T12 set bonuses

[Bigbad]

Kinda silly how you argue that the set bonus is completely inefficient and that it will push avoidance to unacceptable high levels. I belief blizzard has some longterm plan for progression of itemlevels so it won't get as high as the end of wotlk and you're exaggerating a bit.

From what Booi posted the Tier12 is better itemized then T11.

And it's not:
Helm: parry/expertise (this is your off piece)
Shoulders: mastery/hit (significantly more mastery than hit)
chest: dodge/parry
gloves: dodge/mastery
legs: parry/mastery

To be fair, there is a mastery/parry chest off-piece. But I doubt the difference in a reforge will cover the 4 set bonus.

Legs & gloves are great, chest will trade of some mastery for avoidance, shoulderpiece isn't perfect maybe loose some avoidance ratings if there is a better offpiece. All depends on how easy it is to get unhittable but might end up with the 4piece if i can get unhittable with it.

[Katzazi]

Sure if it's a decision between passive unhittable with other pieces and not being able to reach passive unhittable while wearing those 4 pieces it's not a question at all what one should take for at least most situations. But we should either be able to reach passive unhittable anyway (when they don't change boss expertise) or we will not reach it at all in that tier (when they change it so that we are sitting at comparable percentages we have now). But that's the only situation where taking the 4piece set bonus is worse than if you take off-pieces.

[Loganisis]

It never ceases to amaze me how people can complain so loudly about bonus survivability. This is a BONUS. And it reduces our damage taken. Yeah, it's during a time when we're already taking less damage, but this makes that even less. I'll take it, and the 2 piece is sexy as hell.

Wow, am I late to the party. Reev, it was like you were fighting a one man battle there. XD

It is a bonus, but because of when it occurs, it's going to be viewed as less than face value.

2 things will play into it:
A) Are tanks using SB on CD or saving it as a CD again? If it's being saved, say because there is periodic magic damage that comes in faster than the CD on other abilities, then the bonus won't be as useful.

B) Tanks already have the combat table covered with block, and guessing with 4pc gear, crit block will be very high up on the list as well. So the bonus occurs when you 'least' need it.

****

I think, while a bonus, tying it to SB hamstrings it's value. I would have liked to have seen something that was also more active...

Something like targets hit by your concussion blow have a 6% higher chance of missing for 10 seconds. Or maybe not concussion blow, but something like, something where it's more of the tanks choosing (maybe a chance per revenge use that parry is increased by 6%...)

It's nearly the same thing (maybe a little weaker even because it doesn't buff parry for HtL benefit), but it's more under the tank's control versus tying it to an ability that, at least for some portion of the fights, will be viewed more as a CD than a keep on CD ability.

As it stands right now, it's nice, but it doesn't seem like a well-designed bonus - more like it's yet ANOTHER thing lumped into the SB button.

Be interesting to see what the itemizations of all the gears are and if the 4pc ends up being worth it if Blizz keeps up the current design of making the tier pieces less well itemized than drops, requiring players to choose between bonuses and better itemization.

[Reev]

Wow, am I late to the party. Reev, it was like you were fighting a one man battle there. XD

It is a bonus, but because of when it occurs, it's going to be viewed as less than face value.

2 things will play into it:
A) Are tanks using SB on CD or saving it as a CD again? If it's being saved, say because there is periodic magic damage that comes in faster than the CD on other abilities, then the bonus won't be as useful.

B) Tanks already have the combat table covered with block, and guessing with 4pc gear, crit block will be very high up on the list as well. So the bonus occurs when you 'least' need it.

****

I think, while a bonus, tying it to SB hamstrings it's value. I would have liked to have seen something that was also more active...

Something like targets hit by your concussion blow have a 6% higher chance of missing for 10 seconds. Or maybe not concussion blow, but something like, something where it's more of the tanks choosing (maybe a chance per revenge use that parry is increased by 6%...)

It's nearly the same thing (maybe a little weaker even because it doesn't buff parry for HtL benefit), but it's more under the tank's control versus tying it to an ability that, at least for some portion of the fights, will be viewed more as a CD than a keep on CD ability.

As it stands right now, it's nice, but it doesn't seem like a well-designed bonus - more like it's yet ANOTHER thing lumped into the SB button.

Be interesting to see what the itemizations of all the gears are and if the 4pc ends up being worth it if Blizz keeps up the current design of making the tier pieces less well itemized than drops, requiring players to choose between bonuses and better itemization.

Putting it into an active ability gives warriors ANOTHER damage reduction cooldown, when we're already replete with them. On my warrior, I have:

Shield Block
Shield Wall
Last Stand (Usually together with Enraged Regen, so I won't count them as separate cooldowns, though they are)
Quick-Flip Deflection Gauntlets
Vial of Stolen Memories

Chain those together and you have huge stretches of time where you're really hard to kill. If we give warriors yet another cooldown, or worse yet, a whole lot more passive damage reduction, Blizzard will have to design bosses under the assumption that you ALWAYS have some sort of damage reduction cooldown on you. That kinda sucks.

The 6% more parry during shield block adds something to the ability which already has block chance, crit block chance, and magic reduction on it, but the ability still only does 2 things: mitigate melee swings, and mitigate magic damage. Adding parry just makes a fairly strong cooldown that much stronger.

It's like buying a car that gets 30 miles per gallon, and being told that they'll upgrade it to make 38 miles to a gallon at no extra cost. It's a win.

[Loganisis]

I don't see it that way at all. It's like going from 30mpg to 30.2mpg while you're running on batteries in a hybrid car. It's definately better, but not the same as somewhere else.

And moving it into an active us ability like Revenge doesn't give you another CD (and please, never compare SB/SW/LS/ER/SR, etc to a 6% RNG chance of something good happening - and heck, even Demo/TC > 6% parry).

We agree it's a benefit.

I would like to see it as more a random or controlled use benefit so it doesn't stack when we need it the least. Having the 6% extra parry is more useful outside of SB than inside, since at our gear levels we're already guaranteed at least 30% damage mitigation and many are pushing 50/50 that's its 60% guaranteed mitigation.

Adding a survival trait proc chance to a TPS tool is a nice combiation. Sometimes it will overlap with SB, sometimes it won't, and that would be a more desireable design.

It's almost like this is adding too much sugar to the cake mix XD

[Reev]

I don't see it that way at all. It's like going from 30mpg to 30.2mpg while you're running on batteries in a hybrid car. It's definately better, but not the same as somewhere else.

And moving it into an active us ability like Revenge doesn't give you another CD (and please, never compare SB/SW/LS/ER/SR, etc to a 6% RNG chance of something good happening - and heck, even Demo/TC > 6% parry).

We agree it's a benefit.

Having the 6% extra parry is more useful outside of SB than inside,

Of course it's more useful outside SB than inside. It's not Blizzard's job to always give us the strongest ability possible though. In fact, as our defensive abilities get stronger, the threats against us have to get stronger as well. 6% extra parry on Shield Block isn't huge by any stretch, but nor does it suck, and arguably we shouldn't be getting something all that much stronger.

[Emmerich]

I LIKE that it's not any stronger. As it is, if the tier gear is itemized about the same as off pieces I can go for it and get a decent benefit. If there are off pieces that are itemized better (enough) compared to tier pieces then I go for them and stick to the 2 pc bonus. This gives me interesting decisions to make and the ability to plan my gear. Heck, I'll go farther - I bet that we find that bonus worth it for some bosses (SB to be used generally on C/D, primarily physical damage) and not worth it for others (tendency to save SB for "key" moments; more of the damage is non-physical and/or lack of physical damage occurring at points where SB is needed).

All of this seems like a good thing to me, and all of it would disappear if the 4 pc was TOO good. Take it from an old feral druid who experienced the 2 pc T4 bonus all the way THROUGH T6 - overtuned tier piece bonuses are DEFINITELY a double edged sword!

[gailair]

Seems the devs heard all the griping:

Original:
Item - Warrior T12 Protection 4P Bonus - Your parry chance is increased by 6% while Shield Block is active.

New, but is it improved?
Protection Warrior 4-Piece: The bonus to parry from Shield Wall now begins when Shield Wall wears off, instead of lasting while Shield Wall is active.

[swelt]

Not clear what it means. Is it a typo that they've said shield wall rather than shield block? If so, it doesn't match what's on the PTR and would presumably be a lot more than 6%. I think they'd have a tough time putting a parry bonus after shield wall given the option to glyph it and change the cooldown, but a 6% parry bonus for a few seconds after shield block remains fairly unexciting.

I think the best bit about the blue posts is the knowledge that they are still working on the set bonuses.

[Disruptor]

Sorry for trolling but this one goes on me. For all people instantly criticizing my opinion and my statement of T12 being a design fail - there you go. Blizz realized how paradox and illogical this set bonus was and redesigned it. Served.

And yes it will be a typo SB instead of SW.

[Booi]

Blizz realized how paradox and illogical this set bonus was and redesigned it. Served.

You're right, it had nothing to do with balancing the value of the four set bonus, across four different abilities from four different classes.

In any case, if it maintains the 10 second duration on warriors, that's a really strong change - covering half the time which we are not on shield block. Interestingly enough, now you will actually have to decide if you are going to gear for unhittabiilty for those 10 seconds, or if you're happy with 6% direct hits while shield block or its proc are not up.

Furthermore, if you are unhittable without the 6%, the 6% block is actually wasted now

Personally, I think I'll assume no windwalk proc, and gear 96.4% unhittability. Then I remain unhittable 67% of the time. But I'm not wasting 700 mastery rating 33% of the time.

EDIT: Unless they actually moved it to shield wall - to minimize the above concern.

[Bigbad]

Pretty sure they will put it on shieldblock and its just a typo, else they would have added a different value to shieldwall. 6% on a 2 min cd is too low compared to other tank 4set bonusses.

96,4% unhittable + 4set looks like a real nice setup. Will get the additional 700 mastery rating regardless if its possible, just to counter some possible spikes and the crit block will be decent when unhittable.

[kopcap]

It may not be a typo, perhaps they are normalizing the CDs.

Also, hows 33% of the time it would be wasted? Are they abolishing crit block or something? It still carried great returns the last time I looked at it.

[Artifice]

Given that the DK version comes into effect when DRW is on cd (which is a 90 sec cd) I think we can safely assume one of the following.

1) The bonus will have a fixed duration equal to the length of original buff that it was tied to.

or

2) The bonus is about to be nerfed to maintain the same overall level of effectiveness (so 3% parry for 2/3 uptime)

Since right now the DK 4pc bonus is pretty insane without further balancing.

[Booi]

It may not be a typo, perhaps they are normalizing the CDs.

Also, hows 33% of the time it would be wasted? Are they abolishing crit block or something? It still carried great returns the last time I looked at it.

You only get the block converted to critical block while shield block is active.

Easily demonstrable by simply mousing over your shield block buff at different avoidance levels. The buff grants different critical block levels.

[Reev]

You only get the block converted to critical block while shield block is active.

Easily demonstrable by simply mousing over your shield block buff at different avoidance levels. The buff grants different critical block levels.

He's referring to if you're statically hit capped and you get the 6% parry after shield block, the mastery above and beyond 102.4% table coverage will still be granting you critical block. It won't grant any more than it was already doing, but the mastery beyond the soft cap doesn't become useless because you got the 6% extra dodge, just less effective.

Either way, you'd still want to get statically unhittable, for the times when those buffs aren't up. The 6% extra mastery critical block doesn't go away when you get the 6% extra dodge, and it remains valuable for the Shield Block time period and the "no buff" time period.

Again, this is assuming that this is still tied to Shield Block and not Shield Wall, and I think both are reasonably likely.

[Disruptor]

• The shield block value bonus from Eternal Earthsiege Diamond has been increased to 3%, up from 1%.

Omfg. Most people do not understand how strong this meta already is (including "wannabe" world top guild tanks) and they buff it to 300%. Hardcap mastery -> 66% less dmg and this is even more paradox to the 6% parry from T12. They will nerf Warrior mastery into the ground. Let's see when they will realize that.

[Martie]

Blizzard: "Let's give warriors 6% parry!"
Disruptor: "Oh my god, they are nerfing warrior mastery!"

Blizzard: "Let's make the block meta a bit stronger."
Disruptor: "Oh my god, they are nerfing warrior mastery!"

Next up, Blizzard is gonna release Diablo 3 (and Disruptor will claim it's a warrior mastery nerf.)

[Disruptor]

I have never claimed that they already nerfed anything. By giving us more avoidance they simply decrease the importance of mastery. And by increasing the meta they make the already strongest mitigation by far with the best scaling even more stronger. They have not yet realized how ridic strong it will be. You will see what I am talking about. They will nerf warrior mastery pretty hard.

[Bovinity]

By giving us more avoidance they decrease the importance of mastery. And by increasing the meta they make the already strongest mitigation by far with the best scaling even more stronger.

So...they decrease the importance of mastery but they're making it even stronger? Therefore it will be nerfed?