Roots is so limited and probably the least reliable form of CC on the market. Other than the fact that you can root elementals, undead, and humanoids alike, it tends to break early and doesn't prevent ranged casting. This is probably the only reason they are even considering it. That and they can't think of what other cool toys to given to druids.

They seem to making a HUGE effort to make tanking 5mans viable for Warriors and DKs, and it's hugely appreciated, having lived through the nightmare that tanking was at TBC launch as a fury warrior. Threat scaling for sunder is long overdue.

Now that's an awesome idea. Take it one step farther and have LW do the same for Cloth -> Leather and Leather-> Cloth and you open up the log jam that is Cloth DPS.

I am looking forward to seeing the type of gear available to the three plate tanking classes.

Warriors can't use INT
Deathknights can't use Block
Paladins barely use STR

A lot of the Paladin only tanking gear for much of TBC was horrid. Mana/5 instead of dodge. Spell damage instead of stamina. In terms of pure mitigation, pure warrior tanking gear is still the best out there for Paladins. Prot paladins have to sacrifice signifigant mitigation for increased threat.

They have already hinted and mentioned that plate will be quite generic in the expansion for random drops. Can't wait to see all these dodgeadins who hit like wet noodles.

Possibly Blizzard is removing the barriers of entry to tanking, with the streamlining of gear, removal of gibbing mechanics, and making tanking casual friendly

Their AE aggro is pretty far behind pallies, almost all DKs, and prot warriors, maybe all warriors. Roots have nothing on Frost DKs though. Roots are ultimately similar to tank-kiting and druids are basically 2nd worst at that. Root pulls will definitely be a big part of being a bear, because they need it.

After thinking about new warrior talents I expect PvP specs be same as in TBC, I don't think many people will take 51 arms talent for example. All PvP specs will look like: 38-45 in arms, 23-30 in fury, 0-3 in prot. Some may even still stay at 33-35 arms and just go even deeper in fury. Actually you cannot put more than 48 points in arms because you need 23 points in fury for DW and WM.

Now Fury looks nice with new BT and Titan Grip, however PvP would be hard without Imp. Intercept, Second Wind and of course MS. PvE spec will be interesting as you can go for 25/46/0 spec.

As for prot some new talents seems quite useless too: Safeguard is more of 5-man and/or PvP skill than MT skill, Critical Block is a joke - block is there to avoid crushing blows not lower damage, amount of blocked damage compared to total damage is so low that even if you double it is nothing special, especially with only 30% chance to happen.

And now time for most important question! How much more damage will now Rend do? Now correct me if I am wrong, but assuming 2000 AP and S3 2h we have:
1) OLD = 182 + [0.05201 * (483 + 514)] ~ 234 over 21 sec = 11.15 dps
2) NEW = 180 + (0.3 * (483 + 514)] = 479 over 15 sec = 31.93 dps
Now if you add talent you will have 838 damage, with Trauma we get another 30% increasing it to 1089 damage and with Mangle we have nice 1416 damage over 15 sec for 10 rage, not mitigated by armor which output 94 dps (old one with all those buffs would give 692 over 21 sec ~ 33 dps).

TLDR: Rend got proper 300% dps buff and need to be taken more seriously now


They already have Hibernate - yes beast and dragonkin only but works well.

Ah phoey, I was really hoping they would make this into an stun or root effect (or even just a "cower in fear" sorta thing) so it would at least be somewhat useful for group CC.

I'm very much looking forward to fearing demon-form warlocks in PvP though. Fearing a warlock just seems to have some sort of poetic justice to it.

It's still a nerf. Even if it can heal all 25 members of the raid, it can't be directed to the ones that need it most. The great thing about CoH was the ability to heal a group for a few thousand damage in a couple of seconds. Being able to heal a raid for 500 damage (because let's face it, the coefficient is going to be obliterated and be something like 4%) is not even comparable. It's a hugely different talent that is essentially removed from effective raid healing because of its indirect nature.

Well, I've said it before, but it bears repeating. The class in need of the most work should be worked on now, as it provides more time for Blizzard to do that work. I think, arguably, the class in need of the most work is the hunter class. Not tweaks or buffs/nerfs mind you, but actual, serious work. Yet sadly, this is what we see now: While I guess the door is open for a host of new abilities, the fact that this is all that is being tested now does not bode well for the future of the class.

It's in Alpha and we're already bringing out "slap in the face"?

Basically, having an indoor root makes Boomkin quite sexy in 5 mans, especially Heroics. Especially since they could probably emergency OT a tiny bit if they need to by popping to Bear (for a few seconds anyways) and thrown on Nature's Grasp for a quick Bear -> Taunt -> Root on a runaway add.

At the risk of starting a whole "my class is more important than yours!!!!" tangent, I really think hunters are doing quite well in raiding compared to a few other classes (Mages and Paladins come to mind first). As for PvP, out of the top 20 3v3 teams on the tounrey realm there are 7 Hunters, 7 Shamans, and 1 Paladin (the next lowest class is Warlocks with 16), so yes you could make an argument that you need some help.

I would strongly disagree that you class needs the most work though. Once you have a combat system that splits scaling on melee and caster stats we can talk.

They haven't even touched hunters yet (those are tiny tweaks that have nothing to do with the new talents, new spells, or the extensive reworking of old spells that they will undoubtedly see). You want to maybe wait and see what they're actually going to do with them before declaring that the sky is falling?

Paladins also don't have any skill with extra threat.. they simply have a buff that increases the threat generated by their skills (yes they can tank)

Druids don't have a shield either...(yes they can be crushed I know)

But also as you can see both warriors and death knights don't have a talent that increases defense skill (warriors was switched to dodge)

I expect a rework of the entire hit/crit/crushing mechanic in raids

Huh? I don't "gear" for block..just with whats on my normal tanking suit+Block gem though I have 500 block value. Even on a mob that is hitting for 10k, thats a 5% damage reduction, thats not at all trivial..

We are only on Brut, but his top end so far, on me, is 10.8k, according to WWS, his average (Off hand included) is 5k. Even with radiance I still block a majority of the attacks (44% Avoid after radiance, even without shield block up I will block half of all attacks, 28% block rate) , if you go by the average, even assuming only 70% of his attacks are blocked due to his fast swing speed eating shield spec charges, thats a mitigation rate of 7%..7% is huge to me..

I am really looking forward to patch 2.5. It will let many more people experience high end content without the need of class stacking. So many little things that got adressed and I am sooo curios what new stuff for the rogues will come.

Only the cooldown on Circle of healing is a bad thing in my opinion. I was also hoping for a change to some long-time cooldowns like shield wall, soul stone or combat rezz. It would be quite nice to have those in every boss try.

But overall an big thumbs up for Blizzard. These are very good news.

So why I spec forst? I mean really frost seems not like helping tank at all...

From World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King

I agree their talent trees are very disorganized... blood has some nice tanking talents throughout the first half of the tree, frost has a few in the beginning, and unholy has the 100% anti-magic shield fairly deep

Maybe the trees are still under a lot of work... hard to really say until you play with the class as to what talent spec benefits a raid rank

For 5-mans I think all 3 trees will work, which was probably their intent as it was meant to stop the LFM - 1 tank spam

Above poster: That isn't a talent though, that is the baseline Frost self-aura. OP is wondering what talent tree is designed for tanking, and at this point I don't think there is one.

I'm not sure why you chose the attribute lowering talent in unholy over some other options in frost - the paladin equivalent was always considered more of a pvp talent due to boss immunities or how much their attributes actually played a part in their total health, ap, etc. I have a feeling some of the cost lowering or runic power generation increasing talents (and that instant high threat aoe ability 21 points into frost) are going to be more important than that build currently suggests.

Could be sarcasm as well *shrug*

I'm very happily, although somewhat annoyedly--did I make up a word right there?--leaning towards Death Knights not having a single Tanking tree; true, Frost _Presence_ is geared towards Threat/DR, however there are a solid number of DR/Tanking talents in each of their trees, making a trispec, like the one proposed earlier, being really solid at this very, very early point in the game.

Right now, because of how they're laid out, the Death Knight Talent Trees strike me as the following:

Blood - Melee DPS / Leveling

Frost - Control / AoE (sorta)

Unholy - Pet / Flexibility

Each has their own really solid DPS & Tanking talents but they all do it in a different way (Blood has avoidance tanking via parry buffs, Frost slows, Unholy Absorbs and adds a CC break, etc.).

Agreed. Everyone theorycrafting DK Tank specs needs to remember that they're a bit low on the +Threat totem pole right now (they have +25% whereas other classes have +30% base, +45% Talented!), not to mention 31 Frost has two excellent 1-point tanking talents (10% slow a knockback--plus possible freeze!--'oh shit' button)

Holy Shield: Damage caused by Holy shield generates 35% more threat.

Righteous Fury: Increases threat generated by holy spells and effects by 60%(90%).

This bonus threat affects holy shield, consecrate, seal of righteousness, seal of vengeance, avenger's shield and all healing spells. I am unsure if it affects the holy reflection proc on the darkmoon card.

Also, many paladin blessings and seals have inherent threat on their own. I accidentally was spamming Kings once on a tank instead of flash of light, was not paying atttention, needless to say it took me all of 60 seconds to beat him in threat and pull aggro, just from kings spam. Sometimes you see this happening as Ret when you activiate Seal of the Crusader when a warrior pulls a mob with a gun, and some mobs come to you instead.

I would be unsurprised if the combat table were changed in such a way that crit or crush immunity was unattainable in the upcoming expansion. Crushes/Crits are a good way to ensure that tanks are at a risk of dying without every single hit being life threatening.

If lighter hits are the norm, but there's a risk of 150% or 200% hits occasionally, it allows for more reactive (and thus more dynamic) healing situations. Creating a situation where resilience/defense/etc reduces crit % by a percentage, rather than a flat value, and using a multi-roll attack system, allowing crits/crushes to be blocked etc. could accomplish that.

Currently, possible hits on tank are 0% (avoided) and 70-90% (blocked attack). That means that either that 90% hit is scary enough to kill a tank in < 5 seconds, or else healing is completely trivial.

Allowing all outcomes of hits to land on a tank could lead to a spread of:
0% (avoid), 70% (block) 100% (hit) 120% (blocked crush) 150% (crush) 170% (blocked crit) 200% (crit).

And it would also allow a situation where tank healing could still be difficult as long as a few 200% hits could down the tank in short order, but in general you would be seeing smaller ones. This would mean that healers would be able to react to situations, rather than the current circumstance we have now, where you just channel spells that you know will quite possibly overheal, because if the tank gets hit, he needs a heal _NOW_, and if he doesn't, well, that's too bad, because you can't cancel it in case he did.

It would also lead to a less strict aggro situation. Currently, any non-tank already has likely max chance to be crit, and unmitigated chance to be crushed. A boss mob attacking a tank will be hitting the tank for 25-30% of his unmitigated attack due to stances/blocking/armor. A tank in my experience normally has about about 175% the HP of a non-tank, and mobs are tuned to hurt tanks.

Now assuming a crushing/critting mob, even a regular hit is going to hit a non-plate-wearer for likely 70% or more of his unmitigated attack. Now if it was a crush, he'd be hit for 105%, and crit would be 140%.

Now assuming the tank gets hit for a mere 25-30% of his health per swing, the non-tank, having 57% of his health, will lose 44-53% of his health in a regular swing. 66-79% on a crush, and 88-106% on a crit.

Now, you might say that's fine, because tanks are supposed to keep aggro, and dps pulling aggro should be a death sentence. But I have a pretty strong feeling that a lot of the new encounters are going to be much more fluid, like the third boss in Magister's Terrace. Where rather than sticking one tank in front of a single boss, or multiple tanks in front of multiple bosses, and dpsing them down, there will be more of a fluid arena-like situation where CC and knockbacks and all sorts of short term effects will make a large difference in the fight. Things that you currently sort of think are not pve-viable because of boss immunities.

There could be situations where your clothies are at risk of being hit by the same monsters that will be posing a risk to your prot warriors/prot paladins/feral druids/death knights. And I have a pretty good feeling that tanking in general will be fairly different come the expansion.

But, I guess I can only wait and see.

So you have 5% now and with talent you will get (0.3 * 10%) + (0.7 * 5%) = 6.5%. Talent that req. 40 points give you 1.5 / 3 = 0.5% mitigation per point. I think it is quite low for that deep talent in protection tree. Of course it gets better if mob hit for less but still I would bump it to 33/66/100% chance.

As for crushing blows, didn't they said they want to remove them? Maybe they did.