Protection legion Discussion

[Beardyface]

Well, if quantity of feedback is a significant factor, without getting more people into the alpha, i guess the only way to do that is to tell every prot warrior you see in the alpha to go post on the forums.

Only reason I'm here. Well, that, and wanting somewhere to comment when they finally make a decision so jaw-droppingly bad that our eyeballs burst into flame.

[NightTrain32]

No, no, you're not offending! It's good discussion, that's what the thread is for. Yes, you would plateau a little mid/late tier, but not as badly as you do now with IP scaling with attack power.

I don't even know what other stats you would be able to use in this formula without throwing it way out of whack. You have to use two or three things that scale over the course of the expansion, and which are found on all gear, so outside of attack power, strength, stamina and health, I don't know what you could use. Item level, I suppose, but that's really no better. Armor is too finicky, and secondary stats are out.

The only real solution is to remove the whole concept of rage from damage taken and revert it to what we have on live. We're all dumbfounded as to why they re-introduced this archaic concept in the first place.

I am not sure and one would have to know the math behind raid encounters and damage done by bosses. But when looking at the current formula for rage gain why does there have to be a stat acting has a variable in the equation? There is probably something I am not thinking about but really they are in control of how stamina and damage taken can scale throughout a tier or expansion, why can't the equation have the only variable be damage taken? This way the only thing people would have to worry about is avoidance instead of having both avoidance and stamina/health to worry about. This would also free one to stack stamina if they want to counter large burst that way instead of stacking strength which is what currently is thought to be a possibility with the scaling of IP. The only real reason I can think of why they needed to put stamina into the equation is they wanted an easy way of having a diminishing return on stamina stacking instead of creating a formula with out stamina. Which isn't that hard as they control all the variables, one would just have to decide how much rage generation they want us to have on average. But if they really wanted a way to keep us from wanting to stack stamina they will not change it nor will they put it back in the formula for IP. There has to be a reason, they don't just come up with these equations out of thin air, I just wish I knew why they chose these so I knew if they meant for this to be a sort of diminishing returns type of thing or just because they thought this was a good way to make rage scale which ended up having hidden consequences.

[Beardyface]

I am not sure and one would have to know the math behind raid encounters and damage done by bosses. But when looking at the current formula for rage gain why does there have to be a stat acting has a variable in the equation? There is probably something I am not thinking about but really they are in control of how stamina and damage taken can scale throughout a tier or expansion, why can't the equation have the only variable be damage taken? This way the only thing people would have to worry about is avoidance instead of having both avoidance and stamina/health to worry about. This would also free one to stack stamina if they want to counter large burst that way instead of stacking strength which is what currently is thought to be a possibility with the scaling of IP. The only real reason I can think of why they needed to put stamina into the equation is they wanted an easy way of having a diminishing return on stamina stacking instead of creating a formula with out stamina. Which isn't that hard as they control all the variables, one would just have to decide how much rage generation they want us to have on average. But if they really wanted a way to keep us from wanting to stack stamina they will not change it nor will they put it back in the formula for IP. There has to be a reason, they don't just come up with these equations out of thin air, I just wish I knew why they chose these so I knew if they meant for this to be a sort of diminishing returns type of thing or just because they thought this was a good way to make rage scale which ended up having hidden consequences.

If rage was just calculated as a percentage of damage taken it would scale exponentially.

Say the formula was 0.01% of damage taken. As we gain stamina via gear, the bosses have to hit harder to provide a challenge. A 40k swing from the first boss in the first tier would give us would give us 4 rage, while a 100k swing from the last boss in the last tier would give us 10 rage. We'd be swimming in rage at the end of the expansion and starved for rage at the beginning. That's why you have to cut it with another stat to keep it scaling more or less linearly.

[Breccia]

If rage was just calculated as a percentage of unreduced, unmitigated damage taken it would scale exponentially.

I'm fairly sure you meant this. Right?

[Beardyface]

I'm fairly sure you meant this. Right?

Yeah, but I didn't need to go that in depth to make the example.

[Breccia]

Yeah, but I didn't need to go that in depth to make the example.

It was kind of obvious. That said, Rage from incoming damage leaves us with two extremes:
a) your extreme, based purely on the amount of damage coming our way whether it hits or not, and
b) the current extreme, damage based on what you took only.

The first, as you pointed out, compounds on itself and has us swimming in Rage when the second and final raid hits. The second has the problem of gear, especially Parry, Armor, and Stamina, lowering our resource generation. While it might be possible to find the exact mix of both ends that just so happens to balance out in a good place, I'm not convinced it's worth the trouble. Rage gained by actively doing things has been proven to work well. Rage gained from damage taken was dropped before for a reason.

[Stagga24]

It goes deeply into the issues the spec has.
1) We have limited control over our resource. Blocking, parrying, or being hit generate different amounts of Rage.
2) We have to generate resources by being hit now, to prepare for damage that is coming later. If that dragon breath is coming, and you parry 3 hits in a row, you are not celebrating your good fortune.

so use the rage you have previously genereated for a shield wall @ 10 rage or a spell reflect? take the hit at a reduced amount and have rage for next IP. I mean IP may be our most effective AM but that doesn't mean it's the only one.

[mindw0rk]

The spec will be functional, yes, but that's not what we're fighting for. We're fighting for it to be fun and intuitive. Right now, any WoW player who hasn't kept up with the forums or the tweets doesn't know about this backwards rage formula. They don't know they should be opting for Haste and Mastery and avoiding Versatility and Crit. THey don't know they should be avoiding Stam + Dmg Reduction trinkets and aiming for STR DPS trinkets. They don't know that you should never take Indomitable in any situation. There was a big push not so long ago by the devs to make the game more transparent, and this flies completely in the face of that. There's nothing in the game that tells them any of these things, and the design of the spec and abilities (minus the hidden formulas for Rage Gain and IP Calculation) make it look like you should do all the above things that you should not.

It's the definition of counter-intuitive.

It's also not fun. It's not fun that our artifact ability is useless in many, many situations. I get that they're trying to up the skill cap by making us choose when we have to stand still, and honestly, I don't hate that decision. What I do hate is that there are so many situations, especially in dungeons (which is the content I'm planning on maining), where you lose both the Offensive and Defensive properties of the artifact ability due to frequent and unpredictable knockbacks and stuns.

How its not intuitive? You get rage by using SS and Revenge so you use them often, you spend rage of IP and SB to mitigate dmg, and use long cooldowns for emergency. Gotta be retarded to not understand how its core gameplay works. And you dont need to know theorycrafting part of rage gain from hits to tank well.

If you knocked back often during artifact channel, maybe you should use Shockwave before it to stun mobs?

[Carmion]

If you knocked back often during artifact channel, maybe you should use Shockwave before it to stun mobs?

Since that channel is meant to be a strong defensive option (all attacks guaranteed critblocks), using shockwave in advance seems to undermine its purpose...

[mindw0rk]

Since that channel is meant to be a strong defensive option (all attacks guaranteed critblocks), using shockwave in advance seems to undermine its purpose...

I dont think its only purpose is defence. It is one of the strongest abilities in game in terms of AOE dmg. But adding knockback/stun immunity during channel would definetly be a QoL improvement.

[Breccia]

How its not intuitive? You get rage by using SS and Revenge so you use them often, you spend rage of IP and SB to mitigate dmg, and use long cooldowns for emergency. Gotta be retarded to not understand how its core gameplay works.

Funny you should say that while responding to a post you clearly didn't read. Beardy was VERY specific about what was counter-intuitive, and you decided to talk about something else entirely.

Avoiding Stamina is stupid. Avoiding DR is stupid. Avoiding armor/bonus armor is stupid. Making a counterproductive talent is stupid. Avoiding Crit is stupid. Avoiding Vers is...ok bad example, Vers has always been stupid. But the design choice of Rage gained by the proportion of health you actually lost has more design flaws than benefits, flaws that will be especially apparent on single-target bosses that won't feed as many Revenge procs, and spellcasters which have unblockable attacks. And Shield Slam and Revenge fix none of them, because the issue is the things we can't control, not the things we can.

Simply put, the current design does not give Warrior tanks significant enough control over their own destiny. Shield Slam and Revenge have 9-second cooldown and provide 15 + 5 = 20 rage in that time. This is mostly under your control, including that Haste speeds this up predictably, but Crit has a chance to add a small amount sometimes. A boss hitting for one-quarter of your health -- for example, N Archimonde's 120k melee attacks on a best-in-slot Normal-geared Warrior tank with Commading Shout and a flask -- in 9 seconds could generate anywhere from 75 Rage from six unblocked, unparried hits to zero by parrying them all. Neither extreme is useful. One side does 150% of the tank's health over nine seconds, which very likely kills them. The other leaves them with half the Rage (from their active abilities) to throw an Ignore Pain -- no, wait, less, they should be spamming Shield Block against melee hits that hard. And during progression, the high damage of the unblockable Death Brand is a major concern. Knowing that you'll 100% have the ability to use Active Mitigation, or a heal, on the damage is good, and what every single Legion tank has except us.

True, there is an average amount you'll get long-term, mostly likely parrying around two, blocking about two, and critically blocking about one, working out to be 34.5 Rage, conveniently enough right down the center. But the range is too wide to be counted on, long-term rarely means anything when tanks are killed in the short term, and you're still counting on nearly two-thirds of your average Rage coming from things outside of your control, and reduced by most currently-existing tank items and your cooldowns.

Plus the obvious concern of possibly two-thirds of our Rage being unavailable when we're off-tanking. You do not get to choose when you're off-tanking, that is a mandatory raid mechanic. The only way that'd change is if the boss was also spewing raid damage, which wouldn't be blockable in almost all cases.

Oh, and "cooldowns will fix it" is a bad argument, since by their very design they can't be used all the time, and by most raid mechanics can't be used on whim. They are typically reserved for timed, important parts of the fight. Plus, with the exception of Last Stand which I'm told has been fixed, cooldowns such as Demo Shout, Shield Wall and Skullflame Shield all reduce the Rage we get at the time we are using cooldowns proving we need more not less right then.

Our artifact is also quite unhelpful. While nobody disputes that critically blocking everything for three seconds (assuming no knockback etc etc) is good or great, it will reduce Rage from melee attacks by the same proportion, 60%, during those three seconds = two swings. It's not a lot of help for resource generation. There are three artifact slots that add Rage. Dragon Scales works on a chance to block, making it again out of our control if and when it happens. Shield Block raises the chance that we do block, but doesn't force chance-on-being-hit to actually go off when needed. Reflective Plating is 100% controllable but requires a reflectable spell to be cast, which probably happens a lot on trash but far less so on raid bosses -- also, there's the very likely chance we'll be using the 30% DR of Spell Reflect for non-reflectable uses, even if the fight has reflectable spells. That leaves the abysmal Might of the Vrykul, giving +50% Rage from Revenge and Shield Slam during Demo Shout's 8-second duration. That's one Shield Slam and one Revenge no problem, but you can't count on more, so that's +10 Rage. It's easiy overcompensated by Booming Voice, and has a 90-second cooldown. +10 Rage every 90 seconds is pathetic.

And, topping everything off, Warrior tanks are still left in the undesirable position of getting Rage to fuel abilities later based on damage they've taken before. This still leaves them in a situation where periods of light damage followed by bursts could easily hurt them more than other tanks. DKs, paladins, and monks get healing based on damage they've taken, which makes sense. But they get runes/runic energy, holy power, and chi by their active abilities to spend on their defensive ones in a trustworthy fashion. The closest to us are Brewmasters, who get a stacking Dodge boost by being hit, but this does not change their resources in any way and is on 100% autopilot. Bears may choose to take a talent that lets them get Rage for damage taken, but it's 8 seconds out of 40, and not a popular talent from what I've read so far. Maybe I missed it, but I re-read the latest build, and saw nothing about paladins generating holy power or mana, DKs generating runes or runic energy, monks generating energy or Chi, non-talented bears generating Rage, or Demon Hunters generating Pain (isn't that ironic) from taking damage. Maybe I missed it, but even if I did, it's rare. Ours is constant and mandatory.

Nobody is interested in a tank whose defenses are effectively uncontrollable. That's what just happened to Brewmasters. Their defensive abilities were based on flawed mechanics that encouraged poor gameplay and were random to boot. Celestalon tried to defend it and couldn't even keep that up for twenty-four hours. It was hilarious. We might not be as crippled as they were -- nobody should be that bad -- but the core concept is inherently uncontrollable and as such inherently flawed, and needs to be reviewed. The Alpha forums continue to mention this feature in poor regard, and even you can't defend it because you choose to talk about something else entirely -- the part that is under our control, which is not enough.

About one-third of our only resource comes from using active abilities. The rest is not under our control, worsened by most stats, worsened by our cooldowns, worsened by our stupid artifact ability Skullflame Shield, can fluctuate wildly for reasons we can't control, and isn't an issue shared by anyone other than a druid who did it on purpose and only 20% of the time.

[mindw0rk]

Avoiding Stamina is stupid. Avoiding DR is stupid. Avoiding armor/bonus armor is stupid. Making a counterproductive talent is stupid. Avoiding Crit is stupid

On this I agree. Only stupid warrior would avoid improving those

About one-third of our only resource comes from using active abilities. The rest is not under our control, worsened by most stats, worsened by our cooldowns, worsened by our stupid artifact ability Skullflame Shield, can fluctuate wildly for reasons we can't control, and isn't an issue shared by anyone other than a druid who did it on purpose and only 20% of the time.

I could fall for those "we are doomed!", "we dont have rage!!" outcries if I didnt see streams of prot warrior in dungeons/raids where it was clear that warrior has more then enough rage generated for succesfull tanking. Hell, even Yse said it became way better in recent builds and he isnt known to be uber optimistic.

[Cylunaria]

Hell, even Yse said it became way better in recent builds and he isnt known to be uber optimistic.

Yep and he just like myself who is actually in alpha and testing have repeatedly said there are still underlying problems that will cause us to scale like shit. It's all fine and dandy that we seem to be doing ok in ilvl scaling equivalent to progression, but the problem is after. It is absolutely counter-intuitive to not even improve with gear. That's what makes it suck, until the next tier comes out all the gear we get doesn't actually make us better. Every other tank will scale well with their gear as all their resources are in player control, not RNG. I care mostly about progression, so that's why I'm not complete doom and gloom, but in tiers past the first one we will have a very concerning scaling issue.

[mindw0rk]

Can you explain me how getting more health, armor, stats, dmg, dodge, parry, set bonuses, getting stronger in every single aspect except rage gain equals to not even improve. Yes, I saw your arguments that if you get more parry boss misses and you dont get rage. But I would choose to have 90% parry chance and being missed 9 out of 10 times any day over being hit with everything and sitting at rage cap.
Argument about IP absorb number falling short on higher tiers made more sense to me, but would it fall short or not is nothing but theorycrafting atm. Since we know it improves with AP, and AP improves with str and mastery which grow with better gear.

[Deleted]

Yep and he just like myself who is actually in alpha and testing have repeatedly said there are still underlying problems that will cause us to scale like shit. It's all fine and dandy that we seem to be doing ok in ilvl scaling equivalent to progression, but the problem is after. It is absolutely counter-intuitive to not even improve with gear. That's what makes it suck, until the next tier comes out all the gear we get doesn't actually make us better. Every other tank will scale well with their gear as all their resources are in player control, not RNG. I care mostly about progression, so that's why I'm not complete doom and gloom, but in tiers past the first one we will have a very concerning scaling issue.

pretty much this. I'm sure rage will be fine on challenging content, when actively tanking. Offtanking you probably lose a lot, though i suppose you can make up for it with having a easier time using intercept. But content you overgear but is not completely trivial is what worries me.

It also worries me that we are the only tank that gets this kind of mechanic. I mean it kinda HAS to lead to one of two scenarios: either you have enough rage when offtanking and are swimming in rage when actively tanking, or or you have enough rage when actively tanking and are starved when offtanking. Which i guess translated into you either never use focussed rage, or you can spam it when actively tanking. But i guess the design goal is that you can use focussed rage when offtanking as a rage spender. I dunno it all just feels so counter intuitive, with the whole getting less rage with more gear deal.

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Can you explain me how getting more health, armor, stats, dmg, dodge, parry, set bonuses, getting stronger in every single aspect except rage gain equals to not even improve. Yes, I saw your arguments that if you get more parry boss misses and you dont get rage. But I would choose to have 90% parry chance and being missed 9 out of 10 times any day over being hit with everything and sitting at rage cap.
Argument about IP absorb number falling short on higher tiers made more sense to me, but would it fall short or not is nothing but theorycrafting atm. Since we know it improves with AP, and AP improves with str and mastery which grow with better gear.

Ofc we can explain: If you do the same boss with your pants on, you will get less rage then with your pants off.

Or in realistic terms: The same boss will give you less rage once you have gear from the raid then before. You might say: you now have the gear so your stronger so you dont need that rage to survive, which i suppose is true enough, but the result is that the game becomes less fun to play in easier content because you simply have less buttons to press because you have less resources.

Scenario i expect to happen:
-WoD: i'm ilvl 740, i queue for a random heroic, I get the same amount of rage as i got at ilvl 630. But now i can use all my rage on heroic strikes to boost my damage. Even tho heroic strike might not be that good i still feel like im stronger because i can choose to use rage offensively rather then deffensively.
-Legion: i'm ilvl 900 or w/e, i queue for a random heroic, just like in WoD i dont need to use rage for defense because my gear is OP compared to the dungeon. But because my gear is so good i only get maybe half the rage i got at ilvl 800, with most of my rage coming from rotation,and I can't really use focused rage all that often.

Basically the more you overgear content, the fewer buttons you get to press. And pressing fewer buttons then when you had worse gear feels shit. It doesn't matter if you are technically stronger overall if you feel like you are going backwards.

[Beardyface]

Don't forget that Blizz now builds AM checks into Raid and Dungeon content. I'm not 100% sure if Shield Block counts as AM in these situations, but if it doesn't, then a string of parries at the wrong time = death.

[Cylunaria]

Can you explain me how getting more health, armor, stats, dmg, dodge, parry, set bonuses, getting stronger in every single aspect except rage gain equals to not even improve. Yes, I saw your arguments that if you get more parry boss misses and you dont get rage. But I would choose to have 90% parry chance and being missed 9 out of 10 times any day over being hit with everything and sitting at rage cap.
Argument about IP absorb number falling short on higher tiers made more sense to me, but would it fall short or not is nothing but theorycrafting atm. Since we know it improves with AP, and AP improves with str and mastery which grow with better gear.

Him of Many Faces is correct. We don't get weaker in every regard, but we will definitely have spots where we couldn't use rage that we could on progression. We are the only tank that has anything that scales down with gear. Paladins DR gets stronger and they don't lose how much of them they are casting as an example. Our DR may get stronger (rather IP absorbs more) but we can't use it as frequently.

Don't forget that Blizz now builds AM checks into Raid and Dungeon content. I'm not 100% sure if Shield Block counts as AM in these situations, but if it doesn't, then a string of parries at the wrong time = death.

Shield block counts. All you have to do is look at the ability type and it tells you if it counts as AM or not.

[Deleted]

Don't forget that Blizz now builds AM checks into Raid and Dungeon content. I'm not 100% sure if Shield Block counts as AM in these situations, but if it doesn't, then a string of parries at the wrong time = death.

While it's not particularly fun, you do have 130 max rage so you can bank 40 longterm i guess.

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I wonder if the increased rotational rage you get from haste will be enough to offset the loss or rage from damage taken.

[Beardyface]

Him of Many Faces is correct. We don't get weaker in every regard, but we will definitely have spots where we couldn't use rage that we could on progression. We are the only tank that has anything that scales down with gear. Paladins DR gets stronger and they don't lose how much of them they are casting as an example. Our DR may get stronger (rather IP absorbs more) but we can't use it as frequently.



Shield block counts. All you have to do is look at the ability type and it tells you if it counts as AM or not.

Yeah, but I'm not sure I trust those descriptions. Even in game. Shield Barrier on live is not listed as active mitigation, yet it functions for AM checks. Nothing the monk has on live is listed as AM, but spells function as such. I think Guard does. I'd have to check mannoroth logs again.

[mindw0rk]

Ofc we can explain: If you do the same boss with your pants on, you will get less rage then with your pants off.
Or in realistic terms: The same boss will give you less rage once you have gear from the raid then before. You might say: you now have the gear so your stronger so you dont need that rage to survive, which i suppose is true enough, but the result is that the game becomes less fun to play in easier content because you simply have less buttons to press because you have less resources.
Scenario i expect to happen:
-WoD: i'm ilvl 740, i queue for a random heroic, I get the same amount of rage as i got at ilvl 630. But now i can use all my rage on heroic strikes to boost my damage. Even tho heroic strike might not be that good i still feel like im stronger because i can choose to use rage offensively rather then deffensively.
-Legion: i'm ilvl 900 or w/e, i queue for a random heroic, just like in WoD i dont need to use rage for defense because my gear is OP compared to the dungeon. But because my gear is so good i only get maybe half the rage i got at ilvl 800, with most of my rage coming from rotation,and I can't really use focused rage all that often.
Basically the more you overgear content, the fewer buttons you get to press. And pressing fewer buttons then when you had worse gear feels shit. It doesn't matter if you are technically stronger overall if you feel like you are going backwards.

Not impressed with those arguments.

First "more buttons to press" is actually just one single button - Focused Rage. You yourself said you dont need as much mitigation there so you dont need to spam IP, and nothing else requires rage (well SB but its only 10). One button wont make gameplay ohsomuchbetter. Especially if its just a slight dmg buff on next ability. In fact testers constantly repeat on beta forum how not fun and not satisflying this ability feels which I completely agree with.

Second how exactly 100AP single target dmg buff is even relevant in dungeon that you outgear? You will pull several packs and spam revenge/thunderclap/heroicleap/nelthfury to hit 20 mobs at once, not focus on just one target.

Our DR may get stronger (rather IP absorbs more) but we can't use it as frequently.

If you dont get rage from hits, this means hits are so low that barely scratch your health and you dont really need alot of mitigation against them. You still can get rage from active ablities for IP and this IP will last much longer due to low enemies dmg.