Newest 8.2 drops Unstoppable Force Thunderclap down again, to 30%

[Zendhal The Black]

3x bom 2x DC 1xIF

I was "pushing" when the patch was new-ish at around 15+ but I haven't set foot in m+ any seriously for like months now since I'm just waiting for the new patch

People are just overreacting from what I'm seeing...

The nerf won't affect aggro outside Avatar window, and you can have avatar for almost every pull if you know what you're doing in the dungeon...

[Ealyssa]

Warrior doing triple DPS of any other tanks gets a little nerf : "OMG I KANT KEPT AGROZ NAO"

Ok kids. Time to learn tanking like the others classes...

[Tojara]

I play warrior and DK in M+, and the live version of unstoppable force with avatar up is pretty bonkers. With avatar up it's virtually impossible for anybody to rip threat off of me, regardless of whether DPS lay into mobs on the first GCD, it's a skittish week, or if there's an absence of threat transfer from a rogue in a group. It just doesn't happen. I presumed with the 50% nerf to the talent that it wouldn't be a big deal either, especially with the potential for avatar to have a much higher up time. Outside of avatar windows threat can be an issue, and that's exactly why you hear high end M+ players talk about when avatar is up and whether they've landed an avatar level thunderclap into mobs.

It's a myth that threat is completely absent from keys, even for warriors, otherwise it wouldn't be clearly communicated over voice. Good players know how to maximize damage perfectly and to do that, they need to actually allow for their tanks (and the group as a whole) to setup a pull perfectly. You don't see brain dead sub 50 IQ ret paladins or DHs popping CDs and blitzing around while you're setting up a pull in high level play, you see that in low level play. DHs that instantly eye beam while reaping is spawning attempting to game DPS, when they could have just waited a few seconds, allowed you to pull another pack with the oncoming reaping and actually do more DPS.

Warrior DPS is still going to be strong. Spell reflect doesn't actually show on damage meters, and at 30% unstoppable force is still going to be fine. Is it going to be to the level that I listed above where you never have to worry? Probably not, but depending on essences it's going to be up fairly often.

All of that said, threat isn't fun and playing my DK over my warrior is like night and day. A lot of tanks feel mostly similar outside of CD windows, it's just avatar is super frequent and currently behaves as an AoE taunt. 8.2 is going to be a super different landscape though, especially in regards to threat. Avatar isn't instant threat anymore, and groups might have to wait for a couple claps. The plus side is you have the option to have it up far more frequently, but most of this is just speculation anyway. Will have to see how threat management plays out when DPS acquire a major and three minor essences, compared to what tanks will be able pull.

[Deciticus]

Prot warriors have needed to tab target more often than other tank classes since Vanilla, it is part of the playstyle. But on live, thunderclap outside of avatar mathematically does not hold threat if you don't greatly ourgear your DPSers. The conversation is how much more tab targeting and micromanagement we will need to do with this nerf. It is mathematically unavoidable that prot will have a harder time holding threat after a substantial AoE damage nerf, the discussion is how much harder.

Literally anything to do with prior expansions is beyond pointless to mention in a discussion about upcoming tuning in a current expansion.

If you had to tab target, ever, for aggro in anytime from MoP-Legion, you're garbage.

Between revenge, TC, and BV, no. You don't need to tab-target for aggro outside Avatar.

More to the point, how the hell does a nerf to avatar affect outside of avatar thread.

[HeiAggra]

Dude if you honestly think prot is going to suddenly have aggro issues you're actually off the bin

The thing is outside Avatar we have prots and if the keep nerfing warrior prot and it's the only speck tanken to m+ we will be dead.

[Magnosh]

I play warrior and DK in M+, and the live version of unstoppable force with avatar up is pretty bonkers. With avatar up it's virtually impossible for anybody to rip threat off of me, regardless of whether DPS lay into mobs on the first GCD, it's a skittish week, or if there's an absence of threat transfer from a rogue in a group. It just doesn't happen. I presumed with the 50% nerf to the talent that it wouldn't be a big deal either, especially with the potential for avatar to have a much higher up time. Outside of avatar windows threat can be an issue, and that's exactly why you hear high end M+ players talk about when avatar is up and whether they've landed an avatar level thunderclap into mobs.

It's a myth that threat is completely absent from keys, even for warriors, otherwise it wouldn't be clearly communicated over voice. Good players know how to maximize damage perfectly and to do that, they need to actually allow for their tanks (and the group as a whole) to setup a pull perfectly. You don't see brain dead sub 50 IQ ret paladins or DHs popping CDs and blitzing around while you're setting up a pull in high level play, you see that in low level play. DHs that instantly eye beam while reaping is spawning attempting to game DPS, when they could have just waited a few seconds, allowed you to pull another pack with the oncoming reaping and actually do more DPS.

Warrior DPS is still going to be strong. Spell reflect doesn't actually show on damage meters, and at 30% unstoppable force is still going to be fine. Is it going to be to the level that I listed above where you never have to worry? Probably not, but depending on essences it's going to be up fairly often.

All of that said, threat isn't fun and playing my DK over my warrior is like night and day. A lot of tanks feel mostly similar outside of CD windows, it's just avatar is super frequent and currently behaves as an AoE taunt. 8.2 is going to be a super different landscape though, especially in regards to threat. Avatar isn't instant threat anymore, and groups might have to wait for a couple claps. The plus side is you have the option to have it up far more frequently, but most of this is just speculation anyway. Will have to see how threat management plays out when DPS acquire a major and three minor essences, compared to what tanks will be able pull.

Finally somone who actually understands what has been discussed.

[Lenis]

I think he doesn't mean it in that way, I believe this is what he means (for easier comparisons ill be using on this example: 3 targets, 415 average numbers from wl top parsing players and not taking into account GCD):

The first 3 seconds of a pull looks like this (assuming you had a very consuming previous pull and you start without rage): Charge > Thunder Clap > Shield slam, your threat with the multiplier will look like 129.2k damage but 2 of those spells are only hitting one target, for the other targets your threat will only be at 70k at that moment.

Comparatively a paladin first 3 seconds will look like: Avenger's shield > Consecration > Hammer, your threat will look like 84.8k on all 3 targets, not accounting for the possibility to use Consecration on the first second but if you could your threat would look like 89.2k because it's damage would continue over these 3 seconds without the use of another key press

Now if you take into account you have an Outlaw rogue without Tricks available nor combopoints his first 3 seconds could look something like: Ambush > Sinister > Pistol this would amount for 62.6k.

The difference from the Outlaw to the Warrior, if they are hitting different targets in the first 3 seconds, is fairly close, only 7.4k difference, while to the Paladin would be 12.2k difference, almost double the difference. This is an issue when as a Warrior you are drained from a certain pull and move into the next one and you have 2 fairly geared/optimized DPS's hitting different targets which can make these first 3 seconds very frustrating. There are a few things that can aggravate immensely this issue:
- Caster Adds being spread and you having to move to them to aggro (no place to LoS) and adding them to that pull while a DPS stays behind bursting that add;
- The DPS coming with leftover CD's from the previous pack still up or just some insane crits;

I think this is what he meant, I cba doing the same for Blood dk atm but the principle is the same the difference is that the first 3 seconds would look something like: DnD > Bood boil > Heart Strike, all of which are AoE threat with DnD damage bleeding over the 3 seconds (and more ofc) and Blood Boil applying a dot that gives you both damage and healing threat.


All of this can be solved by changing a bit the playstyle and mentality of the dpsers but you know, that's not very easy to do.

Again, whats different from live version currently? Everything is the same, change to talent has no effect. Does ProtW has problem with holding agro outside avatar against dps with cooldowns? Yes but so does every tank. However, other tanks have problems with agro pretty much all the time, especially on skitttish, while ProtW has 45-50s cooldown button that makes him dps/threat generation machine. That is still the case after the nerf.

It is insane to think that Thunderclap damage nerf while with Avatar will make any difference to threat management compared to how it is now. ProtW literally have no problems with threat management. If some situations will happen after the nerf I would consider that good thing.

Prot warriors have needed to tab target more often than other tank classes since Vanilla, it is part of the playstyle. But on live, thunderclap outside of avatar mathematically does not hold threat if you don't greatly ourgear your DPSers. The conversation is how much more tab targeting and micromanagement we will need to do with this nerf. It is mathematically unavoidable that prot will have a harder time holding threat after a substantial AoE damage nerf, the discussion is how much harder.

Without Avatar nothing has changed, with Avatar you are still generating most threat of all the tanks and wlll have the easiest time holding agro. If you are playing ProtW correctly, you are supposed to have Avatar pretty much on every meaningful pull. Is it possible that some niche situations will happen that you will need extra GCD after popping Avatar to get all the agro because you do less damage in Avatar? Yes but that is still sewerely lesser issue compared to other tanks.

I play warrior and DK in M+, and the live version of unstoppable force with avatar up is pretty bonkers. With avatar up it's virtually impossible for anybody to rip threat off of me, regardless of whether DPS lay into mobs on the first GCD, it's a skittish week, or if there's an absence of threat transfer from a rogue in a group. It just doesn't happen. I presumed with the 50% nerf to the talent that it wouldn't be a big deal either, especially with the potential for avatar to have a much higher up time. Outside of avatar windows threat can be an issue, and that's exactly why you hear high end M+ players talk about when avatar is up and whether they've landed an avatar level thunderclap into mobs.

It's a myth that threat is completely absent from keys, even for warriors, otherwise it wouldn't be clearly communicated over voice. Good players know how to maximize damage perfectly and to do that, they need to actually allow for their tanks (and the group as a whole) to setup a pull perfectly. You don't see brain dead sub 50 IQ ret paladins or DHs popping CDs and blitzing around while you're setting up a pull in high level play, you see that in low level play. DHs that instantly eye beam while reaping is spawning attempting to game DPS, when they could have just waited a few seconds, allowed you to pull another pack with the oncoming reaping and actually do more DPS.

Warrior DPS is still going to be strong. Spell reflect doesn't actually show on damage meters, and at 30% unstoppable force is still going to be fine. Is it going to be to the level that I listed above where you never have to worry? Probably not, but depending on essences it's going to be up fairly often.

All of that said, threat isn't fun and playing my DK over my warrior is like night and day. A lot of tanks feel mostly similar outside of CD windows, it's just avatar is super frequent and currently behaves as an AoE taunt. 8.2 is going to be a super different landscape though, especially in regards to threat. Avatar isn't instant threat anymore, and groups might have to wait for a couple claps. The plus side is you have the option to have it up far more frequently, but most of this is just speculation anyway. Will have to see how threat management plays out when DPS acquire a major and three minor essences, compared to what tanks will be able pull.

Yes threat is relevant, however the change has miniscule effect on ProtW threat management. It is still going to be the best tank for it by quite a bit. To be fair, playing ProtW currently in live feels unfair compared to other tanks in terms of threat management.

[Deciticus]

The thing is outside Avatar we have prots and if the keep nerfing warrior prot and it's the only speck tanken to m+ we will be dead.

Would you like to try again?

[Leih]

Presumably, regardless of nerfs, it still smashes the other two talents on the row?

[Firefall]

Presumably, regardless of nerfs, it still smashes the other two talents on the row?

It is the only one that offers any real defensive benefit (because extra rage generation) and Avatar benefits from one of the better Essences, giving it further benefit, so almost certainly the "go to" talent still in most situations unless an encounter or situation lines up very well with Dragon Roar. Basically I'd say Dragon Roar is considerably more viable now if you greatly prefer the playstyle, but it is still the best talent in the row.