Tank Hard!

Veneretio has posted up his comparison of Mongoose vs Executioner. He does well enough to describe the pros and cons of each. In the end he had this to say about which one he feels wins out:

Neither of them. Myself I prefer Mongoose’s combination of Threat, Avoidance and Mitigation, but I’d also not discredit anyone who preferred Executioner for it’s superior Threat increase. Both are fine choices and unfortunately on this one, it’s all going to come down to preference.

While Veneretio may feel that neither of them is the clear winner, I feel that they are BOTH the clear winner! I would recommend getting each enchant on a different weapon and use those weapons in the proper circumstances.

I will drop Executioner on my [The Decapitator] and keep Mongoose on my [King's Defender] and [The Sun Eater].

When not currently tanking but needing to build aggro, swapping in Decapitator for Devastate is a very smart move when you find yourself with lower rage generation. If you are faced with the choice of getting only one enchant, I would still lean towards Mongoose. With the Threat buffs in 2.3, survival should trump threat in most fights when you are working on progression targets.

With patch 2.3 came Weapon Expertise to add yet another confusing stat to the mix for tanks. Don’t get me wrong, I like a chance at deeper gameplay in any fashion and am very happy with the addition.

So let’s first take a look at exactly what Weapon Expertise is.

One point of Expertise decreases the chance that melee attacks made by the player will be dodged or parried by 0.25%.

Items do not add Expertise directly, but add to Expertise Rating. At level 70, every 3.9 points of expertise rating grants one point of expertise.

For a tank, the importance of Weapon Expertise is two fold. One, it will directly increase your threat through more melee attacks that land, and two, it will directly increase your survivability due to Parry Mechanics.

Parry Mechanics

When a boss parries your attack, it reduces the default swing timer of the bosses next main hand attack. Based on the time during the bosses swing timer that the parry occurs, it can cause a boss to appear to attack in rapid succession, dealing burst damage to the tank, and is often the cause of those ‘OMG WHAT HAPPENED?’ type of insta gibs.

So how much Weapon Expertise is needed? It is commonly accepted that a bosses dodge rate against attacks is 5.6%. Parry rates are not precisely known, but believed to be around 11% (perhaps 5.6 x 2). In order to lower a bosses dodge and parry by the initial 5.6%, you will need 22.4 Weapon Expertise. However, since ratings are rounded down, you actually need 23 Weapon Expertise, or 91 Weapon Expertise Rating to prevent all dodges. In order to prevent all parries, you will need in the neighborhood of 44 weapon expertise, or 172 expertise rating.

So where is one to get all of the Weapon Expertise? Unfortunately there is not a ton of Weapon Expertise rating gear floating around.

Items

[Shapeshifter's Signet] (20) - Exalted with Lower City
[Bracers of the Ancient Phalanx] (22) - 35 x [Badge of Justice]
[Brooch of Deftness] (21) - 35 x [Badge of Justice]
[Gauntlets of Enforcement] (21) - Teron Gorefiend - Black Temple

Weapons

[Mallet of the Tides] (14) - The Lurker Below - Serpentshrine Cavern
[Fang of Vashj] (21) - Lady Vashj - Serpentshrine Cavern
[The Brutalizer] (21) - Supremus - Black Temple

There are several other items, particularly leather and other weapons that have Weapon Expertise Rating, so take a look at this filtered list from WoWHead.

In addition, Orcs and Humans also gain Weapon Expertise Rating racial bonuses, axes for Orcs and swords and maces for Humans, which adds 5 Weapon Expertise Rating in each case.

Tertel sends a message about an easy to acquire shield upgrade. With Season 3 out, there is a very nice, easy to get shield that will cost you nothing more than a little time. Let’s take a peek at the Season 1 [Gladiator's Shield Wall].

For the low, low price of only 15,000 honor points, plus 20 Eye of the Storm marks, this shield can be yours! I estimate that you should be able to net 500 - 1000 honor per hour, you’re looking at between 15 and 30 hours worth of Battleground grinding to acquire this shield. It does sound like a lot, but this is a guaranteed item, and a pretty good one at that.

The Gladiator’s Shield Wall has more Armor and more Stamina than the shield from Nightbane, [Shield of Impenetrable Darkness] (the one in the screenshot here is enchanted with the +18 Stamina enchant).

So if you are looking for a sure fire way to acquire a shield upgrade, here is a great alternative to [Crest of the Sha'tar] or [Azure-Shield of Coldarra] if you have the defense to spare.

Just a short little quip here about Eyonix’s post on the offiical forums:

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Q u o t e:
Any plans to bring Prot Warriors and Prot Paladins up to snuff? Not looking for anything huge, I’d be more than happy with “close to Feral” dps though when we’re not actively tanking.

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We do want to make solo/grinding more viable for all non-dsp, support oriented specs, including protection warriors and paladins. We’re looking into ways to improve this for the future, so please just hang in there.

Of course any added ability to solo while prot will be greatly appreciated. I’m curious though just how many Prot spec’d folks actually try soloing much. With the change to Devastate, I concentrated a little on changing my DPS/Solo gear up a bit and found that I’m not half bad at soloing anymore going with a dual wield, DPS gear set and just spamming the heck out of Devastate. Maybe I just never really tried it much pre 2.3, but post 2.3, dual wield prot spec Devastate spam does pretty well!

I plan to do an ongoing comparison of the various enchants that are available for armor, looking at them from both threat as well as survivability points of view. The first enchants I am going to look at are glove enchants.

The following are the typical glove enchants that a tank would be interested in.

For survival, I lean towards pure stamina in the Knothide Armor Kit, but Superior Agility is nice from an avoidance point of view as well.

1. [Heavy Knothide Armor Kit] 10 Stamina Thanks Azhokgra!
2. [Formula: Enchant Gloves - Superior Agility] 15 Agility
3. [Glove Reinforcements] 240 Armor
4. [Vindicator's Armor Kit] 8 Defense
5. [Formula: Enchant Gloves - Greater Agility] 7 Agility

Finally there is the 2% Threat enchant which I favor over the above in most circumstances.

[Formula: Enchant Gloves - Threat] +2% Threat

Of course if by some chance you are looking for a pure DPS enchant, you would want to get the +15 Strength enchant, Enchant Gloves - Major Strength.