Paladin tanking weapons

[Nakati]

Because weapons with tank stats are going to have fast attack speeds, since that's what warriors like. Meanwhile, there will be slow 1-handed maces, swords, and axes, but they will be itemized for rogues and shaman, with crit, agility, AP, hit, armor penetration, and haste.

Did not bother reading the entire 5 pages of this thread but hey..

As one that plays both prot warrior and prot paladin I seriously hope they implement slower tanking weapons for boths sake. I use my decapitator to tank on my warrior unless Im in serious need for that little ammount of migitation my king's defender gives me. The more rage from hitting fast is hardly noticable, at least I dont. And I prefer the harder devastates I perform with a slower weapon, for me it makes a difference especially if Im in a situation where I need to generate threat on several targets. Even if its slightly its more then that tiny ammount of rage from a faster weapon will help me. The penalty for missing a few hits in a row is annoying indeed but thats something thats always there, slow or fast weapon. Once in a blue moon you will always end up having a string of misses that screws you over.

Regardless of one or the other I see absolutely NO harm at all in adding diversity in tanking weapon in more then just the damage they do.

[GothicPL]

With the two new attacks added, I hope there is some hit and expertise on the tier gear, especially now that Precision talent has been removed.
Hopefully, this will make the string of misses issue mostly moot.

[agamemnoch]

As posted in another thread, I think this will be the ultimate "I need a new weapon for the first 3 or 4 levels" of WoTLK.

I could be wrong.

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=23542

That plus a spellpower enchant and a nice stam gem should be pretty hawt.

[Morendin]

As posted in another thread, I think this will be the ultimate "I need a new weapon for the first 3 or 4 levels" of WoTLK.

I could be wrong.

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=23542

That plus a spellpower enchant and a nice stam gem should be pretty hawt.

It's too fast, sorry.
The Hammer is VERY speed dependent.

If, when they fix the Hammer's AP scaling, it is normalized at 2.4 as other 1h instant melee attacks are, the threat advantage over, say, a Hammer of Judgement(or 2.4 badge healing mace, which will give 247 spellpower at that point) becomes minimal, as it's PURELY the difference between the top-end and bottom end damage on the weapon itself, and unless there is a truly broken multiplier on threat, the net effect of a SP weapon will be greater.

If the Hammer is NOT normalized, a 2.2 melee weapon has a larger advantage over a 1.6-1.8 SP weapon...but is UTTERLY overwhelmed by a 2.6+ speed melee weapon, to the point where a lvl70 green with 2.6 speed would provide bigger Hammers.

[agamemnoch]

Yes, but you also lose the ability to keep judgment procs going as well as getting a SoV stack up. We may end up having a macro to swap a weapon in, HoTR and swap back the old weapon.

[Maethoriel]

I think I will get my hands on a [Merciless Gladiator's Slicer] and slap 20 strength on it.

Loss of 20 deffense via Anticipation and leveling up will make me vulnerable to crits.
The resilence will help with that for a level.
Speed of 2.6 and 203-305 weapondamage should be enough.

Any thoughts on this plan?

*** Edit ***
Also: Sword > Mace when it comes to look!!

[Lore]

I don't see too much concern for Warrior rage generation with the new talent that makes them gain rage on dodges and parries. A lot of the reason they like the faster weapons is to smooth out the bumps that dodges and parries cause.

On another note, has anyone in beta happened across any tanking weapons in the expansion yet that we could look at?

[Splug]

Because weapons with tank stats are going to have fast attack speeds, since that's what warriors like. Meanwhile, there will be slow 1-handed maces, swords, and axes, but they will be itemized for rogues and shaman, with crit, agility, AP, hit, armor penetration, and haste.

Did not bother reading the entire 5 pages of this thread but hey..

As one that plays both prot warrior and prot paladin I seriously hope they implement slower tanking weapons for boths sake. I use my decapitator to tank on my warrior unless Im in serious need for that little ammount of migitation my king's defender gives me. The more rage from hitting fast is hardly noticable, at least I dont. And I prefer the harder devastates I perform with a slower weapon, for me it makes a difference especially if Im in a situation where I need to generate threat on several targets. Even if its slightly its more then that tiny ammount of rage from a faster weapon will help me. The penalty for missing a few hits in a row is annoying indeed but thats something thats always there, slow or fast weapon. Once in a blue moon you will always end up having a string of misses that screws you over.

Regardless of one or the other I see absolutely NO harm at all in adding diversity in tanking weapon in more then just the damage they do.

Actually, the primary reason to use a fast weapon is to allow for more heroic strike conversions per time. Due to instant-attack normalization, and devastate only dealing 50% of weapon damage, "big slow weapons" are only going to hit very slightly harder on devastates, and you'd lose out on a large portion of threat in high-rage scenarios from the faster weapon. Case and point: The Brutalizer clocks in at 128 - 193 damage and 1.6 speed (100.3 dps), Rising Tide is 208 - 313 damage, 2.6 speed (100.2 dps). The average damage difference is 132, halved is 66. Once it goes through armor, that'll look like about 50 damage per devastate - not a trivial amount, but less than the ~300 threat from an extra heroic strike. The real reason fast weapons win is their ability to throttle up threat when rage is available in excess - not to gain it faster (rage generation formulas are partially normalized, I don't believe you'd see a huge gain in total rage/time regardless of speed). For low rage situations, slower is reasonable. You'll lose roughly ~170 TPS off your "Full burn" potential from lost heroic strikes, however.

I do not see Stalwart Protector helping rage generation appreciably. Replacing a 40-60 rage hit with a 2 rage parry is better than a 0 rage parry, but it's still fairly moot. It does point in a very attractive direction - it just... doesn't do any more than point. I expect the tallent to be changed before it goes live. However - I think we're going to be looking at slow-weapon tanking being more common in Wrath for other reasons. Rend and Deep Wound are not attack-speed normalized at this time, and thus the damage gap between fast/slow there will be much more than just the weapon's damage range itself.

-Splug

[Lore]

Well the other question is will we see any weapons with pure tanking stats on them, or is a "tanking" weapon in WotLK just a DPS weapon with a decent amount of stam and maybe something like hit, expertise, or agility?

[Sezostris]

Long time lurker, first time poster. As my first post, I saw something that caught my attention. No where in the Talent or Spell Listing for HotR does it state 'Base Weapon Dmg'. It just says weapon damage.

I'm not sure if this has been broached yet, but quite a bit of the tanking gear will have Str/Stam/AP, at least from what I have seen. Str for block value will also generate AP, increasing weapon damage. Also the AP stat itself will contribute here as well. Yes, a slower weapon will have a higher base damage to run on, but I think with the Str stacking to come for BV and what little AP we will get from gear, I have a feeling it should be alright.

Regardless, it's on a 6 sec cooldown. Judgements, Seals, our new Shield Bash and the ever popular consecrate will be in rotation too. I'm not on the Beta, and this is pure speculation from when I stacked Str and AP for my Ret.

[ulushnar]

Yep, it's been noted here and elsewhere that strength will become an important threat stat for small-scale (1-3 mob) encounters.

You'll still want health spelldamage for massive aoe encounters though.

[Splug]

Well the other question is will we see any weapons with pure tanking stats on them, or is a "tanking" weapon in WotLK just a DPS weapon with a decent amount of stam and maybe something like hit, expertise, or agility?

I agree, and doubt we see anything with defense, parry, or dodge. Agility, Strength, Stamina, Hit, and Expertise all look like fair game. But again, that's just speculation. And either way- the question is, do we want the slow agi/str/stam/hit/expr weapon, or the fast slow agi/str/stam/hit/expr weapon? EDIT: Or for multi-target encounters, something completely different (spellpower weapon).

-Splug

[Melathys]

how come the arena axes and maces have higher dmg than the sword, despite the same dps and speed?

*edit

ok, looked at low end dmg. I suppose the sword won't necessarily hit as hard, but would be more consistent.

[Lore]

Given current mechanics and what we've seen so far of HotR it seems obvious that on up to 3 targets we will prefer the slower melee-style weapon, although I'd love to see some numbers if anyone feels so inclined.

[Lore]

how come the arena axes and maces have higher dmg than the sword, despite the same dps and speed?

It's a wider damage range. The top end is higher, but the low end is lower.

Ex: Brutal Gladiator's Cleaver vs Brutal Gladiator's Slicer

The axe has a range of 196-365 damage. (196 + 365) / 2 = 280.5 average hit
The sword has a range of 224-337 damage. (224 + 337) / 2 = 280.5 average hit