Prot and pvp

[Naheal]

So, I'm seeing pallies succeeding in PvP now as prot and I've seen people like Bahlmoral succeeding as prot atm. Anyone have some input on this?

[Yatokth]

Prot PvP is viable.

I'm not a Protadin expert, but I know that Prot WARRIOR PvP is also very viable, they got the defenses, damage, and the mobility to be a damn good threat now. I would wager prot is similar? Or are they just abusing reckoning with a 2H?

[Naheal]

It's sword and board. Avenger's Shield is instant cast now, and Hammer of the Righteous is a disgustingly powerful ability. (Deals triple my main hand's damage as holy damage to my main target and two others. 6 second CD, requires a one handed weapon.)

[Yatokth]

It's sword and board. Avenger's Shield is instant cast now, and Hammer of the Righteous is a disgustingly powerful ability. (Deals triple my main hand's damage as holy damage to my main target and two others. 6 second CD, requires a one handed weapon.)

Sweet jesus.

And at 80 you get a holy shield slam.

Prot Warriors have two abilities that deal 75% of AP, Concussion Blow (also stuns for 5 seconds) and Shockwave (AOE cone, stuns for 3 seconds) so I suppose it's not that surprising.

What does Prot have in the way of mobility? Their reactive damage from holy shield is probably good (better than damage shield for prot warrs, but costs more) but how do they move about? I know HoF + HoJ is good, but that's basically the extent of their mobility, eh? Prot warrs have warbringer, can charge in combat and break snares and roots with it. I suppoes at 80 when protadins can get Pursuit of Justice it won't be too bad.

[Naheal]

We don't have a charge like you do, and we could pick up Pursuit of Justice. Note that we've got that 15% natual bonus to Str, 30% conversion of Stam to SP, and most of our abilities are based off of both AP and SP. I've chosen to pick up Seals of the Pure just to do it.

We've got Hand of Freedom and a stun on a 20 second CD and a blessing that gives us mana whenever we block/dodge/parry.

[Yatokth]

We don't have a charge like you do, and we could pick up Pursuit of Justice. Note that we've got that 15% natual bonus to Str, 30% conversion of Stam to SP, and most of our abilities are based off of both AP and SP. I've chosen to pick up Seals of the Pure just to do it.

We've got Hand of Freedom and a stun on a 20 second CD and a blessing that gives us mana whenever we block/dodge/parry.

Yeah percentage modifiers are nice. Prot warrs have 6% str and stam, and +crit on pretty much every one of our main abilities. It's very nice. Plus Revenge rules against melee.

Also Improved Spell Reflect is hot. Reflect spells cast at party members? Win.

[Agnarr]

The problem I have as prot warr in pvp is positioning. Just like when I charge someone and they get stunned 20 yards away from me (and of course the stun wears off before I'm even able to catch up to them) so to do I 75% of the time "miss" with my shockwave, or if I even hit with it or concussion blow the target just LOLs at the resisted stun or whatever.

Prot warriors can do decent damage in PVP, but we're not going to take down any healing specced class.

[Averilyna]

The problem I have as prot warr in pvp is positioning. Just like when I charge someone and they get stunned 20 yards away from me (and of course the stun wears off before I'm even able to catch up to them) so to do I 75% of the time "miss" with my shockwave, or if I even hit with it or concussion blow the target just LOLs at the resisted stun or whatever.

Prot warriors can do decent damage in PVP, but we're not going to take down any healing specced class.

Note: Stun resistance as been removed from the game completely, as I understand it. Stun length reduction has replaced it everywhere I've seen it. The only thing that can prevent Conc Blow from stunning someone is a miss/parry/block as far as I know. (or DR)

One thing I've noticed with Prot Warriors trying to attack me is that they just go willy-nilly with their stuns and charges, and pretty soon they're trying to Charge/Conc Blow/Shockwave me when it really matters, and I'm immune to stun because of DR. Prot Warriors are not a powerful 1v1 class. They might be able to take a rogue, or maybe other warriors, but against almost any other class, I don't see Prot Warriors doing much in 1v1. What they ARE good at is healer pressure. I can't kill a prot warrior anything close to quickly. If you time your stuns and Shield Bash correctly, I can see a Warrior preventing a healer from doing any significant healing for a good bit. Definitely long enough for the dpsers to kill a few people. (Priests and Druids are tougher to lock down, because of all the insta-casts, but Shammys/Pallys I can see being almost totally useless).

Think of yourselves like an SL/SL Lock pre-3.0. (Granted, they did more dmg than you do, but they were also easier to just burst down). An SL/SL Warlock's job was healer pressure (and limited cc). SL/SL had almost 0 burst dmg potential. They were very very good at making a healer's life hell though. Prot warriors serve a similar function in group PvP. You're relatively difficult to keep cc'd, you're nigh impossible to burst down, and you can lock down a healer long enough for the other dps to kill something. Granted, Charge probably has limited usefulness, but I think that's mostly a product of lag. You charge, they wait a second to get stunned, and you end up running up to the spot where they were a second ago, which they are no longer occupying. I have no earthly idea how to fix that, only that it affect all Warriors, as well as Druids who use Feral Charge.

2nd Note: If I'm talking out my butt for any of that, please correct me. My knowledge of the Warrior class mostly comes from in-depth discussions with Yat, and I've misunderstood things before.

/end Wall o' Text

[Lailinarel]

The big problem with prot (warrior) pvp right now is the diminishing returns on our stuns. Revenge, Intercept, Charge, Concussion Blow and Shockwave all stun. (I throw intercept in there cause it breaks snares as well, so it shouldn't be completely overlooked) Now when your main way of controlling the battle suffers diminishing returns from all your other abilities it kinda sucks. That one second charge stun is next to nothing, but it still lowers your other stun durations. Toss in a few duration shortening talents and a meta or something like that and all of a sudden your stuns aren't lasting you long at all.

Don't get me wrong, as a warrior who enjoyed prot pvp before the patch, I jack people up now. It's fun.

[Naheal]

I've found that Prot (pallies, anyways) tends to work well against ret pallies atm. They try to blow their load and fail to take you down.

[Bahlmoral]

The major advantage you have Naheal is the ability to heal yourself in battle, sadly something I don't have.

Having said that though, a prot warrior in PvP can withstand a tremendous amount of punishment. To aid us in that department is the loveliness of Shield Wall now only having a 5 minute cooldown instead of the stupidity of 30 minutes that it once was.

I'm still in the process of deciding what best to gem my stuff for. Reading some discussions on Tankspot, most people running PVP Prot went 0/8/53 to get the full 3/3 of Armored to the Teeth and 5/5 Cruelty. I'm currently running with this (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/warrior/talents.html?tal=050030000000000000000000000000200 00000000000000000000000005330102502301252033011332 1) to see if Iron Will is really that much of a help, but I'm not finding it to be the case.

The best way I see this spec working right now I would guess is akin to an SL/SL lock. This build is all about the consistent damage and control it provides instead of the all out hard-hitting crits of the Arms spec.

To me it seems more like STR/STA is the way to go instead of out-and-out crit rating. Mind you I say this because: 1)Stamina adding to the overall health pool. Right now Bahl has ~13.1K health (a little low for my tastes). When stuff hits the fan I can hit commanding shout, my Battlemaster's Trinket and Last stand to shoot me up to a max health of over 20K. Hit Shield Wall with that and you can pretty much buy yourself time to Intervene back to someone.

Despite the loveliness of the 51-point talent that Shockwave is, in my opinion the real centerpiece of this build is Warbringer. Not only the Charge in battle, in any stance, but everytime you use Charge, Intercept or Intervene it breaks CC on you? Yes, please!

In the end, what I like the most about the spec is just the sheer difference in it after playing Arms for almost a year and a half. With this spec I can do pretty much everything. I can PvP, grind dailies and tank for the guild with only needing to swap out my tanking gear for the higher level instances. PvP and Dailies I run my PvP gear.

The glyphs I am running are Glyph of Rapid Charge, Glyph of Bloodrage, Glyph of Charge, Glyph of Thunderclap and Glyph of Revenge.

If anyone has questions, by all means let me know. I for one am excited about the spec and am thoroughly enjoying it. Also, if anyone else has some feedback or suggestions, I'm all ears.

[Naheal]

Update: It appears that mainhand weapon damage is much more important to pallies in PvP than it would in PvE. Just got the S2 sword and I started putting out some pretty disgusting numbers (about 2.7k HotR crits on three targets).

[Naheal]

Did this in my current spec (0/56/5)

[Visca]

You know, I haven't tried this yet... but, if Protadin pvp is as fun as you guys are claiming... I'm gonna be a happy happy Draco!

[Naheal]

I'd suggest doing it, Draco. Go for ret PvP gear and the slowest physical mainhand weapon you can find. I've heard of Spell Damage working well for now, but we're going to be switching to AP for both damage and threat generation soon, so you might as well get used to it for now.

[Naheal]

I've been examining some prot PvP specs, and I've cooked up this (http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sZ0eMGrugtMIRhoxf0xbh). The only problem with it is that you pretty much have to have that 51 point talent for Prot Pallies. Any thoughts from people?

[Leyujin]

So, thread revival, because I have some questions asking the warriors on this board for advice on Prot War pvp specs. This is my current build, which makes some nods towards pve functionality:

Current Spec (http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?warrior=32023000200000000000000000000003050000000 00000000000000000250301223220012520332113321&glyph=031518020103&version=9767)

I've read up on a few pvp prot threads on other forums, and I've seen suggestions like losing a point in improved spell reflect, getting 3/3 puncture, dropping incite. I'm thinking about altering my build to get blood craze, but I love impale. I've got 1208 BV on my current pvp set, and with Lavanthor's Talisman I'm just now getting 7000+ SS crits on cloth. I only have around 25.5K hp.

So, any thoughts? If you pvp as prot, what's your spec? How would you consider revising it? Also, thoughts on glyphs? I'm keeping rapid charge and blocking, but I was thinking about switching Revenge for Enraged Regeneration.

[Lailinarel]

In my opinion warrior prot pvp isn't about burst. It doesn't take any skill to burst someone down. It's about control and in tanking gear sure, you can trash rogues and other warriors all day long, but how do you do against casters? Hence I pvp in pvp gear. The extra crit gives me more burst and more rage generation, even if I don't see the monsterous numbers on my shield slams that I see in my tanking gear. And resil is pretty handy. Something nice about getting crit for 500 by an ice lance and seeing 1500 hp come back from healing procs.

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?warrior=05010000000000000000000000000003250001300 00000000000000000050051220223012520332113321&glyph=031507020103&version=9767

That's the spec I roll for prot pvp. With blood craze going in decent pvp gear it makes you a bugger to drop and when you start to get low you pop last stand, shield wall and enraged regen to basically give yourself a second round.

Sure you'll have less burst, but prot pvp is about finesse, controlling your enemies with silences and stuns. Blood craze definitely should not be underestimated. From 25k hp you'll regen 250hp 1. That really adds up over the course of a fight, specially against guys who crit alot but may not always crit hard. (Ie Ice lance, rogue auto attacks, stuff like that) The other advantage of going for blood craze is it also lets you pick up piercing howl... a snare that can be used from defensive stance for prot warrior pvp? Uhh... Yes please?

As far as justifying my points. Imp spell reflect I like cause aside from the awesomeness it brings to group pvp, lowering your enemies chance to hit you with spells means you take less damage, or maybe you don't get slowed, or whatever. Disarm? Think it only helps against classes with big two handers? Think again! Other classes lose stat bonuses from weapons when they lose said weapons, so shave 500 spell power off that mage and while you're at it make him take 10% more damage. Oh, and it works on droods in forms too. Don't forget it works on ranged folks now as well. Pretty handy, no? I had a lot of fun with this build.

I used to use revenge as well, but now that they added that lovely enraged regen glyph I would totally go for that. Or devestate, the less rage you waste sundering someone the better.

It's 3 am this is hardly one of my more intelligent posts. Feel free to ask me about specifics if you have any questions, I love prot pvp. And yes I brought this spec into an arena with a prot pally on my team, we sat at 1590 for about 10 games or so... it was a blast.

Rogue: Wtf? Who do I attack? Mage: Wtf I'm silenced, stunned and impaled on someones shield? Us: Jajajajaja.....

PS. I'm sure there's a person or two around here who can vouch for how hard it can be to take down Joringil in a one on one fight. I've used that build a lot.

[Xiphus]

And here I thought Prot is about outlasting the hell out of people. Appear big and intimidating! Be unstoppable! Make them waste every futile attacks at you until they run out of tricks! Keep coming at them! Force them to make dangerous gambles and lose them all! Then submit them to an agonizing death that seems to be creeping sloooooowly for them!

Imagine their horror at meeting a monster that JUST! WON'T! DIE! and can't seem to STOP! COMING! AT! ME! as well as OH GOD! KILL ME NOW PLEASE! (a reaction of being unable to make a dent on you while you are whittling down their HP steadily) and savor every moment of it!

[Agnarr]

Re: Glyph of Charge

I had this on my warrior, and I found it to be actually pretty bad, because if I charged from max range, the charge stun would proc instantly, but it would still take me time to reach said target, so if they were running, they'd recover and be out of range of my melee -again- even after being charge stunned.

Thoughts on this?

[Xiphus]

That kinda sounds like a bug, but don't take my word for it. I have already stopped playing WoW.

[Skaadvik]

Re: Glyph of Charge

I had this on my warrior, and I found it to be actually pretty bad, because if I charged from max range, the charge stun would proc instantly, but it would still take me time to reach said target, so if they were running, they'd recover and be out of range of my melee -again- even after being charge stunned.

Thoughts on this?

I've noticed the same thing on my warr on Venture Co. Charge just seems to be kind of buggy and not always reliable in general to me. Kind of like vanish.

edit: charge is buggy, not buddy.

[Lailinarel]

Re: Glyph of Charge

I had this on my warrior, and I found it to be actually pretty bad, because if I charged from max range, the charge stun would proc instantly, but it would still take me time to reach said target, so if they were running, they'd recover and be out of range of my melee -again- even after being charge stunned.

Thoughts on this?

This was the case pre patch. Now that charge has no DR with anything but itself and is a 1.5 second stun that should not be a problem anymore.

[Skaadvik]

Yeah I noticed the removal of the DR. Shamble, Undead Warrior, is most thankful for this.

In summation I have to simply add that prot pvp is fun as hell. I levelled Shamble as Arms for a while, and ended up switching back and forth a lot (my respec cost was 50g by the time I was doing BRD), and prot is just more fun for everything, especially pvp.

[Bahlmoral]

Yeah I noticed the removal of the DR. Shamble, Undead Warrior, is most thankful for this.

In summation I have to simply add that prot pvp is fun as hell. I levelled Shamble as Arms for a while, and ended up switching back and forth a lot (my respec cost was 50g by the time I was doing BRD), and prot is just more fun for everything, especially pvp.

I dusted Bahl off the other night and some of his Heroic/Naxx 10/Rep gear and did quite well.

Plus it's funny to be able to mock the 'pure' DPS classes in a BG when you're doing more damage than them with having an innate 5% less from being in Defensive Stance all the time. Yeah, I could fight in another stance, but I'm lazy.

The one thing I personally love about it is max survival against caster classes.

[Lailinarel]

The really strong point of prot pvp for a warrior is that you don't lose your offensive ability when you 'D up'. Unlike other 'comparable' classes, (pally bubble, dk IBF/AMS) warriors have to equip a shield in order to use their defensive CD's. Including spell reflect, honestly there are tons of times where my shield stays out longer than my two hander when I'm arms, so the fact that you keep your shield out and it's a large source of your damage to begin with is simply great.

Oh, and if you're prot pvping you're usually at +5/15% modified damage, not -5% cause you've got 10% from one handed weapon spec and when you block/parry/dodge for enrages you get another 10%.

[Fhenrir]

Oh, and if you're prot pvping you're usually at +5/15% modified damage, not -5% cause you've got 10% from one handed weapon spec and when you block/parry/dodge for enrages you get another 10%.

This logic makes sense in theory, but it's only when comparing to a boostless paper doll. In the other stances, you gain 3% crit or 10% armor pen in addition to the extra 5% damage dealt (of course, you also take 5% extra damage in berserker; 10% more from D-stance).

[Skaadvik]

You're still at +5-15% though. Obviously the other stances have more to offer offensively, but what Lai said is still completely correct.

[Agnarr]

Also, you are above 100% damage with a one hander and shield, not with a more-powerful two-hander, or with even-more-powerful two two-handers. Prot does most of its damage with specials which scale with attack power (of which prot gear is lacking), whereas the others are more weapon-based.

It all comes down to style: do you like being more difficult to kill and potentially outlasting your opponent, or do you prefer to try and kill them before they can kill you.
Though prot does help smack the crap out of casters.

[Naheal]

The really strong point of prot pvp for a warrior is that you don't lose your offensive ability when you 'D up'. Unlike other 'comparable' classes, (pally bubble, dk IBF/AMS) warriors have to equip a shield in order to use their defensive CD's. Including spell reflect, honestly there are tons of times where my shield stays out longer than my two hander when I'm arms, so the fact that you keep your shield out and it's a large source of your damage to begin with is simply great.

Though I agree with the point of most of the defensive CDs, you're missing what a paladin loses (prot only) if they don't "D up" with a shield.

No shield = no Avenger Shield, which means no 3 target silence. Also, it rules out at least one of our other defensive abilities, which are completely unusable unless you are prot in the first place.

Also, DK is not a comparable class in this case, considering they can't even USE a shield (trust me, I'd love to sometimes).

[Swerto]

Prot, while viable 1v1 is kind of worthless end game (as it should be). End game being Arena.

Saying prot is good at PvP because you get kills in BG's and duels...


Is like saying Fury is good at tanking end-game because you can take on 3 mobs at once out in the world (I know you can take on a lot more than that... EXAMPLE PEOPLE)

[Skaadvik]

I don't know if it's this thread or not, but there's a Prot Warrior on a 2200 2v2 with a Holy Pally.

[Fhenrir]

Prot is very viable "end game" in arenas. There is a difference between something being viable and something being Flavor of the Month. The two are often confused by people who don't arena very often.

Suffice to say there's almost always at least one renegade prot warrior team up in Gladiator range per season, usually in 2's. I think I saw one in the 3's bracket in one of the early seasons, too.

[Swerto]

Prot winning is usually due to shock factor when in arenas. Smart teams will counter by kill everyone else first and saving prot for last (without someone healing prot can simply be burned down, and prot can't keep people off of a healer as effectively as a DPS spec could)


Saying prot is viable end game is like saying mage 2v2's (double mage I mean) is still viable.

Now that the shock factor is gone people are able to counter such things and defeat the mages. Dual pyro blasts being spell reflected is funny.



Don't get me wrong, prot can win SOMETIMES, and really good players can pull it off and I respec them... just don't consider it THE PvP spec. Any Prot PvP spec will have heavy points within arms or fury.

[Fhenrir]

Uh... no. Good teams aren't going to be baffled into stupidity by the presence of a prot. Gladius/Proximo/Default UI now will reveal the class with 30k+ hit points before the match has even begun, thus intelligent teams will know it's a prot. Well-played prot teams are viable because the players are competent, skilled, and usually ride a lot of top-end PvE gear in their sets. It has nothing to do with being surprised.

[Swerto]

Okay put this into perspective.

You play arenas for a few months, and every warrior you run into (or paladin for that matter) is a spec you can SEE being done in PvP, that being Arms, Fury, ret or holy. Now steps in this prot warrior, who while good with their class and geared to the teeth, they have a spec that deals very little damage when they are NOT being struck. A smart team will leave the tank alone until the end, mostly because they know if they hit the tank, the tank can hit them back even harder.

[Fhenrir]

You are half right; nobody hits a prot warrior first. However, that doesn't mean a prot warrior doesn't bring respectable damage and utility regardless. The strength in a prot team is that they are very hard to focus down, making it a near-necessity to focus the other target first. The prot warrior then focuses on peeling the people off of it's partner while doing damage and dropping stuns.

I encountered a really interesting prot warrior/elemental shaman team this season already. While we didn't lose to it, the games were very close at times and it was difficult to overcome the CC the warrior layered into me.

[Swerto]

Personally I believe the biggest problems you'll find when encountering a prot warrior would be in the 3v3 bracket where another melee DPS could be on the team. In which case the warrior's devestate + shattering throw would turn pretty much anyone into a naked person. Make that other DPS a rogue and you have real problems.

[Naheal]

A smart team will leave the tank alone until the end, mostly because they know if they hit the tank, the tank can hit them back even harder.

While true with a prot pally, this is only partially correct. Quite a bit of a prot pally's damage comes from active abilities now, not reactive damage. I have no doubt that a paladin, when properly geared, can lay out some serious damage in an arena while specced down the prot tree. The major thing that a prot pally brings to the table now is SoJ (recently buffed by the last patch), which has become a BC Mace spec of sorts.

[Lailinarel]

Personally I believe the biggest problems you'll find when encountering a prot warrior would be in the 3v3 bracket where another melee DPS could be on the team. In which case the warrior's devestate + shattering throw would turn pretty much anyone into a naked person. Make that other DPS a rogue and you have real problems.


In twos, prot + healer is kinda silly. Granted by mixing some pvp gear into your pve gear you can make a very difficult to kill target, that said you bring a dps / utility class. You use it as a double dps / control team. Not a healer dps team. Obviously a healer and a prot warrior aren't going to have the burst to blow through anyone with decent pvp gear. It's more a set em up and knock em down team comp. Ie, I can put up shield block and pop my lavanthor's talisman and pop recklessness to force an 8k+ shield slam, but that's my trump card right there. If someone's healing and I'm the only dps, that's not gonna be enough to kill anyone or anything. However if I bide my time and let my team mate get a few decent shots in first, I can fear / stun / silence one of their members and then charge over and put all my burst onto the target my team mate is focusing.

No, you won't walk into an arena with a poorly planned prot team and skirmish your way to victory unless your enemies are idiots (which does happen from time to time) but that doesn't mean it isn't viable. You just have to play on the strengths of your build, not of your class.

Edit: Added

Though I agree with the point of most of the defensive CDs, you're missing what a paladin loses (prot only) if they don't "D up" with a shield.

No shield = no Avenger Shield, which means no 3 target silence. Also, it rules out at least one of our other defensive abilities, which are completely unusable unless you are prot in the first place.

Also, DK is not a comparable class in this case, considering they can't even USE a shield (trust me, I'd love to sometimes).

I think you misunderstood what I meant by the phrase 'D up'.

I mean that any warrior, regardless of spec, has the shield wall skill and the spell reflect skill, as any pally has their bubble and their shield wall equivolent, as any dk has AMS and IBF. However the warrior class is the only one that has stance / equipment requirements to use those skills, and as a warrior who is anything other than prot, you sacrifice a LOT of offensive ability by slapping on a sword and board in order to put on shield wall etc. Note that I'm not complaining so much as stating a comparison. Prot pallies and warriors both have the same (for lack of a better word) issue where they are pretty silly to be deep into the prot tree and doing anything that isn't sword and boarding, due to the loss of several requires shield or requires one handed weapon type abilities. However, any warrior needs a shield to shield wall and spell reflect. (Any warrior who pvps as anything but prot without weapon swapping macros has a lot to learn)