TG Speculations in this thread omit a HUGE amount of issues - ill try to mention some.

a) The math on the white damage loss is fine, and what you get from slams/ww etc. However why they compare just 2 sets of weapons. If you dont use TG you get 5 free talent points in a VERY IMPORTANT part of tree (well we all know some talents are meh, and just serve as fillers - THOSE 5 points can be very veyr important if you can take them out of TG).
It doesnt matter if TG is an improvement to dps or not - unless its a BIG improvement , then its not worth it.

b) Right now the TG as seen by people is NOT worth it.

c) One thing omitted by everyone is not filling up TG. Everyone just ASSUMES that that talent has to be filled to 5/5. Its not true. Some math

1/5 TG = 28% decreased speed (1/1.28 swing time)
5/5 TG = 20% decreased speed (1/1.2 swing time)

By going only 1 point into TG we lose: 0.08/1.28 = 6.25% WHITE dps.
What we get in return ?

From the standard 19/52 TG build, you get 3 more points into 2h spec and 1 talent for Sword spec or Sweep Strikes or some variation of that. Since Strikes will depend on personal preference , lets see the combo of 2h spec and sword spec.

Sword spec generally gives better return then 1% of your damage - especially with DW (it procs MH hits from OH swings).

So 3 points into SWSpec +1 point in 2h spec is actually giving you a bit more then 4% damage increase - definitely outperforming the 6.25% WHITE damage loss (would even outperform it for 1h, not to mention a spec that reduces white damage anyway vs boosting yellow).

Thats one thing. Other is - if the 20%/28% slow only applies to the hand wielding a 2h - then probably offhanding fastest possible sword to maximise sword specs (occuring with your slow 2h), would yield best results.

Does anyone know "for sure" that crushing blows are being removed from the attack table? So far, I have only seen people speculating that they will be, due to the changes to "Shield Block".

If crushing blows were in fact being removed, then wouldn't there be changes to protection Paladins' "Redoubt" and "Holy Shield" abilities to reflect this change as well?

A substantial amount of Paladin threat (and mitigation in multi-mob scenarios) comes from blocking so not necessarily. Shield Block is basically just for being uncrushable now. Redoubt isn't reliable for dealing with crushing blows and Holy Shield has a lot more to it than increased chance to block.

No Paladin talent changes have been done yet in the WotLK alpha. So no, there wouldn't be any changes to Paladin talent trees to reflect this.

Removal of crushing blows has also never been officially confirmed; the only official word we had is that Blizzard is "Unhappy" with the mechanic. The Shield Block change does push us towards this direction though, one of the strong points currently of Protection Warriors over Feral Druids is being able to push Crushing Blows off the attack table.

Doesn't "Redoubt" and "Holy Shield" add 60% (30% form each) to a paladins avoidance in gaining the 102.4% needed to push crushing blows off the table? It's not quiet 75% as a warrior gets, but then we dont get 10 charges either. I am not a professional pally tank, but that was how I understood the paladins attained uncrushability?

I would think that if these two paladin abilities were changed, in some way, then we would know for sure if crushing blows are being removed. I guess we will have to wait and see?

Redoubt is a procc that only gives +30% block % for 4 blocks, that is nothing to rely on.

A paladin tank never takes redoubt into account when gearing towards uncrushability, you can't just say ''well redoubt comes down to a rough X% so I'll only need 102.4-X% added avoidance+block+block from holy shield to get crushing immune''.
You can't rely on reboubt. And if you do, it might be fatal for your raid(performance).

Most people just take redoubt because improved Devotion aura sucks as well, and because redoubt is the requirement to get shield specialization.
In addition, when you attain 102.4% avoidance+block you are crushing immune without redoubt and thus, redoubt is only useful when you can't reaply holy shield fast enough for whatever reason (Lag, silence, oom).
And still in those situations, you can't rely on redoubt.

I, for one, certainly hope redoubt gets changed because in it's current form it is useless as a tanking ability and as a talent in general.

They ''can't'' change holy shield because we need to block for the main source of our threat.
Think of holy shield as your revenge and shield block in one, however revenge only works when you block an attack while shield block is active.

People claim that crushing blows will be removed because blizzard has stated (sorry, no source) that they dislike the ''RNG effect'' in raids caused by crushing blows on druids and warriors.

Without getting an official announcement from blizzard stating crushing blows are being removed, is there anything else in the paladin protection tree that we can watch for (when they do start making changes to it), that will really confirm that is what they are doing?

Changing shield block is a good indicator of this, but what if it is just blizzard changing that ability and not crushing blows as well?

My long response was lost somehow /sigh ej forum post button failing me!

The extra damage received in berserker stance has always been awful, it was just a bit trite to complain about occasionally getting raped on Thaddius\Healbot (raid encounters most comparable to tBC raid aoe damage) when you were king shit of the DPS world.

In the current raid game the damage being output on a warrior can be insane, and when using our DPS cooldowns it can be freakishly high. Don't tell me that "part of the class" is taking 144% damage of another raid member whom also might have a damage immunity.

For me it is beyond a reasonable doubt that Blizzard is thinking along the same lines I am given our Bonus stamina in both trees, and the change to bloodthirst. This seems like a bandaid and not a fix, yes you can keep bailing your boat and you won't sink, but it would be much easier to just fix the leak. Rogues went through some of what we are experiencing now, and Blizzard eventually did away with the Choo Choo chain cleaves which was to everyone's general benefit. They need to just either remove the stance modifiers and make improved defensive stance 4\8\12 all damage, or something other than "LETS GIVE EM MORE STAMINA" and then give us gear with no stamina on it. I mean I find it awesome that my 3\3 Awesome Stamina WotLK Ability derives a massive bonus of 0 stamina from my sunwell tier gear.

Part of being an effective raid DPS is being quick to mash your Healthstone button when you get low. What I dislike is that not only do we have no reactive defensive outs, we also have no party buffs to help mitigate this constant barrage of damage, i.e. M'uru and KJ clearly balanced partially around Spriest benefit to caster groups. On top of that we need to make sure our healthstone is up for our DPS phase as most likely normal raid damage will kill you.

I feel like there are so many ways they could be creative with this, only it doesn't seem like they will be. They're removing deathwish's fear break, not to mention you can't have that + bladestorm in PVP, and in a time when most classes are gaining skill based outs or CC, we still rely on, or seem to, RNG of <insert> kind. Every class can either heal, CC, or has an out and most can do two. warriors can do none ( any CC that can always be trinketed is not an out ) and take increased damage for being in the required stance for PVP. You could absolutely PVP without Battle Stance and Defensive Stance, you could not without Berserker.

Edit: Average non warrior M'uru Phase 2 Negative energy hit high over 25 phase 2's = 2051
My average high was 2878. 140%.

I don't know if anyone's really mulled this one over yet, and sorry if I missed it, but what do you think the ramifications, PVP or PVE related could come about by the change to give all warriors Shield Slam?

Essentially, they've given all warriors, a somewhat conditional, but usable offensive dispel.

The PVP applications for this are pretty significant, from dispelling a druid's innervate or a priest's PWS to getting rid of Fel Dom after a pummel or getting rid of Blessing of Protection (would this actually work?)

The ability for DPS warriors to throw in a clutch purge in various situations in PVE could also be useful, though perhaps limited to those warriors with Tac Mastery.

Am I looking too far into things here, or is this a pretty significant buff for warriors?

Good point! however its only a /chance/ of a dispell

Also, shield slam is scaling with AP now, not block apparently, depending on the mechanics you /might/ see shield slam being worked into some rotations.

Nope, 100%. Patch 2.3 fixed that.

What Merple said, but note that the dispel can be resisted.

As far as the new MS pvp build goes.
My thinking is along these lines. Yarr! Tools :: Warrior 8472
From reading the tooltip on that page it seems as though they are removing the fear immunity from deathwish.
So unless that tooltip is wrong, i no longer see much benefit from it in PVP.

Even better! (I'm still levelling my warrior and haven't specced prot yet, so my understanding of some warrior stuff is still sketchy).

I'm sorry, but using both an AP trinket and deathwish at the same time while having other cooldowns available is a guaranteed way to put an enourmous amount of pressure on a target in a balanced PvP situation like arena. Regardless if it breaks fear or not, people would still get it in the fury tree for the damage cooldown.

You sure that's not just because you lived longer?


Shield slam doesn't dispel BoP or Divine protection today. It won't be able to remove mage armors or warlock armors after this patch. It's situationally useful, but swapping to a shield causes a GCD, so they'll still get a tic of whatever buff you want to dispel (provided the dispel isn't resisted).


One thing people haven't really commented on is that Sword spec is only able to proc once every 6 seconds in the alpha talents that have been released. Axe/polearm spec has +1% crit and +1% increased critical damage per rank. If you're an orc, you also have the 5 expertise racial to factor in, which should close the gap considerably.

I actually think removing the extra damage taken from deathwish and recklessness would go a decent way towards solving a lot of the 'zerk stance woes. I don't have problems living through AoE damage . I Do have problems when I blow reck/deathwish and stack an extra 25% damage taken on top of 'zerk stance.

Hey I wanted to chime in here as I think my warrior will probably be the toon I stick with if I play WoLK.

What affect will Sudden Death have on fury pve builds, and exactly how does Sudden Death work? Is it a timed buff that lets you execute for some period of time or a charged buff that lets you execute once?

I know the math has been done showing that TG isn't that great of a dps increasing talent, but what I'm really seeing is that a 29/42 or 30/41 build will be absolutely disgusting because of Sudden Death. SD will proc like crazy since you're swinging 1h weapons and should always have WF totem because of raidwide totems, so you should be able to use execute a LOT during bloodthirst/whirlwind downtime...

I personally see Sudden Death more as a PvP utility than something you'd use as a Rage dump for PvE. It basically makes a Warrior being focused on able to output a scary amount of damage, even in 1h+shield mode.

I agree with shaa on the point of putting only a single point into TG.

I think its really a brilliant idea.

I have a question for the general populous of this thread. Do you think it will apply the increased swing time to the weapons before or after the damage calculation?

The reason i ask this is that if it applies it before the damage calculation wouldn't you essentially just be using two SUPER slow weapons. Which would make you hit much harder on white dmg. (Doing a few hasty calculations I came up with something like a 3.6(*1.28)=4.608 speed weapon would be 99.5% as much dmg as a 2.6 speed weapon. In this case the damage from slam just might make it worthwhile to reset the swing timer (Due to the super slow weapon speed). I think in this case (the weapon speed being modified before the damage calculation) the dps gain from TG would be at least moderately useful. Add in the fact that you can get a few other talents in the arms tree and I believe there exists the possibility of a large dps gain by going with 2 2handers over 2 1handers.

What do you guys think?

I do apologize if this has already been answered. I read the full 8 pages but I may have missed something.

Well, I know that in crappy gear in karazhan, being able to execute as a fury warrior is a great thing that gives a big dps increase, I guess I just don't know if that translates to great gear. Though I guess that raises another question of whether it would be better as an entry-level fury warrior to use 1h weapons and spec for SD.

Does anyone know if it actually lets you execute multiple times per proc or if it's just once? I mean, as you said it is a great pvp tool that allows a warrior 1h/shield'ing to deal some good dps... I'm just curious if the math adds up that it would be really valuable, especially if TG stays in its current form and it's that great of a dps talent...

Crushing blows are, mitigation wise, one of the most important thing that made the difference and balanced very high armor tanks (ferals) and high armor tanks (warriors and paladins).
With it gone, very high armor tanks received a huge mitigation buff, but i can't see any kind of buff to warrior mitigation (paladin expansion talents are unknown).
And please don't say that the new Shield Block mechanic is that buff.