I really worry about Prot Warrior DPS.

[Aaesop]

Not to fuel the fire or anything but many in the PVP community are pointing to a team that plays on the famed "Battlegroup 9" with a 3v3 team that contains a Protection Warrior, the team is at 3000 rating. Another team on the "Ruin" battlegroup hit first place in 3v3 as well with a protection Warrior.
Alot of arena players, whether they be either immature, unskilled or actually mature or skilled, they're all complaining about protection warriors in pvp settings.

I may not be a warrior myself, but I'm pretty concerned myself about it from the PVE standpoint. It's probably one of the most stickiest situations they've(Blizzard) had to face. I'm certainly really interested in how they're going to address this.
Obviously I wouldn't like to see PVE take a hit but with how Blizzard does things, you almost gotta wince in anticipation :\
Wish ya guys the best of luck on this one!

[Destruyen]

Having Shield Slam scaling from AP instead of BV would be something I think we'd all be happy about, having SS do more damage on average, and remove the burst effect of Shield Block.

i have 4979 unbuffed ap in my prot pvp gearset with only 1657 bv. that would just make ss more potent in pvp since most prot warriors run in a mix of pvp/pve dps gear.

What about the other tanking classes? Why is nothing being said/done about them?

you mean those pesky prot/holy pallies that got nerfed last patch? or the dk's in season 5 that stayed in frost presence the entire game while not having to worry about the dmg penalty of being in said presence and still put out retard burst?

edit: blizz really needs to get rid of arenas and make it a seperate game. don't get me wrong, i enjoy arenas, it's just having to balance one class/spec around one aspect of the game while not trying to ruin the other aspect of it is getting too much.

[Eisen]

*slams face repeatedly into desk*
My god we might be able to kill one or two people in pvp! Nerf naow KTHX!

OK, look, they're probably worried above the burst damage of Shield slam. It's been an issue on and off since BC. And they've been steadily reducing our access to SBV to lower its damage (and summarily reducing our threat, since we were far enough ahead we didn't "need" it). Now in Cata they're doing away with SBV entirely.

Solution: Prot tanks right now are all about initial burst aggro. Kill Shield slam (or reduce it's efficiency majorly), remove the damage coeff from Def Stance entirely, give us a slight boost to Devastate or something to compensate. Lower our burstiness but give us better sustained dps/tps. Will that work? Or do we HAVE to get nerfed to obscurity? I mean, I've been saying since 3.3 that I didn't mind that Prot pallies were stomping us in threat. Now? I'm a little worried. If we get weakened any more, how will that effect things?

[Aaesop]

*slams face repeatedly into desk*
My god we might be able to kill one or two people in pvp! Nerf naow KTHX!

OK, look, they're probably worried above the burst damage of Shield slam. It's been an issue on and off since BC. And they've been steadily reducing our access to SBV to lower its damage (and summarily reducing our threat, since we were far enough ahead we didn't "need" it). Now in Cata they're doing away with SBV entirely.

Solution: Prot tanks right now are all about initial burst aggro. Kill Shield slam (or reduce it's efficiency majorly), remove the damage coeff from Def Stance entirely, give us a slight boost to Devastate or something to compensate. Lower our burstiness but give us better sustained dps/tps. Will that work? Or do we HAVE to get nerfed to obscurity? I mean, I've been saying since 3.3 that I didn't mind that Prot pallies were stomping us in threat. Now? I'm a little worried. If we get weakened any more, how will that effect things?

it's not an issue of shield slam. its the complaints of the "utility","cc" of the class that are bringing in the most attention. The majority of people complaining cite that "nigh indestructable" nature of protection as well as the possibility of firing off some burst in the process.
The argument is that as was somewhat noted in an earlier post is that there's a trade off in Arena/PVP settings. Where people in the process of gaining more survivability, have to give up some of their dps. People feel that those utilizing protection spec don't have to sacrifice much of either.

[Enok]

PVP has ruined this game....and the devs that listen to the PVP whiners...

[swelt]

*slams face repeatedly into desk*
My god we might be able to kill one or two people in pvp! Nerf naow KTHX!

3k arena ratings are not "one or two people in pvp". You suggestions would totally unbalance pve. I think you are missing the point somewhat.

you mean those pesky prot/holy pallies that got nerfed last patch? or the dk's in season 5 that stayed in frost presence the entire game while not having to worry about the dmg penalty of being in said presence and still put out retard burst?

edit: blizz really needs to get rid of arenas and make it a seperate game. don't get me wrong, i enjoy arenas, it's just having to balance one class/spec around one aspect of the game while not trying to ruin the other aspect of it is getting too much.

Those are good examples. I don't think arenas need to die, I think they need a different ruleset. I doubt we'll get that til Cataclysm so I really hope they don't screw things up for PVE between now and then. In fairness, I doubt they will. They are already very aware of the "tank shortage" with the new dungeon system and won't want to piss off tanks any more.

[Aaesop]

3k arena ratings are not "one or two people in pvp". You suggestions would totally unbalance pve. I think you are missing the point somewhat.



Those are good examples. I don't think arenas need to die, I think they need a different ruleset. I doubt we'll get that til Cataclysm so I really hope they don't screw things up for PVE between now and then. In fairness, I doubt they will. They are already very aware of the "tank shortage" with the new dungeon system and won't want to piss off tanks any more.

^ this. I failed to elaborate in my last reply that alot of people are hopping on the "prot pvp" bandwagon so to speak, and many garnering a lot of success doing so.
I also agree that if they were going to do something major like a different ruleset, it would get done with Cataclysm. And again as you said, I too don't think they're going to budge much as far as arenas go.
In BC arena teams worked with a resto druid in mind for the most part. They became insanely popular. Although the monitering by blizzard wasn't as intensive as it is now (they send employees to tournaments to watch over things that seem too dominant.) They adjusted that by giving the other healing classes new toys or niches. Some people have even countered that should be the action of Blizzard, to give the DPS more utility to attempt to balance it back out.
I don't wanna comment a whole lot or in depth on that possible solution, but it would keep warrior tanks happy, and perhaps quiet the people complaining.
However the downfall again is that a change like that hasn't happened since they put in the pre WOTLK patch and on release. So it's quite possible with any good changes, they'd all be filed for things to get done during Cata.
Who knows whats going to happen to be honest. Something we all have to sit back and look on until something gets said to us.

[Eisen]

it's not an issue of shield slam. its the complaints of the "utility","cc" of the class that are bringing in the most attention. The majority of people complaining cite that "nigh indestructable" nature of protection as well as the possibility of firing off some burst in the process.
The argument is that as was somewhat noted in an earlier post is that there's a trade off in Arena/PVP settings. Where people in the process of gaining more survivability, have to give up some of their dps. People feel that those utilizing protection spec don't have to sacrifice much of either.

And I accept that. Here's the problem, as mentioned by the OP.

Prot pallies out-dps us (and often out tps us in Icecrown)
DKs out-DPS us
Bears often out-dps us

Once upon a time we were the "does the least damage, but has the most surival options" tank...and we still are. But the distinction isn't as clear as it once was.

Now we're looking at Blizz going "Prot warriors are too powerful in Arenas." OK, maybe true. I don't follow pvp, so I really don't know. And if it is true, fine. I'll concede we should never be overly strong in that venue. That's not why we exist. Why we exist is to tank. But it's extremely difficult in this game to "balance" anything pvp-wise without losing pve utility as well.

Now if it's the cc/utility potion they're upset about, then up the DR on our stuns. But that's now how I'm reading the blue post. It doesn't say "Prot warrior CC is too powerful" it says "Prot warriors are doing to much damage" What that tells me is they're either upping the damage coeff on Def stance back to 10% or nerfing the bejesus out of devastate.

Damage nerfs are deadly to us. Prot wars have always had the damage scaling issue that DPS gears up faster and increases their DPS much quicker and easier than we can increase our TPS. WoTLK seemed to change things, giving wars a chance to do actual damage for a change. Now because of pvp whining (regardless of how justified that whining might be) we're looking at losing ground in dps/tps again.

I wait to see how Blizz will handle this "too much damage" statement; to see if they will make a pvp change that won't harm pve tps. I'm just not very confident.

[Destruyen]

you still lose quite a bit of survivability as pvprot. 5% more armor, 5% more dodge, shorter cd on shield wall, and some sort of % on parry depending on your flavor of how you choose your arms talents are gone.

the only difference between prot pvp and arms pvp in terms of survivability is 6% less spell dmg taken, 2% more stamina, and last stand. arms gets second wind and blood craze. 6% less spell dmg taken is insanely good against wizcleave that seems to dominate alot of other comps. maybe this is where all the QQ is coming from?

it's not about burst really. devastate can hit just about as hard as shield slam. hitting that every global and then also having the ability to stun-lock someone from 50%+ to dead is pretty amazing.

party spell reflect. overpowered imo. against a warrior that knows what he's doing you will get close to 0 cc on that team. one match i cyclone'd a druid 5 times in a row, cycling between shield bash and spell reflect. and against wizcleave/shadowcleave/insertrandommagicword cleave party spell reflect will mitigate alot of their dmg and turn it back on themselves (i <3 critting locks with their own 9k conflags or 8k chaos bolts).

get rid of arenas from the game. put the tourney realms up for full-time play just for arenas for those who play this game just for arenas. stop trying to balance x spec around y aspect of the game and screwing something up in the end.

[Proletaria]

I don't know that i'd be quick to highlight festergut as a place where warrior dps is struggling (or where you would want to emply a DW spec). That encounter was pretty painful and survival seemed a lot more important.

[Dreador]

Honestly, QQ more. They'll nerf it, and in a few months we'll get buffed in another way. That, or like normal we'll adapt. Think fury warriors starting BC. Everyone cried day in and day out that they were nerfed and sucked at dps, but reports kept popping up of fury warriors topping damage in raids...OMG. Srsly, get over it. I know my spot's not going anywhere.

[Karlhungus]

That would not do a lot to help this case. Most Warriors using Protection in arena that I can see use a mix of DPS gear and trinkets, not tanking gear. Thus, AP scaling on Shield Slam would probably increase their DPS instead of lowering it.

i have 4979 unbuffed ap in my prot pvp gearset with only 1657 bv. that would just make ss more potent in pvp since most prot warriors run in a mix of pvp/pve dps gear.

Honestly guys, I'm hardly talking about a straight 1:1 ratio of AP to Shield Slam damage, rather a coefficient that we see already in Shockwave and Concussion Blow. Yes, it would be an increase to overall damage, but offset by the nerf to burst damage.

As far as I understand it (when I pvp as prot, I use my regular pve spec, rather than a pvp one so correct me if I'm wrong), the idea is that you disarm the target, causing them to take 10% increased damage for 10 seconds, hit Shield Block, doubling your BV for 10 seconds and hey presto megaburst. The more trinket procs that align with the 10 seconds of double block value, the better, so the proc is multiplied in it's usefulness. For example, I've used Lavanthor's Talisman - Item - World of Warcraft in pvp, that certainly had it's effect on burst damage. You take away the damage increase element of Shield Block by having SS scale from AP instead of BV, and you take away the 10% damage element of Improved Disarm, then no more giganto-burst.

Yes, Shield Slam would (hopefully) do a lot more damage, but that would only be on average, you'd never see the 4x SS dmg + 10% dmg burst any more. It's burst + CC that's the problem as far as I can see; packing all the burst and stuns into a 10 sec window. A small nerf to stuns probably wouldn't bother me either, without sacrificing damage. A change like that would probably make a lot of PVE players happy, and get rid of those pesky 15k Shield Slams people complain about.

Maybe I'm wrong here, but more damage and less burst would seem like a good idea to me.

[Dreador]

All we're doing is speculating (a few here are panicking as well). They have not announced the changes yet...

[Hamburglar]

I don't think people realize how much every cloth/leather class in the game cries about PVP prot warriors. We got a bunch of clothies who consistently rank around 2200 in a couple of their teams and they just get destroyed by prot warriors in arena.

This is going to be a never-ending cycle. They'll nerf our damage in raids and increase our threat modifiers AGAIN.

[Aaesop]

you still lose quite a bit of survivability as pvprot. 5% more armor, 5% more dodge, shorter cd on shield wall, and some sort of % on parry depending on your flavor of how you choose your arms talents are gone.

the only difference between prot pvp and arms pvp in terms of survivability is 6% less spell dmg taken, 2% more stamina, and last stand. arms gets second wind and blood craze. 6% less spell dmg taken is insanely good against wizcleave that seems to dominate alot of other comps. maybe this is where all the QQ is coming from?

it's not about burst really. devastate can hit just about as hard as shield slam. hitting that every global and then also having the ability to stun-lock someone from 50%+ to dead is pretty amazing.

party spell reflect. overpowered imo. against a warrior that knows what he's doing you will get close to 0 cc on that team. one match i cyclone'd a druid 5 times in a row, cycling between shield bash and spell reflect. and against wizcleave/shadowcleave/insertrandommagicword cleave party spell reflect will mitigate alot of their dmg and turn it back on themselves (i <3 critting locks with their own 9k conflags or 8k chaos bolts).

get rid of arenas from the game. put the tourney realms up for full-time play just for arenas for those who play this game just for arenas. stop trying to balance x spec around y aspect of the game and screwing something up in the end.

Your right, I'm merely using the perceptions alot of the community of pvp'ers are citing.
People see the person and nonetheless think "Tank" and from that think of "hard to kill" etc etc.

[Kojiyama]

Shield Slam already has strict DR that keeps it from getting to ridiculously out of hand. Similar AP scaling compared to SW/CB would make SS stronger than it is now, damage-wise.

Either way, it would do more damage in PvP than PvE due to the fact that we don't wear DPS gear yet PvP Prot often does. That's the main thing you are not considering. PvP Prot likely has more AP than the average PvE Prot, therefore AP scaling would not help the issue.

Dreador, personally I do feel like you're being a bit dismissive. The DPS of Prot Warriors doesn't need to be lowered in PvP, even if your tanking spot may be secure. It may not be secure in every guild, and the large presence of old-school Warrior MTs shouldn't mean that issues such as that are ignored.

Personally-speaking, I let our Paladin be MT on anything that requires less tanks and go Arms instead of insisting on being "the MT" because I'm the long-standing Warrior guild/raid leader tank. I would prefer not being given even more incentive to do this on a more regular basis than I do already.

[Destruyen]

Your right, I'm merely using the perceptions alot of the community of pvp'ers are citing.
People see the person and nonetheless think "Tank" and from that think of "hard to kill" etc etc.

oh i agree. it's the part where people don't know how to deal with a prot warrior that is the problem in pvp imo.

[Dreador]

Koji - If it sounds like I'm being dismissive.... I am. I know the DPS in PVP or PVE doesn't need to be lowered, chances are they will nerf our pvp utility, moreso, implement more DR or whatever. Even if they do in fact nerf our DPS, we'll adapt, and panicking over it like half dozen threads on this site that have just popped up is definitely not the way to go about discussion. I'm hoping they all get combined or locked out.

And about letting the paladin MT certain fights while you go arms...that's preference. Right now I'm in a 10 man guild for the time being, and our other tank is a pally. We just casually switch off responsibility anyway, that's never a problem, but if it comes down to it I've got 4 years experience tanking in this game, where he has less than 1. My ability outshines him when the shit hits the fan, and he fully understood that way beforehand when he played a priest. Also his ret set is better than mine.

[Kojiyama]

Koji - If it sounds like I'm being dismissive.... I am. I know the DPS in PVP or PVE doesn't need to be lowered, chances are they will nerf our pvp utility, moreso, implement more DR or whatever. Even if they do in fact nerf our DPS, we'll adapt, and panicking over it like half dozen threads on this site that have just popped up is definitely not the way to go about discussion. I'm hoping they all get combined or locked out.

Well, I would prefer not to have to adapt to a DPS loss, and would prefer for them to go about this without implementing a change to our PvE DPS at all.

Most people posting seem to have a similar goal, and it's not the worst thing to express it.

No, the sky is not falling...but it wouldn't be a great situation to lose any PvE DPS at this point IMO.

If they only nerf our PvP utility without breaking anything in PvE, I think everyone here will be pretty happy. So I guess we'll see.

[Destruyen]

hmm, your 2-3k prot dps versus 5k dps tanking dk on a fight that has a tight enrage timer....

yeh i'd take the dk.

your spot might be safe, but alot more might not be. good thing i'm arms