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73 Responses to “The 2 Specs I’m running as of 3.2 + 1 I’m not”

1. Spinks Says:
   August 16th, 2009 at 11:34 pm

   I don’t feel that 5/5 shield spec is necessary. It’s nice, but mostly on lower level content. So I’ve stuck with 15/3/53, 2/5 shield spec and put the rest into improved disciplines because I like the 2 min shield wall.

   [Reply]

   Veneretio reply on August 17, 2009 12:04 am:

   I’ll counter that with what is quickly becoming my signature line:

   If you don’t find it necessary, you’re probably not Heroic Striking enough

   [Reply]

   Cleaved reply on August 17, 2009 12:27 am:

   I also have kept my old spec from pre-3.2
   I honestly think that 40% chance is pretty nice when it has 3 different things to proc off of. Parry, Dodge and Block, 40% chance one each of those. I “spin the wheel of threat” Price is Right-style on my Mouse, and I still rarely run out of Rage unless I’m just not getting hit. I just don’t want to give up other things I am comfortable having in my spec. If anything, I may take 2 points out of Cruelty and put them in Shield Spec.
   My Threat has gone up exponentially anyway, what with the improvements to Devastate and the 2 piece Set bonus from T8.5 I now push out more threat and can really crank out threat when I have a lot of incoming Rage.
   I’m interested to see what this talk has been about changing Warrior Rage dynamics to give us Rage regardless of getting hit. They say they don’t want to make us like Rogues, with a “pool” that gradually refills itself, but some sort of change would be nice. I almost let someone die in a non-heroic I tanked for my g/f’s Pally to get some loot… simply because I had 5 mobs on me and wasn’t getting hit enough to replace the Rage I was using up. Having to hold back in content you OVERGEAR, is annoying at the very least… and makes you look like a BAD tank, at the very worst.

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2. Lyco Says:
   August 17th, 2009 at 12:36 am

   I think it will take some time before people dare to chance their spec. Personally it feels strange to just drop Vigilance and that point in revenge.

   Then again, if you HS enough you should provide the same amount of threat. I think it needs some testing with actuall numbers before players all over are convinced. I’ll give this a try and see if it turns out to be usefull.

   [Reply]

   Lyco reply on August 17, 2009 12:37 am:

   Oh, and keep up the good work Vene, i’m sure you’re getting swamped with mails begging for a Emblem of Triumph post:P ( Tip: Save them all and buy T9.5 when you can XD )

   [Reply]

   Furiat/Vege reply on August 17, 2009 6:29 am:

   Question is: is the price of helm (75 badges) worth waiting for and getting it before t9s? I don’t know. I know I’ll be running 10man from time to time, rarely 25man (so I’ll probably end with weakest set version). Which means that helm will be huge upgrade for me.

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   Lyco reply on August 17, 2009 4:21 pm:

   Very true, Personally I think I’ll regret it on the long run if I buy T9 instead of T9.5. Only time will tell.

3. Gehn Says:
   August 17th, 2009 at 12:42 am

   I run as your DW spec w/ 4/5 in Shield Specialization and no Imp. Revenge.

   Those two points go directly into Imp. Disciplines.

   Threat is a very rare issue. And on the fights it is (Beasts for example), There are phases where I can intervene to lower someone.

   Rage is rarely an option as well as I run a fairly low avoidance gearset (approx 55%).

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4. Laststand Says:
   August 17th, 2009 at 1:19 am

   When speccing Survival for Algalon I found myself not taking Warbringer and imp. Thunderclap. Since a lot af dd dks keep up the imp. slowing debuff anyways, it basically gives you 3 free points for non-add/your are MT Bosses. I would mind using the survival spec for trash/adds anyhow, so for a lot of Boss fights you really don´t need these 4 points.

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5. marklar Says:
   August 17th, 2009 at 2:43 am

   have you found 3/3 DW + 1/2 revenge to be better than 2/3 DW + 2/2 revenge? i haven’t run any numbers, but it seems like the second option would do better…

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6. Warscream Says:
   August 17th, 2009 at 2:57 am

   I run a UA and what I call my Utility specc. It’s 5/14/52 and uses improv spell reflect and, my fav, safe guard. Utility is my add/OT specc and I practice with it in PvP. I like to handle adds AND provide protection to my raid.
   UA has been lack-luster, I am hit capped as of now and still am not seeing really high numbers like I wanted. Still, for standing and spamming its the bomb. I don’t see the need for DW when you have a UA option. If your just tanking a low mobility boss…alot (no where near all) of Uld bosses don’t req more than back-peddling…why not UA? I run with another War though so I don’t find myself missing something. He runs basically your speccs.

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7. Roarc Says:
   August 17th, 2009 at 4:51 am

   1 point in vigilance beats 1 point in Focused Rage any day in my book in regard of threat and utility. Also, how on earth you can “promote” a prot-spec with-out Improved Revenge is also something I find somewhat odd. I’d think in most cases if not always this beats 2 points in Focused Rage. I’d say it is highly situational where you don’t want improved revenge (I’ve yet to spot this content in Wrath).

   It’s proven vigilance is a very powerful threat tool for us adding 7-10% extra threat on most fights. The taunt-refresh is also handy in a lot of fights. Even in a protective spec I don’t see why one would choose focused rage over incite or improved revenge.

   To me the main question comes down to if you want Focused Rage or Shield Specialization. Both have their pluses and drawbacks. The former is more rage-effective but it doesn’t give you any rage, the second gives you rage but doesn’t improve your rage effectiveness. In the end I personally go for Shield Specialization since it helps to dampen the low-points where Focused Rage only helps when rage-intake is “mid-range”. At infinite rage neither of the talents do that much use.

   Swapping Cruelty for Improved Disciplines is viable if you want one flexible tank-spec also.

   My “one spec to rule them all” would be 15/5/53 as well but I’d skip focused rage all together.

   http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#LAM00fZhZVItrx0didczsGo:dcbzmo

   I see less and less need for a “protective spec” of the 5/15/51 nature given the commanding shout boost is always welcome.

   I personally think Blizzard should re-think our talent trees in regards to our buffs (demo shout, battle shout and commanding shout). Pallies get Imp. Demo-shout for 2 points and reapply it more or less automatically, Battle shout is useless in most situations since Blessing of Might beats it hands down (and again doesn’t really cost the pallie that much). Warriors have to spend 3 times as many points for an improved demo-shout and use a GCD every 25-30 seconds. This renders the points in Imp. Demo-shout quite useless in most raid situations.

   The only thing we got going for us is Commanding Shout and thus Commanding Presence is worth taking in many situations. I guess you could spec:

   - 3/3 Armored to the Teeth
   - 2/2 Booming Voice
   - 5/5 Cruelty
   - 5/5 Commanding Presence

   The above would make more sense in most raiding situations today seeing a lock or a paladins can do the demo-shouting easier and in general more effective than the warrior (and you get a decent threat bonus from Cruelty).

   [Reply]

   Veneretio reply on August 17, 2009 7:23 am:

   The reason Imp Revenge isn’t promoted as much as you’d like is because it only improves the base damage of Revenge so it’s not going to be the damage increase that you’re probably thinking it is.

   Absolutely, Vigilance is a very powerful threat tool, but with the Devastate buff I find it less necessary for threat than it once was. Which means you’re taking it more for the utility than anything else which I don’t consider the priority with a single tanking spec.

   The Focused Rage + Shield Specialization decision I knew was going to turn some heads. I’ll likely write a dedicated post on it in the future, but the big advantage of it is that it creates high rage situations on every fight in every situation. As I’ve said many times and already in this comment section, if you don’t find it beneficial, you’re probably not Heroic Striking enough.

   Finally, I really like your recommendations for the Survival spec using Cruelty instead of Demoralizing Shout. That’s a great option for raiders that have a consist Ret Paladin. I choose to pickup Imp Demoralizing Shout because I don’t have a consistent Ret Paladin and because I really don’t like losing a strong buff when someone dies. The power of the Protection Warrior in a lot of cases is that we are so self sufficient. There can be half the raid dead and we’re still tanking at our maximum.

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   Roarc reply on August 17, 2009 7:41 am:

   I had discussions regarding Imp-revenge at elisist jerks cause I was very curious to people recommending NOT taking this talent. In the end no one really defended not taking it - the main reply I got is that it’s a no-brainer talent to take. The improved version gives you ha 2-300 tps boost (5% roughly). This for a talent that virtually costs nothing to use in combate (hence we’ll always gain the above). Something like Focused Rage is quite situational if it’s used or not. Revenge stands for 12-15% of our dps output but if it’s as you say only a base value that’s buffed it might not be that good. It would be interesting to see figures showing it improved and not improved with T8+ gear.

   Comparing vigilance and 1 point in Focused Rage you have to ask what you are after and I have a hard time seeing why you would choose the later.

   - Higher dps? Well in theory Focused Rage could give you that extra GCD but that’s fetching a bit far.

   - Higher threat? Hands down vigilance will boost you the most. I’d say it’s the single highest threat-boosting point you can use in your prot-spec (sadly) and it also offers a threat reduction for one person in the raid.

   - More utility? Again, Vigilance offers more than just a threat-transfer but just as that it’s imo a no-brainer.

   - Higher Survivability? Minimal for both given Vigilance situationally wins by far (instant taunt-refreshes on for instance Thorim is a life-saver).

   In most cases Vigilance will offer much more to you as a tank and to a raid with a tank packing vigilance than with a tank that saves 1 rage per GCD. No way will this 1 rage per GCD increase your threat as much as vigilance can and on the fights you can use the taunt-refresh it’s quite an unbearable talent to have. The damage reduction is to me a small “bonus”.

   I’ll give you our demo-shout is “situationally the best debuff to use”, personally I just think it’s far to expensive to get. In every fight where the debuff is needed, i.e. bosses with high directional physical damage, other buffs win. Either have a retridin or a spare lock (CoW is even more powerful with the armor reduction).

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   Pabitera reply on August 17, 2009 1:12 pm:

   http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#LAM00fZhZVItrx0didczsGo:dcbzmo

   Love that spec! It’s the best I’ve seen so far!

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   tPaste reply on August 20, 2009 12:07 am:

   I like it except for the two points in improved disciplines. Without the glyph for SW I think those to points are better spent in Cruelty or (more likely) focused rage. In fact, Ven did a post about how the SW glyph and Improved disciplines only really does well if used in conjunction.

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   beasters reply on February 24, 2010 10:05 am:

   I am running that spec but with GoSW instead of revenge. I have noticed that there seems to be more rage incoming overall and the only time I have rage issues is on single mobs that don’t hit often. Even in those situations I still have enough rage to easily hold agro plus I get rage during avoidance streaks and a little bonus mitigation. At first I was a little nervous to change my points in FR to SS but Iam glad I did it now.

8. ent Says:
   August 17th, 2009 at 5:25 am

   First time poster here I just wonder do warriors really need to spec so deep info Fury for survival spec in 25-man raid? Improved Demo shout is kinda useless if you got ret palading in your raid (2 points vs 5 points and its much easier to keep Vindication up), Commanding Presence helps only with Commanding Shout (BoM replaces BS in most raids I assume) and its much easier to provide by DPS warrior (its more or less a standard for both arms and fury). This way we can either get to DW or pickup Incite + impr Rev + have spare 5 points in the spec proposed by you as Survival.

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   Kavtor reply on August 17, 2009 7:13 am:

   That’s the idea. Ret pallys bring imp demo, and DPS warriors bring imp commanding. But if you don’t have one or the other, you may want to respec to bring the missing buffs.

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   Roarc reply on August 17, 2009 7:44 am:

   Note that Warlocks and Druids can bring the same buff. Improved Curse of Weakness is even better than Improved Demo-shout. I can’t speak for how tricky it is for a Druid to gain the improved version but for a warrior it’s such an expensive spec to take.

   5/5 Commanding Presence is sweet however I’ll give you that, but so is Deep wounds (even more so i most situations I’d think).

   [Reply]

   Cleaved reply on August 17, 2009 7:53 am:

   Your only problem there… is convincing a DPS to put up a non-DPS debuff (Warlock Curse). Good luck with that
   They need to make all Debuffs of that nature passive, as they did with Ret Pallies. If they had given Rets a choice between doing damage and doing an AP Debuff, guess which one they’d choose?

   Kavtor reply on August 17, 2009 7:56 am:

   Well, hopefully they’d choose what gives the most benefit to the raid, rather than what makes their DPS e-peen bigger.

   You’ve just got to look at your raid and decide what the best ways to get all the buffs / debuffs involved while loosing as little raid DPS as possible.

   Roarc reply on August 17, 2009 8:03 am:

   It all depends on the raid setup. If you have 3 locks normally 1 can put up CoW, if you have 1 ret-pallie (which is something you normally have) you will have it anyway.

   For the protection warrior to get imp. demo shout is… well very costly both in talent points and in GCD’s. I also hope they make some talents proc on the use of other talents - at least put them inline with other classes, i.e:

   - Imp. Demo Shout should be 2/2
   - Commanding Presence should be lowered as well.

   What they could do, which would make some sense, is merge Commanding Presence and booming voice or Commanding Presence and Imp. demo shout. That would somewhat justify the higher cost. All in-all the availability of the talent is tricky for the prot-warrior never the less at the moment.

   For min-maxing a raid atm imp. demo shout can be an option but I’d say in most cases you have other, better, options out there.

   Cleaved reply on August 17, 2009 8:10 am:

   Demo Shout should be handled by DPS Warriors, and if you don’t have a DPS Warrior, you should. Especially Fury. I know most people are all hawt on Arms, but Fury brings better buffs and debuffs and consistent DPS.
   The other problem I forgot to mention, is a Ret Pally needs the points in Vindication, and most seem to be putting 1 point in there at the most (in some builds). Again, with a choice between a debuff and a DPS buff, they’ll shift those points to DPS.
   Having a proper raid composition is nice, and if you can make someone spec a certain way, that’s great too. But that’s a perfect world for some of us, in a guild where you could dock DKP if someone isn’t spec’d right or prepared. I’m betting for the majority, a Ret Pally won’t spec how you want him to and a Lock won’t put that Curse up the majority of the time.
   Such is WoW.

   wds reply on August 18, 2009 11:49 am:

   There’s only one problem with bringing a fury warrior for imp. demo shout: none that I know actually spec it. If it’s expensive for a tank to get, it’s even more expensive for a pure dps build to get. Those 5 points do nothing for your dps and will really gimp it in other quarters.

   I run dual prot/fury and I really struggled to get the fury spec to something respectable. There’s a lot more choice and room for a tank to spec it IMHO.

   Cleaved reply on August 18, 2009 6:19 pm:

   Even if they don’t spec it, they can toss it up. We have an Arms Warrior that specs into it for Raids, but that’s his choice, and I’m not familiar enough with Arms to know if it impacts their DPS that much. I do know that Fury brings a Crit Buff and can at least toss up reg. Demo Shout if not Imp. Demo Shout. With Booming Voice it’s preferable that they focus on keeping up Commanding Shout though. I honestly don’t see content atm being bad enough that we need Imp. Demo Shout. I’m sure it helps, but it doesn’t make or break a boss kill, even in Hard Modes. Most Hard Modes are dependent on DPS being able to beat a timer of some kind. The ones that require a lot of healing tend to focus more on raid damage with Tank damage being mitigated by CDs.
   The main difference here is, a Lock with or without it spec’d probably won’t toss it up, unless you make them. A RET Pally has to spec it in order for it to work, and a Fury Warrior can put it up, even if it’s not spec’d into… and the most they lose is a GCD and some Rage every few minutes.
   I guess everyone’s experience will vary. But in my experience, and having played a Lock for years before becoming a Prot Warrior, I know that most DPS don’t like to spec into things for Raids that don’t increase DPS. In a perfect world, as I said above, we’d have our Imp. Debuffs all the time. A lot of that rests in Blizzard’s hands, if they could make Deep Wounds less appealing then we’d spec further down Fury to get to Imp. Demo, eh?

   Meatgazer reply on August 19, 2009 6:58 am:

   If you’re going to say bring a DPS warrior to do regular demo shout, just do the shout yourself. Making a lock use CoW so you can focus more on damage as a tank is completely counter productive. Just by giving the lock the ability to use curses for damage instead will boost overall raid damage. I can understand doing these things if you’re threat capped and need all you can get, but if you’re not capped, it just seems lazy to me.

   I love the protection specs with the shouts. In general, a GCD for a DPS class is worth more raid damage than a GCD for a tank (assuming no one is threat capped). And as Vene mentioned - if you die, it’s probably a wipe. If the ret paladin, warlock, or dps warrior die, the fight usually goes on.

9. Kavtor Says:
   August 17th, 2009 at 7:53 am

   I can’t see taking points out of revenge. It’s a pretty huge damage boost. True, you can heroic strike more with a rage talent instead, but the white hit will give you comparable rage, and imp revenge is going to give you a better return on the damage.

   Using some of my average raid buffed damage numbers.

   Each point in revenge is worth about 270 damage pre hit (post armour, raid buffed) or about 45 DPS.

   Heroic Strike adds 673 damage. Each point in shield spec (20% chance on hit) at 50% avoidance generates 0.25 rage per second. At a 2.4 average debuffed swing speed, assuming 9 rage heroic strikes, it’s going to take you about 36 seconds to generate an extra heroic strike. For 19 DPS. And then you loose the rage from that heroic strike. So even if you look at the TPS gain from the bonus HS threat, you’re not matching the return on revenge.

   And while Vigilance isn’t too useful if you’re not loosing threat, but if you are in danger (Hodir hard) it can be worth way, way more TPS than you’d get out of shield spec. Vigilance is, as usual, useless if you don’t need it, and overpowered if you do.

   I’d say Shield spec is worth more than Cruelty, but not revenge.

   Your two deep wounds specs would want to put points into revenge from shield spec.

   Your 5/15/51 spec would stay the same, making the big trade off for shield spec over revenge because it’s aim is pure survival (block chance) at the expense of DPS.

   [Reply]

   Veneretio reply on August 17, 2009 8:01 am:

   Imp Revenge only improves the base damage of Revenge not the modified amount which is why I don’t prioritize it higher in my talent distribution.

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   Roarc reply on August 17, 2009 8:24 am:

   Well as it stands today your revenge damage is:

   - Base: 1454-1776+AP*0,207
   - Improved: 1745-2132+AP*0,207

   Say you go raid-buffed with 4000AP then we’ll see figures of:

   - Base: 2282-2604
   - Improved: 2573-2960 (+13-14%)

   Seeing revenge stands for something like 10% of our damage output improved I’d say loosing in the lines of 13-14% here is quite substantial.

   In the end you have to compare this to other talents you can choose for the points at hand. In terms of threat / dps you’ve got:

   - Imp. Revenge
   - Puncture
   - Focused Rage
   - Cruelty

   I’m not sure any of the others come out in favour. Puncture is weak compared to Focused Rage (crap even) yet Focused Rage is random if useful - Imp. Revenge will always give you the ≈15% boost on a very cheap, high threat talent.

   Speaking of this talent imo it should be a talent that can’t be dodged, blocked or parried as with over-power.

   [Reply]

   Vilhelmriker (Lothar Server) reply on August 18, 2009 1:23 pm:

   and people always forget about the stun proc. I’ve seen it hit on Stormcaller Brundir a number of times, and I swear by it. I tend to not set myself up situationally, and keep one set of gear and one spec throughout my tanking through trash, OTing, and MTing a raid. I try to be “ready for anything”, so while the dmg boost from imp revenge is great, I love it when I get the additional interrupt on a mob when it hits.

   Veneretio reply on August 18, 2009 1:59 pm:

   Using a “ready for anything” build really means that you’re using an inferior build for each situation. Yes, it’s easier to just make 1 catch-all spec, but if you aren’t optimizing then you’re losing out on advantages that can make the difference between defeating a boss this week or the next.

   Meatgazer reply on August 19, 2009 7:23 am:

   2 points in improved rage gives you a 14% buff on a 10% of overall damage (1.4% overall damage). That ends up being like 30-40 DPS. An extra 20 DPS per talent point isn’t gamebreaking.

   However, assuming you use a 2.0 speed weapon after raid buffs, you’re getting up to 14 rage from 2 points in focused rage every 6 seconds (3 HS + 4 specials, less if SnB procs). That’s at least 1 extra heroic strike every 6 seconds (assuming you don’t have 100% uptime on heroic strike already).

   Heroic strike does do 673 damage, but it also has 15% better chance to crit, doubling the damage of HS and procing DW for added damage. So the difference between a white swing and heroic striking is more like 1000 damage (900 conservatively). 900 damage every 6 seconds gives a possible DPS increase of 150 DPS. That’s 75 DPS per point in focused rage.

   Now let’s assume you have 90% uptime on heroic strike, so you can’t add that many heroic strikes in the lineup. It’s still 900 damage every 20 seconds (1/10 auto-attacks of 2.0 speed). That translates to 45 DPS for 2 points, so it might as well break even with imp revenge at that point (from a damage standpoint).

   Long story short, Focused Rage > Imp. Revenge, unless you have more than 90% uptime on heroic strike.

10. tPaste Says:
    August 17th, 2009 at 9:07 am

    I find myself speccing out of Improved TC for DWs…To me, DW is a threat/damage spec…so to take away 2% crit (for more bleed uptime) and 10% damage off your second best ability feels like compromises I couldn’t live with when trying to maximize threat/damage. I take the points out of TC because others provide the buff and - lets face facts - we are not good AoE tanks. Short term we WILL NOT BE good AoE tanks…so I find the damage loss of TC on a single target boss fight to be nonexistent since I don’t use it. If I need to grab adds unimproved TC still has enough damage to manage…and if I’m going to run heroics where I really want that TC damage…well I outgear those by enough that I’d just spec into TC and take the points out of Anticipation (I don’t need the dodge in heroics anyway)

    as for DW vs UA…in my tests (I generally only ran UA a lot on Hodir, trying for hard mode) and I have to say UA definitely seemed like a 2 to 4 hundred dps increase still on that encounter (helped greatly by the swing increase of the haste light adding more heroic strikes and having enough rage for them with revenge spam and the glyph) and a noticeable threat increase…other encounters I’m not sure…and that’s not scientific testing, that’s just me looking over some parses pre and post patch (pre-patch UA, post-patch DW). So I’m not sure what to think. Ultimately I’d like to just drop UA forever because I hate that build.

    As for your survivability spec…I have to admit I’m scared of it…I’d need to use it on Vezax because I need 2 two minute cooldowns to not have to kite and I just don’t feel like I’d be able to hold threat without incite and imp revenge.

    Realistically I’ll likely short term give up (I’m very close right now) on Imp Demo Shout and Commanding because pallies can now provide Demo (and for the same thing it costs us 5 points and a GCD, they get for only 2 points and a chance on hit =/) and 25% on Commanding feels really weak for 5 talent points that deep into arms.

    [Reply]

    Veneretio reply on August 17, 2009 9:35 am:

    Yes, 5 points (okay, let’s say 10) for a 25% increase on Commanding Shout can be a hard pill to swallow, but that 500ish additional health to everyone in the raid I find worth it for some fights. I’m not saying you must use it, certainly if I only had 1 Prot spec, I wouldn’t be, but it’s a fantastic option to have if you’re able to run 2 Prot specs like I am.

    [Reply]

11. Ateve Says:
    August 17th, 2009 at 10:08 am

    I’d like to point this out for discussions of 3.2 specs/glyphs, but over at TankSpot they’ve found that Devistate got an additional static threat increase in the patch above the dmg increase. Here’s the link:

    http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f14/53864-3-2-threat-values-devastate.html

    Basically Devistate now adds (315 + 5%AP) in bonus threat, with this number being doubled if you use glyph of devistate. For a prot war with the glyph and 4k AP thats about 1000 extra threat on top of the devistate dmg.

    This places dev close to rev for threat(and far above CB/SW), which for me diminishes the need for talent points in imp rev. Rev is still better for a dps and rage effiecency standpoint, but tps is no longer a clear cut favorite.

    [Reply]

12. urkagan Says:
    August 17th, 2009 at 11:23 am

    in a previous post u mentioned that glyph of command had been deleted by blizzard. Yet i see it in yuor “overall” spec. How? Please elaborate.

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    tPaste reply on August 17, 2009 11:31 am:

    I think there was confusion and a lot of people thought it didn’t make it live since you couldn’t train it or learn it from the inscription books…but it turns out you can do minor glyph discovery to learn it. It’s live and it’s a great glyph, go out and get it!

    [Reply]

    Veneretio reply on August 17, 2009 11:49 am:

    Sorry for the confusion, the glyph is indeed in-game.

    [Reply]

13. Magnuss Says:
    August 17th, 2009 at 11:27 am

    For my deep wounds spec I decided to work slightly counter productively. I wanted to get the 5/5 shield spec because it makes rage issues a thing of the past in any encounter. However, I felt I got more damage out of revenge, gag order, incite, and thunderclap than I ever did out of damage shield. With 2 points in damage shield in 3.1 it was an average of 2-3% of my overall damage done. That is -something- but by far the least significant of anything else out there. So my DW spec is this

    http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#LAM00fZhZVItrx0zidIzsuo:dcbzmo

    I still have damage shield, it is just cut in half (to probably not worth using numbers) because I didn’t have anywhere else reasonable to put the point. Either way this spec gives me infinite rage in those heroics I have to run all the time and I don’t bother with a “Survival” spec because we have enough warriors in the raid for everyone to be happy without me dropping threat/damage.

    As a whole I would agree with Vene when he talked about UA not really having an appeal anymore. One of the nice things about it before was that you could put on a gearset that would normally rage starve you and allow you insane thread/dps. Now, you can put on that same gearset in a traditional spec with 5/5 shield spec and put out fairly reasonable threat without losing any of your tanking perks. It was an interesting spec to use, but I am not terribly upset that it is gone.

    [Reply]

14. Shadevarr Says:
    August 17th, 2009 at 11:55 am

    I’ve dropped UA for mitigation spec. Came in really useful on hardmodes and gen vezax.

    http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#LVZGV00xZVutrg0dVdIzsh:rTdzoc

    Threat gen is low.

    [Reply]

    Roarc reply on August 17, 2009 2:15 pm:

    A spec with out Gag Order seems quite odd from a defensive and offensive point of view.

    [Reply]

    Roarc reply on August 17, 2009 2:27 pm:

    Erhm, and no shockwave but focused rage? Have I missed something?

    [Reply]

    tPaste reply on August 17, 2009 4:16 pm:

    I don’t have a problem with not taking Shockwave but putting points in focuses rage…assuming you carry 2 specs and don’t plan to do any AoE tanking with this one. This spec would probably do really well on progression bosses, because it looks like it’s focusing on single target threat and survivability

    Though if I were to attempt to maximize it, I’d put 5 points in cruelty (and 0 in imp demo - since pallies bring this now). Then I’d consider dropping warbringer for another point in incite…and drop imp TC in hopes of filling out Incite and then getting 2 in Gag Order.

    Finally I’d consider changing the block glyph for a vig glyph…I hate the vig glyph but if you want to try maximize threat and survivability that would be a good way to go about doing it imo. Though I can’t stress enough how I would never EVER want to try aoe tank with it.

15. Pabitera Says:
    August 17th, 2009 at 1:05 pm

    In the 15/3/53 I’d change the glyph of shield wall with a glyph of devastate, and replace 1 armored to the teeth for vigilance. At least if I’d need the extra threat from the highest dps’er.

    [Reply]

    Roarc reply on August 18, 2009 12:48 am:

    I’d imagine 1 point in AttT is more effective than 1 point in Focused Rage. Better to steal from a slot that isn’t a “guaranteed improvement”.

    [Reply]

16. Hellforged Says:
    August 17th, 2009 at 4:09 pm

    I’m having trouble seeing how 3/3 Focused Rage is a better investment than 2/2 Imp. Revenge. I think Imp. Revenge should most definitely be a priority, since it’s the go-to attack when rage starved, and even more so when glyphed. Every bit of threat in that situation is going to make a difference.

    Maybe you can enlighten me a little with regard to that.

    [Reply]

    Roarc reply on August 18, 2009 12:50 am:

    I’ve yet to find a proper answer to this either. As stated above improved revenge supposedly only increase base damage of revenge but still it get’s boosted by ≈13% in our current gear levels. Sounds like a solid boost to me. From what someone at Elitist Jerks said its a ≈300 tps boost for 2 talents points which is imo worth it.

    [Reply]

    Meatgazer reply on August 19, 2009 7:43 am:

    As posted above, you trade 10-14 rage every 6 seconds for a 1.3-1.4% increase in overall DPS. What you do with that rage is up to you, but if you can cram more heroic strikes in, you’ll get even more DPS/threat with focused rage.

    [Reply]

17. Blackheathen Says:
    August 17th, 2009 at 6:31 pm

    15 points in fury tree seems pretty expensive considering pallies have Imp Demo shout now and it is much easier for a fury warrior to spec into Commanding Presence.

    As a result, I am thinking it better to stay close to the 15/3/53 build and just move points from ATT into Imp Disciplines and max focused rage (or imp rev, which ever you took points out of before).

    Not entirely convinced this is the way to go, especially since the buff to ATT. Not having points there means a massive drop in AP, i.e. I love 717 AP. I am thinking/hoping Deep wounds makes up for that loss but will have to experiment a little. It is just hard when alot of the survivability fights are also threat sensitive i.e. Vezax

    [Reply]

18. Blackheathen Says:
    August 17th, 2009 at 6:38 pm

    Although you do make a good point in that often it is better to take the responsibility to keep up Demo/commanding shout yourself rather than leave them up to DPS classes that may or may not really see the need. I think that these days we certainly have alot more options than we have in the past.

    [Reply]

19. Blackheathen Says:
    August 17th, 2009 at 6:46 pm

    Actually, thinking about it some more, I really don’t think ATT is the place to take points from.

    Sorry about the spam.

    [Reply]

20. Warscream Says:
    August 17th, 2009 at 10:04 pm

    It sounds like many need to step back and really “see” the Warrior class. This is not a Tank like the others. If your speccing and pointing to be like the others then you fail. Who else has what the War has got? DKs are CD gurus…wow. Druids are much better than Commanding Shout Improv. Pallies have easy AoE. What do War’s got? All that and a massive amount of utility. We are the best AoE tanks if they are not immune to Peircing Howl. We can glyph our CDs. But above all else, we can zoom around the room and just look freakish! Watch every other tank lumber around the battlefield, I can be anywhere in one click. Once you know the fights, points won’t matter. Don’t Tank. Protect the Raid. Once you look at your class this way, your options and fun go..ZOOM!
    Let the slow specialist “tank”. Warrior’s protect.

    [Reply]

    Roarc reply on August 18, 2009 12:54 am:

    “Druids are much better than Commanding Shout Improv”

    This doesn’t quite make sense. What do Druids have that remotely compared to Commanding Shout?

    I’d say Warriors are extremely flexible tanks due to our utilities and out options of speccing for a decent cool-down rotation.

    [Reply]

    Warscream reply on August 18, 2009 4:36 am:

    I was just saying that a true survivalist build would be a feral druid. If a large health pool is your goal, then you are missing the benefit of the warrior. “Extremely flexible” is an understatement in the company of Dks, Pallies, and druid tanks. War’s are the only game in town. If you want a great CD rotation you should check out a Frost DK, they are great at it…but it ends there. If your going to talk about protection speccing, you gotta talk utility. Adding more health can have some utility. How bout intervening w/ safe guard to the guy you know if gonna take a hit in the back field, you take it and slap a 30% SW on him for 6 secs to boot. Better than % more comm shout? How bout 7 possible interupts on a target that is stunnable?

    [Reply]

    Veneretio reply on August 18, 2009 7:55 am:

    Commanding Shout improves the health of the whole raid not just yourself. While, yes, you’re correct that Warriors make excellent Offtanks due to their high utility that does not mean that they should always be Offtanks.

    A lot of us are Main tanks and for good reason and as a result, we’re going to gear, spec, glyph, enchant and gem in order to optimize ourselves as Main tanks.

    Warscream reply on August 18, 2009 8:29 pm:

    I agree Vene and I think Commanding Shout makes a wonderful addition to our utility and raid multipiers. We are surely equip’d for the main tank role and I am the MT of our guild and all the other MT’s I’m friends with happen to be War’s as well. It’s tradition.
    I will just say from my personal experience that I spent the last 3 years focusing on threat and mitigation. Both are requirments of the tank. However, my gameface has changed and I’m really falling in love with trying to push every button in every encounter. I hate 30 secs when I did not use all three charges. So yeah, I’m talking alot about ADD tanking. For vetern players we have probably been down this road, but I played for years without ever touching Intervene. So that is an interesting question. What buttons don’t you push…and why?

21. servognome Says:
    August 18th, 2009 at 6:37 am

    I’ve been running as my utility spec 13/3/35
    http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#LAM00dZhZVIxrx0didIzsGo:Tcdzmo

    I kept 1 point in deep wounds just to get the dot up there for a little threat. I didn’t fully spec it since the loss of 2 points in deep wounds to get improved disciplines yields a only a loss of 33-50TPS which is is bested by maintaining improved revenge, vigilance, as well as the greater rage from 5/5 shield spec.

    [Reply]

    Veneretio reply on August 18, 2009 7:57 am:

    There are few hard and fast rules when it comes to Warrior tanking. This comment section has been a testament to that. That said, any spec without Last Stand is wrong.

    [Reply]

    Warscream reply on August 18, 2009 9:26 pm:

    That’s a funky utility specc. I would agree, Last Stand is “don’t leave home without”. Do you keep Retaliation and Recklessness on cooldown? I try to as well, though I don’t talent for them. I generally am not gonna get any off twice in one encounter. If your not firing them off each, twice per encounter…is it worth it? Try Safe Guard. You get three buffs for 1 thrity sec click, plus the mobility. You can weave in all three charges in 30 secs. If you know a toon that has to be in danger for a fight, use this, healers will love you. Threat to me has always = hit cap. Current gear makes this very easy. You can be hit capped and never step into Uld. Generally a “Miss” is the beginning of a Taunt CD. There is not much Utility in the Arms tree past buffing Charge rage, which could lead to a follow-up combo perhaps unavailable w/o. However, Fury has many utility functions. I like to go to Piercing Howl myself, then put some points in buffing my buffs/debuffs. I like them, I just don’t drill to them and consider myself a “survivalist”. Servo, what buttons do you never use?

    [Reply]

    Mookey reply on August 19, 2009 1:23 am:

    Imp Disciplines and glyphed shield wall are used for warriors tanking Vezax, and some hard modes, they are not there for reclkesness/retal CD since most you can use them in hard damage fights are for start or break - and there are not much of them in current fights.

    [Reply]

22. Kamehameha Says:
    August 18th, 2009 at 12:03 pm

    I run 15/3/53 with a point allocated to Vigilance and only two to Focused Rage. I love Vig for the increased threat in hard modes; Hodir is the outsanding case in point. Focused rage often seems redundant in rage-rich boss encounters; I’m thinking about going down to one point.

    I agree on Last stand but I find that speccing for CDs is a waste. My raid generally has enough even without my contributions; the last time we did Vezax I could have done without my shield wall altogether.

    [Reply]

    Warscream reply on August 18, 2009 9:35 pm:

    I did the glyphing/speccing for CD with a “survival” build and just found it very boring and abit of a waste of my abilities. However, i would say that perhaps also, some of us are speaking from differnet positions. Are we into Progression or Farming? That would also play a huge role in my choice of speccs. For Uld I’m using my Utility more and more, because we are progressing really, rather than farming. Naxx on the otherhand is on farm, so the “survivalist/cd” specc just makes it easier for me to talk casually in vent and surfing the latest on Tankingtips.com while tanking Spider.

    [Reply]

23. Lyco Says:
    August 19th, 2009 at 2:13 am

    Also, Just drop a point in Critical Block imo.
    I value 10% Revenge damage over 5% Crit change on shieldslam.

    [Reply]

24. Fauxhawk Says:
    August 19th, 2009 at 2:54 pm

    Thanks for the work Vene. I’ve been following this closely although from afar(first time poster). I know that DW builds have been proven to produced the most threat. I used 15/5/51 until the patch. Has anyone considered the viability of something like 8/8/55. Dumping imp charge, impale and DW for cruelty 5/5? It would free points to fill shield spec. and/or improved disc. I guess what im asking is does anyone know how great the difference is between 5/5 cruelty and Impale/DW?

    [Reply]

25. Kamyndra Says:
    August 23rd, 2009 at 9:12 pm

    A side thought. If one of the counter arguments to not maxing out Shield Spec because you have enough rage is “you’re not heroic striking enough”, would it make sense to put 3 points back in Improved Heroic Strike and drop Shield Spec to 2? Over the long haul, you’ll average 3 less rage per block/parry/dodge, but against many bosses a block/parry/dodge will come less frequently than HS with a 1.5 speed weapon. Over the long haul, you should save more rage than you lose, allowing for more HS. Just something I thought of and thought I’d ask, haven’t tried to do any deep theorycrafting with it yet.

    I’m probably ending my experiment with dps specs soon and going back to two tanking specs for raiding, so working through some of the new details, including now Glyph of Blocking vs. Glyph of Devastate after reading that thread from TankSpot (thanks for the link whoever posted it).

    [Reply]

    tPaste reply on August 25, 2009 12:25 pm:

    I kinda doubt it, because if you’re going deep wounds you should probably already have imp hs…and if you’re going survival you probably won’t have the talent points to put points in imp hs and still manage to get 51 in prot and 15 in arms.

    [Reply]

    Kamyndra reply on August 25, 2009 7:01 pm:

    Doh, I was looking at everything individually and not as a whole. That’s what I get for staying up too late thinking about specs…

    [Reply]

26. donThoto Says:
    August 30th, 2009 at 2:40 pm

    I am gonna use the 15/3/53 as suggested by Vene except for Vigilance. I tank content where I am a bit undergeared (or underskilled hehe) so I will rather take that last point from Focused Rage.

    [Reply]

27. Loonierbin Says:
    August 31st, 2009 at 3:38 pm

    http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#LVMZGVcZVhtrxM0ibIzsGo:dhMMom

    This is my current build and glyphs. I went for an AoE spec and this build allows for an 8 rage TC and 3 target cleave which so far as been pretty easy to maintain threat with. It also gives me a 10 rage Dev, and I have macroed Dshout onto my TC so I always maintain Dshout. With this build i manage about 1.7 to 2.3k not great but good for a tank.

    [Reply]

28. brian davis Says:
    October 14th, 2009 at 10:44 pm

    Hey thanks for all the hard work. I just added dual spec and went with your advice for:

    What if I don’t have 2 Prot Specs? advice. its the 15/3/53

    Can you give us your rotation ideas for this if i am the main tank? I’m new to Tanking and have no idea what i should use (other than heroic strike for Threat). Thank you!

    Brian

    [Reply]

    Veneretio reply on October 15, 2009 3:04 am:

    Shield Slam > Revenge > Shockwave > Concussion Blow > Devastate. That’s the order you want to use your abilities to maintain high dps while tanking.

    [Reply]

29. Fently Says:
    January 21st, 2010 at 3:04 pm

    do you find that when you run the bleed spec - you change your gear to get the set bonus for deva crits? Finally decided to give up on pvp so making the bleed my 2nd spec.

    [Reply]

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