Is prot the only way to go for PvE at 70?Follow

Like the subject says, am I going to be forced to go prot for PvE once I hit the higher levels? I really don't want to but everything I see and hear tells me that DPS warriors are almost non-existent outside of PvP. Will people let me DPS at higher levels or will I be forced to tank if I ever want to enter a level 70 instance or raid?

Far from it fury warriors with the new 10% threat reduction makes them even more attractive.

But as Nikkel said for 5 mans prot is alot easier to get a pug.
After that fury warriors are great dps for alot of bosses in 25 mans kara/za.

yeah any class can dps, but if your trying to progress in raids, you have to work group synergy to min/max properly. Your melee group should have a DPS warrior, either a 4% physical damage debuff slam debuff bot, or the tried and true 17/44 BT WW HS/Cleave BShout bot.

How many classes can pump out infinite DPS? Rogues... Druids (feral)... Warriors... Non-mana based classes. We don't go OOM. Which of those classes perform best with comparable gear? Warriors.

2nd reason warriors are DPS for raids. You have an OT if you need one, one that doesn't need to spec into it to be effective. Which druids can do too, but their itemization is horrible, and they tend to use rogue gear to supplement real druid dps gear, which means your rogues and druids will be spending DKP on each others stuff. Which leaves warriors to gobble up that DPS plate (they SHOULD get it over a ret pali IMHO), and pick and chose from some of the good leather pieces that drop.

To the OP. If you already are in a guild that is progressing in raids, you might have a spot for being a DPS warrior. If you are in a guild that is just starting raids, your best bet is to go Prot, and pickup DPS gear as you progress. MT's should have a DPS set as well as a good Prot set. Some fights are protadin or feral friendly, and (shade of aran) has no agro table and you should put on your DPS gear (spam devastate / HS).

If you are GOOD dps, people will take you as DPS. But you should keep a tanking set as well as a DPS set. One of the nice things about being a warrior is you can almost always OT pulls, if you have decent enough gear. Spec doesn't really matter much for that roll in a raid. And warriors are very good OT's.

In fact if you sell your self out as an OT, you'll get more hits for raiding and instancing than as DPS. Or at least that's been my experience with post 70.

While none of what devioususer said is technically wrong, his post represents the best possible scenario. In general, you can pretty much take what skribs said as the rule:


Outside of 25 or, at best, 10-man content, DPS Warriors either have no place or are outright scorned. Heroics are nigh impossible to get into with PUG's, so have a full party of friends and/or guildmates ready or perish the thought.

Outside of their damage, which I'm not arguing is great if they have the gear for it, DPS Warriors bring either the least amount of utility in the game or damn close to it. Even a Retribution Paladin has more to offer a party, which is pretty sad.

uh, what utility do rogues bring to the table? Sure they can... sap. But... I think warriors are a hybrid class, tank and dps. Many classes can JUST dps, with minor raid utility. Warriors bring a good deal of 'utility' to raids. Just about as much as any other DPS class does. Warriors provide a group buff, battle shout, it's ~381 ap, ~27 dps per melee character. That's generally ~108 DPS just from having a warrior in that group (if you actually have a melee specific group).

4% increase on physical damage is a huge overall raid buff. But you only need 1 warrior specced for that, so good luck finding that spot in a raid. THAT is utility. Let alone you can easily spec 5/5 demo shout and provide Curse of Recklessness as a viable raid option for your warlocks, to increase overall physical raid dps by ~3%. You sacrifice personal DPS for overall raid DPS, but the benefits of a properly specced debuff/buff warrior are rather great.

As for Pugging, take what you can get. Spec what you like to do, and make friends. But ideally, you should find a good guild, spec what they need, and stick to it for a while. Who cares if it's DPS or Prot, you'll spend DKP on the items you want when you have the option to.

I think my point earlier is this though;

You will either be OT or MT. If you plan on doing DPS as a warrior, you should expect to be OT at the minimal. This is of course unless you find a guild that is supportive, and mold you into the proper spec/gearset they need.

Edited, Jan 1st 2008 1:15am by devioususer

SoE is ~220 ap, GoA is 2.71% crit. Both buffed. BS is ~381 AP. But Winfury is typically in place of GoA.

Kara is a good starting place for raid progression, and many a warrior will end up being prot or OT. But once you start getting to 25 man raids, gruuls and beyond, dps warriors do have a strong place in raid planning.

Fresh 70, not so much.

Dunno if it's even worth metnioning, but I was asked to DPS for a group the other day and I beat out a Rogue -- as full Protection spec.

Point being that while all this talk is true of high end min-maxing, there's still a lot to be said about simply playing your character well. Non-heroic level 70 instances are extremely forgiving of bad play, so at least for the short term after you hit 70 there's plenty of room for non-Prot warriors.

Just be prepared to be expected to tank unless you communicate otherwise. Doesn't necessarily mean you have to be Prot, just that you have to be prepared to tank unless you've arranged to join the group as DPS.

That and you just had a ****** rogue. No matter how well you play your class, a prot warrior should not out-DPS a rogue. That's what they do, damage. That's it. Heh.

Blind, gouge, stuns. All 3 are nice utility for controlling anything that gets out of control in a 5-man. Stuns also are very nice in heroics for limiting incoming damage on the tank when necessary. To claim their only utility is Sap is just... wrong.

I was in the same situation as you basically. I wanted to go 2h fury, and had very decent gear, but I respecced prot when I felt ready for heroics.

Basically, you won't have too many problems in normal instances, as long as your gear is decent enough. Normal instances at 70 are pretty easy as long as the groups aren't all greens all around.

The problems pile up when you want heroics though, as most groups are looking for specific classes. They set up a tank and a healer and ask "what do we need now?" 9/10 times the preferred answers are mage/warlock/rogue/hunter in that order.

Also, as some have stated here already, that if I want some gear from an instance, I'd rather bring a cloth/leather/mail class so I don't have to think about the chance of the plate wearers rolling against me for the items I want.

If you were set on dps, I would find a nice guild that allows dps warriors if I were you. I know what kind of damage dps warriors can do, having been one myself, but the problem comes when you only have "decent" gear. If a dps warriors asks if he can join a group, I always ask for unbuffed AP and crit. Only one has met my demands so far (and that was a pure overkill, with 2000 AP and 35% crit).

No CC is the death of us even though we can off-tank to some extent.

The requirements for the guilds on my server who are doing T5 progression is 1600 AP 30% crit and 10% to hit for D/w. 1700 AP 30% crit and 9% hit for 2h. Prot req's are 35% dodge/parry, 400+ SBV, 490+ def, 15k hp, 15k armor, preferred if they have resist sets too.

sounds like you need T5 in the first place to be in that guild...

Rightfully so, or does nobody here remember the reason why Blizzard nerfed Flurry?

DPS warriors may have higher "utility" or what have you, but by Blizzard's own hand they want Rogues to be numero uno on those DPS charts.

Edited, Jan 4th 2008 5:25pm by Norellicus