I've got the achievement - But am I Ready for Raiding?

[Zunabar]

First things first, here's my Armory:
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...nabar/advanced

If you dislike armory, here are some stats:
149215 HP
35684 Armor
11.23% Dodge
13.48% Parry
49.30% Block

I, of course, am curious if I did the reforging right, and if my spec is okay.
I specced into Piercing Howl because I found myself to be needing a slow quite often (Last boss in Grim Batol comes to mind).
I'm not quite sure why I put a point in Blitz, but I don't know where else to put it either.

Also, I'm currently mainly doing Heroics, and I have seen people pull threat of me quite a lot. Should I make a second 'Threat' set, with Expertise and Hit to counter this problem, or should those people use their threat reducing abilities more?
Some examples of that are the second boss in Grim Batol - the Ettin, when he grabs his mace. People really like to pull threat off me there, and I can't really do anything about it. It happens on other bosses, too, even when I start using stuff like Concussion Blow to keep generating threat.

I'll be watching this thread, so if you have any further questions, I'll answer them.

[Pseudocide]

There isn't too much you can do without stepping into a raid. I can't look at your talents right now since armor is blocked from work, but gear-wise you look like you should be raiding.

For threat on a single target, make sure you charge+heroic throw, shield block+shield slam, rend, conc blow, and t-clap...it should be pretty tough to pull off you after that...just don't forget devastate and heroic strike. Don't forget vigilance as well.

[Katzazi]

At first glance your reforging and enchanting looks fine. (I'm not sure which ring enchants are out there).

I would recomment to use parry+mastery gems in red sockets, you should have enough stamina for starting raids. At normal versions the stamina on your gear should be enough. The first time you should worry about your HP are when you start to do heroic raids.

About threat:
Don't go for hit or expertise. They don't help you much for threat. Changing talents will help you much more. However, it's always a good idea to have multiple kinds of sets. You maybe will need a threat version for heroic raids (even if this is somewhere in the future). So to pick up items for that does not hurt.

I too go with piercing howl, just because people don't pull mobs off of me if I don't have bad luck at the pull and I can taunt back then and because there are some heroic 5mans where it's quite nice to have. But if you have threat problems, switching from fury tree to arms is extremely helpfull. Threat is more important than utility.

However I would not worry about stuff like Ettin when he picks up mace first. You are not supposed to hold threat with the few swings you could land before of that when everybody goes full out over the whole mace phase. When you kite you are not increasing your threat. It's not your fault if people who do not understand stuff like this die.

People pulling mobs off of you early in the encounter is nothing you have to worry about - it's something to expect for every tank since your Vengeance had not time to kick in. Just taunt back. Sure hit/expertise would help you slightly there, but Vengeance makes a much bigger difference and you will lack some Vengeance stacks at the beginning even when hit and expertise capped.

Talents:
- Blitz is relativele useless for prot warriors. Other talents will help you much more.
- If you want to have more threat try to go into Deep Wounds, Incite (and War Academy to get to Deep Wounds - it's also a good threat talent).
- Blood Craze is not worth to take it for it's own. It's extremely weak. Only take it if you want Piercing Howl. (So Piercing Howl actually costs 4 talent points which is a lot.)
- Think about if you actually use Gag Order. Remember you will get the interrupt from Shield Bash even without the talent. With 4.1 the silence part of your melee-interrupt (which will be Pummel because Shield Bash gets reoved) will be removed from this talent. It's probably not worth to take then. So maybe you can lose those points if you want to have more threat talents.
- For best single target threat you may also consider to spec out of Thunderstruck or Blood and Thunder. However if you are nearly ok with your single target threat, now and like the AoE stuff for 5mans (and some encounters in raids) I would suggest to not change them over, now. You should be fine enough with the other changes and it would have a much bigger impact on your gameplay.

Glyphs:
- Intervene glyph is crap. You should not need it for 5mans and there are very few options to use Intervene in raids.
- Look at Glyph of Heroic Throw as a major glyph for example.
- Glyph of Intimdating Shout is great for a minor glyph. It's like a second AoE stun every 2m which does not even break CC.



Overall: You should be fine to start raiding. There are not many upgrades you can pick up before raiding, anyway. (Well try to get the blacksmith shield. It's relatively cheap and very good.)

[Loganisis]

DOH! User-error!

[Loganisis]

I would argue against taking PH. Not so much because it's useless, it can have it's uses, it's that the uses are very limited compared to the benefit from going into Deep Wounds. Deep wounds will help on every pull. PH is only useful in rare cases or specific fights.

@Kat - I wouldn't say threat trumps utility, but that the utility given up isn't really needed for the current fights.

Back to the toon at hand. Gemming:

1. Yellow = Mastery
2. Red = Parry/Mastery
3. Blue = Mastery/Stam

Exception - Raz's Paultrons - socket bonus is 10 hit. 40 Mastery gives you more surviablity than 20 parry/20mastery and the socket bonus doesn't help.

Overall: You should be fine to start raiding. There are not many upgrades you can pick up before raiding, anyway. (Well try to get the blacksmith shield. It's relatively cheap and very good.)

^ Agreed. Take the plunge. There's a few things here and there but you look good.

[Kongolo]

First things first, here's my Armory:
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...nabar/advanced

If you dislike armory, here are some stats:
149215 HP
35684 Armor
11.23% Dodge
13.48% Parry
49.30% Block

I, of course, am curious if I did the reforging right, and if my spec is okay.
I specced into Piercing Howl because I found myself to be needing a slow quite often (Last boss in Grim Batol comes to mind).
I'm not quite sure why I put a point in Blitz, but I don't know where else to put it either.

Also, I'm currently mainly doing Heroics, and I have seen people pull threat of me quite a lot. Should I make a second 'Threat' set, with Expertise and Hit to counter this problem, or should those people use their threat reducing abilities more?
Some examples of that are the second boss in Grim Batol - the Ettin, when he grabs his mace. People really like to pull threat off me there, and I can't really do anything about it. It happens on other bosses, too, even when I start using stuff like Concussion Blow to keep generating threat.

I'll be watching this thread, so if you have any further questions, I'll answer them.

generally, yes u r ready but there is some changes.. and maybe little experiance needed but that will come in time

Talent:
-- take 1 point from shield specialization and 1 from blitz, and but them in Rude intereption OR War academy.

Glyphs:
-- Cleave --> piercing howl OR spell reflection
-- interve --> shockwave
-- berserker rage --> demo. shout

as for reforging, personally i dont reforge dodge/parry/mastery into anything, only reforge hast > crit > hit > exp.

Hope this helps, gl

[Katzazi]

Kongolo: I disagree with more than one point of yours.

Talent:
-- take 1 point from shield specialization and 1 from blitz, and but them in Rude intereption OR War academy.

I aggree to go from blitz to War academy. But you don't need Rude interruption and as long as one does not float in rage everywhere shield speicalization is a very good threat talent. It helps you to do additional stuff. Anyway, the goal was to get DW, what the OP did by now..

Glyphs:
-- Cleave --> piercing howl OR spell reflectionl

- Cleave is much much better than piercing howl glyph. One wants to hit multiple targets whery often, while most times when one want to use piericing howl stuff should be in range, anyway. At least for PVE what we are discussing here. Spell reflect is at least better, but Cleave just wins. In raids most stuff is not reflectable, anyway, and hitting another mob with cleave works on every trash group, not only when there is a caster present.

as for reforging, personally i dont reforge dodge/parry/mastery into anything, only reforge hast > crit > hit > exp.l

That's quite bad. The only stat you should never reforge is your most pirority stat - in the case of shield tanks, that's mastery. So you should never reforge mastery to something else. But every other stat may be reforged at least towards mastery. And since dodge and parry should be balanced right, it's a good idea to reforge to do exactly that.

[Contravene]

Reforging can be a little challenging if you are trying to maintain Hit/Exp cap and in that case you might see me reforge >Mastery > Hit 30 and then somewhere else you might see me reforge Hit>Mastery 50 completely violating all these never reforge rules.. (to shave some off hit in the example given) Only with many hours of studying this will you begin to see it pattern out before your eyes.


But now I am straight mitigate and it becomes incredibly easy! Typically not even concerned with the color of a socket I want Mastery but the helm socket bonus I had to maintain by matching gems.. If I can’t have Mastery I want Dodge/Parry and when I am finished I want my Dodge/Parry to match with all my known buffs I will have. But I would reforge and re-gem anything to land with a higher mitigation. Again of course you take socket bonuses into consideration but you do so with Excel and some homework.

[Kongolo]

Kongolo: I disagree with more than one point of yours.



I aggree to go from blitz to War academy. But you don't need Rude interruption and as long as one does not float in rage everywhere shield speicalization is a very good threat talent. It helps you to do additional stuff. Anyway, the goal was to get DW, what the OP did by now..



- Cleave is much much better than piercing howl glyph. One wants to hit multiple targets whery often, while most times when one want to use piericing howl stuff should be in range, anyway. At least for PVE what we are discussing here. Spell reflect is at least better, but Cleave just wins. In raids most stuff is not reflectable, anyway, and hitting another mob with cleave works on every trash group, not only when there is a caster present.



That's quite bad. The only stat you should never reforge is your most pirority stat - in the case of shield tanks, that's mastery. So you should never reforge mastery to something else. But every other stat may be reforged at least towards mastery. And since dodge and parry should be balanced right, it's a good idea to reforge to do exactly that.

- with Rude interruption u get +5% over all dmg, which makes hate keeping easyer (single or multi targets).

- personally, i dont use cleave.. never been never will -.- but i keep my focus on thunder clap > shock wave > revenge for multi targers, with this rotation u can keep it up all time. in the other hand cleave have shorter range and only hit in front.. thunder clap > cleave.

- Peircing howl mainly good for kitting.. and it makes it alot easyer.
- as for reforging i ment never to reforge mastery/dodge/parry into anything.

[Loganisis]

- with Rude interruption u get +5% over all dmg, which makes hate keeping easyer (single or multi targets).

- personally, i dont use cleave.. never been never will -.- but i keep my focus on thunder clap > shock wave > revenge for multi targers, with this rotation u can keep it up all time. in the other hand cleave have shorter range and only hit in front.. thunder clap > cleave.

- Peircing howl mainly good for kitting.. and it makes it alot easyer.
- as for reforging i ment never to reforge mastery/dodge/parry into anything.

You've got some ideas that aren't really right.

1. If you want to keep threat (hate) - Rude Interruption is a VERY poor way to do it. Deep Wounds, War Academy, Cruelty, and Thunderstruck are all optional TPS talents that would be FAR FAR better at keeping threat. You will always make use of those talents while Rude Interruption requires a valid interruptable spell cast, and no one beats you. No. No. No. No.

2. You don't use cleave? Seriously? I can understand de-emphasizing it during low rage periods to make sure you can hit other buttons, but when you've got the rage, an AoE attack off the GCD is great. You should think about adding this, if you're unsure about your rage, then just when you're above 60 rage. It will be a nice gain. And TC hits for piddles, just a small fraction of what Cleave would do (plus they don't really compete - TC is on the GCD, Cleave is not). What makes TC great is it's utility, the attack speed debuff + refreshing rend.

3. If you don't reforge dodge and parry, you're probably doing it wrong.
Example A) You have Dodge/Parry gear - you should reforge one of them into mastery.
Example B) All your gear has mastery but Parry has 1000 more rating than dodge, so the increased diminishing returns exceed the benefit of Hold the Line, you'd want to bring them slightly closer (or conversely, if dodge rating = parry rating, you'd want to push more into parry to make better use of HtL).