Protection legion Discussion

[mindw0rk]

Spell Reflect is *baseline* 30% magic reduction for 5 sec every 25 sec (hence 20% uptime) That's not weak at all in my humble opinion.

I didnt call it weak, I really like it in fact. But in PvP good players will see visual effect of SR and avoid it, then after 5 seconds warrior becomes vulnerable to casters since block and armor do nothing vs spells. Would be nice if they removed Leaping Giants artifact perk which I still think has no place for prot, and instead added perk that lowers all magic and harmful dots dmg by 15% while shield block is active.

As of now though, arms is going to be the worst pvp spec by far.

Arms AoE is incredible, he can rush into group fight and unleash some sick numbers. It also does sick dmg during execute stage. I wouldnt call it weak. But ironically fury can take more punishment then arms through constant self sustain which I think shouldnt be the case considering that Fury is supposed to be reckless warriors with high burst but low defenses

[Ashenia]

Until it's called Alpha and product is not close to finish, you shouldn't worry about which class/spec is good/bad. The things you should be looking for are bugs/issues/unfun gameplay that might be missed by Dev's.

As for us Protection Warriors, until they really sort Dragon Scales, another 2 Artifact Traits, Artifact ability and Heroic Strike it's really hard to say how good we are. How far they will go with nerfing IP close to launch is also something I'm worried about, specially with our 4set giving extra rage. I just hope we won't end up nerfed from SoO SB version to WoD SB version and really be 'the weakest' tank at the end of the run.

As for Broken Scales. Will 60%/40%/20% stack? I don't know as they don't function as they should. The value of your IP is just not moving by 1hp which really will be sick adding NS 100% of missing HP (like 40% of HP, 60% of 1st Scale). But definitely the first Scale supposed to increase the value of your IP by 60%, next 40% and last 20% (that's why it's saying "Up to 60%" I guess).

[mindw0rk]

Would be really cool if they imported Gale Burst mechanics of WW monk into Ignore Pain. Gale Burst collects 10% of all dmg you do during Touch of Death and then unleashes it in one burst attack after ToD ends. They could revamp Heroic Strike in similar way. You accumulate 10% of dmg absorbed in duration of Ignore Pain and when it ends, you can use Heroic strike to unleash this dmg. You can use Heroic Strike only up to 5 seconds after Ignore Pain ended. Costs 20 rage and is off gcd.

What it achives:
-Heroic Strike is now meaningful for prot, is an actual damaging attack and it is reactive, tied to our core ability.
-Adds concept of the more dmg you mitigate, the more dmg you deal. Which will make you want to mitigate more dmg.
-Improves prot's lacking single target DPS.

This will need redoing few talents affecting HS tho.

[Beardyface]

Would be really cool if they imported Gale Burst mechanics of WW monk into Ignore Pain. Gale Burst collects 10% of all dmg you do during Touch of Death and then unleashes it in one burst attack after ToD ends. They could revamp Heroic Strike in similar way. You accumulate 10% of dmg absorbed in duration of Ignore Pain and when it ends, you can use Heroic strike to unleash this dmg. You can use Heroic Strike only up to 5 seconds after Ignore Pain ended. Costs 20 rage and is off gcd.

What it achives:
-Heroic Strike is now meaningful for prot, is an actual damaging attack and it is reactive, tied to our core ability.
-Adds concept of the more dmg you mitigate, the more dmg you deal. Which will make you want to mitigate more dmg.
-Improves prot's lacking single target DPS.

This will need redoing few talents affecting HS tho.

This is a good idea. Was just thinking of something similar, where Shield Slam generates rage based on the damage it deals (say baseline 10 rage but up to 25 depending on how hard it hits). That makes our damage output tied to our defenses. You would have to modify/reduce the cost of heroic strike, though.

Or better yet, just make heroic strike affect the amount absorbed by ignore pain. That way you get the choice of using your rage on a normal ignore pain now or queueing up 3 heroic strikes to buff a big Ignore pain when you need it. That would be fun. Again, some talents/artifacts would need revision.

[mindw0rk]

Or better yet, just make heroic strike affect the amount absorbed by ignore pain. That way you get the choice of using your rage on a normal ignore pain now or queueing up 3 heroic strikes to buff a big Ignore pain when you need it. That would be fun. Again, some talents/artifacts would need revision.

Well, there are already plenty of abilities, talents and artifact traits that boost IP. And IP already absorbs quite abit, plus can be reapplied any time. One of major complains of HS is that a strike that buffs ability instead of doing direct dmg feels... well, not a strike.

[Cylunaria]

Add to IP:
- Never Surrender which is 100% more damage based on your missing health
- Artifact +6% IP (could be boosted by 3)
- Artifact trait that should increase it's value by 60%/40%/20% (each scale)
- LS making it like current 4set+SB

Well.. I wouldn't say we are weakest. Sure we do not have any real self healing (Presence healing for 900-1k on 108lvl with quest gear) and we are most healer dependent tank class but I would assume that being able to smooth the damage we are quite decent for progression. Later on with better gear, we won't be the flavor of the month but it's all about progression - isn't it?

I 100% agree that progression matters most, if you are viable for progression you are good on farm regardless (just maybe not the best, who cares it's farm). Couple things to point out though, depending on the fight never surrender may not be the best option. I really think it's hard to pass up Indomitable with the flat 25% EHP and the flat 25% IP increase you get from it. I know it's a lame talent (I certainly don't like it). It provides absolutely no gameplay changes, and doesn't really give any sort of "feel" but it is strong. If there is no major burst damage that risks us falling low, I feel Indomitable is the stronger, and more consistent talent still.

At the very least on farm Indomitable will trump out because our health will be past the tier anyways, and we won't ever dip as low as we would during progression. On a side note, assuming sockets are the same do we gem Stamina or Haste? Haste obviously still gives us the benefits we have gone over, but Stamina is bigger individual IPs. Also since Versatility is still a stat, does it effect ignore pain? I assumed it didn't but never bothered checking and am now wondering to myself why it wouldn't.

[Ashenia]

Few items from our "tier" which can be seen on wowhead database have mostly Crit/Mastery, I fear we might need extra help from things like that / trinkets to achieve req Haste level. Specially because 4set *right now* looks so juicy.

[Deleted]

our artifact also contains crit/mastery stats , the irony.

[Cylunaria]

Few items from our "tier" which can be seen on wowhead database have mostly Crit/Mastery, I fear we might need extra help from things like that / trinkets to achieve req Haste level. Specially because 4set *right now* looks so juicy.

When scaled to 110 and scaled to have 810ilvl gear (heroics drop 820 yah?) I have 26% haste passively. I have 6 pieces with no haste on them at all. Both trinkets, Artifacts, Helm, and Shoulders. I don't think we will have too many problems hitting the levels of haste we need to in the first tier. With the changes to stat scaling in Legion I feel likely that our haste breakpoints will be very easy to achieve.

EDIT: I'd also assume the stats on any raid items are not finalized, especially tier. They are probably just throwing preloaded item templates for each class and warriors are mostly crit/mast since that is what we used to favor.

[Beardyface]

Well, there are already plenty of abilities, talents and artifact traits that boost IP. And IP already absorbs quite abit, plus can be reapplied any time. One of major complains of HS is that a strike that buffs ability instead of doing direct dmg feels... well, not a strike.

Sure, but current design gives us a lot of options to improve our damage, which do nothing for our role. I'd like to see that damage improvement go to good use.

[Toppy]

our artifact also contains crit/mastery stats , the irony.

I do believe we get the option to change that eventually.

[Moggers1990]

One of major complains of HS is that a strike that buffs ability instead of doing direct dmg feels... well, not a strike.

I think i'm coming around to most of the changes to Prot Warrior now, seeing as our mitigation looks to actually be really good (still waiting for them to change it so we can't keep Shield Block up). I still hate the idea of generating rage from damage, but i'm just gonna have to deal with that.

The only real complaint i have is Heroic Strike, which as you said, doesn't feel like a strike or significant at all. It's been so iconic for Warriors for so long, i have no idea why they felt the need to change it.
They either need to remove Devastate from it (like for Arms it only effects Mortal Strike, not Slam as well), which will still be shit, just slightly better or honestly just return it to how it is now, the new talents would still be viable with the Heroic Strike/Ignore Pain synergy.
It could hit for half the damage it buffs Shield Slam for, i would still prefer it.

[Ashenia]

This might be really worthy build today:

Protection Warrior – Active ability revised to be much stronger. Several traits revised.
Warriors – Storm Bolt and Shockwave adjusted to clearly be utility abilities, not DPS increases. Battle Cry returns to Protection

Don't like removing damage from SB/SW but can live with it. Let's see what's there when they pop all info.

[Minoss]

SB/SW without a damage component are... crap. I really do hope they will lower the damage, if intended, but not remove it completely.

[Cybrus]

Battle cry boiz!

[Ashenia]

So here we go..

Focused Rage - Name change from Heroic Strike without Devastate finally

Ignore Pain - Max HP into [ 1,500% of AP * Percent Health + 1,500% of AP * AP * Percent Health )

Into the Fray [Nerf] - Increase haste by 2% (from 5 to 3..). Change I don't like at all..

Shockwave [Nerf] - Deals only [ 95% of AP ] damage

Storm Bolt [Nerf] - Dealing only [ 200% of AP ] damage. The part of "Deals quadruple damage to targets permanently immune to stuns" was removed

Shield Block [Nerf] - Cooldown changed from 12 sec recharge to 15 sec recharge

Heavy Repercussions [Nerf] - Shield Slam extends the duration of Shield Block by 1.5 sec (from 2 sec)

Dragon Scales - Seems they couldn't get it right so now it consume all scales, grant you 30 rage and increase value of your next IP by 60% which is fair as they got consumed way too fast

Neltharion's Fury - Enter a defensive posture, causing all incoming attacks to be critical blocks andwhile a stream of shadowflame erupts out of your shield, dealing (300% of Attack power) Shadowflame damage to all enemies in a 4 yard cone every 0.5 sec for 3 sec.

Scales of the Earth Warder - REMOVED! Good..

Scales of Earth - This trait is back, replacement for SotEW. "Critical blocks have a chance to cause an eruption from your shield, increasing your armor by 30% and causing 8 Physical damage."

Rage of the Fallen - New trait that increase Revenge damage up to 20% (Rank 6) instead of Devastate (first on left side)

Strength of the Earth Aspect - Instead of placeholder trait (Ancient Power) we get: Increase damage of Devastate by 15% now from 3% (which is Rank 1 - 1/1)

There is also this but I cannot believe it's true..
Fury, Arms, Protection
Berserker Rage You go berserk, removing and granting immunity to Fear, Sap and Incapacitate effects for 6 sec. Warrior - Fury & Arms Protection Spec. Instant. 60 sec cooldown.

[Sammonoske]

Protection got Berserker Rage back. Thank god.

[Ashenia]

By the look of it we get less haste, we lose 0.5 sec on SB and our SB is recharge is 3 sec longer. This is a bye bye 100% uptime. Although I'm very happy to see some traits gone but rest is still there (Might of the Vyrkul which sucks) and Zerk back.

Will have to test it and see it, specially how IP will looks like now with being AP based.

Edit:

Our Indomitable talent or Last Stand wont give anything towards IP value which is bit sad. I had to equip STR/Mastery/Vers trinkets to get higher value on it as any stamina pure trinket gave nothing. That is imo POOR change.

IP with Scales proc 243->292k

In such situation Never Surrender is complete winner to increase IP as there is nothing else that helps you with it.

[Deliverer]

Would be nice to have enrage back now I really like the extra rage/damage of it specially now with battle cry and shield slam extra crit.

[Neehs]

Overall...I'm pretty bummed out.

Sure we got battle cry and zerk rage, but they shafted Indomitable, Into the fray and Venegance, the latter because IP no longer half the rage cost of Focused rage..so its' only useful if you run it with ultimatium, otherwise it's a rage loss.

Shadowflame shield is viable now, and that's handy as our SB uptime will drop alot, can now use Shadowfame to cover gaps.

Mostly I just don't like how the changed IP's scaling, warriros don't end up with massive health pools, so their "Artifacts give alot of hp, scaling will get out of hand" argument is an odd one. It also devalues Last stand, wich again has no benefit when it comes to mitigation, at least before you could put up some beefy IP's when you had it up.

I was also looking forward to puttin more value into stamina/health aswell, but that's out the window.

Overall this build killed alot of syngery..meh