Conclusions
I think these simulations were quite fruitful. It’s clear that the results differ enough from the paladin ones that a separate analysis was warranted. I’ve seen a lot of ambiguity regarding stat weights for prot warriors, and these simulations bring statistical evidence into those discussions. For one thing, the value of hit and expertise seems a lot lower than many assumed, and their value at level 90 will end up being directly correlated to how important extra Shield Barrier casts are. That may even be a player-specific decision rather than a hard-and-fast rule.
In addition, I think everyone will be a little surprised at how strong avoidance is for warriors. The synergy between Revenge and dodge/parry is a fearsome thing, effectively turning dodge/parry into rage generation stats. The warrior that eschews hit/exp and stacks dodge/parry may not suffer much as far as rage generation is concerned simply because of Revenge. Rather than having to choose between a resource generation stat and an avoidance stat, like a paladin does, the warrior can stick with avoidance and get both.
I’d say that this devalues hit and expertise, and that every warrior will be stacking avoidance to the sky, but hit and expertise still give an element of control that’s worth considering. High avoidance may give you enough resource generation to maintain a fairly high Shield Block uptime, but that avoidance-based rage income is just as stochastic as the damage reduction it grants. You could easily get doubly screwed by a string of missed attacks occurring simultaneously with a string of unavoided attacks, leaving you high and dry. At least with respectable hit/exp values, you have more control over your rage income.
That said, Shield Block’s 2-charge mechanic and the ability to pool 120 rage mitigate this problem quite a bit. That might be enough control for a skilled warrior, making the sheer rating investment of hit- and expertise-cap unattractive for such a small benefit. And we have shown that it only takes about 9% total hit+expertise to reach the point where Shield Block is available as often as it can be. It wouldn’t surprise me if avoidance-stacking became the dominant gearing strategy for warriors even while the hit/exp/mastery/haste strategy becomes dominant for paladins.
As a brief footnote: The warrior diminishing returns equations are a little different than the paladin ones, and seem to have been balanced pretty well given our gear set with roughly equal amounts of dodge and parry rating. Remember, the stated design goal was for our rating values to be approximately equal after the extra parry->strength conversion. I find myself wondering if that’s why the warrior equations were changed again. They were identical to paladins at one point in beta, but the most recent change adjusted the scaling and the dodge cap. I also wonder whether the paladin dodge cap will be adjusted similarly before L90 raiding.