Tank like a girl

It’s going live today, how exciting. All raiders are probably chomping at their bits to set foot into Ulduar. Casuals will flood the Argent Tournament. Dual-specs will turn out exciting for most everyone, I assume. 3.1 is the biggest patch to date, Blizzard says.

But what’s in it for protection warriors? Let’s have a closer look. I will be listing all the stuff that seems relevant to me as a prot warrior.

• Defensive Stance: Now reduces damage caused by the warrior by 5% (previously 10%). That’s a flat increase in DPS and threat for us, so that’s a pretty awesome change.
• Soloing fury warriors get a buff, as berserker stance makes you take 5% more damage instead of 10%. Everyone in battle stance gets 10% armor penetration now. As there are more changes to armor penetration, it really seems that Blizzard is trying to make this actually useful.
• Last Stand: Cooldown reduced to 3 minutes. This is pretty awesome again, because it means we can fully macro Last Stand+Enraged Regeneration now and really save our butts every 3 minutes. With the Glyph of Last Stand you can push that cooldown to 2 minutes, which will probably a huge lifesaver in progression fights in Ulduar.
• Warbringer: Now also allows Intervene and Intercept to be used in any stance. Can you see us zipping around non-stop? I can. That’s some insane mobility.
• Mobility is the name of the game for Arms warriors as well now: New Talent: Juggernaut: Grants the warrior the ability to Charge while in combat. Critical strike chance of next Slam or Mortal Strike increased by 100% following Charge.
• All flasks now last 1 hour. To compensate, all flask recipes will provide 2 flasks for the same material cost. This is actually great for me as casual raider. We raid for 3 hours per raid day, which means I am no longer wasting away an hour of flask time while fishing.
• Increased the health granted by the Flask of Stoneblood. I still think it’s a terrible flask compared to the TBC tank flask. An avoidance or threat stat along with the health wouldn’t have hurt.
• Added new recipes for epic gear, found rarely on Ulduar bosses. These recipes are unbound and can be traded. Those blacksmithing plans are pretty amazing, item level 226, and as they only drop in Ulduar 25, prices on the AH will be astronomical, once raiding guilds have handed them out to all guild blacksmiths.
• A new recipe has been added to cooking trainers for making Black Jelly, using several Borean Man ‘O War as ingredients. While it looks disgusting, it restores more health and mana than the highest level food. Less time spent eating means more time to do stuff, so I approve. It does prove that fishing and cooking always go together. *flexes her new fishing 450*
• New glyphs for tanks:
  • Glyph of Barbaric Insults: Increases threat on Mocking Blow by 100%.
  • Glyph of Enraged Regeneration: Your Enraged Regeneration ability heals for an additional 10% of your health over its duration.
  • Glyph of Last Stand: Now reduces the cooldown of Last Stand by 60 seconds. The penalty on maximum health gained has been removed.
  • Glyph of Shield Wall: Reduces the cooldown on Shield Wall by 3 min, but Shield Wall now only reduces damage taken by 40%.
  • Glyph of Shockwave: Reduces the cooldown on Shockwave by 3 seconds.
  • Glyph of Spell Reflection: Reduces the cooldown on Spell Reflection by 1 second.
  • Glyph of Vigilance: Your Vigilance ability transfers an additional 5% of your target’s threat to you.

  The best of the new glyphs all enhance our survival abilities and will certainly be worth a consideration for progression tanks.

• Damage Shield: Fixed a bug which caused this ability to benefit from Recklessness. Aw, dang.
• Improved Revenge: This talent will now increase the damage done by Revenge by the proper amount. I am hoping this means it will do more damage now, not that it did too much in the past. Anyone know?
• Last but not least, the two most amazing and useful changes ever: Loot from clams now stacks correctly! Changed the icon for Succulent Clam Meat so it doesn’t look quite as disgusting. Now 100% more succulent! Thank you Blizzard, clam lovers across the world bow to you. >.>

And now a quick look at my dual specs. I am a dedicated tank, and while DPS possibilities are huge for warriors now, I will be going with two different tank specs. My first spec is going to be my current Deep Wounds build. I love the TPS I can do with this build. As possible second spec I am contemplating this build. It goes down to Commanding Presence in the fury tree, for more health with CS. Also picks up Piercing Howl which should be a boost for add tanks. I’d also pick up Imp Demo Shout and Imp Spell Reflect, and go with the survival glyph, to be optimal for boss fights.

How about you? Now’s the perfect time to share warrior builds!