So I recently obtained a beta key and finally got my level 60 warrior copied over sometime early this morning. When I logged on this evening I found a number of very interesting changes. A number of the changes I'd already been prepared for. Most percentage based modifiers had been replaced with Ratings equivalents. I understood that Defense Rating was a bit more complicated than others since it affected so many things, but nonetheless I'd expected a change in my overall defense and it's associated passives.

As expected, I noted the following:

Defense: 446 (Live) -> 452 (Beta)

I then noticed that my Armor had gone up considerably. The AC on all items EXCEPT rings and shields had been increased somewhat dramatically.

AC: 9452 (63.22% Reduction) -> 10274 (63.59% Reduction)

This resulted in a slight buff in terms of reduction, but I'm guessing the modifier got changed such that the value of armor has been reduced? Have all armor items across classes been modified or is this mostly a warrior specific change?

Then I noticed another strange happening. The values in my Character Profile (the paper doll window) did not reflect those listed in my Spell Book. Going from Live to Beta, I noticed:

Dodge: 19.09% -> 25.07%
Parry: 15.84% -> 22.16%
Block: 29.84% -> 34.76%

Crit: 12.25% -> 11.74%

But that's according to my Character Profile; if I look in my spell-book I get:

Dodge: 18.99%
Parry: 16.08%
Block: 28.68%

These values are closer to what I was on live, but I'm not sure which should be believed. Has anyone else experienced this discrepancy and, if so, which am I to believe is accurate? Perhaps both are correct and I'm misunderstanding the usage of each.

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As a side-note, I noticed the new rank of Shield Slam:

Shield Slam, Rank 6 (Level 70)
Slam the target with your shield, causing 420 to 440 damage, modified by attack power, and has a 50% chance of dispelling 1 magic effect on the target. Also causes a high amount of threat.

On Live the ability is modified by Shield Block Value even though I do recall the devs had long ago planned to make it AP when they buffed the skill. Have the developers given any reason as to why they made this change (I couldn't find any) and has anyone crunched the numbers and determined whether this is a buff or nerf of the modifier?

Also, are there any other warriors sad that you can no longer Shield Slam with your back or side to the target? :(

Is this a recent update? I mentioned it to another warrior on live and he then disappeared off in the beta to check for himself. He seemed surprised even though he'd been in the beta for a few weeks.

I do know that they changed the agility rating for warriors, like they did with the hunter class. Basically, you need about 26 points of agility for 1% crit come TBC, compared to about 20 now. I assume they've changed the other aspects agility affect as well. The item AC value buff could then possibly be similar to the ranged weapon dps buff, that is a balancing act to weigh up for the agility nerf, although I am wildly speculating here.

Penn of Nihilum-fame is being quite vocal about the changes in the EU warrior forum, as an example, see:
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread....70397094&sid=1

The AC changes certainly aren't just restricted to plate - there have been a lot of reports of leather items that at the start of beta had notably lower AC values than live but are now somewhat higher than their current live versions.

From what I've heard the AC mitigation formula has changed as well, people at 67 reporting that AC values of 19k or roughly thereabouts that would have easily had them capped out under the old formula are well under 75% mitigation. Have seen a few suggested formulas floating around 'AC/AC + 100*mob level +2450' being the most common one but that doesn't match up with some of the screenshots I've seen posted with armour and mitigation level shown.

The armor has been higher since before beta started, when beta opened up, there was a bug that drove armor values lower and since then they've gone back to the higher rates. (Eyonix confirmed they should be higher like they are now)

Shield Slam Ranks 5 and 6 mention attack power instead of shield block but I'm not sure if that's intended or a bug or if they even function that way since i haven't had much time to test it :(

Not being able to 360 shield slam could be a bug as well or a change to the functionality. They changed it from not 360 to 360 and back over the course of it so I'm not sure if it's intended to go away or they fixed and rebroke it.

Penn's complaint, at least on the first page of that thread, seems misguided. He is comparing his crit chance as a level 67 to that when he was max-level with 3 tiers of raid gear. A much more equitable comparison would be between level 67 and 57. For it to stay balanced, he should be back up to this old level of crit% only when he has three tiers of level 70 raid gear, and that still seems very possible.

isn't the "60% avoidance myth" debunked long ago?

Should be. Anyone who has used rogues for evasion tanking razuvius should know that.

Evasion can only be compared to Shield Block surely, abilities may take avoidance over a cap.

Not that I know if there's a cap.

The Shield Slam tooltip currently seems bugged. If you go to respec and read the tooltip at rank 1 it's displayed properly modifing damage based on block value. When you rank up it switchs to AP.

AC formual does seem changed, at 67 i have 9987ac and sit at 52.17% mitigation, however it could be that the character sheet is horribly bugged as I noticed about a 4.5% - 5% discrepency in the value of my block / dodge and parry rates.

Edit: Alright the Character Sheet / Spellbook values are different because the spellbook is not displaying the bonus you receive from +defense, where as the CS is.