Devastate, the 41 point prot talent, is a little weak imo. But other than that I think the tree is pretty solid. Improved shield block, toughness, 1h spec, shield slam are all very good. The difference between tanking as Arms spec compared to Prot is almost night and day, especially as far as threat generation goes.
Aikouka
Lifer
- Nov 27, 2001
- 30,383
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Improved Shield Block was good before they put a pre-requisite on it. Originally you could just put a single point into it and gain an extra block for every use, which made it great. Then Blizzard put a 5 point prereq on it that no one really wants. Devastate isn't that great for a 41 point talent as you mentioned. Toughness is worthless, because eventually that extra amount will not raise your actual mitigation much. To prove this, I did the math:
Based on the formulas at http://www.wowwiki.com/Formulas:Armor
For a warrior with 12000 armor with and without the Toughness talent:
12000 = (467.5 * 70 - 22167.5 ) / ( 100 / %Reduction - 1)
= 10557.5 / (100 / %Reduction - 1)
12000(100 / Red - 1)
1200000 / Red - 12000 = 10557.5
1200000 / Red = 22557.5
Red /1200000 = 1/22557.5
Red = 1200000 / 22557.5
Red = 53.20%
13200 = (467.5 * 70 - 22167.5 ) / ( 100 / %Reduction - 1)
= 10557.5 / (100 / %Reduction - 1)
13200(100 / red - 1) = 10557.5
1320000 / red - 13200 = 10557.5
1320000 / red = 23757.5
red / 1320000 = 1/23757.5
red = 1320000/23757.5
red = 55.56
You gain 2.36% mitigation. Off of a 1000 point hit, you are stopping 23.6 extra damage for 5 talent points. This is like taking someone with 13000 hp and raising it to 13307hp.
The real shinning talent in the prot tree is Defiance by far. 1H weapon spec isn't that great... all it does it take your weapon range with a 1H'er equipped and multiply it by 1.05. The tank isn't a high source of damage anyway, so this will be measly when it comes to becoming extra threat. It won't do much for Devastate either.
The difference you most likely see is Defiance. What I see is definite holes in the tree... the easiest to spot for even someone that doesn't play a warrior is the one that I mentioned earlier... Improved Disciplines vs Improved Shield Wall.
Improved Disciplines Rank 3
Reduces the cooldown of your Retaliation, Recklessness and Shield Wall abilities by 10 min and increases their duration by 6 sec.
(Note: Requires 25 points in Arms)
Improved Shield Wall Rank 2
Increases the effect duration of your Shield Wall ability by 5 secs.
(Note: Requires 20 points in Protection)
One is a step lower in the tree and also requires one more point, but as you can see, the benefit of Improved Disciplines is by far higher than Improved Shield wall and in fact, Improved Disciplines pretty much includes Improved Shield Wall's effectiveness in it.
EDIT: After doing some more math, I came up with a theoretical difference of 690hp between the two armor amounts considering this idea:
1) Discerning how much damage it takes to one-shot the player with the highest armor amount
attack * (1 - reduction) = hp
2) Find out how much damage reduction the lower amount gives to this attack.
3) Subtract the original hp from the reduced amount.
You end up with 690hp.
Imp Shield Block is still good. You would be a fool not to take imp SB in a deep prot build for raid tanking.
Defiance is obviously good and one of the main reasons to spec prot.
I disagree that Toughness is worthless, given your alternatives to put points. Every bit of mitigation helps.
1H spec basically removes your damage penalty for being in defensive stance. I forgot the exact % but A LOT of a warriors threat comes from white damage alone. Not to mention the 10% extra damage applies to Shield Slam as well.
The Imp Disciplines thing.. I'm not really sure why you're comparing a deep Arms talent to a deep Prot talent. I guess having 10 min shorter cooldowns would be nice? Cant have everything though.
I agree with Aikouka, that WoW isn't the kind of game that really relies heavily on quick key strokes, like Starcraft or Warcraft or CS. Yes having everything button mapped does certainly makes things easier and control is better but it doesn't necessarily break the game. I do my fair share of mapping and and mouse clicking.
For my holy spec'ed priest, I've got my HoT, Flash, Greater Heal, and Shield hotkeyed. But everything else even my Fade and Fear are all set to be clicked on by mouse. I guess my fear is hitting the wrong button in the heat of the moment. Its ok to accidently hit your HoT button but not ok if you hit that infamous fear button.
My hunter is set up for jump shots the same way. All instant shots are hotkeyed and everything else is set up for mouse click. I can maintain forward momentum, jump, hit my instant shot, and complete my rotation. I still mouse click steady shot, my traps, any aggro shedding skills.
I think its certainly ok to play the whole game via mouse click. A friend of mine plays a warlock with demonic effeciency. He mentally tracks every spell, cooldown, mana tick, useage etc and his play style revolves around nothing but mouse clicks. His PvP gear is proof that the game isn't necessarily broken with no keybindings. Have you seen a well equiped 3 min mage? He hits something like 3 buttons and he's either killed you or burned you to an inch of your life. (I'm only told, but have been burned many times.)
To each one their own. Everyone has a play style some just work better for others.
OP: I found wowwiki to be a very good source for info. It gives good explanations plus has alot of links to all the other WoW website (specifically databases).
Others: When you guys use your spells with hotkeys, how do you do it. Mouse for turning (and movement?) and left hand purely skills? b/c I have been using my left hand for turning and movement (was tricky at first) and the mouse strictly for spells.
thanks
(might be worth noting that I play a warlock, so dont really need instant turnarounds like rogues)
Others: When you guys use your spells with hotkeys, how do you do it. Mouse for turning (and movement?) and left hand purely skills? b/c I have been using my left hand for turning and movement (was tricky at first) and the mouse strictly for spells.
thanks
(might be worth noting that I play a warlock, so dont really need instant turnarounds like rogues)
Standard WASD Keys for movement.
Tab to target mob.
Keys ~,1,2,3,4 for cast over time spells
Using Bartender Mod:
Control and shift keys to "shift" bar states allowing for another 2 additional states of ~,1,2,3,4 buttons totaling 15 buttons with 3 shift states.
Quick, instant cast spells/abilities are placed on 3-4 buttons on the mouse. (wheel button, alt 1 and alt 2 button), everything else would be used by mouse clicks.
This may seem like a lot of buttons, but macro combos and such really diminish the number of viable buttons. There must be a balance of comfort and usability. It makes no sense for you to take your eyes away from the game to hunt for the "zomg, kill button" nested btween the "[" and the "\" button. Personally my hands are NOT nimble enough to stretch as far as the "0" to call on that ability. Mods like Bongos and Bartender allow shift states that can easly be pressed with simple combinations and still retain the # of buttons.
Even with all this I still say 50% on the key/mouse binds and 50% on actual mouse clicking.
Tab to target mob.
Keys ~,1,2,3,4 for cast over time spells
Using Bartender Mod:
Control and shift keys to "shift" bar states allowing for another 2 additional states of ~,1,2,3,4 buttons totaling 15 buttons with 3 shift states.
Quick, instant cast spells/abilities are placed on 3-4 buttons on the mouse. (wheel button, alt 1 and alt 2 button), everything else would be used by mouse clicks.
This may seem like a lot of buttons, but macro combos and such really diminish the number of viable buttons. There must be a balance of comfort and usability. It makes no sense for you to take your eyes away from the game to hunt for the "zomg, kill button" nested btween the "[" and the "\" button. Personally my hands are NOT nimble enough to stretch as far as the "0" to call on that ability. Mods like Bongos and Bartender allow shift states that can easly be pressed with simple combinations and still retain the # of buttons.
Even with all this I still say 50% on the key/mouse binds and 50% on actual mouse clicking.
CKent
Diamond Member
- Aug 17, 2005
- 9,020
- 0
- 0
Rogues are easily the most powerful (and quite overpowered) class in PvP, capable of mindnumbing damage while not releasing their opponent from stunlock. <insert comment about MS warriors> One class/spec out of 27 isn't a free kill to them, it doesn't make them any less overpowered. I suggested warlock as an alternative because they're quite strong in pvp, probably 2nd (distant) behind rogues, while offering far more in pve and making better farmers. Additionally, warlocks have been steadily overpowered for about 2 years, so it's unlikely this will change. Rogues were overpowered at release but were quickly brought in line. They've only been overpowered again (and disgustingly so, I might add) since the expansion. They're more likely to receive balancing nerfs than warlocks.
Epic mount training costs 5,000 gold, it's a huge amount and doesn't appear out of thin air. A shaman or warrior is pigeonholed into one spec for pve, and those specs have zero dps, meaning you either fly around at 60% speed or you ebay. Paladins have two viable pve specs, but the problem is neither does any damage, and again you don't farm without dps. The other two healers have exceptional offspecs, tanking for druids but without paladins horrid dps limitations, and shadow for priests, offering MC, aoe fear and functioning as a mana battery.
Oh and on keybinding - I used to be a staunch keybinder. Everything except my tradeskills was bound. Being a shaman that meant everything on the left side of my keyboard; `-6, q-t, a-g, z-b, and alt/shift/ctrl + all of those keys. And I was still running out of keys, not to mention honestly wondering if I was getting carpal tunnel syndrome... I've since moved to a sort of 'hybrid' keybinding system, where only the most vital abilities are keybound, and of those, the more vital ones to a single letter/number, the less vital ones to shift + a letter or number. I don't have to use alt or ctrl anymore, and I only click the nonessentials. You don't have to be super fast in pve, just faster than the mob. But as fast as you are in pvp, if your opponent is faster you lose... unless you're a rogue or a warlock.
I use WSQE for moving forward/back and strafing left/right. I turn by holding down right mouse button and moving the mouse. Allows for quick turning and doing a 180 degree turn in a split second, thats not possible using keyboard to turn.
ALL my skills are bound to either a key or a mouse button. I use the plain buttons and SHIFT/ALT + BUTTON to make enough space for pretty much everything. I only click buttons for things I rarely use like professions and things in my inventory. I also click to target if they are out of tab range or something.
But doesnt moving your hand off of the movement keys slow you down when doing fast paced pvp? meaning you lift your hand off of the QWES (or whatever) to press shift+(a number) and then move it back.
Well I guess it doesnt really matter for spells with cast times...
Well I guess it doesnt really matter for spells with cast times...
Aikouka
Lifer
- Nov 27, 2001
- 30,383
- 912
- 126
Yes, it is still good, but what I'm meaning to say is that it's not as well placed as it used to be in the tree. It was a 5 point required talent before and you only had to put 1 point in it to get the extra block. Blizzard changed this because they realized "oh noes, the prot tree is actually got a decent setup! We want warriors to have to be DPS or Tanks, they can't easily be both like Druids!" The only build you can still do is Arms/Prot, but people will still be like "OMG NOT PROT!? BAIBAI"
Yes, given what you have to spend points in when speccing prot, it's something to take. But I'm not arguing where you spend points in prot, I'm arguing how bad the tree is itself. The argument against toughness isn't necessarily an argument against the talent, it's an argument against % mitigation gained at the amount that you have. As you know, when you get higher in mitigation, you lose effectiveness. That's my point.
I'd have to work out the numbers in a fight, but it all depends on what you do. Also, based on imp 1H, it shouldn't affect Shield Slam as it is not a melee weapon.
Because they're very similar in placement and similar point-wise, yet one is vastly superior to the other. Imp Shield Wall should at least do what Improved Disciplines does for Shield Wall (i.e. elongate and shorten the cooldown).
Oh man, not this rogue hate again... if you're dying from a single stun lock like that, then they're blowing every single cooldown to do it. You'd need some PVP gear with higher stam and some good resilience to combat it as rogues that use daggers focus on burst (crit) damage. Rogues will not be nerfed as it's quite obvious with Arena that rogues still aren't that useful.
Funny, my brother has no trouble making money on his warrior. If you can't do it fighting, you take up your tradeskill such as mining, herbalism or whatever. My brother's warrior that he runs Karazhan with still makes money via PVE fighting and questing... no tradeskills. He actually used to respec back and forth before (and still made money), but I think now he does DPS in Karazhan.
As for what buttons I use... I use WQSE for up, down, strafe left and strafe right. Mouse handles quick turns and such. I'm thinking about adjusting my keys over a couple notches to REFT or EWDR so I have extra keys around me to assign some things to.
The reason why I believe WoW doesn't need as much keyboarding as other games is because of the global cooldowns. I mean, when it comes to entering things, a keyboard will be faster, but you're sitting there pushing a button while the cooldown is going on... me still moving the mouse and being able to click while the cooldown is still going (I have clicked too fast and not cast the move because the cooldown was still going) shows that it doesn't matter as much. The only time it may matter is the most split second moves. I knew mages who bound blink to their side mouse button.
I also keep track of most timers in my head rather than use bars to handle it. I used to use the bars, but after a patch, the bars no longer worked and I didn't care to upgrade. The only issue is that there is no mental thought about it, it's all being used to how long it takes. So when I was on the PTR playing with builds on my rogue and I tried a backstab/prep build, I had issues with timing because of mutilates better CP generation.
EDIT:
Your pinky can press the Shift key just fine while at least one finger is still available for movement and other shifting for key presses. This is one of the reasons why shifting your hand over a set of keys or two can help by providing buttons right next to your movement keys for your most popular moves.
CKent
Diamond Member
- Aug 17, 2005
- 9,020
- 0
- 0
No offense Aikouka, we generally get along. But you're a rogue clicker who by your own admission never loses in pvp, that should tell you something. And it's not not "clicking is ok in pvp" 
I'm an elemental shaman with about 9k hp, 9300 armor (shield), 100 resilience. Not as good as it gets, certainly, but good enough that rogues in greens/blues shouldn't be unkillable because I'm stunned the whole time.
The general consensus among rogues is that anyone fighting a rogue is a noob unless they have 12k hp / 500 resilience / 25k armor. Yet they say nothing about how a rogue in greens and blues can annihilate people. They say wear your trinket. Yet they say nothing about how rogues don't need theirs. They say rogues need their cooldowns to win. Yet they say nothing about how most are ~3 minutes and other classes with their cooldowns up still lose.
It's a fascinating look at mass delusion.
PS - imp gouge, back off and restealth. It's like vanish without a cooldown.
I'm an elemental shaman with about 9k hp, 9300 armor (shield), 100 resilience. Not as good as it gets, certainly, but good enough that rogues in greens/blues shouldn't be unkillable because I'm stunned the whole time.
The general consensus among rogues is that anyone fighting a rogue is a noob unless they have 12k hp / 500 resilience / 25k armor. Yet they say nothing about how a rogue in greens and blues can annihilate people. They say wear your trinket. Yet they say nothing about how rogues don't need theirs. They say rogues need their cooldowns to win. Yet they say nothing about how most are ~3 minutes and other classes with their cooldowns up still lose.
It's a fascinating look at mass delusion.
PS - imp gouge, back off and restealth. It's like vanish without a cooldown.
And prot rocks in pvp. Because you can taunt other players. True story.
coloumb
Diamond Member
- Oct 9, 1999
- 4,096
- 0
- 81
Umm... Priests are the best healers in the game at level 70 pve. Pally's are the best back-up healers and buff-bots in pve at level 70.
I've tested both in raids/instances and the priest can keep the entire group alive a lot longer [and easier] than a pally can due to the fact the priest has more options available to them [fade, group heals, heal over time, fear, etc]. Pallys are limited to single small or large heals, "i win" bubble, or an "oh crap - that person needs a little bit of protection" spell. I really found healing as a pally "dumbed down" when compared to healing as a priest.
Aikouka
Lifer
- Nov 27, 2001
- 30,383
- 912
- 126
Originally posted by: CKent
No offense Aikouka, we generally get along. But you're a rogue clicker who by your own admission never loses in pvp, that should tell you something. And it's not not "clicking is ok in pvp"
I don't lose because I won't choose a fight that I can't win
. I also know how to play my character fairly well and use my skills in tricky ways .I don't know how you stay stunned the whole time >_>... it'd most likely take a prep rogue blowing all the cooldowns to do it and a normal rogue would most certainly have to blow every cooldown and use a thistle tea. There's a PTR going on right now, you should re-enable and go on the PTR so I can see how you PVP (I'd have to transfer as well).
I have no idea who you're talking to, but I don't think they're right. Especially come next patch where the PVP trinkets will remove anything that loses control of your character or any slowing effect, Blind will end up being removed by that for most players (I assume, sometimes maybe the initial stun into a fear or something).
Yes, we most certainly need our cooldowns to do the magnificent things that people give us credit for. It's the only way we can keep someone from doing something for a long time. But even then, we have to hope that we crit
.There's a .5 second difference, a skilled player will get you before you get the chance to restealth. Not to mention gouge doesn't necessarily work on all players. A warrior can use berserker's rage to become immune to gouge (really sucks when you see Immune go up on your screen heh). Also, a good player knows the techniques to get you back out of stealth that're available to their class. Haven't you ever dropped an earth binding totem when you knew a rogue was around? EB pulls a rogue out of stealth when it first appears.
CKent
Diamond Member
- Aug 17, 2005
- 9,020
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It takes maybe 10-15 seconds. If the rogue is bad, he'll let me out of stun long enough to drop 1, maybe 2 totems (eb, poison cleansing). Sometimes a NS heal.
The first pulse of eb breaks stealth - if they're in its small radius. Doesn't mean much though, the point of breaking stealth would be to attack them, but I can't do that while stunned.
When I talk about what most rogues think I'm referring to the official forums (I know, I know..).
The trinket change is like patching up a shotgun wound with a bandaid and a kiss to make it better. Seriously, pvp became a stun contest post-expansion, and even for the 8 classes which are armed, it isn't fun (I know, I play some of them). For shamans it's like dropping the soap in a jailhouse shower. Attempting to fix the problem with a single item (while focusing entirely on raid content as always) is absurd.
I believe you go out of combat after 5 seconds of inaction in pvp, which is enough to restealth after a 5.5sec imp gouge including a small allowance for lag.
The first pulse of eb breaks stealth - if they're in its small radius. Doesn't mean much though, the point of breaking stealth would be to attack them, but I can't do that while stunned.
When I talk about what most rogues think I'm referring to the official forums (I know, I know..).
The trinket change is like patching up a shotgun wound with a bandaid and a kiss to make it better. Seriously, pvp became a stun contest post-expansion, and even for the 8 classes which are armed, it isn't fun (I know, I play some of them). For shamans it's like dropping the soap in a jailhouse shower. Attempting to fix the problem with a single item (while focusing entirely on raid content as always) is absurd.
I believe you go out of combat after 5 seconds of inaction in pvp, which is enough to restealth after a 5.5sec imp gouge including a small allowance for lag.
If it hasn't been said before, acting like a girl will allow you to gain a lot of items quickly.
Fingolfin269
Lifer
- Feb 28, 2003
- 17,948
- 31
- 91
The reason I say 'easier' is due to the versatility of the druid over the Pally. The sheer killing speed of a Feral druid vs. a Ret Pally is ridiculous. Prot pallies can kill a lot at once but single target killing still takes forever relatively speaking.
imo WoW is not that great. Especially end-game that requires you to grind out instances(raids) over and over in order to progress in the game.
If you do decide to play i suggest going to thottbot.com for every quest and grab ui mods from curse-gaming.net.
If you do decide to play i suggest going to thottbot.com for every quest and grab ui mods from curse-gaming.net.
It is true though, have you seen all the guys swarm around a single girl before? I was playing Lineage II a while back, a girl flirted her way into getting power-leveled, having a squad of 7 guys running to her aid, and getting loads of free equipment.
I'm pretty sure there are a few male bloggers that masqueraded as girls and posted the results. Needless to say, the results were very interesting.
I switched to my friends server and I'm officially a level 5 warlock now. I actually picked a female character because I feel weird staring at some guy's arse for hours at a time.
Aikouka
Lifer
- Nov 27, 2001
- 30,383
- 912
- 126
You're still forgetting, to do ANYTHING like this the rogue must use all their cooldowns and most likely be specced into Preparation. It's simply not possible to do otherwise, because there's only one way to guarantee a crit and that's only a one time use (for 3 minutes).
Umm useless? I use this on my Shaman against rogues all the time. Simply drop the earth binding when you know they're near you. The rogue might be lucky enough to get the cheap shot off anyway if they're close enough (you have to be practically on top of the player for the "lag effect" to let you do it). Also, you throw down earthbind predicting when the player will come. You also have to predict where they will come from. If the rogue is unskilled, he will simply come from the front or wrap around behind you. Personally I (almost) always come at the side from the right (or your left). Using an Earthbind is the same as using Demoralizing Shout/Roar if you can predict that the rogue is near you. It's called being resourceful with what you have.
Most rogues there are idiots. The only rogues I talk to about rogue-y things are the LB rogues... well excluding Ming, I don't want a lecture dealing with basketball players.
PVP became a CC/Healing competition with Arena. But If you complain about CC, then it's quite obvious what kind of PVPer you were... the kind that just runs in guns (lightning bolts!) a blazin' expecting to get tons of kills. But now that doesn't happen because everyone has a lot of health (Blizzard's way of removing those nice 1 shots).
There's still a small period in which the player can act.
EDIT:
I can't play a female because I associate myself with my characters and I'm a male. Just a thing I have...
FYI, it takes 8 seconds to go out of combat. Imp. gouge lasts 5.5 seconds, so theres always a 2.5 second window (at least) to keep them from restealthing.
With that said, elemental/resto shamans are by far the easiest class for rogues. After they blow nature's switness they can count on getting shut down every time they try to cast with either gouge or kick.
On the other hand, rogues have real trouble with a lot of classes. Warriors and feral druids have a pretty distinct advantage. Hunters and pallies are also pretty even. Shadow priests are pretty much universally uber. Playing a rogue in group pvp means picking your target very carefully.
QuantumPion
Diamond Member
- Jun 27, 2005
- 6,010
- 1
- 76
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