Same impression here.
I’d really like to see Enduring Defenses compressed and maybe given an opposite choice in a faster Shield Block cooldown. And I’d like almost every stat-stick talent removed, made a split choice that’s generally non-optimal or made wholly avoidable through placement.
Personally, I’ve never really liked that all Prot builds essentially go towards 100% Shield Block uptime rather than focusing on making more powerful but sparing use of that active mit. Instead, we just… slow amp via Brace for Impact and the like.
- I’d almost like it if we could take a talent that, say… reduced the effectiveness of non-critical Blocks but caused all attacks that deal less than 40% (exact value TBR) of their original damage to apply no additional negative effects. Stack Shield Block, Ignore Pain, and Shield Wall or a critical block and… no bleeds taken, allowing for some unique anti-physical cheese opposite the likes of DK’s AMS.
- Or, heck, to even just have Block Value additionally reduce incoming damage flatly after its percentile mitigation during Shield Block. Just anything to give it a bit more character beyond guaranteeing your otherwise RNG mitigation.
- As they stand right now, it’d almost make more sense to me that Ignore Pain would be the rarer and uncapped mitigation while Shield Block would be the stronger %DR with a cap (with your shield eventually knocked aside), but that’s thematics with no actual gameplay impact so /shrug.
Tbh, even obligatory and allegedly “iconic” talents like Brace for Impact and Punish don’t feel that interesting. Punish doesn’t scale with Shield Slam’s damage dealt and is therefore only noticeable vs. bosses-that-are-currently-tankbusting-you. Similarly, Brace for Impact feels more negligible than the 8% Leech-Barrier of Brutal Vitality not only because 15% more of 40% really is slightly less than 8% and BfI’s bonus block mit does nothing against magic, but (and more importantly imo) also because there’s a bit of non-rote playflow involved in saving up Rage enough to pop Ignore Pain before burst and reapplying it often enough not to waste that Leech-Barrier advantage… while Punish’s effects are mostly coincidental to basic rote rotation.
Accordingly, I’d really like to see all three of those obligatory talents — Brace for Impact, Punish, and Fueled by Violence / Brutal Vitality — amped up a bit in place of Focused Vigor, Shield Specialization, Enduring Alacrity, and Unyielding Stance.
While we’re at it… are/were these talents actually fun for any gameplay reason to anyone (including what you can get out of excess resources in terms of Execute frequency, or what timely burst it can provide, etc.), or only ever for their capacity:
- Rend (as the 1–5 target passive second layer of Deep Wounds that makes Prot take an extra GCD to reach normal damage and might well ultimately just makes Prot scale slightly worse at 6+ targets… or as the thing to actively maintain on focus targets that used to be in a few expansions)
- Violent Outburst
- Instigate
- Into the Fray (as compared to just, say, Vanguard providing 5% more of each secondary stat baseline)
- Indomitable
- Juggernaut (removed; including if we could have gotten something far faster to reach max ramp)
- Show of Force (removed/consolidated)
- Dance of Death (removed; e.g., in terms of delaying Ravager slightly in packs with focus targeting against squishies / if the effect had been stronger)
- Storm of Steel (removed; here considering it mostly for its Rage-on-demand and therefore synergy with Execute builds)
- Battering Ram (removed; also interested in the pre-nerf AA rate increase for the glut of Shield Slam refreshes)
For my part, Indomitable and Storm of Steel felt like they had interesting enough impact, while Instigate made rotation feel less underwhelming in ST, but Battering Ram was barely enough to care about even pre-nerf, and Show of Force only mattered in combination with Unstoppable Force (as reason to ready more Rage before and use Shield Slam only maintain Brace for Impact at 4+ enemies if I could afford it) but still added a bit of interest as an optional “ideally, use X before each Y” talent. I used WA to track Violent Outburst but it rarely even seemed as rewarding to track as Show of Force.
Anywho, just related to what I’d ideally replace the passive talents with, if not just opening up pathing while having 2–4 fewer nodes.