[WotLK] Warrior: Simple Questions/Simple Answers - Page 113

Darkside_8169 · 11/03/10, 8:42 PM

So the other day I heard that slow weapons are best for Warrior Tank threat. The person who told me this also said that the Wrathful One Handed Axe you can now buy with honor is great for tanking due to it's slow attack speed and high top-end damage. I was wondering if this was true or not? I have been looking around trying to see if this has been addressed or not but so far have not come across it. Thanks in advance for any responses and help.

thebitterfig · 11/03/10, 10:38 PM

I cringe at the phrase "top-end" damage, but slow weapons will be superior to fast ones for threat, all things being equal. Devastate uses 150% of weapon damage, so it'll hit harder with a slow weapon than a fast one. It should be noted that Devastate is not a massive portion of our threat as prot warriors (somewhere in the 10-15% range), and a Slow weapon will only add around 400 damage per devastate with current weapons, maybe a 15% increase for at most 2% total damage boost, probably less than that.

The problem is that a PvP weapon, or alternately a DPS-itemised slow PvE weapon, is that the stats will be weak for survival. A PvP one at same iLvL will be worse, since it has wasted Resilience which can't be reforged. Although current dps weapons are all agility-itemised, the agility does provide dodge, which the AP on PvP weapons doesn't, and the second stat on a PvE weapon will also be welcome. That said, the Wrathful weapons (any of them would work, but fists are probably the coolest) are fairly easy to acquire and all have sockets. If you've got the honor to burn and are stuck with a 232 weapon, it might be a worthwhile upgrade, but I wouldn't bother if I had any sort of ICC weapon, personally.

Unclechoppy · 11/05/10, 11:23 AM

Originally Posted by thebitterfig

The problem is that a PvP weapon, or alternately a DPS-itemised slow PvE weapon, is that the stats will be weak for survival. A PvP one at same iLvL will be worse, since it has wasted Resilience which can't be reforged. Although current dps weapons are all agility-itemised, the agility does provide dodge, which the AP on PvP weapons doesn't, and the second stat on a PvE weapon will also be welcome. That said, the Wrathful weapons (any of them would work, but fists are probably the coolest) are fairly easy to acquire and all have sockets. If you've got the honor to burn and are stuck with a 232 weapon, it might be a worthwhile upgrade, but I wouldn't bother if I had any sort of ICC weapon, personally.

Let's compare
[Rimefang's Claw]
Avg Damage: 306.5
Stam: 77
Str: 52 (114AP)
Dodge: 44
Parry: 21

vs

[Wrathful Gladiator's Slicer]
Avg Damage: 589.5
Stam: 134 (with +30 stam gem)
AP: 131 (including socketed bonus)
Crit: 38 (15 points reforge-able)
Resil: 46 (worthless stat)

57 Stam and some increased DPS/threat vs 50 more dodge/parry rating

BRING ON THE STAM AND DPS IMO!

Then again I used to tank with [Crul'shorukh, Edge of Chaos] over a [Quel'Serrar] in classic, so maybe my opinion is biased.

krilz · 11/08/10, 4:06 AM

Question about refreshing Rend:

The way DoTs work now for spell casters (as warlocks and shadow priests), refreshing a DoT somewhere between the last and 2nd last tick gives the most bang for the buck so to speak as it doesn't clip. Does Rend work in the same way? I read somewhere here that it was currently bugged. Is that still the case?

siliconminded · 11/09/10, 4:40 PM

What is known about how Critical Block is implemented with regards to the hit table? Specifically, is it still a one-roll system, and where does it lie on the table if it is?

thebitterfig · 11/09/10, 5:15 PM

I can't comment on the optimum Rend application strategy, but I can say that it ticks immediately upon application if there isn't currently a Rend on the target (I haven't heard if this is a bug or intended). As a result, refreshing Rend after the 2nd to last tick will cause lost ticks. I don't mean to imply that letting it drop will be the best strategy, but simply to comment on the current mechanics in Live.

Yes · 11/10/10, 2:58 AM

What's the deal with inner rage? I ended up macroing it into bloodthurst / overpower / devastate and having a /cancelaura macro on the heroic strike keybinding. Has anyone done the math on this?

winst · 11/10/10, 5:54 AM

Regarding raiding at 80 with Cata talents/mechanics: Assuming a fight is ~2 minutes long, as most of the fights in ICC25H are, is it simply a matter of using Death Wish when your raid Bloodlusts? Or is it worth saving for execute spam? Being that your haste stacks up at that point anyway, and execute itself is huge damage.

Rysidion · 11/16/10, 11:28 AM

Originally Posted by krilz

Question about refreshing Rend:

The way DoTs work now for spell casters (as warlocks and shadow priests), refreshing a DoT somewhere between the last and 2nd last tick gives the most bang for the buck so to speak as it doesn't clip. Does Rend work in the same way? I read somewhere here that it was currently bugged. Is that still the case?

It's not bugged, at least on live. It works the same way as you described; using between the second to last and the last tick will extend the duration (and help avoid clipping from my experience). However, as mentioned earlier, your total Rend damage will probably be lower compared to if you applied it immediately after it falls off, because the initial application does a rend tick itself. As of yet I haven't tested to see if applying Rend during the end of the rend cycle (between the second to last and the last tick) will still do one tick worth of damage, but if so then the best strategy would be to keep it rolling.

krilz · 11/18/10, 7:08 AM

Originally Posted by Rysidion

It's not bugged, at least on live. It works the same way as you described; using between the second to last and the last tick will extend the duration (and help avoid clipping from my experience). However, as mentioned earlier, your total Rend damage will probably be lower compared to if you applied it immediately after it falls off, because the initial application does a rend tick itself. As of yet I haven't tested to see if applying Rend during the end of the rend cycle (between the second to last and the last tick) will still do one tick worth of damage, but if so then the best strategy would be to keep it rolling.

I tried out Rend a whole bunch yesterday but I can't be certain of exactly how the mechanic work. On the initial application Rend ticks immediately and procs Taste for Blood but sometimes when it falls off and I immediately refresh it after using Overpower, it doesn't give me Taste for Blood again. Naturally I'd assume that's because of a hidden cooldown of some sort but wouldn't that mean that the last tick (when Rend falls off) is non-existant, and that clipping it would be similar to how DoTs for casters work (only that the last tick is now the first tick of the newest application)? Overall, it seems like a very clunky mechanic and I can't really wrap my head around it. I'll try it out for sure later tonight.

Matsujinn · 11/18/10, 8:30 AM

TfB can only proc every 5 seconds. On the initial application of Rend it procs at 0, 6, and 12 seconds due to Rend ticking every 3 sec. There is a post in the Arms DPS thread regarding this. You should try to refresh Rend at 17sec so that you get extra Rend damage, as well as extra Overpower damage rather than just refreshing Rend at 15 sec and keeping 100% uptime. Your Rend uptime will be lower but your damage for Rend and OP will be higher.

Barnacles · 11/21/10, 8:27 PM

Hey there. I looked through this forum as well as this thread and couldn't figure this out for myself, so I figured someone might know, but just hasn't written about it.

I was wondering why, even after hard hit cap and equal circumstances such as buffs and procs as well as 23 expertise and the same stats on both tries, I did about 2000 dps less on the 83+ Boss Target Dummy than I did on the level 80 one. Is there something I'm missing, such as glancing blows, or perhaps bosses have a specific amount of armor which is more than a lower mob?

I would love to know why. Thanks!

winst · 11/22/10, 9:21 AM

Lower armor, no glances and no crit reduction, iirc. If you hit a 60 dummy the armor goes even lower and you can probably net another few k dps.

ComMcNeil · 11/25/10, 9:06 AM

Originally Posted by winst

Lower armor, no glances and no crit reduction, iirc. If you hit a 60 dummy the armor goes even lower and you can probably net another few k dps.

Regarding "no glances", I made a strange observation yesterday. After the many many QQ in the MMO champion regarding warrior DPS, I did some checks myself, first by hitting on the lvl 80 dummy in OG. There I did around 9.5k dps, which is not that bad I guess. Afterwards, I ported to the argent tournament to kill the lvl 80 cultists west of there on the plateau (because I had done the quests there the days before the patch and had a good memory on how fast the mobs would go down).
In fact, the numbers on the mobs there were a significantly lower, than before the patch (some 4k BT hits and stuff). Neverthless, I encountered this phenomenon:

The mob is a normal lvl 80 mob as most of you are aware I think. I was under the impression (and the Wowwiki article confirms this) that glancing hits are only possible on mobs with a higher level than yourself. Was this changed?

I also found a beta thread about this, but no blue response so far: World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Beta - (English) Forums -> Melee glancing blows on equal level mobs

edit: I did a small testrun on the dummy, the glancing chance seems to be around 4-7%.

Muspel · 11/29/10, 3:33 PM

Originally Posted by thebitterfig

I cringe at the phrase "top-end" damage, but slow weapons will be superior to fast ones for threat, all things being equal. Devastate uses 150% of weapon damage, so it'll hit harder with a slow weapon than a fast one. It should be noted that Devastate is not a massive portion of our threat as prot warriors (somewhere in the 10-15% range), and a Slow weapon will only add around 400 damage per devastate with current weapons, maybe a 15% increase for at most 2% total damage boost, probably less than that.

The problem is that a PvP weapon, or alternately a DPS-itemised slow PvE weapon, is that the stats will be weak for survival. A PvP one at same iLvL will be worse, since it has wasted Resilience which can't be reforged. Although current dps weapons are all agility-itemised, the agility does provide dodge, which the AP on PvP weapons doesn't, and the second stat on a PvE weapon will also be welcome. That said, the Wrathful weapons (any of them would work, but fists are probably the coolest) are fairly easy to acquire and all have sockets. If you've got the honor to burn and are stuck with a 232 weapon, it might be a worthwhile upgrade, but I wouldn't bother if I had any sort of ICC weapon, personally.

It's also worth noting that the higher damage on slow 1-handers increases the damage of Rend, which prot is supposed to use now for single target and AoE.