Need some help with my Protection DPS

[ScrawnyShauny]

Hi there,

I'm having some issues with my DPS as a protection warrior and I was hoping the people of Tankspot would be able to help me out, one way or another.

I know my DPS as a tank shouldn't be important, and I've personally never felt the need to improve my DPS because DPS isn't my job - it annoys me that my DPS has to be an issue - but my guild is progression focused and thus needs everyone to pull out everything they can in order to get us ahead as fast as possible.

I've been playing my main, my protection warrior for 5 years and I'm pretty confident in saying I know what I'm doing, but there's always room for improvement, right? I know my rotations and I know when to use cooldowns. What I'm trying to say is, I know the basics, and then some.

My DPS ranges between 13k and 16k during most encounters, and my tanking partner, a protection paladin, ranges between 16k and 26k! (Damn those paladins). As I'm sure you can tell, my numbers are significantly lower than his and I've already tried numerous times to improve but nothing seems to work, or I'm just bad at DPS. =/ Whatever the problem is, I need help with it.

So, here's my armory: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/darkmoon-faire/Survar/simple

My spec, gems, enchants, glyphs and reforges are as I normally have them. The reason I still have Windwalk on my weapon is because I'm just a tiny bit under the avoidance cap, but the enchant procs a lot so that solves that problem, otherwise I'd use Landslide. Those also aren't the only trinkets I have.

Feel free to take a look and see if you can find any flaws or anything that can be changed to allow me to output more DPS. Maybe you have some advice for my rotation, cooldown usage, stance dancing etc. Whatever it is, please post so that I can try it out.

Thanks in advance.

[Tengenstein]

Landslide isn't going to add much, 1k AP may sound like a lot, and to a DPS it is, but Tanks firstly have nigh 30K AP once vengeance has full stacked. and secondly the majority of tank abilities scale really badly with AP. I know your guild logs, so could you get us some, please? particualrily whre theres such a huge discrepancy between yourself and the paladin.

[ScrawnyShauny]

These logs are about a month old but hopefully they'll be helpful: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-t3uts33egxr6ydr5/

[Tengenstein]

I think the biggest hurdle to your DPS is that you let the other tank pickup. on YOrsahj you spend the first minute of a 6 minute fight with 0 vengeance, thats a huge portion of the fight, and as the raid DPS & the DSnerf pick up the ifghts will only get shorter, Ultraxion is similiar, you spend at least the first 50 seconds with out taking boss melee, without it your rage gen suffers and your vengenace stack suffers. Unfortunatly thus is life for the tank that doesn't intially pick up.

There are a few things you could do to slightly increase your DPS: you don;t seem to be using Shield Block or berserker rage nearly as much as you could, any time a boss is in melee range of you and you have aggro (or are not gonna get aggro for next 30 seconds) you should be using shieldblock, berserker rage should pretty much be used under the same circumstance, theres no charm/fear/saps to break in DS, use it any time your going to take damage. Both should increase the amount of rage you get , which should let you get better uptimes on Heroic strike, almost to the point you can use it on CD. you really ought to be using recklessness aswell, mainly on the pulls, though if you get another chance and aren't going to be taking tank killing damage go for it. Just be smart, don't use it as you go into Black blood phase or just before a 0 stacked pyschic drain are aimed at you. You should also be using CB as part of your single target rotation ( could you list that at some point jsut to amke sure its current), and if at any point your not actually tanking for signifcant periods (mainly blackhorn or madness) its worth swapping to zerker stance and getting a few hits in, especially at sub 20% as you can get a few executes in and they do hit rather hard as prot.

[ScrawnyShauny]

Sorry for the late response!

Thanks for that dude, my DPS was loads better during tonight's raid, gonna keep working on it. If, however, anyone has anything else to add, please, by all means, do so! Every little helps.

[Edd13Mac]

On my Prot Warrior, I typically start off with H Throw + Charge + Blood Fury(Orc) + Recklessness + Shield Block + Shield Slam. That gets instant threat and vengeance right off the bat, even if your Pally Tank has to taunt off of you.

Also, maybe world of logs isn't showing it, but make sure you are putting vigilance on your Pally tank. You will build vengeance from that when he initiates fights.

When my group was looking to maximize DPS, I typically tanked first as a Warrior just because I get so much more rage from being hit, where a Blood DK or Pally will still have Runes/Mana to use regardless of being hit or not. Granted they won't build vengeance, which is the current problem you are having, but it will still end up increasing raid damage by a bit since you will be able to use heroic strike more.

This is especially true for H Ultraxion. Use the combo I posted above followed immediately by Last Stand and Enraged Regeneration to keep you up, since both will be reset by Thrall 5 seconds into the fight.