Hellfire Citadel Gladiator BIS List and new Gear

Hello Gladiators,

I've had the opportunity to start Mythic raiding as dps, and because of the Glad performance difference, I had to do my trial as fury/arms. These are sad times, but things are looking upward in Hellfire Citadel.

I'm going to be updating this post again ( like I did in T17 ) and please expect the first revision of this gear to change. It's also possible that blizzard might make another change to either our set bonuses or (hopefully) our class trinket. I will provide a trinket comparison by the end of next week. And finally I will update with a Gear Progression from T17 to T18 post. As there are different Ilvl items within HFC. The new Dev Watercooler covers these changes.

First off I have a Best in Slot list which you can copy/paste into a SimulationCraft profile.

head=faceguard_of_iron_wrath,id=124334,bonus_id=567
neck=world_enders_gorget,id=124222,bonus_id=567,enchant=gift_of_critical_strike
shoulders=doomcriers_shoulderplates,id=124343,bonus_id=567
back=void_lords_wizened_cloak,id=124147,bonus_id=567,enchant=gift_of_critical_strike
chest=breastplate_of_iron_wrath,id=124319,bonus_id=567
wrists=wristplate_of_the_wretched,id=124352,bonus_id=567
hands=gauntlets_of_iron_wrath,id=124329,bonus_id=567
waist=annihilans_waistplate,id=124349,bonus_id=567
legs=legplates_of_iron_wrath,id=124340,bonus_id=567
feet=treads_of_the_defiler,id=124322,bonus_id=567
finger1=thorasus_the_stone_heart_of_draenor,id=124634,enchant=gift_of_critical_strike
finger2=mannoroths_calcified_eye,id=124204,bonus_id=567,enchant=gift_of_critical_strike
trinket1=anzus_cursed_plume,id=124241,bonus_id=567
trinket2=empty_drinking_horn,id=124238,bonus_id=567
main_hand=fiendsbreath_warmace,id=124374,bonus_id=567,enchant=mark_of_the_thunderlord
off_hand=fallen_defender_of_argus,id=124355,bonus_id=567

If you've managed to determine a better combination of gear, please let me know in the comments. I purposefully left out gem slots and warforged to make the testing flat.

Set Bonuses:

Battlegear of the Iron Wrath
2 Piece
While in Gladiator Stance, the damage bonus from being Enraged is increased by 20%.
4 Piece
Your Shield Charge also causes you to Enrage.

Trinket Comparisons Placeholder. Still coming! I've been basically begging blizz to buff our class trinket.


Gear Progression, Per Slot Placeholder.

Stat Weights, these were covered at 695 and BIS gear levels in the latest Gladiator's Resolve post here:
http://gladiatorsresolve.blogspot.ca/2015/05/patch-62-gladiator-changes.html



Thanks,
Cyclonus

Gladstance Representation and Suggestions

Gladiator Stance DPS is under represented in Mythic Blackrock Foundry. This makes me sad, I feel like we've been defending the pass for 2 patches and there's only a few guys left standing, stumbling around being stubborn about a switch to Fury/Arms to do 10-20k more damage. Gladiator is not BAD, but it's not keeping up with AOE damage done by Fury and Arms, and it lacks utility that a lot of raids want, like massive execute phases, or defensive raid cooldowns ( rallying cry ). Sure, on a single target fight you can beat the Arms Warrior ( maybe ) but to me, that's not good enough. Gladiator's aren't getting raid spots in Mythic Guilds.

Constructive feedback has always been a promoted part of the Blizzard communities. I can only name a handful of games that really listen to their player base. Some of my Warrior friends are working on constructive feedback and while I didn't agree with some of their suggestions I thought maybe I would throw my 2 cents on here. I see really good design ideas show up in the forums all the time, and I'm not sure I've ever seen as many "here's how to fix X-spec" than I did with the Beta for WoD. I'm not going to even try to re-design gladiator, but what I believe I am capable of is identifying the problems I see, to lend some weight to a ton of feedback the dev's see every day. Really just pouring water in an ocean of feedback at this point, which is okay. This will probably be a bit therapeutic.

1. Gear Scaling.
Gladiator's do not scale well with Gear. A lot of our damage relies on passive damage increases from Shield Charge or the 4piece bonus for example. The flipside of this is that at lower gear levels we do pretty well. I would prefer doing less damage with less gear, and the reverse.

Suggestions:

• Move more damage onto the Damaging Abilities themselves. Move it off of Shield Charge.

2. Tank Gear
I like the idea of wearing tank gear and doing damage with it. But this creates situations where we need to compete for the same gear the tank does. Most guilds favor their tanks when it comes to gearing strategies and while you could argue Active Mitigation has made gear a bit less relevant, there just simply isn't a guild that's going to risk wipes during progression because the tanks didn't have enough gear. Gladiators would strongly benefit from being able to compete with Arms/Fury for items.

Suggestions:

• Lower Bonus Armor's damage benefit. Let us get our damage from the other secondaries so we can go in for Crit/Haste cloaks and whatnot.
• Allow Gladiators to wield either 1 or 2handed weapons. This means we can go in for weapons and also have the option to switch to Arms/Fury if we preferred it for a fight. Plus, it would be pretty sweet to use a 2handed spear with a shield. 

3. Utility
Mocking Banner is useful in a few situations. Rallying Cry is used every pull. We've been sat because a raid needed another RC for one of the rough damage phases.

Suggestions:

• A Melee group specific Raid Defensive. Like AMZ or PW:B. Call it Shield Wall, make it a real shield wall. I've love to see a gladiator blow a defensive during Breath on Kromog and see all the melee huddle into a blade barrier or something. It could be like deterrence but for the melee group.
• Execute. This phase should be all about execute, just like Arms and Fury. I don't want to be sat because the 20% burn is the most important part. Right now it's not much of a damage increase to even execute sub 20%, AFTER the buffs.

That's it. I want the spec to cause less frustration with a raid group by just using normal dps gear/weapons, less reliance on tank equipment, and better scaling and a defensive CD.

- Cyclonus

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
    
    • Thunder Clap’s damage has been increased by 40%.
  • 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

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

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.

.

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