Gladiator FAQ and discussion thread

[Darkfriend]

The only gear we share between the tank and gladiator are rings necks, cloaks and shields (shields will go to the tank first since they are stat sticks for glad). every other piece of gear is shared between every other plate spec. sort of like saying I don't want to play a rogue because I'll kneecap our Druid tank.

They are stat sticks for tanks too.

[Khorm]

I can't see raids wanting to lose out on Rallying Cry even if Glad does a small amount of extra damage which it could not.

[CollisionTD]

I can't see raids wanting to lose out on Rallying Cry even if Glad does a small amount of extra damage which it could not.

Rallying crys usefulness is reduced in WoD due to the shift in healing philosophy/increased health pools.

[Trubo]

Doesn't Rallying still require Defensive Stance as well?

[CollisionTD]

Doesn't Rallying still require Defensive Stance as well?

Gladiator stance is able to use all abilities, it effectively has no stance requirements. Rallying cry itself isn't available to protection.

[Skiboy]

Doesn't Rallying still require Defensive Stance as well?

The best part is that you, Go DStance>RC(one button press)>wait on stance CD>Rotational Ability. Now what this means is as long as you use a swing timer(DStance effects AA rage gen) and have a rotational ability that DOES NOT require BStance off CD, you'll never notice [sarcasm]THE AWESOME SAUCE FLAVOR![/sarcasm]

I forgot to check at lunch but is RC still off GCD like live? Because the proposed treatment basically SOMETIMES causes us to incur an occasional "GCD".

Collision do you think the new healing model will truly allow those of us at the top end of progression to forgo having rally? Without actually seeing the mythic encounters I have a lot of trouble feeling comfortable making that call.

[Cloudwolfe]

So they fixed Unyielding Strikes and it feels strange.


For those who don't know how it works: Devastate reduces the Rage cost of Heroic Strike by 6 for 6 seconds, stacking up 5 times.

You Devastate once and for 6 seconds Heroic Strike costs 24 Rage.
Second Devastate refreshes the timer back to the full 6 seconds and Heroic Strike costs 18 Rage and so on until you get to 5 stacks.

When you apply the 5th stack in the buff it can't refresh any longer and Heroic Strike costs no Rage.

It then falls off and begins again at 1 stack when you Devastate and it's back to 24/18/12/6/0 Rage cost for Heroic Strike, corresponding to 1/2/3/4/5 stacks.


It reduces Rage spend by so much that, and I understand how lazy this sounds, I was able to macro Heroic Strike into Devastate, Revenge and Shield Slam and not run out of Rage with sufficient gear and buffs against the dummy, with some exceptions.

I'm on the level 100 PvP server so I cherry picked Crit gear from the vendor, used Crit enchants and Crit/food flask as well as the buffs from the Cauldron of Power around the dummies in Shattrath. I replaced or removed any Multistrike gear I had and cancelled the Multistrike buff to not skew the amount of Heroic Strikes cast

This was the result: http://i.imgur.com/yrrGVMc.jpg

Combat lasted 3 minutes (timer on bottom left), 122 Heroic Strike were cast. The cooldown of my Heroic Strike was 1.37 seconds so 180 / 1.37 = 131~ possible Heroic Strikes when used on CD.

I can possibly attribute the missed 9 to the initial pull where I pooled rage to make sure I had enough Rage and stacks to get 8 Heroic Strikes into the 12 second window of 2 Shield Charges/Trinket/Bloodbath etc, some RNG with Crits and just me messing up.

I understand it ain't practical or optimal compared manually casting Heroic Strike, it definitely wasn't when I was scaled down in dungeons and when boss mechanics came into play.

I think it just underscores the amount of pure Heroic Strike spam you will be doing in good gear with certain stats if it stays the way it is. In my own opinion, it is a bit too much spam but others may find it fun.


Feel free to correct me as there is probably a lot wrong with what I said. Other than the above I'm really enjoying Gladiator, it feels really good to play Prot in a way that's not a tank.

[Cyrops]

So they fixed Unyielding Strikes and it feels strange.


For those who don't know how it works: Devastate reduces the Rage cost of Heroic Strike by 6 for 6 seconds, stacking up 5 times.
-snip-.

I don't think this is relevant anymore as HS will be removed.

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Point is you can dps fullbore in your prot gear and it's a sword and board style of DPS. It's more wish fulfillment than anything else. I fully expect to employ it as my main PvE Dps spec.

That makes sense then, warr still broken and instead of fixing, blizz "fulfills" wishes of S&B play style.

[Trubo]

I don't think this is relevant anymore as HS will be removed.

- - - Updated - - -



That makes sense then, warr still broken and instead of fixing, blizz "fulfills" wishes of S&B play style.

When did Blizzard announce that they're removing Heroic Strike from Protection/Gladiator?

[Deleted]

without HS glad will be sitting at 100 rage all fight long :O

[Requiel]

I don't think this is relevant anymore as HS will be removed.

- - - Updated - - -



That makes sense then, warr still broken and instead of fixing, blizz "fulfills" wishes of S&B play style.

Heroic strike isn't going and gladiator isn't taking time away from fury/arms design. both are intended to play like that.

[Cyrops]

So HS is gone only for arms/fury? Well my bad then, didn't really follow that closely, just assumed from all the cries.
The gladiator seems to be tempting choice without having to bother with 'proper' DPS items, for sure War will be my second character in WoD. Still not enough to make it my main like it was in vanilla.

- - - Updated - - -

Heroic strike isn't going and gladiator isn't taking time away from fury/arms design. both are intended to play like that.

I wasn't talking about specific specs, but more of warrior playstyle overall.
First they don't want us to stance dance, removing stance specific abilities (or changing them), changing stance passive's, etc.
Now they are returning abilities requiring stances, I don't even know if the person in charge of warrior design keeps changing or keeps swapping to different meds all the time.
Someone remind me again how many expansions we had to wait to get spell reflect without equiping shield?

[Requiel]

I wasn't talking about specific specs, but more of warrior playstyle overall.
First they don't want us to stance dance, removing stance specific abilities (or changing them), changing stance passive's, etc.
Now they are returning abilities requiring stances, I don't even know if the person in charge of warrior design keeps changing or keeps swapping to different meds all the time.
Someone remind me again how many expansions we had to wait to get spell reflect without equiping shield?

Ok i get it now i thought you were blaming Gladiator for making warriors "bad", but yeah it does suck that many welcomed changes are being reversed with this new design philosophy. Just looks like gladiator is close enough to it that it won't warrant dramatic changes like arms and fury suffered.

[High Marshal Sigismund]

Just curious but how is Shield Slam doing in damage compared to SotR from Prot Paladins? Interested to know the difference. (WoD Beta)

[Archimtiros]

Just curious but how is Shield Slam doing in damage compared to SotR from Prot Paladins? Interested to know the difference. (WoD Beta)

Aside from working completely differently there is no reason to even compare the two while tuning goes on. Not sure why you'd compare them to begin with.

[Deleted]

This sounds a bit like Ultraxion and shadowstep ( I mained rogue for DS the first time. )

Yeah, those Killing Spree's....Am I right?!

On Topic, I'm glad they haven't shelved Glad Stance, I very much wanna try it, still no beta for me :/

[Tech Priest Bojangles]

Gonna start by saying that i've never played protection warrior past like level 18 in my entire wow career.

I've been playing with gladiator stance on the beta and it is fun as hell. After playing dark souls so much i've developed a taste for sword and board style combat. This spec is really neat and pretty easy to grasp. I know the tuning isn't done but so far this spec is wicked and far more fun to play than my pitiful main. My only problem is that if I switched then I would be stealing tank gear from the tanks which i'm not real cool with, would probably just wait 'till they finished gearing and collect the scraps.

[Cyclonus-WOW]

would probably just wait 'till they finished gearing and collect the scraps.

Glad to hear you're loving it! No pun.. anyway, I think that worst case scenario is that you're grouped with a team consisting of two plate tanks. The way bonus rolls are going to work is in your favor ( you won't get the same item twice ) and we might even be able to specify an item to blacklist, though I've only heard rumors on that.

Another thing is that while plate bonus armor is going to be superior, you can still collect actual plate gear that a normal dps would want. I'd be interested to know if the prot tank stat priority is the same as the glad priority right now ( obviously discounting any bonus armor possiblities ). So maybe you'd go a bit light on bonus armor for a while. You might not be able to gear very well if you had the two plate tanks and you were pushing for world first .

[Cyrops]

Gonna start by saying that i've never played protection warrior past like level 18 in my entire wow career.

I've been playing with gladiator stance on the beta and it is fun as hell. After playing dark souls so much i've developed a taste for sword and board style combat. This spec is really neat and pretty easy to grasp. I know the tuning isn't done but so far this spec is wicked and far more fun to play than my pitiful main. My only problem is that if I switched then I would be stealing tank gear from the tanks which i'm not real cool with, would probably just wait 'till they finished gearing and collect the scraps.

Why wouldn't you want to main spec Tank :O

[Smag]

Cos he wants to DPS ?
Considering the crippling state of the other two specs, seems like a legitimate thing.