BfA Prot thoughts

[Fethend]

I for one am interested to see what they do, if they're removing IP. I personally am not a fan of the current mitigation system warrior has had since WoD, of Shield Block and Absorb (even if one absorb was notably stronger than the other), and being almost wet tissue paper outside of the two. I also wouldn't mind seeing a change to talents on the Devastator tier that make it a more viable option to not use it. I just don't like the way Devastator feels. I liked the high ApM of Devastate + Vengeance of early Legion, but that's just me. I know it's not everyone's fancy.

Any thoughts on what they're going to do as a replacement/rework with removing IP? As it is now, Warrior is notably lacking in the mitigation department compared to the other tanks, with Shield Block being basically all we have, outside of cooldowns. Since it seems Blizz is largely straying away from Magic mitigation, I personally wouldn't mind something like a leech-ish effect, that scales inversely with remaining hp. Obviously, it would need to be tuned carefully, but I personally imagine the fantasy of Warrior, as fitting within the same idea as if you corner an animal. It gets more vicious. Especially since our resource has been named Rage forever, but largely never really felt like it had anything to do with rage.

[Deleted]

Can anyone on alpha confirm we have 5 NYE talents since the last patch which removed 2 ? The wowhead talent calculator shows Indomitable and ravager as 'unknown' instead of 'coming soon' so that might be a bug (baseline maybe ?) but even with that we are going to have at least 3 new talents soon so our gameplay could see radical changes. Let's hope they are interesting and not 'into the fray' level of useless.

[Sammonoske]

Can anyone on alpha confirm we have 5 NYE talents since the last patch which removed 2 ? The wowhead talent calculator shows Indomitable and ravager as 'unknown' instead of 'coming soon' so that might be a bug (baseline maybe ?) but even with that we are going to have at least 3 new talents soon so our gameplay could see radical changes. Let's hope they are interesting and not 'into the fray' level of useless.

Indomitable and Ravager are still there currently on Alpha.

[Firefall]

What in the actual fuck.

Is this like Legion alpha/beta again where they're just ignoring us entirely?

Well they just responded to a warrior thread and then didn't talk about warriors at all, just Paladins and Monks, so it's safe to say "yes." I've had the alpha for a while now. I'm heavily invested in the WoW community. Considering quitting for the first time since vanilla. They are tearing the game apart with warriors taking the brunt of it. I think it's time to accept that they don't care about warriors at all and consider them the "basic" class that they want to be brain-dead easy to play, and if you're like me and only have played warriors, this is the time to kick the habit and quit WoW.

[Scornedfury]

Well they just responded to a warrior thread and then didn't talk about warriors at all, just Paladins and Monks, so it's safe to say "yes." I've had the alpha for a while now. I'm heavily invested in the WoW community. Considering quitting for the first time since vanilla. They are tearing the game apart with warriors taking the brunt of it. I think it's time to accept that they don't care about warriors at all and consider them the "basic" class that they want to be brain-dead easy to play, and if you're like me and only have played warriors, this is the time to kick the habit and quit WoW.

I mean if that's the mentality you want to have then sure. Or you could go the other way and main a new class this expac. I think it's far to early to tell how warriors will play out right now.

[Firefall]

I mean if that's the mentality you want to have then sure. Or you could go the other way and main a new class this expac. I think it's far to early to tell how warriors will play out right now.

WoW is Warriors to me, or rather is my warrior toon. I have a main and that's it, I never invest significant time in alts. That's my avatar. If my main is no longer fun to play, in any spec (I already left Fury after MoP for prot) then it's time for me to leave.

[potis]

WoW is Warriors to me, or rather is my warrior toon. I have a main and that's it, I never invest significant time in alts. That's my avatar. If my main is no longer fun to play, in any spec (I already left Fury after MoP for prot) then it's time for me to leave.

This is like the epitome of crying for no reason.

I am in alpha too, and everything feels the same, i havent logged this last week to check the Warrior cause guess what, ITS ALPHA, i logged on 10 days ago, saw the removal of talents, "Whelp, lets try how the other classes play this week".

They are removing abilities to test other abilities, boo hoo cry me a river.

Its not like Protection Warrior is block mechanic for the last 14 years, we suddenly remembered that we need to cry about everything else.

The explanation about block for Paladins, is the same shit for Warriors.

And they have said why the Warrior is going through changes:

A good Warrior is equal to the others tanks, sure a good druid might be slightly better but thats because base reduction has always been OP in any RPG since the dawn of the internet, its how Math work.

But a bad warrior is useless and takes too much damage, and there are more bad warriors out there, than good Warriors.

What is more logical? Have the community ignore Warrior tanks because the majority cant play for shit, and you being declined because the 99% of terrible Warriors has ruined your reputation?

Yes, it might be some sort of "Braindead" homogenization, but it has been the same way since forever, WoW is a piss easy game, deal with it.

[Firefall]

This is like the epitome of crying for no reason.

I am in alpha too, and everything feels the same, i havent logged this last week to check the Warrior cause guess what, ITS ALPHA, i logged on 10 days ago, saw the removal of talents, "Whelp, lets try how the other classes play this week".

They are removing abilities to test other abilities, boo hoo cry me a river.

Its not like Protection Warrior is block mechanic for the last 14 years, we suddenly remembered that we need to cry about everything else.

The explanation about block for Paladins, is the same shit for Warriors.

And they have said why the Warrior is going through changes:

A good Warrior is equal to the others tanks, sure a good druid might be slightly better but thats because base reduction has always been OP in any RPG since the dawn of the internet, its how Math work.

But a bad warrior is useless and takes too much damage, and there are more bad warriors out there, than good Warriors.

What is more logical? Have the community ignore Warrior tanks because the majority cant play for shit, and you being declined because the 99% of terrible Warriors has ruined your reputation?

Yes, it might be some sort of "Braindead" homogenization, but it has been the same way since forever, WoW is a piss easy game, deal with it.

Um, I think you may be misunderstanding me.

I don't care about numbers or balancing when it comes to the specs I play. I played Fury in cata when arms was king. I've played prot since WoD because Fury became less fun to me. I don't care about warriors performance in relation to other classes, only what feels fun to me. I've been raiding moderately hardcore since cata, but stick to the philosophy that if it isn't fun to me then it's not worth it (Also why I'm not specced devastator on live).

Prot Warriors in BFA are being simplified to a level that is not engaging to me any more. Without Nelths and Ignore Pain, the only active mitigation is Shield Block, which has a high enough rage cost that it can only be used on the tank buster attack. With devastator looking even more mandatory for proper survival because of indomitable's nerf, you're left with Shield Slam and Thunderclap being used on cooldown, an Intervene macro to keep one charge on cooldown for more rage, and that's it. All the little things we could do to stay alive are removed, and unlike the old days, threat is no longer a meaningful mechanic so there's no gameplay to be found there either.

Nothing is coming to replace ignore pain or nelths. All comments on the topic they have made say they now don't like those kinds of tools for tanks and want everything to be armor based on tanks, which doesn't leave room for the niche that warriors have had post-vanilla era. "Block mechanic" Is not the niche of the warrior tank any more, you can literally go read the blue post on the front page of the tracker now and see that. It explains that blocks are still valuable numerically, but changed to be effectively identical to non-block tanking. The new "niche" for warrior is literally standing there doing nothing until a tank buster, then using shield block, as confirmed by the blue poster. Warriors no longer are Active Mitigation based when other tanks are, and without threat, that's not fun for me.

Maybe the boss design will be fantastic and keep me subscribed, or maybe they will make things more engaging to me through later changes, I don't know. But you are both misunderstanding what I've just said, and misinformed about the state of warriors for BFA. This is not a WIP, this is more-or-less what we are getting.

[potis]

Nothing is coming to replace ignore pain or nelths.

Info anywhere? Your Blizzard insider source?

If you are in alpha then you can literally see that 4 ignore pain talents were removed and we have 3 "Coming soon" choices, how do you know what is what?

As i said, crying over an Alpha build that is a few months old when they havent even shown the changes..

[Swalload]

It appears they have removed Ignore Pain and all related talents (never surrender and renewed fury) from the alpha with this patch, interesting. Was watching sloot's stream and he noticed IP disapeared. Curious to see what they come up with to replace it.

Obviously, prot warriors are absolutely nonfunctional in the meantime and any viability discussion would be pointless.

I watched Preach do a dungeon that way. Made me think it should always be like that. It looked more fun than not caring about anything because of permanent godmode of tanks in Legion.

Of course that won't be the case, the target audience of WoW is blind people with no arms in wheelchair so it will be replaced by some OP bullshit I'm sure.

[Firefall]

Info anywhere? Your Blizzard insider source?

If you are in alpha then you can literally see that 4 ignore pain talents were removed and we have 2 "Coming soon" choices, how do you know what is what?

As i said, crying over an Alpha build that is a few months old when they havent even shown the changes..

I actually do have several Blizzard contacts because as I said I'm very invested in the community, but this comes from the post today. They explain that all tank active mitigation will be armor-based, with the exception of Brewmaster's stagger which they are keeping. They are removing all effects that are not armor based--ignore pain is most assuredly not coming back in any form. It was out of place when BFA launched, and they "corrected" it now. We are now fully armor-based like all other non-monk tanks. I dont know what the new talents will be precisely, but we now know what they will not be. The only thing they could give us is another active mitigation block, but I 1. Highly doubt they will do that when it goes so against blizzard design philosophy to have two very similar spells and 2. With block mechanics also changed, it wouldn't change our gameplay much anyway. Perhaps they could give us a shield of righteousness clone, but that also goes against their design philosophies.

The new tank design philosophy has especially hurt warriors because we don't have anything left, whereas other tanks could just have their effects turned into boosting armor.

We are now the "begginers class." They've hinted at wanting that since friends and family Cataclysm, now they are actually doing it. They will give us enough passive mitigation to be viable but no new gameplay beyond what is currently in Alpha.

https://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/...y-armor-block/

[Scornedfury]

WoW is Warriors to me, or rather is my warrior toon. I have a main and that's it, I never invest significant time in alts. That's my avatar. If my main is no longer fun to play, in any spec (I already left Fury after MoP for prot) then it's time for me to leave.

That's a pretty extreme mentality and very black and white. Would hate to have this narrow view of wow when it has such more more to offer then just warriors. Like really, it's pretty hard to even take what you say seriously because I can only imagine your view on how YOU think warriors should be.

To each there own.


Anyways, like many have said, it's alpha guys. You shouldn't be making such absolute and definitive judgements based on what gameplay is like here. It's a small sample.

[Deleted]

I watched Preach do a dungeon that way. Made me think it should always be like that. It looked more fun than not caring about anything because of permanent godmode of tanks in Legion.

Of course that won't be the case, the target audience of WoW is blind people with no arms in wheelchair so it will be replaced by some OP bullshit I'm sure.

On normal difficulty sure this makes things more interesting, on heroic or mythic this will just make warriors uselesss unless they outgear the content. The spec is just simply not done right now. On hard enough content you would die even with IP not being removed if you play like an idiot, looking for difficulty in normal dungeons is a bit weird.

They are removing all effects that are not armor based--ignore pain is most assuredly not coming back in any form. It was out of place when BFA launched, and they "corrected" it now. We are now fully armor-based like all other non-monk tanks. I dont know what the new talents will be precisely, but we now know what they will not be. The only thing they could give us is another active mitigation block, but I 1. Highly doubt they will do that when it goes so against blizzard design philosophy to have two very similar spells and 2. With block mechanics also changed, it wouldn't change our gameplay much anyway. Perhaps they could give us a shield of righteousness clone, but that also goes against their design philosophies.

The new tank design philosophy has especially hurt warriors because we don't have anything left, whereas other tanks could just have their effects turned into boosting armor.

We are now the "begginers class." They've hinted at wanting that since friends and family Cataclysm, now they are actually doing it. They will give us enough passive mitigation to be viable but no new gameplay beyond what is currently in Alpha.

https://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/...y-armor-block/

Every single tank in alpha has 2 ways of mitigating damage in some way (druids have frenzied regen and ironfur, dks have bone shield and death strike, paladins have sotr and whatever that healing spell is named, monk have one brew for stager and another to purify it and dhs have spikes and soul cleave ... do you want any more proof ?), warrior only had 1 since last patch so of course they are going to add something to replace IP. I don't even understand how you would think differently without anything to indicate that would be the case. We will have another form of mitigation in some sort, the spec is simply not functional right now and is being somewhat reworked, it's pretty rediculous to throw a fit over that.

[valky94]

It appears they have removed Ignore Pain and all related talents (never surrender and renewed fury) from the alpha with this patch, interesting. Was watching sloot's stream and he noticed IP disapeared. Curious to see what they come up with to replace it.

Obviously, prot warriors are absolutely nonfunctional in the meantime and any viability discussion would be pointless.

dont hate me for saying i watch preach's content (since some of MMOchamps followers dont like him) but he seems to have noticed a pattern that all tanks have a spell that increases armor and does self healing (DH has spikes and soul cleave, DK has marrowrend and death strike etc.) so my/his guess is they are gettin enraged regen or shield barrier back (or another simmilar heal X for Y rage spell)

[Swalload]

On normal difficulty sure this makes things more interesting, on heroic or mythic this will just make warriors uselesss unless they outgear the content. The spec is just simply not done right now. On hard enough content you would die even with IP not being removed if you play like an idiot, looking for difficulty in normal dungeons is a bit weird.

That's not what I meant at all. I meant that it opened my eyes to how tanking should be at all times, not comparing warriors without IP against content tuned for tanks with all their skills. I miss the times when pulling while the healer was too far behind meant that you would just straight up die instead of doing that triple pull alone on +20. Tanks and healers have been seperated in Legion and it sucks, healing in legion is fucking garbage, you either do nothing at all or correct shitty dps players mistakes, or the occasional unavoidable big aoe from a boss.

[tearsofflame]

This is a post to express my feedback/concerns in the new Battle for Azeroth test build. I do know not all things are final and subject to change, but usually, it doesn't really change that much before final tweaks are released.*

I am just expressing concerns as a main protection warrior. You have been nerfing Protection warriors since cataclysm. Every other class has a self healing that doesn't have a long Cooldown. Enraged regeneration has a minute cooldown. Rest of class has a heal that's either instant cast or like a 5 second cooldown or a 2 second cast time. If a Protection warrior duels any other tanking class, they'll eventually lose just because they can heal. (assuming you have the same item level when you duel)

Also, if you see an item level 940 Warrior tank in Raid que, an Item level 940 Pally tank in raid que, an item level 940 Guardian druid in que: more than likely, you'll recruit the Druid and Paladin over the Protection Warrior. And that's an issue within itself.

Now, let's get to the abilities:

Shield Block: is reduced from 6 seconds to 4 seconds? that doesn't make any sense. That is apart of our mastery. Not only we don't have a self heal really, you're also reducing the time we can has mastery/block up? Why reduce the time? I recommend bringing it back to 6 seconds or making it even 8-10 seconds if you don't want to give us an actively self heal. This is the biggest issue. Why nto just make enraged regeneration like Frenzied regeneration where it consumes rage and has 2 charges?

Ignore pain now takes away rage when activated: If anything, ignore pain should just stay how it is. Or make it to where it gives us more rage since there's no self healing option. If it isn't broke, don't fix it.

Thunderclap Generates 5 rage now. This is a good idea, but please make it to where it generates 5 rage PER ENEMY HIT. Not just 5 rage.

Victory Rush should just be on a 10-15 cooldown and should be baseline and not a talent.

Bring back concussion blow as a baseline for all protection Warriors.
Devastator should be a baseline and that talent should be replaces with something else.

That's my feedback so far. This isn't to be toxic online, this is to express concerns me and other protection Warriors have since Cataclysm. And it's getting worse!

Main issue is the shield block time reduced and no active self healing like other tanks.*

Thank you for your time, Blizzard and I hope we can meet common ground and come to an understand.

[Sting]

I actually do have several Blizzard contacts because as I said I'm very invested in the community, but this comes from the post today. They explain that all tank active mitigation will be armor-based, with the exception of Brewmaster's stagger which they are keeping. They are removing all effects that are not armor based--ignore pain is most assuredly not coming back in any form. It was out of place when BFA launched, and they "corrected" it now. We are now fully armor-based like all other non-monk tanks. I dont know what the new talents will be precisely, but we now know what they will not be. The only thing they could give us is another active mitigation block, but I 1. Highly doubt they will do that when it goes so against blizzard design philosophy to have two very similar spells and 2. With block mechanics also changed, it wouldn't change our gameplay much anyway. Perhaps they could give us a shield of righteousness clone, but that also goes against their design philosophies.

The new tank design philosophy has especially hurt warriors because we don't have anything left, whereas other tanks could just have their effects turned into boosting armor.

We are now the "begginers class." They've hinted at wanting that since friends and family Cataclysm, now they are actually doing it. They will give us enough passive mitigation to be viable but no new gameplay beyond what is currently in Alpha.

https://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/...y-armor-block/

Wait, we aren't getting anything in return to offset the loss of ignore pain? What the actual fuck.

[tearsofflame]

shieldblock as how it is on alpha feels like trash 4 seconds for almost half my ragebar feels horrible

THIS. So much this. I addressed this in blizzard forums and they deleted my post...

- - - Updated - - -

I actually do have several Blizzard contacts because as I said I'm very invested in the community, but this comes from the post today. They explain that all tank active mitigation will be armor-based, with the exception of Brewmaster's stagger which they are keeping. They are removing all effects that are not armor based--ignore pain is most assuredly not coming back in any form. It was out of place when BFA launched, and they "corrected" it now. We are now fully armor-based like all other non-monk tanks. I dont know what the new talents will be precisely, but we now know what they will not be. The only thing they could give us is another active mitigation block, but I 1. Highly doubt they will do that when it goes so against blizzard design philosophy to have two very similar spells and 2. With block mechanics also changed, it wouldn't change our gameplay much anyway. Perhaps they could give us a shield of righteousness clone, but that also goes against their design philosophies.

The new tank design philosophy has especially hurt warriors because we don't have anything left, whereas other tanks could just have their effects turned into boosting armor.

We are now the "begginers class." They've hinted at wanting that since friends and family Cataclysm, now they are actually doing it. They will give us enough passive mitigation to be viable but no new gameplay beyond what is currently in Alpha.

https://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/...y-armor-block/

Well can you pass the word to your blizzard contacts then? Please tell them this because they deleted my post when I posted it on Wow.com for feedback.

This is a post to express my feedback/concerns in the new Battle for Azeroth test build. I do know not all things are final and subject to change, but usually, it doesn't really change that much before final tweaks are released.*

I am just expressing concerns as a main protection warrior. You have been nerfing Protection warriors since cataclysm. Every other class has a self healing that doesn't have a long Cooldown. Enraged regeneration has a minute cooldown. Rest of class has a heal that's either instant cast or like a 5 second cooldown or a 2 second cast time. If a Protection warrior duels any other tanking class, they'll eventually lose just because they can heal. (assuming you have the same item level when you duel)

Also, if you see an item level 940 Warrior tank in Raid que, an Item level 940 Pally tank in raid que, an item level 940 Guardian druid in que: more than likely, you'll recruit the Druid and Paladin over the Protection Warrior. And that's an issue within itself.

Now, let's get to the abilities:

Shield Block: is reduced from 6 seconds to 4 seconds? that doesn't make any sense. That is apart of our mastery. Not only we don't have a self heal really, you're also reducing the time we can has mastery/block up? Why reduce the time? I recommend bringing it back to 6 seconds or making it even 8-10 seconds if you don't want to give us an actively self heal. This is the biggest issue. Why nto just make enraged regeneration like Frenzied regeneration where it consumes rage and has 2 charges?

Ignore pain now takes away rage when activated: If anything, ignore pain should just stay how it is. Or make it to where it gives us more rage since there's no self healing option. If it isn't broke, don't fix it.

Thunderclap Generates 5 rage now. This is a good idea, but please make it to where it generates 5 rage PER ENEMY HIT. Not just 5 rage.

Victory Rush should just be on a 10-15 cooldown and should be baseline and not a talent.

Bring back concussion blow as a baseline for all protection Warriors.
Devastator should be a baseline and that talent should be replaces with something else.

That's my feedback so far. This isn't to be toxic online, this is to express concerns me and other protection Warriors have since Cataclysm. And it's getting worse!

Main issue is the shield block time reduced and no active self healing like other tanks.*

Thank you for your time, Blizzard and I hope we can meet common ground and come to an understand.

[Deleted]

That's not what I meant at all. I meant that it opened my eyes to how tanking should be at all times, not comparing warriors without IP against content tuned for tanks with all their skills. I miss the times when pulling while the healer was too far behind meant that you would just straight up die instead of doing that triple pull alone on +20. Tanks and healers have been seperated in Legion and it sucks, healing in legion is fucking garbage, you either do nothing at all or correct shitty dps players mistakes, or the occasional unavoidable big aoe from a boss.

With gearing in the equation wow can never be like that. You will struggle on content you don't know and for which you are not espacially well geared but it become trivial with enough gear. I guess we should remove gear progression altogether ? I might not be against it but even then you would have people clearing content more easily than others and complaining the game isn't challenging enough. And if you make the content challenging for them the remaining players would probably have no chance of doing it.

[Firefall]

Wait, we aren't getting anything in return to offset the loss of ignore pain? What the actual fuck.

I'd most definitely love to be wrong, but going by this latest post I think it is safe to say that we will not be getting any other sort of rotational active mitigation. If we get a spell to replace it with at all and not just passive filler talents, I expect it to be a semi-rotational (IE 1 minute cooldown, or similar with 2 charges). There's just not any space left for another ability under the design limitations they explained, and not saying anything about warriors when replying to the warrior post makes it pretty clear that we are "done."