Hello Gladiators.
Today is a sad day. Glad was announced as being removed from the game in the coming (We-Cant-Produce-New-Content-So-Were-Doing-Illidan-All-Over-Again) Legion Expansion. Yes, i'm salty, and yes Legion does look sweet.
There's a petition that probably won't matter here on the wow forums, and I even ranted a bit.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/19865166411?page=16#301
Here is the rant :
This is a gladstance rant. I've been following it closely since the annoucement.
I was at Blizzcon when Gladiator Stance was announced. I was that guy at beers with everyone else nerding out about the talents that were still a year away.
I went on to start the gladiators resolve blogspot and interact with the dev's on twitter. This ended up building a twitter following, interacting with the glad community and developing a blog following. All while I did terrible things to try to get into the WoD beta. I can't say that process was fun. I created postcards, photoshop contests, put my personal information in 30 different websites and still didn't get beta. I ended up getting a key from a random dude who got one and didn't give a !@#$ on twitter.
If you were following the beta and the info on gladstance then you would have noticed that some of the blizzard twitter personalities actually didn't know what the plan was for gladstance. We had to hear it from lead designers about 20 times before people even believed it was going to be competitive with Arms/Fury and to this day there are GMs and players who simply don't believe it ever was. And I don't blame them.
It was frustrating to have to see someone like Lore on twitter saying gladstance didn't matter because it was just so tanks could do quests and stuff. He didn't know and another dev replied to educate him. That made it especailly painful when he was the guy who offhandedly dismisses gladstance from Legion entirely.
So, at the beginning and at the end we're dealing with a lot of visible lack fo caring. The same theme continued in the middle as well. Glad was always on a easily tuneable knob with the majority of it's damage being flat % bonuses vs caring about gear. They actually stopped saying it was meant to be competitive or get raid spots a few months into WoD and it was around then all the raiders decided to go fury/arms if they wanted to keep their raid spots. Fury and Arms even ended up doing amazing damage in the end ( lets not get into rotation talk ). So by now I feel like I was in this weird abusive relationship where Blizzard just continually shafted Glad. And while they don't owe me anything, I definitely didn't enjoy that. Hence why the blog is over and I haven't touched glad in half a year.
Anyway, I hate to be a negative %^- but the uproar over Heroic Strike didn't get it back to us for an entire expansion, so if this petition does anything for us we probably won't see the change until later down the line.
Cyc Out.
Sunday, November 22, 2015
Tuesday, August 25, 2015
Taking a Break
Gladiators!
It is with heavy heart that I have to lay my shield down. Life is getting too busy to commit to raiding anything serious right now, and I know that means I won't be able to maintain the blog either. We've had a great run, and I want to thank all of my readers, haters, shield brothers and sisters. I had never ran a blog before, and didn't really ever use twitter. I think I've gotten a lot better and learned a ton about social networking, which has been a huge boon in my IT career.
I always come back to this game's serious raiding side, so once I do, if I'm going to blog, I'll be sure to tweet about it a lot. I'll probably be playing some non-serious 10man raiding here and there with RL friends but nothing to blog about :p.
Thanks,
Cyclonus
It is with heavy heart that I have to lay my shield down. Life is getting too busy to commit to raiding anything serious right now, and I know that means I won't be able to maintain the blog either. We've had a great run, and I want to thank all of my readers, haters, shield brothers and sisters. I had never ran a blog before, and didn't really ever use twitter. I think I've gotten a lot better and learned a ton about social networking, which has been a huge boon in my IT career.
I always come back to this game's serious raiding side, so once I do, if I'm going to blog, I'll be sure to tweet about it a lot. I'll probably be playing some non-serious 10man raiding here and there with RL friends but nothing to blog about :p.
Thanks,
Cyclonus
Thursday, August 20, 2015
Glad Buffs on PTR
Gladiators!
We've got a few nice buffs on PTR coming in. I think these are changes in the right direction, but they aren't the difference between going Glad and Fury for progression on Mythic Fel Lord. At least I don't think so. I'll be doing my usual testing in SimC once I either figure out how to do spell.overrides properly or Collision updates our stuff.
6% Damage increases for:
Shield Slam
Revenge
Devastate
I talked on our Glad thread on the wow board about this a bit more at length and did a copy paste incase you don't use them. Someone suggested a buff to gladstance instead, and while that would be more damage overall, I'm happy with the INTENT in these buffs:
Buffs to the abilities themselves are way better now, than flat shield charge or gladstance buffs. My reasoning is simply that all of the abilities damage comes from our gear ( AP for R/SS ) and ( AP/Weapon Damage for Revenge ). One of the reasons glad looks so good at 700 ilvl is because a lot of our damage comes from nowhere. Putting damage on the abilities that tie to the gear is nice, get better gear > scale better. Just like other DPS classes.
I also wish HS was included. We already have had a ton of damage put right onto the stance/spec but I welcome this tiny little buff. I did some napkin math and i'm only seeing 3-4% dps increase. But i'm waiting on this being built into simcraft before I did in too deep.
We've got a few nice buffs on PTR coming in. I think these are changes in the right direction, but they aren't the difference between going Glad and Fury for progression on Mythic Fel Lord. At least I don't think so. I'll be doing my usual testing in SimC once I either figure out how to do spell.overrides properly or Collision updates our stuff.
6% Damage increases for:
Shield Slam
Revenge
Devastate
I talked on our Glad thread on the wow board about this a bit more at length and did a copy paste incase you don't use them. Someone suggested a buff to gladstance instead, and while that would be more damage overall, I'm happy with the INTENT in these buffs:
Buffs to the abilities themselves are way better now, than flat shield charge or gladstance buffs. My reasoning is simply that all of the abilities damage comes from our gear ( AP for R/SS ) and ( AP/Weapon Damage for Revenge ). One of the reasons glad looks so good at 700 ilvl is because a lot of our damage comes from nowhere. Putting damage on the abilities that tie to the gear is nice, get better gear > scale better. Just like other DPS classes.
I also wish HS was included. We already have had a ton of damage put right onto the stance/spec but I welcome this tiny little buff. I did some napkin math and i'm only seeing 3-4% dps increase. But i'm waiting on this being built into simcraft before I did in too deep.
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
ASKMRROBOT Stat Weights!
Hello Gladiators,
AskMrRobot has always been an extremely useful tool to our community and i'm happy to say that he has requested the input of theorycrafters on getting some of our opinions on stat weights. Check it out!
That's right, you can use my BIS Stat weights for your toons right on AskMrRobot. I actually subscribe to the site so I often use the weights to do a "best in bags" comparison when I have a lot of options in gear. What I also love is the export to Simcraft capability. So you can import your toon, then export the sim profile to work out your maximum dps very easily.
I'm working on getting them tweaked to make sure we're hitting that first haste cap ( 13% buffed )
Cyc Out!
AskMrRobot has always been an extremely useful tool to our community and i'm happy to say that he has requested the input of theorycrafters on getting some of our opinions on stat weights. Check it out!
That's right, you can use my BIS Stat weights for your toons right on AskMrRobot. I actually subscribe to the site so I often use the weights to do a "best in bags" comparison when I have a lot of options in gear. What I also love is the export to Simcraft capability. So you can import your toon, then export the sim profile to work out your maximum dps very easily.
I'm working on getting them tweaked to make sure we're hitting that first haste cap ( 13% buffed )
Cyc Out!
Monday, June 22, 2015
In a Fit of Rage, Part 2
Hello Gladiators,
I did another terrible poem. I thought you might get a kick out of it.
From the Forums: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/18194052060?page=1#0
"In a fit of Rage Pt 2"
Twas the night before Hellfire
All through the WOW boards,
Telling Glad, Go join a choir!
But we want shields with our swords!
The mythic race is coming!
Glad Buffs nowhere to be found.
Fury damage will be stunning!
Why even keep us around?
Raid Lead said Fury,
Arms for cleave, or the bench
We're F5'ing in a hurry
Our wrists starts to clench.
We've been waiting for a year
A Patch where we can race
Shield Maidens and Brothers near
Looking Fury Face to Face
Glads got the APM of the Gods
Could be dropping Nydus Worms
F5'ing against the Odds
Instead Fury's dishing Burns
Carpel Tunnel is coming,
That's okay, it's free rage
Lack of Feedback is numbing
Someday we'll have the stage.
6.3 They'll realize the mistake
After the race is said and done
But our shield wall won't break
Even if nerfs blot out the sun.
Nerf Patch Buff
Damage PVP Survival
Cry Huff and Puff
This is the warrior cycle.
In a Fit of Rage Pt 1: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/9573279186
- Cyc Out
I did another terrible poem. I thought you might get a kick out of it.
From the Forums: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/18194052060?page=1#0
"In a fit of Rage Pt 2"
Twas the night before Hellfire
All through the WOW boards,
Telling Glad, Go join a choir!
But we want shields with our swords!
The mythic race is coming!
Glad Buffs nowhere to be found.
Fury damage will be stunning!
Why even keep us around?
Raid Lead said Fury,
Arms for cleave, or the bench
We're F5'ing in a hurry
Our wrists starts to clench.
We've been waiting for a year
A Patch where we can race
Shield Maidens and Brothers near
Looking Fury Face to Face
Glads got the APM of the Gods
Could be dropping Nydus Worms
F5'ing against the Odds
Instead Fury's dishing Burns
Carpel Tunnel is coming,
That's okay, it's free rage
Lack of Feedback is numbing
Someday we'll have the stage.
6.3 They'll realize the mistake
After the race is said and done
But our shield wall won't break
Even if nerfs blot out the sun.
Nerf Patch Buff
Damage PVP Survival
Cry Huff and Puff
This is the warrior cycle.
In a Fit of Rage Pt 1: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/9573279186
- Cyc Out
Monday, June 15, 2015
Slowing Down Until 7.0
Hello Gladiators,
I'm going totake a break from slow down blogging about Gladstance. The recent Q&A by the Blizz dev's didn't address any of the Gladiator issues, and while I feel like we're not being completely neglected, I'm not happy with the direction. They did buff us recently, and then tune it a few times. But you all know I'm not happy until we're taking part in Mythic progression.
Right now it looks like if you have the right gear for Glad, and the wrong gear for Fury, you're okay to go Glad for single target in Mythic HFC. MAYBE some of the fights where multidotters shine ( something like Blast Furnace ) would be nice for us as well, since there will be a lot of spread out targets up for a long time, to allow thunderclap and deep wounds to do a lot of work for us. So I'm hopeful we see a few Glad's here an there. But in Heroic Difficulty, go ham. Glad is perfectly fine for Heroic.
I'llprobably be back with the 7.0 changes and will always be around on twitter.
Keep in Touch,
Cyc
I'm going to
Right now it looks like if you have the right gear for Glad, and the wrong gear for Fury, you're okay to go Glad for single target in Mythic HFC. MAYBE some of the fights where multidotters shine ( something like Blast Furnace ) would be nice for us as well, since there will be a lot of spread out targets up for a long time, to allow thunderclap and deep wounds to do a lot of work for us. So I'm hopeful we see a few Glad's here an there. But in Heroic Difficulty, go ham. Glad is perfectly fine for Heroic.
I'll
Keep in Touch,
Cyc
Wednesday, June 3, 2015
6.2 Gladiator Guide ( Updated 7/6/2015 )
6.2 Gladiator Guide
Recent changes to our spec has resulted in some changes to how we should gear, talents we want, and our rotation.This is meant to be a matter of fact, simple, guide for how to play as Glad in 6.2.
Stats
685-715 ilvl
Strength > Bonus Armor/Attack Power > Haste to 13% Buffed > Crit > Multistrike > Mastery > Vers > Haste after 13% buffed.
730 ilvl BIS
Wdps > Strength > AP/BonusArmor > Haste to 13% Buffed > Crit > Multistrike > Vers > Mastery > Haste after 13% Buffed.
Gear
730ilvl Mythic BIS :
head=faceguard_of_iron_wrath,id=124334,bonus_id=567
neck=world_enders_gorget,id=124222,bonus_id=567,enchant=gift_of_critical_strike
shoulders=doomcriers_shoulderplates,id=124343,bonus_id=567
back=void_lords_wizened_cloak,id=124147,bonus_id=567,enchant=gift_of_critical_strike
chest=breastplate_of_iron_wrath,id=124319,bonus_id=567
wrists=wristplate_of_the_wretched,id=124352,bonus_id=567
hands=gauntlets_of_iron_wrath,id=124329,bonus_id=567
waist=annihilans_waistplate,id=124349,bonus_id=567
legs=legplates_of_iron_wrath,id=124340,bonus_id=567
feet=treads_of_the_defiler,id=124322,bonus_id=567
finger1=thorasus_the_stone_heart_of_draenor,id=124634,enchant=gift_of_critical_strike
finger2=mannoroths_calcified_eye,id=124204,bonus_id=567,enchant=gift_of_critical_strike
trinket1=anzus_cursed_plume,id=124241,bonus_id=567
trinket2=empty_drinking_horn,id=124238,bonus_id=567
main_hand=fiendsbreath_warmace,id=124374,bonus_id=567,enchant=mark_of_the_thunderlord
off_hand=fallen_defender_of_argus,id=124355,bonus_id=567
Stat Weights
6.2 Gladiator T17/18 @ 700 ilvl. This build is fine all the way to Mythic HFC gear.
Scale Factors
for T17 @ 700 ilvl BIS
|
|||||||||
Wdps
|
Str
|
AP
|
BonusArmor
|
Crit
|
Mult
|
Mastery
|
Vers
|
Haste
|
|
Normalized
|
1.03
|
1.00
|
0.96
|
0.96
|
0.73
|
0.62
|
0.61
|
0.56
|
0.49
|
·
Wdps
> Str > AP ~= BonusArmor > Crit > Mult ~> Mastery > Vers
> Haste
| |||||||||
Scale Factors
for T18 @ 730 ilvl BIS
|
|||||||||
Wdps
|
Str
|
AP
|
BonusArmor
|
Crit
|
Mult
|
Vers
|
Mastery
|
Haste
|
|
Normalized
|
1.04
|
1.00
|
0.95
|
0.95
|
0.83
|
0.76
|
0.73
|
0.69
|
0.50
|
·
Wdps
~= Str > AP ~= BonusArmor > Crit > Mult > Vers > Mastery >
Haste
|
|||||||||
Update 7/1/2015!
Note that the trinket you're wearing greatly affects your stat weights. We should shoot for either Anzu and Drinking Horn. Whereas Worldbreakers Class Trinket favors Mastery more than Versatility.
HFC Talent Guide
On All Fights: Unyielding StrikesHellfire Assault : Dragon Roar/Bladestorm/Rude Interruptions
Iron Reaver : Dragon Roar/Avatar
Kormrok - Dragon Roar/Bladestorm
High Council - Dragon Roar/Bloodbath
Gorefiend - Stormbolt/Avatar ( I prefer the stormbolt stuns when you're in the stomach )/Rude Interruptions
Socrethar - Dragon Roar/Avatar/Rude Interruptions
Velhari - Dragon Roar / Bloodbath / Rude Interruptions
Fel Lord Zakuun - Dragon Roar / Bloodbath
Xhul'Thorac - Dragon Roar/Bladestorm/Rude Interruptions
Iskar - Dragon Roar/Bladestorm
Mannoroth - Dragon Roar/Bloodbath/Rude Interruptions
Archimonde - Dragon Roar/Avatar/Rude Interruptions
Friday, May 29, 2015
Patch 6.2 Gladiator Changes
Gladiators!
We have an exciting tier coming around the corner. Along with it are a few changes to the way Gladiators do damage, which happens to be buffs. What's also exciting is I am now in a Mythic raiding guild ( Real Talk on US Kil'Jaeden ) and will be able to actually play this spec if progression allows for it. Unfortunately, we're still not top dog on the meters, but we are definitely an option in 6.2. I don't expect mythic guilds pushing the edge of progression will be using a Glad DPS, but I expect we'll see a lot more play than we did in BRF. Glad continues to be a niche, in that it's behind Fury and Arms. Also, Blizzard continues to be on different sides of the commitment they made, saying " glad should be competitive with fury/arms." I actually tweeted Lore once who didn't even know it was supposed to be a real spec. They said that so many times during Beta, I believed it. I might be a bit salty, but that's just because I'm haven't been in the shield wall enough with my fellow gladiators :)
6.2 Gladiator Changes ( from wowhead ):
Hotfixes ( updated June 2nd )
- May 26, 2015 - 6.2 PTR Patch Notes: Updated 5/26, Upcoming Live Stream Q&A on Patch 6.2
Gladiator's Resolve (Protection): Gladiator Stance now also increases the Warrior's Mastery by 50% 30% while active.
We've received a buff in the form of a increase in the amount of mastery we receive, from our gear. This is linked to gladiator stance and will definitely help as this is our attuned stat. My own simming however doesn't show it to be our best stat, yet. Note that June 2nd this was increased another 20% to total at 50% more mastery from gear. Time to re-check everything. I'm going to post a Gladiator 6.2 guide soon!
Thursday, May 21, 2015
Hellfire Citadel Gladiator BIS List and new Gear
Hello Gladiators,
I've had the opportunity to start Mythic raiding as dps, and because of the Glad performance difference, I had to do my trial as fury/arms. These are sad times, but things are looking upward in Hellfire Citadel.
I'm going to be updating this post again ( like I did in T17 ) and please expect the first revision of this gear to change. It's also possible that blizzard might make another change to either our set bonuses or (hopefully) our class trinket. I will provide a trinket comparison by the end of next week. And finally I will update with a Gear Progression from T17 to T18 post. As there are different Ilvl items within HFC. The new Dev Watercooler covers these changes.
First off I have a Best in Slot list which you can copy/paste into a SimulationCraft profile.
If you've managed to determine a better combination of gear, please let me know in the comments. I purposefully left out gem slots and warforged to make the testing flat.
Set Bonuses:
Battlegear of the Iron Wrath
2 Piece
While in Gladiator Stance, the damage bonus from being Enraged is increased by 20%.
4 Piece
Your Shield Charge also causes you to Enrage.
Trinket Comparisons Placeholder. Still coming! I've been basically begging blizz to buff our class trinket.
Gear Progression, Per Slot Placeholder.
Stat Weights, these were covered at 695 and BIS gear levels in the latest Gladiator's Resolve post here:
http://gladiatorsresolve.blogspot.ca/2015/05/patch-62-gladiator-changes.html
Thanks,
Cyclonus
I've had the opportunity to start Mythic raiding as dps, and because of the Glad performance difference, I had to do my trial as fury/arms. These are sad times, but things are looking upward in Hellfire Citadel.
I'm going to be updating this post again ( like I did in T17 ) and please expect the first revision of this gear to change. It's also possible that blizzard might make another change to either our set bonuses or (hopefully) our class trinket. I will provide a trinket comparison by the end of next week. And finally I will update with a Gear Progression from T17 to T18 post. As there are different Ilvl items within HFC. The new Dev Watercooler covers these changes.
First off I have a Best in Slot list which you can copy/paste into a SimulationCraft profile.
head=faceguard_of_iron_wrath,id=124334,bonus_id=567 neck=world_enders_gorget,id=124222,bonus_id=567,enchant=gift_of_critical_strike shoulders=doomcriers_shoulderplates,id=124343,bonus_id=567 back=void_lords_wizened_cloak,id=124147,bonus_id=567,enchant=gift_of_critical_strike chest=breastplate_of_iron_wrath,id=124319,bonus_id=567 wrists=wristplate_of_the_wretched,id=124352,bonus_id=567 hands=gauntlets_of_iron_wrath,id=124329,bonus_id=567 waist=annihilans_waistplate,id=124349,bonus_id=567 legs=legplates_of_iron_wrath,id=124340,bonus_id=567 feet=treads_of_the_defiler,id=124322,bonus_id=567 finger1=thorasus_the_stone_heart_of_draenor,id=124634,enchant=gift_of_critical_strike finger2=mannoroths_calcified_eye,id=124204,bonus_id=567,enchant=gift_of_critical_strike trinket1=anzus_cursed_plume,id=124241,bonus_id=567 trinket2=empty_drinking_horn,id=124238,bonus_id=567 main_hand=fiendsbreath_warmace,id=124374,bonus_id=567,enchant=mark_of_the_thunderlord off_hand=fallen_defender_of_argus,id=124355,bonus_id=567
If you've managed to determine a better combination of gear, please let me know in the comments. I purposefully left out gem slots and warforged to make the testing flat.
Battlegear of the Iron Wrath
2 Piece
While in Gladiator Stance, the damage bonus from being Enraged is increased by 20%.
4 Piece
Your Shield Charge also causes you to Enrage.
Trinket Comparisons Placeholder. Still coming! I've been basically begging blizz to buff our class trinket.
Gear Progression, Per Slot Placeholder.
Stat Weights, these were covered at 695 and BIS gear levels in the latest Gladiator's Resolve post here:
http://gladiatorsresolve.blogspot.ca/2015/05/patch-62-gladiator-changes.html
Thanks,
Cyclonus
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Gladstance Representation and Suggestions
Gladiator Stance DPS is under represented in Mythic Blackrock Foundry. This makes me sad, I feel like we've been defending the pass for 2 patches and there's only a few guys left standing, stumbling around being stubborn about a switch to Fury/Arms to do 10-20k more damage. Gladiator is not BAD, but it's not keeping up with AOE damage done by Fury and Arms, and it lacks utility that a lot of raids want, like massive execute phases, or defensive raid cooldowns ( rallying cry ). Sure, on a single target fight you can beat the Arms Warrior ( maybe ) but to me, that's not good enough. Gladiator's aren't getting raid spots in Mythic Guilds.
Constructive feedback has always been a promoted part of the Blizzard communities. I can only name a handful of games that really listen to their player base. Some of my Warrior friends are working on constructive feedback and while I didn't agree with some of their suggestions I thought maybe I would throw my 2 cents on here. I see really good design ideas show up in the forums all the time, and I'm not sure I've ever seen as many "here's how to fix X-spec" than I did with the Beta for WoD. I'm not going to even try to re-design gladiator, but what I believe I am capable of is identifying the problems I see, to lend some weight to a ton of feedback the dev's see every day. Really just pouring water in an ocean of feedback at this point, which is okay. This will probably be a bit therapeutic.
1. Gear Scaling.
Gladiator's do not scale well with Gear. A lot of our damage relies on passive damage increases from Shield Charge or the 4piece bonus for example. The flipside of this is that at lower gear levels we do pretty well. I would prefer doing less damage with less gear, and the reverse.
Suggestions:
2. Tank Gear
I like the idea of wearing tank gear and doing damage with it. But this creates situations where we need to compete for the same gear the tank does. Most guilds favor their tanks when it comes to gearing strategies and while you could argue Active Mitigation has made gear a bit less relevant, there just simply isn't a guild that's going to risk wipes during progression because the tanks didn't have enough gear. Gladiators would strongly benefit from being able to compete with Arms/Fury for items.
Suggestions:
3. Utility
Mocking Banner is useful in a few situations. Rallying Cry is used every pull. We've been sat because a raid needed another RC for one of the rough damage phases.
Suggestions:
- Cyclonus
Constructive feedback has always been a promoted part of the Blizzard communities. I can only name a handful of games that really listen to their player base. Some of my Warrior friends are working on constructive feedback and while I didn't agree with some of their suggestions I thought maybe I would throw my 2 cents on here. I see really good design ideas show up in the forums all the time, and I'm not sure I've ever seen as many "here's how to fix X-spec" than I did with the Beta for WoD. I'm not going to even try to re-design gladiator, but what I believe I am capable of is identifying the problems I see, to lend some weight to a ton of feedback the dev's see every day. Really just pouring water in an ocean of feedback at this point, which is okay. This will probably be a bit therapeutic.
1. Gear Scaling.
Gladiator's do not scale well with Gear. A lot of our damage relies on passive damage increases from Shield Charge or the 4piece bonus for example. The flipside of this is that at lower gear levels we do pretty well. I would prefer doing less damage with less gear, and the reverse.
Suggestions:
- Move more damage onto the Damaging Abilities themselves. Move it off of Shield Charge.
2. Tank Gear
I like the idea of wearing tank gear and doing damage with it. But this creates situations where we need to compete for the same gear the tank does. Most guilds favor their tanks when it comes to gearing strategies and while you could argue Active Mitigation has made gear a bit less relevant, there just simply isn't a guild that's going to risk wipes during progression because the tanks didn't have enough gear. Gladiators would strongly benefit from being able to compete with Arms/Fury for items.
Suggestions:
- Lower Bonus Armor's damage benefit. Let us get our damage from the other secondaries so we can go in for Crit/Haste cloaks and whatnot.
- Allow Gladiators to wield either 1 or 2handed weapons. This means we can go in for weapons and also have the option to switch to Arms/Fury if we preferred it for a fight. Plus, it would be pretty sweet to use a 2handed spear with a shield.
3. Utility
Mocking Banner is useful in a few situations. Rallying Cry is used every pull. We've been sat because a raid needed another RC for one of the rough damage phases.
Suggestions:
- A Melee group specific Raid Defensive. Like AMZ or PW:B. Call it Shield Wall, make it a real shield wall. I've love to see a gladiator blow a defensive during Breath on Kromog and see all the melee huddle into a blade barrier or something. It could be like deterrence but for the melee group.
- Execute. This phase should be all about execute, just like Arms and Fury. I don't want to be sat because the 20% burn is the most important part. Right now it's not much of a damage increase to even execute sub 20%, AFTER the buffs.
That's it. I want the spec to cause less frustration with a raid group by just using normal dps gear/weapons, less reliance on tank equipment, and better scaling and a defensive CD.
- Cyclonus
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Gladiator's Blackrock Foundry Gear Guide *Updated 2/16/2015*
Gladiators!
Basic Trinket DPS Values with the above BIS list on, and combined with a Mythic Bottle of Infesting Spores ( the least amount of variance ). Updated 1/30/2015
We've got a new raid in 1 week. I'm sure you're all scrambling to be ready for the bosses coming and I wanted to try to highlight some of the best gear to go for ( and coin for ) in Blackrock Foundry.
Blackhand's Battlegear
Most important is going to be our new set bonuses shown here on WOWHead.
| Warrior T17 Protection 2P Bonus Requires Warrior |
| Shield Slam has a 8% chance to automatically cast Shield Charge. |
| Warrior T17 Protection 4P Bonus Requires Warrior |
| Shield Charge increases the damage of Heroic Strike, Shield Slam, and Revenge by an additional 20%. |
Currently we're able to get 50% uptime on Shield Charge in a 5minute Fight ( Mythic Butcher ). This is obviously dps in a vacuum but with our new 2piece bonus we should see at least 10-15% better uptime on Shield Charge. This only increases the importance of our 4piece, now making us do even MORE damage inside the charges.
Blackrock Foundry BIS Gear
I used the latest Simulationcraft result to generate this basic list.I then edited the gear based on what we know about sim weights, and our breakpoints and have increased our results by a few hundred dps. I'll be keeping this post updated throughout BRF in case there is a change in the gear list. This is a Work In Progress.
Slot
|
Average Item Level: 694.69
|
Head
|
|
Neck
|
|
Shoulders
|
|
Chest
|
|
Waist
|
|
Legs
|
|
Feet
|
|
Wrists
|
|
Hands
|
|
Finger1
|
|
Finger2
|
|
Trinket1
|
|
Trinket2
|
|
Back
|
|
Main Hand
|
|
Off Hand
|
# Gear Summary
# gear_strength=3312
# gear_stamina=4540
# gear_crit_rating=1323
# gear_haste_rating=745
# gear_mastery_rating=893
# gear_armor=3041
# gear_bonus_armor=498
# gear_multistrike_rating=688
# gear_versatility_rating=490
Some points to note on the list:
- This list is a Work in Progress. Small Tweaks I made right after seeing it have already increased the results by a 1500dps.
- The Simcraft list doesn't reach the 700 Haste Breakpoint I recommend, I've re-ran the sims and see a difference of 270dps just by swapping the ring to Seal of Unquenchable Flame, and stilll enchanting crit all around.
- The Swap Piece is going to be Gloves this time around. Our Gloves ended up having the worst stats of all the set pieces.
- This list is based on Mythic Gear levels, so if you didn't manage to get the Mythic Evergaze you may need to aim for one of the other trinkets first.
- Your weapon is still the biggest single upgrade, especially because of all the buffs to devastate. On PTR right now Devastate is sometimes 1st on damage done.
Trinkets
Updated 2/16/2015
Basic Trinket DPS Values with the above BIS list on, and combined with a Mythic Bottle of Infesting Spores ( the least amount of variance ). Updated 1/30/2015
BIS Trinket Combinations from Blackrock Foundry:
- Cyclonus
Monday, January 19, 2015
Gladiator Haste Changes and New Stat Weights
Gladiators!
With the recent changes to haste for World of Warcraft, we are now easily hitting the first haste breakpoint with less gear ( 225 instead of 330 ) and should be looking to also get the second. I've updated the original Stat Weights post to include this information as well. Here is what Haste looks like for my 667 Glad Warriors Gear. Because of these changes our stat weights are going to be different. I decided to show the entire graph on Cyclonus. From 0 haste on gear, all the way to 700 in 25 haste increments.
So, from 0 haste, we see the biggest gains between 200 and 225 Haste, and 650 and 675 Haste. Haste is also now a bit more valuable than it used to be, because we get more of it per stat now. From there the two caps are 225 and 675, Accounting for Interface and Network lag, I would recommend 250 and 700 haste for these caps.
Remember, these are raid buffed values!
New Stat Weights
630 ilvl
665 ilvl
695 ilvl
With the recent changes to haste for World of Warcraft, we are now easily hitting the first haste breakpoint with less gear ( 225 instead of 330 ) and should be looking to also get the second. I've updated the original Stat Weights post to include this information as well. Here is what Haste looks like for my 667 Glad Warriors Gear. Because of these changes our stat weights are going to be different. I decided to show the entire graph on Cyclonus. From 0 haste on gear, all the way to 700 in 25 haste increments.
So, from 0 haste, we see the biggest gains between 200 and 225 Haste, and 650 and 675 Haste. Haste is also now a bit more valuable than it used to be, because we get more of it per stat now. From there the two caps are 225 and 675, Accounting for Interface and Network lag, I would recommend 250 and 700 haste for these caps.
Remember, these are raid buffed values!
New Stat Weights
630 ilvl
| WDPS | 250 Haste | STR | Bonus Arm/AP | 700 Haste | Crit | 700 Haste+ | Multistrike | Versatility | Mastery |
| 1.43 | 1.2 | 0.95 | .90 | .44 | .42 | .41 | .36 | .32 | .30 |
665 ilvl
| WDPS | 250 Haste | STR | Bonus Arm/AP | 700 Haste | Crit | 700 Haste+ | Multistrike | Versatility | Mastery |
| 1.32 | 1.2 | 0.95 | .90 | .60 | .53 | .49 | .48 | .41 | .38 |
695 ilvl
| WDPS | 250 Haste | STR | Bonus Arm/AP | 700 Haste | Crit | 700 Haste+ | Multistrike | Versatility | Mastery |
| 1.26 | 1.2 | 0.95 | .90 | .62 | .62 | .58 | .55 | .48 | .45 |
Tuesday, January 13, 2015
Gladstance Buffs!
Hello Gladiators!
If you are following the latest patch notes, you will see that we got some serious changes. This is going to be really nice for our AOE damage, and especially nice for our scaling. Look at that haste buff! I will need to do the math's to confirm ( and will update the post ), but I believe this to be the case.
The Patch Notes from MMO-C :
First, I'd like to explain that this was a brilliant design decision by Blizzard. We're seeing a 15% damage nerf to Gladiator Stance, and between 20 and 40% buff to the other abilities here. This means that we're going to scale better with gear ( devastate is based on weapon damage ). What is also important is to note that at the beginning of the tier, when weapons and gear were a lot harder to get, we had that damage passively ( though less of it ) and the original design would have kept us up with our Fury and Arms friends. As I said earlier though, I'm going to be working on the updated simcraft whenever it becomes available to confirm all of this, but I thought i'd get the word out there before I started having to read forum threads saying RIP Gladiator LOL.
As a side note, I was also seeing a ton of threads popping up by Raid Leaders and new Prot Warriors talking about jumping into Challenge Modes and Raids and getting trucked by the bosses. Most often when they posted logs they weren't even keeping shield slam up, so I did a guide on how to analyze your Tank on Warcraftlogs. Here is the guide:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1678334-Protection-Tank-Logs-Guide-amp-Analysis-(-Read-OP-First-)
- Cyc
If you are following the latest patch notes, you will see that we got some serious changes. This is going to be really nice for our AOE damage, and especially nice for our scaling. Look at that haste buff! I will need to do the math's to confirm ( and will update the post ), but I believe this to be the case.
The Patch Notes from MMO-C :
- The Haste stat is now 11.1% more effective. For example, characters at level 100 now receive a 1% increase per 90 Haste (up from 1% per 100 Haste).
Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)- General
- Thunder Clap’s damage has been increased by 40%.
- Arms
- Mastery: Weapons Master’s effects have been increased by 57.1%.
- Protection
- Deep Wounds’ damage has been increased by 40%.
- Devastate’s damage has been increased by 20%.
- Revenge’s damage has been increased by 40%.
- Shield Slam’s damage has been increased by 20%.
- Talents
- Gladiator Stance (Protection) now increases damage by 5% (down from 20%).
- General
First, I'd like to explain that this was a brilliant design decision by Blizzard. We're seeing a 15% damage nerf to Gladiator Stance, and between 20 and 40% buff to the other abilities here. This means that we're going to scale better with gear ( devastate is based on weapon damage ). What is also important is to note that at the beginning of the tier, when weapons and gear were a lot harder to get, we had that damage passively ( though less of it ) and the original design would have kept us up with our Fury and Arms friends. As I said earlier though, I'm going to be working on the updated simcraft whenever it becomes available to confirm all of this, but I thought i'd get the word out there before I started having to read forum threads saying RIP Gladiator LOL.
As a side note, I was also seeing a ton of threads popping up by Raid Leaders and new Prot Warriors talking about jumping into Challenge Modes and Raids and getting trucked by the bosses. Most often when they posted logs they weren't even keeping shield slam up, so I did a guide on how to analyze your Tank on Warcraftlogs. Here is the guide:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1678334-Protection-Tank-Logs-Guide-amp-Analysis-(-Read-OP-First-)
- Cyc
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)