Ask a Beta Tester: Protection Warriors, Death Knight DPS, and more
by Alex Ziebart 
Sep 29th 2008 at 4:00PM
What I'd like to know his exactly how much protection warrior dps as changed. All the talents seem too good to be true.
Protection Warriors seems like one of the class/spec combos that have changed the most in Wrath. Their tanking is incredible and a lot more versatile now (all tanks are, actually) but you're asking about DPS and not tanking! Their DPS is good. It's not as high as DPS classes/specs, but it's not abysmal like it used to be. You might actually be DPSing with your shield equipped for the huge Shield Slam crits rather than dual wielding, even when you're not the one being beat on.
I don't have any concrete numbers or DPS charts for you, but I can say that what I've seen is really, really impressive. In yesterday's Ask a Beta Tester, reader Friday Knight gave you some more in depth information about the rotations of each spec, so I recommend reading that if you missed it. His information and what I've seen myself makes me want to gear up a Prot Warrior alongside my Prot Paladin instead of having just one tanking character.
Ironside asked...
If somebody shoots a fireball at your group while you're riding the mammoth who takes the damage?
Whoever they targeted. You can all be targeted individually.
Hakker asked...
How does the whole passenger thing actually work? Like, if I were to ride on someone's mammoth, would I be stuck in place like I were riding my own mount? Or would I be able to move around the mount freely like say the tram or on a boat?
Yes, you are stuck in place. You sit in your seat and you like it.
Chris asked...
Regarding raid gear: If the gear from 10-man raids is one Tier below the 25-man version, that must logically mean that, having completed the entire 10-man progression path, there will only be one 25-man dungeon with any loot better than yours. Won't this completely discourage people from progressing through the 25-man versions of the raids? (Until the very last one, of course)
As a reader mentioned, a lot of guilds intend to do both 10 and 25 man versions of raids to gear up quickly. I, personally, expect we'll see a lot fewer guilds doing 25 man content, but that's only my opinion on it. 25 man content just isn't rewarding for the added effort it takes, I think. If anything, yeah, they'll have 10 man teams until the end of the 10 man bracket, then they'll tackle the final 25 man. We'll see how the system works out in the end, I think it will still have many flaws to work out.
Nathral asked...
With Death Knights being a Tanking/Melee DPS class, I have to ask do they have any kind of Threat Management or a full Threat Dump? Or is it going to be like a Fury warrior, your threat dump is to take one in the face and die?
I hope you like taking it in the face because as a Death Knight, you're going to be doing it a lot. ...Uh. You know what I mean. As far as I know, it's a lot like Fury Warriors. No threat dumps. On the bright side, if you're specced properly you get to come back as a Ghoul when you die! That's fun, right?
Necromos asked...
Quick question about loose ends in Naxx lore: Is the whole Kel'thuzad's phylactery thing cleared up?
Yes.
Bombrik asked...
Regarding Barbershops, I was told there are only three chairs that can be used and everyone else must wait in line. Are there any mechanics in place to prevent griefing cause I am very sure on my server of Kirin Tor, that you'll have people taking the chairs, then going AFK for the next 3 hours to insure that no one else can use the barbershop.
It seems like when you sit down in the chair, you fade out from everyone's view and everyone fades from yours. So you won't need to worry about griefing. I think multiple people can use each chair since you can't see eachother, and nobody can stand on top of you keeping you from seeing your haircut.
The Wrath of the Lich King beta is in full swing, and the WoW Insider crew is here to sate your curiosity with Ask a Beta Tester! Leave your beta questions in the comments and we'll do our best to answer 'em! And if you can't get enough Wrath, don't forget to check WoW Insider's Wrath Roundup page for anything we haven't answered here!Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Death Knight, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
jarerami Sep 29th 2008 4:07PM
With most beneficial spells now being able to help the entire raid rather than the party, does Holy Nova follow suit?
Keysdawg Sep 29th 2008 4:47PM
Holy Nova is and always has been a AoE. It has never been restricted to group/party.
Bootsanator Sep 29th 2008 4:56PM
LIES! Holy Nova has always been Party!
This is actually a question I was wondering myself.
http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=25331
http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?spell=25331
Both say "party members" so I don't think any changes have occurred, but I'd love to know if it's just a tooltip that hasn't changed, or if it is indeed, still sucktastic if you're in a raid.
Tap Sep 29th 2008 5:02PM
Keysdawg, um, blizz disagrees with you:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/priest/talents.html
Is party only. Same with WotLK: http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?spell=48078
The DMG is everyone, but the heal is party only (and talking about group/party, we have to be talking about healing, so...)
Elmo Sep 29th 2008 4:09PM
How are Enh Shamans shaping up? I heard silly things like Elemental gear is great for them or 2x fast/FT...
are we really gonna make that much of a turn around?
in other words, is my hard earned gear all worthless? not just the epic gems and Str enchants..
Baluki Sep 29th 2008 4:18PM
Blizzard has noticed this, and they intend to fix it.
http://blue.mmo-champion.com/8/10535464561-wfwfmelee-enhance-dead.html
Travysh Sep 29th 2008 5:51PM
A lot of that has to do with the fact windfury ranks 6-8 are (still) broken. So flametongue weapons out DPS WF rank 5.
If nothing else, it's actually quite fun to use dual flametongue and fast weapons. Though once everything is working as it's supposed to, expect windfury and at the very least a slow main hand to be back in the picture.
Angus Sep 29th 2008 4:42PM
All sorts of things are in flux. They have some pretty poor people working on the class and it shows. I'd say I'm surprised by the stupidity coming from the devs, but it stopped being surprising around the time they removed spectral transformation because it was too close to an "iconic ability" of a class that stole everything but that ability from every other class in the game.
And then they gave death knights water walking...
My tankadin will be my new main, or I go to WAR. The wife and I are still deciding.
Jolly Sep 29th 2008 4:12PM
Does engineering in WotLK have an equivilant gathering skill to gas cloud mote-farming in BC?
BillDoor Sep 29th 2008 4:30PM
There are new gas clouds, and you can get motes from them using your old extractor and old goggles.
Also, you can "scavenge" mechanical creatures when they're dead.
Baluki Sep 29th 2008 4:14PM
Here's a question:
When you use one of the new Knockback skills (Thunderstorm, Stampede), if your target is already immobilized (such as with Frost Nova) will they still be knocked back?
Meira Sep 29th 2008 5:42PM
Short Answer: No
Long Answer: Between a root and a knockback, the root takes precedence. So you will not send flying mobs when they have ice on their feet :P
sjb Sep 29th 2008 4:15PM
I know there has been a lot of discussion already about tanking, but having just leveled up my alt pally for end-game tanking, I have a few questions. It seems with a lot of the tanking changes, Blizzard has said they want all four tanking classes to be able to fulfill any tanking role (MT,OT,AE). Is there enough differences between the classes though that still makes them distinguishable? I'm wondering what the point of leveling a pally/warrior from 0-80 is when you could roll a DK at 55 and only have to gain 25 levels. I am hoping that there will be situations (formerly AE) that one would choose a pally over a DK.
Sorano Sep 29th 2008 4:30PM
Simply, put: every tanking class can now generate enough aoe threat just to get by. I'm my opinion, paladins will still remain top 5-man tanks thanks to abilities like Consecrate. It is still suppose to out-threat Thunderclap, Swipe and Death and Decay.
In Wrath now, if there's equivalent to the last MgT pull, as a Warrior Tank , I won't need to bring as much classes who can do crowd control. More classes to choose from for more varied groups. I think that's great news!
Each tanking will still have their niche:
Warriors: Single Target threat
Druid: Best off-tank
Paladin: Best aoe threat
Death Knight: Best spell mitigation
What paladins are afraid is that with most classes having access to sufficient aoe threat abilities, their niche will disappear because in their current form they have slightly less mitigation, a smaller hp pool and scale less well with gear than Warriors or Druids.
Guess we'll have to wait and see.
Balius Sep 29th 2008 4:59PM
@Sorano:
When you say druids are going to make the best off-tanks, are you referring to their ability to go cat when not needed as tanks, or are they still less than desirable for most situations and only around for a few instances of needing someone to soak a lot of damage?
Cyrus Sep 29th 2008 5:52PM
"When you say druids are going to make the best off-tanks, are you referring to their ability to go cat when not needed as tanks, or are they still less than desirable for most situations and only around for a few instances of needing someone to soak a lot of damage?"
There's that, which is important, but I think he mainly means rage generation. All tanking classes depend on getting hit to generate mana/rage (hmmm, what about death knights though? Maybe not? Interesting...), but it's much less of a problem for bears than paladins or warriors.
Sorano Sep 29th 2008 5:53PM
@Balius:
I can't say for Wrath, but their speciality in BC was pure mitigation, soaking up crushing blows, better dps in bear form and the ability to be a mini-rogue in cat form.
While the removal of crushing blows from boss fights in Wrath did hinder some of their strenghts, they received some great new buffs for cat form (feral charge in cat, an ap-based equivalent to a rogue's slice and dice) and changes to bear tanking, they still remain great tanks. I'm guessing they can still generate more rage from abilities than warriors can when not tanking.
havitech Sep 29th 2008 6:07PM
Druids are shaping up nicely, but I don't have exact numbers or personal testing to back that up. Our armor and dodge were effectively nerfed since we've been moved to rogue gear, but new talents and buffs to existing talents look like they'll make up for it, and maybe then some.
Of course, we'll still be able to go kitty and do better DPS than any other tank when needed. We should be equally desirable in any raid situation, but ones where you need multiple tanks for some trash on the way, but not the boss; that still will be our niche.
Steven Sep 29th 2008 9:05PM
@havitech
Without the armor mitigation and dodge, what does a feral druid have? We cannot parry, we cannot block. The only thing that keeps our faces from getting caved in (because yes, we tank with our faces :D ) was the high armor and dodge.
To Alex, have you seen any feral tanks along your travels? How have they shaped up?
Still a little miffed that they are taking the armor off of our TBC tier pieces. Why are they making all leather rogue leather? I think they should make it all druid leather, personally. :)
On that same token, why don't they make all plate warrior plate? All cloth priest cloth? All mail hunter mail?
ionesco Sep 30th 2008 9:13AM
All tanks are aoe tanks, is this what i'm reading? If so, are we moving away from CC then? As a warlock, a enh shaman and a balance druid, thank goodness.