Last night our guild dipped it's toe back into ICC to see what it was like. Mind you, none of us had beta accounts so we really only had our experience on the PTR as preparation for this patch, and since we raid pretty solidly during the week, we really didn't have a lot of time on the PTR even.
I ended up tanking, but I would have done that by choice, as I'm not entirely happy with the general "feel" of the fury rotation anymore. I don't know if it's the ability queue system interfering with my ability to capitalize on procs, or the fact that we have so much more of our rotation linked to unstable procs than before, but one way or the other, I've found that even when the RNG swung my way and the numbers were good, those "good feeling" rotations didn't last more than one or two stretches. It's a strange combination of having a very tight rotation (BT every 3 seconds, means one button press in between, which is supposed to be one of Raging Blow, Instant Slam (both procs, and uncertain) or WW for multi-target situations, and hit Heroic Strike or Cleave when you have 50 rage or more -- yet another proc) along with having so many parts of that tight rotation that can't be counted on to be available. On the PTR I ran once through Heroic UK and literally only used Raging Blow about 3 total times. Not because I didn't want to, but because I never enraged. Admittedly, I could have used Berserker Rage or Death Wish to patch over some of that, but I wanted to see what the rotation felt like without having to resort to using cooldowns. I would go into combat, hit BloodThirst, and by the time I got another button to press (usually Bloodthirst again) most of the pull was dead. I lost count of the number of times I finally enraged and had the opportunity to hit Raging Blow at just about the same time that everything died. I normally am a huge fan of warriors sundering just to help, and I've made MANY posts and comments to that effect, and suddenly I find that I don't want to sunder any more. It doesn't help as much as it used to, and more importantly, I don't have the gaps in the basic rotation to slot it in any longer.
Tanking, on the other hand, was great. I did not find it to be tougher than it was Monday, just slightly different. I definitely had to go into it with an open mind, but once I was comfortable, it was really very much the same as it had been.
If I had any complaints at all about tanking, it was that I occasionally felt like I was made of tissue paper, but I found myself wondering if this was a bug or something. I would go for long stretches of time and be perfectly fine, and then all of a sudden, I'm dead with no warning at all. I went back through my combat logs and I only see evenly spaced hits coming in ranging in the 6-8k damage and not even too frequently, so since I'm reasonably sure I was being healed at the time, I really can't say what happened. I don't see any huge spikes, nothing.
But so much of that kind of thing will happen, we encountered at least 3 bugs just getting up to halfway through the blood quarter that we're glad we only decided to bring a 10 man group to raid with. As an example, during the Gunship battle, one of the Alliance sailors (that should have been dead) apparently went invisible and came onto Deathbringer's Rise with us. All through combat it was attacking some of our ranged dps, and we couldn't figure out where it was coming from. It also kept putting us back into combat after we wiped making it impossible for us to rez or even take the transport to the rise (which we can't walk to). Finally someone found the spot that the invisible sailor was in and we killed him and things went smoother.
But all in all, things went much smoother than I'd have thought. Bosses went down very quickly, which had me a little concerned. Damage numbers weren't really "higher" than usual, but our 10 man was setting speed records on every boss we downed, and half our dps were really not our "best" dps. No one was over 11k, including our lead Fury warrior who usually sits pretty comfortably at 18-20k sustained average with the ICC buff.
If you're worried about the 4.0 patch and it's effects on the game until December, let me caution you to wait. They're going to fix all these strange inconsistencies, because the last thing Blizzard wants to do is tick off everyone who plays one particular class and lose that richness of uniqueness that makes the game fun.
I can understand if Fury warriors are having a tough time right now, I am too. They've already announced that they're buffing our numbers, but for me it's more of a feel issue. I'm just not happy with my basic rotation yet, and until I can get comfortable there, I don't know that having bigger numbers will help as much as they might think. I know when I was dpsing I was seeing melee damage at 30%-38% of my overall damage, and that just hurts my feelings. At that point it almost feels like I shouldn't bother even hitting buttons, since just standing in place does almost as much damage as trying to accomplish something. But, this is now common knowledge, and they're already fixing coefficients and adding to baseline damage of abilities and doing everything they can to make this right for us and ret pallies and kitties. I don't know if rogues are suffering at all, and I know that DK's are still seeing massive numbers, so those all seem ok.
I'd also like to take this opportunity to welcome little Perppy to my 80 club. In addition to my two other plate wearing alter-egos, I now have a fun loving little rogue of my own to play with.
Of course, she literally just hit 80 on Monday, so this may be the perfect opportunity for me to take some time and find out how to play a rogue post 4.0.1, since I won't have the pre-patch misconceptions clouding my judgement.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Some Patch 4.0.1 Warrior notes for PvE
Hello. I spent some time testing on the PTR and also researching through information on EJ and others, and here is basically what I've gleaned about how Fury and Protection will work for secondary stats.
Fury priorities in order:
Hit Softcap (still 5%), Expertise Softcap (26)
Fuzzy area (Hit to a "reasonable" level, not sure what that is, then Strength)
Strength, and Mastery
Crit
Haste
Basically, what most people are saying is a 'good' idea is:
(1) make sure you're wearing plate, wearing only plate adds 5% to all stats.
(2) reforge as much haste as you can to hit rating, at least enough to get a "comfortable level of rage income" whatever that means. If you lack expertise rating, use some of this budget to get to soft cap.
(3) Gem everything you have for Strength, but go ahead and match sockets, i.e. use Strength/Crit to match yellow sockets, or Strength/Hit to match blue sockets.
(4) enchants should stay about like they are, but if you have enchants that add hit/expertise, etc. and you don't need the rating, and there's a better option, get that.
(5) I haven't been able to find any indication of whether mastery is desirable enough to forego Strength or Hit for, but since the only way to get mastery right now is by reforging, and people seem to be agreeing that we need a lot of hit rating, I'm guessing that at 80 we're not supposed to spend a lot of time worried about mastery rating. We may investigate this some and see if we can get a better idea how to include this.
Protection priorities in order:
Hit rating to soft cap (8%), expertise rating (as much as you can get, hopefully softcapped)
Stamina
Strength
Parry/Dodge (basically the same, but Parry has a talent that edges it out if you take it)
More Expertise until hard cap
Mastery (people are saying that mastery is about 2/3 the value of other mitigation types right now, so this is pretty much last for us until they change their minds)
So the 'basic idea' at this point (from what I've seen and read) is to
(1) reforge to hit expertise and hit caps
(2) any additional reforging that you feel you want to do either put into block rating (I think this is still available) or dodge or parry, and probably parry will be the go-to stat for a while here.
(3) gem for stamina. It "may" still be advisable to look at socket bonuses, but stamina will cause your vengeance to scale, and your gear should have a lot more dodge/parry than before. If you do try to get socket bonuses, use the standard stamina/hit, stamina/expertise, stamina/dodge, and stamina/parry gems, unless you feel you need some crit rating or something.
(4) otherwise we're pretty much the same as before.
I'll apologize in advance to any Arms warriors we have, as I haven't really spent a lot of time looking into your new designs. I will try to do that at some point, but from what I've heard, while Arms is "closer" to being viable in PvE content, it's still behind Fury by enough that most people aren't really looking at it seriously yet.
Fury priorities in order:
Hit Softcap (still 5%), Expertise Softcap (26)
Fuzzy area (Hit to a "reasonable" level, not sure what that is, then Strength)
Strength, and Mastery
Crit
Haste
Basically, what most people are saying is a 'good' idea is:
(1) make sure you're wearing plate, wearing only plate adds 5% to all stats.
(2) reforge as much haste as you can to hit rating, at least enough to get a "comfortable level of rage income" whatever that means. If you lack expertise rating, use some of this budget to get to soft cap.
(3) Gem everything you have for Strength, but go ahead and match sockets, i.e. use Strength/Crit to match yellow sockets, or Strength/Hit to match blue sockets.
(4) enchants should stay about like they are, but if you have enchants that add hit/expertise, etc. and you don't need the rating, and there's a better option, get that.
(5) I haven't been able to find any indication of whether mastery is desirable enough to forego Strength or Hit for, but since the only way to get mastery right now is by reforging, and people seem to be agreeing that we need a lot of hit rating, I'm guessing that at 80 we're not supposed to spend a lot of time worried about mastery rating. We may investigate this some and see if we can get a better idea how to include this.
Protection priorities in order:
Hit rating to soft cap (8%), expertise rating (as much as you can get, hopefully softcapped)
Stamina
Strength
Parry/Dodge (basically the same, but Parry has a talent that edges it out if you take it)
More Expertise until hard cap
Mastery (people are saying that mastery is about 2/3 the value of other mitigation types right now, so this is pretty much last for us until they change their minds)
So the 'basic idea' at this point (from what I've seen and read) is to
(1) reforge to hit expertise and hit caps
(2) any additional reforging that you feel you want to do either put into block rating (I think this is still available) or dodge or parry, and probably parry will be the go-to stat for a while here.
(3) gem for stamina. It "may" still be advisable to look at socket bonuses, but stamina will cause your vengeance to scale, and your gear should have a lot more dodge/parry than before. If you do try to get socket bonuses, use the standard stamina/hit, stamina/expertise, stamina/dodge, and stamina/parry gems, unless you feel you need some crit rating or something.
(4) otherwise we're pretty much the same as before.
I'll apologize in advance to any Arms warriors we have, as I haven't really spent a lot of time looking into your new designs. I will try to do that at some point, but from what I've heard, while Arms is "closer" to being viable in PvE content, it's still behind Fury by enough that most people aren't really looking at it seriously yet.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Some Pre-Cataclysm Warrior Tank Specs (Guesses, but well educated ones)
Last night I had a guild mate ask me for some advice on speccing out his warrior tank after patch 4.0.1 hits and it started me thinking that perhaps it would be easier to put my thoughts here so anyone that wanted could read them too.
To begin with, here are a couple links to "mostly" current PTR quality talent trees:
Wowhead
Mmo-Champion
Personally, I like the wowhead calculator better as it also lists Mastery etc. in the beginning exactly as it will appear in game.
Now to the trees. I want to point out some specific talents in the protection tree, some good some bad, but all noteworthy.
Must Haves:
Don't Takes:
Soak Tank - High Survivability: Level 80 (2/3/31) Level 85 (5/3/33)
Additions here include:
Additions here include:
Additions here include:
To begin with, here are a couple links to "mostly" current PTR quality talent trees:
Wowhead
Mmo-Champion
Personally, I like the wowhead calculator better as it also lists Mastery etc. in the beginning exactly as it will appear in game.
Now to the trees. I want to point out some specific talents in the protection tree, some good some bad, but all noteworthy.
Must Haves:
- Toughness (Tier 1 3/3) may not be exciting, but it's a must. Tanking in Cataclysm is looking hard enough without turning down free armor rating.
- Gag Order (Tier 2 2/2) hasn't really changed much, apart from the reduction in the Heroic Throw CD (an amazing change), but it's still 100% necessary. Control is the name of the game, and we don't have any other way to control casters. If it makes you feel better, pretend it's Death Grip for Warriors.
- Last Stand (Tier 3 1/1) is an oldy, but you'll need every cd you can muster, and this is still nothing that can be skipped.
- Bastion of Defense (Tier 3 2/2) is a new talent, and a Cataclysmically original must-have. This talent takes the place of Improved Defensive Stance, but with some differences. Among other things, this talent now eliminates the need to worry about becoming defense capped (which is good, since defense is gone). The less exciting changes here are that it no longer reduces damage taken by 6%, and the enrage chance has been reduced to 20%. Don't worry too much, though, they've added a new Vengeance mechanic that should be picking up where this enrage effect dies off.
- Warbringer (Tier 3 1/1) in WotLK was a decent talent and very useful, but in Cataclysm you're going to need the ability to react and stay mobile more than ever. They've still left the restrictions on removing the movement impairments to only with Intervene, but I can see this being something no warrior tank will be functioning well without since our AoE threat mechanics have been tuned down significantly.
- Improved Revenge (Tier 4 2/2) has been moved up in the tree, but still does the same thing. Threat has been an issue, and this is one threat talent you're going to want no matter what, even though in the past it has been debatable. This will be a mandatory talent for the same reason glyph of Cleave is going to become a staple on tanks in Cataclysm.
- Devastate (Tier 4 1/1) just like before you'll want this key ability. With sunder stacks being less important than before, your dps will really not be interested in applying this much, so not only is it up to you, but you need the threat building action.
- Heavy Repercussions (Tier 4 2/2) snuck into the talent tree. This was an ability that was tied directly in with Shield Block back when the damage from Shield Slam came from block value. Now that they've been separated, this talent will allow you to not lose this important burst threat ability.
- Sword and Board (Tier 6 3/3) will still be mandatory.
- Shockwave (Tier 7 1/1) hasn't really ever been in question, but now that Thunderclap no longer brings with it the kind of snap aggro it used to, Shockwave is the only remaining AoE ability we have to keep large groups under control. It does good damage, and generates good threat. In Cataclysm it's a must-have.
Don't Takes:
- Safeguard (Tier 6 2/2) probably looks about the same to you, and it is. Intervene is definitely a useful ability, but on a raid tank if you're having to intervene people, things are already out of control, and perhaps your two talent points should have been spent getting something to keep things under control in the first place. Although this talent sounds like it could have so many uses, the fact that it requires distance (although I heard they are removing a minimum distance from cataclysm for intervene, so that may change things) and the fact that there is a taunt associated with it kind of stuffs this into the category of something you'll "use occasionally during tank-swapping fights where you don't have to stand right on top of each other" and right off the top of my head, I can't think of even one from previous content that fit this bill. Not to mention that when you intervene someone, you also take the next two hits from that mob, and the damage reduction barely lasts longer than the time you're getting yourself hit from them. Not terribly worthwhile in my opinion. Possibly more useful in PvP.
Soak Tank - High Survivability: Level 80 (2/3/31) Level 85 (5/3/33)
Additions here include:
- Incite 3/3 - This looks to be a very promising increase threat move for single targets.
- Shield Mastery 2/2 - big time important, decreased cd's on all your great defensive cd's
- Vigilance 1/1 - Typically Soak Tanks aren't the ones that are being targeted, so their rage generation suffers. With the change to vigilance, this is now the perfect tool for Soak Tanks and Add tanks.
- Hold the Line 2/2 - This one can probably be traded out if you don't feel it's getting enough use. It requires being attacked and if you're not parrying anything in your encounters, it may be best to swap these for Blood and Thunder to help the MT with sustaining threat on spawns.
- Field Dressing 2/2 and Blood Craze 3/3 from the other two trees are pretty desirable, at least until you know for sure whether your healers are having difficulties or not. If it turns out that they're not, you should see if you can swap these for talents like Cruelty or War Academy.
Additions here include:
- Thunderstruck 2/2 and Blood and Thunder 2/2, and eventually Deep Wounds 3/3 again all intended to make Pugging at least a little less painful, along with Blitz and a couple points in Shield Mastery to help with rage generation and pull control.
Additions here include:
- Cruelty 2/2, War Academy 3/3 for added threat
- Shield Mastery 3/3 for extra rage generation
- Hold the Line 2/2 since you'll be parrying often
- Impending Victory, since you'll actually be in a position to use this more often than the other tanks (except the Soak Tank, who also has it) and the combination with War Academy is just extra nice.
Friday, September 17, 2010
My Favorite Upcoming Cataclysm Talent Tree and Why
A while back there was a blue post somewhere that asked us to tell them which talent tree we think they did the best job on and why.
At the time I was still trying to assimilate the changes to us warriors and hadn't really had enough time to poke around to find out more, but now that I have I wanted to share my opinions on this.
In my opinion the best upcoming talent tree re-design is the paladin trees. Now, in terms of feel of filling it out, it's approximately the same as the others, but what really distinguishes it is their better overall design when compared to current talent trees.
Let's look at a couple comparisons to understand why I say this. Let's look at the holy tree now and then.
Right now the "pinnacle" of the holy tree is beacon of light. Beacon is something that no holy paladin can really be effective without, so this makes sense. Currently you can't learn beacon of light as a holy paladin until you hit level 60, but once you do, you've got a wealth of options as to how to proceed from there.
In Cataclysm, you'll be able to get beacon of light at level 39. Admittedly, healing will be working differently, but this advancement has the effect of making you "FEEL" OP whether you are or not. I mean, you get to have the current "pinnacle" talent at 39. In fact, going one step beyond that, the next several tiers of the tree just feel like they're improving on that whole tree. A talent to improve how well beacon works (Tower of Radiance) an extra heal buff (Conviction) and a completely new "pinnacle" for the talent tree, the AoE heal that paladins are still talking about (Light of Dawn).
In fact, if you look at the other trees, you'll see this kind of careful redesign at work there too. Hammer of Justice is now an 11 point talent. You have so many new chewy things in the protection tree above Hammer of Justice it just makes it feel like it's shiny and new. The one criticism I have with the upcoming protection tree? Ardent Defender being made the new "pinnacle" talent. However, there were some critical changes to how Ardent Defender works that might make it better, but it's a tough call right now. Personally (since warriors have 0 automatic cooldowns) I'm fine with other tank classes also having to hit a button instead of relying on a strange rng or hidden cd to maybe save them from death, but I don't know how the paladin community feels about it. Regardless, I feel like this ultimate talent spot could have gone to something more, I don't know, "epic" I guess.
The ret tree also is seeing some of this redesign love, with the former pinnacle talent "Divine Storm" moving down to it's 11 point resting spot, and the new Zealotry replacing it. The thing I like about Zealotry is that it plays directly on the new Holy Power mechanic, just like the 31 point talent in Holy does (although I notice the protection tree ultimate talent does not). Even if Zealotry is not as epic as it could be, this still makes the talent itself seem shiny and new and gives this air of Blizzard trying to help players find direction with this new system they've designed.
I compare all of this to trees that I feel like were kind of "phoned in" by the developers more than the paladin's. In each of the remaining talent trees, I think the ones that look the best were the ones where the devs decided that the current "pinnacle" talent should become the level 10 baseline ability for that tree, which forced them to redesign the top tiers of that spec.
Unfortunately, the others are suffering. let's look at our talents (as examples, not as QQing). Currently, we can get to shockwave in protection, TG in fury, or bladestorm in arms at level 60. These are the "pinnacles" in our classes as it stands, and outlands leveling is made so much more enjoyable since we have these. (tanking in outlands or early Northrend without shockwave? It makes those initial seconds in a pull that much more crazy and difficult to control.) How does that compare to the cataclysm version of these same trees? Well, the 31 point talents aren't available until level 71. That's right, level 71, a full 11 levels after they're available now.
I think the general comparison for how the trees feel is somewhat stinted just because of that. Instead of reworking the trees to make something that fits everything right, we're stuck with the same talent tree, but postponed 11 levels, making them more expensive and less exciting all at the same time.
Suppose we were going to make something for, say, Fury that mirrored how the paladin trees were overhauled. Well, for starters, TG and SMF would both be 11 point talents. No protection or arms spec would be able to spec into them, so they're safe, and warriors would be able to make a decision immediately about whether they're going to be using 2 2 handers or 2 1 handers as they level up through their 40's. Of course, that would also mean they'd have to come up with some better idea for a pinnacle talent for the Fury tree, but I think they can do it if they put their minds to it.
Shockwave (and quite possibly Bladestorm), then, could be similar to beacon of light. Move it a little down from the top (even if only to the 26 point talent) and give a 2 point talent somewhere that improves upon it, and maybe a cool new epic tanking talent that still gives us the nice stun for those first few seconds of a fight when things go bad by 60-ish, but something even more epic to work up to by 71.
Anyway, that's my opinions about which talent trees I think were done right.
At the time I was still trying to assimilate the changes to us warriors and hadn't really had enough time to poke around to find out more, but now that I have I wanted to share my opinions on this.
In my opinion the best upcoming talent tree re-design is the paladin trees. Now, in terms of feel of filling it out, it's approximately the same as the others, but what really distinguishes it is their better overall design when compared to current talent trees.
Let's look at a couple comparisons to understand why I say this. Let's look at the holy tree now and then.
Right now the "pinnacle" of the holy tree is beacon of light. Beacon is something that no holy paladin can really be effective without, so this makes sense. Currently you can't learn beacon of light as a holy paladin until you hit level 60, but once you do, you've got a wealth of options as to how to proceed from there.
In Cataclysm, you'll be able to get beacon of light at level 39. Admittedly, healing will be working differently, but this advancement has the effect of making you "FEEL" OP whether you are or not. I mean, you get to have the current "pinnacle" talent at 39. In fact, going one step beyond that, the next several tiers of the tree just feel like they're improving on that whole tree. A talent to improve how well beacon works (Tower of Radiance) an extra heal buff (Conviction) and a completely new "pinnacle" for the talent tree, the AoE heal that paladins are still talking about (Light of Dawn).
In fact, if you look at the other trees, you'll see this kind of careful redesign at work there too. Hammer of Justice is now an 11 point talent. You have so many new chewy things in the protection tree above Hammer of Justice it just makes it feel like it's shiny and new. The one criticism I have with the upcoming protection tree? Ardent Defender being made the new "pinnacle" talent. However, there were some critical changes to how Ardent Defender works that might make it better, but it's a tough call right now. Personally (since warriors have 0 automatic cooldowns) I'm fine with other tank classes also having to hit a button instead of relying on a strange rng or hidden cd to maybe save them from death, but I don't know how the paladin community feels about it. Regardless, I feel like this ultimate talent spot could have gone to something more, I don't know, "epic" I guess.
The ret tree also is seeing some of this redesign love, with the former pinnacle talent "Divine Storm" moving down to it's 11 point resting spot, and the new Zealotry replacing it. The thing I like about Zealotry is that it plays directly on the new Holy Power mechanic, just like the 31 point talent in Holy does (although I notice the protection tree ultimate talent does not). Even if Zealotry is not as epic as it could be, this still makes the talent itself seem shiny and new and gives this air of Blizzard trying to help players find direction with this new system they've designed.
I compare all of this to trees that I feel like were kind of "phoned in" by the developers more than the paladin's. In each of the remaining talent trees, I think the ones that look the best were the ones where the devs decided that the current "pinnacle" talent should become the level 10 baseline ability for that tree, which forced them to redesign the top tiers of that spec.
Unfortunately, the others are suffering. let's look at our talents (as examples, not as QQing). Currently, we can get to shockwave in protection, TG in fury, or bladestorm in arms at level 60. These are the "pinnacles" in our classes as it stands, and outlands leveling is made so much more enjoyable since we have these. (tanking in outlands or early Northrend without shockwave? It makes those initial seconds in a pull that much more crazy and difficult to control.) How does that compare to the cataclysm version of these same trees? Well, the 31 point talents aren't available until level 71. That's right, level 71, a full 11 levels after they're available now.
I think the general comparison for how the trees feel is somewhat stinted just because of that. Instead of reworking the trees to make something that fits everything right, we're stuck with the same talent tree, but postponed 11 levels, making them more expensive and less exciting all at the same time.
Suppose we were going to make something for, say, Fury that mirrored how the paladin trees were overhauled. Well, for starters, TG and SMF would both be 11 point talents. No protection or arms spec would be able to spec into them, so they're safe, and warriors would be able to make a decision immediately about whether they're going to be using 2 2 handers or 2 1 handers as they level up through their 40's. Of course, that would also mean they'd have to come up with some better idea for a pinnacle talent for the Fury tree, but I think they can do it if they put their minds to it.
Shockwave (and quite possibly Bladestorm), then, could be similar to beacon of light. Move it a little down from the top (even if only to the 26 point talent) and give a 2 point talent somewhere that improves upon it, and maybe a cool new epic tanking talent that still gives us the nice stun for those first few seconds of a fight when things go bad by 60-ish, but something even more epic to work up to by 71.
Anyway, that's my opinions about which talent trees I think were done right.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Updates from the up and coming Tank
Hello again. I just wanted to update everyone on the exploits of my up and coming "warrior main tank" on the separate realm so I didn't have the impetus to shower him in BoA gear or extra cash from my other toons.
So far things have been much easier than I remember them being the first time I did the leveling process on my warrior. For one thing, I did it the hard way the first time, but for another, adding the extra survivability really is the way to go, and with the changes to Improved Revenge, hitting shield block virtually guarantees that you will (a) have plenty of rage from shield specialization, (b) have Revenge procced for a while, and (c) kill them dead. Now, to be fair, there have been some challenges I haven't been able to overcome. For one thing, I am not able to solo group quests of 3 or more unless they're at least 2-3 levels behind me (more if they require more people). I've done pretty well with some 2 person quests, but the 5 person quest to end the Tranquillen reputation grind did not go so well at 22. I'll come back later to take it out once I hit 25, I think.
Meanwhile I've been adding to my gear by running dungeons with the LFD tool, and even at the low 20's and late 10's I've been seeing mostly insta-queues. I've already picked up some decent blue gear, and (while I don't really have a good measuring stick for this) I'm sitting on about 900 health at level 22, which seems pretty good.
I'm reminded again why I hate questing in the vanilla areas so much, though. All the constant quests to "go pick up X from some obscure location in the middle of the other continent" (even though you're barely able to ride a mount) which gets turned back in to the original quest giver to be followed by "now take Y back to the same place you just were (middle of other continent) and ask if she needs anything from here" (inevitably she does, and you just continent hop for an hour to get 3 quests done). I don't think I mind the quests so much, as the fact that the difficulty involved in so many of them is just the annoyance of getting to wherever it is you're supposed to go to do whatever. The actual task is kind of boring, and not always as lore-filled as some would try to argue.
All in all, I'm looking forward to the changes in Cataclysm to the questing system. I'm still hoping to find the time to finish Loremaster before it gets here (since 3,000 quests seem even more daunting, even if you can do 25 of them in the same time it takes you to kill a bug in Mulgore and then gloat about your exploit to someone in Brill, and then turn the quest in to some dude in Sillithus (a quest that, no doubt, came from the Hillsbrad Foothills).
So far things have been much easier than I remember them being the first time I did the leveling process on my warrior. For one thing, I did it the hard way the first time, but for another, adding the extra survivability really is the way to go, and with the changes to Improved Revenge, hitting shield block virtually guarantees that you will (a) have plenty of rage from shield specialization, (b) have Revenge procced for a while, and (c) kill them dead. Now, to be fair, there have been some challenges I haven't been able to overcome. For one thing, I am not able to solo group quests of 3 or more unless they're at least 2-3 levels behind me (more if they require more people). I've done pretty well with some 2 person quests, but the 5 person quest to end the Tranquillen reputation grind did not go so well at 22. I'll come back later to take it out once I hit 25, I think.
Meanwhile I've been adding to my gear by running dungeons with the LFD tool, and even at the low 20's and late 10's I've been seeing mostly insta-queues. I've already picked up some decent blue gear, and (while I don't really have a good measuring stick for this) I'm sitting on about 900 health at level 22, which seems pretty good.
I'm reminded again why I hate questing in the vanilla areas so much, though. All the constant quests to "go pick up X from some obscure location in the middle of the other continent" (even though you're barely able to ride a mount) which gets turned back in to the original quest giver to be followed by "now take Y back to the same place you just were (middle of other continent) and ask if she needs anything from here" (inevitably she does, and you just continent hop for an hour to get 3 quests done). I don't think I mind the quests so much, as the fact that the difficulty involved in so many of them is just the annoyance of getting to wherever it is you're supposed to go to do whatever. The actual task is kind of boring, and not always as lore-filled as some would try to argue.
All in all, I'm looking forward to the changes in Cataclysm to the questing system. I'm still hoping to find the time to finish Loremaster before it gets here (since 3,000 quests seem even more daunting, even if you can do 25 of them in the same time it takes you to kill a bug in Mulgore and then gloat about your exploit to someone in Brill, and then turn the quest in to some dude in Sillithus (a quest that, no doubt, came from the Hillsbrad Foothills).
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Thoughts on rotation for Cataclysm Fury Warriors (as of beta build 12694)
So, I noticed some subtle changes to the fury rotation recently, and I wasn't going to invest a lot of time into trying to guess the rotation for Clysm, but since the Bloodsurge design is getting a bit of a nip/tuck, I'm starting to wonder about it.
Looking at the single target rotation, we have essentially two abilities we're likely to use. Bloodthirst and Raging Blow. Now, Bloodthirst has a 3 second cooldown and no obvious limitations on its use, so that's going to be the capstone of our rotation. Since there is the 1.5 second gcd, that means no matter what else we do, BT will be every other hit (unless something comes up that makes more sense to hit instead). Raging Blow has a 6 second cooldown, so it's going to occupy space between alternating Bloodthirsts (assuming you can keep enraged "pretty much" all the time).
So, here is our rotation:
BT -> RB -> BT -> ____ -> BT -> RB -> BT -> ____ ... etc.
The blanks signify the "gaps" in our rotation that we would be filling with things like Slam if bloodsurge were procced, Sunders, Shouts, etc.
They've said that HS will be off the gcd, which means you can hit it anytime within this rotation you like provided you have the rage for it, so that will not be considered here.
In addition, since they've changed the Bloodsurge design to have a 30% chance to proc off each "hit" from either Bloodthirst or Raging Blow (HS is not included as of this build, and you also have to consider that the effect is only available once per 6 seconds), this works out to a preliminary chance of having a Slam proc (in the first 4.5 second rotation) of about 67%, and eventually it averages out to about 41% chance each subsequent open space. So this means that our Clysm rotation will essentially only have about 3 open spots in our rotation every 22.5 seconds. Some things won't affect us, as I believe that pummel is staying off the gcd as will be HS (under current designs), but this still leaves all the sunders/shouts/etc.
On the one hand, this should be fine. Each warrior will have at MOST 2 shouts they need to use (but one costs rage, and probably would only be used if the tank didn't talent for it) and sunders. So, on average, that will basically give us exactly the opportunity that we're wanting to have, with one open spot every 22.5 seconds for, I dunno, something fun?
Of course, the variation in this rotation will be availability. Raging Blow is only available to use if you are enraged. Slam is only useful if Bloodsurge has procced, otherwise casting Slam is like nailing your toes to a stop sign so the raid can play tetherball with your head -- it's a huge headache.
I think what I'm most afraid of is that this rotation is SO set in stone. There really is no wiggle room at all. Our current rotation is mostly like this, but because of the 4 second, 8 second cooldowns which don't "quite" mix with the gcd's, we end up with a lot more spots where things could go, but they're more costly. For example, our rotation now starts with a BT -> WW -> 1 second spacer -> BT
That 1 second spacer "could" be used for an emergency sunder or a procced slam, but it will also delay the next BT by 0.5 seconds, which makes you have to pause to consider whether having the extra attack etc. in that second is worth losing the 0.5 seconds from the extra gcd, especially since right after your gcd from that next BT, you're looking at a 2.5 second free space which is easily one extra ability, plus another awkward 1 second space.
Now, BRILLIANTLY, Blizzard placed the 0.5 second gcd reduction on slam as an additional proc from the T10 set, which makes slam actually fit nicely into those awkward pauses... a la:
BT -> WW -> Slam -> BT -> Slam -> (Some other Ability) -> and so forth.
But since that only procs 20% of the time that Slam is instant, the remaining pockmarked mess looks the same:
BT -> WW -> awkward 1 second pause -> BT -> Slam -> awkward 1 second pause -> and so forth.
The catch is though, those two awkward 1 second pauses there actually give us some room to fire extra stuff, or do nothing, or whatever is called for, but possibly at a slight loss to us. If Victory Rush is procced, we can throw those in and take the 0.5 second hit. If sunders are about to fall off.... If shouts are wearing out.... etc.
I think I like that we're going to be having a nice tight rotation, but if it's this tight, it may make some of the other utility we used to provide seem kind of sketchy. If we can't be enraged (at least nearly)100% of the time, it will make our rotations very difficult to keep up with, what with hovering over the Raging Blow button and watching, and having nothing else to press really if it doesn't light up.
Of course, I'm assuming that just like the post they made about ret paladins recently they're trying to make our white damage "significant" so that haste remains "more attractive for us" and perhaps that will make all this theory crafting about yellow strike rotations null and void, but that's a separate rant for another time.
For now, that's what it looks like we have to work with, and we'll have to wait and see how things go.
Incidentally, because I haven't said anything about it here yet, notice that our rotation is pretty tight, and the cost is right at 66.15 rage per 4.5 second rotation, which works out to 14.7 rage per second. Dual Wielding, with 0 haste, that will require your main hand weapon to generate 9.8 rage per second and your off hand weapon to generate 4.9 rage per second (well, minus any "additional rage sources"). This makes it seem as though a standard white melee hit with a 3.5 second timer should yield about 34.3 rage, or with a 2.0 second swing timer about 19.6 rage.
And I know that the new Battle Trance talent is very handy, but bear in mind that you're looking at 1 proc of that per 20 Bloodthirst strikes, so figure that means one free swing every 60 seconds, reducing our rage per second needs to 14.36 rage per second. Not exactly a huge change, but that's what it does.
I figure if they're going to make this rage normalization work at all, it will have to be balanced around having "some" haste, but it can't be a significant amount since we'll already have to be stacking hit rating out the wazoo to make up for the hit penalty from dual wielding, especially if white damage is meant to be "significant" in Clysm.
Anyway, those are my thoughts on a rotation come Clysm. We'll have to keep our eyes peeled and find out what else the future has in store for us.
Looking at the single target rotation, we have essentially two abilities we're likely to use. Bloodthirst and Raging Blow. Now, Bloodthirst has a 3 second cooldown and no obvious limitations on its use, so that's going to be the capstone of our rotation. Since there is the 1.5 second gcd, that means no matter what else we do, BT will be every other hit (unless something comes up that makes more sense to hit instead). Raging Blow has a 6 second cooldown, so it's going to occupy space between alternating Bloodthirsts (assuming you can keep enraged "pretty much" all the time).
So, here is our rotation:
BT -> RB -> BT -> ____ -> BT -> RB -> BT -> ____ ... etc.
The blanks signify the "gaps" in our rotation that we would be filling with things like Slam if bloodsurge were procced, Sunders, Shouts, etc.
They've said that HS will be off the gcd, which means you can hit it anytime within this rotation you like provided you have the rage for it, so that will not be considered here.
In addition, since they've changed the Bloodsurge design to have a 30% chance to proc off each "hit" from either Bloodthirst or Raging Blow (HS is not included as of this build, and you also have to consider that the effect is only available once per 6 seconds), this works out to a preliminary chance of having a Slam proc (in the first 4.5 second rotation) of about 67%, and eventually it averages out to about 41% chance each subsequent open space. So this means that our Clysm rotation will essentially only have about 3 open spots in our rotation every 22.5 seconds. Some things won't affect us, as I believe that pummel is staying off the gcd as will be HS (under current designs), but this still leaves all the sunders/shouts/etc.
On the one hand, this should be fine. Each warrior will have at MOST 2 shouts they need to use (but one costs rage, and probably would only be used if the tank didn't talent for it) and sunders. So, on average, that will basically give us exactly the opportunity that we're wanting to have, with one open spot every 22.5 seconds for, I dunno, something fun?
Of course, the variation in this rotation will be availability. Raging Blow is only available to use if you are enraged. Slam is only useful if Bloodsurge has procced, otherwise casting Slam is like nailing your toes to a stop sign so the raid can play tetherball with your head -- it's a huge headache.
I think what I'm most afraid of is that this rotation is SO set in stone. There really is no wiggle room at all. Our current rotation is mostly like this, but because of the 4 second, 8 second cooldowns which don't "quite" mix with the gcd's, we end up with a lot more spots where things could go, but they're more costly. For example, our rotation now starts with a BT -> WW -> 1 second spacer -> BT
That 1 second spacer "could" be used for an emergency sunder or a procced slam, but it will also delay the next BT by 0.5 seconds, which makes you have to pause to consider whether having the extra attack etc. in that second is worth losing the 0.5 seconds from the extra gcd, especially since right after your gcd from that next BT, you're looking at a 2.5 second free space which is easily one extra ability, plus another awkward 1 second space.
Now, BRILLIANTLY, Blizzard placed the 0.5 second gcd reduction on slam as an additional proc from the T10 set, which makes slam actually fit nicely into those awkward pauses... a la:
BT -> WW -> Slam -> BT -> Slam -> (Some other Ability) -> and so forth.
But since that only procs 20% of the time that Slam is instant, the remaining pockmarked mess looks the same:
BT -> WW -> awkward 1 second pause -> BT -> Slam -> awkward 1 second pause -> and so forth.
The catch is though, those two awkward 1 second pauses there actually give us some room to fire extra stuff, or do nothing, or whatever is called for, but possibly at a slight loss to us. If Victory Rush is procced, we can throw those in and take the 0.5 second hit. If sunders are about to fall off.... If shouts are wearing out.... etc.
I think I like that we're going to be having a nice tight rotation, but if it's this tight, it may make some of the other utility we used to provide seem kind of sketchy. If we can't be enraged (at least nearly)100% of the time, it will make our rotations very difficult to keep up with, what with hovering over the Raging Blow button and watching, and having nothing else to press really if it doesn't light up.
Of course, I'm assuming that just like the post they made about ret paladins recently they're trying to make our white damage "significant" so that haste remains "more attractive for us" and perhaps that will make all this theory crafting about yellow strike rotations null and void, but that's a separate rant for another time.
For now, that's what it looks like we have to work with, and we'll have to wait and see how things go.
Incidentally, because I haven't said anything about it here yet, notice that our rotation is pretty tight, and the cost is right at 66.15 rage per 4.5 second rotation, which works out to 14.7 rage per second. Dual Wielding, with 0 haste, that will require your main hand weapon to generate 9.8 rage per second and your off hand weapon to generate 4.9 rage per second (well, minus any "additional rage sources"). This makes it seem as though a standard white melee hit with a 3.5 second timer should yield about 34.3 rage, or with a 2.0 second swing timer about 19.6 rage.
And I know that the new Battle Trance talent is very handy, but bear in mind that you're looking at 1 proc of that per 20 Bloodthirst strikes, so figure that means one free swing every 60 seconds, reducing our rage per second needs to 14.36 rage per second. Not exactly a huge change, but that's what it does.
I figure if they're going to make this rage normalization work at all, it will have to be balanced around having "some" haste, but it can't be a significant amount since we'll already have to be stacking hit rating out the wazoo to make up for the hit penalty from dual wielding, especially if white damage is meant to be "significant" in Clysm.
Anyway, those are my thoughts on a rotation come Clysm. We'll have to keep our eyes peeled and find out what else the future has in store for us.
Monday, August 2, 2010
Glyph of Taunt for Tanks
So, I did a tiny bit of investigation today into why a tank would take the glyph of taunt even if he already had over 8% hit rating, and as it turns out, there IS actually a reason.
Since this is something that I had wrong before, and hadn't really had issues with (well, to be fair, I rarely MT anything, and when I do, I've glyphed so much for AoE threat that I only use taunt occasionally, so a 6% miss chance might not show itself easily) I thought I'd go ahead and write a quick post in case anyone was interested for future reference (assuming this won't change for Clysm, which it probably will).
The catch to this that makes it confusing for everyone is that taunt works like a SPELL. It's pretty much the only thing we have that does, so I can understand why it's confusing.
Since it's a spell, it has a 17% spell miss chance, and not an 8% melee miss chance that you're used to. For this reason, you have to use spell hit ratings to see how it works instead of melee hit ratings, and you'll find that it requires 446 hit rating to guarantee that taunt will work every time.
Now, there are mitigations, for example, if you have a boomkin or faerie fire etc. in raid, that will reduce that to 14%, or 368, and if you have a draenei (why would you, aren't you horde?) you can reduce that by another 1%, leaving you with needing 342 (barely over 341) in order to guarantee 100% landing of taunt.
That's a lot of hit rating to have to add to your gear, especially when most of the tank gear doesn't include a substantial amount of hit rating to begin with.
Now, on the other hand, if you glyph for taunt, you only need to achieve 9% (respectively 6%, 5% with raid buffs) to guarantee the taunt lands, and that's a more moderate level 237 hit rating (respectively 158, 132).
The 158 hit rating will only get you 4.82% melee hit rating, but that's not nearly as important to you anyway, since pound for pound, expertise is what you "really" want. I mean, in an ideal world, you'd want to have enough to not have to count on raid composition, so you'd want to shoot for the 237 hit rating mark (which still leaves you with only 7.23% miss chance reduction). I happen to know a tank with over 8% hit rating and also the taunt glyph, and that's really awesome, but at the same time, his expertise is lower than the recommended 26, so in that case, he's probably seeing as much of a loss of threat from dodges/parries as he would be from miss if he could trade out the hit rating he's over the 237 mark for expertise. Not that he has any problems in that area, because believe me that's NOT the case, but for all you other warriors who aren't as up on the lore, I think if you're the raid's MT, and you KNOW you have a boomkin, I'd try to adjust your hit rating slightly to about 158 hit rating mark, and funnel whatever else you have options for into expertise (while pretty much gemming/enchanting for pure stamina/mitigation) and TAKE THE GLYPH OF TAUNT. If you're NOT your raid's MT, your taunts may actually not be as vital. In fact, you may really want to have more "spread the love" glyphs, so you can keep a pack of mobs on you easily while the MT is taking the big whallops. On the other hand, you may be the tank assigned to keep adds off the clothies, and if that's the case, you'll want to have this glyph in those fights where one add can one shot a clothie in about the same time it takes your vigilance gcd to wear off so you can try a taunt again.
So, in summary:
Without glyph of taunt, you're looking at:
446 hit rating needed to guarantee a taunt is successful,
With glyph of taunt, you're looking at:
237, 158, 132 hit rating depending on your raid buffs.
And since hit is not easy to come by, you should consider that something to consider.
Since this is something that I had wrong before, and hadn't really had issues with (well, to be fair, I rarely MT anything, and when I do, I've glyphed so much for AoE threat that I only use taunt occasionally, so a 6% miss chance might not show itself easily) I thought I'd go ahead and write a quick post in case anyone was interested for future reference (assuming this won't change for Clysm, which it probably will).
The catch to this that makes it confusing for everyone is that taunt works like a SPELL. It's pretty much the only thing we have that does, so I can understand why it's confusing.
Since it's a spell, it has a 17% spell miss chance, and not an 8% melee miss chance that you're used to. For this reason, you have to use spell hit ratings to see how it works instead of melee hit ratings, and you'll find that it requires 446 hit rating to guarantee that taunt will work every time.
Now, there are mitigations, for example, if you have a boomkin or faerie fire etc. in raid, that will reduce that to 14%, or 368, and if you have a draenei (why would you, aren't you horde?) you can reduce that by another 1%, leaving you with needing 342 (barely over 341) in order to guarantee 100% landing of taunt.
That's a lot of hit rating to have to add to your gear, especially when most of the tank gear doesn't include a substantial amount of hit rating to begin with.
Now, on the other hand, if you glyph for taunt, you only need to achieve 9% (respectively 6%, 5% with raid buffs) to guarantee the taunt lands, and that's a more moderate level 237 hit rating (respectively 158, 132).
The 158 hit rating will only get you 4.82% melee hit rating, but that's not nearly as important to you anyway, since pound for pound, expertise is what you "really" want. I mean, in an ideal world, you'd want to have enough to not have to count on raid composition, so you'd want to shoot for the 237 hit rating mark (which still leaves you with only 7.23% miss chance reduction). I happen to know a tank with over 8% hit rating and also the taunt glyph, and that's really awesome, but at the same time, his expertise is lower than the recommended 26, so in that case, he's probably seeing as much of a loss of threat from dodges/parries as he would be from miss if he could trade out the hit rating he's over the 237 mark for expertise. Not that he has any problems in that area, because believe me that's NOT the case, but for all you other warriors who aren't as up on the lore, I think if you're the raid's MT, and you KNOW you have a boomkin, I'd try to adjust your hit rating slightly to about 158 hit rating mark, and funnel whatever else you have options for into expertise (while pretty much gemming/enchanting for pure stamina/mitigation) and TAKE THE GLYPH OF TAUNT. If you're NOT your raid's MT, your taunts may actually not be as vital. In fact, you may really want to have more "spread the love" glyphs, so you can keep a pack of mobs on you easily while the MT is taking the big whallops. On the other hand, you may be the tank assigned to keep adds off the clothies, and if that's the case, you'll want to have this glyph in those fights where one add can one shot a clothie in about the same time it takes your vigilance gcd to wear off so you can try a taunt again.
So, in summary:
Without glyph of taunt, you're looking at:
446 hit rating needed to guarantee a taunt is successful,
With glyph of taunt, you're looking at:
237, 158, 132 hit rating depending on your raid buffs.
And since hit is not easy to come by, you should consider that something to consider.
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