Tank DPS Graphs for all ICC Fights

[Airowird]

Things I have started to consider since reading this thread;

* Warriors lose +10% when not taking swings (Imp Def Stance). On bosses that cast a lot or have phases you do not tank (Saurfang, Fester,...) you already lose a lot on top of Damaging Shields and clear lack of Rage (WTB IRL>game rage conversion talents). Why can't this damage increase just work on using Devastate anyway? Why on avoiding melee swings?
* Unlike diseases, SoR stacks or Lacerate, Sunder Armor does not increase tank DPS while you can't tank (e.g. Marrogar WW phase)
* The tank highest on these graphs (Druid) has an ability that cause less threat than damage. If tank DPS is dismissable, why not reduce Lacerate damage in favor of normal threat then?
* The BV cap was first introduced on both Warriors SS and Paladins SoR. If the SS damage is so dangerous in certain gear, why is an ability that scales exactly the same on a class that can gear exactly the same not changed?

Sure, these are all minor things, but all put together I can only ponder on what arguments devs sometimes base their decisions on. Because I damn well remember a blue post that stated they do NOT base themselves on forums due to the low and extreme-sided representation.

[jere]

* The BV cap was first introduced on both Warriors SS and Paladins SoR. If the SS damage is so dangerous in certain gear, why is an ability that scales exactly the same on a class that can gear exactly the same not changed?

My guess is because the two classes are totally different as a package. Paladins don't have the same PvP advantages that warriors do and warriors don't have the same pvp advantages as paladins do. Paladins tend to have more group oriented PvP advantages (HoF, HoP, HoSac, Healing), while warriors have more charge/intercept/stuns/silences/debuffing style PvP advantages. I imagine the SS nerf was do to a combination of things rather than just the ability by itself in a vacuum. Being able to instantly close the gap on a target, stun/silence it, and smash it with a hard hitting shield ability. Paladins had to chase down opponents and had less stun/silences/spell locks than warriors, even in protection spec. It might have been for reasons of that nature.

I don't know if anyone has actually tested ShoR to see if it got nerfed too. It might have. We'll just have to see.

[Airowird]

Not being able to hit the Warrior or hitting the Paladin and see it reduced to nothing through bubble, LoH and AD (which you can't CC through, like Last Stand) is about the same as my limited PvP view sees it.

That said, I'ld love to see that happen, if only for watching Blizzard trying to compensate for it afterwards.

[jere]

Not being able to hit the Warrior or hitting the Paladin and see it reduced to nothing through bubble, LoH and AD (which you can't CC through, like Last Stand) is about the same as my limited PvP view sees it.

You can't do that. You can either LoH or Bubble, but not both. However, the problem they are attacking doesn't seem to be the surviability, but the lockdown kill of another opponent. Prot warriors are leagues ahead of the other tank classes in that department. I am not sure why they are targetting that area specifically, but they seem to be.

[Airowird]

I know they can't be used both at the same time, but it was rather a point that the original idea would've been that Warriors stun to reduce damage income, Paladins heal it back up and DK/Druid sorta heals overall (Presence, Imp Lotp,...).
Personally as limited PvPer, I just don't see this major problem with Warrior, but mostly blame with people not knowing what to do when they see a Warrior with a shield for the first time.

Sorry if it's a knee-jerk reaction to other tanking classes, but it's just that I lack a decent reasoning behind these 'changes' that makes me dissappointed. (Usually I do find some valid argumentation as to why they do things, even if I do not always agree with the value Blizz grants some of these arguments.)

[swelt]

Personally as limited PvPer, I just don't see this major problem with Warrior, but mostly blame with people not knowing what to do when they see a Warrior with a shield for the first time.

No, prot warriors in dps gear in arenas are really strong. There is an issue here, it's not imagined. Maybe you need to get some PVP in before carrying on railing so heavily for changes if you only have one side of the story in perspective.

The problems are around how the nerfs are targetted. As Kaz' has pointed out a couple of times, it's not the raw damage of shield slam or conc blow that makes PvP warriors strong, so it's quite possible that these nerfs won't change much in pvp. On the other hand, it's also possible that they have nerfed 'just enough' to let prot remain capable but not overpowered (combined with the resilience changes). We'll see when the arena season starts. From the PVE perspective, people were expecting buffs to close a big gap, where I think Blizzard were just intent on doing enough to keep an even keel.

[Warwench]

You can't do that. You can either LoH or Bubble, but not both. However, the problem they are attacking doesn't seem to be the surviability, but the lockdown kill of another opponent. Prot warriors are leagues ahead of the other tank classes in that department. I am not sure why they are targetting that area specifically, but they seem to be.

AD procs when you are stunned or otherwise incapacitated, I am not sure why this hasnt been an issue in PVP before. Being able to control someone to not use their cooldown is a valid strategy.

[drae]

* The BV cap was first introduced on both Warriors SS and Paladins SoR. If the SS damage is so dangerous in certain gear, why is an ability that scales exactly the same on a class that can gear exactly the same not changed?

Shield Block massively increases our Burst damage with SS, paladins don't have that option. Couple that with recklessness on a fully sundered target while he's disarmed ...

I've spent some time the past few days chatting with the very pvp-versed players in my guild, watched a few videos, and did a few skirmishes to see just how "OP" prop pvp is; and I can say it is over-powered. However it's not so much the ability to lockdown other players, or not get kited that's the problem. The problem seems to be a combination of these things with our ability to apply decent burst every 2m. Then you stack arp... with the t9 bonus and battle stance at that's 16% arp! Then hope for an arp trinket to proc. You can stack arp because you don't need the survivability of pvp gear.. survival is covered by the spec.

I think different changes would have been more appropriate. Like say preventing arp from affecting extra damage increases from imp. disarm, and shield block. or remove imp disarms damage increase. Or stop recklessness from carrying over into stances other then zerker.

What I'm saying is it's not any of these individual attributes in a vacuum that's the issue, but rather the combo of all 4 in the hands of a skilled player. I don't think nerfing the straight damage is the best solution, rather fixing our multipliers and their resultant strength in a pvp environment.

[swelt]

AD heal was a problem, but it got nerfed. The heal component scales with defense rating, so though it procs you will die pretty much straight after unless you are wearing PVE tanking gear (which would gimp your healing or damage performance)

[jere]

AD procs when you are stunned or otherwise incapacitated, I am not sure why this hasnt been an issue in PVP before. Being able to control someone to not use their cooldown is a valid strategy.

As swelt mentioned, AD scales with defense, so either you are a prot-holy and AD won't heal for anything or you are full prot but in PvE gear, which will end up eating you due to lack of reslience. AD isn't much of a PvP issue usually.

[swelt]

What they need to do is have knobs and levers like this to help them change the way abilities behave in PVE and PVP. AD and IBF got linked to defense, noone wears defense gear in pvp, so they are much less effective there without nerfing them in pve. Conversely when rogues first got cheat death they would wear a ton of pve gear and still be unkillable. They linked cheat death to resilience and the problem went away. When they get rid of defense on gear in Cataclysm, they will lose that knob.

I propose that they replace defense rating with "PVEnis" and resilience with "PVPnis". Then the size of your PVEnis will determine how hard your shield slams hit or how effective your AD/IBF is, while your PVPnis prevents you being crit in the face.

[Reev]

I propose that they replace defense rating with "PVEnis" and resilience with "PVPnis". Then the size of your PVEnis will determine how hard your shield slams hit or how effective your AD/IBF is, while your PVPnis prevents you being crit in the face.

I support this idea. Although everyone knows that Taurens have the biggest PVEnis.

[Warwench]

I have a tiny PVPnis

[Jeszaera]

Forgive me if this idea is stupid/won't work/been considered already, I'm at work and have only skimmed the pages in this thread, and I've just had a fleeting thought about collecting data for DK tanks separately from the DPS.

In my mind the one thing that truly isolates a DK tank from the DPS is actually frost presence more than anything else. Just yesterday I was reading a blood DK dps guide on EJ where is was recommended to actually keep the RS macros on HS/DS. If this is being incorporated into certain DPS rotations than RS isn't something that we can rely on. Personally as a tank I know there are a few fights where I switch presence (Festergut for example, to drop threat) but its for a relatively short amount of time.

Either way I don't actually know if there is a way to modify the way the data is collected here but if it can be modified to delve a little deeper into the parses and looking at "buffs gained" then I think going by presence is probably the most reliable.

[Muffin Man]

No, prot warriors in dps gear in arenas are really strong. There is an issue here, it's not imagined. Maybe you need to get some PVP in before carrying on railing so heavily for changes if you only have one side of the story in perspective.

The problems are around how the nerfs are targetted. As Kaz' has pointed out a couple of times, it's not the raw damage of shield slam or conc blow that makes PvP warriors strong, so it's quite possible that these nerfs won't change much in pvp. On the other hand, it's also possible that they have nerfed 'just enough' to let prot remain capable but not overpowered (combined with the resilience changes). We'll see when the arena season starts. From the PVE perspective, people were expecting buffs to close a big gap, where I think Blizzard were just intent on doing enough to keep an even keel.

As much as i hate seeing prot warriors nerfed. It's pretty justified, but like Kaz I'm not sure they're really targetting the right things. Also, reading the forums a lot of people say nerf the hell out of defensive stance and give us deep prot talents to make it functional again... that's totally misunderstanding prot pvp, which in fact specs 51+ points into prot anyways.

If you want to see how OP prot pvp is, just throw on your dps gear and tank a heroic. 11k Shockwaves/Concussion Blows will abound. Along with 12k+ shield slams. That's a hell of a lot of burst to put out, especially considering that the first two are nice stuns. Granted heroic mobs don't have resilience, but I wasn't fully sundering trash or specced into improved disarm either. And that's just the damage side.

Then consider that improved SR, heroic throw, warbringer make you well tailored to take out casters and our heavy armor keeps us relatively safe from other melee without the need for pvp gear and you can start to see problems. Actually I don't pvp enough to see how Prot pvp handles melee, but from experience it's ridiculously good at locking down casters even back in 3.0. It just lacked the means to kill them until we got to current gear and ArP/SBV/Str caused enough damage to outstrip Stamina scaling.