Need help with Prot Warr rotations.

[Klikster]

Just came back to try 4.0.1 and go slapped in the face by Blizzard.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...rock&cn=Canavi

I'm starting to get used to not having a lot of ragea t the start of pulls, but I'm a bit curious about the general rotations now. I was playing my prot warrior about 6-8 months ago and I'm not 100% on what my rotations used to be which is making it more difficult for me to figure out what to do with them now. Kind of curious for some macros I should be using as well because I have literally none, pro tankz ftw.

Looking to hear what more refined tanks have to say based on my tree / gear, or if you have any suggestions to modify my tree with I'm game as well.

My personal outlook on reforging is that my gear doesn't seem high enough to waste the points, thoughts on this as well if you have any?

Also open to binding suggestions? I'm so lost. ><"

Any help is beyond appreciated!

[Reev]

Personally, I take Incite and the last point of Shield Spec over Blood and Thunder or Heavy Repercussions, but you'd be fine. As for your gear, there's some really funky gemming going on, but nothing that's gonna keep you from being able to tank.

My typical AoE threat on a pack of mobs ability usage goes as follows:

Battle Shout>Charge>Thunderclap/Cleave>Shockwave>Shield Slam/Cleave>Revenge>Thunderclap/Cleave>Sunder, etc. I tab through my targets, always remembering that Shield Slam is better than Revenge is better than Devastate for single target threat. Always use Heroic Strike/Cleave if you have enough rage. Remember, it's not on the global cooldown, so you can use it at any time while using other abilities.

[MellvarTank]

I can't check the armory but I can tell you that the rotation hasn't changed. I can also tell you that I don't use macro's specifically because of the new rage intake/output.

I can't really say anything rotation wise contrary to what Reev said, that's pretty much it for rotation.

[Fakemessiah]

I know you are just asking about rotation, but if you’re worried about fixing that, you might as well fix everything. These are just some tips to help you in the future and possibly in cataclysm, or at least prep you for what you need to take into consideration. If you are wanting to get back into tanking then I suggest you fix something’s to better enjoy your gameplay.

-GEAR-
Shield – Not sure what you had before, but im sure it was better overall than just the 181 stam you get from the PVP one. Resil doesn’t affect crit strikes anymore so its pointless, considering the amount of avoidance you are potentially losing just for 181 stam.
Glyph of Indomitability – I would swap that out with a TOC one or icks rotting thumb. From the looks of things you don’t look like you are in ICC, so those 2-3 would be better for you. The one you have is not very viable anymore.

-GEMS-
Replace all of your gems that aren’t stam basically. Since you are below hit and exp you should gem your red sockets with stam+exp gems and yellow sockets with stam+hit gems. That should get your exp very close to 22-23, but your hit will still be below 8%. Don’t worry about gemming dodge and parry and strength and what not. Focus on stam for blue, exp+stam for red, and Hit+stam for yellow.

-ENCHANTS-
Shoulders – Since you don’t have Sons of Hodir rep, the only plausible one is the PVP one.
Cloak – Armor
Boots – Stam + run speed
Shield – Stam
Weapon – Accuracy, I say that for hit reasons…until you get better gear, go with accuracy, don’t waste a bladeward or blood draining on that sword.

-REFORGING-
Im not going to go into piece by piece detail with you, unless you need me to, but for me I try and stay at 20% dodge and parry and 30% block…for minimums of course. On my toon I am at a little over 20% dodge and parry and around 45ish block…maybe more. I try and keep my parry rating higher than my dodge rating though, which not always means the parry % is higher than Dodge %. You can see my armory in my signature block. For your gear though, I would suggest staying above 15% on each and still 30% for block. If you are not expertise or hit capped from the gemming like I said, then reforge some dodge into hit and exp. Your exp should be fine after gemming though. I would suggest you reforge your rings into hit, they have lower stats normally so you won’t lose a lot of mastery. Only reforge your dodge, your parry is already really low. Once you have reforged to hit cap, then reforge the rest of your gear for mastery. While still making sure you stay above 15% on dodge and parry.

-SPEC-
Well I see you have dual spec but only rock one spec. I suggest doing dual prot specs, so you can be set for raiding TOC for gear and set for AOE for heroics. You should check out these 2 specs I use, glyphs included, but I do change certain glyphs based on fights.

BOSS/SINGLE TARGET SPEC – If you see yourself taking massive damage and healers can’t keep you alive, drop cruelty and max blood craze for the added self-heals. I have tested thunderstruck and blood and thunder in single tgt and I don’t gain as much TPS speccing into those 2 over cruelty, I don’t use TC much on single tgt but just enough to keep it from falling off tgt.
Protection Warrior (2/3/31)

AOE/MOB SPEC– Since Vigilance doesn’t transfer threat anymore it is worthless in AOE situations/Heroics. Also, you won’t be taking enough damage to worry about needing field dressing or blood craze. And the extra rage/stuns are great and the extra cleave damage is very nice. Also I wouldn’t use the shockwave glyph because it overlaps your thunderstruck proc/TC CD and Shockwave CD.
Protection Warrior (5/0/31)
Those are just the specs I run and love personally. But I suggest you try them out. And see what you think.


-ROTATION-
Reev’s rotation is good except a few things. I wouldn’t use shockwave so early…you will stun everything and get 0 rage fast, plus you take longer to get vengeance stacked for extra threat.

I actually start with Commanding shout>Charge/Heroic throw a caster(or your charge tgt if no caster)>rend>TC>cleave>Revenge(hits 2 people when specced)/Shield Slam>Devastate(sunders 2 people with glyph)>then use TC, Revenge and cleave every CD, and after u get 3 stacks of T-struck use shockwave>then keep sunder stacked>rinse and repeat. In all honesty I don’t always use shield slam on proc in AOE situations due to the fact I want my multi tgt abilities hitting first to keep AOE threat up, But I run tidy plates and when I see a tgt losing threat I switch to him and shield slam and focus on him.

For single tgt I use Recklessness Macro>Retaliation Macro>Commanding Shout>Charge/heroic throw>Shield Block>Shield Slam/Revenge>Shockwave>Devastate spam with HS off CD>then cycle it all with CDs, making sure u go off threat priority.

-MACROS-
Right now, there aren’t really many that do wonders. I’m at work so I can’t really log in WoW and read mine off perfectly. I will edit these if they are wrong when i get home.

Vigilance
#showtooltip Vigilance
/target (off tank name)
/cast Vigilance

Retaliation
#showtooltip Retaliation
/cast [nostance:1]Battle Stance;Retalliation
/cast [nostance:2] Defensive Stance

Recklessness
#showtooltip Recklessness
/cast [nostance:1]Beserker Stance; Recklessness
/cast [nostance:2] Defensive Stance

As far as keybinds go, those are all personal preference, I have a razer naga mouse so mine are different from people without a naga.

-any issues on this will be fixed when I am home, just bored at work lol

[MellvarTank]

....you scare me.

[Fakemessiah]

lol y

[MellvarTank]

+181 stam far outperforms ANY plausible amount of avoidance on any shield sub ilvl 251.

Glyph of indom > Icks rotting thumb, even WITH reforging.

Vengeance doesn't stack worth beans on trash. If you don't take enough damage to justify bloodcraze or field dressing, you aren't taking enough to even consider vengeance stacking to an acceptable amount.

Clique is handy for vig. Program it to a key so you just click on a raid frame and bam, vigilance. Much more handy than a macro.

[Fakemessiah]

I was just going for the fact that he wasn't in ICC where we pretty much EHP stack. He still would benefit from a nice amount of avoidance over pure stam...IMO. I was more aiming at Juggernauts Vitality and Etriggs Oath (Heroic) over icks thumb. Just from my experience in TOC, i preferred those 2 over glyph. Seemed to work better in the long run of things.

I mentioned I dont use FD and BC because of the lower damage you take. Regardless you do gain vengeance whether it be little or a lot. So I suggested he use War academy and blitz for more initial rage and harder cleaves for better aoe control. But if you shockwave early, you can get rage starved in the start and lose aggro more quickly.



I used an addon called Warrior Vigilance Tracker that was really nice till patch -.-
Also used clique but it kept bugging out on me so i made the macro.

[SeptimX]

i wish our backpacks were 24 slot, 16 seems smallish compared to 24/22 slot bags filled with 2 extra set of armor and trinkets (pvp, dps and tank) for long runs without handy bank nearby....

fakemessiah post #4 so detailed... nice mini guide....

[Fakemessiah]

@SeptimX
Thank you

[Tengenstein]

I was just going for the fact that he wasn't in ICC where we pretty much EHP stack. He still would benefit from a nice amount of avoidance over pure stam...IMO.

unless your reaching unhittability; Stam>avoidance

I was more aiming at Juggernauts Vitality and Etriggs Oath (Heroic) over icks thumb. Just from my experience in TOC, i preferred those 2 over glyph. Seemed to work better in the long run of things.

Eitrigg's is horrible, yes the dodge is nice, but see above statment on avoidance, secondly, most Bosses swing on a 2.4 second swing timer (debuffed), so we're looking at best 12 seconds before you get it full stacked. Factoring most tanks are rolling with around 40% avoidance, we're looking at not getting max stacks till 16.8 seconds after you pop it giving you max stack uptime of 3.2 seconds on average. Not something that great as an on use. Ff you need that dmg mitigation CD, you've got to pre empt the timing just right to give it time to stack, and you've got to hope you don't get a lucky avoidance string. Icks is a better on use trinket.

Even if we just use it on CD it's not great as a passive dmg reduction, assuming we take a full hit string just after we pop it we get an average armour increase of 675 (rounding up) Glyph is better, Defender's Code is better.

TBH my choices would be Glyph and the Black Heart, sure it leaves you without a nice on use mitigation CD to pop but it's a fair whack of EHP, and both are relatively easy to lay your hands on.

I used an addon called Warrior Vigilance Tracker that was really nice till patch -.-
Also used clique but it kept bugging out on me so i made the macro.

#showtooltip
/cast [target=mouseover] Vigilance

simples.

[Kurtosis]

#showtooltip
/cast [target=mouseover] Vigilance

simples.

Simplest:

/use [@mouseover]Vigilance

or

/use [@offtank-name]Vigilance

or

/use [@focus]Vigilance

As of several patches ago, '/use' can be used everywhere '/cast' can, and '@' is the same as 'target='. Saves a few characters, which becomes useful as you get into more complex macros.

[SeptimX]

melvar, fake, or anyone of you tried upping your hit to 335, and expertise to 52 (parry cap) for tanking purposes (upping threat)

new gem combo/color switches, some nice uses for dreadstones and eye of zuls now...

OP, Klikster: i just looked over your armory link and you have mixed and matched gear setup....
i would say, you need to prioritize 1 complete setup first, craft for 1 setup, so at least come cata you have 1 viable spec to level with...
and also i think you needs to farm more justice points and shoot for your t10s 251, 4pc tank, 4pc dps...
Or you could just wait for CATA, continue leveling till 85, and hopefully some better gear drops for you...