Prot Warrior Gearing Confusion

[Vudooz]

So hopefully someone here might be able to help me out some...as of right now I think I have a decent tanking set to start raids but I'm slightly confused as to how I should go about thinking as a tank for trying to min/max my gear. I've heard conflicting reports about warrior tanks stacking mastery over everything else....I think if I have it correct that warriors want Stamina/Mastery>Parry>Dodge all this while being expertise capped for threat. Some sites say not to worry about hit capping also while some say to worry about it for things such at taunt switches and interrupts.

So if I generally have that down is there some kind of program that will take a look at the gear I have and decide which pieces are better or not than one another cause with gemming/reforging/enchanting I tend to start getting lost with trying to keep capped with exp/hit and at the same time make it easier on my healers to keep me alive.

[Selene]

First off I think this should be in the HALP! forum.

Secondly a link to your armory would help a lot with giving suggestions.

The value of Stamina is high debated at the moment depending on who you ask.
But as for actual tank stats for a Warrior to the best of my knowledge it is Mastery > Parry > Dodge. You want to try to keep your Parry and Dodge as even as possible with your Parry being slightly higher.

Gemming:
Red Socket - Parry/Stam or Expertise/Stam
Yellow Socket - Mastery/Stam or Mastery
Blue Socket - Stam or Mastery/Stam
Primatic Socket - Mastery/Stam, Stam, or Mastery

For shield tanks, the general rule for Hit/Expertise is you don't want it unless you are to be interrupting (i.e. you are the only reliable form of interrupts).

[Vudooz]

Armory Link - http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte.../vudooz/simple

Not sure if there is a way to move the entire thread to the HALP! forum as you suggested but if there is could someone let me know...this is my first time using the tank spot forums.

[Petninja]

Expertise cap would have been useful in BC or Wrath, but with the removal of parry hasting and the general lawlfactor of threat generation past the start of the fight expertise won't do much good unless you are actually running into trouble with threat for some reason (IE totally outgeared by dps). Likewise hit is probably only going to be useful to you if you are the one people are relying on to interrupt spells, otherwise it's technically a survival loss to go for it. Taunt doesn't miss anymore so it's not an issue.

I would agree with your gearing priority otherwise. Keep in mind that the goal is to make damage intake as smooth as possible so that healers can react properly to the situation as it unfolds.

[Petninja]

But as for actual tank stats for a Warrior to the best of my knowledge it is Mastery > Parry > Dodge. You want to try to keep your Parry and Dodge as even as possible with your Parry being slightly higher.

There are threads on the site right now debating the value of keeping parry and dodge even. Presently it looks as if it's closer to "make sure parry is less than twice dodge with HtL" rather than 1:1. I wouldn't take it as official until more numbers are run, but 1:1 might not be a hard rule you want to drive into peoples minds just yet.

[Selene]

There are threads on the site right now debating the value of keeping parry and dodge even. Presently it looks as if it's closer to "make sure parry is less than twice dodge with HtL" rather than 1:1. I wouldn't take it as official until more numbers are run, but 1:1 might not be a hard rule you want to drive into peoples minds just yet.

I did put down to the best of my knowledge at the start of that too.

[Thragus]

It seems right now in Normal raids Mastery is being prefered. The term "smooth out the damage" is used alot to refer to how the added block and critical block is helping to keep tank damage from spiking. Being a warrior tank myself I wouldn't reccommend stacking mastery and sacraficing all other stats. However if its a toss up between a Mastery/Expertise or a Dodge/Expertise item go with the mastery.You still want to gem for some Stam but overall because of the nature of healing these days you get more use out of the mastery than the raw stam. However this is likely reversed in Heroic raids.

As far as avoidance you want to do your best to keep Dodge/Parry as even as possible. It is true that Parry is better for a us because of hold the line but over the course of a fight too much parry will lead to quicker diminishing returns, resulting in getting less out of your gear. From what I have found the DR on Dodge/Parry is around 14% for each. 14% is very easy to hit if you stack one over the other, even in 5-man heroic gear so be mindful and reforge if need be. Overall a healthy amount seem to be about 23-26% combined parry and dodge.

For threat stats you want to have a healthy amount of expertise. 26 is ideal but don't panic or kill your survivability reforging for it. With current gear its easy to hit about 20 before you even get into raids (I'd highly reccommend the crafted chest for this, it has a boatload of expertise) the only time expertise is a big factor is on the pull. It's not unheard of to get an unlucky Parry on your 1st shield slam or revenge, just make sure you let your DPSers know to give you a second or 2 and to make sure to keep an eye on omen. Hit rating you don't need to worry about. I currently have 1 or 2 pieces of hit and rarely miss in interrupt fights or taunts. I do still miss from time to time however so if you feel its extremely important you can reforge for it however anything beyond 8% is a waste.

My advice would be to stay well rounded. Once you get into the flow of raiding and get a better feel for your role and your raid you can determine for yourself what stats are most beneficial in certain situations.

[Aggathon]

As far as avoidance you want to do your best to keep Dodge/Parry as even as possible. It is true that Parry is better for a us because of hold the line but over the course of a fight too much parry will lead to quicker diminishing returns, something that can be costly later in a fight. From what I have found the DR on Dodge/Parry is around 14% for each. 14% is very easy to hit if you stack one over the other, even in 5-man heroic gear so be mindful and reforge if need be. Overall a healthy amount seem to be about 23-26% combined parry and dodge.

Please elaborate, because nothing in this paragraph makes sense to me, and I like to think I'm pretty in-tune with theorycrafting. Especially the underlined parts.

For threat stats you want to have a healthy amount of expertise. 26 is ideal but don't panic or kill your survivability reforging for it. With current gear its easy to hit about 20 before you even get into raids (I'd highly reccommend the crafted chest for this, it has a boatload of expertise) the only time expertise is a big factor is on the pull. It's not unheard of to get an unlucky Parry on your 1st shield slam or revenge, just make sure you let your DPSers know to give you a second or 2 and to make sure to keep an eye on omen. Hit rating you don't need to worry about. I currently have 1 or 2 pieces of hit and rarely miss in interrupt fights or taunts. I do still miss from time to time however so if you feel its extremely important you can reforge for it however anything beyond 8% is a waste.

From my experience this is completely incorrect. Threat is not a problem at all. I've even spammed searing pain to try and pull a mob off a tank so that I could drag it to the side and CC it, and I simply cannot pull threat from tanks unless they just aren't pressing buttons. Conversely, especially in 5 mans or 10 mans were your options for interrupts may be limited, it is a good idea to have ways to get to the melee yellow hit cap (8%) if you are doing a fight that REQUIRES interrupts to not fail. Now these fights are few and far between, so I wouldn't say that 8% hit is required in your main set of gear, but just know that you may need to get 8% for specific fights. And if you have two melee DPS with 10 sec interrupts, then... whatever, this probably wouldn't be an issue, though I am a bigger fan of a tank interrupting than causing the DPS to do less dmg b/c of banking energy or whatever for interrupts. The faster things die, the less time there is for something to go wrong.

[MellvarTank]

I think Thragus is misunderstanding the nature of the term DR.

Diminishing Returns are used to describe how much avoidance per point of rating you get. So if a piece has 140 parry rating on it, higher DR's mean you'll get less parry % from that 140 rating. It has nothing to do with fight mechanics in any way.

[Aggathon]

Way to take away my fun Mellvar.

[Thragus]

Thank you Mellvar for clearing that up for me.

Aggathon: Once a fight gets going you can spam all you like and not pull from a good tank. Early, however losing threat on a boss is a real risk if an big opening attack isn't landed, especially without a hunter MD or something similar to give you an early boost. I also agree 8% hit is not needed, I was merely letting him know what not to go past in the event he feels he needs to make sure he gets every interrupt.

[Aggathon]

The tank I run heroics with right now has 4 expertise. I can't pull threat off him, not even at the beginning if I try.

[MellvarTank]

If one of your first two attacks lands, usually you are fine for threat. I've had a couple of instances where that doesn't happen, but that is what the rest of the attacks are for.

/wait for sunders
/snicker

[Llirk]

If one of your first two attacks lands, usually you are fine for threat. I've had a couple of instances where that doesn't happen, but that is what the rest of the attacks are for.

Same for me running with 2.8% hit and 1 (erp) expertise. Haven't really had any trouble except for openings where I either miss an early attack and rage starve or have to move the boss (say Ulthok in ToT who I like to move to the back/side so his purple circles have more room to go) or have dps unload in a silly way (nothing like seeing the giant pyroball of flame heading over my head as I run toward the boss). Even in these cases taunt is usually enough. Once things get going rarely have trouble being at least 50% if not 100% ahead of dps on threat.

[MellvarTank]

You ERP once with the boss to get aggro?!

[Knighterrant81]

I think mastery is a bit overblown currently. Time to live without healing still matters, and as a healer, I appreciate a tank with a big stamina buffer. Healers are still gcd limited, and if the tanks health total is low we still have to babysit them. Mastery is the best avoidance stat but don't throw out all your stamina gems just yet.

[MellvarTank]

Mastery is not an avoidance stat.

[ironsides]

I disagree with alot of what has been said in this thread. I run with full mastery, only gemming mastery/stam etc. for socket bonus. As a warrior tank I take basically the least damage in my guild as a tank however it is very close between me and our geared druid. I do agree with agg as usual expertise and hit are not needed. It has literally been said over and over in many threads on these forums and others that reforging or gemming for these threat stats are not worth it unless you need the extra dps/threat for a specific fight. The fact that people still keep coming here saying "your supposed to cap expertise right?" is getting at least a bit frustrating. Especially when other tanks then agree with them.

If a healer likes a tank with a big health pool I am sorry but this sounds like you just like the health pool so you can slack and have longer to respond to situations. Mastery does result in much less damage taken and much less spike damage. It allows healers to avoid going oom and allows them to use their more mana efficient spells rather than have to bomb holy lights etc. all fight. My guild currently has several hard modes down and with the massive amount of damage you take on some of these fights I know there is no way I would live with pure stamina. Our healers are already damn near oom. To say that Hard modes are going to favor stamina is silly especially since all the warriors in the end game guilds that are doing this content are doing basically the opposite. If you haven't done research, looked up what others are doing etc. don't just assume you know how things will go in harder content.

On top of this I want to remind everyone why EH was important, EH allowed you to live through spike damage, fights where you could take massive amounts of damage and would often be the situation where tanks would die. EH allowed you to survive these situations, the health pool allowed you to sit there survive the huge chain of spike damage and then get healed up. This is not the case atm, I was an EH supporter but the current content just doesn't agree with it. You very rarely take huge spike damage anymore than will kill you unless your doing something wrong. In general it is just a steady stream of damage, the lower this damage is the easier to heal. The massive health pool is unneeded to survive this damage, the mitigation and avoidance that dodge/parry/ and block give you lower this amount of damage (don't forget about armor). The way I see it is that EH has just had it's priorities changed, the objective of course is still to "survive" the fight. EH does this best, but if your healers go oom and your health is never approaching 20/30% until they do so that health is just a waste. Unless it is acting as necessary cushioning like it did in ToGc and ICC to keep you alive it is wasted stats. Healer mana and the amount their spells heal for are very important atm and thus we must cater to those needs atm. At a future date perhaps in another tier or 2 when healers have no mana issues (if this ever happens again) EH will return to it's proper place I am sure but as it stands stamina is no longer king.

Feel free to agree or disagree with me but that is my 2 cents.

edit: Taunts can no longer miss either in regards to the original post.

[MellvarTank]

This is not the case atm, I was an EH supporter but the current content just doesn't agree with it. You very rarely take huge spike damage anymore than will kill you unless your doing something wrong. In general it is just a steady stream of damage, the lower this damage is the easier to heal. The massive health pool is unneeded to survive this damage, the mitigation and avoidance that dodge/parry/ and block give you lower this amount of damage (don't forget about armor). The way I see it is that EH has just had it's priorities changed, the objective of course is still to "survive" the fight. EH does this best, but if your healers go oom and your health is never approaching 20/30% until they do so that health is just a waste. Unless it is acting as necessary cushioning like it did in ToGc and ICC to keep you alive it is wasted stats. Healer mana and the amount their spells heal for are very important atm and thus we must cater to those needs atm. At a future date perhaps in another tier or 2 when healers have no mana issues (if this ever happens again) EH will return to it's proper place I am sure but as it stands stamina is no longer king.

This is blatant misuse of the term EH. BY STACKING MASTERY YOU ARE GEARING FOR EH. It is just an entirely different method of doing so. You may have forgotten, but EH has 2 distinct components: Stamina (health) and damage reduction (which used to be only armor as block was largely useless due to itemisation, etc.). Due to block now having a percentage reduction, getting to passive 'unhittable' (where every hit is blocked) is basically increasing your armor exponentially which technically increases your EH. Block is mitigation, NOT avoidance, just like armor. Mastery does not suffer DRs the same way as avoidance, which makes it point for point a better investment. Avoidance is Dodge, parry, miss which there are very few people (and nobody in top-tier content) gearing for.

The idea behind stacking mastery is the exact same idea behind stacking EH: Decrease the spike as much as you can, have a large enough health pool that you don't get one shot (which currently can be gotten from gear with a few gems and maybe one trinket), and smooth out the intake of damage for healers. That has been, and will always continue to be, the best way to gear.

[Katzazi]

This is blatant misuse of the term EH. BY STACKING MASTERY YOU ARE GEARING FOR EH. It is just an entirely different method of doing so. You may have forgotten, but EH has 2 distinct components: Stamina (health) and damage reduction (which used to be only armor as block was largely useless due to itemisation, etc.). Due to block now having a percentage reduction, getting to passive 'unhittable' (where every hit is blocked) is basically increasing your armor exponentially which technically increases your EH. Block is mitigation, NOT avoidance, just like armor.

No. Block is mitigation, but it's no mitigation you can be sure to have. At least until you reach unhittability. Most warriors will be able to have it 1/3 of the time, but at the moment it's not possible to definitly have it all the time. So most of the time it's a kind of rdm mitigation.

EH is about what you can survive in the worst case. It never was about average case or something like this. The worst case is: You don't avoid anything and you don't have SB ready and you don't block. EH is the amount of dmg you can take all the time without needing a heal and being able to survive. You don't have block all the time, so it's not part of EH.

Sure it's there 1/3 of the time, and that makes it really good during this time, just because EH ideas, but it's not a part of EH until we get passive unhittable and don't need SB for it any longer.