07-29-2005, 06:43 PM
It's me again with the 3rd build since 1.6 (I spent 5 gold for this one). Again, Gnolack will never have a build that is less than 26 points in protection just because. This is probably a fairly common build because well I've gone to the "Dark Side" and gotten Anger Management. This means I no longer have piercing howl and the jury is still out on that. But personally I don't think I used the skill enough or as effectively as I could, I think I won't miss it as much as I should really.
So I ended up here:
Arms: (11)
* Deflection - 5 / 5
* Tactical Mastery - 5 / 5
* Anger Management - 1 / 1
Fury: (5)
* Cruelty - 5 / 5
Protection: (31)
* Shield Specialization - 5 / 5
* Toughness - 5 / 5
* Defiance - 5 / 5
* Improved Sunder Armor - 3 / 3
* Improved Taunt - 2 / 2
* Improved Shield Wall - 2 / 2
* Improved Shield Bash - 2 / 2
* Concussion Blow - 1 / 1
* One-Handed Weapon Specialization - 5 / 5
* Shield Slam - 1 / 1
And that left me with 4 points. So I looked at things.
Protection: There are 7 talents there I could put points in.
* Last Stand: I'd already decided against this as you can see in my 2 previous posts. This is a skill that becomes less and less useful the more people you get around you. I did wish I had it once or twice in 5 man on LBRS, but neither of those times would have saved a wipe. One would have saved me a repair bill and the other would have meant that we killed all the adds and had one personal alive (I still would have died) instead of having one mob left and all of us dead. It still would have been a total wipe as we had no rezzer so it was a run back situation anyway.
* Improved Bloodrage: I'm not getting this if I'm not getting last stand. It once again is a skill that is more valuable the less people you have with you. Taranna is a better farmer than Gnolack and I can get Thorium without needed to chain fight (which is where improved bloodrage shines more) and that is the only think I would farm that she can't.
* Anticipation: My +def gear with the execption of one two pieces of equipment (one of which I usually don't even carry) has more +stam than any of my other gear. I can get to 420 defense with gear right now and I have no +def gloves and really bad +def bracers (so I usually only get to 414 def since I don't wear the bracers). I can still get upgrades on the cloak and shield spots pretty easily as well. Since 390 def was enough to never get a crit hit on me in LBRS I don't think I need the minor flexibility in equipment that +8 more def (only 4 points left for the build) would get me.
* Improved Shield Block: I have over 25% combined chance to dodge or parry even in my combat gear. I have over 12% block in any of my gear. I never use shield block now. Improving it will actually cause me to take more damage most of the time if I use the skill as I will block an additional attack and hence take damage as opposed to avoiding that damage completely.
* Improved Revenge: Chance to stun on a revenge. I revenge all the time. This sounds good. Nope I would rather not. It will help when I solo. In a group it will make the mob stun immune and if I need to land a conc blow on it I won't be able to. Heck mobs become stun immune before I can conc blow them now with all the rogues and mages and shadow spec priests, and hunters getting stuns on it. :) I would rather have 5 seconds of conc blow when I want it than 3 seconds of this and 2.5 seconds of conc blow. Great skill if you, for whatever reason, grow up protection spec (and a theme char is the only good reason I can see for that) but a potential hinderance higer up.
* Improved Disarm: I like this skill. This one has some nice uses to help mitigate damage, stops mobs that can use heroic strike from hitting you. 3 seconds more helps with that. I thought about going here, but I didn't.
* Iron Will: I had this maxed in the old build. It helped a few times but it's not reliable. It's like paladin damage. Great when you get it but there is a lot of time you want it and don't get it. I moved 5 points out of it and put them in 1H weapon spec for more consistent rage/hate generation. 1H weapon spec also helps make up for my subpar 1 hander. It's not a bad skill now that it works, but I just didn't think that points were worth it at my level of gear and the stuff I am doing with the character.
The arms tree offered 6 skills I could put points into:
* Improved Rend/Deep Wounds: These go together since I would only get Improved Rend for the one point I could sink into Deep wounds since I don't rend all that much. A 20% chance to get a weak bleed just didn't seem that helpful. It wouldn't hurt anything but eh. I still see these 2 skills just as a means to get impale anyway.
* Improved Thunder Clap: 17 rage vs 20 rage for thunder clap. I use thunder clap when I can. It's an OK attention getter for 4 mobs. The damage mitigation of slower attacks is nice, but dropping the cost by 3 rage, especially now that I have 5 points in tactical mastery and the passive rage generation of anger management didn't seem that helpful.
* Improved Heroic Strike: I have shield slam. This talent like improved Sunder Armor is only really good if you are going to be using Heroic Strike a lot. I have shield slam. I will still use Heroric strike at times (mainly when I can't wait for more rage). But shield slam is just a better damage to rage skill.
* Improved Charge: 6 more rage on a charge. I like that. I thought a lot about it. I have my tactical mastery now. If I charge and miss I will still be able to thunder clap before I change stances. I like the charge pull in many locations. If you don't need a rogue to apply CC there are lots of benefits to charging the mobs, clapping then having sheep or sleep CC applied. You can still move the mobs back to a safer area after this as well. It also helps if someone else is pulling and you want to intercept the mob before it gets to the party. I didn't take it, but I still might respec again and get it. It's only 2 points so I would still have 2 points to go somewhere else.
* Improved Overpower: Very nice skill. Again heavy debate. However while I stance switch a lot when I have tactical mastery I'm not usually quick enough to use this while tanking in def stance and for some odd reason things don't dodge me that much to light this button up. I went out and beat on scarlets and bloodsails and others and really didn't see much chance to use it. I don't PvP with this guy yet either so that nice use isn't there. I still might get it in the future though.
Fury had 4 choices for me to put the 4 points I had.
* Booming Voice: Duration increase on Battle Shout is nice, but since I don't have improved battle shout if I'm around another warrior who does I can't battle shout anyway. Longer Dem shout would be helpful in a few places, but generally no good since dem shout get's semi spammed for extra aggro. Larger AoE? I would like that in some places, but I've gotten adds with dem shout with it's current radius. Being more careful with it isn't something I want to have to do.
* Unbridled Wrath: I had 4 points in the before to see if it would "make up" for no 1H spec and no anger management. It was alright at a 4 point level. It with with AM and a faster 1 hander than I have would have really helped make me a little rage machine as this really did give me about 1 rage every 5 seconds or so (and more than that dual wielding). However while my old build did cause me some issues with rage generation there were times when I had more than I needed. AM and 1H spec mean that I shouldn't have any of the old build rage issues and while more slams is good I don't really need them.
* Improved Dem Shout: 4 points is 44.8 more reduction in attack power. I don't think there is any hidden aggro bonus to this either. So what does that do? It's a few DPS from a single mob. That doesn't really help me that much with my high damage mitigation. It does help the mages, locks and healers during AoE. Since the mage will have aggro on lots of mobs it can add up. Let's say just 5 mobs with 2.5 attack speed. Lets say just 2 DPS, or 5 damage less per hit. If each mob gets 4 hits in before they die you saved 100 damage. I actually think that 44.8 attack power is more than 2 DPS on most mobs as well. My main uses of piercing howl was to slow the mobs on the way into an AoE blast. It was also used to help with runner control and for a little more AoE threat but dem shout does better for that.
So the points went into improved Dem Shout. The biggest reason was the You can't kill me or my friends you bastard! attitude of the character. More ways to mitigate damage rapidly won out. That doesn't mean the points will stay. I've already been pulled away from the basic theme some I don't know how much longer I can hold out against more optimal tanking. :)
So I ended up here:
Arms: (11)
* Deflection - 5 / 5
* Tactical Mastery - 5 / 5
* Anger Management - 1 / 1
Fury: (5)
* Cruelty - 5 / 5
Protection: (31)
* Shield Specialization - 5 / 5
* Toughness - 5 / 5
* Defiance - 5 / 5
* Improved Sunder Armor - 3 / 3
* Improved Taunt - 2 / 2
* Improved Shield Wall - 2 / 2
* Improved Shield Bash - 2 / 2
* Concussion Blow - 1 / 1
* One-Handed Weapon Specialization - 5 / 5
* Shield Slam - 1 / 1
And that left me with 4 points. So I looked at things.
Protection: There are 7 talents there I could put points in.
* Last Stand: I'd already decided against this as you can see in my 2 previous posts. This is a skill that becomes less and less useful the more people you get around you. I did wish I had it once or twice in 5 man on LBRS, but neither of those times would have saved a wipe. One would have saved me a repair bill and the other would have meant that we killed all the adds and had one personal alive (I still would have died) instead of having one mob left and all of us dead. It still would have been a total wipe as we had no rezzer so it was a run back situation anyway.
* Improved Bloodrage: I'm not getting this if I'm not getting last stand. It once again is a skill that is more valuable the less people you have with you. Taranna is a better farmer than Gnolack and I can get Thorium without needed to chain fight (which is where improved bloodrage shines more) and that is the only think I would farm that she can't.
* Anticipation: My +def gear with the execption of one two pieces of equipment (one of which I usually don't even carry) has more +stam than any of my other gear. I can get to 420 defense with gear right now and I have no +def gloves and really bad +def bracers (so I usually only get to 414 def since I don't wear the bracers). I can still get upgrades on the cloak and shield spots pretty easily as well. Since 390 def was enough to never get a crit hit on me in LBRS I don't think I need the minor flexibility in equipment that +8 more def (only 4 points left for the build) would get me.
* Improved Shield Block: I have over 25% combined chance to dodge or parry even in my combat gear. I have over 12% block in any of my gear. I never use shield block now. Improving it will actually cause me to take more damage most of the time if I use the skill as I will block an additional attack and hence take damage as opposed to avoiding that damage completely.
* Improved Revenge: Chance to stun on a revenge. I revenge all the time. This sounds good. Nope I would rather not. It will help when I solo. In a group it will make the mob stun immune and if I need to land a conc blow on it I won't be able to. Heck mobs become stun immune before I can conc blow them now with all the rogues and mages and shadow spec priests, and hunters getting stuns on it. :) I would rather have 5 seconds of conc blow when I want it than 3 seconds of this and 2.5 seconds of conc blow. Great skill if you, for whatever reason, grow up protection spec (and a theme char is the only good reason I can see for that) but a potential hinderance higer up.
* Improved Disarm: I like this skill. This one has some nice uses to help mitigate damage, stops mobs that can use heroic strike from hitting you. 3 seconds more helps with that. I thought about going here, but I didn't.
* Iron Will: I had this maxed in the old build. It helped a few times but it's not reliable. It's like paladin damage. Great when you get it but there is a lot of time you want it and don't get it. I moved 5 points out of it and put them in 1H weapon spec for more consistent rage/hate generation. 1H weapon spec also helps make up for my subpar 1 hander. It's not a bad skill now that it works, but I just didn't think that points were worth it at my level of gear and the stuff I am doing with the character.
The arms tree offered 6 skills I could put points into:
* Improved Rend/Deep Wounds: These go together since I would only get Improved Rend for the one point I could sink into Deep wounds since I don't rend all that much. A 20% chance to get a weak bleed just didn't seem that helpful. It wouldn't hurt anything but eh. I still see these 2 skills just as a means to get impale anyway.
* Improved Thunder Clap: 17 rage vs 20 rage for thunder clap. I use thunder clap when I can. It's an OK attention getter for 4 mobs. The damage mitigation of slower attacks is nice, but dropping the cost by 3 rage, especially now that I have 5 points in tactical mastery and the passive rage generation of anger management didn't seem that helpful.
* Improved Heroic Strike: I have shield slam. This talent like improved Sunder Armor is only really good if you are going to be using Heroic Strike a lot. I have shield slam. I will still use Heroric strike at times (mainly when I can't wait for more rage). But shield slam is just a better damage to rage skill.
* Improved Charge: 6 more rage on a charge. I like that. I thought a lot about it. I have my tactical mastery now. If I charge and miss I will still be able to thunder clap before I change stances. I like the charge pull in many locations. If you don't need a rogue to apply CC there are lots of benefits to charging the mobs, clapping then having sheep or sleep CC applied. You can still move the mobs back to a safer area after this as well. It also helps if someone else is pulling and you want to intercept the mob before it gets to the party. I didn't take it, but I still might respec again and get it. It's only 2 points so I would still have 2 points to go somewhere else.
* Improved Overpower: Very nice skill. Again heavy debate. However while I stance switch a lot when I have tactical mastery I'm not usually quick enough to use this while tanking in def stance and for some odd reason things don't dodge me that much to light this button up. I went out and beat on scarlets and bloodsails and others and really didn't see much chance to use it. I don't PvP with this guy yet either so that nice use isn't there. I still might get it in the future though.
Fury had 4 choices for me to put the 4 points I had.
* Booming Voice: Duration increase on Battle Shout is nice, but since I don't have improved battle shout if I'm around another warrior who does I can't battle shout anyway. Longer Dem shout would be helpful in a few places, but generally no good since dem shout get's semi spammed for extra aggro. Larger AoE? I would like that in some places, but I've gotten adds with dem shout with it's current radius. Being more careful with it isn't something I want to have to do.
* Unbridled Wrath: I had 4 points in the before to see if it would "make up" for no 1H spec and no anger management. It was alright at a 4 point level. It with with AM and a faster 1 hander than I have would have really helped make me a little rage machine as this really did give me about 1 rage every 5 seconds or so (and more than that dual wielding). However while my old build did cause me some issues with rage generation there were times when I had more than I needed. AM and 1H spec mean that I shouldn't have any of the old build rage issues and while more slams is good I don't really need them.
* Improved Dem Shout: 4 points is 44.8 more reduction in attack power. I don't think there is any hidden aggro bonus to this either. So what does that do? It's a few DPS from a single mob. That doesn't really help me that much with my high damage mitigation. It does help the mages, locks and healers during AoE. Since the mage will have aggro on lots of mobs it can add up. Let's say just 5 mobs with 2.5 attack speed. Lets say just 2 DPS, or 5 damage less per hit. If each mob gets 4 hits in before they die you saved 100 damage. I actually think that 44.8 attack power is more than 2 DPS on most mobs as well. My main uses of piercing howl was to slow the mobs on the way into an AoE blast. It was also used to help with runner control and for a little more AoE threat but dem shout does better for that.
So the points went into improved Dem Shout. The biggest reason was the You can't kill me or my friends you bastard! attitude of the character. More ways to mitigate damage rapidly won out. That doesn't mean the points will stay. I've already been pulled away from the basic theme some I don't know how much longer I can hold out against more optimal tanking. :)
---
It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.
It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.