Gladiator FAQ and discussion thread

[Cyclonus-WOW]

It's unbuffed values, not raid buffed values. It's also not so plain because in my case it was a 9% value that was originally the cut off point in my simulations, not the 7.5% ish that I'm seeing now with new bits. But these values are unbuffed, not 3% + raid buffs but pure 7-9% from gear.

Above that point is when haste drops off, not 3% from gear.

I think the next jump point was about 13-14%. it isn't as drastic as the 8% one. So that makes sense when you add raid buffs to your 9% gear.

[Satori]

I'm required to go Glad for our progression on Koragh, since tanks were doing poorly on picking up adds (I swear positioning mobs is much harder now) and Mocking Banner glyph trivializes that. Anyway I was actually surprised to find that my simmed DPS as glad is higher than fury with roughly equal gear (677 and 678 ilvl).

Also too bad Gag Order doesn't work on MCs

[Chookchan]

That looks like a big nerf on SS. On the other hand we get a 5% devastate and 10% execute buff. In the end it looks like a slight nerf, but I'm not sure. Execute is not part of my glad rotation, it seems to be about pointless. This may change now.
It's too early to say anything about these buff/nerfs, especially as prety much all dps specs get adjustments. All that matters is how we perform compared to others.

By the way, prot tank dps is horribly low in all situations and this should be addressed. Generally, tank dps is all over the place. Bloods and bears do extremely high aoe damage, which is ridicolous, unnecessary and really affects CM class balance.

ps: Is it just me or is it really easy to lose US stacks? The duration is so short, when you are forced off target, you'll lose the stacks all the time.

Between Charge, Shield Charge and Heroic Leap it should be pretty difficult to lose those stacks. It took me about a month into WoD to realise Shield Charge actually has a charge mechanic (10 yards or something). That saves me at least 20 seconds of downtime (and incoming damage) on Imperator.

[Trubo]

Between Charge, Shield Charge and Heroic Leap it should be pretty difficult to lose those stacks. It took me about a month into WoD to realise Shield Charge actually has a charge mechanic (10 yards or something). That saves me at least 20 seconds of downtime (and incoming damage) on Imperator.

The Charge mechanic is great so long as LoS/pathing isn't screwing you over.

[Ssateneth]

That looks like a big nerf on SS. On the other hand we get a 5% devastate and 10% execute buff. In the end it looks like a slight nerf, but I'm not sure. Execute is not part of my glad rotation, it seems to be about pointless. This may change now.
It's too early to say anything about these buff/nerfs, especially as prety much all dps specs get adjustments. All that matters is how we perform compared to others.

By the way, prot tank dps is horribly low in all situations and this should be addressed. Generally, tank dps is all over the place. Bloods and bears do extremely high aoe damage, which is ridicolous, unnecessary and really affects CM class balance.

ps: Is it just me or is it really easy to lose US stacks? The duration is so short, when you are forced off target, you'll lose the stacks all the time.

It's a DPS increase to devastate right before US is about to fall off, even if it means delaying shield slam or revenge.

[Zka]

Between Charge, Shield Charge and Heroic Leap it should be pretty difficult to lose those stacks.

Except when it's already about to fall off because I just did ss+rev and then I get knocked back for example.
But it's good to know that it's worth delaying SS/rev to keep up the stack, I'll try to do that.

[Accendor]

Die Nurf von Glad for 6.1. seems pretty hard at the moment, or am i mistaken?
Losing even more Damage von reliable basic abilities (PVE/PVP) and in addition taking away the Dispel from Shield Slam in Glad Stance (PVP, sometimes PVE).

[Chintz]

Die Nurf von Glad for 6.1. seems pretty hard at the moment, or am i mistaken?
Losing even more Damage von reliable basic abilities (PVE/PVP) and in addition taking away the Dispel from Shield Slam in Glad Stance (PVP, sometimes PVE).

no one knows yet what changes patch 6.1. will bring. the things u see are already ingame, mostly tooltip changes/updates.

[Zka]

Nice buffs to prot damage which also affect glad positively (especially on AOE) despite the glad stance nerf. Correct me if I'm wrong. I'd like to see new sims on this.

General
Thunder Clap’s damage has been increased by 40%.
Protection
Deep Wounds’ damage has been increased by 40%.
Devastate’s damage has been increased by 20%.
Revenge’s damage has been increased by 40%.
Shield Slam’s damage has been increased by 20%.
Talents
Gladiator Stance (Protection) now increases damage by 5% (down from 20%).

[caervek]

If I am working this out right, with the flat dmg buff down from 20% to 5%:

Deep Wounds’ damage has been increased by 40% - actually +25%
Devastate’s damage has been increased by 20% - actually +5%
Revenge’s damage has been increased by 40% actually +25%
Shield Slam’s damage has been increased by 20% - actually +5%

On the other hand everything else will be down 15%, I.E

Melee, Shattered Bleed, Bladestorm, Dragon Roar/Storm Bolt, etc.

First thought is that with this devaluing Shattered Bleed it will pay to swap to Thunderlord at lower gear levels than before.

Second is that with haste being buffed across the board this will result in a slight boost to melee damage (and SS too?) over the course of a fight.

Third with HS damage down and SS up will this put HR back ahead of US?

[Zka]

Posting my quick numbers here as well.

I put few of my recent logs into excel and recalculated the damage output based on the changes. Here's what I got:
- Butcher (single target): +2.7%
- Tectus (heavier aoe): +5.8%
- Bracken (some cleaving): +2.6% - HS was #1 for me here, which gets nerfed indirectly, offsetting the advantage of dw and rev buffs.
- Twins (heavy cleaving): +4.6%

- - - Updated - - -

Third with HS damage down and SS up will this put HR back ahead of US?

Now that's a good question. Maybe for singletarget only.
WTB SIMS

[Chookchan]

Third with HS damage down and SS up will this put HR back ahead of US?

Good question, maybe for single target fights HR might pull ahead.
Raiding tonight so I'll definitely be trying it out.

[caervek]

Just ran everything through the new Simcraft build.

The nerfs/buffs have resulted in me gaining ~550 DPS in sims.
Switching US for HR drops me ~1100 DPS.

Swapping the bleed chant for Thunderlord now gives a 200 DPS boost, which is more than before hence why I never bothered spending the gold.

***EDIT***

Dropping Execute from the rotation only costs me ~160 DPS due to the buff to Devastate (which takes its GCD) and the fact both Execute & HS were nerfed via Glad stance. Due to this I see no reason to keep the button in my rotation as I am not aiming for world firsts or anything like that.

[Beelzebull]

Still I am bummed that we need to use a talent for Gladiator Resolve. It should be built in imo and you do a quest for it at level 15 I never find a need to switch to battle stance as protection warrior when I need to tank. I see no point in that stance.

It would be built in with all the restrictions as it currently is. Make it happen

[Deleted]

Im thinking of going Glad again on my warrior, always loved sword and board. How viable is it atm? Yes I know that Arms rape aoe fights, but aside from that ==)

[Beelzebull]

It functions and is great fun. Might not be idea for min/max people.

[Deleted]

Any news on what the changed in 6.1 will be for Glad?

[notsoyou]

Okay hello Gladiators I have a friend that ask me to ask you guys about Gladiators and Mythic raiding.

So he loves to play Gladiator but when it comes to mythic raiding he's being told to go fury for single target and arms for heavy cleave fights. What's ironic is the only fights he's allowed to cleave on is tectus, brackenspore and twins everything else single target. Is Gladiator single target dps that far away from Fury? I've also done some dungeons with him and his aoe is pretty high. I looked through WoLogs but Gladiators don't really seem much represented. I don't know what to tell the guy.

Thanks in advance.

[Bigbazz]

Okay hello Gladiators I have a friend that ask me to ask you guys about Gladiators and Mythic raiding.

So he loves to play Gladiator but when it comes to mythic raiding he's being told to go fury for single target and arms for heavy cleave fights. What's ironic is the only fights he's allowed to cleave on is tectus, brackenspore and twins everything else single target. Is Gladiator single target dps that far away from Fury? I've also done some dungeons with him and his aoe is pretty high. I looked through WoLogs but Gladiators don't really seem much represented. I don't know what to tell the guy.

Thanks in advance.

Gladiator dps is not that far off no, if (and it's a big if) he plays it well then it's not really far off Fury at all. My character is ilvl673 and sims at 32.8k dps for Gladiator, that there is pretty bloody sweet. It's not the highest dps spec in the game by any means and it's not the strongest spec for any fight but unless you're at the cutting edge of raiding that really does not matter. It's more a matter of how well does he play it, a lot of people seem to struggle to pull good numbers with Gladiator because the spec is a bit too busy for them.

Even on AOE fights really, I just swapped guild back to my old (inactive until rececntly) in an attempt to rebuild it into a top guild again (relatively speaking from our server perspective, not on the world stage).. But we're low on numbers so yesterday we took in a random tank who was wanting to apply to the guild for Heroic IMP + Mythic Kargath.

Going up the stands as Arms the guy could only hold agro from me + the boomkin if he had his mocking banner and we just got owned, he was struggling (he was only ilvl655 but that wasn't the reason).. In any case I decided to switch to Gladiator and use the mocking banner glyph so that we always had it available for him. That's when I realised that I can still pull 50k+ on Kargath even as Gladiator.. With an experienced tank and a more solid group i'd have probably gone back to Arms, but in actual fact I could just play Gladiator and still pull really high numbers with Bladestorm for the stands.

The next question is can it do enough single target for Butcher Mythic? And the answer is yes, the spec is comfortably strong enough to pull enough dps for Mythic Butcher, and on Twin Ogron/Brackenspore Gladiator is really strong, it's definitely stronger than Fury on the 2 target cleave, though Arms is the king.

[notsoyou]

Gladiator dps is not that far off no, if (and it's a big if) he plays it well then it's not really far off Fury at all. My character is ilvl673 and sims at 32.8k dps for Gladiator, that there is pretty bloody sweet. It's not the highest dps spec in the game by any means and it's not the strongest spec for any fight but unless you're at the cutting edge of raiding that really does not matter. It's more a matter of how well does he play it, a lot of people seem to struggle to pull good numbers with Gladiator because the spec is a bit too busy for them.

Even on AOE fights really, I just swapped guild back to my old (inactive until rececntly) in an attempt to rebuild it into a top guild again (relatively speaking from our server perspective, not on the world stage).. But we're low on numbers so yesterday we took in a random tank who was wanting to apply to the guild for Heroic IMP + Mythic Kargath.

Going up the stands as Arms the guy could only hold agro from me + the boomkin if he had his mocking banner and we just got owned, he was struggling (he was only ilvl655 but that wasn't the reason).. In any case I decided to switch to Gladiator and use the mocking banner glyph so that we always had it available for him. That's when I realised that I can still pull 50k+ on Kargath even as Gladiator.. With an experienced tank and a more solid group i'd have probably gone back to Arms, but in actual fact I could just play Gladiator and still pull really high numbers with Bladestorm for the stands.

The next question is can it do enough single target for Butcher Mythic? And the answer is yes, the spec is comfortably strong enough to pull enough dps for Mythic Butcher, and on Twin Ogron/Brackenspore Gladiator is really strong, it's definitely stronger than Fury on the 2 target cleave, though Arms is the king.

Thank you so much for your input Bigbazz i will link him this thread.