Uglesh

As someone who has played Prot for the past 2+ yrs I can say that honestly I'm not terribly interested in the Arms/Fury changes... why?? Because I don't have the slightest clue how they effect you! I think people comment on what they know and that's not a bad thing. I would rather see this then a pile of people who have never played a warrior throwing out ridiculous ideas.

I too agree that the time for testing is getting pretty darn slim... but having said that, I also know that Blizz isn't opposed to using the paying public to guinnea pig a half tested expansion. The reality is that things won't get flushed out in time nearly well enough to create the "balance" they are aiming for. Expect some classes to be overpowered compared to others, and for 1-2 cookie cutter specs to become the norm. It's what's happened in the past and I don't think Blizz has shown anything that leads us to believe this time will be different. It will be patched repeatedly and over time we might see a more polished product.... just don't expect it right away.

 

Machinator

Ive been working on this for a couple days and I think people missed it. I am not sure +hit is the most valuable stat for TG even when not hit capped. A missed special is not as much of a loss as it seems as the rage would then just be channeled into HS (or slam?). If anyone else has done any math on this that shows otherwise I'd like to see it but Ive written and rewritten a spreadsheet and keep getting the same results. Crit > Str > Hit, at 70 so not even counting Impale yet.

"Information is ammunition."

 

Grymm

So missed specials no longer cost rage? To be honest, I couldn't even say if they did. I'm not used to missing specials. It was generally expressed that 1% hit pre-special cap is simply the most superior stat. I haven't done any napkin math on it in a long time.

 

Gruntle

I included the rage discount in my spreadsheet, but it doesn't make much of a difference (depending on current hit% you get something like 2-3 rage back on average). For my stat rankings see my reply in the 2.4 spreadsheet thread.

I'm getting a flurry uptime of about 80% with a raidbuffed crit of around 35-40 % (can't remember the exact number), losing WF is definitely a hit to Flurry uptime. Rampage should be up >95% of the time for that kind of crit (I'm critting once every 2.3 sec on average in my gear). That's at lvl 70 though so not really an answer to the original question.

About Recklessness, I'd really rather have the old really powerful skill that I can burn on fights where the the difference between wipe and win is very small (I do think I have underestimate the value of old Recklessness since I couldn't model it during execute phase and with full buffs). The new version is just not really interesting at all, having that tiny boost in every fight is worth less than a somewhat larger boost in fight where it's sorely needed. It's not always easy to determine when it's worth popping it, but that's actually something good, knowing when to use it is something you learn.

 

Steveharris

I just regemmed everything on PTR with +8 hit gems (from epic 10str and 5str/5crit) and I don't feel like it netted me any huge gain as TG. I'm still waiting to run a bigger parse on the test dummies, but I lost about 3% crit and 190AP, and went from 8.67 hit, to 14.27. Still obviously a long way from hit cap, so hard to say for sure yet. What you mentioned about "Crit>Str>Hit" leaves out that, currently Crit>Str>ArP>Expertise>Haste>Hit (or something like that) whereas after 3.0, I think Hit is going to blow Armor penetration, Haste, and maybe even expertise out of the water, to an extent that we'll be looking just for Hit/Crit/Str like pre BC.

 

jessi

That's kind of a flawed way of thinking. I haven't done any math, but to me it seems the combined use of the new recklessness over the length of a fight will produce much more damage than using the old one, once.

 

Grymm

Part of that might be that you gave up 152 stat points (3 crit/190 ap) and gained about 88.

Also, the old reckless was 15 seconds, so 10 GCD. During that time, you also crit your white attacks. That's 10 crit executes (or more likely 2 crit ww, 3 crit BT, and 5ish executes) all with huge rage generation. That means you would have to use the new reckless 3 times in the same fight to get 90% of the crit specials and still not gain the crit white attacks.

 

Darian_TruBlade

The reason why Hit is paramount as a DPS stat is because increasing Hit increases your Crit (with specials). Warrior/Rogue special attacks function on a two roll system much like spells do (this was covered extensively in this thread a good number of pages back). As such your chance to crit on any given swing is reduced to an extent by your chance to miss/be dodged.

A TG Warrior with Precision but 0 Hit/Expertise on his gear will have a 21.6% chance to miss and ~3-4% chance to be dodged, totaling ~25% chance of a failed attack. This literally reduces your chance to crit with any specials by 25% due to the two roll system. If you have a 40% paper doll Crit, you'll actually only crit 30% of the time.

This doesn't apply to normal swings so it's possible there are mathematical points where Strength and/or Crit surpass Hit and Expertise. However, the severe nature of the two roll system makes it unlikely that Crit will significantly outscale Hit until you begin to get close to the Hit cap.

Currently Expertise and Hit are equivalent in benefit. It costs exactly the same itemization to reduce your chance to be dodged by 1% as it does to increase your hit chance by 1%. In that regard, the only way Hit will outpace Expertise is if you're already Expertise capped.

 

Grymm

Crit is also more expensive % for % than hit.

 

cpkfolief

I see your point on the lack of warrior CC compared to other classes but you haven't touched on the positive notes that have come out of the changes to the trees.

We still have Imp. Hamstring, which isn't a change, but it's still there and that's a good thing. I've been playing my reroll rogue this PvP season on live and I can't tell you how many times Imp. Hamstring has made me want to bang my head against my keyboard in frustration. This relies on RNG but at least it's a way to stop someone in his or her tracks for sure. On an additional note, last time I checked neither Piercing Howl nor Hamstring have cooldowns.

From a damage perspective all I see is warriors getting better. A few talents have had their point allocations reduced, and or had their returns increased. To name some -- 2H Weapon Spec, Imp. Mortal Strike, and Booming Voice. These aren't huge obviously, but it's more than we had before.

A major point I've yet to see anyone point out is the amazing synergy in talents we are allowed to pick up. Wrecking Crew and Enrage give 20% bonus damage which you're going to have pretty much all the time if you're being hit at all. Depending on play style or team combination I could see taking Death Wish, giving a third damage increase, making for huge burst damage capabilities with Recklessness.

The last thing I'd like to note, and I think this is just as important if not more important. Rogues and hunters got healing debuffs, and they got CC effects, sure. Can they put on shields to gain 6k armor, change stances to take 20% less damage, AND have the ability to reflect spells back on to their casters? No. Do rogues and hunters get an ability that passively ticks heals to them when they take damage? No.

Warriors are still and will probably always be a damaging force to be reckoned with in PvP for the most part, people just need to go with the flow. And I swear, if one more person whines about the removal of mace stun I will flip shit.

Edit: Apparently all the enrages in the different trees give the exact same buff so they can't stack.

 

Shha

Wrecking crew and enrage dont stack I think. Its the same enrage effect, just talent names reflect how they are achieved.
One thing i missed in my post - SW off GCD is an old wish on these forums - I wont really get into it too much - just with 50% reduction only, it should be really off gcd. If you are below 30% health (reactive use of SW), it already gives you less return instantly then Last stand....

However, the more important thing is - Recklessness should be off gcd. For one, a crit on only 3 specials, sometimes even isnt worth losing GCD, for two, even if it is (usually), its just weak like that. Furthermore it will bring recklessness in line with other skills - Nature Swiftness, Presence of Mind, Inner Focus and such - the "alterers", spells that change the conditions for next ones - they all dont have gcd implemented.

Retaliation switch to off gcd is just for consistency purpose, the skill still needs more work I think.

 

Neddie

With Armored to the Teeth making it worthwhile to seek out plate when possible, it may be that warriors take more random magic damage due to zerk stance, deathwish and recklessness, but perhaps less random physical damage.

I assume you're talking about Infected Wounds, I'm pretty confident that not every feral will spend two points there. The feral tree is still pretty bloated, so it might not be worth taking that one for a pure raid tank build if a warrior or paladin can supply the same effect. Thunder Clap is a much more reliable and easy to apply ability. TC is an AoE ability rather than a single target. It lasts 30s and has a 2s cooldown, meaning it's pretty easy to keep up. Infected Wounds on the other hands, is only applied if you connect with a mangle or maul. Currently feral druids in tank gear have low hit rates and it's entirely possible to miss with both a mangle and a maul. Even when you do connect you have to get wounds stacked twice, and it will expire after 12s.

I agree that the difference in gear scaling is a major issue. In BC, druids scaled very poorly with better gear, but geared up very quickly. That was great for gearing up to tank Kara, but after that we started having a really hard time finding good upgrades. The current best-in-game tanking weapon for druids is from SSC, for example. It's bad for the game if different classes scale differently with gear upgrades. It leaves certain classes underpowered at some gear levels and overpowered at others.

I started reading this threat after looking at the beta talent trees for prot. There's so much good new stuff there that I'm strongly considering leveling my warrior to tank and leaving my druid behind. Warriors now get all the toys that druids have, keep the spell-related abilities, and get a lot of pvp and farming viability in the prot tree. (Not PvP as in arena pvp, but "surviving on a pvp server" pvp).

For DPS warriors, I don't know. It will be different.

 

• Morsexy

Just to echo that. Did anyone who was among say the first 10-25 groups to clear a heroic in tbc do that with a DPS warrior? Every warrior I knew just went protection, obviously more of an issue at tbc start given two classes to tank.

The more of our unique stuff taken away ( to remove warriors from a dominant pedestal ) to balance the game, and rightfully so, the less incentive there is for us. Again, please don't take this as the world is ending, but I do know very intimately exactly what we're amazing at in the current game. When you outgear an instance(10 mans), one of the best things you can do is bring a paladin and druid tank, and have two warriors arms and fury going to town on aoe pulls. When it is difficult, that is the last thing you want to do.

This was the same issue that made any mage, or very well played warlocks, invaluable beyond belief at the start of tbc and why rogues had little place and dps warriors had zero place in 5 mans, and a smaller place in 10 mans outside of tanking.





My biggest issue is the circular logic to balancing that breaks down on the benefit end, or rebalance end for a warrior. The "Has to be a Penalty" mentality that permeates throughout Blizzard warrior Development.

We have two classes, rogue and warrior. One has stuns and control, one has close the distance skills and a healing debuff. In an effort to balance rogues, they get a form of reactive out (cloak) - ideal for arenas - without the downside of defensive stance. They get a form of intercept, different and perhaps not as good ( or perhaps not balanced with a 4 piece bonus that lowers its CD ). Wound poison is now much easier to apply (I think, please correct me if I'm wrong).

This is great stuff! Balance is coming to the game. Yet logic dictactes that some of what the rogue had should now be granted to the warrior, albeit in an unfinished not as powerful form while it is balanced. Yet we do not have an on demand stun, or a snare break.

I personally find spell reflect to be as much RNG as mace stun ever was. You click your macro, or spin your scroll wheel, reflect and you reflect (Purge) and then get raped. Or you reflect the totality of the burst of the other team, pretty much winning the match. I realize 5's is dead in comparison to other brackets, but that just means that cloak is even better in that context since reflect only really shines in a massive onslaught of death and a scenario that cloak still works for.


If they ever did grant us a cloak like ability, i can guarantee that in the tool tip it states something along the lines of "After Skin of the Raging Turtle is finished(All damage decreased by 90%, 90% of spells resisted), all damage increased for 5 seconds by 25%". It is just a product of 1.0 warrior thinking that needs to change.

 

Darian_TruBlade

Warriors have notable PvP utility, but our PvE utility for 5-mans is notably lacking. All other classes now have some form of CC available to them except Warriors, though many of them are situational or flawed (Hex, Entangling Roots, Hibernate, Shackle).

Way back when BC launched many Warriors were confident that our ability to offtank would be our CC. Pulls with CC-immune mobs such as those in Heroic Sethekk or Steamvaults were cited as places where having a Warrior (or Feral, or Ret) available to offtank was clearly a good option. On paper it made sense, but it failed miserably in practice.

The problem is similar to the one that made Paladins and Druids superior trash/5 man tanks to Warriors, convenience. The utility of being the best in specific circumstances (bosses, pulls of two CC-immune freight train mobs) paled in comparison to being exceptional the other 80-90% of the time. In order for a Warrior to be an effective offtank in Heroics he must A) be competent B) have suitable gear and C) cease to be effective DPS for the entire pull. That means that A) the pull is slower B) the healer has more work to do and C) the rest of the grop has to be willing to trust the Warrior to do a difficult job. Rogues and Mages don't need to be particularly skillful to CC (though it helps) and can keep DPSing. As a result, Warriors offtanking as a form of CC failed. It was viable, even better at times, but it wasn't convenient.

In order for Warriors to function as a CC in this way they need to be able to offtank a heroic mob in DPS gear with a shield and Defensive Stance. Unless Heroics are significantly easier in the expansion than on Live I doubt this is how it will function. Again, all other classes now have a form of CC (and again, some of them are suboptimal) that doesn't prevent them from continuing their other functions. This will likely be as big a strumbling block in the expansion as it is now unless Blizzard greatly simplifies the complexity of pulls.

 

Rustik

That's not how it works, you added an extra 100%. It simply adds 100% of your -unmodified- block value on top of your block, be it crit or non-crit. A crit block doubles your -modified- block value. Shield block is added after the crit.

With Shield Mastery:

130% - Block

230% - Shield Block

260% - Critical Block

360% - Critical Shield Block


Maybe I buggered up somewhere, I'll do it again.

Edit: Nope, i was wrong. I think I wasn't paying attention and counted a full block... funny how it ended up being exactly 360%.

The above numbers are correct, except Critical Shield Block, which is, in fact, 460%.

 

Gruntle

It's not flawed. I have done the math and you need to be able to trigger Recklessness at least four times during one fight to reach the same added dps as one old. And that's with the new talent. Please read back a bit in the thread before making comments.

The only consideration is what Darian_Trublade writes in post 2439, that during progress raids, you're likely to get almost as much out of new Recklessness as the old since it will be up 2 times per try (instead of once every third try). My latest comment was a reply to this. I'd rather have the bigger buff available when I really need it than a 0.2-0.5 times less powerful ability in each fight. But that's just me.

In my opinion they need to lower the cd by at least 50%, maybe even more (90 sec untalented, 60 sec talented) sounds more in line for guaranteeing 3 crits (in principle that's a gain of only 2 crits, since the third one would have been a crit anyway on average) and (as Shha writes) take the skill off the gcd. That change would make the skill add something like 2% total dps.

 

Darian_TruBlade

I would prefer the more powerful Recklessness if I didn't always pick the wrong attempts to use it on. I can recall about 5 or 6 attempts on Gruul alone where the ability was wasted, either by my own error or because a good quarter of the raid managed to shatter themselves to death on the very next ground slam.

That said, I very much agree that the new Recklessness is weak for PvE. Our other massive cooldowns kept a significant % of their former strength. I'm fairly certain the only reason Blizzard didn't do the same for Recklessness is due to Arena/PvP concerns (just imagine that, it's sickening).

Reducing the cooldown seems like one option, although I'm sure at some point an Assassination Rogue or two would start grumbling about Cold Blood. Alternatives are a flat boost in crit chance for the duration (20%?) or a boost to our critical strike damage bonus for the duration (260% crits?).

 

Machinator

I had not implemented a two roll system, however once I did it did not make much difference. I plugged my current armory gear in, MH Torch of the Damned, OH cleaver. Str > Crit > Hit. And crit > hit until the crit cap was hit at about 45% with no hit gear. Its not much of a stretch when you get thinking about it. Compare 1% crit to 1% hit, crit gives a little more rage(RED), more damage both white and special, more bloodsurge procs, and flurry uptime. Yes 1% crit is more expensive than 1% hit, but all the bonuses of crit add up.
I thought it was odd too but it all adds up to me.

"Information is ammunition."

 

renegar

10k Shield Slam

This was on a sundered clothy, with Enrage, Improved Disarm, Shield Block, both block trinkets (autoblocker and lucky coin) and all of the block value increasing talents including Armored to the Teeth.

From my observations (ie no explicit testing), shield block straight up doubles your shield slam damage. If you would have hit for 1500, with shield block it would hit for 3000. If you would have crit for 3300, with shield block you would crit for 6600. This is just based on gut feeling, but in my defense I have leveled up to 75 on beta and I have seen a lot of shield slams. I'll do some testing tonight after riad, though. The good thing about shield slam is that it's damage is fairly static, so this should be easy to test.

 

Kiku

Some attacks (overpowered) can't be dodged, but you can miss.

Stunned targets cannot dodge, but you can still miss them.

In a pvp situation you can get behind a player so they cannot dodge your attack. Paladins and Shaman with shields cannot block or parry while casting.

So there are situations where hit will outpace expertise.

 

nakoda

-.-

 

Kiku

Only mentioning it 'cause you asked. Wound no longer has stacks, so it is easier to apply it to the full effect, but it is also easier to remove the entire effect (cleanse/abolish poison). For rogues that would weapon swap to keep a stack at 5 through an abolish this is actually a nerf, but I do agree that from an overall perspective this is a buff for the rogue community.

Rogues and warriors are apples and oranges. Yes, both are fruit (melee dps), but two totally different beasts. It's very perspective based to try to compare the two, there are so many differences relative to how the benefit in different areas. "They got X now and Y is easier, and we have Y so we should get X too" is much too general. There are a zillion other factors to consider; warrior abilities are physical (harder to remove, can't be resisted), warriors scale better with haste (more rage generation on top of more dps), etc, etc.

I am in no way QQ'ing, or saying one is better than the other (have a warrior myself), just trying to point out that when you simplify things down in this way you end up overlooking many important other factors.

 

cpkfolief

I was going to respond with a long post explaining why I agree with what you're saying but I'm not going to. Quite simply, any more CC given to warrior right now would completely break the class in PvP. It seems with warriors it's always going to be situation where we get all this badass cake but we don't get to eat it too unless the planets and stars align.

 

• Morsexy

Well Ghostcrawler carpetbombed us tonight, which is great. She addressed almost all of the issues I have which was also nice.

I'm very disapointed about the stance issue but I can hope in the future means soonish.

If that is true, and they communicate with people on this forum, my issue is why do they have to do that? I know I'm going to sound elitist, and as an aside I'm happy he responded to you Graul, but why out of the 4 warriors in my guild did none get a Beta invite? I mean, maybe they've got enough of the "uber" set of WoW players, but it leaves me pretty puzzled when of the first 25 guilds to kill KJ in the US, I can account (assuming all guilds have 4 raiding warriors ) for 16 of them that did not get a beta invite. Those are whole guilds left out. It would seem to make more sense to invite 1 from each, and I'd be slightly less unsure of the strategy then. I'd love to know more who exactly the best tanks in the world that are being refered to, as several I know are not involved.

If one were to assume that late Sunwell is the new norm for raid variables ( high splash damage for example ) it would and should have been beaten into the ground how terrible the stance penalty is in those situations, and I have the 10 Muru and KJ WWS to back that data up. I kept a close eye on the Beta forums and with notable exceptions ( who obviously post here ) so much of this was not discussed.

 

Gruntle

The replies from Ghostcrawler were really nice in my opinion. That they are actually even considering changing the stance penalties/buffs is a hell of a lot better than the previous deadening silence on the subject. I'm also happy that they recognize how bad Unending fury is.

As to not getting into the beta, just get over yourself , being in a SWP guild doesn't automatically make you a good tester. I think the feedback from a 15 year old BG-farmer with no raiding experience could very well be as valuable as the feedback from a top-of-the-world raiding guild main tank, WoTLK is more than just 25-man raiding.