[Prot] MH wep speed, fast or slow?

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Post by 172119

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Post by 205382

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Post by 172119

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Post by Sakkura

Really wrath is the first time we've been realistically presented with slow tank weapons.
No, there were slow tanking weapons available even before TBC. Spineshatter is a prime example.

As for the OPs question, it is a matter of your rage situation. If you have plenty of rage, a fast weapon is far, far superior. If you lack rage, a slow weapon is somewhat superior. Given that our rage efficiency has increased due to talents and glyphs, and our own rage generation from damage dealt has increased due to higher AP in tanking gear, you will very rarely be rage starved, so in almost all cases a fast weapon is preferable.

Post by Zakkhar

I'd use Fang for tanking and Blade for solo grind.

Post by Timmeh

Call me old fashioned, but I'm still a fan of the faster weapons for tanking. I did give it a go with a slower weapon, and I found that my tps suffered for it.

I suppose what you're tanking does play a major part - in a 5 man, you probably won't be heroic striking/cleaving every swing, while in 10/25 man raids you will (at least at the current levels of gear). A slower weapon may, therefore be better suited to content where you're likely to regularly run out of rage (e.g. heroics) - when you do get the chance to HS/cleave, at least it'll be a big one.

What I'm not so sure about, and maybe I'm missing something is why do you think a slower weapon will allow you to use instants more often? GCD is GCD.

Post by 172119

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Post by Zakkhar

Not to say allow's me to use the instant attacks much more, but because Dev is much more beneficial with the higher damage due to the slow wep, chances are i'll use it much more which will open up more SnB proc's.
I think you greatly overweight the scaling of the Devastate damage on weapon speed.

Notice:
Fang of Truth weapon damage will be 120*1.5=180 (90)
Infantry Assault Blade weapon damage will be 130*2.6=338 (169)

At last rank of Devastate you can read:
In addition, causes 50% of weapon damage plus 101 for each application of Sunder Armor on the target.

Which means the damage on Devastates scales like this

Fang/Blade
(1)191/270 - 1.41
(2)292/371 - 1.27 (-0.14)
(3)393/472 - 1.20 (-0.7)
(4)494/573 - 1.16 (-0.4)
(5)595/674 - 1.13 (-0.3)
------------------
(15)

With glyph:
(2)292/371 - 1.27
(4)494/573 - 1.16 (-0.13)
(5)595/674 - 1.13 (-0.3)

What it means is basically.. if you are going for the full stack of sunders on target (tanking), the difference on damage/threat between faster/slower wep is very slight - therefore you should use faster to benefit from HS spam and steady rage generation.
Slower weapon is better if you just going to put 1-3 sunders (casual grinding or pvp). You may have noticed that the actual breakdown of the scale starts at about 3 sunders.

It may change a bit with glyph of devastate, but the idea stays the same.

EDIT: Screwed the wep damage amounts (went for 100% bonus instead). All should be allright now.

Post by 95950

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Post by Sakkura

Zakkhar, you forgot the AP contribution to instant attacks. It is subject to normalization and thus makes the difference between slow and fast even smaller in relative terms.

Steady rage gain with fast weapons is a myth since the majority of rage comes from damage taken (even with the increased AP tanks have now), the really core reason tanks prefer fast weapons and have done so since Vaelastrasz and even before then is to be able to do more heroic strikes and to make heroic strikes cheaper (consuming the rage from a fast weapon swing means less rage lost than consuming the rage from a slow weapon swing).

Post by vettros

ive found it to be a personal question. I like faster weapons more for tanking. Means faster abilitys i can use like more heroic strikes within a matter of time. But maybe your into slower more heavy damage. All in all, they can equal up. But if you find a weapon that will add to your tanking stats. I recomend it a little more then i do the speed. Better defence, longer you can live to fight. One of the main good things about tank weapons, is they balance it out a bit. Slower, but you live longer. Or faster, and take a little more damage.

Post by 205382

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Post by 95950

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Post by Zakkhar

Steady rage gain with fast weapons is a myth since the majority of rage comes from damage taken.
Yes, but the problem is sometimes you dont take the damage (eg. OT), or you are chain executing (i do that when dps is slacky).

All in all, we agree to the fact that the differences arent as major as people here seem to expect, are we?

Post by Sakkura

And as to your later post, faster rage gen from faster weapons is not a myth. You do gain rage from hitting a mob, and hitting faster means faster rage. If your tanking the majority of your rage comes from being hit, making rage gen due to weapon speed a non-point.

AP contribution is normalized for instant attacks like you said, but it s such a small amount, i wouldn't concern myself with it. Primarily, weapon stats, in relation to my own are more important, if one is better than the other I'll take it, regardless of speed. If both are about equal, then take the one that would balance my gear the best, or preference of slow/fast.
Hitting faster also means getting less rage per hit, overall rage generation is exactly the same. The rage gain is slightly more spiky, but the difference is minuscule; with abilities like charge, bloodrage and berserker rage the rage gain is usually irrelevant during the first few GCDs when spiky rage could potentially make a difference.

AP contribution is not a small amount by any means. I run with over 3200 AP raid buffed in my avoidance gear. That means devastate gets 3200 / 14 * 2.40 * 0.5 = 274 damage from AP, before damage reduction. With my red sword of courage, the weapon-based part of devastate is 143.4 * 1.60 * 0.5 = 115 damage before damage reduction. So the AP contribution is, in my case, over twice the weapon contribution. Admittedly a slower weapon would get the weapon contribution closer to the AP contribution, but since onehanders rarely come slower than 2.60 it would only be multiplied by up to a factor of 2.60 / 1.60 = 1.625 and would therefore still be less than the AP contribution.

Personally I would prefer a fast tanking sword over a slow one that is a tier higher in quality, unless something dramatic would happen due to the lower stats (eg. losing crit immunity). If it's a medium-speed one I can overlook the speed to a much higher degree, since the upper end of the speed difference is likely to be more affected by HS loss than the lower half. (I might be able to use 80% of the additional HS opportunities available with a 1.60 weapon over a 2.60 weapon, but perhaps only 20% of the additional HS opportunities available with a 1.60 weapon over a 2.20 weapon - hypothetical numbers)

Post by 33153

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