Prot Warrior is rubbish

I have a brewmaster, Prot Pally, and Prot Warrior tanks. Both monk and pal just have an easier time bar none. Monk is easier for holding threat on multiple targets, and prot well I don’t even need a healer most of the time. Warrior is in a weird spot. It is much more work to keep multiple targets on you, and it took some time getting used to the new revenge spam. No self heals really, and nearly all of our AOE is target limited. I still like it, and it can be fun, but I would be lying if I said it wasn’t harder than pal or monk. (haven’t played DH, Druid, or DK).

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Thanks. Post nerfs. True :clinking_glasses:

It’s actually depressing to think an interesting extension talent was nerfed into a flat damage aura for one ability.

Admittedly, I haven’t had the chance to do much with my Feral since Shadowlands and my pre-patch experience is unfortunately shallow, considering loss of old systems and unavailability of new systems.

Auto-refresh would not have been a problem (and is desirable in my case, though I may not speak for others) if Sabertooth were not both an “auto-refresh” and a damage buff throughout Legion and BFA. The damage contribution of Ferocious Bite with both benefits of (1) a 20% damage increase and (2) allowing more bites in the rotation effectively felt like a mandate for single target environments.

The gap was closed because the end result was talents regressing to a “loadout system”. Instead, the proposition is that talents ought to be a beneficial selection set that rewards complexity with a higher ceiling (or conversely increases the performance floor with less top end reward if selecting the “simplified” talents).

This is where my sentiment comes from though in saying:

Your thoughts?

Now that I’ve gotten my big boy Legendary things are back to normal-ish. Obviously, more haste is a necessity but (un)fornately I can get somewhat more optimized gear from PvP. Prot appears to be mostly useless there but if the Alliance can win Wintergrasp on offense there’s hope for easy points.

The biggest problem is getting used to being mortal. No more grotesque overpulls anymore. Also getting back Stormbolt would be nice but half the fun of playing a Warrior is ping-ponging all over the place.

I don’t understand how people say prot wars have threat issues. no aoe cap on revenge, bring kyrian + dragons roar + ravager and you literally pump 4k+ dps in aoe pulls on short cds and still have enough rage to block/ignore pain. I really feel like wars aren’t even as close to as bad ad people make them out to be. healing output when you’re spamming rage spenders with indomitable is solid. Healing output-800-1k avg even on boss fights.

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I think a lot of the effect designs, historically, have created hamfisted results in gameplay in a desire to have simplistic tooltips. To use Sabertooth as an example, I’d have much preferred to see it add or consume bleed duration based on their remaining time, as that’d have offered both QoL on one hand and deeper gameplay nuance on the other, without nearly so greatly changing one’s bites per minute. That way I feel like a prior tool (Rip) is synergized with and better exploited, rather than blanketed and pushed out.

To take Sabertooth’s performance as example, though, I’d largely agree that something which reduces complexity should underperform on paper, albeit just slightly. (My favorite thing to extract from a spec is ingenuity, and having complexity which demands incredibly exacting gameplay actually reduces that beyond even what far “simpler” or “less demanding” designs would allow. If Ret weren’t so flexible in its spending systems already, for instance, I’d hate its many mini-bursts instead of loving them.)

For instance, my ideal Arms Warrior would have a lot more complexity available to it, but would likely still be more flexible than the gameplay loops we see now (especially in terms of, say, Condemn having to be delayed for Deep Wounds but ideally nonetheless maintained insofar as Juggernaut’s buff, etc), and a decent bit more QoL (no Sweeping Strikes GCD cost, Double Time would be baseline to Arms, and a talent to the others, as Intervene would be to Prot and Bounding Strike would be to Fury, etc.)

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This is not a thing.

The highest damage tanks are vdh and paladin, not monk.

Paladin heals for more, but also takes more damage. No tank is self sufficient, by design.

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It was certainly a thing last xpac.

No, it really was not. Unique scaling is not a thing, and has not been a thing, for a long time.

Goosebumps.
…the skin thing… Not the…books…

I often think “this could work” and get into the nuance of explaining an interaction right before I realize “This can’t be added to a tooltip” and delete post.

In this thread, I said:

And left it at that. (Convenient opportunity for me to loop back into the OP.) Before I went with that incredibly short statement, I was thinking that Ignore Pain needs… Something. Some spice. Even

The interaction I was trying to capture was something like Death Strike’s healing, as Prot Warrior doesn’t have may responsive defensives. Everything is applied proactively and uptime maximized.

Notably, the benefit I was looking at would be in both the PERCENT absorbed and the cap. Right now, IP is a 50% damage reduction tool (which is actually insane). It would be nice to see some skill interaction for using it reactively (instead of spamming it and just trying to keep it up where able). Already the advice for Torghast has been macro Overpower to Ignore Pain, so you can keep the shield running… Instead there should be an “ideal window” to add some depth to its use.

But here’s the issue. Arms and Fury have zero overlap on Ignore Pain uses. Prot however has no cooldown. Any re-activations add to the existing buff’s cap. How then would it manage to stack a 75% DR and 3000 shield when the next press is 50% and 2000 shield, and how do you convey where that ‘reset’ occurs?
(Obvious answer is store the values in a list of tuples and iterate FIFO thru the stack; display the absorb cap as a sum, and the absorb percent could either be displayed as the max remaining in the stack with “up to” indicator, an average ratio of damage-absorb to damage-break, or just excluded from the tooltip.)

I realized the technical details would be lost to a general audience, and the message that “Ignore Pain needs SOMETHING” would be lost or ignored in the sea of insignificant details.

Afterthought: Notable mention includes Deep Wounds. The damage buff should apply to the skills which activate it (that is, debuff enemy THEN add damage). This means Collosal Smash into Condemn opener doesn’t lose the Deep Wounds perk on the Collosal initial burst. Maybe that’s a nuisance but it seems indy companies would manage to address those nuisances, while Blizzard seems to shrug and count their money.

Im Venthyr so I guess im s out of luck

Its not unique scaling per say, its direct buffs to warrior abilities. The spec wasnt performing well and then got huge buffs.

Beginning of BFA, Prot wasn’t great, but beginning of Legion I remember it being a very strong spec and if I recall correctly it actually got nerfed in the middle of the first raid because it was so strong. Right now, I think it feels really good and I’m having little issues doing anything, even as a necrolord.

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For the first few weeks, sure. Then it performed well for the rest of the expansion.

It started off so ridiculously strong it required severe nerfs at the start of Legion.

Looking at one example of prot being weak for the first few weeks does not qualify for the statement,’

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I do remember Prot getting hit hard at the beginning of Legion. :scream:

If Prot is doing a poor job, Bliz will lift them up. I have zero issue healing warriors in dungeons.

you don’t need spear of bastion, but try ravager/dragon’s roar. you’ll have literally no issue with aoe threat/output. venthyr isn’t that great IMO either but to each their own

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Lol that divine toll plus avenger is totally broken. 12k plus aoe dps on prot pally so good :sweat_smile:. That’s with only blues equipped.

Yea i’m getting this feeling I want to switch but I also play Arms so I dont know if night fae makes me more relevant at both or if I should go Kyrian.

If execute would reduce the rage cost of shield block or ignore pain then I would be a happy man.

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Personally, I’m not a big fan of Prot, and haven’t been for a long time. The last time I enjoy Prot was during WoD where they implemented Gladiator Stance, which was more to do with that than actual tanking. I just don’t like the way it plays or at the very least how I’m playing it which could be sub-optimal.

After leveling a Prot Paladin, Vengence DH, and Blood DK before prepatch, and trying out some tanking during prepatch, I can safely say that those 3 classes just feel better to me, especially Prot Paladin. I think it has a lot to do with the tools are your disposal and how it flows. However, keep in mind that this is only my opinion, but I wish they’d rework Prot War.

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Truthfully i haven’t loved tanking since burning crusade. I liked the style of tanking that had me fighting for threat all the time vs what we have now.

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