Douglas

Just to throw my 2¢ in here, there's a valid reason to discuss this option.

There's two ways to think about planning group composition for an instance run. One is "how do I min-max for this?". Another is "what's the bare minimum for this -- if I can't reach this benchmark, I have to give up and go home".

Your comments about DPS warriors off-tanking are spot-on for the min-maxing way of thinking. Which personally I find soul-crushing when taken too far.

I do not like to PUG, and I do not like to ask my friends to respec or reroll (though I will do both myself, within limits that will seem arbitrary to other folks). So, I like to see discussion of how viable it is for a DPS warrior to offtank in a given instance, because if my choice is to bring a DPS warrior who's a buddy or a mage who isn't, I'll be bringing the warrior even if it means more work for the healer (me).

But if it's genuinely not viable (as opposed to merely not optimal), I need to know that.

 

talzar

Yeah but what about all the leather and mail FR gear on that vendor?

 

orcsgotbooty

In a 5 man, anytime your dps warrior is offtanking, your better off just lettign your tank tank the extra mob and kill them faster. (A fury war charging/pummeling/solloing a caster mob in 5 seconds isn't the same, but then if the instance is THAT easy, does it even matter?)

 

• Falk

Double post. Ignore.

 

• Falk

I think he meant at the start of TBC, where people were speculating Mag required the raid in FR, then A'lar, then Supremus, etc etc. Badges were hard as heck to get too in comparison.

*Cough*

 

Malan

Last time I checked, feral druids wear leather. And who knows, there's probably some crazy guild out there that uses a hunter to tank Illidan and Leo's demon forms.

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

Fiola

That's "optimal" for overall mitigation, but an off-tank can still be desirable. The OT supplements the MT by controlling loose mobs, replacing the MT in the worst cases. (tank death)


For instance, running a heroic last night as a healer, I made some mistakes and let our Prot warrior tank die on trash and on the last boss - Both times, our Arms warrior swapped in a shield and took over, preventing a wipe. (A non-tanking class, such as a mage, would not be able to tank that.)

Likewise, I've helped smooth instance runs by off-healing, countering big damage spikes with supplemental healing.


Optimal? Nope, not with the current set of talents/gear (that OT was in the T5/T6 badge gear, making her over-geared for a heroic). Useful? I'm sure most everyone prefers surviving to a corpse run + repair bill.

 

talzar

The funny thing of course is that for petty much every resist fight you could just wear cloth since the only two stats on resist gear are stamina and resist, and none of those fights involve physical damage to the people in the gear.

I really wish Blizzard would stick to fights only requiring 150-200 resistance (or 200-250 in the expansion, whatever). I like how Kalecgos is where AR helps you if you're still learning the fight, but a lot of guilds that had been farming Illidan for months were able to kill him without AR.

Taking it even further it would be nice if there was some kind of skill / survivability balance involved. Something like "If you can dodge SuchAndSuchSpell then you dont need resistance. If you have slow reaction time then you can throw on 200 or so resist gear and save your healers some mana." That way the good players can just go to the boss and kill him fast with max DPS since none of them need resist gear. The mediocre guilds will have a few slower people that need to wear resist gear, or they can all wear resist gear while they learn the fight and as they get better they can start opting to not use it and so forth. I just hate fights where some unavoidable AE goes off and everyone needs 300+ resist to make the fight doable. It was assinine in AQ40 and it's assinine in BT.

 

• Chicken

Nothing too major, but a couple of the profession changes that I didn't find elsewhere...

General:
- New food (1): Restores 7800 health over 30 sec.
- New food (2): Restores 10800 health over 30 sec.
- New drink (1): Restores 9180 mana over 30 sec.
- New drink (2): Restores 12960 mana over 30 sec.
- New agility scroll: Raises agility by 25.
- New strength scroll: Raises strength by 25.
- New armor scroll: Increases armor by 375.

Alchemy:
- New healing potion: Restores 2700 to 4500 health.
- New mana potion: Restores 3240 to 5400 mana. No sign of any mana sickness debuff or anything on it.

First Aid:
- Frostweave bandage: Heals 4760 damage over 8 sec.
- Heavy Frostweave bandage: Heals 5480 damage over 8 sec.

Cooking:
- There seem to be 25 new cooking recipes planned, 12 of which use fishing. Names for these are still placeholders, and I couldn't find their linked buff effects for eating them.


Inscription:
- Spell description for Inscription refers to it as "magical writings".
- Runeword of Minor Magic: "Inscribe a runeword of minor magic onto a piece of chest armor to increase spell damage from magical spells and effects by up to 3 for 1 hour."
- These crafting spells with no description of the items they produce (Most likely as I don't have a full WotLK item database on my computer): Silver Quill, Scroll of Stamina, Scroll of Intellect, Scroll of Spirit, Earthen Ink, Silver Ink, Ivory Ink, Random Card: Rogues, Scroll of Recall.

Also of note is that there are two potential spells that are likely candidates for being the "Shadow Priest AoE". These two:

- Mind Sear rank 1: 545 mana, 30 yard range, channeled. "Causes an explosion of shadow magic around the enemy target, causing 481 to 519 shadow damage every 1.0 sec for 5 sec to all targets within 10 yards."
- Nightmare rank 1: 1665 mana, 30 yard range, channeled. "Assault the target's mind, causing a powerful nightmare that deals 306 Shadow damage to all enemies within 10 yards of the target. Lasts 15 sec."

The first one is commonly assumed to be the one because it fits the naming better, but the spell data for the second one matches closer in damage dealt versus mana cost of other AoE spells (Under my assumption of it ticking once per second). The second one is a bit odd in that it does not mention the speed at which it deals damage however.

buff /bʌf/ Pronunciation[buhf]
–verb (used with object)
- to reduce or deaden the force of

 

McInaction

Before they 'fixed' fd-itemswapping hunters were ideal for fr tanks on leo and capernia. I was able to effectively tank for the required phase and then swap gear and dps at full in my normal gear.

I still keep my fr gear in my bank for pug gruuls and whatnot.

Very interesting, if it looks like inscription will be able to create scrolls and make acquiring those highly sought after scrolls of agility for maxing your dps/avoidance alot easier. One of the best changes I've heard of.

 

Fiola

Aren't most AE spells roughly 1:1 damage/mana? (ie: need 3 targets to be better use of mana than equivalent single target spell.)


My first thought for the 2nd spell is that it ticks every 3 seconds, which would yield 5 ticks of 306 damage for a total of 1530 damage. It probably wouldn't tick every 2 seconds (does not match duration), and if it ticked every 1 second, then it's an AE spell that has excellent efficiency (4590 damage for 1665 mana, roughly 3~ base DPM) on a single target.


edit: I like how the first spell is like AM on crack. = P
2nd edit: Didn't notice how the first spell gets roughly 5 DPM on a single target. Strange.

 

Prinsesa

It was already discussed in the Shadow Priest WOTLK thread that if Mind Sear goes through like that, it's going to completely replace Mind Flay as the default spammable Shadow Priest nuke. It's already substantially better on a single target - get two in the AOE and Flay gets blown out of the water.

Apparently it works like Cone of Cold - no direct targeting mechanism and just picks up anything and everything in range, which might cause problems with CC, but awesome in every other situation where you're free to use it.

"We do want Sanctuary to be the tanking seal"

- Ghostcrawler

 

Cranberry

Someone mentioned mage armor having +80 all resist - did I miss something? War-tools no longer has the trees.

 

novasphere

The new rank of Mage Armor is +40 Reist All and -50% Magic debuff duration; the talent Magic Absorption went from +10 Resist all to +1 Resist All per level, which means +80 Resist All at level 80.

 

talzar

A better change would've been to simply make those scrolls not stack with fort / motw. Those scrolls should be a nice thing for people soloing or in a 5-man to pick up and give themselves. Not something that high end raiding guilds should camp the AH for or that you should have to farm up mats to get them from your guild inscriber. Don't we already farm enough crap with repair bills, alchemy shit and getting enchants every time we get a new piece of gear?

 

glowacks

They originally didn't (at least, I think). Then along with the Alchemy changes in 2.1 they needed to have the possibility of a new Elixir of the Sages (Draenic Wisdom) stack with Int and Spirit class buffs in order to make the new system reasonable, so they had absolutely everything stack with direct class buffs. Note that this doesn't include resistance buffs though.

 

flyingtoastr

One thing I noticed while looking through resistance stuff is that the Paladin Resistance Auras (and I would assume everything else) are up to 130 resistance.

Right now (level 70) to resistance cap it requires 365 resistance. The aura provides 70 of that, or 19% resistance.
At level at it should require 415 resistance to cap. The aura will provide 130 of that, or 31% resistance.

Its a pretty massive buff, maybe to make resistance fights a little bit easier to gear for.

Divine Favor still costs mana.

 

• Chicken

A few more full details on Death Knight abilities I didn't see anywhere else:

- Chains of Ice rank 1: 2 Frost Runes, 20 yard range, 16 second cooldown. "Freezes the target in place for 3 sec. The target regains 10% of their movement speed each second after breaking free of the chains."
- Mind Freeze: 1 Frost Rune, melee range, 8 second cooldown. "Strike's the target's mind with cold, dealing 100 Frost Damage and interrupting spellcasting while also preventing any spell in that school from being cast for 3 sec."
- Death Pact rank 1: 2 Blood Runes, 30 yard range. "Sacrifice an undead minion, healing the Death Knight for 1200 health."

The new ranks of Inner Fire are also a bit more useful:

- Inner Fire rank 8: 450 mana, increases armor by 1800 and increases healing done by 180.
- Inner Fire rank 9: 555 mana, increases armor by 2440 and increases healing done by 230.

Finally buffs got buffs:

- Gift of the Wild rank 9: 2295 mana. Armor increased by 750, attributes increased by 37, resistances increased by 54.
- Greater Blessing of Might rank 5: 635 mana, increases attack power by 300.
- Greater Blessing of Wisdom rank 5: 695 mana, restores 91 mana/5.
- Greater Blessing of Light rank 3: 360 mana, increases healing of Holy Light by 1090, Flash of Light by 345.
- Seal of Light rank 6: 560 mana, melee attacks have a chance to heal the paladin for 250. Judgement gives melee attacks a chance to heal themselves for 177.
- Seal of Wisdom rank 6: 560 mana, melee attacks have a chance to restore 233 of the paladin's mana. Judgement gives all spells and attacks used on the target a chance to restore 143 mana.
- Prayer of Spirit rank 3: Increases spirit by 80.
- Prayer of Fortitude rank 4: 2875 mana. Increases stamina by 165.
- Commanding Shout rank 3: Increases health by 2255.

buff /bʌf/ Pronunciation[buhf]
–verb (used with object)
- to reduce or deaden the force of

 

orcsgotbooty

I don't think so, Int/Spirit/Stam scrolls currently don't stack with the corresponding class buffs.

 

Copernicus

There are a few other interesting things. I suspect that Enchanting will get the ability to make a few more wands (Branch of Destruction, Lightstave, etc). Just a guess, based on the idea that Blizzard is expanding the Wand sub-theme for enchanting.

There's also the slight possibility that Venemous Mana is an example of an Inscription. At this point in time though, it feels like Inscription is still a huge work in progress.

 

Starfire

Well, not exactly. Dispel magic is holy and I believe purge is nature. So priests and shamans will only be dealing with 120 resistance, not 250.

On the other hand, this is intriguing me as to how Protection Warriors are becoming way more pvp viable. Safeguard is amazing (60% damage reduction on a person being intervened for 6 second -- on top of the fact that the next melee hit on said person goes to the warrior). They have a Physical Dispel (so in theory, resistances sans Dispel protection won't work). They have a skill that silences for 4 seconds / school-block out for 6 seconds AND daze on a 12 second cooldown (Shield Bash, though the only Prot-only part is the silence). Their primary attack (devastate?) will sunder any target automatically. And they have an AoE stun on a 20 second cooldown. Oh yeah, I guess its also worth mentioning Concussion blow (21 point Prot) which is a 5 second stun on 45 second cooldown. (Heh, and imp. revenge having a 45% chance to stun is nifty too).

Of course, I suppose to get most of those they give up MS. But hey, 31/0/40 would be viable right? (You'd basically get everything I listed except for the AoE stun on a 20 second cooldown).

Edit:
Ha, I forgot one more important thing about Protection warriors. Their charge/intercept/intervene will dispel any snare/binds from them!

 

RootBreaker

I'm pretty sure there's no such thing as holy resistance.

 

◊ Cadfael

Not for players except absorb potion nobody uses. I could swear there are a few (very few) mobs that actually do have a bit of holy resistance but at least the voidwalkers in netherstom around the busted mana forge get holy immune if you hit them with a holy spell first. It's basically nonexistant.

 

Linnet

Sometimes your tank can't tank them all. I've run heroics with a blue geared tank where me being able to switch to tanking gear and OT a hard hitting mob or two was a sensible tactic. I'd love to see off-tanking become a more viable form of CC but I think the 5-man group is just too small to allow for totally losing 1 dps for CC unless the warrior was OTing several mobs (which you can ofc).

The main barrier to dps warrior off tanking is that it's not trivial to gather the tanking gear unless you are raiding. And a lot of dps warriors don't.

 

fractaled

40 points in Prot is before devastate. You also can't get Safeguard and MS. And I believe the Conc Blow cooldown is being reduced to 30s, and (improved?) disarmed targets take more damage. With a 31/0/40 build, warriors would certainly be more of a nuisance and have interesting utility. I don't see it working in 2v2, but probably workable in some 3v3/5v5 comps. Warriors only have 2 new abilities mentioned so far: bloodbath and shieldbreak.