I'm curious if anyone has gone about testing the innate threat level on the new Shield Slam? Since the damage capacity is down this coming patch, I'm hoping they beefed up the innate threat it has.

Just tested it then, it's the same as before.

Warrior with defiance in def stance does hit for 59, hit for 60, shield slam for 652, 1 rage gain from shield block.
Druid without talents, outside melee range, takes 3877 healing to pull aggro (3871 did not pull aggro).
Druid heal = 3871 - 3877
druid threat = heal * 0.5 = 1935.5 - 1938.5
warrior threat = druid threat / 1.3 = 1488.8 - 1491.2
war threat - 1 rage gain = war threat - 5 = 1483.8 - 1491.2 (rage gain not effected by stance)
damage + shield slam (no stance) = (war threat - rage) / 1.45 = 1023.3 - 1028.5
shield slam threat = above - 771 damage = 252.3 - 253.9,

which is consistent with the current value of ~250.

Okay, thank you very much! ^^

K so I don't get it. what was the point of changing shield slam if all they did was knock 10 rage off of the cost? Most main tanks aren't exactly hurting for rage :>.

Well:
1) It will continue to scale in the future with more AP, while current raid tanks will basically get the old version of SS for less rage.
2) When you're tanking a raid boss hitting you for 2000 a pop, no, rage isn't an issue. But BWL/AQ-geared tanks definitely do not have infinite rage in many situations in which aggro matters quite a lot.

Yeah, "you will always have 100 rage" is a common misconception. More often than not, especialy in AQ40, I am really hurting for rage. Even when tanking those bosses that unload a lot of damage into me I find it very easy to keep my rage under ten.

I know shield slam is a great ability in terms of threat/second, but I was wondering if anybody had done some calculations to determine how the new shield slam stacks up against sunder armor and heroic strike in terms of threat/rage.

I was messing around during my lunch hour, and I did some *very rough* calculations:

Sunder armor in defensive stance with defiance = 378 threat
378 threat/12 rage (improved) = 31.5 threat/rage

Shield slam damage against a naked level 60 with 150 block value in defensive stance = ~450
Crit rate with my tanking gear and 9/11/31 build: 11%
Average shield slam damage with crit factored in: ~500
Average shield slam damage against a level 63 mob (50% damage reduction?) = 250
Threat caused by damage in defensive stance with defiance = 250 * 1.45 = 363
Innate shield slam threat = 250
Innate threat in defensive stance with defiance = 250 * 1.45 = 363
Total threat = 363 + 363 = 726
726 threat/ 20 rage = ~36 threat/rage

Again, these calculations are very rough and I would not be surprised if I made a mistake (maybe with the level 63 damage reduction?)... but assuming they are correct, does this mean that the new shield slam is now better than sunder armor in terms of threat/rage?

With a good amount of block, shield slam should be better threat/rage than sunder. It still has the cooldown, but it is a decent 31 point talent now.

A few other people did calculations in the "New warrior talents" thread.

Imp Bloodrage will now give you enough to open with a shield slam. That in itself was worth the change for me.

A better estimate of damage reduction on bosses, etc. fully sundered is about 25%. Also, you forgot to factor in one hand spec (which I'm assuming you have).

I came up with about 46-47threat/rage with those things in mind.

Sorry to duplicate something that was in another thread =(

Does 1-handed spec affect shield slam damage? Do shields count as 1-handed melee weapons?

Interesting discovery on live - seems that SS will clear all buffs on the target when it procs.


I was dueling a prot warrior, and I had 3 magic buffs. (BoM, Vengeance, SoC). He SS'd me, and those buffs all went "Poof!"


Anyone know if this is an intended buff or a mistake? (Might make prot warriors marginally more useful in PvP. = P )

My understanding is that it's suppost to have a 50% chance to remove one buff. If it took away 3, I think we are dealing with a bug.

Slightly off-topic, but does anyone have an up-to-date list of threat values generated by various Warrior skills? I know of the WoWWiki page, but I'd like a few other sources to cross-reference too.