Protection Warrior Wrath of the Lich King guide

Contents:

x1 Version
x2 Introduction
x3 How The Warriors Have Changed
x4 Talents
x5 Protection Tree
x6 Fury Tree
x7 Arms Tree
x9 Talents Discussion
z1 Threat
z2 Avoidance
z3 Gear, Gems And Glyphs
z4 FAQ

x1 Version:

06/11/08 version 1.2. Added FAQ section at end.
23/10/08 version 1.2. Changed wording on a number of topics.
13/10/08 version 1.1.
12/10/08 version 1.0.

x2 Introduction:

First of all, this is not meant to be a comprehensive guide. I’ll use the results of other people’s research (hopefully I won’t forget credits where their due) in explaining some of the things I want to cover. This guide is written from a lvl 80 starting raids point of view. Currently this is up-to-date but things may change as Wrath is patched. However, some errors may have been made. If so, please point them out.

x3 How The Warriors Have Changed:

A lot of people, including myself, feel that Blizzard has changed the Warrior Protection spec so much that it’s unrecognisable from the TBC variety. They removed or changed a lot of the things we thought of as defining our class, but to compensate Blizzard has decided to provide Prot more viability in raids by improving their dps. In the end, Prot has changed a lot, but I think all for the better. Our abilities now work much more like those of Paladins and Druids, with some very strong AoE tank abilities and tps that scales much better with gear.

x4 Talents:

I’ll go through all the talents in the Protection tree and discuss them all according to my opinion in order of appearance in the tree. I’ll then go through the Fury and Arms talents that have any bearing on tanking as well.

x5 Protection Tree:

Improved Bloodrage: Pointless, don’t take it. With the Warbringer talent (discussed later on) and the original Bloodrage you will find it hard to be rage-starved in the first few seconds of any fight.
Shield Specialization: A very strong talent that, now that Shield Block is on a 60s cd (40s with a later talent) and block value goes higher than ever before, is pretty much mandatory. The extra rage element is also nice.
Improved Thunder Clap: A mandatory talent. It provides survivability from the mobs lower attack speed while also providing 30% more dmg to one of only two of our AoE tanking abilities.

Incite: As part of improving our dps and tps there are a number of talents having to do with +crit. This is the first of them, and a good one at that. The 15% higher crit rate on Heroic Strike and Thunder Clap offer very good value on both single target and AoE tanking.
Anticipation: A no-brainer, especially now that avoidance suffers from diminishing returns (more on that later) the extra 5% dodge is excellent.

Last Stand: One of the primary panic buttons and a must-have for raiding, LS has been slightly buffed to a lower 5 min cd.
Improved Revenge: A debated talent, but I believe a very good one. Revenge is less used in the WotLK tanking rotation compared to the TBC one because Shield Block cannot be spammed, but it does more threat and more damage than before making it an overall buffed ability. Increasing its damage by another 20% is an excellent way to spend two talent points. IR will give a bigger overall tps increase than most other threat talents.
Shield Mastery: With Shield Slam becoming the main ability in the tanking rotation and it’s damage being dependant on Block Value, this is an immensely important threat talent. As an avoidance talent it is also invaluable due to its 20 sec reduction on cd, which in itself also buffs dps. By having SB up the SS will hit for more (more on that in the Rotation segment).
Toughness: In itself a talent an MT can’t do without, simply because of the damage reduction the extra armour provides. On top of that, this talent combines with Armoured to the Teeth in the Arms tree, making that better too. The reduction in the duration of movement slowing effects is more or less a PvP bit, but still has its uses in PvE.

Improved Spell Reflection: A 100% PvP talent. Perhaps there is one fight in an instance somewhere that this might be handy, if you wanted to avoid a party member taking damage from a random spell attack, but overall it is a massive waste of points for PvE. 4% reduction in the chance to be hit by spells is alright, but far from worth it.
Improved Disarm: There’s been a small number of bosses reported in WotLK instances that you can disarm, but as a general rule of thumb it’s impossible, which makes this talent pretty useless. Unless there’s an instance boss like Brutallus where raid dps has to be higher than you can do and the boss can be disarmed, it’s pointless.
Puncture: Pre-WotLK this was a very good talent for raiding, but that’s changed completely. In WotLK devastate has a much smaller role to play in a tanking rotation (again, more on that later) and the 3 talent points it costs to max this out will provide a very small boost to your rage. Unfortunately, this talent is not worth it anymore.

Improved Disciplines: Strangely enough this is a PvP talent, since for PvE raiding it’s pretty useless. The minute off your Shield Wall might sound nice, but remember that the whole point of Shield Wall is to be your panic button. The only time this talent is used is if you use SW twice or three times in one long fight, but that means using it at the start and middle where it shouldn’t be needed at all, and the ability will be on cd for when you do actually need it. Quite a pointless talent.
Concussion Blow: Conc Blow has had its threat increased, as shown later by threat lists, and makes for a good stun if you can’t use Shockwave (CC’d targets in range). It’s not an amazing talent, but for the one point it costs it’s not bad. It’s also needed in order to get Vigilance, which is discussed later.
Gag Order: With Shield Slam becoming the most important tanking ability, just the 10% extra SS damage makes this talent worth the 2 talent points it costs. On top of this is the silencing parts, which make this a very good talent indeed. Pulling casters to you has never been easier. You smack it over the head with Heroic Throw and use your 20 yard taunt to get it over to you instead of the nearest healer, done.

One-Handed Weapon Specialization: A must-have in TBC and a must-have in WotLK, no real argument here. Max this out in any build you use.

Improved Defensive Stance: The standard 6% dmg reduction from spells is good for tanking, just like it was before, but no real treat. The actual value of this talent comes from its Enrage effect on every Block, Parry or Dodge. The Enrage increases your dmg by 10% for 12 secs, which doesn’t need an explanation on how good it is, really. Plus, you can trade in your Enrage for an Enraged Regeneration, healing you for 30% of your health over 10 seconds.
Vigilance: This talent is a bit troublesome. In TBC it would be considered amazing, but in WotLK the tables have turned. Threat is no longer the massive issue it used to be. There shouldn’t be any need to take 10% threat off of anyone in the raid, since nobody should come close to a good tank. Unless Blizzard is underestimating the threat made by dps there are only two ways this talent can have any value that I can see. When two Warrior tanks put it on each other during trash, basically making it a free 3% dmg reduction and quick taunt cd’s, or when the OT in a one-tank boss-fight puts Vigilance on the MT, while the MT puts it on the highest dps to even that out a bit. Over-all, I’d say this talent is pointless unless you raid with 2 Prot Warriors, and with 4 tanking classes that’s just not going to be likely, or if dps is closing in on your threat.
Focused Rage: Rage is less of an issue in most situations in WotLK. The Sword and Board talent further on reduces the amount of rage your rotation needs tremendously, and the Glyph of Revenge or Heroic Strike could lower that even further. However, I’d still take this talent in any build. It’s just too powerful and useful not to take.

Vitality: Strength is the new backbone of Warrior tanking and Expertise hasn’t lost any of its überness, making this a mandatory talent. End of.
Safeguard: Again a talent that is almost entirely limited to PvP. Intervene is a nice ability, we all know that, but it’s rarely used in a raiding scenario.

Warbringer: Basically this is Blizzards apology for messing with our class as we knew it in TBC so much, and it’s a very good apology. This ability is massive for pulls as well as the middle of fights. Being able to quickly move around the battlefield and get rage for it to boot on a low cd is awesome. Hardly ever will you get this much versatility from a single talent point.
Devastate: Even though Devastate is used less in WotLK, it’s still used very frequently. A requirement for any tank, no changes there.
Critical Block: Again an ability that buffs Shield Slam, and as you can predict, again you’ll want to take this talent if only for that reason. On top of that the talent gives a 30% chance to block double the normal amount on any block, which counts towards quite a lot of dmg reduction in the end.

Sword and Board: Pretty much a must-have new talent. A 30% chance to refresh the cd on Shield Slam and make it free to use with a 5 sec window will completely change the way you tank. Where normally Prot Warriors are used to hit the same buttons in the same order during any fight, we now have to actually keep an eye on the SaB procs and weave them into our rotation whenever we see it go off. This changes tanking from a set rotation where you know what to press at any time, into a reactive rotation where you have to pay attention and change your ability order whenever it goes off.
Damage Shield: Any attack done to you that you don’t dodge or parry will cause the mob to take 20% of your Block Value as dmg. With Block Values higher than ever before, this is a significant amount of dmg and threat. This works on the mob your targeting but also on any mob hitting you from the sides, effectively making it a great AoE tank ability.

Shockwave: The new tree-defining talent for Protection, taking the place of Shield Slam and Devastate as respective end-of-tree talents. It’s a debated talent, however. Shockwave only produces threat based on the dmg it causes and the stun component is a mixed blessing. Most tanks don’t like stuns on their mobs, especially not in the start of fights, as it prevents us from gaining rage from being hit. On the other hand, you don’t háve to use it in the start of a fight and it does give you a lot of CC when you need it. Any bad pull can be Shockwaved while you quickly hit all the mobs once or get a Thunder Clap off, or you can stun some trash when you see your going low on health and want to give the healers a breather. Of course, the stun will be largely useless on raid trash and completely useless on bosses. However, the dmg alone provides more threat than Devastate, TC or Heroic Strike, and is on par to Concussion Blow threat. Over-all this is a strong talent for raiding tanks, both for trash AoE tanking and for single target aggro. Just remember that Shockwave breaks any CC it hits.

x6 Fury Tree:

Armoured to the Teeth: With the increased reliance of Prot tanking on Attack Power this is a very strong talent for us. For a Naxx-geared tank it is quite a bit better than Cruelty point for point. And as you get better gear, the talent becomes stronger.
Cruelty: As said above, it’s less strong than AttT but still a strong talent. Cruelty provides less for a Warrior tank than any of the Prot +crit talents, though, and when you need a talent point out of a threat spot to put into an avoidance spot, this is your first choice for cutting down.

Improved Demoralizing Shout: Now that Warlocks have an ability that does the same thing as Demo Shout, and they don’t stack, Imp DS has become less important. As such it’s not needed for a tank to spec into. If anything, there will always be a dps Warrior or Warlock in your raid that has it instead.

x7 Arms Tree:

Improved Heroic Strike: A reasonable talent, really. Rage starvation occurs less in WotLK than it did previously, and the Glyph of Revenge could be used instead of this talent, but it’s still not bad. Mostly this talent is taken in order to reach Impale, though.
Deflection: A must-have talent since the dawn of time and nothing has changed. Always max this out.

Improved Charge: Combined with Warbringer this gives a nice threat boost during or at the start of fights and as such isn’t bad, but most of all tanks pick this talent just to get to Impale.

Anger Management: 1 free rage every 3 seconds is a nice bonus for a single talent point, but not good enough to warrant skipping other talents. With so many good talents to put points in instead, a mediocre talent like this just doesn’t cut it.
Impale: With all the +crit talents in the Prot tree speccing to Impale has become a very serious option for tanks. Point for point this provides a bigger tps boost than AttT or Cruelty.

x8 Talent Discussion:

For starters, this is my own build: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?warrior=350200002000000000000000000000053351225000002520330113321304000000000000000000000000

I’ve skipped Vigilance because I just don’t believe it’s much added value to my tanking, tps or dps. If at some point during high-end raids we find some dps are still threat capped, I will respec for it after all. I’d take two points out of Cruelty in order to get Conc Blow and Vigilance. I’ve skipped Conc Blow itself because I hope 1% extra crit on Cruelty is going to do more for me combined with Impale than the occasional stun and extra threat.

I’ve taken Impale because I believe it to be better than the alternative Cruelty / Prot build. Basically, there are going to be two standard tank builds using these talents: either 12 / 7 / 52 (which could be 12 / 5 / 54 if Vigilance turns out to be needed) or 5 / 8 / 58. Time will tell which of these is better for certain, but I’m counting on Impale. Note, however, that the second build will likely include 3/3 Puncture but not 3/3 Imp HS, and I’m not sure that’s a good deal. While fighting bosses you will certainly use HS a lot more than Devastate, and even during trash there are so many other buttons to press that Dev is unlikely to be used more than HS. Therefore, if you wanted to spec for Cruelty, I suggest an 8 / 8 / 55 build instead.

The Cruelty versus Impale debate has been done in more detail on Tankspot (http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f14/40339-impale-vs-cruelty-comparison.html) and their result is that the magical crit number where speccing Impale is better than Cruelty is 25% crit. Below 25% Cruelty gives better results, while above 25% Impale is better. Now, tanking gear hardly ever gives any crit, but combining all the crit talents in the Prot tree with raid buffs will easily put a Prot tank above the 25% crit needed on the abilities we use, and hence my choice of an Impale build.

x9 Threat:

In WotLK Blizzard has increased the threat done by all tanks immensely. They say they want raids and fights to be more about the skill of the dps then about being threat-capped. So does this mean that it’s suddenly going to be hard to distinguish between good and bad tanks? No, it doesn’t. Though it is true that tanking has certainly become easier in WotLK because of the fact that we don’t need to watch threat as closely as before, this was never what truly made a good tank anyways. Tanks need to have the best knowledge of all fights they do, they need to constantly be aware of everything going on around them, they need to always be prepared to pick things up when something goes wrong, they need to have intricate knowledge of how other classes work with them, etcetera. A really good tank will still be easily identified. There will just be many more tanks able to tank Heroics without much difficulties, and that is a good thing.

Now, in the interest of the tank rotations discussed next, we need some information on the threat values of our abilities. Two people have done a lot of research into this and I will use their findings here. First of all, Satrina on Tankspot (http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f200/39775-wow-3-0-threat-values.html) has researched every ability on its own to discover what the formula’s behind every ability were:

Battle Shout _______________________ 78 (split)
Cleave _____________________________ damage + 225 (split)
Commanding Shout ___________________ 80 (split)
Concussion Blow ____________________ damage only
Damage Shield ______________________ damage only
Demoralising Shout _________________ 63 (split)
Devastate __________________________ damage + 5% of AP
Dodge/Parry/Block___________________ 1 (in defensive stance with Improved Defensive Stance only)
Heroic Strike ______________________ damage + 259
Heroic Throw _______________________ 1.50 x damage
Rage Gain __________________________ 5 (stance modifier is not applied)
Rend _______________________________ damage only
Revenge ____________________________ damage + 121
Shield Bash ________________________ 36
Shield Slam ________________________ damage + 770
Shockwave __________________________ damage only
Slam _______________________________ damage + 140
Spell Reflect ______________________ damage only (only for spells aimed at you, not your party members with Imp Spell Reflect)
Sunder Armour ______________________ 345 + 5%AP
Thunder Clap _______________________ 1.85 x damage
Vigilance __________________________ 10% of target's generated threat (stance modifier is not applied)

This is a bunch of mumbo-jumbo to most of you, but it shows us how each ability generates threat and we can calculate with that.

The next referenced source is Borodin on Elitist Jerks (http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t27758-warrior_wotlk_talent_preview_discussion/p137/), who made a list of threat values per ability using a standardised Warrior and enemy. These figures are currently true for a lvl 80 Warrior with 2500 AP, 1500 Block Value, a base 15% crit chance and all the Prot crit and +dmg talents. He’s wearing the [Red Sword of Courage] and assumes 5/5 1h-weapons spec and an Enrage effect on the Warrior. The Shield Slam is done without Shield Block on. The mob has 27% dmg reduction after raid debuffs, except for the first four Sunder Armours since they are counted towards those raid debuffs. The list is based on hits plus crit potentials, to average the amount of threat done by an endless amount of hits.

Devastate 1 1042
Devastate 2 1253
Devastate 3 1475
Devastate 4 1711
Devastate 5+ 1961
Sunder Armour 975
Revenge 4522
Shield Slam 7242
Conc. Blow 3385
Shockwave 3164
Auto attack 882
Heroic Strike 2599
Thunderclap 2605
Heroic Throw 3417
Damage Shield 542

Borodin made a number of interesting conclusions from this, some if which I’ll list as well:

Heroic Strike threat is close to Devastate plus auto attack threat, only a small gap remains.
Both Concussion Blow and Shockwave exceed Devastate Threat. Note that the threat is applied even if the mob is immune to the stun effects.
Devastate Threat is now relatively too low or Thunderclap's is too high.
Shield Slam threat now looks quite insane even before Glyphs, Meta gems and Shield Block are added in.

Now finally I’m going to divide each of these values by their respective rage cost, to determine which is the best bang for buck when you don’t have unlimited rage at your disposal. The Sword and Board talent isn’t taken into account, nor is the Glyph of Revenge. Focused Rage is maxed out. Auto attack, Heroic Throw and Damage Shield are missing because they cost no rage.

Devastate 1 86.83 without Puncture, 115.78 with
Devastate 2 104.42, 139.22
Devastate 3 122.92, 163.89
Devastate 4 142.58, 190.11
Devastate 5+ 163.42, 217.89
Sunder Armour 81.25 without Puncture, 108.33 with
Revenge 2261
Shield Slam 426
Conc. Blow 282.08
Shockwave 263.67
Heroic Strike 216.58 for the ability cost alone
Thunderclap 200.38

z1 Rotation:

The TBC rotation was simply Shield Slam – Revenge – Devastate, with Heroic Strikes spammed when possible and Thunder Clap and Demo Shout kept up when needed. This counted for AoE as well as single-target tanking. WotLK has changed this quite a bit. The discussed rotations are going to assume you have infinite rage. For rotations with limited rage, such as trash, you’ll want to keep an eye on the before mentioned list of threat per rage ratio of each ability, and adjust the rotations below as needed.

Single-target Tanking:

To start with, you’ll use Shield Slam whenever it’s up. As soon as SaB procs, you use SS. You’ll also want to note that Shield Block, instead of a panic button, is much more important as a way of increasing your SS hits. Because of that you’ll be using SB every time it’s off cd, followed by as many SS’s as you can fit into the SB’s duration. Secondly, you’ll use Revenge every time it’s off cd, except when you can do SS instead. Followed by this you’ll want to make sure you put 5 Devastates on the target for the dps. As soon as the Devastates are on you switch to Conc Blow and Shockwaves in between the SS and Rev cd’s, only doing a Devastate to keep the debuff on the mob or when all else is on cd. Devastate is useful in the sense that they proc SaB, but Rev does the same thing for a lower cost. Obviously you'll be using Heroic Strike as your rage dump whenever you can.

The biggest change to the rotation, therefore, is the changing role of Devastate to supporting ability instead of main ability, and the SaB proc providing a reactive part to your tanking.

As far as pulls go, you’ll want to follow a certain pattern whenever possible. You use Heroic Throw on the mob you want to tank, you back off a bit while it runs towards you and when it is on the spot you want to tank it, you charge in. You pop Shield Block while you’re still on your way to the mob and Shield Slam as soon as you reach him for a large amount of instant threat. Now you start your normal rotation. If all this costs more rage then you have, pop Bloodrage first. If you have Gag Order, this pulls caster mobs as well as melee mobs.

AoE Tanking:

For AoE tanking you’ll use the same rotation as single-target tanking to an extent, but you’ll use Thunder Clap and Shockwave whenever they come off cd before you use SS and Rev. You’ll still tab-target to get to each mob for high threat on each, but TC, Shockwave and not to forget Damage Shield should make sure all the mobs stick to you over all but the highest dps. In between mobs you could use Cleaves, but your rage is better used on single-target abilities in between your AoE abilities followed by target switching.

Various Abilities:

While your AoE tanking you might want to remember Retaliation in the Arms stance as well. It’s not on a shared cd with Shield Wall anymore (nor is Recklessness) and will provide you with 20 quick attacks against all the mobs fighting you. A nice bit of aggro for a few seconds effort.

In both rotations you’ll want to remember Recklessness as well for some fast aggro on a single mob, especially combined with Impale. You could pop it just before a pull to give yourself a nice lead before dps starts. On the same note remember that the Orc’s racial Blood Fury no longer has a healing penalty and provides a decent tps boost for 15 secs.

Lastly, Berserker Rage is now usable in all stances and provides not just the immunity to fear, sap and incapacitate effects, but also extra rage from being hit for 10 seconds. Extra rage for no cost? Something to pop whenever you don’t have enough rage for any of your abilities. Alternatively, and a tactic I’ve been using more and more frequently, you can pop Berserker Rage right before you Charge into a mob. A typical pull will be Bloodrage – Heroic Throw – back away from the mob – Berserker Rage – Charge. This pull-style will give you a very large amount of instant rage for that instant threat, and keep the rage coming in for those 8-9 Berserker Rage seconds, with no drawbacks.

z2 Avoidance:

Before we handle gear I’d like to mention the changes to Avoidance in WotLK. The Dodge from Dodge Rating, Defense and Agility, the Parry from Parry Rating and Defense, and the chance to be missed from Defense all now suffer from diminishing returns. This means that these ratings will become less strong as you get more. Whitetooth at Elitist Jerks (http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t29453-combat_ratings_level_80_a/) has put some serious maths into finding out how this works, and his work is incorporated into the RatingBuster addon. For an easy explanation, think of it like this: Let’s say you have 0% Dodge chance to start with. Impossible, I know, but it makes it easy to explain. Now you get 100 Dodge Rating, which magically puts you on 50% Dodge. If you get another 100 Dodge Rating, it won’t be as effective because of the diminishing returns. Instead, this will put you on 75% Dodge. Another 100 Dodge Rating will put you on 87.5% Dodge. These are not the actual rates but it shows the principle so you know what’s going on. The more Dodge Rating you get, the less each point of rating contributes to your actual Dodge chance.

Because of these diminishing returns it’s going to be far harder in WotLK to reach the 102.4% avoidance previously needed to remove crushes from the combat table. Of course, crushes no longer exist so we don’t have to worry about that. These diminishing returns do two things for Blizzard, then. First of all it prevents tanks from being very overgeared towards the end-game, like they were in SWP, and it will remove the need for such things as the Sunwell Radiance debuff just to even things out. Secondly it is another nudge into the direction of higher dps instead of more avoidance. At some point tanks will become so well geared that more avoidance stats simply won’t contribute much at all, and at that point their basically free to enchant or gem for dps / tps instead, thereby fulfilling Blizzard’s goals with our class.

z3 Gear, Gems And Glyphs:

I’m going to be very brief about gear, gems and glyphs for WotLK, since an excellent piece of work has already been done by Demog on Tankspot. For all your gear, gem and soon glyph questions I happily redirect you there:

http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f200/39462-wotlk-tanking-gear-list.html

z4 FAQ:

There is a massive FAQ section that answers every question I've been asked so far on page 7. It is a very good help in answering some questions that I cannot answer in the guide due to lack of space, and I suggest everyone checks it out. It can currently be found on page 7 of this topic, though I hope a Moderator could move it to below this post at some point.

http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=6178690687&sid=1&pageNo=7

Wall of text crits mage for 3746938764....I smell nerf incoming:P

I'm deffo reading this on the train home from work later. Thanks mate :)

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Q u o t e:
Critical Block: Again an ability that buffs Shield Slam, and as you can predict, again you’ll want to take this talent if only for that reason. On top of that the talent gives a 30% chance to block double the normal amount on any block, which counts towards quite a lot of dmg reduction in the end.

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This is something that i'd like confirmed actually as i've not had extensive time to test it myself. The tooltip text implies that you block for twice the amount, but it doesn't actually double your block value when it procs as the effect is only for the act of block rather than shield slam. Even if it does increase your block value, i'd imagine the effect would be over before you can use shield slam.

In either case it's still a superb talent and well worth the few points.

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Q u o t e:
Improved Disarm: There’s been a small number of bosses reported in WotLK instances that you can disarm, but as a general rule of thumb it’s impossible, which makes this talent pretty useless. Unless there’s an instance boss like Brutallus where raid dps has to be higher than you can do and the boss can be disarmed, it’s pointless.

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Well this all depends on a couple of things, again something else I honestly haven't and would love to know about. Has anyone tested to see if the debuff, namely the +10% damage debuff is applied even to bosses/mobs even when disarm immune?

A few quick comments on Imp Revenge and Imp spell reflect, i think Imp Revenge is going to be the stable 2 points spent, but there may be fights where resisting a spell would be great so I imagine i'd swap out Revenge for Spell reflect but again this is situational.

Overall a good read, haven't quite finished reading it all yet tho ;)

Great piece of work! Didn`t know of the diminishing returns from the avoidance. Talent spec seems quite the same as what i want to get. Lots and LOTS of information, both usefull for newcommers as vet`s who aren`t in the beta/ptr.

Thumbs up!

Gladine

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Q u o t e:


This is something that i'd like confirmed actually as i've not had extensive time to test it myself. The tooltip text implies that you block for twice the amount, but it doesn't actually double your block value when it procs as the effect is only for the act of block rather than shield slam. Even if it does increase your block value, i'd imagine the effect would be over before you can use shield slam.

In either case it's still a superb talent and well worth the few points.

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It doesn't double your BV, but I sorta doubt that's what he meant, considering it buffs Shield Slam by giving it 15% extra crit ;)

I'll be using this guide as im determined to tank in WotLK, will revive this char and specc prot tomorrow and get a feel for the new talents before the expansion hits. Just hope i can get into some heroics.

Thank you very much for your replies, guys! =)

Katallo, the 30% chance to block double the amount indeed has no bearing on Shield Slam. It's an effect that doesnt give you a buff, it just does it on the block alone. My point about it buffing Shield Slam is about the +15% crit the talent gives you too. The 15% crit on SS is a passive buff, it's always there whether the Block procs that 30% chance or not. The tooltip is rather vague, but Critical Block has two buffs in it, and their seperate from each other. One always buffs your SS crit rate by 15%, the other gives you a 30% chance to block double the normal amount.

As for Improved Disarm, the tooltip states that the mob only takes the extra damage if it is disarmed. So using it on a disarm immune mob won't do anything, hence why it's a pretty useless talent for real raids.

As for Improved Spell Reflect, then, remember that you still have your normal spell reflect as you did in TBC. The talent is just there to improve it if you wanted to. The problem is that the improvement is pointless unless, as I said, there's random party dmg you might want to reflect, and in raids that's probably never going to be the case. Just stick to your normal Spell Reflect as it was in TBC, then.

Thanks for your feedback, I love the chance to make these things clearer if I didn't explain them well enough the first time around =)

Good stuff and here's some feedback for you and another poster. Note my threat values also factored in crit contribution (i.e. for some moves I increased the damage component by 30% to reflect a 30% crit chance with 100% more damage from crits) - not sure if you mentioned that but it does mean people who don't factor in crits will get significantly lower values and wonder where I got mine from :)

Critical Block: I am certain this does not increase your BV, it simply calculates the amount blocked (your BV) then subtracts 2x that value. It's already increasing your SS Crit chance not providing another way to double your BV! I don't need that confirming, it would be insane to do it any other way and the tooltip would be worded differently (yeah their tooltips have been notoriously unreliable).

Damage Shield: It's probably best to stick to the tooltip wording because Misses don't proc this either - just Hits/Crits and Blocks.

Revenge: I still think this will be used just as often. Why? Certainly we can't spam SB now to guarantee it's up but with Block Rating becoming a more desirable stat I feel Revenge can be basically relied on to be available each rotation. It does massive threat and can proc S&B now so you will always want to use it when it's lit. My Threat value assumed Imp. Revenge.

Devastate and Puncture: as with Revenge whilst I concluded that Devastate threat was relatively low now I still think you will want to use it constantly because what I did not factor in (very hard to do) is that 30% chance to proc a free SS is non-trivial and also the various "higher threat" attacks like Concussion Blow are on longer cooldowns.

I've not really sat and thought about if Puncture is worth the points now I admit - I assumed it was to be honest. Also I will by Glyphing Blocking, Devastate and possibly Sunder so for me it will likely remain so.

So I believe the SS > Revenge > Dev x2 rotation will remain in practice but with a lot more other moves tossed in to several cycles (replacing one of the Devastates not the Revenge!).

I think the beauty is you can stubbornly stick to that rotation, improve it by mixing in loads of cooldowns or almost improvise (react more dynamically!) and you can be at least partially effective - that means great tanks can continue to shine but poorer tanks have a chance to actually get their group through a Dungeon just as poor DPS have been able to for years.
Far too much has hinged off the tanks in the past and seemingly relying on the minority of well-geared, highly skilled ones on each realm.

More people completing Dungeons is good in my eyes, but the better tanks will still be MTing progression raids.

Reported ...











For sticky, awesome read, well done.

Borodin, thank you for your compliment, especially as I used some of your work! =)

Your right about Critical Block, and I never actually said it also improved your Block Value. I said that with BV higher than ever it's a very good ability ^_^

Revenge is a bit gear dependent, in that the better your gear, the more likely Rev is to pop up. It's unlikely that when we start raiding in WotLK we'll be able to use Rev as often as we used to. Later on, though, your very right.

It's a bit tricky to find out what the best threat rotation is going to be 100% concerning Dev's proccing SaB. But I'm currently counting that Rev is going to proc SaB enough on it's own, and Dev will still be in the rotation I've put down, just not quite as much. As such, I think the optimal threat rotation will still use Dev a lot less.

Despite that, I agree with the rest of your post and want to thank you for your feedback =)

Yeah someone else mentioned Critical Block in a reply to you so I was replying to him - I'd scroll up and get the name but you can't once your writing a post :P

Some more tips on Tankspot: once you hit Shield Block just use SS and Devastate - don't Revenge (stun), Shockwave (stun) etc because you want to maximise the attacks on you for the double Damage Shield output. I'd even consider missing a Thunderclap so they are not attacking slower!

There's a macro too to fire off 2 BV trinkets and SS (it's a bit fancier than that).

Note also that my ultimate Glyph (Blocking) is something you won't see until 80 as it requires an Inscriber with a skill of 400. Guess I will take Revenge or HS for now but the faster Charges were recommended for levelling as you kill mobs before your charge coolsdown :)


Incidentally - when grabbing my threat values did you come across any others? I've worried about them since I posted them as even though I've triple-checked and can find no flaws in my spreadsheet I still look at Shield Slam and find myself thinking "7,500 WTF???"

I will redo the work once I get Level 80 Armour values in (it might be that Boss mitigation comes out a bit different at 80) and present sets of values with Crits excluded and factored in.

I looked for hours for a second list of threat values such as yours, but couldn't find another either. When you redo the work to double check your findings I'll adjust my guide as needed too, but for now I think your results are very likely :-)

Good call on the rotation there, too. Sounds like a good way to start a fight indeed, and for whenever you press SB. I haven't added macro's to my guide and I don't think I will, since there will be no end to 'em once you start, but a macro to pop SB and trinkets at the same time is very handy indeed ^^

One thing I've just thought off, is there a hidden cd on SaB? I dont think I've ever heard of any so far.

Nice thread, personally I was leaning towards a 12/8/51 spec skipping imp TC since I never had AOE tank problems, but I didnt know how close TC threat was to Dev.

1 thing I havent been able to find a definite answer on yet is weather Rend will be worth it in a DPS rotation (with imp rend instead of imp hs or imp charge maybe).

Have anyone got some definite damage numbers on rend?

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Thank you very much for your replies, guys! =)

Katallo, the 30% chance to block double the amount indeed has no bearing on Shield Slam. It's an effect that doesnt give you a buff, it just does it on the block alone. My point about it buffing Shield Slam is about the +15% crit the talent gives you too. The 15% crit on SS is a passive buff, it's always there whether the Block procs that 30% chance or not. The tooltip is rather vague, but Critical Block has two buffs in it, and their seperate from each other. One always buffs your SS crit rate by 15%, the other gives you a 30% chance to block double the normal amount.

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Yeah totally mate, the 15% crit just superb, was more the way i read into your comments provoked my response.

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As for Improved Disarm, the tooltip states that the mob only takes the extra damage if it is disarmed. So using it on a disarm immune mob won't do anything, hence why it's a pretty useless talent for real raids.

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Yeah i read this too, more hopeful thinking really as this will mostly be a useless talent for raiding, situational at most.

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As for Improved Spell Reflect, then, remember that you still have your normal spell reflect as you did in TBC. The talent is just there to improve it if you wanted to. The problem is that the improvement is pointless unless, as I said, there's random party dmg you might want to reflect, and in raids that's probably never going to be the case. Just stick to your normal Spell Reflect as it was in TBC, then.

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As i said this is going to be a situational talent again, won't be in your standard build but I think it will have it's uses, but i guess time will tell on this :)

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Impale: With all the +crit talents in the Prot tree speccing to Impale has become a very serious option for tanks. Point for point this provides a bigger tps boost than AttT or Cruelty.

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Although I see where you're coming from and with the changes making AOE tanking far easier breaking CC with DoTs like Deep Wounds isn't such a big deal, i personally still don't like the idea of potentially breaking CC. If they implemented the "smart cleave" that we were promised a while ago that won't target CC'd targets, it would certainly be a taker. Overall I still think i'll be taking the 5 points in Cruelty purely because the 5% crit from it applies to all attacks, including your auto attacks for better threat and rage generation.

Other than that mate, great post keep it coming. I'm actually on the beta realm as "Oakenbeef" and although i've done a few instances to test the overall feel of tanking but i've not had the opportunity to do some hardcore testing. If you're looking for someone to test stuff with give me a shout on the live realms or the beta one i'd love to spend some time on proper testing :)

In regard to your comments on Glyphs and gems etc, I've actually been compiling a list of these and their advantages/disadvantages for my guild forum and if you're interested I'll post them up once completed :)

There's no cooldown on S&B :)

Thanks, Katallo =)

Jernsaxe, the problem with Rend is that it takes weapon dmg as guidance, and tanking weapons will almost always have low max dmg due to their high speed. Some maths has been done on this on Tankspot, I believe, and it turns out that Rend is not a viable choice compared to Cruelty / AttT / Impale. And since this guide is meant for tanks, not high-dmg dps weapons, I didn't cover it.

As for Imp TC, you'll really want to have that in any tanking build. The AoE rules, but don't forget it also slows any mob or boss your tanking down by an additional 10%, which is some massive avoidance =)

And Borodin, without a hidden cd on SaB it's indeed worth spamming Rev / Dev when Shield Block is up in order to proc as many free SS's as possible. Good idea =)