Mists of Pandaria: Protection Warrior Single Target Rotation

To DPS or Not to DPS That Is The Question

Everything has changed for us (how many times have I said this so far!). Before we could just go balls-to-the-wall, trying to put out as much DPS as we could manage to help our raid. We knew our defence cap would mitigate most of our incoming damage and we had a few damage reduction cooldowns to pop where needed. Any extra rage we had was spent on cleave or heroic strike and everything was lovely.......

Patch 5.0.4 dropped and how we generated rage and spent it totally changed. We are now endlessly searching for and saving rage to spend on our Active Mitigation abilities and because threat is no longer really an issue for us we no longer really have much rage spare to dump..... ever!

The Pull

There are a few really good ideas for the pull. Pre-potting, dropping banners, activating Recklessness etc etc. However I am going to give you a standard version of this for single target:

Battle Shout -> Berserker Rage -> Heroic Throw -> Charge -> Shield Slam -> Revenge -> Active Mitigation (Shield Barrier or Shield Block)

This can be altered for a maximum start by adding in Recklessness and your tier 6 talent: Avatar, Bloodbath or Stormbolt before Heroic Throw and Skull Banner after Shield Slam: 

Battle Shout -> Recklessness -> Berserker Rage -> [Avatar or Bloodbath] -> [Heroic Throw or Stormbolt] -> Charge -> Shield Slam -> Skull Banner -> Revenge -> Active Mitigation (Shield Barrier or Shield Block)

If you are going to Pre-pot (Using a potion before the pull so you can use another during) then do this before you Heroic Throw or Stormbolt.

You can also Heroic Leap instead of Charge however you will lose the rage that is generated from Charge if you do, meaning more time between the pull and the start of your Active Mitigation abilities.

The Rotation

Just like in Cataclysm there is no set Protection Warrior Rotation. Instead we use a priority system:

For Times Where You Are Taking Damage (Active Tank In A Raid, Dungeon Tank etc)

- Active Mitigation Ability of Choice (Shield Barrier or Shield Block)

- Shield Slam

- Revenge 

- Devastate

- Thunderclap

- Stormbolt (if taken as Talent)

Obviously any other damage reduction abilities should be used on cooldown or when arranged with your raid leader.

For Times Where You Aren't Taking Damage (Non-Active Tank In A Raid)

- Shield Slam

- Revenge 

- Devastate

- Thunderclap

- Stormbolt (if taken as Talent)

- Heroic Strike or Cleave on cooldown

Mists of Pandaria: Level 90 Darkmoon Tanking Trinket

Relic of Niuzao Has Changed!

Ok first and foremost the Darkmoon Trinket Relic of Niuzao has been buffed!! If you hover over for the tooltip you will see that it has 1434 Stamina on it. This wasn't present when MoP Launched and has since become one of our Best In Slot Trinkets for pre-raid gear. Even when you drill down to the end of Tier 14 raiding this is (realistically) our 3rd BiS as the one above it in the list has a 1% drop rate!

OMG I've Just Looked At The AH Prices!! 

Ok chill out. No really! There are 3 different ways to obtain this trinket:

- Collect the " of Oxen" cards

- Buy an Ox Deck

- Buy the Trinket

On my server the Deck is going for 32k and the Trinket is going for 23k. So it was time to number crunch, Well basic addition really! The Ox Deck can be created by collecting the Ace through Eight of Oxen Darkmoon Cards (1-8). These are listed on the AH as Ace of Oxen, Two of Oxen etc... (ie numbers as words). After some brief work with some paper and the Online AH I worked out that I could buy all of the cards for 16k. This is a good way to obtain a BiS item on the cheap and also a great way to make some gold (buy the cards, create the deck and either list the deck or the trinket on the AH). 

I will be using mine however I might go back to make a few thousand doing this.

Mists of Pandaria: Protection Warrior Active Mitigation

We're Not Death Knights..... WTF??

Any of you who ever rolled a Death Knight tank will be very familiar with why you must use Death Strike when ever you can and how you have to plan your rotation around it.

With the introduction of patch 5.0.4 and the subsequent launch of Mists of Pandaria, Protection Warrior's mechanics have changed forever. Gone are the days where we could reach the CTC Cap (Combat Table Coverage Cap) due to the introduction of a 2 roll defence style and enter the days where we now have to endlessly save rage in order to give us a few seconds of damage reduction.

So What Is Active Mitigation?

Active Mitigation is the use of abilities to reduce incoming damage - it has nothing to do with Dodge, Parry or Block but rather an ability in your spell book that you can pop (on a short cooldown - if any at all) that reduces the damage you take.

Why Should I Give a Flying Orc About This??

Assuming you are here because you play a Protection Warrior then this should be fairly obvious. You are a tank. Among your many functions within your Party or Raid is your ability to keep agro and take as little damage as possible. Active Mitigation reduces the damage you take which therefore helps out your healers with mana and the ability to target someone other than you for a second.

Ok I'm Convinced, What Are My Active Mitigation Abilities?

As a Protection Warrior you have 2 Active Mitigation abilities:

- Shield Barrier

and

- Shield Block

Shield Block blocks every single melee attack against you for 6 seconds and Shield Barrier absorbs a certain amount of damage against you for 6 seconds (or until it has absorbed the set amount of damage).

So When Should I Use Them?

Shield Block should be used when you are taking melee damage and Shield Barrier when you are taking spell damage or "unblock-able" damage. 

Shield Barrier can be used with either 20, 40 or 60 rage (amount of damage absorbed increases depending on how much rage you spend on it) where as Shield Block can only be used with 60 rage. You can only have 1 Shield Barrier active at any one time but you can stack up to 2 Shield Block (extends the time period).

To Summarise

These abilities are there to be used so use them and use them as you see fit but remember Block for melee and Barrier for spell. 

Mists of Pandaria: Protection Warrior Stats

Seriously? We're Still Stacking Mastery?

Are you kidding me? Well no, sorry! We are well into Mists now. Most if not all of us are now Level 90 and it's time to have a look at key stats for Protection Warriors. And here's the breaking news: Nothing has changed......

Your priorities are still:

Mastery > Parry >= Dodge > Hit > Expertise

But I Thought We Wanted Hit?

There are a few different ways to approach your own build. Browsing the Armoury I've noticed some stacking hit and exp to cap (7.5% for both), I've seen some stack parry and others the almighty Mastery.

It is totally down to you how you want to approach your build however here are a few things to consider before you start:

- Revenge can be refreshed following a successful dodge or parry however with Glyph of Hold the Line it is more beneficial to stack Parry over Dodge.

- Active Mitigation abilities (Shield Barrier and Shield Block) both have the need for Rage. Therefore if you miss with a Shield Slam or a Revenge it will take you longer to accrue the Rage needed to use these abilities.

- Our Mastery: Critical Block procs Enrage. This Generates 10 Rage and increases our damage. 

So Mastery Build Then?

Yes. At the moment this is the correct build to go with as it increases your Block and Critical Block and gives you an awesome chance to generate free Rage from Enrage.

MoP Beta: Prot Warrior's Are Getting Angrier (And Less Squishy!)

"I Shall Call Him Squishy And He Shall Be Mine"

Since 5.0.4 hit Prot Warriors have been getting a really bad rep. Gone are the days where we can reach the CTC (Combat Table Cap) due to the new rolling system with Block being on a separate roll to Dodge and Parry and this has left us somewhat squishy.

My guild's current raid setup has 2 warrior tanks (one dedicated and one standing in due to the lull before Mists drops) and it was noted how much damage we were both taking. No amount of active mitigation helped the overall problem.

There Be Changes Coming

The one and only Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street has posted on the official wow forums to talk about changes being made to "rage tanks" in the MoP Beta:

 Ghostcrawler - Beta Class Balance Analysis

Tank Time
I mentioned previously (though it very well could have been in another thread) that we have been looking a lot at tank balance. We think tanks surviving short windows of spike damage has been fairly balanced in beta for some time, and indeed we are seeing all tank classes used effectively in beta Challenge Modes and Heroic raid testing.

We have made a few changes to longer-term tank healing required, which will show up both on beta and live very soon. I mentioned that we were initially going to nerf monk and DK, but we now think they and paladins are fine. Instead, the rage tanks required too much healing, so we are causing them to take less damage and have more rage for active mitigation.

Druid
-- Auto attack rage generation increased by 75%.
-- Thick Hide now provides 12% physical damage reduction.

Warrior
-- Rage generation from Revenge increased from 10 to 15.
-- Rage generation from Shield Slam increased from 15 to 20. (Sword and Board continues to give 5 extra, so 25 now).
-- Reduced internal cooldown on Critical Block from Enrage from 5 sec to 3 sec.
-- Increased damage reduction from Defensive Stance from 15% to 25%.
-- Increased armor from Unwavering Sentinel from 10% to 25%.

source

To be honest at our current level these changes are needed! The increased rage generation from Revenge and Shield Slam will help us reach out Active Mitigation abilities a lot quicker making us a little less squishy. The flat damage reduction from Defensive Stance and Unwavering Sentinel speaks for itself as to how Blizzard current sees the Prot Warrior class standing in comparison to other classes. What they are essentially saying in this post is that Prot Warriors are weaker than the other classes currently by over 10% and we are going to buff you up.

I have to say it's nice to see a buff as opposed to a general nerf for the other classes (Pally, DK and Monks).

Patch 5.0.4 and MoP Currency Conversion (Valor and Conquest Points)

Oh Where, Oh Where Did My Valor Points Go?

Blizzard has just released it's plans for the Valor and Conquest Points Conversion for:

- Patch 5.0.4

- Mists of Pandaria

- Patch 5.1

Check out the text below for more information. It appears the Valor points will be converted over to Justice points however there is no mention of what happens to your existing Justice points. This might be a great time to start buying your Heirloom gear ahead of the new Expansion so you can hit the ground running with your new Panda Monk 

The currency conversion coming with Mists of Pandaria is going to happen in three stages, and this is how we plan for it to progress:

With Patch 5.0.4 on August 28

• Valor points will be converted to Justice points, and Conquest points will be converted to Honor points.
  • Neither of the resultant currencies (Justice and Honor) will have an enforced hard-cap at this time.
• The current Arena season will end.
• Players will no longer be able to earn Valor or Conquest points (bosses will drop Justice, Arenas will be closed).
• Items formerly purchasable for Valor/Conquest will be available for Justice/Honor.

With Mists of Pandaria on September 25

• Valor can be earned again.
  • Characters can earn up to 1000 Valor per week, and carry a maximum of 3000 Valor.
  • Daily quests, random Scenarios, random Heroic dungeons, and all levels of raiding will reward Valor.
  • Valor will be used to purchase ilvl 489 gear in Mists of Pandaria.
    • The Klaxxi, Golden Lotus, Shado-Pan, and August Celestials factions will sell this gear.
    • Revered reputation with each faction will be required.
• Conquest will become earnable.
  • There is a cap of 4000 Conquest points.
  • Arenas and Rated Battlegrounds reward Conquest.
  • It will be used to purchase ilvl 483 gear from Pandaren battlemasters on the Great Wall.

With Mists of Pandaria, Patch 5.1

• We currently plan to upgrade the Valor system as Ghostcrawler described in Mists of Pandaria Looting Explained in the 5.1 patch, allowing you to upgrade your gear using Valor points. We’ll have additional information once Mists of Pandaria launches and we get closer to the 5.1 patch release.

MoP Expansion On 2 x DVD-ROM's?

Things Just Got Bigger

I was mindlessly surfing the internet this morning and checking out everything that is WoW related and decided to check out the Mists of Pandaria Collectors edition on play.com. Something was strange about the above image and I couldn't work out what it was. Looking further at it I could see 5 discs - 1 for the soundtrack, 1 Bluray, 1 DVD and then a game DVD-ROM. Those only accounted for 4 discs though.

Zoom, Zoom, ZOOM!

Looking closer at the discs on the right hand side I could just about make out what it said on the first disc "Game DVD Disc 1" and then you can just make out "Disc 2" in the one behind this. Judging by the additional content of the Collectors Edition only really being a pet and a mount this leads me to believe that MoP will come as standard in both the Std Version and the Collectors edition on 2 DVD-ROM's - It's time to upgrade the hard discs people!