Behind the scenes we've been discussing a variety of tank-related subjects, but since last Thursday we've been interrupted by focused Ulduar testing. For the many people who were on the PTR, it was difficult to get a whole lot of testing on the actual encounters due to server stability issues, but the basic strategies became clear and several top guilds brought kills together.
The three main things I came out of the process thinking were:
For tanks, probably the single most important thing learned from the PTR was through the Patchwerk tests Sunday evening. In this test, Patchwerk doesn't Hateful Strike but instead becomes increasingly more damaging as time passes. Premonition spent time coming up with focused, class-by-class parses for each of the classes. I'd strongly suggest stopping by and reading Xav's summary of Patchwerk DPS and Tank Testing. Pay attention to the responses from each of the Premonition tanks.
- We're possibly going to see a lot more frequent use of burst damage, both physical and magical.
- We have no idea if the encounters are balanced for each of the classes based on the available testing. This is not the same as saying we have no idea if the classes are balanced.
- Constant raid movement may be more frequent, as part of a continuing trend to help make encounters more difficult through other means.
Also, for fair warning, we're seeing a few too many class complaint posts, and I'd rather not turn either this news post or Xav's thread into another one. The data should be read judiciously. We will be heavily moderating further class comparison threads on TankSpot until the next stage of PTR testing -- you've been warned!
Update: Xav did some additional testing between the tanks. Check it out here! Xav's second Summary of Patchwerk Tank Testing
Last edited by Kazeyonoma; 03-03-2009 at 09:48 AM.
Wow the dk's first post was just spot on on how i look at my dk. Dk's are not healt/armor monsters we take as much damage as other tanks, but our cd's are op in some cases. Looking at the cd changes that warr/palas are getting i think blizz have a good idea on how to further balance the classes.
Time to start leveling my DK more :P
Tanks: We like it rough.
Any idea why this change was made? Patchwerk has always been in his own way an 'iconic' encounter and in the current 10/25 man iteration, not too terribly difficult but a definite test for entry level raiders, healers in particular.In this test, Patchwerk doesn't Hateful Strike but instead becomes increasingly more damaging as time passes.
I expect the number of players in Naxx to decrease significantly when 3.1 goes live and many people running it will be alts. Just....strange.
your hat may be nice, but I have the little white tank top that says Legendary right across my boobs. I win. (or more correctly, H wins)
Horacio, that is a TEST. I think the mob is in Ulduar and looks like Patchwerk but it's not really him. Nothing changed on the original Patch
Personally, I don't care for the solution that the glyphs of Last Stand and Shield Wall are going to make warriors ok. Yes, I think they are great glyphs but what they are saying is that all warrior tanks are going to need them and I'll bet they will be major glyphs as well.
If a reduction in the CD of these two core tanking ablities is needed for the warrior class, why not just reduce the abilities cooldown and forget the glyphs?
Yea, the mob's called "Patchwerk (PTR Tank Test)" and is simply a modified version of Patchwerk. 10 seconds in combat = +10% damage dealt. He doesn't enrage or do anything else.
Just wanted to say Cider, thanks for the last part, about telling people to quit QQing. It seems that there is more of that than actual help anymore. This is a great game, and if you all didn't think so, you wouldn't be putting so much time in it!
Couple of quick questions for Xav. What was your glyph setup like and did you use shield block continually or as more of minor CD? I don't think either of these would play a large role but just curious.
It's shame they don't have a magic based test "patch", It would be nice to see some actual numbers on the discrepency there.
I would like to ask, as i saw on Xav's thread linked by Cider, on how far are paladins below other tanks? A few days ago i thought that paladins as tanks where very easily healed and managed even without extreme cooldowns. Thought that keep in us block capped and getting a slightly higher hp boost protection % was giving us some edge over other tanks... specially over DK's and Druids... Maybe I'm very uninformed or just been fooling myself this entire time! Not QQing not even close would like to know what's my classes standard with other choices of tanks. (If you search further Xav's post you can see why.)
I have some questions :
- Was your Paladin using the new Glyph of Divine Plea for 3% more mitigation?
- Do you plan to retry this with the new Glyph of Shield Wall and Glyph of Last Stand? Do you think this will change the way we are tanking hard hitting bosses to a more CD oriented one ("a la" DK)?
- I see your druid was using an avoidance setup. Do you plan to try this as well with Xav?
- From your (or Darthn) point of view, will Savage Defense have a significant impact on these results?
The new glyphs aren't on the PTR's yet. I was using glyph of blocking, devastate, and heroic strike I think. I used SB pretty much every time it was up. Towards the end I tried to use it with a nightmare seed I believe but it's a minor boost at best.
When all the new stuff is implemented and a new wave of changes go through as they undoubtedly will, we'll certainly do more testing if the test patchwerks are enabled again.
Being that the druid results were already quite good, savage defense will just be a bit more of a gain for them. It's just block, after all, which is bad, but at least it's a little bit of *something*.
The "test pally" was a healer main spec. So his tankin set was to "ideal". Here is what he posted on the wow forum:
As I said in the thread on the wow forum, I AM grateful that he took the time and effort to throw on his taking set and give it a go. Honestly though, I think a properly geared paladin tank would have been closer to the warrior in TTL. The T7 tankadin helm and legs are poorly itemized for most "boss" encounters, and throwing a BV meta and strength gem in the helm isn't helping.I had a little under 39k health buffed (no stoneblood) but I was missing my t7.5 helm from live and was using my threat gemmed t7 helm instead (BV meta 27str). Was also using t7.5 legs instead of my live migitation legs. Using Angry Dead with Mongoose. Rest in close pretty damn good although not perfect since Prot is a second spec - most of it is BiS minus Boundless Ambition/Broken Promise/Malygos legs.
So was missing about 1k health from what I'd have on live and a bit of avoidance. Probably wouldn't have made much, if any difference though.
Edit: Also keep in mind that on my tanking attempt we had one less Bubble Wall and one less Sacrifice since I can't use them on myself.
l2 proofread? "....his tanking set was NOT ideal"
Off topic: Can't edit quick replies?
Out of all of this information, I gathered this quote to be the most striking when it comes to the different tanking classes.
Posted by Xav:
"I feel giving multiple tanks short cooldowns to chain will only encourage a complete cooldown rotation like the DK did. Doing so trivializes boss damage no matter how unbelievably hard they hit, which can make you completely skip gear checks or maybe even fight mechanics."
This is blizzard once again reducing the game to pressing a few abilities over and over again because to many people QQ about actually learning how to tank. I really hope this is not the path they go down. Passing out shorter CD's to bring the already "homogenized" tank classes in line is taking the easy way out to fix the tanking communities concerns.
My 2 copper.
There is something so appealing about backhanding someone across the face with a shield.
This is excellent data you guys put together. Thanks Premonition.
"If I'm doing a fight and I need more threat... I try harder. If I'm doing a fight and I need my taunts not to miss, then I wear hit." -Veneretio
I agree with this and I think this is what has been bothering me so much about the glyph changes in particular. It might settle more easily in my mind once its been give time to breathe, I suppose but this represents a major shift in the way a warrior tank is played as well as forcing the usage of a glyph in the same vein as the rationale behind removing the +75 stam to weapon enchant.Out of all of this information, I gathered this quote to be the most striking when it comes to the different tanking classes.
Posted by Xav:
"I feel giving multiple tanks short cooldowns to chain will only encourage a complete cooldown rotation like the DK did. Doing so trivializes boss damage no matter how unbelievably hard they hit, which can make you completely skip gear checks or maybe even fight mechanics."
This is blizzard once again reducing the game to pressing a few abilities over and over again because to many people QQ about actually learning how to tank. I really hope this is not the path they go down. Passing out shorter CD's to bring the already "homogenized" tank classes in line is taking the easy way out to fix the tanking communities concerns.
My 2 copper.
__________________
If progression boss fights are expecting a tank to have a 40% damage reduction up that frequently, its really forcing our hand and making a optional customization feature required or standard.
Oh sorry, I missed the bit about the 'test' Patchwerk. I'm a tard sometim...alot of the times.
your hat may be nice, but I have the little white tank top that says Legendary right across my boobs. I win. (or more correctly, H wins)
Sorry for Quoting you again Xav
This concerns me. I though blizzard came out with duel specs so everyone could utilize 2 "different" specs. I have been dutifully collecting dps gear for when we reach boss encounters that only require one tank, so I could in a sense swap to "kitty" and actually be useful. I am also the primary MT for our guild, but I like to step aside and let our other regular tanks do some MT roles as well. Its only fair they have put in the work and time too. With duel specs I saw the option to let us rotate around so everyone gets fair MT time and still provide worthy dps."Dual speccing for two tank specs is going to be extremely common for any serious tank, that's just a given."
As I understood it Blizzard wanted all the tanks to be viable as a MT. With the information on the table now I am inclined to agree with you that as a serious tank I would want to have 2 tank specs. This puts me back to square one. Dps'n with a sword and board, putting out less than optimal dps.
There is something so appealing about backhanding someone across the face with a shield.
Exactly, as if we didn't have enough of a button smashing issue in regards to HS, now we have to constantly manage "panic button" CD's.Originally Posted by Horacio
There is something so appealing about backhanding someone across the face with a shield.
I just wanted to note that my comments were not to complain but expand on comments made in the linked post. I you would rather not have them here, please accept my humble apology and feel free to delete them with my complete understanding.
There is something so appealing about backhanding someone across the face with a shield.
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