Harsh Words and Steel: A Protection Warrior Guide

[Dreador]

I've been run ning some sims and well I'm not happy, whetever i do reforging wise INCREASES my damage taken, if i reforge everythign to avoidance, and mastery at the expense of threat stats, to go for mastery then threat stats, or threat stats then avoidance, or mastery i incraeasr damage taken, i tended to get the lowest iDPS with buffed, 40% avoidance, 70% buffed mastery and 11% hit/expertise. I get the feelign that for maximum TDR we're gonna hve some sort of flaoting 5 way equilibrium point. which is an asshole.

I've had this at the back of my mind for a while now which is why I've been hesitant to bother with reforging over and over. I do get the feeling that our heads will be up this asshole you described.

[Quietsch]

I've been run ning some sims and well I'm not happy, whetever i do reforging wise INCREASES my damage taken

'sims' meaning using your RPS-sheet, or something else? (Also, I'd be careful with the results, as it depends extremely on the fight - tankswaps and such stuff)

[Tengenstein]

sims as in simcraft.

[theodisius]

I ran Ultrax a few times to get a feel to high avoidance / middle expertise build (currently at 9% exp, 62% avoidance, 21% block / 37 crit block vs 88) vs an exp capped/full mastery build.

- Rage generation feels adequate. Does not feel any different. Lack of exp is not noticeable.

My understanding is that Ultraxion does not dodge, so you don't need any expertise on that fight.

[Ion]

My understanding is that Ultraxion does not dodge, so you don't need any expertise on that fight.

He doesn't parry, he does dodge.

[Dreador]

Hey Teng, any chance you can post a reply just to say you made a change to one of the guide sections? It might make streamlining a little easier and cut down on a couple questions here and there.

[Tengenstein]

And spam up the forums even more? Ill try.

[Vetaro]

I know you're currently deep in the numbers part, just wanted to talk about my experiences in the last weeks:

- Got berserker rage in a macro with shield slam, which I press often enough to really use it on cooldown. I'd like to get deadly calm in a HS macro too, but since that would toggle it if I used the free-procc-HS I'll just do it manually.

- Shield Health Addon for SBarr tracking is great. I had to remove all priest shields to make it more helpful, but it feels like the numbers are very correct. VengeanceStatus was one bar too much on my screen though and the point where I felt I had too many numbers and too little game world.

- Although the right recommendation is surely "SB all the time while tanking", I found myself SBarring a lot, especially against all the unavoidable damage like stomp, hagara's lightning phase, ultraxion's spells and the lightning that hits everyone all the time, impale and elementium bolt. Of course we wouldn't have *needed* to save that bit of healer mana, but using it feels kind of right (and like good preparation for t14)

- Both in prot and arms spec I really like the 75 talent tier. I feel like I can give the other tank room for Impale-like abilities in the future (without just dashing to him and taking the 100% of the hit like in the past). To me this is less about using it on cooldown to spare the healer's mana and more about allowing us to live through these super-brutal 300k hits.

- Each day, I miss rend a little less.

[Dreador]

And spam up the forums even more? Ill try.

Spam? There's like 4 posts a day total...I wouldn't worry about spam. It's you know, just a giant pain in the ass to have to scour the guide you've read dozens of times yet again every time a possible change might have happened. Ya know?

[Dreador]

I know you're currently deep in the numbers part, just wanted to talk about my experiences in the last weeks:

- Got berserker rage in a macro with shield slam, which I press often enough to really use it on cooldown. I'd like to get deadly calm in a HS macro too, but since that would toggle it if I used the free-procc-HS I'll just do it manually.

The only reason I don't macro SS with BR is I might be at 20 rage below cap and 30 would be a 10 rage waste. I do macro it to shout/arcane torrent, and since all 3 are on different CDs I can choose when to use each.

- Shield Health Addon for SBarr tracking is great. I had to remove all priest shields to make it more helpful, but it feels like the numbers are very correct. VengeanceStatus was one bar too much on my screen though and the point where I felt I had too many numbers and too little game world.

Shield health is great, I did the same thing as you. I also use protwarbar to guage how much it will absorb before using it.

- Although the right recommendation is surely "SB all the time while tanking", I found myself SBarring a lot, especially against all the unavoidable damage like stomp, hagara's lightning phase, ultraxion's spells and the lightning that hits everyone all the time, impale and elementium bolt. Of course we wouldn't have *needed* to save that bit of healer mana, but using it feels kind of right (and like good preparation for t14)

Shield block all the time for highly physical fights and use SBar where it's better or necessary (impales/stomps, times when SB is on CD and you have the rage to weave it in). Fight by fight basis is key here.

- Both in prot and arms spec I really like the 75 talent tier. I feel like I can give the other tank room for Impale-like abilities in the future (without just dashing to him and taking the 100% of the hit like in the past). To me this is less about using it on cooldown to spare the healer's mana and more about allowing us to live through these super-brutal 300k hits.

- Each day, I miss rend a little less.

Yes, F rend.

[Zellviren]

I miss Rend.

There's also a snag with your River's Song enchantment link, Teng. It's showing Precision rather than the River's Song enchant I'm assuming it should be showing.

[Dreador]

Teng, how's your rps with your lowered offensive and raised defensive stats?

[Tengenstein]

a non issue.

[kebess]

A quick question about your RPS rotation Teng. I see that you altered it a bit, by placing Revenge before Shouts. I suspect this is because of the recent Prot changes.

But I still don't fully understand what made you change your priority, by placing Revenge before B/C Shouts, since they still provide 5 more Rage than Revenge.

[Quietsch]

Shout delay: 1.5 from 60s cd lost. Revenge delay: 1.5 from 9s cd lost (in the 'best' case - worst case is a whole lost rev because of a dodge/parry)

[Tengenstein]

Simulation. I assume that whilst yes over a 1.5s period Rev is less RPS than shouts you start running the risk of "clipping" revenge procs Which is a straight up 15 rage loss whereas delaying a shout a couple of GCDs in the grand scheme of things doesn't really lose that much RPS, you may lose 1 battle shout per fight but you risk losing one revenge a minute otherwise. It's a very minor rage gain, but it is a rage gain non the less, for example;

If we prioritise SS>Shout>Rev>Dev
0.0 Shield Slam, and the boss melees/ we avoid proccing revenge
1.5 Battle shout
2.0 Boss melees again, procs revenge again
3.0 Revenge
4.0 Boss melees, we don't avoid it
4.5 Devastate
Which is 55 rage

If on the Other hand we prioritise SS>Rev>Shouts>Dev
0.0 Shield Slam, and the boss melees/ we avoid proccing revenge
1.5 Revenge
2.0 Boss melees again, procs revenge again
3.0 Revenge
4.0 Boss melees, hits us in the face
4.5 Battle shout.
which is 70 rage.

The only real issue comes in if you just cannot stop proccing Revenge (i.e you rotation is [SS>Rev>Rev>Rev>]) but you essentially need a >45second avoidance streak before you start using shouts over revenge. and if you can reliably produce >45seconds avoidance streaks you probably don't have to worry too much about the rps to keep SB/Sbar up

[kebess]

Simulation. I assume that whilst yes over a 1.5s period Rev is less RPS than shouts you start running the risk of "clipping" revenge procs Which is a straight up 15 rage loss whereas delaying a shout a couple of GCDs in the grand scheme of things doesn't really lose that much RPS, you may lose 1 battle shout per fight but you risk losing one revenge a minute otherwise. It's a very minor rage gain, but it is a rage gain non the less, for example;

...
snip
...

Fair enough. This is what I though too. But I've come to think that in order to have Scenario 1 (SS-St-Rev-Dev), to produce less Rage than scenario 2 (SS-Rev-Rev-St), we actually need that second consecutive Revenge proc.

If RNG makes it that, we don't get that second proc, after the first Revenge, then we won't have that extra 15 Rage.
Furthermore, that second Revenge proc needs to happen exactly during the use of the first Revenge, and the GCD after it, making a total of 3 sec window to have the proc, after which procing that second Rev becomes useless in that cycle, since SS would be up again.

Is this accurate or I'm missing something ?

If this is the case, then Yes, Shout may make one lose a Revenge in scenario 1, but it's not sure, and will depend on a certain chance to happen.

If it doesn't happen however, then you actually lose Rage during the 1.5 sec windows as you pointed out, by delaying Shout and using Revenge instead. 5 Rage to be precise. Since :

SS-St = 40 Rage, and SS-Rev = 35 Rage.

I have not seen or done any maths to calculate whether the probability that you lose a full Revenge every 60 sec is actually high enough, as to make it better than gaining 1/3 of a Revenge over a 1.5 sec window.

I'm really looking for the extra info, in fact, if I indeed got a point there.

[Tengenstein]

If we don't have a second revenge proc it defualts to what Quietsch responded originally.

[Quietsch]

(Beware: simplified The chance would be either equal to avoid (if it's 1 hit in the 3s timeframe) or... 1-((1-avoid)^2) if there are 2 hits in the 3s.

/e btw: We actually don't need this second consecutive proc (at least in some cases). Revenge has a cd. And thus, sometimes, it's available even without avoiding.

[Tengenstein]

My recomendation comes from having done quite a few simulations and that rev over shouts is a slight RPS gain