Prot Warrior 11.1 PTR Feedback

#1 - Jan. 8, 2025, 8:58 p.m.

Hello Blizz! I am a long time prot warrior enjoyer and have been “main’ing” it since season 3 of Dragonflight. I wanted to give some feedback regarding the changes you have in the current PTR build for 11.1 as of 01/08. To give some credentials, I have gotten 3k IO or close to for a few seasons now so I have a good understanding of how the spec feels and plays in M+. My feedback will be from a M+ viewpoint as I do not raid much at all.

Ultimately all of the changes made to prot feel bad. Anger management is a very fun playstyle and messing with any part of our rage generation means it has a spiraling effect on both our rage gen as a pull goes on and our defensiveness. As it stands right now all of the changes made to prot should be reverted and not go live. The changes feel quite out of touch as anyone who has played colossus prot in M+ will tell you we have a fine amount or are slightly behind what we should be in regards to rage gen. You could “argue” Thane has too much rage gen but the whole loop of warrior is generating and dumping rage. Because generating rage directly feeds into generating more rage hitting any part of the pipeline can have drastic effects. These changes lock us into a hero talent we are already locked into and even make playing Thane not fun.

With that being said, I don’t want to throw out every change you’ve made as I feel that is disingenuous. Here are some changes that I think at a minimum need to be done rather than reverting everything (even though that is the objectively correct choice).

Devastate & Strategist: There’s no getting around this, it has to go back to 30% for both. It’s already somewhat common to SS → Clap → Revenge and not get a SS reset. SS is our best button and since almost all our rage gen is tied to that one skill, pressing it less is terrible throughput-wise but more importantly, it feels horrible to play.
Champion’s Bulwark: Not sure why we are making a tier set around a skill and then nerfing that skill? It should go back up to generating the current amount of rage that it does or also give us a free cast of Ignore Pain.
Violent Outburst: It already feels horrible to spend VO on a Thunder Clap and it feels even more awful now. You build up a big “outburst” and get 2/3 extra if you use it on Clap which sometimes you have to because you can’t delay your rotation for too long. Once again this adversely effects Colossus more than Thane since Colossus doesn’t get Thunder Blasts. If going back to 100% rage gen is not an option, I think VO making your next SS or TC generate 30 rage is better or they generate an additional ‘X’ rage.
Impenetrable Wall: I have the feeling this was a change targeted at raid but this “choice node” is completely dead in M+ now. We are already taking Defender’s Aegis (which already had more CD reduction) so there is literally no reason ever to take IW. If we can’t make it generate more rage at least double the CD reduction it gives or something.

Sorry for the wall of text (pun intended)! These changes are really out of touch. I don’t speak for everyone obviously but the vibe I get is many tank players feel the current balance team doesn’t fully grasp tanking and why/how it is fun and these changes just reinforce that. You’re tackling a “problem” for prot that doesn’t even exist and just nerfing a middle of the road tank. In the same patch, the best tank in the game got the best tier set and the two worst tanks in the game (Blood and Brew) got 0 changes. I know the current patch notes are not final but the optics of Brew getting 0 lines of text while the only viable tank in M+ gets buffed is…not great.

I hope this feedback is helpful and thank you for your continued support and work on the game!

Update as of 1/17 PTR: Prot Warrior 11.1 PTR Feedback - #110 by Ageric-alexstrasza

Update as of Kaivax’s post: Prot Warrior 11.1 PTR Feedback - #295 by Ageric-alexstrasza

Update as of 2/05 PTR: Prot Warrior 11.1 PTR Feedback - #440 by Ageric-alexstrasza

Kaivax

Community Manager

#205 - Jan. 25, 2025, 1:50 a.m.

Thank you all for your feedback! It’s valuable and heard.

Protection Warrior requires a very high APM to play currently, and we feel that the APM requirement is too high. High APM, especially from frequently pressing abilities that are off the GCD like Shield Block and Ignore Pain, can be uncomfortable or even painful for some players.

One of the culprits in driving APM up is high burst Rage generation which feeds into dumping excess Rage into Ignore Pain. This is what has driven many of the changes we’ve made, cutting down on burst Rage generation and moving more of it into steady sources so you should always have enough Rage for mitigation and your rotation, without frequently dumping excess into off-GCD abilities.

The other major culprit is the frequency of Shield Slam resets via Devastator and Strategist. Not only is Shield Slam the primary source of Rage generation, Shield Slam is also the highest priority ability for Protection Warriors. The more time that Shield Slam is available, the less time you have to use procs like Revenge! and Sudden Death or spend excess Rage on Revenge. The previous 30% reset rate makes Shield Slam more prominent in the rotation than we’re happy with and leads to other procs stacking up and Rage accumulating while the Warrior is trying to keep up with their Shield Slam resets. This also puts more pressure on off-GCD abilities to serve as Rage dumps, as opposed to abilities like Revenge. We feel that reducing Shield Slam’s prominence in the rotation will allow for Revenge and other abilities to fill the rotation and serve to consume excess Rage.

We’re monitoring Protection’s performance, especially the tuning of Ignore Pain and total damage. The Rage income changes affect other talents like Anger Management, and we’re working to keep all aspects of Protection competitive following these changes.

Thanks again for the many helpful feedback posts here.

Kaivax

Community Manager

#358 - Jan. 31, 2025, 10:31 p.m.

Hello! We’ve continued to monitor feedback and PTR data, and we want to provide an update on Protection Warrior development.

As noted previously, our goal with the Protection Warrior changes is to bring the APM requirement of the spec down to reduce the performance gap the high APM creates.

We initially made significant adjustments to both burst and sustained Rage generation, as well as Shield Slam resets via Devastator and Strategist. We’ve since made adjustments as we fix bugs and evaluate the actual outcome of the changes versus our expectations.

Now that most of the dust has settled, we feel that we overshot the initial nerf to Shield Slam reset chance. In next week’s PTR build, it will be increased to 25%. After playing with this change, we feel that this gets Protection Warrior to where we want it to be-- an active and engaging playstyle without the rotation being dominated by too-frequent Shield Slam resets.

Thank you for your helpful feedback.

We’ll continue make tuning adjustments as needed.