Patch 6.2 Gladiator Changes

Gladiators!

We have an exciting tier coming around the corner. Along with it are a few changes to the way Gladiators do damage, which happens to be buffs. What's also exciting is I am now in a Mythic raiding guild ( Real Talk on US Kil'Jaeden ) and will be able to actually play this spec if progression allows for it. Unfortunately, we're still not top dog on the meters, but we are definitely an option in 6.2. I don't expect mythic guilds pushing the edge of progression will be using a Glad DPS, but I expect we'll see a lot more play than we did in BRF. Glad continues to be a niche, in that it's behind Fury and Arms. Also, Blizzard continues to be on different sides of the commitment they made, saying " glad should be competitive with fury/arms." I actually tweeted Lore once who didn't even know it was supposed to be a real spec. They said that so many times during Beta, I believed it. I might be a bit salty, but that's just because I'm haven't been in the shield wall enough with my fellow gladiators :)

6.2 Gladiator Changes ( from wowhead ):

Hotfixes ( updated June 2nd )

• May 26, 2015 - 6.2 PTR Patch Notes: Updated 5/26, Upcoming Live Stream Q&A on Patch 6.2
  •  Gladiator's Resolve (Protection):  Gladiator Stance now also increases the Warrior's Mastery by 50% 30% while active. 

We've received a buff in the form of a increase in the amount of mastery we receive, from our gear. This is linked to gladiator stance and will definitely help as this is our attuned stat. My own simming however doesn't show it to be our best stat, yet. Note that June 2nd this was increased another 20% to total at 50% more mastery from gear. Time to re-check everything. I'm going to post a Gladiator 6.2 guide soon!

Gladiator's First Night in Highmaul

Gladiators!

Heroic Highmaul has been released, and I am happy to say we're doing extremely well. Just browsing Warcraftlogs you can see that the top parses for Warriors in Heroic Highmaul are almost all Gladiators.

Rankings:
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/rankings/6#difficulty=4&metric=dps&class=Warrior

Looking at the first two bosses we did extremely well. The Arms warrior who beat us on Kargath only did 11K DPS to Kargath himself ( with glads bringing in 22k ). Arms is for killing adds, and this is expected.

Kargath

The top ranked Formality has a glad and arms warrior at around 18k dps.
Near the bottom of their raid. Link
Enigma had a Glad doing 22k dps here. Middle of the pack.
Consolium at 21k DPS here. Also middle of the pack.

Kargath is an easy fight with only a few short windows to do aoe burst ( the coliseum adds ) so unless the Glad is going up there, and planning for that burst it's going to fall behind Boomkin, Ret, and of course Arms. Rest assured though, planning for burst that inconsequential is padding ( anyone remember Mythic Immerseus? ).

Butcher

A fight more in our favor would be the Butcher. Basically Patchwerk, and depending on strat, you really shouldn't lose more than a second or two on the boss ( when he knocks us back ).

Hard in the Paint - Jin with a respectable 21k DPS, Ranking 6th in his raid.
Reckless - Rigge in 5th at nearly 23k DPS. Ranking 5th.
Enigma - Tartarus at 22.1k DPS. Ranking 4th.
Adapt - With TWO Gladiators at 3rd and 6th.

So we're not topping the meters, but the difference between us and the top class is within a thousand or two dps. NOT TOO BAD Gladiators.  I can't wait to see how we do in Mythic, once we've had a week to gear up.

One other note is the Hotfixed Trinket Changes make Knight's Badge extremely desirable for Gladiator's now. Far outshining the Skull of War.

- Cyc

Gladiator Warriors : To Execute or Not to Execute

Gladiator's

The latest simcraft results have been posted for the different ilvl groups and we're doing extremely well! Glad is a top parsing spec currently, and I'm sure you've all heard the hype that seems to only build every day since WoD launch. 

Remember though, that Simcraft results are dps in a vaccuum, with 0 movement and no mechanics, or a Patchwerk style fight. They simulate encounters and should always be taken with a grain of salt. Just because a spec might be low on simcraft doesn't mean that the spec is worthless either. I'm sure everyone had those moments in 5.4 when a Boomkin or Arcane mage destroyed the meters, and the fury warriors cried WHAAAT? It can happen, and to be fair, 5.4 was a large minigame of using trinket proc's effectively once you were done gearing.

Execute is viable. But Optional.

What I found the most interesting was that Execute was re-introduced to the gladiator warrior rotation! Sub 20% it is a DPS increase, a small one ( only a few hundred dps ) to execute under a few conditions. So because this change is only a few hundred dps, this is an optional rotation.

BASIC Rotation ( about 200 dps increase seen in current simC doing this )

BB+SC+SS > Revenge > Execute > Devastate

ADVANCED Execute Rotation :

BB+SC+SS > Revenge > Devastate > Execute if SS CD is 1.5-2s remaining

Only use Execute when Shield Slam is about to come off CD, and resetting via Devastate won't speed it up.

Example:
You are sub 20%, Revenge has 5s left, Shield Slam has 2-1.5s left, you're above 60 Rage, and might or might not be inside a Shield Charge. Then you Execute.

Also I've updated the rotation/stat priorities post to include execute and linked it to this post as well.

One other caveat in the use of Execute within your rotation ( sub 20% ) is that it changes the APM required for the spec, so you end up pressing less buttons. I know most of you will want to do the most dps so you'll already be wearing out hands/mice/keyboards spamming heroic strike with unyielding strikes, so this might be a nice change if you're looking to slow it down a little without costing too much dps.

Cyc

Just a little post about our new Gladiator Stance Animation

Gladiator's, the Hype is REAL.

Gladiator's Resolve FAQ

Hello Gladiator's

A lot of us are too busy defeating dragons, and slaying our enemies to read long-winded super technical blog posts. But, we do care about the Warrior class, and we definitely want to know what the plans are going to be for Warlord of Draenor. Warrior representation was all over the map during MoP in raids, and don't even get me started on pvp. I wanted to compile a list of the most common questions that I see asked, all the time, when it comes to the Gladstance talent for Prot Spec.

Q Will Gladstance be viable DPS?

A Yes, confirmed over twitter by Celestalon ( and covered in a post below ). We are going to be meant to not only viable, but competitive with Arms and Fury.

Q Can I tank in Gladstance?

A No, you cannot tank in gladstance, and if you somehow figure out a way to do it, they will fix it. Blizz devs have confirmed the intent is to be a DPS in tank spec. Fulfilling the fantasy of playing a DPS while still wearing a shield.

Q Can I switch stances to tank?

A Yes, but only once out of combat.

Q Do I wear Tank Gear or DPS Gear for Gladstance?

A Tank Gear all the way. Remember though, with dodge/parry gone from gear, everyone will be hunting for Bonus Armor, Mastery, Crit, Haste, etc.

Q Do I care about Bonus Armor as a stat?

A Yes, it was confirmed that it would be an "above-par" stat compared to crit/mastery/haste. You can expect to be in actual tank gear for doing dps in Glad Stance.

Q Why don't we get Rallying Cry or Demo Banner if we're DPS?

A This is intentional, you get other utility, like shield barrier, shield wall, did I mention the shield and probably excellent parry rating? Oh and the ability to literally hit 1 button ( out of combat ) and become a 3rd tank.

Q Will I be too Overpowered in Battlegrounds?

A This is blizzard, if you're too overpowered, that's the plan. Everyone will be Overpowered! But seriously, running a flag in BG's will be the same. You'll still want to get into defensive stance ( out of combat ) before you start taking a ton of damage.

Q Does this mean I can do Blood DPS, Shaman Tank, Warlock Tank, Prot Paladin DPS, or Holy Paladin DPS?

A No. But this IS an experiment, so if you're interested in this experiment, talk about it on twitter, the forums, everywhere, let Blizzard know this is an awesome idea, and let them know what works/doesn't so we can hopefully see this on live. If the experiment went well, of course they'd consider those other classes! They probably talk about it all the time :)

Once again, the amazing painting is by Miguel Coimbra from http://www.miguelcoimbra.com/myblog/folio.php

Gladiation Station : Bonus Armor = A top DPS stat

Hello Gladiator's,

Thanks for visiting! I've been keeping up with the latest over twitter and class changes mentioned for Warriors over the past month and we haven't seen a lot of iteration for Gladiator's Resolve changes. I just wanted to do a quick post to highlight some of the current plans for our newest DPS spec.

• Bonus Armor will be MORE attractive for us than the other stats. I asked Celestalon, "Is bladed armor gear expected to be sub-part to dps stat gear?"

Celestalon@Celestalon

@Cyclonus_WOW No, above par. Bonus Armor will be your most valuable secondary stat as a Gladiator. (ie, same as Defensive Protection)

2:34pm · 6 May 2014 · TweetDeck

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• Since it will be more attractive itemization for us,  it's important to note that this stat is going to only be available on a few specific slots:

Celestalon@Celestalon

@SoukieBillard We're not adding Spirit of Bonus Armor to any armor slot equipment, only ring/trinket/cloak/neck.

10:14am · 7 May 2014 · TweetDeck

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Finally, this awesome picture is by Miguel Coimbra. This guy is definitely a Gladiator :).  Check out his amazing work here: http://www.miguelcoimbra.com/myblog/folio.php

* 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