Loading ...Patch 3.3.3: Revenge is Back!
With Patch 3.3.3 hitting the live servers today, the first thing I did was go respec my 15/3/53 spec into a 15/3/53 spec. Out went Improved Spell Reflect and in came the new and significantly improved, Improved Revenge.
I can’t say enough good things about the change to Improved Revenge. Not only does it give a massive boost to the already massively boosted damage of Revenge, but it’s secondary bonus is also a lot more enticing. If I have to choose between a little, crappy stun that I have no control over and turning my now massive damaging Revenge into a cleave, I’ll choose the latter every time.
Is Revenge too Good now?
I knew straight away that I’d be prioritizing Revenge over both Shield Slam and Devastate for 5 mans. What I didn’t know was that I’d be prioritizing it over Shield Slam for boss encounters too. The damage difference is really quite staggering.
Shield Slam: 2000ish / 2400ish with 2p t10
Revenge: 3800ish
So in the weird world that is Warrior tanking, our rotation has changed to this:
Revenge > Shield Slam > Shockwave > Devastate
Is UA Back?
UA aka The Unrelenting Assault spec was something of a fad back in the Naxx/Ulduar days and with the buff to Revenge (and Trauma to a lesser extent) it’s inevitable that it’ll be buzzed about for a bit. Those wanting to get caught up to speed on what exactly it is can check out my post on it from almost exactly a year ago today. So, the big question is, should we start specing this, again?
No.
It’s just not worth the massive loss in utility and with so many bosses having some form of spell to cast, I question whether there’s even that much of a dps gain from it at all. Were I still in the dual prot spec days, would I try it? Sure. But as a solo spec, it’s clear that it’s just not worth it.
That Same Old Feeling
What’s most intriguing about the Revenge change is that it makes playing our standard specs feel very much like how playing the UA spec used to feel. You’re always anxious to do your next Revenge. All of a sudden, I’m tweaking my Sword and Board add-on to notify me when Revenge is off cooldown. It feels really awkward and it’s certainly going to take a little getting used to.
My Stance
As much as I appreciate the Revenge and Improved Revenge buffs, I really do hate Revenge. The fact that I have to wait on a dodge, parry or block to activate it, sucks. It sucks not because it’s annoying to use while I’m tanking, but because I can’t use it when I’m not tanking. The Revenge buffs leave something to be desired on fights like Festergut where we really want our big damaging ability to be usable.
However, I really do like Revenge when I am tanking. It’s like Sword and Board except better because it’s much more intuitive. I know when I’ll be using it constantly and when I’ll be practically ignoring it. It feels more rhythmic than random which is much more interesting from a play-style standpoint. The key is that it’s got to be top of the priority chain like it is now in order to give me that impression.
I say this because it wasn’t until today when Revenge was my top priority that I suddenly appreciated it instead of despising it like I have for so many years.
The Still Hated and How to Fix it
I still really hate the enrage effect of Improved Defensive Stance. I hope that come Cataclysm it qualifies as one of those boring, must-have passive buffs and just ends up going away. The Revenge mechanic applied to a buff is simply an unnecessary nerf to our damage while not tanking. It’s really just a relic leftover from a time when they were worried about Dual-wield Devastate being an overpowered DPS spec.
The larger issue though is how do we keep Revenge interesting by making it top priority while tanking, but still keep our damage at a decent level while not tanking?
The best solution I can think of is to have an ability that shares a cooldown with Revenge. This ability could be used constantly during situations when Revenge wasn’t able to be activated (like Festergut) and even occasionally during times when bosses were doing things like casting spells too much.
Maybe, It doesn’t Matter
It’s true, it might not.
You look at this expansion and it hasn’t been filled with fights like Void Reaver or Bloodboil. And as much as I don’t like being the inferior choice for a fight like Festergut, it’s not the same type of mechanic as the old generate loads of threat while not getting attacked encounters.
Let’s be honest guys, we can’t cry for compensation on Festergut when we’re dominating on Anub’arak. We’ve been quietly abusing Warbringer and every other piece of utility we have all expansion since it’s more difficult to really quantify these advantages. The reality is, it’s been a pretty damn good expansion to be a Warrior. We’ve been in a good place the entire time versus both the content and the competition.
Be happy. You’re a Warrior.
March 23rd, 2010 at 3:03 pm
As I said on Twitter not 10 minutes before you posted this…”Revenge used to hit like a truck. Now it hits like a truck towing a truck. Full of explosives. Driven by angry bears.”
I did some experimenting on the elites on top of the Ironwall Dam (Pustulent Horrors, about 68k health). My results aren’t as far apart as yours, but I think your gear is slightly better and definitely better-balanced, I’m still carrying a pretty good chunk of block value. I was hitting Shield Slams for around 2800 and Revenges for 2800-3200 with no buffs at all, not even Battle Shout. Shield Slam is obviously still going to be a slightly higher percentage of overall damage with those numbers, because of the +15% crit from Gag Order, and Shield Block uptime, and Sword and Board refreshes. But still, wow.
Where I think it’ll really shine is in leveling. I was messing with my baby prot warrior in Icemist Village (she’s almost 74) and stuff was just…disintegrating. Between the two-target spread and the fact that she was hitting for 1800-2000 with very pedestrian gear for that level? That’s very powerful stuff.
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March 23rd, 2010 at 3:16 pm
Man I can’t wait to get home and login! lol. I’m sooo glad about this change. In addition, 3% more health… yeah baby.
Any info about the TC changes, Vene?
Warrior pride is in full effect today :p
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Brugg reply on March 23, 2010 3:21 pm:
I read the patch notes this morning and damn near called in sick to test it out. I really want to see how this effects our AOE tanking. I could hold my own before, this may make a huge difference on that front.
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Veneretio reply on March 23, 2010 3:44 pm:
The TC change is more subtle so it’s hard to really say, “Hey, this is a big deal” when I’ve only done a couple 5 mans. That said, I do think it’s an important, necessary change and I’m happy to have it especially for raiding since I won’t have to reapply the debuff as often when I’m in my usual low on hit rating sets.
Revenge Cleave is such a dream for 5 mans, but I fully expect it to be even better for raiding tanking where having to hold just 2 mobs is not at all uncommon. I’m even tempted to go back and do Twins in ToC just to see how much easier it is to solo tank now. (actually Revenge Cleave is pretty amazing in a lot of fights in ToC when you think about it)
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March 23rd, 2010 at 3:25 pm
My first thought when you said you didn’t like Revenge because you had to wait to use it was, “Yeah. Tanking is defensive by nature. It’s built into the name. ‘Revenge.’ It’s like a rogue saying, ‘Man, I have to wait to parry an attack before using Riposte!’ ”
But then I read your last paragraph, and everything was right with the world.
Keep up the good tank blogging.
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March 23rd, 2010 at 3:33 pm
I’ve been looking forward to bringing Revenge back to my bar. I’m impressed with its overall damage increase and I love the new functionality change. I’m not convinced that it should be put ahead of Shield Slam yet, but I haven’t been running testing all day.
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March 23rd, 2010 at 4:29 pm
Glyphs? Are we back to using Glyph of Revenge or do we have wiggle room now?
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Veneretio reply on March 23, 2010 6:11 pm:
Glyph of Revenge hasn’t really been worth it for a while. It’s not bad, but from a raid tanking standpoint, I prefer 3 of the following:
- Devastate
- Shield Wall
- Taunt
- Last Stand
- Blocking
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thebitterfig reply on March 23, 2010 8:30 pm:
so glyph of blocking is out these days? i’m not doubting, but it had that hybrid threat/mitigation thing going for it.
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Veneretio reply on March 23, 2010 8:47 pm:
Oh ya, I forgot that one. It’s still good, but personally, I prefer Devastate over it since it doesn’t seem to really affect Shield Slam at all anymore. Glyph of Blocking definitely should be on the above list. (in fact, I’ll edit it in, nice catch)
Simgol reply on March 24, 2010 9:03 am:
What would be the recommendation for heroic 5 man tanking then? These days my warrior tanks those only and I’d love to hear an opinion on whether glyphing cleave would be worth it.
Veneretio reply on March 24, 2010 12:56 pm:
If you’re only doing 5 mans then Glyph of Cleave is definitely worth it. If I was only focused on 5 mans, my Glyphs would look like this:
- Cleave
- Revenge
- Devastate
Furiat/Vege reply on March 25, 2010 5:31 am:
Revenge? I suppose that’s for bosses? Cause on trashes it would be a waste in my opinion, as you cleave then a lot more. I’d say Blocking of Shockwave maybe?
Veneretio reply on March 26, 2010 9:32 pm:
You’re correct, Shockwave would make more sense.
mister six reply on March 24, 2010 12:40 pm:
I don’t like the way the glyph of last stand de-synchs the timers of last stand and enraged regeneration. Instead I’d always wished it added something new to the ability (e.g. a damage reduction component a la Ardent Defender or Will of The Necropolis).
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Signu reply on March 25, 2010 10:37 am:
I agree completely. I only pop Last Stand when I am also popping Enraged Regen. If I have one of those on-click HP trinkets, that’s in the macro, too. I wish the glyph would grant us an additional 10% health or something like that.
March 23rd, 2010 at 6:11 pm
The new revenge is definitely powerful, I was running a Heroic HoR earlier and I managed to pull off a 12k revenge crit on the mob I was tanking, sometimes I’d get a double 6k crit between 2 mobs.
The change to TC is also very nice and it hits way harder now.
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March 23rd, 2010 at 8:28 pm
did twins (jaraxxus was the weekly, but one of our shamans wanted anub’s shield) earlier today with the new revenge and the tanked-side-by-side method. 25% of my damage was cleave, 25% from revenge. made me feel almost like a druid, the damage i put out…
as to UA spec, that was always gimmicky and only for certain fights before. no reason it wouldn’t be as good as it was for those fights now. the difference is there aren’t too many fights like that these days. maybe rotface but he has his spray which is a fair period of time when you won’t be lighting up revenge. maybe blood queen. i can’t think of anywhere else where fight conditions would really work for it…
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March 23rd, 2010 at 8:36 pm
Ok, so, it’s clear that Revenge is tops for DPS, but the changes to Shield Slam recently included extra threat, didn’t they? How do the two compare now on a purely threat basis? I seem to recall that Revenge had some base threat beyond the damage, and now Shield Slam does too (though at the moment only Shield Slam states this in the tooltips)…
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Veneretio reply on March 23, 2010 8:55 pm:
Shield Slam is definitely still better threat which is good to keep in mind for the early part of a fight. That said, you’ll end up leading with Shield Slam on your pulls anyway since Revenge won’t be lit up yet.
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Asterix reply on March 24, 2010 2:32 pm:
Use Shield Block before pull and Revenge is lit up. That’s how we used to do it.
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March 23rd, 2010 at 9:10 pm
I haven’t been over to EJ to check this out (and I can never seem to find what I want when I do) - but I was wondering if it is still better to prioritise SS over revenge - much in the same way arms prioritises execute over overpower (unless I’m behind on the facts and that has changed) - for the same reason - Revenge has a 6 second cooldown, and triggers sword and board so it would be better to SS first, then revenge with the hope of getting a S&B proc - much the same as doing Execute first because Overpower can trigger Sudden Death.
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Veneretio reply on March 23, 2010 9:37 pm:
Interesting question. I’ve tried to reason it out, but I can’t draw any clear conclusions. Time to do some research, testing and simulations.
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Kobeathris reply on March 24, 2010 9:25 am:
This is my thought on how to get the most out of both SS and Revenge.
SnB>Rev>SS>whatever
The reason for my thinking this is that you will get a SnB proc more often than you won’t before then SS cooldown is up. When you don’t get a SnB proc, the cooldown on Revenge and Shield Slam would have to line up in order for you to “lose” a shield slam to some other ability. The frequency of this occuring is going to be pretty low.
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March 24th, 2010 at 3:26 am
In my opinion a proc should always be first priority.. Why the hell have it proc otherwise?
We all know this is not true in most situations with a lot of characters..
So I am happy to see Revenge being as it should in my opinion…
I don’t see S&B proc the same as the Revenge proc as you can use Shield Slam regardless of proc. (S&B just refreshes the CD)
I have to say I was getting a bit sick of spamming Dev all day long, so I am generally happy to see this changes!
Like Vene so nicely puts it: I’m happy, I’m a Warrior!
~Baruti.
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March 24th, 2010 at 4:48 am
What, no 3/3 Focused Rage in your spec?
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Veneretio reply on March 24, 2010 1:02 pm:
Because everything else in the spec is more important. I love Focused Rage, but our rage gain is so massive during raid encounters that it just doesn’t make sense to pick it up over even minor survival talents.
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mister six reply on March 27, 2010 12:22 am:
I actually found myself rage starved in icc10man tonight. Obviously I must have been hammering on my hs like a spastic chimp but I could feel the loss of focused rage for the first time in a long time.
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March 24th, 2010 at 5:06 am
The fact that I have to wait on a dodge, parry or block to activate it, sucks.”
lol cry baby. in 4 piece set bonus in a random 5 man i was top dps at 3100 dps….thats 1300 above my normal for 5 man. my rotation is my own thing. I still like shield slam after shield block for a 9k hit then a 7k hit with revenge….add in devastate and its game over. i am already owning in pvp. Atm my revenge is up 80% of the time so its perfect.
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thebitterfig reply on March 24, 2010 8:05 am:
i think you’re missing the point. there are a lot of boss fights these days where you aren’t being attacked by the boss or by any other mob, and so revenge becomes useless in those situations. Tank-switch mechanics are incredibly common (LDW, DBS, Festergut, Sindgragosa, Toravon), as are ones where the second tank doesn’t get attacked much but still takes heavy damage (Marrowgar, BQL).
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Kavtor reply on March 24, 2010 10:26 am:
It’s all into the old problem. Warrior tank DPS is fine while tanking. But abysmal when not getting hit. To keep us down in PVP.
Which just isn’t that exciting when you’re off tanking something. Fortunately that hasn’t happened often this expansion. But the biggest challenge of Putricide imo is the third tank. Who somehow has to keep awake enough to not do something stupid until phase 3.
Damage shield, rage, heroic strike, revenge, Imp. D stance enrage, etc. Blizzard works -hard- at keeping us down.
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March 24th, 2010 at 5:35 am
Revenge is awesome now. Love it. Still hate it but love it. They need to buff shield slam now I think.
Also, I still don’t understand all the warrior hate for Festergut. What’s the problem? I tank him just fine….
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thebitterfig reply on March 24, 2010 8:12 am:
The tanking of Festergut probably isn’t the issue, and warriors can do it quite well, with a pretty strong rack of cooldowns we can use. The issue is more the part when you aren’t tanking him, and the fact that warriors are going to be the weakest of the tank classes for pushing some extra dps on him while the other tank holds aggro. Everyone but a prot warrior has strong resource regeneration even while not tanking. Druids get energy from cat form, paladins still generate a lot of mana from divine plea, and DK runes still regenerate at the same rates, but we warriors lack sufficient rage generation and our dps really suffers, at least in comparison to other tanks.
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Dread reply on March 24, 2010 9:31 am:
If the DPS portion is the problem, some DPS need a gkick. If the enrage timer is reliant on tank DPS to succeed in the fight, the problem is the lowest player on the meters ASIDE from the tanks. Therefore if the raid leader thinks they need to bring a different tank class because DPS is too low, you have bigger problems than picking which tank to use on the fight. That’s retarded.
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Kavtor reply on March 24, 2010 10:28 am:
Sure. If your DPS is bad, the tank isn’t the place to look. But it’s no fun being the lowest DPS tank.
thebitterfig reply on March 24, 2010 9:26 pm:
I never said it was a good idea, but more that if anyone finds problems with warriors for Festergut, it would be because of this. Our dps is less than optimal, and if you are optimizing for total dps, we’re the weakest link. The only really saving grace of a warrior tank from a dps perspective is that we provide sunder free of cost, but a fury warrior is down very little in order to keep a sunder stack up, once it has been established.
Rudiculous reply on March 25, 2010 7:31 am:
Of course, there is one thing we shouldn’t forget. A warrior tank will _always_ be applying sunders on the target, and (especially when off-tanking) will be using shattering throw as often as possible. Not taking a warrior tank means you either have to go without those two huge damage buffs, or have a DPS apply them. Now, I do not have any numbers to back this claim up, but I would not be surprised if it turns out that by not taking a warrior tank, you actually lose more DPS from all the physical DPS than that you win from the new tank.
Kavtor reply on March 25, 2010 7:50 am:
In most situations a DPS warrior can apply sunder trivially.
Exceptions obviously are add fights with big target switches. Then the DPS warrior just has to be on the ball to maintain sunder on the primary target.
It’s really not a big deal.
Dread reply on March 26, 2010 4:51 am:
Must also bear in mind that a fury warrior can apply sunders without really sacrificing anything in his rotation. Granted they may not go up as fast but it’s easily done.
Krazeymann reply on March 29, 2010 8:46 am:
Just have the warrior tank first on Festergut. I tank him first every week I’m there and just last week I pumped out 6.1k dps on him w/o even hitting a single revenge.
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March 24th, 2010 at 6:03 am
I did like 10k lucky crits with imp Revenge yesterday.
To be honest, i hate beign dependent on Deep Wounds, rather than Improved Defensive Stance, Vene.
Now, testing my threat without Deep Wound, becouse i still like Imp Spell Reflect in some cases.
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Veneretio reply on March 24, 2010 1:07 pm:
For me the only reason to not spec into Deep Wounds is if you want to get 5/5 in Commanding Presence. Unfortunately, this build leaves you with even less points to put in the Protection tree than the Deep Wounds one.
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March 24th, 2010 at 7:04 am
I have to play with it a bit more… but it seems that the lack of crit chance on revenge still has shield slam as a higher priority. Shield slam is around 3k hit 7k crit, revenge is around 4k hit 9k crit for me but shield slam has a 15% higher base chance to crit. Revenge just gets my base crit which is an appaling 5.4% (without mongoose proc).
My first thought was they were going to nerf the hell out of it… but then I killed 10-15 elites and only had it crit once. I’m excited to see what my damage is like on a sustained aggro fight like rotface. Guess I’ll find out tonight.
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Lindentree reply on March 24, 2010 8:55 am:
I was just about to mention this myself. I went and tested it myself and while a Revenge plain-old-hit was indeed significantly larger than a Shield Slam plain-old-hit, its crit chance was [i]terrible[/i]. I don’t think it’s modified by any talents at all. This puts it solidly at second priority in the rotation IMO.
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Dread reply on March 24, 2010 9:33 am:
Please take into account raid buffs. You’re getting an 8% just from having a ret pally and a feral druid/fury warrior in the group. Kings and GOTW also give you a small buff to agility as well. Yes, SS, Dev, HS, etc all will still have a higher chance, but you’re not rolling into a 25 man with 5.4% crit.
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Kobeathris reply on March 24, 2010 12:06 pm:
Just to add to this, your AP will be buffed alot more in a raid than your Shield Block Value will be, which also benefits revenge over Shield Slam
March 24th, 2010 at 8:14 am
After the raid last night… first wing of ICC25 then Blood Wing, it appears that the base threat is still pretty low overall from Revenge. Yes it does more because of the damage however I found (after 5 sunders) leaving out Devastate cut my TPS back a bit. However… when hitting my S&B procs, Revenge then Devastating put my TPS comfortably around 10-11k. I don’t think the increased damage, more on that in a second, is enough to exclude Devastate from the rotation however it did boost things quite a bit.
As for the damage… oh the damage…haha. In our Marrowgar kill last night I actually was ahead of the Pally and Druid OT’s by about 1k DPS… man did I feel vindicated. What really make me ecstatic was during Deathwhisper trash groups; seeing 22k (2 crits) Revenge on the zealots. Then later on Blood Queen I was pretty darn happy when I hit a string of Revenge crits… 10k, 11k and 12k even. This in conjunction with my SS w/ SB critting for about 7k-7.5k made me a happy warrior for sure.
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March 24th, 2010 at 10:12 am
I did not see this talked about yet, forgive me if it has been and I overlooked it.
Let’s assume for a second that Revenge is always light up and you are waiting on it to come off of CD and can use it every CD. (Yeah I know, just follow my line of thought though.)
1) Revenge
2) Shield Slam
3) Shockwave > Devastate
4) .5 seconds until Revenge comes off of CD. Would it not be better to stall your rotation for less than .5 seconds to wait to Revenge instead of Devastating?
So essentially you have 1) Revenge, 2) Shield Slam, 3) Shockwave > Devastate; repeat.
This does have some practical applications even if Revenge is not light up constantly you could have a 10 or 15 second window where it is. So would stalling your rotation for this net greater dps/tps?
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Veneretio reply on March 24, 2010 1:31 pm:
I have been trying to wrap my head around this too. Here’s what it comes down to…
Situation 1: No waiting
40 global cooldowns in 60 seconds
10 Revenges
Situation 2: Waiting on Revenge
37 global cooldowns in 60 seconds
12-13 Revenges (depends if your first cd is Revenge or Shield Slam)
So you’ll gain 2-3 Revenges by waiting, but you’ll lose 3 global cooldowns in the process. Now if we were in a totally lag free world, I would say that the 1st situation is slightly better, but due to latency, it’s likely we’ll be better off with the 2nd.
That’s purely speculation though. Definitely something I’m going to have to start testing.
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Desmurick reply on March 25, 2010 7:40 am:
I’ve had the same question in mind since patch day. Personally, I’ve been waiting on revenge and not using another GCD when I notice it’s almost up. I just don’t like using something else instead only to find that when I go back to hit revenge, its no longer proced. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does I think the DPS lost by missing out on it due to using another move eventually may add up to more DPS lost then if you were to simply wait an extra .5 seconds for it. I’m seeing them crit for 12k now, and with the recent nerf shield slams are normally never more than 10k crits, and thats with two peices of t10 for the bonus damage. Revenge is incredibly powerful now, and on trash, especially, I think it should always be waited on because the more cleaves we use the easier it is to hold 8 mobs while 15 people are using AOE at the same time with no regards to their threat.
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March 24th, 2010 at 11:21 am
Vene, what would you leave out of your spec in order to pick up Safeguard? I used to have that instead of Improved Revenge but I might now need to drop a different talent.
Reason I give a damn about safeguard is that it is pretty handy at the LK encounter; with 2 relatively undergeared tanks in our 10man it enables us to survive the encounter with a single tank and me intervening him at every single soul reaper.
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Veneretio reply on March 24, 2010 1:33 pm:
Minus 2 from Shield Specialization or Damaging Shield.
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March 24th, 2010 at 11:41 am
The damage increase compensates for our lower dps compared to other tanks, while tanking. While off-tanking, our damage output still sucks which tends to keep us behind the other tanking class dps, overall. But it’s okay, I mean it’s getting better at least. Same raid composition as last week, same gear I did about 1200 more DPS on festergut on which I am tanking second since the feral druid can do better dps overall. Also I was critting higher with Revenge than Shield Slam with my gear, on all fights based on WoL. It may have been just RNG, but I don’t think so, I think with pretty much 7K AP raid buffed Revenge is actually hitting harder than Shield Slam. I had Shield Slam doing slightly more damage overall thanks to SnB procs and probably because Revenge will not lit up when not tanking.
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March 25th, 2010 at 7:29 am
Not sure how many of you will care about this, but the revenge buff does wonders for prot PVP. In particular, arms warriors, which used to be next to impossible to kill due to all of their self healing from being stunned, are now much easier since A) no more stuns with revenge and B) its almost always up and always doing nice damage and, of course, you can’t beat the rage cost.
As for PVE, I’ve noticed a nice DPS increase. I cant say I’ve seen much of a TPS increase, but TPS was never an issue to begin with. It’s easily several hunder more DPS in a heroic, though, due to the cleave action it brings. Suffice to say, i’m loving it so far. Being able to put out 3500-4500 DPS is always fun imo, and revenge is now my number one damaging move every raid and heroic I do.
As far as if you should use it over shield slam, I’m in favor of using revenge now whenever its up over anything else. The reason being, it, unlike every other move we have, it has a timer on it when it procs, so use it or lose it. You’re shield slam will still be up after hitting revenge, but revenge may not be, especially if its procing right as you’re needing to take time out for applying your debuffing shouts. The only time I would use shield slam before revenge is if a mob is in danager of being pulled by a DPS. Otherwise revenge FTW imo.
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beasters reply on March 25, 2010 8:26 am:
I have noticed a huge difference in aoe agro from the TC change. On trash before I always missed at least 1 or 2 targets and now I see 1 miss an entire run! Add that with a revenge cleave and aoe agro is finally competitive with all the other tanks.
And it was nice to watch a pally that was 100 gs below me have 2k less hp instead of being 2k hp above me. It made me feel good when I watched him put on a brewfest trinket just to get up to my hp! Man it’s good to be a warrior again!
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March 25th, 2010 at 8:59 am
Since patch my Revenge is hitting for 10k crit. I’m loving it, incredibly awesome. While my SS crits bosses for perhaps 7-8k critting with Revenge for 10k is such an incredible feeling! Especially with it cleaving now, 20k dual crits is sick.
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Desmurick reply on March 25, 2010 12:14 pm:
You just reminded me of a question I had on this. I noticed a few times I hit a mob for 10k, and then another mob next to it was hit for 5k. So, how exactly is this damage split up? Can anyone confirm that its equal between both targets? Is it possibly half on one and half on another? Or perhaps 100% on one and 50% on another? The other thing is, I have a feeling recount may not be updated yet for showing it correctly because I know I’ve seen it hit for 12k and then hit another mob next to it for x amount, but recount still shows the max damage as being 12k. Anyhow, whats the story on this damage split? Oh, lastly, I’m assuming the 2nd mob has to be within 5 yards, but I haven’t seen a blue post stating that specifically, anyone know the max range for the 2nd mob?
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Kavtor reply on March 25, 2010 12:42 pm:
It’s just like cleave. You’ve got a damage roll against each target, for the same damage that you’d hit one target with.
(ArP dps gear + raid buffs + revenge = good times)
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thebitterfig reply on March 29, 2010 11:24 am:
I noticed at least one difference from cleave with my warrior on DBS the other night, namely that Revenge-cleave was doing full damage to blood beasts. while i never worried about thunderclap or shockwave pulling aggro due to the 90% damage reduction (and they never did before), improved revenge will sometimes pull aggro on one of them, depending on how much damage has been dealt to it.
just a note to be careful with revenge right as blood beasts are coming up on saurfang.
March 26th, 2010 at 1:37 am
I like the new revenge, but be ready to take it off your bars or go with unimproved revenge for hardmode Saurfang. Add management is key and accidentally having an add aggro on you because it got the revenge cleave can be very very bad.
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Desmurick reply on March 26, 2010 3:25 pm:
Thats easy to fix, you just have to remember not to cleave when they pop up. I forgot the first few times on regular Saurfang, though. It takes awhile to remember a move I’ve used for years is suddenly a cleave.
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tPaste reply on March 26, 2010 9:51 pm:
I dunno, for me my rotation is so ingrained it’s hard to not do it when the keybind is there. It’s not just as easy as saying don’t hit it when they pop, my rotation is usually not something I think about…I need it to be that way so I can react to other things going on faster.
That added with the fact that they often ask me to stun with shockwave after the snare breaks I don’t want to think about my rotation.
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March 26th, 2010 at 3:31 am
Venny,
I recently just started playing Wow (like 4 months ago). I’ve downloaded all of your podcasts and they have helped me with my warrior tanking even though the info is dated. Are you gonna be coming out with any more podcasts? I think you can apply a lot of the same concepts in the old podcasts to now.
-Ben Just a new fan of the old stuff
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Veneretio reply on March 26, 2010 9:35 pm:
Actually, I’ll be participating in a podcast in the near future. There’ll be details on the site when I can say for certain what the date is.
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March 26th, 2010 at 5:10 am
Hi guys and hi Vene, i really try to figure what 5/15/51 i can build now, to makes thing clear i can run only one tank spe, and i do need imp demo shout and comand presence (yes its help and fester loock so easy), and in same time i need my aoe tank talent. So i won’t go for imp spel refelct or imp discipline, so the choice i have now is to drop point in : gag order or focus rage or incite or sword and board.
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Brugg reply on March 26, 2010 8:01 am:
Focus Rage. If your doing the 5/15/51 build for improved demo, and you have a ret pally in your raid, you might want to look at having them spec into (insert ability name here) their talent that does the same ap debuff. they loose minimal if any dps and it frees up some points for you.
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Redbear reply on March 26, 2010 8:53 am:
Thx for fast answer brugg, but you are wrong, vindication do same debuff as our normal demo shout. Yes i run a 5.15.51 with no focus rage but it’s just annoying for trash tanking
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Brugg reply on March 26, 2010 9:28 am:
I ran it for a while and hated it. the inproved shouts and demo are nice but I felt like a tool on trash. sorry about the paly thing, I know they have the ap thing but couldn’t look up a comparison. I would still go with loosing points in focus rage over your other options.
tPaste reply on March 26, 2010 12:54 pm:
Redbear,
Brugg is not wrong:
http://www.tankspot.com/showthread.php?63007-AP-Debuffs-Explained
A Ret Pally specced into vindication reduces the boss AP by 574, a warrior specced into improved DS reduced the boss AP by 575. You will not notice the difference of 1AP…and the only reason it’s done like that is because Ret’s debuff is passive while Warrior’s/Feral Druids are active so they did not want Demo Shout/Demo Roar to be overwritten by the pally ability (which it would since it was always being applied).
Redbear reply on March 27, 2010 2:24 pm:
indeed tpaste i guess i have to speack to my retri now
March 26th, 2010 at 9:37 am
I ran herioc HOR this morning with a 37/2/32 spec and finished with an overall 4114 dps.
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Scrawny reply on March 26, 2010 11:50 am:
Is that UA? (at work cant check talent builders) 4114 is great tank dps, but i assume you have an alternate prot spec? 37/2/32, as stated before, is extremely situational.
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Veneretio reply on March 26, 2010 9:37 pm:
Ya, in an odd twist of fate, the UA spec has become the best trash spec available to us. It’s definitely worth it if you’re running 2 prot specs. It’s not if you’re only running 1.
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Onatok reply on March 27, 2010 10:03 am:
If we are fortunate enough to run 2 prot specs, would you recommend UA and this article’s spec? Or is there something more boss-specific we could/should run in place of this article’s spec if we already have a trash spec?
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Veneretio reply on March 27, 2010 8:55 pm:
I definitely think the UA spec is worth it if you’re running 2 prot specs. Not only does it do unbelievable damage for trash/5 mans, but it’s also pretty amazing for a few bosses too.
Gravelayar reply on March 28, 2010 8:03 am:
I switched to the sweeping strikes glyph today after seeing someone post about using it on tankspot. Battle Shout - Sweeping strikes - charge - defensive stance - TC - revenge spam - mash cleave on trash - HS on bosses.
The trash dps is crazy good. Boss dps not nearly as good on heroics.
I was over 5K in heroic AN prior to the end boss. Also using the cleave glyph but that third one is still up in the air. Using revenge currently.
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Desmurick reply on March 29, 2010 1:04 pm:
I’m testing this spec out myself currently, and aside having to adjust to only 1 button being used, it’s pretty great. I’m not sure if cleave is as good as the heroic strike glyph, though, since all you’re doing is revenge, so if you macro those two together, every singel attack you make is revenge/heroic strike. Also, if your goal is to use this for trash and bosses you have on farm, you may not have infinite rage, so macroing cleave instead might leave you rage starved.
March 26th, 2010 at 10:43 am
I’m quite new to tanking, and only tanking heroics for now (in a mix of gear ranging from ilevel 171 blues to ilevel 245 badge and crafted gear), but what I’ve done is macro revenge to my HS and Cleave. I use one or the other of them pretty much constantly (depending whether it’s one mob or multiple), and since they are off the GCD, it works well.
In the rare case that I’m rage starved, I use revenge by itself.
Basically, I hit the HS/Revenge macro constantly, Shield Slam, thunder clap (on trash), and Shockwave when they are off CD, and Devastate whenever nothing else is available.
Any thoughts on this approach?
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Kavtor reply on March 28, 2010 11:04 pm:
There are going to be times where you’ll want to use your abilities independantly. Macroing a few together isn’t a terrible idea when you’re learning, just to decrease the number of things you need to get used too, but you don’t want to do it for long.
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March 27th, 2010 at 12:23 am
from GC:
“We like Revenge on UA and we certainly like the new damage Protection can do with Revenge.”
“If we make any change at all, it would probably be in the duration of the buff. Currently Revenge operates by giving the warrior 5 seconds in which to Revenge. This works fine when Revenge has a 5 sec cooldown, but UA removes that. Having no cooldown on Revenge is also probably fine if Revenge hits softly for Arms warriors, but it doesn’t anymore. That allows a warrior who gets Revenge to light up to hit the button three or possibly four times in the window and do massive damage with each one. If we change Revenge to basically be one charge then the warrior can still pop the rogue or pet or whatever that triggers the block, dodge or parry, but they’d only get one hit instead of multiples. Such a change should not affect Protection at all.”
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Veneretio reply on March 27, 2010 12:23 pm:
Ya, not surprising that they’re considering nerfing the UA spec since it’s doing so much damage. Although, it’s such a situation spec that I don’t think it really would matter if they left it as is.
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Lindentree reply on March 27, 2010 8:13 pm:
I don’t think the nerf is to UA, I think it’s to Arms pvp. It’s common practice to go sword and board and hit shield block against a rogue for UA Revenge spamming.
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Lindentree reply on March 27, 2010 8:13 pm:
Er, that should read “intended to be to UA”. Obviously UA would be nerfed as well.
March 28th, 2010 at 9:25 am
Now that TC is considered a ranged attack, is there any benefit to scoping our ranged stat stick? I saw a thread about this on tankspot but there wasnt anything conclusive.
Del
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Delmonico reply on March 28, 2010 5:11 pm:
Ok, the thread was updated on tankspot. It looks like the scope does NOT impact your TC crit rate. It operates on your melee hit table. To good to be true.
Quote: //edit: allright, another 700 Thunder Claps later
In total, we have 2000 Thunder Claps, 142 of which crit, which results in an around 7.1% chance to crit.
In total, we have 2000 melee swings, 144 of which crit, which results in an around 7.2% chance to crit.
Again, same hit table, it appears.
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tPaste reply on March 28, 2010 9:15 pm:
thank you for researching that, it is good to know.
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March 29th, 2010 at 1:14 pm
I thought I’d share this macro I made with anyone who’s wanting to use the UA spec for maximum revenge. It’s a macro that swaps you to battle stance, cast charge, bloodrage, bersker rage, sweeping strikes (I’m glyphed for this, so I’m not sure if this will work without the glyph, although I assume that it will and that it will simply use up the rage instead) and then it swaps you back to defensive stance. You have to hit it twice to complete the cycle, but other than that, it’s a nice and easy way to start each trash pull while using this spec.
#show Charge
/cast [stance:1] Charge; Battle Stance
/cast Bloodrage
/cast Berserker Rage
/cast Sweeping Strikes
/cast Defensive Stance
/startattack
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Seph reply on March 29, 2010 2:44 pm:
I like the phrase you use ‘maximum revenge’. It just sounds like a warrior
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Desmurick reply on March 29, 2010 3:47 pm:
haha yup, well its true, 20% more damage on top of already being buffed, on top of only costing 2 rage = maximum revenge. It’s really working out nicely for aoe trash, to the point where you’ll often be top DPS in any heroic unless you’re running with well geared people. Also, after doing some experiementing with various glyphs and versions, I think the best way to go is glyph of cleave, revenge, and sweeping strikes. If you macro revenge and cleave together and another macro for revenge and heroic strike, you can always have both up. You’ll normally not be raged starved using cleave since you’re only going to use it for aoe pulls, and for heroic strike you’ll never be rage started since they’re always free after revenge. Suffice to say, it’s a beast vs anything that isnt soley a caster. And it’s very easy to simply swap back to your other tank spec when your about to fight a boss that wont proc revenge often.
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Seph reply on March 30, 2010 7:46 am:
I noticed that yesterday in Nexus. I was no1 overall with 4200 dps and overall damage for the entire instance. It is kind of silly when you see a Revenge crit for 10k and then a shockwave crit for 10k……
gravelayar reply on March 30, 2010 10:10 am:
4200dps in a regular tanking spec? That seems high. I’ve been running UA only on heiocs though. Guess i’ll see what the old standard build does for me.
Seph reply on March 30, 2010 11:53 am:
I am sure some of it was the fact that I grab almost the entire hallway in some areas but on bosses I have been able to crank out mid 3k’s in a standard spec.
Give the reg spec a shot, I have been suprised.
Desmurick reply on March 30, 2010 1:32 pm:
Yeah, I’ve seen 4k DPS in regular tanking spec before, but its very situational for heroics. Usually you can get really high DPS in Cot, nexus, and a few others. Basically, anywhere where you can pull 10 plus mobs at once, shockwave them all, and revenge non stop, you’re going to do a ton of damage, especially if you use a gear set for heroics that focuses on DPS gear once you reach 535 defense. Also, for regular spec, I noticed I did more DPS using a slow weapon that was 251 then I did with a fast 264 weapon, simply due to devistate increases. In any case, in the UA spec, instead of doing 4k in there, you’d be doing 6k. Just remember to swap specs when you get to a boss that is heavily magic based or you’ll see your DPS plummit from no revenge procs.
Desmurick reply on March 30, 2010 1:36 pm:
I forgot to mention, the DPS increase for the slow 251 weapon is only for non boss fights or fights that the boss dies so fast you barely have time to get in 2 rotations. You’ll lose DPS in an infinate rage situation, but for trash, you’ll gain DPS.
March 30th, 2010 at 7:18 am
Just thought i would share something.
Icc 25 geared tank, ua build with revenge macroed to cleave/hs, doing hcs is fun again!!! In doing 5-7k dps overall and beating the crap out of everyone in damage done, even for the icc Bosses with many melee swings this work well;)
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March 31st, 2010 at 8:19 am
Looks like the UA spec got nerfed, looks like it only provides 1 charge per Revenge. However as a full prot specced tank this does not affect PVE at all only PVP.
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April 26th, 2010 at 4:45 am
Im non-ICC 10-man-geared and i was able to ride a 4k average DPS in heroic nexus.. sometimes more then 6k dps in a fight! before speccing to the UA build i never pulled off more then 2.5k dps in a heroic so this is huge. now im wondering how to maximise its power.. im way above the def cap and sitting at 30%+ dodge so i was thinking about using a 1h off sword with a decent amount of crit rating (base crit now with my def gear: 7.12%). any other kewl ideas or objections? i was also thinking about a UA tanking build using a 2h weapon with the fancy talents in the arms tree… any experiances?
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April 29th, 2010 at 1:26 pm
so i checked it out, build is 51/8/12.. on 5 lvl 70 elite mobs, this is in full tanking gear except the ilvl 232 2h weapon: http://www.pictureupload.de/originals/pictures/290410222432_UA-weapon.JPG
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May 5th, 2010 at 3:40 pm
I now prioritize revenge above all other abilities. Yes, it’s that good, and I’m pleased to read that others agree. Unlike many people who like the “deep wounds” build, I find it makes me rage starved, crit-low, and overall a weaker tank. I much prefer 5/10/56 which gives 5/5 cruelty and booming voice and much deeper prot talents. Yes I cleave-spam and am a insane cleave tanking machine. I can hit 7-9k dps on trash tanking (ICC 25 or ICC10) and maintain a solid 3-4k dps in heroics with no threat issues.
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