World of Warcraft®

It's been a few years since I played wow, came back and level'd through the new dungeons.

I've read the sticky, followed the directions as I interpreted them, however I'm having the most awful time in heroics. It feels like I'm taking entirely too much damage in HoT heroics for the gear level I've attained so far. I'm keeping shield block on CD, never letting the mobs see my back, etc but I'm getting beat down pretty hard (compared to when I last played relatively speaking).

Perhaps I'm missing something in my spec/gemming/reforging, any assistance in looking over my toon/advice would be appreciated. I really feel as though I'm doing something wrong..but for the life of me I can't seem to figure out what it is.

Dem heroics are actually pretty nasty, especially the trash. A lot of your perceived squishiness depends on the healer, too.

I did notice some of your gems are wrong, though. You don't want to gem strength and mastery, especially in prismatic sockets. Yellow/prismatic sockets should always be 40 mastery, blue should always be mastery/stam and red should always be parry/mastery (at least until you reach block cap, or under other special circumstances). I also think that the Stam+1% block value meta is better for shield tanks, but I'm not entirely sure if that's true below block cap.

I'll give that a shot and try again tomorrow, thank you for the advice.

Ditch the stat to chest for +75 stam and keep your parry/dodge near equal with parry slightly ahead since parry is same dr as dodge now. Spec could use fixing too rude int and piercing howl too situational.

Something like http://www.wowhead.com/talent#LG0cZZIfGzRRRzbu:0oVcaqMz0 is fairly good overall.

Don't reforge your dodge for mastery, only parry.

But due to DR on dodge (versus none on mastery) I'm actually dropping from 88.58 CTC to 87.84 when I keep the gear's innate dodge.

as a tank...pvp cheating for iLVL boosts never work out...DPS can swing that crap

Again I'm confused...the blue 316s I had had less stamina and less STR, I gained CTC from the extra strength, and EH from the extra stamina. It's not so much as juking ilevel as trying to increase survivability. The low drop rate from Benedictus isn't helping in that department to be sure...but I'm just trying what I can.

Would suggest gemming full Mastery until you're CTC capped, but we shall skip that for now since you have already re-gemmed.

I don't remember the exact thing but generally, keeping your Parry/Dodge close together will help you with CTC cap due to diminishing returns.

Take a look at my spec/glyphs for reference to the standard tank build, except taking Cruelty instead of Safeguard. Choice is yours if you feel that Blood Craze might help in your situation.

Shockwaves/Concussion Blow or interrupts will lower incoming damage significantly, besides the standard Demo Shout/Thunderclap/Shield Block.

Do keep in mind that you might have been pairing up with ineffective healers.

ASK MR ROBOT GREAT SITE

04/16/2012 11:29 AMPosted by Raieon

Would suggest gemming full Mastery until you're CTC capped, but we shall skip that for now since you have already re-gemmed.

I don't mind regemming, relatively it's cheap to be a good warrior tank. Going pure mastery did get my CTC up to 88.88 (had to redo meta since I don't meet requirements, however I still gained CTC so that's a plus). I'll accept the 400HP loss for now breaking gem requirements. I could probably gain some more CTC by putting the dodge to mastery on a reforge...but I'll try this for now.

Take a look at my spec/glyphs for reference to the standard tank build, except taking Cruelty instead of Safeguard. Choice is yours if you feel that Blood Craze might help in your situation.

Ya, I could fine tune some of the spec choices (Piercing Howl is situational, but handy on heroics with silly dps). My single target prot alternate spec looks like yours except for the cruelty change.

Do keep in mind that you might have been pairing up with ineffective healers.

Well as a frame of reference this one is an easy factor...my wife is the healer and always runs with me. :)

The biggest issue I have is I seem to be getting beat down badly compared to my druid tank of roughly equal gear...and this doesn't make sense to me. Has the game changed so much that at this level of content bears mitigate so much better than warriors while I was gone?

04/16/2012 11:45 AMPosted by Conanthebarb

ASK MR ROBOT GREAT SITE

It's great if you don't want to understand the "why" or "how". http://chardev.org/ is also pretty decent if you just want simple answers.

04/16/2012 08:36 AMPosted by Descending

dodge+parry = reforge your highest stat to mastery...YOUR stat not the GEARS stat

No, reforge the higher stat on the item.

The benefit that you get from keeping dodge and parry equal is far smaller than you think it is. Getting more mastery will outweigh it unless you're looking at a gap of like seven thousand rating, which is impossible to achieve. For a point of comparison: the difference between 1000 dodge and 3000 parry versus 2000 dodge and 2000 parry is less than .5% avoidance.

dodge+hit/exp = reforge hit/exp to mastery
parry+mastery = reforge parry to dodge
parry+hit/exp = reforge hit/exp to mastery

In some of these situations, you're still better off reforging the higher stat. Take a look at Indefatigable Greatcloak, for instance: reforging the parry to mastery will get you a higher CTC than reforging the expertise, which gets you block capped faster and means you can stack more stamina post-block cap. The overall damage mitigation will be slightly lower, but overall damage mitigation doesn't matter in this tier due to the fact that healers have functionally infinite mana.

Just use a tool like chardev.org to see which reforge will offer you more CTC, and go with that one.

Just use a tool like chardev.org to see which reforge will offer you more CTC, and go with that one.

Using a combination of experimentation, patience and lots of gold I've managed to get CTC up to 89.62.

I'll bang away at a few heroics and see how things pan out. Thank you all for the assistance thus far.

04/16/2012 01:00 PMPosted by Pìddles

Just use a tool like chardev.org to see which reforge will offer you more CTC, and go with that one.

Using a combination of experimentation, patience and lots of gold I've managed to get CTC up to 89.62.

I'll bang away at a few heroics and see how things pan out. Thank you all for the assistance thus far.

To be honest, survivability problems in heroics are more likely an issue of cooldown management than gear. When are you using abilities like Shield Wall, Last Stand, and Enraged Regeneration? Are you interrupting/silencing spellcasters, and stunning particularly dangerous mobs with Concussion Blow? Do you pop Shield Block right as the stun from Shockwave is wearing off?

To be honest, survivability problems in heroics are more likely an issue of cooldown management than gear. When are you using abilities like Shield Wall, Last Stand, and Enraged Regeneration?

I keep Shield block up as much as possible when appropriate while weaving in Retaliation/shield wall when it's obvious the healer is having trouble keeping up. I hold Last stand/Enraged Regeneration for those times when I'm down to 30% health or so.

Are you interrupting/silencing spellcasters, and stunning particularly dangerous mobs with Concussion Blow?

This most definitely (if only DPS in my battlegroup would do the same /sigh).

Do you pop Shield Block right as the stun from Shockwave is wearing off?

I've been doing it a couple of seconds afterwards, once I feel a few hits pass through the innate block/dodge/parry.

The whole reason I'm bugged by it...my wife says my druid is much, much easier to heal even though the two characters are in roughly equal gear. I have to wonder if it's something I'm missing versus a disparity in the two classes.

04/16/2012 02:42 PMPosted by Pìddles

To be honest, survivability problems in heroics are more likely an issue of cooldown management than gear. When are you using abilities like Shield Wall, Last Stand, and Enraged Regeneration?

I keep Shield block up as much as possible when appropriate while weaving in Retaliation/shield wall when it's obvious the healer is having trouble keeping up. I hold Last stand/Enraged Regeneration for those times when I'm down to 30% health or so.

Use Shield Wall BEFORE you start taking massive damage. As you learn the pull in an instance, you'll become more and more familiar with which mobs are the most threatening.

For instance, on the trash before Murozond in End Time, I tend to open up by using Heroic Throw on one of the casters while I charge the other (which I mark with a skull). I pop spell reflect, Rend the caster I charged, cleave as the melee guys get into range, thunder clap when the second caster gets in range, and use Shockwave as soon as I reflect a spell. As soon as Shockwave wears off, I use Shield Block and stun the skulled caster with Concussion Blow, and switch to the second caster, interrupting it as soon as it starts to cast. If necessary, I use Last Stand.

On the second pull in that room, I do more or less the same thing, keeping Heroic Leap ready to pounce on any mobs that get lose, and using Shield Wall as soon as my Shockwave stun wears off, since that's when I'll get hit the hardest.

EDIT: Your bear probably seems easier to heal because bears have higher baseline mitigation via Natural Reaction and Perseverance, while Savage Defense procs will provide brief lulls in damage for the healer to top you off. On trash, you instead have abilities like Shockwave, Concussion Blow, Spell Reflect, and Disarm to give healers that little window of time for extra healing.

EDIT 2: And definitely use SB right as Shockwave wears off, not a few seconds afterwards. Once that stun disappears, all of their swing timers will be lined up and you can take a hefty burst of damage in a short window of time, which may surprise your healers quite a bit.

Use Shield Wall BEFORE you start taking massive damage.

Hmm, so what do you do on the next pull while it's on CD? Thus far to smooth out things I'm weaving in retaliation, but sooner or later you're out of CDs and you're back to just shield block taking a pounding on trash when it's down. I've thought it was something I was doing wrong with gearing/enchanting/reforging due to the huge mitigation disparity in the two classes.

EDIT: Your bear probably seems easier to heal because bears have higher baseline mitigation via Natural Reaction and Perseverance, while Savage Defense procs will provide brief lulls in damage for the healer to top you off. On trash, you instead have abilities like Shockwave, Concussion Blow, Spell Reflect, and Disarm to give healers that little window of time for extra healing.

That's an awful lot of GCDs to apply the same effective mitigation...perhaps I'm not doing anything wrong after all. It's beginning to sound more like protection is somewhat broken to me, or druid is OP at this gear level (ala early BC where druid mitigation so far outstripped warrior it was adjusted).

And definitely use SB right as Shockwave wears off, not a few seconds afterwards. Once that stun disappears, all of their swing timers will be lined up and you can take a hefty burst of damage in a short window of time, which may surprise your healers quite a bit.

This seems...odd to me. So you're saying I should waste 10-20% of possible enhanced mitigation time (depending on latency)? What about the other 2/3s of the time when it's down? This seems like you're just pushing the burst damage 10 seconds later to me.

I'm open to options, I'll try applying SB immediately after SW wears off and see if this changes things.

Warrior has always been severely gear dependent, perhaps that's what I'm missing, things are just 'worse' now with the way itemization is going. It's a bit disheartening to think I'm going to need to not miss a single GCD to reach the same mitigation that is passive for another class.

04/16/2012 03:31 PMPosted by Pìddles

Use Shield Wall BEFORE you start taking massive damage.

Hmm, so what do you do on the next pull while it's on CD? Thus far to smooth out things I'm weaving in retaliation, but sooner or later you're out of CDs and you're back to just shield block taking a pounding on trash when it's down. I've thought it was something I was doing wrong with gearing/enchanting/reforging due to the huge mitigation disparity in the two classes.

Shield Block is the corollary to a druid's Barkskin. It's somewhat weaker against physical damage, but it has half the cooldown to make up for it.

Ideally, you stagger your cooldowns across pulls. Perhaps you use Shield Wall for one pull, then if you get low on the next one, you use Last Stand. On the third pull, you use a trinket such as Stay of Execution or Fire of the Deep along with Enraged Regeneration. By the fourth pull, Shield Wall should be back up. Also, you don't necessarily need a CD for each pull. For instance, the trash before Sylvanas is fairly easy.

Proper cooldown management will do wonders for your survivability. I tank heroics in full DPS gear all the time (that's with a 1-hander and a shield, obviously, but the rest is DPS gear). It's very rare for me to run into any issues with damage intake, as long as I properly time my abilities.

EDIT: Your bear probably seems easier to heal because bears have higher baseline mitigation via Natural Reaction and Perseverance, while Savage Defense procs will provide brief lulls in damage for the healer to top you off. On trash, you instead have abilities like Shockwave, Concussion Blow, Spell Reflect, and Disarm to give healers that little window of time for extra healing.

That's an awful lot of GCDs to apply the same effective mitigation...perhaps I'm not doing anything wrong after all. It's beginning to sound more like protection is somewhat broken to me, or druid is OP at this gear level (ala early BC where druid mitigation so far outstripped warrior it was adjusted).

Don't use all of those abilities on a single pull. The point is, you have options that you can rotate through. Druids have weaker overall physical mitigation than a block capped warrior (unless you're talking about unblockable physical attacks such as Impale, which you only see in raids), and they'll take heavier spike damage on bosses with particularly strong or particularly fast melee swings, such as Warlord Zon'ozz or Warmaster Blackhorn.

You're not yet block capped (in large part because your trinkets don't have passive mastery bonuses), which means you're occasionally taking unmitigated hits which will make your damage intake seem spiky. Once you reach 102.4% CTC, every single melee swing will be avoided, miss outright, or be blocked, so that you never take more than 70% damage from any given attack. Bears instead take 82% damage from each swing thanks to Natural Reaction, which is better pre-block cap, but worse post-cap.

Warriors also have substantially stronger AoE damage, which is very useful in 5-man dungeons since you spend most of your time AoEing trash.

And definitely use SB right as Shockwave wears off, not a few seconds afterwards. Once that stun disappears, all of their swing timers will be lined up and you can take a hefty burst of damage in a short window of time, which may surprise your healers quite a bit.

This seems...odd to me. So you're saying I should waste 10-20% of possible enhanced mitigation time (depending on latency)? What about the other 2/3s of the time when it's down? This seems like you're just pushing the burst damage 10 seconds later to me.

I don't understand what you mean by "wasting time". As long as the mobs are attacking you, you're getting benefit out of Shield Block, and you can also use the bonus damage from Heavy Repurcussions to help burst down a single target and therefore reduce the amount of damage you're taking (and perhaps pick up a Victory Rush proc in the bargain).

04/16/2012 03:31 PMPosted by Pìddles

Warrior has always been severely gear dependent, perhaps that's what I'm missing, things are just 'worse' now with the way itemization is going. It's a bit disheartening to think I'm going to need to not miss a single GCD to reach the same mitigation that is passive for another class.

Druids suffer from various issues as well, including the fact that they need to maximize Pulverize uptime for more SD procs, and there's a chance that they won't get any SD procs for extended periods of time which can really screw them over. Additionally, if a druid isn't actively making use of all their GCDs, they inherently get fewer SD procs which has a heavy impact on their survibability.

Basically it's just like it was in BC then. Have a bear tank for you until you reach 102.4 then you're good to go.

04/16/2012 04:06 PMPosted by Pìddles

Basically it's just like it was in BC then. Have a bear tank for you until you reach 102.4 then you're good to go.

Not entirely true. Certain raid bosses have attacks that cannot be blocked, which bears are better for.

Which tank you want varies depending on the encounter. For instance, warriors are great for Blackhorn and Spine, while druids are powerful on fights like Madness, Yor'sajh, and Hagara.