Graul

It scaled before the 15% hit penalty, but not at some huge exponential rate that it seems Blizzard is so paranoid about. The largest contributor to the "scaling" is WW and the 3.3 modifier. That's one attack every 10 seconds, and then the "15 rage Windfury attack" every 18 seconds. With the stats and synergy modified with the most recent change, it seems like it's producing "just a graphical change" for 1 point, which they specifically said they did not want the talent to be. The implications to the prenerf TG are much greater in PvP than PvE, but they have not said one word about PvP.

 

hellord

So atm the weakest tree seems arms even with TG nerf? And BF given to combat rogues even (if combat will ever be competitive).
Did anybody in beta do some comparison between a 2h slam rotation and a dw one wich relies on sudden death?

I really don't think that loosing 3% crit to every attack will make up the difference with OP even with such high crit rate also cause it SHOULD proc once every 3rd or 4rth tick of rend.
Rotation is completely random thus increasing the difficulties of using slam at right moment and the only good thing with the new WF totem is that swing bars won't screw up anymore cause of multiple sword/wf procs at the same time.

Anyway i don't know what could be the reason of being arms if the dps is lower than a protection build.
Everyone is whining about TG nerf that is still questionable in regards of gear homogeneization but still a dps increase, but nobody seems observing how changes in arms will make it the worse tree for pve dps.

Compared to actual situation we loose flurry (in a 33/28 spec) to get WC, good talent but already nerfed to 10%, we loose crit to get less damage taken and we replace WW with OP that maybe have the same uptime (hopefully) but still relies on RNG per rend tick.
Sudden death is questionable, Unrelenting assault reduce the cooldown under the gcd so 2nd point will never be useful unless the gcd mechanics won't change for melees (heard some rumors about this but never seen a blue post confirming gcd reduction with haste).

Also with the new HS glyph seems that incite would be a great talent to take, thus leaving no points to get commanding presence 5/5.

Can anybody explain me why arms tree should be desirable for a pve raiding warrior now? Is that WC and OP making up the difference for flurry, berz stance and no more wf totem proccing?

 

Liar

I didn't like staying in Defensive stance myself because I really didn't want to generate even less from damage taken than you already do naturally by wearing a 1h/Shield so I tried DPSing in Battle stance. That, and you only trade Revenge for Victory Rush and Execute. Arguably, Shield Block as well but it doesn't cost rage and is not on the GCD so I am sure you can write macros to include it in a Shield Slam in every stance (I didn't try it yet, but I imagine it looks a bit like the SR macro for PvP). Also, I was doing this in full DPS gear where I don't have all that much avoidance/block to proc Enrage so it seemed like the most logical choice to do it in Battle stance.

Oh please not. You don't have to gut DW Devastate to make 1h/Shield attractive. Just buff rage generation and scaling and you are good to go.

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

 

Frederic

Along this line: would it be prudent for Blizzard to allow a warrior to auto-attack with his shield when he's not actively using it to defend himself (I.E. Has he blocked recently?). Since Ghostcrawler suggested they want a shield to be a viable option for a grinding prot warrior one would think it would be a great way to buff Sword & Board, which is currently lacking. Consequently, it would make off-tanking hateful strike type attacks a lot easier if our chance to block and block value wasn't "wasted" the majority of the time we are off-tanking and could be turned into extra threat generation.

EDIT: What is an average off-hand worth in rage per second in Beta?

(yes I know, the meaning of "average" is a bit loaded)

 

Shuror

More avoidance(block) would mean less threat. That would counteract what Blizzard are trying to do currently. In addition, it would give some stats a large negative effect in some situations.

I think doing this would require a whole new stance, so that you could choose whether to use your shield for blocking or damage. Block rating and defense rating would have to increase the attack speed of the shield instead of increasing the block chance.

 

Darkrenown

Recount is a bit bugged, tiyr crits will show as glances and your glances show as crushs. Most of the dummies are lacking armour, I think only the Daralan dummies have any at the moment.

 

Fellwraith

Battlestance and defensive stance are basically the same if you block, dodge, or parry every 12 seconds. If you're counting on shieldslam to be a primary source of damage for you, the bonus from 4pc T6 is really valuable, so you will end up with some tanking stats. With the way sword and board works, I think that bonus is worth gearing up for (and items like the T6 belt and boots aren't too terrible for a hybrid DPS set with the added expertise and str).


Warbringer and imp charge make rage generation somewhat irrelevant, even with partial tank gear on. You start off most fights with 35 rage (25 from the charge, 10 from your swing), which should be enough of a headstart to kill a non-elite. Sword and board also really changes your rotation and your rage profile. It procs often enough to make it a net rage gain for you (as you'll be auto attacking again soon and the proc'd slam doesn't cost any rage for that GCD). It wasn't uncommon for me to be heroic striking mobs because I had too much rage to spend on just my GCDs. Yea, this isn't a raiding spec, but it's good enough for leveling I think.

 

Qed

I played with a 2h arms build only briefly, but there were two things that came out of it. First: it does comparable dps to a sudden death build. Second, the slam-delays-but-doesn't-reset-the-swing-timer mechanic appears to be in. I would hold off a slam until just before a white hit occurred, and the white hit would occur moments after the slam did. Because of this i never figured out a particularly good rotation for a slam build, as i was heavily rage (rather than cooldown) limited.

 

DarthGreg

Voxx, quick question. You reference proof of the two-roll special attack system, is this proof the post that that Naxx Dagger Rogue wrote back in 2006, or has there been more recent and independently-verified proof of this since?

 

hellord

So it's more like steady shot is now on live?
This is anyway good to know since the main issue is a complete clip that result in a dramatic loss of dps, if it just delays it there could be more gcd to use it and prolly u have to rely less on swing bar (that blizzard doesn't provide in the standard interface).
Thanx for the reply

 

Darian_TruBlade

The combat log system revamp points squarely at the two roll system, though that's not proof in an of itself. I wrote this post on the subject.

I believe there were tests following that patch which confirmed Rogue specials functioned on a two-roll system, and it was assumed that all melee specials functioned the same way.

It's simple enough to test. A Rogue with Evasion and Ghostly Strike can push their avoidance high enough such that a Warrior/Shaman/Druid/Paladin's crit chance is greater than their chance to land an attack. In a one roll system all attacks which aren't dodged/parried in this period should crit. Just make sure the Rogue isn't wearing any Resilience gear. If you wanted a really solid test, grab the rogue who tanked Gruul.

However, I believe the general consensus is that melee specials follow the two roll system.

 

Gruntle

I must say that I don't really agree on your definition of scaling. To me scaling is when an ability stays as powerful as it is in comparison to other abilities when you gain better and better equipment. BT is a perfect example of a scaling. You seem to mean that TG does not scale well because it gives a higher damage increase at 3000 AP than at 5000, relatively. That has nothing to do with TG, it's just an effect of weapon damage growing less and less important as you get more AP and is exactly the same mechanic that already exists now. With TG we have dual twohanders, thus weapon damage is a big part of the damage increase, but at later stages, when AP grows faster than weapon damage it will not be a big part. I don't agree that this means negative scaling. 2*2h scales differently than 2*1h because of higher base weapon damage and a different normalization.

I do agree strongly that the hit penalty on BT have to go (or we get another talent that boosts BT). That BT with TG is worse than without is just not right and I don't believe that will make it into live. Even if our total damage goes up and BT down I think it's a bad design decision to make a 51p talent make the 31 pointer worse.

 

Qed

I had thought that steady shot on live only affected your auto-shot of the latter finished while the former was still casting. Thus if you use a smart rotation, steady shot will never delay your auto shot. Slam (seems to) always delay your next swing by .5 (or 1.5) seconds per cast, but does so regardless of when you use it in the cycle. ie: it suspends your swing timer while it casts.

Regardless, it does make slam infinitely easier to use.

 

Frederic

You're making the assumption that we will always be wanting extra rage from this single source. Given that we now have sane amounts of block chance if your shield was capable of an auto-attack that was reset by block events you would be left with a corrective measure for situations where you're not tanking but are expected to output TPS/DPS in addition to gaining extra attacks when grinding in DPS gear.

An across-the-board rage increase for shield equipped warriors would benefit tanks in EH gear who are tanking a boss just as much as a grinding prot warrior, which is probably not something Blizzard wants if they can get by the avoidance != rage issue any other way. They seem to be attempting this via the damage bonus of Improved Defensive Stance, which will probably work to an extent but still might be insufficient for fights which have hateful strike tanks.

On that note: how well do Improve Defensive Stance and Shield Block synergize? Is the potential ~50% uptime on Gruul from blocking Hurtful Strikes enough to keep TPS high (same for Hateful Strike)?

 

PiousFlea

Uh, Titan's Grip does scale. It's called the quality of the weapons. If you don't think that dual-wielding Frostmourne and Ashbringer would be a much bigger DPS increase than dual-wielding two Generic Blue Swords, you are out of your mind.

No, Titan's Grip does not scale with Attack Power. However, if your Attack Power is improving it is because your gear is improving. If the rest of your gear is improving, you should have access to stronger 2h weapons, and Titan's Grip definitely scales with weapon quality.


PS: No, I don't believe that Frostmourne or Ashbringer will be usable by players. Ashbringer is already on a friendly NPC that hopefully won't die. And for obvious lore reasons I would hate to see Frostmourne on a gnome.

 

Graul

You're totally missing his point. It doesn't scale (that much at all) in comparison to simply using one handed weapons and yes it does somewhat scale through it's AP with the 3.3 modifier on WW and Slam. And this was before the hit penalty. Base weapon damage is the smallest contribution to overall DPS. Stats and normalization are the largest.

 

PiousFlea

Base weapon damage is a minority of overall melee DPS, but it is a large minority. Especially when you have a 2h (30% more DPS and over twice the stats of an equal-level 1h) in each hand. The difference in stats and DPS between equal-level 1h and 2h weapons is similar to upgrading from Felsteel Longblades to Warglaives of Azzinoth. (ignoring the set bonus) If you're going to argue that this is an insignificant buff to white DPS, you are decieving yourself.

And yes, Titan's Grip scales. It scales a lot. Look at how much DPS and stats you'd gain by dual wielding Gorehowl. Now take a look at Apolyon and Cat's Edge. It's a heck of a lot more of a boost.

 

Hypatia

In which fights? Do you do this well when there's random raid damage flying around giving you rage (for example, on Teron Gorefiend)? Do you do this well when you're DPSing without any additional rage input from taking damage?

 

Emeraude

If you have top notch Fury gear, and you spec protection I'd back up Graul's claim that Protection would put up roughly 80% of Fury's DPS now. Devastate every CD, Windfury, HS, WW, etc.

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aftereffect

I'm not sure, I think due to cleave costing 15 rage from unending fury and the cleave glyph reducing its cost by 5 again to 10, and incite effecting it, wouldn't that be the better course? since imp cleave is 488 and HS is 495

But I was thinking this for a DW 1h Fury: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?warr...12253120501050

 

mokg

Has anyone been testing level 70 3.0 specs? I tested several last night with 52/9/0 2h battle stance arms coming out on top. Was peaking at 2.3+k and sustaining 2.1-2.2k over several minutes on the ?? test dummy's. Titan's grip was actually the worst dps spec for me(using s3 mace+soul cleaver), getting beat by 51 prot.

It appears as the test dummy's have 0 armor which may be skewing results along with raid buffs generally scaling better while dual wielding.

 

Fellwraith

It really depends on the armor value of the mobs you're fighting and how much rage you get from aoe-type sources. Devastate's only 50% of your gear, the rest of the damage is fixed based on the number of sunders and that bonus is better on lower armor targets.

Also, most tanks won't have a topnotch set of fury gear, just like most dps warriors won't have all the top notch tanking gear (maybe if you've got a really small, tight-nit guild with very little turnover or you're lucky with drops that's a possibility). I don't know where the 30-60% number comes from, but I'd wager it isn't quite apples to apples with both people wearing the exact same gear.

 

Malloron

About the 15% miss chance

I have been following this thread, but I would like to ask to bring some clarification about the 15% reduced hit chance on specials.

Does this mean 15% reduction in the base miss chance? So: hitting a mob of your level means you have a flat 15% + 5% = 20% misschance, and a 24% misschance on specials vs. bosses?

Granted we havent seen the WotLK gear yet, but with only 3% from talents, this would in BC mean:

21 X 15.76 = 330.96 => 331 hitrating to SOFTCAP?

If the 15% is "instead of" the base 5% misschance, we'll have 19 - 3 from talents:

16 X 15.76 = 252.16 =< 252 hitrating to softcap?

Im confused because I find it hard to get a decent setup with enough +hit that doesnt nerf my other stats as it is.

 

mefe4r

Hey mokg how did you get a dps meter working on the PTR right?

 

mokg

Just install it like any other add-on. Extract it to your PTR/Interface/Addons folder and enable it at the character selection screen.