Uh, a +20% Devastate buff won't close the gap

I feel like we addressed all of these points really recently in similar threads. Therefore, please forgive me if these bullets are very terse.

1) Our goal wasn't to make certain all tank dps was identical. Even though it's not in parity, we don't think this is a huge balance problem. The situations where it really would make a difference are pretty rare.

2) However, we none the less buffed warrior dps a little. Given that Fury warriors are close to overpowered in PvE, and Arms warriors and occasionally even Prot warriors are close to overpowered in PvP, we have to be careful about things like this. (You may not care about PvP balance, but a lot of players do.)

3) We don't want to buff warrior AE. We don't want to buff anyone's AE. AE tanking is too easy right now, which then promotes a strategy of just AE'ing everything.

4) That said, Thunderclap and Shockwave are amazing for establishing initial aggro or handling new adds. No they won't do the entire tanking job for you. We also don't see tank threat overall as really a problem in most fights, certainly compared to pre-LK content where it was a major mechanic for many encounters.

5) Heroic Strike is something we've addressed many times. I don't fault you for being grumbly over Heroic Strike, but saying we've never addressed the issue rings a little hollow. On next swing attacks are bad and they are all going away (except for perhaps Cleave, which is situational). That is a very big change though and not something we can just plop in the game without changing e.g. rage generation and dps rotations quite a bit.

Q u o t e:
I don't understand why is is acceptable to have one class clearly lagging behind. By clearly, i mean very clearly. See my sig for data on just how far the gap is.

It's not acceptable. It's definitely something we want to fix. But our list of stuff we want to fix goes for many pages, and this issue (tank dps while tanking) doesn't seem to be among the most important to address. Given that this one is a tricky one to fix (since it's easy to screw up warrior balance in PvP or PvE dps), we have to be more cautious than we would perhaps like to be.

And I'm familiar with all your data, Holywench. It's awesome.

Q u o t e:
We actually lost DPS this patch, with your little smoke and mirrors buff. We lose 100 dps from the shield slam nerf, and gain 50 dps max from the buff to devastate. Seems to me thats a dps loss not a buff.

I am skeptical of those numbers. Not many of you have the Strength or Shield Block Value to be that close to the diminishing returns on Shield Slam. (A few of you probably will be.) On the other hand, Devastate is 20-30% of most Prot warrior dps, and we buffed that by 20%. Concussion Blow damage contribution is so low overall that I doubt you will notice that change at all (except in PvP).

Q u o t e:
You didn't change how hard shield slam hits for prot pvp warriors, yet buffed how hard devastate hits for them (cause they actually use slow 1handers) by alot.

That gets thrown around a lot, despite my posts explaining what we did. We looked at those warriors who were successful at Prot PvP, typically by using 2 piece tier 10 along with a lot of PvE plate, socketing Strength and Armor Pen, and then playing mostly in Defensive Stance. We changed the DR on the block conversion to Shield Slam, such that those PvP Shield Slam crits will go down a lot. On the other hand, not many legitimate tanks were that close to the DR on Shield Slam. Some were over, and they will see a slight dps loss. You can probably find the thread where we explained the precise conversion, and if you can't, I can go find it.

PvP warriors use Devastate, but it is a spammable ability so the individual hits aren't a big deal and "sustained damage in PvP" is kind of an oxymoron. Shield Slam concentrated a lot of damage into one hit and could kill people. Combined with the difficulty in killing a Prot warrior along with their control and inability to be controlled, those huge crits were becoming a balance problem.

Prot warrior dps while tanking, while too low, was not a balance problem anywhere on that scale. It might be a balance issue on a few select fights, such as Festergut, where every point of damage matters, but even in that case you can usually coax more damage out of your dps classes to overcome any problems you might be having. I can totally understand how it's a quality of life issue and we don't consider the problem solved.

Q u o t e:
GC, without meaning to fish for a reply... are you guys at all concerned that Devastate will essentially replace Revenge with this buff? Revenge is a pretty iconic warrior ability (as was pointed out by someone else a few posts ago)... would hate to see it become the 'eh, why bother' ability Devastate used to be (aside from the 'apply/refresh sunders' aspect).

It's a concern. We did some testing and math to try to convince ourselves whether it would happen or not and didn't come up with conclusive evidence that it will happen, given how cheap Revenge is. I suspect Revenge will still get used. If i'm wrong, I promise (and I rarely ever promise) that we will buff it.

Q u o t e:
Devastate: This ability now deals 120% of weapon damage, up from 100% of weapon damage.

I'm sorry did you forget to mention you're buffing the bonus damage on devastate by 20% as well? Cause the patch notes don't say that.

20% buff to a fast tanking weapon's weapon damage isn't a 20% buff to devastate.

Yes, the intent was to buff Devastate by 20%. We want Devastate to hit for 20% more damage, not just the weapon portion. If there is an error there, we will get it fixed.

Q u o t e:
we're not stupid. While devastate may be a significant portion of our DPS, you only buffed a portion of it, the weapon damage portion. With fast tanking weapons (those that are ideal for warriors) already hitting like wet noodles, this buff doesn't account for much. Had you made that 20% applicable to *every* aspect of devastate, such as the increase based on sunders, it might have been a meaningful buff.
As it stands now, the buff doesn't amount to much.

The intent was "that 20% applicable to *every* aspect of Devastate."

Q u o t e:



Gosh it's almost like somebody posted that weeks ago.


Quote:
post it again, our posts will block out the sun, etc.

We've crashed servers before.

It might be time to do it again.

Making threats will just get you banned. Then nobody will be reading your posts.

I have read many of the PvP suggestions. If we had liked any of them, we probably would have made them. I don't have the bandwidth or inclination to debate every proposed suggestion here though. Sorry. If you make them, we will read them. Posting them over and over doesn't somehow turn them into better suggestions.