Patch 3.3

[Kageh]

Edit: Ah, found it. So this is some Arms/Prot hybrid spec? Do you use a 2h for it or still sword/board?

Sword+board for PVE tanking, too. I'll try this out tonight. Have to work with sunder again, but I did that 2005 already so not much new there, and for that I supposedly get fun dps numbers. After much thinking on the matter, I think the only thing I'll really miss is Warbringer. Shockwave can probably be done without on regular 3-4 mob groups (no "mass tanking") by TC+Cleave+Revenge spam.

[Ingmar]

No, it's not typically a hybrid. What it is is arms warriors that carry shield and whatever to deal with pets, rogues, or other annoying melee types. A UA-pumped 2sec revenge can destroy BM hunter pets, shaman wolves, or dumbass rogues very quickly--while really cutting down on incoming damage. It's a good way to deal with protection types, too, though not nearly so much as the previously mentioned.

You gotta have a shield for this. Revenge is triggered by avoidance. UA just cuts the cooldown down (considerably--and increases damage somewhat).

No, it is a hybrid in its current most annoying form, or at the very least not a normal arms build, because you go into protection deep enough to get improved revenge for the extra damage and the cleave.

[Rendakor]

That's what I thought it was Ingmar; the normal Arms spec dips into Fury, but this one does Prot instead.

[Shrike]

No, it's not typically a hybrid. What it is is arms warriors that carry shield and whatever to deal with pets, rogues, or other annoying melee types. A UA-pumped 2sec revenge can destroy BM hunter pets, shaman wolves, or dumbass rogues very quickly--while really cutting down on incoming damage. It's a good way to deal with protection types, too, though not nearly so much as the previously mentioned.

You gotta have a shield for this. Revenge is triggered by avoidance. UA just cuts the cooldown down (considerably--and increases damage somewhat).

No, it is a hybrid in its current most annoying form, or at the very least not a normal arms build, because you go into protection deep enough to get improved revenge for the extra damage and the cleave.

It can be, but not necessarily so. The cleave effect isn't the real issue. It's the 2sec cooldown that's killer. Many arms types carried shields anyway for spell reflect and to deal with pets/rogues. The new revenge just makes this tactic all that much more effective, regardless of whether you have points in protection or not.

[Ingmar]

No, it's not typically a hybrid. What it is is arms warriors that carry shield and whatever to deal with pets, rogues, or other annoying melee types. A UA-pumped 2sec revenge can destroy BM hunter pets, shaman wolves, or dumbass rogues very quickly--while really cutting down on incoming damage. It's a good way to deal with protection types, too, though not nearly so much as the previously mentioned.

You gotta have a shield for this. Revenge is triggered by avoidance. UA just cuts the cooldown down (considerably--and increases damage somewhat).

No, it is a hybrid in its current most annoying form, or at the very least not a normal arms build, because you go into protection deep enough to get improved revenge for the extra damage and the cleave.

It can be, but not necessarily so. The cleave effect isn't the real issue. It's the 2sec cooldown that's killer. Many arms types carried shields anyway for spell reflect and to deal with pets/rogues. The new revenge just makes this tactic all that much more effective, regardless of whether you have points in protection or not.

If it was just that people would have been complaining for ages. What tipped it suddenly is that besides the base buff to revenge damage, speccing improved revenge now increases the (now higher) damage by 60%. The cleave is nice but its the damage boost that is the real meat of it. It was only 20% before, and people didn't typically find that worth all those points in protection. Now, on the other hand...

[Fabricated]

It's certainly hilarious on trash and heroics. After swapping in some DPS gear I can pull over 10k DPS now in heroics.

[Sheepherder]

Here's hoping they don't nerf it soon.

[Kageh]

I tried it out and went back to regular protection for heroics. Numbers are cool (I was somewhere at 5k without bothering to swap gear) but it is too much of a hassle with a trigger happy PUG to sweat and get everything back under control when you have to walk every step. Warbringer is what I missed the most.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I don't know if anyone noticed but now if someone leaves your dungeon and you get a replacement, the new person is instantly ported to the group and not the entrance of the dungeon.

[Sheepherder]

I noticed this after casting Ritual of Summoning.

[Minvaren]

I don't know if anyone noticed but now if someone leaves your dungeon and you get a replacement, the new person is instantly ported to the group and not the entrance of the dungeon.

I observed this as well this weekend in a rather fun manner...

Me : huh, group in progress.  Wonder if it's another Ick wipe...  (click)
(ToC loading screen)
Me : Well, it's not PoS, at least.  (swigs some water)
(I appear right on top of Paletress, combat already in progress)
Me : (nearly spew drink, grab for mouse and keyboard)

[Polysorbate80]

Here's hoping they don't nerf it soon.

Here's hoping the novelty at least wears off soon.  I was running Heroic Draktharon on the wife's healer last night, and the first tank we got left after about 4 pulls; apparently he only wanted a chance to try out this spec while yelling stuff like "IT'S OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAAND!"  Fortunately, his replacement was sane.

While tanking on my character, I got another one of these in group.  He'd run ahead and grab aggro to do it and it was a serious bitch to keep it back off him.  Naturally I gave up and let him "tank"; by coincidence(?) this was another H-DK so it didn't matter much when we were down a DPS :)

[kildorn]

I don't know if anyone noticed but now if someone leaves your dungeon and you get a replacement, the new person is instantly ported to the group and not the entrance of the dungeon.

This is very welcome, and a total surprise.

[Musashi]

Here's hoping they don't nerf it soon.

Here's hoping the novelty at least wears off soon.  I was running Heroic Draktharon on the wife's healer last night, and the first tank we got left after about 4 pulls; apparently he only wanted a chance to try out this spec while yelling stuff like "IT'S OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAAND!"  Fortunately, his replacement was sane.

While tanking on my character, I got another one of these in group.  He'd run ahead and grab aggro to do it and it was a serious bitch to keep it back off him.  Naturally I gave up and let him "tank"; by coincidence(?) this was another H-DK so it didn't matter much when we were down a DPS :)

If you've ever been forced to be a prot warrior for any length of time, you sympathize with this behavior.

[Polysorbate80]

If you've ever been forced to be a prot warrior for any length of time, you sympathize with this behavior.

If they've ever been prot warriors for any length of time, they know why I let them die 

(I've played a prot paly off and on since vanilla; I still don't sympathize)

[El Gallo]

(I've played a prot paly off and on since vanilla; I still don't sympathize)

That's like saying "I'm Paris Hilton; I don't sympathize with children in Rwanda"

[Kageh]

If you've ever been forced to be a prot warrior for any length of time, you sympathize with this behavior.

I partially agree, but that applies mainly to vanilla WoW. Having played protection on and off from release day and as main spec through TBC and WOTLK, I found protection in WOTLK a joy to play. My warrior is not as good on AOE aggro as a prot paladin (I got one of those too, just because I wanted to know how they play), but the creative use of charge/interrupt mechanics  feels a lot more rewarding to me than being confined to 96969 variations.

With that, 3.3 feels like a nice buff to my DPS, where I peak around 3 - 3.5k DPS as "classic" (15/3/53) protection on trash and that makes me happy for now. Asking for more would be pushing it into the realm of endless class balance discussions again.

The one area clearly dominated by paladins is group utility. When you compare Commanding Shout (which makes little to no difference in the days of 18k+ HP on squishies) and Battle Shout (which doesn't stack with BoM) to the various blessings/judgements/shields/cleanse/hands of ... that a paladin has, you feel kind of useless.

[Ingmar]

Protection warriors have never been unfun to play, you people are just crazy. 

(Also prot pallies, its been like 3 years since you sucked, build a bridge.)

[Minvaren]

Protection warriors have never been unfun to play, you people are just crazy. 

Fun? You better believe it.

High damage?  Er...  not really.  So if I actually get an uber crit off of revenge, the group might hear an "over 9000" joke from me.   

[Rendakor]

The ICC raid buff went up to 10% today.

[Merusk]

OOoh, fun.  I feel bad we didn't get Putricide before the 5% buff, but we've been doing him consistently with it.  That extra 5% will allow some 'omg crazy' time. Heh.

[WindupAtheist]

Friend of mine went back, but I just can't work up the interest. I'm hearing that non-random BG queues are horrifyingly long, is that true? I really don't like this whole thing where content sitting unused is unacceptable, but instead of improving it they just slap a random select on it and make that the most rewarding option.

Having to do vehicle bullshit in the occasional random Oculus or ToC was bad enough. Making 1/3 of all the battlegrounds I do either SotA or IoC is just plain not acceptable.

[Arrrgh]

AV is sad now. Pure race to the boss, no one bothers capping anything at all on the way. Matches are over in minutes.

[koro]

AV is sad now. Pure race to the boss, no one bothers capping anything at all on the way. Matches are over in minutes.

Welcome to four years ago.

[Arrrgh]

AV is sad now. Pure race to the boss, no one bothers capping anything at all on the way. Matches are over in minutes.

Welcome to four years ago.

No, before they'd at least cap GYs and bunkers on the way, even if they didn't bother guarding them well. Now everything is ignored.

[SurfD]

AV is sad now. Pure race to the boss, no one bothers capping anything at all on the way. Matches are over in minutes.

Welcome to four years ago.

No, before they'd at least cap GYs and bunkers on the way, even if they didn't bother guarding them well. Now everything is ignored.

any reason for this?  Only thing I remember hearing about in the patch notes for AV was something about the Keep bosses and adds ignoring some of a player's dodge if there were lots of them up.   What did they change that would make AV rushing more profitable then even a token attempt to take towers / bunkers?

[Kail]

What did they change that would make AV rushing more profitable then even a token attempt to take towers / bunkers?

At a guess, I'd say it's less a change in AV and more the fact that PvE gear is extremely common nowadays.  Taking the Boss with a group of forty random players is more doable now that Joe Average is wearing Tier 9 armor than it was when everyone was running around in blue honor gear.

[Ingmar]

Yeah, its just gear inflation. This happens towards the end of every expansion cycle so far.

[Dren]

Yeah, its just gear inflation. This happens towards the end of every expansion cycle so far.

All they would have to do is change it so you have to at least take some bunkers or GY's before taking on the bosses.  Right now it is a real joke and should be corrected.  Each time I ran it last weekend, we'd run down straight to the end boss only to lose because to many of our team would split off and try to do it the old way.  Horde on our BS figured out quicker than us that you just zerg for wins.

Either way, I still run them sometimes to get the very quick honor, win or lose.  Most times I use Random though.  My issue with that is it doesn't feel very random most the time.  WSG comes up 50% or more of the time.

[Shrike]

Yeah, its just gear inflation. This happens towards the end of every expansion cycle so far.

This shit only goes on in the 80 bracket. In the twink brackets, it's business as usual. Well, aside from the assholes with no LK accounts in the 69 bracket. There you'll see level 70 capped T6 equippied people as a matter of course. Unless Blizz changed it again. It's been a couple of months since I hit AV on my 68 paladin.

[Fordel]

It's mostly the super geared tanks that allow the early rush. Without the 40k HP tank, the entire thing just falls apart.



Which is why I usually cyclone the enemy tank about 10-20 seconds into the general fight. 

[Lantyssa]

Oh, that's great.  I have a sudden desire to play some PvP now.

[ezrast]

Friend of mine went back, but I just can't work up the interest. I'm hearing that non-random BG queues are horrifyingly long, is that true? I really don't like this whole thing where content sitting unused is unacceptable, but instead of improving it they just slap a random select on it and make that the most rewarding option.

Having to do vehicle bullshit in the occasional random Oculus or ToC was bad enough. Making 1/3 of all the battlegrounds I do either SotA or IoC is just plain not acceptable.

This. Last weekend wasn't so bad because it was the AV holiday, but aside from that queuing for specifics is pretty much pointless, at least on Shadowburn. Also, the random queue gives me Strand all the fucking time.

[Ingmar]

  Strand

[proudft]

Which is why I usually cyclone the enemy tank about 10-20 seconds into the general fight. 

My favorite wrench-in-the-works is deathgripping their healers into the room while they are still milling about waiting for someone to take charge.  Surprising how often that works.  They usually get exploded by Vann & Co. before they even hit the ground.