[WoW] Warriors, Heroically Leaping into your Hearts

Arrath

Warriors

The old thread has been locked, and hadn't been updated in a long time anyway. I'll give it a go.

Warriors have undergone a number of changes with the Cataclysm, the biggest including the removal of Armor Penetration Rating, changes in Rage Generation, and the removal of "On Next Swing" abilites. (Buff) Shouts have also been changed to give rather than take rage, like HotW for DKs.

Arms


All about using a single big weapon and beating people senseless with them. Personally I haven't tried Arms, so perhaps someone else can contribute something here.

Spec: 31/7/3 is the current EJ build.
Gearing: Pulled from EJ: Get 8% Hit. After that, Strength > Crit > Mastery = Expertise > Haste.
Rotation: (EJ Again): Maintain Rend, prioritize Colossus Smash > Mortal Strike > Overpower. Heroic Strike as rage allows, and only Slam if you have an extreme excess of rage.

Resources:

• EJ Thread
• WoW Forums Thread

Fury


The Dual Wielding spec, through the use of talents either 2 Two handed weapons, or 2 Single handed weapons. Currently good old TG seems to be slightly ahead, I believe. This gap is theorized to widen with the coming patch and balance changes. Personally my favorite spec.

Spec: 8/31/2 is the current standard spec.

Currently you may have a bit of leeway with shifting a point from Deep Wounds to Incite, at least for a SMF spec. The coming nerf to HS tips it more in favor of Deep Wounds, moreso with a TG spec.

Gearing: Get 8% Hit (including Precision), 26 Expertise. After that, Strength > Hit (up to 27%) > Crit > Haste == Mastery.

The change to Rage generation means 8% Hit isn't the golden number for Fury any more, and the more you have up to being hit-capped (a whopping 27%) the better. Mastery is rather lackluster at this point, but is getting buffed in the coming patch. How much of an impact that has remains to be seen.

Rotation: loodthirst -> Raging Blow (use Berserker Rage to activate if necessary) -> Bloodthirst -> Free GCD. Colossus Smash during free GCDs as the cooldown allows. Heroic Strike with any excess rage. Use Slam only when you have a Bloodsurge proc during a free GCD.

In Blizzard's quest to reduce incidental AoE and the facerolling of trash packs, WW has been replaced with Raging Blow as a major part of Fury's rotation. The free GCDs in the rotation are great if you end up being a Sunder bot, which the glyph of Colossus Smash is excellent for.

Resources:

• EJ Thread
• WoW Forums Thread

Protection


The tank spec. Or AoE leveling/grinding/farming spec. Plenty of AoE damage, stuns, and mobility. I have yet to tank in Heroics or Raids in Cata, so my knowledge is outdated in this area.

Spec: EJ Hybrid Example Spec
Gearing:

• Survival: Stamina > Mastery > Parry > Dodge.
• Threat: Expertise > Hit > Strength > Crit

Rotation:

• Single Target: Shield Slam > Revenge > Rend > Devastate
• AoE: Rend > Thunder Clap > Shockwave > Revenge (Assuming Blood and Thunder)

Resources:

• EJ Thread
• WoW Forums Thread

Leveling
All Specs are perfectly viable for leveling these days, which you choose depends on which you like most, if you're leveling with anyone (LFD tanking it up?) and what heirlooms you might have. Arguably Fury may be behind as a leveling spec, due to hit/rage generation issues. On the other hand, it has Bloodthirst.

Mods:
Tidy Plates + Tidy Plates Threat Turn those little hovering nameplates into something useful!
TauntMaster Basically HealBot for tanks.
DoTimer Adds useful bars for tracking your DoTs/Debuffs and even cooldowns.
MSBT Like SCT or the built in Floating Combat Text.
Power Auras Can be setup to help track Cooldowns/Procs.


Other Resources:

• EJ Forums
• WoW Forums
• Tankspot

Arrath

Latest PTR Notes:

• Charge now shares diminishing returns with stun effects.
• Cleave damage has been reduced by 20%.
• Hamstring now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• Heroic Strike damage has been reduced by 20%.
• Inner Rage has been redesigned. It now reduces the cooldown on Heroic Strike and Cleave by 50% (to 1.5 second) for the next 15 seconds. 1-minute cooldown. It still cannot be used during Deadly Calm. This ability was originally designed to help warriors with rage capping, but the Heroic Strike and rage normalization changes seem to have solved that problem on their own. This new design will still allow warriors to burn off excess rage faster, at their discretion.
• Recklessness now increases special critical strike chance by 50%, down from 100%, but lasts the full 12 seconds instead of allowing only 3 charges.
• Slam weapon damage percent (at level 80+) has been increased from 125% to 145%.
• Talent Specializations
  • Arms
    • Juggernaut no longer increases the cooldown on Charge, but instead increases the duration of the Charge stun by 2 seconds. In addition, Charge is usable in all stances, however, the talent now causes Charge and Intercept to share a cooldown.
    • Lambs to the Slaughter: Instead of granting 10/20/30% damage to the next Mortal Strike, Overpower, or Execute, it now grants a 10% buff to any Mortal Strike, Overpower, Slam, or Execute that stacks 1/2/3 times.
    • War Academy no longer buffs Heroic Strike or Cleave. It now buffs Mortal Strike, Raging Blow, Devastate, Victory Rush and Slam.
  • Fury
    • In addition to its current effects, Bloodsurge now also causes the next Slam to deal 20% more damage.
    • Bloodthirst damage has been increased by approximately 30%.
    • Raging Blow weapon damage percent (at level 80+) has been increased from 110% to 120%.
    • Unshackled Fury (Mastery) now grants 5.6% benefit per mastery point, up from 4.7%.
      • Protection
        • Charge's stun continues to not trigger diminishing returns for Protection warriors who have the Warbringer talent.
      Glyphs
      Glyph of Rapid Charge has been changed from a 7% reduction to Charge's cooldown, to 1 second off of the cooldown. This change is primarily to clarify the exact cooldown reduction this glyph provides.

Buddies

Add for recommended Add ons and a must have for Tanks.


Tidy Plates with the Threat Plates plug in. It is a highly customizable add on that changes the default nameplates (default hotkey V) to something very useful, espcially as a tank. It will show you the health of every mob and if it is currently trying to attack you or someone else. It makes tanking large groups very easy. That one melee in your group that keeps attacking some random mob and pulling aggro is not a problem with this addon.

The way I have mine set up is that when I have aggro the Nameplate and health bar are Green. If I don't have aggro on it, the nameplate and health bar is Red. So when controlling a large pack of mobs if someone pulls aggro on some random mob out of 7 I will know right away and can select the Red Health bar and hit Taunt. This allows me to gain control over a mob before it has time to attack anyone else.

Nerdtendo

For the protection spec, I really don't understand the 3 points into battle trance. Rage is barely ever an issue, unless I'm trying to heroic strike every opportunity I get. I prefer Incite, personally... It's nice to get those extra bursts of rage. But those three points are up in the air, do what you want with them.

Also, if you're tanking heroics, don't bother with Vigilance.. the benefit from that talent is minimal in a five man, and the only thing you'll miss are those occasional taunt CD resets when someone rips aggro from you. Tossing an extra point into impending victory isn't a bad idea, as it can definitely prevent a wipe if a healer runs low on mana, especially if you glyph for it. It's not reliable, but a bit of luck can make it a winner.

edit:

I used tauntmaster in the past. It's basically a grid showing everyone's health bar in the color of their class with their name on it. If a mob is targeting a player, their healthbar is red. Click on the player's health bar to taunt a mob targeting them. Really nice addon, but one of the later wrath patches broke it (had something to do with the in game raid frames, I believe). I haven't checked to see if it's been fixed yet... should do that.

Enig

For Arms I don't see the point in speccing for Heroic Strike (Incite) and Slam. I prefer to use Slam (glyphed and talented), and will do so even more with the buff it's getting. I don't really see why you would use both, but perhaps I'm missing something.

Also, from what I've seen the baseline for Prot should be roughly http://wowtal.com/#k=IfWid_B.a8t.warrior.RXwKFQ Blood and Thunder points can also be moved, and I've seen some tanks drop Shield Specialization. At the moment I personally have 2/3 Shield Specialization, in favor of a point in Rude Interruption (heroics).

Jubal77

One of my favorite addons is DoTimer. It isnt class specific but it allows you to track your rend ticks, CDs etc in one nice little interface.

Enig

I used to use DoTimer. At the moment I am using Fortexorcist. It feels more straightforward to set up than DoTimer. Only downside is the bars aren't quite as clear.. still trying to figure out if I can modify that.

Munkus Beaver

Arms for pvp, prot for pve.

Using heroic strike all the time.

GnomeTank

That baseline Prot spec is kind of strange. No Incite? No War Academy? No Cruelty? Battle Trance and Blood Craze wuh? It's not a bad spec, it's just odd and not what I would consider the baseline (I consider EJ's hybrid spec the baseline).

Arrath

Sorry about any oddities guys, I was just pulling stuff (mostly) from EJ to flesh out the OP with more up to date info, I'll see about getting a Prot spec that makes sense.

GnomeTank

Arrath wrote: »

Sorry about any oddities guys, I was just pulling stuff (mostly) from EJ to flesh out the OP with more up to date info, I'll see about getting a Prot spec that makes sense.

This is a great starting point: http://wowtal.com/#k=_A7oWTGp.a8t.warrior.-h-k0m

It's the one EJ has listed as "example hybrid spec".

Enig

How can that be a baseline if all the points are used. I guess when I think of "baseline" I think of stuff that is required. Incite is not required, nor is Blood and Thunder or Gag Order.

I would think it's more useful to post an incomplete spec with all required talents filled so that people can assign the rest to taste, which is what I attempted (though it is tricky when tier 1 and 2 talents are flexible). Though some people will like to just cookie-cutter I suppose.

GnomeTank

Uhhh, actually either Incite or Blood and Thunder is required, because you need five points to break to tier 2. Way to be passive aggressive about your cookie cutter comment though.

GnomeTank

What meta are most of you guys running? I am waffling between the Block Value and Reduced Spell Damage ones. I have the Reduced Spell Damage one in right now, but I'm open to being convinced that the Block Value meta is better for overall survivability.

Arrath

I'd think the block value one would synergize better with mastery, there aren't many ways to increase BV these days.

Enig

GnomeTank wrote: »

Uhhh, actually either Incite or Blood and Thunder is required, because you need five points to break to tier 2. Way to be passive aggressive about your cookie cutter comment though.

Individually they are not required, though you do have to take one of them as you say.

I was not being condescending about cookie-cutter builds. They are useful for a lot of people who don't care to min-max every aspect.

GnomeTank

Enig wrote: »

GnomeTank wrote: »

Uhhh, actually either Incite or Blood and Thunder is required, because you need five points to break to tier 2. Way to be passive aggressive about your cookie cutter comment though.

Individually they are not required, though you do have to take one of them as you say.

I was not being condescending about cookie-cutter builds. They are useful for a lot of people who don't care to min-max every aspect.

Sorry I misinterpreted you then. Another lesson in "tone is hard to convey with text".

GnomeTank

Arrath wrote: »

I'd think the block value one would synergize better with mastery, there aren't many ways to increase BV these days.

Yah, that pretty much is all I needed to be convinced to switch. I think I got the reduced spell damage one almost as a knee-jerk reaction to some of the insane non-physical damage some of the heroics put out.

Enig

Block is probably better. Lots of boss damage is just melee stuff. I've been using the +armor one, but I might switch over to block.

GnomeTank

So my question is, is that meta additive or multiplicative? Meaning, does using that meta make my regular blocks 35%, or does it make 31.5%? And does it effect critical block? Would my critical blocks become 70/63%?

e: Confirmed on EJ and Wowhead, it's multiplicative. It will equal out to 31%/62% (31.5% rounded down), not 35/70. Still, the math makes it better than Austere (which is the armor value one), and it does have good synergy with our Mastery. Plus it's super easy to gem for, as blue/green/purple gems tend to be the ones we favor anyway, and they all count towards the meta.

e2: Actually, which of the two is better is a curve. They converge at ~42% chance to block, which Eternal becoming better than Austere as you move higher from that convergence point. Meaning that Eternal scales better with gear than Austere.

Enig

So far I have been favoring mastery, which means green/yellow/orange gems. When it comes to gems, some tanks are going for mastery, while others are going for stamina. Not sure there's a consensus on which is best.

GnomeTank

Well, there is some consensus that Stamina is not the end all be all stat for Cata like it was for Wrath. In fact, stacking stamina at the expense of avoidance will likely make you harder to heal long term, not easier, as you just become a big black hole for healer mana.

Mastery is definitely one of our best stats, and it's the primary stat I stack if I can, but I don't like to neglect Stam. I still personally feel a three blue gem requirement is easier to complete and keep completed than a two yellow gem requirement, if only because of the way our sockets tend to come out (we get a lot of blue and red sockets in our tank gear). Also, requirements aside, I think the Eternal gem simply scales better for a Warrior when taking in to account our mastery and critical blocks.

Jubal77

Enig wrote: »

So far I have been favoring mastery, which means green/yellow/orange gems. When it comes to gems, some tanks are going for mastery, while others are going for stamina. Not sure there's a consensus on which is best.

Why not both.... Sta Mastery gems are what I use. And Sta Expertise atm.

GnomeTank

I use raw stam in my blues, parry/mastery or parry/stam in my reds (depending on meta requirements really) and stam/mastery or pure mastery in my yellows (depending on whether I think my health pool is reasonable for the content I am doing, or whether I need more avoidance).

e: As a side note, I don't gem for dodge because tank gear is dripping with dodge, and parry tends to be ever so slightly better because of the added damage from the parry counter and because of the synergy with Hold the Line.

Enig

Well I generally want the socket bonus. I do go mastery/stamina for blue sockets though, naturally. Red is mastery/parry, and yellow is straight mastery.

GnomeTank

Enig wrote: »

Well I generally want the socket bonus. I do go mastery/stamina for blue sockets though, naturally. Red is mastery/parry, and yellow is straight mastery.

Yah, I am OCD about socket bonuses. Unless it's just terrible (and I haven't seen a terrible one yet on tank gear), I always get it.

Enig

They have been good about putting desirable bonuses in Cata.

Of course it helps that tanks aren't just going STA STA STA like in Wrath.

forty

GnomeTank wrote: »

I use raw stam in my blues, parry/mastery or parry/stam in my reds (depending on meta requirements really) and stam/mastery or pure mastery in my yellows (depending on whether I think my health pool is reasonable for the content I am doing, or whether I need more avoidance).

e: As a side note, I don't gem for dodge because tank gear is dripping with dodge, and parry tends to be ever so slightly better because of the added damage from the parry counter and because of the synergy with Hold the Line.

Aren't you getting a shitload of parry rating passively from your strength, though? I'd expect you have at least 800 parry rating from strength when buffed. Are you not farther into parry DR than dodge DR? Or does Hold the Line make up for that?

Parry haste is gone, by the way.

GnomeTank

Hold the Line is a pretty stout reason to like parry, given that it's 10% to critical strike and critical block after a parry for 10s.

In my rag tag mix of heroic gear, I am dripping with dodge, from the gear itself. Even when buffed to the gills, my parry barely pulls equal with dodge. I'm not going to reforge dodge off gear to get parry, I'll just gem for it.

(e: Off hand, do you know the Strength -> Parry formula? Google isn't turning it up.)

Enig

When it comes to Parry / Dodge the wisdom seems to be that you want to keep them roughly equal, perhaps favoring parry slightly. The idea is to keep the amount of diminishing returns to a minimum. If you let one get much higher than the other then quite a bit of the rating for that one is being "wasted" on DR.

At the moment I have about 13.5% parry and 10% dodge. If my parry gets any higher I'll be reforging it to dodge.

GnomeTank

I'm the opposite of you. I have 13.79% dodge and 11.83% parry. My gear just happens to be really dodge heavy, which is why I gem for parry.

Enig

Well it doesn't matter either way really as long as you minimize the diminishing returns.

I got Tia's Grace in a h-Tol'vir run today, but I was disappointed to realise that the AGI->dodge modifier is not as good for Warriors as it is for Paladins. It comes out to something like .7% dodge, whereas a Pally would get 1% or so. It's still pretty good though for an effectively constant buff. The alternatives are uncontrollable random avoidance proc trinkets, which leaves it to luck far too much for my liking.

GnomeTank

I am currently running the heroic version of the Porcelain Crab, which I really like. It's a straight dodge buff + it procs mastery on melee hits. It's actually rather predictable. The other trinket I use is a +stam with a mastery on use, which I have macroed to Last Stand (when I pop Last Stand and that trinket, my block% goes well over 55%, so Last Stand has a nice mini-Shield Wall effect to it now). It's only a green, but until something like Tia's Grace or the heroic stam trinket drop for me, it's what I've got.

(As a side note, the Crab has an uptime ~20%. It's not perfect, I'd really like a Throngus's Finger to pair with it, and I'm thinking about reforging some of the dodge to mastery, but it's a solid trinket).

Jubal77

I run that green sta trinket with mastery on use or heroic Throngus' finger and alchy sta trinket with mastery equip.

I cant seem to get my hands on any blue or purple sta trinket. Ive only seen the trinket from Stonecore on my alts and the worm has only dropped it once so far.

We did captian planet last night and yay for one mistake and you fail fights! We did get a good distance into P2 on the first night after beating the two dragons though so it most likely wont be too bad.

Chronic

As far as tanking stats go, I have been valuing Mastery above both parry and dodge, and parry far more than dodge. As of right now, I believe Mastery does not have diminishing returns, unlike parry and dodge.

I've been reforging any dodge to mastery or parry if there is mastery on the piece already and it has been working out well.

For gems I have been running stam+mastery mostly, or Parry+mastery, or Parry+stam.


In my heroics gear I am sitting at 13.83% parry, 8.36% dodge, and 46.1% block.

Also found this on EJ: Warriors, Paladins, and Death Knights now all get 25% Strength as Parry Rating as a base skill, with all decimals floored.

GnomeTank

Yah, the value line is definitely Mastery > Parry > Dodge. I'm going to start reforging some of the dodge off my gear, but I don't want to reforge too much off, a dodge is still an avoided attack, even if it doesn't proc all our fun on Parry toys.

Metacortex

I really like the mastery/on use resist 359 trinket from Hellscream's Reach. There are tons of fights where elemental damage comes predictably and knocking half that damage off is pretty sweet. Plus, sweet sweet mastery.

Bizazedo

Metacortex wrote: »

I really like the mastery/on use resist 359 trinket from Hellscream's Reach. There are tons of fights where elemental damage comes predictably and knocking half that damage off is pretty sweet. Plus, sweet sweet mastery.

Same, I sacrificed getting my second mount to get that trinket. It's a pretty noticeable reduction in damage and the cooldown time isn't bad at all.

Nerdtendo

GnomeTank wrote: »

Yah, the value line is definitely Mastery > Parry > Dodge. I'm going to start reforging some of the dodge off my gear, but I don't want to reforge too much off, a dodge is still an avoided attack, even if it doesn't proc all our fun on Parry toys.

Dodge and parry have the exact same gear point value right now. If one's higher than the other, than reforging to balance them out a bit will increase your overall avoidance because of diminishing returns. Since parry procs Hold the Line, it's objectively better than dodge.

At the very least, you want to reforge to balance the two as much as possible. It's even better if you reforge for more parry because of the HtL proc. There's no reason to have more dodge than parry, right now.

Enig

Yeah I'm using the TolB trinket (Mirror of Broken Images is the name) along with Tia's Grace.

Before that I had the green sta/on-use-mastery and linked the use effect to Shield Block.

Even though Throngus' Finger and Porcelain Crab are predictable, you can't force them to proc when you need them, which to me means all they are good for is their average avoidance. And I'd rather have constant avoidance than average avoidance. Bit disappointed with the pre-raid tanking trinkets on the whole, other than the Mirror.

Walt

Mirror of Broken Images was used on the Heroic Sinestra kill.

I want it so much.