Reinventing Durambar

[bonemage]

I've considered Piercing Howl, but can't think of a raid encounter that takes advantage of it. If there is one where it's nice to have, I'll take it for sure.

I've considered a 31/30 build, but Precision swayed me heavier into Fury, since it will up my DPS and my TPS when tanking. I'm not sure how it compares to Single Hand spec for both DPS and TPS. I do need more +hit gear. I love imp sunder, and spam sunder more than I'm supposed to (it's easier to reach than Devastate and my fingers are creatures of habit). I'm weighing that vs. the expense/complexity of Rampage, which I'm not familiar with. Deep prot talents that I'll really miss are Shield Slam and Focused Rage (best talent ever), but those can only be obtained by a "full" Prot warrior. It might find it tough to go from 9 rage sunders to 15, so imp sunder is and a 31/30 build is still on the table.

I favor passive DPS boosts over active, so my current idea is dropping imp berserker rage to max out dual wield and imp berserker stance. I still might opt for TD's 31/30 build, which is growing on me.

I'm always only a respec away from being full prot if I'm needed to be. If I'm able to catch up on gearing (which is possible with some good luck, and if I can get Nightbane kills in), I will switch back. I'm hoping to have more fun and offer more utility/DPS to the raiding body than I currently do, because I feel like a 5th wheel most of the time. I'm overgeared for all of Karazhan but Prince/Nightbane, so I'm not hurting Kara progress, and I'm already not comfortable tanking bosses in 25 mans currently. So I don't see it impacting what I'm capable of doing in a negative way, since my gearing doesn't allow me to be much of an asset for what my talents are built for. Mitigation will be very, very similar to what it is now, I'll be losing Shield Mastery (this talent is better if you have a freakin' epic shield, no bitterness on that here...) and I'll have less stam. Big difference is lower threat ceiling, which folks will have to adjust to. We do, however, have Conc and Wimpy tank fairly regularly and successfully in Kara, and I'll still be superior to those two in both talents and gear. I feel like I'm in catch up mode already, so this will hopefully make things more fun/less stressful for me while I do. I don't see the need for me to be full Prot right now, the stuff we're farming that I can currently tank, I will still be able to tank so we can farm it with Durambar as the MT. The things in 25 man instances that I'd be comfortable tanking now (trash, part time on bosses), I'll still feel comfortable with a new build (at least I feel that way now, having not actually tried it). Durambar as full prot is still OT material in 25 mans, but with a hybrid build, I won't feel so useless trying to DPS when I'm not an OT.

Here is the biggest reason I'm considering this change:

<span style="color:#FF6600">Roles I can fill currently as full prot:
Karazhan - MT for all but last 2 bosses -OR- weak DPS
25 Man - OT - OR - weak DPS

<span style="color:#FF6600">Roles I can fill theoretically as hybrid:
Karazhan - MT for all but last 2 bosses -OR- solid DPS
25 Man - OT -OR - solid DPS

How this affects what/who I compete with for drops: I will no longer take tanking items over Moors and Acalan. Moors has been yielding tanking plate to the prot warriors in the past. However, I could still raid with Moors and get most of what I'm after if it drops, since he has many of the pieces I still need, and we don't compete on Tier foo tokens. Acalan and I will be after many of the same things, but I won't take them from him. I could also still get the Curator pants comfortably with Acalan since he has T4 tanking pants.

I won't be taking any tanking upgrades from Tiga or Geldauran, but Geld has farmed out nearly all of Kara, and I could raid with him and get nearly everything I want anyway. Tiga and I really only have pants to have a tug o' war over, and I decided awhile ago that I wouldn't take them from him anyway. The pants won't make me 25 man capable, that won't happen until I get a new shield, and the pants will go a long way to strengthening Tiga, so I could raid with Tiga and get nearly everything I want anyway.

I can bottom feed DPS items. We've already given a Devastator to a Holy Pally, and the 2 handed weapons are nearly at shard status. Since the rest of our DPS chars that I might compete with have mostly farmed out (the decidedly weak for DPS plate) Kara, I can yield any upgrades they still want. The only thing for DPS in Kara from a DPS standpoint that are upgrades for me are possibly T4 items (I'd probably take the tanking helm, I have the tanking gloves, so I can only bottom feed T4 gloves anyway), and weapons, which I won't need to compete for since most are becoming toys anyway. I have Garona's ring already (who doesn't?).

<span style="color:#CC0000">It's probably still best to think of Durambar as a tank, but this new spec will better match the role that his gear allows him to fill.