Of Flinging Swords and Hugging Shields: WotLK Prot Changes

New ability: Weapon Throw (level 80): Throws your weapon at the enemy causing damage equal to 100% of AP. This ability causes high threat. 30 yd range, 0.5 sec cast, 20 sec cooldown

Amongst the latest news from the beta of WotLK the above ability, learned at level 80, seems the most exciting. But it's certainly not all to put a smile on us change-starved protection warriors: the latest build brings a whole host of updates to the prot tree - see full notes here.

Whilst this isn't exactly the big overhaul to prot talents we've been waiting for (Vigilance is still there in all its baffling glory), it certainly is a big step in the right direction.

We've had big buffs for our threat generation: see Shockwave (increased damage); Sword and Board (higher chance of a free shield slam); Critical Block (increased shield slam crit chance); Improved Defensive Stance (increased damage following a block, parry or dodge - somewhat assuaging us following the recent loss of Stalwart Protector); Improved Revenge (more damage). And well worth a mention is the increased duration of shield block from 5 to 10 seconds.

All of which speaks of a healthy amount of damage output on the horizon, and even more reason to cherish our shields (as the warrior manual says: "knoweth your shield, be at one with your shield, be your shield... then smasheth unholy face with your shield").

And while we're now hugging our bloodied-shield with one hand, we can go ahead and fling our sword at the fleeing enemy with the other. Life is good. Continue reading 'Of Flinging Swords and Hugging Shields: WotLK Prot Changes'

WoTLK: Beta Warrior Changes

There's a few undocumented changes to warriors on the latest WoTLK beta build that deserve some attention. The big one is in the picture (from World of Raids): Shield Wall reduced to a 5 minute cooldown, with 50% damage reduction (with similar cooldowns for Recklessness and Retaliation). The Improved Shield Wall talent has changed accordingly: it now reduces the cooldown by 30/60 seconds. This is something we've seen coming after the news of the Paladin shield wall-alike (Divine Protection), but nevertheless deserving of a good solid woohoo!

Another change worth mentioning is for the talent Bloodletting, which now has only 2 ranks, and increases the bleed damage by Rend and Bloodbath by 25/50% - an appealing aoe tanking talent and no doubt.

For now, the rest of the changes are primarily for further up the Arms tree, but this does at least suggest the overhaul of Protection talents isn't far behind. So while we wait patiently and well-behaved for news (alright, impatiently and banging on the Blizzard offices), let me take the opportunity to give my wish-list of talent changes:

- An increase in the rage produced by Stalwart Protector. The idea is great, and something all rage-starved warriors have been crying out for, but the current gain of 1/2 dodge per parry or dodge is a pittance.

- Shockwave moved to the 31-point talent. Although it's a decent enough ability, for the top tier talent it's simply underwhelming and inappropriate. Yes please for more aoe-tanking viability, no thanks for a tree defining talent that says "you're now a bit like a paladin". We want a talent that screams Warrior - basically, we want a talent that's good against single targets.

- Vigilance scrapped or severely reworked. In it's current form, it's just... well, weird. And very limited in its usefulness.

- Current beta tests have shown Sword and Board to be not as great as it first appears; for a 5 point talent the rage savings have turned out to be underwhelming, and there's concerns of rotations being interrupted and the free shield slam being a pain to manage (I'm not sold on this latter one just yet, but time will tell). This talent just needs a little tweaking to become a solid one - possibilities could be the free shield slam not affecting the global cooldown, or it having double the block value.

- A new prot talent that allows 2-handers to be wielded with a shield. They could call it Big Bloody Sword and Board.

...What? A tank can dream can't he?
Continue reading 'WoTLK: Beta Warrior Changes'