Ulduar & Patchwerk PTR Test

[Satrina]

It was definitely a generally directed comment, not aimed at any one person in particular. Class comparison posts have the potential to turn into the worst of the worst at the best of times. There is always a surge of them around major patches when abilities are being juggled and tuned, and people often assume the worst when thier class is changed or not changed while another is changed or not changed. We're just giving fair warning that we will be watching and clamping down before things get out of hand, that's all.

[Warwench]

I guess I am a bit confused then. the linked post is a comparison of tank classes, a pretty telling one I think too, and yet we should avoid discussing what it might show ?

I think it highlights what some people have felt for a while that after the introduction of the heroic class, some other classes are not scaling well enough to keep up in all round tanking viability. It appears to me that with some classes there are many benefits and very few drawbacks and the benefits scale very well. With other, older, classes... the benefits are not so cut and dry anymore and with everyone having some of the same drawbacks, benefits are what a lot of people are seeing.

i just hope this kind of very detailed, very well thought out and presented testing will yield some results in managing the pro's and con's for each of the tank classes to get us all around the same point. i hope that comes in the forms of uplifting the down trodden, but suspect it is easier to scale one or 2 down than others up.

[Darksend]

I would like to point out that as xav said, he himself did not do much testing on this because the goal of the test was to show how the power of chaining cooldowns (most of which came from external sources) can completely negate boss abilities

talking to grafarion warrior main tank of vodka (who were running their tests parallel to premo's) told me that he was consistently pushing the 35-40 mark that premos druid was able to

this is nothing new. warirors paladins and druids tanking 3d sarth have relied on external cooldowns for almost every breath after the second, but what shocked me is that they could keep it going for FOUR MINUTES, he died at 52, starting cooldowns around 25-30 that is 270 seconds of cooldowns, accounting for a slight 1-2 second cooldown during the early stacks where it is not as important and the fact they ran out and he died at 52 brings it down to about the 4 minute even mark

the implications of this go way beyond simple boss mechanics, imagine the 10% and under wipes because of enrage timers, think about the ramafications of being able to heal through a 500% berserk for 4 minutes, this would have effectively pushed bruts enrage timer to almost 10 minutes.....

[jere]

I guess I am a bit confused then. the linked post is a comparison of tank classes, a pretty telling one I think too, and yet we should avoid discussing what it might show ?

There is a difference between discussing it and people whining about it. The comments are made to remind people about "how" they say it. For example, people going "warriors are the worst tank ever. We are behind all the other tanks. I watch pallies/dk/whatever do 5 million times more damage than me and only push 1 button. I have to push 23^14 buttons and I still can't compete". None of that stuff actually is productive or constructive (same goes for pallies/dks/druids whining too). The linked post goes into parses with numbers and discussion about those numbers. Two totally different beasts.

The comments about class comparison stuff made earlier were simply a "warning shot fired across the bow" to make sure people understood the topic was being watched. It is aimed at complaint/whining posts, not constructive discussion backed by data/facts/etc.

[Xav]

exactly dark. while we could have pushed the warrior, paladin, and probably druid numbers a bit higher, it wouldn't have been too significant. eventually we run out and there's a huge lull.

This is something I wrote up real quick without much min/maxing for a warrior, assuming they had the new glyphs:

15 seconds - Shield Wall
35 seconds - Last Stand + shield block
47 seconds - Hand of Sac 1
59 seconds - Hand of Sac 2
75 seconds - Shield Wall
87 seconds - Hand of Sac 3
99 seconds - Divine Guardian 1
111 seconds - Divine Guardian 2
121 seconds - Crab+Charge+Seed+Shield Block (+5k hp, high block, dodge)
129 seconds - Pain Suppression
144 seconds - Shield Wall
164 seconds - Last stand + shield block
176 seconds - Hand of Sac 1
188 seconds - Hand of Sac 2
204 seconds - Shield Wall
216 seconds - Hand of Sac 3
226 seconds - near-nothing: SB/Crab
234 seconds - (ends) near-nothing: SB/Crab
254 seconds - Last Stand + shield block
269 seconds - Shield Wall

This could possibly be re-arranged to get longer, it most likely can if you space out the cooldowns a bit so your downtime doesn't all stack up at the end like that.

A DK can probably perfect it to go forever, even.

[Draks]

Xav -

Could you give ballpark estimates of the armor, HP, avoidance, and block percentage/value for each of those tests? Excellent comparison by the way.

[North]

Cooldown scripting is certainly counter to the 'reactive' playstyle the developers were promoting at WotLK release (and that I think most of us prefer). Thanks for all your hard work detailing these issues.

[Jamor]

Cooldown scripting is certainly counter to the 'reactive' playstyle the developers were promoting at WotLK release (and that I think most of us prefer). Thanks for all your hard work detailing these issues.

Well, all I know is that if 3.1 comes and the SW glyph stays the same, I am goign to talent into it and use it as mitigation.

[brain9h]

A DK can probably perfect it to go forever, even.

The way things are headed, tanks are becoming the hardest classes to play because we will have to maintain two parallel rotations, one offensive (threat) and another defensive (cooldowns).

I think this excessive complexity is a step in the wrong direction, instead on focusing on threat, damage, situational awareness/positioning, we will have to waste our precious attention on a second rotation. This is fine for one or two hard mode bosses, Sartharion for example, where MT does nothing except the cooldown rotation. Great. But if fights start to be balanced around this because one class can do it with ease, and if other classes receive similar abilities due to balance issues/complaints, then the hard-mode gimmick becomes daily reality, and in my personal opinion, it sucks. It is a *critical* change in 3 classes play style, namely the Warrior, Paladin and Druid, styles that I have personally not subscribed to -- yet.

It could be a change for the better, but I'm skeptical at this point. Tanks are usually under greater pressure in a raid environment, and I don't see how maintaining a secondary rotation perfectly timed is going to make our game for fun. Also the learning curve for new tanks is greater. Raid setup is also affected, with paladins and priest receiving the upper hand against shamans/druids.

I really hope Blizzard gives this a more serious look. Xav and Premo have made a great job highlighting it, congratulations and thanks for your hard work. Now let's wait for the blue post.

[Thrym]

New post on WoW tank forum, the Shield Wall cooldown isn't intended to be as low as it is.

This test leaves me with some questions, overall.

All in all, it seems to tell us what we already knew, in that overall armor/eh still carry tremendously well into heavier hits, and a large variety of cooldowns carries a tank into an area well past the time to live we're accustomed to from our standard armor/eh theory.

It also seems to display the relative breaking point for the block mechanic, since the warrior/paladin more or less fall off at the same time--this seems like a rather invaluable piece of information.

I think another test is in order, if it can be arranged. One in which the mob hits for 8kish, but the attack speed scales faster and faster, rather than the damage increasing--or another way of emulating faster hits for real damage, but a relatively manageable per-hit level. From this, we I think we could see the relative value of block and avoidance on faster hitting mobs as compared to the cooldown/eh/armor approach of the druid and DK that pulled ahead on the original test.

I don't really know how a test like that might play out in the end, but it does seem to ramp into an area that we perceive to be advantaged for a tank type, whereas the test made ramps squarely into an area that we knew was advantageous to the other.

[Horacio]

Ghostcrawler says:

The cooldown of Shield Wall is not intended to be that low.

In response to this thread: World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Why is 1 minute shield wall still on the PTR?

[Krenian]

Xav, my question is this:

Granted, I didn't really follow too much of this but what exactly is the point of it being discussed, if I can boldly ask. My DPS mind doesn't wrap very well around the whole tanking situation however I'm curious as to what the situation is to be honest.

Is it that the tanks are actually not happy with the fact that DKs have so many cooldowns that they could take the least amount of damage?

Is it the fact that tanking is turning into a cooldown happy tanking rotation that revolves you just clicking your cooldowns in synch with others?

If it's option one, it's how the class was made to be honestly. If it's option two, I see it as something that's rather specific as all heck to actually have to do to get that rotation going and a lot of people won't worry about it. This isn't to say that the point you're trying to get across is bad or anything, It's more of me wanting to know what the viewpoint of people is exactly.

If this has been addressed somewhere else I haven't seen, apologies, I'm just curious as to what exactly the issue is with the death knight cooldowns. Yes, we got a lot. Yes, we can mitigate a lot if we are smart, but to absolutely mitigate every bit of damage removes a lot of focus from the game and you could never really perfect your rotation, due to luck and other factors aka lag and whatnot.

[Darksend]

Is it the fact that tanking is turning into a cooldown happy tanking rotation that revolves you just clicking your cooldowns in synch with others?

but also the ability to combine DK cooldowns with external cooldowns and completely break boss mechanics such as enrages

[TomHuxley]

What's disturbing (thought not surprising based on my own experience) is that the DK was this far ahead on a physical mitigation fight. Now what if the majority of the spike damage was magical?

That, after all, is their "specialty".

Also, that's why in our guild our hybrid-specced DK can do a better job tanking maylgos at the same time as he puts out 40% more DPS.

[zx00]

I personally don't like this trend, remeber what blizz said about the shield block change for warriors? they wanted it to be a skill to press when you needed instead of a skill that you have to use every CD, which is what is happening right now with the classes. It seems everything they are doing are based on DKs as their standard of rules instead of finding new and creative ways to balance the game.

[mistersix]

exactly dark. while we could have pushed the warrior, paladin, and probably druid numbers a bit higher, it wouldn't have been too significant. eventually we run out and there's a huge lull.

This is something I wrote up real quick without much min/maxing for a warrior, assuming they had the new glyphs:

15 seconds - Shield Wall
35 seconds - Last Stand + shield block
47 seconds - Hand of Sac 1
59 seconds - Hand of Sac 2
75 seconds - Shield Wall
87 seconds - Hand of Sac 3
99 seconds - Divine Guardian 1
111 seconds - Divine Guardian 2
121 seconds - Crab+Charge+Seed+Shield Block (+5k hp, high block, dodge)
129 seconds - Pain Suppression
144 seconds - Shield Wall
164 seconds - Last stand + shield block
176 seconds - Hand of Sac 1
188 seconds - Hand of Sac 2
204 seconds - Shield Wall
216 seconds - Hand of Sac 3
226 seconds - near-nothing: SB/Crab
234 seconds - (ends) near-nothing: SB/Crab
254 seconds - Last Stand + shield block
269 seconds - Shield Wall

This could possibly be re-arranged to get longer, it most likely can if you space out the cooldowns a bit so your downtime doesn't all stack up at the end like that.

A DK can probably perfect it to go forever, even.

Guardian spirit should be in the mix as well right?

[Aerona]

Ghostcrawler's post about Shield Wall not being intentionally on a 1 minute cooldown is both good and bad news.

It is good because that means this sort of secondary, defensive cooldown rotation is probably not going to be the norm.

It is bad because, unless there are some other changes to be the classes up to an equal footing--in some way not necessarily with cooldown-chaining,-- there will still be a gap between the tanking classes.

I would much rather see a change revolving around equipped Shields that increase mitigation and also magical damage.

As the GM and MT of my guild, if no change occurs then I will have to either level a DK myself, or pass down the MT spot to our guild's DK tank. I see no reason to stick with a warrior tank when a DK can do a better job, make the healer's lives easier, and do more dps than I can at the same time.

I may have run the risk of inciting some flames. I did my best to be polite but just incase: I do not imply that the DK class is easy to play, and a lot of skill is involved in using cooldowns appropriately as well as juggling both the rune and runic power resource. It's not Death Knights I have the problem with, and I enjoy the distinction in the classes. I just want something equally cool and fun for the warrior that makes us comparable, but maintaining specific differences in class mechanics.

[headknocker]

Excellent data. Minor note:
Looks like on the pally test, one of the 2 LoH was 100% overheal. That may have been worth a debuff stack or two.

still digesting rest, thanks for taking the time and effort to do this.

[Shake]

I first want to say thanks for all the hard work that goes into these forums. I tank with a Warrior, cleared all content up to 3D, Mt'd every boss encounter the game has to offer. I have to say, its funny how things have changed...we used to have the best panic buttons...now it seems we have the worst. I like some of the changes they've done with tanking, but what I dont like is the "All tanks can MT" mentality that bliz has put into peoples heads...All tanks could MT in BC...in fact, I thought there was a good balance between the classes for MT's...thing is though, it took time learning your class, rotations, specs, etc...it's how you could tell the good tanks from the bad.
But that weeding out process has ended thanks to the homogenization of all classes. So now people that had to re-roll because they weren’t good tanks are back to tanking again, being the reason for the drop in quality for tank forums as well as a drop in quality for tanking as a whole. I understand why blizz did it...to stop all the QQ'ing and all, but I think this whole having to watch your cool downs & threat rotation is Blizzards attempt at bringing somewhat of a challenge back to tanking again.

[TomHuxley]

I decided not to go with my previous post at the last moment (it wasn't intended as flame-bait, but I feared it would act that way) or let me just say I think Aerona put it very well, and as an officer and a MT in our guild I have similar concerns.