Defensive Stance

[mjdoom]

This got long, I'm sorry. But it gives a lot of my perspectives on how I have build my warrior from about 40 onward. As full disclosure I filled up all of my arms and fury talent points before dropping more than 5 into protection and then once I got what I wanted in arms/fury every single point since then has been put into protection to build up for end game tanking duty. I put 4 points into Unbridled Wrath that I don't want any more (which delayed my protection talents) but I don't want to bother with a respec until I hit 60 and get a full feel for how the character plays. It also allows me to have discussions like this BEFORE I respec just in case I change my mind :)

I have no idea if this type of pull will work in higher instances and while I can do it without tactical mastery, TM allows me to be "sloppier" about the stance switches. 

[right][snapback]76823[/snapback][/right]

I have used this type of pull all the way up through Dire Maul for certain and even when leaving Scarlet Strat to get to TIMMY! Any time that it is safe to charge a crowd that will be AOEed I think that it is a big benefit if you can charge in, thunderclap, Demo, and Howl. This will minimize damge to everyone involved and probably even allow you to hold aggro for a tick longer. However, Darian's points are also important. Some places charging to meet the mobs is a bad idea and you need to pull them toward you...

In these cases one of two things will happen. First is that due to the nature of the pull there is too much risk of breaking CC. In this case you are probably best to go straight for the most dangerous mob to try to lock it down within the AOE (but keeping it off the squishees) and unleash a demo as soon as possible to limit the damge to the squishees from the other. If you happen to have two tanks each one can take an elite mob and this will make it a lot easier to keep the squishees safe. The second case is where you need to pull the mobs toward you but for whatever reason CC is easier to implement "safely" away from AOE. In this case just have someone else pull (even a priest wand pull is fine here as aggro will be transferred almost immediately by the AOE) and then charge the mobs when they get at a safe distance and do your TC/Demo/PH routine. In this case for extra safety you might want to have the pull shot hit the mob that you will be charging.

To be perfectly honest these are some of the situations in groups that I still like having Tactical Mastery. That said if you are good (and just a touch patient) with applying TC/Demo and then stance switching you probably won't lose much rage at all. I still find Tactical Mastery to be of more use when I am soloing, especially against tough mobs that I want to fight in defensive and then execute at the end.

The question as I see it for you is whether you want those three points or if you want improved sunder and/or the last point in anticipation. I personally love the idea of improved sunder as it allows you to lay down those sunders quicker and still have rage open if necessary for things like shield bash. Any chance you can lower the rage cost of a skill you use constantly seems like a good investment to me. Sunder is almost certainly the button I hit most often when I am tanking (with Revenge easily being second) so lowering the rage cost of that skill seems like a big winner in my book.

I look at defiance as (a little bit of) free mitigation. I am personally enamored of the idea of stopping damage before it ever happens. For this reason I value things like dodge/parry above blocking and way above AC. I figure that if you are wearing a lot of plate your AC will be respectable anyway, I'd rather focus on higher levels of mitigation where possible. From the time I could commission Katrin to make ornate mithril pieces for me I have focused on +dodge% up until I've finally started collecting my +def pieces. It is less consistent mitigation (AC always helps, a dodge or parry is obviously just a chance) but when it works it's awesome. I have charted fights agains mobs a level or two below me and come out of fights where I either dodged, parried, or fully blocked more than half of the mob's attacks. AC doesn't even matter here, I've stopped the damage before it even started over half of the time!

I've heard of slow soloing speed for warriors due to less than peak damage and the need to eat/bandage constantly. I can tell from the timer on Demo that I routinely kill mobs slightly below or even to my level in about 40 seconds on average and can routinely fight at least 4-5 in quick succession before I even have to worry about food or bandaging. I am so confident in my character's mitigation ability that I routinely engage mobs of equal level with only half health knowing that I will come out on top unless I get added on (and then I run). I always have a heal pot or invulnerability pot and bandage ready to go if it becomes necessary but that really doesn't happen often. This is obviously not as much of a concern for you with Aleri behind you but it still speaks to what mitigation I'm getting. This is also more regularly in battle stance (so I can kill faster while soloing).

One other little side note here is that in my attempt to max my mitigation and keep my soloing speed reasonable I am actually (at level 57!!!) still wearing two pieces of mail. I found better agi/stam boosts with mail pieces for both my hands and belt for now. This means that I'm directly giving up at least 300 AC simply for some extra dodge chance and crit chance. Not only that, but I've heard that AC drops off in effectiveness as you crest 8000 AC. I'm nowhere near that yet but it seems to me that simply trying to max AC might seem like the "safe" way but is less than ideal if you are looking for damage mitigation.

So, after rambling on forever the last thing that comes to mind is the idea of losing some points in weapon specialization. This might decrease your damage a bit but we as tanks know that our damage is only a small cotributor to the whole and is only a very minor part of hate generation. With a good 1h weapon you might have a max damage of 150 or so. With a 10% bonus that is only doing (at best) an extra 15 damage per swing. If you put some of those points into sunder and/or defiance you might get more utility from them while still allowing a few points for some tactical mastery. I personally consider my weapon damage bonus to be in crits or extra damage from strength bonuses to AP.

So a suggestion might be this: Leave Arms/Fury as they are. I will assume you haven't put any points into 1h weapon spec yet considering your level and what you have said thus far. Drop 4 points from weapon spec and put them into Improved Sunder and the last point of anticipation. The last point can still be put into weapon spec (it has to be in protection anyway so you can get shield discipline). This will give you a slight weapon bonus that is more than you already have anyway and you will have never had the larger bonus to feel like you've missed it anyway. Then you can play with shield discipline and see if you like it. This saves you from respeccing now so that if you want to respec later it will be cheaper as it will only be your first respec. I realize that this means you still can't get shield discipline until 60 but the only way to change that at this point is to drop those tactical mastery points. I get the feeling that if you play with tactical mastery for a few more levels (especially since you got it only recently) you will get a better feel of whether you really want it or not. Then by the time you hit 60 you will have been able to experiment with both tactical mastery and shield discipline and make a more informed decision of what you really like.

When all is said and done I think you will be an effective tank either way so go with what suits you best.

- mjdoom

P.S. Sorry that was so long. Thanks for reading so far...

Edit: D'oh, I misread your build and read defiance as anticipation, blarg. I am going to leave my comments stand as they are but I would consider the balance of toughness/anticipation then and possibly take all 5 points out of weapon spec. Also, if you do decide to drop Last Stand then you can almost max both of them.