I think prot DPS with a shield is an exciting new warhammer gold addition to WoW, but it has some issues at the moment. Before devastate was nerfed back to 50%, prot was perhaps doing a bit too much DPS. But I think they overdid it, because now we are either back to square one (dual-wielding and spamming same old devastate for very consistent mediocre DPS) or relying too much on procs (using a shield and hoping for sword and board procs).
Sword and board has sort of taken over the prot warrior whenever you're wearing a shield. You have to spam devastates because you have to get your swoard and board procs, which constitutes your major DPS boost when DPSing/grinding or your major TPS boost when tanking.
Problem is, sword and board procs are random. If you don't get procs, your TPS suffers. If you don't get procs, your DPS suffers even more. This seems to run counter to the design philosophy behind many changes that have been made to reduce random, for example changing procs to consistent bonuses on a number of talents.
Swoard and board procs being so powerful also has the unfortunate side effect of making revenge obsolete for prot warriors. Why use revenge, when you can use devastate and hopefully get a whopping shield slam off cooldown and even free warhammer gold?
I feel like the elements for some really nice prot abilities are there, the random factor of swoard and board just has to be balanced out somehow. One way could be to make the proc a little less powerful, but in turn buff up devastate and revenge. Then you would have a reason to push each of the three buttons, instead of being herded toward shield slam all the time.
Incidentally, the improved revenge talent still seems quite poor for tanking. Maybe that talent could be reworked in this context?
I do agree that Revenge getting left out and Devastate being forcefully spammable are bad things, but I think the ability cycles of all classes could use a bit of randomness. Another word for that is %26quot;Interactivity%26quot;, so that players don't blindly spam the same rotation over and over and over again. That's what a lot of players have been complaining about through the ages that %26quot;all they do in a raid is push 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 2 2 2 2%26quot; etc.
They said on the US boards that after the Devastate nerf they will compensate with either a Shield Slam buff or a Revenge buff. And I felt that most warriors wanted a buff for Shield Slam, but I can't say I agree. I like Revenge a lot and don't want it to fall off the cycle.
So hopefully they realize that they need to buff Revenge enough to be worth using at least sometimes when it's up. It's also the safest skill to buff because we won't be doing overwhelming damage with it or spamming it constantly because it has a decent CD to begin with.
And random in mathematics and especially behind mathematics in WoW isn't random at all when you consider the results over a decent enough period of time. So I don't think it's a bad idea at all to rely on a lot of procs, it just has a negative side effect for PvP which needs to rely as little as possible on random numbers. PvE interestingness and PvP fairness are sort of against each other, one might say.
Revenge will most likely be merged into S%26amp;B and Shield Slam damage will be increased to cover last Devastate nerf.
In the end you will end up with exactly same rotation as now just without Shield Block spam as it have cooldown now.
As has been posted before, depending on procs is not random at all when you look from a futher point of view. Yes, it does matter in pvp, and when you try to kill an elite 2-3 levels above you solo. But in other cases, not really. Our tps would still be good enough without S%26amp;B, so you're not screwed if it doesnt proc at all in first 30 seconds after the pull. Yes, you do kill one mob in 10 seconds, and the next one can take you 40. But if you look at an hour of farming or one bossfight, your overall dps is way higher, and depending on procs does not matter at all.
Although, i would like the procrate on S%26amp;B to be reduced, even back to 10%, BUT to make it proc of all our damaging abilities (that is, excluding autoattack). Then, balance our threat value from abilities so it's conc blow-%26gt;shockwave-%26gt;ss-%26gt;revenge-%26gt;devastate, and voila - you've got a new, way more interesting tanking rotation, that is still hard to master and leaves a lot of space for judgement calls, since S%26amp;B can proc at any moment, with different abilities being on different cooldowns.
Though, i guess it would take quite a lot of time to introduce, test, and balance out, so i doubt it's possible to be done by the release date. Still, i think it would make most of the prot warriors happy, since it would give us a new, shiny toy to play with.
/cheer
Yes, interactivity in skills is a good thing, but right now sword and board pushes us in the other direction - towards the mindless spamming of only two buttons, instead of swapping in other stuff like revenge.
Random is good in PvP, where a string of sword and board procs will be able to overwhelm the opponent by doing damage faster than it can possibly be healed. Slow and steady damage generation is for PvE, while in PvP it just gets constantly outhealed. That is the situation for prot warriors today in PvP - our devastate spam does decent damage, but it is not random enough. Though it is only a small element in what makes prot warriors useless for PvP (lack of mobility, utility and survivability, all of which are improved by WotLK changes btw)
Random is bad in PvE - both in raids, 5-mans and for grinding. If I pull a few mobs, I will essentially be rolling the dice. Either I get lucky and get a string of S %26amp; B procs, killing the mobs in no time and leaving me at nearly full health. Or I will be out of luck, getting few or no procs and either ending at low health after killing the mobs, or even be at risk of dying.
This random factor is, currently, too big. That is my honest opinion. Of course, there always needs to be some random element in things. That is what poses situations for us to adapt to and benefit (or fail to adapt and suffer), which is part of the fun and challenge. But the difference is too big here.
As for raids - tanking in particular - the random is particularly bad. Imagine if the tank would either do 1500 TPS or 500 TPS depending on the roll of the dice. That's how WotLK is shaping up for prot warriors. DPSers will have to wait a long time to see if we get procs so they can nuke, or if we get no procs and they can barely autoattack. This runs the risk of making the prot warrior a liability as MT, something I dont hope to see.
These are my two cent's worth of concern. I think some changes would be very helpful here, and have confidence in Blizzard to make the minor adjustments necessary to get us to the sweet spot.
I just came out of a 5-man (Gun'drak) having 1.2k DPS as tank through the whole instance. I'm sure that's alot more than 500 TPS. A prot warrior will pretty much never do only 500 TPS. Granted, I do use revenge as much as I can, because I have the glyph that makes my next Heroic Strike cost no rage,+ the glyph that makes my heroic strike crits generate 10 rage.
You should not really rely on S%26amp;B for your threat. It's a nice addition. It should not be what keeps you barely floating.
The number was hypothetical and was based on the current (live, 2.4.3 version) baseline TPS, which is 1000. As you level and gear up, DPS and TPS naturally increase. Also, crossing into an expansion also increases DPS and TPS by adding new spells and talents. Thus, baseline threat and DPS are vastly increased - but the point remains the same even if it's 5k vs 15k TPS instead.
I'm pretty sure all theorycraft would tell you to rely solely on S %26amp; B and drop revenge entirely. That is, if things remain as they are now, which I don't hope. Prot warriors do work, and quite well in most aspects, but I feel things could be improved a lot in this area.
Rely solely on S%26amp;B would probably be bettes yes. My point is that your threat will not be crap even if S %26amp; B doesn't proc, as long as you have the rage to keep spamming Devastate. For raids I really don't know %26acute;, since I haven't raided yet in wotlk. In 5-man instances I'm having a very easy time.
s I said GC already confirmed that Revenge will gain %26quot;huge damage buff%26quot; and be included into S%26amp;B. SS will gain base damage buff also to compensate recent Devastate nerf.
Now if we could only make macro that cast Revenge over Devastate in one button, but it is not possible sadly unless you have G15 keyboard :/ (no /castrandom is not good enough)
We were discussing this before GC had confirmed the changes - he had only said we would be compensated for the devastate nerf (and that it would probably be via either shield slam or revenge, but no specifics).
Now the specifics are here and they seem to solve most of the issues. I would still prefer sword and board to be tuned down a little and devastate hitting a little harder though. But lets see when it gets patched to warhammer gold us.
The only big issue I have left for prot is lack of rage for parry/dodge (and possibly miss). It was supposed to be baked into classes but nothing hap#@@*d still.