Long 3.2 update

Sorry for the long siesta :P, but I have been, like everyone else, farming Emblems of Conquest for H, which has by now, complete her prot set, and is close to finishing her DPS set. It's pointless to talk more about the mechanics behind the changes until we actually discuss the changes themselves, so here they are:

There have been plenty of changes in 3.2, mostly affecting prot warriors more than DPS warriors. About the only noticeable change for DPS warriors is the buff to AttT: Armored to the Teeth - now Increases your attack power by 3 for every 108 armor value you have. (Old - 3 AP every 180 Armor).

Ahhh.. Where to start with the tanking changes... There are just too many of them... I'll start with the easier to understand ones first.

For starters, overall tank avoidance was lowered by a little, with DK's probably being the hardest hit, having their HP and armour lowered as well. The change is as described below, in the patch notes:

Agility: The amount of agility required per percentage of dodge has been increased by 15%. This change required recalibrating the amount of dodge a player has with 0 agility by a slight amount as well, so all players will see their dodge percentage vary a small amount.

Dodge Rating: The amount of dodge rating required per percentage of dodge has been increased by 15%. This is before diminishing returns. Combined with other changes, this makes dodge rating and parry rating equally potent before diminishing returns apply.

Parry Rating: The amount of parry rating required per percentage of parry has been reduced by 8%. This is before diminishing returns. Combined with other changes, this makes dodge rating and parry rating equally potent before diminishing returns apply. Parry still diminishes more quickly than dodge.

That's where your avoidance went. Since parry diminishes more quickly, after a certain amount of parry, it is still better to get dodge instead of more parry, even though you already have more dodge.

And then, we have these:

- Battle Shout: Radius increased to 30 yards.

- Bloodrage: This ability now generates 20 rage initially, and 10 rage over the next 10 seconds. The health cost is unchanged.

- Commanding Shout: Radius increased to 30 yards.

And a hidden change to Glyph of Battle that made it 2 mins instead of 1 min. So now, we have longer Battle Shouts, a larger shout radius, and the ability to instantly use Shield Slam upon pressing Bloodrage. Overall, I think the best improvement here was the change to Bloodrage. No more waiting a few seconds for it to tick in order for Shield Slam to light up.

And here we have:

Execute: This ability now never costs more than a total of 30 rage. The tooltip for Sudden Death has been revised to remove reference to that maximum, since the ability now behaves that way even when untalented.

Another minor change here, nothing too much to worry about. I don't believe that Fury warriors will now resort to Execute spam again instead of their normal rotation.

Finally, we come to the more exciting changes, and those that will undoubtedly be a source of woe for many generations of warriors to come.

Shield Specialization: Now provides 5 rage on a block, dodge or parry instead of 2 rage on a block. No more rage starves in 5-mans, although the current 3/3 Focused Rage and 2/5 Shield Specialization could still work better for you.

Devastate: Weapon damage and bonus per Sunder Armor on the target increased by 100%. This ability now requires a shield to be equipped. (No more Devastate/Flurry/1H dual-wield builds!)

This turned out a little differently from what I speculated, as it now does 100% weapon damage + 202 for each application of sunder on the target, meaning that it does 100% weapon damage + 202, and then 100% + 404, 100% + 606, and so on. Not quite what I imagined, but it is still a huge threat boost, and this means that Devastate is now no longer a GCD-filler, so to speak. It is now a powerful ability in its own right. If you want to read more, try this; I will refer to it again later.

And the most exciting change of all:

Block Value: The amount of bonus block value on all items has been doubled. This does not affect the base block value on shields or block value derived from strength.

On-Use Block Value Items: All items and set bonuses that trigger temporary increases to block value have been modified. Instead of increasing their block value amount by 100% like other items, they have all had their effect durations doubled.

Honestly, I didn't doubt for one moment that this wouldn't make it live, simply because protection warrior DPS was THE lowest among all the four tanking classes, and this is exactly what we needed. However... we then run into this:

Shield Slam: The benefit from additional block value this ability gains is now subject to diminishing returns. Diminishing returns occur once block value exceeds 30 times the player’s level and caps the maximum damage benefit from shield block value at 34.5 times the player’s level.

For the uninitiated, DR to Shield Slam damage sets in at 2400 block value, and the cap on Shield Slam damage is 2760 block value. That is not to say that block value is useless beyond those numbers. It is not. Block value does serve to mitigate damage, so if it comes with your gear, like the T8 chest and T8 leggings, by all means put it to good use.

The upshot of all those changes effectively meant that, H, with the Conquest badge gear and 4T8, has a 20% magic damage reduction on Shield Block use, in addition to:

A 2000 HP gain, sitting at 32, 571 unbuffed in my regular tank set now

An increase of 700 or so AP, sitting at 3401 unbuffed AP

An increase of 500+ block value, with 1494 unbuffed block value

A DPS increase (while tanking) of 600-800 (on trash), hovering between 1.8k to 2k, and an increase up to 2.3k - 2.5k on raid bosses, assuming unlimited rage

This is a HUGE buff, and I am seeing my TPS go up to as high as 7.5k, and even peaking at 8k for certain periods, whereas pre 3.2, I would be struggling to maintain 5.5k-6k. Shield Slams are hitting much harder, and I am seeing noticeable increase in Devastate damage numbers from 0 to 5 sunders. I have yet to test this extensively on my lesser-geared warriors, but they are experiencing at least a 300 DPS increase, sitting in pre-25man/pre-Conquest gear.

Of course, the downside to every "welfare epic" patch is that there is the usual headache of planning gear, with DPS gear being especially nasty to plan because of the delicate balance of stats, namely hit and expertise. I picked up some nice stuff in the new 5-man instance, like the 1H tanking weapon (which incidentally, is now part of my boss tanking set, will explain below) and tanking ring (what the hell happened to defense rating on gear??), and had to re-gem some stuff and slot in some epic gems to maintain 540+ defense.

What I did notice while trying out the fast 1H weapon mentioned before, is that my threat dropped dramatically on trash, while it skyrocketed on bosses. And then I found this post that nicely explains (with some serious math), that because Heroic Strike is on such a high usage during boss fights, a fast weapon is preferable for TPS during bosses, and a slow weapon otherwise. It seems counter-intuitive, because the Devastate change would naturally prefer slow weapons, but when you consider that each Heroic Strike is +495 damage and +259 threat, and multiplied by the 2.0735 Defensive Stance threat multiplier, it stacks up pretty quickly with your 1.6 or 1.5 second Heroic Strike, outperforming the slow weapon even with the increase in Devastate and Deep Wounds damage.

Also, I found this along the way, which shows that Devastate has a strange mechanic which adds a portion of your AP to its threat, and the glyph conveniently doubles that amount. With the new Devastate change, this would be a top pick for single-target threat generation, i.e. boss fights, and no longer be some backwater glyph.

Since I had picked up a couple of new tanking weapons, I thought it would be nice to rethink tanking weapon enchants. Comparing Mongoose to 26 Agi, Mongoose is slightly-lower-than 30 Agi static enchant, when accounting for diminishing returns on dodge (120 Agi has more DR than 26 Agi), while providing a very slight attack speed boost. Overall, Mongoose is still the best avoidance enchant. Close seconds are 26 Agi and Blade Ward. However, Blade Ward seems to be exceptionally nerfed now, providing only one stack of buff, so I'd just stick with Agi for now. If you want a lengthy discussion on Blade Ward vs Mongoose, see here. For effective health, Blood Draining is still second to none though, and same with Accuracy for threat (cheaper alternative would be 50/65 AP or a Titanium Weapon Chain).

Wall O' Text crits you for 100k. You die. d(^_^)b

Anyway, to summarise that wall of text above:

Prot warrior DPS has dramatically increased. More block value, higher Str on higher ilvl gear, and slow tanking weapons contribute the most to that. Devastate damage has been increased, and should now be used more often.

Prefer a fast weapon for boss tanking, a slower weapon for everything else.

Glyph of Devastate is now very good. Get one.

Mongoose/26 Agi are your best friends for avoidance enchants. Stick to whatever you prefer, however, as long as it's not Int, Spi, or Spellpower.