[Guide] Protection Warrior Shield Slam PvP Guide for Men
Prologue - The Tyranny of the Almighty Ghostcrawler
Hello everyone. Let me warn you. This guide is not for the sensitive of heart. This guide is for men. Beard-sporting Shield Slam critting men. Here I teach you how to make your Warrior the manliest man in the battleground. Enemies will cower before your testosterone-fueled charge. Noobs will tremble in your shadow and throw themselves at your mercy ÔÇô which you will not give. Do you play a female character? Too bad. After you read this guide she will grow a mustache and her children will become gladiators.
There are few things as manly and as exhilarating in this game as playing a Shield Slam Protection Warrior in PvP. If you don't know what that means, it means your gear is focused on making your Shield Slam as deadly as possible, forgoing petty little things like resilience and stamina. Those are for children and the weak.
How do you do that, you ask? Block motherf*cking Value. Block Value is the destructive stat that makes Shield Slam turn your enemies into beautiful explosions of blood and anguish. With the right gear, you can crit your victims anywhere between 8k and 25k damage twice in a row, depending on their armor type and resilience. In any case, you're bringing on the paintrain.
Unfortunately, Blizzard became so scared of the paintrain that in the year 3.2.0 of the Holy Nerfbat, they attempted to take away the power of Shield Slam and make it more like those pathetic little abilities other classes use. But we Warriors would not let this pass without response, and many noobs were critted that day. Nonetheless, the tyranny of the Almighty Ghostcrawler proved too great, and many within our ranks passed away.
Today, in the year 3.3.5a of the Holy Nerfbat, we Shield Slam Protection Warriors are but a few in an vast sea of weaklings and cowards. Those who recognize us for what we are know to pay their respects, and step aside. And now, through this guide, I shall teach you our ways.
Chapter 1: Bromance - Block Value and Shield Slam
Block Value is the almighty must-have stat if you want to play a Shield Slam Prot Warrior. It does two things: increase the damage you block when you block, and increase the damage of Shield Slam. The latter is what we're really interested in, but then again, there are many other stats that can also increase our damage, like strength, attack power, and armor penetration - so why focus on Block Value?
Cause it's the f*cking bomb, that's why. No but really, the reason Block Value is so good is that you can double it with Shield Block, and then get two guaranteed Shield Slam crits with Recklessness. This allows you to have ridiculous amounts of burst on an otherwise tanky CC-machine.
On the downside, the gear requirement to really pull off a viable Shield Slam Warrior is tremendously high, and Blizzard added a soft cap to Shield Slam after they decided Warriors going around critting everyone for 20k+ was not okay. Thankfully, you can still do this, because f*ck Blizzard.
The Block Value soft cap is 2760. This is the point after which gaining more Block Value through your static gear stats or the Glyph of Blocking stops benefiting Shield Slam's damage. Fortunately, you can still increase Shield Slam's damage by increasing your Block Value past that amount, but only with abilities like Shield Block or trinket procs like Strength of the Taunka.
So what does that mean? It means your Block Value needs to be 2760 after the Glyph of Blocking is activated, which requires 2510 Block Value. In other words, when you hover over your Block Value amount in your character window, it should read as close to 2510 as possible. With just this amount, your Shield Slam will crit for over 13000 damage when Shield Block is activated, before any additional modifiers.
We can get even more damage than that (a lot more, in fact), but getting to that amount of Block Value while still maintaining decent secondary stats may prove to be tricky. I will go over the specifics in the gearing section, but for now, let's suffice it to say that you need 2510 Block Value.
Chapter 2: A Very Particular Set of Skills - Talents for Men
These are the talent points you will get. Period.
Warrior (15/3/53).
Arms -
The entire point of going down this tree is to pick up Impale. The reason for this should be obvious: more Shield Slam crit damage. None of the points in the 1st row are particularly interesting, because we don't use Heroic Strike in Prot PvP and parry is lackluster. Even Rend is a minimal part of our damage in PvP. But we need 5 points to go on, so 2 in Improved Rend and 3 in Deflection is the way to go.
All of the talents in the 2nd row are great, and you should get them all. Improved Charge and Tactical Mastery greatly help rage management, and Iron Will makes you harder to shake off your targets and harder to kill.
Impale is the talent we want from the 3rd row. Deep Wounds is also an option, though I prefer to avoid it as the damage is minimal and it only really helps against Rogues - but we already have Rend for that.
Fury -
Armored to the Teeth is the only thing we really want here. We're going to have a lot of armor as Prot, so this talent will actually benefit us more than it does any other Warrior specialization.
Some Fury talents may seem tempting, such as Piercing Howl or Blood Craze, but picking them up would require dropping Impale, which simply would not do.
Protection -
Most of the talents in this tree are self-explanatory, with a few exceptions. You have 3 talent options in which to invest 3 points to reach the 3rd row ÔÇô Improved Thunder Clap, Incite, and Anticipation. Because you'll essentially never be using Heroic Strike and Cleave, Incite seems like a waste of points. 3% dodge also seems a little weak. Improved Thunder Clap is okay, but again, Thunder Clap is not an ability you'll often be using either. So you end up having to choose between increased crit chance on abilities you almost never use, increased damage on an ability you hardly ever use, or 3% dodge. Your pick.
The only other non-obvious talent is Focused Rage. A lot of people prefer not to spend points there and invest in Deep Wounds in the Arms tree instead. But what the f*ck is that about? Don't make your enemies bleed, just kill them you *****. Take Focused Rage because good players will try to avoid focusing you in PvP, which may lead to rage starvation. And a Warrior needs his damn rage.
Chapter 3: War Tattoos - Glyphs
There is only one core glyph, which is the Glyph of Blocking. All other glyphs are optional. Some good choices are:
- Glyph of Last Stand ÔÇô More survivability to piss people off.
- Glyph of Enraged Regeneration ÔÇô Combined with Last Stand, a standard Enraged Regeneration would heal you for 52% of your normal HP. With this glyph and Last Stand, it heals you for 65% of your normal HP. Healing is for pussies though. Don't pick this up.
- Glyph of Shield Wall ÔÇô For more sustained damage reduction, but less burst mitigation. B*tches love burst mitigation.
- Glyph of Shockwave ÔÇô Decent pick. Shockwave is your 2nd best nuke.
- Glyph of Spell Reflection ÔÇô Make spells rebound off your manly chest even more.
Chapter 4: The Greeks Fought Naked, Warriors Stack Block Value and Eat Those Pansies for Breakfast - Gearing Your Warrior
Before I get into details, we need to go over some philosophy. The question you should be asking yourself before equipping or modifying any piece of gear is this: ÔÇ£What can I do to make Shield Slam do more damage?ÔÇØ Answer this question, and you will perhaps earn a place in Valhalla. Actually, don't, I'll just tell you: Block Value, T10, and armor penetration. With the right combination of these, your damage will so impressive all of the women in Azeroth will bow before you and beg to be f*cked. Congratulations.
I've already covered Block Value in Chapter 1 and explained that you should have as close to 2510 as possible. So how exactly do we get all that Block Value? There are only two ways to get it: Strength (half of it is converted into Block Value) and from the Block Value stat itself. But Block Value isn't anywhere to be found on PvP gear, and we're not going to get enough of it from Strength alone. This is where PvE gear comes into play.
Before the Year 3.2.0 of the Holy Nerfbat, Block Value Prot Warrior builds revolved around amassing the most amount of Block Value gear possible and just wrecking havoc in PvP. However, this was pre-Season 7 (when Furious Gladiator gear was the best available) and before the Block Value soft cap even existed. Today, going around in Naxxramas Block Value tanking gear is no longer a viable option in the Wrathful Gladiator PvP environment. Fortunately, there remains a few PvE Block Value items we can equip, as well as other ways to increase Shield Slam's damage.
There is the issue, however, that equipping PvE gear to get our delicious Shield Slam damage does leave us at a rather uncomfortably low amount of resilience. This is why you want to get the absolute best PvE Block Value gear possible, so that the other tank stats the items provide are high enough to actually matter in PvP. Getting high-level gear means the Block Value on those items will also be high, making it significantly easier to reach the soft cap and focus on other stats. For example, two must-have items are the T9 helm and leggings, both of which provide substantial amounts of Block Value, while still granting high strength and stamina. Another item is the Icecrown Glacial Wall.
But more importantly, you need to get two pieces of T10 tanking gear. That may seem odd seeing as there is no Block Value on any T10 items, and obviously no resilience. But have you read the 2-piece bonus? That sh*t is crazy. (In case you are illiterate or simply uninformed, it increases your Shield Slam and Shockwave damage by 20%).
After you get that, you should focus on a mix of resilience and armor penetration. Armor penetration will make you do godly damage. Resilience just adds more tankiness to your tankiness, cause it heard you liked tankiness.
So let's make a list:
As far as trinkets go, Deathbringer's Will and Sharpened Twilight Scale are the best trinkets for sustained damage, and the proc on STS will make your Shockwave f*ck people up (like, 15k crits). DBW also has 3 different procs - the strength proc is downright amazing, the crit proc is okay, and the haste proc is just useless. DBW easily has the potential to be the best of all the trinkets, but also one of the worst. Conversely, Death's Verdict will always give you a godly strength proc, and don't even get me started on Lavanthor's Talisman ÔÇô the burst that trinket will give you is just silly. However, that's just if you want gimmicky burst at the cost of sh*tty sustained damage. Your pick. Real men don't care. Any of those trinkets will do.
Chapter 5: Pretty Jewels are for Girls - Gems
Pretty jewels are for girls ... but you need them anyway. It's okay though, because you'll be getting the most manly jewels possible. The gemming philosophy for a Protection Warrior is simple: get the most armor penetration possible. Once you're at the Block Value soft cap, armor penetration is the best way to make your damage go nuts. I'm talking 8k crits on 1200 resilience plate-wearers here.
Chapter 6: And Magic is for Cowards (Except Moonkins) - Enchants
Enchanting your Protection Warrior essentially makes you decide between stamina and attack power. Stamina scales well with your talents and abilities as a defensive stat, and attack power makes your Shockwave do stupid damage. But because this is the Shield Slam Warrior guide and not the Shockwave Warrior guide, I'm not going to tell you that you have to build attack power ... but you should anyway. Stamina is definitely a great stat, especially seeing as you'll be on the low side of resilience, but damnit we want to do damage.
Chapter 7: The Art of War - Combat Strategy
What the hell? You're a Protection Warrior. F*ck strategy. Just charge in there and kill stuff.
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That was just filler text to make you think there was actually something meaningful written under this section. There isn't. Unless you read Latin. But who the f*ck reads Latin?
Conclusion -
Just watch this while I work on what to put here.
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