Fury/Prot (w shield) vs Deep Prot? Which is better?

Assuming you are 60 and in all your pre-raid bis, which is the better spec?

Arms / Prot or Prot actually was better. Fury is kind of about doing more damage while not caring about taking more damage.

No. It’s about more threat, since you’ll be dealing more damage through Flurry and Enrage, which is more threat. Additional rage is further funneled into more threat-oriented abilities, as well as having more attacks on the special hit table.

Deep Protection offers utility, rather than survival, and it’s wholly unnecessary beyond making, maybe, your dungeon life a little better; however, chances are threat is an infinitely bigger issue in dungeons.

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You’re generating threat at 60 more by things like Revenge and not really doing damage. Threat isn’t an issue at all with a 31/5/15 build that’s why it was extremely common.

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Deep Prot lowers your voice one octave.

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Threat absolutely is an issue if you have competent DPS and you are aiming to be efficient. Never having to call a slow/stop dps, or having to wait more than a few seconds before the DPS can unload lets you do some pretty impressive things in raid.

It will become more prominent in AQ40/Naxx as the DPS gears out, the limited threat generation of deep prot means the DPS has to hold back, which artificially elongates a fight, which is more stressful on the raid, than a tank taking a touch more damage.

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You are not generating threat by doing damage especially since being in Defensive stance lowers your damage. You’re also taking a lot more than a “touch” of damage. There’s a reason no one tanked with a lot of points in Fury. Go ahead and try it but unless things have changed Arms or Prot/Arms is better. Warrior theorycrafting was very deep.

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Fury/Prot is the endgame meta from private servers. It’s been tested quite a lot :slight_smile:

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Which are completely different from the legal, live game.

Sure.

For one, many believe the private servers were harder.

Skarm, one of the best tanks in the world, has a fury prot build in his deep dive :slight_smile:

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Yes… you are. Damage directly generates threat. How do you think DPS generates threat? So you are generating prot threat, and DPS threat at the same time. Fury Prot generates a ton more threat. You are spamming Heroic Strikes for a rage dump, Heroic Strike generates elevated threat, Heroic Strike deals more damage if you a Fury Prot.

I tanked in Vanilla, and on Nostalrius. It requires more skill to do well, but it is far better than deep prot if you aim is to keep a mob stuck to you against a fully geared tier 2.5 rogue or fury warrior.

Fury prot is already better in classic, and being used. We’re doing it in MC/Ony in my guild. The threat generation is miles better than deep prot.

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Love this! May I see a link to the talent choices?

Search youtube for " Why isn’t the tank wearing a shield? Fury/prot build explained" It’s made by one of the most prevalent tanks in the business. The build mimics what is being used on Classic (Though we are still using shields with it [For Now]), there might be a better video on Skarm’s channel, but pretty sure he details the spec in here.

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People can search “deep dive protection warrior” for another Skarm’s also on youtube :slight_smile: . He goes through the deep prot/arms build, then he also goes through the Fury/prot build with the talent calc

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I would like to say that competent dps hllds back, not necessarily high dps. A random spamming aoe can do high dps, pull threat, then not be competent.

They all work well in their own ways.

The tank doesn’t wear a shield? Seems like a recipe for disaster. I could see how the spec would work with a 1h and shield, and just do more damage with the 1h…going to have to check this out.

Standardly, the tank is going to alternate between shield and no shield. It requires you to know the encounter, and have solid judgement. When done well, you a threat bursting monster, and you lose little to no meaningful mitigation.

You can certainly do it without ever taking off a shield, and you will have superb threat generation, weapon swapping is just to be ultra min/max. It’s kind of like totem twisting for shamans. You don’t really need to do it to succeed, but twisting is better than not twisting.

link it then :slight_smile:

edit: are you talking about https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faV-uY7ZYrE?

That’s the video but you’re in the wrong spot. His fury/prot build begins about 45 mins in :slight_smile: