0/51/20 - Is this viable?

[duriek]

I was just sitting around playing with some wotlk prot specs for level 80, and came up with this.... it's pretty much a wotlk version of the current 0/40/21 max tps spec...

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=sZ0xVAczgtcIRhovo0xbc (This is if you DO have a ret paladin in your group)

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=sZ0xVAczgtcIRhoes0x0c (This is if you DON'T have a ret paladin in your group)

Anyone think this is viable at all in the future?

[Songblade]

Sure it is, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you have a warrior sitting there babysitting you at all times.

With Judgements of the Just, you mitigate 20% of single target boss damage just because you get hit less often.

Not to mention dropping AD, you're losing a powerful mitigation tool.

[Lore]

Not really (I don't plan on ever going without AD and Judgements of the Just).

But if you're going for ultimate max TPS output, should drop PoJ and put those points in Seals of the Pure. You can drop Benediction to pick up Imp BoM and 2 points in Heart of the Crusader too.

[Telvannis]

I'd say yes it's viable for dealing TPS, but without Ardent Defender, JotJ, and Imp Devotion you're sort of killing your potential survivability for some rather tertiary benefits.

Just my 2 cents.

[Lore]

Also remember that you don't need all of that to hold aggro anymore, you're really just upping your personal DPS at that point. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but the extra survivability might be more useful.

[Modal]

Judgments of the Just > Guarded by the Light

But even, so I can't see any reason to put 5/5 points in Conviction. Why not do 0/53/18? You could easily get 4/5 AD that way if you skip Guarded by the Light. Then again, I'd just do 2/3 Crusade and pick up 5/5 AD. And now you're looking at pretty much a cookie-cutter build. 0/40/21's rationale was that 10% threat was a huge boost. There is nothing comparable in the 20-point range in Ret right now. I can't see that skipping AD is worth that 3rd point in Crusade and a few % crit.

[duriek]

Thanks for the input guys.

[Jasari]

Judgments of the Just > Guarded by the Light

But even, so I can't see any reason to put 5/5 points in Conviction. Why not do 0/53/18? You could easily get 4/5 AD that way if you skip Guarded by the Light. Then again, I'd just do 2/3 Crusade and pick up 5/5 AD. And now you're looking at pretty much a cookie-cutter build. 0/40/21's rationale was that 10% threat was a huge boost. There is nothing comparable in the 20-point range in Ret right now. I can't see that skipping AD is worth that 3rd point in Crusade and a few % crit.

I can't imagine the slight threat gain by going 0/53/18 as opposed to 5/58/6 with 2 flex points would be worth it. With 58 points in prot you can get every single mitigation talent include 3/3 imp devo aura (really good if a druid isn't around, and still a few hundred armor even with a druid around). It's pretty much been established that we aren't going to have to make sacrifices in mitigation in order to insure we stay ahead of DPS on threat so I don't see any reason to add a very minor amount of person DPS and sacrifice any mitigation at all. Plus, we really should be picking up kings, even if just so we have a buff to give to ret pallies who will probably be self buffing with imp might.

[knaughty]

We don't really know how things are going to scale. For example, in TBC, all through T-4, T-5 and the first half of T-6 I have more threat than I knew what to do with. Come late BT and Sunwell, I'm constantly sweating for TPS in all the heavy prot builds. 0/40/21 puts you back into "TPS? Who cares, I'm good" land.

Right now, in 3.0 & Tier-7, our TPS is much higher than it needs to be, even in full mitigation builds. Blizzard are also changing the focus of raid restrictions somewhat. In level 60, enrage timers were mostly a non-issue, and so was TPS. Healers going OOM was the main restriction (other than control / fight mechanics). Hell, you could do basically all of classic raiding without bothering to have a threat meter - just nuke slower, it didn't matter.

In TBC, it was all about TPS/DPS as the controlling factor, as healers never really went OOM.

Wrath is back to mana-management as a major factor, and TPS is back to a minor issue rather than a back-breaking raid constraint.

For Tier-7 - spec deep prot, there's no point speccing for TPS/DPS as a tank. You're better off picking up utility talents like Kings, Imp Devo or Divine Guardian. Even Seals of the Pure appears to be pretty optional.

[Mishdorf]

I was just sitting around playing with some wotlk prot specs for level 80, and came up with this.... it's pretty much a wotlk version of the current 0/40/21 max tps spec...

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=sZ0xVAczgtcIRhovo0xbc (This is if you DO have a ret paladin in your group)

Spec is viable for overgeared content, and possibly ok for threat race fights that are not particularly painful.

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=sZ0xVAczgtcIRhoes0x0c (This is if you DON'T have a ret paladin in your group)

Anyone think this is viable at all in the future?

No kings = bad spec if ret pally is not available, at least for progression.

Both of those specs are missing the two best progression mitigation talents that are easy to attain. These are almost strictly for overgeared content, at which point practically any spec will suffice.