WotLK talent Preview/Discussion - Page 71

Borodin · 09/10/08, 9:55 AM

Since we now have an idea about how AP effects several of our attacks I wanted to start looking at the threat we would get per attack if the talent/mechanics patch went in today.

My figures are all for a L70 with a buffed AP of 1,500 and 600 Block Value.

I factored in or made the following assumptions:
The new versions of all the spells.
Defensive Stance with 5/5 1H Weapon Spec and Improved Defensive Stance (another +10% Damage from Enrage).
Defensive Stance now 175% Threat
Weapon is The Brutalizer
Target is Level 73 Boss with 7,685 Armour reduced to 7,075 Armour by FF or CoR (Rank 5)
All attacks are after 5 Sunders, other than the Devastate lines themselves
Glance is 20% chance for 70% damage (only for the Autoattack)
Hit and Expertise capped so all attacks will land
Improved Thunderclap (shown to double the AP component too).
Thunderclap and Shockwave assumed to Crit as Spells (150% damage)
Thunderclap base threat is 75% of it's damage, everything else is 100% damage + modifiers.
Improved Revenge taken
Gag Order taken
Critical Block taken
Base 15% Crit chance and all the +15% Crit talents taken meaning for attacks that could crit an appropriate modifier was made to their damage e.g. Devastate would have a 30% chance to Crit for 100% extra damage or a net potential 30% damage increase; Thunderclap crit potential adds 15% to total damage.

What I don't yet know for sure or did not include:
The AP contribution to Sunder Armour threat. I just used the current flat 301 Sunder value for now.
Did not include Shield Block's boost to Block Value for Shield Slams.

Obviously a Level 70 can't take all of the above talents at once but I wanted to test the best cases scenarios.

Here's the threat values I get for a single hit with crit potential as a damage modifier:

Devastate 1	1127
Devastate 2	1222		
Devastate 3	1321
Devastate 4	1425
Devastate 5	1534

Devastate (6+)	1007
Shield Slam	2580
Revenge           1430
Concussion Blow	1794
Shockwave 	1677
Heroic Strike	1260
Thunderclap	1148
Autoattack	498

Some thoughts:

Both Concussion Blow and Shockwave exceed Devastate Threat and even Revenge Threat. Their threat is just massive at this point.
Thunderclap pips Devastate here.

As I said I am missing the Sunder AP component (though not sure how this will effect Devastate beyond 5 stacks
since Sunder is no longer cast then), additionally Devastate now has 30% chance to proc a free Shield Slam which
would encourage me to use it over TC during normal rotations.

It's all on a spreadsheet so I can easily modify once we get more data, especially with a view to seeing how this
scales at 80.

Liar · 09/10/08, 10:05 AM

Originally Posted by Borodin

Both Concussion Blow and Shockwave exceed Devastate Threat and even Revenge Threat. Their threat is just massive at this point.

Which is great and should remain that way. They have a 30 sec and 20 sec cooldown respectively so that sounds balanced to me. It will also give us some flexibility in our rotations that are not tied to S&B atleast. I am especially looking forward to the snap aggro we will have with HS/Conc Blow/SS + Shock Wave. That's massive threat in just 2 GCDs (think Magtheridon when he is just breaking loose).

Zegai · 09/10/08, 10:20 AM

Yeah, I revised my small program, included deep wounds, impale and modified the cycles. Deep Wounds/Impale get Devastate a lot closer to TC (even making TC proc Deep Wounds, which I have no idea if it does, never noticed really). From what I tested in it, the best cycle would be SS>Dev>Dev>Rev/Shockwave, resetting the cycle every time S&B procs.

With level 70 stats, however, the difference from the small optional talents and the different cycles (for ex, using a priority cycle with SS>Rev>Dev>TC) is rather small. What was really noticeable, however, was how well Str was scaling.

reydien · 09/10/08, 3:16 PM

Since I don't have a beta account and trying to do a search for "warrior base health 80" isn't very useful, could I get someone who has a lvl 80 warrior in the beta to tell me what their base health is? By base health I mean maximum hitpoints with no gear on, no buffs, and preferably no points in vitality (or at least let me know that you have points in vitality along with what your stamina is). Also, if you could include the race that would be helpful.

Liar · 09/10/08, 4:14 PM

Originally Posted by reydien

Since I don't have a beta account and trying to do a search for "warrior base health 80" isn't very useful, could I get someone who has a lvl 80 warrior in the beta to tell me what their base health is? By base health I mean maximum hitpoints with no gear on, no buffs, and preferably no points in vitality (or at least let me know that you have points in vitality along with what your stamina is). Also, if you could include the race that would be helpful.

Originally Posted by Dots

HP: 7584 (assumption, I am at 7963 as tauren)
Str: 179
Agi: 108 (= 216 base AC and 1.73% base crit)
Sta: 161
Int: 31
Spi: 61

AP: 578

Parry: 5%
Block: 5%
Dodge: 2.23% (1.51% of this should be from base agility, leaving 0.72% as base dodge)

^Noone disagreed with these stats so they are either right or noone else bothered to check.

clavarnway · 09/10/08, 5:40 PM

Originally Posted by Darkrenown

Maybe if this goes live they'll remove or reduce Sunwell radience buff? Although that doesn't help people on Muru.

Came here to ask this. Seems sensical to reduce avoidance penalty on Sunwell radiance once patch hits, since the whole point of it was to bring tanks avoidance inline to where the instance was tuned for.

Shha · 09/10/08, 6:41 PM

Originally Posted by clavarnway

Came here to ask this. Seems sensical to reduce avoidance penalty on Sunwell radiance once patch hits, since the whole point of it was to bring tanks avoidance inline to where the instance was tuned for.

Well thats not entirely true. The hard hitting bosses had to be buffed this way or they would be either trivial or extremely RNG-based. But M'uru and KJ are built around avoidance on tanks (KJ is not even based on tanking much). You can safely assume imo that IF they brought the sunwell radiance to M'uru fight, 8 healers would be pretty much a necessity - and majority of guilds wouldnt handle phase 2 with 8 i believe (phase 1 would be trickier but doable - partly because of more overlapping in healing.

Rustik · 09/10/08, 6:55 PM

Originally Posted by Borodin

Rustik if your in the beta are you not able to quickly see if Improved TC effecs the 12% AP too?

For example at 2,000 AP it will add either 240 OR 480 damage to the base 600 attack. Attacking mob a few levels under you and Sundering it first you can eliminate a lot of armour from the calc. Should be easy to spot!

I worked up a full list of threat values at 70 today (but using all the new talents) and got some interesting results I will show after significant checking. Devastate was ahead there vs Thunderclap but I can scale that to 80 and see.

-snip-

I am not in beta. All the numbers I use for my theorycrafting in anticipation of the beta are from either these forums, Wowhead, blue posts, mmo-champion, or wotlkwiki.

Thank you whoever it was that confirmed the AP bonus gets doubled.

I completely forgot T-clap was 50% crit bonus. I had ignored incite and S&B assuming they'd cancel each other out.

Despite not being in beta, I'm curious how one would test the AP contributions of Sunder? The combat log doesn't actually return threat, I don't think.

DarthGreg · 09/10/08, 7:39 PM

Originally Posted by Shha

Thats true, I miscalculated here. In fact I just missed one WW in middle - Your cycle in fact is 31 second too.

Copied from your post.
1.5 WW
6 BT
11.5 WW
13 BT
19 BT
21.5 WW
25 BT
31 BT

Thats the whole cycle - later from 32.5 its just repeating itself with WW BT etc.

Well WW-BT-WW-2xBT-WW-2xBT is the whole cycle. Nothing too fancy as easy to macro as any other. Compared to mine they "overlap" after 620 seconds for 100BT 60 WW for your cycle and 93 BT 62 WW for mine - I can see your being superior in numbers. WW hits harder then BT, but definitely 7 BT>2 WW. Now the rotation you proposed does have the problem of low coherence with 20 sec/2 min cooldowns, but thats probably still doable. It also lets you "macro" demo shout and even tclap stance dance and put in rotation (considering hit will give us spell hit we probably can be "capped" on the spell hit for demo/clap and never worry about resists). 1 sec downtime is acceptable for me.

Overall I guess true, I do rate yours higher.

If you want to start the cycle with a WW, it looks more like: WW-2xBT-WW-2xBT-WW-BT, which is basically the same thing you have written with the first two attacks tacked onto the back. It looks like it doesn't matter whether you start with BT or WW, either way you fit the same number of each attack into the same 31-second cycle: 5xBT 3xWW. Same number of GCD's in each cycle.

Now that I've figured all of this out I can rest assured that WotLK Fury Warrior will be just as one-button as BC Fury Warrior. =/

Juelz · 09/10/08, 9:01 PM

I had some extra time so I created a spreadsheet that took what gear sets are known at the moment and puts them in perspective:

Google Docs - naxx tank set

This spreadsheet shows:
Naked Untalented Warrior Stats
Naked Talented Warrior Stats
Talented Non-set Naxx Tank Stats
Talented 10-set Naxx Tankt Stats

I used this post as a reference point for base stats: WotLK talent Preview/Discussion

and also used the ratings from this post:
Combat Ratings at level 80

Most of the information contained in this spreadsheet was collected from EJ forums, WotLK Wowhead, MMO-Champion, or WotLKwiki.

I am not in the beta (as of yet /cry) so please feel free to double check any of the numbers I have used. I can provide a XLS copy if need be.

A few observations and notes about this:
1. I generally used gear with Block Rating and Block Value over pure avoidance gear, because our mitigation and threat relies heavily upon it.
2. The enchants used are the best at the time (ie. no enchant has been shown to be better than mongoose or the Arcanum of the Defender).
3. For the Non-set pieces, I gemmed using pure color gems (Red, Blue, Yellow). For the 10-set pieces, I gemmed using pure Blue and Purple gems.
4. It seems that it is hard to reach the new Defense minimum. This however could be due to the fact that no level 80 trinkets have had their stats implemented as of yet, and I used level 70 trinkets in these slots.

Nezralix · 09/10/08, 10:19 PM

Originally Posted by Juelz

4. It seems that it is hard to reach the new Defense minimum. This however could be due to the fact that no level 80 trinkets have had their stats implemented as of yet, and I used level 70 trinkets in these slots.

I believe that even if they implement one trinket with defense as the "primary stat", it's going to be fairly difficult to reach the cap without explicitly gemming and enchanting for defense, particularly for warriors in blue gear ranging level 75 up. It's a combination of the loss of the defense talent *and* the steep increase in rating conversions, and it's an issue shared by paladins and druids (EDIT: "death knights"), and is mildly reminiscent of the issue that paladins faced with having an unreasonably steep entry-level raid tanking requirement (uncrushability).

Given how catastrophic it can be to receive a critical strike, I think they should probably come up with a solution to this. They could just increase the value of defense, such that 25 reduces your chance to be crit by 1.5% instead of 1%. It really wouldn't have significant consequences anywhere else in the game.

Illy · 09/10/08, 10:35 PM

Originally Posted by Nezralix

I believe that even if they implement one trinket with defense as the "primary stat", it's going to be fairly difficult to reach the cap without explicitly gemming and enchanting for defense, particularly for warriors in blue gear ranging level 75 up. It's a combination of the loss of the defense talent *and* the steep increase in rating conversions, and it's an issue shared by paladins and druids, and is mildly reminiscent of the issue that paladins faced with having an unreasonably steep entry-level raid tanking requirement (uncrushability).

Druids get uncrittable status straight from talents this time, so they don't have an issue.

Nezralix · 09/10/08, 10:57 PM

Originally Posted by Illy

Druids get uncrittable status straight from talents this time, so they don't have an issue.

Yeah, I mistyped, I meant paladins and death knights.

Chirality · 09/10/08, 11:12 PM

MMO-champion has updated their talent calculators.

Few things I noticed:

Wrecking Crew - 10% damage
Enrage - 10% damage, 30% chance to proc being hit
Titan's Grip - "Allows you to equip two-handed axes, maces, and swords in one hand. Also reduces your chance to hit with melee abilities that require weapons by 15%"

Improved Spell Reflection (4th tier prot)- "Reduces the chance you'll be hit by spells by 2/4%, reduces the cooldown of your Spell Reflection ability by 2/5 sec and when the ability is used it will reflect the first spell cast against the 2/4 closest party members".

Very, very, very odd. Enrage/Wrecking Crew nerfed to 10%? DW Penalty on TG? Rediculously absurb Spell Reflect?

Edit to reflect paladin changes of special note to warriors: Improved Blessing of Might is 2 points compared to 5 for Commanding Presence. Kings is now a 5-point talent (tier one prot)

Wafzig · 09/10/08, 11:12 PM

Titan's Grip now increases chance to miss by 15%???

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?warrior

That's pretty substantial.

EDIT: Darn you Chirality, you're faster than me.

PsyBomb · 09/10/08, 11:18 PM

the 15% miss only applies to abilities, not autoattacks, so rage generation is not affected. It'll suck for Whirlwind, but anything single-target won't cost anything on a miss. Hit rating just got way more valuable.

intervene · 09/10/08, 11:22 PM

It appears Devastate was buffed in the recent build. From mmo-champion:

Devastate: Sunder the target's armor causing the Sunder Armor effect. In addition, causes 80% of weapon damage plus 101 for each application of Sunder Armor on the target. The Sunder Armor effect can stack up to 5 times.
15 Rage, 5 yd range, Instant

30% more weapon damage seems like a huge buff, could be a typo...

Grimsky · 09/10/08, 11:25 PM

I am not surprised in the least, everyone knows % scaler abilities always get out of control down the line. Especially at such high values as 15%. That spell reflect is pretty powerful, prot wars are actually looking better for pvp. I've never tried but you can reflect a polymorph? I know you can do fear. That is very good in pvp and raids/5mans, especially since the reflect will be threat off the warrior even if a spell wasn't cast on them. /thumbs up. I hope they keep it but maybe move it 1 tier deeper maybe? Seems very powerful for 4th tier.

Chirality · 09/10/08, 11:40 PM

Grimsky: you can reflect any single-target spell. Of course you can reflect a polymorph.

And the change doesn't make improved spell reflection 'good', it makes it insanely overpowered. Your spell reflect cooldown and duration will now be the same--and it allows you to reflect the polymorph cast on your healer. Warriors are now essentially required to go 20 (might as well go 23 and pick up Gag Order and Concussion Blow) in protection now. The bizarre wording on the tooltip, though, makes me wonder what the actual implementation is.

Also--I can understand nerfing Wrecking Crew--but changing Fury's Enrage is a bit over-the-top now. What started out as an amazing talent (40% back in the 'popping enrage' days) is now pathetic.

Nonetheless--it's still clearly 'work in progress'. Unending Fury still says "gives your Enraged Assault ability....", the wording on improved Spell Reflect is very confusing, etc.

Kandryn · 09/10/08, 11:46 PM

Titan Grip: Allows you to equip two-handed axes, maces and swords in one hand. Also reduces your chance to hit with melee abilities that require weapons by 15%.

So, i guess bloodthirst and white hits are fine, but this is a serious nerf to heroic strike... From 9% miss to 24% ?

Chirality · 09/10/08, 11:52 PM

It's essentially a 5-8% dps reduction in raids, no? (assuming yellow damage is around 30-50% of your total damage)

It also, in my mind, destroys Fury as a spec for PvP (again), because past lessons in itemization (even for rogues) indicate a dire lack of +hit rating on PvP gear. 15-20% miss on Special attacks is no longer a good trade-off, I think.

As a side note--the wording on the talent doesn't specify "15 percent chance to miss *while wielding 2 handed weapons in one hand*" (not that it matters).

Voxx · 09/10/08, 11:55 PM

Originally Posted by Chirality

Grimsky: you can reflect any single-target spell. Of course you can reflect a polymorph.

And the change doesn't make improved spell reflection 'good', it makes it insanely overpowered. Your spell reflect cooldown and duration will now be the same--and it allows you to reflect the polymorph cast on your healer. Warriors are now essentially required to go 20 (might as well go 23 and pick up Gag Order and Concussion Blow) in protection now. The bizarre wording on the tooltip, though, makes me wonder what the actual implementation is.

Also--I can understand nerfing Wrecking Crew--but changing Fury's Enrage is a bit over-the-top now. What started out as an amazing talent (40% back in the 'popping enrage' days) is now pathetic.

Nonetheless--it's still clearly 'work in progress'. Unending Fury still says "gives your Enraged Assault ability....", the wording on improved Spell Reflect is very confusing, etc.

Also--Vitality: "Increases Strength and Stamina by 2/4/6% and Expertise by 2/4/6". The expertise wasn't there before, was it?

The expertise was there.

Am I the only one that's more than a little concerned about the change to Titan Grip? The one thing I could find with Titan Grip that produced a scaling problem was rage generation, so in counterbalance they do nothing to the rage generation issue and instead just make it downright pathetically inefficient to put that rage to damage without having 24% +hit. I honestly can't see fury dps even approaching some of the other classes now. We need an extra 15% hit chance just to bring our specials back on par with what they are now?

It seems to me that Blizzard's overlooked the fact that getting that much +hit is going to affect the amount of other dps stats we can get. Where Titan Grip might have been overpowered at end-game scaling because of the Attack Power, Haste and Crit we could likely have gotten at 80, now it seems ridiculously underpowered considering the massive amount of stats we're going to have to give up in order to reach the new hit cap.

I don't want to sound like a drama queen or anything here but I'm honestly thinking that I'll just retire my warrior to tanking and enjoy dps'ing on a more stable and interesting dps class. Protection looks like a lot of fun with the new changes, certainly a lot more fun than Fury at least.

PsyBomb · 09/11/08, 12:22 AM

Vox, the miss chance only applies to specials. If you are generating rage off of your specials, please tell me how

If anything, it just makes it harder to DUMP rage. Any of our single-target abilities that cost rage don't deduct it when they miss.

Zegai · 09/11/08, 12:40 AM

They essentially buffed Devastate dmg by 60% (the fixed damage part as well)..

That's huge.

@TG: Not as big a nerf as I initially thought, but will they support this design decision with hit on gear?

◊ Lord BEEF · 09/11/08, 12:43 AM

Keep in mind that the vast majority of dps specs of all classes had their power reduced this beta patch. Chances are you'll still be quite competitive.