Build 15677 : List of issues (perhaps bugs?) of the Prot Warrior.

[Deleted]

Hi.

I recently log on to the beta to try out the latest Prot Warrior build and find myself a bit scared and really concerned about some of the latest changes and abilities. Below is a small list. I do hope these are bugs and are to be fixed pretty soon.

1 - Whenever your Shield Slam misses or is dodged/parried you don't generate any rage from it.
If this is intended then this would completely make Rage flow totally unpredictable (and hence the Warrior's active mitigation), unless the Warrior was to hard cap expertise and hit, 14% and 8%, which I'm pretty sure devs don't want Prot Warrior to be doing in MoP, as this much struggle with offensive stats would ruin any fun there is or was in the Warrior's TC.
We wouldn't even have any secondary stats left for Dodge, Parry or Mastery, and would be forced to have even more Expertise than DPS, if we are to be optimal, and make our Rage flow, and so our mitigation through our Shield abilities, fluid and stable and most importantly reliable.
Imagine you decide to time your next Shield Barrier for an attack, but then find yourself missing rage to have it strong enough, 'cause your Shield Slam just missed ??
In such a world, Expertise and Hit would become more valuable as ''defensive'' stats than Mastery, Dodge, Parry, or even Stamina, which would be completely silly in most point of view.

So again, I do hope this isn't intended, and would be fixed really soon.


2 - Revenge now directly generates 10 Rages, instead of procing SnB. This is good as now we have even more ''control'' over our rage generation, but then again here, whenever your Revenge misses or is avoided, you get 0 Rage from it. Same concern as in 1-, thus.


3 - The Double Time talent which allows you to Charge twice in a row, is either bugged or has become meaningless.
In the latest build, your first Charge gives you 20 Rages, while your second Charge gives you 0 Rage. Why remove the Rage generation of the second Charge ?
This is an unnecessary penalty and prevents the Warrior from benefiting fully from this Talent. The Talent itself becomes much less valuable in this case, when compared to the two others on the Tier, and even prevents some interesting gameplay, like combining your Heroic leap to this second Charge to generate some more Rage at the pull, or whenever you might need the Rage burst.

I sure hope this is a bug, and not intended.


4 - Last but not least, is our new Demoralization Shout spell. This ability was one of the main things Prot Warriors were missing in order to be balanced with other tanks. So I'm really glad to see it finally implemented in some form.
However, I recently noticed that this ability could in fact ''miss'' its target, and make it completely useless until its 1 min cooldown refreshes again.
As a ''defensive CD'', this would be so unpredictable to use that Warriors couldn't possible count on it for anything really, or add it in any CD rotational fight, as it might miss when you least want it to (remember how much we have to spam the live version to have it stick on the boss ? almost 50% of the time, it practically misses.) How can we possible have a defensive CD that can miss ? (lol)

Again, this would mean the Prot Warrior would have to Hit cap in order to prevent this problem (and possible up to 17% spell Hit, as even at 8% melee hit I still saw some misses...)
Is this really were we are headed ? In a world where we necessary need to have 14% expertise and 8% Hit ( and possibly 17% spell hit, really?), in order to have any form of predictability and be successful Warrior tanks ?

Again here, I do hope this is a bug and is to be fixed pretty soon.

Let me know what you think about this.


PS :
As always, if you can get this to the US official Beta Classes forums here, please feel free to do so. I personally can't, EU accounts can't post on these forums.

[Deleted]

Misses and not generating rage through missing a special is exactly the point of the new system.
Blizz specifically stated they want tanks to care for hit & expertise, probably even capping both.
Therefore everything is working as intended, except maybe for double time.
Demo Shout would only be a problem if you'd need to be spell hit capped (though expertise also adds spell hit, so maybe there won't be a problem at all).

[Deleted]

Misses and not generating rage through missing a special is exactly the point of the new system.
Blizz specifically stated they want tanks to care for hit & expertise, probably even capping both.
Therefore everything is working as intended, except maybe for double time.
Demo Shout would only be a problem if you'd need to be spell hit capped (though expertise also adds spell hit, so maybe there won't be a problem at all).

I agree to some point exp and hit should be needed, but you shouldn't have to cap it imo
And demo shout NEEDS to be removed from spell hit table and NEVER miss or its a worthless CD, warriors have enough of that already.
Inner rage ohh sry cant dc, ohh dc, cant reck, ohh reck 20% dmg penalty, ohh wanna sw, change to shield etc etc etc.

Its becoming way to ridiculous, its not fun gameplay its just annoying...

[Kolmagorov]

Issues 1 and 2 are going to make theorycrafting stat weights very tricky. I'm betting that mastery and avoidance will give more average long-term damage reduction than hit and expertise would via shield block/barrier, but neglecting hit/expertise means you may not have the rage for your defensive abilities when you need them.

I wonder if the best approach will be deciding on a 'soft cap' for hit/expertise, where a soft cap is defined as follows: For a particular boss, look at the interval between burst damage (stomps, dragon breaths, etc.). Then gear for enough hit/expertise such that the chance of generating enough rage for a shield block/barrier is reasonably assured.

Example for purpose of illustration: In tier 14, the boss 'Evil Panda', in addition to his normal melee attacks, thrashes you with a bamboo stick every 15 seconds. Suppose this attack is blockable. Then you want to get enough hit/expertise such that the chance of NOT generating enough rage to use shield block every 15 seconds is less than 5%. Once you have that much hit/expertise, you gear for defensive stats.

That's an idea I've been brainstorming. Any thoughts?

And issues 3 and 4... those better just be bugs.

[Chaltione]

Regarding 1 and 2:

On the beta, the tooltip for extertise shows for example 3% expertise giving you 4.5% dodge and 4.5% parry from skull level mobs. I don't know if this is a bug or intended, as the developer blog a bit back said that expertise should reduce dodge then parry. source: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/blog/378...2_03_2012#blog

If this is intended, that means that we should be able to cap expertise much easier than it is on live now, and don't have to worry about soft or hard expertise caps, and I hope that it's achievable to cap hit and expertise for tanks without going all out on reforge + gemming and using special gear sets or dps gear for tanking.

If this is not intended, and we do have soft and hard expertise caps, then our rage generating abilities (revenge and shield slam) should get the same treatment as Death Knight's Death Strike. Blizzard has changed Death Strike, so it no longer gives the heal and thus Blood Shield regardless of the attack landing, so Death Knights now need to get some hit and expertise for reliable mitigation again. The last sentence in the Death Strike tooltip reads: "This attack cannot be parried". This would alleviate ridiculously high requirements of expertise for Warrior tanks.

I totally agree with you on 3 and 4, those better be bugs.

[Deleted]

Issues 1 and 2 are going to make theorycrafting stat weights very tricky.

Actually is pretty damn easy. Cap hit and expertise and go all out on mastery thereafter. Done.

[shadowkras]

#1) Is 100% intended, they want hit and expertise to matter again.

#2 and #4) Directly related to #1, see #1.

#3) Sounds like a bug, i would guess its happening because of the extra buff you get.