Dancing In The Streets
One of the persistent problems with Paladin tanks is that we lack Stamina compared to our Warrior brethren. Warriors have a 1200hp advantage.
Now comes the 2.3 PTR and this little gem showed up in the notes:
Weapon Expertise (Protection) renamed Combat Expertise, now increases expertise by 1/2/3/4/5 and total Stamina by 2/4/6/8/10%.
Source: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=2288042225&sid=1
OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG!!!
Ok, I'm done...
Wait. OOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!
Ok, NOW I'm done.
In my best gear right now, I have 866 stamina. 10% of that is 87, which means I'll pickup about 870hp right there. Not quite the 1200, but wow that lowers the gap. My unbuffed HP in my Uncrushable set will go to 12.8k hp. My stamina set will be over 13.5k. Wow, just wow. The best part, I'm still in mostly blues. When I finally get the upgrades I need, I'll have even more hp!
Now comes the 2.3 PTR and this little gem showed up in the notes:
Weapon Expertise (Protection) renamed Combat Expertise, now increases expertise by 1/2/3/4/5 and total Stamina by 2/4/6/8/10%.
Source: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=2288042225&sid=1
OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG!!!
Ok, I'm done...
Wait. OOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!
Ok, NOW I'm done.
In my best gear right now, I have 866 stamina. 10% of that is 87, which means I'll pickup about 870hp right there. Not quite the 1200, but wow that lowers the gap. My unbuffed HP in my Uncrushable set will go to 12.8k hp. My stamina set will be over 13.5k. Wow, just wow. The best part, I'm still in mostly blues. When I finally get the upgrades I need, I'll have even more hp!
Comments
My alt is a Prot Pally who is about to step into outlands (just a sliver away from 60 and still plenty to do in Azeroth...) and I have a blast with him.
Depending on how they implement the buffs, it could mean even more! If the bonuses stack with say, kings... That's 1.1*(1.1*stamina)) = 1.21*stamina. So percentage talents like this scale very well in how they stack. You could get an 11% increase raid-buffed (taking into account just BoK).
All the class specs with scalable talents like this are dominating. BM hunters dominate because of their +20% attack speed buff... That's +20% DPS not counting their pet. It scales *very* well with all other attack speed buffs (Rapid fire, IAotH, Heroism, etc...).
Don't be surprised if you come closer to closing the HP gap than expected once all those raid buffs are pumping! (My hunter wishes that BoK helped out attack power gained from gear instead of just the stats)
The other part of that change is huge, too. "Expertise" is 0.25% anti-dodge and parry per point, correct? It seems they've gotten rid of "weapon skill" entirely and done this instead. That's 2.5% "to-hit" that isn't counted toward the hit cap, plus 1.25% less parry sped-up-swing problems.
(Good for tanks, bad for hunters (meaningless) and non-tank melee (shouldn't be attacking from the front))
What are they doing with human/orc racials? (Don't have access to full notes right now - can't find anyone that's posted the whole list I can see from here)
The Dwarf and Troll weapon racials (Guns and Bows respectively) are being changes to crit.
If they did the same, then ok. If they made it a +expertise change instead, then it's a really bad nerf for rogues/dps warrs/shaman.