Protection Warrior Rage Generation Nerfs

In Development Undermine(d) PTR Discussion
1

So, there are two things most Prot Warriors will agree are currently the case in 11.0.7:

  1. Rage generation is excessive, especially in AoE, and it’s too easy to overcap even when spamming Ignore Pain.
  2. Spamming Ignore Pain while already at the Ignore Pain cap (due to Anger Management/Indomitable) is both counterintuitive and degenerate gameplay.

It’s a great idea to adjust Rage generation/the need to spam IP for those reasons, however there may be side effects with the current changes that nerf other aspects of the spec.

One notable thing is that since Anger Management is less effective, the CDR for Avatar and Shield Wall is less effective. The CD of Shield Wall was nerfed to compensate, but Avatar was not, which cascades to a massive nerf for Mountain Thane Prot Warriors.

Relatedly, nerfing Shield Bash resets (to slow down Rage generation) also is a huge nerf to damage/Shield Block uptime.

I’m not sure buffing IP strength will compensate for these losses. Perhaps give Prot Warrior a damage buff too.

2

Interesting, I viewed the rage generation nerfs as an indirect boon to Mountain Thane. Mountain Thane will still have more flexible rage generation and spending, whereas colossus is set to become less forgiving. Maybe the ignore pain buffs will prove me wrong though.

3

This does feel like too much to me. Some of these changes, would go a long way towards not having those times of just spamming Ignore Pain, when everything’s just proccing right. But all of these at once? Will have to see when people get their hands on to test, but I worry we are going to swing from times of rage overflowing to being rage starved fairly often and feeling like we can’t keep shield block and IP on.

4

In fairness, I admit I completely forgot about Colossus lol.

It’s a good example of an unintended side effect of losing Rage generation in an attempt to nerf Ignore Pain. Lower Rage + Shield Slam nerfs → fewer Shield Slams / Revenges → fewer stacks of Colossal Might → less mitigation after using Demolish + less damage on Revenge.

5

Hi!

thanks for your post.

I’d like to say I don’t agree with your two points.

Also, Demo shout from 30 to 20 rage and removing 20 rage from shield charge isn’t just annoying overcap rage removal, it is literally how you get enough rage (30) to cast your first shield block in a pull. Try 5 seconds of no shield block in a +12 and you’ll end on the floor. That is about to be the Prot Warrior experience.

How in the hey does prot paladin not get touched after being the meta tank, and the bastard step child, the tank with the least utility, gets nerfed? and nerfed hard?

6

(post deleted by author)

7

Someone mathed out 20-25% less rage gen and roughly 30% less shield slam procs. The damage loss is going to be significant if these numbers are true. I think the vision of having less rage to pour into constant IP uptime is fine, but reducing our APM and handicapping our DPS is going to feel awful.

1 Like
8

This is the problem of not looking at the whole picture.

9

I’m not sure what you are getting at. The 4p doesn’t counteract Rage nerfs?

10

Look at 2 set.

11

???

Every tank has the same damage increasing effect for their 2p and most didn’t get damage nerfs this patch cycle. Blizzard doesn’t nerf preemptively nerf specs in preparation for a tier set. A 15% damage increase with unpredictable uptime is less of a damage increase than the current tier effects.

12

Why do you keep referencing “damage” when I clearly quoted you talking about mitigation and mitigation alone?

Yes, exactly.

13

Have you considered explaining your points in order to provide better feedback to Blizzard instead of trying to be pointlessly edgy?

Again, every spec has the same 2p, which includes a defensive buff proc. If you want to compare apples-to-apples, your Prot Paladin gets a 50% DR for 4 seconds while Prot Warrior gets a 40% DR for 4 seconds. And Prot Paladin defensives did not get nerfed.

14

Have you considered reading the quoted text to use as context of what I was responding to? If you didn’t knee jerk reply you would have known I was talking about mitigation.

Did you forget that Warriors have Ignore Pain that mitigates 50% and has no real CD? It’s also getting a massive buff.

You are also getting a free Shield Wall for 4 seconds as a proc from the tier set. The way you talk about Paladins show you don’t understand. We are getting 50% from the tier set, but we don’t have something like Ignore Pain that runs 24/7. Our only 50% mitigation is on a 5 minute CD with an uptime of 8 seconds. Ardent Defender and Eye of Tyr has an uptime of 6-8 seconds with a CD of 1-1.5 minute.

Prot Paladin mitigation didn’t get nerfed because we are currently still squishy in comparison.

15

I was waiting for Kaivax to post a warrior feedback thread but we can start here.

The rage nerfs seem a little excessive and currently Prot Warrior feels ok.

It felt amazing in dragonflight however now, it just feels ok. With these proposed changes, it feels like our offensive abilities are going to be reigned in.

Developers’ notes: Protection Warriors are currently constantly flooded with Rage which undermines rotational defensive decision-making and encourages constant dumping of Rage into Ignore Pain to maximize effectiveness. We’re taking a pass at reducing Protection’s overall Rage generation to make decisions on when and how to spend it more meaningful, without reducing Protection Warriors’ ability to tank effectively.

I think rage feels fine the way it is and I don’t think it really undermines anything defensive wise. We get to use shield block and ignore pain and we even can talent into “overwhelming rage” if needed. Its also nice to be able to spend some rage on a revenge or an execute here and there when its not up or proc’d

These changes feel reminiscent of Legion (Release Ignore Pain) where Ignore Pain was awesome and then completely gutted.

The change to Strategist seems unnecessary “Chance to reset the cooldown of Shield Slam from Devastator and Strategist reduced to 20% (was 30%).”

(4) Set: During Luck of the Draw! Shield Slam’s chance to critically strike is increased by 50% and its critical strikes reduce the cooldown of Shield Charge by 6 seconds.

  • Chance to reset the cooldown of Shield Slam from Devastator and Strategist reduced to 20% (was 30%).

Not needed this feels like its hamstringing our offensive abilities.

  • Impenetrable Wall no longer increases Rage generated by Shield Slam.

Not needed, this is more nerfs to our offensive options.

  • Booming Voice causes Demoralizing Shout to generate 20 Rage (was 30).

Its nice to be able to pull a large pack, demo shout, and have the rage needed to mitigate the pack.

  • Champion’s Bulwark no longer increases the Rage generated by Shield Charge.

Still very useful in M+ with larger packs of mobs

  • Bloodsurge now causes damage from Deep Wounds to have a chance to generate 3 Rage.

Fine if you want to take away 2 rage from this and not touch the other talents rage gen… Ok…

  • Violent Outburst has been rebuilt to be easier to understand and track progress towards the next Outburst. Additional Rage generated from Violent Outburst reduced to 50% (was 100%).

Again why the nerf to rage?

  • Shield Wall cooldown reduced to 3 minutes (was 3.5 minutes).

Ok but our 4 set bonus is also going to proc Shield Wall Randomly which is cool.

  • Amount of damage ignored from each use of Ignore Pain increased by 30%.

Very cool but worried that this will be reverted after implemented and we will be left rage starved like back in legion after the nerfs.

I hope more prot warrior mains have feedback regarding these changes. I only play a prot warrior and I’ll always play through the ups and downs but this just seems like big nerfs to our gameplay and fun.

16

I can’t help but think part of the goals with these changes was to reduce the APM of Prot Warrior, which has been notoriously high for a while.