Loading ...How to Spec for every fight in SSC
If you’ve been following this site for a while, you’ve no doubt heard me say/write about gearing yourself for an encounter. Another concept that isn’t discussed nearly enough is to actually spec for whatever the focus of your raid’s progression is at the time.
The Common Parts of an SSC spec
If you look over the 4 specs that follow, you’ll notice a number of common talents amongst all of them that make up the core of all the specs you’ll use in Serpentshrine Cavern. I’ve added a brief explanation to each talent selected to help give some insight behind what makes up a stable spec.
a. 5/5 Deflection - 5% Parry is a steal and nothing competes with this.
b. 3/3 Improved Thunderclap - Decreasing a boss’ attack speed by 20% rather than 10% is just as huge as it sounds.
c. 5/5 Cruelty - Some skip this, I’ve found that it’s an excellent place to get additional threat and easily the best 1st tier talent to get to the Fury tree’s 2nd tier.
d. 2/5 Improved Demoralizing Shout - The first less than obvious choice on the list. 2 points are always placed in this talent due to the fact that it’ll remove the maximum amount of Attack Power from a boss. It’s not to say that specs without it can’t exists, but for the sake of my journey through SSC in the past, I’ve always happily ran it.
e. 1/2 Improved Bloodrage - 1 point in this talent is nice to have in order to get to that magical number 17 as soon as possible. (17 being the amount of rage necessary for Shield Slam with 3 points in Focused Rage) While certainly specs could exist without this talent as well, it finds it’s place into every spec due to the lackluster or very specialized talent options in the 4th and 5th tiers of the Protection tree.
f. 5/5 Anticipation - 20 Defense Skill points is huge and I wouldn’t advise running a spec without the full 5/5.
g. 5/5 Toughness - Like Anticipation, I wouldn’t advise running a spec without 5 points in this talent. 10% Armor in the 2nd tier is an absolute steal.
h. 5/5 Shield Specialization - The little bit of rage generation is nice, but more to the point it’s the pre-requisite for one of the most essential protection talents in the game.
i. 1/1 Improved Shield Block - One of the few talents I can absolutely say without a doubt must be in every single Protection spec.
j. 1/1 Last Stand - Very nice to have and at only 1 point there’s really no reason not to take it.
k. 3/3 Defiance - See Improved Shield Block.
l. 1/1 Concussion Blow - Rarely contributes to most boss fights, but it’s the pre-requisite for another of the must have Protection talents.
m. 3/3 Shield Mastery - This talent should actually read increases your Block Value by 30%. An amazing threat/mitigation talent.
n. 5/5 One-handed Weapon Specialization - An excellent threat talent that actually increases the damage your Shield Slam does as well.
o. 1/1 Shield Slam - The best threat move you have in your arsenal.
p. 3/3 Focused Rage - Reduces the rage of all of your threat moves and much, much more. Another “should be in every Protection spec” talent.
q. 4/5 Vitality - A great talent and the only reason why you see only 4 points here rather than the traditional 5 is because I slipped in an off-tank spec.
r. 1/1 Devastate - Every since it got buffed to be better than Sunder Armor in every way, there’s very, very few reasons to ever not take this talent at the bargain price of 1 talent point.
54 talent points total
That leaves us with only 7 points to customize the different specs. Believe it or not this is going to make a big difference.
4 ways to customize 7 points
1. 8/7/46
+1 Improved Bloodrage, +2 Improved Shield Wall, +3 Improved Defensive Stance, +1 Vitality
- Hydross the Unstable
- Fathom-Lord Karathress (or Shaman)
- Morogrim Tidewalker MT
- Lady Vashj
These 4 bosses feature heavy magic elements while not being terribly challenging threat-wise which makes the points in Improved Defensive Stance valuable. Improved Shield Wall is probably the least valuable in the Fathom-Lord fight, but the other 3 all have moments where you’ll be thanking your lucky stars (as will your healers) for that additional 5 seconds of being seemingly indestructible. The extra point in Bloodrage is nice and maxing out Vitality should always be pursued when taking on a heavy hitter.
2. 8/10/43
+3 Improved Demoralizing Shout, +3 Improved Sunder Armor, +1 Vitality
- The Lurker Below
5 points in Improved Demoralizing Shout is excellent for this fight so that you can allow the Warlocks to use Curse of Recklessness on the boss. (thus increasing physical damage done and your own threat) Improved Sunder Armor is maxed out in an attempt to allow melee to dps as hard as possible. Vitality is maxed out cause it’s more health is good.
3. 11/7/43
+2 Improved Heroic Strike, +1 Anger Management, +3 Improved Sunder Armor, +1 Vitality
- Leotheras the Blind
This is the most threat heavy of the 4 specs thanks to Improved HS, Anger Management and Improve Sunder. Vitality is once again maxed out because it’s easy enough to do it and it’s a boss you’ll be tanking. Your role in this fight involves a lot of burst threat so being able to spam Sunder Armor and Heroic Strike as efficiently as possible is very valuable. Anger Management really shines in this fight since during the downtime of form changes you’ll want to be accumulating a full rage bar as fast as possible.
4. 8/11/42
+3 Improved Demoralizing Shout, +1 Piercing Howl, +1 Improved Bloodrage, +2 Improved Taunt
- Morogrim Tidewalker OT
The additional points in Imp Demo Shout are simply there to make way for Piercing Howl. Piercing Howl is amazing for handling the Murlocs in this fight as is Improved Taunt. Improved Bloodrage is nice to max out in order to aid in filling your rage bar during the downtime between Murloc waves.
Final Thoughts
If you’re anything like most warriors, you’ll often find yourself sitting at a 50 gold respec and perhaps you are hesitant to respec for a particular encounter. When you think about it though when you are already chugging potions, eating food and using flasks for a progression night, 50 gold really is a small price to pay to increase the raid’s chances of success.
May 6th, 2008 at 11:38 pm
Thanks for this Vene and for pointing out that not everything is as “cookie-cutter” as countless non-tanks seem to believe.
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May 7th, 2008 at 2:30 am
Hey Awesome guide, but after farming ZA and 2.4 BOJ gear my guild pretty much skipped TK/SSC and are in Hyjal 4/5 any chance for a BT/Hyjal guide?
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May 7th, 2008 at 6:20 am
Very nice post Vene, congrats for making us think about something that most people take it for granted.
Myself for example, I’m not very fond of improved demo shout, or, I’m yet to be convinced that it is really good. I don’t think I’ve ever seen real numbers on its usefulness. Anyone got any links to prove it is really that good?
I found my 9/5/x to be well suited for almost everything. 1 point in improved heroic strike, as well as 3/3 imp sunder for better rage efficiency.
I don’t take imp bloodrage at all, as all battles are opened with shield block and misdirection. If I’m really concerned about initial threat (Teron Gorefiend), I drink a rage potion, so the pull goes like this: wait for misdirection, bloodrage, run in, shield block, pot, shield slam.
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May 7th, 2008 at 6:51 am
RSRYchro… So True…
I have to admit, I never expected that about imp demo shout and CoR… We have an arms warrior for T6 who has 5/5 imp demo, gonna have to make sure the locks know about this.
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May 7th, 2008 at 6:57 am
Imp Bloodrage has always been one of my all time favorite talents. Granted most of this post means little to me as my guild is not at SSC level, but to quote: “1 point in this talent is nice to have in order to get to that magical number 17 as soon as possible.” I tried not opening with shield slam before and even with a misdirection I felt myself lagging for the first 30 seconds. That opening shield slam just seems to make things go so much smoother for me.
Also I tried Improved Demoralizing Shout for a while, but I honestly never noticed that much of a benefit from it. Is there some theorycrafting I’m missing or is it just that because I haven’t tanked 25-man bosses and they do that much more damage?
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May 7th, 2008 at 7:23 am
Umm, yeah basically i’d like some theorycrafting about demo shout too, or just some reference
I had a build without imp bloodrage at all, now i cant simply live without it,
it really helps alot (2/2 here). I may try dumping 1 point of imp hs and 1 point of imp bloodrage just to check out 2/5 imp demo
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May 7th, 2008 at 7:57 am
I don’t think respecing for every single boss in SSC is a good idea,
basically there is no time for it when you are aiming for 3 or for bosses a night. For example for Leo fight it is better to have druid tanking him and the rest of tanks dress up in dps gear and help nuke him down fast. Also there is always a fury warrior to do piercing hole during the Moro fight.
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May 7th, 2008 at 8:06 am
I don’t think respecing in SSC is really needed, it could be useful but you can compensate for the encounters with gear changes alone, the only time i’ve ever changed my spec was for kael where i was MT, i took improved defensive stance for obvious reasons but when we had killed kael and moved onto MH/BT i spec’d back. I think respecing for anything other than end instance bosses is over thinking it a little. If you struggling with an encounter you can usually find places where you can tighten it up to increase DPS, TPS or HPS that don’t involve respecing your tank.
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May 7th, 2008 at 8:16 am
2/5 Imp. Demo makes a pretty nice difference. Generally you’re looking at 15% damage reduction. My DPS warriors are expected to bring 5/5 demo shout to raids (for CoR if there are enough warlocks) but I’ll still always spec 2/5, since you never know when you’ll not have other people around to debuff for you. It’s a pretty huge damage reduction, and against anything that has a chance to kill you, you should always have 2/5 demo up.
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On Imp. Blood rage
I was a BR junkie for a long time. Bloodrage -> shield slam is a nice combo off the pull, especially nice for 5 mans.
But in a raid, you’ve probably got a hunter along. Have them misdirect, and that couple of rage won’t be a big deal any more. You can devastate off the pull at low rage, and still build good threat (and shield slam after the mob hits you once) or safely start off the pull with a shield block on a hard hitting mob, so your healers don’t have to deal with a crush on the first swing. And you can put those 2 talents somewhere more useful.
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On Imp. Shield Wall
I’ve never taken it, but I may just spec it for Kalecgos tonight.
My opinion usually is that if 10 seconds of invincibility isn’t enough to save you, another 5 probably won’t. But sometimes during a big enrage 5 seconds is a long time.
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May 7th, 2008 at 8:17 am
Improved Demoralizing Shout is very useful, here’s a bit of information:
http://elitistjerks.com/f40/t12852-improved_demo_shout_continued/
http://elitistjerks.com/f40/t11961-warrior_value_imp_demo_shout_imp_thunder_clap/
Having 2/5 is great if you are a tank, but if your raid has a DPS warrior they should pick up 5/5 because it allows a warlock to use Curse of Recklessness which gives everyone 880 armor penetration without an increase in the mob’s attack power.
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May 7th, 2008 at 8:53 am
Last time I read up on Imp Demoralizing Shout it was, that the reduction on a Boss wasn’t such a big % of the Bosses AP.
- those 5 talent points are 40% extra of 300 reduction of attack power, wich is a 420AP reduction, and what is the AP of a Boss?
I think that on a Boss that extra 120AP reduction isnt such a big deal
or at least I dont have 5 talents to use on it.
But on mobs that have lower AP or in PVP, those extra 120AP is big chunk of reduction
maybe get a Dps warrior to use the talents and have him have keep BS all the time, so we can concentrate on keeping TC up
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May 7th, 2008 at 9:01 am
oh yes i have thought about using 2 talents on impBS aswell
(read Kavtors reply again)
those 2 point are 16% extra of 300 reduction of attack power, wich is a 348AP reduction. Again 48AP on a boss might not be so much.
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May 7th, 2008 at 9:39 am
Well, I have to say that even though my guild is still stuck back on Gruul I found this post to be very interesting. You’ve given me some food for thought. It’s interesting to see what the different specs give you in terms of viability for the fights. The same ideas can undoubtably be used to determing good specs for other fights as well.
I personally do have 2/5 improved demo shout because I had heard it was great, and because it sounds like it would be great. However as a big fan of theorycrafting I too would love to get the specifics on your take on 2/5 imp demo. As a side note, I am just breaking into the world of WWS. (Used it for the first time last night, going over the reports today) Any thoughts on how it could be used to determine the damage reduction or TPS of various specs? (sorry if that’s a little off topic)
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May 7th, 2008 at 9:46 am
@Lorso:
If it reduces your incoming damage by 1 or 2 %, do you not think it’s worth it? Afterall, you spend 5 talent points in tougnness to get maybe a 5% reduction in damage? (the more armor you have the less toughness actually reduces)
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May 7th, 2008 at 10:04 am
@RSRYchro: Improved Bloodrage is great when you want to open with a spell reflect on the Mount Hyjal trash. I don’t have the taletns so I usually send in the OT for massive necromancer agro. Occasionally I will spell reflect if I still have rage from the previous wave or if I drink a rage potion.
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May 7th, 2008 at 10:18 am
See, Vene, they want to know about Imp Demo too!
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May 7th, 2008 at 10:38 am
Kavtor is 100% accurate and correct.
You didn’t talk much about Improved Defensive Stance. I think that it is an excellent talent that has gotten a bad rep. When you you are doing content that is below your gear level then it doesn’t really have an impact, but if you are pushing the limit of your gear, then it is 100% worth it every time. If you are wearing Karazhan gear and are starting T5, get IDS. If you are wearing T5/Badge gear and are starting T6, get IDS. If you are wearing T6 and starting Sunwell, get IDS. If you are wearing badge gear and you are doing nothing but Kara, ZA and early T5, then don’t worry about IDS.
*off topic but any discussion of shield wall makes me angry and this is why - shield wall is the worst ‘oh $#!&’ button a warrior has. It is on the global cooldown which is just ridiculous. I can’t begin to count the number of times I have died because I had to wait for the GCD.
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May 7th, 2008 at 10:43 am
- those 5 talent points are 40% extra of 300 reduction of attack power, wich is a 420AP reduction, and what is the AP of a Boss?
I think that on a Boss that extra 120AP reduction isnt such a big deal
The Lurker Below has been tested to have somewhere between 310 and 510 AP.
I’m trying to find supporting evidence from somewhere, but overall, it’s generally believed that mobs have about 350 AP, so 2/5 Demo removes most of a mobs attack power. Mob AP behaves differently than player AP, and reducing it makes a pretty big difference in incoming damage.
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May 7th, 2008 at 10:43 am
The difference between no imp demo and 2/5 isn’t huge but there is definately a difference. The difference between 2/5 and 5/5 IS huge because it allows the raid to use Curse of Recklessness on the boss. CoR is a major dps increase if you have a melee group in your raid. Using CoR without 5/5 demo is doable but it will have a noticable increase in damage on the tank.
Someone linked to the EJ discussion which anyone should read if they are interested in the numbers behind the idea.
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May 7th, 2008 at 10:53 am
CoR is ALL physical damage…that means melee and hunters…not to mention raising the threat cap for casters as well if you have a warrior or druid tank. We require any fury warrior’s that raids with us to have 5/5 Imp Demo.
If you look at most DPS spreadsheets you can estimate 1 armor ignore to be about .1 DPS…so 800 AI is 80 extra DPS. That’s 10% of the DPS of a good T5 hunter. That’s a lot!
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May 7th, 2008 at 10:57 am
Imp Defensive Stance:
http://www.tankingtips.com/2007/10/10/improved-defensive-stance-worth-it/
@Tara: I know I was just thinking that too!!! I’ve gotta work tonight till 8pm, but around 8:30pm you may see me bugging you on googletalk about posting stuff!!
@Rochelle: I agree it is stupid that Shield Wall is on the GCD.
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May 7th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
I thought I remembered reading something you posted about imp def stance a while back, thanks for pulling it up again. I think the most important point in there, and it gets glossed over in the discussion, is that when you are undergeared, every little bit counts.
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May 7th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
Hmm, that’s a good point about Shield Wall I never thought of it that way. Not only can it literally be a killer as you said, but it makes no sense that the other defensive shield abilities, Shield Block and Spell Reflect are off GCD and it’s not. Hmm…
I just looked up the 4 raiding Wars we have in the guild (2 prot/2 fury). None of them have imp demo shout. Go us!
I’m tempted to say something but my warrior is only an alt and there’s no way they’d listen to a dumb huntard about tanking. I’ve tried. They still laugh at the idea of using Executioner on a tanking weapon and one of them thinks SBV is the only threat stat worth having. *sigh* Anyway… [/whinge]
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May 7th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
So, completely off target. But I was so excited about having Imp. Shield wall actually be useful for Kalecgos enrage. I was in demon phase, clicked shield wall… then got DI’d. Took my 5 seconds of cursing to figure out what happened and click it off. Shield wall wasted lol. Thank goodness the NPC was there to tank.
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May 7th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
I feel your pain Kavtor. I was tanking the dragon when we hit the enrage, popped shield wall and then one of the other tanks was rotating through and taunted off me. “Dude, I just used shield wall, I am taunting it back to make use of it!”
… taunt resisted.
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May 8th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
lots of questions about imp. DS, but i thought it was simple:
2/5 takes boss AP to zero
5/5 takes boss AP to zero with CoR
is this wrong?
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May 9th, 2008 at 5:59 am
nice thx -
couldn’t imagine that hit for over 10K DMG had a AP of 350
Im reading up on the theory and getting a DPs warrior to
take it.
also looking into with the Locks and using CoR
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May 9th, 2008 at 9:47 am
Thanks Vene.
As RSRYchro said, my guild run HJ and BT too (SSC = farming statu or when we have time)
Any chance for a BT/Hyjal guide (with resist gear when it’s necessary)?
btw, sorry for my English, i’m a French native speakers.
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May 10th, 2008 at 1:45 am
So I read through the specs, and realized, I’m none of these 4 specs and my guild just hit 4/5 in SSC. I can’t decide if that’s okay or not, I’m actually 17/3/41 as of a week or so ago. Basically it’s impale/prot, but so far I haven’t been able to decide if it’s actually greater threat gen than going with Shield Mastery for the larger SS’s, it is definately more fun though seeing those slightly bigger numbers on all crits though. But it’s probably just an offspec I dreamed up that’s not really that good, I just haven’t been able to put enough raid time into it yet to tell for sure.
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May 13th, 2008 at 5:14 am
Rage is an issue imo.
Thus I would always spec improved sunder armor. To get a full rotation with shield slam, revenge, 2x devastate, shieldblock and heroic spam running you would need ~2000 incoming dps (less with windfury totem).
2000 incoming dps is huge and you probably will not see this happening in normal tanking gear.
Improved sunder armor is worth 1 rage per second on a full rotation.
Focused rage is a no-brainer imo.
You need 37 rage for a full rotation which is equal to 6.16rps.
Shield block will cost you 2rps.
Your white hits will net you ~6rage per hit which will be mostly 3.75rps.
To run a full rotation without heroic you need ~484 incoming dps.
6.16rps (rotation) + 2rps (block) - 3.75 rps (white) = 4.41 rps needed
(5 * x) / (274.7 * 2) = 4.41
x = 4.41*(274.7 * 2)/5
x = 484 dps income needed
Without improved sunder armor you need 594 dps income.
Remember: The more rage you have left over, the more rage you can spent on heroic strike. Spamming heroic strike while not being able to hold the standard rotation is not an option.
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