As an Alliance warrior tank in Season of Discovery, I have no shortage of problems with the game right now, but three stand out far above the rest. These problems are acquiring our phase BIS weapon, our primary AOE threat ability seemingly being both bugged and underpowered, and an absolutely absurd level of faction imbalance in PvE playability due to one spell that’s not even ours.
First, Ironfoe, or BIS weapon for the phase by a large margin, which can go a long way to significantly aid our single target threat is locked behind a less than 1% drop on a boss no healer needs. I am well over 100 runs deep and have handed out multiple HoJ’s to every dps and healer in my guild willing to run Emp with me. Still no Ironfoe. This feels really bad. Either the drop rate needs to be raised significantly, or Ironfoe needs to be put on the Tarnished Undermine Real vendor for a full stack of currency.
Second, Thunderclap, our primary AOE threat ability is bugged and not correctly benefitting from crit. It gains crit from Valor of Azeroth, but not from crit on gear seemingly worded to affect “all spells and abilities.” Fixing this bug would help our raid AOE threat a little, but I still don’t think it’s enough. Thunderclap does physical damage, yet its critical strikes don’t proc deep wounds. Changing this would in no way be a game-breaking amount of damage/threat, but could potentially be enough to sometimes keep threat off a decent feral dps or rogue with blade flurry if played well. Right now, if dps press their aoe buttons optimally, there is no way an alliance prot warrior is holding aggro off their burst, and that just feels bad. If there is another, similarly geared tank nearby also pressing their AOE threat buttons, it is extremely unlikely the prot warrior is holding threat on anything but their current primary target, if that, and that feels awful.
Third, Blessing of Salvation needs a buff. I understand that Horde also needed a way to keep threat. However, making the Spirit of the Alpha threat modifier almost 2x as powerful as what alliance has while also being infinitely easier to manage AND often requiring less or no power sacrificed to do so is absurd. I feel like I’m griefing my raid team just by choosing to be alliance, and that sucks.