[Ciderhelm]

Gamnin posted some information on upcoming changes in WotLK Beta tonight. Here's the concerning one:

Source: Gamnin, WotLK Beta Sword and Board no longer triggers when Shield Slam is used, but the chance to trigger has increased to 3/6/9/12/15%. Note these are not final numbers.

Note that in the current Beta build, the 15% proc rate is already in place. Presumably the next build will no longer proc on Shield Slam.

This talent has quite a bit of potential. I've been arguing for it on these forums in several threads because I've found it to be enjoyable while leveling and a welcome break from 2344234423442344. But at this point, it is now arguably the worst single 5-point talent we will have in a standard build, and tanks are still going to feel obligated to pick it up just for the sake of min/maxing. The problem is that, unlike Shield Slam, Devastate simply isn't going to be used every rotation due to other abilities like Thunderclap, Revenge, Shockwave, etc.

This is it's own news post because it's in a notably different tone than the other news we got from Gamnin -- stay tuned for the good stuff.

[SoaD!]

I've seen an other amazing update from Gamnin incoming to Vigilance :

Vigilance will soon transfer the 10% threat lost to the warrior. It will also have 3 charges to curb using it on targets that are being hit constantly. We’re still polishing this element to get it to feel right.

The numbers are good, but it is really important to notice I think that this update will improve our managing of threat generation during rage generation gaps !

Can someone confirm or not if it has his own GCD ?

Wait & See...

[Ciderhelm]

Soad! I'm still workin on the good news post! You're ruining my immersion!

[SoaD!]

I forgot the source, sorry :

MMO-Champion BlueTracker - Warrior Update

[Dots]

Vigilance currently triggers the GCD.

I like the idea behind S&B but the implementation is still horrible because of how it delays Revenge in your rotation or even makes you skip it sometimes. Especially now that it got a lot of buffs with Imp Revenge and AP scaling.

[Galushi]

Kinda dishearted they were taking a decent talent (albeit heavily invested 5 points) and making it worse by reducing its proc rate by 1/3 (only on the 2 devastates instead of the 2dev/ss in rotations).

What would completely sell this ability is if they had it so you had a 15% proc chance on devastate to proc a shield slam. Similar to poisons on rogues. The ability would just go off without any additional effort. This would be epic.

Combat log would read like follows.

Your melee hits Rat for 300 dmg.
Your Shield Slam hits Rat for 600 dmg.
Your melee hits Rat for 320 dmg.
Your Revenge hits Rat for 450 dmg.
Your melee hits Rat for 290 dmg.
Your Devastate hits Rat for 200 dmg.
You gain Sword and Board!
Your Shield Slam crits Rat for 1290 dmg.
Your Heroic Strike crits Rat for 1100 dmg.
Your Devastate hits Rat for 220 dmg.

This would be a sample 4 gcd (6 second) rotation with madeup numbers of course. They could even tune down the proc chance to 10% or something. Whatever makes it balanced. But to be honest is a 45pt talent requiring 5 points, it should be amazing.

In its current incarnation I think I might be skipping it to make sure I pick up like Imp Revenge and Impale. Hell, if SnB is this bad I might even dabble in Deep Wounds, though im very wary of that (I hate tanking as Arms or Fury sometimes cuz the bleed can break CC if i only picked up that mob momentarily).

[Derrick]

seems like S&B becomes most effective now under off-tank situations, when trying to generate threat while not taking damage

[phaze]

Source: Derrick seems like S&B becomes most effective now under off-tank situations, when trying to generate threat while not taking damage

For OT duties, I'm still thinking that DW'ing will come out ahead, because of the large difference in rage generation. SnB needs to be less marginal....guess we'll have to wait on the updated numbers coming later?

[suesse_llane]

Source: Ciderhelm tanks are still going to feel obligated to pick it up just for the sake of min/maxing

Not sure about that. There are many talents people are going to want outside of the protection tree and it's very easy to put 41 points in prot without getting sword and board.

Due to class composition and other factors 8/10/X has become necessary for me in TBC. I wouldn't be surprised if it did again for WotLK.

People might try 17/3/41 for 5-mans, heroics, and early raiding particularly if defensive stance becomes usable in defensive stance (25 rage charge in combat every 15 seconds stunning the mob that left your large pack).

5/15/41 might be a good spec to buff the whole raid with extra health -- I think it's unreasonable to assume you'll have at least 3 warriors (and at least dps warriors) in a 25-man, certainly not a 10-man. I think it's natural to assume we'll have more heavy raid aoe fights in the future.

That said, I always thought Vitality was a little weaker than it should have been (for 5 points and its position in the tree particularly when compared to other classes better talents and the tauren racial), but I always speced into it. That said, it is getting better now given the new strength->block value conversion and attack power scaling on our abilities.

Has anyone done the numbers to compare it to incite, puncture, justified killing, focused rage, etc -- both in terms of rage decrease and threat. Certainly the situation these are used in changes their relative strength.

[Warwench]

I'm still underwhelmed, and maybe I am missing something.

Why is tanking all about threat lately and doing tons of damage, avoiding CC and the like?

What happened to Protecting members of the group, controlling the fight ?

I'll still be a full Prot War but I mean.. how does any of this REALLY fix things like the better your gear is, the worse you tank regular/heroic 5 mans..or lower tier raids. How does it really improve holding agro on AOE groups? How is any of this going stop the "LF1M - Pally for Heroic SH" ?

I must be missing something because I dont see much of anything to be super excited about. I still see a HUGE lack of imagination.

I'd love to see them replace taunt with an ability that increases threat passively (doesnt break CC) to a single target. Replace that under utilised AOE Taunt we have with an AOE version of the same thing, but less threat to each target (ie single target taunt does 300 threat, AOE Taunt does 150), make them on a shared timer.

Move "taunt" to Rescue on a 10 min timer, puts you at the top of the targets hate list.

Add a passive effect to Defensive stance called "Infuriating Defense". Chance on Parry/Block/Dodge to increase threat to that target by 50

Numbers above are completely made up, adjust to balance obviously.

Change Shield wall to absorb damage from the group, to allow us some utlity to protect our team members when they annoy the nasties.

Just some random ideas, they need polish and balancing.

If i want to PVP, I'll change gear and Spec, for the love of god make Protection, about protecting the group, mitigating damage.

A Prot Spec'd War in Defensive should be the best Warrior Tank. Give enough tanking abilities baked into Defensive stance though that a Arms or Fury War in Defensive can tank 5 mans well.

Thanks for listening, feel free to kick my ass.

[Alent]

Source: Warwench I'm still underwhelmed, and maybe I am missing something. Why is tanking all about threat lately and doing tons of damage, avoiding CC and the like? What happened to Protecting members of the group, controlling the fight ?

I think alot of us have found as we've progressed that relying on CC actually makes it harder to control a fight once you reach a certain level of skill. Certainly as a former CC class player, I understand the difference a good CCer can make, but by that same token - Wow doesn't allow good CCers to exist with it's limit of one active CC ability per player. This limit has made CC utterly worthless with the exception of gimmicks like Moroes/delrissa/Malacrass.

I know, when you're learning something sometimes it helps to shut one mob off. But once you've learned it, it just makes it take longer to shut that one mob off. When you're going as fast as you can, CC slows you down.

[Warwench]

I find CC is for the rest of the teams benefit, not mine. Hit me more, I like it. My problem is making things hit me more when there is a lot of them. I dont really see anything that improves that.. the better I get, the better my gear.. the less things want to hit me.

[Sandmann]

sounds to me like a big nerf from S&B.
many were already classifying S&B as useless but i really like the idee. But now it seems they are right. i hope blizz will invest some more time in S&B and change it again, maybe to something completley new?

[Dreador]

Ok so Sword and Board is now rubbish. This easily frees up points for imp bloodrage, conc blow and the newly sa-weet Vigilance. I'm thinking this would be my ideal....

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?warr...00000000000000

[Ilya M]

I'd much rather pull those 2 points out of imp blood rage and grab impale. Given Incite and critical block, some of our abilities will crit alot more than we are used to, and the larger the damage from the crit is, the more the threat.

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?warr...00000000000000

[Dreador]

Sold. Did the arms talents last so at first glance impale was not available.

[Galushi]

Yeah im hoping Prot will be condensed enough that i can have impale no matter what.

[Darmon]

There is something that bothers me about S&B, and that is the fact that it gives a Shield Slam proc.
That is very limiting for 5 points so deep in a talent tree, like having Wreking crew in arms working for 2h only, or Unending fury work for DW only. Those 2 examples i'm sure don't bother arms/fury dps, but would bother very much arms/fury tanks, in the same way it bothers me having sword and board limiting prot warriors to wearing a shield in order to benefit them.

[Hypatia]

I'm very happy to have a powerful ability related to shields. Presuming that: a) It really is a powerful ability, and b) I can DPS effectively with my shield out. It's okay if there's some set of talents that are required to do b.

[Gellor]

S&B now also gives devastate an increased 15% crit rate, and is now only a 3 point talent. S&B is now GOOD!