Blizzard on Protection Warrior Design Goals and Feedback on 11.1 PTR

Posted 2025/01/24 at 7:53 PM by Squishei

Thank you all for your feedback! It’s valuable and heard.

Protection Warrior requires a very high APM to play currently, and we feel that the APM requirement is too high. High APM, especially from frequently pressing abilities that are off the GCD like Shield Block and Ignore Pain, can be uncomfortable or even painful for some players.

One of the culprits in driving APM up is high burst Rage generation which feeds into dumping excess Rage into Ignore Pain. This is what has driven many of the changes we’ve made, cutting down on burst Rage generation and moving more of it into steady sources so you should always have enough Rage for mitigation and your rotation, without frequently dumping excess into off-GCD abilities.

The other major culprit is the frequency of Shield Slam resets via Devastator and Strategist. Not only is Shield Slam the primary source of Rage generation, Shield Slam is also the highest priority ability for Protection Warriors. The more time that Shield Slam is available, the less time you have to use procs like Revenge! and Sudden Death or spend excess Rage on Revenge. The previous 30% reset rate makes Shield Slam more prominent in the rotation than we’re happy with and leads to other procs stacking up and Rage accumulating while the Warrior is trying to keep up with their Shield Slam resets. This also puts more pressure on off-GCD abilities to serve as Rage dumps, as opposed to abilities like Revenge. We feel that reducing Shield Slam’s prominence in the rotation will allow for Revenge and other abilities to fill the rotation and serve to consume excess Rage.

We’re monitoring Protection’s performance, especially the tuning of Ignore Pain and total damage. The Rage income changes affect other talents like Anger Management, and we’re working to keep all aspects of Protection competitive following these changes.

Thanks again for the many helpful feedback posts here.

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Comment by RannirdinSick beans! Love me some changes.Comment by kraelicNow do one of these posts for Brewmaster, Vengeance, and BDK. Same sh*t, different day. SMH.Comment by kraelicNow do one of these posts for Brewmaster, Vengeance, and BDK. Same sh*t, different day. SMH.Comment by KenjiT28Guess I am not smart enough to understand any of that blue nonsense.
My prowar alts all function wonderfully and are, currently my best tanking class hands down.Comment by TsunagaDo any prot warriors actually WANT this? Every single prot main I've spoken to sums this up as horrible news, meanwhile; blood, veng and brew still await positive tuning while the best tank BY A MARGIN gets A BUFF? Dude, I'm a BDK main and imma be real here--- show brewmaster some love before the rest of us. And not the "we know what you want" kind of love. Ask the best monks and give them a f*n hand.Comment by Soulcleave"there are not enough tanks because tanks are boring to play. so we are making prot warr even more boring to play!" 10/10 play powerplayComment by LimetailDo any prot warriors actually WANT this?Comment by MyqinNow do one of these posts for Brewmaster, Vengeance, and BDK. Same sh*t, different day. SMH.Comment by ThocorDo any prot warriors actually WANT this?Comment by Jakocan they do this for Blood DK? that spec needs some helpComment by Modestmouse85Do any prot warriors actually WANT this? Every single prot main I've spoken to sums this up as horrible news, meanwhile; blood, veng and brew still await positive tuning while the best tank BY A MARGIN gets A BUFF? Dude, I'm a BDK main and imma be real here--- show brewmaster some love before the rest of us. And not the "we know what you want" kind of love. Ask the best monks and give them a f*n hand.Comment by TaijituWhile I agree with most of this design philosophy, I think the obvious low hanging fruit is to singnificantly increase the rage cap and/or decrease the rage cost of Shield Block and Ignore Pain. A large part of the frantic playstyle of prot comes from having to so carefully manage your rage to ensure you have enough to maintain shield block (absolutely critical for survival) while also not overcapping. The window right now is so narrow that it's all too easy to get into a position where you are out of rage for Shield Block but are still waiting for the Shield Slam proc you thought was coming but never did. The buff to Bloodsurge certainly helps with this (which I assume is what they mean by "steady sources" of rage), but now they've created a situation where Bloodsurge feels mandatory, which is obviously not ideal especially for a spec that is already so hungry for talent points.Comment by SpanRaDo any prot warriors actually WANT this? Every single prot main I've spoken to sums this up as horrible news, meanwhile; blood, veng and brew still await positive tuning while the best tank BY A MARGIN gets A BUFF? Dude, I'm a BDK main and imma be real here--- show brewmaster some love before the rest of us. And not the "we know what you want" kind of love. Ask the best monks and give them a f*n hand.Comment by FrostyDwarfI personally don't have a problem with the high APM. It should one of the features of playing the spec. Dumping the excess rage into Ignore Pain is one of the things that is good. More Ignore Pain means bigger absorb shields which means less overall dmg intake which is a good thing.

The choice between pressing Revenge and Ignore Pain is not a choice to begin with. Sure, if I am not taking a lot of dmg I'll press Revenge, but let's see: pressing Revenge! to spend a GCD to deal dmg and potentially have my absorb shield fall off and could subsequently die, or press Ignore Pain to get a bigger shield, not use a GCD, and survive? That feels like a no brainer.Comment by blupacheI appreciate the explanation, and I can appreciate what they're going for with the design change - not making some form of change would just leave the spec stuck in the current iteration... but this sort of change is not going to be a one season thing so I wouldn't be hoping for better than mid on a prot warrior this coming season =\

This sounds like a "get the new baseline functional this season, make positive changes next season" sort of timeline...

Addendum: I wouldn't give up hope on prot warrior staying high APM tho - it sounds more like a question of 'how high APM?' and 'with which abilities?'Comment by akaRavenDo any prot warriors actually WANT this?Comment by Tnax"Boost Prot damage in previous patchnote"
"Nerfing it in next patchnote"
I like Prot for just how much DPS you can do as a tank, especially when you do clear runs with guild in battle-stance and pure damage build.
You want less APM? Make IP 100% like in Legion, and/or providing more absorb on a CD or w/e. IP dumping is just due to us trying to keep it up, as single cast is basically instantly vanished in M+10 or Mythic Raid.
Prot Pala is 87 APM on Templar and 82 on Lightsmith, Guardian Dudu is 81 APM, and they do not get changes.
Outlaw is 86/83 APM, Fire mage is 81/78 APM they do not get squished under 70APM like rest of classes. But hey we can be like Devokers at 36 or Affli lock at 42 APM.Comment by TyranuelDo any prot warriors actually WANT this? Every single prot main I've spoken to sums this up as horrible news, meanwhile; blood, veng and brew still await positive tuning while the best tank BY A MARGIN gets A BUFF? Dude, I'm a BDK main and imma be real here--- show brewmaster some love before the rest of us. And not the "we know what you want" kind of love. Ask the best monks and give them a f*n hand.Comment by SeniaaThe issue with Revenge is it straight up won't be worth pressing unless you are offtanking. Guardian doesn't necessarily run into this problem because Ironfur lasts longer than a single global (IP evaporates in high end content) and Maul/Raze actually have defensive properties in talents such as Tooth and Claw. Revenge is ONLY damage and the damage is not remotely worth potentially dying over lack of rage.Comment by orryerSick beans! Love me some changes.

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