WotLK talent Preview/Discussion - Page 29

Gruntle · 08/05/08, 11:29 AM

Of course, I missed reallocating those points, thanks for pointing it out.

Hisstok · 08/05/08, 11:43 AM

Originally Posted by Shha

- Follow with just a sequence of BT SLAM WW SLAM BT SLAM

Thats a pretty good point, I don't think anyone modeled a DW slam build exploiting the "really slow" TG speed.
It would require some pretty specific gearing to get the offhand swing to go off right at the cooldown so you dont waste swings, it might be beneficial to add a "little bit" more haste just to take into account variable latiency. so you dont end up cutting off the OH swing

Gellor · 08/05/08, 12:40 PM

Originally Posted by Shha

- Get your hasted weapon speed just below 2.5. Using lets say Apolyon at 3.4 base it means 3.4 x 1.2(TG) / 1.24(wf) / 1.25(Flurry) = 2.63 before haste. So roughly 84 haste rating gets you there at 70 , or if you have more you drop TG points.

Fairly sure WF totem is now 16% haste untalented and 20% with talents. So it becomes 3.4 x 1.2(TG) / 1.2 (WF) / 1.25 Flurry) = 2.72

◊ Lord BEEF · 08/05/08, 1:01 PM

Has anyone tested how mangle and trauma stack? Assuming they do of course.

Viscera · 08/05/08, 1:14 PM

There's a post on the beta forums where it is said that they do stack

WoW Forums -> [Testing] - Trauma

Shha · 08/05/08, 2:27 PM

Originally Posted by Gellor

Fairly sure WF totem is now 16% haste untalented and 20% with talents. So it becomes 3.4 x 1.2(TG) / 1.2 (WF) / 1.25 Flurry) = 2.72

Good point, so actually amount of haste needed would be (using lvl 80 coefficients in () and lvl 70 without)

                           5/5 TG                4/5 TG                      3/5TG
3.8 speed:                340(707)              372(774)                    404(850)
3.7 speed:                290(603)              321(670)                    352(745)
3.6 speed:                240(500)              270(567)                    300(640)                     
3.5 speed:                190(396)              219(463)                    248(535)
3.4 speed:                140(292)              168(360)                    196(430)
3.3 speed:                 90(188)              117(256)                    144(335)

I guess it makes faster weapons preferable and a spec comparable to :
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

With the possible switching axe spec/precision to threat reduction (should it be necessary), and if you have faster weapons/more haste, to switch some points from TG to axe spec (or sword of course).

◊ Lord BEEF · 08/05/08, 2:44 PM

Originally Posted by Viscera

There's a post on the beta forums where it is said that they do stack

WoW Forums -> [Testing] - Trauma

That appears to be multiplicative, for a total of 69% increased damage on bleeds. That's pretty huge.

◊ Birdemani · 08/05/08, 2:56 PM

Originally Posted by Lord BEEF

That appears to be multiplicative, for a total of 69% increased damage on bleeds. That's pretty huge.

That's been partially the source of all the tears across every warrior forum. BF/Trauma is too big of a rDPS increase to ever allow your only dps warrior to spec into Fury/Titan Grip. That most recent blue post gives us some hope at least.

madpeon · 08/05/08, 5:38 PM

Ghostcrawler posted not too long ago assuring warriors more changes are coming:

WoW Forums -> Hey blue

We're working on it. Don't worry.

Seriously though, it's easier for to focus on only a couple of classes at a time. We find that way we are more in sync on the direction of the class and its problems. We don't work in an environment where each person goes to their desk, throws in the talents for one class, and then we pour them all into the game. A lot of the time it's 10% actual talent implementation and 90% brainstorming and discussion.

Mages recently got a fair amount of attention and death knights always do, just because they have the most catching up to do to the years of analysis and design that's been done on the other classes.

We'll get back to warriors soon.

But even then, you're more likely to see ability changes than number adjusting. We need to feel like the abilities have a chance of working out before we go into the mode of comparing everyone's dps and threat and survival in a variety of situations. The encounter design and item design need to be at that level too. We're still debating things like encounters and raid stacking will work. Think about all the changes: many stats are universal now (meaning melee hit and spell hit are the same as far as items are concerned), most buffs affect the entire raid, we're trying to offer fewer very specialized items as random drops, etc. etc. It ends up being a lot of changes all with ramifications for every class.

Warriors shouldn't worry.

Frederic · 08/05/08, 9:48 PM

I have a question for people trying to put together a hypothetical TG slam cycle: why are you starting with the assumption that BT is going to be your primary attack?

The way I see it, whirlwind becomes a far harder hitting attack with TG, so why not spec two points into it, and go for a four second rotation (including slam time), resulting with you alternating between slam and BT every attack. It has the distinct advantage of not requiring flurry or enrage at all, as any haste beyond windfury is liable to mess up the rotation down the road.

Of course, without the need for flurry the need for crit rating is gone, and the cycle will be much more managable when you are not constantly gaining/losing haste. Which frees you up to get as much hit and expertise as a TG build would require for a sustainable cycle.

nfw · 08/05/08, 10:05 PM

When talking about arcane shot, they admitted it's a mistake to make a dispel also do damage. Nerf bat to shield slam incoming?

Zaroua · 08/05/08, 10:26 PM

Originally Posted by nfw

When talking about arcane shot, they admitted it's a mistake to make a dispel also do damage. Nerf bat to shield slam incoming?

Doubt it, putting on a shield and going back to your 2hander takes 2GCDs. It's melee range and it kills the Warrior's DPS to use it. It's also physical, so it doesn't bypass damage reduction. And using it means an increased risk of losing the MS debuff.

AmPriS · 08/05/08, 10:31 PM

People have been talking about reasons why people will still not spec deep into the arms tree but no one has brought up that some of the bleed effects are going to do 4x the damage to enraged targets. How does that play into it?

nfw · 08/06/08, 12:48 AM

Until we know how common enrage affect is, we can't really say for sure.

Gruntle · 08/06/08, 2:23 AM

Originally Posted by Frederic

I have a question for people trying to put together a hypothetical TG slam cycle: why are you starting with the assumption that BT is going to be your primary attack?

The way I see it, whirlwind becomes a far harder hitting attack with TG, so why not spec two points into it, and go for a four second rotation (including slam time), resulting with you alternating between slam and BT every attack. It has the distinct advantage of not requiring flurry or enrage at all, as any haste beyond windfury is liable to mess up the rotation down the road.

Of course, without the need for flurry the need for crit rating is gone, and the cycle will be much more managable when you are not constantly gaining/losing haste. Which frees you up to get as much hit and expertise as a TG build would require for a sustainable cycle.

You're right in that WW will hit the hardest and it may very well be that a cycle based on giving priority to WW will be the best possible one. But a BT-WW cycle (with slam) without flurry will very likely not be better than a cycle of the type Shha is suggesting. Flurry is a very good talent/effect on it self, you cannot just assume that it does nothing for dps. Flurry with dual 2-handers will also likely be up very close to 100% of the time, no need to worry about gaining and losing haste from that (DST would be more problematic).

mistersix · 08/06/08, 3:06 AM

Originally Posted by Fellwraith

The only material change (I'm aware of) if 3.0 went live tomorrow is how shieldblock functions. You've gained scalars on abilities that previously had none. Unless they're making a big change to the baseline damage or threat for most abilities you shouldn't be any worse off (thunderclap's damage is unchanged thus far, which is a good sign). Admittedly, you aren't gaining much of anything from the added scaling, but you aren't at a disadvantage vs where you are today (T5 tanking gear might actually be better than some pieces of T6 for early Lichking content).

But wouldn't there be a relative disadvantage given everyone else's increased dps and tps? There are comments on the official warrior beta forums and even in this thread about people tanking in arena/dps gear because of the str itemization and their subpar threat-gen in t6 gear. I'm just not sure how viable that is given the lack of avoidance on it (even given how easy the instances seem to be in their current tuning).

That's got me looking at current ingame gear that does have a respectable balance of str and def. Items like:

Plate Armor - Items - World of Warcraft

head [Eternium Greathelm], [Destroyer Greathelm], [Onslaught Greathelm], [Warbringer Greathelm]
feet [Eaglecrest Warboots], [Battlescar Boots]
waist [Lion's Heart Girdle], [Crimson Girdle of the Indomitable]
shoulders [Spaulders of Dementia], [Mantle of Abrahmis], [Warbringer Shoulderguards], [Destroyer Shoulderguards]
legs [Warbringer Legguards], [Wrynn Dynasty Greaves], [Destroyer Legguards]
wrist [Amber Bands of the Aggressor]
hands [Gauntlets of Dissension], [Onslaught Handguards], [Warbringer Handguards], [Destroyer Handguards]
chest [Destroyer Chestguard], [Warbringer Chestguard]

Compared to my usual threat rig (I'm in mid BT) that's less bv even with the new conversions but well over 300 more ap which has to count for something right?

Shha · 08/06/08, 8:21 AM

Originally Posted by Frederic

I have a question for people trying to put together a hypothetical TG slam cycle: why are you starting with the assumption that BT is going to be your primary attack?

The way I see it, whirlwind becomes a far harder hitting attack with TG, so why not spec two points into it, and go for a four second rotation (including slam time), resulting with you alternating between slam and BT every attack. It has the distinct advantage of not requiring flurry or enrage at all, as any haste beyond windfury is liable to mess up the rotation down the road.

Of course, without the need for flurry the need for crit rating is gone, and the cycle will be much more managable when you are not constantly gaining/losing haste. Which frees you up to get as much hit and expertise as a TG build would require for a sustainable cycle.

What you are proposing is basically a :

BT-Slam-WW-Slam rotation over 8 seconds - with a really slow swing time (no flurry). The lowest timespan to cover both cycles is 48 seconds.

12 sec Cycle - over 48 seconds you have 16 swings, 16 slams, 8 BT, 4 WW + time for instants like shout etc
8 sec cycle - over 48 seconds you have 12 swings 12 slams 6 BT 6 WW.

- You gain 2 WW over 48 seconds, while losing 2 BT (so far so good), but also 4 swings + 4 slams (with every swing being equal to full WW damage anyway).

The raw dps is obviously much lower with 8 seconds cycle , so lets see what we could gain in terms of management.

- Rage will be in fact harder to get. With 12 seconds cycle you need to support 4 slams 2 BT 1 WW (145 rage), with 4 autoattacks. Its a bit harder initially then current arms, probably better with more gear.

- The rage generation with 8 cycle is in fact less smooth due to longer swing time.

- Its harder to fit in instants because of incompatibility of 8 sec with GCD length. Any time you do battle/demo/rampage, you are forced to lose a BT or WW damage.

- You do gain 3 talent points (2 used for WW , 5 gained from dropping flurry). Thats the only real gain for me.

I'd also like to point out WHY its easy to use 12 seconds rotation. its because you dont have ANY timers to look. You just use skills on gcd, you dont really need quartz etc. It works even now - try speccing into 1x2h with deep fury - its really easy to play. Reason why 12 sec rotation is usually doing poor damage atm (on paper its comparable to dw fury), is simple - using it NOW, makes you clip every single WF attack/SS (if you go with 28/33/0). Thats the actually *bug* that makes it bad now, but its completely fixed in wotlk (you dont use SS, and wf is just haste).

Frederic · 08/06/08, 9:00 AM

Originally Posted by Gruntle

Flurry is a very good talent/effect on it self, you cannot just assume that it does nothing for dps. Flurry with dual 2-handers will also likely be up very close to 100% of the time, no need to worry about gaining and losing haste from that (DST would be more problematic).

Approximately 8% of total damage assuming a 40% white damage base-line and assume a +/- ~1% variance to account for heroic strike, which is really just an upgraded white attack. I factor this because heroic strike is a large part of current builds and thus is integral into that 40% figure, though most meters group it under a seperate attack that I've seen, I do not expect it to be used in a slam rotation (although it would be pretty sexy if we had the rage to Slam -> HS -> Instant the entire fight, especially with Incite).

Anyways with flurry being a 8-10% boost at most for ten points it really doesn't measure up in terms of DPS until you factor rage generation as a byproduct of flurry. Considering that slam builds are built around the concept of generating enough rage swing per swing to maintain a slam cast and a portion of an instant Flurry may be an increase in RPS, but in practise it only effectively tightens the timings on your slam rotation at the same time it decreases the time between rage gains of equal value to the un-flurried gain.

Flurry is not going to be an appreciable DPS gain, what will be appreciable is the increased number of slams and instants, but how they perform is reliant upon their damage in 80 gear against boss mobs, which is unknown at the moment.

I see three potential rotations:

12s w/ BT primary:..Swing + Slam -> BT -> Swing + Slam -> WW -> Swing + Slam -> Empty -> Swing + Slam -> BT
12s w/ WW primary: Swing + Slam -> WW -> Swing + Slam -> BT -> Swing + Slam -> Empty -> Swing + Slam -> WW
16s w/ WW primary: Swing + Slam -> WW -> Swing + Slam -> BT -> Swing + Slam -> WW -> Swing + Slam -> BT

Shha · 08/06/08, 10:01 AM

1) Not sure where this 8% figure came from. Flurry upgrades speed by 25% (and realistically its over 99% uptime with 2h/slam rotation). There is a reason why people spend the points now to get it, instead of lets say getting more in imp disciplines etc.

2) 25% speed upgrade works on both white swings AND slams. Slams dont cast faster, but since their use is directly tied to how often you swing, Slam and White damage go hand in hand. So assuming a weapon with 3.125 speed unflurried (for ease of calculation), the swing-> slam rotation unflurried takes 3.625 sec instead of 6 - so flurry increases slam/white damage by 21%. White + Slam easily contribute to 75% of warrior damage. Flurry is easily 15% increase with this in mind not 8-10.

3) Rage generation is indeed better with flurry. You do slam faster (which does increase the rage needed), but all you need to do is look at rage generation in a different way. Each swing+slam produces some "surplus rage". Without flurry you have 2 swing/slam surpluses to fuel WW and BT. With flurry you have 4 swing/slam surpluses to fuel 1 WW 2xBT and possibly an extra skill (10-20 rage). Its not a huge bonus, but you get a bit more rage with flurry.

To end what I said before - 12 sec rotation is 145 rage to be gained from 4 swings - so averaging 36 rage from MH+OH swing.

8 sec rotation is BT+WW+2slams =85 rage to be gained from 4 swings - averaging 42 rage from MH+OH swing.

Flurry is not going to be an appreciable DPS gain, what will be appreciable is the increased number of slams and instants,

Well , your rotation doesnt give any more slams and instants. Your rotation gives 4 slams less, 2 BT less, 2 WW more over 48 second period, on top of reduced white damage. I can understand WW might be best attack at 8 with TG, but is 1 WW really better then TWO slams and BT?

12s w/ WW primary: Swing + Slam -> WW -> Swing + Slam -> BT -> Swing + Slam -> Empty -> Swing + Slam -> WW

Thats not a cycle even, since after final WW you will have to wait 4 seconds before "looping" it.

16s w/ WW primary: Swing + Slam -> WW -> Swing + Slam -> BT -> Swing + Slam -> WW -> Swing + Slam -> BT

Thats just doubled 8 sec cycle - not sure why post it again.

On a side note - lets compare scaling of attacks at 80.

ABWD = average base weapon damage.
WS

Slam :

Weapon damage +250.

or

AWBD + AP/14*WS+250.

WW

Weapon damage (normalized)

(AWBD+AP/14*3.4)*162.5% (dw spec). 1.625xAWBD+ AP*0.395

BT

AP*0.45

Lets assume a 200 dps 2h@3.5 speed :

Slam= 970+AP*.25
WW = 1170+AP*.395
BT= AP*45
MS(for comparative reasons - doesnt include weapon/2h spec)= 0.243xAP+1100.

WW obviously scales faster then Slam/MS, and while it scales slower then BT, it would take almost 21000 attack power for BT to pull ahead.

Comparing rotations:

12sec - over 48 seconds 16 slams 8 BT 4 WW = 15,520 + AP*4 (Slams) + AP*3.6 (BT) +AP*1.58+4,680 = 20,020+9.18xAP

8 seconds - over 48 seconds 12 Slams 6 BT 6 WW = 11,640+AP*3 (Slams)+AP*2.7*(BT)+AP*2.37+7,020=

18,660+8.07xAP.

8 Second rotation has less damage regardless of AP, and scales slower, giving at least 10% less Instant/Slam damage (assuming that 200dps 2h, but the variations arent all that big). It also suffers from more rage problems (around 15% less rage generated/used). Finally it produces around 21% less white damage. All in all we are looking at AT LEAST 15% dps loss , vs gain of 10 talents.
You go from:

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

In short - gaining 3% hit, and imp execute, over 15% lower dps rotation. Doesnt strike me as too useful honestly;/. Besides you can get the 3% hit easily by dropping some arms talents, therefore if you think hit is going to be paramount with TG, you can "exchange" 2% damage, 1% crit for 3% hit. THAT definitely doesnt come close to 15% damage

.

Gruntle · 08/06/08, 10:24 AM

Originally Posted by Frederic

Approximately 8% of total damage assuming a 40% white damage base-line and assume a +/- ~1% variance to account for heroic strike, which is really just an upgraded white attack. I factor this because heroic strike is a large part of current builds and thus is integral into that 40% figure, though most meters group it under a seperate attack that I've seen, I do not expect it to be used in a slam rotation (although it would be pretty sexy if we had the rage to Slam -> HS -> Instant the entire fight, especially with Incite).

Anyways with flurry being a 8-10% boost at most for ten points it really doesn't measure up in terms of DPS until you factor rage generation as a byproduct of flurry. Considering that slam builds are built around the concept of generating enough rage swing per swing to maintain a slam cast and a portion of an instant Flurry may be an increase in RPS, but in practise it only effectively tightens the timings on your slam rotation at the same time it decreases the time between rage gains of equal value to the un-flurried gain.

Flurry is not going to be an appreciable DPS gain, what will be appreciable is the increased number of slams and instants, but how they perform is reliant upon their damage in 80 gear against boss mobs, which is unknown at the moment.

I see three potential rotations:

12s w/ BT primary:..Swing + Slam -> BT -> Swing + Slam -> WW -> Swing + Slam -> Empty -> Swing + Slam -> BT
12s w/ WW primary: Swing + Slam -> WW -> Swing + Slam -> BT -> Swing + Slam -> Empty -> Swing + Slam -> WW
16s w/ WW primary: Swing + Slam -> WW -> Swing + Slam -> BT -> Swing + Slam -> WW -> Swing + Slam -> BT

Shha already pointed out most things that I disagree with in your post.

You cannot say that the 10 points in Flurry will be wasted, there is nothing else in the fury tree that will give you a buff of even 8% in damage. You need to take 50 points in fury to max out TG, so what are you going to spend the points on if you're not getting Flurry? Imp. Cleave and Blood Craze?

Also, Heroic strike will be awful with TG (at least in the beginning of wotlk, maybe rage will scale up to give a situation like end of tbc in time). Heroic Strike has a rage cost of about 30-40 when you use a 2-hander, that makes the damage per rage very low (in fact, so low that battle stance+rend will beat it easily). You will already have problems with rage management, trying to use HS will make it completely impossible.

edit: Sat down and went through the cycle proposed by Shha, using dual ~2.5 sec (after all haste effects) weapons and this type of cycle looks extremely promising in my opinion. The beauty of it is that you can spec out of TG as you get more haste items, making it possible to get more other talents. Bloodsurge might not be worth it if you're doing regular slam cycles anyway with Imp Slam, but it might be viable for regular BT/WW cycles.

◊ Birdemani · 08/06/08, 10:59 AM

Originally Posted by nfw

Until we know how common enrage affect is, we can't really say for sure.

Not sure if it's been mentioned in this thread, but it looks like with the current build that both bloodrage and zerker rage are classified as enrage effects.

Ribs · 08/06/08, 11:06 AM

Dont think I've seen this mentioned, but if we look at the DKs parry equivalent talent and assume Blizz wants to have DK at least as much parry (5%) as the other tanking and more when better geared, we can conclude a base str value for early raiding.

Seeing as Whitetooth already posted combat ratings for parry at 80 to be a 49.18498611 one can conclude that you'd need at least 220,92 from 1/5 str. Which means most DK's will no doubt start with about 1105 strength.

If these assumptions are correct a warrior tank should be able to get about 500 extra for their blocks in early raiding content.

All general assumptions, but I do believe they dont want to see DK's starting with less than 5% parry as tanks and I think a 1100 str isnt a strange assumption seeing as Blizz seems set on making strength a tanking stat.

mistersix · 08/06/08, 11:47 AM

I've searched within this thread for ideal tanking threat rotations and I haven't found much in the way of a specific cycle. While sword and board does amount to spikier RNG burst threat posts from Serennia on the official beta warrior forums suggest that it can proc off of itself and that it procs often enough to not be as spiky as we might all think. If that's true and not just "feel good touchy feely vibes" then does that mean the best threat rotation for someone with s&b will be slam > deva > deva > rev?

Gellor · 08/06/08, 12:29 PM

I was thinking about warrior viability at AoE tanking. I remember back in pre TBC and before they nerfed it, that warriors could AoE tank all the adds on Nefarion by spamming BS and buffing the people in their party.

Obviously with regards to tanking they could look at Demo shout rather than BS, maybe increase its threat and not have the threat split amongst the targets it hit, but apply equally to all. You could also have Imp demo shout increase its threat gen as well as the AP debuff.

The extra theat generated by Demo Shout wouldn't be to bad for any dps warrior laying it down for a tank on a raid environment. Thoughts?

• landsoul · 08/06/08, 12:37 PM

Originally Posted by Shha

Well I was under impression it used your OH damage.

Critting with offhand uses main hand range to calculate the damage. I tested this out many months ago.

Also, depending if TG users are using heroic strike or not, I predict hit rating will increase a lot in value so precision will be a pretty useful pickup. Blizzard did mention that they want each class's tree to feel "bloated" in which you want everything in the tree but cannot get it because you have to make decisions instead of following a linear, static path.