeon tanking spec, more of an lvl 80 endgame spec.

TYIA all

[Reev]

Your spec is fine. There aren't many non-viable specs anymore. I prefer Incite and shield spec over Blood and Thunder and Heavy Repercussions, but everyone has different opinions on these, and there doesn't seem to be a "best answer." Even the two healing talents in arms and fury, which strike most of us as "gimmes," me included, are questionable in the current world of unlimited mana pools. I'd still take them though.

[Insahnity]

You may see "unhittable" subject floating around again. Tankadins can hit it, because their mastery is 16% increased block, 2% extra for every point of mastery, whereas warriors get 10%/+1.25%. I am unsure if by reforging their gear if warriors can be unhittable with current gear.

[Nez]

Pallies can reach it. Thread at MTadin.

[trueX]

Thanks for all the advice so far, and please do keep it coming!!!

So atm there are no huge changes I need to make to spec or gear or gems? The only thing I did notice is that the Engineering Helmet Mind Control thing that added 45 stam is now gone and I need to go back to the Argent Crusade Rep enchant, and the Engineering gloves have been dropped from 800 armor to 250 armor which may make me go back to the tier gloves, and non tier chest. Or keep wearing them and take advantage of the bug and throw on Rocket Gloves or Hyperspeed Acceleration along with the 250 armor.

Usually when tanking a grp of mobs, I (Heroic Throw/Charge Macro), then SSlam the main mob that was charged, rend it then (Thunder Clap / Cleave macro) backup 2 steps and shockwave. By that time revenge is up and I hit the off mob with it since it hits 2 targets. Giving the full grp of mobs, rend and 1 hit with a SSlam and cleave and shockwave and revenge off mobs to keep aggro.

Kosher?

[trueX]

Bump, or did I post in the wrong part of the forum for this?

[gacktt]

So for war tanks mastery is the #1 stat? Everyone reforges to it?

[swelt]

I believe that the Jury is still out on that. As stated, Paladin tanks can fairly easily become 'unhittable', meaning that every swing is either blocked, dodged, parried or misses. This effectively turns block from a hybrid avoidance/mitigation stat into a flat 30% physical mitigation (provided you are facing, not stunned, etc).

Because it's much harder for a warrior to get unhittable, I think it would take a lot of math to work out whether it's worthwhile... and I think most of the maths gurus are waiting for level 85 to do that when it will become actually meaningful, rather than doing all that work for the dead time from here to the patch.

I've reforged a large amount of my gear to mastery just to try it out and subjectively it 'feels good', but that doesn't mean very much. I wonder if it would be possible to reach unhittable with a weird gearset and gemming strategy...

However, even if we can't reach unhittable, there will come a point where other stats are worth less than mastery. At a certain level, the DRs on dodge & parry will mean that it makes more sense to reforge to mastery. Similarly, above their caps, hit and expertise should be reforged and mastery is probably a good candidate. What I don't know is what the breakpoint for dodge/parry->mastery is.

[Reev]

Bump, or did I post in the wrong part of the forum for this?

Yes, it is the wrong part of the forum for this. It really should be in the HALP forum.

As for your ability priority, it looks OK, if you want to make use of Blood and Thunder. As I said before, I don't really favor that talent, but it works for some people. If I were you, I'd consider four options:

1) Rely on your Heroic Throw/Charge to generate reasonable threat on your first target and go right into your Rend>TC>Shockwave
2) Save your Heroic Throw for emergency situations where you'll need to pull a caster to you.
3) Get rid of Blood and Thunder altogether and take Rend out of your rotation. Go with Charge>TC/Cleave>Shockwave>Shield Slam>Revenge/Cleave.
4) Don't macro your cleave to Thunderclap.

The first will get your AoE threat started on the mobs faster, because you aren't using a GCD on shield slam up front.

The second option will be important at least in a few of the instances in Cataclysm, where the mobs are closer together and don't pull as tidy as they do in WotLK. Sometimes you will be in mid-pull when another group will aggro onto you, and if one of them is a caster, it's helpful to have Heroic Throw available. It's just too valuable a tool to be wasting on a couple thousand threat.

The third option will enable you to get threat on a large group of mobs in the fastest possible way. This is especially useful when you have trigger happy dps who love to AoE everything right on the pull. Blood and Thunder will hold aggro better on mobs that live for a long time, but currently mobs simply don't live long enough to make it at all worthwhile. I have found that even with people doing 10k dps, I can keep aggro without Blood and Thunder, and I establish my aggro faster.

The fourth option is very important. You should be cleaving pretty much on cooldown, not just with a macro when you Thunderclap. If you aren't cleaving on cooldown, you are leaving a ton of threat sitting on the table.

[Kazeyonoma]

Moved to HALP.

[trueX]

sorry and TY Kazey, good to see your still going at it, repping us war tanks