Warriors aren't *designed* to scale

#0 - March 7, 2010, 1:20 a.m.

Most abilities use a tiny % of AP with static damage added.

Thunder Clap
TC deals 12% of AP + static damage. The T7 set (iLevel 200/normal) had 351 strength on it. T10 277/heroic has 744. With Vitality, that's about 417 strength -> 834 attack power. That amounts to 100 extra damage on Thunder Claps. Yes, adding 417 strength adds only 100 more damage every six seconds. About 17 dps per mob. Napkin math on threat modifiers = only ~60 extra threat per second from upgrading from T7-T10.

I know that isn't all of the strength on all of the items that have been upgraded in that time, but it's a good way to show how poorly it scales. Even if you somehow got 5000 str for an extra 10,000 attack power, your TC's would still only gain 1200 damage (which amounts to an extra 200 per second). Is anyone impressed by those #'s?

Devastate
Of a 5k crit, 2.2k is from the static added damage. That means big numbers but nearly non-existent scaling given the mandatory fast weapons. PVP implications here, though, so understandable.

Shield Slam
Caps off. You get to a certain point and that's about all you're gonna get. Again, because of PVP.

Revenge
20% of AP + static damage going by existing numbers. Not sure how patch will modify the scaling amount. Using the AP #'s from the TC example, the 277 T10 Warrior would have an extra 167 damage on his Revenge compared to the 200 T7 Warrior, making it another ability which mostly deals a set amount of damage with little scaling with a CD further limiting the actual DPS gain.

Cleave
The static added amount accounts for 20-25% of the damage of a Prot Warrior's Cleaves.

Shockwave
The only Warrior ability that scales well (75% of AP) comes with a 20 second cooldown.

Solution:
I have no idea how Cata will change scaling (very little, judging by how delightfully pleased GC is with the class), but adding scaling from defensive stats would be great. AttT helps with that, but some direct dipping would help for Prot's dismal damage without any PVP implications.

For TC, reduce the threat modifier to 1.5x (down from 1.85x) and remove the static damage added, but make it 20% of AP + 1% of armor value. A Warrior with 5k AP and 32,000 armor would be dealing 1000+320 damage. A Warrior with 3k AP and 25,000 armor would only be dealing 600+250 damage. Modest scaling without overpowered threat.

It makes sense that a Warrior with extra heavy armor would have a little extra oomph on a Thunder Clap. And it still leaves them considerably behind other classes, an apparent mandate when discussing these things.

Oh, and if it deals physical damage, why oh why does it use the spell crit modifier (+50% damage instead of +100%)?

Ghostcrawler

#26 - March 8, 2010, 4:11 a.m.

Q u o t e:
Oh, and if it deals physical damage, why oh why does it use the spell crit modifier (+50% damage instead of +100%)?

If Tclap used the physical hit table, it would get dodged and parried.

Ghostcrawler

#121 - March 9, 2010, 5:54 p.m.

Q u o t e:
This is pretty confusing, Ghostcrawler. Shockwave can't be dodged or parried but still crits for 200% (220% with Impale) like any other physical attack. I can't be sure, but looking at my logs it appears that Shockwave has the crit rate I'd expect from an attack that benefits from raid buffs improving melee crit% (e.g. it's got my roughly ~8% base crit, plus 5% from LotP/Rampage, plus 3% from ToW/etc).

So in short, Shockwave appears to be everything I'd expect Thunderclap to be. It benefits from melee crit instead of spell crit, it gets 200% melee-style crits, and it deals physical damage.

Shockwave is technically a ranged attack, like a hunter shot. This means it's treated like an attack (and not a spell) for purposes of what you want but can't be dodged or parried. (I believe ranged attacks can be blocked, but I can't honestly remember off the top of my head.) The Shockwave treatment might be the right way to go for Thunder Clap. Thunder Clap is currently a spell that hits for physical damage and can't be dispelled. The distinction among spell, melee and ranged attack (or persistent auras like Consecrate) is a largely technical one that doesn't always encompass unusual abilities well.

Ghostcrawler

#142 - March 9, 2010, 7:26 p.m.

I think we're likely to make Thunder Clap a ranged attack (like Shockwave) for 3.3.3. This will let it get 200% crits among other things.

Standard no promises, in case there ends up being a problem with that implementation.