Any suggestions?

[redneck6979]

http://www.wow-heroes.com/character/...n%20Ring/jreb/

I find myself fighting for threat the first few moments of an encounter and I am wondering if it is me or what. Is there anything I can change gem, enchant or reforge wise?

[Katzazi]

There is lots you can improve. But it's normal to have tanks to fight for threat in the first few moments. It's because one does not have Vengeance up by then.

I hate the tool you are posting your character with. It's very hard to see stuff there. Maybe you can repost your char with the armory.

Anyway:
- dont gem for hit or expertise as a tank. At least not at the currrent level.
- I don't seee any reforging. Not sure if it's the tool or you just did not do it. You should reforge a lot. All you can to mastery. If that's not possible, balance your parry and dodge so that parry is 1-3% higher than dodge.


I don't know how to find your spec or something else, so I cannot comment to it.

[Riz]

Everything Kaz just said...No hit/expertise is needed for tanks due to vengeance...I also see your waisting several blue socketson flat stam, this is amistake..on blue sockets use the green mastery/stam or the purple parry/stam-dodge/stam(parry should always be higher for your talent "hold the Line")...

As for thethreat juggle at the fight start, this more often than not is dps fault for blowing cd's or not being on the skull (with vengeance building up slowly as u take dmg, this can take a few secs)....If thats not it, its bad rotation...It apears uve been throughmost reg mode content, so im assuming u have your rotation down well...Maybe an aoe spec with deep woulds, thunderstruck, &....crap...prot T1, spreads rend wih TC...dammit i hate when i draw blanks!

I cant see reforging either...

Edit: Did u mean trash encounters or boss?

[Loganisis]

I'll post my WoW-heroes link usually for apps only, since if I'm logged out in another set of gear, it's not a big picture. Click on his name, jreb, will open up his wow armory.

But, for purposes here, save a step and link the advanced wow armory (simple/advanced toggle link is in top right corner).

Spec looks fine. I'd swap the two points in thunderstruck for the final points in cruelty and incite, but other than that, it's a standard threat spec.

Glyphs look good too.

****

A few things you can do to help with threat on pull would be use shockwave early for guaranteed threat, pop a Grom's Blood to increase your base AP by 30% (increase strength by 1200 for 25 seconds, you have 2600 something strength) which will help a little until vegnece stacks.

In 2 tank fights, vig the other tank for free vengence from damage they take. Make sure hunters and rogues are MD/TotT-ing you.

[redneck6979]

Here is the WoW Armory link http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte.../jreb/advanced I see more probs on boss fights (not all) with threat and it is usually to a Ret pally.

My rotation is this: Charge, SB, SS, Dev x2 (Revenge if up) Rend then start over with each Sword and Board Proc, I replace Rend with TC to keep Rend up and throw a Shock wave in there at 3 stacks. Once Im about 60 rage, which is most of the fight, Ill spam HS until SS is off Cd or SB proc.

Im open to any suggestions as I want to be able to help the guild out the best I can.

[Loganisis]

Red -

HT+Charge -> SB+SS -> Conc Blow -> SHockwave ->rotation.

Concussive Blow and Shockwave both hit much harder than dev or revenege, so if you're trying to simply muscle up, those would be good to use before you break into your rotation.

Ret Pallies are a pain in the ass - they, like Fury have stupid threat and can go on crit/proc strings. The problem is him more than you in the first 15 seconds of the fight. Tell him to get Omen3, Hand of Salv himself, and just understand he can't go balls-out from the get go.

Hell, when I'm in Fury I have to give my tank a 500k threat lead or I risk blowing right past him when I pop my CDs. I even notice I pull off with just my normal rotation and have stopped using CS in the first 10 seconds of the fight. DPS has to be responsible for it's own threat in the first 15 seconds of the fight. If they're not, they're fail.

Now, if he's pulling off you 45 seconds in (which he isn't), then we can talk ;-)

Oh, and try getting Rend in as soon as you can, it's actually more threat per GCD than dev, just over a longer period of time.

Don't forgett Concussive blow and Shockwave.

[Katzazi]

Ok, Longanis did comment your talents and rotation. It's hard to say much more about it. But I would like to give some advice to your gear. It will not increase your threat by much. But it should increase your survivability. You will lose some hit and expertise, but you will get more block so you should have more rage to HS. Well your Vengeance may be a little bit smaler in the end, because your HP will be lower and you will block more. But when Vengeance kicks in, you don't have any threat problems anymore, anyway. And it will let you get "unhittable" for 1/3 of the time. Which is extremely good to have. ("Unhittable" is a state where you cannot be hit by normal hits from the boss. You will at least block or crit block or avoid the hit completely.)

To get unhittable you need a combined miss+parry+dodge+block of 102.4%. You will not be able to reach this with current gear. but Shield Block gives you 25% additional block for 10s every 30s. Since miss is always 5%, you only need to reach 72.4% parry+dodge+block with your gear to get there. To get there is more worth than any stamina survival wise. (Btw you should not need to wory about your stamina before heroic raids, anyway.)

So my advice is to get move as much stamina, hit and expertise to mastery as you can. If you cannot get more mastery, you should go for parry or dodge. You go for mastery in the first place because
a) you get more combat table coverage for each point of mastery than for a point of parry or dodge,
b) constant medicore dmg is cheaper to heal than no dmg followed by big dmg - mastery hels there more than parry and dodge or even stamina,
c) parry and dodge get diminishing returns, mastery does not.

Try to get gear that's has as much mastery and dodg/parry on it in the first place. Gear that has neither is worse than an item of a lower gear level that has both. For example the very easy to attain http://www.wowhead.com/item=57932 is better than your epic http://www.wowhead.com/item=62447:

-22 strength
-34 stamina
+122 dodge
+ 60 mastery (after considering the reforging of yours)

That's much more. As I said the HP is not really needed. Especially not if you have high mastery (and avoidance) levels. (Btw the haste is quite meaningless even if you think about threat, it only increases your swing timer slightly which is fast anyway, and not the main source of rage gen for prot warriors, anyway. And crit while helping with the uptime of DW is still worth less than hit and expertise for threat until you reach their caps.)
What gear should you be looking for?
1. Items with mastery + dodge/parry
2a) Items with high amounts of mastery and low hit/expertise
2b) Items with dodge + parry
3. Items with low amounts of mastery and hit/expertise
4. Items with dodge/parry + hit/expertise
5. everything else
6. Items with resilience

Try to get items from the highes category possible. If an item is multiple categories lower than another at just one item-lvl lower, the one with the higher category wins.

How should you reforge items? (rule of thumb)
- If an item has no mastery, reforge to mastery.
a) If it has hit/expertise/crit/haste reforge the highest of those to mastery.
Exciption: if dodge/parry is 1.5 times higher than the threat stat, it may be better to reforge this to mastery - as long as you stay over the 72.4%. Before you reach this magic number, always reforge the threat stat.
b) If it has dodge+parry reforge the higher one to mastery.
- If an item has already mastery, reforge it towards the best balance of dodge and parry.
Dodge and parry should be "close together", while parry beeing "slightly" higher than dodge. If you are near 72.4%, that's about 1-3% depending on your mastery (if you are near 72.4% the difference should be lower as when you have high mastery).

What about geming?
Don't mix gems randomly. Use a strategy and stay true to it. At your gear and content level the following pattern is probably best:
blue: stam+mastery
yellow: mastery
red: parry+mastery
prismatic: mastery
everything that is not worth the socket bonus (like hit or expertise): mastery

So what would I suggest exactly for your gear in detail?
Head: never gem for hit or expertise, both are not worth it, gem: parry+mastery. Since dodge was so much higher than expertise, reforging dodge to mastery is ok.

Neck: get another one. Go with the blue mentioned above for example.

Shoulder: don't gem for strength, you will never see the AP differences with all the Vengeance you have anyway, and you can get more parry by geming directly for parry, so gem: parry+mastery. Reforging is ok. It's the same thing as above with the head.

Back: reforge expertise -> parry (or if you see that you have already high parry to dodge)

Chest: get the t11 one. It's best in slot and the first thing you should spend your JP on. As long as you have this gem 2x pure mastery. Reforge to mastery. It's hard to decide which stat should be reforged to mastery, because it's quite close to the decision point, where reforging parry get's better (it's much higher present on the item than hit). You get more mastery by reforging parry to mastery, but a much higher overall combat table coverage if you reforge hit to mastery. It's your decision. (Hit->mastery - while not following my rule of thumb - may be the better one)

Wrists: gem: pure mastery. It's again a close decision which stat to reforge for mastery, but expertise -> mastery wins here. Anyway, you will get a better combat table coverage while keeping your reforging, so it's quite valid, too.

Hands: never ever reforge away from mastery. Especially not to something like hit. Don't do it, it's the worst you can do as a prot tank at the moment. Probably reforge dodge->parry to get parry where it should be compared to dodge. Use a stam+mastery gem in the blue and a mastery gem in the prismatic slot

Waist: again: don't reforge a survival stat to hit or expertise. Reforge dodge->parry (or don't reforge at all if parry is already high compared to dodge). Use two pure mastery gems.

Legs: like before, your reforging is ok. However for a better combat table coverage hit->mastery is also an option, but the difference is so high here, it's a relatively clear decision. Use a pure mastery gem in the 1st slot. Never gem for hit - (even if you don't want to go for mastey, it's a waste of possible stamina which is better than hit, anyway).

Feet: Again the decision is close but reforging dodge -> mastery wins, if you are not intersted in an optimal combat table coverage.

1.ring: You did the best you could do with this one. But get a strength one like http://www.wowhead.com/item=56398.

2. ring: fine

1. trinket: reforge parry->mastery

2. trinket: fine

weapon: well, it's a dmg-item. You did the best you could do with this one. Try to get at least Soal Blade.

shield: refoge hit->parry.

ranged: It's a really bad one. Try to get the tank one that drops in Vortex or even better the BoE that drops in raids. If you cannot get this, try to get at least one with hit instead of haste. As long as you don't have another reforge crit->mastery. It gives you much more mastery.



If you are below the 72.4% with the changes: Look at all the points where I said that you would get better combat table coverage if you would reforge the threat stats, and do exactly that, reforge hit and expertise to mastery.


All this changes will not help you with threat. But they will help you to do execute your other responsibility (survivability) much better. The impact this changes will have to your threat should be much less than what you would expect at least in raids. Vengeance is just so high that everything else falls behind threat wise when it kicks in. Rotation is the next important part, followed by talents. Threat stats are the least important ones.