Archive for the ‘wotlk’ Category »
Welcome to my 100th blog post! As always, thanks for reading, and for this great occasion, I’ve done some extra legwork. 
WotLK has brought us many factions, offering rewards. I’ll try to take a look at rewards to help me decide what reputation to grind first, and hopefully that’ll help you readers too. I can’t really make any weighted decision yet as I don’t know what else is available per crafting and drops yet, so take this as what it is: an overview of neutral faction rewards. Horde and alliance specific rewards will be posted separately soon.
Argent Crusade:
The Argent Crusade has its quartermaster at the Argent Vanguard in Icecrown. Once you’re friendly with them, you can pick up their tabard to start the reputation grind via championing in level 80 instances.
- Special Issue Legplates - Available at Honored. Very solid piece with boatloads of def and hit. Reaching the new defcap of 540 won’t be quite that easy, so this will help.
- Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector - Available at Revered. This is going to be the head enchant of choice to get us capped, methinks.
And that’s it, so our target goal for Argent Crusade is a minimum of Revered.
Frenzyheart Tribe vs The Oracles:
This is WotLK’s version of Aldor and Scryers, on a smaller scale, I guess. Both factions live in Sholazar Basin, either you side with the wolvar or the gorlocs. If you go with cuddly widdle wolvar, Frenzyheart rewards is what you’re looking for.
- Giant-Sized Gauntlets - available at Revered. Dodge and hit, so avoidance and threat stats, but no defense. Still, not a bad choice.
- Stolen Vrykul Harpoon - available at Revered. While we get Heroic Throw at 80, it’ll still have a cooldown, and besides we need nice stats to fill that slot for us anyway. This thrown weapon seems to be catering to rogues primarily, but I also wouldn’t say no to it.
What do the toothy gorlocs of the Oracles have to offer, in comparison?
Absolutely nothing. None of the faction rewards does anything for protection warriors.
The Kalu’ak:
Our roly-poly Tuskarr friends are mostly known for their fishing pole of OP-ness and their penguin pet, but do they also have tanky goodness?
- Ivory-Reinforced Chestguard - available at Honored. This is available at level 76, so this might give you a jumpstart when it comes to the def-race. Not bad at all, and very easy to get.
Kirin Tor:
Does this faction of mages have anything to offer for us? Their quartermaster is Archmage Alvareaux in Dalaran.
- Fireproven Gauntlets - Pretty nice stuff. Worth the grind to Exalted? I can’t tell you for sure yet.
And that’s it, so don’t expect too much from guys in purple dresses.
Knights of the Ebon Blade:
Renegade death knights with a hold in Icecrown sounds a bit more promising than guys in purple dresses, so let’s see.
- Toxin-Tempered Sabatons - available at Honored. Promising start, very nice shoulders, I dig.
However, that’s all that’s notable for me as protection warrior, which is a bit of a let-down.
The Sons of Hodir:
Based in Stormpeaks, this faction of giants looks like it’s going to be everyone’s ticket to shoulder enchants.
- Lesser Inscription of the Pinnacle - available at Honored. This is the same shoulder enchant you were able to buy at Exalted from the Aldor, so not a bad start.
- Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle - available at Exalted.
Again, that’s it, aside from two mammoth mounts. I want a mammoth.
Wyrmrest Accord:
- Cloak of Peaceful Resolutions - available at Honored. Very ironic name, fancy cloak to wear when you smack things with your shield.
- Breastplate of the Solemn Council - available at Revered. That’s what I am talking about.
- Sabatons of Draconic Vigor - available at Revered. Again, great stats, tons of defense, pushing us to the cap.
And that’s it for the neutral factions. I personally will go for Wyrmrest Accord first, followed by Argent Crusade and chasing it with Sons of Hodir.
Northrend Week 1
What happens when a WoW expansion is released after 1.5 years since the last one? As blog author you lose all your readers and you stop blogging. 
No worries, I am still alive and kicking, but just like everyone else I am busier playing than usual.
While powerguilds like the new TwentyfifthNovember have already cleared all WotLK content, I am enjoying my sweet and slow ride. I am actually leveling three characters at the same time. My main is Kadomi, she’s 73 now. My shaman is 71, to do instance runs with the other half who did indeed switch to her feral druid as new main. Tagging behind I will level my rogue, simply because I need her to pick herbs so my shaman can use them for alchemy and inscription.
Kadomi started out in the Howling Fjord, as I had hoped it would be less crowded. I wouldn’t say it was deserted, but it was totally manageable, at least in my prime playing time, which is well ahead of server time. Vengeance Landing is a very cool starting place, and the Forsaken of the Hand of Vengeance are all…interesting fellows. And so I did questionable things like working on plagues and dropping plague bombs on alliance ships. Good times. The quest rewards in the starting area weren’t that exciting for me, until I did my first Utgarde Keep run.
Utgarde Keep itself is breathtakingly gorgeous from the outside, and insanely dull on the inside. The design is very intricate, the level of detail is great, but that doesn’t change that it’s dark, dull and probably the most linear instance I have ever run. You cannot even take a wrong turn. The pulls are all incredibly easy. I think my favorite part of the instance is the series of jumps you take from the top to the exit once you’re done. All negativity aside, the bosses are interesting, and it’s a fast run for good exp.
The quest rewards are pretty nice. Vambraces of the Vengeance Bringer are now my new DPS bracers, and Tiled Stone Pendant finally replaces my Maiden necklace. Note, horde necklace reward > alliance reward IMHO, huzzah.
The scenery in Howling Fjord is incredibly pretty. The amount of detail is pretty amazing, there are just so many fine touches, like the Shoveltusk stags fighting with each other, but once you run in, one of them runs off, e.g. The quests are all pretty fun. Few drop quests, interesting touches with hints at the Titans, and I loved having my own pet tauren in Skorn or a pet giant at Giant’s Run. Soloing as a protection warrior is a dream. I find myself having absolutely zero downtime. I don’t have to eat, I rarely ever have to use a bandage, I find myself having to pull larger mob groups for some rougher action. So far I have done all group quests on my own, the only one that wasn’t quite so easy was the March of Giants, as the giants have a nasty DoT. Still, with spell reflect it’s possible to survive those guys too. Northrend elites are such pushovers.
I love the new models on most mobs, even though I heard that people hate the new wolves. I think they look cool. The new yetis are the best though, they look really pissed. Speaking of yetis and wolves, I really enjoyed the quests with them. Running around as a worg was tons of fun. That’s just it, most quests are pretty much just pure fun. Notable exception: the buggy Twisted Glade and its spores of permanent Evade bugs. That was the only quest I gave up in frustration and went back the next day when it was deserted there.
On Saturday, I then ran the Nexus for the first time, and thought it was a huge step up from Utgarde Keep. Not in terms of difficulty, but the whole design of the place. It’s easy to get lost because you can pick the order of the bosses however you please. I heard it described too much like Botanica, but I don’t agree at all. Sure, there are angry flowers, but we’ve had those as far back as Dire Maul East or Maraudon. All four bosses are incredibly fun, from tentacle lady to icicle guy, and the end boss must be an homage to every non-stop jumping nightelf rogue you’ve ever seen. Jump to stay alive, how cool.
Also pretty cool, wait, scratch that, make that amazing, are the quest rewards. I was flabbergasted to replace -three- pieces of purple gear with the Nexus quest rewards. I really expected my Pauldrons of Stone Resolve to last me longer than they did, but I replaced them with Tundra Pauldrons. I am pretty happy that they look wicked at least, very orcish if you ask me. My Bonefist Gauntlets also went bye-bye to be replaced by Gauntlets of the Disturbed Giant. As a sidegrade I picked up Boots of the Unbowed Protector. I have no idea if I’ll need avoidance gear anytime soon, but if yes, they are most certainly better than my Boots of Elusion.
Hopefully I can get a replacement for my chicken head soon, because without all the other Zul’Aman style gear, it just looks silly now.
I just started the quests in Dragonblight yesterday, hit 73 there, and think I fell in love with the zone even harder than with Howling Fjord. My shaman is doing Borean Tundra, so I am skipping that with Kadomi. Lore-wise, it just feels great playing horde now, Warsong Hold and Agmar’s Hammer are really giving you the feeling that the Horde is serious about this war business. As a nice touch that I really appreciated, my shaman got a really rough greeting from Garrosh Hellscream, formerly known as emo-boy of Nagrand, but when I showed up in Warsong Hold with Kadomi to get to the Nexus, he was just a little bit friendlier, telling her he remembered her deeds from Nagrand. Yay recognition! After all it was me who brought Thrall to Nagrand, or he would still be standing moping by the campfire in Garadar.
I am looking forward to the two instances in Dragonblight, but it might be until the weekend until I actually get around to them, due to stupid work schedule this week. Azjol-Nerub is bound to be fun!
And that’s it! Blog-wise, I will do my best to actually keep a schedule now: Monday is story-time, Wednesday I’ll try to write instance guides, starting with UK, and Friday will be addon-time. Sounds good, let’s see if I can make it happen.
Achievement and almost all goals met
A while back I posted about my pre-expansion goals. Now, with mere days until the expansion, I am perfectly satisfied with having completed most of those goals.
- finish leveling my shaman to 70. Done!
- power-level alchemy on my shaman as my warlock won’t be leveled for a while. Fizzled out at alchemy 355, but the last 20 points aren’t far away. As second profession I power-leveled Inscription on her, sitting at 336.
- grind out the last 17 points of engineering on my rogue. Almost. She’s at 373, two repairbots away from the final destination, but it’ll be easier to just do new WotLK schematics to continue.
- build the roflcopter, because I wantssss it. Done!
- grab my bestest girls and tank H OHB and H M-T to complete my heroic experience. Done and done and did Crypts as well, completing my Outland Heroic Dungeonmaster achievement. Crypts was annoying, but scored me the possibly most disgusting weapon ever, Claw of the Watcher. It twitches, blinks and drools!
- lead another Gruul/Mags raid and this time won’t pass the T4 shoulder token to another warrior. Done! Though technically I didn’t pass the shoulders, I actually lost the roll, mwah.
- clear ZA. Done! 1.5 hour clears, all chests, the nerfed ZA is a pushover.
On Friday, we had our monthly PvP day in the guild, but BGs were so unfun and wackily out of balance for us casual girls in non-PvP gear that a bunch of us decided to go back to what we’re decent at, PvE. In a strange turn of events, we decided we wanted to feel like we did when we first hit 70, were undergeared and struggled through 3.5 hours Shadow Labs runs. We ran it almost naked! The rule was to just keep your pants/skirt on and wear your normal weapons/shield. So there I went, down to under 10k health, 10k armor, just like back in the day.
The run itself was tons of fun, but even almost naked we were so OP. Even with pulling carefully we blazed through. Blackheart didn’t have much time for fun, Vorpil didn’t port at all and Murmur did one Sonic Boom before he disintegrated. Still, it was really cool to do this with really low health and casters drinking every pull, just like back in the day.
I’ve been running tons of heroics. Possibly the greatest fun in post-patch world until Thursday. Very fast-paced, full of prot warrior awesomeness. Our holy paladin went retribution because I asked her, she wanted the chest off Kael’thas in H MgT, so we got that for her. From running all those heroics, I went from having 10 badges to 103 badges in like no time. As my final shopping tour for badges I got me the Sunguard Legplates after all. They have a lot more def than my previous pants, so I was finally able to ditch the Adamantine Figurine as defense trinket. Or so I thought.
On Saturday we did a ZA clear, and the shield of my dreams again never showed up, but Zul’jin decided to drop Cleaver of the Unforgiving. I wouldn’t be an orc if that axe didn’t make me drool. Recipe for success: enchant the weapon you’ve had forever with an expensive enchant like Executioner, and for sure an upgrade will drop within days. Good for me that all those heroics already saw me with more shards in the bank to have the axe enchanted as well. Also, the price for shards in general has gone rock-bottom on Bronzebeard, which is very nice.
Bye bye King’s Defender, you served me well! The axe should carry me to whatever upgrade I will get for it in WotLK. I had to gem for defense so that I was able to be capped for our Sunday ZA clear without going back to using a def trinket, but it worked out. The Sunday ZA was strange because most of the bosses dropped exactly the same items they had dropped on Saturday, including the axe. Again, no shield, but that’s alright. I am a blacksmith, so at blacksmithing 390, I am going to make myself a Saronite Defender. Not too shabby!
My worries that I would get a late start to WotLK seem unfounded. I had to order my US version at Okaysoft who specialize on imports and they informed that the shipping date for US WotLK is Nov 11. I should have my copy early, go figure! I can sit in front of my computer, hugging the box, waiting for the servers to become ready. I will be there, live, for any Northrend world server crash, huzzah.
I am sort of anal-retentive when it comes to WoW, so I’ve contemplated all last week which starting zone I will level in. I think I’ll be going with Howling Fjord, just so I can hop into Utgarde Keep as quickly as possible. I am so ready for WotLK.
The new protection warrior
A week has passed and I am sure most of us have already given their new warrior builds a spin. I am hearing lots of love of warriors for Arms on the one hand (Bladestorm must be awesome) and of course Protection on the other hand. I’ll try to give you my personal impressions of the new protection warrior.
Invincible. That’s what went through my head the first couple of times I did large pulls of non-elite mobs. The solo viability of prot warriors has gone through the roof. Yes, I was always capable of doing decent protection DPS with dual-wielding Devastate spam, and easily grinded to Exalted with SSO. No big deal, just a slow process. The new protection warrior has it a lot easier. I usually ride around, gather a pile of angry mobs, then dismount and unleash. Atamal Armaments? No problem. Run up the ramp, with 10 mobs in tow. Get an elite dragon add? No problem. Puts a smile on the face, it does. All this in defensive stance. For soloing, I still use DPS gear that’s very heavy on strength, for more attack power and SBV, plus tank items that are heavy on SBV. ZA gear is amazing for this purpose.
Forget about CC. If you’re running heroics or normal instances, CC has become unimportant. As protection warrior you are very capable of holding multiple mobs. Remember that multitank article I wrote a while back? All obsolete now. Run in, gather your mobs, Thunderclap, Shockwave, and tell your DPS to let loose. The only thing you have to watch out for are casters, you can either choose to CC them, or kill them first, or use line of sight to bring them to you. But don’t forget the basics, being an AoE tank does not mean you can afford a sloppy playstyle now. I think a good warrior should still try to to focus as much as you did when multi-tanking was challenging.
Limitless rage. Rage starvation is of the past. You crank out so much damage that even if you queue Heroic Strike on every attack you still have loads of rage. Me not having enough rage for a spell reflect just doesn’t happen anymore. You float from group to group with your rage bar all high. If you don’t, pull faster.
Play smart, use macros. I have two new macros that I use, and I feel they really crank up both my threat and my DPS quite a bit.
The first one is simple, and works under the assumption you have a Glyph of Revenge. If you don’t, what are you waiting for? They are dirt cheap and easily available, and awesome as heck.
Update from Oct 23:
Hats off to Kranmar who provided a better Glyph of Revenge macro than the one I originally posted, kudos, and I hope he won’t mind I reposted it.
#showtooltip Revenge
/castsequence reset=2 revenge, !heroic strike
In the words of Kranmar himself:
I’m using the following macro for the revenge/heroic strike combo. After using revenge it switches to heroic strike, but resets to revenge after two seconds if you don’t use heroic strike (it also resets after using heroic strike):
This basically allows you to mash that button for when revenge becomes active and for the rest focus on your normal rotation with Shield Slam and devastate. On bosses I never seem to run out of rage so I’m spamming HS as well.
The second macro is courtesy of the guys over at Tankspot:
#showtooltip Shield Slam
/script UIErrorsFrame:Hide()
/cast Shield Block
/use 13
/use 14
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
/script UIErrorsFrame:Show()
/cast Shield Slam
/startattack
This is assuming you have either the Auto Blocker or Coren’s Lucky Coin, or the best option, both! While Shield Block has a great mitigation component, the best part is the huge boost to Shield Block Value. This macro will check if SB is available, use it, check for availability of trinkets in both slots and then use Shield Slam. Prepare for massive crits. My personal best is 5397, I am sure a lot of you can easily top that.
Note that you can use a similar trinket popping macro on all your characters if you tend to forget on-use trinkets.
DPS must work harder. In my guild, there’s always been a bunch of people with top DPS, and also a lot of people who are not as good in their rotations. I was close to outdpsing people in heroics before if they didn’t give it their all. This will become blatantly more obvious now, as I am already doing more DPS than a lot of dedicated DPSers. Work harder for your top 3 spots, because all tanks will crank out damage and give you a run for your money. Now is the time to show if you got it.
All in all, tanking has changed. It’s easier now, which makes it more accessible to people who were not interested in tanking before. It’s tons of fun. We’ll have to see how it’ll pan out in the long run, because right now, the challenge is missing a little, but I am sure we’ll get there. Go out there, have fun, be reckless.
Still alive!
Guess what, I still live! I got a couple mails asking where I was and what was going on. All’s fine, but I was hit by RL and also spent hours tuning my UI and playing WoW too much. Strangely enough, all the changes brought something about that I didn’t think would happen: blog ennui. Or maybe even WoW ennui.
I am really torn at the moment. On the one hand, the new protection warrior is amazingly fun. It’s just awesome to play. On the other hand, other classes got hit with the nerfbat so hard that I outperform them so much that it makes me feel bad. What the hell happened to warlocks?
I tested my 5/3/53 spec in three heroics. I first went to Slave Pens and Underbog with a group of fairly low DPSers from my guild, and was number one on DPS by a big margin. I then went to Heroic Shattered Halls with some of the best DPSers in my guild, and I was a close third. Zero CC on all runs, and in Heroic SH, all three DPSers AoEd away.
And then I went to Zul’Aman yesterday. Name’s Sitta in the anonymous report. Even when we were sloppy, we just bruted our way through it.
I am joining the ranks of people who are disenchanted with the current state of raiding. The Zul’jin kill wasn’t satisfying at all. I couldn’t even enjoy seeing Lynx and Dragonhawk phases because everything was over so fast. I hope Matticus is right and that things will get more challenging again, because ezmode WoW is kinda boring. I am hoping for kickass delivery in WotLK and stuff that you won’t just blaze through. I heard that the Northrend 5-mans are all really easy, and that’s already a turn-off. I feel extremely powerful now, and I want to get into epic fights again. I cannot be alone with this sentiment. Maybe I am biased. The other half’s main is a warlock and she is very very unhappy. That rubs off. I don’t blame her. I loved what I saw of the new affliction tree, but if you were a dedicated high DPS destro warlock before, the changes are very disappointing.
On the flip side, I made out like a bandit in yesterday’s two hour ZA extravaganza. We got three chests, but had only 8 minutes left for the fourth, so we stopped rushing after the third. First chest scored me Pauldrons of Stone Resolve and third chest got me Signet of the Last Defender. Given recent changes, both pieces of gear are extremely awesome. I feel a bit guilty because the other warrior passed on both which was probably brought on by my big QQ session a couple weeks ago.
Give me your opinion, warriors and all other visitors alike. How’s life been for you since the patch? Too OP, too boring, or just right for you guys? Enlighten me.
Addon Corner: Ampere
Now that 3.0 is almost here, it’s time to start this new project here, introducing addons.
I am starting with one of my favorite addons that will be incredibly useful tomorrow, when it comes to getting all the other addons to work: Ampere. Basically, what it does is that in the default Interface menu while in-game you will be able to access the Addons menu that you usually only have available at the Character Screen. Without having to log off, you can disable addons, enable them, get Load on Demand addons loaded, and then reload the UI to get all the changes. Back in the day when one of my addons broke I would have to log off a million times, Ampere fixes that issue for me.
There’s a similar addon called ACP, but I am a Tekkub fangirl, and he writes addons that are teeny-tiny, integrate seamlessly, don’t need hours to set up and are frequently updated.
As special, extra feature I am tossing you this link, as overview which addons should work and which won’t. Good luck! I wish I had gotten a chance at trying the latest Autobar build, but the PTR is down already. It’s coming, it’s really happening!
Countdown continued: tomorrow!
Well, guys, weekends are usually crunch raid time for me, so I didn’t get around to continuing my series of posts for a while there, but I am finding time now for my final installment. Tomorrow we’re facing 12 hours maintenance on the US and Oceanic realms, likely meaning I won’t actually see this patch live tomorrow, and my European readers will face similar downtime Wednesday morning.
Yesterday I had our last raid day pre-patch, a last shot at bosses before the big change. Post-patch, everything will change. Us protection warriors, we got some amazing new stuff, as I posted about many times. Other classes got major overhauls like that as well. Raid DPS in general will go up as people get new specs. I have three DPS characters that I tested on the PTR, and all of their DPS as tested on the level 70 dummies pretty much went through the roof. With every single of the DPS classes I tested comes a new skill rotation, a completely different way to work on rotations. Most classes seem to have the mechanics that using a specific ability will refresh buff or debuff duration. As example I will name Cut to the Chase that refreshes the duration of Slice and Dice for Assassination rogues or Haunt for Affliction warlocks which refreshes Corruption on a target. So instead of using combo points to refresh SnD, you refresh SnD by using a burst damage finisher (they have been pimped as well) and affliction locks will refresh their Corruption by using a shadow damage spell that can crit. Most classes have received changes like that. Raid DPS will undeniably go up.
I think healers will likely face the biggest change in playstyle. More heals, bigger heals. Fun stuff like Bacon of Light. And yet, common healer habits have to die. The death of downranking means healers can no longer use lower rank heals to keep people up. I think stopcasting will be pretty elemental, if a target doesn’t really need that big heal you’re trying to cast. Mana conversation will be huge, as potion sickness is introduced to reduce the impact of consumables. Our chain-potting priests will have to break the habit, as soon as they can.
We have three flavors of tanks until WotLK, and all of them should be doing great on threat. DPS gets lots of fun new toys but they also have to learn how to get the biggest bang for their buck aka mana if they’re casters. Healers get new challenges to see if the lack of downranking and potions is something they’ll overcome. We get more raid-wide buffs for everyone. It’ll be a new game for all of us.
To assist with the changes, Blizzard is nerfing all raid mobs, bosses and trash alike. All of them will have 30% less health and deal 30% less physical damage. Spell damage will remain unchanged. Crushing blows are no more. This should go a long way to assist raids to still being able to kill stuff despite all the changes. Is it a real nerf? We’ll see. I have heard reports that some content can be easily 5-manned now (as in Kara) but also heard reports stating that the nerf isn’t really one but necessary for us to continue raiding until WotLK rolls around in a month.
To adjust raid planning to all the new synergies and changes RaidComp seems like an awesome tool. I’ll certainly use it.
Of course I forgot to add the most epic change of them all: your new haircut and haircolor will make all the difference, I am sure. All our undead raiders will have to have pigtails, to send raid mobs screaming!
Wishing y’all a merry patchday, not too many borked addons, and have fun exploring your new specs.
See also:
Countdown continued: 5 days to go
It’s getting closer every day. I haven’t seen any outright confirmation of the date for a while, we’re still running on the announcement that S4 will end that day. I will just assume that this means it’s the big day, so on with the show of changes every protection warrior should know about for 3.0.
I have covered a lot of changes to existing abilities, today I want to talk about brand-new stuff we’re getting. The new stuff we are getting is completely changing tanking as we know it, I tell ya.
Let’s start from top to bottom in the protection tree.
Not new at all, but new in the protection tree is Imp Thunderclap. No more having to spend 8 points in Arms, now you can stop once you have Parry 5/5 and grab your imp TC in the protection tree.
The first new ability, albeit passive, is Incite in the second tier of the protection tree. At max rank it will increase your crit chance from Heroic Strike, Thunderclap and Cleave by 15%. Not bad at all! You should use Thunderclap all the time anyway, Cleave is great on AoE pulls and Heroic Strike will continue to be your rage dump. Remember, it’s better to use Heroic Strike in high rage situation for extra threat and DPS than to sit at a full rage bar all the time.
Vigilance is the new 31 point talent, down there where Shield Slam used to be. As an aside, Shield Slam is now a core ability that every warrior will have. It’s seen a lot of changes in the beta, many warriors didn’t find it useful, but in its current form it will be quite lovely, for both 5-mans and raids. Have an aggro hog in your group? Maybe that warlock over there? Reduce the damage they’ll take when they inevitably snag aggro, plus have 10% of their threat go to you. Now that’s huge. The refreshed taunt when they get aggro is just a nice bonus, the threat transfer is the big deal.
At tier 8, we have another new passive ability, Safeguard. It reminds me of Improved Taunt a lot (which btw no longer exists). If you use Intervene so much that you need a damage reduction for your Intervene targets, then you have a threat problem, IMHO. I think a lot of people will skip this one.
I already introduced you to Warbringer in my last countdown posting, as old ability re-done, but it’s actually a new ability on tier 9, along with Critical Block. More Shield Slam crits are awesome, so I think every deep protection warrior will want to get that one.
On tier 10 we have Damage Shield. You take damage or block? Hurt all those whapping on you. On the PTR it hit for about 100, it can crit, imagine Thorns, just hotter.
The ability that will change the way we tank forever is deep in protection as well, and it’s Sword and Board. Dezdemone over at Will Tank for Healz described it best. We will no longer have set tanking rotations to keep up for maximum TPS. Instead tanking will become reactive, based on priorities. You will always want to use Shield Slam above everything else, then Revenge, then Devastate. Every use of Revenge and Devastate can refresh the Shield Slam cooldown. You can use Shield Slam a lot, it’s pretty awesome. Train yourself to forget about rotations, learn to prioritize. I am using Mik’s Scrolling Battle Text and it already comes with a lovely Sword and Board warning, so that you won’t miss a proc, as the sound effect and visual for proc’ing is underwhelming (looks like you’re popping the Auto-Blocker).
The big new ability we get is Shockwave. It’s the 51 point talent in protection, so you have to go all the way to the bottom of the tree to get it. Part of our new AoE repertoire, this ability is as much fun to use as Charge is. Charging at a mob is fun. Using Shockwave, getting this fun sonic sound effect and big numbers on your screen, that’s awesome too. For extra fun, go berserker stance, pop Recklessness, and then Shockwave. Bam bam, crits everywhere! As this is a cone effect, it will take some practice to aim correctly. In my experiments with huge throngs of mobs in SMV, it immensely helped to take a step back before using it, so that every mob is in range of the cone. Practice it, have fun, enjoy the fun of AoE grinding! The cooldown is a bit too long for my tastes, and make sure to not use this right at the beginning of a pull, because the stun can hurt your rage generation.
A lot of the new stuff we get is directly to make us able to AoE tank. Grab mobs, have Damage Shield hurt them and help with threat. Thunderclap with no target cap, Cleave with increased crit and Shockwave them for additional fun. This combo is so addictively fun and plays very different than what you might be used to.
In my next countdown article, I will talk about changes to raiding that will come with 3.0.2.
Please see also:
3.0 info galore
Now, I got you covered when it comes to reviewing 3.0 changes for protection warriors. But what if you happen to have alts or play other classes and look for similar info for other classes? Anna over at Too Many Annas has you covered with her Best of 3.0 Information Guide.
Countdown continued: 7 days to go
Today I’ll continue with my countdown, to get everyone up to speed about warrior changes and what you need to do to prepare for the patch. If Blizzard can make it happen, we should see the patch deployed next Tuesday, but of course this might change.
In my last posting I was talking about how warrior abilities and talents are changing to scale with Attack Power, and how important Block Value is now. Today I will talk about about further changes to warrior abilities we’ve had forever, and how the new protection warrior will have more access to abilities in all stances.
I’ll begin with a classic protection warrior ability: Taunt. Note the change? I have to admit this one took me by surprise. 20 yard range Taunt. In their effort to bring all four tanking classes together (I’m already counting DK), they’re giving similar abilities to all classes. Paladins were the only ones with a ranged taunt, now warriors have received it as well, and so have druids. I can definitely see lovely uses for this. I was often frustrated by the range-limit on Taunt. If you remember the gauntlet to the final boss of Mechanar, it was too easy to have the Destroyers dash past you and get the frustrating ‘Out of Range’ message for taunt.
In a similar vein, we now have an additional Taunt-like ability available to us in Defensive Stance: Mocking Blow. This is currently only available in Battle Stance. What does this gain us? Added flexibility in 5-mans and on trash. Taunt resisted? Hit with Mocking Blow instead without having to switch stances. I have to admit I never really used Mocking Blow much, I usually hit Challenging Shout if I get a Taunt resist and the mob keeps wailing on the healer.
Another ability that will no longer require stance dancing is Berserker Rage. Fights with a fear component like Nightbane will be hugely simplified, and you now have a button that will let you generate additional rage in a pinch. Rage starvation might be off the table for real.
If you choose to go deep into the protection tree (and why would you not if you’re a dedicated tank) you’ll end up with a brand-new talent, Warbringer. Now that’s hot stuff. So much added mobility in-fight, and rage. I always envied druids and their handy feral charge, but hated the rage loss too much to switch to zerker for Intercept. Now we can use Charge whenever we feel like it, and it’s so much fun. If you’re a warrior and you don’t love Charge, then I don’t know what’s wrong with you. Additionally, I think it’ll allow protection warriors to near be unstoppable in PvP, due to the removal of snares.
All of the listed changes will make tanking easier. Maybe too easy? Our class has been made simpler, and I know some old-school warriors are not happy about the changes. I am. I think we might probably see more protection warriors around to enjoy the fun factor that tanking will have. Despite all the changes making tanking easier, I still think there will be plenty of challenges out there.
Update: WordPress managed to eat yesterday’s post somehow, so I am using the opportunity to add warrior abilities I actually forgot about:
The new Intervene has a lovely change: 10% threat reduction for the target you Intervene on. Together with the new Vigilance, that should help keeping the super aggro-hogs in check.
Cooldowns were changed for some of our strongest abilities. We will be able to use the Oh Shit buttons more often! Last Stand’s cooldown has gone down to 5 minutes, Challenging Shout’s cooldown was chopped by 7 whole minutes, bringing it down to 3 minutes. We’ll be able to use it all the time! The most drastic cooldown change has happened to our 30 minute abilities Shield Wall, Retaliation and Recklessness. All three abilities now have a cooldown of 5 minutes. Shield Wall has been nerfed slightly, and will reduce 60% instead of 75% damage, but considering you’ll be able to use it consistently now instead of reserving it for special encounters, it will become part of our repertoire more often. Retaliation and Recklessness saw slight changes as well: Recklessness gets you three guaranteed crits when using special abiliites, as opposed to ‘most attacks’ and Retaliation will now counterattack for 12 seconds, 20 attacks as opposed to 15 seconds, 30 attacks. Still, excellent stuff.
In my next installment, I am going to talk about the brandnew stuff protection warriors are receiving, as opposed to all the changes to existing abilities that I have talked about so far. Fun stuff.
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