Offensive Sword and Board

I’ve been thinking about toying around with a new talent build that will allow me to quest/farm using a 1h weapon and shield (taking advantage of Shield Slam, as well as having the shield to block hits and interrupt spells).  I’m not going to get into too much detail about it right now (I don’t have time) but here’s the basic idea:

Arms (18 points)

    5/5 Deflection
    3/3 Improved Rend
    3/3 Improved Thunder Clap
    2/2 Improved Overpower
    3/3 Deep Wounds
    2/2 Impale

Fury (5 points)

    5/5 Cruelty

Protection (38 points)

    5/5 Anticipation
    5/5 Shield Specialization
    5/5 Toughness
    1/1 Last Stand
    1/1 Improved Shield Block
    3/3 Improved Revenge
    3/3 Defiance
    2/2 Improved Taunt
    1/1 Concussion Blow
    1/2 Improved Shield Bash
    3/3 Shield Mastery
    5/5 One-Handed Weapon Specialization
    1/1 Shield Slam
    2/3 Focused Rage

Click here to see the talent trees.

Any warriors out there use this kind of build?

Devs Doom Devastate

WoW Insider reports that all the warriors out there who were pissing their pants in glee at the damage Devastate was putting out on the PTR are in for quite a letdown.

The change to Devastate in 2.1 is being reverted and will not be a change for the patch once it goes live. We’ve done some additional damage testing and the output is in far excess of what we had thought it would provide.

Apparently in the patch, Devastate while duel wielding would cause you to hit with both of your weapons for a big chunk of damage (big for a prot warrior, anyway).  I know a few warriors in my guild who were testing the patch seemed very excited at this change.  But alas, it is not to be.

It’s funny how one poster from the forums puts it.

OMG, so we’ve been nerfed before we were even buffed?!

LAWL.

Time for a change

I know, yet another talent spec post.  Don’t worry, this’ll be brief.

I’ve come to the realization that having no points in protection does not make for a good time in the 70 instances.  And I really enjoy the 70 instances.  As I’ve mentioned before, I have no dreams of becoming a Karazhan or Gruul’s Lair MT anytime soon, but I would definitely enjoy being an awesome tank in 5-mans.

Therefore, when I get home from work tonight I will be respeccing to this hybrid arms/prot spec build I’ve come up with.  As you can see, it’s 21/5/31 which gives me pretty much everything I need to be a good tank and still be able to chew through mobs pretty well while farming/questing.  The only thing that I’m sad to miss out on is Mortal Strike, but I think having Shield Slam will make me a much better tank.

In the protection tree I skipped over stuff I really don’t need and grabbed only what I think will benefit me the most (while allowing me to get 30 points in there so I can have Shield Slam).

I chose Imp Revenge and Imp Shield Bash because I think they will help me control trash mobs.  I know most bosses (all bosses?) are immune to stun (and probably to silence) but I’ve run into plenty of annoying trash mobs, especially casters, who could stand to be stunned or silenced.

Obviously Concussion Blow for the same reason I just stated about Imp Revenge, and also because it’s the gateway to Shield Slam.  Shield Slam for tanks is a no brainer.  An ability that does decent damage and is also the single best instant threat generating ability available?  Yes please.

And on the DPS side of things, like I said I’m sad to be missing out on Mortal Strike, but it has to go.  I still get all the additions to critical strike (Axe spec, Cruelty) which is sweet.  I miss out on a boost to attack power from Commanding Presence but I think I can live without it.  Some people might laugh at my choice to go with Imp Rend, but I love Rend.  Maybe that’s just me.

Overall, I think this is a pretty decent choice of talents.  Of course, only time in the field will truly be able to prove me right or wrong.  I’ll be sure to let you know how things turn out.

This wasn’t very brief, was it?  Oh well.

It… can’t be…

I ran Steamvaults last night and it made me realize a horrible truth: I might not be able to main tank the level 70 five mans without being protection specced.

I don’t know if it was people in my group being jackasses or what, but I had a hell of a time holding aggro (on trash, I was fine on the bosses).  It didn’t help that most of the pulls in there have 4 mobs, warriors aren’t the greatest at holding onto multiple adds (especially when the fight is unorganized, but you’ve heard that rant).  Every once in a while, the mage would pull aggro, which I guess is kind of understandable if some kind of big crit goes off.  But there was also a shaman who was pulling aggro like crazy.  The shaman was fighting in melee range, so maybe it was a guy with the “hay doodz lookit my DPS SKILLZ!” mentality and wasn’t watching his aggro.  I tend to think it may have been.  But I also can’t get over the fact that I would have probably been able to hold aggro better had I been prot specced (duh, right?). 

This sucks, because what I want to do to enjoy the game and get the most out of my $15 a month is finish up the last three zones (I’m busting through Blade’s Edge right now).  And this is only enjoyable if I’m arms specced and dishing out nasty crits an damage.  I can’t even imagine how it would be while prot specced.

Yeah, yeah.  I know.  QQ more nub.  But when I have people in my guild telling me that I’ll need to spec to protection in order to tank and survive in some of the 70 instances, and then I start to actually see the truth to their warnings, it starts to worry me.  Have I ever mentioned that I hate this game?  =P

Not all was bad about the run though, because I managed to pick up Gauntlets of the Bold.  Pretty sweet.  Now to find some gems…

Oh, you know what else I hate.  I hate when people don’t loot a beast’s corpse.  Screw you, guy, that crocolisk had some fine hide I could skin.  But noooo, you didn’t feel like taking the broken crocolisk tooth off the corpse.  So there the crocolisk lies, taunting me.  Here’s a hint.  Pressing shift + right click loots everything off the corpse at once.  Try it out sometime.

Now that he’s 70…

… what has Thodin been doing?

Much of the same, pretty much.  I finally finished all of the quests in Nagrand last night (well, all that I’m aware of), and I’m ready to move on to Blades Edge Mountains for gold questing now.  I spent the weekend helping guildies and friends with quests, and also grinding ogres for Kurenai rep and Osh’gun Powder so I can get my the 18 slot bag from Halaa.  These are two of the goals I’ve set for myself at 70.  Get a Halaani Bag (easy) and get a Talbuk mount (hard).  They will be mine.

I still need to start my Karazhan attunement (I’m a slacker) and I want to start going into more of the level 70 instances.  I was talking with my guild’s raid leader over the weekend, and he said that to be a viable tank in any of the higher level dungeons (Shattered Halls, Shadow Lab, etc) I need to be prot specced.  Now I’m presented with a dilemma.  I pride myself on being a good tank even though I’m not prot specced, but I know I’m missing out on some aggro management and survivability perks of the protection tree. 

Right now I’m not even that interested in getting into Karazhan and getting any phat epic lootz.  I’d like much more to finish questing in the last three zones (did I ever mention I love questing?).  Problem is, as a protection specced warrior it’ll probably take me two minutes to kill a mob that I could kill in 20 seconds as arms specced, which will severely hinder my questing progress and maybe even some of the enjoyment I get from questing.  My friend said that I could always switch specs back and forth, but at 50g a pop that’s gonna become pretty annoying.

Ah, the troubles that face us when we grow up.

And now that I’ve hit 70, I have more time to level Natasya (or Acateus) and work on getting a second 70.  It will probably not be very much fun from 20-60, but we shall see.

Warrior Woes

It’s always said that warriors are the most gear-dependent class in the game.  This doesn’t really bother me all that much, because half of the fun of WoW is getting new gear.  What does bother me is trying to figure out what stats will benefit Thodin the most.  Especially when I hate doing all sorts of calculations.

Do I want more Strength, Attack Power, Crit?  I’ve been going crazy lately trying to get the most AP out of my gear, but after searching through the forums (::shudder::) I’ve found that for my build (Arms with a bigass 2h mace) I should concentrate on my weapon’s top damage and my +Crit.  A lot of my gear has +Crit on it (though some of my socketed stuff has a lot of AP gems in it, I might start switching those out in favor of +Crit).  Also, I’ve found out that Agi is pretty much worthless for a warrior’s DPS, so I’ll keep that in mind.  And apparently 1 Str=2 AP, and I think I tend to overlook +Str. 

One of my basic philosophies about this game is to not get way too caught up in the technical aspects, but lately I’ve found that I’m not listening to my own advice.  From what I read, it seems that the route I’m taking is basically ok.  I think from now on I might just start to concentrate more on +Crit gems and such (+Crit and +Str gems would be good).  But the most important thing for me is to just have fun playing the game the way I enjoy playing it.  I know I’ll never have the best tanking gear or the best DPS gear, but I do know that I will always strive to make the most of the gear that I have and allow my skills as a warrior to make up for anything people think I’m “missing” in my stats.

Speaking of tanking and DPSing, I just worked out a talent build for when I hit 70 that I think will allow me to tank and DPS pretty well.  We shall see.

Anyone have any comments or suggestions?