#0 - Oct. 14, 2008, 12:16 p.m.
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.
