Elitist Jerks
Register
Blogs
Forums


Go Back   Elitist Jerks » Class Mechanics » Warriors

Closed Thread
 
LinkBack Thread Tools
Old 07/01/08, 12:26 PM   #31
Onyki
Von Kaiser
 
Dwarf Warrior
 
Hyjal (EU)
Crush are gone but does someone know if Blizzard wants to add new similar mechanics?

Offline
Old 07/01/08, 12:29 PM   #32
Nite_Moogle
I prefer the term treasure hunting
 
Nite_Moogle's Avatar
 
Orc Death Knight
 
Mal'Ganis
It's highly doubtful, they've acknowledged that crushings are a very problematic mechanic for players to work against and introduce a lot of random tank deaths that would be otherwise preventable. Crushings and anything like them are more than likely gone forever.

United States Offline
Old 07/01/08, 12:48 PM   #33
Insidious
Glass Joe
 
Draenei Shaman
 
Windrunner
In addition to what was said about the 2h weaps having far more stats than the 1h'ers, the addition of a WF proc to Titan's grip could be devastating. And if totems help raid wide? Sure they will help all melee, but the slow 2h weaps with high damage, procting wf? I'm not sure of the math, but it sounds sick.

Offline
Old 07/01/08, 1:15 PM   #34
PsyBomb
Don Flamenco
 
Tauren Shaman
 
Aerie Peak
Almost forgot that WF totem is becoming a buff rather than a weapon pulse, so it enables the use of weight/sharpening stones for us. Actually, thinking about it, that favors quicker weapons overall, but not by a spectacular amount.

To teach and to learn, to laugh and make others laugh. This is my purpose, and any day in which I don't wasn't worth the time it took to get through.

Offline
Old 07/01/08, 1:26 PM   #35
Machiavelli1780
Glass Joe
 
Night Elf Warrior
 
Arathor
Agree/Disagree: 1 two-handed weapon is no longer a valid PVE spec in WOTLK.

Despite waiting for other details to be fleshed out in testing, it seems that all the best PVE combinations involve dual-wielding. The previous point of Arms PVE was to gain blood frenzy. It was to benefit the raid while finding an alternative source for dps in getting improved slam and 3/5 flurry. Now with enough points to be able to go to 5/5 flurry bloodthirst and possible improved berserker, I don't see any possible PVE reason to wield a single two-hander. It would seem that the viable combinations will either be 2 one-handed weapons going into arms blood frenzy, or 2 two-handed weapons deep into fury with Titan's grip.

Offline
Old 07/01/08, 1:38 PM   #36
Ashlan
Glass Joe
 
Dwarf Warrior
 
Nozdormu (EU)
I'm looking at the new blocking-stuff:

# Improved Shield Block - Reduces the cooldown of your Shield Block ability by 5/10 sec.
# Shield Block - Increases your chance to block and the amount blocked by 100% for 5 sec, but will only block 1 attack. 30 sec cooldown.
# Shield Mastery - Increases the amount of damage absorbed by your shield by 10/20/30%.
# Critical Block - Your successful blocks have a 10/20/30% chance to block double the normal amount.

So if I skill Shield Mastery and Critical Block, I get a medium final BV of about: BV*1.3*1.3 = BV*1.69. That's nice, very nice!

Shield Block itself ... well, a guaranteed block each 20secs of the amount BV*1.69*2 = BV*3.38. What could be the intention behind this? Some kind of a mini-last-stand (BV*3.38 .. this will only be half of a raid-boss' hit at 80, or even much less)? So, will Shield Block become useless? Or is there any information floating around, that BV will go up very much?

Offline
Old 07/01/08, 1:40 PM   #37
PSGarak
Bald Bull
 
PSGarak's Avatar
 
Undead Warlock
 
Hyjal
I would agree that there is likely no situation where 1x2H is optimal, although whether it's inviable or not is uncertain. I would guess it might still be competetive at lower gear levels, before DW or 2x2H starts to realize its better AP and hit scaling, sorta similar to how affliction was still good in early TBC.


There is absolutely no solid evidence to back them up, but I wouldn't be too surprised to see some easing up on the requirements to become crit-immune. It falls in line with the removal of crushing blows, and the movement towards more transparent mechanics than the magic number of 490, and would be a consistent alternate explanation of the change of Anticipation. I wouldn't even put the removal of Defense Skill altogether beyond the realm of possibility, although again I have no supporting evidence whatsoever and no idea how else they would have you remove crits. This would also mean that the feral druid -crit% talent is purely a PvP toy.


Offline
Old 07/01/08, 2:21 PM   #38
Fellwraith
It'll take a lot more than rage and muscle...
 
Fellwraith's Avatar
 
Mulack
Orc Warrior
 
No WoW Account
Originally Posted by PSGarak View Post
I would agree that there is likely no situation where 1x2H is optimal, although whether it's inviable or not is uncertain. I would guess it might still be competetive at lower gear levels, before DW or 2x2H starts to realize its better AP and hit scaling, sorta similar to how affliction was still good in early TBC.
I'm not so sure about that. You need a lot of hit rating and crit rating to make 2x2h viable. The rage generation with it is going to be very spikey, making it considerably more difficult to play well. How much does it cost you to make TG work properly and could those stats have been spent on more crit, ap, or expertise? Bloodfrenzy and trauma's value will depend on how much the rest of the raid scales. By the look of things, the new arm's builds have a lot of raid utility that the TG build doesn't get (stronger offtanks, other situational abilities).

I also think crit is a bigger deal than haste for a TG build. You get the instant slams, increased flurry uptime and better returns from impale/deep wounds. Similar to how MS/slam doesn't usually want to go below a ~2.5 adjusted swing speed, you'll have target numbers for a TG build that you don't want your MH to go below (factoring in 5/5 Flurry). I don't think you'd ever see a TG build using heroic strike like you might see with a bloodfrenzy build today.

A lot of the item budget in those 2h weapons in TBC is put into stamina. That doesn't do a whole heck of a lot for your dps.


Separately, I think it would make a lot of sense for them to adjust the str to block value conversion rate for warriors and prot paladins. It allows them to simplify tanking plate drops and it also benefits your other tanking abilities as they scale with AP.

United States Online
Old 07/01/08, 2:28 PM   #39
Nite_Moogle
I prefer the term treasure hunting
 
Nite_Moogle's Avatar
 
Orc Death Knight
 
Mal'Ganis
Originally Posted by Machiavelli1780 View Post
Agree/Disagree: 1 two-handed weapon is no longer a valid PVE spec in WOTLK.

Despite waiting for other details to be fleshed out in testing, it seems that all the best PVE combinations involve dual-wielding. The previous point of Arms PVE was to gain blood frenzy. It was to benefit the raid while finding an alternative source for dps in getting improved slam and 3/5 flurry. Now with enough points to be able to go to 5/5 flurry bloodthirst and possible improved berserker, I don't see any possible PVE reason to wield a single two-hander. It would seem that the viable combinations will either be 2 one-handed weapons going into arms blood frenzy, or 2 two-handed weapons deep into fury with Titan's grip.
The way things stand now the strongest build is probably deep fury that skips Titan Grip, but I would be pretty surprised if arms is completely uncompetitive when it's all said and done. Strength of Arms is a little underpowered and Bull Rush is incredibly stupid, but it wouldn't take much adjustment to make the tree appealing, and it's going to be quite good for offtanks the way it is. Remember that picking up Trauma is going to improve all bleeds by 30% which will make Feral druids extra happy and if Bloodbath and Hemo and possibly hunter pets see some improvement the raid-wide synergy is going to be fairly substantial, even in a 10 man. It all hinges on what happens with Slam.

Going deep enough for blood frenzy with a primarily fury build is actually pretty terrible as you dump a large number of wasted points in to the arms tree to get that deep (going from 17 to 33 with only 6-8 points that are really any good), but a 26/x/x weapon spec/fury build is likely going to be very good.

United States Offline
Old 07/01/08, 3:56 PM   #40
Machiavelli1780
Glass Joe
 
Night Elf Warrior
 
Arathor
Originally Posted by Nite_Moogle View Post

Going deep enough for blood frenzy with a primarily fury build is actually pretty terrible as you dump a large number of wasted points in to the arms tree to get that deep (going from 17 to 33 with only 6-8 points that are really any good), but a 26/x/x weapon spec/fury build is likely going to be very good.

Initial Foundation considerations:

1)Obtaining Blood Frenzy for Raid DPS benefit
2) If using 2 1h'ers, they would be both be respectively axes or swords for the appropriate specialization

Question then is: Would a 2h spec do better dps or would 2 1H'ers spec do better dps? Not overall best warrior dps, but best Blood frenzy DPS.

My thinking remains the 2 1h'ers:

A) The only talent I see in the arms tree progression that benefits 2H'ers and NOT 1H'ers is two-handed weapon specialization.
B) Sudden death would seem to benefit the rage regeneration/refresh capability of 2 1h'ers. Execute is not that great to work into a rotation using 1 2h'er
C) Being able to get 5/5 dual wield specialization is a nice boost and something that is not currently available
D) In BC currently, Fury DPS beats Arms DPS (single targets anyway). Given the requirement of this query again for Blood Frenzy, the 10 points available to add into Fury would seem to benefit dual wielding rather than 1 2h'er.

Something like this: Yarr! Tools :: Warrior 8472

Offline
Old 07/01/08, 5:13 PM   #41
Darmon
Von Kaiser
 
Human Death Knight
 
Stormreaver (EU)
Originally Posted by Ashlan View Post
I'm looking at the new blocking-stuff:

# Improved Shield Block - Reduces the cooldown of your Shield Block ability by 5/10 sec.
# Shield Block - Increases your chance to block and the amount blocked by 100% for 5 sec, but will only block 1 attack. 30 sec cooldown.
# Shield Mastery - Increases the amount of damage absorbed by your shield by 10/20/30%.
# Critical Block - Your successful blocks have a 10/20/30% chance to block double the normal amount.

So if I skill Shield Mastery and Critical Block, I get a medium final BV of about: BV*1.3*1.3 = BV*1.69. That's nice, very nice!

Shield Block itself ... well, a guaranteed block each 20secs of the amount BV*1.69*2 = BV*3.38. What could be the intention behind this? Some kind of a mini-last-stand (BV*3.38 .. this will only be half of a raid-boss' hit at 80, or even much less)? So, will Shield Block become useless? Or is there any information floating around, that BV will go up very much?
A protection warrior is first and foremost Raid Main Tank. 5 man tank, 10 man tank are diluted version of raid MT.

In this context, i found the new shield block mechanic quite useless. Take a current end-game boss. Hits 7k each 2.5 sec. Does it matter you block 1/2 of his attack each 20 sec?

I see the new talents as watering down evn more the Raid MT role. Shield Break? does anyone see this as a good tool versus a boss? Sure it is a tool, but it's an unsharpened tool.

Loosing 6 expertise, gaining 15% crit to HS/TC/Cleave. There is a lot of expertise in game atm, the newest tank gear comes with loads of it, and probably will keep it so in expansion. This seems a good trade off, but considering position in talent tree, is an easy accesible talent for any warrior.

Imp Revenge with 25% more dmg. Revenge it's a skill that does not scale with anything. Would be usefull if revenge would scale with something. Maybe a filler if there are spare talent points (doubt that).

Imp Disarm. 10% more dmg taken by target. Unless they change bosses to be disarmable, it's of no use in raid.

Vigilance, replacing Shield Slam. That talent seems at same time very good and very bad. But in raid you can put it on OT, and that's all. 5% dodge to 1 person. i find it really bad.

Rage from dodge/parry. Everything is better than nothing

Safeguard. When tanking, intervene/intercept are used when something went bad. And in a raid if something went bad, then it's a half wipe. I can't see it's use in raid enviroment, except for encounters tailored for it. It's more a pvp talent thrown in the mix to apease those who consider protection a viable and competitive build in pvp area.

Sword and board. 10% of free SSlam. no ideea really. looks good, but i like things with as little random factor as possible. I stole this from someone else: The tank is the bringer of order into chaos. I tend to plan ahead next 1-2 skills to use in the rotation, prioritizing some, skipping others. S&B procs, i have 1 free SSlam. I'll probably use it, skiping a skill in regular rotation. An ideea would be to take the extra SSlam off the GCD.

Shockwave. I personally don't think it will be the new alpha and omega of prot warriors, we'll have to wait and see how it performs in raid enviroment.

Will have to wait for beta and NDA lift, to find out more. I just hope it won't be another situation as at TBC begin. After TBC release , fixing rage generation problems, devastate changed to add sunder effect, TC in def stance are just a few changes that come to mind and which for me made a huge impact in prot warrior gameplay and performances.

Offline
Old 07/01/08, 5:44 PM   #42
Steveharris
Von Kaiser
 
Steveharris's Avatar
 
Human Warrior
 
Malygos
Originally Posted by Darmon View Post

Imp Revenge with 25% more dmg. Revenge it's a skill that does not scale with anything. Would be usefull if revenge would scale with something. Maybe a filler if there are spare talent points (doubt that).

Safeguard. When tanking, intervene/intercept are used when something went bad. And in a raid if something went bad, then it's a half wipe. I can't see it's use in raid enviroment, except for encounters tailored for it. It's more a pvp talent thrown in the mix to apease those who consider protection a viable and competitive build in pvp area.
I think Imp Revenge's scaling is the talent; 25% more damage could equal 25% more threat? Safeguard could be very useful when the tank needs a bit of a mitigation buffer. Have the OT intervene the MT on a pull, and your MT eats a few hits at an extra -20% dmg.

Offline
Old 07/01/08, 5:46 PM   #43
Montegomery
Aloof Aggravator
 
Montegomery's Avatar
 
Sutiru
Undead Warrior
 
No WoW Account
Originally Posted by Darmon View Post
Imp Disarm. 10% more dmg taken by target. Unless they change bosses to be disarmable, it's of no use in raid.
Attumen the Huntsman was disarmable! >.>

United States Offline
Old 07/01/08, 6:19 PM   #44
kalbear
Bald Bull
 
Tauren Druid
 
Balnazzar
An interesting side note here. 5% dodge from vigiliance is a huge boost to a tank. So much so that given the choice between a warrior tanking and not tanking, I wonder if it would ever be the right choice to have the warrior tanking. Giving up 5% dodge vs another class tanking and getting that dodge? I wonder if (similar to druids) warriors will be less valuable as tanks in min-max situations simply because they're so much better when not tanking.

United States Offline
Old 07/01/08, 7:30 PM   #45
Katrael
Von Kaiser
 
Undead Warrior
 
Moon Guard
Personally I'm viewing it more as a benefit for multi tank encounters than a threat to prot warrior ability on a single target.

That is to say, thinking about every fight I've done so far in TBC, I can only think of a few that only feature a single tank.

-edit: in fact, on a two tank encounter, if tank stacking is really going to be an issue, you'd more likely see the use of two prot warriors so each can vigilance the other, rather than the warriors getting replaced by a different tank class.

Last edited by Katrael : 07/01/08 at 7:37 PM.

Offline
Closed Thread

Go Back   Elitist Jerks » Class Mechanics » Warriors

Thread Tools

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Moonkin WotLK Talent Preview / Discussion Maax Druids 1690 11/14/08 10:21 PM
WotLK Talent Preview / Discussion Flamingcloud Warlocks 4153 11/12/08 5:13 PM
Restoration WotLK Talent Preview / Discussion Norfair Druids 653 11/06/08 4:25 PM
[Mage] WotLK Talent Preview / Discussion Cryic Class Mechanics 4786 08/16/08 7:16 PM
[Priest] Holy WotLK Talent Preview / Discussion Sinndir Class Mechanics 88 07/18/08 11:13 PM