Hello Blizz! I am a long time prot warrior enjoyer and have been “main’ing” it since season 3 of Dragonflight. I wanted to give some feedback regarding the changes you have in the current PTR build for 11.1 as of 01/08. To give some credentials, I have gotten 3k IO or close to for a few seasons now so I have a good understanding of how the spec feels and plays in M+. My feedback will be from a M+ viewpoint as I do not raid much at all.
Ultimately all of the changes made to prot feel bad. Anger management is a very fun playstyle and messing with any part of our rage generation means it has a spiraling effect on both our rage gen as a pull goes on and our defensiveness. As it stands right now all of the changes made to prot should be reverted and not go live. The changes feel quite out of touch as anyone who has played colossus prot in M+ will tell you we have a fine amount or are slightly behind what we should be in regards to rage gen. You could “argue” Thane has too much rage gen but the whole loop of warrior is generating and dumping rage. Because generating rage directly feeds into generating more rage hitting any part of the pipeline can have drastic effects. These changes lock us into a hero talent we are already locked into and even make playing Thane not fun.
With that being said, I don’t want to throw out every change you’ve made as I feel that is disingenuous. Here are some changes that I think at a minimum need to be done rather than reverting everything (even though that is the objectively correct choice).
Devastate & Strategist: There’s no getting around this, it has to go back to 30% for both. It’s already somewhat common to SS → Clap → Revenge and not get a SS reset. SS is our best button and since almost all our rage gen is tied to that one skill, pressing it less is terrible throughput-wise but more importantly, it feels horrible to play.
Champion’s Bulwark: Not sure why we are making a tier set around a skill and then nerfing that skill? It should go back up to generating the current amount of rage that it does or also give us a free cast of Ignore Pain.
Violent Outburst: It already feels horrible to spend VO on a Thunder Clap and it feels even more awful now. You build up a big “outburst” and get 2/3 extra if you use it on Clap which sometimes you have to because you can’t delay your rotation for too long. Once again this adversely effects Colossus more than Thane since Colossus doesn’t get Thunder Blasts. If going back to 100% rage gen is not an option, I think VO making your next SS or TC generate 30 rage is better or they generate an additional ‘X’ rage.
Impenetrable Wall: I have the feeling this was a change targeted at raid but this “choice node” is completely dead in M+ now. We are already taking Defender’s Aegis (which already had more CD reduction) so there is literally no reason ever to take IW. If we can’t make it generate more rage at least double the CD reduction it gives or something.
Sorry for the wall of text (pun intended)! These changes are really out of touch. I don’t speak for everyone obviously but the vibe I get is many tank players feel the current balance team doesn’t fully grasp tanking and why/how it is fun and these changes just reinforce that. You’re tackling a “problem” for prot that doesn’t even exist and just nerfing a middle of the road tank. In the same patch, the best tank in the game got the best tier set and the two worst tanks in the game (Blood and Brew) got 0 changes. I know the current patch notes are not final but the optics of Brew getting 0 lines of text while the only viable tank in M+ gets buffed is…not great.
I hope this feedback is helpful and thank you for your continued support and work on the game!
I will agree that Blizzard certainly made a very odd statement, saying they consider Prot warrior fine. Only to nerf Prot Warrior and buff Prot Paladin. Just a very out of touch change in my opinion.
It’s not like we have much choice in how they cook it, I just hope they don’t burn it. We’ll have to see, but I’m not holding my breath.
That’s fair! I think if they want to slow it down they would need massively buff how much each ignore pain does so we can pool more rage but I am of the opinion that forcing a spec to press it’s best and most fun/iconic button less often is not fun. Mountain thane can feel a bit spammy 100% but Colossus feels fine in regards to speed rn and having the choice between a slower more methodical rotation and a more zugzug spammy one w/hero talents is fine imo.
Honestly, I felt like this was the kind of choice hero talents should have had. The 11.1 changes are going to force both trees into the same feel, really sad to see it go.
I was already leaning towards only tanking when the guild tanks needed a break and occasionally for M+. With these changes as they are now, I definitely will not be tanking at all. Hope they revert some of this, otherwise the tank just gets shelved for easy delve t11 clear solo play.
The optics means that there is no one working on Brewmaster and they have no intention to either, unless something pops up that makes them completely broken, like DPS trinkets in Dragonflight
Its clear warriors have no dev on them. I mean just look at the perposed nerfs. Meanwhile Paladin is getting buffed while being the clear choice of tank. Yep… No one at Blizzard is playing the other tanks. Things like nerfing all forms of rage regen while not taking how differently the two hero specs play are going to hurt prot warrior instanely hard. While thane will not feel it as much colossus is getting hit with a double nerf in the form of the rage gen holding it back and even worse its no longer getting stacks from execute??? Why? How did anyone think that was a good change? Look me dead in the eyes and tell me you play a Colossus warrior and explain how that change is going to be good for the hero talent? Why are you trying to force warriors to play only 1 hero spec and one way. Its bad design hands down.
Season 2 has a new FoS reward at 2850 which is a majority of timed 12s, so show the graph of level 12 only.
You’ve been in every prot warrior thread claiming the spec “needs” a nerf when it isn’t even broken. Prot warrior getting zero changes this patch would have been completely fine, but dev effort is being wasted here instead of being put in to the tanks that are actually struggling.
The charts and cutoff score page for any season older than DF S3 is corrupted because of they way they pull the data. This is because when seasons reuse older season dungeons it messes with the auto formula they use.
Edit: Sorry I thought you were talking about DF S2 initially. Here is TWW S1 +12 only.
No, I havn’t. This is the 3rd thread I have been in and only to address people making untrue claims about Paladins specifically.
I get that they are messing up rage gen, that it has much bigger impacts globally, and they should fix that.
The fact is that people are claiming Paladins are the best at damage mitigation and need mitigation nerfs when that’s factually wrong.
No, you data is worthless, 10s is as easy as normal Nerub’ar Palace, you can literally 3 man it playing with your toes instead of finger. Are you going to balance the game around normal Nerub’ar Palace difficulty?
And 12s is like heroic Nerub’ar Palace, again easy considering everyone is 638 ilvl end of season, you don’t even need to be good to time a 12 unlike when season first starts.
Anyway, even using the data from 12+, looks like warrior needs a buff.
The Warriors could use a damage buff. I can agree to that, but again the representation of any class or role in high keys looks like that chart in every season regardless of balancing.
