Moogul

What makes you think it's a rogue offhand? Why would it have so much stamina if it's meant for a DPSer?

It obviously *can* be utilized well by a rogue, but similar it *can* be utilized welll by a tank, and I'd go so far as to say that it is better itemized for a tank than for a rogue.

Also, as for not finding haste on sunwell tank items, [Breastplate of Agony's Aversion] from the top of my head.

 

Lambach

It only has a few more stamina then the oh warglaive. Like most people have already said, its fairly badly itemized for a tank weapon with that haste on it.

The haste on the BP is strange, thats the first I've seen of haste on some actual tank peices. Not sure how I missed it, but if theres more perhaps I'm wrong and the argument is fairly relevent.

 

Mem

Yet it is the only known loot that would be a viable upgrade dpswise for a protection warrior. I personally know that I won't drop my two brutalizers for the sword due to the racial benefits I get. Nevertheless we will have raids with the best geared DPSers ever known in WoW and I think our ability to produce TPS will be tested to the limit.
To be honest, the sword's itemization is rather shitty as it sports too much stamina for a pure DPS weapon yet lacks real tanking stats.

 

Dots

If you think that sword was made for rogue offhand, you are on crack. Stamina and Expertise are obvious tanking stats. Haste is not so great, but Blizzard has put haste on a few tanking items, even though +hit would probably be much better. The other 'typical' tank stat in that spot would be defense, but warriors can get to such high avoidance levels, I can see why they use another stat instead.
I'm not even sure if this would be an upgrade from Shahraz' sword for rogues, considering it has way worse DPS stats and is slower. The listed weapon DPS is not that important for an offhand.

Either way, discussions about who gets item X belong to the official WoW boards.

 

Sepulture

That was my first thought as well.

We're going to hit another threat wall without another rank of abilities (with higher innate threat). If haste lowered the GCD, it would be a linear threat boost to all our abilities except for SS and Revenge. This would be a fabulous way to counteract static threat issues and make + haste useful. It would have the side benefit of making reactive abilities that are on the GCD easier to use (shield wall, shield bash).

Speaking of latency and GCD's, this mod called "Faster Ping" is very helpful for tanking (and for everything else). It reduced my latency from 100ms to a very consistent 25 ms. It sets your tcpackfrequency to 1 from 2 (the window's default). If you don't like the change, you can easily set it back. No one I know has set it back, because they have all had their latency cut in 1/2. I immediately noticed the improvement when stance dancing, shield bashing, or spell reflecting. I would encourage everyone to try it out.

 

Branar

I think the usefulness of the GCD being reduced for melee would be limited for TPS concerns. Someone please correct me if the below reasoning is wrong:

We are using a 4-ability, 6 second cycle. This means that in order for the GCD being reduced to actually change your TPS rotation for the better, it's got to allow you to move from a 4-ability cycle to a 5-ability cycle (presumably Shield Slam, Revenge, Devastate x3). The cycle doesn't necessarily have to happen in 6 seconds, but it obviously has to happen in 7.5 seconds (which is what a Shield Slam, Revenge, Devastate x3 cycle would be unhasted).

It's not quite as bad as the druid lifebloom quandry (haste doesn't help lifeblooms until you get 5 lifeblooms in the time it would take you to do 4 unhasted), but it still wouldn't mean more skill usage. Up to a certain point, you will be better off sticking with a 4-ability rotation, because squeezing in that 3rd Devastate will delay your Shield Slam.

Obviously if you get a third devastate off and your shield slam only comes 0.1 seconds later than it would unhasted, that's probably a net increase...but if you've only got a little bit of haste rating and you're effectively squeezing in a third devastate and causing your Shield Slam to come 1.4 seconds later than it normally would...it's probably more effective just to stick with the normal rotation. In that case, you don't benefit from the GCD reduction at all.

I don't know enough math to figure out what the equilibrium point at which 3 devastates in rotation becomes better than two (hypothetically saying haste did change the melee GCD reduction). I suppose my "gut feeling" on the relative value of Shield Slam and Devastate could be wrong, and perhaps it doesn't take much haste at all. Of course, either way your TPS is increased from haste - it's increasing white damage, after all - but expertise, block value, and hit all likely come out ahead of haste in terms of net agro generation, and two of those three offer increased survivability (and also apply directly to how often your yellow attacks land, which is something haste without GCD reduction doesn't do) to boot.


As an interesting, and possibly more relevant, aside: If I'm not mistaken, Bloodlust and Heroism reduce the GCD on PTR. I don't know if they actually shave off 30% of 1.5 seconds, or if they shave off 30% of 0.5 seconds (since apparently the max reduction on the GCD is to 1.0 seconds), or what. Have any tanks experimented with this yet, and the effects it has on TPS? Does it effectively bring your GCD to the point where you can use a Shield Slam/Revenge/Devastate x3 rotation? Does it even effect the GCD for warriors, or have they implemented it such that it doesn't work (on the GCD) for melee classes?

 

Sepulture

I don't want to put too much effort into something that may never even exist, but..

You get a "freebee" if you have any latency. The % of haste you can stack where you are just bringing your 4 cycle into a true 6 second window is:

% haste = ((6s + (your latency x 4))/6)-1
e.g. 200ms
(6.8/6)-1 = 13.33% haste

Beyond that, you need to know your average devastate threat, shield slam threat in addition to your latency, but you could solve for ideal haste (meaning where you get a benefit beyond white/HS speed) using algebra. The difference in ability threat is scaled over a hastened GCD, and you can figure out the point where it makes sense to not hit that 3rd devastate.

If you want to solve for haste in a perfect "5 in 6", you would use:

% haste = ((7.5s + (your latency x 5)/6)-1.
e.g. 50 ms
(7.75/6)-1 = 29.16% haste for a 5 in 6 with 50ms latency.

 

smilingbandit2

I'm curious if there's been any progress made towards a DPS warrior tanking guide. This guide has been quite helpful in many respects, but as a fury warrior I lack many of the talents and powers that seem important to tanking. I feel that my prot gear is adequate for most OT jobs (490 defense, respectable avoidance, high stamina), but I just can't seem to hold aggro.

Has such a guide been created? If not, can anyone provide some general suggestions? Power sequencing, macros - any advice that will increase my aggro abilities would be appreciated.

(If this issue has been addressed earlier in the thread, a link to the posting or section would be most appreciated.)

 

Darkrenown

That's not new.

 

Branar

I'm aware that it's not new info. Do you have comments on whether it actually reduces the GCD for melee classes as well (I'm aware melee HASTE doesn't lower the GCD for melee classes - it's unclear to me whether bloodlust/heroism do)? Do you have comments on its effect on warrior TPS?

 

Xav

smilingbandit:

http://elitistjerks.com/578915-post318.html

 

Kasi

Darkreknown up til present heroism does NOT reduce the GCD. This has been proved before on this board. It was a misconception by people. Haste before, whether through gear or through talents did not reduce the GCD ever. Now all haste effects reduce the GCD. Hope this clarifies things.

 

Alyx

Haste on tank gear is the next evolution of threat that makes the most sense to me.

I did not count, but there seems to be enough expertise gear in Sunwell to be both parry capped and hit capped. As we can already be dodge capped and hit capped, getting parry capped is at most a 10% threat gain over actual best threat gear. It is most likely that dpsers will gain more than 10% damage with new items, so it makes sense to give tanks more threat.

There are thus 2 solutions. Either stack stupid amounts of block value, or make haste a tank stats too to give more HS. Mind that this sword is also faster than current 1,60 tanking weapons.

I am pretty sure that if there was a next tier of gear before WotLK, rather than seeing silly amounts of haste we could see tank gear with either armor penetration, or agi to get both dodge and crit. Hasting Heroic Strikes makes more sense than both these to me as it is linked to a prot warrior ability, while armor penetration or crit feels more like a dpser thing.

 

Xav

DPS will never surpass a warrior's obtainable threat in the game now anyway, assuming a "go all out" situation for both parties. Expertise was more than enough, and is extremely efficient at what it does. Haste is very expensive and a truthfully marginal increase compared to the same weighing of points turned into expertise.

If you're caring about maximizing your threat so your DPS can unleash, you'll be set for a while, thanks to the even better itemized gear with expertise (in T6 we were still at least 7%ish from the cap). It would take new ranks of spells and another tier of gear, with the warriors not receiving the above, to pass the obtainable max threat level of a tank, I'm pretty confident.

For progress it's mostly a non-factor anyways as you aren't going to be in a situation where the DPS has to go full-bore while you try to out-threat them. On that related note, on the Brutallus I did recently, it was akin to a Gorefiend situation where all of the raid's DPS'ers simply use everything they have and output as much damage as possible, and I wore full absolute maximum defensive/mitigation gear for survival, and threat was fine. The stats in that gear were (all unbuffed) 37 hit rating, 16 expertise, 496 block, 18.1k hp, 27 dodge 23 parry 7.6% miss. [I have only one pair of bracers, badge ones.] That's no purposeful threat gear and still retaining it over people likely doing over 2200 dps as a variety of classes. Just remembered that was also using an 8/10/43 mitigation spec with only 2/5 1h spec and 0/3 sunder as well.

So in the end I think we'd all prefer it if blizzard didn't enormously stack gear to cater to extreme levels of (unnecessary) threat, and instead balance them. As it is now they have plenty of stats to work with, and did a mostly great job with the new Sunwell items.

In no particular order; for threat: Strength, Agility, Expertise, Hit, Block Value.
For survivability; Stamina, Agility, Expertise, Block Value, Dodge Rating, Parry Rating, Defense Rating, Armor

You can fulfill every possible need and situation by using the above stats, most (if not all) items having sockets now adds a further level of customization if people so desire it. I think they've hit the sweet spot now, excepting the addition of Haste as an apparent test-stat to see our reaction.

 

Darkrenown

My bad then. I was sure I'd read here that BL was the only haste effect to lower the GCD currently. I guess I missed it being disproved.

 

Kasi

Yeah it was disproved in the working theories stickied post at the top of the page with a shaman timelogging the times of LHW while under heroism.

 

GofG

I'm confused; I've heard (and tested, and done the math myself that shows) that Unwavering Leggings are better than T6 because of the 3 gem slots.

Why aren't they?

 

Skyeh

Commendation of Kael'thas seems to have been nerfed from 20% dodge to 8%. Rather unfortunate, as I was really looking forward to that trinket. In it's current form, I don't think I'd want to switch out my darkmoon card or SMI in my mitigation set.

 

Clambo

Out of left field with this one. My guild forms are having a debate as to party balancing the raid. Certain classes are angry they don't get the hunter or shaman buffs others are angry they aren't getting warlocks and so on and so forth.

I decided to ask if for certain fights where tanks are taking huge damage spikes such as FLK or Tidewalker, if we could toss a warlock into the tank group for blood pact. Well the warlocks got up in arms over this. They didn't seem to think they could A) keep their imp alive or B) keep the imp within range of the tank getting hammerd.

So my question is: Does anybody load the tank group with a lock anymore? And if so, which fights specifically do you find it makes a differance.

 

JamesVZ

Why wouldn't you switch out your darkmoon card? It adds a completely negligible amount of threat and has less stamina to boot. The effect on it is still pretty damn nice given the amount of stamina on it, should be happy it wasn't removed entirely :p. 20% dodge was just ridiculous.

Official Slackie Fanclub. The dude gets ALL the ladies.

In regards to Icecrown Radiance:

 

galzohar

What's interesting is that the physical immune tank with this trinket should be able to be physical immune with this trinket assuming a hit will take him down to the range where the trinket gets activated and that he will not get hit more often than once every 30 seconds (which is very reasonable with only a tiny chance to actually get hit). We all know this isn't very practical due to threat and non-physical damage but it's still an interesting idea

As for buffs, imp is the #1 buff for your tank. A phase shifted imp can't die and it can be camped near the tanking position or the warlock can just stay close enough - depending on the fight. Devo and tree aura are also nice to have - will cost the pally/druid a shadow priest but for most raid setups it just means more dpsers get a shadow priest which is probably a net benefit to your raid anyway. A shaman with the tank is also nice but not as beneficial unless threat or grounding totem is a primary concern (which isn't the case for most fights). I could've mixed up the order a bit though since I hadn't really ran the numbers, if anyone does have numbers I'd like to see them.

Remeber that the imp warlock needs to be affliction, as a destruction warlock running an imp will do rediculessly bad DPS. Not to mention if tank survival is important you should always have an affliction warlock in your raid for shadow embrace anyway. Malediction is just icying on the cake and might actually not make up for the dps loss of not being destruction in certain gear levels (although at hyjal/bt entry level gear it adds more dps to the raid than having the warlock destruction). Anyway the dps really doesn't matter - if tank survivability is an issue you should always have an affliction warlock in the raid (and in the tank group). Keep in mind that a lot of people will lose a lot more dps than they should when they go affliction as it's simply harder to play - they will blame the spec usually but a lot of the dps people usually lose by going from destruction to affliction is that they simply don't play affliction well. The real frustrating thing, though, is that a well-played affliction warlock will still do less dps than destruction. Bottom line is to run an affliction warlock but make sure it's someone that doesn't suck so he doesn't lose more dps than he really needs to.

 

Skyeh

That's true... I guess the commendation still will have it's place in my bags... it just won't have the "OMG WOW! I'm almost always going to have this trinket equipped!" feeling the initial one had. I guess that's one of those bad things about getting excited about PTR loot. Sometimes it gets nerfed.

Regarding the imp, it depends on the fight. While I don't personally think FLK had much burst, fights where your tank has a chance of being gibbed we always be sure to have an imp in the tank group. While we have one lock that stays "raid specced" (that is, with improved imp and the 5% physical damage reduction debuff), even if he's not present, on battles with hard hitters like Illidan or Mother Shahraz one of our demo locks is usually asked to provide an imp for the tank. If you're looking at SSC, I'd probably want an imp on tidewalker and Vashj. The others bosses would depend on if we had the raid spec lock in the raid or not.

Regarding the discussion of haste on tank gear... I'm not overly displeased. I'd prefer to max out my hit and expertise first, but, I've been using a [Band of Devastation] as part of my aggressive tanking set lately and I've been quite happy with it. (Mainly due to it's high stam, extra AP and of course the haste.) Heroic striking has always been a fair part of my aggro generation, and getting off those extra heroic strikes sounds like a logical reason to invest in some haste gear. That said, I was really happy to see the new tank sword from Sunwell. Being stuck with the Zul'jin cleaver, it looks to be a very solid aggro upgrade.

 

Chardonnay

Hmm really... I demand an imp in my group for pretty much all 25man bossfights.
A) I've never seen a phase shifted imp die unless their master died.
B) Your locks don't know the "stay" command? Tanks rarely move around in most fights, AFAIK they don't really move at Tidewalker and FLK. Sure as hell I don't move a bit during Tidewalker.
C) Raiding is a group effort, noone has right to "get angry" for not being served with all possible buffs. Raid leader is to decide who gets which buffs and that means most people will NOT get all the best buffs, because there are different priorities.

Looks like your locks are really dumb and/or they want to sacrifice their pet for more damage, because they are not team players.

 

nlz242

I don't know, it depends.
If you have the luxury of having multiple locks, you don't ask the DS/Shadow bolt spammer lock to park an imp.
That would be stupid and gimping their damage (which in the end, you need, as a team) by alot.
If you have an affliction lock with Dark Pact, they can park the imp and still abuse his mana regen. Which makes much more sense then asking a DS lock not to DS.

 

• Jamor

I agree -- that trinket was insane in it's original version. To me, it's still highly sought after though. The 8% passive dodge is still far better than what the darkmoon card gives.