Prot Build doing dps?

Post by Lorkin

Alright, for those Prot spec'ed warriors out there. Have you ever been in a situation where you were supposed to do dps in an instance/raid? What do you do?

I was invited into a quick AN run the other day and the group already had a high level tank. No biggie, I figured I would do some good dps. When I tank I'm usually #2 on the dps meters anyways, so my dps should be ok right?

No! Without getting hit, I was severely lacking in rage. No rage means no attacks. It's pretty surprising how little rage you generate as a Prot Spec when you're not getting hit. I never noticed it while leveling because I was either soloing mobs, or the tank for the group.

Has anyone faced this issue and how do you handle the dps role as Prot spec in a group situation when you are not getting hit? Do you whip out your 2 hander and stay in serker?

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Post by Warlic

In my normal guild heroic group we usually run 2 prot warriors, myself included. What we do is each of us tank half the mobs. We have a really good healer so it normally works well for us. It's especially nice on bosses that have adds because one can focus on the boss and one on keeping the adds off the healer/dps. We haven't really run into any situations where this has caused problems.

Post by marklartank

Post by Lorkin

So I guess you still have to tank somewhat if there is another tank in the group. I guess I'm still in the one tank mentality, but being able to OT in 5 mans isn't such a huge problem. 2 Tanks just means the healer has to split heals. Also if we run the typical AoEing of everything, it probably helps if 2 tanks can hold aggro over 1/2 the group. Each take 2-3 mobs and just position your groups close enough to AoE them all.

That or pulling just 1 mob to tank so you get rage would help Immensely.

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Post by Zakkhar

Do you whip out your 2 hander
this is something you definitely don't do. protection spec has alwasy been horrible with a 2h weapon. you keep your shield equipped because SS is still your highest dps move.

rage starvation is a big problem. if you don't have a mob on you, you can try berserker stance and SS, WW, etc, but as you said, you will have rage issues. you almost have to OT at least one mob to do any viable dps.
You are absolutelly right with 2hander. But WW is as horrible move for prot dpsers with shield.

The setup depends on your talent build and gear (whether its more threat concentrated, or more avoidance concentrated). If you are more avoidance concentrated:

Wear dps gear.
Position yourself on the mobs back.
Pick fast 1hander with offensive enchant and stats (ArP, AP, Crit etc), wear a shield.
Switch to zerker stance and spam devastates along with heroic strikes on 40+ rage. Dont use WW its a waste of Rage if you are sword and boarding. Make sure you use all sword and board procs and all rage boosters on their cd (zerker rage may get you some rage off aoe attacks, bloodrage each 1 min will give you some rage boost).
If the fight is more aoe you may consider Battle stance for Shockwave every cd. I think i couldnt use it in zerker stance, but you may check. I may be wrong.

If you are more threat concentrated and got sufficient hit rating (capped or close to soft cap), wear 2 slow 1 handers, switch to zerker stance.
The only change is you get WW now worth it (use it every cd). You will have plenty of rage to spam HS. Since you dont have board, queque HS over Dev, use Dev over 40 rage only. Same thing with zerker rage and bloodrage - it helps.

If the fight is more aoe you may consider Battle stance for Shockwave every cd, but imo WW is enough, and zerker is better overall. Again dunno whether shockwave isnt usable in zerker stance.

You may also consider a macro to switch oh for shield and use the shield slam s&b proc (its rage free), than switch back to oh.

At 70 i used to have 130 hit, 37 crit in zerker and two 92+ dps 2.6 1handers. I wouldnt say i did bad damage.

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Post by Sakkura

I'm pretty tired of people giving "we can do good enough" as an excuse.

amg001, you say both of you are doing ~1000dps? Most dps specced players can do 1900+ without breaking a sweat. You are being 50% as effective as someone else in that spot. If it works and you like doing it, keep it up. But you wont' be winning any races.
If you have 24 people for a raid and are missing a DPS, do you take the prot warrior or the noone? I can do a lot more DPS than air.
Or, if you have to do a boss that requires less tanks than the rest of the instance, do you kick the prot warrior and go through the hassle of finding and summoning a replacement? Given how easy current content is, losing a few hundred DPS on one char is doable in many cases - but not all. Don't do things like this when going for a Patchwerk or Loatheb first kill for example. But go right ahead and do it for either of those when they are on easy farm.

Personally I can top 1500 DPS no sweat, was passing 1100 at level 70 before 3.0. But I haven't yet had to do any serious DPSing since luckily we lack tanks more often than we lack DPS (strange, I know ;P )

Post by Sakkura

Basically, you don't.

Prot is not meant to be a back up dps spec. rage generation for it is from gettnig hit, as well as a good amount of the damage is from damage shields. If you MUST do it you are better off taunting half the mobs and tanking half of them.
Damage shield is usually less than 5% of DPS, so don't kick it over that issue. Rage starvation is an issue if you go with a shield, but not if you dual-wield. Either tend to produce similar DPS; shield slam doing a heck of a lot of extra damage but at the cost of rage, offhand white damage and whirlwind.

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Post by SignupSucks

Intervene + berserker rage can give you a nice boost of rage on boss fights, but beware you don't use it too often, as it reduces the threat of the tank by 10%. Requiring defensive stance may also be an issue, unless the tank is far, far above you in threat (since you need to spend the rage earned while in defensive stance).

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Prot Build doing dps?

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