Game-Changing New Powers

[TheDragoon]

I'm curious about trying to solo with a heavy prot build. I figure I'd stay in my DW gear. The one thing I'm wondering is do you use sunder and then devastate, or just go straight to devastating? If the damage loss is only 10% or less I think it will be worth it to save the headaches of tanking.

Straight Devestate works great. Think of Devestate as half a Mortal Strike for a one-hander that has no cooldown and use it accordingly. :) I saw very, very little drop in DPS with Skybreak when she swapped from 0/31/20 to 5/5/41.

[bonemage]

Straight Devestate works great. Think of Devestate as half a Mortal Strike for a one-hander that has no cooldown and use it accordingly. :) I saw very, very little drop in DPS with Skybreak when she swapped from 0/31/20 to 5/5/41.

I think that depends on the weapon. My Shadowrend Longblade only does about 130 damage without sunders in Ramparts on the armored mobs, less than half the damage of shield slam, for about 70% of the rage (12 vs. 17). With 5 sunders, it's around 250. I think if I had finished my PvP grind to get a HWL Blade, straight Devastate would be worthwhile without sunders, as they have no eqaul in Devastate damage until at least level 68. I haven't run any hard numbers, but I start with sunders if I think I'll have time for Devastate, but some things I don't bother with as they won't be upright long enough to get to that point.

[Frag]

I'm presently an Arms/Fury warrior and only struggle when folks are acting like monkeys and not assist/focus firing or when aggro is stripped at 75% (probably because I'm chasing down the mob I hadn't touched yet that someone has opened up on) and the DPSe'r figures its better to turn it up rather than try to dump aggro...

Which is as it should be.

At one point during beta I could charge > thunderclap > defensive > bloodrage > shield slam > tab+revenge > back to original mob + sunder and LOSE the original to HoT aggro. That definately prompted a WTF from me and a lot of sky is falling posts on the beta boards by warriors with similiar experiences.

Things aren't that way anymore, thankfully.

As for Ima_'s question, when I tested prot grinding I would usually stick in battle stance, sunder if it was a high armor mob, but otherwise just shield slam / devastate with TC/Demo on and it worked well. GG's idea of sunder to 50% or 5-stack is probably the optimal way to go, though.

Cheers,
~Frag B)

[Thawwing Light]

Honestly, I'm surprised to see someone at the Basin claiming the sky is falling. I've had no problems holding aggro from tier3-equipped DPS monkeys, and I do very well in PvP, even without Improved Revenge.

Well, saying that I claimed the sky is falling is a tad harsh. The net product of my arguements in that thread are that warriors are a worse choice for tanking in a 5 man than a druid, and that the DPS, utility, and solo ability (to say nothing of PvP ability) of a protection warrior isn't nearly that of a Feral druid. I don't think we're obsolete as raid tanks, and we aren't bad tanks - just not an optimal choice by a decent margin.

The funny thing is, I'm not a raid tank. The most I've tanked is ZG and and AQ20, and the odd 16-man venture into MC. I adapted the raid tanking style when I did that (using HS as a rage dump), but most of my experience is tanking 5 mans. Pre-2.0, I was doing pretty well, able to hold hate rather well with a mix of Revenge, Shield Slam, and Sunder, with the odd Demoralizing Shout, Shield Bash, and Disarm thrown in when appropriate.

In TBC... well, maybe it's just that some of the Mages I run with are specced for the exact right setup in Fire, but I can't hold hate to save my life off certain mages within the guild if they decide to open up early. I can either keep one target off the DPS, or all other targets off the healers, but not both at the same time. Of course, i just hit 67, and got a new rank of Sunder, so that may help a bit.

The other thing is, my complaints about the terrible DPS of Devastate are likely due to the fact that pre-TBC, I had a Ravenholdt Slicer as my weapon - it's quite slow, but it's still only a 42 dps weapon. I still found that Shield Slam was better DPS than it, and that the added survivability of a shield usually worked better when soloing or PvPing.

Speaking of PvP... I did a lot of it, in prot. I'm not saying I'm good... but I occasionally won 1v1 fights. The interruption playstyle is good, but it's more of an annoyance than anything else, and with my piddly setup, I found it nigh - impossible to kill anyone that outgeared me.

So this is where I come from with my complaints. That, and it was coming off a particularly bad set of runs.



Maybe it will be better, now that the gear curve is reset, with the game rebalanced for level 70. I'll reevaluate it then. Right now, I went Arms for grinding, something I've only done once before, and I miss my protection setup, even if I find it flat out worse for soloing and PvPing, and only marginally better for tanking, and still not great even for that.


On a side note, Artega, as someone who PvPs heavily in protection, I'm curious what sort of advice you have for someone else who enjoys that playstyle, but seems to suck at it.

[Tal]

In TBC... well, maybe it's just that some of the Mages I run with are specced for the exact right setup in Fire, but I can't hold hate to save my life off certain mages within the guild if they decide to open up early. I can either keep one target off the DPS, or all other targets off the healers, but not both at the same time. Of course, i just hit 67, and got a new rank of Sunder, so that may help a bit.

I don't care if you're a druid, warrior or paladin - you're not going to hold hate on ANY mobs if a DPSer decides to open up. My golden rule of tanking before TBC and in post TBC is to protect the healer first, dps second. If a mage opens up early and with prejudice then they can tank the mob.

[Thawwing Light]

In the end, that's what I used to do. I guess it's my fault that I've actually joined a guild where I care about the DPS monkeys, and try to keep them up;)I'll probably just mark a 'mages tanking this one' target, as our mages can at least kite well enough to keep themselves alive, and the new TBC instances are big enough to allow that.


I recognize this, and I'm pretty much over the frustration that caused me to take that overview. I still wish prot were more solo and PvP friendly (as far as PvP goes, my tactical purpose is that of a distraction. It's a role I don't mind, but I wish it were more frequently useful.), but I'll take it for what it's worth.

[Artega]

Don't expect to do well against skillful players in 1v1, unless they're melee or at least largely physical (Rogues, Hunters, Retrinoobs, other Warriors.) Protection is a heavily group-centric spec for PvP (and Warriors are already group-centric as a class, according to Blizzard), though in my experience it becomes stronger faster than Arms or Fury builds when you have others with you. Last Stand combined with potions and even bandages means you can stay up for quite some time, even without healers.

In general, I focus on Warlocks and Priests before most others, since my disruption potential is greatest against them, and they're less able to keep me away than Mages or Hunters might be able to. While Disarm priority generally went to other Warriors in the past, I find it's now on Rogues, especially since every Arms Warrior and their grandmother has built-in Disarm immunity through talents (strange that Improved Disarm does nothing to counter that.) Disarming Hunters can also be effective, in that it prevents them from using Wing Clip and Counterattack, meaning it's going to be much more difficult for them to keep you or anyone else out of range.

Unless Fear is a problem, I prefer to stay in Battle Stance to have access to my most useful abilities (Overpower, Shield Bash, and Thunder Clap), though I'll turtle in Defensive Stance and spam Revenge (Stun) against melee opponents or Hunters whose pets proc it. You can also stancedance for Revenges on Warlocks using melee pets.

Against Priests and Frost Mages, ideally save Rage for a Shield Slam for a chance to counter Power Word: Shield and Ice Barrier. Any Frost Mage worth a damn won't let you get close, so that's somewhat meaningless, but the point remains:)

Sunder everything. Two or three Sunders for cloth and leather, four or five for mail or plate. This is especially important in groups; a cloth class with a couple Sunders on them crumples instantly when a Rogue or Hunter targets them, and even teddytanks can feel some serious pain from the armor reduction. This also sets you up for Devastate spamming. Because Devastate is CTRL+1 for me, I don't often use it in PvP (since I usually don't have the Rage for spamming, and I need to conserve Rage for Shield Slam and Shield Bash), but it can do some pretty nice damage. Addtionally, because it's normalized, weapon speed is less of an issue than most people think it is.

Take up Engineering. The addition of bombs, shrink rays, a rocket launcher or sheep machine, nets, potion injectors, and other nifty tricks significantly enhances your disruption potential as well as your battlefield longevity.

[Thawwing Light]

Don't expect to do well against skillful players in 1v1, unless they're melee or at least largely physical (Rogues, Hunters, Retrinoobs, other Warriors.) Protection is a heavily group-centric spec for PvP (and Warriors are already group-centric as a class, according to Blizzard), though in my experience it becomes stronger faster than Arms or Fury builds when you have others with you. Last Stand combined with potions and even bandages means you can stay up for quite some time, even without healers.

In general, I focus on Warlocks and Priests before most others, since my disruption potential is greatest against them, and they're less able to keep me away than Mages or Hunters might be able to. While Disarm priority generally went to other Warriors in the past, I find it's now on Rogues, especially since every Arms Warrior and their grandmother has built-in Disarm immunity through talents (strange that Improved Disarm does nothing to counter that.) Disarming Hunters can also be effective, in that it prevents them from using Wing Clip and Counterattack, meaning it's going to be much more difficult for them to keep you or anyone else out of range.

Unless Fear is a problem, I prefer to stay in Battle Stance to have access to my most useful abilities (Overpower, Shield Bash, and Thunder Clap), though I'll turtle in Defensive Stance and spam Revenge (Stun) against melee opponents or Hunters whose pets proc it. You can also stancedance for Revenges on Warlocks using melee pets.

Against Priests and Frost Mages, ideally save Rage for a Shield Slam for a chance to counter Power Word: Shield and Ice Barrier. Any Frost Mage worth a damn won't let you get close, so that's somewhat meaningless, but the point remains:)

Sunder everything. Two or three Sunders for cloth and leather, four or five for mail or plate. This is especially important in groups; a cloth class with a couple Sunders on them crumples instantly when a Rogue or Hunter targets them, and even teddytanks can feel some serious pain from the armor reduction. This also sets you up for Devastate spamming. Because Devastate is CTRL+1 for me, I don't often use it in PvP (since I usually don't have the Rage for spamming, and I need to conserve Rage for Shield Slam and Shield Bash), but it can do some pretty nice damage. Addtionally, because it's normalized, weapon speed is less of an issue than most people think it is.

Take up Engineering. The addition of bombs, shrink rays, a rocket launcher or sheep machine, nets, potion injectors, and other nifty tricks significantly enhances your disruption potential as well as your battlefield longevity.

Hmmm... thanks for the advice. You've confirmed a lot of what I already suspected - Warrior is not for solo PvP, but the ability to tie people up in group PvP is valuable.

I've been using Disarm and Shield Bash in roughly the same manner as you, though I haven't been picking my battles quite as well. I've been going after all targets, with a preference for other warriors and rogues. I'll concentrate on Priests and Warlocks now - I actually managed to take down a warlock in a duel once, so i agree with you that our interrupts give us a fair shot against them. Well, I always concentrated on priests...

One thing I haven't really done is use sunder in PvP. I find it tends to empty my rage bar for little effect - I never get to use Devastate on almost anyone, even though it's my easily accessible T key. I also haven't been using Thunderclap, although that wasn't improved until very recently, and as such was only minorly useful against casters. I'll try out Thunderclap and Sunder, though I'm a bit wary of its usefulness.

One thing I'm a little curious about is that you don't seem to use Shield Slam for its damage. I found it to be the best source of damage in my arsenal, and use it as such. Perhaps this is the cause of a number of my rage issues?

Engineering is something I'd like to pick up on my main warrior, but he's got 330 blacksmithing and 375 mining, both of which I would not care to level again. Maybe on my alt Warrior... he's 44 now, so I could twink him a while in the 49 bracket with it.

I'll be sure to pick my battles a little more now, and stick to 10-15 man BGs. That ought to help a bit. Even with that advice, though, World PvP is tempting, even with the 4:1 Alliance to Horde ratio Feathermoon sports.

edit: Oh yeah, and I tried Spell Reflect out a bit in duels - it's very situational and prohibitively costly, but even still, having a Mage Pyroblast crit himself for 2k proccing Ignite and Impact is still awesome.

[Tuftears]

I don't care if you're a druid, warrior or paladin - you're not going to hold hate on ANY mobs if a DPSer decides to open up. My golden rule of tanking before TBC and in post TBC is to protect the healer first, dps second. If a mage opens up early and with prejudice then they can tank the mob.

This was my immediate reaction to that post as well. Sometimes your crew just gets carried away, drunk on their power, and then you have to remind them that they need to behave because they are making things needlessly difficult.

Speaking of game-changing skills... Cyclone isn't. o_o

This skill has diminishing returns against monsters. Three uses, then the monsters become immune to your cyclone. What it is useful for, is temporarily removing an enemy from your hair while you deal with something else.

Feels like a bug that the monsters become immune. Anyone seen a blue post saying 'working as intended'?

[Artega]

Shield Slam is your primary DPS as well as your only dispel option.

[Mavfin]

This was my immediate reaction to that post as well. Sometimes your crew just gets carried away, drunk on their power, and then you have to remind them that they need to behave because they are making things needlessly difficult.

Speaking of game-changing skills... Cyclone isn't. o_o

This skill has diminishing returns against monsters. Three uses, then the monsters become immune to your cyclone. What it is useful for, is temporarily removing an enemy from your hair while you deal with something else.

Feels like a bug that the monsters become immune. Anyone seen a blue post saying 'working as intended'?

Probably just like stun DR. It's about the same effect, after all...

[Tal]

In the end, that's what I used to do. I guess it's my fault that I've actually joined a guild where I care about the DPS monkeys, and try to keep them up;)

Don't get me wrong - I care about my teammates as well but if they can't control themselves then I have to resort to keeping the healer alive and the rest of my team.

And as one of the best tanks on SR said: "You don't have to tank everything on trash if they're being monkeys. Its called TRASH for a reason."

[Tuftears]

Probably just like stun DR. It's about the same effect, after all...

Hmm. I do know if Seal of Justice procs a few times, they'll get immune, such that you can't then hit them with Hammer of Justice, but I never noticed that they get stunned for less time after the first stun, with SoJ.

However, Cyclone isn't a stun. It's a banish. The mob becomes invulnerable while under the effect of Cyclone. And warlocks don't get diminishing returns on banishes, do they?

[Watto44]

(snipped)
Speaking of game-changing skills... Cyclone isn't. o_o

This skill has diminishing returns against monsters. Three uses, then the monsters become immune to your cyclone. What it is useful for, is temporarily removing an enemy from your hair while you deal with something else.

Feels like a bug that the monsters become immune. Anyone seen a blue post saying 'working as intended'?

I would imagine that it's working as intended. The ability to keep any non-boss mob CCed for an indefinate period of time seems a little much to me.

The more I think about it, the more sense having it on diminishing returns makes sense to me. IMO it would just be too good if it wasn't.:)

I haven't got it yet (my druids only level 62 at the moment) but it sounds like a very nice ability, even with the short duration. A free heal/bandaid or starfire mid-fight is pretty neat. Couple that with maim, bash and roots/nature's grap, and I can't see my druid dying to a mob anytime soon.:D

(On a side note, I'm having a lot of fun soloing ridiculous things with my druid. I'd forgotten how much fun that was. Grabbing a couple of key upgrades - Jerkin of the Untamed Spirit and the Ramparts staff - through the portal has really re-envigorated my druid love.:))

[Kevin]

I would imagine that it's working as intended. The ability to keep any non-boss mob CCed for an indefinate period of time seems a little much to me.

I realize there are drawbacks to it, but a hunter (and you don't even have to be survival) can keep a mob pretty much freeze trapped forever. Even with the 30s cooldown on the trap and just 20s duration on the freeze. A survival hunter has even less issues. I double and triple trap on instance runs all the time and pretty much every thing can be trapped (I've run into a few mobs that are immune) Sure it can be resisted then you have a long CD to deal with but the pet can grab the mob for a bit and even bring it to the next trap.

Maybe the trap drawbacks are enough to make it not as desirable and the DR on cyclone is intended but I'm not sure.

[Bolty]

I would imagine that it's working as intended. The ability to keep any non-boss mob CCed for an indefinate period of time seems a little much to me.

I was just re-reading this and it popped in my head, "isn't that exactly what polymorph is?"

I do understand, though...Mages are a heck of a lot more squishy than Druids.

Speaking of squishy, with the level curve being what it is, I'm getting reamed by physical-damage mobs much worse now than I was at 60 relative to my total hit points. Now that I'm running level 70 instances, I figure this is a combination of two things:

1) I don't have enough of the OMFGStamina items featured in TBC. I'm still running in mostly Transcendence gear in healing instances, with two pieces of the Hallowed set (yay purple!) and Faith boots. I have around 6000 hit points buffed up, which is quite low by TBC standards.

2) I've gotten used to the armor levels of ubergear for my level - Tier 2/3 - and now I'm running around in what amounts to a starter dungeon set at level 70. I only mitigate 21% of incoming physical damage even with Inner Fire up, so heaven forbid I forget to have it on. Talk about suicide.

"Trash" mobs HURT. In Shadow Labs this weekend, the "trash" was smacking me around for over a thousand per hit, and crits came often. That's 2k damage in one smack - 1/3rd of my health. Uh, did I mention I love Reactive Fade?

I have a tremendous amount of healing power and utility, especially with Prayer of Mending, but I do feel awfully puny out there. That can stress out a tank, knowing that if something breaks free for just a few moments, I'm a blood stain on the floor. Or rather, a pretty floating ghost for 15 seconds, THEN a blood stain on the floor.

Psychic Scream is situational as always in an instance, although smart tanks know the need to pull mobs way back for such reasons. I saved two wipes yesterday alone via Psychic Screams at key moments, made possible by a tank who pulls things back to safer areas, and DPS players who aren't raving monkeys shooting at things before the tank establishes aggro.

If the Pain Suppression talent is a must for heroic mode to ensure my survival (reduces all damage by 60% for 8 seconds, 3 minute cooldown), so be it; I'll respec 41 points into Discipline. I've always liked tanking. :) But my healing power will take a significant hit.

-Bolty

[Quark]

"Trash" mobs HURT. In Shadow Labs this weekend ...

I'm sorry, I have to do this because of "The Stockade";)
Shadow Lab is short for Shadow Labyrinth, so saying "Shadow Labs" is off;)

[Bolty]

I'm sorry, I have to do this because of "The Stockade";)
Shadow Lab is short for Shadow Labyrinth, so saying "Shadow Labs" is off;)

*hangs head in shame*

Boy, someday it'll be nice when we've defeated Grul and beaten Kharazan, when Stockades runs will be a thing of the past, Mankrik's Wife has been located, Ahn'Quraj is a distant memory, and the Shadow Labs are left in the dust.

We'll take a vacation with Nefarious and invite Viscidious along for the party. It's better than the shores outside Ogrimmar, that's for sure. I hear the Dranaei chicks out there are hot. There are plenty of other Rouges out there just like you to hang out with.

It's sort of like making friends with the Sporregar in Zangamarsh. You have to hand in a lot of Sangune Hibiscus. To get that, you have to search around under Coilfang Reservior. It may seem like a tropical paradise, but underneath that Stranglethorn Vail is a dark, dark secret: Medhiv may yet be alive.

Now to nip off and shoot meself.

-Bolty

[Artega]

Sounds like Cyclone can be used on any mob of any type; sheep is restricted to humies and beasts.

And, yeah, 6k is a tad low for a 70, though most people - like you - seem to be ignoring Stamina, even in PvP. Maybe one day those 70s will figure out why I'm destroying them in 1v1.

I currently have 8.3k unbuffed in PvP/outdoor gear, and 8.9k in tanking gear. Picked up some plate pants with +69 STA on them from the AH for 5g and added a knothide armor kit (+8 STA) to bring them to a whopping 77 STA. Also added knothide kits to several pieces of my armor; they're less expensive than most enchants, and I can install them myself:)

[Legedi]

Game-Changing powers don't always have to be new. After I could tell my fury build was losing steam from my +hit and +crit getting too low I decided to pick up a 2H axe, and respec 26/31/3.

I've always been interested in a 2H fury build, but without getting things like a weapon spec, or sweeping strikes I always felt like it wouldn't be that good. I've been very happy with the build for the few days I've been playing it. A combination of axe spec, sweeping strikes, deathwish, and flurry are something you couldn't do at 60, and are amazing together. I would think that a build like this will be top DPS for warriors until they can start getting some good epics to make DW fury good again.

And sweeping stikes seems to be bugged at the moment. some times the SS will do the same damage as the normal hit. Other times it will do a fair amount more. Either way, it's fun to fight two mobs, cleave crit both for 1600, and have SS hit both of them for 1600 again. Man I missed the big numbers from playing DW fury or prot for so long :).