NB: For a structured list of threat values 60+, please go to http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=94319875&sid=1 This thread is intended to update the research and is not userfriendly.

As part of the patchday boredom and desire to do something useful; we decided to check out some of the abilities that make warrior tanking to what it is. Together with Enkidu (Emerald DreamEU) and Roywyn (Argent DawnEU) who actually took the effort of getting high end test characters, the orcs of the Blasted Lands were not safe to our giggling and eternal teasing.

Some of these values may prove useful to people on the test realms.

We've uncovered the threat values of the following abilities:

Sunder Rank 5 (pre-60) 261 threat (confirmed)
Sunder Rank 6 (lvl 68) 301,5 301,045-301,56 threat
Heroic Strike Rank 10 (lvl 66) 196 195.4 - 196.9 threat
Devastate REMOVED, read update 10/1/2007
Shield Slam Rank 6 (lvl 70) 307 303.4-312.5 threat
Revenge Rank 7 (lvl 63) 371 370.3-373.11 threat
Revenge Rank 8 (lvl 70) 417 414.73-418.23 threat
Shield Bash Rank 4 (lvl 64) 230 228.2-231.7 threat
Demoralizing Shout Rank 6 (lvl 62).. oops I did it again
Demoralizing Shout Rank 7(lvl 70) 56 55.24-56.11 threat (No difference for talents, threat divided by all targets
Battleshout Rank 8 (lvl 69) 69 68.5-69.3 threat (Threat no longer applies to each buffed member, just yourself, threat is divided by all targets)
Commanding Shout (lvl 68) 68 64.3-68.5 threat (Same policy as BS for buffing purposes)
Disarm 104 103.83-105.91 threat
Mocking Blow Rank 6 (lvl 65) 290 283,3-298,4 threat
Spell Reflect (lvl 64) 0 threat
Piercing Howl 0 threat
Concussion Blow 0 threat

Main conclusions:
Battleshout tanking is no longer possible
Devastate threat has been scaled reversedly, making the purchase or Devastate rank 2 and 3 making the purchase of Devastate rank 2 and 3 not so much of a buff. The damage increase does not outweigh the innate threat caused until two sunders have been applied.

Discussion:
For tanks, attack power will drop to about 600 unbuffed, whereas it's around 800 currently. This doomvision can be seen in full Kharazhanish tanking gear.
Sunder Armor threat is hilarious compared to the dps increase of other classes; please make it scale with something (and please not attackpower, as that will only reduce it's effectiveness with current tanking gear design.) Devastate in it's current form is no solution to the problem as some hope. (Nor should it be, so please balance warrior basic threat generation.)

Disclaimer: Experiments have been performed on the beta server. Some things may have changed on the PTR. Several abilities may be missing; unpayed service comes with lots of recklessess :)

Lavina Darkspark

+++ Update 14/12/2006 +++

Further research has been done after I finally got a hold of Roywyn *hugs*

Battle Shout 7 and Cleave(thanks Xynthia) from initial post changed.

Battle Shout Rank 7 (lvl 60) 60 59,6-60,7 (Threat no longer applies to each buffed member, just yourself, threat is divided by all targets)
Cleave Rank 6 (lvl 68) 130 129.84-131.23 threat divided over all targets
Cleave Rank 5 (lvl 60) 100 according to Kenco, author of threat meter, posted for reference

Shield Slam Rank 5 (lvl 66) 278 275,0-279,9
Demoralizing Shout Rank 6 (lvl 62) 49 46,7-50,5 Threat divided by all targets
Hamstring Rank 4 (lvl 67) 181180,0-181,2
Devastate Rank 2 (lvl 60) no change
Thunderclap 7 150% of damage (so 250% of damage including damage) Affected by talents

Thunderclap 6 is assumed to have similar workings as TC 7, though not tested. Since threat scales lineairly with damage done (damage is static with opponents armor value applied!), talenting up three points doubles the Thunderclap threat. Rank 3 does 93 damage, effectively 67 on noncasters, which doubles up to 134. Applying the threat means 134 dmg will do 134 * 2.5 = 335 threat times 0.8(battle stance) is 268 threat. plus debuff on all targets This compares to Sunder Armor 261 * 1.3 = 339 threat on a single target. This would make Thunderclap a nice beginning of the combat for every fight, and may potentially work for small range AoE aggro.
Of course since rank 6 is not tested yet, it should be said it's all speculation.

[Some numbers for TC 7:
ThunderClap 7 128,6-142,2 (dmg 93) [on all targets]
ThunderClap 7 + Max Talents 308-313,9 (dmg 210)
Thunderclap 7 + Max Talents 282.4-287.1 (dmg 186)]

Edit: Changed TC rank numbers

+++ Update 10/1/2007 +++

At the initiatiative of Enkidu, we decided to test the new Devastate threat values as of patch 2.0.3, which reads:

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Q u o t e:
* The bonus threat of "Devastate" on all ranks has been increased. Bonus threat will no longer decrease as ranks increase.

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We found that the innate threat values for rank 1, 2 and 3 were each 101, and unmodified by the number of Sunders. This is a major update compared to the previous numbers 72, 47 and 27.

Devastate All Ranks 101 (100,5 - 101,5)

Also, Thunderclap 6 is confirmed to have the same formula as TC 7. Innate threat is 150% of damage done, which means a total threat of 250% of damage, including damage done.

Hamstring Rank 3 141 (138,4 - 145,6)

Disclaimer: All tests were performed on the beta server, which is not the same patch as live or PTR

Thanks for the fun testing, Lavina!

Devastate's innate threat decreasing with new ranks seems like a bug that can be fixed, but relying entirely on non-scaling abilities is something that I'd love to be looked into.

From level 58 to 70, the thread on your Sunder Armour ability increases by 15%. Let me repeat that. Fifteen percent. From Blackrock Depths through all the instances we currently know, the threat on Sunder Armour increases by 15%. Your fellow group members' DPS increases by what? 300%, 500%, something along those lines or even more?
How exactly are non-scaling abilites supposed to hold against the ever-increasing damage output?

With pulls of 6 mobs and more in 5-man instances of The Buning Crusade become more and more common, will warriors even stand a chance to outtank the healer's threat? Not even attempting to tank the target that is being focus fired down ...

I'm not sure which direction this is going, but it's going a rough road uphill it seems.

Bump and sticky!

Thanks guys for taking the trouble to parse this :).

/salute

Interesting reading and somewhat more alarming than even I thought possible.
/Bump for sticky

First of all nice to see someone has bothered to go through some parsing out of the new ranks of our skills.

Secondly, yes it doesn't look too good indeed. Our threat scaling is only around 15%? With quick calculations the DPS in BC will be scaling at around 25% rate atleast and we are only talking about t4 level gear here so later on in BC it will only get worse.

I truly hope that the dev team will take their heads out of their arses and start taking an serious look on this matter.

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Q u o t e:


Healing threat is divided amongst the mobs being tanked, so the more mobs = easier to keep agro from the healer since his threat is divided while the warrior can apply Demo Shout constantly.

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Eh wot? 56 threat every 1 second which makes 168*1.15 threat in 3 seconds vs, say 2500*0.7 (forgot the real modifier, but heck, rough approximations do work, aye?) priest's threat.

threat may be sprad over the mobs from healing but we do not possess and AOE tanking skill

so we have to tab target sunder each mob if we have the rage just to keep up wit hthe healers agro

but....

any dps targeting the main target will then just rip it off as we have used our abilitys o nthe surronding mobs to keep them off the healers

tanking more then 3 is damn hard 5 for me is nearly impossible (im sure some can do it and this is with a good group that dont randomly fire at everathing) unless i zerka ww etc which isnt tanking hell a mage can do that with enoguh healing and tank a million mobs

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Q u o t e:

Devastate Rank 1 (lvl 50) 73 72,8-73.4 threat
Devastate Rank 2 (lvl 60) 47 46.66-47.64 threat
Devastate Rank 3 (lvl 70) 27 26.84-27.12 threat

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Well this, this just feels bugged :P

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Q u o t e:


Well this, this just feels bugged :P

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I received several comments about that on other forums aswell, can only try to imagine how/why this was done if done on purpose

The difference in damage per rank per sunder is 10 (providing a 6-8 base threat value with the current armor formulas).

With 5 sunders applied, the threat caused by innate threat and sunder damage (with 30% average armor reduction assumed) is:

Dev 1: 73 + 5 * 15 * 0.7 = 125.5
Dev 2: 47 + 5 * 25 * 0.7 = 134.5
Dev 3: 27 + 5 * 35 * 0.7 = 149.5

One can only assume the designers reasoned with above calculations in mind and thereby decreased initial Devastate innate values for higher ranks after seenig threat caused by damage. Still, an increase of 24 points over the course of 20 levels seems very poor. (Not to mention the 44 point decrease for blank Devastates)

@!%!ing hell why did I buy rank 2 of that crap? :(

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Q u o t e:


Sunder Rank 5 (pre-60) 261 threat (confirmed)
Sunder Rank 6 (lvl 68) 301,5 301,045-301,56 threat
Heroic Strike Rank 10 (lvl 66) 196 195.4 - 196.9 threat
Devastate Rank 3 (lvl 70) 27 26.84-27.12 threat

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LOL!!! see the difference between threat!!! devestate a freakin 41 talent PROT point giving close to 0 threat!!!

THAT IS REDICULOUS!!
sunder and revenge spamming here i come! devastate will NOT be in MY action bar!
even with 5 sunders on it gives less threat then a sunder or a revenge! the only positive thing is the DPS it gives, but it is marginally..

edit - spelling

Thanks for your effort, intreresting to see that even wow will have to use old concepts like a tanking MA to cope with unscaling threat. My guess is that druids can take a key part in that raidsetup.

Furthermore I would like to ask if anyone bothered to check the innate threat of the new ranks of hamstring?

Is devastate really that bad after all is done? Is it just me or is it kinda pointless if 5sunder devastate does less threat than sunder?

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Q u o t e:
Is devastate really that bad after all is done? Is it just me or is it kinda pointless if 5sunder devastate does less threat than sunder?

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If you include the damage of devastate in the calculation it has a higher threat value. In addition to that spending 15 rage on a devastat to have 5 sunders up each once 30 sec instead of spamming sunder once every 6 second to keep it up saves about 60 rage (2 rage / sec) for other abilities not to mention cooldowns.

However I was hoping to see Devastate scale better with gear, thats the main problem here.

To the above poster: a single SA every 30 seconds refreshes the whole stack just as well.

Devastate in it's current form has little use for prot DPS and no use for actual tanking. Fast weapons are still way preferable because HS spam is more effective. This doesn't change at 70 either. Weapon damage is just not high enough to beat Sunder Armor's threat with Devastate unless you use very slow weapons, resulting in a huge drop in (already low) overall threat.

Some possible fixes:
-add more base threat to Devastate (but not too much, Shield Slam should still be best threat per rage). Would be great if it didn't favor slow weapons either but I guess we just have to live with that, it's not that big a deal anyways.
-add a percentage-based threat modifier to Heroic Strike so it scales better
-add more AP to tanking gear (without gimping the tank stats)
-maybe add a small scaling bonus to Revenge

I actually don't mind Sunder Armor having a static value as long as the rest scales and Devastate gets fixed.

we need less static thread, that way we wont "overdo" in lower instances, but still good tankers in raids and stuff.. i feel that in TBC warriors are left behind in tanking..

DPS is an option, but you need to grind and raid a lot for it and not every warrior can do that due to time he can play..
we just want some scaling, not only strengh ->shield block, and stam->hp, but we would like more threat from some of our core tank stats like defence..
i'm still hoping for a revamp in prot, but i don't think we will be the best tanks at 70... the story's of tanking druids in TBC made me very sad and worried..

I was under the impression Cleave "bonus" threat was lower then that and the same for both targets. Guess i was wrong ?

And yeah that "scaling" seems rather miserable. Especially on devastate.

I assume you guys used healing aggro to measure threat ?
Anyway thanks for the effort :) /hug

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Q u o t e:


If you include the damage of devastate in the calculation it has a higher threat value. In addition to that spending 15 rage on a devastat to have 5 sunders up each once 30 sec instead of spamming sunder once every 6 second to keep it up saves about 60 rage (2 rage / sec) for other abilities not to mention cooldowns.

However I was hoping to see Devastate scale better with gear, thats the main problem here.

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Why, without having devastate, would you only use sunder to keep the 5 from expiring? You spam it for threat generation, even with SS and revenge. And if you are specced for itthat would actually save you 3 rage per sunder for 9 rage compared to 12 rage devastate.

I still think it's a really disappointing 41 talent, even if Devastate WOULD scale nicely, our other skills wouldn't which would in turn make devastate a must for any tanking at all where as a balance/resto bear can just put on his gear and tank (read: keep aggro on) stuff.

With the large increase in dps for all the classes (including synergy (wrath totem on warlocks?) we will really need a boost in threat even with scaling which, if it ever appeared, probably not cut it.

Devastate in it's current form is just a sunder armor with extra bells for some christmas spirit, it doesn't add the BANG I was expecting from a 41pt prot talent.

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Q u o t e:
Would be great if it didn't favor slow weapons either but I guess we just have to live with that, it's not that big a deal anyways.

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One of the few things I like about it, wielding my brand new Spineshatter I had from our 2nd ever razorgore kill last week. It simply gives more space in choosing a tanking weapon, no need to go for a 1.4dps dagger or anything, I like slow weapons so I wanna be able to tank properly with one.