Gladiator's Blackrock Foundry Gear Guide *Updated 2/16/2015*

Gladiators!

We've got a new raid in 1 week. I'm sure you're all scrambling to be ready for the bosses coming and I wanted to try to highlight some of the best gear to go for ( and coin for ) in Blackrock Foundry. 

Blackhand's Battlegear

Most important is going to be our new set bonuses shown here on WOWHead.

http://www.wowhead.com/itemset=-1261/blackhands-battlegear

Warrior T17 Protection 2P Bonus Requires Warrior

Shield Slam has a 8% chance to automatically cast Shield Charge.

Warrior T17 Protection 4P Bonus Requires Warrior

Shield Charge increases the damage of Heroic Strike, Shield Slam, and Revenge by an additional 20%.

Currently we're able to get 50% uptime on Shield Charge in a 5minute Fight ( Mythic Butcher ). This is obviously dps in a vacuum but with our new 2piece bonus we should see at least 10-15% better uptime on Shield Charge. This only increases the importance of our 4piece, now making us do even MORE damage inside the charges. 

Blackrock Foundry BIS Gear

I used the latest Simulationcraft result to generate this basic list.I then edited the gear based on what we know about sim weights, and our breakpoints and have increased our results by a few hundred dps. I'll be keeping this post updated throughout BRF in case there is a change in the gear list. This is a Work In Progress.

Slot	Average Item Level: 694.69
Head	blackhands_faceguard,id=115584,bonus_id=567
Neck	gluttons_kerchief,id=113882,bonus_id=567,enchant=gift_of_critical_strike
Shoulders	blackhands_shoulderguards,id=115581,bonus_id=567
Chest	blackhands_chestguard,id=115582,bonus_id=567
Waist	ironcrushers_collar,id=113950,bonus_id=567
Legs	blackhands_legguards,id=115580,bonus_id=567
Feet	iron_bellow_sabatons,id=113961,bonus_id=567
Wrists	bracers_of_visceral_force,id=119331,bonus_id=567
Hands	gauntlets_of_dramatic_blows,id=113906,bonus_id=567
Finger1	spellbound_runic_band_of_elemental_invincibility,id=118308,enchant=gift_of_critical_strike
Finger2	seal_of_unquenchable_flame,id=113922,bonus_id=567,enchant=gift_of_critical_strike
Trinket1	Vial of Convulsive Shadows
Trinket2	Blast Furnace Door
Back	gronnstitched_greatcloak,id=113873,bonus_id=567,enchant=gift_of_critical_strike
Main Hand	taners_terrible_spine,id=113862,bonus_id=567,enchant=mark_of_the_thunderlord
Off Hand	kromogs_protecting_palm,id=113926,bonus_id=567

# Gear Summary

# gear_strength=3312

# gear_stamina=4540

# gear_crit_rating=1323

# gear_haste_rating=745

# gear_mastery_rating=893

# gear_armor=3041

# gear_bonus_armor=498

# gear_multistrike_rating=688

# gear_versatility_rating=490

Some points to note on the list:

• This list is a Work in Progress. Small Tweaks I made right after seeing it have already increased the results by a 1500dps.
• The Simcraft list doesn't reach the 700 Haste Breakpoint I recommend, I've re-ran the sims and see a difference of  270dps just by swapping the ring to Seal of Unquenchable Flame, and stilll enchanting crit all around. 
• The Swap Piece is going to be Gloves this time around. Our Gloves ended up having the worst stats of all the set pieces.
• This list is based on Mythic Gear levels, so if you didn't manage to get the Mythic Evergaze you may need to aim for one of the other trinkets first.
• Your weapon is still the biggest single upgrade, especially because of all the buffs to devastate. On PTR right now Devastate is sometimes 1st on damage done.

Trinkets

Updated 2/16/2015

Basic Trinket DPS Values with the above BIS list on, and combined with a Mythic Bottle of Infesting Spores ( the least amount of variance ). Updated 1/30/2015

BIS Trinket Combinations from Blackrock Foundry:

- Cyclonus

Gladiator Stance is a GO

Gladiators!

I am happy to announce that through some crafty keyword trapping on twitter, I managed to get myself a WoD Beta Key. I've probably entered 40 contests so I'm pretty happy with myself. This guy on twitter asked if anyone wanted a key, and I happened to be on twitter at 10am on a Sunday morning. I responded immediately, opened up my code redemption page in case he responded with the key out loud, and he sure did. I had the fasted copy/paste that day.

My experiences on Beta as Gladiator have so far been pretty much amazing. Here is why:

1. Gladiator Stance does good damage. We compete extremely well in single target, and right now with current AOE tuning I can say we're slightly behind. The lack of Ravager at level 100 hurts but there has been mention that current AOE Damage tuning is still being worked on.

2. Gladiator Stance is extremely fun to play. We have next to NO downtime in our rotation because we have a filler ability that doesn't cost us anything ( devastate ). We also have Heroic Strike, so I expect we hit more buttons than a lot of our DPS comrades.

3. Some of our concerns have been addressed! While the Blues haven't done a lot of tweeting about us lately, the biggest bug on the Beta was that Heavy Repercussions wasn't actually giving our shield slams that sweet 50% bonus after a shield charge.

4. Unyielding Strikes is actually good! Sudden Death not so much. Right now Execute hits like a wet noodle (we're missing the execute perk), so you won't want to use Sudden Death. But the damage output between US and Heavy Repercussions is pretty close, so you're able to play an even MORE spammy playstyle if you are missing that burn in your wrist =P.

5. Survivability. With Shield Barrier, you can very much help the healer out a ton. There have been a few boss situations where it was just me, the tank, and the healer left, and I was having to do my damndest to stay alive. Barrier will put a bubble on you to allow your Blood Craze healing to catch up. Between this and the levels of Resolve you can get with your defensives ( shield wall and demo shout ), you can do a very nice amount of healing.

Current Issues that still stick out for Glad on Beta:

- We can't shield charge a Boss that we can't walk up to. Think of Ultraxion. The Shield Charge thankfully doesn't just run you off the cliff haha. It just doesn't work. There is a new Boss in UBRS like this. You fight it on a Bridge.

I actually recorded a stream of the Beta I played last night. I tanked a dungeon with a Blue! And then I went and killed Bashiok in PVP. To be fair, both Bashiok and myself are PVE Allstars, so that probably helped :).

Then I also ran the new UBRS as Gladiator! This one is a pretty good example of some bad play at times.. but I had a ton of fun. The only person I was really competing with on the meters was the Tank!
http://www.twitch.tv/cyclonus_wow/b/560678452

* Spoilers * More Tweets, Armor Blades, New Tier, Final Boss! * Spoilers *

Hello Gladiators!

Redesigns are the talk of the week, and will continue to be for months before release. I should probably warn that the entire Glad Stance idea COULD be cut right out of the game, and our hearts. However, this looks to be an exciting experiment, so I will do my damndest to test the hell out of it come Beta ( if I can get in. ).

First, I'd like to draw attention to one of my favorite shows on the internet, FinalBoss.TV. If you're reading my blog you're probably already interested in Endgame content, and Prot Warriors. This happens to be an awesome talk show where they've interviewed a few of the more vocal Prot Warriors from the MMOC message boards. I had actually rallied for another Prot War Ep as the first one was a much different format of show from what I've come to love in the current episodes. Be sure to go show your support @ the Finalboss site too! Here is the Ep!

* Spoilers * Second, Our new Tier was Datamined. Well We think its our new tier, and it looks AMAZING! Thanks to the MMO Champion Team for this! Don't fret if its not quite fitting your new Tauren Model face right now. I'm sure they'll fix that. * Spoilers *

 

Finally, the Glad Stance Related Changes:

The latest patch notes had a few interesting changes. Riposte and Blood Craze:

Blood Craze is a new passive ability for Protection Warriors.
Blood Craze causes Multistrike auto attacks to trigger a Blood Craze, which regenerates 3% of the Warrior's health over 3 seconds. When this effect is refreshed, the remaining duration is added to the new effect.

Riposte has been redesigned.
Riposte now gives the Warrior Parry equal to their Critical Strike bonus from gear. gives the Warrior +100% to Parry chance until they Parry an attack after getting a critical strike with an Auto Attack.

I'm thinking this means we're going to have a metric ton of parry to keep us nice and survivable for some of those niche situations where we'll drop a Mocking Banner and get beat on for a few seconds ( Protectors of the Endless Sun's Bubble ). The Blood Craze change is huge though! We should be healing a ton as we're going to be loving Multistrike already for the extra damage, and extra passive healing is a nice bonus.

Remember they've changed second wind so you will be less able to kite for 5 seconds and climb back to 35%.

This leads me to the last point, and to me, the most exciting:

@Cyclonus_WOW Bonus Armor will actually provide DPS value for tanks. Yes, it's part of the item's budget.
— Celestalon (@Celestalon) April 21, 2014

@Tengenstein A passive, Bladed Armor. Increases Attack Power by 100% of your Bonus Armor. (NOTE: Just *Bonus* Armor, not ALL Armor)
— Celestalon (@Celestalon) April 21, 2014

This is another trade of defensive stats for offensive stats. And I think this sounds great. Not only do we get to continue to look for gear with tank stats on it, straight up Plate DPS gear will also be useful. This sort of versatility in our gearing strategy also means we're going to need to do a ton of testing :). Remember our SPEC ( protection ) is going to be deciding how our gear rolls. So we should also expect that the Tier Set bonuses for the tank gear are going to be useful to us as well. 

- Cyclonus

Blue Tweets: Gladstance is Confirmed Competitive DPS!

Hello Gladiators!


There have been a few informative Blue Tweets on our new DPS spec that I wanted to review.

First, there was definitely some needed clarity on whether we are still intended to be able to tank with the Gladiator's Resolve Talent. Other than the obvious lack of being able to switch out of this stance in Combat, it needed to be said. Matthew is a WowInsider Editor who blogs about Warriors as well.

1. Matthew Rossi ‏@MatthewWRossi  Apr 3

   @Celestalon The way that Gladiator Stance and the talent is worded, it seems like prot warriors who take it will still be able to tank

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2. Celestalon ‏@Celestalon  Apr 3

   @MatthewWRossi If you take the Gladiator Stance talent, you can still tank, with 5% extra DR, but none of the offensive benefits.

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Second, We wanted to know if Gladiator Stance would give us the ability to compete with dps. That was confirmed as well by Celestalon, that it is not only tuned for DPS, but will remove your ability to tank all that much better than an Arms warrior.

1. Sam M ‏@JalopyWoW  Feb 21

   @Celestalon How do you plan to balance glad stance? In the essence that it's a DPS spec? Or a halfway between tank and DPS?

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2. Celestalon ‏@Celestalon  Feb 21

   @JalopyWoW Gladiator Stance will be tuned as a DPS. It will not be able to tank much more than an Arms warrior can (ie, not much).

So, to be clear, Gladiator's Resolve enables Warriors to have a 3rd DPS Spec. It will be tuned for DPS, and we can therefore expect it to compete with Arms and Fury. Thusfar, I can only think of one downside to this if you prefer dps with a shield, and simply that we as Protection are not on the list to get the Draenor Perk for 50% increased Execute damage. We're also losing Recklessness and Therefore the newly baked together Skull Banner benefit.

•Recklessness is now available only to Fury and Arms Warriors.

As with other classes, we wanted to reduce cooldown stacking. Cutting Skull Banner did a ton to help that across the whole game. But for Warriors specifically, we needed to make further changes, including merging some of the personal benefit of Skull Banner back into Recklessness. Also, to make up for Throw being removed, we modified Heroic Throw to be more frequently usable.

I managed to catch Mr Celestalon's attention today on twitter, and he confirmed that regardless of us missing out on the new Reck, and (S)Execute, we will be keeping up!

@Cyclonus_WOW Yes.
— Celestalon (@Celestalon) April 8, 2014

Here's the Protection Warrior Draenor Perks list from WOWHead:

		Improved Heroic Leap
		Improved Heroic Throw
		Improved Shield Slam
		Improved Revenge
		Improved Shield Barrier
		Improved Unwavering Sentinel
		Improved Bastion of Defense
		Improved Thunder Clap Improved Charge

Vs Fury

		Improved Heroic Leap
		Improved Die by the Sword
		Empowered Execute
		Improved Colossus Smash
		Improved Meat Cleaver
		Improved Wild Strike
		Improved Bloodthirst
		Improved Raging Blow Improved Charge

 Vs Arms

		Improved Heroic Leap
		Improved Die by the Sword
		Empowered Execute
		Improved Colossus Smash
		Enhanced Sweeping Strikes
		Improved Mortal Strike
		Enhanced Slam
		Improved Overpower Improved Charge

Welcome to Gladiator's Resolve!

Hello Gladiator's!

     I've decided to create a blog based around the new Gladiator Stance Warrior in World of Warcraft. I've played Warrior a ton since the game first came out, and like to think that I actually played its predecessor in Everquest way back in the day :). Everquest had a class named Warrior, and it's primary role was to keep threat on every single mob, and to do the most damage. A little bit like our MoP challenge modes now that I think about it :). I wanted to have a place to try to contribute back to the community! I've never seen a game with so much community support behind it, and it is awesome.

About Me:
     I've tanked and dps'd my way through Vanilla up to Loatheb in Naxx 40, and only got C'thun once. From there I've played off and on since and really started to play the most in Ulduar ( as fury ) and then Dragon Soul. Right now I've tanked my way to 11/14H in MoP in Siege of Orgrimmar and am Guild and Raid leading a casual 10man group with my Girlfriend as my OT. We are progressing on Iron Juggernaut.
In Real life I'm an IT guy. I help companies dealing with our AV Software. I like to think that the customer management and support skills i've honed sync nicely with raid leading and troubleshooting other peoples trials in the game as their raid and guild leader. WOW is definitely my primary hobby and I probably spend too much time reading patch notes. Which leads me to the reason for creating this blog! Warlords of Draenor Alpha Patch Notes are out! Along with a ton of tweets from helpful blizz staff there's a ton of new information on the coming changes, and I've never been more excited to play Warrior than I have today. Each of the new features of the class are exciting on their own, however one stands out far above the rest for me. Gladiator's Resolve. Our level 100 Talent. This talent allows us to DPS as a Protection Warrior!

The soundtrack for reading this ability is as follows: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=IP__m7xQYOA#t=15

Gladiator's Resolve Passive Requires level 100

Increases the damage reduction provided by Defensive Stance by 5%. Also allows you to forgo your defensive role, and instead focus only on offensive capabilities, by replacing Battle Stance with Gladiator Stance.

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Gladiator Stance Level 100 Instant cast

A dauntless combat stance. Increases physical damage dealt by 20%, and replaces your Shield Block with Shield Charge. You cannot change into or out of this stance during combat

Shield Charge Level 100 20 Rage 10yd Range Instant cast 15 sec Recharge Requires Warrior Requires Gladiator's Resolve

Requires Shields Raise your shield and charge a short distance to your target, increasing the damage of Shield Slam, Revenge, and Heroic Strike by 30% for 6 seconds. Maximum 2 Charges.

At first glance, this might be somewhat confusing. You have images of 300 playing in your head, and you know you're going to be dropping BOMBS with your shield. I am so goddamn excited.

Rotation

Remember this is all hypothetical :)

Shield Charge > Shield Slam > Revenge > Devastate. With Heroic Strike as your rage dump.

Setting up the shield charge to precede shield slam is very doable either with Charge itself, or Battle Shout.
Since Shield Charge lasts 6 seconds, and has two charges, we should be able to maintain an uptime around for 12s every recharge. Think of it a little bit like Colossus Smash.. WITH YOUR SHIELD.

Gear
To consider this properly we should also note that Dodge and Parry were being removed.. Prot Warriors are going to wear Mastery, Crit, and Haste gear! So we'll be able to turn around and tank if we want as well! However, please remember we'd have to switch stances, and you can only do that out of combat :)

Mastery

• Warrior
  • Mastery: Critical Block now also passively increases Attack Power by 12% (percentage increased by Mastery), in addition to its current effects.

Mastery: Critical Block Requires Warrior (Protection) Requires level 80

Increases your chance to block by 4% and your chance to critically block by 18%.

I believe since this is a straight attack power increase, we're going to want all the Mastery we can get our hands on, especially if it continues to stack so well per point as it did in Warlords!

Haste

• Headlong Rush is a new passive ability for Warriors:
  • Headlong Rush: Haste reduces global cooldown and the cooldowns of Mortal Strike, Bloodthirst, Shield Slam, and Thunder Clap.

This means we're going to have a lot faster play, which I believe will be a lot more fun. I'm already used to making sure I hit an ability every global, and now I'll get to play at the speed I've been loving on my Brewmaster for a year now!

Crit
I believe this still still be a top priority. But I think we're probably going to want to hit some sort of haste cap so we can guarantee we're able to spend all the rage we're generating. This will definitely require some testing.

Also, it should be mentioned that we're going to have some really nice defensive abilities as Glad... ( holy shit we have a shortform )

• Riposte has been redesigned.
  • Riposte gives the Warrior +100% to Parry chance until they Parry an attack after getting a critical strike with an Auto Attack. 

This is a big deal, as we're going to be able to make amazing use of our ability to Parry with add waves ( as dps ). Think of the Embodied Phase for Sun on Protectors. DPS warriors are already dropping taunting banner to help with adds, now they can parry every time they crit with an auto-attack and also block!


And thats it. I'm sure the coming Alpha is going to be exciting and I hope to keep you guys updated on how this Spec plays and changes. We might be a lot different from now till launch, but Blizz definitely has the intent to let us be Spartans :)

- Cyclonus
Cyclonüs of Area 52 - US - Horde
@Cyclonus_WOW
Cyclonus.A52@gmail.com