[Ciderhelm]

The previous post was just me getting the notes out (scroll down to see what's new). Here's what I'm seeing in-game. This is a Beta, and issues do constantly come up, but several of these issues are worrying since they could also be undocumented changes.


Vigilance
This is strictly my opinion: This ability managed to get nerfed this patch, and it was already bad.

To put it in perspective, 2 points in Cruelty would do significantly more for allowing increased raid DPS than 1 point in Vigilance and the 1 pre-requisite point in Concussion Blow.

It may be useful for 5-mans, but only so long as it doesn't pick up the community stigma associated with Taunt. I'd like to be proven wrong, or find that Taunt is important in more of the game, but so far this looks like it's taking the route of Endless Rage in Burning Crusade.


Sword and Board No Longer Reducing Cooldown
While Sword and Board and Devastate both proc the Rage reduction on Shield Slam, they are not affecting the cooldown. The tooltip on the buff has been reworded from the last build as well (it used to say it refreshed the cooldown and reduced the cost; now it says it reduces the cost).

However, the tooltip may have been updated since refreshing the cooldown doesn't really need to be included in the buff tooltip (after all, it's abundantly clear that you're able to use the ability again once it's proced).

Chalking this up to a bug, but keeping it at the top of the news in case it's not.


Improved Defensive Stance Enrage
So far as I can tell, this talent is not working. There is no change in my Melee stats at any point during combat, nor do I see a buff. However, I haven't parsed this, so it's possible it is working but not showing up anywhere as a buff.


Charge
Charge can be used in combat with the 41-point talent. However, it's still restricted to Battle Stance, making it relatively annoying since the Rage bonus is negated by stance-dancing, and if I'm dancing and willing to lose rage, Intercept was already doing well.

However, it's a 1-point talent, and it's good for grinding. It's also good with Safeguard as an additional means of clearing impairing effects. While I hope it's buffed or altered, I'd still pick this up in it's current form.


Weapon Throw
Dealing substantially less damage than the tooltip suggests. According to other Beta testers, it's actually going off a 10% AP conversion rather than 100%.

[Donnelle]

I noticed that Shield Block now reads "Increases your chance to block and block value by 100% for 5 sec." Was it like this before and I missed it, or is this new?

Shield Block - Spell - World of Warcraft

[Donnelle]

Source: Donnelle I noticed that Shield Block now reads "Increases your chance to block and block value by 100% for 5 sec." Was it like this before and I missed it, or is this new? Shield Block - Spell - World of Warcraft

Additionally, MMO-Champion is stating the duration on Shield Block has been increased to 10 seconds, making it continuously sustainable with 2/2 in Improved Shield Block. That's huge if it's all true.

Wrath of the Lich King - Warrior - Protection Skills

[Kazeyonoma]

I though Shield Block CD is now 60 seconds, with 2/2 imp shield block = 40 seconds, so still 30 seconds of fulld amage.

[Donnelle]

It was changed to 30 seconds in beta build 8820 (August 22).

WoW Forums -> Wrath of the Lich King: Beta Patch Notes08/22

[Rampart]

Man I can't keep up with all these changes. @_@

[Ciderhelm]

Source: Donnelle It was changed to 30 seconds in beta build 8820 (August 22).

You're looking at dated information. It has been at 60 seconds and is still at 60 seconds. It can be reduced to 40 seconds.

[Donnelle]

Yeah, there's a lot of conflicting information out there at the moment. MMO Champion shows in their patch notes that Shield Block is at 60 seconds, and Blizzard's patch notes show it as 30 seconds. Maybe my optimism is getting the better of me is all. I would love to believe in huge, constantly available shield blocks.

[Donnelle]

Source: Ciderhelm You're looking at dated information. It has been at 60 seconds and is still at 60 seconds. It can be reduced to 40 seconds.

Yeah, the way Blizzard has it shown in their patch notes for 8820 reads "Shield Block now increases chance to block and amount blocked by 100% for 5 seconds. Cooldown increased to 30 seconds".

Misleading.

[Rampart]

About Sword and Board, judging by the blue post, the fact that it isn't refreshing the cooldown of Shield Slam is a bug. Other things seem like a bug too.

But the new Critical Block is <3!

[mero12513]

So in the best case scenario hand-picking our favorite parts of all sources:

We have the addition of:

If we do not avoid, we always block. (Imp. SB)
100% BV (Imp. SB)
30% BV (Shield Mastery)
10% damage to SS (Imp. Shield Bash)
10% Str. (2 str = 1 BV, Vitality)
30% chance to block double damage
15% Shield Slam crit
15% free Shield Slam on devestate
10% increased damage (Imp. Def stance)*

We are our shields.

[mero12513]

Edit to the above:

Stupid dated information. We might not always block. It seems to me like the design philosophy of warrior tanking has become "Warrior Tanks are Shields on a stick"

While I'm not yet completely sold on the idea, I'm thinking it would make for a great class-design aspect that can make our mechanics and our feel different from other tanking classes but still maintain the same functionality as other classes.

We will be blocking huge amounts of damage with our shields, and dealing huge damage with them.

2-handed shield anyone? Dual wield? Oh the possibilities...

[Mangea]

The change to Improved Defensive Stance are pretty neat. With as much as we dodge, parry, and block, the Enrage effect should stay up constantly. This leads to experimentation with Enraged Assault, y'know, the one where we attack with all weapons and consumes an Enraged effect. I'm not in Beta and not in a position to test any of this out, but this sounds like a cool addition.

By the way, I can't seem to find Bloodbath on mmo-champion anymore. Anyone know if it's been scrapped?

[Donnelle]

I'm digging a lot of the new talent changes, especially where they have reduced the talent point cost to get the same effect (Imp. Revenge, Improved Defensive Stance, etc.). This frees up a few points to stack in a few more talents into a tank build, which is nice. Improved Revenge was always one of my favorite talents that I could never work in before, but will most likely now be part of my standard spec.

The Charge looks pretty lousy for a 40 point talent. Intervene works well enough for me, really... seems like they're fixing something that isn't broke there.

It's still really early in the beta for protection though, seeing as how we just got our first real batch of changes. Hopefully next week will have some more tweaks and maybe a new talent or skill.

BTW, anyone heard anything on Bloodbath yet?

[Donnelle]

Source: Mangea By the way, I can't seem to find Bloodbath on mmo-champion anymore. Anyone know if it's been scrapped?

Source: Donnelle BTW, anyone heard anything on Bloodbath yet?

You owe me a Coke.

[Urhan]

I'm still confused as to whether or not these were the major changes that were supposed to be coming. Kamani posted this in the forum, and he's pretty much on the money:

Source: Kamani We were completely unaddressed, basically, up until recently. We were promised big changes. All we got is an inch. An inch in every talent. EVERY TALENT.

Ghostcrawler said "we are definitely placing a premium on talents that look so fun that you'll just have to get them..." in reference to the prot tree. Well, where are they? This latest build just looks like a tuning pass on things like damage and threat generation. But why tune if there are going to be big changes? Or is this it, the "fun" talents aren't coming, and they've just decided to give us extra damage here and there and tinker with the mechanics of what's already in the tree? I hope we get some explanation of what's going on soon.

[Mangea]

Source: Donnelle You owe me a Coke.

Ok.

/buys Donnelle a Coke.

Cheers!

As far as new fun stuff, the Weapon Throw that every warrior will get sounds awesome. Likewise the Imp DStance enrage. The 41 point Charge seems like a flub, and maybe where Blizz was trying to go with it was an offensive charge that could be used in DStance. That'd be kinda neat, covering ground quickly while gaining rage.

Now that I think about it, the damage and threat increases are very cool and very welcome. But aside from the weapon throw, I'm not seeing much that's making my eyes pop out of my head. Then again, I can't actually try this stuff out, so I have to rely on what the beta testers say. Still, I'm remaining cautiously optimistic.

[Urhan]

Weapon Throw will be nice for countering pvp kiting, but everybody's getting that, not just prot. The only new thing specific to us in this build is the charge talent, and it's not like we were screaming for a feral charge equivalent - stance-dance-and-intercept works well enough on the rare occasions we have reason to use it.

[rustyboy]

Fun Talents? Shockwave, A LOT more damage and heaps more viability for warriors to be more effective AOE tanks. That's pretty decent already.

I would not spec for charge at the moment however it could be useful with early tanking in 5 mans etc and leveling (e.g Charge, TC, SS -> Defensive Stance - Bloodrage, TC, Etc).

Can someone tell me how much damage Imp Thunder Clap is doing in the beta?

[BuliwynT]

Are safeguard, imp. disarm and 'charge' all meant for pvp prot specs though?

I only ask because I know fury is forced to decide between a couple pvp talents in the fury tree if they want to reach full 5/5 2 handed spec in the arms and thus be more pve oriented.

so, I'm not sure we were meant to have'em all - even though it is a shame the talents may seem little useage.