This would be pretty unbalanced for PvP. If you haven't done PvP as prot spec go try it sometime. I'm already critting people for 5K shield slams and 8K shockwaves with only self buffs.
Edited in the requirement for defensive stance, which I missed out when I first posted. I have PvP'd as Prot Spec (always have - PvP'd to Rank 11 as Prot way back), and it's a lot of fun when you have a good team working with you. The level of lockdown and control you can provide is quite impressive. And being able to destroy rogues is always good fun! But I don't think such an ability would be all that unbalanced in PvP, particularly if they reduce or remove rage earned from damage taken to address infinte rage issues in PvE.
Originally Posted by zaon
All of your suggestions are nice, but involve too much work (development time). We are looking at Uldur coming out soon and probably Ice Crown not too far in the future. The bulk of development time is going to be spent on these encounters and PvP balancing. I really don't see them engaging in any significant reworking of a combat system, rage system, or anything that crosses classes like that in time for this content. And if the changes don't make it for these two content patches then they might as well wait until the next expansion.
You may consider the proposed solutions band-aids, but that is what we might have a chance at getting to improve our play experience. All of the best ideas to rework the whole thing for long-term playability don't matter if you don't take into account the difficulty/time required to implement and test them.
I know it's optimistic, but my concern is that we'll get some nice little tweaks in 3.1, the Devs will say 'there, Warriors are fixed', and by the time Ulduar is on farm we'll be right back in the same position of being overlooked in preference to the other tanking classes. The issues we have are more deep-rooted within the overall mechanics and interactions of tanking stats, and I don't believe it's something that can be fully addressed simply by making changes to Warriors.
Originally Posted by zaon
The heroic strike toggle would be a very minor development effort that would solve 90% of the problem with key mashing. I'm actually wondering if it may be possible to work up some kind of addon that does this without needing developer support - basically have a toggle on/off key and whenever it is on the addon would listen to all action bar keypress events and queue up heroic strike. This would function pretty much like having two action bar setups but being able to easily toggle between them.
A minor development, perhaps, but not one that solves the problem in a satisfactory way... and also one which may have no real benefit if they address the issues relating to infinite rage situations.
Issues
• Abilities could benefit from smoother gcd management (revenge does not play well with others)
• Rage generation/management is still flawed. Rage starvation is an issue for off-tanks (and occasionally for main tanks) and infinite rage is a button mash circus. Upcoming tweaks to stance dancing could minimize the latter.
• Too many stats to juggle (expertise and hit costs too much stamina opportunity)
• May still be too weak on magic fights
• Dmg may be too weak
Ability changes
• Decrease cooldown on revenge
• Make devastate scale with ap
• Consider reducing the timer on shield wall and last stand to 3 minutes
• Consider removing the range limitation on imp spell reflect and or reduce the cooldown further or make more attacks reflectable
Talent changes
• Imp HS - Increase dmg by 5/10/15%
• Deflection and Anticipation - "and has a 20/40/60/80/100% chance to generate 2 rage when a parry/dodge occurs (a likely change given comments about rage and avoidance)
• Shield Mastery add "and increases damage reduction of your shield wall ability based on defense"
• Remove puncture and replace it with a taste for blood clone for revenge i.e. something like "Reprisal" - "Whenever target takes damage, you have a 10/20/30% chance of allowing the use of your Revenge ability for 5 secs. 1 charge. Target must be the victim of sunder armor."
• Remove Focused Rage and replace with "Increases your attack power by an amount equal to 10/20/30% of your Stamina and increases the amount of rage generated by your melee critical hits by 10/20/30%.
• Improved Def stance increase spell dmg reduction by 5/10%
• Vitality increase exp by 3/6/9%
-Spell Reflect: I don't know if Spell Reflect works on breaths (or something like frostnova) but I don't think it does. So how about the idea giving SR charges, reflecting nonbinary spells (like Frostbolt) and blocking binary spells (like frostnova) done against you or party/raid members for 3xblockvalue.
-Focused Rage: You gain 5 rage everytime you melee critical strikes and increases attack power by 10/20/30% of your stamina.
-One Hand Specc: perhaps Hit on it could make it somehow interesting for DW offtank and MT freeing up Hit.
-Puncture: The idea is good, but another "Hit when light up" Button like Revenge and S&B procc? I would like to see a procc that you don't have to trigger manually (like the changed Sudden Doom or Reckoning) which is off the GCD. Something like:
"Your Devastate and Sunder Armor have a 5/10/15% change to expose a weakness in your opponent's defense, instantly dealing 3x weaponDmg against him (or cause him to bleed)"
Mistersix, quite a lot of good, simple suggestions there really--and in line with a lot of suggestions already.
I would also add the suggestion as mentioned previously that Spell Reflection--either basic or improved--should reduce all spell damage taken for 3-5 seconds after using the ability by somewhere between 10-20%.
In regard to Puncture, I actually really liked a suggestion someone had earlier about allowing it to have a chance on Sunder Armor/Devastate to apply the Rend effect to the target. Allows easy synergy with the top-tier of Arms and would boost the value of Sunder/Devastate somewhat.
• Remove puncture and replace it with a taste for blood clone for revenge i.e. something like "Reprisal" - "Whenever target takes damage, you have a 10/20/30% chance of allowing the use of your Revenge ability for 5 secs. 1 charge. Target must be the victim of sunder armor."
I'm not sure I understand the logic of having another reactive proc that lights up one of our abilities - we already have Sword and Board for that. Also, as you've also suggested the cooldown reduction on Revenge, surely it's better to just leave it with that and let it slot into the standard rotation?
Something I'd really like to see, however, would be some sort of execute ability within defensive stance to improve TPS/DPS towards the end of boss fights when other classes have abilities that increase damage output. It's something that may end up being needed to keep up with DPS class scaling in the long term. This could be a rage to damage modifier applied to an existing ability when the boss is below 20%, for example.
Wouldn't help because prot PvP uses defensive stance almost exclusively now (dance for intercept sometimes).
A heroic strike toggle isn't a solution to threat or dps issues, it just would save a lot of key mashing. Whether heroic strike needs to be rebalanced from the fast vs slow weapon thing for threat/dps is a different question. If I'm tanking a boss now, a toggle would save me at least 60 keypresses a minute. For threat they could take all the modified threat off of heroic strike and add it to shield slam, revenge, and devastate/sunder armor. This would make the use of heroic strike spam with a fast weapon more optional and also allow off tanks more threat generation when they have low rage.
Infinite rage situations are only a problem if we are required to mash a heroic strike every 0.5 seconds to reach the best TPS/DPS. I would rather they don't give us any more moves to dump rage, but instead make us a lot less reliant on heroic strike threat and buff the threat of other skills.
-Spell Reflect: I don't know if Spell Reflect works on breaths (or something like frostnova) but I don't think it does. So how about the idea giving SR charges, reflecting nonbinary spells (like Frostbolt) and blocking binary spells (like frostnova) done against you or party/raid members for 3xblockvalue.
-Focused Rage: You gain 5 rage everytime you melee critical strikes and increases attack power by 10/20/30% of your stamina.
-One Hand Specc: perhaps Hit on it could make it somehow interesting for DW offtank and MT freeing up Hit.
-Puncture: The idea is good, but another "Hit when light up" Button like Revenge and S&B procc? I would like to see a procc that you don't have to trigger manually (like the changed Sudden Doom or Reckoning) which is off the GCD. Something like:
"Your Devastate and Sunder Armor have a 5/10/15% change to expose a weakness in your opponent's defense, instantly dealing 3x weaponDmg against him (or cause him to bleed)"
I'd love to see hit added to 1h weapon spec.
The "reprisal" idea was whipped up primarily as a way to give off-tanks access to revenge.
Originally Posted by Jayde
Mistersix, quite a lot of good, simple suggestions there really--and in line with a lot of suggestions already.
I would also add the suggestion as mentioned previously that Spell Reflection--either basic or improved--should reduce all spell damage taken for 3-5 seconds after using the ability by somewhere between 10-20%.
In regard to Puncture, I actually really liked a suggestion someone had earlier about allowing it to have a chance on Sunder Armor/Devastate to apply the Rend effect to the target. Allows easy synergy with the top-tier of Arms and would boost the value of Sunder/Devastate somewhat.
Great idea. We've had a lot of talk about hs and revenge in this thread but I'm also concerned about the lack of impact devastate has. It needs to be more valuable to help with the off-tanking quandry.
Originally Posted by Alithiel
Something I'd really like to see, however, would be some sort of execute ability within defensive stance to improve TPS/DPS towards the end of boss fights when other classes have abilities that increase damage output. It's something that may end up being needed to keep up with DPS class scaling in the long term. This could be a rage to damage modifier applied to an existing ability when the boss is below 20%, for example.
We'll have that with Execute thanks to the pending changes to stance dancing.
A heroic strike toggle isn't a solution to threat or dps issues, it just would save a lot of key mashing. Whether heroic strike needs to be rebalanced from the fast vs slow weapon thing for threat/dps is a different question. If I'm tanking a boss now, a toggle would save me at least 60 keypresses a minute. For threat they could take all the modified threat off of heroic strike and add it to shield slam, revenge, and devastate/sunder armor. This would make the use of heroic strike spam with a fast weapon more optional and also allow off tanks more threat generation when they have low rage.
Infinite rage situations are only a problem if we are required to mash a heroic strike every 0.5 seconds to reach the best TPS/DPS. I would rather they don't give us any more moves to dump rage, but instead make us a lot less reliant on heroic strike threat and buff the threat of other skills.
Even under these circumstances there would be no reason NOT to press heroic strike every weapon swing because it will still lead to a higher TPS output. They can gut the threat from HS but more DPS leads to more TPS regardless of increased threat on our other abilities.
Originally Posted by Fellwraith
[Y]ou will tank 3 mobs, and only 3 mobs. 5 shalt thou not tank, nor shalt thou tank 4. Thou shalt not tank 2 mobs unless it is on the way to tanking 3 mobs.
If I'm tanking a boss now, a toggle would save me at least 60 keypresses a minute. For threat they could take all the modified threat off of heroic strike and add it to shield slam, revenge, and devastate/sunder armor. This would make the use of heroic strike spam with a fast weapon more optional and also allow off tanks more threat generation when they have low rage.
Even transferring all the bonus threat to other skills, it wouldn't make HS spam any more optional - you'd still have to keep mashing that button to keep up the DPS, particularly when you consider the number of bosses that have some sort of berserk timer or speed-kill achievement.
Originally Posted by zaon
Infinite rage situations are only a problem if we are required to mash a heroic strike every 0.5 seconds to reach the best TPS/DPS. I would rather they don't give us any more moves to dump rage, but instead make us a lot less reliant on heroic strike threat and buff the threat of other skills.
I agree, but I think that the best way to achieve this is to lock out HS altogether and buff both the threat AND damage of other skills while consuming all the excess rage to do so.
We'll have that with Execute thanks to the pending changes to stance dancing.
My point was to have something available within Defensive Stance - so we don't have to switch stance, lose a big chunk of our damage reduction and risk taking a big hit that could kill us and potentially result in a wipe. Something that can be slotted into the standard tanking rotation, or which augments a current tanking ability, without causing any interruption or distraction during what is often a critical part of the encounter.
Possibly, but warriors are better than ferals for this job. Throw vigilance on the MT and spam your TC/shockwave/cleave/taunts and you are much better than a feral, especially if you are spec'd deep wounds. That being said, try using a DK sometime for this job and watch him do 6-8K dps and solo half the adds.
Perhaps I wasn't too clear about what I meant with that anecdote. We usually use a death knight for the adds as they can kill them almost alone as you mentioned (the 'tank' DK then ends up in the top 3 in the damage meters most of the time). I usually tank the 3 drakes (Tenebron, Shadron, Vesperon) and have no problems doing so. Though one night no DK was available, so I was on AE duty and a feral tanked the drakes and according to some DPSers his threat was worse than mine in previous nights.
--
The deflection idea looks sound in order to achieve stats consolidation, but it would also change DKs quite a bit. Currently they work with higher avoidance, but no additional mitigation on top of armor (or cooldowns).
Originally Posted by Alithiel
Once general tank survivability is balanced so that there is no clear best class, then magical damage mitigation can be looked at in a similar manner. Perhaps remove the emphasis from gearing to survive magical attacks in non-resistance fights by making them a fixed percentage of target maximum health. The emphasis is then on the healers to top the tank up before and after such attacks to ensure that he/she has sufficient health to survive the physical damage which is constantly ongoing.
While it would make lower HP tanks equally viable for certain roles (e.g. MT in Sarth 3D), the percentage of target maximum HP part is which makes it bad. It would penaltize any gear upgrades and on top would remove any "gear check" as well if it wasn't capped at the bottom. Sure you could say the physical component of the encounter damage is still there, but if an encounter is designed in a way so that it should be challenging to deal with the magical damage component, then a fixed percentage of target maximum health is a bad mechanic imo. If it can be trivialized it could be left out as well.
While it would make lower HP tanks equally viable for certain roles (e.g. MT in Sarth 3D), the percentage of target maximum HP part is which makes it bad. It would penaltize any gear upgrades and on top would remove any "gear check" as well if it wasn't capped at the bottom. Sure you could say the physical component of the encounter damage is still there, but if an encounter is designed in a way so that it should be challenging to deal with the magical damage component, then a fixed percentage of target maximum health is a bad mechanic imo. If it can be trivialized it could be left out as well.
If it was 20-30% of the tanks health, I'd agree... but if it's 80 or even 90%+ of the tanks health (similar to Gluth's Decimate, but just on the tank), then I don't think it can be 'trivialised' as such until you break the point where you have sufficient health left afterwards to survive 1-2 melee hits.
I would also add the suggestion as mentioned previously that Spell Reflection--either basic or improved--should reduce all spell damage taken for 3-5 seconds after using the ability by somewhere between 10-20%.
It would make sense to make it only talented (instead of the RNG-prone 4% spell avoidance), though a 3-5sec window wouldn't make it overpowered for Arms PvP per se.
Originally Posted by Jayde
In regard to Puncture, I actually really liked a suggestion someone had earlier about allowing it to have a chance on Sunder Armor/Devastate to apply the Rend effect to the target. Allows easy synergy with the top-tier of Arms and would boost the value of Sunder/Devastate somewhat.
I really like this idea. If they would change Rend to be based on weapon DPS and Heroic Strike to be normalized on speed, it would also alleviate the fast/slow weapon issue. Though I can't assess whether a Rend change to weapon DPS would make it too strong for DPS builds.
I'm liking all the discussion about new talents that would add rend dmg or increase the weapon dmg component on devastate but wouldn't this lead to the exact opposite problem we have right now? That is, no real options when selecting a tanking weapon. This would require tanks to use Broken Promise instead of the other weapons available. And the dearth of slow tanking weapons out there would ensure that we're all fighting for that one weapon.
I like having to choose between fast and slow weapons. I like the slightly different styles and having to decide depending on whether the fight is going to give me so much rage that a fast weapon is superior or if I am not getting rage/OT'ing such that a slow weapon is superior.
The problem as I see it right now is that the dropoff/cutover point for this decision is too steep: in almost all cases if you are MT'ing you produce better threat and DPS with a fast weapon, in almost all cases if you are OT'ing you produce better threat and DPS with a slow weapon, and the different between MT'ing and OT'ing is way too much.
My suggestions were aimed to shift this decision point more towards a play-style/talent selection choice and blunt the sharpness in the difference between MT and OT threat. Removing threat from HS and putting it into other skills helps this a lot. However, to keep it so that slow weapons are not the only option you would keep the bonus damage on HS the way it is. And again, all of my suggestions are focused on keeping the implementation (and rebalancing DPS warriors/other classes) difficulty at the lowest possible level so that the possibility the developers may choose to do something is greater.
I like having to choose between fast and slow weapons. I like the slightly different styles and having to decide depending on whether the fight is going to give me so much rage that a fast weapon is superior or if I am not getting rage/OT'ing such that a slow weapon is superior.
Do you honestly consider having to press HS once every 1.6 secs compared to once every 2.6 secs a different playstyle? I don't, which is why I don't see a point in using fast weapons over the vastly superior slow ones.
Do you honestly consider having to press HS once every 1.6 secs compared to once every 2.6 secs a different playstyle? I don't, which is why I don't see a point in using fast weapons over the vastly superior slow ones.
Sorry, I was assuming we have a toggle and aren't mashing the key anymore Then 1.6 vs 2.6 is a slightly different style, with some rotations/talent/gear/glyphs/fights affecting both equally and some favoring one or the other with neither being vastly superior to the other.
I still remember the days of using Julie's Dagger as the first tank on Vael because it was 1.3 speed and Quel was 2.0... the difference was pretty big and it still is for unlimited rage scenarios. I just don't know about the whole normalizing heroic strike because of how much rebalancing might have to be done to Arms/Fury DPS.
If we actually benefited from our white hits vs. trying to remove them like a madman then there would still be a reason to go for fast weapons which personally I prefer conceptually anyway. Let the DKs and their massive 2handers be the slowpokes.
This may be a bit off topic, but since a few weeks before BC came out, I have raided, pvp-ed, and brushed my teeth as prot. I have been working on refining my prot pvp forever, and I believe I have come up w/ a finalized package. I don't even have my full set yet, but so far my highest crit has been 12.5k on a mage.
Any suggestions? Or if you'd want me to explain certain point choices, feel free to ask. I'm a Smitty too so add 3 sockets as well.
Note: Lavanthor's Talisman is effected by ALL of my block value buffs, including Shield Mastery, Shield Block, Glyph of Blocking and the 5% BV meta gem (the eternal cut)...when all of these are running, that trinket is pumping out over 1500 block value for the duration of shield block, and over 750 with it running w/ out shield block.
Do you honestly consider having to press HS once every 1.6 secs compared to once every 2.6 secs a different playstyle? I don't, which is why I don't see a point in using fast weapons over the vastly superior slow ones.
You have sword and board. You just used Shield Slam, then a devastate (procing S & B), following up with the free Shield Slam. With a 1.5 speed, this can happen very, very fast. With a 2.6, the refresh of your shield slam cooldown takes even longer.
You have sword and board. You just used Shield Slam, then a devastate (procing S & B), following up with the free Shield Slam. With a 1.5 speed, this can happen very, very fast. With a 2.6, the refresh of your shield slam cooldown takes even longer.
HS or white swings cannot trigger Sword and Board.
Originally Posted by zaon
Sorry, I was assuming we have a toggle and aren't mashing the key anymore Then 1.6 vs 2.6 is a slightly different style, with some rotations/talent/gear/glyphs/fights affecting both equally and some favoring one or the other with neither being vastly superior to the other.
My point was: Assuming they fix HS to not be weapon speed reliant (assume here that the damage and threat done by a 1.6 and 2.6 wep are equal for HS over time), what exactly do fast weapons offer except for maybe smoother rage generations? I already listed the advantages of a slow weapon setup. Also, what changes in play style? You keep the same rotation with a fast or a slow weapon.
You have sword and board. You just used Shield Slam, then a devastate (procing S & B), following up with the free Shield Slam. With a 1.5 speed, this can happen very, very fast. With a 2.6, the refresh of your shield slam cooldown takes even longer.
HS or white swings cannot trigger Sword and Board.
I was refering more to shield slam and devastate damage. With a 2.6, the damage of a HS may increase, but you are using it less. Example in a 10 second timeframe. 6 smaller HS versus 4 bigger HS costing you a little more than 10 seconds.
I always prefered quick weapons as it complements reaction time in an O shit situation (avg human reaction I believe is 1.4)
I was refering more to shield slam and devastate damage. With a 2.6, the damage of a HS may increase, but you are using it less. Example in a 10 second timeframe. 6 smaller HS versus 4 bigger HS costing you a little more than 10 seconds.
I always prefered quick weapons as it complements reaction time in an O shit situation.
Could you maybe read the whole thread instead of random shrapnels then state what we all know (that HS is better with fast weapons in high rage sitatuions at the moment)? We were bouncing off ideas on how to solve the HS issue, some people suggesting a toggle, some people advocating to remove it and replace it with something else entirely and some people who would see HS equally good for fast and slow weapons (me) which was the whole basis of my argument.
Really, read the thread before you reply. Anything else is just disrespectful.
Could you maybe read the whole thread instead of random shrapnels then state what we all know (that HS is better with fast weapons in high rage sitatuions at the moment)? We were bouncing off ideas on how to solve the HS issue, some people suggesting a toggle, some people advocating to remove it and replace it with something entirely and some people who would see HS equally good for fast and slow weapons (me) which was the whole basis of my argument.
Really, read the thread before you reply. Anything else is just disrespectful.
appologies. I merely posted to put my 2 cents in about pvp, hoping to get some productive feedback. I read the post following mine, believing I could contribute. O and tib, no reason to be a snot.
I'm liking all the discussion about new talents that would add rend dmg or increase the weapon dmg component on devastate but wouldn't this lead to the exact opposite problem we have right now? That is, no real options when selecting a tanking weapon. This would require tanks to use Broken Promise instead of the other weapons available. And the dearth of slow tanking weapons out there would ensure that we're all fighting for that one weapon.
A common and easy to implement suggestion is to make devastate work off weapon DPS, not damage, so it doesn't matter what the weapon speed is, it gets the same benefit. If HS is unable to be spammed 24/7, it also wouldn't be affected by using a slower weapon as opposed to a fast.
02/17/09, 9:45 AM
Then 1.6 vs 2.6 is a slightly different style, with some rotations/talent/gear/glyphs/fights affecting both equally and some favoring one or the other with neither being vastly superior to the other.
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