Idd, it's been beaten so much that it's now a rather bloody pulp on the floor.

They've seen what providing pure stats did with the tailoring sets in terms of raid damage balancing, I very much doubt they'll repeat the same mistake - for any class/role.

It is a bad deal though. You dont want dodge and armor on your DPS set. That is the point. Is it just a 2.x% difference in crit chance? Yeah. That is significant. People pay hundreds of gold for enchants that are less effective than that.

DPS Warriors have offtank gear. They dont offtank in their DPS gear, at least not well.

Simply noting that gear could be made better is fruitless.... to take a more clear cut example, every piece of rogue gear with 50 AP and zero strength would be objectively improved by adding 1 point of strength. No matter what your take ont he class role of rogues, this is sub -optimal itemization, and it must be intentional. So we know that blizzard doesn't itemize optimally, and we know they do so on purpose.

I think the point has been made pretty emphatically that itemization exists in the shadow of class balance: if dps warriors were perfectly itemized, they would just crush every other class with an optimal mixture of STR/AP/Crit/Hit/Haste/Pen/AGI/Soulstones ;-).

So Blizzard found the level of dps they expect dps warriors to be at, and they itemized accordingly. Instead of just making the items below Ilvl, they used AGI instead of crit. This gives guilds more flexibility in how they use dps warriors, and allows warriors who must offtank then switch to dps in a single encounter to have some gear that helps them in both roles -- a nice compromise in my opinion.

The *only* way one should make these "fix my gear!" arguments is by starting with a balance issue and progressing to analysis of specific gear (hypothetical examples: hunters are not able to keep up in dps at T5 levels -- this could be fixed by improving itemization of T5 itself; shadow priests are not able to feel gear progression because their tailored sets are better than raid drop set pieces).

This may be stupid, but does the set have crit rating and agility? If so then it could be because i believe stat budgets cost exponentially more as you stack stats. (This is why pre-tbc items of the eagle and of stamina, the of stam would have less stam then eagle had of stam + int)

The armor penetration scales up better than the small crit/hit you lose from T5->T6.

I want to see all these warriors y'all speak of that tank in their dps gear... There's a dps set for a reason.. and it's not so you can tank in it lol.

If they optimized the itemization on the warrior sets then to balance they would also have to optimize every other set which is suboptimal (which I think is more or less all of them - is there any class whose members can think of no improvements to their set?). As a result, players would all be, let's say, 20% more effective. So then they would have to tune bosses to hit 20% harder and have 20% more hit points. And then we would be in exactly the same place as we are now and the only difference would be that the numbers would be bigger and the DPS classes and healers would be even more fragile than they currently are.

It very well may just be the dev's trying to give us another option. As it stands, if you need to tank and dps in the same fight you mix and match gear. Knowing the way item budget works, as a stat goes up on an item, it's cost for the next point increases. So it is and always has been better to have a variety of stats on an item rather than just one or two stats in a large amount.

Agility is the only stat that gives both a defensive bonus and a dps increase (please don't say anything about Str and block value), so armor with high agility is very good for wearing in a situation where you'll be tanking for a portion of a fight and dpsing for another portion.

As was mentioned above, there are offset pieces with crit rating, so you aren't pigeon-holed into wearing the set. It would have made more sense, though, in my opinion, to make the tier set the pure dps set and give options with non-set pieces.

EDIT: Let me clarify: Maybe the dev's consider dps warriors to be offtanks as well, meaning they want us to sacrifice some dps for survivability. Agility gives more armor/dodge/crit per item point than pure dodge/armor/crit would on an item, so if they wanted to put those stats on an item, agility would be the way to go.

To all those saying the agility is there for dpswarriors to enable them to offtank I just... god damn.

You don't pick a couple percent of dodge and then go offtank. If you chose just one stat apart from stamina (which you will have enough of in a raid) you chose defense. Nothing else. 10% dodge doesn't make you a tank. Not even on trash. And the 400 additional armor is a crap in the ocean compared to the 10k you get from the armor pieces and the additional 4-5-6k you get from your shield.

The funny thing is the pvp set makes you a better offtank than the pve dps set, because it maks you immune to crits.

That +10% agility isn't going to come anywhere close to making up for the difference in crit you would have had if it was just crit rating. 1 crit rating = 1 agility for budget cost. Agility is flat out worthless on "DPS" plate. We aren't talking Conquerer's off tank viability here either, it's just flat out bad.

That seriously has to be the only explanation. It might get changed in a later patch, but I wouldn't hold my breath on it.

Agree with nezralix; and if you are expecting to see the best stat on every item, if you care that much, you should have started this discussion when they first put anything else than str on any warrior dps item, back when you started raiding in molten core. A dps set with 500 str, with no stamina, no crit, hit, armor, whatever; would most definitely give more dps than the current t6; but we dont question that now do we?

I don't see what all the bitching is about. Almost every item in the game, especially set pieces, have stats distributed around into both stats that are good for their item budget and items that aren't. Just about any caster item has int on it, although every caster knows int is one of the worst increase in effectiveness per item budget you can get. Since there will always be one stat that is "best" for the item budget, unless items all had 1 stat (or say, 2 stats if you consider the less-focused items to have lower item budget per stat), there would always be room for bitching about how the items are wasting item budget.

The reasoning behind this sort of itemization I'll leave to the developers, but I wouldn't say warriors are getting the shaft here until you show mathematical and experimental proof that they aren't worth having in raids for DPS roles if they have T6 gear.

So the two competing explanations that have been put forth here are that:

A) They want every class's tier x set to have the same item budget, but that item budget is not a perfect measure of true value and as such they make "bad" point allocation choices on some sets as a way to balance the gear

or

B) They do not understand either optimal itemization or actual role a given spec performs in a raid

I'd be tempted to go with A if i had never seen pre-2.1 feral sets or dps priest sets. Those could only be explained by a complete misunderstanding about what ferals and shadow priests actually do and what stats they most benefit from while doing it. So once you've established that they recently and egregiously misallocated sets it becomes very hard to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume it's an intricately-thought-out balancing issue.

Of course, if the various specs are still viable at the end of the day, it's not a major issue, but it's still aesthetically unpleasant that a set designed specifically for your spec is not one of the better potential items for your spec.

or:
C) Almost all items in the game are itemized in a suboptimal way, warrior T6 isn't an exception here, and in fact, none of the tier gear is. Even spellfire and spellstrike could've been itemized better, and those are considered extreme.

Better agility than + def rating (bitter memories of T2.5). But since warriors' damage output scales the best with gear, it seems logical (from Blizz' point of view) to "nerf" the stats some to keep the sets from becoming overpowered for the iLevel.

Ok let's go with C. My response is still the one I posed in the original post. Why?

I mean, you would be hard pressed to get people to agree that 'This distribution of points is THE best given the 'rules' of item budgets.' People have different opinions on what stats matter the most and objectively there is a definite difference in how stats impact the performance of DW Fury and say 2h Arms.

But Agility is a BAD use of points for DPS Warrior items. Fury or Arms. DW or 2h. Not suboptimal, bad. There is a difference.

I agree that agility isnt a good stat, I'd much rather take crit.

However I value it to some degree, since it gives you _some_ survivability when your dealing on adds fights, like Lurker where you might have to slap on a shield and tank the Defenders or just go DPStank on the Ambushers.

It's also _decent_ for grabbing stuff that melees you from time to time while you're DPStanking it(Waves in MH/Aran/Murlocs on Morogrim/Cleaves that you shouldnt take but you acidentally take them anyway like Magtheridon after a shitty bounce)

When it comes to 20crit rating vs 20agility, I always choose the first alternative, but 20crit rating vs 26~ agillity, I'd pick the agility since the DPS loss isnt alot, but the dodge/armor might help from time to time.

Shadow Priests and Warriors share the same scaling issue. Our DPS increases at a greater rate as we get better gear. Warriors just scale well, period, and have the rage mechanic. Spriests get more mana from VT meaning a more mana-intensive cycle is possible, which returns even more mana from VT, etc. Of course, this Spriest issue does cap itself, unlike warriors.

I think the question is this: nerf the abilities or nerf the gear?

If you want perfectly itemized gear, then either A, your talents/base scaling/base abilities will be nerfed or B, encounters will be buffed.

If you are willing to constantly settle for sub-par items, then the current scaling can stay.

There are some really funny comments in this topic, official wow forum "quality" stuff.

I can understand the need to limit warrior scaling through gear, but one has to remember that warrior scaling in TBC isn't near the same as it was pre-TBC. Personally I think Blizzard are overcompensating. It's also easier to deal with one class whining about underperformance than 8 other classes whining about overperformance.

One thing you figure out by looking at the item budget is the more different stats you spend item points on, the stronger you can make an item within a given itemisation budget (assuming the stats are viable, ie. no intellect on warrior sets).

If we stick with the assumption that warriors scale better than everybody else, wasting budget on the items with decent stat allocation makes sense.

Case 1:
Onslaught Breastplate
53 strength
34 agility
16 hit rating
-126 opponent armor

Slayer's Chestguard
45 agility
15 hit rating
28 crit rating
92 attack power

Both items have 4 directions of stat distribution, and the better scaling class has one underperforming stat, this seems balanced to me.

Case 2:
Onslaught Battle-Helm
54 strength
41 agility
-105 opponent armor

Slayer's Helm
45 agility
15 hit rating
28 crit rating
92 attack power

Warrior helm has one less dps stat, and is thus spending extra of the item budget stacking stats higher. Even so it still has the same underperforming stat. For an item like this, I think it's fine to change agility to crit rating, and maybe skew item allocation a bit towards one of the three stats to hit a balance.

I haven't had a chance to work with BT/Hyjal gear, no -armor or passive haste for me yet, so I might be undervaluing the effects of stacking armor penetration. The armor penetration on the warrior helm scales with every other dps stat on warrior gear, indirectly increasing the contribution from other stats. Whether it's enough to balance out the lower effective stats on items I don't know, but I've seen enough Blizzard blunders to know they don't bother testing every decision with math.

In the end it's not worth worrying about as long as warriors do competitive dps while wearing the set, but at first glance it does look like one big fuckup on Blizzard's part.

Between haste, -AC, and enhancement shamans, Warriors are not far from their old selves. That is, they are "near." Best hybrid class (not even requiring a respec). Competitive DPS, with top-dog rogues. And you're worried about losing a fifth of one (of 5+) stat's power?

Let's beat this horse some more. Blizzard is rarely in the market to create the most optimal gear itemization. Warriors are not being held down by "the man!"

Coming up Next! Casters, too, demand 100 DPS from weapon upgrades!

There's also an excess of AGI on the Enhance Shaman set gear, so clearly Blizzard wants to keep the DPS of both classes from getting out of hand. Similarly there's an excess of spell hit on Elemental gear (when an Elemental Shaman can get 12% spell hit outside of gear, 13% if they're Draenei). I actually like the crit on Resto gear, since Ancestral Fortitude is an incredibly useful buff for tanks (we've taken to spamming free Rank 1 Healing Waves whenever a global cooldown is available).

Bottom line, Blizzard wants to keep hybrid classes' damage in line. Thus, the T6 armor is not perfectly min/maxed.

AGI gives more crit to Shaman than it does to Warriors. 25 to 1 vs 33 to 1.

Also, if they want to 'keep hybrid classes' damage in line' why are there non-set Warrior (Plate) items where the stat budget is MUCH better spent?