How do you feel about the recent talent change of Prot?

Classes Warrior
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For people that cannot join the beta discussion, what do you think about https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/feedback-warrior-class-changes/490692?

IMHO, despite that Avatar/Thunderclap play style is that much nerfed, other play styles are still quite underwhelming. On the whole, Prot warrior is still a loser in both raid and M+.
Punish, Devastator, Heavy Repercussions, and Bolster should be available at the same time (in different tiers) so that the refreshing-shield-slam-play-style could at least be a competitor.
Earlier Blizzard changed the description of Bolster from “block attacks” to “grant you Shield Block effect.” It strikes me that they want us to use the synergy between Bolster and Heavy Repercussions. I have no idea why on earth they are now putting these two in the same tier.

Anyways, I’m grateful that Booming Voice has left tier45.

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Not sure since I don’t have beta but I think the changes aren’t to bad. Could have been worse

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I don’t like it. I liked prot because the damage intake was smooth and there was always a mitigation cd that you could use.

In particular I hate AM not rewarding me by reducing my cooldowns for fast paced game play. This felt unique to warrior and was the biggest draw to the class. If they can’t balance the talents to make them competitive just make it baseline and give us another choice.

The choice between Bolster and Indomitable will be particularly difficult though I think I lean more towards bolster for the additional shield block allowing my charges to come back up. But without Last stand being tied into AM will it really fill in those gaps? I’m actually not sure that it will.

I also hear that they have now nerfed our aoe by capping it meaning we have a hard time with threat. Essentially all group content feels like skittish week.

Also needing to macro Charge/Intercept is going to be a pain if I understand the changes correctly. Although I suppose a simple mouse over should alleviate this.

All I know is that warriors went from the very top spot to being one of the worst tanking specs which is indicative of massive over nerfs. Supposedly +10’s feel like current +18s. I really hope they fix this before release.

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Indomitable was never a viable talent choice.

Aoe capping doesn’t affect tanks.

Warrior is going to be fine.

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+10s feel like +18

How can that even be a remotely good opinion to be when the expansion isn’t even out yet?

Beta testing is still going on lol

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You are wrong on every.single.point. AoE cap greatly affects tanks. There are classes that have the ability to hit between 8 and 20 targets while tanks can reliably damage 5 before drop off. Warrior feels like a Frankenstein of cobbled together ideas that were never thoroughly fleshed out and just half assedly held together with some tape and a prayer. Is the sky falling? No, but compared to DK, Monk, and Paladin, warrior just feels lacking. Stick your head in the sand if you want to, it won’t make it any better.

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You are using the past tense so I’m not sure if you about know about the talent change in SL.

Your maximum health is increased by 10% and every 10 rage you spend heals you for 1% of your maximum health.

Essentially they rolled the legion legendary into the talent. Many people are extremely hyped for this and it does seem strong. My concern is that taking it will mess with shield block uptime. And it does seem to be a popular choice. A quote from beta testers

Indomitable has been added to the same tier as Bolster and offers a powerful, always-on defensive boost. It will arguably be the better choice in most circumstances.

I’m not sure if you are saying that you think warrior abilities are not capped or if the cap they have will not effect them. But they are capped.

Revenge: Swing in a wide arc, dealing (63% of Attack power) Physical damage to all enemies in front of you. Deals reduced damage to secondary targets.
Your successful dodges and parries have a chance to make your next Revenge cost no Rage.
Cost 20 Rage

Revenge cost has been reduced to 20 Rage, and its damage has been increased by 40%, which is a buff. It deals less damage to secondary targets, and instead of becoming free every time you Dodge or Parry, it only has a chance to become free, at 3 procs per minute. This is a nerf to Warrior’s AoE damage capabilities. It feels bad, man.

Thunder Clap: Blasts all enemies within 8 yards for (42% of Attack power) Physical damage, rooting them for 1 sec and reducing their movement speed by 20% for 10 sec.
Deals reduced damage to secondary targets.
Generates 5 Rage.

Thunder Clap’s damage has been nerfed by 16% and its damage to secondary targets is also reduced. The nerfs to Warrior AoE damage nerfs keep coming.

Because this is a thread about the beta testing and the nerfs that prot received.

I’ll leave you with an exert from Wowwhead written by Llarold

How Did We Get Here?

Before we begin with the changes to Protection Warriors in Shadowlands and how their playstyle is going to be altered, let’s start by examining exactly what has made Warriors so good in BFA. Protection Warriors have a positive feedback loop with Rage generation due to Anger Management. Basically, the more Rage a Warrior generates, the more often their cooldowns are available. Their cooldowns increase Rage generation. It’s like throwing gasoline onto a burning building.

Warriors have been the best Mythic+ tank in BFA for several seasons primarily due to this positive feedback loop. Anger Management is not solely to blame, it has existed since Warlords of Draenor, but only became overpowered (for lack of a better word) once combined with Azerite traits Bastion of Might and Deafening Crash, Essences Vision of Perfection, Corruption, and 4 powerful, synergistic talents Into the Fray Unstoppable Force Booming Voice, and Bolster.

With the removal of Azerite traits, Essences, and Corruption bonuses, Warriors would experience a substantial drop in power, possibly even back to WoD or Legion levels, when they were arguably below-average tanks. Warriors haven’t started an expansion “strong” in the community’s eyes in nearly a decade, but losing the BFA-specific bonuses without any other changes to Anger Management or the rest of the talent tree would probably be enough to bring Warriors back in line.

Unfortunately, Warriors have received enormous nerfs beyond the loss of BFA bonuses. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the news is very bad. The feedback loop of Anger Management has been broken in several places and the class is weaker for it. The talent tree has been reshuffled and popular, valuable talents have been nerfed.

The Protection Warrior class you know and love is dead! In its place is a blander spec with a few Legion bonuses thrown in to add some flavor. Your offensive cooldowns have less impact on your rotation and are available less often, and you will have much less access to defensive cooldowns. Mobility has also been reduced, and you now have to choose between restoring your lost mobility or access to stuns. Offenses: Nerfed. Defenses: Nerfed. Cooldowns: Nerfed. Mobility: Nerfed. Utility: Nerfed.

The biggest point of my post is that I’m ok with most of the nerfs even if we are the worst tank heading into SL’s. That is number tuning and I can wait for buffs till 9.1. My biggest problem is that they destroyed all of the things that I enjoy about the spec. Revert Anger Management and I’d be happy. Hell make it baseline and add a new talent if thats whats needed for balance but please for the love of Garrosh keep the feedback loop available.

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Yeah can’t take beta very seriously when the tuning isn’t done yet

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I’m not worried about the tuning for the most part. It would mean a single patch maybe two of not being viable.

What I despise is that they gutted the play style that I enjoyed. Thats why I tried to emphasize my wishes that they bring back the feedback play style that AM provided. To be honest I could live with anything else they threw at me.

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Oh ok I thought this was a numbers thing, yeah I haven’t played the new changes to come but I do like prot in bfa currently and I’ll miss that play style for sure but I’m a fan of warrior theme so I’ll do my best to make due and hopefully you can do the same!

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The healing on Indomitable doesn’t compare to the extra block up time from bolster.

Warrior is getting aoe damage nerfs because it’s well deserved tbh, but you never put a point of actual AoE cap. Their abilities still hit everything in range.

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Bolster got moved to the level 50 tier with anger management and heavy repercussions. The level 40 tier is now indomitable, never surrender, and impending victory.

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I’m assuming this is from the new beta update?

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“It’s only beta, more tuning is on the way”
“It’s only 9.0 and we will be buffed in 9.2 just as in BFA”
For Warrior tanks, these are good things to hope for.
For game designers, these are terrible decisions.
We don’t pay subscription to become lab mice.

If Warrior tanks are too strong, please buff other tanks to compete with us.
If one play style of Warrior is too strong, please buff other play styles.
Every nerf so far makes me doubt if these designers have actually tried out their ideas on a Warrior toon.
And, you know what? They just nerfed Warrior once again (See Kyrian and Night Fae covenant abilities).

#StopNerfingWarriorTanks

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I wouldn’t call tuning on abilities that don’t actually exist yet as “nerfing”. But that is just me.

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You’re acting like warrior is going to be awful. It’s not. It’s going to be fine. These nerfs are needed to keep it in check because right now having obscene AoE damage along with obscene physical mitigation is way too much.

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Normally when people complain about something that they expect will affect them in the future it turns out to be overblown to great proportions. I and no other mythic teams that i have talked with have any feelings of limiting people based on how they min max. This will effect almost no one and for one am all for decisions that affect you. Maybe this can be a start to turning the mentality of wow back to its more rpg and choice related concepts.

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This is not an rpg game. This is mmo-rpg.
If Blizz cannot keep the balance among different classes, then the weaker classes would have awful game experience.

I have mained warrior for every single expansion–that is the rpg part.
It feels awful when the current designers hate warrior tanks. E.g., back to the dark days of ICC, My warrior tank couldn’t get into any raid. And don’t forget how awkward warrior tank was back in 8.0. This is the mmo part: if one spec is significantly weaker than another, then a player of this spec will have a hard time to find a team.

I really truly hope that Blizz can make all tank specs equally powerful so every tank can enjoy the rpg game. But at this moment Blizz is unfair to Warrior tanks.

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Huh? Warriors were excellent tanks in WotLK, especially in ICC because back then, the whole ‘warriors scale better with gear’ thing was actually true.

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It’s rather silly to think or assume that a developer “hates” a spec simply because it’s tuned poorly. Without mentioning that protection was actually far from terrible in ICC.

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