A way to fix warrior AoE threat?

[Ontarin]

"Rolling Thunder"
For the next ten seconds, you cast a thunderclap once every second.
Instant, 1 minute cooldown.
25 rage.


Thoughts? Could be tweaked, this is just an idea. As i think about it, our sustained AoE threat still would not be the greatest, but i do see something like this taking us in a better direction. Even make it something along the lines of "When active, the warrior becomes enraged, causing earthquake once every 2 seconds for 10 seconds. Earthquake causes [0.75 * AP] damage (based on attack power)." If you aren't up for remember every tool tip (i know i wouldn't), that is shockwaving every 2 seconds for 10 seconds. Again, this could be modified (warriors have a sad time of relying on +threat abilities) to be a +threat ability, or something along those lines. Any input would be great! Also posted on the WoW forums, but trolls are unavoidable there.

[Roarc]

Given the above sounds interesting it only adds yet another cool down to our AoE arsenal. I'd rather see:

Improved Thunder Clap
- This leaves a damage DoT on the add dealing damage based on AP or BV
- This leaves an AoE effect on the ground where the Thunder Clap was made. This would lower the issue of being dependant on the 6 sec cool down.
- Possibly reduces the cool down of Thunder Clap slightly. This would lower the issue of being dependant on the 6 sec cool down.
- Possibly increases the damage of Thunder Clap slightly. The DoT would do this and primarily increase damage over time - i.e sustained AoE threat / damage vs high bursts.
- Should make TC crit like other spells. On average from a raid this week a TC crit is ≈60% more damage than a normal hit. Comparing to other spells revenge was 120% more damage, Shockwave was 100% more damage and Cleave was 120% more damage when criting. End-result would be about 7-8% more damage.
- Being directly hit by TC still gives the slowing swing debuff we have today
- Being hit by the AoE ground-effect leaves the damage-dot (i.e. we don't have an all-mighty pool of where we can apply our slowing-debuff)

The above buffs would however have to be relatively deep into the protection tree, say a tier 2-4 follow-up of Improved Thunder Clap (i.e. it would cost something like 4 talent points in total). Adding damage and threat with a DoT would put a limit to the amount of damage you can output esp. in terms of burst. TC had a much higher value in Wrath Beta but it showed we could run around tanking just using that which wasn't the intent. We also have to be careful buffing TC at a low tier level seing it could scale as a dps-warrior ability then as well (which when I think of it wouldn't be all bad but balancing it with the protection tree might be hard).

The second part would be an improved cleave for the protection tree. This could for instance replace puncture, be integrated into one-hand weapon specialization or even a follow up to this or something else. This should either be a direct boost to cleave damage but also a boost to the amount of cleave targets. This would give us the option of handling a low amount of mobs (4 or less) with out going crazy like today with tab-targeting. It should imo not be a 360° attack since we have TC for that.

All of the above would cost us some talents points but we already have one talent at least that we in my opinion pay to much for - one-hand weapon specialization. This could be reduced to 3/3 (as Pallies have it) given then we have to get more talents at Tier 6. This or these talents could be better AoE threat. They could also look into the quite week tier 4 talents we have (puncture is useless and improved spell reflect and disarm situational at best).

[Petninja]

Or they could just buff Thunderclap to do 5% more damage... I don't know about you guys but I'm playing my Warrior, not my Paladin. I'd rather keep consecrate on my Paladin, not my Warrior.

[TomHuxley]

Honestly, outside of perhaps increasing the damage (yay!) or even inherent threat (meh) of TC, I'm much more interested in non-magic (and for sure non-consecrate-like) improvements to AOE tanking. It's not really that bad, especially after the Devestate buff. I think some sort of Prot-based cleave ability (Imp Cleave: Now hits 1,2 more targets and costs 10/20% less rage; requires a shield to be equiped) is more in line with being a warrior tank.

[veneretio]

Cleave hitting in a frontal cone is still the best improvement I've read suggested.

[Steakdinner]

I think the main problem with warrior AoE threat is that it isn't on par with the other tank classes. Pallies have consecrate, DKs have DnD/Pestilence, and druids have swipe; all of which can be done at a consistent rate. For warriors, all those mobs better be within thunderclap radius at the time thunderclap is hit, or they don't get to play the warrior game. We need something that can make that constant aoe threat, I liked that rolling thunder suggestion.

[TomHuxley]

I'd be ok with uncapping cleave as long as it isn't 360 (i.e. a frontal cone would be ok). Come on guys, it's just not THAT hard to position yourself when AOE tanking. I really, really don't want a DnD/Consecrate sort of spell; I don't mind working a little harder, I just don't want the results of my hard work to be noticeably inferior. Give me a cleave that hits 4 targets and is cheap and maybe a 5% boost to TC DPS and I'll out-AOE tank most pallies and DKs any time.

[Heladys]

I don't mind working a little harder, I just don't want the results of my hard work to be noticeably inferior

Word. Working harder is fine so long as it's fun, equivalently productive and hopefully slightly more productive.

Working harder for less blows.

[Warwench]

Here it is folks.

Frustrating Defense.

I dont know about you, but if some yo-yo in a steel suit was jumping all over the place blocking, dodging and parrying all my stuff, i'd get a bit pissed and try to hit him harder.

X% change to proc frustrating defense on a dodge/parry/block. Frustrating Defense causes a small amount (yy) threat on the attacking enemy.

That way, our threat, scales with our avoidance.

Tune X, Tune yy, tune it to be an "aura", or a "shout" or what ever you like.. hell i think personally it should be baked into defensive stance.

Get rid of the 5 Rage on avoidance thing in place of this. (not talented, baseline in defensive stance for all Warriors to use, helps with Arms/Fury tanking 5 mans too)

[Roarc]

The main issue isn't burst damage or burst threat it's having available tools for the jobb. It's true a paladin can have a unfortunate gap if they place concrete at a bad spot but on most fights it's superior in picking up multiple adds. The main issue I have with TC is if you for what ever reason use it poorly timed you can be stuck with no AoE abilities for 6 seconds (cleaving 2 mobs with 6 adds spawning isn't enough).

The only thing we really need is a semi-decent AoE threat ability that isn't bound to the 6s lock down of TC or 20s of Shockwave. Cleave or a "cleave type ability" is to me the main thing we're lacking. This should NOT be 360° attack - only frontal cone and could possibly be limited to a limited number of mobs mobs (but far more than 2).

The tab-target-aoe threat isn't that bad today, but you have to work very hard for it. It might be that if we get the above and use that in conjunction with our current TC we're fine (given I still think it's very odd it's got a much lower crit boost than other abilities).

[XtreO]

I'd tell you to get Glyph of Sunder Armour. I've used it for months, though I recently had to change it, and I found AoE tanking became much more demanding after I dumped that glyph.

[Ontarin]

As it is, we are working more for less. And getting a skill named rolling thunder would just be cool (lol). Or even do something along the lines of "Reverberation." The warrior slams his target with a shield, causing a shockwave (need different wording than shockwave, because that isn't what it would be) of force, causing so much threat and so much damage. Requires a shield, deep prot talent.

[sud]

Are we taking suggestions here? I'd like to see an aoe ability as well, along the lines of:
"Trembling Rage"
Instant 12 sec cooldown
Requires Defensive Stance
Requires Melee Weapon
30 Rage

The warrior trembles with rage,
inflicting 30+AP*0.1 damage to
all enemies within 15 yards for
10 sec but locking him into
Defensive Stance for the duration.

[Domiy]

Just wondering, Warriors are already the best MT you can get.. and still you want more?

[sud]

Just wondering, Warriors are already the best MT you can get.. and still you want more?

This is not the subject of this thread, but your statement is arguable at best. Anyhow, being MT or not has nothing to do whatsoever with AOE capabilities which warriors are inferior at the moment.

[Roarc]

Just wondering, Warriors are already the best MT you can get.. and still you want more?

Not sure this is true and it's most certainly off-topic. But speaking of this matter I'd say we're in general in the middle of the pack but our versatility and gear-sets makes us work well as a MT in most situations yes.

Look at the tests made by Premonition for more info. If anything at the moment Palainds are the "favour of the month".

What this topic is about is sorting out a short-comming one class has and that is that our AoE threat is quite trouble-some to deal with. Do other classes tab > attack > tab > attack with 2 specials every 1.5s to be effective in AoE scenarios? I think not, hence it's something that should be looked into. It has nothing to do with us wanting to be over-powered gods, just that it would be nice to not suffer physical injury while playing a game

Glyph of Sunder is an option but we're pressed for Glyph-choices as is sadly.

[Bung]

Is this supposed to be a fantasy type answer? If you want to base things in reality...glyph for cleave and sunder armor for aoe. Since you can re-glyph anywhere...do what I do and carry glyphs with you for certain situations.

[Petninja]

Are we taking suggestions here? I'd like to see an aoe ability as well, along the lines of:
"Trembling Rage"
Instant 12 sec cooldown
Requires Defensive Stance
Requires Melee Weapon
30 Rage

The warrior trembles with rage,
inflicting 30+AP*0.1 damage to
all enemies within 15 yards for
10 sec but locking him into
Defensive Stance for the duration.

My Warrior does not tremble. Ever.

[Purinna]

Has everyone in raiding forgot about Omen? There once was a time when a tank took on multiple mobs and the dps wasn't able to just aoe bomb everything down. Why change warrior abilities to compensate for lazy dps that just wants to blow everything up.

Do you know what Marking mobs is, what about a main assist? Terms not commonly used in raids much anymore im betting.

Warriro tanking is watered down enough right now. For Christs sakes leave us alone.

/rant off

[Roarc]

I'm all with you Purinna but then this should go for all classes and not just Warriors. We can only improve our class relatively to how the game works today. I personally HATE the "mass AoE tanking" we've come to but that's what we can do, it's the most effective so that's what we do.

I'm all for diversity (i.e. class A is better at single target threat, tank B better at AoE and so forth) but that's not the case at the moment. The highest aggro tank is best and both single and AoE and I think it's one of the if not the best classes at survival at the moment as well.

Not saying we're broken but the "quality of life" in AoE situation could be vastly improved.