[Protection] WoD Alpha/Beta Info & Discussion

[celinamuna]

Idk I just enjoyed wotlk tanking more than anything even if it was 3 button spamming. Maybe because wotlk was my all time fav expansion :<

I enjoyed wotlk healing more than anything else.
Because i made 1 timed macro and it did all the work for me (esp on H LK)

[Promdates]

I enjoyed wotlk healing more than anything else.
Because i made 1 timed macro and it did all the work for me (esp on H LK)

Downranking healing spells ftw. Removing that removed all the fun from healing imo.

[Nobleshield]

GIVE WOTLK TANKING and wotlk ardent defender... :S

Oh god yes. I must be one of the few that absolutely LOVED 969. It was simplistic, but let you focus on other things. It was very fluid. Active Mitigation doesn't feel fluid at all, and it puts too much emphasis on 'class mastery" and timing things perfectly. WOTLK was my favorite expansion as well and I loved it. Everything flowed together IMO, for Prot anyways.

[Lyese]

I like the way we are now, honestly. I wish there was more to "active" mitigation, but it's far better than mashing your 2 button macros and watching movies on your second monitor.

Tanking in BC was more interesting than that, and we had to manually refresh seals, didn't have an instant weapon attack, and AS was on a cast timer (weave it in between boss swings, profit). Not to mention the totally awesome bubble taunt.

[celinamuna]

I was serious tho.

So was I.
As a disc priest i had 1 timed macro that applied rank 12 (i think) PWS on everyone in 2 or 3 groups right for defile, and that's all i did for like half the fight.

Oh god yes. I must be one of the few that absolutely LOVED 969. It was simplistic, but let you focus on other things. It was very fluid. Active Mitigation doesn't feel fluid at all, and it puts too much emphasis on 'class mastery" and timing things perfectly. WOTLK was my favorite expansion as well and I loved it. Everything flowed together IMO, for Prot anyways.

I actually enjoy introductive of AM. I've played with so many "good" tanks who turned out to be absolute dogshit simply because in the past all they needed to do was to gear and that's it, in terms of defensive benefits there was very little to do in rotation.
I've tanked at that time, and honestly it sucked, it was so simple and braindead, that +- every single dps spec was more involved.
Even tho i know that most of the time i don't focus and play less than perfectly, i love that carrot on the stick which tells me that i can improve. If this was wotlk, even if veng and scumbagging was the same i probably wouldn't play a tank. :X

[Reghame]

As far as i know, when the level 100 pvp alpha went out, holy shield on the paladin did not add an effect, but sparked a little light effect on the attacker when you blocked them.

And if they make it so you can do dps as prot, id like to have reckoning back, but that you always double swing each hit. and making seal of truth... you know.... NOT SHIT FOR PROT!

[trystero]

Oh god yes. I must be one of the few that absolutely LOVED 969. It was simplistic, but let you focus on other things. It was very fluid. .

You are one of the few, rest assured; you're certainly in the minority when it comes to your crusade against active mitigation. Now you're advocating a 3 button rotation. You say you want to focus 'on other things'. In your ideal WoW, where there's no active mitigation or a rotation, what on earth is there to focus on?

Active Mitigation doesn't feel fluid at all, and it puts too much emphasis on 'class mastery" and timing things perfectly.

Well yes, that is the point, to create a meaningful skill gap. Players that cannot handle it die, stay on stagnant content, or reroll.

[Deleted]

Tank Vengeance and Resolve

The changes to tanking made in Mists of Pandaria turned out quite well, overall. But there were a few rough parts that we're going to smooth over. The biggest one is the offensive capabilities of Vengeance. We like that tanks can provide meaningful DPS to their group, however, it swung wildly based on the fight, even surpassing the dedicated damage dealers occasionally. To solve this, we're going to remove the offensive value of Vengeance, but preserve the defensive value, by making it increase the effect of your active mitigation buttons, instead of Attack Power.

General

• Vengeance has been removed and replaced with a new passive ability, Resolve.
  
  • Resolve: Increases your healing and absorption done to yourself, based on Stamina and damage taken (before avoidance and mitigation) in the last 10 seconds.

Then, to keep tank DPS meaningful, we'll be raising their damage, since it would be meager with no Vengeance Attack Power (Vengeance accounted for 70-90% of a tank's damage on high-tank-damage fights in Mists). To do that, we're increasing the damage of several prominent tank abilities.For plate-wearing Tank specializations, Riposte has been redesigned to convert Critical Strike into Parry, a defensive stat. That also helps keep secondary stats balanced in offensive value for them.

General

• Riposte is a passive ability for Blood Death Knights, Protection Paladins, and Protection warriors.
  
  • Riposte now gives the character Parry equal to their Critical Strike bonus from gear.
• All tanking stances and similar effects now increases threat generated by 900% (up from 600%).

Paladin

• Mastery: Divine Bulwark now also passively increases Attack Power by 8% (percentage increased by Mastery), in addition to its current effects.

Looks like tanking is going to be half as fun in WoD, threat might as well be removed as a concept it's so obsolete, the best part of being a tank in MoP by far was maximizing your damage output via vengeance without taking so much damage that you die. Now the only thing that you will have to think about as a tank is your "active" mitigation and staying alive which is pretty much use CDs when you're about to take more damage than you were taking a second ago... yay. Vengeance gaming was the best thing to ever happen to tanking in WoW it's a real shame it has to go because of some strange complex that DPS players have of "TANKS SHOULD BE TANKS AND SHOULDN'T DO MORE DAMAGE THAN ME NO MATTER HOW AVERAGE I PERFORM".

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

the best part of being a tank in MoP by far was maximizing your damage output via vengeance without taking so much damage that you die.

And this is something I hated. I don't like having to take more damage to be "better". As a tank, my job is

1. Don't die,
2. Make the healers' life easier by minimizing damage taken,
3. Do damage.

I really hated the "1.5" in that list, which was "stand in everything that you can, sit down to be critted and take as much damage as you can without dying so that you can do more damage". I really hate the fact that a tank's damage is entirely dependent on their attack power - my dps in raids can be over ten times what I do on a target dummy. Now our dps is going to be around 75% of a dps of EQUAL SKILL. That means, if you have a dps that is below the tank, they are really really shit. It means that they can't just say "vengeance olololol" when you take them aside and ask why they aren't doing nearly as much damage as they could be.

Now the only thing that you will have to think about as a tank is your "active" mitigation and staying alive which is pretty much use CDs when you're about to take more damage than you were taking a second ago... yay

And that is the tanking role. Don't die, make life easy for the healers, and then do damage.

Vengeance gaming was the best thing to ever happen to tanking in WoW it's a real shame it has to go because of some strange complex that DPS players have of "TANKS SHOULD BE TANKS AND SHOULDN'T DO MORE DAMAGE THAN ME NO MATTER HOW AVERAGE I PERFORM".

If you were tanking just to do more dps than the damage dealers in your raid, maybe you should just reroll something else? Warlock, perhaps.

Again, tank damage will be tuned to somewhere between 70 and 80% of a dps class. That means that you will still be top of the damage meter if you are performing more than 20% better than them.

Vengeance for offensive abilities was the worst thing to happen to tanking. And I am glad it is finally gone.

[Deleted]

And this is something I hated. I don't like having to take more damage to be "better". As a tank, my job is

1. Don't die,
2. Make the healers' life easier by minimizing damage taken,
3. Do damage.

I really hated the "1.5" in that list, which was "stand in everything that you can, sit down to be critted and take as much damage as you can without dying so that you can do more damage". I really hate the fact that a tank's damage is entirely dependent on their attack power - my dps in raids can be over ten times what I do on a target dummy. Now our dps is going to be around 75% of a dps of EQUAL SKILL. That means, if you have a dps that is below the tank, they are really really shit. It means that they can't just say "vengeance olololol" when you take them aside and ask why they aren't doing nearly as much damage as they could be.

And that is the tanking role. Don't die, make life easy for the healers, and then do damage.

If you were tanking just to do more dps than the damage dealers in your raid, maybe you should just reroll something else? Warlock, perhaps.

Again, tank damage will be tuned to somewhere between 70 and 80% of a dps class. That means that you will still be top of the damage meter if you are performing more than 20% better than them.

Vengeance for offensive abilities was the worst thing to happen to tanking. And I am glad it is finally gone.

I'm aware of the tanks role, but I've not yet had a tank who I would consider to be a good player tell me they don't enjoy doing vengeance gaming and maxing their damage. Once you've done a fight a few times the role of the tank becomes second nature - make sure AM is up for X, use a major CD on Y, taunt swap on Z. Once you've done a fight a dozen times I think tanks should be able to experiment and play dangerously to try and max damage otherwise it's going to be immensely boring.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

I'm aware of the tanks role, but I've not yet had a tank who I would consider to be a good player tell me they don't enjoy doing vengeance gaming and maxing their damage. Once you've done a fight a few times the role of the tank becomes second nature - make sure AM is up for X, use a major CD on Y, taunt swap on Z. Once you've done a fight a dozen times I think tanks should be able to experiment and play dangerously to try and max damage otherwise it's going to be immensely boring.

I have no problem with maximizing damage output as a tank. I like maximizing my damage output. I just don't like the whole "make sure you take that unnecessary damage!" aspect of Vengeance.

Vengeance is completely backwards to what a tank should be achieving. It encourages you to get as close to dying as possible so that you can do a bit more damage. It also contributes way too much to our total damage done.

[Deleted]

I have no problem with maximizing damage output as a tank. I like maximizing my damage output. I just don't like the whole "make sure you take that unnecessary damage!" aspect of Vengeance.

Vengeance is completely backwards to what a tank should be achieving. It encourages you to get as close to dying as possible so that you can do a bit more damage. It also contributes way too much to our total damage done.

Ok I don't disagree with any of this, but in order for a tank to maximize their damage they always had to take more damage, even before vengeance. I remember tanking in ICC on my warrior with a few pieces of pvp gear and the shield giving me my defense cap and then stacking DPS gear, not the same as vengeance gaming obviously but the concept is similar, I think tanks will always be sacrificing their survivability for more damage output.

[Callsignecho]

Got into beta yesterday and hit 92 on my Prot Pally. Here are my initial thoughts:

Nothing changed.

[Akro1000]

yep maybe sealdancing on lvl 100 but nothing changed really

[Kitmajere]

What I don't like about vengeance is not only the incongruous for our role "take extra damage to do extra damage" part, but also that you're (often) actively stealing the fun and enjoyment from your co-tank unless you can solo tank the fight. Between playing a disc priest in 25 man and several tanks that like parsing in 10, SoO farm is a rather negative experience. Gotta steal the healing/vengeance so I get ranks!!

[Raeph]

Got into beta yesterday and hit 92 on my Prot Pally. Here are my initial thoughts:

Nothing changed.

Still 91 on mine, only had about 3 hours to play and goof around, and had a lot of server issues.

Pretty much nothing changed. Damage seems to be what you would expect if you had about 20k ap form vengeance. Self healing is still high. Testing it out I grabbed the usual 8-10 things and tanked them all (orges in frost fire during the assault); same ole same ole.

One thing though, all the gear that is dropping is 505-513, quest rewards and drops. My ilvl is 562. My guess is that if you have at least a full set of flex gear you will be over overpowered until 94-95-ish.

[Callsignecho]

One thing though, all the gear that is dropping is 505-513, quest rewards and drops. My ilvl is 562. My guess is that if you have at least a full set of flex gear you will be over overpowered until 94-95-ish.

Pretty much. I think they are heavily designing the intro to WoD around boosted characters, and they might expect a huge rust to come around when WoD actually launches. I have seen 530 ilvl items from quests in SMV, so it is a pretty fast ramp up, but I would expect, by the 3rd or 4th questing zone, you will start replacing gear.

I do think the intro goes by pretty fast for someone who may be coming back to the game or a new player with a boosted character.

[celinamuna]

Not sure why, but atm gear doesn't actually swap stats :X

[nightfalls]

Ok I don't disagree with any of this, but in order for a tank to maximize their damage they always had to take more damage, even before vengeance. I remember tanking in ICC on my warrior with a few pieces of pvp gear and the shield giving me my defense cap and then stacking DPS gear, not the same as vengeance gaming obviously but the concept is similar, I think tanks will always be sacrificing their survivability for more damage output.

I did the same in Cataclysm (going for hit/exp over mastery/dodge/parry as Blood). But this also is going away in Warlords to an extent, since all stats are now supposed to give both offensive and defensive benefit. There might still be "this stat is better for damage, that stat better for survival" but it will be a MUCH smaller degree than before.

[Promdates]

One thing though, all the gear that is dropping is 505-513, quest rewards and drops. My ilvl is 562. My guess is that if you have at least a full set of flex gear you will be over overpowered until 94-95-ish.

Unless they change the scaling on the gear, or increase the ilvl of drops in the further progressed levels, you should see T16 gear until at least mid way until level cap. I know I didn't replace half of my heroic DS gear until almost 90 (same can be said for previous expansions as well).