IBF buff and state of warrior/taunt glyphs

[Vorps]

Couple issues that I'm not sure have been discussed, but I haven't seen anything on the topic so far...

COOLDOWN DISCUSSION:
Firstly, Icebound Fortitude is being increased to 50% damage reduction on a decently geared DK. (source) This will then match Divine Protection. Divine Protection and Icebound Fortitude are both two minute cooldowns, granted the Paladin has Sacred Duty - which every prot paladin does. Now, what I would like to bring up for discussion is whether Shield Wall and perhaps even Barkskin are in-line with those abilities now.

Let's look at Shield Wall. It is a 5 minute cooldown base. 60% damage reduction. For two talent points it can become 4 minutes. With Glyph of Shield Wall it can become 2-3 minutes depending on those talents being active, but the damage reduction is reduced to 40%.

So to compare:
Paladin/DK: 50% reduction, 2 minute cooldown.
Warrior: 60% reduction, 4-5 minute cooldown or 40% reduction, 2-3 minute cooldown.
Druid: 20% reduction, 1 minute cooldown.

Balanced?

At the very least Glyph of Shield Wall should probably be increased to 50% damage reduction. To not only have to glyph but also use talents just to make Shield Wall equal cooldown to Paladin and DK versions only to have it be 10% less damage reduction doesn't seem right to me. A better fix in my opinion is to just scrap needing the glyph. Make Shield Wall 3 minutes base, and 50% damage reduction. Make Glyph of Shield Wall just give 10% more damage reduction, or allow Shield Wall to be used while under effects that cause loss of control of your character.

As for Barkskin, there is reasoning for it being slightly less damage reduction not only because of the faster cooldown, but it can be used while under pretty much any status ailment. It would also probably be overpowered for other specs if the base ability got increased. I'd like to see a solution that puts it on par with other tank cooldowns as perhaps a Feral-only talent.

TAUNT DISCUSSION:
The other issue that has nagged at me since forever is the fact that taunts fail. An even larger annoyance is that even with glyphs for respective taunts that are supposed to prevent failure; they can still fail. To glyph for taunt and still have 0-9% chance for it to fail is just ridiculous. It is simply unbelievable with so many fights that rely on taunting.

If Blizzard insists on keeping taunt glyphs, at least make them increase success by 17% instead of 8%. Or put taunt on melee hit instead of spell hit. (that would also make it so you can taunt while silenced) To me, and even better fix would be to not only make taunts work while silenced but make them unmissable by default.

I'd love to hear what people here at TankSpot think about both accounts. Thank you for taking the time to read this and I look forward to reading all of your feedback.

[jere]

Well one thing to consider about cooldowns is that looking at one against another doesn't give the whole picture. It would probably be better to look at cooldowns as a whole.

Paladins have Divine Protection and AD (LoH is trumped by DP and you cannot use both). Warriors have Shield Wall, Last Stand, and the Enraged Regeneration. Druids have Barkskin, a last stand type ability and frenzied regeneration. I can't comment on DK's as well. I think the idea is that each tank have two "solid" cooldowns, but sometimes I wonder if they expect certain ones to go together. Like pairing LS and Enraged Regeneration.

I don't know if that changes anything for you, but it is something to consider

[Kurtosis]

If you want to compare Wars to DKs you gotta look at the big picture. Make DK's less spiky overall and equally able to tank Anub adds on hard mode, and then we can talk about bringing our cd's in line.

Comparing particular abilities in isolation != class balance.

Regarding taunting, yeah it's annoying you have to glyph for taunt if you want to completely drop your hit rating to zero. But I've gotten used to carrying around Glyph of Dark Command and Glyph of Rune Strike, and just alternate them depending on whether the fight requires constant taunt toggling b/t two or more tanks.

[Güth]

I will agree with you on the taunt part, and more than likely every other tank will too, that taunts would be awesome if they worked off melee hit or if the glyph simply makes them have a 100% chance to land. Not exactly sure why Blizzard hasn't addressed this yet, perhaps in Cata with all the stat mechanic changes and simplifications.

I feel Barkskin is pretty well off as-is right now, ferals have massive health pools and great mitigation via armor and SD and if they moved it up to a 2 min CD with 40-50% damage reduction it would be fairly over powered just because of the way the class is currently. This would probably make feral the new fotm tank for raiding, as they would be able to take predictable high damage situations and make them laughable to heal. ("Bear Wall" / Glyphed Survival Instincts + Glyphed Frenzied Regen / passively high EH)

Making Shield Wall usable while under loss of control effects would be nice, I think paladins can use their Divine Protection through some can't they? (not 100% sure here, paladin tanks please confirm/deny) and I thought DKs could use IBF when stunned...but again I could be wrong as I do not play one. A +10% damage reduction buff would be great too, but I'm not sure if blizzard is sold on that idea with how long they've left the glyph as-is.

Hopefully with ICC Hardmodes rolling out they'll bump it up to 50% when glyphed.

Looking forward to reading other member's thoughts on this too.

[Esch]

I can't comment on DK's as well. I think the idea is that each tank have two "solid" cooldowns, but sometimes I wonder if they expect certain ones to go together. Like pairing LS and Enraged Regeneration.

DK Tanks have IBF has a general cooldown, backed up with a 1 min CD depending on spec. Also, DKs have AMS, which is surprisingly useful with a 45 second Cooldown. Generally, while IBF is good, it's tricky to employ as it's the biggest/best CD option yet you want to save it for ideal circumstances, like Festergut tank swaps after three inhales. Otherwise, DKs rely on the other, 'smaller' cooldowns far more which don't carry the oomph of IBF.

What I think this +10% increase means, IMO, is that DKs will have a bit more survivability on massive spikes if they opt for IBF, but are still reliant on all the other tools/trinkets. The RP cost on IBF is a rather serious hinderance, as you surrender threat potential to ensure you can use the ability or blow an alternate cooldown to have the RP available on demand.

I think the logic of warriors is the ability to employ shield block 'often' offsets the other cooldowns. This may be something that matters in ICC with the Chill of the Throne debuff making block more powerful relative to avoidance.

Note that IBF can prevent stuns, but can't be used to 'break' CC. Paladin's full bubble (Divine Shield) is an immunity effect.

[Vorps]

Make DK's less spiky overall

I do believe that DKs could probably use some sort of blocking mechanic, but that is an entirely different discussion.

Last Stand is great, and it's comparable to all the other abilities tanks get. Shield Block is a decent cooldown as well, but it does not fall in the same category as cooldowns like Last Stand/Vampiric Blood/Ardent Defender/Survival Instincts or Shield Wall/Icebound Fortitude/Divine Protection/Barkskin. Except on fights where it can be used as a gimmick, like Anub'arak adds. Enraged Regeneration has limited use, but generally it's pretty worthless.

The thing that irks me is that warriors have to not only spend two talent points into Improved Disciplines that wouldn't normally be allocated there (unless using Glyph of Shield Wall) to get a damage reduction ability with an equal cooldown to other tank classes, which is now going to be worse than IBF and Divine Protection.

I will agree with you on the taunt part...Not exactly sure why Blizzard hasn't addressed this yet, perhaps in Cata with all the stat mechanic changes and simplifications.

It boggles me; it really does. Sometimes I wonder if it has even crossed their minds.

[Hammerfists]

Shield Block is a decent cooldown as well, but it does not fall in the same category as cooldowns like Last Stand/Vampiric Blood/Ardent Defender/Survival Instincts or Shield Wall/Icebound Fortitude/Divine Protection/Barkskin. Except on fights where it can be used as a gimmick, like Anub'arak adds. Enraged Regeneration has limited use, but generally it's pretty worthless.

Im not sure if im getting you right but it seems you are taking shield block for granted and are not maximizing its full potential. Critical Block is still in effect with Shield Block active making a block have the potential of blocking 4x your normal block amount which pallies cant do. To clarify bark skin is the only move you can use while incapacitated making them the ideal anub tank. Im sure for Cataclysm they will roll this talent in with another to make it have more flavor. As for beefing it up it with more mitigation or stun break would make it op.

Note that IBF can prevent stuns, but can't be used to 'break' CC. Paladin's full bubble (Divine Shield) is an immunity effect.

Pallies will aggro wipe if they do this. Much easier to dispel or misdirect through the effect that losing a melee or 2 as you regain control.

The taunt is mostly a nuisance, i dont usually even go with the glyph. If my first taunt missed ill use my second and in the case of a warrior you also have mocking blow. Just make sure you have an addon to announce when a taunt misses or gets resisted so you can taunt again before you blow your high threat moves.

[Kurtosis]

and I thought DKs could use IBF when stunned...but again I could be wrong as I do not play one.

IBF makes the DK immune to stuns, but is unusable while stunned. Same with out other cd's. I haven't found this to be a significant problem in raiding though, only pvp.

[Vorps]

Im not sure if im getting you right but it seems you are taking shield block for granted and are not maximizing its full potential.

Shield Block can be amazing depending on how hard a mob hits. On bosses it provides some really nice overall mitigation. What I'm saying is that it doesn't allow you to survive burst like Shield Wall or Last Stand does. Like it's not nearly as useful of a cooldown to use on Festergut when he's got his buff stacked fully. It's not going to help you survive anywhere as close to as well as Shield Wall or Last Stand will when you've got stacks of Mystic Buffet while fighting Sindragosa, etc. I classify Shield Block as a moderate cooldown usually best used on bosses for mild mitigation every time it is off cooldown; whereas Shield Wall and Last Stand are extreme cooldowns more useful for massive burst, healing gaps, and/or recovery.

[Sqeez]

Sadly you can't concider shield block a cooldown in the same way shield wall, last stand and as sad as it is to hear enraged regen.
Because shield block makes up a general "damage taken" gap that warriors have with other tanks, i mention holy shield because its the easy to map with it.
Enraged regen is next to useless as a survivability cd, the bear druid equivalent is only useful as a cd because of the glyph that increases the healing you recieve while its active. Claiming it as a survivability cd is verging on misleading.

I rack my brains why the shield wall glyph/talents have gone unanswered, before they introduced that glyph (along with the vigilance glyph may I add, fun threat=/=damage, look where that got us) no prot warrior would have taken them two talent points. I still can't think of the reasoning, but whatever it is surely the 40% reduction could be brought back into line, DK's have paved the way.
It's nothing major and it's not something thats going to make me play my paladin again as a main. It's just annoying.

I know the whole warrior population shit gets thrown around these and the offical forums alot, but my head keeps poping them back at me, the quotes from GC were unsettling at the time. The fact that we have gotten some nice buffs, makes me thing they probably don't want to throw too much our way all at once. Espically the whole "if its not broke why fix it" attitude they seem to have recently. Time will tell.

[KnThrak]

I think the issue is that at one point the encounter designers shot themselves on the "One big bad hit every 60 seconds".

This had a few consequences which haunt the emergency-timer design now that the specific design is abolished (good riddance!):
First, it forced Warriors to glyph both SW and LS, and talent them too - just to have one emergency timer every 1 minute.
Second, it forced Blizzard to add Ardent Defender's 1Up, so that Paladins also have one emergency timer every 1 minute (in a certain sense).
Thirdly, it locked Death Knights and Druids into their 1m CD cooldowns.

These are effects which noticeably hurt tank diversification.
Sure there are some good things already, Paladins having only one active CD and the other being automatic. I like that, makes things less uniform.
Death Knights having more and shorter CDs.
Druids having a short CD but lacking a damage-reduction cooldown.
The only issue is kinda that the Warrior CDs are a bit... lackluster. The glyphs themselves are of questionable value now that the system of 1-kill
-per-minute has been done away with, OTOH the glyph loadouts would become too predictable if they were just removed. I don't actually see a problem with having Warriors have the stronger but longer-CD emergency abilities though. It'd make them unique in the lineup.

*shrug*

I guess only time and blizzard will tell.
If I had to make a Warrior now I'd probably talent the cooldowns and glyph Last Stand, Devastate and Blocking. That'd give me a 2m CD, a 3m weak CD and a 4m strong CD. I can live with that.

[Hammerfists]

Sadly you can't concider shield block a cooldown in the same way shield wall, last stand and as sad as it is to hear enraged regen.
Because shield block makes up a general "damage taken" gap that warriors have with other tanks, i mention holy shield because its the easy to map with it.

Sure but in a nutshell Holy Shield is a cooldown albeit a very short one. It adds 30% to block rating and basically makes my blocks like damaging shields. Why i say cooldown because i can use Avenger's Shield or Holy Wrath instead of Holy Shield if Frisbee and Wrath are off cooldown negating the usefulness of Holy Shield in favor of threat. What you are stating is class diffrence: Warriors block more damage when they get a block and Paladins block more often but negate less damage per block.

The diffrence is you can chain your cooldowns unlike Paladins because of forbearance. You can opt to use shield wall with last stand and enraged regen or use last stand/enraged regen when shield wall falls off. Ardent Defender is in my opinion worse than last stand. Why you ask? Well a natural reaction to healers when they see a tank go down is to pop wings, pain suppress, or lay on hands them without checking if they have ardent defender debuff. Also the ability can only go off once during a fight. This is my guess why Shield Wall is 40% compared to a Pallies 50%. Im not going to go into the DK/Warrior discussion because thats a brick wall at the end of the tunnel.

[Dimness]

I have all four tanking classes, and I have to say that I really like where they all are at the moment. I like the buff to IBF, and I think it's a nice balance between DK's being OP when they first came out and the nerf into the ground they received in the subsequent patches.

Otherwise the CD's are much more in line with one another now. I honestly don't see what all the hoopla is about a glyphed shield wall that you can use every 2 min for 40 percent damage reduction for Warriors.

[Sqeez]

The diffrence is you can chain your cooldowns unlike Paladins because of forbearance. You can opt to use shield wall with last stand and enraged regen or use last stand/enraged regen when shield wall falls off. Ardent Defender is in my opinion worse than last stand. Why you ask? Well a natural reaction to healers when they see a tank go down is to pop wings, pain suppress, or lay on hands them without checking if they have ardent defender debuff. Also the ability can only go off once during a fight. This is my guess why Shield Wall is 40% compared to a Pallies 50%. Im not going to go into the DK/Warrior discussion because thats a brick wall at the end of the tunnel.

What does forbearance stop you using except LoH which apart from the armor talent in holy can't be used in a chain?
The other fact is that you compare Last stand with only the guardian spirit part of Ardent Defender, so you conviently left out a huge, and imo better part of Ardent Defender.
So lets compare now since you seem to like doing that so much: (disclaimer, I understand aspects of tanks are not created in a vaccuum but comparing isn't a completely useless exercise)
Paladin tanks can "chain" their ardent defender forever since it doesn't have a cooldown, then when they get in trouble they use their 50% divine protection and when they get in even more trouble they can survive a deathblow no matter how big it is.

Back to my disclaimer, I played paladin tank through black temple-->sunwell including za etc, I don't hate paladins, I don't secretly plot to become tanking overlord. All I'm observing is that before the hp nerf and dk buff, Warriors and DK's were a league(abitary unit of relative measurement) behind paladins with druids in a healthy second. Now warriors remain unchanged in the survivability aspect, thats fine, yes they like the difficultly of content with warriors. I completely admitt that even if DK's were not mathematically behind warriors which they were imo, they still deserved a buff because of the servere population shift. However why their IBF was brought inline with paladins is a mystery.

Also correct me if I'm wrong the whole reasoning behind the chaining cooldowns is to reduce your total damage taken for the whole fight because your obviously not covering burst damage because if other tanks can survive without cd's so can you, In a covering burst situation chaining your cooldowns can easily get you killed, having a weaker cd when said burst comes. Now Shield block is a flat reduction and is therefore better used when you don't have avoidance increasing trinkets rolling true, but its use with %reductions is more beneficial to the warrior than using it on its own.

Yes enraged regen is a cooldown in the same way that avengers shield is a cooldown, was pretty sure i made sure i said emergency cooldown when I downplayed its usefulness. But 3% of my hp every second is not useful as an emergency cooldown. Frankly it's not even useful, it's like me claiming I rolled Draenei so i can chain my useful useful heal over time spells. It has a remote usefulness when your out of range of heals and are dropping to a dot / weak hitting mob.


ohshi- Hit that brickwall, I like whining abit too much I think.

[jere]

Also correct me if I'm wrong the whole reasoning behind the chaining cooldowns is to reduce your total damage taken for the whole fight because your obviously not covering burst damage because if other tanks can survive without cd's so can you, In a covering burst situation chaining your cooldowns can easily get you killed, having a weaker cd when said burst comes. Now Shield block is a flat reduction and is therefore better used when you don't have avoidance increasing trinkets rolling true, but its use with %reductions is more beneficial to the warrior than using it on its own.

He's talking about a different type of chaining. He means combining a weak cooldown with a strong cooldown (look at his examples). I guess I might be one of the few, but when I cast shield wall, I cast Shield block too. I do the same thing on my druid: one major cooldown + one minor cooldown. It surprises me that some don't do that, but each person is different. Paladins don't have that option and remember that part of AD is meant for our normal survivability (especially given the comments on the HP nerf). You can't just take all of AD and only refer to it as a cooldown. Part of it yes, but not all of it. Some of it is used as a balancing point for our normal survivability.

[Sqeez]

Odd use of the word chaining
I'd call that more combining. Guess not everyone has english as their first language.

I wasn't claiming that you take AD only as a cooldown, as I said in my bracketed disclaimer, but was more arguing against that method of comparision. I'm going to stop posting soon, cos every time I read my posts back even after trying to be as impartial as I can I still end up sounding like I'm whining

[Proletaria]

TBH i don't understand the IBF buff myself. We didn't need a stronger IBF to go along with the stam buff. What we needed was an ap debuff and cooldowns that didn't require us to gut our rotation or use blood-tap as a work-around. All things considered, I agree the glyph of shield being mandatory is compeltely lame. But, on the same token most dk's will tell you the glyph of vb/uba/bs is require for them aswell (though only in the case of bone shield do you see huge effectiveness changes by glyphing).

[Hammerfists]

Im sure Dks will get an ap debuff but currently blizz's stance is that they want it to be "unique" instead of universal like the attack speed debuffs. Won't expect Dks to have it till 4.2. Question is where to put it and how it will work. I agree though having one tank out of the loop on this seems very odd.

[KnThrak]

TBH i don't understand the IBF buff myself. We didn't need a stronger IBF to go along with the stam buff. What we needed was an ap debuff and cooldowns that didn't require us to gut our rotation or use blood-tap as a work-around. All things considered, I agree the glyph of shield being mandatory is compeltely lame. But, on the same token most dk's will tell you the glyph of vb/uba/bs is require for them aswell (though only in the case of bone shield do you see huge effectiveness changes by glyphing).

Please don't confuse Quality of Life issues with Power/Survivability issues. AP Debuff and cost-less cooldowns (something I completely can't understand, I have yet to once mind this or even consciously notice it) are QoL issues. They don't make you survive anything you can't survive right now. Well ok unless you got no access to AP debuff, but come on... really?

Retridins, DPS Warriors, Warlocks, Hunters. 9 specs of non-tanks who can do it. Heck, I have trouble finding a 5man which cannot give AP Debuff, much less a 10 or 25 raid. :P

(edit)
As for the issues with us being the only tanks not having it...
The issue here is more that all have Attackspeed debuffs. Paladins used to not have it either, and this was "fair", IMO. Two tanks had it, two relied on external sources. It became unfair when Paladins could spec it with ~no opportunity cost. This would be easily fixed if Hunters wouldn't need a specific pet for it (it's a skill you can make any pet use but it disables one damage skill of the pet), so that all hunters and all warlocks can bring it always, and then moving the AP debuff either deep into Retri, or over to Holy and too deep into the tree.

[jere]

Things as big as as TC and Demo really should be on all 4 tanks spots. Those debuffs are huge. Only having two out of the 4 tank types have it isn't fair or balanced, given the survivability increases they each provide. Either all 4 tank types should have it or none (and give it to some DPS spec). Either would be fair. However, the trouble with non tanks providing it is 1.) it doesn't help when you are offtanking some boss to the side (Think Hardmode Council of Iron) and 2.) tank survivability really should be in the tank's hands as much as possible, since that is the tank's job. It was never fair with only 2 tanks providing it, given the size of the impact the debuffs bring.