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Patch 4.3 Protection Warrior Guide – Stats, talent spec, glyphs, reforging and gems, priorities and tanking strategies

by on June 30, 2011

Protection Warriors – the first, the greatest tanks. If you’ve got a shield, you’ve got a sword, and you’re about to persuade something taller than a small office block that it wants to try to pound your face in, we salute you. So, welcome to Patch 4.3, where you’re going to be waving a shield around and shouting at things with lots of apostrophes in their na’mes. Erm, I mean, names. So, here’s a quick-start guide to protection warrior tanking in Patch 4.3, including talent specs, glyphs, gems, reforging and stats, and tanking mechanics and rotations. Now you’ll be able to get to the insulting gods, greater elementals, and stray Deathwing body parts bit of your job faster!

Updated 11th May 2012

Protection Warrior changes in Patch 4.3

This one’s quick – there aren’t any, except for the global Melee DPS buff, which will also affect you.

The 2-piece Tier 13 set bonus, which makes Revenge also give you a damage shield, doesn’t appear to do a lot of mitigation – however, if you want to squeeze out every last ounce of mitigation, you could use Revenge as top priority once you have it, after you have established solid threat. It’s not going to be a game-changer either way.

The 4-piece T13 set bonus is fantastic, and changes your cooldowns – if you have it, remember, you have TWO raid-affecting damage reduction cooldowns.

Prot tanking “rotation”

No, of course we don’t have an actual “rotation” – instead, we have a couple of different priority lists. Use the highest ability on your priority list that is currently available.

Single-target tanking

  • Top Priority Use Shield Block if it’s off cooldown. Use Shield Slam if it’s available.
  • Second Priority Use Revenge if it’s available. Use Rend if it’s not currently on the target.
  • Third Priority Use Devastate. Use Heroic Strike if your Rage is over 60.

Multi-target tanking

  • Top Priority Use Rend if it’s not currently on your target.
  • Second Priority Use Thunderclap if it’s available, and Shockwave if it’s not, but Shockwave is available.
  • Third Priority Use Revenge if it’s available, Inner Rage if it’s available and Cleave if your Rage is above 60.

Inner Rage is technically only useful if you have enough Rage for the additional Cleaves it generates, but with a 30 sec CD and a 15 sec duration, it’s basically worth spamming it whenever it’s up if you have nothing more important to do.

Buffs: Use Commanding Shout, make sure you’re in Defensive Stance.

The Pull: Use Commanding Shout, then Charge, and either Shield Block followed by Shield Slam on single-target or Rend followed by Thunderclap on multi-target. On a boss, use Heroic Throw before Charge to gain more threat.

Cooldowns: You’ve got 4 cooldowns: Shield Wall, Last Stand, Enraged Regeneration and Rallying Cry. Last Stand and Rallying Cry share a cooldown – do remember you can use Rallying Cry to save anyone, not just yourself! Save them for tight spots. Enraged Regeneration works well with Last Stand – you’ll get more health back if using it under Last Stand.

Mobility: Protection Warriors are the most mobile tanks. Remember you have Heroic Leap, Charge AND Intervene – in particular, using Intervene can be a make-or-break for the party. Remember you can also use these to get away from damage if needed for a few seconds.

Interrupts: If an ability can be reflected, use Spell Reflect rather than an interrupt. Remember that a lot of your abilities can be used as interrupts – not just Pummel, but also Shockwave, Concussive Blow, Charge, and Heroic Throw.

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Protection Warrior Talent Spec

Protection warriors have a lot of optional talent points resulting in significantly different builds for different roles.

This is a good basic Protection talent spec for 4.3 dungeons and AOE tanking.

This is a good basic Protection talent spec for 4.3 single-target tanking. Note that the AOE rotation skips Rend with this talent tree, because you don’t have the Blood and Thunder talent.

Stats, reforging and gemming for Protection

Mastery is probably our most important stat – whilst Stamina is also nice, we’re no longer in WoTLK, and high HP totals aren’t everything. If you are starting out tanking at 85, or if you are getting one-shot by bosses, prioritise Stamina – otherwise, Mastery is best.

After Mastery, Dodge and Parry should be roughly equal and are the second most important stats.

If you’re having threat problems, which is unlikely, Expertise and then Hit to cap (aim for 8% hit and 26 Expertise) are our best threat stats.

Reforging: Reforge everything you possibly can to Mastery, threat stats first. After that, reforge to Parry or Dodge unless you are having threat problems. Reforge Haste and Crit first, then Hit and Expertise, then Parry and Dodge to Mastery only.
Gems: Everything With Mastery!. If a single non-Yellow socket can give you +20 to Mastery, Dodge or Parry, use a combination gem – Puissant Dream Emerald for Blue sockets, and Fine Ember Topaz for Red sockets. Otherwise, use Fractured Amberjewel.
Meta Gem: Austere Shadowspirit Diamond. Needs Yellow gems, so no problem there.
If you’re getting one-shot: If bosses are killing you before healers get a chance to react, try re-gemming some of your sockets – preferably blue sockets – to Stamina until you have a high enough health pool to take a few hits.
Combat Table Coverage: If the total of your parry, block and dodge are above 102.4%, start reforging out of Mastery and into Parry and Dodge (aiming to keep Parry 1% higher than Dodge). Commenter “Ysosrs”, below, has some excellent further advice on this.

Protection Warrior Enchants

You should almost always use a profession enhancement item if it provides appropriate stats instead of a general enchant – Inscription of the Earth Prince on shoulders from Inscription, for example.

Head Arcanum of the Earthen Ring
Shoulders   Greater Inscription of Unbreakable Quartz
Back Enchant Cloak – Protection
Chest Enchant Chest – Greater Stamina – not Peerless Stats!
Wrist Enchant Bracer – Superior Dodge
Hands Enchant Gloves – Greater Mastery
Belt Ebonsteel Belt Buckle
Legs Drakehide Leg Armor
Feet Enchant Boots – Lavawalker (or Earthen Vitality if your Stamina is very low)
Weapon Enchant Weapon – Windwalk
Shield Enchant Shield – Mastery

Prot Warrior Glyphs

Prime: Shield Slam, Revenge, Devastate
Major: Shockwave, Thunder Clap and Cleave are good – choose other Major glyphs if they look more useful for your playing style, though. Don’t use Victory Rush or Intervene.
Minor: Demoralising Shout, Intimidating Shout, and one other of your choice.

Links

Guides are a bit thin on the ground for Prot Warriors.

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Other Patch 4.3 Quick Start Class Guides

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{ 37 comments… read them below or add one }

Terr-or Form August 4, 2011 at 2:43 pm

For the minor glyphs, I would suggest Glyph of Bloody Healing over Glyph of Battle Shout – my healers love me in those situations where I can pop enraged regeneration, shield wall, last stand use my engineering trinket on my belt to absorb damage in those last ditch efforts.

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sfdgweg August 10, 2011 at 3:40 am

Bloody healing glyph? As prot? you dont have BT as prot

nice guide but you forgot enraged regen in the Cooldowns section

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Hugh Hancock August 10, 2011 at 10:44 pm

I shall consult with the resident prot warrior expert (I grok prot pallies more than prot warriors, Rebecca’s the other way around) and get back to you.

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Alyred August 11, 2011 at 6:14 am

Any list of enchants?

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Johnnie Ingram August 11, 2011 at 10:37 am

@Alyred – The EJ guide is the best place to check for enchantment recommendations. At the time of writing, they’re recommending:

[Arcanum of the Earthen Ring]
[Greater Inscription of Unbreakable Quartz]
[Charscale Leg Armor]
[Ebonsteel Belt Buckle]
[Enchant Weapon - Windwalk]
[Enchant Boots - Lavawalker]
[Enchant Boots - Earthen Vitality]
[Enchant Chest - Greater Stamina]
[Enchant Gloves - Greater Mastery]
[Enchant Gloves - Greater Expertise]
[Enchant Bracer - Greater Expertise]
[Enchant Bracer - Precision]
[Enchant Bracer - Dodge]
[Enchant Cloak - Protection]
[Enchant Shield - Blocking]

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Rebecca August 13, 2011 at 12:07 pm

Originally Posted By Terr-or FormFor the minor glyphs, I would suggest Glyph of Bloody Healing over Glyph of Battle Shout – my healers love me in those situations where I can pop enraged regeneration, shield wall, last stand use my engineering trinket on my belt to absorb damage in those last ditch efforts.

I’m afraid sfdgweg is correct; Glyph of Bloody Healing is of no use to a prot warrior. It only affects the healing you receive from Blood Thirst, which is an ability only available to a fury warrior deep in their talent tree. No prot warrior’s going to have that unless you’re a fury warrior in tank gear. It would be nice if prot warriors had a corresponding glyph which boosted enraged regen!

sfdgweg – you’re right, we did forget enraged regeneration. I’ll prod Hugh.

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Arazu November 29, 2011 at 4:17 pm

2T13 doesn’t really change the way you play; you still Revenge things as often as possible. 4T13 on the other hand actually does, being the strongest 4-piece we’ve ever had and competitive with blood DKs’ 4T13 for the strongest 4-piece -anyone- has ever had.

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Hugh Hancock November 29, 2011 at 4:38 pm

@Arazu – My read of the priorities is that 2T13 changes them in that Revenge becomes more useful than Shield Slam under most circumstances (where you’re not aiming to max out DPS/Threat) and therefore their priorities reverse. I could be wrong about that, though?

4T13 doesn’t really change the *priorities*, but I agree, it’s superb, and very useful. I’ll add a note about it to the cooldowns section.

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Arazu November 29, 2011 at 4:54 pm

If you wanted to min/max your survivability to the complete extreme I guess you could, but a 1200-4500 bubble is really tiny and changing your priorities over it isn’t necessary. I raid 10mans and some bosses swing at me for 70-80k.

If you’re tanking more than one mob, you’re already prioritizing Rev above SS anyway for the cleave. If you’re only tanking one thing, Rev is still used just about on CD whether it’s priority number one or two.

Also, glyph Shockwave over Resonating Power (this is a glyph for low level warriors).

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Hugh Hancock November 29, 2011 at 5:26 pm

@Arazu – Interesting discussion! I agree, it’s probably moot either way – my feeling is that the tiny shield is slightly more useful (largely for mana saving reasons for healers in long fights) than the tiny DPS boost of prioritising Shield Slam, but I can see both sides of that!

Shockwave vs Resonating Power – yeah, I can see your point on that. Changing it!

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Rodericus December 13, 2011 at 2:33 pm

Hi guys.

A kind of noob question but, i find myself using Devastate a lot and thought that the glyph that applies the sunder armor debuff to an aditional mob would be very usefull in 5 man…does it work with devastate too? Btw, i am only lvl 40 still, but trying to follow these tips to be more used to them at 85 :)

Thanks

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Hugh Hancock December 13, 2011 at 3:55 pm

@Rodericus – It does indeed work with Devastate – however, there are a number of problems with the Glyph of Sunder Armor that makes it less than useful. Notably, its range is extremely unreliable, it tends to apply its stacks in a rather curious way (rather than splitting them evenly), and in general, it simply doesn’t have the bang for the buck that the Cleave glyph in particular offers in AoE tanking.

It’s not an awful choice, but the general consensus is that there are better Major Glyphs out there.

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Rodericus December 13, 2011 at 3:57 pm

@Hugh Hancock

Didn’t know those issues. Thanks very much for your answer. I’ll probably change to cleave asap then.

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Arazu December 17, 2011 at 7:07 pm

So I have a full set of t13 now, and I can report that as expected the 2pc is Not Good. It does around 0.5-3% of my total healing taken, which is better than the shield slam damage bonus we usually get, but don’t change your rotation over it.

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bonna (goldrinn) December 18, 2011 at 10:39 am

muito obrigado amigo
from brazil

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Hugh Hancock December 19, 2011 at 11:29 am

@Arazu – Thanks for reporting back! I’ll annotate my recommendation to say that it provides *marginally* more survivability.

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Clem December 19, 2011 at 6:22 pm

I dont think dodge and parry should be eual. Parry procs hold teh line which is really helpful. thus i reforge dodge to parry

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Hugh Hancock December 19, 2011 at 6:38 pm

@Clem – That’s a reasonable theory – however, people with Serious Math Skills have tested fairly thoroughly and determined that you DON’T want to stack Parry alone.

Why? Well, the short version is as follows: both Parry and Dodge suffer Diminishing Returns. That is to say that as they get higher, adding more of the same stat gives you less benefit.

So, increasing Parry from 1% to 2% is awesome. Increasing it from 78% to 79% is not nearly as good, despite the fact it’s the same 1% jump.

People with time, calculators and math skills have simulated warrior tanks with all concievable Dodge and Parry ratings, and have concluded that under most circumstances, even though Hold The Line makes Parry *slightly* better for Warrior tanks than Dodge, that improvement is nullified by the Diminishing Returns effect. In other words, if you have a choice of increasing Dodge or Parry from 15% to 16%, say, you’d be better to increase Parry, but if you have the choice of increasing Parry from 19% to 20% or Dodge from 10% to 11%, increasing Dodge is the better choice.

Mastery, meanwhile, doesn’t suffer DR at all. It also has some significant advantages in terms of how it changes your incoming damage, meaning you’re better to gem and reforge for Mastery under (almost) all circumstances.

If you want to look at some serious graphs on this subject, I recommend http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2228173018

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Arazu December 23, 2011 at 6:40 am

Increasing parry from 78 to 79% is actually mathematically way, way better than 1 to 2%, which is why starting in wrath it takes a lot more rating in order to do so.

The chart that was made in early cata suggests 1:1.2 dodge:parry is ideal, but the ideal ratio gets closer to 1:1 as you get more total avoidance.

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Hugh Hancock December 23, 2011 at 10:20 am

@Arazu – Ahem. Yeah. That. Assume when I say Dodge % above, I’m actually talking about Dodge Rating.

Let’s try that again and hope I don’t get it wrong this time: whilst Dodge and Parry get better as they go up (because the remaining available hit table becomes smaller, and thus each percentage point pushes a larger percentage of potential damage off the table – 1% is a much smaller fraction of a 99% hit chance (Dodge 1%) than a 22% hit chance (Dodge 78%) – I believe I’m right on that), Dodge and Parry RATING get much worse, because you require a lot more Dodge rating to get that additional percentage – see the WoWWiki entry on Dodge diminishing returns.

(Note to self: don’t write lengthy theorycrafting posts whilst simultaneously working on another project AND packing for Christmas.)

Thanks for picking me up on that.

Interesting stuff about the chart – are you referring to the post I link above, or something else?

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Arazu December 28, 2011 at 12:05 pm

The chart was kind of mysterious and came out of nowhere in an era where all the tank theorycrafting was for paladins and warriors had nothing. It could’ve been made by that guy I’m not sure, but I’m not digging through his gigantic wall of garbage to try and find out.

One last important thing that should be noted is that you only consider your ratio raid buffed. Don’t use unbuffed numbers, definitely don’t use armory profile numbers. At the very least use Battle Shout before comparing your dodge/parry split. Battle Shout alone is 150 parry rating.

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ingen2 December 30, 2011 at 6:34 pm

don’t you mean Enchant bracer – Superior dodge?
it is the same enchant, but 45 more dodge rating.

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Hugh Hancock January 3, 2012 at 11:04 am

@ingen2 – I do indeed. I see the Typo Fairy visited us this Christmas…

Thanks.

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muewsik February 2, 2012 at 3:34 am

Talent Comment, feedback welcome… ‘Last Stand’ why the hell does it make everyone’s ‘core’ talent list? Personally, I view Last Stand as a wonderful optional talent if as a tank you find yourself in groups where you’re picking up the slack. The one point placed there can afford a tank this alternative build which I believe is more functional. (http://wowtal.com/#k=Iea8NpMr.bqj.warrior.)
Look at it this way… how often will you really click on Last Stand? Hopefully Never right? That point could be spent in a way that could be beneficial on a regular basis. Think about it.

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Incubizzle March 4, 2012 at 10:23 pm

@ muewsik: Last Stand is only one talent point and is more than justifiable. The best way you could argue against it is saying that once you have Rallying Cry you could always use it in Last Stand’s place. However, Last Stand is 10% more health than Rallying Cry and 20 second duration versus 10 second duration. Last Stand can be used in so many different scenarios it’s unreal and should never be skipped for other talents such as Gag Order or any other silly talent. Most but not all times you’ll end up using Last Stand is when something goes wrong, such as your designated healer dies and is awaiting a battle res, the group is wiping and the boss is at extremely low health, you taunted a heavy hitting boss and didn’t vocalize the taunt, etc. All of these are avoidable but in reality things do go wrong and I can’t count the amount of times I’ve saved myself with Last Stand and it resulted in a kill, some times a progression kill.

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muewsik March 8, 2012 at 4:14 pm

@Incubizzle – Thanks for the point of view, and I actually broke down and did it. I have another warrior tank in guild that didn’t and from time to time I hear about it, like, ‘did you use last stand’ and my answer is always no. Except a night or two ago when a scenario like you spoke of in an LFR of all places, a linkdead warlock runs and pulls an additional 2 groups of multi-colored slime trash and purples arent dying fast enough, you know the drill… anyhow half the raid is wiped I pop last stand and other available cooldown to start some regen and we finish the pull with 3 standing. Hunter, Shaman, Warrior Tank. So, the moral of the story is ‘it works when you need it’.

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adamozz March 5, 2012 at 7:18 am

“The Pull: Use Commanding Shout, then Charge, and either Shield Block followed by Shield Slam on single-target or Rend followed by Thunderclap on multi-target. On a boss, use Heroic Throw before Charge to gain more threat.”

“Use Commanding Shout, then Charge” – can’t use charge in defensive stance
“On a boss, use Heroic Throw before Charge to gain more threat” – as above and can’t use charge in combat also

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adamozz March 5, 2012 at 7:27 am

Don’t even read my last post. :D I’m a low lvl warrior and i just found Warbringer talnet.

Cheers

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Danne April 3, 2012 at 5:14 pm

Thanks alot for this guide, helped me out alot. I am doing more dps(even if thats not the main thing) too. It is much more fun to tank when you know the function of the skills, still struggling with casters though, what spell is most useful to use against casters? For example if our party is in the middle and we got two groups of mobs to right and left, each group got two casters and the rest is meeles, then i pull the melee mobs to ONE of the casters, I am trying to taunt the other caster but I keep loosing aggro.

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Ysosrs May 11, 2012 at 6:01 am

This guide is decent but you are wrong when it comes to part of your stat priority.

If this hasnt been already mentioned Mastery is your best UNTIL you reach over 55% block (~23 mastery give or take) and if you are reforged correctly you Parry should be roughly ~1% higher than your Dodge give or take a few. Reason being is that our talent HOLD THE LINE gives us an additional benefit from parrying an attack. While dodge is also a good stat for pure avoidance it doesnt give the same benefit. From what Ive read the only time your parry and dodge become about equal is if your mastery is absurdly high (going by the graph posted in the EJ forums). That being said, if your mastery is that high then you’re doing something wrong anyway. Because with getting closer to the CTC (combat table coverage) which is 102.46% you should be reforging OUT of mastery and into your other stats like parry/dodge or threat stats (if you have issues).

When you count for CTC you want to also add shield block into it because if you play your tank correctly you will have it up every time its off CD, I have my Shield Block and Shield Slam marco’d together so it is always up as much as possible.

Also depending on your gear you can alter your spec to http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/scarlet-crusade/Ysosrs/talent/primary
which is the spec that I use. Also depending on how your raid team is and how focused you are at squeezing extra DPS out you can switch some DPS gear (minor pieces) in for tank gear. Which is always fun :P I pull over 25k on H Ultrax with some DPS gear. And I hold top 100 ranked parses on World Of Logs.

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Hugh Hancock May 11, 2012 at 9:46 am

Interesting stuff – thanks very much! You’re absolutely right about CTC coverage, of course – I’ll correct that.

Can you explain a bit more about why you’d recommend reforging out of Mastery at 55% block even if you’re not at CTC coverage? I’m not sure I followed that.

Thanks again for the suggestions!

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Ysosrs May 11, 2012 at 2:43 pm

Yea sorry about that I wasnt as clear as I thought I was late last night :P

Basically When you reach around ~55% block or higher and you have your parry and dodge reforged correctly you should be effectively over 90% or more in the CTC. And that isnt counting shield block. So when you pop Shield Block that additional block chance puts you over the CTC while it is up and you cannot be hit. Which doesnt mean you cannot take damage.

The CTC is pretty much made up like this:

Miss….5%
Dodge….10%
Parry….10%
Block….40%
Hit….35%

Which makes 100%, but when you figure in Bosses who are always 3 lvls higher than you, you need to take into account that for each level above you warriors and pally tanks lose 0.8% avoidance x 3 = 2.4%. Which is why the CTC is 102.4% (not sure why I added a .06% extra :P ). Dodge and parry are over block because you would rather dodge or parry an attack rather than only block part of it. But it is virtually impossible to reach unhittable with dodge and parry and only shield tanks will be able to reach this through our block. Additionally with warriors our mastery gives us Crit Block which will block an additional 30% of the incoming damage (1% extra if you have the meta I think…im not looking at my char atm) and gives us 60% damage reduction on a successful crit block. Mastery only adds to our chance to crit block and for each point we gain 1.5% extra chance. Luckily when we add our shield block to the avoidance we already have and it goes over 100% it automatically gets added to our crit block chance (says right in the tool tip for shield block). **blizzard says 100% because they dont want to give us the CTC cap out right, much like many other things in theorycrafting**

Here is a macro you can use to find your total avoidance.

/run b=GetBlockChance() d=GetDodgeChance() p=GetParryChance() m=5 if UnitRace(“player”)==”Night Elf” then m=m+2 end a=m+d+p+b DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage(a..”% Avoidance”)

Just change the UnitRace(“player”)==”……” to whatever race you are playing as.
Alternatively there is an addon called Defstats or something that adds it to your character sheet.

Back to the reason why after getting over ~55% block/23-25 mastery you should reforge out of it for other stats lol sorry got a little off track. Essentially you want to do this because reducing you block which is only a partial reduction of incoming damage to either dodge or parry (which ever you are lowest on) you can effectively reduce the amount of damage you take. As I said before Dodging and Parrying an attack is full avoidance of an attack and a block is only partial (30%, 60% if it is a crit block). For example my avoidance stats are 17.29% dodge, 18.56% parry and 55.09% block which adds up to 90.94%. Now lets take into consideration another tank who has 15.21% Dodge, 19.01% Parry and 60.20% Block. Even though their avoidance is 94.42% (this player is also in full heroic gear) and they technically have ~4% extra compared to me, they will take more damage from blocking than I will due to the fact that when the system does a roll to see how the attack is going to land, hit, miss, dodge, parry, block and their block is roughly 5% higher than mine and my parry and dodge are closer to being equal and adds to the higher chance of me dodging or parrying an attack instead of blocking it.. This is not taking into account the fact that the /roll the system does could be completely different since this isnt a simulation just a broad example.

Summary: Once you get closer to the CTC (102.4%) you should be reworking your gear to obtain more dodge/parry/stam to better serve you with mitigating the damage you are taking. If necessary you can also increase you hit/expertise. Really Expertise is our main threat stat because it reduces the chance of being dodge by an attack rather trying to get Hit chance which just makes sure we hit the mob. Higher expertise is also easier to obtain with the difference in the rating need to get to a certain % of expertise compared to hit.

Some of my sources:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2489160859#2

http://www.wowhead.com/forums&topic=198833 (I posted in this one a ways back when I was still learning about CTC and since reworking my gear I effectively take less damage/ mitigate it much better than other tanks :P )

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Ysosrs May 11, 2012 at 2:50 pm

Oops made a slight mistake there…The macro I posted is for Night Elfs ONLY because it already has the additional 2% figured in for them.

Everyone else wants to use this one.

/script dr=function(x)return 1/(1/16+0.9560/x)end;DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage(“Need 102.4 combat table coverage. Currently at: “..string.format(“%.2f”, GetDodgeChance()+GetBlockChance()+GetParryChance()+5+dr(GetCombatRating(CR_DEFENSE_SKILL)/122.962)))

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Ysosrs May 11, 2012 at 2:52 pm

This is the one I use for my Worgen…wish I could edit posts

/run b=GetBlockChance() d=GetDodgeChance() p=GetParryChance() m=5 if UnitRace(“player”)==”Worgen” then m=m+2 end a=m+d+p+b DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage(a..”% Avoidance”)

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Hugh Hancock May 11, 2012 at 3:07 pm

Thanks very much for all this!

If you like I’ll combine all these posts together for you – this is extremely helpful, thanks very much.

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Ysosrs May 11, 2012 at 3:39 pm

Yes please combine them Hugh thanks!!

@ShinyKJ- the dimishing returns are only a small percentage, basically the way gear is itemized allows us to still receive a higher benefit when adding to a stat that gets diminishing returns. Think of diminishing returns this way, when you start off roughly 179 dodge/ parry rating gives you 1% of either stat. When you add more to that stat and your % of dodge/ parry goes up the amount you benefit from that stat becomes less. Only because in order to reach that 1% you have to have a few more points of rating to achieve that number. if you look in the post I used as a reference on the wow forums you’ll see that the poster covers all of that.

Additionally the only time you want to “stack” mastery is in the early stages of gearing up. For example I pretty much have all of my normal mode T13 equiv BiS gear (accept my trinket…stupid thing wont drop…) to which if I was “stacking” mastery I would have very unbalanced mitigation stats. Back in Firelands I had somewhere around 63% block and roughly 14% dodge and about 15.5% parry which put me over 100% CTC (barely off the 102.4% mark) and at that point it turned out being better for me to reduce some of my mastery to help increase my FULL avoidance stats (parry and dodge) to take less damage from incoming attacks. After making the change my healers can definitely tell the difference :P

If you have resolve of the undying dont worry about trying to balance your Parry and Dodge after the proc. What you want to be worried about is base stats with no buffs or procs from your raid. So when the trinket does proc you wont get as much of a benefit as you would if decreased your dodge to make the proc become more equal with your parry, but you’d be wasting valuable stats since not all fights are melee based.

To figure out what % difference you should have between parry and dodge use this graph taken from an Elitistjerks post on warrior tanking.
http://img835.imageshack.us/img835/118/graph3t.jpg

BiS trinkets for a warrior are:
Fire of the Deep: base mastery + use effect that increases dodge rating 15 seconds (1min 30 sec CD -15sec that its up and you will get 1min 15sec up time)
Soulshifter Vortex: Base stam + chance on damage dealt you get mastery boost for 20 seconds
Indomitable Pride: Base stam + when reduced to 50% health or less you get a shield equal to 50% of the damage done by the attack for 6 seconds and cant happen more than 1 time a minute.

All three are great trinkets, I prefer the first two (even tho the Vortex has NEVER DROPPED for my guild EVER! along with many things). But Indomitable Pride or Resolve of the Undying are nice substitutes if you cant, or havent gotten either of the other two. Also on fights where magic damage is heavy Mirror of Broken Images is still good to help reduce the amount of incoming damage, I use it for H Yor’sahj when I solo tank him.

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ShinyKJ May 11, 2012 at 3:16 pm

So once ctc has reached 102.4% reforging into parry/dodge offers more overall mitigation than reforging into mastery for additional critical block, despite diminishing returns? Would there be a percentage of parry/dodge (assuming they are equal) where critical block via mastery would be better? Also with resolve of undying, how much more parry% would you want over dodge? What are the BiS prot war trinks at ilvl 397?

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