Harsh Words and Steel: A Protection Warrior Guide

[Aggathon]

Which seems weird considering the anecdotal evidence everyone else has implies almost the opposite, especially when you factor in T14 boss mechanics.

[Tengenstein]

Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal, i'm assuming there's huge amounts of personal bias flying around.

[Takethecake]

Anyone else think the 4pc bonus should be changed or reworked? When rage was scarce I looked at it as an amazing set bonus, but now it just doesn't seem to be nearly as enticing or comparable to the other tanking 4pc's.

[Tengenstein]

Is it still 55 rage shield blocks and and +x% on Sbar

[Tengenstein]

I've been thinking about dump rotations and i've got this niggling feeeling that it might be optimal to put SB up and once it has less than 3 seconds left putting Sbar up. Giving you 9 seconds to build 60 rage for the next SB. which also leed me to the concept of rotating SB>SB>Sbar as dumps, would that be sustainable,m or do SB charges not come back fast enough?

[Takethecake]

I've been focusing on hit/exp reforges lately and resorted to glyph of unending rage to make sure I don't waste rage. It's a shame because I was enjoying death from above.

[Tengenstein]

I came out of GoUR I just didn't find myself at >90 rage often enough.

[Delius]

A quick question:

If you cap Hit, then do you need to bother capping Expertise? They both appear to do the same thing...ensuring enemies cant dodge or parry.

So, which one is best to cap?

[Fetzie]

A quick question:

If you cap Hit, then do you need to bother capping Expertise? They both appear to do the same thing...ensuring enemies cant dodge or parry.

So, which one is best to cap?

Hit Rating reduces your chance to miss the mob.

Expertise reduces the chance for the boss to dodge you until 7.5% expertise, and after then it reduces the chance for the boss to parry you.

[Tengenstein]

Hit is the better one to cap, but not by much. Protection has a few abilities which can miss, but can't be dodged, of which Thunder Clap is probably the most important due to weaked blows.

[Travelsize]

I've been thinking about dump rotations and i've got this niggling feeeling that it might be optimal to put SB up and once it has less than 3 seconds left putting Sbar up. Giving you 9 seconds to build 60 rage for the next SB. which also leed me to the concept of rotating SB>SB>Sbar as dumps, would that be sustainable,m or do SB charges not come back fast enough?

I'v been wondering along the same lines. Perhaps sneaking in a 20 rage sbar, if you have a certain amount of time before your next sblock and a certain amount of rage? Based on the %chance of +rage procs occurring, there's got to be some baseline where the survivability gain in an early sbar more than offsets the survivability loss by overcapping rage or having to delay sblock because you had to dump too much rage in order to not overcap.

If hit/exp capped and using shout on cd, we get ~6 rps before procs and crit blocks. If you sblock at 90 rage, you'll have between six and nine seconds to generate 30 additional rage before sblocking again. Assuming hit/exp caps and following established rotational priorities, you WILL generate 36 rage on average in six seconds. Any two crit blocks, single revenge or snb proc, or avatar usage should generate enough rage to also power a 20 rage sbar without delaying sblock.

However, since revenge doesn't line up to a nice 6.0s cd, this only works out on average.

The more I think about it, the more I think a general rule won't work out due to how the rev cd and rage income from randomness works out. However, if we could say, if you sblock, and have x rage and a charge after the sblock, you can get away with a 20 rage sbar and not delay sblock y% of the time, would be useful. We can also say, if you sblock, and have n rage and your next charge of sblock is available in m seconds, you can get away with a 20/40/60 rage sbar p/q/r% of the time.

The trick is this only works short-term. At a crtain rage expenditure you're hurting yourself over the long run.

[Dreador]

How does a SBar at the last 3 seconds of a SB give you a 9 second window? The barrier gets eaten by damage, so you'd have to time it after a massive hit or something to force vengeance to make it large enough to last that long.

[Travelsize]

He means 9 second window to generate enough rage to sblock again after dumping early into sbar. It's not about coverage, it's about trying to pre-dump into a 20 rage sbar instead of heroic strike.

Come to think of it, here we go: if, halfway through sblock with no extra charges, you have 25+ rage, and shield slam has less than half its cooldown remaining, go ahead and 20 rage sbar. You have 9 seconds to generate 60 rage, you have 2 slams and a rev incoming.

[Tengenstein]

IT is about coverage though. if you always ave something up the probablity of you taking a spike is rather decreased.

[Aggathon]

I think what this really translates into is... fuck it go with stam.

[Dreador]

Are you asking me to add to my sig?

[Barlar]

so, lets get a summery of what has been concluded up to this point in the thread as far as gearing and SB and SBar usage

[Tengenstein]

it's all on the first page.

[Aggathon]

Hit/Expertise > Mastery >~ Stam > Avoidance

If I were going to be raiding and wasn't locked in a substation for 16 hours a day, I'd probably gem/reforge to hit/exp caps first, then after that reforge towards mastery and gem stam (probably hitting hybrid yellow socket bonuses that give mastery or stam bonuses and red with exp/stam with good bonuses, then reforging away from exp as necessary).

[Rai]

as someone who's just started playing a protection warrior i found this, guide very usefull, i'm lvl 77 at the moment, and i am trying,through other alts, to get gear, such as the beltbuckle and other bits, together for when i ding 90, thanks this will help a lot :-)