sevenslacks7
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I have recently seen alot of QQing about warriors lately with the release of patch 5.2, specifically qq about that of the Protection warrior.
Let me start with a few things:
I do not believe Shield Slam is overpowered, I believe it was poorly managed by Blizzard, ie the way Blizzard reworked it in 5.2 was incompetent.
Please don't bring up baseless coments in here, this is the same reason my Super Prot Damage thread was derailed so badly, as well as LolipopF2P's Video was as well (Partially and inadvertently my fault and my apologies to him/her). (“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.” ` Christopher Hitchens)
RAW NUMBERS:
Here is one big part of why I dont think Prot warrior damage is very overpowered. (keep in mind most of these comments will be comparisons to other class's)
Lets just look to wowhead for our damage numbers...
Shield Slam according to wowhead hits for "473-497" damage per hit (not including attackpower) and is on a 6 second couldown.
Avenger's Shield hits for "280-342" per hit, is on a 15 second cooldown, hits 3 targets total, and silences the target for 3 seconds.
I choose Protection Paladin to compare against warrior damage, because I think they are the closest to each other in alot of ways. (Both are mail wearing tanks)
If we where not even to equate in spellpower or attack power bonus's to these abilities (Shield Slam would not be benefited in doing so), Shield Slam has already lost.
In terms of raw damage Shield Slam does more damage to a single target, and has a shorter cd... but look at avengers shield... if it does hit 3 targets, and assuming non of those 3 hits are criticals, by wowheads numbers, it will be hiting for 840-1026 BASE damage. To put more iceing on the cake, it silences the target for 3 seconds, which is op on its own, but if you add in Hammer of Justice, this means that for some class's they will not be able to do ANTHING for 9 seconds... where as Shield Slam does not even have its dispell affect anymore, and pretty much its only benefit is generating rage for the warrior.
This is also not considering other overpowered damaging abilities... ie Aimed Shot, which crits if the target is above 75% health, and is known to crit for 1k, or Ferocious Bite which can crit for 700+ easily and gives benefits to the druid (A druid will have to enlighten me on that one) not to mention rogues, well... not to mention rogue damage in general.
SEMANTICS/ "REAL PVP SITUATIONS":
This is to show that there are plenty of reasons that Shield Slam is not overpowered, as there are ways to counter its "OP" damage pretty easily.
Mage: If you time blink right, the warrior shouldn't even be hitting you at all (can blink while they are charging towards you), so you should never blink unless it is to escape a charge. It seems like most mages are rolling Frost this patch (most viable for pvp by FAR), meaning they get a extra freeze and if they play it right can kite the warrior indfinetly as most warrior's roll Warbringer this patch, meaning they can only get to you every 20 seconds, while your Blink is up every 15 seconds...
Rogue: So easily countered on a rogue... 1 ability.. Evasion, if Shield Slam cant even hit, then how can it be OP? If that is on cd, just keep facing the warrior, as rogues seem to in general have pretty high dodge this patch, and Crippling Poison is beyond op vs a warrior, it means you have complete control over what he does, and if you wanted to, you could stay 2-4 yards away from him the entire fight and just let Deadly Posion do all the work for you. (Not suggested but is a possibility)
Shaman: If you go against a warrior, just use Water Shield and shock kite him, you can heal indefinetly, and as long as you keep healing yourself you will win no questions asked on any shaman spec.
Warlock: Ill say what I know but it isnt much, due to the fact I dont have a geared warlock and you dont see many warlocks in bg's. It seems that warlocks have a good amount of damage, and each spec has a slow/ way of getting away from melee dps class's. (Demonic Leap, Hand of Gul'dan, Conflagrate) All of which are a death trap for most warriors, as all you need to do is fear them, and do as much damage as possible in those fears/ keep up your slows or use your leap. If you are getting low, ie 1 to 2 Shield Slam's later you can always use your cd's. I have seen Locks get back to full health after being at 100hp in seconds by using Dark Regeneration+ Healthstone+ Drain Life. ( had been thinking about it for a while, if I was fighting myself on a equally geared warrior and lock, I think my lock would win)
Druid: Pretty much self explanatory, rejuvenation spam. The only spec that I can consistently beat on my warrior is Feral, and most likely Gaurdian, but you dont see it that often. With that being said there are still plenty of ways to beat a prot warrior on a feral/ gaurdian druid, but I am not so enlightened to them as I dont play druid that much. (enlighten me druids
)
Pally: Dont think it is really worth a explanation, any warrior who has played more than a day knows Paladins are just better than warriors in every aspect. Ie they have a silence (prevents you from casting thunderclap), a stun, healing (Overpowered in my opinion), and pretty much equal, if not higher damage output.
Hunter: Kite. Kite. Kite. Kite. Kite. Kite. Kite. Its nothing new for hunters, if you can prevent the warrior form attacking you all together than you will win, not much to it. A mistake that I do see however is wasted Disengages, you should use it when the warrior is ontop of you/ if he has already charged, if you use it then he charges... that defeats the entire purpose. Another is not keeping Concusive Shot up, or not using it off the bat, you can keep it up on the target for as long as you want, so I am not sure why some hunters dont use it.
Priest: Even with shield slam crits, I am only doing about 30-100 damage on a priest after blowing through their Bubble, which is on a 6 second cd, 15 if you use it on yourself, and can now crit... so just keep healing yourself, and keep shadow word pain up, and you will simply outlast the warrior.
All of these strategies are based on the same concept, that you can win as long as you keep the warrior out of Execute range, which is easy for most healing class's.
BRIEF OVERVIEW:
So do I think that Shield Slam is op? No. Do I think it needs to be changed? YES. As I have said before the way that Blizzard buffed Shield Slam is by increasing its base damage by 50%, and reducing its benefit from attack power by 10%... when they should have done it the otherway around, decreasing or keeping the base damage the same, and increasing the bonus from attack power by 50%, that way only if a warrior is speced properly will they be doing alot of damage on their slams.
Just look at warrior as a whole. They have no movement speed increasers, no healing (other than Victory Rush), no debuffs (other than Sunder Armor, which is not super effective, and the slow from Warbringer, which lasts a whooping 8 seconds and is only usable if you spec into it), no consistent source of damage, and no real utility to speak of (Charge is about it, and is problematic because if go Warbringer you cant stay on your target as much and the stun fits into diminishing returns, or go with the normal charge with less of a cd, and risk not being able to have much of a impact on your target). Warriors in general are just outdone in every aspect for this bracket, and the one scrap that they are thrown is being qq'd beyond belief. I have been playing my f2p warrior as prot since wrath... because I like it, but I have had to roll arms alot more recently because of this kind of garden variety incompetence that believes prot warriors are some how op... laughable.
This thread was made for a variety of reasons, however the main reason is to stop the derailing of threads by the resent qq about prot warriors... so if you run into a problem where your thread is being derailed by such comments, just link this thread, I am hoping that this thread can be a place where people can flame about warriors and have their comments rebutted, rather than seeing alot of thread be derailed by this issue.
I would like to thank The Saint who was part of my inspiration for creating this thread, thank you for 'forcing my hand into making it', I believe it will benefit this forum.
Let me start with a few things:
I do not believe Shield Slam is overpowered, I believe it was poorly managed by Blizzard, ie the way Blizzard reworked it in 5.2 was incompetent.
Please don't bring up baseless coments in here, this is the same reason my Super Prot Damage thread was derailed so badly, as well as LolipopF2P's Video was as well (Partially and inadvertently my fault and my apologies to him/her). (“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.” ` Christopher Hitchens)
RAW NUMBERS:
Here is one big part of why I dont think Prot warrior damage is very overpowered. (keep in mind most of these comments will be comparisons to other class's)
Lets just look to wowhead for our damage numbers...
Shield Slam according to wowhead hits for "473-497" damage per hit (not including attackpower) and is on a 6 second couldown.
Avenger's Shield hits for "280-342" per hit, is on a 15 second cooldown, hits 3 targets total, and silences the target for 3 seconds.
I choose Protection Paladin to compare against warrior damage, because I think they are the closest to each other in alot of ways. (Both are mail wearing tanks)
If we where not even to equate in spellpower or attack power bonus's to these abilities (Shield Slam would not be benefited in doing so), Shield Slam has already lost.
In terms of raw damage Shield Slam does more damage to a single target, and has a shorter cd... but look at avengers shield... if it does hit 3 targets, and assuming non of those 3 hits are criticals, by wowheads numbers, it will be hiting for 840-1026 BASE damage. To put more iceing on the cake, it silences the target for 3 seconds, which is op on its own, but if you add in Hammer of Justice, this means that for some class's they will not be able to do ANTHING for 9 seconds... where as Shield Slam does not even have its dispell affect anymore, and pretty much its only benefit is generating rage for the warrior.
This is also not considering other overpowered damaging abilities... ie Aimed Shot, which crits if the target is above 75% health, and is known to crit for 1k, or Ferocious Bite which can crit for 700+ easily and gives benefits to the druid (A druid will have to enlighten me on that one) not to mention rogues, well... not to mention rogue damage in general.
SEMANTICS/ "REAL PVP SITUATIONS":
This is to show that there are plenty of reasons that Shield Slam is not overpowered, as there are ways to counter its "OP" damage pretty easily.
Mage: If you time blink right, the warrior shouldn't even be hitting you at all (can blink while they are charging towards you), so you should never blink unless it is to escape a charge. It seems like most mages are rolling Frost this patch (most viable for pvp by FAR), meaning they get a extra freeze and if they play it right can kite the warrior indfinetly as most warrior's roll Warbringer this patch, meaning they can only get to you every 20 seconds, while your Blink is up every 15 seconds...
Rogue: So easily countered on a rogue... 1 ability.. Evasion, if Shield Slam cant even hit, then how can it be OP? If that is on cd, just keep facing the warrior, as rogues seem to in general have pretty high dodge this patch, and Crippling Poison is beyond op vs a warrior, it means you have complete control over what he does, and if you wanted to, you could stay 2-4 yards away from him the entire fight and just let Deadly Posion do all the work for you. (Not suggested but is a possibility)
Shaman: If you go against a warrior, just use Water Shield and shock kite him, you can heal indefinetly, and as long as you keep healing yourself you will win no questions asked on any shaman spec.
Warlock: Ill say what I know but it isnt much, due to the fact I dont have a geared warlock and you dont see many warlocks in bg's. It seems that warlocks have a good amount of damage, and each spec has a slow/ way of getting away from melee dps class's. (Demonic Leap, Hand of Gul'dan, Conflagrate) All of which are a death trap for most warriors, as all you need to do is fear them, and do as much damage as possible in those fears/ keep up your slows or use your leap. If you are getting low, ie 1 to 2 Shield Slam's later you can always use your cd's. I have seen Locks get back to full health after being at 100hp in seconds by using Dark Regeneration+ Healthstone+ Drain Life. ( had been thinking about it for a while, if I was fighting myself on a equally geared warrior and lock, I think my lock would win)
Druid: Pretty much self explanatory, rejuvenation spam. The only spec that I can consistently beat on my warrior is Feral, and most likely Gaurdian, but you dont see it that often. With that being said there are still plenty of ways to beat a prot warrior on a feral/ gaurdian druid, but I am not so enlightened to them as I dont play druid that much. (enlighten me druids
)Pally: Dont think it is really worth a explanation, any warrior who has played more than a day knows Paladins are just better than warriors in every aspect. Ie they have a silence (prevents you from casting thunderclap), a stun, healing (Overpowered in my opinion), and pretty much equal, if not higher damage output.
Hunter: Kite. Kite. Kite. Kite. Kite. Kite. Kite. Its nothing new for hunters, if you can prevent the warrior form attacking you all together than you will win, not much to it. A mistake that I do see however is wasted Disengages, you should use it when the warrior is ontop of you/ if he has already charged, if you use it then he charges... that defeats the entire purpose. Another is not keeping Concusive Shot up, or not using it off the bat, you can keep it up on the target for as long as you want, so I am not sure why some hunters dont use it.
Priest: Even with shield slam crits, I am only doing about 30-100 damage on a priest after blowing through their Bubble, which is on a 6 second cd, 15 if you use it on yourself, and can now crit... so just keep healing yourself, and keep shadow word pain up, and you will simply outlast the warrior.
All of these strategies are based on the same concept, that you can win as long as you keep the warrior out of Execute range, which is easy for most healing class's.
BRIEF OVERVIEW:
So do I think that Shield Slam is op? No. Do I think it needs to be changed? YES. As I have said before the way that Blizzard buffed Shield Slam is by increasing its base damage by 50%, and reducing its benefit from attack power by 10%... when they should have done it the otherway around, decreasing or keeping the base damage the same, and increasing the bonus from attack power by 50%, that way only if a warrior is speced properly will they be doing alot of damage on their slams.
Just look at warrior as a whole. They have no movement speed increasers, no healing (other than Victory Rush), no debuffs (other than Sunder Armor, which is not super effective, and the slow from Warbringer, which lasts a whooping 8 seconds and is only usable if you spec into it), no consistent source of damage, and no real utility to speak of (Charge is about it, and is problematic because if go Warbringer you cant stay on your target as much and the stun fits into diminishing returns, or go with the normal charge with less of a cd, and risk not being able to have much of a impact on your target). Warriors in general are just outdone in every aspect for this bracket, and the one scrap that they are thrown is being qq'd beyond belief. I have been playing my f2p warrior as prot since wrath... because I like it, but I have had to roll arms alot more recently because of this kind of garden variety incompetence that believes prot warriors are some how op... laughable.
This thread was made for a variety of reasons, however the main reason is to stop the derailing of threads by the resent qq about prot warriors... so if you run into a problem where your thread is being derailed by such comments, just link this thread, I am hoping that this thread can be a place where people can flame about warriors and have their comments rebutted, rather than seeing alot of thread be derailed by this issue.
I would like to thank The Saint who was part of my inspiration for creating this thread, thank you for 'forcing my hand into making it', I believe it will benefit this forum.
