Densor

Well, Execute and Bloodthirst are static damage that don't scale based on your weapons. Obviously, they need to be taken into account for DPS, but in terms of actual scaling issues (which is what I somewhat described in my earlier post), they don't change and thus don't matter.

As for Slam and HS, the difference in their scaling between a 2x1H build and a 2x2H build are non-issues, since they are pretty much mutually exclusive abilities. Slam scales positively with weapon swing time, negatively with haste, and negatively with off-hand white DPS contributions from weapons and AP. A Slam with a fast weapon is worse than a Slam with a slow weapon. Also, a Slam with a single weapon (i.e. 1x2H) is better than a Slam with two weapons (i.e. 2x2H). Taking into account the lost rage from interrupting your swing time as extra rage cost and the lost damage as negative damage for slam, you can calculate the effective DPR of Slam. Using that equation a lot of math, you can get relative numbers for how it scales with different stats like haste, weapon DPS, AP DPS, hit, and crit.

Similar things can be done for HS, which scales negatively with weapon swing time, positively with haste, and positively with off-hand white DPS contributions from weapons and AP (i.e. in exactly the opposite ways that Slam scales). The scaling of HS can be figured from its DPR as well.

However, both abilities are already somewhat balanced in the game, so you only have to figure out how the relative scaling of Slam is affected by dual wielding and the -haste "penalty" on Titan's Grip. I'm not certain, but I believe that the DPR of Slam will be equal with 2x2H than with 1x2H when you have a 96% chance to hit with white attacks when dual wielding. If you have less hit, 2x2H will have more DPR, while when you have more hit, 1x2H will have more DPR. This doesn't taken into account the extra stats points you would have to spend on hit instead of other DPS stats when using 2x2H, though.

Comparatively, the DPR of Heroic Strike drops as you gain hit as well, since the difference in miss chances between a yellow and white hit is reduced. Of course, as you gain hit, your extra rage goes up as well. When using HS as a rage dump, extra rage is much easier to convert to extra damage. Slam is a lot more limited, and as such, you may end up having to use Heroic Strike with TG very infrequently, such as when you have over 70 rage while waiting on your next swing. Any less rage, and you may end rage starved. And at low gear levels, having "wasted" rage due to capping out is probably better than having rage starvation due to a string of misses, so HS with TG will probably be limited to high gear levels.

Well, from what I can tell, the original balancing of 2x1H vs 1x2H was done with little to no +hit itemization in the game. Whether they had planned to add +hit itemization when the two choices were balanced is up for debate. However, with +hit in the game, dual wielding has an additional way to scale, which means they end up scaling better due to how the itemization formula works, assuming proper itemization exists. That is mostly okay, because dual wielding was forced to use a shittier rage dump (HS instead of Slam, which is a rage dump, in my mind).

The change in white damage when factoring in TG (and whirlwind) is very nicely balanced with the haste penalty, as long as AP doesn't skyrocket too much, which would hurt TG a lot. The change to Slam DPR is relatively tiny. The big question really remaining is how much extra rage warriors will be generating with TG compared to how much more DPR Sudden Death provides to a 2x1H spec and how much more rage they will be generating. And, of course, how threat will sort itself out.

As for how Blizzard dealt with mages, I'm sure their damage tests showed that mages were doing a ton of damage. But I don't think they had accurate tests for other classes, specifically warlocks. Physical DPS always ends up scaling really well, probably better than expected, due to the cyclic nature of their DPS. For a warrior, more damage equals more rage generation equals more rage to turn into damage through Heroic Strike. For rogues, more offhand hits equals more energy equals more specials.

Impale benefits TG more. Deep Wounds benefits 2x1H more. Increased delays between swings/crits hopefully means nothing anymore for how Deep Wounds works out.

And spirit is great for mages. Sadly, the mage community found that shadow priests were better. I still have faith the Blizzard, or at least a few people at Blizzard, knows what they're doing.

 

Polishedhead

Okay this is a quote from page 4 of 46; just have to quote it since i agree soo much. Everyone seems to be pushing to make all classes exactly the same, if they make our survivability equal to rogues, or even closer towards equal, our dps will suffer to compensate. The problem imo with sunwell raid damage & DPS Warriors is that Blizzard decided to remove all the stamina from T6 bracer, boots & belt for, i assume, PvP reasons. Compare Warrior T6 belt to Ret Paladin T6 belt for example, it's pretty clear there that the stamina was simply removed; not itemized into other stats.

 

Gruntle

Well I don't agree. You cannot really treat weapon dps scaling as something individual that should be balanced, you need to look at the scaling of the total dps to know whether TG is good or not. The total scaling is very hard to find, mainly due to how rage generation works. You cannot treat rage generation as a RPS model if you want to really detailed calculations (which I sincerely hope Blizzard are doing). Different ability cycles will scale differently.

An example is HS scaling at end-game TBC. Once you have enough rage to do HS on more or less every white hit, you will find that things change completely in regards to scaling. Haste suddenly becomes one of the best stats you can get and fast-fast weapon setups are probably the best thing you can use.

That is what makes the balancing so hard. TG is really cool, but it will take a lot of work to balance it, and I suspect there will be a lot of changes to the talent even after WoTLK has gone live.

 

Grillkohle

I don't think anyone really cares much how much damage we do when we're tanking. What's more important is what we can bring to the raid when we're not tanking but still are in protection spec, especially in the light of the upcoming design philosophy that all tanks should be more or less equally good but each has their own niche. Overall, I think it's a good change, but only as long as each class that isn't tanking in any given fight has another way to be useful (and by being useful I mean being able to contribute other than being a (de)buffbot).

In my eyes, two disctinctions need be made:

1. You're not even tanking at all in the encounter because another class is better for that fight. You're either doing DPS or are healing. (Teron, Naj'entus, Winterchill, Archimonde, ...)
2. You've completed an off-tank job but the fight isn't over. (Karathress, Reliquary of Souls, Illidan, ...)

In either case, I believe that Feral Druids and Death Knights seem to have some kind of an edge over Protection Warriors and Protection Paladins. To some extent, Feral Druid and Death Knight tanking gear can be used for off-spec purposes. Also, their tanking trees are well synergized with their DPS trees.

As you well know, Warriors and Paladins don't have this option. We're stuck in tanking gear; all we can do is do shouts, Thunderclaps, Judgements and some sporadic Flash of Light spam here and there while the meager mana pool holds up.

The gap closes a bit when Paladins and Warriors are given the opportunity to swap into DPS / healing gear before the fight starts. However, Death Knight and Druid trees are just better designed for non-tanking performance while in a tank spec.

In short: What will be done for Protection Warriors and Paladins so that they can be more useful after tanking the Shaman at Warlord Karathress? What will be done for them to feel more useful when the Death Knight is tanking the Wrath of the Lich King magic damage Teron Gorefiend equivalent boss?

 

ionasej

First of all, they are both hybrids (in comparison to rogues, warlocks, mages, hunters, who are not) like Ferals are hybrids.
Second, if you look at the current WotlK Prot. tree you see massive damage boosts here and there. And third: Do you really think the difference is huge if a feral in min/maxed tanking gear does 600 DPS and a protection warrior in min/maxed tanking gear does 400? The question is rather: what happens if they swap gear - and protection warriors do very very good damage in TBC already (if you got skill and gear) - 1800 DPS seems to be done easily, while ferals in full dps gear have it hard to do that and loot tables for that are a lot smaller. In WoTLK the protection warrior can do sireous damage, and that is good - all I hope for is a protection warrior pvp set (the moment that happens I will decide to drop the other 3 tanking classes

Once you count in that you can respec at every encounter for cheap 50g and a warlock portal it is clear that a 100% tank and 95% dps spec (warrior) is worth a lot more than a 95% tank and 65% dps spec. (feral)

+ if you are not tanking because you had tanked a first phase or an add, you can still support with shouts, thunderclap, demoshout, and all that togather is not worth than the ferals support or the protection paladins support - no idea on DK.

 

Darmon

First would be pass whatever you smoke. The numbers and situations you pull out are nowhere near reality.
Current prot tree has exactly 1 dps improve talent over live version, which is Incite, 15% crit to HS/Cleave - lost 6 expertise for it. 1800 prot warrior DPS? wow... it's needed t6 quality gear to reach 1k, and in gimmik fights with all dps buffs up and unlimited rage from enviroment ( teron with chain drums/heroism) can hit just under 1500. but 1800?
About 400 vs 600 dps, all i can say it does matter when hitting Brutalus type fights. Even more considering that in live, warrior threat comes over 50% from dps made.
About support, any warrior can do that, which is even more incentive to bring a dps warr as tank in first phase/add, and he'll bring a lot more support and personal dps than a prot warrior.

 

Liar

Actually, that number is probably taken from my post in the Druid thread. I actually did that much DPS as Prot but that was on Teron (which I explicitly stated). In any case, the Druid numbers are fairly off as you noticed yourself. Our Ferals do 600 DPS on Brut in full mitigation gear as Bear. That's a huge distinction here, they do more when they swap into Cat form. I'd say, 1000 DPS in your tanking gear with a weapon/idol swap and shifting to Cat in your Agi socketed t6 tanking gear is far from impossible, maybe I am even being too conservertive with this number.

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

 

Grillkohle

Concerning the respec thing: You could apply that to any class and any encounter. Boy would that be fun if you had 10 people respec for every fight to be at their maximum.

To spell it out more clearly: I think Tanking Death Knights, Protection Warriors and Feral Druids should be able to bring roughly equal DPS to a raid while in tanking gear, although I'm not too sure how much group synergy and unique skills Death Knights can bring. Protection Paladins should be able to either DPS the same as the other tanks or heal adequately.

The same should hold true if all of the above are swapping into gear made for the respective role pre-combat.

Concerning the support thing: Yes we can do Shouts, Sunders, and Thunderclap. Yes you have Leader of the Pack, Mangle, Innervate, Combat Res, and Faerie Fire. But you can do reasonable DPS while bringing all this stuff, and I'm just sitting there hitting the same buttons with the same effect, no matter whether I'm at Gruul or Reliquary of Souls. Buff botting is not fun and isn't challenging. It also never changes.

I think a cool idea for warriors would be that they add Devastate to the list of skills affected by Incite, make it work in all stances, possibly move it up in the Protection tree, and that they make Devastate useable with 2-handed weapons (and tweak the numbers if neccesary).

 

Chardonnay

Incite only works in defensive stance, according to current tooltip on wowhead.
Also you seem to underestimate prot DPS, breaking 1K dps certainly doesn't need T6 quality gear.

 

Obould

So what, you still equip 2 x 1H weapons AND dps gear not even able to offtank, why not exchange this person with a rogue doing 2000+ dps?

What are you Prot Warriors doing now after a 1 or 2 day clear in SWP, exactly:

* respec [or you]
* park the char till next reset

There is no fun running around trying to farm / quest with Devastate/HS spam, hurray.

 

Liar

Speak for yourself. I enjoy questing/DPSing as Prot, it is not much slower than Fury (if at all) and it gives me more control with another stun and Last Stand if you get adds. I even dare to say that the best tanking/DPS Warrior hybrid spec is a full Prot Warrior because we can MT and DPS reasonably well whereas a Fury Warrior makes great sacrfices in his MT capability for a bit more DPS. Sure, if you are in a min/max guild that likes to swap you out, then they will do that anyway. Prot DPS is obviously less than Rogue DPS but is it good enough for soloing? You bet it is.

Which is why I'd like the Prot tree to reflect that. Incite changes were mentioned above which are great. What if Blizz brings back the PTR Devastate mechanic where you strike with MH/OH, but this time tuned to actually do less DPS than a full Fury spec? :P

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

 

Obould

Yeah but why on earth do we need to change the playstyle by removing our shield?

ATM on the Beta server you spec for Mortal Strike or Bloodthirst and those abilites are not bound to the cooldown of ShieldSlam. You can tank every dungeon in a very nice spec putting enough points into Arms tree for TC and Prot tree for Incite rest into Fury.
Bloodthirst a mob / Shieldslam an other / TC / etc etc, i even feel better this way then putting all my points into the prot tree, no idea if SS will stay this way, that it is NOT bound to MS/BT CD (Note: MS & BT still share it).

First thing what has to happen since the availability to SS for all specs is an improved SS talent into the Prot tree which just rocks the house. Why should the warrior class be the only one having to change weapons to actually tank / dps. Let us dps with the Board, remove the extra threat on SS just scale it up with talents in the prot tree like:

Improved SS: add % crit or +XXXX BlockValue
S&B: Automatic SS attack 10% of the time triggered by Dev / SS

Anyway i am really looking forward with what they are comming up, i just dont want to exchange XXX gear and my weapons to ACTUALLY do something with my char outside of raids.

 

Grillkohle

I would prefer to use a 2-handed weapon for DPS as Protection spec simply because of the huge +hit gap from dual-wield that can't be bridged by tanking gear.

 

Liar

Be happy we can Dual Wield. DW will scale better than 1h/Shield because it doesn't cap out on Hit as early as 1h/Shield or 1x2h. I also don't get why it matters if we have to swap out our shield so we can DPS.

Also keep in mind that SSing and BTing two different mobs is a whopping 50 rage. Your base Sunder Armor cost is also an unmodified 15 rage. That is alot of rage and bad TPR if you compare it to fully improved Dev and SS. Stalwart Protector also is a big bonus for the Prot tree, making already efficient skills even better. I guess your approach will work if you can afford swapping in a few more DPS pieces while tanking your heroics to sustain the rage flow and I admit, the BT self heal will be quite nice for AoE threat (but it is no Shockwave).


Warriors are not the only class that have to change their weapon styles to DPS. No Prot Pala is going to DPS with a 1h/Shield either, they will use a 2h. Also, if you apply the logic to Feral Druids they would be DPSing in Bear form because changing from Bear to Cat is a change in DPS style which you critized earlier. Really, what is so wrong with DPSing as a DW Prot Warrior? I don't see it.

And for what it's worth, 1h/Shield DPSing is perfectly viable to solo/quest with on the Beta. I leveled from 75 to 77 like this in full DPS gear + Shield and the only thing stopping it from being just as fast as Fury is (ironically) the downtime because the BT self heal is THAT powerful. Still, in the end DW Devastate and DW Fury will outscale 1h/Shield in raids because of the better scaling but I don't see this is a problem to be honest. If you are a 1h/Shield guy, you can DPS like this. If you are a DW Devastate guy, you can DPS like this.

EDIT:

I was refering to Prot DPS in DPS gear while you are refering to Prot DPS in full tanking gear. I admit though, they should do something about our DPS in tanking gear after we are done tanking our mobs. Why not get improvements in both aspects?

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

 

Borodin

I am pretty confident there will be a new rank of Revenge, if they forget to scale the new rank hopefully the base damage/threat of that new rank make it viable deep into the endgame.

Otherwise it's getting dropped from my rotation as soon as Devastate surpasses it.
3 talent points back too.

 

Tharia

At least now warriors get LOTS of strength on their tanking gear and all the DPS buffs without being in the melee group which should help.

 

Obould

For someone who has in his signature a nice sequenze of a Sword and Board warrior you seem more like a rogue screaming "Yes i can DW" *g*
Exactly you found it the term which is not right, its "scale" why should i have to change, oh wait completly remove, Nr.: 1 skill in Protection the ShieldSlam to actually do dmg even thou everyone can use it now, it should be my highest primary single target dmg dealing ability especially when speced Protection!!!


I agree alot of rage needed, i have only seen the open dungeons yet i have tried them in full prot and then with the other spec i just felt way better in a non prot spec (imp TC, imp Cleave, Incite).

And come on be honest Shockwave is a JOKE, not the dmg but the CD on it 20sec is just not cutting it. I have gone those dungeons single target tanking is easy (even in non prot specs) but try to hold 4-5 targets with the party using all kind of AE (Pala WW, Warrior WW, Mage AE, Warlock Seed) you can NOT hold it other then give me 30sec time so i can ShockWave twice.

The interresting part comes now, first spec this (lvl70): Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

You have absolutly no downtime at all questing / leveling (1.5% HP back from Bloodthirst) and in dungeons (with enough AP) your TCs crit for 280-350 dmg and the Imp.Cleaves crit for 1.3-1.6k on one target , this is just sick and once you have tried that you spit on Shockwave and its CD.


A Prot Paladin cant dps at all not even with a 2H!
A druid shifting is like a Warrior changing the stance, do you dps in defensive stance, you still use Dev/HS but hey you just lost one ability you dont SS anymore.

Whats wrong you ask is that we should not HAVE to lose an ability (the SS) if you dont gain an other damage ability!!!


I have done 70-72 as well with full prot, no downtime, falling asleep spamming Dev/SS waiting for the extra SS to trigger so the mob goes down 1sec earlier, then i went fury with Bloodthrist and if you have done that you wont change back to prot spec for the purpose of leveling.

Anyway i dont want to pull a Shield in your left hand if you dont want one, what i want is that i can do as much damage as you wielding 2 weapons, especially when both specced into Protection, why not give me a ShieldCrush ability just in Berserker Stance with some nice Sideeffect of "chance to stun" / etc etc etc!!

 

norikk

First thing Blizzard should address is our new talents. Fix that, and all warriors will be happy.

Strength of Arms, Bladestorm, TG, Heroic Leap, Shockwave... all these have serious issues which needs addressing.

I know no one cares for my personal ideas but I think that Arms/Pve spec should die, and Arms should be given talents such that a pvp build will be deep-arms, instead of mixed arms/fury. Fury tree needs BF badly, and decent new talents. It should also allow DW or 2H to be viable options without relying on arms talents. The protection tree imo is fine except maybe shockwave cooldown which is too high.

Its important that end of tree talents provide huge benefits, because it allows you can spec for a specific role going deep into a tree, and allow you to go hydrid, getting other trees utility but sacrificing something important.

 

Fellwraith

Does it though? I've seen this repeated numerous times in this thread and I don't necessarily agree. Just because you want your spec to be viable doesn't mean you have to gut another spec to make it happen. I really don't have a problem with Arms being PVE viable. Why do you have to have bloodfrenzy to function as fury? It's not like you couldn't get another scaling buff/debuff to make you a viable choice over an arms warrior. What if you gave your group a scaling armor penetration buff instead?

What they've been doing with the debuff system so far is making it so that there's overlapping, non-stacking debuffs from multiple classes (unholy DKs have an ability that mirrors maledictioned COE, several classes have a tclap-like slow, several classes have AP reductions, etc.) Why should warriors be the only class who increase physical damage by 4%? That ability basically requires you to have a warrior in a 25 man (since it will be tuned for the ability) and it changes how you set up your 10 man raid roster. What happens when you're short a warrior that night and you've got a tightly-tuned enrage encounter to beat (say Thaddius v2.0)? They've said several times they don't want one ability to make or break a raid composition, it doesn't seem likely that bloodfrenzy is going to be a unique snowflake much longer.

It seems to me that they're going in a direction where multiple classes can provide one buff/debuff the raid needs to win an encounter. That said, it seems much more likely that BF will be mirrored by another class and trauma won't stack with mangle in a future build when they do their debuff review.

Also, prot is not fine.

 

Zegai

Yeah, it really isn't fine in an environment where gear is largely normalized.

It makes no sense when one class scales one way from gear and another scales in another (stamina, for example). It also makes no sense that we have no expertise/hit buffs in prot - when all the other tanks have. Concerning abilities, specifically, while I'd love new abilities, if they really want to have that level of normalization... they can just adjust numbers.

All that said, I REALLY don't like the direction tanking is headed. Not that I think I won't be able to tank stuff anymore - I know I will. But flavor is good. And it sure looks like most of the flavor is being stripped of and distributed to force a new way of balancing tanking..

 

◊ Birdemani

It's been hinted by one Blizzard employee in IRC conversations that another class needs to share the BF debuff so we can get away from needing the non-prot warrior in your raid to spec deep arms. The only situation you have then is how do you make arms and fury worthwhile to bring in to your raid. I'm not even certain how you go about that if they make that change. So, lets say another non warrior class with a popular raid spec gets a BF-like debuff, do you see raid leaders still wanting to bring a fury or arms warrior to the group.....and for sake of argument you can assume that all tanking abilities and debuffs have been taken care of (CoW/EA/Demo Roar, etc). I think there would be room for both specs in a 10 man but not sure about a 25 man. Thoughts?

Also, I agree. Prot is not fine. Yes, it works quite well but there are a few things that need to be adjusted right now. It needs repeating, but there is no need for two disarm talents in that tree.

 

Gruntle

I think they should just make BF an added effect on Rend (untalented or perhaps as part of imp rend/Bloodletting). This gives the ability to all warriors, but instead requires us to switch from zerk stance now and then to reapply the debuff (which will mean that personal dps goes down by some amount, but not a lot).

 

mistersix

Are any of these redundant buffs/debuffs going to stack?

 

Alaron

Neither do I. I understand (and actually like) the general concept of making more classes MT capable, but it really does feel like the warrior is losing its niche. Granted that they are still working on it, but a paladin that is the king of AoE tanking is still going to be the AoE king. You can still feel that very perceptible difference. If a warrior is supposed to be king of mitigation, you really can't make the warrior's mitigation significantly different enough to really feel like a perceptible niche while still making the other tanking classes able to tank the same bosses as effectively.

That's really the crux of the issue. If an encounter is designed so that a skilled paladin (or whoever) can tank it, do you absolutely need that extra mitigation that the warrior brings? No you don't, not if the designers did a good job of balancing it for all of the tanks. This is especially true if you have a shit hot group of healers like we do. I would much prefer to have a class that is balanced to do perfectly well at the general job, but that also really visibly shines in its niche elsewhere. On top of that, you have some massive scaling issues compared to the paladin in particular right now, but I figure that will be balanced out in time. I just don't see how you can balance out mitigation as a significantly unique niche when everything is designed so that even without being in that niche you can tank it.

Unless the warrior gets a new and more interesting specialty, I feel that we will either see warriors become sort of an afterthought tank (which is the case given current balance, but I'm aware that they are still working on it), or remain as the predominant MT if their mitigation really is that much better (once we see what they are changing and balancing). I don't think that either is really the route that they want to go.

 

Zegai

Yeah, and that is a problem that affects druids as well. DKs and Pallies have areas they can excel in fine, and that's all well and good. Warriors and druids are way too similar, and by current reasoning they would be better on single target mobs... with no specific niche.

And then comes the balancing problems. How can you make a class better in the MT-role without making it so people will generally prefer this class over others? If the difference is made small enough, a similar difference should be made in other areas (specifically, magic-based fights and AoE tanking). And I really don't think they'll close the gap in those 2 areas that much.

And if they do close it, we'll have 4 classes that are essentially the same, with very small differences. While that'll certainly balance things, the game will lose a lot of its diversity. I think difference is good. I don't think having talents and skills and gear that's essentially the same with a different name is okay.

I think this way of changing tanking is a huge gamble they are taking. I hope they are well aware of that (I think they are) and that it's thoroughly tested, possibly with a B-plan alternative on the works (or at least thought out) if they notice it really didn't work out.

@BF: it depends heavily if they consider arms a PvE spec or not. If they consider it one, they should overhaul the tree completely. There isn't a way to make it viable without forcing us to take one talent because of its sheer raid utility. Not without fundamentally changing how the tree works. And while they are at it, they should change warrior stances and make some kind of MS-effect baseline, as a lot of people already mentioned.