Prot Pvp Gear

Looking for the best Prot PvP gearset out there. If you think what you have is the best, let me know.

I've heard a lot of people say run 5/5 pvp tier, pvp weapon/shield, 1 pvp trinket and dps pve offpieces of the rest. Anybody say anything different to this? Currently, I'm thinking 2-2-1 (Vicious(hands+?)-t11-Daybreaker Helm-OR-another vicious item) tier slots for +15% CS damage and pvp 2pc, pvp ring and 2/2 trinkets with pve dps offpieces. Thoughts?

Maballsies wrote:I've heard a lot of people say run 5/5 pvp tier, pvp weapon/shield, 1 pvp trinket and dps pve offpieces of the rest.
...tier slots for +15% CS damage and pvp 2pc

When I am focused, I really enjoy the extra damage reduction of 4x PvP pieces. Mixing PvE and PvP pieces will drop you around 500-600 or more resilience from set bonuses and gear, which means you're taking ~6% more damage. I don't think you're going to gain enough damage to make up for that.

Then again, if you're not the first target (or have a dedicated healer?), extra damage DOES sound tempting. Experiment with it and see how the damage increases on a target dummy, IMO, as that reflects your damage vs a target that's attacking your teammate. I suspect the %damage increase will be relatively small (given the higher strength on the pvp pieces+bonus), and at the cost of 5%-6% damage reduction.

I'll stick with as many resilience pieces as I can get. (:

^- I Agree with Kelaan



They've made the PVP peices the better choices for prot and it's only because of the god stat that resil really is. As previously stated the gear is really considered "dps" gear so you'll get roughly as much or more damage from good resil gear compared to equal pve gear. They made the gear scales alot better so any upgrade is a genuine upgrade, of course for prot getting shield & wep are always the first thing recommended.

Shyrtandros wrote:of course for prot getting shield & wep are always the first thing recommended.

I disagree, somewhat: Most people recommend the pvp items because it nets you the damage range that's good for pvp... but from a damage dealing perspective, the PvE epic weapons and shields are fine. Lava Spine versus PvP weapon is basically trading haste for resilience, with the same raw damage. Getting 2x and 4x set bonuses is, IMO, first priority. After that, trinkets and then weapon/shield are the best resilience/cost. On the other hand, if you're using a 346 weapon, the damage increase is noticeable going to a 359 one, of which the pvp ones are good. (May even be good for PvE threat? I don't know.)

The Ret PVP gear is your best choice, there is no argument.

When I bumped my resil up as high as it is now (3600ish and I don't have all the items), just adding 300 resil made the world of difference from 3300.

There is no argument for any of the PVE choices being better, you're literally a survival class in PVP so you need to focus on your primary role and take as little damage as possible.

Vort wrote:When I bumped my resil up as high as it is now (3600ish and I don't have all the items), just adding 300 resil made the world of difference from 3300.

It sounds like the Resilience rating vs damage reduction percent scaling was better than linear, too, so more is even better than you'd expect. They're nerfing that in 4.1 to be strictly linear, though, but it sounds like it'll be a very minor difference for people like me who are not in the best pvp gear.

Kelaan wrote:

Vort wrote:When I bumped my resil up as high as it is now (3600ish and I don't have all the items), just adding 300 resil made the world of difference from 3300.

It sounds like the Resilience rating vs damage reduction percent scaling was better than linear, too, so more is even better than you'd expect. They're nerfing that in 4.1 to be strictly linear, though, but it sounds like it'll be a very minor difference for people like me who are not in the best pvp gear.

They have to. I'm at 3800+ resil, which means I just passed an interesting border -- 102.4 for PvP. Soaking 40%+ damage as a tank. Who needs a shield?

The problem in the end is, obviously, that squishies start soaking damage like tanks when they hit the 4k resil mark.

Well, yeah, but you're still racing damage versus other people. The rogues, warriors, DKs, mages, and priests all have a permanent 30+% damage reduction. If you do NOT have it, it's effectively similar to having a damage-taken DEBUFF by comparison.

Kelaan wrote:Well, yeah, but you're still racing damage versus other people. The rogues, warriors, DKs, mages, and priests all have a permanent 30+% damage reduction. If you do NOT have it, it's effectively similar to having a damage-taken DEBUFF by comparison.

Ah, I think you misunderstood me.

When the squishies climb high above 4k resil they'll effectively become immortals. Well, would have become, as Blizz nerfs resil to behave like armour. Especially healers start to get ridiculous.

yappo wrote:Ah, I think you misunderstood me.

When the squishies climb high above 4k resil they'll effectively become immortals. Well, would have become, as Blizz nerfs resil to behave like armour. Especially healers start to get ridiculous.

We still get Sanctuary so we're taking 10% less damage from the get go, and getting the same level of resil puts us on an equal playing field with other classes. Granted I'd probably be better off punching on with a warrior in my full PVE set and laugh at their feeble attempts to hit anything but a block.

Also just noticed that no one has put up a list of chants/reforging/gem options.

With 4.1 supposed WoG nerf, not sure if I should spend the time to list what I've been successful with. Anyone interested?

Vort wrote:We still get Sanctuary so we're taking 10% less damage from the get go, and getting the same level of resil puts us on an equal playing field with other classes. Granted I'd probably be better off punching on with a warrior in my full PVE set and laugh at their feeble attempts to hit anything but a block.

Actually you wouldn't

Block still only shaves 40%, and you're almost there from resilience only.

As I see the upgrades from honour to conqust gear pushing my hit and expertise -rating above cap (in as much as you can talk about expertise-cap in PvP) I'm going even more defensive than before. In the crap-league where I play (1300 rating) outlasting opponents is enough, so I'm allowing my mastery to increase.

Vort wrote:Also just noticed that no one has put up a list of chants/reforging/gem options.

I used Taugrim's enchant advice (enchant for damage and resilience, Stamina is nigh-worthless), and reforged for hit + expertise cap. As I mentioned in the other thread (where I'm very grateful to be able to bounce ideas and questions off of you), I'm thinking that glyphing SoT for the expertise will let me reforge back to crit, which'll be nice.

Kelaan wrote:I used Taugrim's enchant advice (enchant for damage and resilience, Stamina is nigh-worthless), and reforged for hit + expertise cap. As I mentioned in the other thread (where I'm very grateful to be able to bounce ideas and questions off of you), I'm thinking that glyphing SoT for the expertise will let me reforge back to crit, which'll be nice.

This.

I had to regem/enchant/reforge entirely differently due to the setup I'm playing. I had to max my survivability in every way I could. Stamina in my setup is VERY important. If the socket was Yellow it was Resil/Stam, Blue was also Resil/Stam, and Reds I tested with Str/Stam and Exp/Stam and Str/Resil but found there to be no clear winner. A lot of our losses were due to holy power generation, so I went to maximize Expertise via reforging after Hit cap. This gave me well over 30 Expertise without SoT glyph (I use insight 95% of the time anyway). The reason for this was unlucky parries/dodges on things like DK's or Rogues were causing problems. 2 of these in a row and it'd set my healing back too far for me to be able to compensate.

The reason for Stamina was actually pretty clear after several games. When you're up against a complete burst oriented team
, you don't have anything but your resil, stam, and your self healing to stop them from killing you. This means that if they chain CC's on you, at least you have a buffer. After regemming/enchanting my gear for ret I noticed in my prot setup I lost over 10k hp. Sure I gained some Str and some Crit, but those don't help me survive longer against a Frost Mage/Spriest combo. Again this is entirely due to the team setup I do 2's with, usually the enemy will try for my DK first and realize he's blood then they'll switch to me since I'm easier to kill under certain circumstances. I have 2 abilities that scale with my max health in 2's, the DK has glyphed for Rune Tap which gives me a 5% health heal. 149k (unbuffed) gives me roughly 7.5k heal, sure doesn't sound like much but 7.5k might save your ass when you're getting stomped by 2 casters that you can't hit for holy power.

Yep! I think the best advice in this thread and the other (prot pvp @ 85) was that you need to tailor your gearing (enchants, resilience goals, gemming) and your playstyle (seal choice, holy power usage, etc) to YOUR team and the people YOU are facing. If you're always focused (like Vort is), gearing for mitigation and EH are tremendous. If you normally don't get focused until your partner's dead (me), it's tempting to try to eke a kill out by hook or by crook (and spec for raid cooldowns, etc).

When you're starting out, you can use frugal gems and enchants if you want, and the differences in str/resilience are overshadowed by whether you have PvP or PvE gear in each slot (as well as the relative rarity between pvp gears). I mean, upgrading my gloves from honor gear to conquest gear is similar resilience and str (and stam, etc) to gemming in the other direction -- so it seems like the necessity for a nuanced approach to gemming really will take off once you've accumulated enough gear and rating to be mostly decked out in pvp gear, and facing opponents who are too (and play in ways that challenge your team).

Before that, you will seem to hit teams that either you demolish, or demolishes you -- and the feeling that no amount of gems or enchants would have made a difference. (Windwalk excluded. I wants it.) That's the period where you're still learning your team's strengths and weaknesses -- I'm still in this period, both with my ~1500 rated 2v2 team (prot / MM Hunter) and my ~800 rated 3v3 (me, same hunter, plus a priest who seems to do better as shadow).

Kelaan wrote:(Windwalk excluded. I wants it.)

The best bit about windwalk is it's all shiny and glowy... purdy... reminds me of crusader but more hax!