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: 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.

10 Things to Do On the 28th of August (Patch Day 5.0.4)

It would be an understatement to say that in under 2 weeks time the way we play our Warriors will change forever. Patch 5.0.4 will launch on the 28th of August giving us around about a one month window to get to know our class/spec before a wealth of new content is thrust up on us. Here is 10 things you should aim to do on patch day:


10 Things I Love About You:


1. Log into the game: "Well duhhhhhhh" I hear you cry! Seems stupid but you'd be surprised at the amount of times where a raid has been held up by one patch or another dropping and someone has forgotten to download and install until 5 minutes before raid time. Even if you are on a break from the game just load it up and install the patch before you forget!

2. Look at Talent Options: I will be posting an analysis of Warrior Talents for the Protection Warrior later on today (stay tuned!) to guide you around and try to give you the pro's and con's for each talent in every tier. But you have a brain, engage it! Read the tool tips and see what YOU like about things.

3. Make a Talent Selection: You will only be able to spec down to the 5th tier (level 75) on patch day, even so - select your talents, go into your spell book and move them to your action bars

4. Have Another Look In Your Spellbook: Have a look to see if you have everything at your disposal out and in your action bars. Check out the tool tips and have a think about rage costs and things like that!

5. Goto a Training Dummy: Seems silly to do this when you're not measuring your DPS huh? Well everything has changed about your Class - the way you generate rage, the way you spend it and what you spend it on! Spend 10 minutes getting used to it all!

6. Leave Your Gear As It Is: Don't be tempted to go reforging everything at huge expense right out of the gate! Leave it for a day or so or at least until you have done point 7 a few times before you go reforging crazy!

7. Run a Heroic Dungeon: Seems obvious right? Again you'd be surprised how many people don't do this out of fear of looking stupid. Just because your class has taken a beating and you don't recognise it any more doesn't mean you can't play it - you just need to re-learn a few things. When you get in explain what has happened or even create a macro with something like: "Hi guys/girls. Still getting used to the new Warrior changes so please be patient with me :)"..... This will let people know where they stand and also ease a little pressure from your plate wearing shoulders.

8. Run the LFR: Again seems obvious but again you'd be surprised how many people don't do this out of fear of 24 other players yelling at them! In this case I wouldn't recommend letting people know anything about still getting used to the changes - just make sure you've run enough Heroic Dungeons so you can feel semi comfortable in what you're doing.

9. Sell, Sell, Sell: As of the 28th you have 1 month till MoP drops and you will still have some Cata mats in your bank. Obviously you will have your own strategy on what you want to keep and dump onto the AH on the Expansion Launch Day but chances are Cata Mats will bottom out fairly quickly when MoP drops so sell it while you can to maximise your profits

10. Raid: Use the heroic dungeons and LFR as a learning curve and when you feel 100% happy you know what you are doing again then go have fun with your guild in a raid - these people are your friends so let them know about the changes and apologise in advance for any wipes you cause.

Most importantly have some fun and don't forget to check out the in game MoP launch event :)

Is The Pandaren Racial OP?

Eats, Shoots and Leaves

I must firstly apologise for the bold above. I honestly love that Panda Joke!! I must admit when the Pandaren race was announced I didn't really give it another thought. I mean they look cool, the girl Panda's really do have something about them (!) but more than anything I didn't really look into the racial traits.

I was mindlessly consuming the internet this morning over my usual cup of coffee and I navigated my way across to the official Blizzard Mists of Pandaria Site. More specifically across to the Pandaren page where you can read up on all that is Black and White. There was nothing really of interest and I was on the bottom of the page, scrolling up and on the right I noticed the Racials so I thought I'd have a look.

"Ummmmm Ling Ling, We Have a Problem!"

The racial that caught my eye was Epicurean. At this point I urge you to hold your mouse over that link to get the wowhead tool-tip...... stop...... rub your eyes...... stop again..... re-read it...... and we shall continue.

A double food buff! Yes a DOUBLE FOOD BUFF!

The Argument That This Isn't Over Powered?

Since the creation of our beloved game Blizzard has had racials that certain classes would be stupid to ignore. Alliance rogues for example would to totally stupid not to roll a Worgan for their 1% Crit bonus. Some will argue that Blizzard will have this 1% figure in mind so if a rogue eats Agility food this will balance out - ie. it will equate for 1% crit after eating the food.

The Argument That What I have Just Written is Like Saying "Hunters in low level PvP are totally balanced!"

Unfortunately what I wrote above is a little nutty. I had to at least try to provide a balanced argument or I could be accused of QQing because my current race is Draenei. In the above example of the 1% Crit we are forgetting a few important things. Firstly yes the double agility food buff would provide Crit to that sneaky little rogue but it would also provide attack power as well thereby increasing baseline DPS and Crit in one full-tummy'd swoop.

At the moment there is no race in the game that would give a dynamic racial. What I mean by that is standard racials are stat X increased by 1% and these tend to be a haste buff, or an avoidance buff etc etc, they have never been a core stat (Strength, Agility, Intellect, Spirit and not to mention Stamina as well!) and you've never been able to pick which one you get.

What I Get a Strength Double Buff AND a Stamina Double Buff?

If the tool-tip provided is true then yes! Assuming food stays as it has been: "Eat for 10 seconds and provides 90 Strength and 90 Stamina for 60 minutes" - then you will get a double double!

So What Does This Mean?

For the average: "log in, run a dungeon, run an LFR, fish for 20 minutes, auction and log off" type player this means nothing at all. In fact I'd go as far to say as it means less than nothing! For the progression raider however this means so much that you might be spending more money than you though in Mists of Pandaria.

I firmly predict that this racial will cause a lot of players to level their toon to 90 and then race change to Pandaren - forcing them to part with another hard earned £15.00. Either that or we will see an OVER OVER populated starting zone for Panda's on Launch day due to people abandoning their mains in favor of same-class-but-more-cuddly alts.

For Protection Warriors however it will depend on our core stats and if our current racials provide us with either more avoidance, hit or stamina depending on what we will end up stacking. I will keep you informed of what Races it's best to switch from in due course.

World Of Warcraft Mists of Pandaria Cinematic Trailer Released

It's Here!

The World of Warcraft Mist of Pandaria Cinematic Trailer has finally been uploaded for our viewing pleasure.

Thoughts?

I've goto say I really enjoyed this Trailer. Whilst I wouldn't consider it as epic as the Vanilla trailer, it scored high marks in the "making me smile" box and also the "wow factor" box.

Spoilers

The cinematic opens very "Pirates of the Caribbean"-esque. I couldn't shake the feeling of "Oh god, first Pandas and now Jack Sparrow is going to mince into our game?" Thankfully though this wasn't the case. An Orc and a Human get stranded on this mystery island and start going at it. It would have been nice to see something class specific here, maybe a Warrior (!!) and Paladin as it is basically just a mythical bar fight that erupts but pasts of the setting gets destroyed as the two slug it out. Out of nowhere something splits them up at a great speed, coming between them. The Pandaren (presuming) Monk basically starts kicking both the Orc and the Human's asses till a rather humorous pause where the Orc and the human team up against the Panda.

Obviously the Pandaren Monk beats the two foreigners and we are then treated to a few "wow" glory shots of Pandaria.

Leave me a comment and let me know what you think.  

Patch 5.0.4 Due to Go Live 28th August

It was announced yesterday that World of Warcraft Patch 5.0.4 is due to go live on the 28th of August on the US servers and the 29th for Europe.

In preparation for this I am compiling a Protection Warrior Talent Guide for 5.0.4/Mists of Pandaria.

Here's the full announcement:

Takralus

Please be aware that with the release of the pre-expansion 5.0.4 patch on Wednesday, August 29 [August 28 for the US], all raid lockouts will be reset. This means that you will not be able to extend a raid lockout beyond the week before the patch release.

source 

Patch 5.0.4 Background Downloader?

PATCH 5.0.4 IS LOADING!

It's Nearly HERE!!!!

WoW Insider is reporting that the background downloader for WoW is now active and is currently pulling around 6GBs of Azerothian content to our PC's/Macs.

The actual size of information that is being downloaded is around 21GB but apparently the 1st 15GB is automatically skipped. Although, nothing is for certain when it comes to Blizzard, but a 6GB download at this stage in the game-life can only mean 5.0 is on it's way...... 

/Cast Battle Shout - ROARRRRR! 

The Reputation Grind of Old Returns

No Faction Tabards in Mists of Pandaria - The Casual Player Gently Weeps!

Whilst this is a strictly Protection Warrior website I do feel it necessary from time to time to keep you all up to date with certain global changes to our beloved game. Furthermore this will have an impact on how soon the MoP Reputation Gear will  be available to you from launch.

On a slight side note: waking up this morning to the following news made me sigh and Battle Shout at the same time!

The one and only Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street replied to a thread on the official WoW forums to confirm and cement a change to the way we are used to grinding reputation with the various factions within the game in MoP.

At present to grind reputation the easiest way is to goto the faction vendor, equip their tabard and run dungeon after dungeon after dungeon after du....... These level 90 faction tabards will still be in the game, however they will no longer give reputation to that specific faction. We will instead quest and do dailies to slog away at our reputation.

Here's Ghostcrawler with more:

 Ghostcrawler

Quote:

Is there a reason you're FORCING us to do daily quests for rep instead of allowing us to CHOOSE to grind the rep in dungeons?

Essentially because dungeons already reward loot from bosses and valor. Letting them also provide faction seems extraneous. Why not just increase the boss drops or give you more valor to let you buy stuff?

Here's how we got there though:

-- BC had an extensive attunement system. (I'm not passing judgment on that system because I kind of liked it myself.)
-- As part of that system, you were required to acquire a lot of reputation with different factions, which you achieved primarily by running dungeons over and over. This meant you might have a dude that needed to run Shadow Labs 3 more times while someone else needed Mechanar or Botanica.
-- To solve that problem, we let players wear tabards so they could earn whatever faction they wanted while running dungeons.
-- This made things much more convenient for players, arguably too convenient. The factions themselves sort of lost their identity. They were just different bars to fill. Also, sometimes by the time you hit Exalted or Revered with a given faction, you already had better gear from running the dungeon so much.
-- In Mists, we want to provide players alternative content to running dungeons. The dungeons are still there, but even with 6 new and 3 redone dungeons, you're ready for something else after a while.
-- Part of that something else are the Elder faction quests, such as Klaxxi and Shado-Pan. We put as much work into these quest chains as we did the level-up zone quests. The stories evolve and new branches unlock. You earn faction by doing these quests and can also earn valor to layer on top of what you're earning from dungeons, or even in lieu of dungeons if you just don't have enough time or aren't interested in a dungeon at that moment.
-- As I said above, I know not everyone loves questing. (For that matter not everyone loves mount collection or pet battles or achievements or raiding). Strictly speaking, you don't have to do the factions to progress your characters, but we figure a lot of players will.

We could have a long discussion, probably beyond the scope of this thread, about how much time you should have to commit to feel like you're keeping up with end game progression vs. how much extra time you should be able to commit if you're interested in doing so. In Cataclysm, we think we steered too far into the zone of telling players to stop playing because there was nothing else to do.

No developer wants to hear "I want to play your game, but there's nothing to do." For Mists, we are going out of our way to give players lots to do. We don't want it to be overwhelming, but we do want it to be engaging. We want you to have the option of sitting down to an evening of World of Warcraft rather than running your daily dungeon in 30 minutes and then logging out. We understand we have many players (certainly the majority in fact) who can't or aren't interested in making huge commitments to the game every week and we hope we have structured things so that you don't fall very far behind. The trick is to let players who want to play make some progress without leaving everyone else in the dust.

source

Analysis of Prot Warrior Faction Rewards in MoP

The Step from Dungeon Heroic Gear to Faction Rewards

With a new expansion comes a new set of factions to grind rep with. As a reward for gaining Revered with said factions you will be rewarded with some epic EPIC gear. To review what you can purchase and from which faction please see the link above or click here. 

As you can see from the link there are 4 new factions to obtain gear from. Just briefly glancing through the list of items from each faction it can be very difficult to see what is the biggest stat increase for you and hence difficult to know which faction to grind to Revered first.

Avoidance or Hit?

Because the most useful stats in MoP for a Protection Warrior are still unclear (although I'm not sure it will change too much) each faction will boost your stats depending on what gear you start with. I'm not going to provide you with figures as such here as it really depends on YOUR gear and not how I have calculated this however assuming you are in full heroic dungeon gear and have prioritised Mastery here is your stat increase by faction:

Shadow Pan

Increase: Mastery & Dodge 

Cost Of: Parry & Hit

Golden Lotus 

Increase: Master & Dodge & 1 socket

Cost Of: Parry & Hit

August Celestials

Increase: Parry

Cost Of: Hit & Dodge

Klaxxi

Increase: Hit & Expertise & Parry & 2 sockets

Cost Of: Dodge & Mastery

It is also worth noting that:
- The Shadow Pan's increase to Mastery far out-weighs the Golden Lotus increase by 2 fold.
- The hit gained from the Klaxxi rewards account for about 2%.
- The sockets gained from the Klaxxi are red and blue as opposed to the Yellow from the Golden Lotus (hello Mr Mastery Gem!).
- Although the Klaxxi has a hit increase the strength on the gear drops.
- The best overall Stamina increase can be found on the Shadow Pan gear.

Sooooo...... What Faction Should I Grind Rep With?

Well at the moment that is a difficult question to answer. It honestly depends on your gear. However assuming Mastery will still be our go-to stat and also taking into account the Stamina and Strength on the gear I would advise grinding Shadow Pan first with Klaxxi in a VERY close second due to the hit increase and the extra sockets.

It will become clearer as more information on stats is released - Watch This Space!

Mists of Pandaria: Vengeance Change for Tanks

Another day and another global tanking change

This time it's Vengeance's turn to be totally flipped on it's head. For once I really have to agree with a change that has been made and I actually see no downside to this. Here's the top line info:

- Vengeance is no longer capped
- Vengeance is now a rolling value of the damage that is taken in the last 20 seconds
- Tanking defensive stats don't count against you ie. if you dodge, parry or block an attack you still gain Vengeance as if you took the full amount of damage to the side of your head!
- Vengeance decay has been toned down significantly
- When starting a fight your Vengeance starts half way based on average damage about to be taken to avoid annoying ramp-ups


What this means and what this will do

Essentially what this means is that in levelling 5 mans (ie. level 60 dungeon) the tank will no longer be top of the DPS by a truck load. In 25 man tanks will be doing relevant damage based on an increase of damage taken (rolling).

Bottom Line: It might be slightly harder in a level 20 dungeon to keep AoE agro from the Hunter who is going all out on a random mob but raid damage will be a lot more consistant.


Here's the epic Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street to explain some more:

We changed how Vengeance works.

Vengeance is intended to let tanks generate additional damage and threat as content levels rise, despite not gearing for it (or at least not primarily). We're changing the design to let Vengeance play better with active mitigation, but the new design has some other advantages many of you will like.

As most all of you know by now, the idea of active mitigation is that the buttons a tank presses directly contribute to mitigation and survival. In some cases, this is timing-centric, such as Death Strike. In others, it's both timing-centric and also involves balancing how you spend your resources among multiple abilities, such as Savage Defense vs. Frenzied Regeneration or Shield Block vs. Shield Barrier. In the latter case, it's important that both abilities are compelling and compete well with each other. We are changing Vengeance to let those abilities be balanced.

I'm going to use Savage Defense (a short duration large dodge buff) and Frenzied Regen (a large instant heal) as examples. Getting the balance between SD and FR right is challenging. We want SD to win on average, but you're limited on how often you can use it, and it's not necessarily reliable -- sometimes you really need a heal NOW, and so FR is the right button. SD should win, but FR shouldn't be too far behind, and they should scale similarly.

SD scales with the incoming damage: if BossA hits you for 60k, and BossB hits you for 120k, then SD is twice as valuable (in absolute terms) on BossB than on BossA. FR scales with your attack power: even a few 5man trash mobs will cap out your Vengeance, so your AP will be the same on BossA as on BossB. FR isn't any stronger on BossB than BossA.

On top of that, AP and boss damage scales differently as ilevel rises. We tried a solution to that problem where FR scaled exponentially with AP in the last build. That has worked fairly well, but still failed at keeping SD and FR balanced when boss damage was significantly different from the baseline we used as a tuning point. For example, 25-player raid bosses hit twice as hard as 10-player raid bosses, which makes SD twice as valuable.

But wasn't this post supposed to be about Vengeance? Currently, Vengeance increases your AP by 5% of the damage taken, stacking up to the cap, which happens quickly. We are changing Vengeance to increase AP equal to 5% of the damage you take for 20 sec. This buff will "roll" so that as it gets refreshed the unused part is added to the new buff, similar to how Ignite or Stagger work. The net result will be that Vengeance stacks by the amount of DPS being thrown at you over 20 sec. There is no cap.

Additional nuances:

-- Avoidance will not count against you. Avoiding an attack will extend the current Vengeance stack back to 20 sec (as if you were hit again for the same DPS).

-- Blocks, absorbs, Stagger and Shield of the Righteous will also not count against you. The damage before these effects is used for the Vengeance calculation.

-- To reduce ramp up time, we bump you up to halfway to whatever your average Vengeance level would be based on each individual hit. Essentially, we skip the first 10 sec of ramping.

-- Tank damage in 5-player groups will decrease. We think this is a good chance because it is weird and demoralizing when tanks consistently top damage meters in dungeons.

-- Tank damage in 25-player groups will increase. We think this is a good change because it makes tank DPS as relevant in 25-player raids as it is in 10-player raids.

-- With this change, Brewmaster damage will be extremely overpowered. We will fix it, but you may get a build where they are ludicrously good.

The rest of this post is nitty gritty details for theorycrafters. You do NOT need to read or understand this in order to effectively play a tank.

-- Whenever you get hit, Vengeance is added based on the damage of the hit before block, crit block, absorbs, stagger, and Shield of the Righteous.

-- Whenever you avoid an attack from a mob where MobLevel>=TankLevel-3, your existing Vengeance is extended to 20sec remaining.

-- Based on how hard you're hit, we estimate how high Vengeance's equilibrium point will be: DamageTaken / 1.5.

-- If you're not at least half that high on Vengeance, we bump you up to that amount

-- The new Vengeance value is calculated as: 0.05 * DamageTaken + OldVengeance * OldVengeanceSecondsRemaining / 20

-- Frenzied Regeneration and Shield Barrier's formulae have changed to:

Frenzied Regeneration at 60 rage: max(2*(AP-Agi*2), Sta*2.5)

Shield Barrier at 60 rage: max(2*(AP-Str*2), Sta*2.5)

-- Yes, these do mean that it uses your AP without base AP from Str/Agi (but does still slightly include AP from Agi/Str when you've got the 10% AP raid buff or other +%AP buffs).

-- Please feel free to ask any questions you have about the mechanical details of this.

source

MoP Protection Warrior's Reputation Rewards List and HC Dungeon Gear List: NOW LIVE!

I have just finished sifting through the mountains of Mists of Pandaria Beta information to bring you:

- Protection Warrior's Reputation Rewards: Mists of Pandaria Edition

- Protection Warrior's Heroic Dungeon Drops: Mists of Pandaria Edition

Please feel free to comment and distribute as you see fit.

Mists of Pandaria: Launch Date Confirmed

Well it's official...... World of Warcraft's 4th expansion will go live on the 25th of September 2012. Along with a new continent, pet battles, scenarios, new level cap (90), a new race (hello Mr & Mrs Panda), Challenge modes, Dungeons and Raids (wooo!!) - we have a NEW class in the monk.

Monks are a druid style hybrid class that can full-fill any one of the 3 roles within the game (Tank, DPS and Heals). It should be quite fun to see what impact this new class will have on raid setups, specifically because of past class introductions - eg. the Death Knight.

When the DK was introduced into the Azeroth all hell broke loose. Suddenly there was this "Hero Class" capable of tanking in 3 different specs. Servers saw a massive increase in tanks available but because they started levelling at 55 as opposed to the standard lvl 1 very few actually learned the ins and outs of their beloved plate wearing hero.

Monks however will start out at lvl 1, just like every other class within the game. Because of this be prepared to get some stiff competition in raid line ups about a month into the expansion!

Even so we are Prot Warriors and we kick ass...... Excited doesn't cover this Warrior's current mood! Roll on the 25th of Sept!

Prot Warrior Guide 4.3

So you're thinking about becoming a Warrior hey? Firstly congratulations on an epic choice of class and welcome to the club. Warriors come in 3 flavours, 2 DPS specs - Arms and Fury - and a tanking spec that we will discuss today - Protection.

Why play a protection Warrior?

Prot Warriors are the most mobile tanking class within the game at present. We have 4 movement abilities:

- Charge, Charge towards an enemy with Rage generation

- Intercept, Charge towards an enemy doing damage but costing rage

- Heroic Leap, Leaping to anywhere within 40 yards and doing damage

- Intervene, Run towards a party or raid member costing rage

All of the above have various situational uses which I’m sure you can work out for yourself (ie. Intervene to a party member when you are stood in the fire!)

Prot Warriors have a shield… “So do paladins” I hear you cry! So why am I listing this as an advantage? Because Death Knights and the big bears don’t! But more importantly it provides Prot Warriors with a chance to reach the “CTC Cap” or Combat Table Coverage Cap. Simply put every time an enemy takes a nice swing at you the Combat Table decides if it hits you, if you dodge it, parry it or block it etc. To calculate your current rating simply add “Miss” + “Block” + “Parry” + “Dodge” up and you will get your rating. The current “CTC Cap” for a max level raid boss is 102.4%

So what does it mean when you actually hit the magic 102.4% cap then? Every time a boss takes a mele swing at you, you will take damage (ie. 100% or 50% or 20% or 0%). When you are capped at 102.4% it means that you will never take a 100% mele swing AT ALL - please note this does not apply to special abilities

So what stats should I look for?

Mastery, Mastery, Mastery, Mastery - did I mention Mastery? Basically the stats you are looking for as priority are as follows:

Mastery >= Mastery >= Mastery >= Mastery >= Mastery >= Mastery >= Mastery

Ok joking aside these as the stats you are looking for:

Mastery > Parry >= Dodge > Strength

As a general rule of thumb you will want slightly more Parry than Dodge as it procs our Hold The Line Talent. Most reforging sites will recommend around 1% more Parry than dodge.

Obviously I also need to mention Armour as well. To be honest though I don’t really need to talk about it that much. As you upgrade your gear to a higher iLevel you will USUALLY get more armour on the newer gear anyway. Just check the gear fully before you equip it.

I haven’t tanked since Wrath….. Why don’t I need hit and expertise anymore

When the dungeon finder went live in Patch 3.3 something strange happened. Max level “tanks” were being put in situations where they couldn’t keep agro due to the gear level of some of the random DPS they were put with….. No amount of nice talk would stop these DPSers pulling agro (in most cases!) and so Blizzard decided to increase the threat generated by tanks.

Currently in patch 4.3 every DPS class does a 1:1 damage to threat ratio – so if a mage face rolls and does his/her 60k DPS he/she will also do 60k TPS (threat per second). Tanks on the other hand have a 5:1 ratio – so for every 1 DPS we do we create 5TPS. In this above example for the tank to keep agro from our beloved face-rolling mage he/she will need to do 12k or 13k DPS (60,000TPS / 5 = 12,000DPS)

Because of this delightful buff we received to threat generation we no longer prioritise Hit or Expertise. This is mainly because once you know what you are doing with your tank you will pull enough threat to keep agro off your fellow raiders/party members.

Gemming

Meta:

There has recently been a lot of discussion on the net surrounding the “correct” meta gem to equip in DS. Your 2 choices as a prot warrior are as follows:

- Austere Shadowspirit Diamond

- Eternal Shadowspirit Diamond

The 1% block value on the Eternal Shadowspirit Diamond will help you reach the CTC cap (explained above) however we have to stop to think how reaching this cap will help in a DS raid. The CTC cap only applies to “standard” boss abilities and not their “special” abilities. Therefore the 2% increase in armour will actually stand you in better stead as it will help reduce (even slightly) most incoming damage.

These meta gems are purely situational if you are focusing on 5 man heroics then I’d probably suggest [url=http://www.wowhead.com/item=52293]Eternal Shadowspirit Diamond[/url], if you are Raiding DS then I would leave this totally up to you.

Yellow:

Anything with the word “Fractured” in the name ie. Fractured Amberjewel or Fractured Lightstone

Blue:

Anything with the word “Puissant” in the name ie. Puissant Dream Emerald or Puissant Elven Peridot

Red:

Anything with the word “Fine” in the name ie. Fine Ember Topaz or Fine Lava Coral

Enchanting

Below is a list of Enchants for each slot:

Head                Arcanum of the Earthen Ring

Shoulders         Greater Inscription of Unbreakable Quartz

Back                Enchant Cloak – Protection

Chest               Enchant Chest – Greater Stamina

Wrist                Enchant Bracer – Superior Dodge

Hands               Enchant Gloves – Greater Mastery

Belt                  Ebonsteel Belt Buckle

Legs                 Drakehide Leg Armor

Feet                  Enchant Boots – Lavawalker

Weapon             Enchant Weapon – Windwalk

Shield                Enchant Shield – Mastery

Glyphs

Prime:

- Glyph of Shield Slam

- Glyph of Revenge

- Glyph of Devastate

Major:

- Glyph of Shockwave

- Glyph of Thunder Clap

- Glyph of Cleaving

Minor:

- Glyph of Demoralizing Shout

- Glyph of Intimidating Shout

- Glyph of Command or Glyph of Battle

It is worth saying here that I tend not to have Glyph of Intimidating Shout active but rather both Glyph of Command and Glyph of Battle as you never know what group you are going get in a pug situation. These longer buff durations are less likely to drop off and therefore will benefit your raid group.

Rotation(s)

Just like every other class going at the moment Prot warriors have no set rotation but a priority system. These are broken down into 2 categories based on situation:

- Single Target (boss)

- AOE (trash/adds)

Regardless of the type of encounter you have in front of you, you will usually want to start with a Shout (Commanding or Battle based on the buff your raid/party needs) followed by a charge. You can mix this up a bit with Shout –> Heroic Throw -> Charge if you wish on a boss fight where positioning isn’t going to cause a mega wipe (NB. When you heroic throw the boss will move towards you).

Single Target Rotation:

As above, the pull should start with a Shout, Heroic Throw and a Charge to boost your rage. Once you are in combat your priorities are as follows:

1. Shield Block (if off cooldown) and Shield Slam or just a Shield Slam if SB isn’t ready
2. Concussion Blow (if off cooldown) 

2. Revenge if available

3. Rend if it’s not on the target or Thunder Clap if it’s about to drop off

4. Use Devastate and also Heroic Strike if rage is over 60

Multi Target Rotation:

As above, the pull should start with a Shout but just a Charge this time  to boost your rage. Once you are in combat your priorities are as follows:

1. Rend if it’s not on the target and then Thunder Clap – If the target currently has Read applied then just TC

2. Shockwave – it’s worth noting here that your Thunderstruck talent increases the damage of your Shockwave by 10 for each Thunderclap you have applied (stacks 3 times).

3. Revenge if available

4. Cleave your heart away if nothing else is available

This is just the basics but you can tab target and use Shield Slam should you get a bit bored!

Things to think about:

- Popping your Shield Block before you Shield Slam will activate your Heavy Repercussions. As you can see from the tool tip, Heavy Repercussions doubles the damage of your Shield Slam while Shield Block is active. This is great for snap agro when starting a fight or when the guild rogue/mage/insert-high-burst-damage-class-here decides to go a little nutty at the beginning of a boss fight. When you combine this with a Heroic Throw to open the fight with, you should have no issues with agro in a raid.

- Demoralizing Shout isn’t just a pretty button on your spell book it is also great (when glyphed especially!) to use in an AOE agro situation – try it next time you can thank me later!

- Your Thunderstruck talent increases the damage of your Shockwave by 10 for each Thunder Clap you have applied (stacks 3 times).

- Inner Rage can be used in all stances and therefore makes a great agro dump when you want to use Heroic Strike or Cleave – Please watch you don’t rage starve yourself when using this ability!

- Blood and Thunder spreads your rend to every target that is effected by your Thunder Clap as long as you already have it active on any of them.

- Retaliation It’s pretty good to use – so use it when you can

 Cooldowns

As a Prot warrior you have quite a few cooldowns at your disposal (a few of which we can class as “OH SH*T” Buttons!).

- Shield Wall: A great damage reduction cooldown (see 4 Set Bonus Section for further information)

- Challenging Shout: This is one of you “OH SH*T” buttons to hit. Mainly for AOE situations where you might lose agro to someone – Specifically quite good in sub 85 dungeons where an arms warrior insists on popping all his cooldowns and uses Bladestorm!

- Last Stand and Rallying Cry: I am grouping these together as they both share a cooldown – ie. if you use one you are unable to use the other. At the moment I tend to only use Rallying Cry as it is raid wide at only a 10% loss for yourself

- Enraged Regeneration: This is a great cooldown to help out your healers. Again very situational but 30% health over 10 seconds is nothing to sneeze at. “But it only works when you’re enraged” I hear you cry and, well, I guess you’d be right. Warriors enrage doing extra damage and providing more rage to us however when you enrage can be slightly random. This is where Berserker Rage becomes AMAZING! Berserker Rage will actually Enrage you and enable you to pop your Enraged Regeneration straight away – this can be macroed together to save time etc.

Interrupts

 How many times have you been in a Cata Dungeon and wondered “Where have all the interrupts gone?” I can’t count the amount of times I’ve been in Well of Eternity recently on my druid healer actually SCREAMING at the tank to interrupt! Especially when it’s a Warrior tank! I’m not going to go too in depth about these, as let’s face it, they do exactly what they say on the tin:

- Shockwave

- Concussion Blow

- Pummel

- Heroic Throw: A ranged interrupt

- You can also use Charge or Intercept as they both stun the target

4 Set Bonus T13

 All tanking 4 piece sets at T13 provide party/raid wide buffs. The Warrior T13 Set grants 50% effect of Shield Wall to all raid or party members. This equates to a 20% reduction in damage to everyone for 12 seconds. This is great and amazing in lots of ways but you now need to manage this cooldown with your raid in mind.

Taunt and Vigilance

As a tank you have a Taunt ability. I don’t think I need to go into the ins and outs of this!

What goes quite nicely with our taunt however is Vigilance. This ability has some amazing uses. One of the best ones that I found was on the trash before ultraxion. Put this on the other tank, let him keep agro on the drakes and you can taunt all of the others down as your taunt is refreshed every time the other tank takes damage (ie. you have unlimited taunt with rarely any cooldown!).

Obviously how you use this ability is down to you. In a dungeon put it on either your healer or if you are struggling with agro then put it on the top DPS.

Talents

To be honest I'm not going to talk about talent builds here. I could go in depth to each tier and give you a breakdown but I'm going to point you to Wow Popular as it will give you a decent idea of what to take.


Reforging

As a warrior tank it's important to find a balance with things. Again I could talk about this in depth but instead I'm going to point you to Ask Mr Robot where you can load your toon and it'll show you how to gem/reforge/enchant to make the most out of what you have.