Loading ...A guide to Specs and Experimentation
My past post on specs stands as testiment to the danger of predictions. It marks a dramatic difference between the real world and the virtual world. In the real world, the rules are consistent and rarely change. In the virtual world, things change, a lot especially when expansions come out and thus, what once was law, simply, isn’t. The most prominent example the last while has been Ciderhelm’s Deep Wound’s spec which many of us had been testing for some time, but it didn’t truly make tracks around the tanking community until the official TankSpot announcement.
DPSing when NOT Tanking
It doesn’t take a genius to piece together when comparing my own spec to Ciderhelm’s that I’ve chosen to place 2 points in Improved Rend rather than 2 points in Improved Charge. This is largely due to my exploration of the field of raid DPSing as a tank spec. Long time followers of the site may know that it’s not an area I like to explore here, but to those curious, I’ve layed out my current perspective on it in a guide at TankSpot. I should note that my very subtle change to the spec shouldn’t damage the overall playstyle/advantages of the spec as a whole and I would exercise caution to those that would make similar “tweaks” as it could have larger ramifications. Above all, remember your tanking spec is a tanking spec first and a DPS spec second.
What is a Tank spec though?
What constitutes a tank spec? My “warning sign” posts attacked this problem from a “where not to go” perspective rather than a “where to go” perspective. In the past, this worked. These days with the raid encounters ahead of us still very unknown, I’m going to swing back to the “where to go” perspective and start with the core.
The 56 Point Core: 5/0/51 with Improved Revenge
The other 56 Point Core: 5/0/51 with Improved Spell Reflect
Building on the Core: DPS
The final 15 are where we get to get creative. The Deep Wounds path (15/5/0) is the highest DPS path that’s built on the core. You’ll notice that even though this path at it’s very foundation is based on critical hits that it still favours 3/3 Armored to the Teeth to 5/5 Cruelty. This will mean that Deep Wounds will not be up as much as it could be, but will mean we’ll do higher DPS. This is an important lesson for the experimental specer. Always pay close attention to the practical objective. A cool objective is seeing how often we can keep Deep Wounds up. A practical objective is seeing how much DPS we can get the “core” to do.
Building on the Core: Survival
The polar oppositie of the Deep Wounds/DPS path is the Commanding Presence/Survival path (0/15/0) that focuses on maximizing your own health as well as that of the raid’s by making Commanding Shout increase the entire raid’s health by an additional 564 Health (2819 - 2255). It also features 5 points in Improved Demoralizing Shout to remove the maximum amount of Attack Power from a boss. Finally, it rounds out the spec with Booming Voice to keep all of these buffs active longer and just as importantly, makes them easier to apply and renew.
Building from the Bottom up
While both specs are similar, the result is two very different specs. What’s important to recognize is how one creates such effective conceptual specs to test. It is common for me when going over a spec with someone to hear them evaluating each talent as they progress down the tree. Inevitable, these talents are evaluated by the talents before them rather than the talents beyond them. The key is to build from the bottom up. Our Core is built upon Shockwave. It is then built upon Sword and Board and Damage Shield. It is further developed by Devastate and Critical Block. It is not built on Shield Specialization. Certainly, Improved Thunder Clap is not the most important talent in the core nor is Incite or any other lower talents for that matter. The more powerful, more influential talents are notoriously at the bottom.
That’s where the principles behind the design of specs like the Deep Wounds and Commanding Presence specs come from. Taking the best of the bottom and seeing if we can work our way to it while maintaining what makes up our class/spec’s core.
What if we forgot the Core?
The Deep Wounds and Commanding Presence specs both were outside my comfort zone, but themselves were still built upon a core… a greater comfort zone. So, what if we go outside of that greater comfort zone and look further down?
The Unrelenting Assault Spec: (37/0/34)
I was tipped off to the concept behind this spec by a friend who’d seen some very high Patchwerk DPS (3000+) from a tank with an usually high Revenge usage. I can’t claim that the above was his or her exact spec, but the concept is there. We’re maximizing the effectiveness of Revenge spam making it so that we can remove Devastate (our weakest dps component) from our rotation completely. The parameters behind the usage of this spec don’t end there though. We’ll need someone to handle Sunder Armor or Expose Armor for us and we’ve gotta take into account that that may adversly impact the dps of someone else. We’ll be out a little bit of Stamina since, we’re sporting Strength of Arms rather than Vitality. Even more detrimental to our survival, we’ll lack Critical Block. In return, we’ll be applying Trauma though which if our raid doesn’t have an MS Warrior or a Feral Druid certainly will be a significant buff. We have the option of using Mortal Strike as well if an encounter warrants it.
Probably the two most notable elements of this spec are those that impact our playstyle in a dramatic way from a “core” spec though. We’ll lack both Shockwave and Damaging Shield making us significantly less valuable as AOE or even multi-mob tanks forcing us to rely heavily on the use of Thunder Clap for such situations. However, we won’t have to monitor our Shield Slam cooldown since we don’t have Sword and Board which will mean we’ll have a more rotation oriented threat system like we enjoyed in the past instead of a priority oriented threat system like we use currently under a “core” spec.
What to Take away from this
Stick to the Core, it works. There’s a reason that you see virtually every spec today utilizing it in one form or another. Try out the Deep Wounds spec, but don’t fall in love with it. At the moment in the game, outside of Malygos, our survival as tanks hasn’t be challenged nearly as much as it inevitably will be. So, try out the Commanding Presence spec too (perhaps on Malygos) and get a feel for how you’ll play a more survival oriented spec. And, yes, if you’re feeling ambitious take some time to try the Unrelenting Assault spec and the dramatic shift in playstyle it represents. The point is try what works first, experiment second. A lot of us like to be original. We want to be a trendsetter within our guild, our server, our game, but ultimately, if we haven’t experienced what works, we won’t be able to measure whether our experiments work either.
December 27th, 2008 at 5:10 am
I assume your survival picks are because you won’t have a dps warrior along in the raid? Supposing you could count on having another warrior with the improved shouts, would you still put the points there so you could keep battle and commanding shouts up, or would you trade some points out of booming voice and/or commanding presence in favor of cruelty?
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veneretio reply on December 27, 2008 12:26 pm:
Good observation. With a DPS Warrior, it’s natural to move points from Booming Voice to Cruelty. Certainly, it makes more sense if those shouts are able to be handled by someone else to maximize Shield Specialization in the Survival Build as well. I’ll add some extra alternatives to the post later, good catch
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December 27th, 2008 at 9:15 am
What kind of results did you get from deepwounds. To me, the difference wasnt really phenomenal to be honest. Where they were reporting 12-14 percent of their damage from DW, I was getting 4-7 percent.
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veneretio reply on December 27, 2008 12:29 pm:
I’ve seen about a 7-10% gain. I’ve only followed bosses though, so I’m not sure how that’d effect your own results. Also, I don’t have an MS Warrior or Feral Druid in the raid. Having the Trauma or Mangle buff would improve my Deep Wounds damage even further.
There’s countless reasons why you may not be getting as strong of numbers as others. My first question would be, how have you tested it? (this is a raid spec, after all)
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December 27th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
I have a quick question about the more damage oriented spec. Why would you not do away with the 2 points in Cruelty and just combine the 2 core specs. Giving you both imp revenge and imp spell reflection, at the cost of 2% crit.
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admin reply on December 27, 2008 5:27 pm:
Because the 2% crit increases the uptime of Deep Wounds.
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December 27th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
I’ve been using that spec recently as well and have seen similiar dps increases. I will say, however, that the BIGGEST increase I’ve seen was tossing on the emblem of heroism dps trinket, the one with the crit increase and 1000 AP on chance on hit. That added another 15-20% to my dps and on some boss encounters I saw as much as a 40% boost since its always easier to put out a steady stream of dps when you’re not focusing on aoe tanking. Suffice to say, with that deep wounds spec, its a very nice trinket if you can afford to have it while still being crit immune.
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December 29th, 2008 at 2:59 am
Wasnt possible for me to build a nice deep wounds spec… either i was missing points in + crit chance or i was missing a key talent from the prot tree… i still tested it and rebuilt to 5/8/58 after seeing deep wounds ticking for 30-40 dmg. Maybe im giving aways dps, but i feel much more tanky with my build. Also had more trouble getting enough rage to spam devastate & cleave with the DW build.
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December 29th, 2008 at 7:32 am
I went unrelenting assault build shortly after 3.0.2 came out. Fact was, I was in arms and someone wanted me to tank for the Headless Horseman event. When I realized revenge was affected by UA, I basically freaked out and tried the build. I intended it to be an off-tank build, since I could throw on a two hander and basically be an arms warrior when it was a one tank fight. I still provided Trauma and Blood Frenzy when tanking, which was nice.
It was amazing for generating threat. It helped that I had the cleaver from ZA, since that build really shines with a fast tanking axe (remember, every time you revenge, you also HS thanks to our glyph). I was able to solo tank VR, maintaining threat over the two other tanks (one bear, one prot warrior) even with the 30% threat drops.
I bounced around between ATTT and wrecking crew, but I always had 15 in prot, enough for imp revenge, last stand, and shield mastery (now I might go 21 for CB). After that, it was full DPS wherever I could get it. I leveled through Northrend soloing using the UA build, because there are very few mobs that can’t be stunned outside instances.
The downside is it makes you forget how to tank. It really is a one button (two now because of glyph of blocking). When I went back to shockwave prot, I had no idea what I was doing.
I kind of let it die becasue the survivability wasn’t supposed to be enough for raiding, and we already had two warrior tanks so I went DPS for the guild. But I’ve been getting some tanking gear from Heroics so I think I’ll give it a shot again.
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December 29th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
If you were looking for a crit/Deep Wounds tanking build, maybe as an offtank/backup/DPS tank and considering the 37/0/34 build above, I was wondering if a 15/30/26 build would be viable as well.
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=LAM00fZhxb0xVhbxZMItrx0zb
I’m not sure how great an impact flurry would make on tanking but if we are going for crit anyway - I know it is a big DPS boost for fury warriors. It probably is at least comparable to Sword Specialization anyway. Improved Defensive Stance enrage is traded for Enrage in the fury tree (100% chance on block, parry, or dodge vs. 30% on any hit for 10% dmg bonus). 2pts in Focused Rage is traded for 2pts in Unbridled Wrath. The 4 expertise given by SoA is made up by Precision and Weapons Mastery. I took 5 pts in Commanding Presence so the MT doesn’t have to worry about keeping BS or CS up. It could be traded or mixed with Improved Demoralizing Shout as you feel. I also took Concussion Blow since now it scales so well with attack power and to have another interrupt for caster trash. The biggest things 15/30/26 is missing from 37/0/34 is 4% Str & Stam from SoA and 10% damage from 1HWS. We also are missing the Trauma buff for the Raid. Is that enough to kill this build? Obviously this is not meant for the MT so don’t think I am thinking this is going to replace a x/x/51 build.
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admin reply on December 29, 2008 1:57 pm:
I think that if you’re not MT then you might as well be full blown Fury or Arms. You’re limited your dps with this spec and hindering your tanking capabilities greatly. The original post outlines all pure tanking specs even the last one is a pure tanking spec. You’re trying to walk the line between good dps and good tanking and ultimately, this path just never works.
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Meatgazer reply on December 29, 2008 2:22 pm:
The only reason to go deep arms is to drop the cooldown on revenge. Everything else (except standard DW talents) is just filling points in so-so talents to get there. Flurry would only affect white swings (HS), but I think all the specials will use the charges. That ends up giving a lackluster increase in DPS. Precision is nice, but weapon mastery is all but useless save the occasional disarm, because you should be soft capped in expertise removing dodges anyways.
You’d probably get more DPS out of specing into devastate/Damage Shield/Shockwave instead of the fury talents.
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December 29th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
I used to roll this spec, dont know if im linking it right but: 1350 dps
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/warrior/talents.html?tal=350200000000000000000000000000300000000000000000000000000253351220203212521330113321
But ive been playing with it quite a bit lately, and have tried 2 others,
Max Dmg mitigation: 1000 dps.
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/warrior/talents.html?tal=050000000000000000000000000000320500005000000000000000000253151025220212021330113301
Reducing enemy AP by the most you can, while adding the most hp you can.
and getting all the dmg reduction skills. This worked great on hard hitting bosses like the spider boss in NAX. however left you a bit rage starved for heroics. Not losing threat starved, but you had to really focus on skill priority.
the last is my favorite: 1800+ dps
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/warrior/talents.html?tal=350200012000000000000000000000300000000000000000000000000253351125003212021330113321
This mixes a full prot tree, with all critical dmg mitigation and stun skills, with alot of crit, i focus on shield slam for dps, as its also a top threat move. Popping block value trinks with shield block, and the blockin glyph can make for some outragous slam crits, and ive hit about 1800 raid boss dps, but on aoe heavy pulls, i can pass 2500 ez. like in UK where you have the single elites with all the non elites, 2500 dps ez. Unlike before, with warrior tanks, AP and Stacked Block value is VERY useful to stack. If you hit, def, capped, then go for them all out. AP mods TC’s dmg, making you close to par with pallies in aoe tanking, and the 8-9k slam crits definatly makes us as always the best single target threat, and does it with fair dps now.
Block value, Crit, and AP as post hit/def cap’d stats are an exellent choice these days.
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admin reply on December 29, 2008 5:09 pm:
I have to disagree with the ideal of get defense and hit capped then go for BV, Crit and AP. Crit and AP are both poor stats to stack. Strentgh is a lot better, but even still not worth it. Block Value as you say comes behind hit, but it seems you’re missing Expertise completely in this. You’ll want to stack Expertise before hit or anything else threat related for both it’s superior threat benefit as well as it’s minor survival component.
Your last spec you mention is fine for the most part, but I urge you to try Deep Wounds. If you’re already getting Impale, you absolutely should always be taking Deep Wounds. It’s more beneficial than just about anything you can take at that point, especially Puncture.
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MadTanker reply on December 29, 2008 5:17 pm:
yeah i forgot to type it, but your right, soft cap min for exp also come before these.
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MadTanker reply on December 29, 2008 5:19 pm:
The only reason i didnt take DW, is critical prot stuff i just dont feel i can live w/o. punture is a vital talent to the build, as you spam dev constantly almost, to get the SS refreshes. But i just couldnt find the 2 points for DW no matter how i tried.
veneretio reply on December 30, 2008 12:52 am:
Hard cap on expertise is still greater than hit rating and hit rating is greater than everything else.
Also, you should not be spamming Devastate. Shield Slam, Revenge, Concussion Blow, Shockwave, renewing Shouts and Thunder Clap should all take priority.
MadTanker reply on December 30, 2008 2:48 pm:
Of course SW TC and such are priorities, i just assumed everyone knew that, and didnt type it.
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MadTanker reply on December 29, 2008 5:16 pm:
So with both posts i’m getting a bit lengthy, but I’d like to take a moment to explain my last build choice.
I played with this tree off and on for a few days before making the final calls on what stayed and what goes. Critical Def talents first of course, then i had about 16 points to mess with. Since cruelty is melee weapon crit, i didn’t take it, remember im focusing on getting SS crits, and Dev secondary, to refresh SS, All the while spamming HS. I took impale, but not DW. Someone is surly gonna ask WHY? because, most tank weapons suck for dps till endgame, and impale gives 20% SS crit. That’s my focus, stacking block value on gear post hit/def cap. for the massive SS crits. As tanks we never miss SS cools, why not make the most of them?
As i said before, stacking block value, crit and attack power are good ideals post hit/def cap. (also soft exp cap, but you can get it passively through gear with solid choices.)
Since I spam HS and dev, i took both there rage reducing talents, and anger management, to keep a good amount of rage, so far its quite effectively letting me spam at will a few secs into a fight, hitting every last SS and SB cool. Shield mastery and gag order are critical in this build, as they allow shield block to be used more often, and 10% SS dmg from gag. I also alt out my monarch crab trink with a block value trink similar to the auto blocker, but far far more block value. cant remember the name. My other is the 111 stam with the shield dmg effect.
My only regret for this build is not having the points in 1h Sword spec, but Ive found the need for the armor on hard hitting bosses outweighs my want for it atm, many healers aren’t yet geared well, either have too low of heals, or mana tap with great heals . This helps them keep up in harder heroics, and hard hitting raid bosses. Later I will drop the armor talent for the 5 in 1h Swords. Many warlocks and mages are topping the dps charts by far in recent experience, so ive retained vig for now, to allow them steady aoe for trash. However i may end up freeing those points later for disarm, booming voice, or even attempting to get the points in Cruelty for the dev/HS crits when im spamming them.
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veneretio reply on December 30, 2008 12:55 am:
The Core requires a very compeling reason to not use. You simply haven’t given one. You’re trying to do “cool” things (get lots of big shield slam crits) instead of trying to do practical thiings. (more dps)
Try the Deep Wounds spec on Patchwerk and you’ll see that it is far, far superior in every way to what you’ve listed. That’s the harsh truth.
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MadTanker reply on December 30, 2008 2:54 pm:
No, i didnt leave out core abilites, aside from 1 more in revenge, and its not about cool guy, its about adding dps to a tank spec with the points i was willing to free up. Since i stack block when it doesnt give up another vital stat, to make the dmg income smother for healers to deal with, im building upon that for extra dps. Not specing jsut for dps. As i stated before, im adding dps to a tank spec, not adding tanking to a dps spec.
Meatgazer reply on December 30, 2008 7:18 am:
This looks like an example of someone who picks their build based on “theorycraft” without specific testing. If you’re going to come up with experimental builds, do some testing and get some data with WWS. If you parsed it, I bet you’d find that SS is not the number one damage source, HS probably is.
If you are spamming HS the whole fight, then you should not be clinging to rage reduction talents. You have the rage you need. That means that some of the rage talents (Anger Management, Puncture, Focused Rage, Improved Bloodlrage) can be dropped for damage dealing talents like one handed spec (improves SS damage), DW (effectively improves SS damage), and cruelty (improves SS damage). Why put one point into improved revenge at all? Sounds like you don’t use that skill. Instead you rely on devastate which costs more rage and does about 20% of the damage.
This is a build that’s confused where it wants to go. There are a lot of good talents you want to take, most of which are in the core, but are bypassed for additional rage, which has not traditionally been an issue in Wrath.
The core will give you the talents with the most bang for the buck. At that point, you can drop non-survival talents for additional survival talents or drop non-dps talents for additional dps talents. You should not drop a talent in the core for a like talent not in the core, because you’ll end up taking an inferior talent.
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MadTanker reply on December 30, 2008 3:01 pm:
Im just curious what makes you think i havent done any testing?
The reason for the rage talents is on aoe tanking pulls, and theres alot of them in wraith, raid and heroics. i tab target spamming cleave, TC, SS’s, and dev’s, not to mention the normal revenge pops, shouts and the occasional focusd dps/threat on a mob becasue the warlock seed crit it 3 times in a row with 3k dps. you can easily wipe a rage bar no matter how your spec’d this way, however, i produce far more threat per second than any tank in my guild, warr or not. And mine is the largest guild on spirestone. Part of the tests we ran. Im sorry but when me and a few otehr warr’s in the guild were comparing threat and dps, i never thought of posting the results here. Didnt realize so many people would outright shun my comments.
veneretio reply on December 30, 2008 3:13 pm:
I’m not saying you haven’t tested your specs. You probably have. I’m saying that probably haven’t tested “The Deep Wounds” spec because if you had, you’d still be using it.
I should note too that 1-handed Weapon specialization increases the damage of your Shield Slams by 10% (assuming 5/5) among other things which is why it’s part of the “Core”.
MadTanker reply on December 30, 2008 3:17 pm:
yes but i explained my reason for leaving that off, and that it was a temporay need to do so, and will be corrected once our healers get better gear.
MadTanker reply on December 30, 2008 3:21 pm:
sry cant edit
i have tried DW and your right it makes an excellent dps addition, but i dont have 2 points im willing to free from for it. But to restate the 1h wep spec, our healers have mana issues, or no mana issues and low heals. so tanking say the spider boss, who enrages at 30% and stays enraged, i needed the armor to help them make it through. once i no longer need the extra armor, ill be droping it for 1h wep spec.
veneretio reply on December 30, 2008 3:22 pm:
1-handed Weapon Specialization > Impale in every situation. If you’re going for a more mitigation style spec, you should be taking points out of Impale, not out of 1-handed Weapon Specialization.
Not to mention, you’re making it sound like it has to be 1h vs 10% armor when you could have both and not be using Improved Bloodrage and Puncture. Both Improved Bloodrage and Puncture are simply lackluster talents that shouldn’t take priority over “Core” talents.
MadTanker reply on December 30, 2008 3:38 pm:
I would agree that point, exept i can create more TPS with the extra rage on aoe pulls, spamming cleave, TC, dev, and SS/HS with tab targeting, puts a very heavy strain on my rage bar, and w/o the ImpBR, and Punct. i tend to rage starve. But again, i compete with a pally who over gears me slightly for MT sloting, and feel like i would lose TPS by rage starving if i change it.
admin reply on December 30, 2008 3:47 pm:
If you’re rage starved, you’ve probably just gotta dial back your usage of Cleave and Heroic Strike. Even when multi-tanking, they’re still rage dumps. Regardless, a little less rage for an ability you use occasionally or 10% more damage for everything you do? (including your auto-attack that generates more rage)
MadTanker reply on December 30, 2008 3:58 pm:
But if i do dial back, then mt TPS numbers fall. If i can produce more TPS than tanks outgeraing me by 2-3 nax drops, and be easier to heal than they are, am I really doing it wrong lol?
veneretio reply on December 30, 2008 5:16 pm:
What I’m saying is that your TPS doesn’t fall. These abilities are rage dumps. If you’re playing correctly, then using them effectively means doing more not less TPS. In general, though think of your opening… think of what you do. When does the first Devastate happen? Not for a very long time. You have so many things especially in multi-mob tanking that you’re doing instead of Devastate. There’s no way that 3 less rage on the few Devastates that you’ll do over the course of a pull can possibly trump 10% more damage on virtually all of your abilities.
I think the reality is that you can generate more TPS than those tanks either way. I’m not asking you to be less easy to heal. Stop seeing this as 10% armor vs 10% damage. You should always stick to the “Core”. 10% armor AND 10% damage are both part of the “Core”. Consider the possibility that your convenience talents aren’t what’s causing you to generate more TPS and make you easy to heal b/c if they were then guess what… we’d all be using them.
You’re a better player than your fellow tanks. That’s the reality. Your spec does not make a lot of difference. You’ve proven that b/c mathematically, you’re using a weaker spec than you could be. That’s the truth.
I don’t know your situation, but frankly it sounds like you’ve talked up your spec so much and convinced yourself so much that’s it “right” that admitting that it’s inferior is hard.
MadTanker reply on December 30, 2008 6:03 pm:
Inferior in dps, i’ll absolutely admit. If fact I’ve recommended the spec twice here on Tankintips.com to other members. But I dont use cleave as a rage dump in aoe tanking, i spam it constantly with TC and dev’s while tab targeting as “part” of my golden Aoe rotation. While aoe tanking, im both using numpad skills (SS, Dev, Rev) and mouse clicking (cleaves, TC’s and HS’s). I use the sunder bouncing glyph as well for this.
But for the sheer sake of it, i did work up a new version including DW.
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/warrior/talents.html?tal=350200002300000000000000000000300000000000000000000000000253351025002212021330113321
But in AOE tanking, it does produce lower TPS, cant spam the crap outta all the stuff i normally use or you rage starve very quickly. Tested as of today in H-UK’s aoe pulls. Though admittedly, the dps threat makes up for “some” of the tps you lose from being able to spam them. Still a bit lower though. Single target threat will probably increase though. But warr’s are top notch there already.
For single target threat, I keep up Demo shout all the time, and TC as much as possible if the boss is tough. Mostly I spam Dev constantly, and Rev when it’s cooled to proc SS cools, And SS as much as humanly possible.
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December 29th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
And what sort of build would you suggest for a “I just hit 80″ MT? I seem to recall a prototype for BC posted somewhere along those lines. Thx.
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admin reply on December 30, 2008 12:58 am:
The Deep Wounds spec.
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Matricular reply on December 31, 2008 12:15 pm:
Why the points in Improved Revenge? I seem to recall that was a no-no before…
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admin reply on December 31, 2008 3:56 pm:
It adds 20% more damage to Revenge, an ability you want to use as much as possible, so it’s good now
December 29th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
As a non raiding player, I’m usually questing and casually doing 5-mans, I still experience rage-starving a lot of times (except on bosses ofc).
So – inspired by your post here – I looked into a build with max rage conservation. Based on the Deep wounds spec, but skipped Deep Wounds and the 2 points in Cruelty. Instead put in full shield specialization and 3 points in Puncture. Only gives me 1 point left for Impale, but that will do for now. Will try this spec. If you have any other ideas for non-raiding spec I’d love to hear it.
*$
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MadTanker reply on December 29, 2008 5:30 pm:
For non raiding, i would go ahead and drop the 5 in armor talent for the 5 in 1h sword spec. and DW is actually probably a very good choice for you, since you solo alot and tank. you can also drop vigilance and CB, for 2 mroe points, andding them to crutly. But remeber, im build dps around a tried and true tank spec, not tanking around a dps warr. Theres a big diffrence. Staying true the critical tanking talents, im only freeing what i feel comfortable with to add in dps to my tank build.
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veneretio reply on December 30, 2008 12:56 am:
Doing only questing and 5-mans is does not make Puncture better. It’s simply not worth taking. If you’re getting Impale and you’re not getting Deep Wounds, you’re flat out doing something wrong. There’s really no way to put it nicely.
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Starbuck reply on December 30, 2008 3:51 am:
Ok, if I skip puncture I can get full Impale and 2 points in DW. What do you think of skipping cruelty and go for full shield specialization instead? When I tried this spec yesterday there was no sign of rage-starving while questing. Finally
Trying to link my build here, hope it works:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=LAM00rZhZVItrx0zidIzsGo
*$
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Meatgazer reply on December 30, 2008 6:59 am:
If you really really need survivability, lose a point in focused rage and put it into DW. If you need more rage (sounds like you do not), then you would take a point out of shield specialization.
If you still want more DPS after that change, THEN you can try taking points out of those two talents to get cruelty. But under no circumstance should you be taking a single point in cruelty if you haven’t topped off DW yet. You’re just picking an inferior DPS talent over a superior DPS talent.
December 30th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
So 1 question i’d like to ask about DeepWounds, how is the dmg calculated? is it the dps posted on the wepon, or is it like an internally recorded average of the wepons strikes?
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January 1st, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Can someone explain why only two points are put into Shield Specialization? I’m assuming the +2% to blocking is all you need to reach some critical level of blocking at level 80, but I can’t help but wonder if I could get rid of three of my points in Shield Specialization at level 75 and try something like http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=LAM00oZhoZMItRt0zidIzsGo to get some more dps while tanking instances on my voyage to level 80.
My other question is if we are only using HS as a rage dump or when Glyph of Revenge procs, what’s the point of taking improved HS? Wouldn’t three points in, say, Iron Will be better?
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MadTanker reply on January 1, 2009 6:17 pm:
HS isnt “just” a rage dump anymore, it can actually produce good dps, and threat in the middle of your GCD. As i use my core abilities, i time HS between them, so that essentially, i am always attacking and making threat.
SS, Dev, Dev, Rev,
…HS…HS….HS…..
Not sure if this will print right, but something that…
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Sumendis reply on January 2, 2009 4:49 am:
With the Deep Wounds spec there just aren’t enough points to take 5/5 shield spec as well as all the +dmg talents in prot, and shield spec is one of the weaker talents (compared to anticipation) therefore we often reduce it to only 2/5. We need to unlock the next tier of prot talents, so with 3/5 Imp. Thunderclap that is all we need.
As for heroic strike, the name of “rage dump” comes from the fact that compared to other abilities it has a very low rage-efficiency. In the burning crusade rage efficiency was a constant concern but now in wotlk it seems mostly a non-issue, at least on current raid bosses and wearing current gear.
Heroic Strike is like your afterburner or nitro boost, when you have enough fuel (= rage) it gives you that extra little kick, but you shouldn’t try running on afterburner alone, your main engine (SS, Rev, Dev, etc.) has priority.
On current raid bosses I find I have enough fuel to be constantly on afterburner. This is with 3/3 focused rage, 3/3 imp.heroic strike, and glyph of Revenge. I wouldn’t gain anything from glyph of HS atm therefore I use glyph of devastate and I find it pretty useful. My rage is typically not capped out and I’m never starved either so I find this setup works very well atm. I haven’t tried dropping imp.HS yet, it may still work just as well. Iron Will ain’t bad but it’s rather situational so I think either way these points are mostly just filler to reach the 3rd tier in arms.
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MadTanker reply on January 5, 2009 1:40 am:
“Heroic Strike is like your afterburner or nitro boost, when you have enough fuel (= rage) it gives you that extra little kick, but you shouldn’t try running on afterburner alone, your main engine (SS, Rev, Dev, etc.) has priority.”
The beauty of it is, HS has it’s own global cool, therefore it does not interfear with your golden rotation.
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Elviswind reply on January 2, 2009 1:46 pm:
@MadTanker
Your diagram is quite understandable, thanks.
@Sumendis
So, I think what you are saying is, that, hypothetically, if only 3 points were required in the first row of protection to move on to the second row, a level 80 protection warrior might even go as far as not putting any points into Shield Specialization . . . in other words, the only reason 2/5 Shield Specialization is a part of the Core is because 5 points are required on the first row.
Well, I’ve been using Glyph of Revenge to good effect, but maybe I’ll have to work out a new keyboard and mouse binding to work HS into my rotation. Usually, when I’m tanking a regular 5-man at level 75, I’m spamming cleave more often than HS with the elite trash, but perhaps I could increase my DPS on my bosses if I wasn’t only using HS when Glyph of Revenge procs.
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megagrogan reply on January 4, 2009 1:27 pm:
yes. just be careful not to rage starve yourself!
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MadTanker reply on January 5, 2009 2:11 am:
You can easily, however i posted a build up a bit with exessive rage generation, so that on boss’s you can golden rotation+HS constalty, not a bad ideal for the dual specs patch. when you have MT+OT in raid, the MT needs to look at boss fight needs, and you can even let the OT tank all the trash. I do this alot to give our OT’s ussually far undergeareing me, some front line time and practice.
January 4th, 2009 at 7:58 pm
Is it really worth putting the 2 points into Improved Charge for the Unrelenting Assault tank spec given you don’t get access to Warbringer?
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Veneretio reply on January 5, 2009 8:09 am:
Maybe, maybe not. There’s not a lot of great tanking talents to take on the way to Unrelenting Assault so it ends up getting picked up. Keep in mind, the build has 3 points in Tactical Mastery too, so you do retain that rage from charging after stance dancing.
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January 5th, 2009 at 2:17 am
As of sunday the 4th, im convinced deep wounds isnt worth taking at all. I rolled the DW mold” ive seen on several forums comparing dps output, DW falls 9th on my rotation with only 4% of my dps. Specing out of it yet taking its predecessor inpale for the 20% crit, and dropping dmg shield, ive found that the points in cruelty have givin me a 3% boost on 3 abilities, formally 9% each, now reading 12% each, and a whopping 7% on melee (autoattack) as well as my dps average totals. 1100 in DW. 1450 in new spec. Ive gained 350 dps by dropping DW and dmg shield for cruelty. This is a lowball number, i have seen my dps jump as high as 1975 on 5 pulls, and 3800 on those big aoe pulls like the little ez nax spiders.
Current spec is:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/warrior/talents.html?tal=350200002000000000000000000000305000000000000000000000000253051025000212521330113301
Might not be for everyones style, but im glued to this one and loving it’s results. Top 6 dps (96%) results followed by % of my dps output are, SS-27, Melee-15, HS-13, SW-12, Rev-12, Dev-9, TC-8. HThrow, cleave, coc blow, and the occasional rend on something im dps’ing when the OT has it make up the other %’s.
Dev is crap dps, but i spam it and rev constaly for the SS refreshes, I now out dps and out threat every tank in my guild by a good chunk, and 2 have me out geared. Im very very pleased with this spec.
In current gear I maintain (unbuffed stats) about 46% avoidance, 29.9 hp, 242 hit (i use the 40hit/40stam food giving perfect 262 hit cap) 20 expertise, 2400 ap and 10.27 crit.
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MadTanker reply on January 5, 2009 2:20 am:
EDIT:
Also for those stats I roll Blacksmithing for the extra sockets, and Jewelcrafting for the “JC only” gems. Both exelent tank proffesion choices in wraith.
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Elviswind reply on January 5, 2009 7:03 am:
It would be interesting to see if you could get a bigger boost from moving the two points in Improved Bloodrage to Incite or Improved Revenge . . . or would that missing rage at the beginning of a fight limit your choices and result in a net decrease?
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MadTanker reply on January 6, 2009 6:53 pm:
yeah ive been debating over what to drop for incite, better aoe tanking, but i havent yet decided what id wanna drop in “current” gear.
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Veneretio reply on January 5, 2009 8:08 am:
Well, my question would be what encounter did you get this 4% from? …and what was your exact Deep Wounds spec?
Regardless, Imp Disciplines really shouldn’t be in your spec. 2 points in Imp Revenge is far better. I also don’t understand why you don’t have Incite in a build that’s so crit based.
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MadTanker reply on January 6, 2009 7:03 pm:
Your right i should, and hopefully soon I will, but in the gear i wear now, i just dont feel comfortable dropping anything just yet. But soon I’ll probly drop Imp BR for those 2, but as for the 3rd point i have no ideal yet.
DW spec was http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/warrior/talents.html?tal=350200002300000000000000000000302000000000000000000000000253051025000212521330113301
I seen this in several places, with minor variations. The dps/threat readout was in 2 diffrent places in nax, on 2 diffrent nax runs. I took note of the readout from patchwork, where i was able dps my heart out w/o worry of adds, while a higher hp druid tank OT’d him. And the second was though out the area with the little aoe spiders on all that trash. I made no gear gem or enchant changes. I actually got drops that i did not equip right away just for this. The party was the exact same aside from 1 healer, but both were priests so i dont think it made a diffrence.
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Veneretio reply on January 6, 2009 8:42 pm:
A Deep Wounds spec without Incite is not going to be good seeing as the whole point of it is to crit and Heroic Strike criting 15% more is a massive amount. That’s an unreal amount of DW uptime you’re missing. I don’t really understand why all of your specs miss out on Incite which is simply amazing and have Imp Disciplines which is probably the worst talent in the entire Protection tree.
Meatgazer reply on January 5, 2009 8:09 am:
That just doesn’t make sense. You don’t get +30% damage from +3% crit. Crit doesn’t work that way. If it did, tanks would gem for crit.
From what you’re describing, you’d actually get more dps from leaving talent points unspent than put them in deep wounds. There has to be some difference in the way you tested the two specs.
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MadTanker reply on January 6, 2009 7:14 pm:
Didn’t gain 30%, but yes a fair bit. and this does not suggest talent points unspent are better than DW, becase DW accounted for 4% of my dmg. With a slow wepon, DW might shine more than 1.5 wepon idk. But I roll ALOT of block value. 3% crit with my block value, (im not sure exactly how much, but i’ll get it counted for ya) makes for ALOT of dps and threat. And i can find a nice little home for those extra 3 points. But to the best of my knowlage, I tested them the same. Nax 2 diffrent weeks’s runs. Patch and the aoe spiders were my two focus points for the readouts.
I’m Definatly not suggesting these values are true with every gear build, but with enuff block, it IS worth it to spam dev/Rev for the SS procs. And take the crit from Impale but not DW. Not to mention the high block allows healers “Very smooth” DMG income to deal with as they keep you alive.
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January 5th, 2009 at 8:54 pm
I use Bonecrusher to tank now so I think the Deep Wounds build is for me!
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January 7th, 2009 at 6:05 am
Just something to be aware of, folks: Raid buffs are a huge massive impact on dps output, much bigger than an individual talent point here or there in your spec can ever provide. So when you’re comparing dps numbers and trying to make a judgement about the power of a spec, it has to be done with the exact same raid composition, on the exact same boss, and you gotta be using your abilities in the exact same way. Now that’s a pretty tall order, especially since we’re looking at relatively differences, like 1-3% per talent point maximum. On anything but long tank’n’spank bosses, these few percent difference will get lost in the random noise of crit streaks, miss streaks and such anyway.
That’s something to keep in mind before jumping to conclusions imo.
Some of us (me for example) have seen 6% dmg done by deep wounds (with a fast weapon), that was in a raid where I had lots of physical buffs (feral druid, ret pala, enh shaman). It works out as 2% per talent point which is more than cruelty could ever give you (with Impale, 1% crit should give 1.2% dps increase at maximum… unless you were rage starved before, but in my experience that never happens on current raid bosses).
I’ve seen quite a few people report only 4% dps increase from deep wounds, my guess is they didn’t have a feral druid in the raid, or no arms+fury warriors, to buff their crit and bleeds. These buffs have a big impact on deep wounds. Mind you, even if it’s only 4% dps increase, it’s still at least as good as cruelty, like I’ve explained above.
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Elviswind reply on January 7, 2009 6:59 am:
Well, if DW is so dependent on the mix of classes in the raid, and the likelihood of having those classes in a 5-man is small, would it be better to forget about DW for the time being and just put the points in cruelty to have a more reliable boost?
For myself, this point is moot, as I’m only level 75. Just trying to engage in some more discussion.
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Meatgazer reply on January 7, 2009 8:25 am:
I think the big point is that you can’t compare two specs using different raid compositions. If you test an inferior build with more raid synergy, it may appear better than your optimal build.
As Sumendis said, 4% increase is still at least as good as cruelty, and this is what people who aren’t enamored with DW are reporting in 5-man content (and then going back to cruelty or something else). In 5-man content with no buffs, it’s basically a wash (leaning towards DW).
As an aside, cruelty is 1.2% increase MAX (as Sumendis said). In reality, it’s even less than that. Attacks that already crit do not gain more DPS from increasing the crit chance. Crit does not scale with additional crit.
When I do 5-man content, Handle the change via gear instead of spec. Since they’re more survivable, I use the mirrior of truth to get my crit up (and the AP proc goes well with DW). If you don’t have the survivability to swap gear, don’t worry about your DPS (as long as you maintain threat). +/- 20 DPS isn’t a concern for you.
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Sumendis reply on January 7, 2009 10:55 am:
I think you could even say that a few percent more dps on the tank is mostly a moot point for all of us, given the ease of current raiding content. But we wanna be prepared in case harder stuff comes our way over the course of wotlk
@Elviswind
I wouldn’t say that cruelty is a “more reliable boost” than deep wounds, they’re both pretty much RNG based, with both of them you can see streaks of high or low effect. In fact, DW might be more reliable after all, the bleed has a 6 second duration which can somewhat smoothen out the RNG.
The current reports from players suggest that in a 5man context DW is about as good as cruelty. But DW has more scaling potential with the right buffs. So I don’t see any disadvantage in picking DW over cruelty atm.
Anyway sorry if this turned into yet another DW appraisal, I mainly meant to say that testing needs to be exact and reproduceable before one can come to conclusions about small talent changes. Otherwise we’re comparing apples with bananas
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January 12th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
I question the 3 talent points spent on Focused Rage. If we’re talking mainly about raid tanking, then those points could be better spent on maxing Shield Spec or getting improved Spell Reflect/Revenge/Disciplines for extra mitigation/utility. There are no rage issues when raid tanking.
The only time the 3 free rage are useful is when you are farming, PvP, and other solo activities.
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February 13th, 2009 at 4:18 am
Vene, thanks man.
Thanks for not booting me off the board with my insane build ideals haha.
This is what i got so far for the Block Warr. One thing i’m certain of, is it is a very sexy trash set, and it can make a very nice boss oriented set as well by changing a few select parts. I’ve seen aoe rooms like before helg give me 12kdps. but on the flip side, i seen a rouge get 19k once….wtf?
I run 28k ub. 24/17/37 and i seriously don’t even know the right math to figure out my block value. But it’s alot. “1+5 r 4. Deal with it.”
I got the crit talents on the lower tiers and dint get DW. Shocking, yeah. Didn’t favor dw i dunno why honestly. It’s all up ^ there somewhere lol.
I spam Dev and revenge for ss procs. and I am taking 1 piece of advice, im dropping 2 in cruelty and getting imp-rev after seeing it’s dmg with my str/ap/crit. As a BS/JC i get 3 extra sockets, and 3 +41 stam gems. Helps make some leeway in picking the stats on your gear more freely.
With raid buffs i had 15% crit tonight in 25 man nax, and hit boss’s from roughly 8.5-11.2k dmg, with Laventhers talisman(w/e lol), i can walk out and hit boss’s for around 2k dps of SS dmg. Thats an insane threat number, SS has the highest threat modifier. With Decent dodge/parry (20-25% or more each) I’m aming for 40% block, with every scrape of block value i can get along the way.
Block stops:3500 dmg before Nobles procs=sexy. Blocks can be alot more or alot less than the number posted on mouse over. I’ve seen blocks stop 500 dmg, and blocks stop 15k or something like that on patch.
I hear from healers alot that healing me is easy cause the dmg is generally predictable and smooth.
I got a few different things i change out for hard hitters like grob or spider, trinks ect to boost my hp to about 39K keeping almost the same avoid % total, but with more parry and less block.
I’m still missing desired parts to my set, and i’m really not self promoting, I’m promoting this build, i wanna see a real pro plan out a serious block value set and go to work with it. Full DPS worthy tanks lol?
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March 30th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Finished my unhittable set, 1400 sbv unbuffed, 1830 after all raid buffs. Took 12k melee damage from loatheb25 on a 5 minute kill (achievement) with a maly modified DW spec (moved cruelty to imp reflect).
Nothing says rage starved than that gear set, dear lord!
have taken it for a spin in ZG, cleared it. Took it for a spin in kara, did pretty ok but gave up after 3 hours and only starting to clear to curator as far as solo’ing it. Brought a few dps buds, got to prince and only took 22k damage from him as well. The set has it’s uses just intensely limited.
Would I use this for raids? yes
Would it replace my bread and butter tanking set? never
Biggest SS crit? 13k on Gothik
is sbv viable as a dps boost? Nope, never. All but 2 of our abilites scale with AP. sbv is a fringe benefit honestly to the sbr set.
@madtanker, your nerfing your dps gearing for sbv and slowing down the raid in the process. Surviving anything outside sarth3d is easier than kara was. If I were to stick with SBV as my bread and butter set, I would STILL have 3 other sets of gear (ap/crit, avoidance, raw EH).
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May 2nd, 2009 at 2:19 am
So im finally quitting wow. But before I go, I like to say to the forums I’ve read so much so often, I love you guys heh heh.
I look at many warriors on my server these days in uldar, and I see ALOT of them in pure BV gear, and gemming STR to top it off. Currently I run almost 2k Block Value before procs, and 40k life. I can SS crit as high as 20K, but average around 8K-12K. In my second spec build for pure AoE, I can out AoE tank the top geared pallies, pushing more threat than they could ever hope to.
Warriors are spartans. Shield and Sword.
Strength and Block Value were Massively underestimated. By all but me. Called that on the patch day back in BC. I fulfilled my goal, top 10 raid dmg done during a 25 naxx full clear, while MT’ing all bosses. Tankspot I believe still has the links up for the Screen shots. All raid members were in T7.5+ gear, and very very few items under 213 in the raid.
It was beautiful. My Warrior Spartan, MadTanker.
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May 2nd, 2009 at 2:20 am
Good-bye Tankingtips.com you taught me to tank back in the day in BC, and I thank you for it. /salute
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