The Defense Warrior in PvP

[Thawwing Light]

Just respecced to 11 arms, 29 prot, 11 fury on the test server, and I enjoyed it so much I ended up switching over on the live server, despite the currently wasted points in iron will. Ironically, my PvE farming is not noticably slower than the 30 fury/ 21 arms build I was messing around with before (I do miss the novelty of Sweeping Strikes+Cleave). My PvE aggro control took a noticable boost as expected.

In group PvP, you need tac mastery for quick access to charge/intercept depending on which has its timer up / even works at the time. Intercept / hamstring / conc blow on a high value target while the other 4 members of your kill squad focus fire is a deadly combo in CTF.

Piercing howl also ends up being invaluable in certain PvP situations. Give me TM and PH and 29 other randomly chosen talents, and I think I can contribute to group PvP. Mortal Strike builds are still king for pure 1on1 PvP vs. healing classes of course.
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Having just respecced to the MS standard build (or as much as you can get at level 46), I've found 1v1 PvP to be much improved. For groups, I suppose a slight DPS improvement wouldn't make or break things, and the MS debuff is the big boost of Arms/Fury. Still, I did PvP with only TM and Piercing Howl and I agree those work as good 'maximum effect minimum cost' breakpoints when going Protection.

What I'm curious about is the question of 'Why Iron Will?' Is the version on the test server that much better than the currently useless live version? I would think a few points Toughness, pushing for Last Stand, finishing off Shield Block, anything would be better than a 3% chance to resist fear/charm per point... is it noticable on the test server?

I'm also curious of how much of a boost the new Conc. Blow is, with the stun limit...

[Olon97]

What I'm curious about is the question of 'Why Iron Will?' Is the version on the test server that much better than the currently useless live version? I would think a few points Toughness, pushing for Last Stand, finishing off Shield Block, anything would be better than a 3% chance to resist fear/charm per point... is it noticable on the test server?

I'm also curious of how much of a boost the new Conc. Blow is, with the stun limit...

Stun and charm effects have been the bane of my tanking career in late-game content. With Iron Will finally working (to some extent, it doesn't appear to stack with the orc racial ability), I have decided to give it a go. Groups should be prepared to handle the worst case as before, but when that 15% resist kicks in, it could make many of the hardest encounters I've fought so much smoother.

A couple examples that come to mind:
SM Strath 5-man, final boss opting to mind control me is annoying.
DM mobs/bosses knocking back for reduced aggro (esp. King & Prince). Not a problem with a methodical group, but can frequently become aggro pinball encounters if you're not given a large enough aggro lead.

Not to mention, the possibility of passively messing up a stunlock rogue's cheesy perma-stun combo in PvP is too tempting to pass up.

I'm not a fan of last stand. I like my loss of life to be as predictable as possible, and I play with enough different healers that I wouldn't expect one to start anticipating when I would be using last stand. That and the 2 pre-req points are a poor value since the patch that changed the bloodrage skill, IMO - I use non-talented bloodrage regularly and the HP hit is already negligible.

As for the new conc blow, the change is a huge stealth boost to its rage efficiency. You can now Whirlwind an AoE pull using a 2H and immediately stun one elite without swapping to a faster weapon, something I would never have done with the old conc blow (losing a full swing's rage on a 3.8 speed weapon is very pricey). Even with fast daggers, the old conc. blow could be frustrating in PvP due to people moving away before you get the stun off. On-demand instant stun is nice, esp for interrupting short cast time spellcasting.

I don't generally try to stack conc blow on a mob others have been stunning anyway (or even that I've been revenge-stunning). It's best use is as a lead-off stun or as a quick switch to a target you don't have time to tank properly, stun it, and go back to higher priority mobs.

[Thawwing Light]

Stun and charm effects have been the bane of my tanking career in late-game content. With Iron Will finally working (to some extent, it doesn't appear to stack with the orc racial ability), I have decided to give it a go. Groups should be prepared to handle the worst case as before, but when that 15% resist kicks in, it could make many of the hardest encounters I've fought so much smoother.

A couple examples that come to mind:
SM Strath 5-man, final boss opting to mind control me is annoying.
DM mobs/bosses knocking back for reduced aggro (esp. King & Prince). Not a problem with a methodical group, but can frequently become aggro pinball encounters if you're not given a large enough aggro lead.

Not to mention, the possibility of passively messing up a stunlock rogue's cheesy perma-stun combo in PvP is too tempting to pass up.

I'm not a fan of last stand. I like my loss of life to be as predictable as possible, and I play with enough different healers that I wouldn't expect one to start anticipating when I would be using last stand. That and the 2 pre-req points are a poor value since the patch that changed the bloodrage skill, IMO - I use non-talented bloodrage regularly and the HP hit is already negligible.

As for the new conc blow, the change is a huge stealth boost to its rage efficiency. You can now Whirlwind an AoE pull using a 2H and immediately stun one elite without swapping to a faster weapon, something I would never have done with the old conc blow (losing a full swing's rage on a 3.8 speed weapon is very pricey). Even with fast daggers, the old conc. blow could be frustrating in PvP due to people moving away before you get the stun off. On-demand instant stun is nice, esp for interrupting short cast time spellcasting.

I don't generally try to stack conc blow on a mob others have been stunning anyway (or even that I've been revenge-stunning). It's best use is as a lead-off stun or as a quick switch to a target you don't have time to tank properly, stun it, and go back to higher priority mobs.
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What exactly does Iron Will give a 15% chance to resist? Thott lists it as Stun and Charm... is this accurate? If this is the case, I don't see why it would effect knockback, which is what that boss is using, if I'm understanding you right. Mind Control is the only Charm effect I can think of, and there are only a few bosses (that one in Strat, possibly Arugal's Curse from SFK) that use it, leaving its utility to 'against enemy priests, rarely' for the charm portion.

As for preventing stunlocking Rogues... I'm not really that sure on this one. half of a Rogue's stunlock isn't stuns, it's disorients, with gouge and blinding powder thrown in the mix to keep the diminishing returns from hurting too badly. That, and it's only 1/6 of the time, against one of maybe 3 stuns... I just find this rather weak. I suppose the stun resistance is much better than the charm resistance, but it still doesn't seem like too much of a boost.

I do understand where you're coming from on imp. Bloodrage. They nerfed the damage down to 6% of your HP max, and improving it cuts it to 3%... I'll agree that's a pretty weak improvement. I didn't test out Last Stand all that often, but when I had it, it saved me a few times. More frequent were the times when I forgot to use it and it may have saved me, and it did kill me once when I used it while DoTed. I think it's a neat gimmick, and useful, but by no means necessary. Hitting it when things go south and the healer is busy heal other people was my main tactic, and while it never prevented a wipe, a few times it saved me. I can understand this not being used...

Still, there are plenty of things I would rather take. Imp. Sunder comes to mind, as it can account for 15 rage saved over 5 stacked sunders, and 12 rage is almost instantly available after Bloodrage with Tactical mastery. Full defiance strikes me as more useful, as 15% more rage while in Defensive stance is a substancial boost. Full Toughness would be an improvement... at endgame levels, there is a nasty diminishing return on armor, but another 400-800 armor is at least a decent boost. I'd even consider Anticipation worth a look, as while its boost can be acquired from gear, it's the same with Toughness, and the reduced chance to be Crit upon might help.

Really, there's a tough call between a lot of mediocre skills. I suppose I really can't disagree too strongly, but I am not sure the marginal value you've picked is the best marginal value :D

More to the point, it sounds like Conc. Blow rocks even more now. Your situational use of it makes a lot of sense as well, given its power and its cost. That sounds like a great boost to Warrior PvP utility, adding another interrupt that's quick and reliable.

[Xanthix]

I'm not a fan of last stand. I like my loss of life to be as predictable as possible, and I play with enough different healers that I wouldn't expect one to start anticipating when I would be using last stand. That and the 2 pre-req points are a poor value since the patch that changed the bloodrage skill, IMO - I use non-talented bloodrage regularly and the HP hit is already negligible.[right][snapback]78557[/snapback][/right]

The way I like to think of Last Stand is another healing potion the warrior can use. This is what it looks like to a healer too. The warrior who tanks for me swears by it, and says that it has saved us from a lot of bad pulls and unfortunate adds when the situation got dicey. Is that worth 3 talent points? It's up to the individual to decide.

[Artega]

What exactly does Iron Will give a 15% chance to resist? Thott lists it as Stun and Charm... is this accurate? If this is the case, I don't see why it would effect knockback, which is what that boss is using, if I'm understanding you right. Mind Control is the only Charm effect I can think of, and there are only a few bosses (that  one in Strat, possibly Arugal's Curse from SFK) that use it, leaving its utility to 'against enemy priests, rarely' for the charm portion.

Isn't sheep a charm effect?

As for preventing stunlocking Rogues... I'm not really that sure on this one. half of a Rogue's stunlock isn't stuns, it's disorients, with gouge and blinding powder thrown in the mix to keep the diminishing returns from hurting too badly. That, and it's only 1/6 of the time, against one of maybe 3 stuns... I just find this rather weak. I suppose the stun resistance is much better than the charm resistance, but it still doesn't seem like too much of a boost.

Gouge and Blind are both Knockout effects, and Berserker Rage makes you immune to Knockout and Fear effects. Combine this with the passive 15% stun resistance, and you'll be much more effective against Rogues. Not that they were much trouble anyway :P

Full defiance strikes me as more useful, as 15% more rage while in Defensive stance is a substancial boost.

Defiance increases threat generated while in Defensive Stance by 15%. GREAT for PvE servers, utterly USELESS for PvP servers. Even Improved Disarm would be a better place than Defiance for PvP servers.

Anticipation is quite possibly the worst talent in any of our three trees; +10 Defense is crap for five talent points. I'd rather take a few points in Toughness than any in Anticipation.

More to the point, it sounds like Conc. Blow rocks even more now. Your situational use of it makes a lot of sense as well, given its power and its cost. That sounds like a great boost to Warrior PvP utility, adding another interrupt that's quick and reliable.

Unfortunately, it comes at a very high opportunity cost. If you can live with being pretty much helpless in 1v1 PvP (or in PvP groups where you lack a good damage class, like Warrior-Priest), then it's certainly worth the investment, especially since the best talents in the Protection tree are at the 20-point line.

I'll give 11/29/11 a shot after 1.50 goes live, but I think I'll be staying 20/0/31. I may also give my old 34/0/17 build a shot with the new Fury changes.

One last bit: Olon, why Fury/Arms and not Arms/Fury for PvE grinding/PvP combat? Cleave+SS is certainly nice, but I've just found that I take far less damage and kill much more efficiently by picking single targets and quickly butchering them with WW+MS combos :)

[Thawwing Light]

Isn't sheep a charm effect?
Gouge and Blind are both Knockout effects, and Berserker Rage makes you immune to Knockout and Fear effects.  C[COLOR=yellow]ombine this with the passive 15% stun resistance, and you'll be much more effective against Rogues.  Not that they were much trouble anyway :P

They're knockouts? Well, in that case, Iron Will is still useless (Being an Orc might save you). Sheep is its own thing, I think, at least according to trinkets. Seduce is the other Charm.

Defiance increases threat generated while in Defensive Stance by 15%.  GREAT for PvE servers, utterly USELESS for PvP servers.  Even Improved Disarm would be a better place than Defiance for PvP servers.

Yes, I agree. I think this thread is for whether a tanking build can still PvP, and in my mind, this is a key tanking talent for those that instance at times. I feel Imp. Disarm is a better place for points than Iron Will, although I'm rather annoyed that it seems to leave that offhand intact and let them continue to use skills needing weapons.

Anticipation is quite possibly the worst talent in any of our three trees; +10 Defense is crap for five talent points.  I'd rather take a few points in Toughness than any in Anticipation.

And I agree, Anticipation is much worse than Toughness. I'm not sure it's worse than Iron Will... scratch that, it probably is. Improved Thunderclap still sucks worse than this, however. This whole discussion is about which of a host terrible talents is the least evil to take to get to Conc Blow and then 1handed mastery. Even still, I'd say Toughness, Defiance, Imp. Bloodrage, and Last Stand would be my 'wasted points' in the Defense tree to get to the good stuff. Because none of these are very good, I suppose it's not worth much loss of sleep over which you pick. Those or mine, do what you want, I'm just curious why.

(Good stuff being 5/5 Shield Spec, 1/3 Shield Block, 3/3 Imp. Revenge, 1/1 Conc. Blow, 2/2 Imp. Shield Bash, and 4/5 1 Handed mastery)

Unfortunately, it comes at a very high opportunity cost.  If you can live with being pretty much helpless in 1v1 PvP (or in PvP groups where you lack a good damage class, like Warrior-Priest), then it's certainly worth the investment, especially since the best talents in the Protection tree are at the 20-point line.

There's a reason I went Arms/Fury finally. I group regularly with a Priest and a Shaman, if at all. Defensive is rough going PvP regardless, and that exaggerates it.

[Kevin]

Just a small point to help clarify. Anticipation is 0.4% to block, dodge, and parry. I don't know if it does anything for avoiding crit strikes other than that, but that is the way to think about it. 0.8% damage avoidance and 0.4% better chance to reduce damage, if wearing a shield. It's overwhelmed by items, but so is toughness. And defense skill does not seem to have any diminishing returns or a soft cap. I'm not saying it's a great skill and I would still like to see some love for the protection spec warriors, especially in regards to PvP but I just wanted to make sure that people weren't missing what anticipation does.

[Kevin]

The way I like to think of Last Stand is another healing potion the warrior can use. This is what it looks like to a healer too. The warrior who tanks for me swears by it, and says that it has saved us from a lot of bad pulls and unfortunate adds when the situation got dicey. Is that worth 3 talent points? It's up to the individual to decide.
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Last stand has saved me and groups I'm in from wipes before. Just keep in mind that after the 20 seconds are up you lose all those HP. I've died from Last Stand wearing off a couple of times becuase I wasn't able to get the heal on me to get me up higher than the temp HP were keeping me.

I don't see the talent being all that helpful in 1v1 PvP, except to maybe try and wait out a heal pot timer or something similar. It has about the same usefulness in larger scale PvP when you have a healer around as it does in PvE. It's a marginal skill that can help at times when things go wrong.

[Gurnsey]

Just a small point to help clarify.  Anticipation is 0.4% to block, dodge, and parry.  I don't know if it does anything for avoiding crit strikes other than that, but that is the way to think about it.  0.8% damage avoidance and 0.4% better chance to reduce damage, if wearing a shield.  It's overwhelmed by items, but so is toughness.  And defense skill does not seem to have any diminishing returns or a soft cap.  I'm not saying it's a great skill and I would still like to see some love for the protection spec warriors, especially in regards to PvP but I just wanted to make sure that people weren't missing what anticipation does.
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So was the effect that defense has ever figured out officially then?

I had the feeling that it was also a check to an opponent's Attack Rating (weapon skill) which would relate to critical/sub-critical rates (to experience 'sub-critical' hits, try training up a new weapon at higher levels). I have Anticipation on my Shaman as well as some +defense gear for a total of +29 defence (nearly 6 levels worth) and I have to say, I rarely get critted.

I should do some tests with a damage calc if I can find some armor with similar armor values, unless someone already has. Perhaps Anticipation is not as useless as it seems...

[KiloVictor]

So was the effect that defense has ever figured out officially then?
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I found some info on defense vs. armor on Conquest's forum; I think it was this post, but I haven't read through it all to verify.

http://conquest.teamgbu.com/viewtopic.php?t=470

The points that I took away were (from memory, may not be 100% correct):
- AC == damage reduction per hit
- defense == crit resitance
- there's no perceptible limit of diminishing returns on AC
- defense on the order of 400-420 will result in very very low crit rates
- increasing defense past 400-420 probably does have diminishing returns
- damage avoidance (dodge/parry) is vastly overrated for MT work in high-end instances

All things being equal, people that are working as MT in MC seem to be going for gear that results in a fairly even rate of damage to the MT (i.e. high defense for crit avoidance first, then overall AC, and ignoring dodge/parry altogether) so that the healers can get into a regular healing rhythm.

The common strategy seems to be along the lines of "predictibility and control FTW".

Kv

[mjdoom]

All things being equal, people that are working as MT in MC seem to be going for gear that results in a fairly even rate of damage to the MT (i.e. high defense for crit avoidance first, then overall AC, and ignoring dodge/parry altogether) so that the healers can get into a regular healing rhythm.

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Note that as GG said adding to +def is also boosting your dodge/parry/block chances as well as reducing your chance to be critted. I think the point that you danced around here (but it wasn't totally clear) is that due to the lowered crit chance being involved getting dodge/parry/block from +def is superior to items that simply raise your dodge or parry chance by a flat percentage. Personally Galreth currently has about +60 defense and I am building a +def suit for him. As of this time his dodge/parry/block percentages are all approaching 13% in addition to a lesser chance of crits.

I obviously don't heal myself so I can't tell for sure but it seems like the only times he has any issues that tax healers are when he gets hit by the big Mortal Strike shots from Dire Maul (got hit by one for about 3200 damage yesterday :wacko:) The only real concern with outfitting him this way is that my stamina is lower than it could be. This is why I always have food on me and even used the Lung Juice Cocktail (from Blasted Lands) for the aforementioned Dire Maul run to raise my hps when it is necessary.

- mjdoom

[Olon97]

The details of my current 11/29/11 build are 1 imp shield block (/w pre-req), toughness, Iron Will, 3 defiance, conc. blow (with pre-reqs), 2 imp shield wall, 4 1h mastery, then Deflection & Anger Management and cruelty & Piercing Howl.

As for situations where your tank tells you last stand saved the day, I have a little secret: by "saved the day" he usually means "saved me a repair bill". If last stand is going to serve as a functional heal, it needs to be used right at the end of combat, otherwise it's just postponing and potentially loading damage up later. The last few seconds of combat, groups can usually wrap things up even if the tank falls and resurrect the tank a few seconds later. Has happened to me maybe ~5-10 times in the last couple months. Most wipes I've been involved in were not salvagable from last stand (or really any other protection talent), but were simply a question of pulls gone horribly wrong/ bad group coordination.


My rationale for this spec is that for the most part tanking as 30 Fury, 21 arms was fine, although with enough +def gear, I stopped getting many crit hits on me while tanking and starting questioning 5 points in enrage.

It was only a select few battles where I felt I could have used some extra advantages. I'm not usually frustrated by insufficient healing or lack fo a "last stand" ability, but rather by being taken out of the fight by a stun / mind control / sheep and having to struggle to regain control once the effect is dispelled or wears off. I'm hoping Iron Will will help in some of those scenarios.

One last bit: Olon, why Fury/Arms and not Arms/Fury for PvE grinding/PvP combat?  Cleave+SS is certainly nice, but I've just found that I take far less damage and kill much more efficiently by picking single targets and quickly butchering them with WW+MS combos :)

Even 2h WW+ dual wield with fast weapon HS (using the 4/5 1h mastery damage boost) focused damage is peforming similarly to SS+Cleave with the fury/arms build in practice.

The Fury/Arms build was mostly for PvE grinding, and over the long course of grinding, it doesn't much matter whether your damage is controlled burst (MS builds) or randomly spread out (Flurry builds). Since I have about 20% crit when I'm PvE grinding, Flurry gave me a 20% theoretical boost to raw damage, and I had no need for a heal debuff (which admittedly is huge in many PvP scenarios, not just 1v1). I like fast attack speed characters in all games. If it gives you any insight, I had a werebear in d2 using a 6-shael champion axe. :P SS+Cleave isn't all that uber, but it's fun to charge into battle with 70 rage and instantly mow down two elites simultaneously with just 3 cleaves.

[Artega]

Last stand has saved me and groups I'm in from wipes before.  Just keep in mind that after the 20 seconds are up you lose all those HP.  I've died from Last Stand wearing off a couple of times becuase I wasn't able to get the heal on me to get me up higher than the temp HP were keeping me.

I don't see the talent being all that helpful in 1v1 PvP, except to maybe try and wait out a heal pot timer or something similar.  It has about the same usefulness in larger scale PvP when you have a healer around as it does in PvE.  It's a marginal skill that can help at times when things go wrong.
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And that's the problem with Last Stand. Damage taken isn't taken from the bonus HP first, so when the effect ends, you could very well be left with 1 HP. If they changed it so that you lost the bonus HP first, Last Stand would be very powerful and very useful.

[Thawwing Light]

The details of my current 11/29/11 build are 1 imp shield block (/w pre-req), toughness, Iron Will, 3 defiance, conc. blow (with pre-reqs), 2 imp shield wall, 4 1h mastery, then Deflection & Anger Management and cruelty & Piercing Howl.

As for situations where your tank tells you last stand saved the day, I have a little secret: by "saved the day" he usually means "saved me a repair bill". If last stand is going to serve as a functional heal, it needs to be used right at the end of combat, otherwise it's just postponing and potentially loading damage up later. The last few seconds of combat, groups can usually wrap things up even if the tank falls and resurrect the tank a few seconds later. Has happened to me maybe ~5-10 times in the last couple months. Most wipes I've been involved in were not salvagable from last stand (or really any other protection talent), but were simply a question of pulls gone horribly wrong/ bad group coordination.
My rationale for this spec is that for the most part tanking as 30 Fury, 21 arms was fine, although with enough +def gear, I stopped getting many crit hits on me while tanking and starting questioning 5 points in enrage.

It was only a select few battles where I felt I could have used some extra advantages. I'm not usually frustrated by insufficient healing or lack fo a "last stand" ability, but rather by being taken out of the fight by a stun / mind control / sheep and having to struggle to regain control once the effect is dispelled or wears off. I'm hoping Iron Will will help in some of those scenarios.
Even 2h WW+ dual wield with fast weapon HS (using the 4/5 1h mastery damage boost) focused damage is peforming similarly to SS+Cleave with the fury/arms build in practice.
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Fair enough... I can see the logic in Iron Will and why you don't like Last Stand. I'll agree that's more or less all it's ever done. I'm not sure Iron Will is a better use of the points, as honestly, I count it as one of the heap of worthless skills here.

I'm glad to hear the damage output on this build is at least fairly strong. If Iron Will ends up as actually noticable, tell me... I'm really curious.

[Raziel]

Hi all.

There's an extensive discussion on defense skill going on on the blizzard warrior forum right now. It's quite good.

As for defense in PvP, I've had what I feel is acceptable success given the level of derision that persists for Protection spec. However, you should keep in mind that the zerg-like nature of PvP pre-1.5 lends itself to a build where getting in, scoring a quick kill, and escaping are the only things of true importance. Without objectives, control is meaningless, the only thing that matters is that you out DPS your approaching death.

However - when there is an objective is when the protection warrior shines. "But I can't taunt!" you say. Poor man's excuse. Your job isn't to tank (take damage) as much as it is to control the victim, just like you control a mob - limit who they can hurt and how. All of the tricks rendered worthless in Onyxia and Molten Core rise to the fore in PvP battlegrounds - mainly, that is Improved Shield Bash and Concussion Blow - suddenly shine.

Too many Protection spec warriors forget they can do everything a regular warrior can, except MS. They forget to Hamstring, don't Rend, and haven't figured out how to use Intimidating Shout to give yourself a bandage window.

My Protection spec is fairly standard, with 33 points in the Protection tree. Where I have deviated somewhat is that I didn't bother with improved shield wall.. instead, I went 13 points in Arms, far enough to get full TM, AM and crucially, Improved Overpower.

My primary tactic in PvP is to go dual wield and exploit a dodge to land an overpower. It's really handy that I have 1h weapon specialization to play right into the dual wield style. If I am fighting a caster target, a quick offhand swap to a shield, followed by a shield bash (silence) puts all kinds of casters in a dicey situation. Concussion Blow is handy on everyone except mages who just blink right out of it.

With the advent of battlegrounds and objective-driven PvP I think that battlefield control will rise in importance. It won't rival simply being able to slaughter with impugnity, but it won't be completely worthless either; I shudder to think what I would do about mages and shadow priests if I couldn't silence them at least some of the time. I quite like my role, which is largely about controlling engagements and providing supporting damage and harassment. I leave the lion's chunk of the damage to everyone else; with high defense tank gear I am very difficult to hit (crit is a different story; read the thread).

In the PvE arena, whenever i'm not tanking I bust out the dual wield and go to town. I hardly ever bother with my doomsaw.

[Xanthix]

As for situations where your tank tells you last stand saved the day, I have a little secret: by "saved the day" he usually means "saved me a repair bill". If last stand is going to serve as a functional heal, it needs to be used right at the end of combat, otherwise it's just postponing and potentially loading damage up later. The last few seconds of combat, groups can usually wrap things up even if the tank falls and resurrect the tank a few seconds later. Has happened to me maybe ~5-10 times in the last couple months. Most wipes I've been involved in were not salvagable from last stand (or really any other protection talent), but were simply a question of pulls gone horribly wrong/ bad group coordination.[right][snapback]78609[/snapback][/right]

I have to disagree about Last Stand - let me see if I can point out some other examples of its use.

In my opinion, Last Stand is most useful in the heat of a tough battle, and not just at the end of a fight. There have been lots of times when the tank was low in health and then took a damage spike, while I was still casting a heal. Maybe I was OOM, maybe I was finishing a inner focus'd group heal, maybe I was chain-flash-healing them but was getting hit, but the damage spike came too fast and their potion timer wasn't up, so they would have hit zero if not for Last Stand.

From a healer's perspective, Last Stand works exactly like using a healing potion followed by taking a critical hit 20 seconds later. Sometimes we just need another 2 seconds to land that critical heal to get the warrior back into yellow or green. Last Stand effectively delays a chunk of incoming damage, allowing us to do this.

Another way to look at it is that Last Stand lets a warrior go to -30% of their HP before being killed, for up to 20 seconds. What's not to like about that? I realize it requires 3 talent points with its prereqs, but if you assume that you use Bloodrage each fight, Last Stand is effectively extending your heath bar by 33%. This could easily be another 1000 HP, and I just don't think that should be underestimated.

[Olon97]

I have to disagree about Last Stand - let me see if I can point out some other examples of its use.

In my opinion, Last Stand is most useful in the heat of a tough battle, and not just at the end of a fight. There have been lots of times when the tank was low in health and then took a damage spike, while I was still casting a heal. Maybe I was OOM, maybe I was finishing a inner focus'd group heal, maybe I was chain-flash-healing them but was getting hit, but the damage spike came too fast and their potion timer wasn't up, so they would have hit zero if not for Last Stand.

From a healer's perspective, Last Stand works exactly like using a healing potion followed by taking a critical hit 20 seconds later. Sometimes we just need another 2 seconds to land that critical heal to get the warrior back into yellow or green. Last Stand effectively delays a chunk of incoming damage, allowing us to do this.

Another way to look at it is that Last Stand lets a warrior go to -30% of their HP before being killed, for up to 20 seconds. What's not to like about that? I realize it requires 3 talent points with its prereqs, but if you assume that you use Bloodrage each fight, Last Stand is effectively extending your heath bar by 33%. This could easily be another 1000 HP, and I just don't think that should be underestimated.

Point taken. I haven't been in many situations where a heal potion + cleansed whipper root wasn't enough to cover for a gap in healing, but maybe I haven't been actively looking to note such times. If I ever do try a build with last stand, I will make a macro that sends a whisper to every healer assigned to healing me when I use it and another set of whispers when the backend is about 5 seconds away. Considering how rare crits are once you have enough +def gear, a 30% instant HP drop will take people by surprise if you don't communicate what's about to happen. In scenarios where mana isn't likely to be a bottleneck, predictability of incoming damage becomes pretty key to effective healer/tank dynamics.

While in principle, extending the life bar is a handy tool, without a "full heal" spell in the game, there is such a thing as enough life. That would be enough to take the worst case scenario of the pull in question (usually back to back crits on a boss) and still leave healers time to get in their biggest heals. Some discussions I've read (either on the Steel Warrior forums or Conquest guild) estimate that ~5000 life unbuffed is generally enough for MC/Onyxia main tanks, and giving up other useful stats (or talents) to go beyond that mark does not improve the tank's durability enough to justify the loss.

That's PvE, however. PvP it can be a bit harder to predict how much burst damage might be coming your way, or whether you'll even be targetted before the healers in your group are dead anyway. If you're using this sort of PvP tactic (taking point with heal support), having 10k+ life (counting last stand) might be an excellent idea. Granted, that life extension is only once every 10 minutes, but I can definitely see the potential.

[Thawwing Light]

Point taken. I haven't been in many situations where a heal potion + cleansed whipper root wasn't enough to cover for a gap in healing, but maybe I haven't been actively looking to note such times. If I ever do try a build with last stand, I will make a macro that sends a whisper to every healer assigned to healing me when I use it and another set of whispers when the backend is about 5 seconds away. Considering how rare crits are once you have enough +def gear, a 30% instant HP drop will take people by surprise if you don't communicate what's about to happen. In scenarios where mana isn't likely to be a bottleneck, predictability of incoming damage becomes pretty key to effective healer/tank dynamics.

While in principle, extending the life bar is a handy tool, without a "full heal" spell in the game, there is such a thing as enough life. That would be enough to take the worst case scenario of the pull in question (usually back to back crits on a boss) and still leave healers time to get in their biggest heals. Some discussions I've read (either on the Steel Warrior forums or Conquest guild) estimate that ~5000 life unbuffed is generally enough for MC/Onyxia main tanks, and giving up other useful stats (or talents) to go beyond that mark does not improve the tank's durability enough to justify the loss.

That's PvE, however. PvP it can be a bit harder to predict how much burst damage might be coming your way, or whether you'll even be targetted before the healers in your group are dead anyway. If you're using this sort of PvP tactic (taking point with heal support), having 10k+ life (counting last stand) might be an excellent idea. Granted, that life extension is only once every 10 minutes, but I can definitely see the potential.
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Last Stand... I'm assuming you've tried it, and are passing on it this time round due to poor performance. Oh well, if it's one of those things you forget to use, that makes it pretty useless. I found that, when I remembered to use it, it was relatively helpful. Not great, but certainly a nice boost.

As for those tactics in that video... near as I can tell Pat has @5-5.5k HP unbuffed (he's got 6k with MotW and PW:F), which is nothing unusual, I guess... It seems that this is a good deal of stamina for most purposes, though I wouldn't mind more faced with a barrage of spells.

[Olon97]

As for those tactics in that video... near as I can tell Pat has @5-5.5k HP unbuffed (he's got 6k with MotW and PW:F), which is nothing unusual, I guess... It seems that this is a good deal of stamina for most purposes, though I wouldn't mind more faced with a barrage of spells.

What I was getting at is that he was being a point man with healer support in moderate zerg PvP. Very hard to anticipate the amount of incoming damage - he could be totally ignored in favor of high value cloth targets on his side, or he could be the only guy in range of the rear alliance lines and be the recipient of some nasty burst damage.

I don't think the warrior in the video had last stand, but in that sort of combat, I can see last stand being handy quite frequently. That 6k buffed HP extends out to ~8k effective HP if you treat last stand as a 30% bonus.

[Thawwing Light]

What I was getting at is that he was being a point man with healer support in moderate zerg PvP. Very hard to anticipate the amount of incoming damage - he could be totally ignored in favor of high value cloth targets on his side, or he could be the only guy in range of the rear alliance lines and be the recipient of some nasty burst damage.

I don't think the warrior in the video had last stand, but in that sort of combat, I can see last stand being handy quite frequently. That 6k buffed HP extends out to ~8k effective HP if you treat last stand as a 30% bonus.
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Point taken. I liked Last Stand when I had it, but I'd need to get used to using it. That's the problem with 10min timers - that's not every fight, or even every other fight. It's more like once every four or five battles, and something that needs to be reserved until you know it's wanted.

In PvP, if you're the subject of some focuised fire, I'd agree that Last Stand could very well make the difference between being splattered and surviving. Also, it seems PvP is largely very fast battles, so 20s could be quite useful there.

So, these 3 points to get Last Stand (improved bloodrage is pointless these days) could add PvP utility to the defensive warrior for some useless points... if they're willing to get used to the skill.