Reinventing Durambar

[bonemage]

I've come to the conclusion that I can no longer do what I love most with my warrior. I can no longer raid twice a week, so I've fallen behind on my gearing for the MT duties that I love, and I feel like I'm a liability when I'm MTing Prince/Nightbane or tougher. Since 3 uncompromising protection warriors is more than what is usually needed for most 25 man raids and I'm clearly the third, I'm looking at a hybrid build. I want to go, I want to help, and I hate feeling marginalized (this part could be all in my head). Since I'm moving away from the most gear dependent role, I should feel less gear pressure, which is what has been killing my fun of late.

I'm looking for help on talents and gearing, and on how to DPS as a warrior. I know tanking quite well, I'm even a decent healer, but I've never played a DPS class/spec, or at least played one well. I was a horrid warlock when I was one, but I digress...

Here is what I have in mind for talents. The choices that I've made stem from a couple of ideas. I intend to be the first DPS warrior called on to tank. I have the best tanking gear of any but our top protection warriors, and I'd like to use it. In order for me to feel comfortable tanking in raids, including bosses, I felt I needed Toughness and Improved Shield Block, along with the staples of Defiance and Last Stand from the protection tree. My intents for tanking are to maintain 490+ defense, keep crushing blows at a minimum through imp shield block, stack armor and stam before avoidance since the heals are usually incoming anyway, which is why I felt I could give up deflection.

For my DPS gear and talent choices, I've decided to go dual wield Fury for now, since I have epic one-handers but no epic 2 hander at this point. Here is where I'm especially looking for input. For epic weapons, I have the King's Defender, Blade of the Unrequited, and Emerald Ripper. I currently use KD and the Blade, with KD as my main hand. I chose the KD for my main hand due to Mongoose enchant on it, and also due to it being a sword and the speed normalization would calculate it at 2.2 speed weapon over the two daggers. I expect it to be a solid offhand if I find a better main hand. I have a Demonblood Eviscerator if speed is that important. From what I understand about Fury, the speed isn't important except for Whirlwinding, which will be pretty weak with those weapons, but otherwise DPS on Fury is +hit, AP, crit, and yet more AP.

I shall log out in my DPS gear when I get home tonight. I'm currently in hybrid gear that I wear for Netherspite, since it maximizes DPS while maintaining 490 defense, so don't go off of my gear until you see me around 20% chance to crit. I generally have very good non-heroic blue DPS gear. I do need to work on obtaining Doomplate items. I do lack the best DPS plate belt (Deathforge Girdle), and my gloves are sadly the Ironblade Gauntlets.

I am not yet sure what items I'll choose with my Tier tokens (if/when I get any), but I plan to follow the same guidelines that the DPS warriors have been following when it comes to loot (yielding tanking items to dedicated tanks), with one exception: I will take the shield off of Nightbane if I can get it, no matter who I'm competing with.

Summary on intent of build:

<span style="color:#FF6600">- Must capably fill a DPS slot
- Must be a respectable raid offtank, with imp shield block, defiance, toughness, last stand

Feedback most desired for:

<span style="color:#FF6600">- Fury tree talents (I'm pretty set on the prot tree)
- Gear for DPS
- Howto/tips for Fury warrior DPS

[Mavfin]

<span style="color:#FF6600">- Must capably fill a DPS slot
- Must be a respectable raid offtank, with imp shield block, defiance, toughness, last stand

Feedback most desired for:

<span style="color:#FF6600">- Fury tree talents (I'm pretty set on the prot tree)
- Gear for DPS
- Howto/tips for Fury warrior DPS

Fact is, I'm not sure you need this much prot to be a good offtank. Anything that requires imp shield block/defiance/toughness, in TBC, is going to need a feral or prot warrior, anyway, imo. I would go with a more DPS-oriented build, and leverage your skill and a suit of tank gear to be a very good offtank for boss adds and trash, which is always handy to have around. The ability to say 'BM, handle this add for us', or 'hey, can you pick up the diamond' is very valuable. I think that if you go for DPS, but put that much into prot, you may end up feeling gimped and like the new spec even less.

[TheDragoon]

Note: Blah. I had a long response written up but then I deleted it accidentally and can't seem to get it back. Here's the short version.

Going into TBC, I was really excited about a Fury/Prot hybrid because you could get Bloodthirst as well as One-Handed Weapon Spec for an additional 10% damage. I'm not sure if things have changed, but back then a flat 10% damage increase was as good or better than anything in the bottom of the Fury tree. Thus, I would suggest looking carefully at a 0/31/30 build before getting set on a 0/41/20 build as you linked.

Regarding your build, I think you picked good talents, though I would drop a point from either Commanding Presence or Dual Wield Spec to pick up Piercing Howl.

Weapon speeds don't really make a big difference. Faster weapons give you more rage. Slower off-hands mean your harder hitting main hand gets more Flurry. Slower main hands get more damage via Whirlwind and Cleave. I think you have a good idea going, so no worries there.

When playing, I would generally spam Bloodthirst and Whirlwind. If you have more rage, dump it via Heroic Strike. You could also use Hamstring, but with the Windfury totem nerf that isn't as great as it used to be. Otherwise, use Berserker Rage if you're taking damage to get more rage or when feared to break the fear. Playing a Fury warrior isn't too tough. :)

[Jester]

I'd love to see Durambar keep some tanking power, because it would be a real crime to lose a great tank. But I do understand your feelings about gearing, and I know it really feels terrible to even suspect that one's own lack of gearing is causing wipes.

If there's anything I can do to help you out on that front, just say so. I'm presuming you have pretty much everything you need from pre-karazhan content, though, so I'm not sure how to proceed there, except to get you in for raiding when it works out for you.

With 20 points in prot, you'd have most of the power you need to tank. You could probably do MT duties for nearly all of Karazhan with that build, without problem. (Not sure I'd go up against Prince in less than full prot, but maybe that's being conservative.) I've considered builds like that myself. Those are the 20 I would pick, so no issues there.

There are a couple choices in the fury tree I'd probably change. Unbridled Wrath is a neat little talent, but if I was building an offtank, I'd probably put those points in imp. demo shout. I think that would help with tanking, espeically in terms of adding a flat amount of 'mitigation' that helps with lower gearing.

Have you considered improved execute over improved berserker rage?

-Jester

[vor_lord]

Hmm, reinventing Durambar on your birthday...

Happy Birthday, bonemage!

[Kevin]

I don't like tanking without shield slam. I really don't. Kam leveled as fury because at the time it was a spec that I had very little experience with. I tanked one PuG and one mostly Lurkers run in Ramparts with that spec and then went and respec'd to prot. I could tank as fury, but I didn't feel comfortable doing it at all, mainly because bloodthirst is not shield slam as far as aggro goes (and it's not just the 10 rage difference). But as Conc and Wimpy and other warriors have proved time and time again (and I think Tal was MS on his warrior and main tanking Kara until they got to prince with their learning runs) you don't have to be prot to tank a lot of stuff in TBC. But for me the comfort level on tanking without some some the deep prot talents just isn't there. I'm not saying you won't be able to deal with it, but keep it in mind. The tanking "feel" is going to change a lot I think.


I also thought about taking Kam to a 31/30 build. When leveling I was really slow on getting imp zerker stance and rampage. Part of that is that in the 40's and 50's your AP numbers are low enough that staying in battle and getting overpowers (since I didn't have tactical mastery so swapping could be a huge rage loss or making timing a lot harder) generally gave me more DPS. But I did have rampage and imp zerker for a while while in Outlands doing stuff in hellfire (I did a respec at like L56 to tweak some talents). It was a big DPS boost at that stage in the game. Zerker stance being 10% more AP and 3% more crit really upped the DPS a lot compared to not having them. Rampage was actually kind of fun, though maintaining it up could start to be an annoyance, but being able to push 1600 AP self buffed at L58 was fun.

But the 31/30 build does offer a few other things for an off tank. Having the 12 rage vs 15 rage sunders means you can help the MT get that sunder stack up faster. Sunder is not really a first choice use of global cooldowns for aggro, but you want it stacked for the physical DPS to up damage. Having an off tank that can put it up does help the raid. Same thing if you go imp demo shout over unbridled wrath (though not having unbridled does hurt the rage a fair bit when you aren't taking damage. But keep in mind that last I checked Errol's screech and imp demo shout get you pretty close to the cap on dropping mobs AP. I've paid attention to the damage the tank is taking and I can notice when I can keep screech up with Errol and when I can't as far as the damage the tank is taking. Imp demo is basically normal demo + Errol (Imp demo is 140 more AP reduction, top rank screech is 210).

However as mentioned the 10% weapon damage is not going to beat out the 10% more AP and rampage that you are giving up for it as far as damage. Imp sunder, Conc blow and 10% more damage isn't really going to up your tanking that much (it will get you more aggro while tanking because you won't be in zerker and I don't think you can use rampage in def stance, even if you can 10% more damage should still be more aggro than 250 AP and the loss of the GCD every 30 seconds or so to maintain the stack).


From a guild point of view, it does help to have 3 prot warriors around for raiding because it seems the 25 mans are happier with 4 tanks on them. That could be done with 1 prot warrior, and a combo of feral druids and prot pallies as well, but having 2 prot warirors, 1 feral and 1 prot pally is generally what we are going to have. But having the 3 prot warriors in the guild means if one is on vaction for a few weeks we are better able to field raids. But yeah it's tough to do something like Kara with 2 prot warriors on the run. You don't need that much tanking. A feral druid in DPS gear is generally way more than enough and they are way better DPS. A DPS warrior in tank gear is more than adequate for all the off tanking as well. So yeah I really understand your desire to respec.


As for the talents. I'm not sure what the value of 1 rage every 3 seconds from imp zerker rage is. I think you do want to keep it if you give up unbridled wrath for imp demo because you will want some kind of extra rage generation when you aren't taking damage I think (though I've not really had a fury warrior raid buffed I'm not sure what rage generation is like from just white damage driving it). Improved execute is a bigger damage boost than many people give it credit for as well. In raids you will be able to spam execute. Having it take 5 rage less does add up.

On your 41/20 build I'm also not sure if 1% more hit is better than the 2% more AP or the imp zerker rage points. I think you really want to max out imp zerker stance if you put points in it.

Dunno I'm not the best at warrior DPS either. Those are just my thoughts.

[Frag]

For what it's worth BM, I feel the same way and have contemplated going Fury. Mostly what's stopped me is that wouldn't be fair to our lifer fury/dps warriors. I simply feel that bringing two prot warriors on the 25 man raids is a hinderance and I'm 1. Not a Tauren and 2. Not as geared as Jester, thus I feel more suited to "OT" duty than "MT".

/hugs
~Frag :unsure:

[Sinomin]

Happy Bday Bonemage!

I know exactly how you feel. Tank gearing is certainly one of the top issues, regardless of talents or skill. We really havent progressed to far since you were out. Tiga is still pants less!

I cant give you advice for your build but I do hope you continue tanking. I remember the first Shadow Lab I tanked and failed horribly. You helped me get going down the gearing road and I appreciate it. I hope you can find a balance to get the fun back in your game.

[TheDragoon]

However as mentioned the 10% weapon damage is not going to beat out the 10% more AP...

How did you arrive at this conclusion? The 10% damage applies to all attacks (even Bloodthirst, I believe) and since it also boosts your damage via your weapon in addition to just the attack power, I cannot imagine any situation where +10% AP > +10% damage. At best, +10% AP = +10% damage (weapon has 0 DPS and not using skills that have a fixed damage component to them), but that is very unrealistic.

...and rampage that you are giving up for it as far as damage.

Correct me if I am wrong, but my understanding was that rampage was not "refreshable" in that you would have to build it up every time you used it. That was the current theorycrafting the last time I really looked at it (pre-TBC) and the viewpoint, then, was that its rage cost made it seem a bit less useful than one would hope. I have generally assumed that this would not be a very big deal, though it is some slight improvement in damage (estimated 1% increase or so).

So overall, I was looking at everything as follows:
0/31/30 => +10% DPS via One-hand spec
0/41/20 => ~6.5% DPS via 10% AP (assumed 2000 AP baseline with a 90 DPS weapon => ~65% damage comes via AP rather than weapon damage), ~2.5% DPS via +3% hit (assumed 30% crit 10% miss, so your overall DPS change by adding non-crits instead of misses would be reduced by 3%/(0.9hitdamage+0.30critdamage)=2.5% damage increase)), ~1% DPS via Rampage => 10% DPS overall

If things really come out that close, I figured that the extra Protection talents would be handy, as well, and all of them work to help tank, so the 0/31/30 build would be the way to go.

Imp sunder, Conc blow and 10% more damage isn't really going to up your tanking that much (it will get you more aggro while tanking because you won't be in zerker and I don't think you can use rampage in def stance, even if you can 10% more damage should still be more aggro than 250 AP and the loss of the GCD every 30 seconds or so to maintain the stack).

A recent empirical analysis was showing a pretty good amount of threat generation coming from overall damage output (on the order of 60%), so a 10% increase to damage output would give you a 6% increase in threat. That really isn't that bad when you consider that Defiance only adds 0.15/1.3 = 11.5% more threat and the damage is actually useful while DPSing while extra threat is not. And without Shield Slam, the only spammable threat generation skills are going to be Sunder Armor and Heroic Strike (cooldowns on Bloodthirst, Thunderclap and Revenge), so you as well help out the efficiency of Sunder Armor. Those talent points are kind of floating points that could be put elsewhere, if desired, I just figured that this was the best use. :)


Anyway, that's my theorycrafting for the day. If you think any of these assumptions are poor, let me know so I can reconsider. :)

[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.

[Concillian]

Correct me if I am wrong, but my understanding was that rampage was not "refreshable" in that you would have to build it up every time you used it. I have generally assumed that this would not be a very big deal, though it is some slight improvement in damage (estimated 1% increase or so).

It is refreshable. If you recast it before it's duration has run out you maintain the 5 stack. It is somewhat painful to keep refreshed because of the short duration and the requirement to crit combined.

I think the assumption on being a slight damage improvement is not in any way correct though. On bosses it's a large improvement, as you can keep the +250 pretty consistently. +250 AP is something like 7-10% DPS improvment depending on what your current AP is. It's really a huge buff.

If you just think in terms of itemization, 250 AP = 125 crit rating =~ 5.6% crit... and Fury warriors get more from AP than crit due to Bloodthirst scaling better with AP than anything else.

Add to that that you lose precision, another 45 itemization points lost, and 41 / 20 has a pretty significant DPS advantage.

[Concillian]

1) spec
Personally I would dump the points from berserker rage and fill out your two 4/5s

2) weapons
Unrequited is quite simply the best off-hand you're likely to see. The stats it is capable of with proper socketing outweigh DPS. Macheezen is approximately equal and then there's nothing for a LONG time that is suitable for the off-hand. Too many have AGI which eats a very important portion of the item budget, as stats on an off-hand are at least as important as the raw DPS. Get potency on it and socket for damage and it's your off-hand pretty much until wolk or BT.

[TheDragoon]

I took another look at Rampage and it looks like in addition to it being refreshable, it costs quite a bit less rage than its initial conception, so things get a bit more difficult to figure out.

For trash fights, it is probably only going to be up at half strength or less due to having to start it out and ramp it up. In that case, you're looking at a 125 AP bonus so with the assumptions I've made before would turn into a 4% DPS increase. Thus, you'd be looking at a 12% DPS upgrade for 0/41/20 versus the 10% upgrade via 0/31/30. Pretty close. If that were the main point, I would personally stick with the 0/31/30.

However, for boss fights you could assume it to be up basically all of the time, giving 250 AP, at best. This would result in a best case increase of around 8%. Thus, the 0/41/20 would have about a 17% to 10% advantage over the 0/31/30. So now there would definitely be a DPS vs. tanking ability trade-off between the two specs. I guess this would really depend upon which way you want to lean. :)

Both of these cases are probably overestimates given time to ramp up and rage used to keep them both rolling, but it certainly does make things more interesting. I guess I should go give Rampage another look on my Warrior if I ever get around to playing her some more.

[bonemage]

Get potency on it and socket for damage and it's your off-hand pretty much until wolk or BT.

What gems should I be using? I have cheap +hit or +crit in my Blade right now.

[Frag]

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.

Lady Vashj, and it's huge.

~Frag B)

[bonemage]

Lady Vashj, and it's huge.

Good to know, I'll probably take PH then.

[Kevin]

My biggest concern is that you are happy with the build and have fun playing. We've always worked folks in to keep things working as best we can regardless of spec.

I think you logic is very good on what the changes will do. So yeah I don't really see a huge downside. However my opinion is that you are geared enough for Prince and Nightbane. I know we failed on a run you were tanking them, but I don't think that was a failure of your gear. Maybe that's because I've seen Frag and Geld die to him several times as well. I consider most of our failures to not be tanking gearing failures, though we have had some. Most of our failures are execution or DPS failures or just very weak group composition that requires perfect execution from everyone to win. I'm not sure you would be Prince capable after the respec because of the loss of HP and the lower threat ceiling. But then I can estimate that stuff wrong. But yeah for the 25 man stuff I do agree you need a few more gear upgrades, and I'm getting worried about the lack of tanking drops for all of our tanks lately because even Tiga and Geld are going to be gear short for content if the crap doesn't ever drop like we've been dealing with.


And as Conc has pointed out, the 41/20 build should be noticably more DPS than the 31/30. Or at least significantly more DPS in the places we generally really need it. Trash is generally not as important to have higher DPS, I'm not saying it isn't important there are tangible downsides to weaker DPS on trash, but weaker DPS on trash is generally not going to be as detrimental as weaker DPS on bosses. It's possible a 31/30 is going to be better DPS on trash, I don't think it will be, but it could be, but again, I'm sure that 41/20 will be better on bosses were more DPS matters.

I've pointed out what I think the tanking differences are. 31/30 is more threat and better for the OT stuff of keeping demo up and helping or completely supplying the initial sunder stack. But as I also mentioned since Wimpy and Conc can do all the jobs, that you will now be first choice for, without any prot talents losing that extra tanking doesn't matter much. I think you'll be happier doing the DPS better and you will be a better OT choice than our other warriors which is where my concern on the spec comes from. Of course you may just want to try them both. Just make Swirly pay for your respecs. :) I also think that you being able to do more DPS and being a tank before Wimpy and Conc and JB will make Wimpy and Conc and JB happier too. I know they don't mind tanking but well they are all spec'd to do DPS so having a clear choice to tank in front of them isn't a bad thing. And I would probably have you tanking before Sham as well (depending on the situation because that is highly variable), but I still think a full on feral druid will out DPS you with the new spec if they aren't tanking, but they'll still out threat you if they are tanking so dunno.


So hopefully the tanking feel changes won't drive you nuts like they do to me and the DPS increase you'll be getting will make you happier. That's the really important part of this in my mind. I'm looking at tweaking my EW beotch spec some more as well. I kept several utility talents that are becoming less and less valuable for our runs and even less valuable in heroics as we continue to get more and more overgeared for heroics and heroics get more and more nerfed the utility talents get less valuable and I could up my DPS even more with some tweaks and losing some utility (I could have upped my DPS way more as a beast spec as well by giving up utility).

[WimpySmurf]

What gems should I be using? I have cheap +hit or +crit in my Blade right now.

Either

3x6STR

or

6STR
3STR&3CR
3STR&4STA
(+8AP socket)

You get 36 AP from option 1 versus 32AP and 3 CR (0.14% Crit) plus some stam from option 2.

And just bump them to the same Blue gems if you're upgrading.

-WimpySmurf

[WimpySmurf]

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'd think about dropping the 6 points for imp Shield block and picking up 5% parry, plus drop to 4/5 duel wield and put those 2 pts in to imp execute. Like GG says imp execute is a major DPS boost in raiding.

-WimpySmurf

[TheDragoon]

I'd think about dropping the 6 points for imp Shield block and picking up 5% parry, plus drop to 4/5 duel wield and put those 2 pts in to imp execute. Like GG says imp execute is a major DPS boost in raiding.

-WimpySmurf

Improved Shield Block is pretty huge. Without it, you're going to be opening yourself up to take a bunch of crushing blows. :(