Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Gladstance Buffs!

Hello Gladiators!

If you are following the latest patch notes, you will see that we got some serious changes. This is going to be really nice for our AOE damage, and especially nice for our scaling. Look at that haste buff! I will need to do the math's to confirm ( and will update the post ), but I believe this to be the case.

The Patch Notes from MMO-C :

  • The Haste stat is now 11.1% more effective. For example, characters at level 100 now receive a 1% increase per 90 Haste (up from 1% per 100 Haste).
  •  Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
    • General
    • Arms
      • Mastery: Weapons Master’s effects have been increased by 57.1%.
    • Protection
      • Deep Wounds’ damage has been increased by 40%.
      • Devastate’s damage has been increased by 20%.
      • Revenge’s damage has been increased by 40%.
      • Shield Slam’s damage has been increased by 20%.
    • Talents
      • Gladiator Stance (Protection) now increases damage by 5% (down from 20%).

First, I'd like to explain that this was a brilliant design decision by Blizzard. We're seeing a 15% damage nerf to Gladiator Stance, and between 20 and 40% buff to the other abilities here. This means that we're going to scale better with gear ( devastate is based on weapon damage ). What is also important is to note that at the beginning of the tier, when weapons and gear were a lot harder to get, we had that damage passively ( though less of it ) and the original design would have kept us up with our Fury and Arms friends. As I said earlier though, I'm going to be working on the updated simcraft whenever it becomes available to confirm all of this, but I thought i'd get the word out there before I started having to read forum threads saying RIP Gladiator LOL.

As a side note, I was also seeing a ton of threads popping up by Raid Leaders and new Prot Warriors talking about jumping into Challenge Modes and Raids and getting trucked by the bosses. Most often when they posted logs they weren't even keeping shield slam up, so I did a guide on how to analyze your Tank on Warcraftlogs. Here is the guide:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1678334-Protection-Tank-Logs-Guide-amp-Analysis-(-Read-OP-First-)

- Cyc


6 comments:

  1. Not convinced..
    This change will buff 40% of my damage by 5%, 15% of my damage by 35%, and nerf 40% of my damage (melee, heroic, roar) by 15%, with the last 5% depending on the damage dealt (Bloodbath).

    Seems like an overall nerf to me, though quick maths do point toward a _slight_ buff.
    40*1,05 + 15*1,35 + 40*.85 = 96.25 >= 95

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    1. Don't forget about the buff to Haste everyone got. You can also go look at a nights raids for comparisons too. Also one of the buffs is an ability based on Weapon Damage ( devastate ) which is a huge deal for scaling.

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    2. Haste buff was across the board, so not a gladiator buff per se, although arguably warriors benefit more then others.
      Devastate scaling, sure i guess. Though, its not like your attack power does not increase with gear either which the rest do damage off. This change protably does increase the stat weight for Wdps, but not sure if it is enough to make glads keep up with arms and fury.

      Anyway, the goal of the change is probably more about buffing prot and trying to keep glad where it is rather then fix glad scaling. Probably they are pretty close to that, but to me it feels like glad strongest point was cleave fights, where you'd have at most two targets which let you make full use of glyph of cleave, and that this change is an overall nerf to those situations

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    3. Yeah you should see a lot of difference when this comes to AOE. Can't wait to see all the new Parses this week.

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  2. Protection
    Deep Wounds Your Devastate and Thunder Clap cause the target to bleed for [ 5 + 60% 84% of AP ] Physical damage over 15 sec. This effect is cancelled if the target reaches full health. Warrior - Protection Spec.
    Devastate Deals (210% Deals (250% of weapon damage) Physical damage, and has a 30% chance to reset the cooldown on Shield Slam and cause it to generate 5 more Rage. Requires Shields. Warrior - Protection Spec. Melee range. Instant.
    Revenge Instantly attack an enemy and two additional enemies, dealing [ 1 + 252% 352.8% of AP ] damage to the primary target and 50% damage to the secondary targets, and generating 20 Rage. Your successful dodges and parries reset the cooldown on Revenge. Requires Melee Weapon. Requires Defensive Stance. Warrior - Protection Spec. Melee range. Instant. 9 sec cooldown.
    Shield Slam Slam the target with your shield, causing [ AP * (0.305 + (gte(Level, 80)) * (0.355) + (gte(Level, 85)) * (2.05 0.366 + gte(Level,80) * 0.426 + gte(Level,85) * 2.46) * (1.0) * (1.0) * (1 + $@versadmg)) ] damage and generating 20 Rage. Critical strikes with Shield Slam cause your next Heroic Strike to cost no Rage and be a critical strike. Requires Shields. Warrior - Protection Spec. Melee range. Instant. 6 sec cooldown.

    More buffs on ptr but seems glad talent is being nerfed. =\

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    Replies
    1. To me it looks like a revamp of the same changes, because the previous batch was afaik never put in the game, It was just a "heads up, we're testing this kinda stuff" kinda post with a clear disclaimer "Please note that the following class tuning hofixes are not active yet. These hotfixes are still undergoing testing and will be implemented as soon as possible.".

      So for the PTR,
      _everything_ 15% nerf
      after which
      Deep wounds still gets a 40% buff
      devastate gets a 19% buff
      revenge gets a 40% buff
      thunderclap gets a 40% buff
      Shield slam gets tooltip fixed

      Waiting for them sims / actual update. Though i fear the day when i have to spec away from glads because it simply does not keep up with the awful spec called fury.

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