Patch 3.3

[Rendakor]

I kinda want to make a blood DK tank. It may not be the optimal raid tanking spec, but in heroics they come off like a self-healing one man army.

I actually think it is the optimal raid tanking spec now to be quite honest; the top 10 best geared DK tanks on my server (Andorhal) according to wow-heroes are all blood.

Personally I switched to blood back before 3.2 (or maybe 3.1? the patch where they made Howling Blast the 51p instead of 21p) and haven't once regretted it.

[Merusk]

is too low. That said, you could probably level using a fishing rod as a blood DK and it would still be immeasurably easier than other classes.

It'd be easier to level as a frost or unholy DK if you were going the fishing pole route.  The pole doesn't count as a weapon for any melee strikes so you're down to just spells.  I know this from being attacked in WG a few times while fishing and forgetting to swap the pole out.  Still won tho.  

[Fabricated]

Ten levels of Outland (blech) and then another twelve in Northrend just to end up a fresh 80 in greens and farm normals in preparation for heroics is a lot to sell myself on. Especially when I could just respec my paladin and start gathering tank gear right now if I really had the urge. As it is I'm specced ret/ret, one for PVE and one for PVP, and it's pretty fun.

If I ever get an alt off the ground, it'll probably be a DK. I loved my UO necromancer, and the DK is pretty much the WoW equivalent. I think half of what's keeping me away is the lore, because I'm a dork like that. I'll probably like them better after WOTLK is over.

Can you dual-wield as blood? 

(No really. I've been doing two-handers for so long as a paladin that the change would be nice.)

Well on the upside you can enjoy the rather kickass DK starting area again...then have its plot not revisited while you save space goats in floaty world for ~10 levels.

[Ingmar]

Concur on dual wield not really working for blood.

Also just to pile on a little bit, the dude saying there's OMG NO ADVANTAGE to a DW frost build is just flat out wrong. A DW frost build, today, will have higher threat output than a 2h frost build. Period, full stop, no argument. They have an extra 3% to hit and get to rune strike more, and rune strike has a large static threat component and a chunk that scales off of AP instead of weapon damage.

[Sheepherder]

Dual-wield also means 19% less chance to hit with auto-attack.  Throwing numbers at Rawr seems to indicate the positive benefit of dual-wield is pretty insignificant.

[Tannhauser]

So what's Unholy spec good for?

[Merusk]

So what's Unholy spec good for?

AOE DPS and not making your locks cast Curse of Elements on raid mobs because of Ebon Plague.  Unholy can toss it out on all mobs in AOE in 2 GCDs.  1) Icy Touch or Plague Strike 2) Pestilence.  Ta-da.. 13% more magic damage.

It does good DPS, too but supposedly Blood does better.  I've stayed Unholy the whole expansion because I've enjoyed the spec a ton, despite my initial reservations about it. 

[Selby]

AOE DPS and not making your locks cast Curse of Elements on raid mobs because of Ebon Plague.  Unholy can toss it out on all mobs in AOE in 2 GCDs.  1) Icy Touch or Plague Strike 2) Pestilence.  Ta-da.. 13% more magic damage.

It does good DPS, too but supposedly Blood does better.  I've stayed Unholy the whole expansion because I've enjoyed the spec a ton, despite my initial reservations about it. 

Exactly.  If your 10-m group has no 'lock (as mine did) we had our DK respec Unholy from Blood and her DPS went up slightly, but also our elemental shammy, boomkin, and mage (me) did considerably more damage over time when the Ebon Plague was on them.  It was actually a boost overall to raid DPS, and it showed in how quickly we could knock out cutting edge raid bosses (on the Twins in ToC-10, we would all stack on one color and zerg it down, AND still beat the "Fast Kill" timer to win, several weeks after the raid was released).  Granted, on a melee heavy raid, it's may not be the best, but I love it on my DK and haven't switched yet (I still don't stack +SP though ;-) ).

[Ingmar]

Moonkins apply the 13% spell damage debuff themselves, so the unholy DK was really only helping in AE situations. Single target burns such as the Twins should have been unaffected either way.

[Sheepherder]

A raid with two or more DK's should generally have an unholy one for Crypt Fever.  It's that good.

[Shrike]

Dual-wield also means 19% less chance to hit with auto-attack.  Throwing numbers at Rawr seems to indicate the positive benefit of dual-wield is pretty insignificant.

+1.

Everyone is sorta missing the point and I even got sidetracked venting on the DK hate train.

The fundamental point was there is no good reason to go DW DK on tanking. There isn't even a very good reason to go dps, but there is some utility in a howling blast build for PvP and it'll do well in PvE dps--just not substantially better than more conventional frost types. Nevertheless, you see lots of DW DK tanks and they largely suck for a variety of reasons. Enough so that they're worth avoiding in PuGs. That's my basic point and I'm sticking with it. I still think Blizzard made a mistake grafting DW talents onto the DK class before release.

[Soulflame]

I find myself in near complete agreement with Shrike

DW is a viable spec for tanking for DKs.  It's probably not better than 2H.  It requires heavy investment in frost, which becomes problematic when you run across a DW DK that went Blood spec instead.  To toss out a for instance.  You know, theoretically speaking.

Most of the DW DKs that I have personally done instances with have not been good tanks for a variety of reasons that likely have nothing to do with DW mechanics, but rather with their lack of skill at tanking.

[Draegan]

I've got a level 60 warrior from Vanilla days that I'm thinking of resurrecting.  Can anyone give me a hint about prot leveling specs etc?  Is there any good warrior forums to check out other than places like EJ and TankSpot?

Just looking for general build info and gear to go for.

[Ingmar]

TankSpot and EJ are basically your best resources for prot warriors, I'd say you'll get more out of TankSpot probably as EJ tends to focus more on the dps specs and really high end game.

There's no particularly good reason to spec protection differently for leveling as you'll spec for raiding/grouping later. Just buy vigilance last.

http://www.wowarmory.com/talent-calc.xml?cid=1&tal=3502000023000000000000000000000300000000000000000000000000043351225000012521330113321 is my preferred build right now.

[Sheepherder]

Ingmar, have they fixed Improved Spell Reflect adding the threat of the reflected cast to the person who reflected it rather than the tank yet?

[Ingmar]

Ingmar, have they fixed Improved Spell Reflect adding the threat of the reflected cast to the person who reflected it rather than the tank yet?

I don't know, I only use it when I have a PVP spec. It is just too hard to find the points for it in an all-purpose build.

There are some spots in the new 5s where it would be pretty awesome to have, though, and it was great on faction champs and Maly phase 2. I wish I could be tri-specced just so I have a build with it sitting around for when it is actually useful.

[Register]

I've got a level 60 warrior from Vanilla days that I'm thinking of resurrecting.  Can anyone give me a hint about prot leveling specs etc?  Is there any good warrior forums to check out other than places like EJ and TankSpot?

Just looking for general build info and gear to go for.

Prob with Tankspot and EJ is that they focus on Endgame tanking, and you won't find much info on Prot leveling builds.

Currently, I'm leveling a warrior alt - despite having a BOA Reaper, I respecced Prot after being inspired by a Prot war pvp video.

Here's my spec as per Armory : http://www.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Nagrand&cn=Galadann&gn=Renaissance+SG

Will be getting anger management and impale later on, though I might be passing deep wounds for armored to the teeth\cruelty as the bleed dots is based on weapon average damage (using 1h in prot spec), and I won't have trauma to boost the bleeds.

[Sjofn]

Honestly you could just fill in your protection spec in a "eventually I want this to be my real spec" way and level perfectly well. My protection warrior basically leveled that way from 70 to 80. I did pretty good damage and took practically none, so it was a lot faster than I expected. :P

[Ingmar]

Deep wounds typically will outperform cruelty, even with a fast tanking weapon. Prot spec is loaded with +15% crit to whatever talents so you won't find yourself missing it, and because of that you'll have enough crit to get the deep wounds procs reliably without cruelty. Anger management is kind of a waste too now that shield spec generates a lot of rage.

Re: other tips, Imp. bloodrage is very useful in pvp, I'm not sold on it for pve at all. Glyphing charge, again, useful for pvp, but you're only cutting 1 second off your cooldown with it and thus I would probably rather stick something in there to help me kill things a little faster for leveling, like maybe the shockwave glyph for AE packs, which is something I'd never touch in a normal PVE build - 3 seconds off that cooldown is noticeable, though (I use it in my arena build), so I'd say it would go very well in a leveling build.

I don't remember if the armor increasing talent feeds back into the AP from armored to the teeth, but if it does you probably want to get into that sooner rather than later.

EDIT: AHA I spotted the missing points. PUNCTURE. Puncture sucks, the only reason to take it is for arena where you will have rage issues and the extra 3 rage on devastate can make or break things. Otherwise its poop these days.

[Register]

Deep wounds typically will outperform cruelty, even with a fast tanking weapon. Prot spec is loaded with +15% crit to whatever talents so you won't find yourself missing it, and because of that you'll have enough crit to get the deep wounds procs reliably without cruelty. Anger management is kind of a waste too now that shield spec generates a lot of rage.

Re: other tips, Imp. bloodrage is very useful in pvp, I'm not sold on it for pve at all. Glyphing charge, again, useful for pvp, but you're only cutting 1 second off your cooldown with it and thus I would probably rather stick something in there to help me kill things a little faster for leveling, like maybe the shockwave glyph for AE packs, which is something I'd never touch in a normal PVE build - 3 seconds off that cooldown is noticeable, though (I use it in my arena build), so I'd say it would go very well in a leveling build.

I don't remember if the armor increasing talent feeds back into the AP from armored to the teeth, but if it does you probably want to get into that sooner rather than later.

Hrm... sounds like Deep Wounds is still the better choice. Anger Management wise is more for slowing rage decay flying around - for 1 pt it slows decay by 33%. Glyph of charge... is a legacy of it's former glory before being nerfed. Was thinking of changing it, but for leveling the other glyphs seems to offer marginal improvement so left it alone for now.

Leveling this prot mainly for testing out Prot PVP. How's your experience with it in PVP so far? Would love to hear some expreience\stories.... 

[Sjofn]

Even when he loses, it usually takes a MILLION YEARS to happen. That's all I know about protection PvP, personally. 

[proudft]

Prot PvP is highly amusing.  There are actually fairly few specs that murder you, unlike the usual rock/paper/scissors relationships.  You have approximately a zillion interrupts for casters and melee has a terrible time doing actual damage to you.   

Of course, you don't do a great deal of damage, but it's fun ANYWAY.   Shockwave or shield slam can hit for like 4000 or so, which isn't awful -- that sometimes will finish off someone by surprise.  Mainly though you kill people by wearing them down slowly and watching the steam come out of their ears.

[Fordel]

The thing about Prot Damage, is you can't get rid of it and you can't ignore it. If a Prot warrior decides to stick on you, it's going to have it's way with you without much recourse.

[Fabricated]

One of my favorite past times in Vanilla WoW was going into battlegrounds as my prot warrior in my tanking set and watching rogues in Marshall/Grand Marshall gear fruitlessly attempt to stunlock me to death. I frequently had rogues give up trying to kill me and move on to other targets because their 1-2 digit white damage (even if they were rocking epic weapons) wasn't getting the job done.

Of course mages and warlocks ate me alive but rogues were the real fiends of the BGs for a long time.

[Ingmar]

Until they nerfed damage shield a bit (and weapon dps went up) I used to come out of stunlock having more health left than the rogue who started stabbing me. 

I can write up some more strategy type stuff tomorrow but it arena it boils down to harrassing the healer and keeping them locked down(interrupt, stun, silence, stun, fear, repeat) until its time to burst someone, then you throw on the improved disarm damage boost on your fully sundered target, stun them, and go to town with everyone else blowing their cooldowns.

[Ashamanchill]

Prot warriors are a spec I love running into in the BGs when I'm too lazy to swap out my tanking gear and am running around in bear form. I've yet to lose a strict one on one with them.

[Jayce]

Another vote for leveling as Prot. I switched from fury near the end of BC all the way through now, and it was actually a lot of fun. I took on elites I had no business fighting by popping cooldowns and wearing them down.  The spec doesn't just mow through everything like a higher dps build, but it goes at a fast enough pace that it feels just as quick.  And if you're on a pvp server, as mentioned, an even-level opponent will have a hard time with you.

[Draegan]

So I was setting up my warrior last night but I didn't get the time to actually play the guy.

I'm trying to set up my hotkeys and I don't know what's good to use.  I also didn't use any talent points yet.

What are the abilities you use most often (non-cooldown ones)?  I'm gonna look like a total noob for a while.

Also, I have 295 Mining 105 Enchanting.  Should I drop enchanting for something?  Or should I just keep going with it?  I need a prof that I can make a little bit of profit since all my toons are poor.

[Rasix]

Enchanting will cost a lot to raise and is pretty impossible to raise naturally during the course of leveling (especially here since you'll be spanning expansions).   Keep the mining; I might add skinning to that, given you don't have to track 2 things at once.

[Selby]

Enchanting also doesn't give any serious bonuses to a warrior at max level either, so other than being able to shard items and enchant your own gear, it's not that useful like blacksmithing.  I'd also recommend skinning because of the extra critical bonus you get and not needing to track 2 different items.

And as far as leveling protection as a warrior, what stance do you use and what skill rotation would you use?  I am leveling mine as Arms and have the rotation down pretty well, but that's only because another warrior gave me some advice and he has since quit the game.  Leveling info for warriors I've found is not the easiest to find...

[Nevermore]

Enchanting has self only ring enchants that aren't bad.

[Draegan]

Enchanting will cost a lot to raise and is pretty impossible to raise naturally during the course of leveling (especially here since you'll be spanning expansions).   Keep the mining; I might add skinning to that, given you don't have to track 2 things at once.

Is selling leather really going to bag you decent cash?

[Sjofn]

Depends on the server, probably, but it seems to sell pretty durn well on Doomhammer, even the lower level stuff.

[El Gallo]

There's an addon called WetSpot (I didn't name it) that will automatically cycle between multiple tracking types while you are out of combat (so it doesn't mess up your GCD while fighting).  It makes herb + mining feasible, if that's your fancy.

Blacksmithing and jewelcrafting are very slightly better than other non-gathering professions if you are really min-maxing, but just go with what you want and what is useful/profitable/feasible to do while levelling.  There's no way BS/JC will be profitable or feasible to do while levelling.  I'd just get two gathering professions, or maybe herb+alchemy, on a levelling character.  

Levelling as prot is fun as hell (did most of 60-80 that way).  Shield slam, shockwave, and revenge when they're up, concussion blow and devastate when they aren't.  If you have a group, use shockwave and CB as crowd control tools, along with intimidating shout.  You can macro shield block to shield slam for bigger slam hits (the macro works because shield block doesn't trigger GCD).  Levelling while working toward a standard tank build is fine. You might want to get improved spell reflect (for dungeons) and improved disarm (for soloing) if you are really anal.  

Anyway, it's not as fast as levelling fury, but you'll have a better time with groups and soloing small-group quests in levelling gear as prot (note: once you're geared, fury becomes the best boss-soloing spec of the standard specs [the best of all is a fury-prot hybrid]).  I haven't levelled as Arms since vanilla, so I can't say much about it.  

Doing BGs as prot is also fun as hell.  In arenas, I've found it frustrating since I generally just get ignored by people who know what they are doing, which means no rage (only what I get from charge and white hits with a 1-hander!), which means not much fun.  The difficulty I've had with prot pvp builds is the choice between impale+deep wounds and piercing how. I usually find that I can't live without howl, but ymmv.  

Note, however, that I suck balls at pvp, play only low arena ranks, and haven't tried to arena with prot since 3.1.

[Draegan]

Did I read that there was an easier way to get into the Outlands other than via the Portal in one of the patch notes?  I thought I remember something like that.

Oh and what glyphs would ya recommend at 60?