3.2 No Solution To Rage, Heroic Strike, Damage

[Ciderhelm]

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The following are not class-vs-class balance concerns so don't take them as such. They're longstanding issues the Warrior class has had that are fairly specific to the class.

Rage starvation is a problem. Frankly, we're not sure a model where you have to get hit in order to tank is that compelling anymore. Something that has come up a lot is changing rage (even for Prot) to damage done. This is a slight nerf to the PvP mechanic of being punished when you hit the warrior, but there are other ways to solve that as well. Again, we're talking a big change here. I'm not sure we're comfortable jacking with such a core mechanic before 3.2.

Source.

When will the developers be comfortable with it? This has been a serious issue for years. My concern is that developers have been looking at this in a patch-to-patch perspective, always pushing it off. But when do you break the cycle? When do you say, 'now we're ready?' Do you wait until 4.0 when you can change mechanics? A passing solution was in place in 3.0 and was removed in the beta process for no apparent reason, followed by the removal of rage from Sanctuary in live.

Give us rage on Avoidance. Don't make it a glyph, don't make it a new set of talents, put it somewhere that we're going to get it by doing what we're already doing. There is absolutely no reason for us to be doing worse DPS as our gear increases, and it serves absolutely no sensible purpose. Even if it's a bandaid or a short-term fix until a long-term solution is given, it's still better than sitting there wondering when we're actually going to get to use an ability because we were unlucky.

Heroic Strike spam is another issue that has been acknowledged for months but nothing has been done. The best we can say is to bind it to the mousewheel to reduce the impact it has on our wrists. While this works, not everyone reads forums to find these things out, and it's still a clunky mechanic that ties directly into the rage issue.

Damage output for Protection Warriors needs to be increased and innate Threat (or Vigilance, or both) needs to be decreased. Taking it out of the realm of the abstract, I can recall very specific instances where a tank with higher damage output would have prevented a wipe and earned our guild an initial boss kill. Prior to the most recent nerf, XT-002 came down to whether he decided to tantrum immediately after an enrage or not, and with how tight the timer was, simply switching tanks would have been a kill much earlier. This may be anecdotal, but this is specifically what was being referred to when developers said tank DPS may be a contributing factor in encounter timers.

Two major glyphs & two talent points to bring our survivability cooldowns in line with encounter timers. Why? (Not dismissing that Paladins have this issue as well)

I'll defer the rest of this to Satrina's thread on the Tanking Forums.

[Horacio]

In the event they do not see fit to increae warrior tank damage output and balance threat multipliers to that (which is the best solution), how about a rage generation multiplier applied to defensive stance? I would rather see rage on avoidance but that's something we've been clamoring for for a long time.

All that said, while taking direct damage from a boss mob, I have not seen much rage starvation.

I often think about it in terms of explaining a tank's role to a non Wow player. "Well, the boss hits me because I am the most threatening target. Do I 'hurt' it more than others? No, I have these multipliers that make it think I am the first thing that needs to die." i'm not saying a tank's damage needs to be comperable to DPS classes but it should be higher than it is. This wasn't as much an issue in T7 content because we warriors at least cheesed it by taking DPS talents and the content was simple enough to overpower that way. We could probably still get away with it in many instances but the nerf to deep wounds hurt us most despite targeting fury warriors.

I suppose its possible that part of it is to prevent prot warriors from becoming unstoppable juggernauts in PvP but...I don't quite believe that.

IMO, it works well enough but could certainly work alot better. Granted, I'm on the backside of the progression curve so my bias leans that way.

[michah]

the warrior thing is really frustrating. prot warriors are capable of doing unreal amounts of burst damage in arena at the moment, while being damn near impossible to stop (yeah i know, who cares about arena - the devs do, that's who). it's stupid, i don't know how the developers backed themselves into this corner with warriors and inverse tps/gear quality issues *AGAIN*, but here's to hoping they come up with some solutions in a timely manner.

[Aerona]

I am very pessimistic about any positive changes coming for prot warriors for at least another patch after reading the entirety of the thread that Ghostcrawler posted that snippet in. Before that I was certain that rage and heroic strike spam would be addressed, along with a significant change to block (ie. one that makes a difference to both prot pallies and prot warriors). The reason I thought this was because of the amount of talk around it over the past few months. I don't mean just on these forums, but from the devs themselves. Many blue post recaps have had lists of changes that are desired for the warrior class.

Now after reading Ghostcrawler's other comment in that thread I feel like we won't have any significant changes until the tanking classes are balanced out in terms of population. Like Ciderhelm stated above, this isn't really about class vs. class balance in terms of power and raid ulitity, but just sheer numbers of who are filling up those tank roles.

Now, speaking from my guild's perspective: we only have one prot warrior, me. Every other tanking slot is filled up by a variety of the other tanking classes, but we are a new guild and I think that's a symptom of that newness. On one hand I can't really blame them for wanting to balance out the population numbers in any way they can so that each tanking tree is worth investing time into changing, updating, and development hours to remain competitive.

On the other hand, I'm sitting here with my prot warrior geared up nearly in full Ulduar gear and fully expecting to not have any issues addressed, even in a band-aid manner, until 3.3, or even the next expansion, because any sort of buff or hot fix might be seen as making the most popular tanking class even more popular. It doesn't really make sense from the point of view of playing the game, but I understand it from a business perspective.

Here's hoping I'm mistaken and that maybe with some constructive feedback we can get some positive results.

[Hit Me]

The whole BoSanc removal without getting the rage on avoidance thing really irked me. I never imagined they would change one without changing the other.

On the Heroic Strike spammage. I use a Razer Death Adder and I have found that binding HS to the front thumb button to be much more comfortable than having it bound to the scroll wheel. Since I moved it there, I haven't had any issues with fatigue. I can click that thing non stop with very little effort or strain. I'm not sure on how well it would work on other mouses with thumb buttons, but the way the Death Adder is designed, your thumb is resting on that button when it's in it's natural position and the button is sensitive enough that a very light squeeze depresses it.

[Turelliax]

I actually use my Heroic Strike on my thumb button on my mouse.. tryuing ot bind it to my scroll wheel didn't make any sense to me and was not comfortable for me.

As for changes.. i am just trying to not hold my breath and wait and see what happens once some testing on the ptr occurs.

[Warwench]

Give us rage on Avoidance. Don't make it a glyph, don't make it a new set of talents, put it somewhere that we're going to get it by doing what we're already doing. There is absolutely no reason for us to be doing worse DPS as our gear increases, and it serves absolutely no sensible purpose. Even if it's a bandaid or a short-term fix until a long-term solution is given, it's still better than sitting there wondering when we're actually going to get to use an ability because we were unlucky.

I 100% agree.

Make it like the Paladin Righteous Fury.

Frustrating Defense - Warrior has Y% chance to gain X threat on an attacker each time the Warrior dodges/parries/blocks an attackers attack.

Adjust X and Y for balance.

[Warwench]

^^ Adjust threat to be Rage for balance too.

[brain9h]

Kinda frustrating how patch after patch we are being forgotten. I suppose the only reason we don't see the prot warrior player base diminishing is because most people are super attached to their chars, but the idea of rerolling DK has crossed my mind SEVERAL times.

[Kazeyonoma]

I'll agree that sometimes it feels like the devs just go down their list of classes (coincidentally with Warriors at the bottom of the alphabetical list) and see it and think of the daunting task it has... meeting has been running over the 1 hour allotment, and they say... uhh... hrm... we'll discuss warriors at our next meeting.

There was no greater disappointment to me than seeing the massive patch coming in 3.2, the stupendous amount of changes happening to every single class... except warriors. We get 1 minor 150-200 AP boost as our major patch change. Wow.

[Anglachel]

Kinda frustrating how patch after patch we are being forgotten. I suppose the only reason we don't see the prot warrior player base diminishing is because most people are super attached to their chars, but the idea of rerolling DK has crossed my mind SEVERAL times.

That's basically it... i love my warrior to death, but every time i see an undergeared DK doing more damage, or taking less damage, i get closer to just finish leveling my DK...

[cen1]

"I didn't say that was our philosophy. I said it's a concern and a problem we have to be aware of. The goal is not to have 75% or more of main tanks to be of any one class." -GC

This is what is frustrating to me... they are balancing the class around population control??
This is just mind-numbing to me... why should blizz care who is raiding with what class? Why should they care if you have a 25m with all druids & DKs? People are still paying their 15 every month... Yeah it would suck if everyone only chose one class to tank with but that's simply not the case, and I don't think it ever will be.

The problem is the class that the majority of people tank with (assuming warriors) has several major issues that blizzard is neglecting to address until they are ready... ready for what? warriors to quit their class and play DK or druid?... that sounds like a great marketing scheme to me.

I have yet to hear a legitimate reason why blizzard has not addressed these issues, or has at least brain-stormed up some real solutions... other than giving us more of a stat that sucks.

[comradesean]

I'll agree that sometimes it feels like the devs just go down their list of classes (coincidentally with Warriors at the bottom of the alphabetical list) and see it and think of the daunting task it has... meeting has been running over the 1 hour allotment, and they say... uhh... hrm... we'll discuss warriors at our next meeting.

There was no greater disappointment to me than seeing the massive patch coming in 3.2, the stupendous amount of changes happening to every single class... except warriors. We get 1 minor 150-200 AP boost as our major patch change. Wow.

I calculated it to be more around 80 to 120.

[Dubzil]

I calculated it to 250 AP

[cen1]

I calculated it to 250 AP

Does this really even warrant mention in the patch notes...? lol.

[Dubzil]

I'm happy with a 250 AP increase, hopefully there will be a little more than just that by the time the patch comes out.. we'll see

[Hit Me]

I'm happy with a 250 AP increase, hopefully there will be a little more than just that by the time the patch comes out.. we'll see

It usually works the other way. There's a ton of stuff on the initial notes and then it slowly gets whittled away by the time the patch hits. I wouldn't be all that surprised if the AttT change gets scrapped and warriors go untouched this patch.

[Darksend]

Completely agree with you but I also find fault with the rest of that post.

But successful guilds tend to stick with their MT once they find one that works. Many MTs have been doing the job for years, and if they stopped doing it, it's because they typically burned out or something, not that the raid leadership decided another class was a better MT now so it was time to retire the last guy.

After reading this last night our warrior mt mentioned this

"Kungen does not MT anymore. They call him the 'glass tank'. At this point GC's entire argument falls apart."

Their new MT is a former rogue who rerolled DK for LK.

While a lot of guilds still use warriors as MTs such as vodka, premo, and my own guild, the best guild in the world is saying we are throwing away our MT to make content easier.

[Horacio]

Allow me to play the Devil's Advocate for a moment.

How much of the difference between classes is on paper, in raw statistical numbers versus hands on experience? I will admit when a group of players decide to form a guild, a raiding team or piece together a pug, those things matter in their minds unless there is a tank available to them that they know intimately and trust implictly.

Most of the players that post here are not in the top 2% of guilds pushing achievements and world first and even if they are, how many times have you been in a situation where the prevailing wisdom is "Gee, we totally had that. If only our tank had been an X instead of a Y, we'd be passing out loot right now"

There is something to be said for going into battle knowing you may not be the best equipped to do your job. It can be a matter of principle. I don't know how many warriors have lost their job to another class but to me, it seems as if the most likely answer is "I'm still the MT, but this is BS that an XYZ could do better than I could"

For my part, I show up and raid. I've been doing it for 4 years and I am trusted to do my job. We fail if I or our other warrior tank who is the nominal MT make a mistake. We probably have a smaller margin of error in some respects like AoE tanking.

From Blizzard's perspective, they want to see a spread of classes filling all sorts of roles. If they believe warriors are over represented in the tanking department, I'm not sure how else they should manage that if their goal is both class and population balance.

I guess I'm a little bit different in that if a warrior can serve as a tank even if its more difficult to match another class's performance, then I will stick it out. I mean, tanks in general are not exactly the lowest common denomonator. I've raided on all sorts of classes and in all kinds of roles. Tanking is intense. DPSing as a DK is not so much. Many other classes consist of spamming high damage attacks and are in relative terms simple. We chose to tank knowing or even because it was involved and intense and yet we complain because other classes tank tank with fewer button presses and less resource management?

I understand that, I really do. It is a little frustrating.

I guess my point is that while we could stand to see some attention paid to our class and some improvements, its not that bad, we aren't broken, and we are perfectly capable of tanking anything and everything.

[Darksend]

Most of the players that post here are not in the top 2% of guilds pushing achievements and world first and even if they are, how many times have you been in a situation where the prevailing wisdom is "Gee, we totally had that. If only our tank had been an X instead of a Y, we'd be passing out loot right now"

There is something to be said for going into battle knowing you may not be the best equipped to do your job. It can be a matter of principle. I don't know how many warriors have lost their job to another class but to me, it seems as if the most likely answer is "I'm still the MT, but this is BS that an XYZ could do better than I could"

We are pushing 0 watcher yogg in 10 man. Our warrior MT was tanking the encounter. After several sub 10% wipes because heals went off our warrior MT said on vent "If i was on my DK I would have so many more tools to pick up adds we would never have a heal go out or have dark die because I cannot pull the one that healed off him".

Maybe we still have some strat flaw but he was genuinely upset about his ability to pick up adds because of his class. But yes, as you said, he is still our MT and he contstantly talks about his lack of tools compared to other classes.