3.2 Warrrior tanking, NOT ENOUGH!

We went back into Ulduar after the patch day tonight and the lolNorthrend Beasts last night and I got some good logs/info on post 3.2 Warrior tanking tonight.

I must say, I'm really not impressed with the changes yet. I did some playing on the PTR before, but its really not the same as a good raid environment. I swapped from 15-5-51 to 5-10-56. The latter is my normal spec for Vezax, (we use the tank & spank strat). I checked over the logs from last week and compared them to this week. I'm sure most who have done Vezax have come to hate the rage starved to full rage yoyo you go through in the fight. This week wasn't much different for me. I was horribly rage starved the entire fight. Even halfway though my healers we're on vent saying, "holy cow Pit, take some damage". I honestly don't know if this is from all the Nerfs to Ulduar and Vezax or all the changes to Warriors, (in reality its probably a combination of both).

Last week Vezax:
65% avoidance (67% 2 weeks ago)
19387 average hit (21046 with no gear changes 2 weeks ago)
Shield Specialization net 18 rage
Heroic Strike 279k 31.9%
Shield Slam 158k 19.1%
Revenge 122k 14.1%
Deep Wounds 75k 8.5%
Devastate 65k 7.4%

This week Vezax:
75% avoidance
17424 average hit
Shield Specialization net 270 rage
Heroic Strike 135k 23.7%
Shield Slam 128k 22.4%
Devastate 121k 17.7%
Revenge 92k 14.5%

Yes I realize I'm not really comparing apples to apples here, (my spec had Deep wounds last week), but I think you get the picture here. Devastate damage has roughly doubled since last week.

10% in avoidance is alot to just explain away with RNG, I've looked over the last few Vezax kills and I usually ride between 63 and 67% avoidance for the entire fight. This week I was over 75%, with the same gear, same stats, (just a bit more health from epic gems).

The extra 270 rage is definatly nice, but in reality, its a little over 2 rage bars, (of which you don't get all at once). So your stuck sitting at 15-25 rage the entire time, which I was the entire fight. I love the 5-10-56 Spec for the most part. I usually have an Arms build for my off-spec for pvp/dailys. With 5-10-56, I get a 2m Shield Wall, 2m Last Stand, (both must haves for Vezax) and Imp Demo, which is pretty big now and great for hard modes, (I hate having to rely on another warrior keeping it up). I guess its back to sporting 2 Prot Specs again.... :(

PLEASE GIVE US MORE!!!

PS: New trinket The Black Heart is averaging a 15% Uptime over the last 2 days for me.

You won the avoidance lottery and you're complaining about not being hit.

I see what you did there.

Rage on avoidance is nice - the 5 rage helps, but question is if it enough when you're "unlucky" as a tank. For the most part yes, but I'd rather see two changes:

A) Something like us receiving rage based on a % of the damage we'd taken if we where hit. This would make it scale in new and old content better than the 5 rage we get now. It would also make it less favorable to tank 10 mobs vs 1 mob (i.e. we gain about 200 rage from a boss fight but 1500 rage from chain-trash-pulling, personally I'd be more pissed off att the huge monster boss…)

B) Either change vigilance straight off or make it a two-point or tier talent. Improved vigilance is also a rage syphon based on n% of the persons damage output. This again soften the lows. In general when we're hit rage isn't a problem anyway.

The silly thing in the end however is both of the above is solving something that could be sorted much easier - rage on damage dealt instead of damage taken. Both of the above would be a "plus" to this but I'd rather have a system that doesn't in-favour me just cause I'm lucky (or unlucky). 3.2 made a solid difference but I agree we could use MOAR.

Another problem with rage generation is warrior don't get rage when using heroic strike and cleave. Blizzard needs to reverse this change. Our rage problem would not be so bad if we are able to continue to generate rage when using heroic strike and cleave. Heroic strike maybe a rage dump but when you dump your rage and get no rage for a few seconds, it is bad.

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Originally Posted by Darwar

Another problem with rage generation is warrior don't get rage when using heroic strike and cleave. Blizzard needs to reverse this change. Our rage problem would not be so bad if we are able to continue to generate rage when using heroic strike and cleave. Heroic strike maybe a rage dump but when you dump your rage and get no rage for a few seconds, it is bad.

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We do generate through avoidance. If heroic strike and cleave would still have rage generation, it would (almost) be like having an infinite mana bar. Essence of the red anyone?

Break out the parry figures didn't they just change the DR on parry in 3.2 or are both parses post 3.2?

No, the DR on parry is still really low (44% or so) so dodge still wins out in terms of how fast DRs affect the two avoidance stats.

What they did do is bring down the parry rating -> 1% parry conversion ratio and bring up the dodge rating -> 1% dodge conversion ratio.

So now instead of 32.9 Dodge rating = 1% dodge and 44.8 Parry rating = 1% Parry (I made these numbers up I just threw ballpark numbers out there)
They're both around 38.5 rating (dodge or parry) = 1% dodge/parry before DRs.

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Originally Posted by Grakkur

We do generate through avoidance. If heroic strike and cleave would still have rage generation, it would (almost) be like having an infinite mana bar. Essence of the red anyone?

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the problem with rage is the container is real small and the "regen" is not concistent. it's really a totally unique mechanic and definately has some problems. Mana, Runes, energy.. all these mechanics have the burn rate, regen and pool size tuned... rage does not.. burn rate is high, regen rate is not concistent, pool is small.. 3 things that are just not balanced together to make a usable mechanic.

the rage concept is great, just needs some tweaking to make it like other player resource mechanics in that it's reliable. No real reason for Warriors/Bears to be the only ones with a wonky mechanic like that. keep the "flavor", just tweak the regen to not be based on RNG factors so much (a little RNG is fine).

(dont bother to quote me to tell me you love Rage just how it is and Rage being this way is what makes Warriors hard/awesome/different/cool etc etc.. no i dont just want a red mana bar if that is your comment too.)

It's time for Blizzard to increase our rage container!

I never understood this.. Why doesn't blizzard just do for warriors the same thing they did for Paladins.. Put an addition to Vigilance to make it just like sacred shield (or whatever paladin skill it is deep in the prot tree that refreshes divine plea) that gives a chance on hit to refresh the CD of bloodrage.

Aka, if we have vigilance on a target, we have a chance on OUR hit to replenish the bloodrage cooldown and grant us more rage. Wala.. problem solved. This would prevent pvp warriors from abusing it in the arena... cuz heaven forbid a pve change went in effect that would be detrimental to pvp..

Maybe I missed something, are you saying taking 2k smaller hits (>10%) on average is not enough?

I think he's complaining about a lack of rage, not the increase in survivability.

How about this abilitiy: Controlled Mirth - when triggered the warrior controls his own emotions for 20 seconds, ignoring the humor of all the misses/dodges/parries of the boss but instead building rage as if he were getting hit. Available once every two minutes, not available if under the effect of an alcoholic beverage.

;)

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Originally Posted by Halgreg

It's time for Blizzard to increase our rage container!

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I like this idea. Why not extend the rage bar to 150 or 200. If I get a string of crits (as fury) or take a couple of massive hits (as prot), my bar is full and the excess rage beyond "100" is simply lost.

Maybe part of the solution is just a bigger bucket?

Ok...forgive me if I'm about to commit heresy here, but how is the bear tank rage mechanic different? I don't see the same complaints about rage coming from the druid tanks even though they have (afaik) that same 100 point bucket.

I have been having much less problem with rage since the patch. I still use bloodrage/berserker rage from time to time to keep the pool up, but not nearly as much. And many former "ok where am i supposed to get rage" situations aren't that way any more, because of the increased rage on dodge/block parry. That said, I've not yet seen Vezax, although I'm hoping to see him Sunday.

So yes more would be better, but more has been better, when is it the challenge of the class vs. just not enough?

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Originally Posted by Meythos

Maybe part of the solution is just a bigger bucket?

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http://icanhascheezburger.files.word...ul-candida.jpg

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Originally Posted by Zurena

Ok...forgive me if I'm about to commit heresy here, but how is the bear tank rage mechanic different? I don't see the same complaints about rage coming from the druid tanks even though they have (afaik) that same 100 point bucket.

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Primal Fury - Spell - World of Warcraft

For better comparison warriors would probably want this Glyph of Heroic Strike - Item - World of Warcraft

And druids dodge -> rage only provides 3:
Natural Reaction - Spell - World of Warcraft
vs the warrior's 5
Shield Specialization - Spell - World of Warcraft

With change to execute... 200 rage bar is not bad idea at all...

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Originally Posted by Meythos

I like this idea. Why not extend the rage bar to 150 or 200. If I get a string of crits (as fury) or take a couple of massive hits (as prot), my bar is full and the excess rage beyond "100" is simply lost.

Maybe part of the solution is just a bigger bucket?

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I think it's so stupidly obvious that in the case of fury, moving from dual-wielding 2.7ish speed weapons to 3.6ish speed weapons is going to create huge spiking (especially factoring in whether or not you're spending rage on a next-attack hit which doesn't generate rate), or in the case of protection, allowing tanks 65% and higher avoidance and reactively necessitating bosses hitting so hard that once a hit finally gets through the tank takes some sort of damage, that basing warrior threat on maximum GCD usage combined with the small maximum rage meter and the spikiness of avoidance rage generation makes me think that blizzard's game designer staff includes at least one trained monkey, who obviously works on the warrior team.

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Originally Posted by Meythos

Why not extend the rage bar to 150 or 200 [...] Maybe part of the solution is just a bigger bucket?

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I like this idea... But I can already hear the vocal forum trolls... "Blizz you fail! A larger bucket is just a bandaid fix. The bucket should be blue and bottomless instead of red."

To which the next vocal forum troll will reply, "You're an idiot! Blizz fails 'cause the bucket should be yellow and fill up over time."

Anyway, all joking aside. I like the idea of the rage bar growing as you master the arts of berserking. Maybe starts out with a rage bar that can hold 100 at level 1 and as you reach milestones it increases.

Making the rage bar would defiantly help, but it really is a band-aide fix for an ongoing problem, (which blizzard has been fixing for years now). I can see big problems in making the rage bar bigger though. First off, the Fury/Arms community would have a heyday with it. Damage would defiantly go up by leaps and bounds. I don't have anywhere near the BIS stuff for my arms/fury set, but I have absolutely no problems with rage when I do dps and usually do a shitload of damage. The biggest difference between dps warriors and tanks....if a DPS warrior runs out of rage....who cares? You do a bit less damage. When a tank loses or dosen't gain any rage....you lose aggro...people die, wipes, ect...It would be nice if they put it deep in the Prot tree, out of reach of DPS warriors though. I highly doubt it would be 50 or 100 rage though. If you look at rogues, they can get a maximum of 20 extra energy. I would look for blizzard to do the same.

Most of my guys have come to expect me doing big threat, being the MT for my guild. The Rogues and DKs especially. They instantly know when/if I have an attack miss or parry at the start of a fight and adjust accordingly. The casters on the other hand, usually arn't that smart and are very used to going all out from the start. This is becoming a huge problem for fights like Vezax and even most of the new bosses in the Coliseum. Once again this week I was over 70% avoidance on Vezax and I even dropped almost 3% dodge from the last couple weeks.

On the plus side, I did over 3k dps on a couple fights last week, with my "survival build" of 5/10/56. Pretty sure I can get close to 5k dps with a 15/5/51 build on a few fights now. May try it this week.