MoP Beta : (PART 2) Prot Warriors, Strengths vs Weaknesses

[Deleted]

Great news folks ! It seems GC and Blizzard's game designer team have read most of our feedbacks and have already decided to bring in some changes and improvements in the next Beta Build.
In this present post, I'll concentrate on analyzing those changes thus, and discuss what still needs tuning/tweaking and what seems just find as it is. Do keep in mind that this is only one point of view amongst others, and so you're free to bring in your own opinion and help create a constructive discussion, which will hopefully help rebuild and enhance once again the Protection Warrior.

In this second part, I'll proceed in a more organized manner (point by point) and discuss every section of the Ghostcrawler's original post, which by the way can be found here.

Let's start.
(Note that you really don't need to read all of it, if you don't have that much time on your hands. Just go directly to a section you find interesting, and get back to the rest whenever you want.)


Table of contents
1. Active Tanking and Resources
2. Shield Block
3. RNG (=frustrating), Predictability (=boring)
4. HS/Cleave Proc
5. We Do Need More CD's
6. Some Suggestions



|1| - Active Tanking and Resources

Posted by Ghostcrawler

1) We still think the overall design of tanks attacking in order to build up resources for defenses is a sound one. In a world where threat isn't hard to maintain beyond the first few seconds, we believe tanks would quickly grow uninterested in their rotation if it wasn't tied to defense. (The reasons we don't think managing threat is fun gameplay after the first few seconds is something I've gone into before, so I won't belabor the point here.)

Tanks and Expertise
We want tanks to care about hit and expertise as mitigation stats, because hitting a boss leads to resources, which leads to higher survival. We could make gear with just parry, dodge and mastery (and just dodge and mastery for some tanks) but we think that gets boring. You might not necessarily need to cap hit and expertise, depending on how much avoidance or mastery you'd be talking about sacrificing. That's not the kind of tuning we have completed yet.

I like the fact that a tank now needs to remain active and offensive in other to have the necessary resource needed for many of his defensive tools. This will prevent us from falling half asleep on encounters with zero movements, such as Baleroc, Ultraxion, etc... It should also provide some freshness in the model we used to have until now, and make things at least a bit more interesting again.

With expertise/hit now also having a direct impact on our survivability (which was already the case in TBC and WoTLK for expertise, i.g. Parry haste mechanism), theory crafting should get a bit more interesting too, in having to balance all of this through Reforging/gemming, etc...

So in short, though this model isn't perfect yet, as it sometimes still feels a bit too predictable and spammy, still nice job here Blizzard for thinking about it. It sure is the right direction right now.



|2| - Shield Block

Posted by Ghostcrawler

2) We agree with the feedback that warriors, and to a lesser extent paladins, aren't getting enough out of their block abilities (Shield Block and SotR). We erred on the side of making them forgiving so that tanks wouldn't worry about splatting if they failed to use one of those attacks, but we think now we were too conservative, to the point that they don't feel (to use a word many posters have used) visceral. You should notice a change in incoming damage when you use these abilities. So we are trying the following changes. Let us know how they feel.

The next iteration of Shield Block we are going to try is that it blocks ALL attacks for 6 sec. Furthermore, those blocks have a chance to become critical blocks, which keeps mastery relevant.

We also agree that the Guardian druid combination of mastery and Savage Defense feels too passive in comparison with the plate tanks. We are going to change Savage Defense to a chance to avoid damage, which gives it more parity with say the warrior. The warrior has a reliable block, but a more random mastery, while the druid has a reliable mastery, with a more random "block." To partially offset this change, Frenzied Regen will do all of its healing instantly.

Shield Block was certainly the biggest loss Prot Warriors had in the previous Beta model. Tuning it so that it now blocks every melee swing when active, is a really good thing. This is in fact how it was supposed to work in the first place, since Vanilla, through TBC and WoTLK. Cataclysm was an exception to this thus, and I'm pretty glad to see, it might clime back to its original might.

This will also help balance things out a bit more when compared to other tanks physical DR, as only having a certain percentage to reduce an amount of damage, was just too weak against a Savage Defense or even a Blood Shield.

But is this improvement really enough to balance things out ? What happens if the incoming damage is physical but not blockable ? DK's and Bears will then still have their Mastery and physical DR ability to help mitigate this physical damage, while the Warrior still would need a major CD to deal with those.

I'm thinking about encounters such as Madness (Impales), Hagara (Assault), Morchok (Stomp), etc, where this difference really did make a difference. If the Druid Savage Defense where to have an RNG component attached to it, as mentioned, this would ''decrease'' the OPness of the ability but won't truly remove it and balance it, not at all, as it would still have the ''capability'', a great chance (I suspect some 60%) of reducing that physical attack while the Warrior's block simply would have 0% in doing that.
Bears would in addition to this also have Frenzies Regen to heal right after, especially if it is to do all its healing instantly as mentioned in GC's post -- 30% HP instantly, thus ? with no real CD attached to it ? Isn't that a bit OP -- or at least they'll have the choice between that and Savage Defense, and DK's Blood Shield is still the same, exactly as OP as it was on those encounters, and physical unblockable damage.

In this sense, we still aren't balance here, not even against the Paladin, as even the Pally would have his WoG to heal right back after that sort of unblockable physical attack. There will be a great improvement here if Shield Block does block every melee swing, but this still isn't enough when we see what the others have to manage unblockable abilities.

Why not make it that Shield Block, in addition to blocking every swing, also reduces any physical damage that can not be blocked by 30% (or even 20%) ? If the attack is blockable this second bit obviously wouldn't be applicable, as it would then be OP, but if not it would simply make Shield Block just as useful as the DK's Death Strike, in that scenario. Wouldn't this eliminate this physical unblockable attack problem ?



|3| - RNG (=frustrating), Predictability (=boring)

Posted by Ghostcrawler

3) We understand that as players, you want to minimize the randomness of tanking. That makes you good tanks. But as designers, we have to make sure that randomness has its place. Randomness is one of the challenges in the game -- by design -- that you need to overcome. Tanking with randomness eliminated would be static and repetitive. You wouldn't have "oh snap" moments where you or a healer had to use a cooldown. You could probably predict from that first boss swing whether you'd win or lose the fight, since every swing would feel about the same way. Of course we don't want tanking to be brutally frustrating, but we don't want it to be effective yet boring either.

So we want it to be balanced. Balanced between randomness and predictability.
In this sense, I really like the new Shield Block, 100% chance of block, with some more percentage of a Critical Block (some 50%, obviously would depend on gear and Mastery level).
With this we have both thus; guaranteed reduction (predictability) => Shield Block, and randomness (RNG) => Critical Block.
Agreed on that, and this would even make more sense if Shield Block had some sort of guarantee to mitigate unblockable physical attacks as well, as I mentioned earlier, since it's supposed to be the predictable bit.



|4| - HS/Cleave Proc

Posted by Ghostcrawler

4) We also understand that long-term Protection warriors aren't yet feeling that frenetic, button mashy playstyle with which they have become familiar. We are experimenting with a new proc, currently called Ultimatum, in which Devastate has a chance to make the next Heroic Strike or Cleave free. We don't want to return Devastate to Sword and Board however. Shield Slam (and therefore Sword and Board) provide rage, which is a mitigation resource now. Having Devastate lead to better mitigation would mean you had to prioritize the no-cooldown Devastate above other attacks such as Storm Bolt. Hopefully the Ultimatum implementation will deliver that "fish for procs" feeling of the old Sword and Board, while giving offtanks a more dynamic rotation (since they can't rely on Revenge).

This is good to hear. An additional proc to make us be able to use HS/Cleave again is a really good idea. You could even make Revenge proc it too (since it has a 6 sec CD), so that in an AoE tanking we wouldn't be forced to Devastate too often every time we want to cleave. After 6 years of smashing my HS/Cleave button I simply can't image a world in which I won't be able to use those attacks anymore. It simply wouldn't feel like playing a Prot Warrior anymore.
I'm really glad to hear this, and hope it will go live.



|5| - We Do Need More CD's

Posted by Ghostcrawler

5) We don't think it's critical that all tanks have the same number and character of cooldowns. In fact, we think doing so would make all of the tanks play too similarly when what we actually want to do is give them each their own character, provided each can still tank any content in the game with a reasonably similar amount of effort. We give everyone a Last Stand and Shield Wall equivalent and try to have another option or two. It's okay that Blood DKs have a lot of cooldowns -- that has always been a DK thing -- as long as they aren't much more effective than other tanks.

Furthermore, Rallying Cry and Last Stand no longer share a cooldown. You can use Rallying Cry to help the raid or to help yourself as a mini Last Stand.

Though I agreed with this, and am really glad to finally see Rallying Cry on a separate CD now, making it our second Panic Button (an ability that was missing in my first ''Prot War, S vs W'' thread) I still don't see a complete balanced here.
And note that I'm absolutely NOT looking for a complete homogenized system, in which everyone has a similar ability of everything, not at all, as it's already been said that would remove every character aspect of these different classes.
However, if the present system doesn't provide something else that can make up for the lesser number of defensive abilities Warriors have right now, how can we possibly have a balanced system then ? In which everyone ''truly'' remains competitive and isn't much more or much less effective than others?

Right now, even with the Shield Block few changes still to come, we still aren't safe from an MoP Prot Warrior who isn't competitive enough because of his lack of self healing abilities and an extra Damage Reduction ability. On encounters where CD rotation is a necessity for the tank, more self healing and DR abilities will always make the deference and make the Prot Warrior a lesser choice, as he will always depend on external CD to survive those encounters, whilst any other tank could have manage it on his own.
On bosses like, Zon'ozz, Yor'sahj, Hagara, Madness if Warriors don't have something else to play with, any other tank would simply do better, because they are all CD rotational fights, and the more CD you have to play with the more able you will be to stay alive.
This doesn't necessary mean that Warriors won't be able to tank it at all -- eventually, they will -- but it also means they will have a much harder time doing it, as many times, it really does come to those 2 extra defensive abilities, and good Raid Leaders always see it, and take that aspect into account when forming their raid, making it that on those fights, right now, Warriors can't really be competitive.

Rallying Cry now usable as an additional defensive ability will make things just a bit easier on those CD rotation fights, but sadly this is merely a start, and isn't enough yet.
We are still lacking something to make up for other tanks extra DR ability (such as Barkskin, Bone Shield and Ardent Defender). We are still lacking something to make up for other tanks extra healing abilities (Such as Death Strike, Frenzied Regen, WoG/Selfless healer, etc...), as every other tank has an ability to deal with magic damage, but also, in addition has all of that extra healing were Warriors have nothing to replace it, or make it that the extra healing isn't needed in the first place. Why is this the case ?

This lack of extra healing will especially be more visible on encounters where magic is the primary source of damage, but where physical damage is also not negligible. In this scenario, Warriors will have to choose between using their rage on Phycical mitigation or Magic mitigation, where druids for example have their Magic mitigation passively + Frenzied Regen/Savage Defense + Barkskin, all usable at once, and DK's don't need any resource to use their AMS and have Death Strike to heal up and at the same time place a physical DR, and Bone Shield.
If in that situation, Warriors are also lacking personal healing and simply can't reduce both the Magical AND Physical damage going on, but have to chose, and don't have any other DR ability to make their choice more viable, there's simply no way the other tanks wouldn't be much more effective.

What I'm basically saying is, there are too many situation in which the Warrior's lack of self heal and extra DR ability, would punish him to the point that he will ultimately be much more harder to heal, and kept alive.
In DS, Yor'sahj HC was the best example I can think of (and then even Madness to a bit lesser extent), as everyone saw how hard it was to keep a Prot Warrior alive on that particular encounter, since it clearly showed how hard things could get when you have at the same time less healing and DR abilities, and I'd really be glad to see this change and not happen again in MoP.
Everyone ought to be able to tank everything without having to struggle that much to stay alive. It's simply frustrating, not just for the Warrior, but for the entire raid.

In the end, I really don't understand why Warriors should have this penalty, because there are tones of way to balance this without having that ''homogenized'' feeling.



|6| - Some Suggestions

**Why not make Die by the Sword baseline for Prot Warriors too, and make it last 6 sec and with a 1 minute CD ? Then reduce the 100% parry to 50% so that we still don't get unhittable when active, just harder to hit ?

Or,

**Why not put Demoralization Banner on a separate CD for Prot Warriors ? And up the damage reduction to 20% ? Keep the 3 minutes CD, no problem, but at least it could be used more effectively as Prot without sacrificing the Skull Banner for the raid ?

Or,

**Why not add a DR effect to Enraged Regeneration ? And renamed it Enraged Fortitude for example ?
Enraged Fortitude : Instantly Increases the Warrior's fortitude, granting a 20% damage reduction. In addition, the Warrior is healed for 20% of his max HP over 10 sec. Last 10 sec. 1 min CD. Can only be used while enraged.

Then, after implementing only ONE of the above suggestions,

**Why not also make Impending Victory baseline for every Warrior, and hence, solve the self healing issue, when combine with one of the Tier 2 abilities in the Talent tree ?

And then,

**Also make Shield Block (and even Pally's Shield of the Righteous) mitigate some of those unblockable physical attacks as mentioned earlier ?


These wouldn't look like any of the other tanks abilities (no homogenization thus), and wouldn't make the Warrior OP in any possible way, as the other tanks already have an extra DR and healing ability.
It WILL however fill the gap Prot Warriors are still having right now, and will inevitably make them more balanced and more competitive even on encounters like Yor'sahj HC. Don't you think ?

In the end, these are really ''simple suggestions'' (like a ''small step'' for a man), but would definitely provide some ''immense improvements'' towards the whole tank class balancing (like a ''giant leap'' for the whole mankind...? or something...)

Feel free to comment and share your thoughts, ; )


PS : If any of you guys could post this on the WoW US official Forums, MoP Beta Class section, it would be great, as more people could get to it, so could Developers themselves, and hence, improve the discussion.
I personally can't do this, as I don't have an additional US account, which is sadly needed to be able to post in there -- go figure why an EU account doesn't have that privilege...

[Ssateneth]

tl;dr, but it looks like you put a lot of thought into this. If this is such an important topic, why not post it on battle.net where blues can read this feedback? blues don't read anything here, or if they do, it doesn't count as feedback and won't be acknowledged.

[Deleted]

tl;dr, but it looks like you put a lot of thought into this. If this is such an important topic, why not post it on battle.net where blues can read this feedback? blues don't read anything here, or if they do, it doesn't count as feedback and won't be acknowledged.

Yeah, a bit long, ; ) but not that much to read if you're interested in the matter. Many actually are, and I'm hoping to see their thoughts on it as well. Besides, half of it is actually quotes from GC original post on the matter.

I did also post a copy on the WoW EU Forums, but those forums just aren't that popular. I would have liked to get it on the US ones, and have a more ''animated'' discussion on the topic.

Hopefully someone else is gonna pass by in here and get inspired enough as to write something similar back there.

[Ashenia]

Let's just hope US players would do that, as for EU forums.. well.. It's like they don't exist anyway. As I can see you got exactly similar view on protection warrior as I do let's just hope we will get something out of it before MoP goes live, because our current situation isn't bad, sure, but it's again least wanted tank in raid.

[Deleted]

I'm from europe too and understand why you're posting this here.

As far as theory goes I think active tanking could be a great experience, but I don't think they're there yet.
Pushing Shield Block every 20 or so seconds could also hardly be called "active".

Personally, I think we might see some kind of shift in how the different tanks are perceived, mostly due to not being able to reach the block cap.
This might (this is speculation after all) lead to the DK ending up as the most reliable tank, followed by guardian bears (whose mastery is also rock-solid) while block tanks risk receiving some bad luck dmg spikes, a bit like DKs did in early Cata - although, without a multitude of CDs they will still play differently. However I do not think, that this is a bad thing, as long as the more reliable tanks (mitigation wise) take more dmg overall, while Block tanks - although spiky - overall take less dmg.
I guess this basically depends on wether they want different tanks to feel different for healers or not. The newest implementation of savage Defense points at the latter.

Anyway, some thoughts on your starting points.

1. Active Tanking and Resources
While I like runes/runic power better, I think we'll be fine with rage as such. SS for Rage, Revenge for S'n'B, Devastate as a filler and with a chance to proc ultimatum sounds ok. Not too button smashing but, personally i would be ok with that. My only suggestion would be that Revenge can be uses on any target that doesn't target you, while keeping the block, dodge, parry requirement for enemies that target you. Fluff wise Revenge could be a vicious attack that you either need to set up (block, dodge, parry) or that your opponent has to be unaware of.

2. Shield Block
I like the 100% block chance SB. Warrior classic. They would just have to make sure that you can never reach 100% uptime and would have to take unblockable attacks out of the game, i suppose.
However I don't think having to decide if we absorb some magical dmg or if we block some physical dmg is good design.
Far too often Bosses do both types of dmg, sometimes even evenly distributed. Here either other tanks would have to change, or some work on Shield Block/Barrier is still needed. I don't however think the idea behind it is bad, so... I'd do the following (note that the numbers would need to be tweaked):
Shield Block, in addition to its 100% block chance reduces magical dmg taken by like 15% for 6 seconds. It's not much, but you don't get completely shafted by mixed groups or bosses with both physical and magical dmg.
Likewise, Shield Barrier would absorb 30% magical dmg taken and would give 100% block chance on the next physical attack (instead of 100% block chance for 6 seconds). That way both abilities - while now having some similarities - would be much more of a choice and neither would cripple a warriors magical/physical defense completely.

3. RNG (=frustrating), Predictability (=boring)
There should be a soft spot in between. Like RNG with a safety net (just like will of the necropolis was implemented because of the spikiness with which DKs take dmg).
My suggestion is a simple and similar one. "Grit your teeth" - Whenever your hp fall below 35% you instantly get 60 Rage, and you instantly regenerate 10-20% of your maximum hp. Cannot happen more often than once every 60 seconds.As far as I've "designed" it allows you to recover from bad luck blocking or some severe hits by regenerating some hp and giving you some additional Shield Block/Barrier uptime. It could also serve as our third CD (the 1 min cd we're currently lacking).

4. HS/Cleave Proc
Not much to say, really. Good compromise between Cata S'n'B (which would just generate too much rage) and MoP Gameplay (preserving some of the button smashing).

5. We Do Need More CD's
I agree, most likely a one minute hp regen CD. Some people say that warriors never were about self healing but i actually think we started it (back in vanilla... I could be wrong though). To me some self-healing (most likely in desperate situations) is very warrior like and a 1 minute CD with moderate hp regen would fit that. However, my suggestion above would fit in that role too, while being fairly unique. It's probably more powerful than bark-skin but lacks options (as it only procs once you've taken the hit).
Also, personally i don't like rallying cry at all (neither the cata version, nor the current beta one) and would just cut it out (I have an idea on what to do with it though, further down).

6. Some Suggestions
I like the Idea of choosing between Shield Block/Barrier (as long as a) they make a difference, b) choosing one is a choice and c) they don't cripple magical/physical defense - depending on which one you didn't use. But as mentioned above, I've suggested to bring them closer together) and I think Rallying Cry would fit perfectly as a third choice.
60 Rage costs, 20% max hp for 10 seconds (including the warrior - you'd sacrifice Sbarrier or Sblock for it). This, in my opinion would give warriors some real choices on when to use which of the three abilities (with rallying cry of course being highly situational). Combined with the above mentioned "grit your teeth" (or however you'd call it) i think prot warriors would be in a pretty good spot, mechanic wise.

Apart from that I'd rather bring DK or Druid CDs closer to warrior CDs than the other way round.

[Deleted]

Yeah, let's hope that. I thought I'd see more people on the thread though, guess they've all grown tired of this whole discussion, but still..

---------- Post added 2012-04-08 at 10:52 PM ----------

@Leticron

Thanks for sharing this, I'll discuss your reply by tomorrow when I get a bit more time. In anyways, I do agree with most of what you've said. Some pretty interesting ideas you have there, ; )

[Deleted]

excellent feedback, I haven't play my warr for a bit now but i agree with what you say. I hope bliz gets to read it. i would post on the US forums, but i'm in EU like you=(

[Ssateneth]

It wont let me post it on beta warrior forums for US battlenet, sorry. Have to be in beta.

[Bearshield]

Well written, I reposted it for you on the beta forum.

edit: I guess a link would be helpful: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/4365752463

[thesmall001]

A great effort as always Kebess. Time is all that will tell. Grundy is on the bench and WoW is closed until we see some changes worth testing.

[XepNes]

Mhm I should perhaps consider putting Heroic strike and inner rage out of the spell book again. Ever since they remade Heroic Strike I felt like it was just a pain to use it, thought I still have cleave on my bar. It was an interesting read and I do like the ideas you have to further improve how tanking works atm for warriors. It's been a week or so since I started playing my warrior again after putting him on a shelf at the end of Wrath. What Letricon said earlier makes a tad bit more sense thought. Bringing DK and druid tanks closer to warrior instead of the other way around sounds better since nerfing tends to be a better solution then buffing. I would need to look up more information before saying to much thought, as I dropped more or less everything about tanking since Wrath and reading up on the other classes will take some time as until now I haven't met a single druid tank ._. if I went looking for one I could probably find one, but none of them have randomly appeared.

[Rotesbart]

However I don't think having to decide if we absorb some magical dmg or if we block some physical dmg is good design.
Far too often Bosses do both types of dmg, sometimes even evenly distributed. Here either other tanks would have to change, or some work on Shield Block/Barrier is still needed. I don't however think the idea behind it is bad, so... I'd do the following (note that the numbers would need to be tweaked):

I'm not as raw about the choice as some. If I'm reading their statement conservatively; meaning them saying it will block all attacks in 6 sec, to mean each one is blocked the 30%, then it would come down to which source of damage is larger in those 6 seconds. If they're totally equal amounts of damage over the 6 sec period, I would use shield barrier, since the physical still has a shot to get dodge/miss/parry/natural block. So at worst I'd be the same as picking block, at best I could be way better off with good defense rolls.

If magic damage or physical damage are wildly larger than the other, then the choice is obvious.

None of this changes the fact that it seems weaker compared to other tank options, but the choice of which to use still seems pretty easy to me, presented with these three options.

Hopefully they won't make encounters that are more or less broken for any tank class though, however they change us all. Hagara heroic makes my prot warrior a sad, sat out tank. But I guess turnabout's fair play after DKs earlier. Lucky for us, our other mt was a dk anyway.

[Deleted]

I agree with you Rotesbart, maybe everything will play out nicely.
It will first and foremost depend on their encounter design. Paired with block on a separate hit table (and therefore no need to implement unblockable attacks ever again) we might just end up knowing exactly when to use which skill. I was thinking more of Zonozz style encounters where a boss has rather strong physical attacks paired with a strong magical attack. But then again Shield Block / Barrier aren't necessarily solutions to every encounter, and deciding whether to use Shield Block or Shield Barrier could be an interesting choice to, it might even depend on how your healers work... and we'd have other CDs to deal with big magical attacks.
Maybe a 1 Min CD or the passive skill i mentioned above would be enough to give warriors a nice skill set.

One thing I forgot though is talking about Last Stand. I think it's a rather weak CD - though that depends on what the other tanks will get.
Still, I could imagine Last Stand becoming a 1 min CD lasting for 10 to 15 seconds, while our now missing 3 Min CD becomes will be something else.
I have to say though, that I really like the most recent version of Enraged Regeneration (1 Min CD 10% hp instantly, 10% over 10 sec).
Compared to glyphed Impending Victory it might be a tad too weak though, even with Impending Victory's rage cost, but that's most likely a numbers thing.

[Deleted]

@♣ Leticron

1. I think if Revenge was altered this way, it would lose a bit of its charm. It's supposed to be a ''counterattack'' ability after all, hence the dodge/parry/block requirement. It would be a bit weird to be able to use it even without being attacked.

2. Removing unblockable physical attacks out of the game is a solution, but I don't think it would be viable. This would eliminate different type of mechanics and abilities, which I don't think developers are really ready to let go.

Besides, abilities like Impale or Assault, Stomps, etc, were nice add in's for making tanking a bit more exciting/stressing and less boring. I still think thus they should either make SBlock Mitigate a %tage of those unblockable attacks, or make them unmitigatable through DKs and druids Blood Shield and Savage Defense. We'll all need major CD's to deal with them this way.

I do think however that having to always chose between Magic or Physical mitigation, would eventually pose a lot of issues on bosses that do both type of damage.
What you're proposing seems a bit ''different'' and unfamiliar, but I also find it to be a pretty viable and original solution. It would always give us some sort of defense against both type of damage. The other tanks already have something like this, and their choice isn't that punishing to make either.

3. I find your Grit your Teeth to be a pretty original and well thought ability.
The only little issue is that DK's already have the exact duplicate of this, thus it would seem a bit too much ''homogenizy'', but it doesn't necessary bother me personally. It could be the healing ability we are still missing, but implemented in a pretty original way.

4. Agreed.

5. Rallying Cry isn't really needed if they implement something like Grit your Teeth, since we already have an HP booster. Agreed.
But then we still desperately need a second Damage reduction ability or things would still be too much unbalanced.

6. Yes, they could remove Rallying Cry and make Last Stand a 1 min CD, for only 10 sec duration with still a 30% HP increase.
But then they would have to add something like your ''Grit your Teeth'' PLUS an additional 20%ish DR 1 min CD, to make up for the loss. If they were to do something like this, no more would we fear any CD rotational boss, and we sure wouldn't be any better than the other tanks neither. Everything would pretty much be as balanced as it can get.

---------- Post added 2012-04-09 at 09:59 PM ----------


@ Rotesbart

None of this changes the fact that it seems weaker compared to other tank options, but the choice of which to use still seems pretty easy to me, presented with these three options.

Hopefully they won't make encounters that are more or less broken for any tank class though, however they change us all. Hagara heroic makes my prot warrior a sad, sat out tank. But I guess turnabout's fair play after DKs earlier. Lucky for us, our other mt was a dk anyway.

Agreed on the fact that it's still way weaker than what others have to play with.
However, I do really like abilities like Hagara Assault and Impales as a Tank, it makes you think more about how you're to use and time your defensive abilities -- as long as I have enough tools to deal with them, and not be punished in any way when compared to others, because they have more CD and are much more independent of external CD's.
I don't necessary want to see these mechanisms disappear thus, if they eventually sort out the balancing issue.

[Odina]

My main problem is that we have so many stats to balnce compared to other roles.

Prot war : Dodge, Parry, Mastery, Hit, Expertise, strengh , and Stam

Mage: Hit, Int, haste, mastery crit (don't get me wrong mages and all dps will take more stam if it is there... but you wont see them actively gemming or sporting a trinket with +stam on)

The main issue is you will never see a dps taking a +x Stam trinket with Y effect, but a prot war may.You wont see dps / healing grab a X+stam gem but tanks will. Now we will need to take Hit Exp into consideration and I believe this will hurt in the stam department. Unless they want to tone down tanking HP pools I just don't see how we will be gearing... no it's not much hit and exp but I see it as directly taking away from our stam pool as we will now gem X+hit or X+EXP instead of X+stam.

Again it's not really a bad thing but it is more of an annoyance / here we go got to fight with dps for BIS items again!

My Main solution to this is give us passive Expertise when specked for tanking. Make us go after the hit cap sure but drop exp from the equation so we remain at a level playing field on secondary stats with taking into consideration how important stam is to a tank.

[Bearshield]

My main problem is that we have so many stats to balnce compared to other roles.

Prot war : Dodge, Parry, Mastery, Hit, Expertise, strengh , and Stam

Mage: Hit, Int, haste, mastery crit (don't get me wrong mages and all dps will take more stam if it is there... but you wont see them actively gemming or sporting a trinket with +stam on)

The main issue is you will never see a dps taking a +x Stam trinket with Y effect, but a prot war may.You wont see dps / healing grab a X+stam gem but tanks will. Now we will need to take Hit Exp into consideration and I believe this will hurt in the stam department. Unless they want to tone down tanking HP pools I just don't see how we will be gearing... no it's not much hit and exp but I see it as directly taking away from our stam pool as we will now gem X+hit or X+EXP instead of X+stam.

Again it's not really a bad thing but it is more of an annoyance / here we go got to fight with dps for BIS items again!

My Main solution to this is give us passive Expertise when specked for tanking. Make us go after the hit cap sure but drop exp from the equation so we remain at a level playing field on secondary stats with taking into consideration how important stam is to a tank.

I dont see Prot Warriors going out of their way to get Strength in MoP. For that matter with the expectation that you use Shield Block every time it's up and manage your cd's wisely, I don't really see stam stacking coming back either. So stat priorities won't be all that different from how they are today, except now you will want some hit and expertise also.

[Deleted]

After reading through it again I actually agree on the revenge part. Maybe additional HS would could make up for that when offtanking. While we're at it, i really don't like the whole vengeance thing. They should just balance our damage accordingly (like 50% of a DD in PvE and maybe like 60-70% in PvP Gear).

I'm also completely ok with some attacks that ignore some part of a tanks defense. I just thought that when Blood Shield, the new Guardian Mastery (and so on and so forth) all would work against them and, as Guardian Mastery is +armor, getting rid of that would be quite challenging, just allowing these attacks to be blocked might be equal treatment.
With the new hit table split they could still ignore dodge & parry and always hit.
Imo the problem here is Shield Block actively using our Mastery (same goes for Paladins), while for example Bear Mastery differs from that model. I don't know so far what they've got in mind for DKs but they too seem to have a mastery that is not tied with their "active Tanking" Skills. Savage Defense also would be gambling Mode on things like Impale (or it just wouldn't work.. but Bear Mastery would... it's really complicated).
However... I'd be fine with almost everything as long as all tanks get roughly the same treatment. Varying from boss to boss of course but overall fair and balanced (not the "tier 11 is the warrior tier, tier 13 is the DK tier" kind of fair and balanced though ).

My suggestions for Shield Barrier & Block of course also have fairness in mind, like you said the other tanks seem not to be so hard pressed when it comes to reducing magical damage vs. reducing physical damage. Should they of course favor the "one or the other" model and design all tanks accordingly I'd be fine too. It just doesn't appear that way - WoG and Bear Reg work universally and against every sort of dmg. In that context it would probably be enough to give shield barrier a 100% block chance on 1 attack only and leave Shield Block as it is, as Savage Defense doesn't do anything against magical dmg either.

The 1 min CD seems to be our biggest Problem so far. As I've said I really like the "newest" version of enraged regeneration, but as it is a talent I'm a bit reluctant to let it count (Bears get a 2 min cd 30% hp heal in their second row, which is pretty badass too). Also ER doesn't negate incoming dmg like barkskin which could be a problem. Then again not every tank has shield barrier... There's got to be a soft spot somewhere in between but so far no-one has found it. I predict everything will be much clearer though once DKs and Bears have had another overhaul. Warriors and Paladins seem to be much closer to a final stage (in terms of skills and talents) than those two. Grit your teeth could be altered to work as a one time dmg reduce for the attack that brings the warrior below 30 or 35% (like 20-25% dmg reduce on that one attack), give you 20 rage (for faster shield Block/barrier) and regenerate some health (I'm thinking of 15% now). That way it would really work as a - passive - 1 min CD for semi big specials (let's call them "Barkskin Moments"). Grit your teeth, SW & Last Stand (+ the Tier 2 Choice) might just be enough.
Alternatively Grit your Teeth could be more powerful (still passive) but on a 3 min CD while Last Stand becomes our 1 Min CD (although Last Stand wouldn't really the best name for a 1 min CD ).

[Deleted]

Then again not every tank has shield barrier...

Not at all! And this is what's a bit insane here. ; ) In fact, Bears have the exact same Shield Barrier we have, but ''passively''.
In fact, whenever they are in Bear form, they automatically reduce every source of magical damage by exactly 25%, just like our Shield Barrier does, except we have to spend 60 Rage on it, where they don't have to spend anything. They could even be stun that it would still be applicable.

In fact, they have not only the craziest type of heal (the new Frenzied Regen, which will heal them for 30% HP instantly, without CD and as long as they have 60 rage to spend) if GC was accurate in his post, but they also have the most OP passive magic mitigation.
They have permanently and for free, what us Warriors have to manually activate with a huge 60 rage...

[Kazushi453]

very nice. still dont know what to play : (. CMON BETA INVITE!

[Deleted]

@Leticron

I do agree with the rest of what you said though.