The Warrior situation in BC

[Paelos]

Basically, until all bosses are seen and all skills revealed, I'm going to contend it will have a purpose in PvE. Nature resist was completely useless until AQ, Shadow had no point until bosses in BWL and Naxx, Frost came up in Naxx. I just don't see Blizzard adding an entire new statistic to the game and making it exclusively for PvP, but time will either prove that right or wrong.

[Chenghiz]

If you're worried about spell mitigation, you can get more of that by stacking resists than you can by stacking resilience. As far as NPC spell crits are concerned, none of the content at 70 currently (Gruul, Kazzak, Kharazan) has indicated anything to the contrary.

Gear trends seem to indicate resilience = PVP, defense = PVE. Adding resilience as a PVP-useful stat only helps make a gear differentiation between those who raid and those who PVP. Whereas before you could catass in raids and then go pwn in PVP against people who just did PVP, now those who get their gear via PVP have an edge (in PVP) over those who do not, and those who get their gear in PVE have a PVE edge over those who did not.

[jpark]

Ironwood/ Jayce,

Ya in fury tree don't forget, as Jayce points out, that you have that enrage (forget the name) happening that increases your damage upon being criticaled - which creates more rage (as a function of damage you do).  Also - the 5% critical helps a bit.

I do spam.  I used to have 3 rage off the cost of sunder armor and spam that if shield/ revenge was not showing.  Towards the end - I started spamming devestate.  In the protection tree you can get a whopping 6 rage points off the cost of sunder armor and 3 points off devestate.  For sunder armor - I find it is almost instant - no waiting.  We know that sunders beyond the initial 5 stacking still cause aggro but do not stack further.

I know most warriors are shocked at how many points I have in protection.  No argument there.  But my durability is quite good compared against full T2 tanks in my preBC guild - I know that - as did our healers.  Keep in mind the humorous exercise - very few warriors agree on what is "useless" in protection.  I notice Ironwood you have 2 talent points to reduce yoru taunt by 2 seconds in total.  Most warriors would not agree with that - for me that does not help - but if it works for you - good.

To some extent our talents will be subjective based on our style of play.

[lamaros]

Perhaps Chenghiz, but can you dodge spells? I don't think you can, and that's where I see the major utility of resilience gear, stopping spell crits and cutting damage.

Also, I particularly like the 50 prot, 11 fury build. In protection, I don't see the utility of Improved Disarm, Revenge, Shield Wall, and 1Her spec. Putting point in full prot is just throwing them away on things like that. In the 11 fury, i just go all shouts (booming voice, int. shout, piercing howl) since the majority of my early rage is covered by improved bloodrage.

Resiliance might not also be a gear choice for warriors -- but will be for PvP warriors, to irritate the fuck out of the glass cannon mages with their overreliance on crits and to deal with hunters (although at 70, I think Hunter crit is back down to 20% unless you want glass cannon mage problems....)

Also, I'm not sure I'd buy the "NPC spells can't crit" thing -- unless there's a fundamental gameplay reason that they don't. "NPC spells currently do not crit" might be better.

Exactly, just because they currently do not crit doesn't mean they won't at higher level content.  It seems to me to be a perfect direction to go to make PvE "more difficult," and would make resilience viable from that perspective.

NPC spells do not crit.

Most fights that are based around taking spell damage are not conventional, and usualy not tanked in the conventional way. You will want physical mitigation and aviodance becase most bosses will fuck you up there, and perhaps some resists on top if there is spell damage in the equation. But if you dont have physical damage to worry about then you wont want to put on resillience stuff, you'll want even more resists.

Resillience is useless for PvE. You want spell resists get some fucking spell resist gear. There is stuff everywhere with large numbers all over it. And easy enchants.

But I can see how "the game mechanices as we know them may funamentaly change in the future and make us sort of have a point" is a valid argument. I really can. Just like "Warlocks are the best melee DPS class in the game" is valid.

Jesus fucking christ.

Resillience is meant to be (and is) a PvP stat, not a PvE one. That's why it's on all the PvP gear.

Oh and I'm glad this thread is finally heading down the "I guess jpark is just a shitty warrior" road.

[lamaros]

Keep in mind the humorous exercise - very few warriors agree on what is "useless" in protection.

...

To some extent our talents will be subjective based on our style of play.

When it comes to high level PvE competence the level of agreement is actually rather high. It is not subjective - but instead tends towards the specific. Some things are good for certain, understood, situations, some for others.

[jpark]

I am a fan of alchemy - and like to have as many independent timers as I can to increase my health in a tight situation.  To this end this has caught my eye:

Healing Potion Injector
Requires Engineering (330)
Use: Restores 1500 to 2500 health.
Cooldown: 2 min
Charges: 20 (Expendable)
Sells for 10 Gold to vendors
Item Level 66

Because the mates are 20 super healing potions to begin with - I am thinking the healing potions created from this recipe may operate on a separate timer from super healing potions themselves (this has to be tested - so far have not talked to anyone who has tried it).  If so - this would be handy to have for any tanks considering engineering (I used Eng. for the resistance trinkets - so think I will retain it for this purpose as well).

[Morat20]

NPC spells do not crit.

Most fights that are based around taking spell damage are not conventional, and usualy not tanked in the conventional way. You will want physical mitigation and aviodance becase most bosses will fuck you up there, and perhaps some resists on top if there is spell damage in the equation. But if you dont have physical damage to worry about then you wont want to put on resillience stuff, you'll want even more resists.

Resillience is useless for PvE. You want spell resists get some fucking spell resist gear. There is stuff everywhere with large numbers all over it. And easy enchants.

But I can see how "the game mechanices as we know them may funamentaly change in the future and make us sort of have a point" is a valid argument. I really can. Just like "Warlocks are the best melee DPS class in the game" is valid.

Jesus fucking christ.

Resillience is meant to be (and is) a PvP stat, not a PvE one. That's why it's on all the PvP gear.

Oh and I'm glad this thread is finally heading down the "I guess jpark is just a shitty warrior" road.

Good strawman there. Did you hurt your back putting it together? NPC spells do not crit now. That doesn't mean they can't ever crit -- unless there's some gameplay reason they do not that would be difficult to change. No one was claiming "NPC spells will crit in the future". Only that they might. And then we all went on an agreed that, currently, resiliance is far more a PvP stat than PvE.

Several of the resistance stats (NR, SR, FR) were useless until end-game dungeons were added that required them. Given the existance of a resiliance stat that reduces crit chance across the board, why wouldn't Blizzard designers code encounters with NPC spell crits? They're not above requiring gear checks (although they seem to be getting away from that) and I don't consider it beyond them to force a choice between heal stacking to try to handle crit spikes or resiliance gear to smooth damage out.

[lamaros]

NPC spells do not crit.

Most fights that are based around taking spell damage are not conventional, and usualy not tanked in the conventional way. You will want physical mitigation and aviodance becase most bosses will fuck you up there, and perhaps some resists on top if there is spell damage in the equation. But if you dont have physical damage to worry about then you wont want to put on resillience stuff, you'll want even more resists.

Resillience is useless for PvE. You want spell resists get some fucking spell resist gear. There is stuff everywhere with large numbers all over it. And easy enchants.

But I can see how "the game mechanices as we know them may funamentaly change in the future and make us sort of have a point" is a valid argument. I really can. Just like "Warlocks are the best melee DPS class in the game" is valid.

Jesus fucking christ.

Resillience is meant to be (and is) a PvP stat, not a PvE one. That's why it's on all the PvP gear.

Oh and I'm glad this thread is finally heading down the "I guess jpark is just a shitty warrior" road.

Good strawman there. Did you hurt your back putting it together? NPC spells do not crit now. That doesn't mean they can't ever crit -- unless there's some gameplay reason they do not that would be difficult to change. No one was claiming "NPC spells will crit in the future". Only that they might. And then we all went on an agreed that, currently, resiliance is far more a PvP stat than PvE.

No, read the whole thread. It's not a strawman given what some people have said.

What is the point about talking about something the requires a game mechanics change to have any relevance? If I started a thread "Warlocks are the best Tanking class" and went on to talk about how if all bosses did only shadow damage and were melee immune Warlocks would be the best tanks in the game (Far and above the best tanks!). Would it be worth discussing? No. We want to talk about what the game is like now, and in the foreseeable future.

NPC spells cannot crit and there is no reason to assume they will do so in the future.

Please point me to the point where we all agree. What I see is people belabouring a highly irrelevent "what if" in order to rescue an argument from their original statements. If we are going to agree that Resillience is a useless PvE stat currently then the whole conversation is over. Yet people are still mentioning it.

Several of the resistance stats (NR, SR, FR) were useless until end-game dungeons were added that required them. Given the existance of a resiliance stat that reduces crit chance across the board, why wouldn't Blizzard designers code encounters with NPC spell crits? They're not above requiring gear checks (although they seem to be getting away from that) and I don't consider it beyond them to force a choice between heal stacking to try to handle crit spikes or resiliance gear to smooth damage out.

Because there is a clear reason for why Resillience is in the game. It is on PvP gear and is meant to lengthen PvP fights and lower the tendancy for them to be 5 second crit fests. It has been created with a reasonably clear goal in mind and is currently itemized to reach that goal. Given this there is no reason to assume that it was ever meant to be a PvE stat, and no reason to assume it ever will be.

It also remains to be seen that even if NPCs could crit with spells that it would be useful. It would, for one, require a fight with significant spell and melee damage, focused mainly/soely on the single target, the tank. So not only do we require a game mechanics change, we also require a rather significant encounter design change. Something as fundamental as NPCs critting will change the game in more ways than you think.

Secondly; designers are moving away from gear checks? No this is incorrect. Gear checks are still in the game and will continue to be so for very obvious reasons.

Thirdly.. you belabour the point again. So I guess I will too.

You cannot stack Resillience easily with current PvE itemisation. If Blizzard were to design a PvE encounter where the NPC (just that NPC, mind you, otherwise the whole game needs to be rebalanced) could crit then... this is absurd. Why not just make them hit harder on an unpredictable timer. Surely this meets the end result of a damage spike that requires a healing response? It has the added benefit of not forcing the tanks to go PvP endlessly to be able to gear up for the fight - or for them to reitemise the existing dungeons and have the Tank re-run them.

There is no coherent reason for Resillience to ever be a PvE stat, and there are many as for why it is a PvP stat. This argument is beyond stupid and you are an idiot (Please point out to me what Philosophical term you'll use to describe that statment - you'll actually be correct this time).

[Paelos]

Lamaros, seriously we get the fucking point. Stop trying to beat it to death.

Resilience is viable in PvP. Right now, it's absolutely more useful in Pvp than PvE. HOWEVER, saying it's NEVER going to be a PvE stat and that's it's completely oriented to PvP and fuck anyone else who thinks otherwise?

Open your mind a millimeter when we haven't even see all the fights yet.

EDIT: I'll also add that most people would agree with you more if you weren't being a giant fuckhead about the entire point.

[Chenghiz]

The resist to resilience parallel is pushing it a bit far, I think. Resists were always useful to mitigate spell damage, it was just not necessary to use it until Ragnaros. Resilience is, point by point, not good for mitigating anything in PVE barring the possibility of an NPC spell crit, and even if NPC spells did crit, you would still be better off stacking resists. There are certainly times at which resilience would be useful but they rely on a set of preconditions without precedent (NPC spell crits, and a significant enough amount of both melee and spell damage on one target that stacking mitigation is better than stacking stamina). It's certainly possible that that could happen but I think the realm of consideration stops short of that. It would be a pretty dick move by Blizzard to essentially require a raid to go through an entirely alternate path of gear upgrades (arena or BG pvp) just to beat a boss.

[Ironwood]

You can't get Flurry and Devastate, I don't think.  So, no, I don't have that.

I'm not 70 yet, so I don't even have Enrage.  So no extra damage yet.

Seriously, when I said that all I have is an extra 1 point of rage per attack, I was actually telling you the pertinant information.  I'm still not sure how you have a rage problem.  My revenge costs 2 rage.  2.  My Sunder is 9.  I have improved bloodrage and I have a nice wee Berserker macro.

I took improved taunt because, as mentioned, I have two warlocks in my usual 5 man.  They try their best not to crit, but one of them regularly has 50% of the DPS in any given fight.  Taunting with that amount of aggro flying around is just good target management.

I'm also still staggered at 56 points in prot.  Please to post a build so I can see why you're doing that.  If you have improved disarm or improved shield wall, I may have to kill you.

As to the slap fight going on in the other half of this thread - fuck off, will you ?

[Shavnir]

http://www.wowhead.com/?items&filter=cr=79,42;crs=1,1;crv=0,0

One thing to consider, there are two pieces of the game with defense and resilience.  Both of these pieces' socket bonus seems a bit off for pure tanking gear, so my bet is (due to the high cost) these pieces are made as hybrid, you get def, resi and some sockets to do with it what you want.

However the fact that only two items in the game have defense and resilience makes me think the intention of one being for pvp and the other for pve seems likely.

[Ironwood]

Christ, that's a nice helm.

[jpark]

It would be a pretty dick move by Blizzard to essentially require a raid to go through an entirely alternate path of gear upgrades (arena or BG pvp) just to beat a boss.

But that may be the intention.  In a blizz interview I liistened to several months ago they made the point that collecting the gear you needed would no longer come from just one instance - or even just raiding - but through a spectrum of activites including pvp.  It depends on how far they take it - but right now I am operating on the assumption that to complete a gear set will require raiding, heroic 5 mans and pvp.

Iron - I did have improved sheild wall (but no disarm or taunt).  A 30 minute timer on shield wall makes it irrelevant for 5 mans - but useful for raiding - since it is almost refreshed come the next boss kill.  If you like and use shield wall - increasing its duration by 50% for 2 talent points is attractive for raiding.  As an off tank stepping into take aggro on a boss if the MT has gone down - that's the classic time I pop it - so this gives healers time to sort out the transition of tanks.

[Ironwood]

It's not irrelevant for 5 mans anymore.

And it's still a waste of talent points.  If you're healers aren't sorted in the time normal shield wall gives you, you're fucked anyway and should sack the idiots.

Or in my case, Divorce them.


Seriously, post your build.

I did.  And they tore it apart and brought it back up better.  (I will be switching to Deflection once I level more).

[jpark]

Similar to what I had before (at 60 preBC) - this is my plan when I reach 70:

http://www.wow-europe.com/en/info/basics/talents/warrior/talents.html?050000000000000000000000000000000000000000002255511333002123531351

[Logain]

This is the build I've been using since I hit 70.

http://www.wow-europe.com/en/info/basics/talents/warrior/talents.html?050030000000000000000000505000000000000000000055511030002123231351

I've been tanking regularly since the game came out, and the main reason I ever found myself with a rage deficit was when I failed to spec for Unbridled Wrath. I'm not sure about the numbers, but if I ever specced without it, I found myself quickly short on rage. As soon as I specced with it, I found I could never seem to hit 0 rage.

Any tank might want to consider putting a few points into fury to get it. Talents like improved revenge and improved disarm are completely useless. Really the only fights you should be worried about, and thus speccing for, are boss fights. And you can usually neither stun or disarm a boss mob. So you can have talents which help your build against trash but not the bosses, or you can have a talent which will improve your rage generation and therefore your threat generation overall.

[Chenghiz]

You guys might consider using Wowhead (link) for your specs. It's faster and the links are not as annoying.

[Ironwood]

I can't stand people saying that they spec only for tanking bosses.  It's like saying you spec only to be an offtank.

Christ, how many times do you wipe getting there ?

Improved Revenge is awesome.  Improved disarm is only useless because it increases the time of something.  I generally find those talents fairly useless.


And, I notice that your build doesn't have improved Sunder.  Are you mental ?

Edit :  I'm looking at your build and the Link MUST be broken.  No tactical mastery ? No Bloodrage ?  WTF ?


Edited Again :  I think THIS will be my finished build.  I removed Blood Craze because I expect my Resilience to go up and I do like the Shouts and deflection ideas posted here.  Further, I put Improved HS back in for a double Damage and Threat in addition to Devastate.  Finally, having no idea what to do with the last point, I stuck it into cleave.

Because I like to Cleave.

[Merusk]

Edit :  I'm looking at your build and the Link MUST be broken.  No tactical mastery ? No Bloodrage ?  WTF ?

And 2 points tossed in 1h weapon spec, rather than improved taunt.   I dunno, like I said earlier I suck at warrioring, but it was always my understanding that 1h spec was a waste so if you're going to toss-away 2 points to hit the next tier, toss them in taunt.

[Ironwood]

Yup...

[Fabricated]

I find the One-Hand talent to be pretty good actually since damage helps a lot in contributing to hate generation. Makes soloing a bit easier too.

Here's my planned spec. http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=LVMxzZZfVtoIMdbest

I'm basically punching-bag spec. Soloing takes forever but tanking is pretty easy if people don't start DPS before I even taunt. I got to group with a full protecto-spec Pally the other night and I'll say that man they're pretty fucking good. I had to fight for aggro. I won of course, but I had to try.

[Dren]

I find the One-Hand talent to be pretty good actually since damage helps a lot in contributing to hate generation. Makes soloing a bit easier too.

Here's my planned spec. http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=LVMxzZZfVtoIMdbest

I'm basically punching-bag spec. Soloing takes forever but tanking is pretty easy if people don't start DPS before I even taunt. I got to group with a full protecto-spec Pally the other night and I'll say that man they're pretty fucking good. I had to fight for aggro. I won of course, but I had to try.

Yes, prot spec Pallys can tank well, but the solo'ing as one is terrible!  I only lasted a few days as one.  I did well in instances, but out on my own took forever to down an even-con mob.  I'm now a Ret-spec only so I can get through quests in a decent amount of time.  Still, I swear the only reason I even try anymore is because I already have a lvl 60 pally and feel guilty for not putting "some" time in on him.  He does have his uses for our guild when we are short on tanks (which is all of the time.)  Otherwise, I end up just being frustrated at how much slower he is than my rogue-main.

[Valmorian]

Yes, prot spec Pallys can tank well, but the solo'ing as one is terrible!  I only lasted a few days as one.  I did well in instances, but out on my own took forever to down an even-con mob.  I'm now a Ret-spec only so I can get through quests in a decent amount of time.  Still, I swear the only reason I even try anymore is because I already have a lvl 60 pally and feel guilty for not putting "some" time in on him.  He does have his uses for our guild when we are short on tanks (which is all of the time.)  Otherwise, I end up just being frustrated at how much slower he is than my rogue-main.

I've soloed my Paladin as a Prot spec paladin from level 1-61 (so far).  The key for soloing with Protection spec is not to take on a single even con mob.  Take on 3-4 of them.  You can, easily, and win.

[Paelos]

I've gone out of my way to find loot that improves block in both skill and the actual number. So far my equipment puts me at 30% block rate, and I'm knocking off 406 of damage when I do. It's a hell of a lot of reduction when coupled with over 10k armor.

[Logain]

I can't stand people saying that they spec only for tanking bosses.  It's like saying you spec only to be an offtank.

Christ, how many times do you wipe getting there ?

Improved Revenge is awesome.  Improved disarm is only useless because it increases the time of something.  I generally find those talents fairly useless.


And, I notice that your build doesn't have improved Sunder.  Are you mental ?

Edit :  I'm looking at your build and the Link MUST be broken.  No tactical mastery ? No Bloodrage ?  WTF ?


Edited Again :  I think THIS will be my finished build.  I removed Blood Craze because I expect my Resilience to go up and I do like the Shouts and deflection ideas posted here.  Further, I put Improved HS back in for a double Damage and Threat in addition to Devastate.  Finally, having no idea what to do with the last point, I stuck it into cleave.

Because I like to Cleave.

As I said, the reason you should be speccing for boss fights is because trash really shouldn't be a concern. If you are having trouble on trash, then it's not your talent spec. You need to look at your gear, or perhaps your ability to tab and sunder/revenge is not where it should be.

Tactical Mastery is important, for arms or fury warriors. What are you changing stances for, exactly? I suppose the only time you need to change stances would be to break fear, but you should have aggro anyways and thus should generate plenty of rage once switching back stances. If you are losing aggro then you need to have a word with your ranged dpsers about dpsing when the tank is feared. One-handed spec is not useless as an increase in melee damage dealt is also an increase in threat generated. You don't spec for Anticipation, which is 20 defence. Improved siheld wall, in conjuction with last stand, makes surviving many extremely hard-hitting boss-fights(such as brood lord and earlier golemag) possible. Shield mastery further increases damage absorbed  by your shield 30%. And last, but most definitely not least, Improved Defensive Stance reduces damage taken in defensive stance by 6% straight up. How could you possibly pass that up for cleave and heroic strike and reducing rage cost of sunder armor? Makes me think you havn't even read all of the talents. Additionally, if you are doing your job and building aggro like you should be, needing a quicker taunt is not as important as mitigating the damage taken by whatever your tanking, because remember, taunt doesn't affect mobs already aggrod on you.

You are speccing for rage generation when you should be speccing for threat generation and damage mitigation.  I can't seriously imagine how anyone could have problems with rage considering they added focused rage. Thats a 3 rage cut across the board. I never had problems before the talent existed and now that it's in, I can't clear my rage fast enough. There is a 1 sec global cooldown and you can only dump rage so fast anyways.

Every bit of damage mitigation you can get is that much less mana your healers have to dump into healing you, which translates directly into how long your group/raid can survive. When the healers are OOM it is GG, and anything you can do to forestall that is of the utmost importance.

[Ironwood]

Awesome.

Way to be a dick.

 

[Logain]

Awesome.

Way to be a dick.

 

Touche.

[jpark]

This is the build I've been using since I hit 70.

http://www.wow-europe.com/en/info/basics/talents/warrior/talents.html?050030000000000000000000505000000000000000000055511030002123231351

I have debated recently about Iron Will in the arms tree.  Right now, I just can't bring myself to see a noticable benefit with it.  What's your experience with it so far?  The best use of this talent - in optimal terms - would be with an Orc warrior - so you can really crank up their racial stun resist.

[Logain]

I have debated recently about Iron Will in the arms tree.  Right now, I just can't bring myself to see a noticable benefit with it.  What's your experience with it so far?  The best use of this talent - in optimal terms - would be with an Orc warrior - so you can really crank up their racial stun resist.

I will admit that iron will's usefulness is debatable. And yeah, an orc warrior would benefit the most from it. Those three points were the last three to allocate and it was kind of a throw away, figured some stun resist would be nice, right? lol. If I was going to move those I might put them into blood craze. I havn't crunched any numbers or anything but I would bet that considering how many times a tank does actually get critted against it would be a nice talent to have. I'm sitting about 12k hp right now so that would be around 120hp healed every time I get critted against. Blood craze would probably benefit a not so well geared tank over a better geared one more.

Alternately you could pick up battle shout, which when on, would increase your threat generation vs the ranged dps, and would also be a nice boost to any rogues in your group.

Only other thing I'd put them in would probably be to get one-handed spec up to 5/5.

[Ironwood]

I'm not missing BloodCraze.  At All.

I thought I would, but to be honest, 3% is not even a blip on your health bar. 

[Zetor]

Bloodcraze is for solo farming and maybe solo pvp-ing. Bloodcraze+bloodthirst+crusader mean virtually no downtime for my warrior (currently 65), only having to bandage every 6-7 mobs, if that.


-- Z.

[Paelos]

I'm not missing BloodCraze.  At All.

I thought I would, but to be honest, 3% is not even a blip on your health bar. 

Indeed, I actually screwed around with it a little in my first rebuild, and it wasn't worth the points for instance running. I find having a 450 int shout, and a 3 minute commanding shout to be very beneficial though.

[Morfiend]

Just thought I would throw this out there. I hear there is a warrior buff in the works. Some thing to do with rage. Ill post more when I get more info.

[Ironwood]

Fuck Rage.

Give us a threat buff.