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 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

New Level 45 Talents

Hello Gladiator's,

I've put off this post while I wrapped up doing about 25 different entries for Warlords Beta keys. I've created my own hearthstone card, created Draenor postcards? You name it. However, through use of new media coming from sites like Wowhead and MMO Champ, I will continue to provide this blog as a repository for Gladiator Warrior information aggregated from those sites. Should I end up getting into the Beta, I'll be sure to start generating some video's to go along with these posts.

Today's topic is our new level 45 Talent row. This a replacement for the removal of Staggering and Disrupting shout, as well as Piercing Howl. What they've done to provide us with a ranged snare is to add the snare to Thunderclap.

The new Talents:

Heavy Repercussions - Shield Slam deals 50% additional damage while Shield Block is active.

Previously, a glyph, this should be the more commonly used Talent with our Stance. I expect most Glad's will want to use this as Shield Block gets replaced by Shield Charge, and that will end up giving us a huge bonus to Shield Slam. 30% damage from Shield Charge and 50% from HR.

Sudden Death - Your autoattack hits have a 10% chance to make your next Execute cost no initial Rage and be usable on any target, regardless of health level.

Previously available as a baseline talent to Arms Warriors, this one should be rarely used as execute hits like a wet noodle for protection, since we don't have the Perk for Execute ( missing 20% damage ) and we're not going to be Executing that much as it is.

Unyielding Strikes - Devastate reduces the Rage cost of Heroic Strike by 6 for 6 sec, stacking up to 5 times.  Once this effect reaches 5 applications, its duration will no longer refresh.

Really the only viable alternative to Heavy Repercussions, this should result in a ton of damage from Heroic Strike. Current Parses were showing that you can actually end up doing slightly more damage with US vs HR as a talent, but remember tuning is not yet done. I'd be interested to see if we end up capping on rage using this talent.

Overall this is a pretty cool tier of choices as it will greatly affect our rotation, for not only Glad, but all of our spec's.

- Cyc