#0 - Oct. 3, 2010, 9:12 a.m.
Rate of Decay
I fully understand the need to keep a tight leash on Vengeance in PvP/Arena. Tanks are difficult to fight against as it is, and a tank that can quickly accumilate 10k AP would easily burst many dps classes down. Personally I'd argue the case for not allowing vengeance to work at all in a PvP/arena scenario.
However, the extremely fast rate at which attack power granted by Vengeance decays - while still in combat - diminishes its use/reliability in PvE tremendously. Using my character pane I've watched my AP closely on countless pulls, while questing, soloing and even in Wrath raids on PTR. Thanks to things like avoidance, stuns and mitigation, Vengeance often decays faster than it stacks. I cannot stress how... self-defeating that feels. To watch my AP diminish as quickly - if not more so - as it increases, just because I had a couple of parries or dodges or because I cast Shockwave.
As I stated in another thread, it feels a lot like rage. The better our gear, the higher our avoidance and mitigation, the less reliable Vengeance will be. I am sure that while gearing/cutting our teeth in heroics and raids, tanks will be bombarded with damage - but again, that's the rage problem with a new name. Rage was fine in raids, we had it coming out of our noses - but it sucked in pretty much every other scenario until we got the revamped Shield Specialization. As I am sure Blizzard knows, a mechanic that only works as intended some of the time isn't fun. I've never enjoyed the "Works great in raids, but in 5mans I need to take off my pants" thing at all.
DPS class/spec scaling - the very reason Vengeance exists to begin with - have no such quirks. Better gear for a dps class = more dps, period. There is no circumstance or build up to it, there is no decay in spellpower or potency. Vengeance seems like it is literally fighting against itself to stack.
IMHO, Vengeance should not decay at all whle in PvE combat. The mechanic simply should not have a built in penalty for my having decent avoidance or a ton of armor or stun options. As a warrior, I generally stun multiple mobs (sometimes more than once) every single pull. Every single time I do that, I'm punished by Vengeance. Every time I dodge or parry several boss attacks, I'm punished by Vengeance. If the mechanic exists to ensure our dps and threat scales adequately, then please let it do so without penalizing tanks through so many circumstances. And I haven't even mentioned tank damage-reduction cooldowns or situations where a boss has to be taunted off.
The other issue I have with Vengeance is probably largely related to the above issue, and that is how slowly it often stacks. While dps are able to go full force from the start of a pull, tanks literally are missing 50-70% of their maximum potential attack power. My 85 warrior on beta has about 5k AP baseline and around 96,500 health in greens. in 5mans she has about 110k health. So, in that scenario Vengeance is responsible for granting her 11,000 AP - nearly twice (and in addition to) what she has by default. Of course, her spells and baseline damage have to be balanced around that - otherwise tanks would reach the point of being better at dps' jobs than they are. Thing is, as I mentioned above... dps don't have to wait 30-45 seconds into a pull to be at full strength. They are nuking fullforce from the getgo and riding the tank's bum on threat. I mean, we can't be expected to say "ok dps hold off for about 15-20 seconds until Vengeance is really turned up!"
(Of course it might just be the in-combat decay that makes Vengeance feel so slow sometimes)
And yes, I'm fully aware that Vengeance isn't here to solve all our threat problems. I've read the blue posts. But it is here to solve one very specific problem - the scaling of tank dps in proportion to damage dealing classes' dps. I think its an awesome idea - and a great goal to reach for - but it would be very nice if the ability didn't feel like it works against both itself and the 'reduce the damage I take' nature of tanking.
If nothing else, please consider removing the in-combat decay of AP. There are just too many things a tank does which cause that to kick in, and Vengeance should not be something that only works as intended when I am tanking progression content with a boss that hits me for 65-70k a swing. Rage wasn't fun when it worked that way: unlike rage, Vengeance affects 4 classes, not just one.