Vigilance - Why, oh why...

Hi there, long time lurker first time poster here.

Like most of you I've been enjoying our recent tanking overhaul quite a bit. Charging, thunderclapping and shockwaving right into large groups of unsuspecting (and mostly CCed) Trashmobs and at the same time embarassing some of our DDs on the Meters really makes my (raid-)day and casts a sparkling white smile on my Undead face. :D

Sword n' Board apart from introducing yet another "spinning-shields-of-doom"-animation is very interesting. Obviously the added critchance to Devastate is a nice boon, but more importantly the chance to reset our SS CD really makes tanking just a little bit more dynamic than it was before. Seeing Revenge yet again rise in power is a wonderful sight and Damage Shield is a godsend for pretty much everything you can do with your protection warrior.



Having said that, there is one particular talent that leaves me a little bit confused if not even worried. As you might have guessed by the title of this thread I'm talking about Vigilance. I assume you're all very familiar with the effect of this talent, but I'll still write out (or rather copy+paste) it's description because I'll need it for my next paragraph.

Vigilance - Focus your protective gaze on a group or raid target, reducing their damage taken by 3% and transfers 10% of the threat they cause to you. In addition, each time they are hit by an attack your Taunt cooldown is refreshed. Lasts 30 min.

So ignoring the second part (sorry 5-man tanks) there is something that really bugs me in this description. Let's create a similiar talent and give it to any of the existing DPS classes just to emphasize my point. Let's call it "Adorn yourself with borrowed plumes". Quite a long name for a talent, I agree, but it fits it's description very well:

AYWBP - Focus your lazy eye on a group or raid target, increasing their damage done by 1% and add 10% of the damage they cause to your own.

As the DD that is able to talent this buff, would you like it? or rather: would you like being balanced around it? and if you wouldn't be balanced around it why bother with it in the first place?

Moving back to Vigilance and to the question I'd like to ask:
Do you like adorning yourself with borrowed threat?

Blizz has stated that they don't plan on balancing us around having vigilance.

Fair enough, but then, why bother with it in the first place?

I would have preferred a self-sanctuary buff in it's place but it's not a particularly bad talent. Putting it on a ranged DPS lets you to continue building thread even when away from a mob for whatever reason and it can help with off-tanking a raid boss.

I imagine that second use is part of it, as all tanks are supposed to be able to fill every role adequelty and while we won't be getting threat from revenges, we won't be that bad off.

I think giving us a 10% damage cut from our DPS would just cause them to whine more than they already do ;)

I've also found some uses for the taunt refresher, heading back to Panther boss in ZG with only a priest I had to let them "tank" the adds and with vigilance I was able to tab-taunt almost every panther off them, albeit only for 6 second spans but it was often enough to keep them from suffering cast pushback hell. If there's any other situations like it, it's a very handy tool.

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Originally Posted by Sevaar

Do you like adorning yourself with borrowed threat?

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Sometimes it's not about the threat at all.
I had the rare opportunity to be in a raid with another prot warrior last night when our arms warrior respec'd to fill in for our bear. He cast vigilance on me and I was still more than comfortably ahead on threat while tanking a boss and was taking 3% less damage, YAY!
Made healers happier, me happier and the dps couldn't've cared less because they were completely unaffected.

And... even if you were using it for threat, if thats what gets the job done (not necessary now, but who knows about the future), why not?

It's also nothing that new, paladins have a skill which works in similar way.

Specifically, Judgement of Light, we get threat from *other people* hitting the boss.

None of the 2 classes is being balanced about this kind of threat gain. It's meant to be mainly a 5 men tool (maybe that lock who likes to spam SoC wont die?) plus a mitigation tool if you raid without prot paladins.

And also, when there are 2 prot warriors, you basically get taunt constantly ready if you cross-vigilance.

I like Vigilance. It's a lot of return for one-point. The highest DPS raid member gets a threat reduction, and you get a threat gain. There's nothing bad about that at all. Whether or not you need Vigilance when things are going well, it increases your buffer zone when things aren't going well, and that's a good thing. Things don't always go well in raiding. Vigilance helps to cover some of the potential errors before they wipe a raid.

It may not be a make or break sort of ability, but it's still very useful in many circumstances. Definitely worth the point, in my opinion.

Another great talent, like the others above me i dont see it as a bad thing and probably designed more to help us hold AOE aggro Vs that Lock always pulls. Of course there are many uses, and is great for the emergency. Just the other night in thick Hyjal trash i found our enhance shammy being beaten on, i hit taunt but mustve got a resist so threw Vig on him for a taunt refresh, reduced threat and damage. What a great tool to have.

Hmm, interesting responses.

I can definitly see it being useful as a damage reduction talent for another tank, especially in encounters or rather on positions where threat is a non issue (i.e. Illidari Council Adds). While I don't think that I'll ever be able to enjoy cross-vigilancing in a guild raid it certainly does sound like a fun way to gain an additional 3% damage reduction.

What I don't like about it's threat mechanic is simply being rewarded with threat you didn't produce yourself. Now if it would just increase our threat generation by 5% as soon as we buff someone in our party or raid, it would (for me) be something completly different and much more enjoyable. Is it really just me?

As for the taunt portion of this talent, I really have yet to see an encounter that is heavily dependant on taunting and at the same time does not allow you to opt your gear towards reaching the hitcap.

I've got the answer to why this is a great talent. Warlock/Boomkin (take your pick) and a huge AOE pack. 10% may not seem like a lot but combined with uncapped TC, Shockwave and Damage Shield it is amazing what you can hold agg on when given to the right person.

Try this sometime... engage a huge group of mobs TC, Shockwave and let an AOE heavy class go at it. While that is happening tab target about and look at Omen, how close is that AOEer to pulling agg? Close right, well how would you like to give yourself another 20% margin (10% from them + 10% given to you = 20% total - Thanks Alo) on every mob? How do you think they will feel about having that buffer AND 3% damage mitigation AND gaurunteed taunt if they do pull a mob off you or a new mob shows up and goes for them?

With AOE damage and tanking so much more prevelant now I think 1 point is well worth that ease of mind. "I'd buy that for a dollar!"

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Originally Posted by Lonan

how would you like to give yourself another 10% margin on every mob?

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Technically, it'd be 20% I believe. 10% away from them, 10% given to you.

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Originally Posted by Sevaar

What I don't like about it's threat mechanic is simply being rewarded with threat you didn't produce yourself. Now if it would just increase our threat generation by 5% as soon as we buff someone in our party or raid, it would (for me) be something completly different and much more enjoyable. Is it really just me?

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For me, extra threat is extra threat. As a threat siphon, it has two really useful effects: lowering someone else's threat and buffing your own. It doesn't bother me in the least that the extra threat is coming from someone else's damage. I don't see why it should, either.

Lonan, please refrain from using colored/font-changed text in your posts.

You have to remember the devs are thinking ahead and using whatever data they have gathered from beta and testing with level 80's and from Ghost Crawlers post threat will be more of an issue in the future. Even now though it does help with aoe groups and slapping vigilance on a mage or even a paladin laying consecrate helps. I don't think warrior tanking should be built around it but more of a tool to help us.

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Originally Posted by Prunetracy

Whether or not you need Vigilance when things are going well, it increases your buffer zone when things aren't going well, and that's a good thing. Things don't always go well in raiding.

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I like this phrasing. It makes a comparison to talents like Last Stand. One Warrior may say, "I didn't get Last Stand because I have awesome healers, and never drop below 50% HP."

While another Warrior may say, "I got Last Stand not because my healers suck, but to help them out when stuff hits the fan."

I see Vigilance as more along the lines of the 2nd Warrior's thinking than the first. And from the news from GC today, it looks like after Naxx, DPSers hitting the threat ceiling may become an issue...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sevaar

What I don't like about it's threat mechanic is simply being rewarded with threat you didn't produce yourself. Now if it would just increase our threat generation by 5% as soon as we buff someone in our party or raid, it would (for me) be something completly different and much more enjoyable. Is it really just me?

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Pre-patch, did you ever have your raid's hunters cast Misdirect on you? Did it bother you that they were transferring their threat to you? How is this different from Vigilance?

Did your healers cast Prayer of Mending, Earthshield, and Lifebloom on you? In all of those heals, the threat from the heal was credited to you, not the healer (just the final bloom in the case of lifebloom). That has been changed now, but pre-patch, did you dislike those spells because of the "borrowed threat"?

I guess I just don't see how this really changes all that much. I'm not a warrior, so I don't have this spell, but I see our warriors using it and I think it is a great idea.

the implementation is the best because it reduces aggro while boosting your own. Instead of constantly telling someone "don't pull aggro" you get a cool buff that siphons 10% threat from them to you, allowing them to do more damage while boosting your overrall threat. What's not to like?

am i missing something obvious here? because it seems to be like this will be very important for progression raiding.

cross vigiliance between two prot warriors - as long as they are both generating decent threat, there is very little net threat loss and 3% damage reduction.

you lose 10% of your threat, but gain 10% from the other tank and vice versa. i guess it depends on how they stack with each other, but we should be able to live with a 1% threat reduction.

I've also come to use this to put myself on the aggro table when tanking adds away from raid bosses so that I would actually get loot instead of opening a GM ticket because I was doing my job.

Tidewalker and Anathenon being prime examples. For the most part I put it on the healer who likes to stand in the fire a bit too much.

@MontanaTaur:
Indeed, Misdirect bothered me enough to use "/cancelaura misdirect" whenever it didn't feel required. Don't get me wrong, I like MD for pulling and think it's a great way of giving hunters a little bit more raid utility. How I think it differs from Vigilance? Well let's see...

I guess it doesn't if you only look at its threat mechanic. The only differences I can muster would be: it isn't something we spec for, it is (or maybe "was") on a rather fair cooldown, you could click it off (yes, I know... I really shouldn't... ), it was rather unique in how it allowed another class to situationally help us win the threat game and overcome certain threat dump or knockback abilities. You could also say that we weren't excactly borrowing their threat but rather received it as a nice little present. Maybe a present out of pity for our lack of threat generation but still....

As for your list of healing spells. Now that I look at them in this way I guess you are right here. Honestly tho, they never really bothered (at least not till I levelled my restoration druid by pugging) me all that much. Lifeblooms final bloom is (from a maintanking perspective) fairly irrelevant for most raid encounters and mostly didn't even happen because my health already was at 100%. Earthshield and especially PoM are much more likely to heal for their full amount and do generate some threat, agreed.

@everyone arguing about the 10% threat transfer being so great:
Blizzard clearly stated how threat will be a lot more forgiving in the future. While I haven't played in the beta and don't know how our threat will scale in Live Level 80 Instances/Raids, I do expect threat to become a little bit more challenging than the (excuse my choice of words) facerollfest we see now.

Damage Shield, Shockwave, unlimited Thunderclap, enough rage to cleavespam and a much more accessable Retaliation are really nuts for AoE tanking right now and if something goes wrong you can still use this "new" and interesting form of acrobatic tanking that was mentioned in another thread on this board.

Maybe Level 80 will change my view on Vigilance, but I still have my doubts about that... at least some of the responses I got really make me want someone elses vigilance buff on me right now ^^