[Cataclysm] Protection Warrior - Page 11

Shan · 01/06/11, 3:21 PM

Originally Posted by Deathwing

Should SB damage reduction be over 20%? It's only a 30s CD.

I don't know how tank balance is currently in terms of damage taken, survivability and healing required so I can't give a clear answer. If Zarko's work is to be trusted, it should be reasonable with the exception of prot paladin self-healing and perhaps a hypothetical fight with lots of heavy magic damage.

Assuming tank balance is within reasonable limits, I don't see any reason to change the current Shield block design. It is stronger than other mini-cooldowns against physical damage, but that's probably to offset other shortcomings (self-healing most likely). It also has half the cooldown but it doesn't help against magic damage.

For me so far, the lack of magic damage reduction is noticeable on certain fights but nothing that feels overly punishing.

Andenthal · 01/06/11, 4:00 PM

Originally Posted by roarc

Very interesting thread and the Shield Block situation really is confusing. Has anyone tested if the numbers are correct or if it's just a tool-tip error from Blizzards part?

Also, according to the single-target rotation you've completely left Shockwave and Concussion Blow out. As far as I can tell they generate more DPS and DPS / Rage than Devastate and esp. if considering the GCD prior to Shield Slam off cool-down they should be more efficient to use, shouldn't they? A Sword and Board proc here would be more rage-efficient and perhaps would lead to 1 more heroic strike and / or the use of Inner Rage, but if you're not rage-starved, wouldn't the use of Shockwave / Concussion Blow be better?

Also the application of rend by using Thunder Struck from Thunder Clap... I presume we want to use this the lats 2 or so seconds of the Rend application? Or is it better to let rend tick off to 0 and then reapply it using rend? (again, I'm talking single target).

Regarding Shield Block:
Some basic testing was done by some TS patrons, which is what initially lead to the dicussion.
[Warrior] Critical Block Mechanics

Regarding CB/SW/Dev:
CB does hefty threat, but terrible damage. It shouldn't be used when trying to maximize DPS. Devastate comes out even with, or even slightly ahead when you factor in gains from Sword and Board. Damage per rage is slightly dependant upon spec, as softer hitting abilities such as Devastate gain more from talents such as Deep Wounds. Vengeance also plays a large role here.

Regarding Rend/Thunderstruck:
I'm assuming you mean Blood and Thunder here (reapplies Rend, and spreads it around). If you have BnT, Rend only needs to tick 4 times for it to be more effective than a Devastate. That means anything under 6 secs left on the defuff. Obviously refreshing it with less than 3 secs is optimal, but letting it fall off is least optimal of all.

hikarodesu · 01/06/11, 4:37 PM

It appears they intend to change War Academy to no longer increase the damage of heroic strike, but of devestate instead. With this change, how useful will this talent be? What with devestate being so low on the priority list and all.

roarc · 01/06/11, 6:20 PM

Regarding CB/SW/Dev:
Just is a single boss / two warrior tank fight but I just pulled numbers of our guild in BH yesterday and on avarage of the two warriors I got:

Devastate: 7,8K damage / hit (including cits which where 37%)
Concussion blow: 10,0K damage / hit (includding crits which where 0%)
Shockwave: 12,0 K damage / hit (includding crits which where 6%)

Normal hits CB on average does 60% more damage than Devastate given Dev has a higher crit chance AND can procc Sword and Board it's benefits goes up a bit. But from my experience CB hit's for a truck-load if you're high on vengeance, if not Dev is more powerful I believe.

Regarding Rend/Thunderstruck:
Of course, meant Blood and Thunder! Good info to know, I try to refresh at 2s on the last GCD before SS personally.

Andenthal · 01/06/11, 7:02 PM

Hrmm, your results seem a bit odd compared to what most are seeing. Here is a log from last week's PUG.
World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis

CB is supposed to have a 37.5% AP coefficient, and SW 75%.

Looking only at non-crit (Hit) damage, SW is hitting for over 2x as hard as CB (to be expected with 2x the AP coefficient). Devastate is about 20% stronger than CB, not even accounting for the increased crit chance.

Odd to see your CBs hitting so hard, while at the same time your SWs hitting so softly.

roarc · 01/06/11, 8:21 PM

Concussion Blow - Spell - World of Warcraft

CB is 75% AP as well if the above isn't old data.

World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis

The above is my raid tonight and it supports this. Both CB and SW on average hit for about 10K where Devastate is at less than 6K. Crits from Dev are a little higher than normal CB / SW. SW should be a little higher (and it is) due to Thunderstuck. Hence my question remains. Wouldn't these be good for optimal DPS given your high on vengeance? Seems to scale much higher than Devastate then.

- Devastate is dependent on 3 sunders for max output per swing but isn't as affected by vengeance.
- Concussion blow is far more sensitive to lack of vengeance.

The later was quite bad on Cho'gall as I'm handling adds half the time, where on avarage if high on vengeance it hits hard.

Andenthal · 01/06/11, 10:06 PM

Just tested on a dummy. Both SW and CB doing the same damage. Interesting - it appears they reverted the AP nerf from 3.3.3 or whatever. You are correct Sir, both CB and SW are better than Devastate.

Shyrian · 01/07/11, 12:59 AM

Looks like Bliz just slipped in a patch to fix shield block.

silverbow25 · 01/07/11, 1:43 AM

Originally Posted by Rott

This used to be the case when heroic strike was a spammable, on-next-hit attack.

Now it has a cooldown.

Wow can't believe I didn't check for changes, I see that now. So one more question a fast weapon is still better than a slow weapon provided it has enough more dps I assume, so if you are just working on your gear tanking your way through instances does a higher dps weapon still equal a better weapon regardless of speed, then ideally work toward slower weapons? Or is it better to wait till a better weapon of appropriate speed drops?

Tauftamir · 01/07/11, 2:36 AM

Originally Posted by silverbow25

Or is it better to wait till a better weapon of appropriate speed drops?

I don't believe I've seen a weapon with Strength which is not 2.6 speed on live.

roarc · 01/07/11, 4:19 AM

CB was reverted back to 75% AP right before Cata-launch. It was quite weak at the end of Wrath indeed.

Looks like Bliz just slipped in a patch to fix shield block.

Where? When? No hotfix notes on MMO-champion...

Casz · 01/07/11, 4:31 AM

I was thinking isn't Arcanum of the Dragonmaw/Arcanum of the Wildhammer (60 str, 35 mastery) more useful than Arcanum of the Earthen Ring (90 Stamina, 35 dodge)?

or are those 90 stamina really that worth it?

roarc · 01/07/11, 7:39 AM

Yes, the tool tip on shield block now only gives me +2% critical block and not the 27% I got two days back.

Spell fix or tool-tip fix?

Rit · 01/07/11, 8:06 AM

Originally Posted by hikarodesu

As long as you have 150k unbuffed health, avoidance will help out more than a larger health pool (which requires more heals to top off)

Would everyone agree that this is about accurate or should we be stacking avoidance at lower HP pools? I currently have about 144khp unbuffed (granted that my ilvl is about 344) and that is with stacking +60 stam gems and the earthen ring arcanum. Should I sacrifice the couple thousand HP I will lose for some extra avoidance? And in the same vein, is the dragonmaw arcanum more reasonable than the earthen ring one considering that it stacks avoidance? I

zork · 01/07/11, 11:26 AM

I gathered some warrior stat informations:

Base values:
A lvl 85 Warrior has:
3.758% base doge
5% base parry
5% base block

Ratings:
1 point in mastery per 179.28 mastery rating
1% dodge for 176.71899 dodge rating (without dimishing returns)
1% parry for 176.71899 parry rating (without dimishing returns)
1% block for 88.36 block rating

Strength/Agility conversion:
A lvl 85 warrior will get:
1% dodge per 430.69 agility
25% of strength will add to parry rating (and thus mitigated by dimishing returns)
Example: If you have 2759 strength that will convert into 2759 / 4 = 689.75 parry rating that will be added to the rest of your parry rating.
That is why casting Battle Shout will increase both your chance to parry and your chance to dodge.

Block example:
The sentinel talent will give 15% chance to block.
The mastery talent will give 12% chance to block and 12% chance to block critically.
One point in mastery will add 1.5% chance to block and 1.5% chance to critical block.
If you have 2000 mastery rating those will convert to 2000 / 179.28 = 11.155734 mastery points.
11.155734 * 1.5 = 16.733601% chance to block.
Thus a lvl 85 warrior with 2000 mastery rating will have
5% (base block) + 15% (sentinel) + 12% (mastery talent) + 16.733601% (mastery points) =
5 + 15 + 12 + 16.733601 = 48.733601% chance to block

Dodge example:
119 base agility
139 agility from gear
549 agility from battle shout
(119 + 139 + 549) / 430.69 = 1.87373749% chance to dodge from agilty
1500 dodge rating on gear
1500 / 176.71899 = 8.48805213% chance to doge from doge rating (without dimishing returns)
3.758% (base doge) + 1.87373749% (agility) + 8.48805213% (dodge rating) =
8.48805213 + 1.87373749 + 3.75800 = 14.1197896% chance to dodge
Because of dimishing returns the actual dodge will be slightly below that value.

Parry example:
194 base strength
2750 strength from gear
549 strength from battle shout
(194 + 2 750 + 549) * 0.25 = 873.25 parry rating from strength added to your parry rating on gear.
700 parry rating on gear
873.25 + 700 = 1573.25 parry rating including parry rating from strength
1573.25 / 176.71899 = 8.90255201% chance to parry from parr rating (without dimishing returns)
5% (base parry) + 8.90255201% (parry rating) =
5 + 8.90255201 = 13.902552% chance to parry
Because of dimishing returns the actual parry will be slightly below that value.

Battle Shout has double usage now. It buffs our damage and our tank stats and should not be overlooked. It will grant both dodge and parry.

The strength/parry conversion is the reason why your parry rating gets skyrocketed once you reach t11 gear level. Even more strength and even more parry rating will push your parry rating even further.

Sources:
Combat Ratings at level 85 (Cataclysm)
chardev 8 - Cataclysm Beta