My Choice in Talents

A lot of talk has been going around concerning talent builds & what the most optimal choice for Protection at 70 would be. In this post, I'm going to discuss a few builds which should hopefully show some examples of different styles & approaches to tanking (at least for level 70 content).

Veneretio prefers a wholly-focused survival build -> 5/3/53
No Cruelty, Impale, Puncture, or Imp. Heroic Strike. His views are that while they may be good & have a place in talent builds at certain points in time, they simply aren't needed & there are other, more important talents to have at 70. It is a great raid build which works as intended & is high on avoidance.

Ciderhelm prefers to focus on the here & now with a threat build -> 0/8/53
This veteran warrior believes that dealing damage is now a tanking responsibility. His views include placing talents as they may help now at level 70 & making changes for level 80 accordingly to how the content is designed. This is a build which negates all avoidance in favor of other talents such as Cruelty & Puncture. His view on Last Stand is that it really isn't necessary with the current changes to all end-game content at level 70.

So what would an Arideni pick?

Well, after much deliberation, I took this when the patch came out -> 2/8/51

However, I am going to respec.

To this customized threat build -> 0/10/51

The main differences between this build & the one I first one I used is avoidance. The first build was incomplete. It was made for level 80 & had points subtracted to work for level 70, and it works good, but it isn't as efficient for level 70 as this custom build.

It is also very similar to Ciderhelm's build as we both took the same approach - spec for now, not for 80. One of the largest problems I've had is opening up on a dynamic encounter such as the Headless Horseman. Sometimes I use Charge, but it can be tricky so I went back to basics — Bloodrage. This still didn't quite fit right with my style, so I chose to include Improved Bloodrage in my 70 build. This is something I really came to love through Heroics & have missed it greatly since the patch came out. It's a luxury, but opening with Shield Slam instead of Devastate in critical situations is worth it to me. I also chose to take Last Stand as I consider it a core point in Protection & considering the large amount of pick-up groups I am involved with it's a no-brainer. An interesting twist to this build is that I took two points of Improved Demoralizing Shout for bosses (no more than two points work on bosses normally). I felt this was more important than Improved Spell Reflect, but they all seem to be great "optionals."

So there you have it! Stay tuned for my next post about my experiences with the talent respec.