Incite: I Wanna Believe in You
The only way I feel comfortable describing Cataclysm’s newest Protection Warrior build is: Flooded.
Then again, maybe I only need 39/41 points?
Oh, right… there’s 2 other trees to spend points in :/
Coping out
Yup, the best way to handle a flooded talent tree is to just avoid talking about it and instead we’re going to focus on what I think is one of the coolest new talents they’re considering for Cataclysm.
Incite
Yes, it already exists right now, but Cataclysm’s remake of this talent is pretty wicked. Let’s take a look at it with 3/3 points in it:
Incite
Increases the critical strike chance of your Heroic Strike by 15%, and your Heroic Strike critical strikes have a 100% chance to make you next Heroic Strike also a critical strike. This effect cannot occur more than once every 6 seconds.
Now ideally, the way this talent works is we’re spamming Heroic Strike #2 immediately if HS #1 crits. Otherwise, we just continue about our merry way with our regular rotation. That’s the hope.
So, what’s the worry?
Well it’s a fine line. If we’re spamming Heroic Strike constantly like we are this expansion then this talent is good, but it’s certainly not interactive. There’s nothing skillful about pressing a button you already intend on pressing anyway. (This is part of why I really don’t like Sword and Board, but that’s a rant for another article)
On the other hand, if we’re never pressing Heroic Strike then there’s never an opportunity for it to crit and proc the buff. The biggest worry of all though is that we crit with Heroic Strike #1 and it’s not always worth it to immediately use Heroic Strike #2. I’m all for rage management, but it’d be pretty lame if the coolest part of this talent didn’t get utilized.
Doom and Gloom aside this talent rocks and I wanna believe in it.
What do you think? Do you even like the new Incite?
p.s. 2/6/33
August 7th, 2010 at 1:09 pm
This talent seems to me like it’s definitely there for the DPS trees to take more than for us Prot warriors. We were told we won’t be spamming HS like mad anymore, so I doubt this talent is for us unless we’re spec’ing for threat.
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August 7th, 2010 at 1:34 pm
I’m more inclined to spend my points in hold the line to be honest. We’re not going to know how viable the incite will be until we know more about endgame rage values.
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mister_six reply on August 7, 2010 1:42 pm:
Plus if incite does turn out to be worthwhile then doesn’t that assume that war academy becomes an important booster i.e. http://www.wowtal.com/#k=GHR_jUoa9.9sm.warrior
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Veneretio reply on August 7, 2010 2:57 pm:
I don’t think War Academy does enough to warrant taking it. The talent is budgeted assuming you’ll be utilizing all 3 abilities.
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August 7th, 2010 at 1:52 pm
Wait, is HS going to be an off the GCD instant strike? Cause if it’s not, as interesting as this talent is, I don’t think it’s intended for prot.
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Veneretio reply on August 7, 2010 2:59 pm:
Yes, HS has been confirmed to be both off the GCD and an instant strike.
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Seiru reply on August 11, 2010 4:25 pm:
It’s off the GCD and an instant strike, but it has a 3 second CD. It also costs a hefty amount of rage (30 rage).
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mister_six reply on September 18, 2010 12:21 pm:
and on the current ptr that’s actually very limiting. By the time HS is off the gcd and you have the rage to hit it you’ve lost the buff. Very disappointing.
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August 7th, 2010 at 2:41 pm
Could this be the return of Glyph of Heroic Striking ?
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Veneretio reply on August 7, 2010 3:02 pm:
Excellent question. This could make Glyph of Heroic Strike a serious contender for one of our Major Glyph slots.
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Speidel reply on August 11, 2010 8:59 am:
Saw a blue post saying that they intend to rework most of the glyphs, and to not be surprised if they all get reworked. So I’d leave the glyph planning out for now.
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August 7th, 2010 at 3:28 pm
If you’ve got the rage, use it. I’m guessing this is basically a rage dump, and you’ll basically drive up-hill, then dump it all for massive threat in boss battles. On the other hand, it could be worthless if rage generation isn’t high enough. Based on what the Blue are saying, expect Incite to be okish, but not great starting up with heroics & (Insert Raid #1, Blackwing Descent?, here), but once you’ve geared up, it’ll be a decent talent.
One talent you might be avoiding here is Blood Craze, because it’s 9% over 5 with 2/2 Field Dressing, and consider how good this could be on aura fights (if auras proc it and it rolls).
It also kinda sucks that Warriors and Pallies get all of this press, but Druids and DKs are basically in the shadows. Still, Druids and DKs are both Hybrids in different way (Druids in general, DKs are a combo of Bear/Cat, Prot/Ret, and Warriors), so the classes are shelved till later.
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Veneretio reply on August 7, 2010 3:46 pm:
In my spec at the end of this post, I do have both Field Dressing and Blood Craze in it. I agree that Blood Craze is going to be a pretty fantastic talent
Warriors (and Paladins) are just as much Hybrids as Druids and DKs. As to who wins the media coverage war, I’ll never know. I only follow Warriors and you’ll basically only ever see me talk about Warriors on this site.
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Spine reply on September 29, 2010 12:30 am:
Seems interesting, but didn’t blizzard say, that they were making it so we are not always rage capped? And even if the they kept it the same, would it be a valid rage dump if it is 30 rage and has no CD, then won’t we run out of rage too fast? Just wondering.
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August 8th, 2010 at 2:43 pm
I agree with a few other posts. I think it is going to come down to how our rage generation is. If it’s anything even remotely like it is now, then this will be more like “mandatory sweet sweet icing on the cake” since we’d be spamming HS anyway and this just makes it better.
But if rage management becomes more important, or perhaps some fights with interesting threat management (I’m thinking phases of a fight where rapid threat generation is a must), then this could be a fun decision making talent.
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August 8th, 2010 at 7:22 pm
Glyphs are basically in a null state at the moment. they’re most likely going to rework all of them given the new mechanics and the new glyph system. even mentioning glyphs is probably a waste of time at this point in the beta.
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August 8th, 2010 at 10:20 pm
personally, i think you’re crazy going more than 5 deep in fury and NOT getting Piercing Howl. maybe in a completely boss-focused spec it’s worth skipping, or it might turn out to be very very rarely needed, but when it’s useful it’s downright amazing. it seems criminal to pass up, particularly since we’re getting spending as much in fury as we are…
incite looks kinda neat, but it’s basically just a lot of HS crit, and probably one of the first things i’d drop from a spec because of that. i wonder how long the buff is… depending on it’s length, you might be able to keep the auto-crit rolling, just using HS every 7 seconds in rage-tight situations…
as to sword and board, i think it has one very major flaw, despite being probably the coolest mechanic warriors got in all of wrath. it’s wasted on prot. basically, your spammable filler attack can reset the cooldown on your higher damage main-attack? imagine if it was on an arms warrior, with mortal strike hitting a little harder on a slightly longer cooldown, but slam having a chance to reset it. that would have been as interesting a mechanic as the sudden death procs, particularly with how overpower is worked into the scheme, too… it’d be an amazingly fun dps mechanic (ask any 2t10 paladins about how much fun their proc is), and SnB is awesome for leveling when rage is very tight. i have some amazing memories of being 58 when 3.0 hit and switching to prot from arms with SnB and glyph of revenge (free HS). the procs were a lot of fun to play with. however, the subsequent major buffs to devastate and nerfs to shield slam have basically made the talent worthless, except as a rage-saving and for the passive devastate crit… a sad end for what was an amazing idea, imho.
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Veneretio reply on August 9, 2010 12:32 am:
I definitely entertained builds with Piercing Howl and you can certainly expect me advocating it for particular fights, but right now I’m approaching things from a pretty generic standpoint.
The biggest issue I have with Sword and Board is that we’re already pushing the button anyway and Shield Slam has such a short cooldown so a lot of the time it doesn’t feel like we’re getting anything out of it.
I’d rather see it as something not in our regular rotation and with a longer cooldown so it feels like we’re getting something big out of it. Shockwave for example would be an interesting ability to get free procs for. (Of course, with Shockwave comes the issue of it missing some bosses, but it’s that kind of ability I’d like to see them using instead) Even Thunder Clap procs would be cooler than Shield Slam. (especially if they gave it a unique animation when you used it with the proc)
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thebitterfig reply on August 9, 2010 10:29 am:
i think we’re mostly in agreement on SnB then. The idea behind it is awesome (fun cooldown resets), but it doesn’t really shine with what it’s used for.
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Bhig reply on August 9, 2010 2:47 pm:
I’m not sure I totally agree. While I can agree that to reset a short cooldown, which we intended to use anyway seems a little bit meh, I think that the design makes some sense.
I think they didn’t want to make a talent that would introduce too much complexity to the game. Resetting a skill that was less used, but more useful (eg shockwave) meant we would vie toward getting the proc, or alternatively the proc would be more powerful/useful in specific situations (thunderclap) and I think therefore less used in other circumstances.
Also, they want the talent to have a similar value regardless of when you’re using it. Be it levelling, initial heroics, or endgame raiding. Again resetting shockwave (the current top tier talent) wouldn’t make sense (shockwave would need to be lower on the tree than SnB), and something like thunderclap would seem less useful in levelling (although useful in grinding?).
The way I see it, SnB gives us a rage save mechanic (I must’ve been saved (threat wise) by an early SnB proc in the early days of heroics/raiding), a threat/damage boost mechanic (less useful these days), and a mechanic to make sure tanking isn’t just button cycling.
Zellviren reply on August 12, 2010 2:37 am:
Interestingly enough, Sword and Board is now far more compelling because there are occasions where you may NOT want to go for Shield Slam. How can that be possible?!
Well… That’s how hard rage is to come by. The chance to use our best attack, at no rage cost, is something of a boon just at the moment. Also, don’t forget that you could, theoretically, manage it to get an Inner Rage proc that has a lot going for it, too.
I like Sword and Board. My only problem with it is that’s it’s yet another threat talent that simply isn’t optional and I want to make decisions about survival, not damage.
But that’s a personal gripe, not a class gripe per say.
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Verdammt reply on October 13, 2010 9:35 am:
Sword and Board, with the new Cleave/HS mechanics, seems to make more sense than ever. Especially if you take Incite (which I personally don’t intend to). You get a free SS with a proc on SnB, so you can keep the normal “rotation” going while you dump the SS rage into HS or Cleave, and if you have Incite, possibly a double HS (since I’ve seen SnB proc twice in a row MANY times).
But the bigger point IMO to be made here is….SnB makes sense cause it just makes sense for a sword/mace/axe and shield bearing warrior. It’s how they should fight. They turn their shield into a weapon, and it simply fits with what being a shield bearing warrior is really all about. Let’s not forget, this IS still an RPG, and mechanics should never trump common sense. A weapon attack that procs a “magic” attack for a warrior? Uhm, no thank you. I like warriors cause they don’t use magic (sorta).
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August 9th, 2010 at 3:50 pm
I’m thinking this will be like a Bloodsurge for Prot specs. Currently, using Slam in a Fury rotation (without a BS proc) is a net DPS loss. It’s better to white hit, even if you have GCDs available. Best practice is to use it only when BS has proc’d and you aren’t interupting higher priority abilities.
Cataclysm’s version of HS will become the same way in that it will not be beneficial for a Prot Warrior to spam the ability. BUT - if the ability is gauranteed to crit - it may very well move up in the rotation over a lower priority ability, such as Devastate that only has a ~25% chance to crit.
HS crit (proc’ing Incite)
Shield slam
Revenge
HS crit (burning the Incite proc)
Of course this assumes a Crit HS does more dmg/threat than a lower priority ability, like Devastate. Which I think the new version will.
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August 9th, 2010 at 5:51 pm
Depending on how much we will use heroic strike, will really depend on the usefulness of the talent, as many have said before. However, I really think it will end up being one of the least useful threat abilities. Assuming you can’t roll it, it would most likely just force you to use 2 heroic strikes in quick succession which could be bad for our rage. The new talent that really interests me is impending victory, I am really torn about that talent, it only works when the boss is in execute range, but it is an amazing talent, with sword and board we shield slam about every 5 seconds, with a impending victory that means we heal ourselves for 5% of our health every 5ish seconds, or about 1% a second, that is quite a bit.
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August 10th, 2010 at 10:54 am
As things stand, we’re not going to get much out of Incite because the opportunities to hit Heroic Strike are so few. I’m assuming rage will scale to be quite similar in end-game (better avoidance stats, but better damage output); and, at the minute, I barely have enough rage to get through a normal rotation, never mind adding in Heroic Strike.
Even then, I’m finding myself using Battle Shout to get a bit more during a pull, thus wiping out Commanding Shout (which now is the same buff as Prayer of Fortitude, and doesn’t stack).
At the moment, tanking is thoroughly frustrating because rage is horribly difficult to come by and even holding onto a single mob is difficult.
“Beta test is early/numbers aren’t right/nothing is final” yada, yada, yada. But at the moment, tanking on a warrior is extremely difficult because we just can’t get our resources flowing.
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August 10th, 2010 at 11:18 am
I don’t know about Incite…. maybe coupled with War academy, it might be decent, but thats wayyy too many points.
Most agree that rage is very hard to come by so far, thus HS talents are even more useless.
I’d rather go with Thunderstruck (any reason you didn’t take this?) and maybe piercing howl for extra utility.
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Veneretio reply on August 10, 2010 6:07 pm:
Ya, the talent is lackluster right now. The point of this post is more of what I hope it will be, not what it is. I’m not going to dismiss the talent as useless b/c currently rage on beta is scarce. Eventually, rage is going to be right. Sure, it won’t be as plentiful as it is in WotLK, but I don’t think the talent needs that much rage and if anything, I think it’ll be more interesting in an environment like TBC’s where we sometimes have a lot of rage and sometimes we don’t.
As to Thunderstruck, I don’t like it and I don’t see the need to take another aoe talent when I already have one. I opt to take Blood and Thunder over it b/c I think it’s the cooler talent even if it’s likely worse. I’ll bet that when Cataclysm launches that either Thunderstruck doesn’t exist or I don’t need it to do “enough” aoe threat.
Basically, the spec represents what I’m imagining is strong in Cataclysm once things are balanced.
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Alystir reply on August 12, 2010 2:14 pm:
My reasoning behind thunderstruck is that thunderclap will be used even in single target rotations to keep up the debuff. I’m sure the buffed shockwave with this talent will be more than worth using in single target as well.
In the end, I guess it all depends on how often HS is going to be pressed. Right now it looks like I’ll be using Tclap more than HS, so I’ll stick with thunderstruck for my initial build.
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Veneretio reply on August 12, 2010 11:10 pm:
Well keep in mind that currently TC on beta lasts 30 seconds whereas the version on live only lasts 18. So, we’ll be TCing a lot less in Cataclysm. (For this reason, I suspect it won’t be worth using Rend vs Single-targets even with the Blood and Thunder talent too)
August 11th, 2010 at 7:28 am
http://www.wowtal.com/#k=kgYErBbL.9sm.warrior
IMO
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Vakimi reply on August 15, 2010 7:28 am:
I really don’t believe in Blood & Thunder, although I’m now intrigued by Blood Craze. I might reconsider my spec to include it.. kinda hard as I have to chose then: Deep Wounds or Blood Craze,
http://www.wowtal.com/#k=BWgqloF_.9sm.warrior
or
http://www.wowtal.com/#k=GqwJ-bzs.9sm.warrior
then
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August 13th, 2010 at 1:27 am
We are not going to be using Heroic Strike very often. At least at the beginning of Cataclysm. Rage is normalized, HS is no longer the “rage dump” it once was. This is for the “future”.
Even the DPS classes may not use this talent early on. If Blizzard has done the job they set out to do with Warriors, our rotations in all 3 specs should be fairly tight, but not too tight. We should NOT have rage to burn like we have in Wrath. At least in the beginning. Rage scales with gear more than anything else in the game. As we gear up, both Protection and DPS specs alike will see an increase in rage gain, that may allow this talent to make a huge bit of difference for us. As it stands, walking into Cataclysm with the T10 on our backs, this talent should be only of minor help to us in certain situations.
Our rotation is going to change HUGELY in Cataclysm and Blizzard has not settled on what its going to be quite yet. With Thunderclaps cooldown, duration and effect changing from build to build lately its hard to be able to say what buttons we are going to be pressing in 3 months or so when it is released.
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August 14th, 2010 at 6:23 am
Good.
The new build today has practically doubled rage income for Protection, while Cleave now shares a cooldown with Heroic Strike; making it a much better ability.
Additionally, Vene, you should look into Impending Victory (and, for levelling, Victory Rush). The healing received from it is substantial, even in end-game Lich King gear.
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Corto reply on August 18, 2010 1:16 am:
The rage income in the current beta does look more balanced - while doing some solo quests I’ve found it to be available when needed, with HS/Cleave there to stop it over-flowing.
I also agree that the current beta build makes taking Impending Victory (and probably the associated glyphs) very-much worth considering. It seems to proc at a reasonable rate and the healing was considerable; particularly when you’re out there on your own levelling.
If Cata came out tomorrow I’d definitely be going down this route for the initial content.
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August 15th, 2010 at 5:44 am
Right now I’m testing:
http://www.wowtal.com/#k=18NjDlbv8.9sm.warrior as spec (tho am 81, so imagine fewer arms talents) on the beta and am loving it.. really good for overal threat building.
Straight up: really love victory rush in the current state.. soloing stuff is piss easy.
Also I “kinda” like heroic strike atm, it’s more than just an instant hit.. it fits nicely into my rotation atm. Normaly I go like: deva, deva, heroic, deva, heroic, etc. Threat from it is quite good.
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Vakimi reply on August 15, 2010 5:45 am:
Note ofc Victory Rush is not only for soloing, it does a good deal of damage and could really replace heroic strike on lower HP targets.
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August 18th, 2010 at 10:49 am
Ok, so I got distracted by some new game about hicks in space, alien bugs and “OP” Void Rays but I thought I’d check in and see how beta’s coming along. Lots of changes on the tree since last time I looked! What’s this “Stacks 3 times” business on Thunderstruck though? Do the stacks increase the damage bonus of the Shockwave? Like you build up your TC charges during SWv’s cd and then unleash the big hit? I kinda like the way that plays on paper. Also makes me wonder if B&T isn’t meant as a DPS talent, given how cramming Rend into our current theoretical rotation has always felt a little awkward to me. Also…what happened to AttT?
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Veneretio reply on August 18, 2010 11:05 am:
I think the idea is that neither Thunderstruck nor Blood and Thunder will have any impact on our single target rotation. They’re both aoe talents that are suppose to be used specifically for aoe situations.
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