Zaroua

Blizzard just did their first "class update" since the beta went live, on Mages. It may not mean much but, the amount of polish and changes Mages just got today should be seen as a similar overhaul of the Warrior class "soon". In any case, I'd wait until Blizzard releases its planned changes for Warriors before worrying too much.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?mage The new Mage talents from today

Dogma also claims that God has a sense of humor and at times presents Him as a joker of sorts, thus again lowering Him to human level. While I am certain God has a "sense of humor" since He gave it to us, I find it most difficult to believe He finds humor in sin since He will cast the unforgiven sinner into the lake of fire for eternity. Not very funny at all.

 

Liar

For what it's worth, I tanked instance up to lvl 75 content in my T6 gear without replacing anything yet. Aggro is fine as it is (we usually 4 man instances in a Prot Warrior, Shadow Priest, Random Spec Hunter and Holy Paladin group). There are 2 reasons why I didn't have to replace gear yet:

1) Green and Blue items are itemized quite badly. They generally will have 3 stats at most like the green Prot boots with Str/Sta/Expertise I got from a quest reward. But by being level 75 and with the change of the agi --> dodge conversion ratios my avoidance plummeted by atleast 20% so I am wary of dropping even more for Str/Sta/Expertise "upgrades". But even if I wanted to, I could tank stuff in a mix of DPS and tanking gear because

2) Instances are too easy. It really doesn't matter much which gear you tank in as long as you have a rudimentary grasp of playing your class. I really hope they tune the instances to be harder atleast.

Spreading out PvP talents in all 3 talent trees seems to be a really daft idea to me because of what you said about MS. Without MS, you shouldn't bother to pvp anyway (and I am not sure if a TG build would work at all even with MS because you need alot more offensive stats than Arms (Hit % to name one) to make it work and would consequently drop some survivability too).

I mean seriously, why is Safeguard - Spell - World of Warcraft in the Prot tree? Why is it not in the Arms tree or trainer learnt like they promised *ages ago* (remember when they said Charge/Intercept/Feral Charge were supposed to break root effects?)?.

Unexpected TankPoints error Clearly someone doesn't understand how EH works. That, or upgrading from T8 to T9 is optional in beating Arthas. Clearly.

 

Lithose

It wouldn't even be remotely balanced for a warrior to be able to break roots/snares every 15 seconds...Its one of our "weaknesses" and unlike the zerk stance 10% penalty its a good one. It balances are high damage and good offensive utility.

Even without the snare/root break component, think of how powerful it would be do reduce damage by 60% on a kill target every 30 seconds, non-dispellable. Similar abilities have a 2-3 minute cool down, for a reason.

Now, that being said, the arms tree, as is now, sucks. I'm not going to mince words, its horrible, unimaginative and weak..4 new "endless rage" talents have been added that no warrior is going to take over flurry...However, safe-guard doesn't belong anywhere near MS, even if its out of place in the prot tree.

I wish they would swap heroic leap and bladestorm, but that would probably give us too much mobility..Still, heroic leap "feels" like an arms talent...Then again, as is now, they are both garbage..so.. =-/

Oh, and just so we can all sigh...

Kick: This ability is no longer affected by the global cooldown.

I mean, what, was the .9 GCD too much to work around?

 

Prinsesa

Divine Protection is not included in Sacred Duty, and thus will always have a 5 minute cooldown.

"We do want Sanctuary to be the tanking seal"

- Ghostcrawler

 

Obould

Its too early for speculations yet until they have given out the overhaul, but what i would love to see as a tank and protection warrior is the ability of usefullness not just only as a main tank because in the end thats all we do we aint good for anything else.

1) The Master of Stuns should be on our side....i dont want to sheep / hex mobs nor put them unable todo anything into a place and not to worry about them for quite some time. I want to play with them, keep them busy, utilizing several skills in a combo fashion order to keep them in pace. If i cant controll them (eg. the dmg) i will die but if i play them with my skills (like the new Shockwave) i am able to keep them on me and survive at the same time.

2) While a dps warrior plays down his cycle (which imo is such a boring concept) a protection warrior should be able to deal dmg up to 75% of the other trees but different, not able to just charge and dish out slams / hits right away.
The Block Value is a good concept for this, why not let a protection warrior safe up the blocked dmg and unleash/slam it later on a stunned target, dont let a prot warrior deal out dmg unless he has eaten enough!!

Anyway, i really do hope that the protection tree gets some real unique abilities.

 

Mode

I only spotted one change in the latest build. As is traditional, they >screwed around with sweeping strikes<. Now it's 5 charges with a 30 second duration. I await our mage-style massive overhaul, but in the mean time I will glower at rogues.

 

nfw

If I recall correctly, that's the exact same functionality before it was moved to the Fury tree.

 

Roywyn

That's truly terrible. I'm sure you'd love to have Kick, Pummel and Shield Bash go back on the GCD. *cough*

The Blue Bar and you - the complete Fire Mage 2.4 mana compendium: http://elitistjerks.com/658230-post3191.html

DPS spec and class comparison in Naxxramas gear: http://code.google.com/p/simulationc...i/SampleOutput

And [Timbal's Focusing Crystal] doesn't proc on AM.
Neither does [The Egg of Mortal Essence] since 3.1.

 

kaellie

Shield bash of the GCD has sereval effects on tanking warriors that may not have been expected:

• It will boost our TPS because it will be an instant attaque without GCD every 12s which does 25% of our AP in damage + XXX threat ( since we will only have one rank of shield bash, I have no idea of how threat it will be but today the rank 4 is 230 threat )
• There is also the fact that shield bash will daze the target if it isn't immun, which will boost the threat done by heroic stricke
• The daze effect will also boost the DPS of the DPS warriors for the same reason ( and I think there are at least 2 other skills for other classes which can be boosted if the target is dazed)

 

Talgog

If only Safeguard was lower in the Prot tree. This almost works:

WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Warrior -> Talent Calculator

Weird build, but I think you can see what the idea is. Wear full tank armor except for 4 piece PvP bonus (gem/enchant those for crit) and use a fast 1H axe.

 

Nezralix

Shield Bash no longer does damage.

 

Darkrenown

Sadly, no:

 

kaellie

Sorry the fact that it wasn't doing any damage wasn't known yet when I first read about it.

And since there is only one rank now and it is learn at the 12th level, the threat bonus should very low. So we are losing a skill which could be used to generate some threat in a low rage environement

 

◊ Birdemani

According to the talent calculators, Imp Shield Bash 2/2 still gives a 10% increase to Shield Slam damage and a 3 second silence. I'm fine with bash losing the little bit of damage it did for this change.

When I get home tonight I will check to see if Bash causes a dazed effect.

 

suicuique

Pummel is also off the GCD in the latest build.
Makes interrupt duty way more managable.

 

Dooknookem

I have been playing with the talent calculators for wotlk for some time now. I'd like to know what some of you jerks think of this spec.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Heroic Strike Only adds around 30-40 DPS overall whereas Execute being used once every ~8 seconds should produce quite a bit more. The rotation would be changed in this spec. With execute being a replacement for Heroic/Cleave as a rage dump. This rotation change may be able to make up for the lack of the new talent, "Furious Resolve" (10% threat reduction)

Given you have a 35% chance to crit (not hard with axe spec!). One would have a 7% chance per swing to execute (with 2/3 sudden death). That is every 14 to 15 swings proccing Sudden Death. With Dual Wielding one-handers, on average every 5 to 9 seconds one would be able to execute again - this timing should work around BT/WW cooldown timers and allow for a smooth rotation as well as letting one build up quite a lot of rage for a nice execute. If you have 3/3 Sudden Death, you are then rolling with a 10.5% chance to proc sudden death each swing and that might be even better than bothering with Blood Thirst and whirlwind. The new fury rotation might end up being execute spamming and renewing rampage/bshout.

First post, Hi

 

Fellwraith

Why not make MS and Bloodthirst base warrior skills (with a few adjustments)? Rogues have wound poison as a base class ability, hunters get aimed shot very early in the marksmanship tree. It's not like the -healing debuff is unique to only one class. 30 rage isn't that easy to come up with when you're trying to do other things in arenas.

MS could be changed to only deal x% weapon damage with a talent in arms to increase it to 100%. You could do arenas as fury and prot, but each spec would play differently (arms would be the burst build, fury the sustained dps build, and prot the "tactical" build). All 3 instants share a common 6 second cooldown, so you really don't create issues with "too much burst" on one character type, but you add a ton of tactical options to the class in pve and pvp.


If they want to make the dps specs viable as tanks in a future beta build, they need to have hybrid talents like deathknights and feral druids have (unrelenting assault was the right direction, even if you don't overpower much in pve). Giving shieldslam to the dps specs really doesn't solve anything. The big multipliers to your block value and rage/efficiency are all sitting near the bottom of the prot tree right now. Talents need to add to tanking and dps at the same time, otherwise you're going to min/max the hell out of your spec so you can be the best tank possible or best dps possible. That's perfectly understandable, you just respec when you need to shift roles in the raid that night.

 

Lithose

Actually, yes, I would, along with CS...No reason GCD management should be taken out of PvP, it just should be even among all classes, rather then take Wars/Rogues off of it, mages should be placed back on it.

 

• Morsexy

This is a ridiculous statement. Currently our best spell interupt is RNG mace stun. I'd love to know what game you play, because I "CAST INTERUPTED" and still get sheeped\cycloned\rooted all the time.

Seeing as we're on our way to fixing that, doing this was only fair. It's not like rogues had a HUGE problem interupting with 1.0 GCD and mind numbing anyways and on demand stuns, but it makes more sense.

 

◊ Birdemani

If the previous changes were not a clue, yesterdays patch should be a huge insight to the intent of WLK. The game is changing and many of the paradigms you were used to before will be left behind. It has me excited to play the game again. Let's wait a few more beta patches before any doom/gloom starts getting spread around.

 

Shha

Back to PvE for a bit - I might have missed it, but with all the talk about offtank spec - did anyone consider just prot/fury build?

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

At lvl 70 the build lacked only flurry to be really competitive (and it actually produced better dps then MS/Slam warriors a lot of the time).

One huge drawback might be threat - you are using only "high threat" abilities with no aggro reduction. However I'm still not sure if aggro will be such huge concern. Yes we dont have salvation, but there is no real values for threat known yet or high end itemization. If anything people i know that play beta say aggro is not an issue at all - that and we get some other aggro reducing skills.

On the plus side

- White damage with this build is among highest possible - 1h spec generally offsets Rampage+Imp zerker at 70 (it comes very slightly behind, but without rage /gcd cost of keeping rampage up). Vitality and 10% str seems to offset TG extra stats. With 20% slow with TG the 3% + hit and 10% more OH damage doesnt seem all that meaningful as well. Overall the melee damage is comparable.

- Devastate as being spammable at 70 at least is BETTER then fury instants. In a 126 second period (shortest to fit both cycles exactly) fury does 21xBT , 14x WW vs 12xWW,72xDevastate. Devastate deals (0.5xbase average weapon damage + 0.086xAP + 315 damage)*1.1. BT deals 0.45xAP. Comparing 3 Devastates (27 rage) to BT (30) leaves us with

1.65xbasedamage+0.283xAP+1040.
vs
0.45xAP

Assuming 150 dps 1handers with 2.6 speed (a total guess but seems pretty ok to me)

1722 damage
vs
0.167xAP

So 63 Devastates will outdamage 21 BT unless we will have over 10k AP. Which leaves yellow damage comparison with 9 Devastates vs 2 WW. Its pretty clear instants do more damage with prot build. Assuming Bloodsurge the 21 BT can proc 8-9 Slams. Even with this in mind protection should pull ahead.

There are obviously some drawbacks, but frankly this build seems somewhat comparable. Good enough to really consider it as something more then just a novelty build. Dps comparable to pure dps specs, and tanking skills really "ok". Aggro is the only concern, but as I said - It might not be as bad as people picture it. You will also have safeguard for someone to reduce their threat, or maybe give tank the dodge on some harder parts of fights.

 

• landsoul

Well, I assure you heroic strike is doing multiple times what you think in damage, and even more when improving your swing stream's efficiency. This is especially true at end-game levels. Execute has a 125% threat modifier also. Compare Heroic strikes 50-90% of main hand swings (depending on gear) versus hitting execute in between more powerful and rege efficient abilities.

What you say may be true if you were wearing blues or not raiding.

 

Shha

While I agree with you landsoul that Heroic strike does a lot more then 30-40dps, I also think executes definitely outperform it in DPR/DPS. Threat as I said above - until we know some hard data on the new ranks/skills, its hard to have a meaningful opinion.

 

Lithose

Why is it ridiculous to have to anticipate when to use a potentially devastating move like an interrupt?

Oh no, you have to stop beating the piss out of a healer to interrupt him?

Being able to actively manage your GCD when crucial interrupts were needed was an important part of PvP and it should be an important part for every class given how debilitating interrupts are. Now, the spell que made it worse, yes, that should be corrected, but it shouldn't be mindless.

Just because you think its ridiculous, doesn't mean everyone does, especially casters.

This is true, but nothing indicates spell locks will be any less extreme then they are now...I don't actively relish playing my paladin with 3 classes now being able to use a non-GCD interrupt that they can land even if I actively fake. Avoiding fake outs was another small meta-skill in arena, while I'm happy this is gone for PvE, I'm not thrilled about it for PvP unless schools are made more diverse in beta (There was a rumor that spell lock only works for that spell, but it was false, I believe)..Certain classes are just too susceptible to spell lock in comparison to others.

For example, locking a priest with PoM/Renew/Shield still up on the kill target is not a devastating as locking a shaman who has no passive healing on his kill target..Even with the new talents, this doesn't change.

I'm not spreading doom and gloom, I'm just of the opinion that the changes thus far haven't warranted more "Counter spells" in the game.

 

◊ Birdemani

Just an FYI on two things.
1) DK's have quite a few interrupts, two of them are ranged. So there are more of them in the game.
2) An active fake cast continues the GCD on beta right now. See: GCDBUG.wmv - FileFront.com as discovered on Radikal Noise

Thus, it's too hard to tell exactly where they are going with all of this and PvP balance cannot be currently tested on beta due to a dozen or so bugs and a list of NYI spells/items.