Indeed. A storm herald is a power just by itself. Coupled with some good armor this one rocks. I have seen quite a lot of foes finally dying when stunned by the mace. Of course a proc from sword specialisation might have a similar result but then again you don't have the chance to proc it against multiple targets when whirlwinding, cleaving or with activated sweeping strikes. Kiting a mace warrior is much more difficult than any comparable axe/sword warrior just because stuns ignore BoF.

Assuming Sword spec procs can be dodged/parried, then on targets with more than 15% dodge/parry/miss combined, Axe spec actually comes out top. Why? Because if you don't hit the target you can't get an extra swing. And even if you hit the target and get an extra swing it can still be dodged/parried/miss. Whereas the extra crit % will successfully convert a hit into more dmg irrespective of miss/dodge/parry (unless you are attacking a target with extreme avoidance - i.e rogue with evasion).

* NOTE: I've not been Sword spec since the most recent changes so I'm not actually sure if if Sword spec procs can actually be dodged etc - someone who is sword spec now would need to confirm that for me.

See www.ryanhannah.plus.com/temp.xls for calculations. Edit - the sheet was put together really quickly, so please feel free to point out if i've made any miscalculations.

Presumably though, the only PvP targets with that much avoidance are Feral Druids and Rogues... from the front... ?

And there's presumably a point of diminishing returns in avoidance vs resilience (expected damage gain over some period of time) - so is it 15% with 0 resilience ?

And as you say, not sure about sword procs being able to be independently dodged, etc.

Seeing as I for some reason cannot start my own threads yet I will go ahead and post a question here, since it atleast fits in with the topic name if not the discussion.

Im doing pvp with a paladin guildie. We aren't bad but we aren't exactly pro either if you know what I mean. Last season we hoovered around 1950-2050, mainly due to us having real problems vs certain team setups, and ofc varying performance from our side.

What im looking for are some tips on how to counter a warlock+shadowpriest team. We keep getting annihilated and I cant figure out what we are doing wrong. Sure once in a while we can get a lucky win but in the long run we loose 9/10 games. OUr opponents usually seem to have worse gear than us, or equal. What happens really is that they decide to nuke me or my paladin friend, it dosn't matter which target they go for really we usually go down very fast anyway.

I have tried to go for either lock or shadowpriest and found that I ofcourse need to interrupt the mass dispell. The main problem is that either I die very fast to heavy nuking +felhound silence and or shadow priest silence. If I dont go down, then my paladin friend has bubbled and its going to end soon, im usually focusing on the shadow priest and will have him on ~40-50% by now, mainly due to me getting deathcoiled, or having to pop spell reflection to stay alive.

Now I kill the shadow priest, but both me and my paladin friend will be low on health and he will be feared. I go down and a paladin dosnt stand a chance vs a lock in a 1on1.

So what am I/we doing wrong? Any tips, is shadow resistance mandatory?

Warlock/shadow priest teams pretty much ruin warrior/paladin - essentially you have to be able to kill the priest inside ten seconds otherwise they'll toast you.

The reason you got to 2050 easily, is that Warrior/Paladin really is 'easy mode' against 80% of possible matchups in 2v2.

Priest/Warlock are your 'hard counter'. In the same way me+healer can pretty much never beat Warrior/Paladin unless they make a LOT of big mistakes, so the same goes for you guys vs. that team. The popularity of those teams has only grown as a meta-game counter to the all conquering power of Warrior/Paladin

Your hamstring crits Mage for 100 damage.

Your sword spec hits Mage for 1000 damage.

Which is better?

Besides, since when do players go into PvP with high dodge/parry/defense ratings, and since when would a warrior actually target that player? Isn't the whole point of a MS warrior to go after a cloth wearer or healer? The only class with more than 15% avoidance that you might possibly encounter in the arena and want to target would be a rogue, and if they stand and fight you, feeding you rage and enrage procs, there is a good chance that you have already won.

You can taunt the felpuppy off your paladin. The dumber priests will stay shadowform for long enough for you to kill the warlock. Others you can bait him out of shadowform by beating on the warlock. You should remember people's specs, like you should remember this warlock is soullink so bursting him isnnt really and option, or that guy is affliction you should go for him regardless or you could kill the felpuppy cause he's not likely to summon another. Ofcourse if all else fails there's always the 300 shadow resist way.

Check the numbers in the spreadsheet ... assuming they are right, the 'swordspec-off-hamstring' isnt really that significant.

Huh? I'm not saying axe is inheriently better, i'm simply pointing out that in certain situations Axe has its advantages (which was in response to a previous poster claiming that axe was 'never' better). There will be times when a Rogue/Hunter (even frost mage with -hit talent) will be your primary target. Hell you might even have insect swarm on you. Thus it seems relevant to point out that sword may not be quite as good in these scenarios.

Assuming you target casters the majority of the time, then Sword probably is the better choice.

I specced away from sword spec last week, and yes, sword spec procs were missing or being dodged. I found the proc rate extremely low compared to the very noticeable crit increase when using axe spec. Therefore, I am using axe. I tested mace spec last year when I had a TUF and found that proc rate similarly poor, and I have no reason to believe that has changed now.

Making sweeping statements about how "axe is never better than sword" is pretty pointless as that's pure opinion. I posted concrete figures and reasons for my axe spec preference. Hence my original point, spec what you prefer. No one spec is inherently superior to another because of differences in perception, differences in playstyle, differences in memory acuity, etc.

And I do have a 70 warrior, I thought that was clear.

Do people with axes go "hell yeah axe spec" every time they crit?

I don't know, but when my mace spec procs and I kill someone, I say "hell yeah".

"Holy Shit" would be my more common expression. When you drop someone in four seconds, the reaction is idiosyncratic yet at the same time, fairly universal. :>

Four second drops sadly don't happen...like ever, once you get to 2K + above rating. Just a warning, because most Warriors in that bracket run with 300ish resilience, and Warlocks and Priests go up to 450ish easily.

If you killed someone in 4 seconds in an arena, they were horribly undergeared and it doesn't matter at all what spec you were.

As a healer, I support more warriors using things like Axe spec instead of maces. Even moreso, I support you telling other warriors to use axe spec too. Thanks!

Edit: Didnt read between the lines and see the sarcasm. Warriors should use axes.

You missed the sarcasm tag in Gwai's post.

Yea, Kazrik, you sorta made my point in your own post o.0

There is a chance of getting a heal off without mace spec. With mace spec, the chances of anything other than instant heals getting off is close to zero (Given a foe with good latency). That's really as much debate as you need when considering weapon speccing.

T3 Blacksmithing aside, what about Merciless Gladiatior mace? Does it live up to the hype?

In your spread sheet axe spec has a constant 10% dodge/parry/miss rate regardless of the value entered in B8. Hamstring hits for 63 not 70 according to thottbot. Resiliance crit damage mitigation is actually greater then intended - it removes the intended percentage from impale and normal crit damage (IE 1.0909 times greater crit damage reduction). Your yellow attacks are not normalized to 3.4s for attack power and use a 3.6x multiplier.

Sorry for being so anal; I found those error only because I have a sheet of my own and I played around with them until they matched.

With these updates you get sword spec ~= axe spec around 19% avoidance (dodge/parry/miss). To put this in perspective your average pally is going to have ~9% avoidance, average warrior is going to have ~15%, average rogue 35%.

So from a DPS point of view, against most things (priests, pallies, warlocks, etc) sword specialization is better. Against rogues, feral druids and protection warriors sword spec is worse.

From a 2s or 3s arena point of view, if the pally you are trying to kill is at low health and is trying to heal himself and your intercept and pummel are cooling down, sword/axe spec has a 5% chance of helping you kill him before he heals, while mace spec has a ~10% chance of stunning him.

Infused: I use the Merciless Gladiator Mace, you still get lots of stuns because mace spec is near 10% while Deep Thunder is near 1-2%. I still use deep thunder when I'm fighting an enemy with good kiting abilities (frost mages) because the slower attack speed is better (Deep Thunder has almost the same base damage as merciless gladiators but merciless gladiators is 0.2s faster).

Ranking the maces would be:
Stormhearld
Merciless Glad
Deep Thunder

Isn't the proc rate on Deep Thunder/Thunder/Stormhearld round 4%-5% not 1%-2%?

Are you saying you notice going from 30% crit to 35% crit better than going from 30% crit to 30% crit and 5% sword proc? Do you know how silly this sounds? If an extra attack does the same thing as a crit (which is arguably close to), then there is no difference. Sword procs are like a normal white hit, so it can miss and be dodged/parried. It also means it can crit and proc another.

It's cheesy, but SR gear will trivialize a lot of this. If you don't want to go that route, I suggest the paladin pre-shields before interrupt. This will give you 12 seconds to kill the shadow priest, which most of the times is still not enough.