Sustainable Warrior AoE

Yeah, there's really nothing wrong with warrior AoE tanking threat. It's just imperative to control pulls, so you have to get good and remembering where casters are, using silences to group them up, while placing TCs/SW/shield block where you need them to stick the melee to you. And don't be afraid to mark the first caster you want to see dead.

I'd be really unhappy if they made warrior AoE threat like DKs and Paladins...if that's what you want just roll one IMO.

I'm not saying they couldn't buff it a little, but I'd rather see that buff come from something that would also increase our overall PVE DPS. Make Damage Shield hit a bit harder, or make TC scale a bit more with AP. Heck, even removing the need to both talent AND glyph into Imp SW would let us put more glyphs or talents for DPS/threat while not sacrificing so much survivability.

Given the whole pvp angle, would amping up damage shield be problematic in arenas/battlegrounds/etc?

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Originally Posted by mistersix

Given the whole pvp angle, would amping up damage shield be problematic in arenas/battlegrounds/etc?

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Only vs melee. And frankly not that much.

Of course the moment one rogue kills himself on dmg shield because he's too stupid to CC that target and move on, they'll nerf prot pvp to accomodate.

Yeah, only rogues would even have a chance at being noticeably effected. And I'm sure it might even be enough to be unfair when the all-rogue 3s team meets up with the all-prot warriors 3s team...

At this point I'm assuming that they are already implementing at least a slight nerf to warbringer (i.e. at least so it can't break roots) and will probably put some of our utility on PvP diminishing returns, so I'd think a small reflective damage change would hardly be OP. Just sic your rogue on the healer like he ought to be on anyways!

Well as long as we have revenge or overpower, an all-rogue vs an all-warrior team is suicide for the rogues, anyway. They can't do enough burst to eat through that armor and the moment someone dodges there's gonna be a crippled rogue.

It makes me laugh when the sneaky buggers try to ambush my warrior when I'm farming ore in WG or something. Soon as the sap is over they have about 5 seconds to live.

but yeah I agree it really shouldn't be a big deal...but I can just see all the griping now if they DID do it.

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Originally Posted by TomHuxley

Yeah, there's really nothing wrong with warrior AoE tanking threat. It's just imperative to control pulls, so you have to get good and remembering where casters are, using silences to group them up, while placing TCs/SW/shield block where you need them to stick the melee to you. And don't be afraid to mark the first caster you want to see dead.

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I disagree, actually.

There is something wrong with Warrior AoE tanking threat: it's too low.

Honestly, our sustained TPS is simply not good enough. It's not good enough to keep anything off another tank in the same pull. It's not good enough to keep mobs off the multitude of classes capable of pulling ridiculous AoE damage nowadays.

In my opinion, that's something wrong. Thunder Clap is just too weak.

The changes a few patches ago to scale down AoE damage based on number of targets certainly didn't help either. Both Shockwave and Thunder Clap's threat are based completely on damage dealt, which makes it much much easier for "concentrated" AoE effects such as Whirlwind from Fury Warriors or single target DPS to pull off us in 'crowded pulls' as well.

This is further compounded by the weakening of Damage Shield--such as crits being remove (thus Deep Wound procs removed), no Block Value on gear, and general discouraging of Block Value as a TPS stat with Shield Slam scaling changes--which is becoming a smaller and smaller percentage of our AoE TPS due to its complete lack of scaling.

Quite simply, I fully believe they need to tweak up Warrior AoE threat a bit--even if it is simply increasing the threat multiplier on Thunder Clap--although I would prefer a bit more damage out of it. Damage Shield needs to scale somehow (perhaps adding Defense into the scenario) and I also feel it makes little sense to apply the AoE damage caps to tanking/threat abilities which are not primary DPS abilities and which do low base damage anyway.

On our TPS for more then 3 mobs yes I would tend to agree with you (if you are not tabbing around to a certain degree which i do) you may find a pally pulling off of you. Keep in mind though when you are part of a team of tanks 2-3 you are working towards a common goal. Now when a pally tank does pull of me it allows me time to start setting up the next pull.

Let alone our abilites work really good with a pally or DK. Take shockwave if you stun them over a pally/dk aoe threat you are increasing there threat at the expense of yours but the mobs are on a tank. If though the raid is stuck with 2 raiding warriors then there might be an issue but really they are there to help each other out. As for 5 mans if you are tabbing around and TC and shockwaving the mobs should be good on threat b4 anyone pulls let alone the mob dies so fast it doesnt matter.

So I can see why you see a small issue but how many boss fights are designed heavly for aoe tanking? So far I only see maybe 2-3 fights that have multiple mobs coming out during a fight. The concern here is do they come at a more then 6s rate for TC to be used at each time? I think most come out every 10s or more.

As for our aoe affects being reduced by the nerf you are just looking at our side all classes got hit with that change not just warriors. They nerf the aoe so people couldn't aoe through trash super fast like in naxx. Blizzard wised up to that act and started limiting aoe packs and added less packs for more ablities of bosses in trash. I can say this though when I play my warrior it is more focused then when I play my healer or even my dps. Thats the reason I enjoy my warrior tank most of any of my toons.

The idea here is that the latest change on pvp resil. gear just makes increasing our damage from TC a small possiblity. Just keep in mind though we are really unlikely to see any real benefit until they overhaul warriors for the xpac.

I think you slightly missed my point about the AoE scaling nerf.

Not all abilities are lowered by the change--Cleaves, Chain Lightning, Whirlwind, etc. as well as single-target DPS sources are obviously unaffected. Yet Thunder Clap steals away precious GCDs for very low amounts of per-target threat on larger pulls due to the reduction in damage and lack of any set threat value.

This makes it much, much easier for DPS Warriors or classes with a mix of AoE and single-target supplemental DPS to pull aggro post-patch. I don't think it was a very great idea to apply the reduction how it currently works to threat-oriented tanking abilities.

As for working with the other tanks? Sure... however usually I just sit back and let our Paladin tank anything as me doing much of anything else other than Shockwave stunning now and again and doing a couple interrupts is typically a waste of time. Not as if he has any trouble tanking it all, so no reason to fight for aggro or anything.

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Originally Posted by Kojiyama

I think you slightly missed my point about the AoE scaling nerf.

Not all abilities are lowered by the change--Cleaves, Chain Lightning, Whirlwind, etc. as well as single-target DPS sources are obviously unaffected. Yet Thunder Clap steals away precious GCDs for very low amounts of per-target threat on larger pulls due to the reduction in damage and lack of any set threat value.

This makes it much, much easier for DPS Warriors or classes with a mix of AoE and single-target supplemental DPS to pull aggro post-patch. I don't think it was a very great idea to apply the reduction how it currently works to threat-oriented tanking abilities.

As for working with the other tanks? Sure... however usually I just sit back and let our Paladin tank anything as me doing much of anything else other than Shockwave stunning now and again and doing a couple interrupts is typically a waste of time. Not as if he has any trouble tanking it all, so no reason to fight for aggro or anything.

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I agree with most everything Kojiyama has said in above posts.

Especially when running in ICC, which involves more than one tank, what I must do to keep my rage established enough in order to hold aggression and keep a sustainable DPS is use Vigilance on the Pally Tank.

Then, some of his threat is transferred to me, and I have instant taunts I can use to tab target and grab any mob not attacking me to ensure I am getting hit by as many targets as I need to sustain reasonable rage.

This extra work alone diverts my attention away from other things which may be going on around me--such as a loose mob I didn't even notice smacking a healer in the back--or missed/wasted GCD's on SS/CB/REV, etc.

When consistantly tanking along side of other tank classes, you can easily notice the disparity between warrior aoe threat and other tank classes. Unless we go above and beyond to utilize the above vig/tab taunting technique I just mentioned, we'll generally just be standing there autoswinging until we're lucky enough to build a little rage for an attack. Once again, lowering our DPS even more, and further securing our spot as the lowest DPS of all tanks.

So, our survival is equal or lesser than other tanks, our DPS is the lowest of all, and our AOE threat pales in comparison.... how is this not an issue?

Those of you going on about warrior AOE threat is fine, blah blah, are just running heroics and you know very little about AOE tanking in a raid environment obviously. ICC is moving us toward always being forced to run 2+ tanks in every situation with stacking debuffs requiring taunt swapping and increasing random mob waves; and that is where you realize the true lacking of AOE Threat in the Warrior department.

I think a few things could be done to help:

* Add a Threat Modifier to Cleave by adding the component to an existing talent somewhere in the Protection tree.

* Reduce the Cooldown of Challenging Shout to 30 seconds, add a slight damage component to it (increases damage caused by damage shield by 50% for 10 seconds), and increase the radius to be the same as the AOE effects of other classes.

* Make Retaliation also usable in Defensive Stance.

* Increase the radius of Thunderclap to be the same as the AOE effects of other classes.

* Improved Defensive Stance 1/1 - Increase the threat generated while in defensive stance by an additional 20%, reduces damage taken by an additional 10%, and damage caused is only reduced by 2%.




These would be my simple fixes, and they would not alter or change the class into anything other than viable for the current state of the game in raiding environments.

Ok well I missed the simple issue of items only affect nearby targets which I do reget missing Kojiyama. If that is the case why arn't pally's and dk's having as much trouble with there aoe threat?

You can always add mocking blow rework to the idea list as well. I too long to see the day Retaliation to be use in defensive stance. The only thing i rather not see is increase threat values of items instead of boosting up our over dps. Like everyone knows warriors are lowest on most (if not all) scales and mostly its due to our threat values on our ablities too keep us in the lowest range. On the plus side festergut i am above our pally in dps :).

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Originally Posted by Kojiyama

I disagree, actually.

There is something wrong with Warrior AoE tanking threat: it's too low.

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I've never had an issue getting the job done, but to be fair what I should have said was "there's nothing so wrong with warrior AOE threat that it requires a new or significantly altered mechanic".

There are lots of places where it could be improved, including increasing damage, implicit threat (or both) on Damage Shield, Shockwave (probably have to be threat...it already hits hard), or Thunderclap. Or a deep prot talent could increase the number of targets that cleave hits by one or two.

Especially since Damage Shield can no longer crit it seems like there's no reason not to increase its damage (and perhaps its bonus threat).

My larger point is I don't want to see a new DoT from TC/SW, or other mechanic that magically continues to apply new threat ala DnD and Consecrate. Buffs to the tools we have is good, but making more dummy-proof new tools is not something I want to see added to warrior AOE tanking.

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Originally Posted by TomHuxley

My larger point is I don't want to see a new DoT from TC/SW, or other mechanic that magically continues to apply new threat ala DnD and Consecrate. Buffs to the tools we have is good, but making more dummy-proof new tools is not something I want to see added to warrior AOE tanking.

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This idea had crossed my mind but keeping in with my theme of more dps verse more threat in general. This would only server to keep our dps lower and then it wouldn't scale right either. Deepwounds is the only spec that has a boost to AoE tanking and thats because of this same affect. The sad part is if we keep wanting warrior AoE threat easier / better this could be the way they go about doing it. Be it a short term fix.

I rather like the idea of Retaliation some how reworked into defense stance though. It would do the same thing down side is it would need to be lowered on CD to make it using during aoe items(currently 5mins). It would need to be lowered to around the time of shockwave and be removed from talent point reductions as well to avoid CD issues. The next problem of that would be PVP issues with it though.

I also like the idea of a prot Retaliation, but it would make fairly serious problems with PvP vs melee (and not just a small problem for rogues who don't know how to PvP).

Like you I'd much rather see our AOE improved via more damage to existing abilities, I'm just saying if they want to buff our sustained DPS elsewhere then a buff to the bonus threat of TC or SW would not be the end of the world.

When I can spec into Deep Wounds and throw on gear with more DPS stats (e.g. heroics) I have not the slightest issue with AOE threat and my DPS becomes quite respectable, which is why I think a larger part of the problem is how many points we have to spend in the prot tree that can't go into other talents. If we didn't need to talent and glyph into Imp SW for raids we could put some more points into Cruelty, for example. And there's no reason we couldn't get a bit of expertise or hit rating from 1H specialization.

These things alone would help quite a bit with our DPS, but with GC saying we'd see a boost to sustained DPS in the next patch (along with the dreaded nerfs from PVP) we hopefully won't have to wait too long.

It also doesn't help that Thunder Clap has weak crits. :)

The biggest issue I have with Warrior AoE threat right now is the poor scaling. Damage Shield is a big contributor to this, as the scaling is next to non-existant. Cleave's bonus damage/threat is and has always been static. Shockwave is nice, but the cooldown keeps it from being enough of a game-changer.

It may not always be an issue, but the DPSers in my guild do more than high enough DPS to pull off me. There is little physically you can do to stop it. Using AoEs on every cooldown and trying to keep up single-target stuff as much as possible will still fall behind unless stuff dies really quickly. Over long/sustained fights with high AoE DPS levels, you simply will fall behind--it's pretty much numerically impossible to keep up.

The thing is, it wouldn't require a huge change really. Some tweaks to Damage Shield and Thunder Clap would likely be sufficient, or perhaps some of the things suggested in the last couple posts. Major changes aren't needed, but some scaling is. (I also wouldn't complain about Thunder Clap being turned into a proper melee ability someday...)

Really, I see this all boiling down to a few facts:

1) Warriors Tanks have all the tools they need to be competitive AoE tanks.

2) However, the functioning of those tools is not at par with other tanks.

3) The main disadvantage is damage. We either need more sustained dmg or more frequent burst dmg.

4) We don't want "puddle" effects or higher threat multipliers.

5) We can't continue to sacrifice the number of talent points and glyphs spots (in a raid setting) it takes to be competitive.

The very simplest solution I see is lowering the CD on Thunderclap. I would suggest by 2 seconds. 99% of every problem I've ever had AE tank comes from TC being on CD.

Under "Nice but not required" it would be good to see Thunderclap function as magical dmg or be unmitigated by armor. Behaving as "normal" warrior abilities in regards to hit and crit would be nice as well.

Shockwave should not be touched. Its a powerful ability in PvP, and can actually be problematic for AoE threat if used inappropriately.

Long run views:

1) Cleave should really hit all targets in front of the warrior. (A nice boost in all specs).

2) Bloodbath!

This is going to be interesting because they are talking about other tanks (pally's) aoe threat verse everyone else. So as it may seem we problemly won't see any affect to a large degree until xpac at least they know about it. Well just see if they actually do something about it.

My understanding is they will not be buffing warrior AOE threat much in Catc, but rather nerfing that of other tanks a bit. Which is fine by me. That said, I'd like to see Damage Shield scale better. TC hitting harder is ok, but I don't think it's a good idea to decrease it's cooldown at all. First, it turns AOE tanking from somethig that requires skill (tab selecting, best use of AOE CDs, etc) to largely a one button spam, which is the opposite of how warriors should work. Second, that much AOE damage (along with SW and gyphed cleave) could create new PVP problems I suspect.

Just a quick point here.

All the AE threat moves on every class have a cooldown. Timing those moves during add packs is part of the challenge of tanking -its not warrior specific.

Well, okay except bears I guess :P

I do have to say, on my warrior, that 5 man tanking is not really a problem now. Certainly, there are times when DPS do things where its just not possible to recover from, but I think this is true for any of the tanking classes.

Raiding is different. There, the mechanics become a problem. Sure, vigilancing your Paladin tank helps, but what if the Paladin tank *refuses* to let you put Vigilance on them? When people are used to having a Paladin tank around, you just look sub-par no matter what you do. That's why I dumped my warrior for raiding (again) - having all the neat toys is cool, but its just not fun to be the low-threat tank.

It really is no wonder that the most common tank by far on my server, in my raids, and on my battlegroup is a Paladin.

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Originally Posted by Eravian

The biggest problem with that is that the Warrior AoE tank rotation then becomes 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-ad infinitum, it would be a broken threat mechanic, unless they nerfed it severely.

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Yes, and then warriors would be druids.

Been thinking on this a little harder...

Perhaps a really easy solution is to not mess with any cooldowns, damage, or threat mechanics but simple make Thunderclap always crit.

Solves 2 problems:

1) Higher dmg over all.

2) Will guarantee Deep Wounds applies. Providing sustained threat.

Seems pretty awesome to me and just about bringing us in line. And if you aren't specced Deep wounds? Let the other guy tank the trash...

Or you could make a deep prot talent make Thunderclap apply deep wounds. To keep it out of the hands or DPS warriors, though they could use a little AE love themselves.

Thoughts?

//Kak