prot warrior pvp

[Scyepogg]

Yesterday on my prot lvl 39 warrior was killed about 5 times in a row by a 35 level warrior, presumably arms spec (was wielding 2-hander).

What I want to ask is, do I suck if I lose to a guy 4 levels lower, or it is protection spec that sucks?

Also, if I am prot, and I get into pvp occasionally, should I stay in defensive stance using shield and trying to block attacks (which I am specced to) or it is still better to switch to my dps gear and battle/berserker stance even if I am not specced fot it?

[Scyepogg]

It is now obvious for me that I forgot the best and only defensive stance pvp ability, disarm. But I would still like some advice on how to fight as prot.

[The Deserted Grail]

Well, the basic tactics are there, dependless on your spec. Until WotLK prot spec isn't all that imba in PvP, but it does hold its own against warriors and rogues at lower levels. I wouldn't mind seeing your exact spec, though.

By level 39 you should have at least Last Stand, Concussion Blow and Improved Revenge, but you're lacking the important Focused Rage and Devastate that allow you to deal good raw spam damage. Furthermore, do you have any points in Tactical Mastery?

Two other bigger things need to be asked:

1) How did the enemy warrior move? Was he running all around you? Did you let him get behind you for periods of time? Great warriors and rogues never stop on their feet in PvP when their enemy is capable of moving.

2) Any chance he had a really good gear? Was he using the Whirlwind Axe, for example?

MS warriors cause bleed effects (Deep Wounds), which are even more annoying than spells to a prot warrior. I would go with staying in Defensive Stance, keeping Shield Block up, using Disarm and Revenge whenever they're up. Shield Block and Disarm allow you to nullify most of his attacks altogether. Revenge is your main source of easy and rage-cheap damage, improved it even stuns, although the diminishing returns are quite bad (stunned for 3 secs -> 1,5 secs -> 0,5 secs -> immunity).

Concussion Blow gets you 5 seconds of bashing time without the fear of getting your attacks parried or dodged. Last stand is a free potion and you shouldn't hesitate to use it. Also, if you have points in Tactical Mastery, don't hesitate switching to Berserker Stance and Intercepting to the opponent if he takes even a small distance from you.

Switching to Dual Wield and Berserker stance may be better while fighting against caster classes, since your shield equals nothing, you need Berserker Rage to avoid Fear effects and Intercept/Hamstring to keep up with mages.

Fun class, isn't it?

[Scyepogg]

My talents are like this.
My spec does include improved revenge, last stand, concussion blow and tactical mastery. Now that you mentioned it, I understood I forgot that I have concussion blow altogether Takes a lot of experience to remember all you abilities on different classes

Perhaps those disarm and concussion blow (absense of them) were the ones that caused my downfall.

The enemy warrior tried not only moving around but also running away from me, jumping and turning. Perhaps that was a bit noobish, I dunno. I am myself a big warrior noob, though I did my best to face him at all times for shield block As for his gear, I did not really understand, but perhaps he did have a good weapon. I think it was something like a mace, maybe whirlwind mace. I myself have whirlwind sword, but I only use it for fighting lower level mobs as I am not fury/arms. When fighting equal level melee mobs in prot, I hardly take any damage at all.

As for mages... Does intercept break the mage's freezing? Those guys keep getting into my dead zone and nuking.

[The Deserted Grail]

Always remember that PvP isn't about looking good or professional, it's about controlling the situation (or simply beating your opponent). If a warrior runs away from you, it's usually a sign that he's going to Intercept/Charge at you to stun you. Jumping around can be done as a means to confuse the opponent and make it hard for you to keep yourself faced at him (granted running around is a lot more efficient in this).

Well, you don't have to respec, but I would personally suggest something like this: www.wowhead.com/?talent=LZVZfAzsI0z

From thereon continuing to:
www.wowhead.com/?talent=LZVZfEzsI0zcxst

Getting Focused Rage and Devastate ASAP should be the main focus as they increase your DPS significantly and your threat slightly.

Imp. Rend... I've never used Rend on any of my warrior characters after level 15 or so. Do you feel like it's a useful talent?

Cruelty is always nice, but makes you have to wait for Devastate for 5 more levels (level 55 instead of 50).

Imp. Bloodrage may seem like a pretty worthless talent since prot warriors are rather rage efficient. However, Bloodrage causes a good amount of AoE threat and is quite nice while tanking for a group.

Defiance increases your hit chance, which is always nice. The extra threat doesn't help you while soloing. The only alternatives for those three points, would be filling out Anticipation and putting the remaining point to Toughness.

Imp. Shield Bash is a bit too situational, I think. If you meet mobs that can shoot several types of spells, you can use Shield Bash first and Concussion Blow afterwards. By then your Shield Bash should be available again and the mob low enough to die soonish. If not, you can stun/interrupt him once more by running a few steps to the side, switching to Berserker Stance and Interception to him.

Intercept doesn't free you from any immobilizing/movement impairing effects, sadly (There will be talents to this in WotLK, see Heroic Fury in Fury tree and Warbringer in Protection tree) However, if the mage is stupid and uses both Frost Nova and Blink at the same time, he'll have nothing to escape with after you break from the Nova. Keep in mind that mages at those levels use mostly Frost Armor, meaning that you MUST apply Hamstring on them to avoid walking slower than they do. Also remember that they can Blink out of stuns (Concussion Blow). Having Insignia of the Horde helps quite a bit, but with the honor cost it has these days it's not really worth getting it before level 60-70.

[Scyepogg]

Actually, I heard that rend is not very popular among warriors. But it has the best dps per rage point of all warrior abilities, especially when you spec for increased damage. I personally always put a rend on any mob I am fighting. And it should also keep rogues out of stealth.

[Scyepogg]

just for me to remember how I want to respec my tank..
www.wow-europe.com/en/info/basics/talents/warrior/talents.html?tal=052200000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000053251222220212521030113321

[The Deserted Grail]

Some further pointers:

- Vigilance feels rather worthless, even if it's a one-pointer. 3% less damage and the threat thing doesn't seem too necessary (in both PvP and PvE). You also need to actually remember to apply it. If you really want to have a "Here I come to save you" button, you might want to invest a point or two into Safeguard instead (15/30% damage reduction after using Intervene).
- Imp. Disciplines reduces "I win" button cooldowns from 5 minutes to 4 minutes. I wouldn't waste the points. (Unless they've changed it to 3 -> 2 minutes, in which case it's brilliant)
- Get Focused Rage as it affects almost all of your abilities. Really nice in solo play, and in PvP mages and priests with their "shields" can easily cause rage starvation.
- By now you should have enough abilities to give up on using Rend, ever. Rogues and mages can be unstealthed with Demoralizing Shout or Thunderclap.
- The points from level ups should most likely go to Cruelty and Armored to the Teeth. Tactical Mastery shouldn't be that useful anymore since you can now use most necessary moves in Defensive Stance. The only reason I can think of to switch to another stance would be to use Berserker Rage to get rid of fear.

[Scyepogg]

I think that the anti-fear ability is now usable in def stance.
AS for rend, I will never give it up, it's my favourite ability. And besides it has been heavily buffed since wotlk, now doing pretty nice damage.

[Scyepogg]

and now that we are at it, maybe I already asked, but I forgot. Can bosses and trash mobs from heroics/raid be disarmed (if they have a weapon)?

[The Deserted Grail]

Most bosses should be immune to disarm, stuns and interrupts. List of disarmable bosses can be found here. It should also work on certain trash, but with a lot of mobs not using weapons people seem to suggest the Imp. Disarm to be a waste of points.

www.wowhead.com/?talent=LAM00fZhbZMItrx0zidIzsGo
Seems to be the usual suggested spec. I haven't read tankspot or elitisticjerks about the details, but I assume you're free to put two points from Imp. Heroic Strike to Imp. Rend if you feel like using that. Also, now that I think about it Vigilance might be alright in raiding when there's two tanks needed for the fight.

[Scyepogg]

My point is also that I like my build to be universal - not only good for primary idea of tanking, but also suitable for random pvp and soloing. Improved disarm would be nice for pvp. But anyway the build is only for level 71 and I have 9 more pointz.

[Scyepogg]

P.S. and err... while our forums and most wowhead features do work through anonymizer, the talent build does not... So I can't check the build you posted. Only the one on wow-europe works, and still I can't remove (right-click) a talent there once selected...