New Warrior Talent?

[MongoJerry]

Not true, It works on enchants, and equipment.  Not sure if it works on buffs or not, but definitely works on equipment and enchants.  It can easily be more than a 150 HP bonus.[right][snapback]109815[/snapback][/right]

Grrr... mea culpa. A few months back, we had this discussion in our guild chat when talking about various racial bonuses, and the comment was that it only affected base stats and amounted to about +150 health. But I just checked with a Tauren guildmate, and you're right, it does affect equipment stats. I hate not being able to test something myself. I can never trust anything otherwise.

[Artega]

Assuming you are going for 31 points in Prot tree you wont be taking Vitality instead of any of those talents, you will be replacing the other crappy talents in the tree. Even if you take Shield Spec, Anticipation, Toughness, Defiane, Conc Blow you still need 9 points to get to Shield Slam.\[right][snapback]109775[/snapback][/right]

Or perhaps we're looking to be capable of fighting on our own, or PvP with our Protection spec, rather than be a turtle.

This means we can't get both Anticipation and Shield Spec, and also means that we're likely to not have Defiance and likely to have Improved Sunder Armor and One-Handed Weapon Specialization.

Currently, I think the talent needs a buff. If it was +10% Health, it would be just fine as-is. But, since it's just Stamina, I really do think it should be a three-point talent (call it 3%/7%/10%.)

As far as the Shield Slam changes, I'm not terribly happy with them. I believe that the Protection Warrior should live and die by his shield (it's just how I view them; Fury is defined as dual-wielding and screaming monosyllabic war shouts, Arms by a two-handed weapon the size of a small Bosnian village, and Protection as an impenetrable wall of some kind of ungodly tough metal), and think that Shield Slam's damage should be based off of the shield's Armor value (adding Shield Spikes into that damage.) Since this is being posted via a public computer, I don't have the time to go do the math at various levels of gear, but it's a significant improvement over the current variation, and keeps in-line with Arms and Fury instants. Using 33% (or one third) of the Armor value as the maximum damage (I'd say 25%-35% as the min and max damages), Draconian Deflector was somewhere around 630ish, and Elementium Trashcan was something like 1100.

In addition to this, we're still waiting on our magic defense talent. I've long thought that it should be a two-point talent, replacing Improved Shield Wall, that allows you to use 50%/100% of your total Block value towards direct-damage spells. This allows for a fair bit of magic mitigation through high Block values and Shield Block, while still allowing mobs and players to use DoTs or AE effects to deal full damage to us, and doesn't run the risk of being overpowered as a flat-out Resistance talent might be. It also fits the description of the Protection Warrior living and dying by his shield :)

[Kjartan]

Or perhaps we're looking to be capable of fighting on our own, or PvP with our Protection spec, rather than be a turtle.

This means we can't get both Anticipation and Shield Spec, and also means that we're likely to not have Defiance and likely to have Improved Sunder Armor and One-Handed Weapon Specialization.

Currently, I think the talent needs a buff.  If it was +10% Health, it would be just fine as-is.  But, since it's just Stamina, I really do think it should be a three-point talent (call it 3%/7%/10%.)

I really fail to see why you think anticipation is necessary? It is a lot harder to find an item with +25-50 stamina on it than one with +10 defense.

Defense has virtually no use in PVP as you would need to have 600+ defense for it to have any sort of impact versus the massive amount of crit players can get.

Getting enough defense to really matter after the defense re-valuation with blue gear seriously reduces your damage output in PvE and PvP, as well as every other stat.

The new Shield Slam talent looks like it will be a buff for a prot warrior in decent dps gear. Some of the mathcraft I saw would make it deal similar damage to MS with enough attack power, but since nobody seems to fully know the mechanics of the talent it could also be a nerf.

[Artega]

I think it's necessary before you get raid-level tanking gear; if I didn't make that clear in my previous posts, let me make it clear here.

If you're running around in Wrath or Might or maybe even Bloodsoaked, Anticipation sure as hell becomes redundant fairly quickly. Before that point, however, it's going to be at least as useful as Vitality, and possibly even more so. In PvP, Defense is useful only for the additional Block, Dodge, and Parry; I take it if I can get it, but I don't do so at the expense of more useful stats.

As far as basing Shield Slam off of AP, I think it's a step in the wrong direction. Since we don't have any numbers yet, it's definitely too soon to be making decisions about it, but it's possible that it could be a significant nerf to tanks, since they're not going to have as much AP in tanking gear.

[Kevin]

As far as basing Shield Slam off of AP, I think it's a step in the wrong direction.  Since we don't have any numbers yet, it's definitely too soon to be making decisions about it, but it's possible that it could be a significant nerf to tanks, since they're not going to have as much AP in tanking gear.
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I would think the point of shield slam getting some damage from AP isn't for when you are tanking as a prot warrior, at that stage as long as it doesn't do less aggro than it does now, it's just a rage dump to make sure you have space in the rage bar to accept the next hit's worth of rage, and sometimes just sunder, revenge, and HS aren't enough. But when that prot warrior is soloing, or grinding up funds, or even tanking in a lower level instance, they could very well be wearing AP and crit gear and being able to swap in a shield to whip out a bit more damage could be quite helpful. Go from your dual wield (since most prot warrior builds do better damage dual wield thanks to 1H spec than using a two hander) dump the rage in shield slam. Prot warrior DPS is just stupidly lower than MS or Fury warriors. It should still be lower than an arms or fury warrior but closing that gap is nice and some of the other tanking tools should still give prot warriors either a little bit of an aggro edge or a little bit of a survival edge (depending on the specs).

I don't know if it is the best way to go with the talent but I can see reasoning for it.

[Concillian]

As far as basing Shield Slam off of AP, I think it's a step in the wrong direction.  Since we don't have any numbers yet, it's definitely too soon to be making decisions about it, but it's possible that it could be a significant nerf to tanks, since they're not going to have as much AP in tanking gear.
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Tying it into AP gives it some scalability, especially since for full protection warriors AP is worth 10% more because of 1H spec. I like synergistic skills, though I guess any increasing damage would be synergistic in nature since 1H spec doesn't just increase damage from AP, but all damage.

And yes, 1H spec bonus damage does apply to shield spec, as can be tested by sundering a target to zero defense (you can verify it's at zero when hamstring does full listed damage) and looking at the damage you do... you will see values 10% higher than listed on the tool tip if you have 5/5 1H spec. When I was testing this, I was using elite ogres in Alterac. Can get them to zero defense, they don't hit too hard, but have enough HP that they aren't dead before you get a chance to use what you want to test.

[Artega]

Tying it into AP gives it some scalability, especially since for full protection warriors AP is worth 10% more because of 1H spec.  I like synergistic skills, though I guess any increasing damage would be synergistic in nature since 1H spec doesn't just increase damage from AP, but all damage.

And yes, 1H spec bonus damage does apply to shield spec, as can be tested by sundering a target to zero defense (you can verify it's at zero when hamstring does full listed damage) and looking at the damage you do... you will see values 10% higher than listed on the tool tip if you have 5/5 1H spec.  When I was testing this, I was using elite ogres in Alterac.  Can get them to zero defense, they don't hit too hard, but have enough HP that they aren't dead before you get a chance to use what you want to test.
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I've long been aware that 1h spec affects Shield Slam and Shield Bash damage output.

I don't like the idea of AP being the determining factor simply because that's the same thing that affects Bloodthirst damage. I advocate shield Armor value primarily because of that :)

[Berkman]

WTB Fury Warrior love ;-)