Reinventing Durambar

[Mavfin]

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

But, what's he going to be tanking as an offtank that will crush that much? I mean, sure, if we have him on Kara bosses, that may occur, but, you kind of have to decide what you want, imo. Wimpy and Conc do OT duty without it, I'd guess BM can, too, if he wishes.:D

Frankly, if crush is that huge a consideration on a boss, we'll be putting a prot tank on it, or a druid with the extra armor/hp anyway.

He's already tossed out the 25-man tanking, and heroics don't crush, so it's less of a consideration than it was.

[bonemage]

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.

Imp Shield block does a lot more to combat crushing blows than parry, because it doubles the effectiveness shield block spam, a staple of raid tanking. I'm not concerned with avoidance, but in absorbing as much damage as I can on the hits I take. Even if 5% parry is more overall mitigation than Shield Mastery and Imp Shield block, it doesn't protect nearly as well vs. crushing blows. It's spike damage (such as a crushing blow) that kills tanks in raids, and that's what I'm trying to combat. If I had my choice, I'd convert all of my dodge/parry/shield block itemization points past 25% (total of the 3) or so and convert those points to stam armor. I want to bleed slow and steady, and the 5% parry that deflection gives causes spikier damage, while improved shield block makes me much, much closer to being "crush proof".

Improved Execute is still being considered, however.

[tmsti]

Hear are my 2 cents. I say throw out any idea of needing any points in def. to offtank. Just go all out DPS. The only place so far we have gone that we have needed a serious offtank was SSC and I thought with my total crap gear I did successfully tank my add. I don't know of very many times we couldn't run something with the lack of a tank. We have great warrior, pally and bear tanks when we raid. I think it would benefit the raid a better to have another high DPSer.

[Concillian]

In theory STR > Crit > hit as long as you are over your hit cap on specials. However if you are low on hit, you have to manage rage a little more than when you have lots (by this I mean that you need to make sure you have about 55 rage before you ever WW, because you never want to WW, then not have the rage to BT)

Mine is socketed like Wimpy mentioned (1 STR / 1 STR+crit / 1 STR + STA) with blue text gems. It's almost equivalent DPS to all STR gems but you get 6 STA too.

[Concillian]

Improved Execute is still being considered, however.

I overlooked the omission of imp. execute, I'd drop points from DW spec for Imp. execute. Though the two are very synergistic, I don't think you can consider it much of a raiding spec without imp. execute.

I also consider Johny's assessment pretty fair. I haven't lost much in terms of raid OTing by going full DPS from my Fury / prot build before. non-bosses don't give crushing blows. Most times a DPS warrior is needed to OT, it's on adds, which are generally 71 or 72, not skull level, and therefore don't crush. As a result shield block is largely un-necessary, and really many of the prot talents in general are

[vor_lord]

I also consider Johny's assessment pretty fair. I haven't lost much in terms of raid OTing by going full DPS from my Fury / prot build before. non-bosses don't give crushing blows.

What I do know is that when healing our tanks, Durambar takes more damage than Tiga or Geld, in a linear kind of fashion (lower armor, and quite a gap in stam which gives you less of a margin). But it seems to be another level of increased damage when it is Wimpy (I've not healed Conc doing a MT job for a long time it seems). I don't know the gap of tanking gear between Durambar and Wimpy, but I have thought it was more imp shield block rather than too much in the way of gear.

I think Durambar would like to still be able to MT Kara (Prince and Nightbane excepted) and feels imp. shield block is pretty important in that. Perhaps that isn't correct though, I wonder if some WWS poking would reveal anything.

Seems to me that by going with this hybrid idea, he wouldn't lose too much in the way of mitigation when mitigation counts. He certainly will be lower in threat without SS and the rage efficiency of a full prot build.

[bonemage]

My biggest concern is that you are happy with the build and have fun playing.

This isn't correct. The problem is that I haven't been happy. I feel completely marginalized as a MT (I lack the gear for what isn't a loot pinata, and OTs can tank those), and I can't raid with my alt because he's an alt, and I don't really like raid healing much anyway. For a long time now, I've felt that I have no place in 25 raids at all. I've taken a couple months off of serious raiding, and think I've reconnected with why I play. This respec should relieve some gear pressure, while not making me feel like a leech by filling a DPS slot with a tanking spec. I need to try something new in WoW and hope it works, or wait until the next expansion and hope I like raiding with a Death Knight...

So hopefully the tanking feel changes won't drive you nuts like they do to me

This is my biggest concern. I've been full prot since level 35ish except for about 2 weeks in my low 50s while I worked on my Grunt trinket. Losing shield slam and focused rage might drive me nuts, but as I said, I have to change something or quit.

Hear are my 2 cents. I say throw out any idea of needing any points in def. to offtank. Just go all out DPS. The only place so far we have gone that we have needed a serious offtank was SSC and I thought with my total crap gear I did successfully tank my add. I don't know of very many times we couldn't run something with the lack of a tank. We have great warrior, pally and bear tanks when we raid. I think it would benefit the raid a better to have another high DPSer.

I'm still wanting improved shield block because I want to be capable for most bosses, including OT on HKM. Besides, taking a crushing blow is shameful to me, and I'm hoping for a superior tank spec than our current DPS warriors, while only giving up minimal DPS to get there. I still define Durambar as a tank, so him having fewer tanking talents than my holy pally doesn't feel right. I will have about 95% of the mitigation I do now with this spec, just lower stam, and will block for less. I'm hoping my DPS will be significantly higher to get me out of "leech" status. If I don't end up liking the spec, as I feel it gimps my DPS too much, or tanking drives me nuts, I'll do something else. I think I still expect to gear myself first as a tank, though, with some concessions to higher priority tanks, that I've already outlined.

Here is where I stand on talent choices currently. If I'm still Fury when we start working on Lady Vashj, I'll pick up Piercing Howl.

[bonemage]

Profile (and signature with link) has been updated to reflect my DPS gear. I have 10% +hit without Precision (still Prot) currently.

[Treesh]

Hear are my 2 cents. I say throw out any idea of needing any points in def. to offtank. Just go all out DPS. The only place so far we have gone that we have needed a serious offtank was SSC and I thought with my total crap gear I did successfully tank my add. I don't know of very many times we couldn't run something with the lack of a tank. We have great warrior, pally and bear tanks when we raid. I think it would benefit the raid a better to have another high DPSer.

You do take more healing though than some of our other off-tanks, but I couldn't actually say if it's gear or spec causing the difference (or a combination of the two).

[Tal]

Topic moved over to Strategy & Game Mechanics from the Meeting Stone. Can move to Crossroads if folks feel its better served there.

[Taelas]

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 cannot possibly agree more. I decided to start levelling my warrior a few days ago, after I had been asked to tank in Ramparts (my warrior was 64 at the time). While I did an OK job of it, my warrior was Fury and I really felt the lack of Shield Slam. The first thing I did when I had decided to level him was respec him back to Prot. No matter what, you'll be called on to tank while levelling, and I am just not comfortable tanking without deep Prot talents.

BM (happy birthday), I agree with Mavfin; you won't need that many talents in Protection if you're going to be the occasional OT. They are good choices for tanking, though. On the other hand, the talents I would choose for Fury DPS are too deep in Arms for you to take even if you drop ~6 talents.

Personally I'd max out Dual Wield Specialization, otherwise I feel it's a very solid build.

[Legedi]

Profile (and signature with link) has been updated to reflect my DPS gear. I have 10% +hit without Precision (still Prot) currently.

For your level gear you have good items. Should be a good start. A few recommendations:

Enchant all your gear. You could add +12 agil to clock, and +6 stats to your chest. And put potency (+20 str) on you OH. Even put the +40 AP, +10 crit leather patch on your legs. Right now King's Defender if fine MH, but in general a slow MH weapon is better. But not so much that using a 82 DPS or less weapon would make it worth it. Basically if you have two similar DPS weapons the slower the better. For socketing gear if you don't care about the socket bonus always do +str gems . If you want the socket bonus do +str for red, +str/+crit for yellow , and +str/+stam for blue.

Like was said earlier. Priority for stats is str>crit>hit>agil. Just make sure you have more than +8.6% hit so you don't miss specials.

[Xanthix]

Losing shield slam and focused rage might drive me nuts, but as I said, I have to change something or quit.

Just thought I'd add another bit of feedback. My wife is 30/31 for shield slam and swears by it. Enough prot to tank well and get snap aggro with shield slam, and enough fury to do more damage than any of our DPS people who are slacking off. :rolleyes:But it's also personal preference, shield slam and bloodthirst can be stylistic choices.

[bonemage]

Just thought I'd add another bit of feedback. My wife is 30/31 for shield slam and swears by it. Enough prot to tank well and get snap aggro with shield slam, and enough fury to do more damage than any of our DPS people who are slacking off. :rolleyes:But it's also personal preference, shield slam and bloodthirst can be stylistic choices.

I thought about this a bit, but eliminated the idea due to a complete lack of rage dump ability when doing DPS. I could see trying to make it work with a two handed Slam Spam (improved slam) build, but the only real synergy between the two roles is Flurry. While tanking, you have single hand specialization and shield slam, but while doing DPS, you have a two hander out, wasting shield slam and single hand spec. If you dual wield to take advantage of single hand spec, you have no rage dump but WW and heroic strike. Dual wield + single hand spec + Flurry is really a white damage build. I don't see that being much different than DPSing in a full prot build, with Devastate and Heroic Strike as your rage dumps. I can already beat slacking DPS with my Prot spec. Also, I lack an epic 2 handed weapon, which eliminated any builds that relied on one, as I wanted to better leverage my current weapons.

[mistique]

Respecing Doomstar, this is what i'm thinking. Suggestions or comments.
Note. i've never liked Bezzerker stance which is why i left it out.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=LZVVbmgxRVu0ofVtoh

mist

[Tal]

Respecing Doomstar, this is what i'm thinking. Suggestions or comments.
Note. i've never liked Bezzerker stance which is why i left it out.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=LZVVbmgxRVu0ofVtoh

mist

IMHO you can lose the 5 points in armor to be used in getting deflection or imp shout.

[Taelas]

The new Tactical Mastery change should make the old x/x/15 MT-style viable again.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=LV0cZVV0VxxoVuZcEzoh

[Jester]

Thoughts:

Imp. Demo Shout is probably better than Unbridled Wrath for an OT/5-man position.

Piercing howl is pretty awesome, consider picking it up if you have a spare point.

Imp. Cleave is kinda neat, but not a big favorite of mine. Up to you, though, depending on how much you use it.

Imp. Intercept is an interesting choice... I've always considered that a PvP talent, and not of much use for PvE, especially with the new Intervene.

Imp. Bloodrage is nice and all, but if you're low gear and only part protection, you need all the defense points you can get. I'd take 2 pts of anticipation over imp. bloodrage, to help get up to 490 defense without sacrificing too much else.

I think Tal is right, 5 pts. in deflection is stronger than 10% armour from items. YMMV, though.

Precision is definitely the right choice for a tanking build. That lets you devote more of your gear to mitigation without sacrificing so much threat.

The modifications I was thinking about:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=LVZVxzVgxoiu0ocizoh

-Jester

[Kevin]

The new Tactical Mastery change should make the old x/x/15 MT-style viable again.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=LV0cZVV0VxxoVuZcEzoh

Yeah but that isn't happening till next patch. But it is a nice change for sure.

I also like that prot warriors won't even need to hot key sunder armor since devastate will do double duty. 9 rage devestates will help with DPS when not tanking too and you'll do a bit better early aggro with devastate applying the sunder stack.

[mistique]

K, thanks for all the input. one question though,

is the 2 pts in Imp Bezerker rage needed/usefull. i havnt used Bezerker hardly ever, is it something that as an OT it'd be good to use or so so, and could hte 2 pts be spent better someplace else?

Mist AKA Doomstar