WoW: The Meatshield Inn

I don't know pallies at all, really, aside from Consecration now having I think a 30 sec CD. The warrior damage numbers have all shifted (SS+++, Rev--, Dev+), so yours probably have as well, and overall my damage feels slightly reduced, but it's hard to accurately compare. The big change is that all the dpsers lost their threat reduction talents, and Tricks and MD are temporary, which means when they go nuts with AoE, they're pumping full threat into everything.

If you run into DPS who still insist on going balls-to-the-walls AoE, you're probably not going to hold aggro on everything (not that any of us are likely to in that situation), and they're probably going to (unreasonably) complain. I have a feeling this is going to be a time for all of us tanks to put on an even thicker skin and just ignore it all, or stick with guildies as much as possible. The potential good news is that damage overall feels rather inflated, and things on the PTR have seemed to go down more quickly, so the dpsers will take less damage, and they have more health to begin with, so deaths shouldn't really go up much (if at all). It'll be a weird 8 weeks, that's for certain.

robkid wrote:

If you run into DPS who still insist on going balls-to-the-walls AoE, you're probably not going to hold aggro on everything (not that any of us are likely to in that situation), and they're probably going to (unreasonably) complain.

I just let them die, then tell them that the skull is an exercise for the reader when they complain.

cube wrote:
robkid wrote:

If you run into DPS who still insist on going balls-to-the-walls AoE, you're probably not going to hold aggro on everything (not that any of us are likely to in that situation), and they're probably going to (unreasonably) complain.

I just let them die, then tell them that the skull is an exercise for the reader when they complain.

This. Back during TBC and Vanilla, part of being DPS was staying alive; they were equally responsible for their own survival to the point of most raids requiring DPS to have maxed First Aid in addition to bringing potions. Cataclysm is shifting back towards that which is fantastic and the AoE nerf(it's also far, far more expensive for far, far less damage) will do a lot as well.

On Paladin tanking, Consecrate was really what made AoE tanking. AS and HoR help, but constant Consecrate completely made it.

Yep, another vote here for let them die.

Had a hunter who decided it was best to attack while mobs were on the way into melee still (no misdirect, just start firing). Baylie was being too nice though to let him die, so I got plenty of practice with AoE taunting.

To answer the question on Consecrate, it starts out 30 second CD for 10 seconds, and you can glyph it to have a 36 second CD, but last 12 seconds. For the time you need the AoE, that extra 2 seconds at the beginning really help out (especially if you talent for it to only cost 20% of it's original value, and do 40% more damage).

For Pally rotations, I tested it out, and it seems to work really well via the guild linked provided you have smart DPSers. AoE after the first mob dies from DD attacks tends to give you enough threat to keep everything else on you until they all die.

Meanwhile, the incoming damage wasn't horrible. I went and Block-Capped myself with Mastery, and then ran a random heroic, using the AoE rotation on anything that was more than 1 mob. Mana wasn't an issue, but threat was slightly on groups larger than 3. Mainly someone's AoE would grab it as the more mobs you have on you, the less threat you have per mob (based on Holy Wrath's damage limitation). There was a definite need for Inquisition at that point. Single target threat was never an issue.

A couple of things that are worth noting, if you have extra holy power left after a trash pull, use it within the first 10 seconds for Word of Glory. Assuming the healer tops you off, you'll have about a 3k damage shield (per 1 HP) going into the next pull, which will be alot stronger at 85 and a good habit to start.

As for pulls, I found the classic Captain America pull to work just as good as in TBC. Consecrate, HotR and Holy Wrath do a decent enough job of keeping the adds around long enough, but I could see in more epic pulls where you'd have issues holding threat for longer durations (assuming the dps opens up immediately). I'll do a bit more testing on that though.

I went with a slightly different spec than the guide shown Here

The reasons:
1/2 Grand Crusader - Avenger's Shield is definitely good for added procs to refresh, but it's already at only 15 seconds, and in that time, you're hitting CS 4 times, popping your Holy Power once, and Judging Twice. You have very little time to hit another Avenger's Shield where there isn't something already more potent causing higher threat, or refreshing your Holy Shield, etc. Consecrate is also slightly more, and you will very likely have more than enough mana to toss that down for the 12 second duration it's available. Now, if you go solely for the Single Target Build that grabs the glyph to make Avenger's Shield hit one target, that's a different story, and 2/2 becomes far more useful.

Holy Wrath glyph I think will be extremely valuable. AoE insta stun (with slight damage) for Undead, Demons, Dragonkin and Elementals. I also know how usefull AoE stun for Elementals and Dragonkin are in Heroic Nexus, Halls of Stone & Lightning, Occulus, and Old Kingdom are just to name a few. I can only imagine what it'll be like in an expansion focusing on Elementals and Dragonkin.

I skipped Eternal Glory and Imp HoJ because frankly I thought the other talents were more useful. Imp HoJ is situational, and alot of the times if you need it to be faster for interrupts, 40 seconds isn't going to be much different from 1 minute. In most cases, interrupts are needed every 30 seconds or less, or every 1 minute or more, so you miss out on very little outside of a pvp PoV. As for Eternal Glory, I just felt that a 10% chance to refresh Avenger's Shield every 3 - 4.5 seconds was better than a 15% chance to keep Holy Power every 9 - 13.5 seconds. Be it for AoE or Single Target situations, having Avenger's Sheild Proc does give you the option to use your Holy Power for Word of Glory instead if that's what you need, but most of the time, it'll allow you to use you SotR or Inq more often.

Overall, it looks like you've got a couple of points to play around with simply for flavor, which is nice considering that the rest of them seem very needed and static. It's very much "grab everything you can with points alloted" much like the old days, and nowhere as much wiggle room as there was a week ago.

That's all I was able to analyze tonight.

AnimeJ wrote:

On Paladin tanking, Consecrate was really what made AoE tanking. AS and HoR help, but constant Consecrate completely made it.

Interestingly, Consecrate was what made AOE tanking for *all* classes; the concept of a tank being expected to effortlessly hold unlimited hordes of mobs did not really express itself until the one-two punch of Mount Hyjal and Heroic Shattered Halls. The preference of paladin tanks in Hyjal caused the limits on druid swipe to be removed (unlimited targets, 360 degree range), had a huge effect on the design of Death Knights, and influenced how thunderclap and shockwave worked.

The conscious removal of this particular part of the game is one of the few bright spots I've been able to find about Cataclysm.

Pallies- What are your thoughts on getting Holy Shield up?
Do you think it is best to wait until you generate 3 HP and then use SotR, or during your initial rotation to use SotR on 1 HP to get Holy Shield up ASAP?

Edit: Also, did everyone else lose their Blade Ward weapon enchant?

DK tanking... is not that much fun anymore. I suspect that it's mostly a L2P issue, but the rune changes feel like they really hamper threat generation.

Rune strike is bugged. It was supposed to be castable at all times in Blood presence, and with Runic Empowerment, it allows fully depleted runes to refresh, but it was only usable after a dodge/parry. So instead of using that as a rune refresher/runic power dump, I had to use deathcoil, which costs twice as much RP, and doesn't do nearly as much threat.

ELewis17 wrote:

Pallies- What are your thoughts on getting Holy Shield up?
Do you think it is best to wait until you generate 3 HP and then use SotR, or during your initial rotation to use SotR on 1 HP to get Holy Shield up ASAP?

Edit: Also, did everyone else lose their Blade Ward weapon enchant?

I tend to put it up as soon as possible. Off that original pull, I'll go:

Avenger's Shield, Judgement, Crusader Strike (now in melee), Shield of the Righteous - Meaning I might take an initial hit where it can possibly be unblocked, but can't think of a quicker way to get it applied before melee unless you use CS on a rat right before throwing out the shield. (CS rat, Avenger's Shield, Word of Glory, all prior to melee).

Holy Shield doesn't seem to benefit from having multiple Holy Power, so the only thing you give up is having that strong 120% Holy Damage boost when you hit 3 HP stacks. Instead, you have to wait an additional 3 seconds (the time to get another CS and then SotR off), but in leiu of that, you've not only put Holy Shield up, but also tossed an initial SotR, which might only do an additional 20% Holy Damage, is still a nice strong opener.

If you're looking at it from a continuous pull situation, you can always toss out Word of Glory before pulling the next single target, or Inquisition (at 81) before an upcoming multi-add pull. Of course, it'll take some getting used to before people even your guild groups are quick and knowledgable enough to know what to CC and what you're tanking heading in to pull it off in the ~25 - 45 second time period you have to be able to pull this off (10 second before 1st HP charge falls off, 15 seconds for Holy Shield to be up before needing to reapply it, and potentially 20 seconds more if you're sporting 2 or 3 HP at the end of the last pull so you still have a charge left).

As for Blade Warding, mine still works fine. You might need to unequip/reequip it if you see it's enchanted but just not proccing (I had done this when reforging all my gear). With the removal of the Wrath Ardent Defender failsafe, I think Blood Draining might be the new frontrunner, especially since healing is now more of a marathon than a race, and there's nothing else you have that reactively procs when you get low on health. It's mostly a flavor opinion though.

cube wrote:

DK tanking... is not that much fun anymore. I suspect that it's mostly a L2P issue, but the rune changes feel like they really hamper threat generation.

Rune strike is bugged. It was supposed to be castable at all times in Blood presence, and with Runic Empowerment, it allows fully depleted runes to refresh, but it was only usable after a dodge/parry. So instead of using that as a rune refresher/runic power dump, I had to use deathcoil, which costs twice as much RP, and doesn't do nearly as much threat.

Haven't had a chance to check out my DK tank yet. I'm hoping I get the chance either tonight or tomorrow night. I'll let you know if I find anything worth mentioning on that.

ELewis17 wrote:

Pallies- What are your thoughts on getting Holy Shield up?
Do you think it is best to wait until you generate 3 HP and then use SotR, or during your initial rotation to use SotR on 1 HP to get Holy Shield up ASAP?

Edit: Also, did everyone else lose their Blade Ward weapon enchant?

Krin's got the right of it as usual. No reason to wait for 3HoPo to drop SoTR to get HS up.

Zablocki19 wrote:

With the removal of the Wrath Ardent Defender failsafe, I think Blood Draining might be the new frontrunner, especially since healing is now more of a marathon than a race, and there's nothing else you have that reactively procs when you get low on health. It's mostly a flavor opinion though.

This is a valid point I hadn't thought of. Though I wonder if for 2-tank fights with the debuff-gimick (DBS, plague wing puppies etc) that initial damage on 1st parry with all the stacks of the proc may be quite helpful from Blade Ward in getting a threat lead. However, it may prove to be unnecessary since you'll be starting with 3 HP off the taunt, and even possibly a crit on SotR. Hrm...

It looks like they may have hotfixed DKs.

Blood

* Rune Strike now deals 150% weapon damage, down from 200%. No longer requires you to dodge or parry, only usable while in Blood Presence. Now costs 30 Runic Power, up from 20 Runic Power.
* Improved Blood Presence now increases your rune generation by 10/20%

ELewis17 wrote:

Though I wonder if for 2-tank fights with the debuff-gimick (DBS, plague wing puppies etc) that initial damage on 1st parry with all the stacks of the proc may be quite helpful from Blade Ward in getting a threat lead. However, it may prove to be unnecessary since you'll be starting with 3 HP off the taunt, and even possibly a crit on SotR. Hrm...

I wouldn't worry too much about being out-threat'd on a 2-Tank fight. You'll probably want to pop WoG or SotR right before you taunt anyways so you have Holy Shield up (and possibly a damage shield too). However, you will have a 5-stack of Seal of Truth up proccing off of every melee hit and doing max damage from Judgements, and CS readily available too. The damage reflect from what I remember is pretty neglegible in comparison (i think something like 1,000 damage). Meanwhile, if you really want to make sure you have that aggro, 3HP SotR with Wings popped should get you around 13 - 16k damage, or roughly 30,000 threat.

cube wrote:

It looks like they may have hotfixed DKs.

Blood

* Rune Strike now deals 150% weapon damage, down from 200%. No longer requires you to dodge or parry, only usable while in Blood Presence. Now costs 30 Runic Power, up from 20 Runic Power.
* Improved Blood Presence now increases your rune generation by 10/20%

Had a DK tank a random pug today and it looks like there isn't much issue. Back to AoE tanking like pre-4.0.1.

I didn't get a chance to look at mine tonight, but should be able to spend some time tomorrow night giving it a once over.

EDIT
Found this on MMO today:
Protection
Mastery: Divine Bulwark now increases your chance to block melee attacks by 24%, up from 16%. Each point of Mastery increases block chance by an additional 3%, up from 2%.

Looks like I'll get to reverse about 1/2 the Mastery I reforged yesterday getting Block Capped. I believe this'll put me about 27.2% over the limit...

Nicer for those in the lower tier gear though, makes it a whole lot easier to reach the block cap giving you more options for avoidance, expertise, hit and such.

EDIT
Found this on MMO today:
Protection
Mastery: Divine Bulwark now increases your chance to block melee attacks by 24%, up from 16%. Each point of Mastery increases block chance by an additional 3%, up from 2%.

Looks like I'll get to reverse about 1/2 the Mastery I reforged yesterday getting Block Capped. I believe this'll put me about 27.2% over the limit...

Nicer for those in the lower tier gear though, makes it a whole lot easier to reach the block cap giving you more options for avoidance, expertise, hit and such.

Hmm, I wonder how that will affect gear later on.

I doubt it will. Seems more like a 'Prot Pallies need more block' than anything. It's certainly not the first time we've seen a change like that.

AnimeJ wrote:

I doubt it will. Seems more like a 'Prot Pallies need more block' than anything. It's certainly not the first time we've seen a change like that.

Well, moreso I think it reduces the need to change every piece over to include Mastery. I suspect they didn't want the golden rule to be "take the biggest stat and reforge it" on all gear.

It does however give the consistent incoming damage back to pallies though, which I'm not sure what other tanks are going to think of...

I have some questions, and it may be early. I am going to take my Shaman to 85 before any of this, Elemental and Restoration.

But in the new game how are Feral druids and fury warriors faring? Is DPS tanking back? Is that stamana hit for heavy armor wearers feeling a big pinch against casters?

How about in PVP?

Right now I am weighing 3 classes as my alt-Mage, Warrior, Worgen Druid.

KingGorilla wrote:

I have some questions, and it may be early. I am going to take my Shaman to 85 before any of this, Elemental and Restoration.

But in the new game how are Feral druids and fury warriors faring? Is DPS tanking back? Is that stamana hit for heavy armor wearers feeling a big pinch against casters?

How about in PVP?

Right now I am weighing 3 classes as my alt-Mage, Warrior, Worgen Druid.

DPS tanking never really existed outside of PvP, so I'm not quite sure what you're getting at. Leveling up, they can strap on a shield(for warriors/paladins) or bear form for druids, but at the cap? It's never really existed in WoW that I know of; there's just too much damage flying around to tank without any avoidance like you're suggesting.

In PvP, it's going to get very, very slow come Cataclysm. Right now I'd wager it's about the same as it was pre-patch, given that we haven't see the complete rework of gear that's coming.

DPS tanking - taking all DPS gear, specced as a tank, and going through heroics quickly because you outgear them badly. Worked well, if you had the gear for it, and if you were ICC tanking, you did.

Vengeance alone gives tanks a lot more flexibility in terms of soloing or dpsing than previous, and since it synergizes with stamina, it (sort've) turns stamina into a threat generation stat. Vengeance is the stacking buff that increases a tank's attack power by up to 10% of their hitpoints. (I'm assuming that vengeance works the same for all four tanks).

I have a question for the people who do math I have never really been a number cruncher and kinda just done what I wanted as tanking.

Anyway, reforging with mastery. I saw someone on a Paly say they reforged till they were block capped through mastery. (I play a warrior) Is it better to sacrafice some dodge or parry in order to get your mastery rating up? I did it the other night just to see.. I can sacrafice somewhere near 4ish percent dodge to get 9.5 percent block...

I 'sacrificed' an equal amount of parry and dodge to get as close to block capped as I could. Currently I'm at 20.5% dodge and parry with 42.5% block IIRC. Puts me shy of the block cap by quite a bit, but it is as good as its going to get until my gear is better.
Read this, filthy skimmer. It is written for pallies, but most of the info should transfer to your warrior.

Is anyone else noticing that they are getting dazed significantly more since the patch? I ran H-PoS last night and the gauntlet event was quite difficult due to being dazed quite a few times. If I hadn't been CSing mobs on my way through and WoGing on 2 HP I don't think I'd have made it through.

Also I've noticed that my abilities seem to be MUCH more sensitive to range and facing of my character. Before the patch I'd hit HotR as I approached the group, side-step left while rotating right with one backwards step at the end to file the mobs in a semi-circle with their backs to my party, while never exposing my back to the mobs. Now I feel like I'm side-stepping in circles on multiple mobs while mashing my abilities until they pop (really until I'm in proper range/facing). Every multi mob fight feels like a crazy PvP encounter regardless of whether I'm holding aggro or not.

Is this intended, or are we just in need of some more fine tuning?

LtWarhound wrote:

DPS tanking - taking all DPS gear, specced as a tank, and going through heroics quickly because you outgear them badly. Worked well, if you had the gear for it, and if you were ICC tanking, you did.

I read that as a healer and cringe. If I had a tank show up in DPS gear for a heroic, either he'd be going or they'd be getting a new tank. I've tried it *once*. Never again. Maybe a Bear could pull it off because they're uncritable to begin with, but I don't think anyone else could pull that off.

ELewis17 wrote:

Is anyone else noticing that they are getting dazed significantly more since the patch? I ran H-PoS last night and the gauntlet event was quite difficult due to being dazed quite a few times. If I hadn't been CSing mobs on my way through and WoGing on 2 HP I don't think I'd have made it through.

Also I've noticed that my abilities seem to be MUCH more sensitive to range and facing of my character. Before the patch I'd hit HotR as I approached the group, side-step left while rotating right with one backwards step at the end to file the mobs in a semi-circle with their backs to my party, while never exposing my back to the mobs. Now I feel like I'm side-stepping in circles on multiple mobs while mashing my abilities until they pop (really until I'm in proper range/facing). Every multi mob fight feels like a crazy PvP encounter regardless of whether I'm holding aggro or not.

Is this intended, or are we just in need of some more fine tuning?

I'm going to say working as intended. Blizzard really wants AoE tanking the way Wrath has required it gone, and watching videos of the instances at 85, CC is worth using in most cases and certainly required in others.

AnimeJ wrote:

I'm going to say working as intended. Blizzard really wants AoE tanking the way Wrath has required it gone, and watching videos of the instances at 85, CC is worth using in most cases and certainly required in others.

Tanks shouldn't get dazed by mobs unless there's a special mechanic going on, like aspect of the wipe recovery. Ghostcrawler posted that it is a bug here. As usual, no clue when it'll be fixed.

Thanks Cube!

AnimeJ wrote:
LtWarhound wrote:

DPS tanking - taking all DPS gear, specced as a tank, and going through heroics quickly because you outgear them badly. Worked well, if you had the gear for it, and if you were ICC tanking, you did.

I read that as a healer and cringe. If I had a tank show up in DPS gear for a heroic, either he'd be going or they'd be getting a new tank. I've tried it *once*. Never again. Maybe a Bear could pull it off because they're uncritable to begin with, but I don't think anyone else could pull that off.

When you outgear the heroic dungeon by such a wide margin, its not an issue. I had not qualms about healing those tanks, they made for fast simple heroic runs. When the tank's Gear Score rating is pushing 6k, the only limiting factor is the DPS, i.e. how fast things drop. More DPS, less time for the mobs to damage the tank, less healing. It became common for me to drop out of tree form and toss in some DPS myself. HoT the tank, add my AoE damage in, top off the tank on the run, rinse, repeat.

If you don't outgear the dungeon, seriously outgear it, then don't try this at home, kids.

DPS Tanking isn't a real thing. It's what tanks do to screw around and save even more time in randoms because they don't want to rely on dps to slow them down. If by "Back" you mean available for ilvl 264+ geared tanks with too much time on their hands, then sure, it's "back" for the next couple of months, just like it's been for the last couple of months. The likelihood that you get a competent tank doing it though is about 20:1. Most of them think they can do it, and fail...miserably. Reminding me of my pure hatred for the majority of warrior-players, ya know, the idiots who told Prot Pallies that they couldn't tank, and proceeded to wipe Normal Ramparts in TBC because they were "good to go" with their 2Handed Sword. Or the other part of that majority who think it's perfectly fine to charge ahead of the tank and immediately whirlwind, followed by complaints of how useless the tank is for not holding aggro, and how useless the healer is for letting his royal awesomeness DIAF (like nature, and Darwin, intended).

If you are wondering if it is a normal and feasible thing to see in the future in Cataclysm, then LtWarhound already answered KG's question:

LtWarhound wrote:

If you don't outgear the dungeon, seriously outgear it, then don't try this at home, kids.

Outgearing will be available in approximately 2 years.

Back to real discussion:

-To Clarify, Vengence takes a portion of the damage you receive and converts it to Attack Power. It doesn't do anything for soloing or dpsing. All it is useful for is keeping the tank ahead in threat in dungeons or raids due to higher dps as long as you're taking a decent amount of damage.If you're dpsing, you're taking little to no damage, and therefore aren't receiving Vengence. If you take 2000 damage from soloing (an elite? I don't think anything less does damage...), you get a whopping 100 Attack Power. Oh baby, oh baby...oh.

-Dazed Tanks is a pretty sizable bug as mentioned above. It should be fixed soon.

-The Mastery conversion for Warriors is a bit different. Currently, Paladins get 16% Block plus 2%/Mastery (due to Divine Bulwark), not including 15% from Holy Shield which has 100% uptime. Warriors on the other hand get 10% Block, 10% Critical Block (chance you block double the amount, or 60% of damage instead of 30%, but does not increase the chance of blocking over taking a normal hit) plus 1.25%/Mastery of both. Warriors also start with Sentinel, giving 15% Block passively.

Therefore, let's say we have both Warrior and Pally in similar gear, giving 25% Parry, 25% Dodge, 0% Block, 5% Miss. With no Mastery, the totals for each are:

Pally - 25% D, 25% P, 5% M, 31% B (15 HS + 16 DB) = 86%
Warrior - 25% D, 25% P, 5% M, 25% B (15 Sen + 10 CB) = 80%

Now, let's say we add 12 Mastery to both (for a total of 20), because having 25% Parry and Dodge has about 8% loss of each due to Diminishing Returns (at 25% you actually have enough to give you 33%, but it scales down THAT MUCH). Block does not have Diminishing Returns. With the reduction to Parry and Dodge, they drop to roughly 21% each. Mastery starts at 8, which is why Pallies have 16 (2 x 8), and warriors have 10 Block to start (1.25 x 8)

Pally - 21% D, 21% P, 5% M, 55% B (15 HS + 40 DB) = 102%
Warrior - 21% D, 21% P, 5% M, 40% B (15 Sen + 25 CB) = 87%

The warrior only gained 15% from additional Mastery where the Pally gained 24%. Both lost 8% from Parry & Dodge in the process, so the net gain is significantly different.

Now, those numbers aren't exactly on. I think I gave up around 2% Parry, and 6% Dodge to bring both down to 21%, but the block number is accurate, as well as the gain from mastery. The reason for the significant difference though is the chance to Critically Block. Pallies will also only reduce damage on block by 30%, where Warriors (particular that one that has 20 Mastery), will have a much bigger chance to reduce damage by 60%. Of that 40%, 25% falls into the double block area, or, 62.5% of all blocks will be Critical Blocks (37.5% normal blocks).

Hopefully that clears it all up for ya.

Oh Chris, I hope you never change.