Comments on: How I’m playing Protection in 4.0

By: Elele

Elele — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 15:29:55 +0000

You never really know you can swim until you jump off the ferry an hour from port. This is the method by which I learned to tank, and it’s served me well!

For reference, you’ve not seen Shield Slam numbers until you’ve gone back to Ulduar. Festergut and Hellscream’s War Song be damned, Steelbreaker (hardmode only) is the guy to go and see. But even in heroics, I’ll admit, the numbers are more than a little satisfying in comparsion to before the patch.

The numbers we’re seeing in raids, even putting aside enjoyable debuffs like Gaseous Bloat or Overwhelming Power, say to me that Vengeance is probably going to get nerfed, and not lightly, either.

By: Nikodhemus

Nikodhemus — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 17:58:09 +0000

I tanked post-patch for the first time last night in Dire Maul, and it was fun tho there are several things I noticed…

Rage generation was an absolute breeze. Charge in for initial rage, then it just shot up… I couldn’t knock my rage down to 50% for all I was worth! Even with a retarded DK who couldn’t keep his finger off of the Death Grip button, I had MUCH rage to spend.

Threat seemed tougher to maintain, that could have been the group I was with, but I was losing adds left and right. Then I died at one point, and the idiot DK just kept charging into more mobs while the rest of the group tried to res me… ended up having to run; ultimately this was probably due to a poor group plus me being unfamiliar with the new mechanics

Builds: With 31 point trees, there are only like 2 or 3 talents that you don’t use, with 5 points left over for another tree, meaning there are a lot less possibilities to these builds. Come Cata there will be another few points to spend, but it seems Blizzard has idiotproofed the talent trees. I’m ok with that, i imagine those more hardcore than me will not be…

Defensively, I was AWESOME. Shield Slam for big damage, Revenge was nearly always procced, Victory Rush with the big healing, i felt really beastly tearing through the plant monsters and demons!

By: Everblue

Everblue — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 16:10:42 +0000

It depends how hard the dungeons are. The heroics look pretty brutal, so cross server PUGs for the “daily heroic” might be something to avoid. Normal levelling dungeons might not be too bad though.

By: Rurjaos

Rurjaos — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 15:17:04 +0000

As long as the group sticks to my marks, I’ll take care for all of them, if they don’t, I’ll reduce it to two chars: my own and the healer. I’ll see, how far this behavior will bring me/us.
When pugging now while leveling, many people I meet, think, they don’t need a tank at all, just to complete group composition.
At the moment I’m very fast in deciding, that fighting my own group isn’t fun for me and leaving, I should remember [link=http://spinksville.wordpress.com/2010/10/11/it-came-from-the-pug-in-which-i-get-kicked/]this[/link] more often.

By: Stabs

Stabs — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 14:04:33 +0000

“And in Cataclysm when mobs start hitting harder I’ll get back into marking and requesting CC.”

I will be interested to see if tanks can make this stick in pugs. I’m guessing you’re planning mainly to tank in guild groups. If it becomes a requirement however there’s likely to be a period when cross-server pugs are utter hell to tank for.

By: The week after | Tank like a girl

The week after | Tank like a girl — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 13:01:58 +0000

[...] insights into the current playstyle of prot warriors, also check out Spinks’ review of how she is playing in protection in 4.0.1 or Baenhoof’s overview of not knowing if she wants [...]

By: Rurjaos

Rurjaos — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 12:20:41 +0000

Costs seem to depend on the size(?) of the change.
Paid up to 32G for a change, but normal price is around 10G. Maybe it increases when you reforge, reset and reforge again, did that when I had to pay the bigger amount.

By: Rurjaos

Rurjaos — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 12:18:20 +0000

For the endgame as presented now, blood and thunder might not be that strong, but for leveling, it is great:
I’ve started a new warrior tank on a new realm, doing rnd dungeon most of the time. Blood and thunder is MY portable warrior consecration now: Rend one target, thunderclap and infect others, move into next group, taunt more, clap, shieldbllock and 5 to 10 mobs stick to my shield, waiting to be punished. One rended mob within range seems to be enough to infect all others. Great fun atm. Until now (lvl40) only few dd where able to top me on the meters, top dps yesterday in uldaman: ~520.
Selfheal on victory rush is great and helps much in forcing the healer to ask me to lay off some equipment because he’s bored.

By: Moth Twiceborn

Moth Twiceborn — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 10:26:56 +0000

you aren’t really mutilating your gear with reforging because you can reset it and try again – only drawback is that it costs money, but not too much; about 10g a piece.

By: Killed in a Smiling Accident. » Blog Archive » I am a man of many talents. But I’m only allowed to use these ones.

Tue, 19 Oct 2010 09:18:17 +0000

[...] would say that it’s a fun time at the moment to experiment with builds, Spinks has posted her protection warrior build of the moment, and although it differs from other builds that I’ve read about (and those [...]