I apparently STILL can’t post links, which is dumb, but the build is to basically pick up Prot talents down to Shield Slam + Focused Rage and talents in the Fury Tree down to Sweeping Strikes + Weapon Mastery.
EDIT - Thanks Bait/Zenal, adding the marks around the link seem to work: https://tbc.wowhead.com/talent-calc/warrior/01-05513105000012-03555111300001035013
It sacrifices Devastate and Vitality, but I look at it like this:
Devastate is considered a “filler” ability (lower in priority to Shield Slam and Revenge) which has diminished usefulness after 5 stacks. There is a bit less single target threat without it, but in my experience, it is not significant.
Vitality with high end gear gives about 500 hp, but if you pick up Commanding Prescence in the Fury tree, it adds 300 hp to Commanding Shout. So there’s only a loss of about 200 hp assuming that you keep up the buff.
What is gained? Improved Demo Shout to reduce melee damage taken, Piercing Howl for CC, Improved Cleave and Sweeping Strikes for AOE and Weapon Mastery to land attacks more reliably.
It won’t suddenly make you a paladin and it’s not perfect, but I’ve run this in Heroics and it’s performed MUCH better for me than conventional Prot. On groups of mobs, I’m often out-dpsing others in the party while being prot, wearing a shield and having tank gear on (sometimes 1k+ dps if I have WF). My standard threat set is about P1 BIS with defense cap, 12k hp, 75% avoidance, 110 hit, 1.1k AP and 20% crit unbuffed in Defensive Stance. What do you guys think?
It was my understanding that enrage was still able to proc even if the crit was avoided due to resilience/defense rating? Have you tested that? I recall that it worked with resilience back in BC at least. Would be a massive threat/dps boost if it works.
You forgot to mention the 10% strength on Vitality as well as losing 4% parry from Arms tree. Thats quite a bit of survivability as well as single target threat from the strength loss. I could see this build working in sunwell gear but not so sure it’d be viable before hand.
your threat comes from shield slam which scales off block value, not strength. He posted this for heroics, it’s fine for heroics. It is not a raid spec.
In my threat set, I’ve got 356 strength. 10% of that is about 35. So in my case, I am only losing about 70 AP and 17 block value by not taking Vitality which is very minor. I know this scales with buffs, but even with kings it will not make too much of a difference. Also, don’t forget, the small block value loss is mitigated by having improved demo shout (which most warriors don’t have).
I agree about the parry (and kind of miss improved TC too). But I feel that for dungeons, the massively improved AOE threat generation outweighs these negatives. If you have what you need for avoidance from gear, the loss might not be as significant as you’d think.
All that being said, this certainly wouldn’t be a build for fresh level 70’s. It’s also not optimal for raids - regular prot is better for that due to the superior single target threat and extra bit of avoidance/mitigation. I’d say that this is for warriors running dungeons who have gear that has them at the defense cap and where they’ve also mixed in other pieces to maximize their threat output (IE - close to hit cap, decent amount of crit/AP) but still struggle with maintaining argo on multiple mobs due to the inherent limitations in the conventional spec.
@Domenlich - That’s a good suggestion! I think that trick only works with resilience gear, but I could be wrong. But even then, it might be useful in niche scenarios. I’ll play with it!
I like this build and approach. In dungeons/heroics, the biggest enemy is your own dps teammates, anything that “controls” them is great.
One question, your Shield Slam’s extra skill threat also transferred with Sweeping Strike to the next opponent, or only the damage (and the threat from such damage itself)?
I don’t know for sure, but I assume its damage is the only part that transfers. It isn’t Shield Slam that’s damaging the other mobs in the combat log, it’s Sweeping Strikes that just happens to do the exact same damage.
Only issue with that is that if you’re wearing alot of tank gear (which is required in heroics), Bloodthirst scales poorly because your AP will be lower. It’s also more expensive to cast.
Shield Slam on the other hand scales better with tank gear due to it being based off block value and it’s cheaper to cast.
One question, your Shield Slam’s extra skill threat also transferred with Sweeping Strike to the next opponent, or only the damage (and the threat from such damage itself)?
To be honest, I’m not sure if the extra threat is transferred. But I can tell you this - When I get a fat crit off a shield slam and it hits the next target, it is pretty much stuck to me like glue.
EDIT - If this gives an idea, I’ve been noticing that when I have 2 targets I’m tanking and let Sweeping Strikes just hit the 2nd one without switching, I usually have ~15k threat on it by the time the first one is dead.
Let us know how it goes! It works best if you can charge in, pop SS and then go to town (as you’ll have more up-front rage and can start pushing right away), but it’s also fine if you need to range pull. In that case, just make sure that you pop Bloodrage and Berserker Rage right before they get to you so that you can afford the ability near the start!
