Quoted from US forum:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=60758793&sid=1
In the Warrior Concerns thread, Tseric said the following:
Q u o t e:
Interesting point. Was wondering if you might want to clarify part of that for me: *snip* “but with the rage normalization, this form of compensation was removed.” So, are you saying that upgrading your weapon completely removes an option for increasing rage generation? I can see how increasingly higher-end weapons are going to see more and more effect from normalization, but are you saying that rage generation is at a halt with weapon upgrades?
It's interesting that he should ask this, because an extremely well-geared, Arms spec (with ER) friend of mine did a little testing. He strapped on his Dark Edge, full damage gear (approximately 1400 AP), and repeatedly charged a shaman pal in a duel to see how much rage he would get. He would get the charge rage and, every time, nine rage on the follow up white hit if it didn't crit. He then took off all of his gear except for the axe. 600 or so AP. He repeatedly charged the same shaman. Guess how much rage he was getting?
Right. Nine.
Assuming he didn't spend twenty minutes testing and forgot how to read numbers, this means one of two things:
-Every warrior everywhere would receive the same amount of rage on an attack if they all charged the same person. Maybe this is, in fact, the case, and I've been misunderstanding what rage normalization is supposed to do all this time; that is to say, I was under the impression it was going to pull people closer together, not put them all on the same level regardless of equipment. But it seems rather absurd- I understand the notion of keeping your hands on the reins, but you can't choke the horse.
-None of our gear affects rage generation except the weapon. That, too, seems ludicrous, because it would mean a naked warrior with a DEoI should get more rage per attack than a fully-geared one with an Arcanite Reaper.
I'm not very good at the math of this, so even if I found the damage equations, I'm not sure I'd be able to reliably figure out what's supposed to happen. All I know is that a naked warrior should, normalization or not, produce less rage than he would fully geared. If anyone else has, or cares to, reproduce this, that would be helpful; if anyone has evidence that I'm wrong, that would also be helpful. If I had the money to respec out of prot, I'd test it myself, but for now, this is the best feedback I can give.
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Actually, I tested it with a lock friend, no demon armor up, a few days after the patch.
And yes, it's very silly.
Removing all my gear but a few pieces (My inventory is a mess, I carry way too many sets and no room in the bank so I didn't have room), with pitiful AP, one hit of my GM Claymore would be 14 rage without endless rage, 17 with. That's on a lock with about 13% mitigation.
I would generate exactly the same rage with all my gear.
I specced Enrage and Deathwish after.
With a +55% damage bonus, how much rage do you think I'd generate with my full gear and GM claymore?
14 rage.
Switching a weapon to a weapon with less DPS but the same speed would immediatly drop my rage, but the difference was so small it actually frustrated me - From a GM claymore to a Large axe (15 dps, Stormwind vendored weapon), the rage generation changes by...3 points, on cloth. The axe would generate 10 to 11 rage without endless rage (I didn't re-spec to try it with endless rage, I'm a poor guy).
Talk about wrong.
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(Incoming math post, but there's a point to be made at the end.. it's probably been made many times thus far, but much like politics, more voices = more power.)
Q u o t e:
Normalization based on Weapon Speed, therefor the warrior with Arcanite Reaper would gain I think 1more point of rage?
Weapon speed? Wow. Alright, let's roll with that. Becoming more the curious sort, I decided to look up the rage formula again, because I could have sworn damage was a factor. This is what I saw posted:
New rage formula (at 60), for a Mainhand hit: ((Damage Dealt) / 230.6 * 7.5 + (Weapon Speed * 2.5))/2
New rage formula (at 60), for a Mainhand crit: ((Damage Dealt) / 230.6 * 7.5 + (Weapon Speed * 5))/2
Arcanite Reaper: 153-256 damage (205 average), 3.8 speed.
Kalimdor's Revenge: 209-315 damage (262 average), 3.2 speed.
Taking the averages and factoring in a warrior with 1050 AP (additional 75 damage), that makes the average non-crit hits before mitigation 280 * 3.8 = 1064 for the Arc. Reaper, and 337 + 3.2 = 1078 for Kalimdor's. Logically, they should produce the same amount of rage per swing, with Kalimdor's giving more over time because it's a faster, stronger weapon.
Assuming 50% damage mitigation, we get:
Arcanite Reaper: ((532) / 230.6 * 7.5 + (3.8 * 2.5))/2 = 13.4 rage
Kalimdor's Revenge: ((539) / 230.6 * 7.5 + (3.2 * 2.5))/2 = 12.7 rage
And lo, we get exactly that: Over time, Kalimdor's will gain more rage, but the AR produces slightly more per swing (although it should round off to 13 in both cases). What's KR's advantage? Over 16 seconds, KR gets five swings to AR's four. 12.7 * 5 = 63.5; 13.4 * 4 = 53.6. A grand total of one hamstring in rage is gained every sixteen seconds. Previously, when rage generation was purely damage based, KR got slightly more than AR per swing. Even though it was close, KR's advantage over time was all the rage garnered from that fifth attack (probably 15-20 rage).
Now, Blizz, Tseric, if you're reading this, it may seem relatively logical and not particularly troublesome that this is the case. After all, high-end weapons were going to be brought closer to lower-tier stuff in terms of rage generation. Here's the rub: I'm comparing a blue weapon of item level 63 to an epic, end-game, 40-man raid weapon of item level 81. The concern was that rage generation was getting out of hand and causing stratospheric damage. If we can compare weapons a full eighteen item levels apart for rage, items that do not have an extreme difference in characteristics (KR is a go-both-ways weapon, equally good in Arms or Fury, not ultra-fast like Destiny or acceptably slow like a DEoI), then it's not likely we're going to see a massive gain in rage due to damage anytime soon, especially with the level cap rising in the expansion. The goal of reining in rage has clearly been reached, perhaps overshot. After all, speaking of the Dark Edge, let's compare it to the others:
242-364 damage (303 average), 3.6 speed; 303 + 75 = 378, 378 * 3.6 = 1360; 1360/2 = 680
Rage: ((680) / 230.6 * 7.5 + (3.6 * 2.5))/2 = 15.6 rage
Item level 84, twenty-one levels higher than an Arcanite Reaper, and it gives two more rage per swing.
Just for giggles, according to the post I pulled the new formulas from, the old one was:
Rage Gained = (Damage Dealt) / 230.6 * 7.5
For the Arcanite Reaper, that means 532 / 230.6 * 7.5 = 17.3 rage. According to this, then, it took a four rage nerf, and is not anything resembling a high-end weapon.
Rage generation is under control. If it was sufficient for people to work with, we'd probably see very few complaints. That, however, is not the case. So the argument is not necessarily to revert to more damage-based rage generation, but rather to loosen up the restrictiveness of the current formula.
Ideas:
-Reduce the end divisor. A drop from 2 to 1.5 may seem drastic, but in reality, we're talking about a boost in rage from 16 to 21 for a DEoI. That would bring higher-end warriors close to where they were before, give lower-end warriors a boost, and even things back up in PvP. Not knowing all the weapons in the expansion, and considering there is the PvE DPS aspect to consider, 1.5 might end up being a little extreme, but something like 1.7 should not be unbalanced.
-Reduce the damage divisor and the weapon speed multiplier. Currently, every 230 damage you do will give you an extra 3.75 rage. That leaves all weapons on a nearly identical level (as previously described). By reducing the threshhold to, say, 125 or 150, but removing the 2.5 weapon speed multiplier (and reducing the crit multiplier from 5 to 2), current rage generation would be mostly unaffected while allowing rage to scale with damage (though significantly more slowly than before). This may not be feasible due to planned itemization, but it allows for overall gear selection to play more of a role in rage generation, as it was pre-patch.
-Something, anything, that sets the median for what gets boosted and what gets nerfed higher than it currently is. This change was supposed to help the undergeared; currently, on just about every server more than six months old, having an Arcanite Reaper means you're undergeared. Unless my math is way off- and considering that math says a DEoI takes a seven rage hit, which seems about right from what I've seen, I don't think it is- those people are hurt by this as well. If the baseline were a Spinal Reaper, or even an Obsidian Edged Blade, where users of those weapons could expect to see the same rage post-patch as pre-patch, it would be a significant boost.
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Anyone still thinking that warrior is ok ? He switches from Grey 15 dps Axe to 77dps GM Weapon, and he gains stunning 2-3 rage per hit a target with 13 % mitigation if fight lasts about 20 sek, then it's a ~ 10-15 rage more difference. So vs 50 % mitigation target it'll be hmm 1 rage (~ 5 rage difference over 20 secs ? lol) ???
) Warrior was cleary outplayed ... by Blizzard.
