I know that mountain thane gets all the hype for prot, but what do you think about Colossus? I was seeing the tree and they playstyle adds a lot of damage, actually it seems all about dmg. Less flamboyant from all the thunder stuff but it feels like prot war could dish some good dmg as well with these talents.
Simplified:
Colo is the best option from a pure damage point of view. Thane simply plays better for the warrior gameplan of spending/gaining rage efficiently.
If you want to go Colo, feel free to do so, as you only sacrifice some defensive power and QoL, for more damage potential.
If you want more details, I highly recommend going to Skyhold (the warrior discord) and jump into the protection chat. Then read the pins, the guides and general information, then do any follow up questions you might have in that chat
Colossus with all the Revenge related talents from Class/Spec tree is incredible damage on packs, as Colossal Might will start to scale your Revenge too. Itās also way less RNG reliant as you only need to meet specific conditions to stack fast. (one of them being RNG for crits). If you sync up your Avatar+ Demoralizing Shout (+ Booming Voice) you can deal A LOT of damage, and you have CD reduction mechanics for both.
Mountain Thane is very fluid and has better damage reduction (Keep Yout Feet On The Ground) so it gives you better survivability but is nowhere near in damage compared to Colossus.
So I guess it all comes down to offence vs defence between them two.
Colossus is not that much squisher, you get 2.5% damage reduction to all damage versus the 8% from the Thunder Clap buff and 2% pshysical resistance buff from the same talent.
You are still pretty much unkillabe during cooldowns and should have no problem staying alive otherwise. The rest you can balance it out with some Versa if needed, but as Prot you really need to screw up to actually die.
More damage means faster/smoother clears so itās the winner in my book.
Yeah itās not like without the dog reduction from thunder clap prot warrior is done. Do you change stat priority depending on the hero talents?
Nope. Both hero talents require you to use your spammables so you want Haste, Crit for Parry and more damage Versa for dmg reduction and more dmg, and some Mastery to beef up your block.
In general, what numbers should I aim at stats???
25-30% haste
15-20%+ Crit
10-15%+ Versa
10%+ Mastery
Rough estimates
General rule of thumb for prot warrior:
As much haste as you can get your mittens on; haste is a defensive, QoL and offensive stat. You do everything a lot more often. More shieldslams, more shieldwalls, more shieldblock, more ignore pains, more avatars, the works - it does it all.
Then Vers is equal to Crit, and mastery is the āworstā stat.
Reason why mastery is worse than crit and vers is simple, mastery gives a chance to give reduced damage taken through critical block. Vers just flat reduces damage taken and crit gives a chance to ignore all the damage taken through parry.
As we already passively block for 40-50%, the additional 45-35% block damage reduction gained from the chance block; is worse than the 100% damage reduction from parry, or flat damage reduction from versa.
Now, that was the defensive reasons. Mastery grants a bit of attack power. It is pretty meh. Crit on the other hand gives you the chance to crit, it synergises with all your āon-critā lovers and effects (like the lower CD on Demolish when you crit with shield slam). Versa increases all damage done, including trinkets and so forth, depending on itemisation that can be huge portion of your damage. Crit and Versa affects this factor. Mastery do not.
So again, in short and in order: Haste, crit=versa, mastery
(with crit arguably being better than versa, without especially good cantrip weapons and trinky on-use effects)
Nicely put! Thank you kindly!
Very good explanation, thank you. I was testing colossus. I think the best is to stack colossal might at 10 and then donāt spend it on demolish. Just revenge non stop it hits like a truck and this without the correct stats and when you go to a boss or a very big pull then demolish with 10 stacks.
I think both choises are pretty Nuts. Demolish being a channel can be a deal breaker for some (i simply dislike it in Dungeons since you cant move during the channel). But in Raids where you can stay still for long? Damn i will definetly pick Colossus there. Lots of extra dmg.
I play colossus so far and the damage is insane. Mountain thane makes your life easier
Colossus Prot war is way more fun imo. Highest crit iāve seen is 2.6m and iāve hit 11m demolishes (total damage) on big pulls. Most fun iāve had on prot warrior since MoP and my fingers donāt hurt from spamming thunderclap every 2nd global because revenge hits way harder and actually has a rage cost, so it isnāt always available.
its obviously worse, but man is it way more fun than mountain thane.
I donāt think is necessarily worse. I mean MT gives you more defensive capabilities but letās be honest we can live without them anyways. We are in a good spot as tanks now.
I will play colossus most mythics. My max demolish crit with 580 Ilvl without avatar was 2.1m.
11 million only? Rookie numbers, I done well over 40mill in one cast
Trick is to train mobs, so they dont spread around you and then start casting on the first guy that reaches you - the other mobs will spend some time around your focal point channeling before they spread out and avoid the cone.
Doing more overall DPS than the DPS players in HC runs atm is a ton of fun DK does 2mill DPS, I am doing 4 - get rekt by the power of Demolish and Revenge spam
yeah i havenāt tried optimising at all, just checking details every time the bar of my dps suddenly doubles the dps who is 2nd on the meter.
We better spread the hype - many just look at what is stated to be the ābestā, ignoring the fun to be had just playing the suboptimal option and simply demolishing everything
Today I tried colossus on mythics and at 585 ilvl Iām not gonna lie it felt way more difficult Than mountain thane. I donāt know if everything is overtuned or our ilvl is still low