Arms to Prot for A Week

I decided. I'm gonna try Protection. Everyone seems to be having so much fun with it, I figured it was worth a shot. So, yesterday I finally went back to Stormwind for a quick update and respec'd while I was there.

And honestly... Prot is...

Freakin' awesome.

It's nice to be pretty much invincible for a change. :)

Oh, and Blizz lowered the cost to respec to 35g, thankyouverymuch. I did have to get new armor, which is nice cause I like getting new armor. I'll be trying Protection for a week before switching back to Arms, but I suspect I'll also be switching back to Prot frequently to tank instances. Why?

Well, perception to be honest. And it's kinda annoying.

I tried at least half-dozen times now just to get into a PUG for Utgarde Keep. And I've gotten tons of invites to instances. Each one starts with "Are you Protection?" and ends with "No. But I'm Arms and I can tank or DPS, whichever ya like." "Thanks anyway." Poof.

The reason Arms Warriors get that kinda response is the stinkin' Bruning Crusade dungeons where any Warrior that wasn't a Prot was considered worthless. That mindset is still VERY much preveliant.

Don't believe it? Read the guides to TBC dungeons. Not once will you find "For this Dungeon, the recommended party is a Prot Palladin, a Shadow Priest, a Warlock, A Mage... and an Arms Warrior." Not once.

That way of thinking is still very much instilled in most players for Wrath. Which is silly because Arms is such a strong tree now, specially for running 5-mans. In fact, I bet you could run entire Wrath instances with just a healer and four Warriors!

That's not QQ, mind you. It's just an observation. Arms Warriors are gonna have to get out there and make a reputation for themselves. Yah, with your resiliance, you're just an uncritable as a Prot with max'd out DEF. Yah, you can hold aggro through almost anything. And yah, you can still put the hurt on a boss AND tank at the same time. We're all just gonna have to get out there an prove it.

So why give in and spec Prot? Well...

Like I said, first of all it's a lot of fun and I wanna experience it. Prot can now stun like a freakin' rogue, interrupt, AoE and still put out some nice DPS. Still feels a little slow to me for solo'ing, but then again when you can solo a good portion of the quest bosses, who cares? :)

It's also good practice. Lets face it, we Arms Warriors have been PvP specialists for awhile now. We need to get back into being the whole package tree for Warriors. Versatility was originally the way Arms was suppose to work and now we've come full circle and we're that way again. But killing multiple mobs with melee AoE... and Tanking... is gonna take practice to get really good at it. In fact, we're gonna have to get really good at PvP, DPSing multiple targets, and tanking really fast if we're going to change that "specialist" perception most players have. Spec'ing prot occasionally is great tanking practice.

And finally... I need to get the hang of Prot and at least a feel for it before I finish up the "So You Wanna Be A Warrior?" (new title) series. :)

Yah, I still say Arms is way better for questing and solo'ing AND it's more fun. But only a lil' bit more. If you haven't gone Prot yet, give it a try. And get your tank set up to speed. You're gonna need it either way!

-Fri