Skill Mastery: Damage Shield
by Matthew Rossi 
Oct 13th 2008 at 7:00PM
Do you like it when people hurt themselves trying to hurt you? Sure, we all do! And Damage Shield makes sure that's exactly what happens. A simple, beautiful, long needed change for warrior tanking, Damage Shield inflicts damage on anyone who hits you with a melee attack, or anyone who you block in melee. This is, to my minds, a nice compromise with an avoidance ability still having positive threat results: while it wouldn't make sense to damage someone if they miss you, or if you dodge them, it does make sense that you can block their attack and whack them a sharp smack on the snout for the trouble.Reactive damage is and has always been good for tanking... we've all begged that druid for Thorns, envied that paladin for Retribution Aura, and have a shield or two with a Shield Spike on it for multi-mob tanks. Now, not only do warrior tanks have their own reactive damage tanking ability (which, combined with the new Thunder Clap that has no upper limit on mobs it hits and Shockwave, the 51 point protection talent) but it scales with Strength/Block Value, meaning that as your gear improves you can select to increase this ability's damage and thus its threat. A mere 500 block value (trifling to attain with the new strength to block calculations) means you will deal 100 damage to anyone who strikes you or is blocked attacking you.
Even if (like me in the picture above) you throw on full DPS gear and don't have any active block value, your strength is going to add up to SBV in the 300's or above. That's more than three times as much damage as Thorns, it's always on, you never have to refresh it or ask anyone else to put it on you and it stacks with Thorns and a Shield Spike.
Honestly, what else is there to say? This is an amazing ability. If you are a tank, you should get this ability. In fact, protection spec warriors have absolutely no reason not to get this ability. It will be available as of Echoes of Doom, and if you intend to be specced prot as of tomorrow in the name of all the tanking gods get this talent. You're never going to regret more threat from a stat you're going to stack anyway.
Filed under: Warrior, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Talents, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Rexigar Oct 13th 2008 7:08PM
Does the damage scale from the damage inflicted?
Keylogger Oct 13th 2008 7:16PM
I believe it only stacks with SBV. Could be wrong though, highest warrior is 27 ;)
J McCormack Oct 13th 2008 7:20PM
Who needs prot'adins anymore? =/
Reinard Oct 13th 2008 7:24PM
Eh.
They still AoE tank far better. All they've done is give other tanks the -ability- to AoE tank--pallies are still the kings.
ButtercupSaiyan Oct 14th 2008 7:21AM
The sea is changing, the paradigm shifts, and may I say, about time for the warriors to shine again!
Now if only they'd do it for us mages ...
Cowbane Oct 13th 2008 7:43PM
Does it stack with retribution aura?
Sushiboy Oct 14th 2008 2:38PM
While we aren't on the same level as pali's for holding group threat, I am really looking forward to all the new tools prot warriors are getting in the expansion/patch.
slimj091 Oct 14th 2008 12:12AM
paladins are top dogs when it comes to group threat/aoe tanking.. no doubt. but i think people are underestimating how powerful our new tools will make us warriors in AOE tanking.
AOE tanking for those that never chose to think about it (and i can't blame you.. i've had a paladin tank for me on my mage, and it's easy to just blank out your mind and nerdgasm)... for the most part is just to keep ahead of your healer/healer's on threat on mobs that are not marked skull (or X, or Circle.. whatever you mark first). sure it's also useful for split dps, but unless your doing an encounter that requires two or more mobs to die at the near the exact same time... your more than likely going to follow the skull,x,circle,star train right to the boss.
so unless you get a healer that likes to fill you up with hots and heals right off the bat losing aggro to a healer should be a thing of the past. making our jobs 10x easier (yay! no more tab+devastate inducing aneurysm!), and should make all classes (except tankadins) happy as they should now have a wider selection of tanks. no more of this wait two hours for a paladin tank for heroics crap.
and for everyone that already knows this. i'm sorry for wasting 5 minutes of your life :P.. but i'm sure you know that there are tons of people that still don't know jack about the game they have been playing for nearly four years. and this was for them :D
Liel Oct 13th 2008 7:47PM
I think this is a great addition for prot warriors. I leveled a warrior first and a year later a prot pally. When I was prot my warrior had a hell of a time killing a mob but I found grabbing extra mobs on my pally was faster than killing a single mob.
Tence Oct 13th 2008 7:49PM
i dont know much of a prot pallie, mine is only lvl 40
but what can a prot pally do in a aoe pull with a mob the fears ???
what can a prot pally do in a aoe pull with a mob that silence ??
and also some people say that due to the thunder clap attack speed debuff and Demoralizing Shout the warrior aoe mitigation is way better than the pallies
also, our aoe threat is terrible in fights that we need to move every time
dont know if we r still the kings of Aoe
obs: rlysry for my bad english =P
seanos Oct 14th 2008 2:15AM
All valid points..
For the most part a pally doesn't have to deal with these things, so they're still going to be awesome when there's lots of aoe dps flying around... but in those situation you mentioned a warrior (and also druids) wont have these issues. That said, to really lock down threat theres abit of tab+devastate going on - but its not 'aneurysm inducing' anymore as someone described it. With 20 yards on taunt and the use of charge in def stance + combat its quite easy (and i must say, pretty damn fun) keeping a lid on things. And theres nothing like a well aimed shockwave to clean things up. ;)
I'm personally thrilled to bits with the new toys.
MusedMoose Oct 13th 2008 8:00PM
Sorry for slightly OT, but is that a two-handed weapon and shield in that picture? I keep hearing about using two 2H-weapons with Titan's Grip, but hadn't thought about a 2H and shield.
Matthew Rossi Oct 13th 2008 8:00PM
Nope, it's a 1h weapon. http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?item=41182 You couldn't get Titan's Grip and have Damage Shield, That would require level 108 (51 fury, 48 prot) I believe.
MusedMoose Oct 13th 2008 8:31PM
Ah, my mistake. I thought that Damage Shield was a trainable Warrior ability, not a Prot talent. Thanks.
Cow Oct 13th 2008 8:14PM
With all the new goodies warriors are getting...
What are we druids getting? Swipe in a cone (meh), berserk (ok, i concede, useful), barkskin usable in bear form (should have always been the case), pots in bear form (likewise), last stand...meh.
It seems as if warr/dk are being given all the toys, leaving palas and druids with nothing particularly interesting.
I want toys! :
niko Oct 13th 2008 8:26PM
To be perfectly frank, if you want the toys, you should roll a warrior. Blizz has each class with its perks, and toys is the warriors perk. ;)
Druids get the utility to swap talents/gear to fit the situation, like any other hybrid. They give up some of the toys for this.
You could also just play both ya know. :)
Kaphik Oct 13th 2008 8:33PM
You're also finally gaining the ability to proc melee effects on your weapons while in shift form. Mongoose for druids is going to be very good.
Cow Oct 13th 2008 8:56PM
@14: Yes, but none of this is NEW. This is all stuff that SHOULD have been implemented, but for whatever reason never was (I'm still convinced it was a bug they never bothered to work out).
Feral druids as tanks have been crapped on in terms of not being able to mitigate crushing blows or use pots/healstones in bear form, nor use weapon procs etc...You can use the multiple-spec thing all you like, but that really doesn't apply to feral druids, especially those of us who are raiding tanks. About the only thing you could argue was that we could perform adequately in a DPS role while specced as tank. Well, not any more. And I feel that we haven't gained enough to make up for this, the slashing of our AC and stamina, and the fact that we will be forced to roll against rogues for our tank gear and yet another class (DKs) for our tier badges.
And Kaphik, though mongoose will be good for the time being, it will be obsolete very shortly. Too little, too late, imo.
Diatribe over, I am very pleased for my warrior brethren. It's about time, frankly, that you guys got some stuff to liven up the class, and I couldn't be happier. My MT is going to be thilled. I may even dust off my little 42 warrior.
slimj091 Oct 14th 2008 12:50AM
"It seems as if warr/dk are being given all the toys, leaving palas and druids with nothing particularly interesting.
I want toys! :"
perhaps you were in a coma during the first few months after TBC was released. Druid tanks were the absolute s#!@. everyone was rolling with a druid tank, and laughed at the mere mention of a warrior tank looking for a group. of course druid's got nerfed.. but not so much to give warriors a leg up (yes i know warriors got their main tank spot back above druids further into raid progression, but for a while us warriors had to hide our heads in the dirt).
to be honest. you should be thankful you got what you did. most of what they are giving to druid's is what druid tanks have been asking for for a while now. now you want more.. typical of a bear.. never content with being happy. always have to bite the hand of your feeder. which is why they are the #1 threat to the world!
arrogance Oct 14th 2008 1:01AM
im sure there'll be druid love in the upcoming patches. i hear you guys are getting new skins in a future patch? so far though druids have been the dominating tank in the beta and they're actually due for a few nerfs cause they were the best tank dps, threat and mitigation(well mitigation for some fights).
link to one of the recent blue posts on druids here. http://blue.mmo-champion.com/2/10529928432-should-i-reroll-another-class-for-tanking.html
love how prot warriors are shaping up. ive been hearing how great it is and everything, but i can't wait to actually try out how fun its become after the patch later.