Poor Prot Damage

[Gothkaa]

Hey guys, first post on here so go easy on me!

I have recently started gearing up my warrior as a tank and have run a few heroics but one thing I noticed was that my dps is shockingly low. I don't have any problems holding threat but the tanks I've met when I'm dps are significantly higher dps than I can put out. I have a slightly strange spec but will be changing the 3 points in Blood Craze into Deep Wounds when I got a bit more confidence. I also have a pvp helm but that will be changed for the VP helm this week.

My armory is http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/bronze-dragonflight/Gothkaa/advanced.

My standard rotation/priority list is as follows: AOE - Rend, TC, SW, then onto single target rotation; Rend (if not up), Devastate, SS, Revenge, Concussion Blow when available. I try to cleave/HS above 50 rage.

Is there anything noticable missing in my rotation, spec or gear?

[Tengenstein]

First off, Deep wounds will better for your confidence than Bloodcraze, Blood Craze is pathetic healing, the only time it will really save your life in a 5 man is if the healer ninja-left group. Deep wounds will end the fight quicker Saving the healer mana and minimizing the time you're actually taking damage. If you have a healer Deep wounds is the better survival talent.

Secondly, you want max points in Incite AND shield Specialization. Heroic strike should be making up around 35% of your damage in an infinite rage scenario (i.e. making it your biggest single source of damage). If you're not in an infinite rage scenario you need to engineer an infinite rage scenario. Shield Specialization is your best way of doing that. Incite is your only talent that affects heroic strike, and 15% chance to crit, and auto crit after that is a crap tonne of extra damage.

Gag Order: You do not need this, it's a crutch, sure it can make pulls a little easier but its really a PVP talent. Like Blood craze.

Imp Rev or Thunderstruck, Thunderstruck is technically better damage but Imp Rev is much more rage efficient. Pick one. If you don't pick Imp Rev take Rev off your bars.

Your single target rotation is wrong, its more a priory system.

1. Shield slam: if this is not on CD, put it on CD.
2. Make sure Rend is UP: If it isn't on the target use rend, If it has less than 3 seconds left refresh it via thunderclap
3. Shorten the CD of Shield Slam: if SS has more than 1 GCD left on its CD use Dev (or Rev) to proc SnB.
4. Trucking Time: this is the best GCD to use your Trucks, Shockwave and Concussion Blow. the former does more damage, the latter more threat.


YOur AoE priority should be
1. Spread Rend
2. Shockwave
3. Thunderclap
4. Revenge (if specced imp rev)
5. Shield Slam
6. Conc Blow
7. Devastate

Obviously you shuld also be keeping the demo shout buff up, anytime you're survival isn't guaranteed. Using the appropriate rage dump at above 50 rage, and Inner rage above 85 rage, as well as spell reflecting interrupting and heroic leaping.

Get Glyph of Demo shout. Makes keeping it up SO much easier. You want to try and keep your dodge and parry rating closer together for maximum Combat table coverage. Finish off your Profs. neither are that great for tanking but any bonus is nice to have. Battle shout is more important to your survival than Commanding shout if you ever have to choose between the two, at least until fully CTC capped.


EDIT: A little further information on Revenge. Don't get me wrong I love Revenge. If their was a campaign to buff revenge i'd there throwing numbers at the opposition. The problem is that it's base damage is poor compared to Devastate, and while Rev does scale better off your AP than Dev, and you do have a lot of AP, Dev also scales off your weapon damage, you need quite alot of AP before Rev out does Dev, and while this is complicaed a little by being in the situation that rev may allow a few more Heroic stikes until you reach the point where most of your gear is about a half tier ahead of your weapon Rev just never catches up to dev in terms of Damage Per Execute thanks to hits higher crit chance.

[Gothkaa]

Thanks Tengenstein, I'll respec as you suggested, dropping Thunderstruck and Gag Order for 3/3 Incite and 3/3 SS plus try dropping Battle Craze. I'll also change my Command glyph for Demo Shout. I must admit, I've been using Commanding Shout as opposed to Battle Shout as I assumed that would be the best for a tank.

With regards to dodge and parry, I've been using AskMrRobot for my gemming/reforging and basically followed that which might be why I have such a difference. I haven't gone pure mastery gems as suggested but will sort that out shortly.

Just a couple of questions, what do you mean by trucking time and trucks? When you mention spreading rend under AOE priority do you mean via TC or tabbing?

[Pagezero]

5mans are pretty much all AoE which is where Thunderstruck really shines, not only will Thunder Clap hit harder but the Rend it spreads also hits harder and Shock Wave is probably always going have at least a 10% buff every time you use it. Cruelty is really not that great, for 5mans/AoE I would take your current spec and move those 2 points to Thuderstruck.

Also if your really trying to maximize your 5man dps you want to be hit and exp capped, the other tanks your comparing yourself too might have had much better gear which means their AP was much higher and were hit/exp capped. If your holding threat then you could argue everything is fine and don't need hit and exp.

[Tengenstein]

Trucks: Things that hit hard, both Shockwave and Concussion Blow hit hard. Rend should always be spread via Thunderclap, the exception is on Deathwing's Blistering Tentacles, Which are immune to AoE, so you would have to tab rend the if you wanted to rend them all.

Askmrrobot is a good site for a rough estimate. for most everyday play it will do. However it, like most warrior gearing resources favour parry over Dodge due to the graph in this post on MMO being taken out of context. If one Reads the post in full one should note the important caveat:

When you are still hittable, the damage reduction given by Hold the Line is, relatively, not as important as keeping your dodge and parry balanced and covering the combat table.

As to gemming full mastery, I'm not really a fan of this as alot of tanking gears socket bonuses are really quite good. and well worth taking IMHO, however unlike the rest of my advice this is pure gut thinking, you'll have to play be ear whether hitting a certain socket bonus will net you more CTC or more EH than skipping it, and whether you're happy trading off a little CTC for more overall damage reduction.

The reason Battle shout is generally better for you is that it gives strength, which gives about 100 parry rating, which increases your CTC, buy a not unsubstantial amount, and as you're well aware tanks generally favour parry over stamina until they reach full CTC.

A good tank Doesn't need Hit and Expertise., they're purely for DPS, and tightening up your rotation will prove higher dps without sacraficing survivability. if you are willing to make that sacrafice, due to your survival being a trivial concern, Expertise is by far the better stat to cap.

[Gothkaa]

Thanks again Tengenstein and thanks Pagezero.

I'm actually changing my spec again and dropping cruelty for Thunderstruck as I mainly only do 5 mans and I can't see me raiding much in the future except through LFR and will change specs again if necessary.

I haven't tried an instance since respeccing but am seeing an improvement on my dps on the raid dummy already. As for hit and exp I might try to get exp capped at some point but everything I've read says you don't need to worry about hit.

[klausi]

You're still gearing up and miles away from full combat table coverage, try helping your healer and improving avoidance and mitigation instead of (slightly) increasing your dps - most of your damage comes from vengeance anyways.

[Gothkaa]

I'm not sure what I've really changed to warrant that comment, none of my changes have affected avoidance or mitigation other than blood craze. Thanks for the advice anyway....

[klausi]

As for hit and exp I might try to get exp capped at some point but everything I've read says you don't need to worry about hit.

That's your last statement on this regard and getting expertise capped will at least cost you ~2% avoidance or ~3% block/critblock. I just wanted to make clear you can completly ignore BOTH hit & expertise and go straight for more safety.

Blood craze is neither avoidance (damage reduced to 0) nor mitigation (damage reduced by amount x or percent y), it just helps your healers keeping you alive but it's scaling is that bad that you won't notice it on 9/10 fights (noticeable exceptions: fights with adds like Maloriak or Nefarian and last but not least: Spine!!!).

[Gothkaa]

Ah gotcha. I should have been a bit clearer, 'I might try to get exp capped at some point but only once I'm fully geared' and the likelihood of that is pretty slim. At the moment I am aiming to get to full ctc and that's it.

I appreciate blood craze is neither avoidance or mitigation but it was the only thing I could think you were referring to.

[Gregasaurous]

Rage Dumping:

With shield spec maxed out you will find that you are most likely to need to rage dump while SB is up. So if it isn't on CD already, you can pretty safely pop Inner Rage right after your SB and just unload. (Exceptions will be bosses with slower than average swing timers and fights where all you take is magic damage.)

[swelt]

For simpicity, you can just macro Inner Rage in with Shield Block. It won't be totally optimal, but it's not far off in most situations and it's better than just not using inner rage at all.

[Dreador]

That's what I do. Only time it messes me up is on Ultraxion because the CD for SB is low but not for IR. Just spam it in that situation really.

[Tengenstein]

I page bars in combat, my main bar switches between itself, itself with HS macroed, and iteself with cleave macroed. the HS keybind is replaced with Inner rage on bot macroed bars. the macroes additionally deactive upon leaving Def stance, and inner rage becomes either Cleave or HS, and Rev becomes CS, attempting to taunt returns me to Def stance.

I use several power auras that tell me when rage is racheing high levels and i can swap to "auto dumping" if they activate whilst i'm auto dumping i pres the IR button.

[Gregasaurous]

I use several power auras that tell me when rage is racheing high levels and i can swap to "auto dumping" if they activate whilst i'm auto dumping i pres the IR button.

But....... that just takes all the fun out of it.