Patch 4.1 and Shield Mastery

[Riz]

Paladans can glyph Divine Protection to be a 40% magic reduc and drop the phys reduc, and DK can glyph to lengthen the anti magi shield(though warr can glyph for shield wall to reduc 40 or60% phys dmg)...I dont see this change as being "op"...
I do however, wish theyd leave the 2 abilities (Shield Block, Spell Reflect) separate ....The shield seems to me made for a physical attack, and spell reflect is just that...Imo, tie it in with SR, or give it a 3rd ability similar to theDK Anti-Magic Shield(shouldve been called a bubble XD)..
I used to mash SR on cd, and save SB for dmg spikes..I've sincew learned to use both when neccesary and find them to be wonderful tools when utilized properly(on larger trash pulls with multiple casters, i still keep SR up on every cd, as it can mitigate the incoming spell of 2ndary targets)..



Seems to me, warrs are more the physicical defense, where as DK or paladin may have more magical advantage, they have less for physical..Just a thought..I havent really goneover many numbers since Cata..I'm stillplaying catch up =D

[Zegai]

It probably wasn't given to shield reflect to make us choose which one we need in a certain fight. The latest patch notes says it is a separate buff given by shield block, reducing magic damage by 20% and lasts 6 seconds, so it certainly isn't overpowered.

[Caric]

Problem is, under that formula, it comes off as a potential nerf or at the very least a barely break even. If you are forced to hold off on using a cooldown that is built into our survivability formula to achieve some other goal, you are taking more damage from the physical in hopes of correctly timing the reduction of the magical. I don't know how it shakes out but under the current formula I can't see it as a significant buff and very possibly a nerf in some situations.

[Katzazi]

I don't see where you would lose on SB at the current content if it already had the magic reduction applied. Everything important happens on a 30s, 60s, 90s, 120s CD. In most cases you have either high melee dmg or high magic dmg to deal with. Not both.

Sure we don't know how future content will be. But Blizz knows wich CDs tanking abilities have. They don't just randomly put CDs on boss abilities.

[Airowird]

The problem still exists that it is a cooldown, not a set timer.

If a boss decides to only use his/her ability after 40s, you will be forced to wait for it (rather than use SB on CD, as most do now), thus reducing the efficiency of the physical reduction by 25%. The same goes for the DPS gain from Heavy Repurcussions.
If it was part of Spell Reflect, it would actually simplify the use of SR for most Prot Warriors, as you would always want to use SR when the boss is casting a big spell, regardless if you can reflect it or not.

The result remains the same:
If you press SB on CD, you will still reduce as damage overall, but with little control over spikes.
If you keep SB for when bosses do big hits, you reduce the need for burst healing more, but will risk requiring more overall healing in the end.

Personally, I I very tempted to use SB on CD as always, because a lot of bosses still do instants that hurt a lot, such as Maloriak red vial or Nefarian's breath or even have constant AoE damage pulses, such as Al'Akir p2 or Cho'Gall. Only on more predictable fights such as Captain Elements p1 would it be worth it. But that phase is not about damage as much as it is about control.

[Tengenstein]

It's a choice i don't want to have to make. i mean on chimaeron, do i pop SB for the double attacks or do i pop it to help the healers out during a feud? i'd much prefer they make Spell reflect a 30 sec CD and tie to that. warriors tool box is big, but i hate they way they try to make abilities do too many things (like intervene and safeguard), hell i'd prefer they didn't link it to anything rather than link it to SB, like say disarm!

[Airowird]

It's relatively useless during Feud, as it will only last as long as the CD and you only get 1 spike in a 6s window.

[Katzazi]

Question is easy: You use it for the double attacks. The magic dmg of feud is survivable, even non-tanks survive it and healers will spam AoE-heals anyway. But double attacks are not survivable in the worst case without SB. - So no question there. (And for heroic mode, it's more or less the same, anyway.)

[Superworm]

Gotta remember that the duration of the magic damage reduction on Shield block is half that of barkskin (6 seconds and 12 seconds respectively), so they end up having equal uptime, and their's doesn't have a resource cost. And that while SW is only a 2 minute CD its 40% as opposed to the 50% reduction other tanks get.

EDIT: i agree this should have been tied to Spell Relflection rather than SB

I believe SB is 10 seconds duration?

[Naka]

That's right, but they changed the magic reduction part to 6 sec in the latest PTR build.

Shield Mastery now reduces magic damage taken by 7/14/20% for 6 sec, instead of 8/16/25%.

[Kojiyama]

Why do they make it so confusing? ><

[Stengel]

Why do they make it so confusing? ><

In the name of flavor.

[swelt]

Surely this is in the name of balance. 6s duration, 40s cd, 20% reduction brings this much closer to the line that other tanks can manage.

The thing that bothers me is that Shield Block is becoming a single tool for too many jobs. If you assume heavy repurcussions, it's:
- A core part of our physical defensive rotation, ideally saved for periods of heightened physical damage but generally used as frequently as possible
- A big part of our burst threat, ideally used very near the start of engaging a new opponent and then on cooldown (burst shield slam threat + guaranteed revenge procs and increased rage income from shield spec blocks)
- Our only magic reduction cooldown other than shield wall, ideally saved for 'breath weapons' and similar burst in magic damage (which often coincide with breaks in physical damage)

I'm not keen on it being implemented as a talent, mostly because that means it can't then be further tuned through glyphs. If it were a baseline or prot passive, it would be possible to have a glyph that altered it (like the DP glyph for paladins), but by tagging it to a 3 point talent they rule that out as an option.

I think I would have preferred to see spell reflection get a 2nd glyph option: a major 'Glyph of Spell Deflection' that increases the cooldown on spell reflection to something like 40 or 60 seconds but which turns it into a magic damage reduction ability.



Anyway, this is the theory section. Shouldn't we be trying to work out what impact such a change has on shield block uptime and thus stat weightings? I think good test cases would be Ignacious (flame torrent is hurty) and Nefarian (breath or crackle).

[Stengel]

According to my spreadsheet, it doesn't change stat weightings to any significant degree. Even at 10% SB uptime (instead of 33%) and without the +1% bv meta mastery is still better than dodge/parry at my gear level.

Shield Block is a relatively small factor in our overall damage taken. It's about 18-19% dmg reduction with my T11-11.5 gear (depending on meta) and with 33% uptime that's just 5.9-6.2% dmg reduction over time. With half uptime it's half that, etc.

[Kojiyama]

I do agree Swelt. Shield Block doing so many things combined with Shield Mastery doing so many things all feels a little overkill. Strikes me as combination syndrome in the same way as trying to hack together Bloodrage and Shouts. It just doesn't make much sense.

At the very least, the duration of effect being different doesn't help at all.

I agree that with Mastery being a fairly complex stat to factor and Shield Block being a major factor in that, making Shield Block (and thus Mastery) even more complex is a Bad Thing.

[Fayre]

It strikes me that they've tacked it onto Shield Block because that's where it was in our Tier 8 set bonus. Hopefully someone will reconsider.

[thecrazyman]

It is true they combined it with our SB before but also remember at roughly that point our avoids were higher then what we have now as too. Warrior tanks I will amitt have a lot of abilities and items to watch if they choose to do all the debuffs. Rolling SB to do more then block seems like too much simplification for us. Just give us another item to use by just adding it to spell reflect instead.

[Loganisis]

Why do they make it so confusing? ><

¿For the ceremony of the experience?

[Malaegis]

In PVE terms, I don't mind much, because yes you could get some fun results in instances, but its useless in raids. But in PVP terms the thing is, if every spec is getting hit by the SReflect change, why give the SBlock buff only to Protection? As I gather, is a survival trade off for Prot, and a survival nerf to Arms and Fury.

And feel free to correct me as I don't pvp much, but aren't we being devastating against casters except warlocks? Just asking.

I didn't see a reply to this, so I just thought I would point out that spell reflect requires either battle or defensive stance, but also requires a shield. As I am also not a huge PvP player, I suppose it is currently possible to swap your 2H weapon for a shield, use spell reflect, and then swap the weapon back. (I have honestly never tried this.. does the SR buff stay up for its duration when the shield is removed?) In general, though, prot warriors are the only ones who run around carrying a shield. Other warriors should be relatively unaffected by this change.

[klausi]

In general, though, prot warriors are the only ones who run around carrying a shield. Other warriors should be relatively unaffected by this change.

You're running around with shield all the time you're foccused during higher level arenas. You need it for shield bash (longer lockdown + slow), shieldwall, shield block vs melees and obviously spellreflect.

But if you want to you can still specc into it for pvp at the cost of shorter shouts, battle trance & piercing howl.

As stated before i really can imagine some dps might specc into prot for nasty pve encounter with lots of magic stuff flying around as well unless they want to be dropped for a dps'ing rogue/dk/ret paladin, all having huge aoe damage reduction cooldowns.