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Prot DPS/PVP - Protribution Guide - Updated 3.3!
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Post by
DrvUMad
I've noticed that noone brought up the use of Lavanthor's Talisman. This combined with a Greatness card are the BiS trinkets to use for this build whether you are pve or pvp. Pop wings and the trinket in the same macro after judging a target (read Libram) can give you some HUGE crits.
Are the big crits that important? Nice, certainly, but overall damage would be more useful too. In the 'ideal gear' on the front page, I've put Dark Matter, for the passive 222 attack power and chance to increase crit rating.
I think you underestimate the value of Block Value (no pun intended). For me this is a primarily PvP build and sustained dps doesn't do it for me in the BGs, whereas huge crits on the other hand make for fast burst kills when they occur. Currently There is enough time to get SotR off 3 times with Wings and Talisman running and with a 30%+ chance to crit you should see one if you don't get shutdown. The passive +BV from this trinket also adds to the mix when not on use.
First: SotR's damage is reduced to 100% BV down from 130% BV. This means BV from STR will have 30% less impact on SotR damage. BV from items is doubling which ensures TANKS still gain the tps from the ability they had previous to the nerf but prot dps loses ability at the same time.
Do tanks spec for BV nowadays? I thought avoidance was all the rage in Ulduar. Yes, we'll lose a bit of damage from STR, but that just means that we may need to re-weight the gearing. BV was never that big in the calculations anyway - you get more than double from the SoB/M procs, melee and HotR than you do from the extra ShoR damage, and that's with the 130% scaling and no cap.
I stack BV for tanking Ulduar and Blizzard seems to think it's undervalued hence they are doubling it in the next patch. Beyond that see my statement above about Block Value. This build is based upon it.
My Exo thoughts were intended for PvE, not that I use this spec much in PvE.
Regarding SoB/M vs SoCom vs SoV/C; again this is from a pvp perspective, mana is an issue as you wont always have that pocket healer to keep your SA pumping you full of mana. SoB works sometimes but I find myself switching to Wisdom even now Glyphed with SoB and switching back as necessary. SoV takes far too long to get rolling on a target to be of use in a BG and the burst damage is lackluster =(
HoR; well that's too bad, it used to work great in the arenas, I was hoping with the new change they were changing it back to the way it was. I used this as Ret to get myself in combat from range to avoid the Rogue's Sap. Definately of no use in PvE as DPS unless you want attention.
If geared with straight PvE gear it's quite possible to stack over 2700 average passive Block Value not including base str or any str gems you may socket.
Click to read the comments of this item.
I mixed with 4/5 Arena set for the bonuses with PvE head/trinkets/rings/neck/cape all gemmed STR which gives me around 1900-2000 passive block not including buffs from other classes. Libram adds 352, Lavanthor's adds 440, Darkmoon Card: Greatness adds another 150 on that. If timed right you come up with
this here
Regardless, currently this spec is a BLAST in PvP and I highly recommend trying it before we end up nerfed back to Ret!
EDIT: I forgot to mention, every prot dps should have a
Skull of Ruin
for pure awesomeness!
Post by
Squishalot
*sigh* ok, let's go from the top again.
I think you underestimate the value of Block Value (no pun intended). For me this is a primarily PvP build and sustained dps doesn't do it for me in the BGs, whereas huge crits on the other hand make for fast burst kills when they occur. Currently There is enough time to get SotR off 3 times with Wings and Talisman running and with a 30%+ chance to crit you should see one if you don't get shutdown. The passive +BV from this trinket also adds to the mix when not on use.
I assume that you're referring to Lavanthor's Talisman, which provides no passive BV, only block rating, which increases the chance of blocking, but doesn't increase the damage you deal with Shield of Righteousness.
440 BV will increase the damage caused by Shield of Righteousness by 900, which you will use up to 3 times over 20 seconds. (No wings, since we're comparing, you can wing both of them.)
222 AP will increase the damage caused by HotR by 80, AS by 30, Judgement by 40, SoB by 10, and melee by 25. Over 20 seconds, you get HotR * 3, Judgement * 2, SoB * 15 (being 3 HotRs and 12 Melee), and 12 Melee. This provides a total increase of 770 over the same 20 seconds (800 including AS), as compared to 2700.
But consider the proc on Dark Matter too. 612 Crit rating will boost your average damage on AS by 500, ShoR by 500, HotR by 420, Judgement by 160, SoB by 65, Melee by 160. Assume that you only get off 1 ShoR, 1 HotR, 1 Judgement, 6 melee attacks, and 7 SoB procs accordingly, that's an extra 2495 damage in that 10 second block. WIth much higher uptime than Lavanthor's (45sec internal CD theorised).
I stack BV for tanking Ulduar and Blizzard seems to think it's undervalued hence they are doubling it in the next patch. Beyond that see my statement above about Block Value. This build is based upon it.
Yes and no. This isn't a BV based build. BV adds a great deal to ShoR, definitely. But Str adds to ShoR, as well as HotR, and AS, and Melee, and SoB/M, plus it'll soon add to SoV too.
100 BV adds 292 average damage to your ShoR, assuming you're hit capped and have 42% crit (in the Ulduar geared spec on the front page).
50 Str adds 90 average damage to your ShoR, but it also adds 60 to HotR, 30 to Judgement, 10 to SoB, 20 to White. Over 6 seconds, this adds 90 + 60 + 20 + 20*3.75 + 10*4.75 = 292.5. So on the face of it, 50 Str = 100BV (this includes Kings and Divine Strength).
If you're giving up more than 38 Str to use your Inexorable Sabatons, then you're losing out. Especially when the other options will add more value through Crit and whatnot as well.
Regarding SoB/M vs SoCom vs SoV/C; again this is from a pvp perspective, mana is an issue as you wont always have that pocket healer to keep your SA pumping you full of mana. SoB works sometimes but I find myself switching to Wisdom even now Glyphed with SoB and switching back as necessary. SoV takes far too long to get rolling on a target to be of use in a BG and the burst damage is lackluster =(
Why wouldn't you glyph Shield of Righteousness instead? That'll save you a lot more mana than you'll get back by using Glyph of SoB/M. Save yourself 4.8% base mana every 6 seconds, that's a lot more than SoB/M returns.
Anyway, all this is strictly from a PvP context. This build was originally intended to be a PvE build, it just happened to have nice burst in PvP.
Post by
svirve
I assume that you're referring to Lavanthor's Talisman, which provides no passive BV, only block rating, which increases the chance of blocking, but doesn't increase the damage you deal with Shield of Righteousness.
440 BV will increase the damage caused by Shield of Righteousness by 900, which you will use up to 3 times over 20 seconds. (No wings, since we're comparing, you can wing both of them.)
222 AP will increase the damage caused by HotR by 80, AS by 30, Judgement by 40, SoB by 10, and melee by 25. Over 20 seconds, you get HotR * 3, Judgement * 2, SoB * 15 (being 3 HotRs and 12 Melee), and 12 Melee. This provides a total increase of 770 over the same 20 seconds (800 including AS), as compared to 2700.
Actually that comparison is quite false Squishy. It's ok if both of the trinkets would have a 20 sec cooldown (uptime or equivelant) but since the 222 AP is constant you would have to do the comparison over the full cooldown of lavanthors. Since the 222 AP is active, when lavanthors is on CD and does squat.
So with some rough math that's 4670 dmg instead of 770.
Yes and no. This isn't a BV based build. BV adds a great deal to ShoR, definitely. But Str adds to ShoR, as well as HotR, and AS, and Melee, and SoB/M, plus it'll soon add to SoV too.
100 BV adds 292 average damage to your ShoR, assuming you're hit capped and have 42% crit (in the Ulduar geared spec on the front page).
50 Str adds 90 average damage to your ShoR, but it also adds 60 to HotR, 30 to Judgement, 10 to SoB, 20 to White. Over 6 seconds, this adds 90 + 60 + 20 + 20*3.75 + 10*4.75 = 292.5. So on the face of it, 50 Str = 100BV (this includes Kings and Divine Strength).
Just have to nit pick you one more time squishy ;p 50 str == 100 BV i'll agree with you on that. BUT you get 65 (82.225 with kings+div. str) str for the same amount of IP as you get 100 BV.
Which is also the main reason we weight STR so heavily.
Post by
DrvUMad
Again my perspective is from PvP and not so much PvE. That being said, sustained DPS may be better if you gear away from BV in a scripted fight sure, I didn't say it wouldn't. For PvP however stacking BV and STR is the way to go. Overwhelming a healer with Sustained DPS just never happens with any consistency or in short order. The huge Burst this spec is capable of is the appeal for me.
I have geared for both AP over BV and BV over AP over the months playing around with this and Ret specs and still can't get over the huge burst potential BV provides. I don't pretend this build is mine in any way, or designed for PvE or PvP, I picked it up last Arena season when I faced what I thought was a Ret Paly/Resto Druid team and got my ass handed to me with 12k Crits!
www.wowarmory.com
and
www.youtube.com
ftw. Look it up you will find people using this back in February and even last December.
Regarding Glyphs; normally I use Judge, SotR, and AS. I recently changed Judge to SoB to see if it helped mana any and tbh it doesn't. I have "The Wise" as a minor and I end up switching off SoB frequently to SoW to catch back up. DP isn't always running or available and SoB even with the glyph is of no help at all.
Oh and for anyone who still hasn't tried this yet and is on the edge; My biggest Crit thus far in a BG was 18.9k with Beserker, Kings, Lavanthor's, and Wings up!
Oh and did you read the comments under the Inexorable Sabatons? It wasn't the boots I meant to link, but the comment section. There is a guy who posts under the comments of almost every 80 epic BV item a "what-to-get" guide for stacking BV. His post seems intended for mitigation tanking, but I took and bastardized his list and combined it with PvP/Ret gear to maximize each slots potential (again for Burst).
*EDIT: just saw the other post. Even for PvP I stack STR as the primary stat with BV following a close 2nd. I'm not running around in a full tanking suit by any stretch of imagination. But keep in mind there are some pieces where losing a smidge of STR but gaining alot of BV makes complete sense if burst damage is your goal. Open your mind up some and take a look. Also keep in mind many of the pieces I am talking about are far easier to get than 25 Ulduar gear in every slot. Some of these come from heroic 5 man's even!
Post by
svirve
If we completely disregard PvE, BV will probably succeed STR because of as you're saying the high burst from ShotR.
But in a situation were you can always keep close to your opponent and get away all your cooldowns STR > BV because even if you get more burst through ShotR with BV, str will give you more damage on all your abilities while also adding (slightly less) burst to your ShotR.
I did read the comments on the boots and they only put him slightly over the soft cap on BV now and after patch he's most probably going to be hard capped (depending on the effects of DR).
But as said before if you can keep close to your character even for a full rotation STR will be better than BV.
But if you're all for seeing huge numbers on your screen (not saying that you are) you'll definately want to stack BV to hell and back.
Edit:
Just saw your edit. Which is pretty much mine and squishys point ;p STR should always come first.
And ofcourse we'd make that tradeoff as well in a PvE situation as squishy said if you drop more than 38 str to use the sabatons you're losing DPS but otherwise you're gaining because of the high BV.
Post by
Squishalot
first bit
Yeah, BUT... you missed the point of the guy's post. He's concerned about burst damage, which is over the 20 seconds of the talisman. I made it very clear - 'over the same 20 seconds', so that we had the 'burst period' to compare to. Besides, the crit proc wipes the floor of Lavanthor's anyway.
second bit
To nitpick back on you - I've already included Kings and Divine Strength in the analysis. But you're quite right - 65 Str = 100BV as far as item weighting is concerned. It was more the point that Str should be weighted double that of BV, since that's easier to identify when you're deciding what gear to take.
@ DrvUMad:
That's fair enough, you can do as you like. Personally, and I generally make this really clear, I believe that the emphasis of the size of one's crits is usually inversely proportional to the size of one's epeen. I don't think it's important. 18k crits mean nothing if a) you can't replicate it regularly, b) you can't replicate it when you need it, and c) you can't back it up with other decently damaging attacks to actually kill your target.
Realistically, 10k crits for 20 seconds isn't going to help you. As soon as someone sees wings and hits that hard, they're going to pop bubble and heal, they're going to blink and kite, they're going to CC you. Then, you're stuck for 100 seconds without your big crits, and you'll spend that time on the back foot, since you won't do enough damage with your other abilities to apply any pressure.
Again, you're missing the point slightly. The purpose of this spec generally was for a PvE basis with a high damage per second that could compete with Ret pallies. The fact that it allows for good burst in PvP is simply an exciting addition. If you want to turn around and stack BV for bigger crits, then by all means, go for it, but doing so will gimp your general utility in a BG or raid, just like any other class/spec.
Post by
DrvUMad
As soon as the servers come back up I'll go smack around a test dummy and get some recount figures rolling for both specs. I haven't seen any actual wws or recount reports from a controlled environment thus far. Just from my "gut" experience playing both specs (albeit some but not much in PvE) my sustained DPS with the equivalent gear (I only swap out a few pieces either way) is noticably higher as Ret.
Here's a question for you guys; What weapon enchant do you roll? +20 Str, +65 AP, +25 Crit/Hit or one of the very expensive?
Post by
Squishalot
65 AP provides higher DPS than 20 Str at that weighting (including Kings). Marginally. And only if you use the modified 9-6 rotation in a PvE tank-and-spank environment. Change any of those assumptions, and it's a different ball game.
Post by
xaratherus
I'm late to the party, but:
The Protribution rotation has no need for Holy Shield. You want damage! None of this 'blocking' stuff, shields are there to pound into your enemies!
With the gear you linked from Ulduar, the Libram adds a big chunk of BV based on HS being up; wouldn't you want to keep HS for that reason alone? Otherwise wouldn't it be wiser to go with
Libram of Obstruction
, since you'll be using Judgment regularly and will benefit from the increased BV as damage to SoR?
Post by
358147
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Squishalot
I'm late to the party, but:
The Protribution rotation has no need for Holy Shield. You want damage! None of this 'blocking' stuff, shields are there to pound into your enemies!
With the gear you linked from Ulduar, the Libram adds a big chunk of BV based on HS being up; wouldn't you want to keep HS for that reason alone? Otherwise wouldn't it be wiser to go with
Libram of Obstruction
, since you'll be using Judgment regularly and will benefit from the increased BV as damage to SoR?
Yeah, for some reason, I had PvP in mind (mostly because that's what people were talking about, I think). Obstruction would probably be better in a raid environment - for the sake of higher uptime on the increased BV, you'd be gimping your DPS if you kept Holy Shield up - you could spend that GCD doing something better.
Post by
DrvUMad
Last night we ran Ulduar 10 man. I DPS'd XT hard mode as Prot DPS on first attempt (we wiped first try, always do for some reason).
Using nearly the same gear as my full Ret set (I swapped Weapon/shield of course and I swapped my Mirror of Truth (Ret) for the Pyrite Infuser (Prot DPS) to maintain my hit rating I lost from swapping weapons. I am entirely gemmed for STR in all slots and just over hit cap in both specs.
In the first attempt as Prot DPS i maintained 3200 DPS before the wipe at 50% into hard mode. So I had plenty of time to get it rolling. I used the 969 rotation filling the gap with AS/Exo/DP (once) and Sacred Shield when nothing else was available to help reduce my damage taken during tantrum.
Second attempt as Ret I was able to push 4200 DPS with the same buffs and got the kill as before in almost identical gear. I popped wings once in each attempt and bloodlust was also used both times.
By no means is this intended to be some scientific conclusion. This was hardly a controlled environment. This is just off the handle info I grabbed last night.
The only tangible difference in gear is the weapon. For Prot I am using the i200 Titansteel Bonecrusher (all I could get my hands on for slow 1handed dps) and for Ret I am using the i219 2hAxe from Hodir(10). I can't imagine having an i219 1h slow DPS weapon would add 1000 DPS
Post by
202264
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
DrvUMad
So I stood at a target dummy today, let me start with my stats:
Self Buffed only with Kings and Seal of Blood/Martyr
Str: 1771
Agi: 110
AP: 4136
Crit: 26.03%
Haste: 73
Hit: 292
Expertise: 14
Block Value: 1720
Spell Power: 0
Trinkets:
Darkmoon Card: Greatness
Pyrite Infuser (may swap out later)
Libram of Obstruction (the Judgement one)
Titansteel Bonecrusher
The Skull of Ruin
Rotation:
Judge
SotR
Consecrate
HotR
AS or Exo (whichever is up, start with AS)
SotR (lost Libram Bonus)
Judge
HotR
Consecrate
AS or Exo (whichever is up)
etc, etc, etc..
I did not pop wings for this test.
Overall DPS 2569.9 for this run (during the run it was floating around 2700ish)
1 SotR x9=49749
2 SoB x38=31966
3 Melee x29=31872
4 HotR x9=22702
5 Cons x56=19457
6 AS x2=12572
7 Judge of Wis x8=10353
8 Exo x4=8004
I realize this was a short test and my DPS did drop off because Consecrate was ticking when i stopped my rotation to get stats. I ran myself out of mana in this short amount of time with DP already running before I started in on this run. Without either running Seal of Wisdom or getting raid damaged and healed this is always an issue. I ran this same run 4 times. On one attempt I tried using Seal of Vengeance and DPS significantly dropped off.
I will run the same test as Ret in the same gear.
EDIT: Forgot to mention: I am using Glyphs of Judgement, SotR, and AS for this test.
Post by
DrvUMad
Self buffed with Might and Seal of Blood my stats are:
Str: 1581
Agi: 151
AP: 4589
Crit: 27.63
Haste: 111
Hit: 293
Expertise: 4
Spell Power: 1376
Rotation:
FCFS
Using my best estimate on time, I'm guessing my 9 rotations in Prot DPS spec took about 60 seconds including random wait periods, so both trinkets likely popped twice but barely into the 2nd.
This run was about 70 seconds but still not long enough to get a third timer on trinkets.
1 Melee x20=50783
2 Seal of Blood x36=50308
3 Crusader Strike x10=29736
4 Consecration x56=24494
5 Judge x8=20868
6 Divine Storm x6=17367
7 Exorcism x4=11203
8 Righteous Vengeance x25=9872
Overall DPS of 3024 same as before though, it was floating over 3100 till I ended combat and consecrate ticked off a couple more time dropping the end result.
None of this is definitive of course. Really to maintain a completely controlled experiment the Prot Spec would require a healer to let him finish more than 10-15 rotations and get a full 5 mins in. Not to mention trinkets would have to be removed from the equation completely as they are unreliable here.
Post by
Squishalot
Judge
SotR
Consecrate
HotR
AS or Exo (whichever is up, start with AS)
SotR (lost Libram Bonus)
Judge
HotR
Consecrate
AS or Exo (whichever is up)
etc, etc, etc..
I'm not sure your rotation is right, or whether you've written it down correctly. Your 'AS or Exo' should be ShoR, then AS/Exo, then HotR. You should get the Libram of Obstruction bonus for 2/3 hits in an 18 second rotation.
The other concern about your rotationis that you've got 8 Judgements in there (implying 8 rotations and between 64 and 72 seconds), but you've only got 9 ShoRs. In 8 Judgements, you should be hitting 12 times with ShoR and HotR each. It looks like you've used the rotation properly for the first 18 seconds, then switched to a '96969-repeat' rotation, rather than a '969696-shuffle' rotation.
So you've been running on an 8 second, 5-action rotation, rather than a 9 second, 6-action rotation. At the very least, this wastes half a second of GCD time, at the most, you're limiting your ability to use your higher damage abilities to get higher uptime on Judgement and Consecration, which are lower damage abilities.
With the gear that you have, assuming that you were spec'd properly, you should be getting at least 3k dps over an extended period of time. If I'm guessing right, you're using your PvP spec, with Judgements of the Just instead of Touched by the Light, and you don't have points in Sanctity of Battle, reducing your crit, reducing your spellpower, reducing your Exorcism damage. In PvE, you should have a Glyph of Exorcism instead of Judgement, which has a larger increase in damage on a more damaging attack. Your Exos should have been hitting for 2500-2700 non-crit.
The other thing is that you're still spec'ing for BV. As we described before, in a PvE sense, you should be spec'ing for Strength, because you don't need the burst damage, and you should be going all out for DPS.
Try it again with a tighter rotation, and you'll probably see a difference.
Edit: My model suggests that with an 8 second rotation, you would be getting 2790 dps optimally (primary difference being crit luck and the Exo damage - Exo represents about 180dps). With a 9 second 'proper' rotation, you should be getting 3060 dps. Just an idea of the difference the rotation should make - about 10%.
Post by
DrvUMad
I'm not gearing it to BV, with the gear exchange I made the loss of str was insignificant, for example the Furious ring has no STR at all, swapped to a defensive BV and STR ring to maximize the spec overall.
Couple questions regarding your spec suggestions, where do you drop points to pick up 3/3 Touched by the light and 3/3 Sanctity of Battle?
Also, could you write out your full rotation for me? I didnt follow the cliff notes above =)
Post by
Squishalot
Yeah, the cliff notes don't work terribly well =) I might plagiarise the most recent 969 thread, because that's got an awesome description of how to use it.
Spec - you don't get 3/3 Sanctity of Battle, you only get 2/3. For max DPS, you'd have to drop off Pursuit of Justice. Drop the points from Judgements of the Just to put into Touched by the Light - I also don't think you'll get 3/3, I've only programmed 1/3 in my spreadsheet. The PvE spec on the front page should be it, I think?
For in-raid combat, you'd swap out Improved Dev aura and possibly Toughness for Reckoning, for the extra bit of DPS when you take raid damage.
The rotation involves 12 abilities over 18 seconds.
First 9 seconds:
1: Consecrate (here first, so that it's easier to track target dummy DPS with no trailing ticks)
2: Shield of Righteousness
3: Avenger's Shield / Exorcism
4: Hammer of the Righteous
5: Judgement
6: Shield of Righteousness
Second 9 seconds:
1: Consecrate
2: Hammer of the Righteous
3: Avenger's Shield / Exorcism
4: Shield of Righteousness
5: Judgement
6: Hammer of the Righteous
String those back to back. First 9: AS. Second 9: Exo. Third 9: Sacred Shield, maybe? Fourth 9: Exo. Fith 9: AS is off cooldown. Every 18 seconds, you should be doing 1 Exo, 2 Consecrates, 2 Judgements, 3 ShoRs and 3 HotRs.
To see if you're doing it right, after 72 seconds, your Recount should say that you've done 64 ticks of Consecrate, 12 ShoRs, 12 HotRs, 8 Judgements, 4 Exos, 2 Avenger's Shields, and two other random abilities on a 30 second cooldown. Holy Wrath if your likely target is undead, but more likely to be Sacred Shield to minimise the need for healing.
Post by
DrvUMad
Would it be worth starting with Exo instead of AS in the first 9 to get it rolling again in the 3rd set?
Post by
Squishalot
No difference in the long run, so go ahead. Better for fights that last between 36 and 54 seconds, or between 108 and 126 seconds, etc. On the other hand, running AS first means that it'll refresh earlier, being better if fights last between 72 and 90 seconds, between 144 and 162 seconds, etc :P
Personal preference is to fire off higher damage abilities earlier. But that could be the Ret in me talking.
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