Starting Cataclysm raids.

I have to admit that our raiding start to this expansion has been unspectacular. That's not to say it hasn't been pleasing because, despite having a number of problems, we've actually made quite a solid start to the content and we've gotten through a lot more than the vast majority of guilds out there. We started late, we've not got a settled squad, we've lost some players we were counting on and the preparation simply hasn't been as good as we hoped. In saying all that, though, I now feel I'm in a position to comment on tier 11 and how I've been finding it.

Boy, have the goalposts moved.

Our time in Wrath of the Lich King taught us several things, most notable of which was the fact that good tanks and (particularly) good healers could rescue an otherwise mediocre raiding team and lead it to a modicum of success. Since those days we've seen as close to a complete one-eighty as you can get without actually performing one. All of a sudden, a huge percentage of responsibility for success has landed on the shoulders of your DPS players and that load has caught a significant number of them out. Taking unnecessary damage causes healers to run out of mana, failing to interrupt or CC properly causes tank deaths and taking too long to deal the necessary damage is seeing raids wipe to enrages.

But that's not all.

Sharing the load was one step in the right direction and it's one that really has separated the man guilds from the boy guilds. But more than anything else, one particular change in raid philosophy has caused the progression speed of the average guild to plummet.

The removal of the margin for error.

The content in Cataclysm isn't necessarily harder than it was in WotLK. People may think I'm kidding, but I'm not; the mechanics are no more complicated than they've ever been. But the fact that people can no longer coast along pressing buttons without much care is what's wiping raids left, right and centre. Missing an interrupt, standing in the wrong place or getting out of a void zone never used to matter that much to people, nor did things like healing priorities or threat - but a failure on any of these counts is almost certainly going to lead to wipe after wipe after wipe.

Now, I know what you're thinking - cut the chaff. But in a guild like mine, it's not so easy. And we're also at a point in the expansion where new guilds are popping up all over the place due to new players, returning players or players losing their guild home due to a disband or a falling out. Trust me, the content is stressing a lot of people. In such an environment recruitment is out of the question, you can't outgear what's wiping you and patience is going to be needed in spades.

Now, this may sound pretty bleak. But I'd like to make something clear.

This is some of Blizzard's greatest content.

The fact is, too much of WotLK was simply too easy and could be steamrolled much too quickly. This content is (sometimes painfully) forcing players to up their game and step up to the mark. Failure to do so is causing wipes, which nobody appreciates. Therefore, players are leaving raid groups because "they don't take the game so seriously" or they are working on the dummies and their gear to drag up their level of performance.

In short, Blizzard has created a duel-pronged attack on weaker raids groups. Those who don't really want to be in them are quitting, and those who DO are working harder to become better players. This is overwhelmingly positive.

But in the meantime, how can you give your raid the best chance of success? I have a few pointers, actually.

1) Understanding group roles is absolutely vital.

Tanks are supposed to establish, maintain and survive threat through damage mitigation;
Healers are there to keep the tank alive and to heal through unavoidable raid damage;
Damage dealers are there to manage encounter mechanics, avoid damage they don't have to take and deliver enough DPS to complete an encounter prior to the enrage.

Once your raid group has a grasp of these basic premises, they can start gearing and preparing accordingly.

2) Tanking and healing is inexorably entwined.

It used to be the case that a healer could simply keep healing until you were fine; no more. What the tank fails to mitigate, the healer must account for.

3) Some players deal with mechanics better than others.

ALWAYS assign your most capable players to the harder jobs. The most talented player in my guild is an Enhancement shaman and I know that he will do whatever I ask him to perfectly. When gear allows and as the progress moves on, you can start to develop the skills of your other players but when you're nose-to-the-grinder, use the talents at your disposal.

4) Appreciate that you're in for a slog.

As I said, we've had a solid start but haven't set the world alight - some nights have been really tough. Try to understand that this is going to be the case, and that as long as you're getting better on each pull and the same mistakes aren't merely being repeated then you're on the right track. No toys out of the pram, please.

I'll end this particular "Wall O' Text" here because you'll be getting bored. If you can just bear the above in mind while raiding, you'll start to see that the encounters are not actually that rough to start with if you go with a raid group that wants to learn, develop and put in the time required for both to happen. Loot won't fly your way immediately but trust me when I tell you that it makes it more pleasurable to earn.

Just raid with an open mind, don't throw blamecakes around at the second wipe and try to encourage everyone instead of discouraging them.

Honestly, it's worth it.

Changes in Patch 4.0.6.

So, it seems our first large client-side patch is inbound relatively shortly as it's just hit the PTR. Though there are a raft of changes in it, there isn't an awful lot that is going to affect Protection warriors in either playstyle or output; it's been a pretty strong expansion for us so far and this patch isn't going to change that. So, what exactly is about to happen?

Well, Heroic Strike and Cleave are both seeing a reduction in damage by 20% while Charge is going to see its stun suffer from diminishing returns. For us tanks, this means we're losing DPS from the former and losing precisely nothing from the latter; it's an alteration aimed at PvP. The problem with this, of course, is that (despite promises to the contrary prior to launch) Protection warrior damage is still wholly dependent upon Heroic Strike - the difference between a warrior using it well and not using it at all is between 35% and 50% which is a staggering number. Ghostcrawler himself recently commented that warriors in any talent spec were seeing too much damage from Heroic Strike and it needed reined back a bit, so the nerfs to it are not unexpected. I happen to agree with his view, by the way. The question on most lips, however, is where do we get the damage back from? After all, it's not as if warriors are over-performing - a basic nerf to damage isn't warranted.

The answer:

War Academy no longer buffs Heroic Strike or Cleave. It now buffs Mortal Strike, Raging Blow, Devastate, Victory Rush and Slam.

In short, damage is being moved away from Heroic Strike and put onto Devastate. This is a totally unsurprising and relatively uninspiring change, but it's easy to implement and rebalances in arguably the best way. One is too strong, the other is too weak, so tipping the scales is the most logical way of doing things. Plus, War Academy is almost universally picked up by warriors in all three specializations which means it's a safe place to sit the buff.

But there's always a wee, back-of-the-mind, nagging concern.

This change implies that both the 20% flat nerf to Heroic Strike, added to the 15% loss from War Academy, is balanced out by buffing BOTH Mortal Strike/Raging Blow AND Slam for DPS warriors. For tanks, it's doubtful a mere buff to Devastate will make up the difference on its own, so I wonder where else tank damage will be accounted for. Shield Slam already contributes too much of our damage, while it's highly unlikely we'll see two talents that buff Revenge; especially considering it's fine as it is. Personally, I'd expect a flat buff to Devastate if our numbers start to come out undertuned. Oh, and before anyone asks, I've deliberately ignored Victory Rush because it's situational for everyone, other than those who choose to spec into Impending Victory. Even then, the only "contribution" it makes is to stop warrior damage plummeting if you opt for Devastate and Victory Rush spam for that last 20%. Amusingly, the alteration to War Academy looks even more enticing if you have gone for Impending Victory, though I'm not sure that's by design.

Too Long, Didn't Read?

The Protection warrior playstyle is not going to change with this patch, with some damage being moved from Heroic Strike to Devastate.

"But Zell, that's obvious; what do you want me to actually THINK about?"

The thing to consider regarding all of this is how the changes alter the value of Incite.

At the moment, Incite is the greatest talent a Protection warrior has for single-target damage. In fact, it's so good, warriors of any spec (Fury more so) are picking it up. The problem is that it changes the design intent for Heroic Strike due to the proc pushing it onto our priority queue, where it isn't actually supposed to be at all. If you've got a guaranteed critical strike in three seconds, particularly at higher levels of Vengeance, Heroic Strike starts to compete with Shield Slam, Shockwave and Revenge for your rage, while utterly blowing Devastate out of the water. In fact, I'd go as far to argue that it lands at the top of your list short of Sword and Board lighting up. For an attack that's only supposed to be used "during periods of high rage", that's frankly ludicrous and desperately needs to change. It sounds great, but it means warrior damage has to be tuned while taking the contribution of Incite into account - and as you can probably tell, that isn't much fun for those periods of low rage when you're barely getting the chance to use Heroic Strike at all.

In short, Incite (practically mandatory) and Heroic Strike (far too high a DPS/TPS contribution) are not fitting the design intent as they are currently, and these changes should address both.

Naturally, we're going to have to see how the numbers play out when the veritable mathematicians start messing about with the numbers thrown up by the PTR. But I would suggest that these changes are actually going to benefit warriors in the vast majority of instances, particularly at times of low rage where we traditionally struggle.

Happy New Year!

I really mean it.

As a Scot, we're well renowned for our celebration of Hogmanay and our bizarre propensity for looking at all the positives worth taking into a new year. The blog has been quiet over the festive (and, thus, celebratory) period for that very reason; and I sincerely hope that everyone can kiss goodbye to what they didn't like from the last 12 months, while rigidly clinging to all that moved, cheered or inspired them.

Once again, let me wish you all a Happy New Year and share the hope that you can thoroughly look forward to what's coming up in 2011.

Lok'tar!