Hey all, recently returned and having a hard time deciding between focusing on my BDK and Prot War.
For you Prot War’s out there, is there a reason I should choose Prot War over BDK? Just looking for opinions. The reason I’m on the fence really revolves around me loving the DK lore, but sort of meh about the play style, but I love the Prot War playstyle, but I’m meh about the lore.
Just looking for some of your personal opinions to get me off the fence. I’ve been gone since about 2 weeks after SL release and I played a Prot Pally then. Downloading the game as we speak, hopefully it will be ready to play tomorrow.
Thanks
I just came back to the game also. Normally I always tanked and over the years have rotated between Paladin, this toon and my DK. For any serious progression I defaulted to my Paladin. I would break out my Prot Warrior if I felt like things were going smooth or we had things on farm. While I liked my DK, usually, the mobility killed it for me. For me it is hard to look past that.
1 Like
I’m in the same boat you are. However, from a playstyle perspective for tanking, I would definitely suggest prot warrior.
BDK rotation is slow and methodical if you like that. Prot is face paced, lots of yelling, and hitting things in the face. For me, that is more fun. Just my two cents!
1 Like
A prot warrior can be described as,
Mobile, Agile, Hostile playstyle.
Truly the irresistible force.
A Blood DK is an Immovable,never ending object.
Good thing you can’t die, because it’ll take you the rest of your life to get anywhere.
2 Likes
While Blood DKs have amazing sustain, they have zilch for mobility.
Prot warriors get mobility and Spell Reflect, and when played right don’t give their healers a never ending cycle of heart attacks with a yo-yo health bar.
Prot Paladins are basically the in-between of the two, though.
3 Likes
I have never healed, but would imagine the yo-yo health bar would be annoying/stressful?
I don’t typically heal much, but when I do . . .
Yes, I find the bouncing HP obnoxious most of the time. It is what I hate about Blood DK, and lack of mobility (yes I have a DK).
Blood CAN seem invincible if played right. If not played right, they die rather quickly. Same for ANY tank though.
But back to bouncing HP Bars, the less it bounces around, the more PREDICTABLE, therefore easier you are to heal.
2 Likes
We are rock solid if you know your abilities, i like to go into the Maw, up where the world boss is and grab A rare and a handful of the elites and I can take them all without a healer as long as I have the impending victory talent running.
I even got brave and went to the spot where there is like a dozen Valkrie (forget what the game calls them) and pulled them all up on the platform to kill them all in one go.
A healer would be falling asleep healing me if I brought one with me.
1 Like
I rarely see prot warriors in my keys after +12. If I do they’re either stellar or hot garbage, no in between.
I’ve played blood up to +15 and even though I lack some mobility (I have venthyr port, wraith walk, and deaths advance so it’s not as bad as people make it out to be), grip of the dead is an insane talent.
I pop a cd, go into a pack and establish threat. After I have threat I dnd and just move on to the next pack because 90% slow is nuts. Grip, aoe grip, and the single target stun give blood dk tons of tools to control the battlefield. Ranged interupt is also gravy.
Leveling warrior now and I feel like I have way less control over mobs. Same snap threat issue as DK on pull. I do get my mitigation rolling much sooner on warrior, which I love. Aoe stun is amazing. Kyrian spear plus fear is solid aoe control. Intervene/jump/charge/storm bolt offer lots of ways to mitigate physical damage once you have threat. I really wish I had better snares. My Dk is pretty geared, but content on warrior will prob be the same. On dk I can lose my healer and keep myself up on bosses below a +12 solo at 240 Ilvl. At 245 I haven’t had it happen in forever but probably fine on certain weeks at higher keys. No way to do that on warrior. Necrotic week feels terrible on dk though.
1 Like
Is there a specific reason you’re looking to move away from the pally? They’re really strong atm so just curious if you didn’t like that playstyle or something
I have mained a pally since MoP on on level or another. Not just in WoW but in other MMO’s. I’m just looking to change it up. Oddly enough, I rolled a pally for kicks and immediately felt at home, and he’s only level 16. I’m kind of determined to change it up though.
Just FYI, currently learning to tank and I’m at like 230 ilvl. I feel immortal in physical heavy dungeons but HoA and SoA with those nasty bleeds absolutely truck me, and magic hurts really bad if reflect isn’t up. I love it, though. Torn between warrior and my prot pally currently. Divine toll feels so damn nice but the lack of mobility/having to stay in consecration hurts.
EDIT: I don’t know if I’m just really bad at damaging with pally/monk/DK or what, but my damage as protection warrior is WAY above any other tank I’ve tried. Feels really nice dropping a Ravager, Spear of Bastion, Avatar and just revenge spamming my heart out.
1 Like
Yeah, being weak in certain scenario’s bugs me in other mmo’s. I’d rather be a mediocre all arounder than a tank that completely excels in certain situations and is horrible in others. Maybe I can learn to work around it.
1 Like
Hit 200 Ilvl last night and did my first +2 as prot warrior. Lost everyone but a ret pld on 3rd boss in spires and we were able to finish the boss from 60%-dead. I’m vulpera though, so racials helped a ton. I also have a 184 blood scale trinket.
End of the run I averaged 1.2k hps and 2.6k dps. Being on 3rd boss for so long definitely impacted my dps negatively, as it was just me and the pld for well over 3 minutes on him. We still timed it though.
Based on Ilvl amd how that first +2 went, I see no issue with getting over 10-12s with minimal effort on warrior assuming I get the gear. I still have domination gear, legendary, conduit upgrades, a better soul bind, consumables, enchants, and gems to help get me there. My conduits are all 200 right now. Renown is getting up in the 70s so almost capped but I don’t have my strongest soul bind yet.
Feels just as viable as dk to me, and damage feels a little better now with gear. You can rotate kyrian spear or ravages for aoe threat on pull which dk doesn’t have access to.
1 Like
Update after 1st week, 4 +2s under my belt and plenty more to do this week. Some thoughts and stats to follow. 205 Ilvl no leggo, no enchants, no gems, no consumables, no dom sockets, 2nd best soul bind, most conduits 200 still.
Easily over 1-1.5k hps per dungeon. Easy 2.5k+ dps for each.
I’m pulling 2 packs at a time for most pulls and feel very durable during the initial pull. Racial helps, shield block is great. Revenge and ravager/spear means no threat issues.
I’ve had pug dps break 4-8K on trash pulls overall and I can keep threat. Never could dream of that on my DK until much better Ilvl and a 252 2h.
Solo tanked lfr Sylvanas last night with 3 stacks when I joined. First time tanking her. Felt more fine, but group was definitely helping me out. Got her to 52% first pull then downed with 4 stacks.
1 Like
Next update y’all, character is freakingcute - magtheridon btw.
Reprisal leggo. No gems, no enchants, no consumables yet. 215/216 ilvl. I was lucky enough to get updated blood scale out of dos so that’s where all my vp are going rn. Did finally get mikakanos.
Did a +2 DoS with no issue holding threat against a 247 ilvl rogue. Aoe threat tools are just so good for warrior. My overall hps was almost 2k and top two were indomitable and ignore pain. Nose for trouble gave me a ton of mitigation too. Ended the run at 3.5k dps.
Some pulls are better on dk, like the artificer corridor with the moths, stags, and birds. Dnd slow is just nuts there and I did the same urn pull on warrior and it felt way different after CDs fell off.
Most of my haling received from the healer was hots, which will change as we progress into higher keys.
After wife is geared up to 220 I’ll probably make a dash for +10s. Just trying to get a good gear base I can level up right now.
Gearing from hitting level 60 to current gear level took roughly a week with ~2-4 hours a day on average. Sunday was a big get renown stuff done day for us. I was also able to share soul ash from my main but that prob only saved me a few hours. We’ve focused on renown (world quest rewards bump, crafted gear, korthia, and dungeons to get the Ilvl up). After 220 ilvl and a few dim sockets I’ll switch to strictly sanctum and dungeons, after 230 I’ll go just dungeons and grind up my IO and upgrade to 246. Expecting about 1 month or 9.2 drop to do it.
I did craft leggo for legs because it was a big Ilvl upgrade for me. Ideally this is going to be feet next patch.
I just started tanking again, I need a 1H bad. I’m using the broken end of an old mop. At least my shield is thick…
Covenant campaign gives you an LFR quality wep or OH at the end. To get you started.
Look up stygia guides for the maw (not korthia). Quick farming routes to run daily and you can get a wep in < a week in korthia off the deaths advance quartermaster. You can buy a 200 Ilvl korthia wep with 1500 stygia. It’s BoA too, so you can buy it on a main and send to Alts. Potentially no farming needed. Those are upgradable with research too.
Pvp wep is also something you can target but I’d stick to epic bgs where you can help with objectives and not just get farmed if you go that route.
Higher renown and Ilvl can land you solid world quest rewards. I got my 213 wep from a rare. Mission table follows same logic.
Korthia mobs can drop all sorts of stuff and the daily quests can sometimes reward you with weps.
If Ilvl is enough, jump in lfr and target wings with wep drops.
Thanks 
I just got the base lvl honor weapon, but I might be able to afford the stygian one.
Yeah Sylvanas is a weird fight in that it can be solo tanked simply because she doesn’t follow you (well mostly) when she does the tank mechanic. And even in phase 1 she remains mostly in the same spot while you are running back in. Provided you and your healers can manage the tank dot it is fine. Groups are solo tanking her on heroic now. Since they can do phase 3 before the purple puddles become a problem for that heroic / mythic only mechanic.