3.2 Prot PVP – You can’t kill me

I wanted to comment quickly on protection PVP as of 3.2. I speced back to prot to farm heroics, which has gone really well for me having picked up the Tanking sword from HToC and the Axe from HToC.

If you’ve read this blog for more than a day you’ve probably learned I live me some PVP, BG’s Arena, world pvp it doesn’t matter. So what’s the first thing I do while I’m waiting to be summoned to an instance? I jump into BG queues of course, and hell why not go as prot.

Let me just say that the 100% increase to damage and bonus sunder armor that devastate got in 3.2 shows up big. Not the pure damage off of devastate, but the armor reduction more specifically. If you glyph to apply two sunder armors per devastate in essence you can have a clothy almost completely ass naked in a 3 second window. Which coupled with 4-8k shield slams and 4-8k revenges and you’re looking at pissing a lot of people off. If that’s not enough speccing and glyphing for spell reflect is the bets way to let casters know you love them.
Did I mention stuns?
Revenge, Concussion blow, Charge, Intercept, Shockwave, if you’re a tauren your racial. I mean MY GOD. Do you know how much fun it is to catch a rogue on an intercept and then stun lock HIS ass for the next 10 seconds all while you dump on him? No? Well let me tell you it’s fun.

Intercept – 3 Seconds
Charge – 1 Second
Revenge - ...what 1-3 seconds
Concussion Blow – 6 seconds
Shockwave – a few more seconds.

Yeah it’s possible to really annoy someone.

I tried doing two different things. Going in my PVP gear and then in my PVE tanking gear. I found that the PVP gear benefited me more as I wasn’t just a meat shield, I was a meat shield with razors on it.

Admittedly I didn’t put up a lot of DAMAGE, per say, but my killing blows were through the roof and I really didn’t have a problem taking on 3 people till help came. Or until the res ticked up in AB, so I was easily surviving 3-4 ally vs. me for around 30 seconds with no problem.

Here’s what I learned. When you go prot your roll isn’t as a killing machine, it’s as BATMAN – that’s to say it’s about your utility --- and that’s to say your stuns, fears, disarms(especially this), spell reflects(also this), demoralizing shouts, thunderclaps, and ranged silences(YES HEROIC THROW DOES THIS 50% chance), and last but not least your devastates.

Let me translate how this all plays out for a prot warrior in 3.2
First your general AOE abilities.
Demo shout - is going to really bring down DPS from melee classes, and not just 1 or 2 people, but ANYONE it hits, so you’re already cutting damage your group is taking by a bit.
Spell reflect – While not quite AoE it does provide reflection for more than just yourself so another reduction in damage
Thunder Clap – Uh reduction in damage
Devastate – when glyphed you’re hitting two people. Not reducing THEIR dps but drastically increasing the damage they are taking.

Stuns – If you’re stunned you’re not doing any healing or dps so to lock someone down can really help, especially since you can then let some of those instant class AoE abilities.
Fears – an easy way to stop people from DPSing.
Disarm – Oh how I love using this on huntards. A hunter without a bow is probably THE single most Gimped thing in the game. You can also use this on DK’s and pallys which seriously reduces their dps.

You simply being in a general vicinity allows for you to quit literally change the course of a fight. And not because you’re dropping people like fly’s but because you change stats so drastically in large groups that a well geared group of people can be lowered in their ability.

In addition to your Utilities prot in 3.2 pvp bring in VERSATILITY. You are really, really, really hard to kill. I mean really hard.
First you really don’t take much damage and or you are reflecting some of it back.
Second you can enraged regen
Thirdly you can shield wall
Lastly you can last stand.

In effect you have a bubble of sorts with shieldwall and last stand. Not that you can’t take damage, but that you get some much health and so much damage reduction its mind numbing.

I’m still working out some of the finer details and have been doing a little research on a
Unrelenting assault Revenge build that I heard rumor about. I’ll probably give that a test run sometime soon and report back.
As for 3.2 prot PVP know that it is possible and it is VERY, VERY fun.