Wednesday, June 03, 2009

Ask Coriel: Prot/Ret Viability

Kevin writes:
Iv been thinking about this type of hybrid for a very long time, one that stacked shield block and anything with a high amount of strength. As a prot pally who isn't trading avoidance for block (yet) I can hit pretty hard with Shield of Righteousnouss. The person in the following video is using the ideal gear, but he is full Prot.



see that 13k crit at the end? take that value and multiply it by 9% from Vengence, 3% from Sanctified Retribution, 3% from Crusade (6% in most PvP/PvE situations) as well as a 20% stat reduction on theh enemy and you pretty much have a 1 shot spell. Of course this damage would be reduced by a high amount of resil, as well as other spells, but this is still a really high value. It might even be considered a decent PvE spec by some (off tank/dps). Now that dual spec is out however, it pretty much eliminated all hybrid specs, because they are not needed any more. Personally, I enjoyed playing hybrid specs because of the different style of play they offered. This is one of the few specs that I havn't seen, but I am eager to try when I get the correct gear. Any thoughts on if this hybrid would be accepted into PvE? I estimate you could push around 3-4k dps in the right gear.

I'm not seeing how your PvE DPS would be so high. You're missing a basic attack in Hammer of the Righteous. Yes, you would get very high Shield of Righteousness hits, but I don't think it can make up for missing an entire attack.

I'm looking at one of my Prot Pally tank's WWS. HotR contributes 17% of his damage, and SoR contributes 21%. You'd need to almost double the possible SoR damage to make up for the loss of HotR, and I don't think the few extra points in Ret will do that for you.

Personally, I'm not sure that this would work. An extra button to press--to fill up empty space in the rotation is huge--and is a much bigger advantage than extra damage talents. This concept might be fine in PvP, where burst is very important, but it won't be good for sustained PvE DPS and threat.

3 comments:

  1. I've done some PvP in a Prot spec... and it CAN be a ton of fun. Having 3 melee beat on you while you avoid 70% of it is a blast.

    My problem, though, is that I rarely felt like a threat to anyone. Partially because I was in blues and a few heroic epics so my damage was really low. But also because I didn't bring to the fight the things a Prot Warrior would bring.

    No Shockwave. No Warbringer. No Spell Reflect. No Shield Slam (dispel) or Shield Bash (Silence). My mobility was non-existant (you don't understand the power of Charge, Intercept, and Intervene until you don't have them anymore).

    Is it fun? Sometimes.
    Is it really a viable option? Not really.

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  2. Actually though, I have been experimenting with prot PvP a bit, with a mix of pvp and pve epics. I use a rogue dps sword, and stack strength, block, and dps stats. Probably not ideal gear, as it's just a hobby, but not too shabby.

    DPS is actually pretty decent--7-9k crits with SoR, and 4k crits with HotR. On a dummy I pull about 2200 unbuffed (not great, I know). I think I would work best in a 5v5 where you just go harass the healer(s) with the silence on Avenger's Shield and imp. HoJ.

    I was very tough--often able to handle 2v1 or 3v1 melee groups in WG or BGs, but any kiting/CC class just OWNED me. Once I'd blown trinket, bubble, and HoF, I could basically be ignored.

    Though we have improved a bit from 3.0, we'd still need some major tools to be viable for anything but a very specialized role. I particularly agree with the mobility point of Dorgol above.

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