Warrior - protection build

What build would you recommend for prot warrior lads? I'm lvl 62 atm and was thinking about something like this for tanking at lvl70:

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

I might respecc sooner as it was not easy yesterday for me in Helfire Ramparts to hold aggro and this damn dragon was taking half of my hp with one fire cone... As I usually play with Nahi it might not slow me down much...

The only thing is pvp - will I be any good at it as prot specced? Spell reflect will come in 2lvls (64) so might help a lot against casters in bgs but then my damage won't be great... survivality should be nice though

Here you go: http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Spinebreaker&n=Teshija.
This is my old prot warrior, he had great survivability and ok killing time when soloing. He is currently wearing soloing gear, and tanking differes in amulet, rings, shield and cape i bealive. didnt log on to him for quite some time.
As to your dillema it will be expensive for you to respec everysingle time we do instances even if we all chip in. We can do it once if you wanna try it out. But every inst is out of question.
As for your play time killing outside mobs dual wield in berserker stance with healer at your back which cand Dps as Nahi is, your time will not be much reduced, she'll have to heal a bit more but thats pretty much it, you will be slower but hey thats life.
You will suck at PVP and you know it. I even read that people used to report prot warriors for being AFK in BG's being almost the same thing
In the end it comes to this:
1. You respec to prot and we do fine however on later instances I think Nahi will need to do the same, and by all means you guys dont like to play with those specs, but we will have great instancing core.
2. You dont respec (you and Nahi both later on) we wont be able to make groups, I for one after disasterous run On Zf the other day dont wanna pug for some time. Was in the same instance with Soedn and my tanking was ok, no one day until silly mistake on the part of the other hunter. Next time I couldnt tank first three group of mobs becouse people didnt stick to marks. Im really fed up with it. So if we chose this we will end up with crappy gear on 70, plus it will be harder and harder to go on without blue inst gear. Me and bubble were trying to get groups the other days and could not. Remember we dont have all day to play wow, and wait for group in a narrow time frame we have is nearly impossible let alone if we have luck to gather nice group.
3. we fool around with alts until me and Kitchi level up our tanking and healing alt so we can do instances (I guess this wont pass) I was trying to level up Kastel as fast as I can but I am stuck at 46 I bealive now. We can hurry this up if some higher guys help us with doing quests.
In the end:
If you choose path no1. You and Nahi will both have to do thing you dont like, so I am not for this since we started this guild to have fun
If you choose path no2. it will be a lot harder since instancing will be hard and we will have to pug and pray
If you choose path no3. it will set back our progress at least a week or even more, plus i wouldnt like to leave Nyc behind, however I can always do PvP with him and have Kastel as PvE prot warriror. Dont know how Kitchi feels about this its up to him.
So decidions, decisions!!
Anyways spec wise:
Losse 5 in unbrideled wrath and put it in improved demo shout. When three mobs hit you you have rage to spare and devastate is soooo cheap you will not bealive.
5 in toughness is a must.
loose imp bloodrage i never used it once as a tank. Improved thunderclap is way better.
On the other hand tactial mastery is great i am sad i didnt took it up on my warr. Its a must:) I would also loose imp revenge, since you need to be hit, for great number of rage to spend to many knock outs leaves you without rage, you without rage DPS pulls in no time. If s..t hits the fan concussion blow is there to give you and helaer and breather along with disarm. Shield wall oh shit ability for tanking last boss more secs duration I would put my points there.
Anway other than tactiacal mastery feel free to copy my build, it performed great on tanking.

Nyctalus wrote:Here you go: http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Spinebreaker&n=Teshija.
This is my old prot warrior, he had great survivability and ok killing time when soloing. He is currently wearing soloing gear, and tanking differes in amulet, rings, shield and cape i bealive. didnt log on to him for quite some time.

Nice one Would be great if you manage to get him over here as we discussed I might give prot spec a try but I'm pvp lover and this wouldn't allow me to be efficient in BGs

Nyctalus wrote:As to your dillema it will be expensive for you to respec everysingle time we do instances even if we all chip in. We can do it once if you wanna try it out. But every inst is out of question.

This is a big no-no mate It's not worth it especially that I would need to re-specc twice for each instance (before and after) and 100g... man - you can buy boost for this I either re-specc for good or... I don't know

Nyctalus wrote:You will suck at PVP and you know it. I even read that people used to report prot warriors for being AFK in BG's being almost the same thing

That's what I'm affraid of Although I've heard about prot pallys/warriors in arena teams

Nyctalus wrote:In the end it comes to this:
1. You respec to prot and we do fine however on later instances I think Nahi will need to do the same, and by all means you guys dont like to play with those specs, but we will have great instancing core.

I'll ask Nahi but she enjoys balance so much that I don't think she'll go resto... I wouldn't like prot either but if that's the only way to progress I'll give it a try.

Nyctalus wrote:2. You dont respec (you and Nahi both later on) we wont be able to make groups, I for one after disasterous run On Zf the other day dont wanna pug for some time. Was in the same instance with Soedn and my tanking was ok, no one day until silly mistake on the part of the other hunter. Next time I couldnt tank first three group of mobs becouse people didnt stick to marks. Im really fed up with it. So if we chose this we will end up with crappy gear on 70, plus it will be harder and harder to go on without blue inst gear. Me and bubble were trying to get groups the other days and could not. Remember we dont have all day to play wow, and wait for group in a narrow time frame we have is nearly impossible let alone if we have luck to gather nice group.

If we won't respecc we will need:

1. Better understanding of what's going on in instances as I'll need more time to establish aggro before you guys fire away.

2. Huge amount of scrolls/elixirs/pots and other consumables to buff us to the max. I use them a lot. But then dps classes need to be careful with their attacks. Main thing is to not open the fight with your best shot! Keep it for later. Start 'softening' the target with some lower rank spells with less damage to keep you busy but don't nuke away for 2k at the very start. In the mean time I'll establish my aggro on the target and when mob is below 50% you can nuke it down! It's not a race The more time I have the better Other way you pull aggro, healer has to focus not only on me but on dpss as well saving their lives and getting aggro... You get the picture

Nyctalus wrote:3. we fool around with alts until me and Kitchi level up our tanking and healing alt so we can do instances (I guess this wont pass) I was trying to level up Kastel as fast as I can but I am stuck at 46 I bealive now. We can hurry this up if some higher guys help us with doing quests.

This might take a lot of time and with WotLK upon us we might rather hurry up and not slow down

Nyctalus wrote:In the end:
If you choose path no1. You and Nahi will both have to do thing you dont like, so I am not for this since we started this guild to have fun

If that's the way to progress I'm happy to respecc

Nyctalus wrote:If you choose path no2. it will be a lot harder since instancing will be hard and we will have to pug and pray

It won't be that hard if we agree to some rules We need a bit different approach and understanding as we go as 5 dpss and not 3 dpss, tank and healer

Nyctalus wrote:If you choose path no3. it will set back our progress at least a week or even more, plus i wouldnt like to leave Nyc behind, however I can always do PvP with him and have Kastel as PvE prot warriror. Dont know how Kitchi feels about this its up to him.

I don't think this is a runner mate Might be wrong though

Nyctalus wrote:loose imp bloodrage i never used it once as a tank. Improved thunderclap is way better.

I use it a lot It gives me rage for first sunders after the pull

Nyctalus wrote:Shield wall oh shit ability for tanking last boss more secs duration I would put my points there.

What's the cd on it? Isn't it half an hour? Is it worth to spend 2 points on ability which can be used once in a run?

Thanks for your input mate

Improved bloodrage is ok when you are not speced protection but if you are protection you ll get hit som many times that you wont use blood rage at all. At fury now with kastel I use it all the time, When tanking as protection I never used it once, I was simply full of rage.
Yeah it is half an hour but when it makes differnece in wipe or not to wipe it is great ability. And it can be used at least twice in every run, there are bosses that hit hard and if your healer cant keep up its a life saviour, along with last stand and your trinkets.
75% less damage from ranged melee and spells ia a great thing mate and the difference between 10 and 15 seconds in this game is a life time.
Sometimes I got hit so hard that it takes out third of your HP in a single blow even as protection and shield wall here help immensly. And in situations like last night when we face too many mobs: challenging shout, thunderclap, demo shout, whirlwind shield wall to help you live alot more if you are protecton and gives party time to organise.

Ok lads - here we go

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=LVZVZ0EtoIMzfxot

That's my build at the moment Worked out great in Ramparts yesterday Let me know what you think and how can this be improved

I'm still not sure about shield wall Haven't put there any points yet 8 more tp to come before 70 - where should they be alocated?

Thanks

Well about the shield wall, there are tanks and there are tanks. Two main type are (as far as I can make out from reading):
1. Heavy protection tanks with loads of stamina and defense, but meager damage output - mostly main tanks
2. And then there are various variations of somewhat higher dps and protection build tanks usually offs and something like that
Shield wall is a MUST ability for a 1 group, for the second one its not as important
(we are talking heroics and raids here).
I prefer the first group when I build, cause either you are or you are not, those middle roads I personally dont like. So I would take it, but in the end its your char and while your tanking works fine without it then put it somewhere else, but time may come when youll need it then you ll have to respecc all over again.
Otherwise your build is ok, I would only move 5 from one handed specialization and put it in tactical mastery and focused rage. Now, now i know that higher threat comes from higher damage, BUT whole point of prot warrior is that they dont need the damage to build threat they have a beutifull set of talents to do so. I am not saying its wrong, only that those points can be used in more efficient rage conserving machinery, and in the end your rage determines your threat output. And you can learn to stance-dance with tactical mastery and give out much more damage when needed. Not to mention a more efficient use of intercept and charge!!

I'll have to think about this shield wall In WotLK cd on it is down to few s I think. If that's the case then I'll be puting my points in there for sure I'm quite sure I've seen it somewhere

As to 1h weapons - it increases damage from 1h weapons not only in defensive stance but overall! This means that when DW (quests, BGs, whatever) you'll be dealing 110% of damage with 100% in defensive stance. Even with stance-dancing 10% more damage makes significant difference (whirlwind, cleave, etc) and it's free threat boost as it takes no rage (white damage) so you can use your rage more efficiently for devastate/shield slam/thunder clap/demo, etc I might keep my points in there

I will have 8 tp more to distribute so tactical mastery or sheild wall can still be picked up if needed These 8 points are my main concern as I'm not 100% sure where to put them

I prepared some prot build for lvl80

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=LVMczZ0xZihtMgcdizcdsGo

What do you think about it? It looks like prot might be vital for some pvp encounters too with few new abilities Possibility of 'charge' in combat and in every stance sounds great

Looks great mon.
Only thing that looks nice also (but realy dont know from where to take to put it there) is armoured to the teeth. It should be interesting how much AP one can gain from end game armor.
One remark though: you put 2 in improved charge, well you should start charging at mobs in instances and not to run to them lol.
Otherwise the build is just like I planned.
P.S. That vigilance looks realy great.
So you stayinn prot eh?
I knew you are gonna like it!!

Well, at the moment I have no points in tactical mastery so if I change stance to battle, charge and change back to defensive I'll be left with no rage... My next tp will go to tactical mastery and improved charge but for now charging is not of much use for me. I can charge, thunder clap (if no cced mobs are around) and demo to use rage and then switch but this might be dangerouns as it won't generate much threat to start with and mob can be easily peeled off me by dps/healer before I land few devastate/shield slams on him.

Buculus wrote: I can charge, thunder clap (if no cced mobs are around) and demo to use rage and then switch but this might be dangerouns as it won't generate much threat to start with and mob can be easily peeled off me by dps/healer before I land few devastate/shield slams on him.

Well its yust as you said BUT, you charge at 2 or 3 mobs that are not under CC. You thunderclap, switch and put first devastate before dps even fired away first shot, it just takes a bit of practice, and its a great way to put some aggro on secondary targets first hand on, before others even shoot, so
1. Its faster
2. you have initial aggro on all targets before dps even fire
3. you are practicly able to put first devastate as in the same time as when running empty to mob
you can make a macro for it I guess or put key bindings close I have them on 2 charge, w- defensive, 3 thunderclap.
You save intercept for the time when healer is in trouble. Switch to berserker, intercept, defensive. Again much faster and you stun the mob, then running to him. Again I keep keybindings close e- berserker, 2 - intercept, w - defensive.
And its great fun to use these combos

Mate, it's all fine but in Ramparts and Blood Furnace there was always some mob sapped before we moved on In this case charge and switch to def stance wouldn't bring much of aggro with it Thunderclap means wasted sap and another mob to worry about. In this case I could only charge, switch to def, use bloodrage and devastate. It's more less the same as with running to mobs but yes, might be bit quicker Besides I pull a lot with my crossbow instead of running to pull them back and not fight them where they stand beacuse of patrols

Same with intercept - if I switch to berserker I'll be left with no rage for intercept. I really need some points in tactic mastery before I start stance-dancing Only when I get this and improved charge for more rage I can start tanking like this. For now I have to run and pull with my xbow It will all change in few lvls. I need 4 more tp (I have 1 already to put in TM, then 2 more in there and 2 in improved charge) and I'll be charging and stance-dancing Then it'll be worth it with large amount of rage from improved charge. Battle - charge - thunder - demo - defensive - devastate and so on