I think the key to Deep Wounds that Karl hit on briefly is that it can proc from Damage Shield crits. 48% of your weapon DPS over 6 seconds on a single target at the standard Prot Warrior crit rate is not all that great, but when you have 4-6 mobs beating on you all that the same time, each hit giving a chance for damage shield to pop off and crit (in addition to your swings, your SS’s, your TClaps, your SWaves and everything else) THAT’S where Deep Wounds earns its money.

Now, like I said, I don’t notice a HUGE leap in my ability to hold aggro – I was doing fine before respeccing to Deep Wounds. I DO notice a big difference in how long it takes me to take down a 6 mob cluster of Brittle Revenants while doing my Hodir dailies, so that’s a nice bonus.

The only time I’ve noticed Rage Starvation is when I’m taking guildies/alts on gear runs through the non-heroic content… but that’s why Pants are removable. I’m tempted to monkey around with Karl’s suggestion on dropping the Rage savers and getting my 3% Block back. But in the end, I think Blizzard has idiot-proofed tanking so much that there really is no longer an “It-Build” because as of right now, there’s no need for one. Now, if Ulduar comes out and Yoggy continues the Elder God tradition of making lazy, non-optimzed tanks pay for their whimsical indiscretions, that may change. As it is, I’m kinda thankful that I can get away with having my Engineering parachute on my cloak without having to shell out big bucks for Titanweave.

So far I like it, its a subtle change but highly noticeable on the threat meter, yes I feel a bit wrong for using it and even got accused of being a pvp prot ( the guy thought tanking as a warrior was too hard and said prot pallys are the best tanks for everything, as well as getting his info off wowwiki) and to top it all off made some of my DPS feel useless.

But I do like it, we will see how it stacks up in a raid ofc come tuesday, so far its passed the heroics test.

I was pushing out very respectable DPS and TPS without DW spec (whenever a DPSer was creeping up I methodically followed the SS>Revenge>Devastate priority system and up it went), so I don’t know if this is going to be extremely relevant. Maybe for Malygos, a boss that I have yet to truly attempt after 1 1/2 months of WotLK (kinda disappointing), but for the rest… meh.

Deep Wounds was showing a consistant 5-6% of my averaged 1-1.2k DPS. So probably a 50-70 DPS increase.

-Eben

As the soaker on Patchwerk in 10 man I was at 1250 dps. That was with me keeping TC, Demoralizing Shout and Commanding Shout going.

1. Block procs revenge, meaning more more damage and threat.
2. Block procs enrage (with improved def stance), which also means more damage and threat.
3. More enrage, more opportunity to use enraged regeneration.
4. Full Shield Specialization means you always generate rage when blocking. So when we’re talking about a toss up between focused rage and Shield Spec, rage is even less of an issue, because you’re guaranteed rage from blocking.

Now, you say that more rage is always more damage and more threat. Well, this would only be true if rage starvation was an issue, and it’s not. In boss encounters, I’m burning full rage constantly, and the difference between an ability that costs 15 rage or 12 rage is meaningless. So someone with focused rage is not doing more damage and threat than someone without it.

The damage mitigation from blocking isn’t to be sniffed at either, off the top of my head, I’d I’m mitigating about 2000 damage when I block, and I’m sure for someone with better gear it’s a lot more. Over the course of a fight that 3% chance to block will shave off a bit of damage, which in turn makes things that little bit easier on the healers. No, 3% block is certainly not going to replace a healer, or for that matter mean the difference between life and death in a boss fight. It will however reduce the overall damage you take by a small degree, and that will make instances and raids just that tiny bit more efficient.

Focused rage will make no difference when you’re burning 100 rage, and when you’re speccing into improved heroic strike and improved charge in order to take impale and deep wounds, you’re already getting talents that add to how rage efficient you are, making focused rage that little bit more worthless.

5/5 Shield Specialization on the other hand, is more chance to mitigate damage, to generate rage, to enrage, to proc revenge, and to be able to self-heal. That 3% effects a lot of things, and I think it matters a lot to a tank. 3/3 Focused rage effects most of your talents, but unless you’re being rage starved, it’s an effect that’s worthless.

Anyway, I hope that provides some food for thought, and perhaps you should try dropping focused rage instead of shield spec. See if you notice any difference when you’re burning full rage in raids.

The only fights where you see tank deaths are Sartharion +3 (where tank gets killed by magic damage so shield spec is worthless), Maexxna (but only during an enraged web wrap where you can’t block anyway), and Patchwerk (more block can be helpful on this fight).

So its a toss up between more survivability when you don’t actually need anymore or more rage management when you don’t really more. The only way more survivability is helpful is if you can start replacing healers with more dps. An extra 3% shield block doesn’t get you enough extra survivability to replace a healer. But more rage is always more damage and more threat.

One thing I’m noticing is that Deep Wounds even procs with Damage Shield, so I’m seeing lots of little yellow damage flying off mobs that are hitting me.