Five Talents You'll Wish You Could Have

**Ciderhelm** · #1 08-30-2008, 04:01 AM

We don't know whether the latest build is the more-finalized Protection build Blizzard has been talking about or whether it's still in progress. It's better to be safe and make our concerns known rather than wait without giving feedback.

My biggest concern? If the current build goes live, you will never see the following talents in common Protection builds:

Safeguard, Charge (Protection), Concussion Blow/Vigilance, and Justified Killing.

Of those five talents, four of them are new in Wrath of the Lich King. Justified Killing is particularly painful to lose. Those talents are dedicated tanking talents, nevermind the bonuses tanks might receive from other talents they also can't reach such as Anger Management, Impale, and Improved Charge.

Why not? Because there are more than five points too many spent in non-utility talents that will affect us at every point of progression, from solo'ing to 5-mans to 25-man raiding. Even if this were gutted a bit in Protection, too many points would be at the bottom end of the tree, which would still prevent Justified Killing.

The plus side is that the rest of our talents are just that good. Hopefully some will become even better. To get a quick overview of which talents I'm referring to:

Arms (11)
Improved Heroic Strike
Deflection
Improved Thunderclap

Fury (5)
Cruelty

Protection (55)
Shield Specialization
Incite
Anticipation
Last Stand
Improved Shield Block
Toughness
Puncture
Improved Shield Wall
Improved Shield Bash
Shield Mastery
One-Handed Weapon Specialization
Improved Defensive Stance
Focused Rage
Vitality
Devastate
Critical Block
Sword and Board
Shockwave

While we can theorycraft and talk about the neat situations where these utility talents we won't have room for might be useful, the situation is the same. All of the above talents help us everywhere in every situation, and that's good, but the utility talents we're getting are going to get lost the moment players min/max their builds.

**Alent** · #2 08-30-2008, 04:16 AM

I would offer, based on what I'm currently seeing on the Paladin and Druid trees, that in the not so distant future a larger scale rage for avoidance mod is going to be made to Warrior.

The Prot Paladin's BoSanc and Resto Druid's Replenish talents strike me as an interesting shift in logic that's currently an experiment that may yet come to fruition in vigilance or another prot talent.

Darmon · #3 08-30-2008, 04:31 AM

One other talent that i find very desirable due to changes in last patch is Improved Revenge. Revenge now scales with AP, with a 9.3% bonus dmg from AP. That depends a lot on the itemisation, since without guaranteed Revenge proc from Shield Block, Revenge might not be a guaranteed part of the 6 sec rotation.

Minaba · #4 08-30-2008, 04:32 AM

Source: Ciderhelm
My biggest concern? If the current build goes live, you will never see the following talents in common Protection builds:

Safeguard, Charge (Protection), Concussion Blow/Vigilance, and Justified Killing.

Certainly by the time I start Naxx I cant see myself taking any of these either Cider although I will keep Conc Blow (too attached

)
These new talents are a complete and sad dissapointment as far as I can judge atm
To be honest, I cant see the use of overcomplicating my tanking watching for Sword and Board procs either whan I can just jam the usual 5/5 cruelty and forget about it.
I'm happy to be convinced otherwise as Im sadly not in beta (played since release... boo) but I really dont want to end up distracted by S&B from raid awareness and timing stuff like a Brutallus boss stomp etc

**Ciderhelm** · #5 08-30-2008, 04:41 AM

I really, really, really like Sword and Board. I doubt it will be more than a week of live release before there's a good mod to make it easier to see w/o being distracting.

I don't see us making a choice between Sword and Board and Cruelty, though. They can both be in the same build. The entire tree is built around improving Shield Slam at this point, so S&B is that much more fun.

Zacch · #6 08-30-2008, 04:45 AM

Question: in this 3.0 patch, will they change the mechanics? Crushs... Str affecting Devastates and all that stuff?

SoaD! · #7 08-30-2008, 05:12 AM

This needs more real numbers to justify, but I think our avoidance will do the choice between Puncture and Vigilance. I'm not that sure Puncture is a must have talent.
Revenge had a nice up, but SS optimization seems too important now.

So, currently I bet on a 11/5/55 build, with a choice between Conc Blow/Vigilance and Puncture.

**Ciderhelm** · #8 08-30-2008, 05:18 AM

Source: SoaD!
This needs more real numbers to justify, but I think our avoidance will do the choice between Puncture and Vigilance. I'm not that sure Puncture is a must have talent.
Revenge had a nice up, but SS optimization seems too important now.

So, currently I bet on a 11/5/55 build, with a choice between Conc Blow/Vigilance and Puncture.

Vigilance can't be used on yourself. Even if it could, reducing 10% Threat output is sinful.

SoaD! · #9 08-30-2008, 05:31 AM

I think I didn't expressed myself well.

As a prot I don't want to use Vigilance on myself.

I think the puncture usefulness will be determined by our future rage generation breaks. So depending on how these gaps will be, Vigilance can be enough and more fun to use.

I agree that 10% less threat on a single target is far to be useful, even more because it will be useful punctually. But if the rage generation gaps are short enough it can be better than puncture if we generate too much rage than we spend with HS spam.

Is Vigilance holded on the hightest threat member more efficient than X more HS? It sounds wrong but I don't bet at 100% on HS.

And as far as I can remember, Vigilance is the only active threat modifier on WoTLK (expect self threat modifiers like rogue's feint). This tool can be really useful if I don't do a mistake.

**Ciderhelm** · #10 08-30-2008, 05:36 AM

I see what you're saying, SoaD.

I would personally never give up Puncture. I'm sad it's down to only 2 rage reduction.

**Tobius** · #11 08-30-2008, 05:41 AM

Wouldnt it be worth taking Concussion Blow and Vigilance over Improved Shield Bash?

It looks to me that reducing threat of a pew pew dps'er by 10% would be quite good, though I dont know the finer points about the talent so could well be missing something. Shield bash is nice but I think I prefer Concussion Blow.

**Ciderhelm** · #12 08-30-2008, 05:43 AM

Source: Tobius
Wouldnt it be worth taking Concussion Blow and Vigilance over Improved Shield Bash?

It looks to me that reducing threat of a pew pew dps'er by 10% would be quite good, though I dont know the finer points about the talent so could well be missing something. Shield bash is nice but I think I prefer Concussion Blow.

Shield Bash now increases Shield Slam damage by 10%.

**Tobius** · #13 08-30-2008, 05:47 AM

Ah thats the bit I missed then

**Mardran** · #14 08-30-2008, 08:33 AM

Why is improved revenge not included in the protection talents? That's one of the best talents in the tree with the damage bonus in my opinion.

Leytur · #15 08-30-2008, 08:46 AM

Wow, Cider--lots of news! I generally only keep abreast of xpac issues when they're front paged like this. Seeing as how I'm not in beta and every new build is kinda superfluous.

However, I'm glad you're being so vocal about simple changes that could make our lives in xpac much easier. Thanks for keeping us, and Blizz, updates.

On a side but related note--how does tankspot viewership compare with other wow sites? Is there any way to check that?

Machus · #16 08-30-2008, 08:52 AM

I agree with your impression on seeing this build. There are so many desirable Protection talents that we run out of points, and other staples such as 5/5 Cruelty or Anger Management become hard to get. While a couple of powerful talents (Precision, Justified Killing) have moved into tempting positions in the other trees, they are still way to high for us.

Can we/should we complain about it? Well, on the face of it no, we just received a huge buff. We now get great talents in deep protection as opposed to lacking enough of these and having to fill up from other trees. Altogether a great situation, which needs a bit of polish but isn't broken. As far as improvement suggestions go, what could we suggest?

Nothing. The class talents are now OK, aside from fixing or further tuning those that seem broken, like Charge or Vigilance.
Points tuning. Saving points from Anticipation, Toughness, Deflection, etc. to make some cross-tree talents accessible.
A big change. Moving a lot of talents around so that there is more than one tanking build, e.g. Prot-Arms for raid, Prot-Fury for 5-mans.

I'd be happy with just bug fixes, happier with some point tuning (will be missing Anger Management - Grrrr!) and I wonder if hybrid builds would be practical, or if anyone would take them.

**Satrina** · #17 08-30-2008, 08:55 AM

That's exactly the build I came up with before going to bed last night! I am pleased with the way the protection warrior is coming together overall. Will be interesting to see what comes in the next patches.

I'm actually very happy to see that people will have to consciously choose to take this talent and not that one. I hatehatehatehate the idea of cookie cutter builds. In my opinion, the remaining "less desirable" talents in the tree should be buffed to make talent selection even more of a considered process.

**Satrina** · #18 08-30-2008, 08:58 AM

Source: Mardran
Why is improved revenge not included in the protection talents? That's one of the best talents in the tree with the damage bonus in my opinion.

More than a little bit of habit, I am sure. Currently, it's garbage in raids, and gimps your rage generation in heroics that you overgear. That buff is very nice for sure! Blizzard has said that more raid mobs will be stunnable in WLK, so it looks to become yet another talent you have to choose consciously. (yes!) If the stun is going to screw me over in raids like it does in heroics, it will be a no-fly, though.

Ringthane · #19 08-30-2008, 09:01 AM

Source: Ciderhelm
The plus side is that the rest of our talents are just that good. Hopefully some will become even better. To get a quick overview of which talents I'm referring to:

Arms (11)
Improved Heroic Strike
Deflection
Improved Thunderclap

Fury (5)
Cruelty

Protection (55)
Shield Specialization
Incite
Anticipation
Last Stand
Improved Shield Block
Toughness
Puncture
Improved Shield Wall
Improved Shield Bash
Shield Mastery
One-Handed Weapon Specialization
Improved Defensive Stance
Focused Rage
Vitality
Devastate
Critical Block
Sword and Board
Devastate

Do you mean Shockwave? Devastate's there twice.

**larsberg** · #20 08-30-2008, 09:46 AM

I'm going to try my best to ignore imp HS and just go slightly into cruelty to pick up other talents in the prot tree. I hope that the threat increases will be enough that losing a few random % to melee attack crit won't kill us, and that for those oddball situations where "more than 60 rage but not rage unlimited" where imp HS helps a lot today won't be quite as common - due to free shield slams leaving extra rage, reduced rage costs on SR, or whatever.

Here's hoping we don't all have "prot warrior build 1" again!