Divini
10-31-2007, 04:07 AM
Geralt from the WoW EU Forums constructed a very thorough post on all the best weapon choices for the upcoming patch. The evidence shown is conducted by hard testing, and the repliers seem in general consensus with his findings.
Source: http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=1371487155&sid=1&pageNo=1
* 0. What will be THE PvP weapon in 2.3? Look! | 23/10/2007 10:45:39 UTC
Well, my fellow warriors, since my current work comes in „waves”, thus leaving plenty of spare time at my disposal, out of pure boredom and curiosity, I decided to analyze the best weapons for our WoW class in terms of PvP efficiency.
There has always been a lot of controversy and confusion regarding this matter. Crit ratings, agility, AP, strength, procs, stuns, different speeds, armor penetration, haste… All of these factors make it pretty challenging to seriously compare weapons. However, I made this effort. I compared their stats, based on the following assumptions:
- warrior is a top-end arena player, has full Vengeful/Vindicator’s gear, and with Deep Thunder (which was my basis for comparison), 12,404 HP and 1,772 AP;
- normalized attacks (MS, WW, OP) happen as often as non-normalized ones like white hits (roughly correct);
- armor penetration calculated based on frequency of opponents (cloth, leather most frequent, then mail and finally plate), with appropriate mitigation reductions applied;
- crit dmg mitigated by 15% due to 300 resilience;
- mace stun proc incorporated based on PTR tests; a 3 sec stun allows 1 extra attack (quite conservative IMO);
- resilience mitgates around 30% of enemy attacks (30% crit chance assumed);
- only “warrior weapons” included in the comparison (no paladin maces, polearms, etc.) – basically, we’re talking about maces, axes and swords with warrior-relevant stats;
- all procs were incorporated based on ingame mechanics and empiric tests;
- cutoff point was Deep Thunder in terms of average damage – even if e.g. Thunder may beat some of the listed weapons, it was too low DPS/avg dmg to make it onto this list. The S1 Gladiator’s weapons didn’t make it, either.
*DISCLAIMER*
Since the attempt to compare weapons "apples to apples" was made based on several assumptions (some of them certainly being objectionable), and PTR tests may not be a representative/final sample for the live 2.3 mace stun proc frequency, I hereby cannot claim any responsibility for possible wrong decisions based on the following preliminary recommendations and ratings.
:)
Very interesting results – the following rankings emerge when we compare the top weapons based on:
- damage output potential:
1. Torch of the Damned – 104.54
2. Stormherald – 103.9
3. Vengeful Gladiator’s Bonegrinder – 103.44
4. World Breaker – 100.96
5. Deep Thunder – 100
6. Cataclysm’s Edge – 99.82
7. Soul Cleaver – 99.81
8. Vengeful Gladiator’s Greatsword – 99.5
9. Merciless Gladiator’s Bonegrinder – 99.45
10. Vengeful Gladiator’s Decapitator – 98.81
11. Jin’rokh, The Great Apocalypse – 98.74
12. Twinblade of the Phoenix – 98.1
13. Bloodmoon – 97.21
14. Lionheart Executioner – 96.35
15. Merciless Gladiator’s Greatsword – 95.63
16. Merciless Gladiator’s Decapitator – 94.97
- damage output potential and survivability boost (equally weighted):
1. Vengeful Gladiator’s Bonegrinder – 105.34
2. Stormherald – 104.38
3. Torch of the Damned – 103.73
4. Vengeful Gladiator’s Greatsword – 101.4
5. Merciless Gladiator’s Bonegrinder – 100.79
6. Vengeful Gladiator’s Decapitator – 100.71
7. World Breaker – 100.64
8. Soul Cleaver – 100.45
9. Deep Thunder – 100
10. Cataclysm’s Edge – 99.34
11. Twinblade of the Phoenix – 98.5
12. Jin’rokh, The Great Apocalypse – 98.26
13. Merciless Gladiator’s Greatsword – 96.97
14. Merciless Gladiator’s Decapitator – 96.31
15. Bloodmoon – 92.78
16. Lionheart Executioner – 91.92
- damage output potential and survivability boost (weighted 2:1) – IMHO, the fairest PvP viability ranking, since survivability matters in the arena but warriors are supposed to keep the MS debuff on targets and deal as much damage as possible to kill the enemy healers/clothies first:
1. Vengeful Gladiator’s Bonegrinder – 108.78
2. Stormherald – 108.28
3. Torch of the Damned – 108.27
4. World Breaker – 101.6
5. Vengeful Gladiator’s Greatsword – 100.9
6. Soul Cleaver – 100.26
7. Merciless Gladiator’s Bonegrinder – 100.24
8. Deep Thunder – 100
9. Vengeful Gladiator’s Decapitator – 99.52
10. Cataclysm’s Edge – 99.16
11. Jin’rokh, The Great Apocalypse – 97
12. Twinblade of the Phoenix – 96.6
13. Merciless Gladiator’s Greatsword – 92.6
14. Merciless Gladiator’s Decapitator – 91.28
15. Bloodmoon – 89.99
16. Lionheart Executioner – 88.27
Conclusions:
1. Maces rule supreme. The stun, even nerfed, is still an incredible asset. Not even taking into account that more than 1 extra hit can be scored, plus casts are interrupted. The top 3 weapons in all rankings are maces.
2. Stormherald and Deep Thunder are still fantastic weapons. The T3 mace only competes with S3 mace and Torch. The rest is inferior. DT, amazingly, is on par with S2 mace, and clearly beats the other S2 weapons, along with Archimonde sword, Zul’Aman sword and T3 axe!
3. World Breaker is only inferior to S3/T3 maces and Torch. A very strong weapon, a bit underestimated IMO.
4. Cataclysm’s Edge is overrated, it may seem like a blasphemy, but it’s beaten by the “lowly” Deep Thunder in every category! It’s a sword, and way too fast for warriors to be a really great PvP weapon. PvE is a different story of course, but in arena environment, the blade is not a reason to boast.
5. T3 sword/axe and S2 axe are a pretty bad choice for everyone aiming for pure efficiency. Stormherald beats the crap out of them, S2 mace as well. If you don’t like maces because of playstyle/personal preference, craft the axe or purchase the arena sword.
6. Soul Cleaver is the best axe in the game.
7. Jin’rokh is nothing to get really excited about, if you really want that infamous Zin’rokh model recolored, go for the S3 sword, it’s much better than it's PvE-acquired counterpart.
8. If you’re saving up points for an S3 weapon, get the mace by all means. If you already have Stormherald, consider the mace but don’t even touch the other two. If you have Deep Thunder, upgrade to S3 mace, or, if you’re bored with maces and/or you love the ZG sword model, grab the S3 sword. Don’t bother with the axe, it’s not remotely worth the points.
9. Last but not least - what is THE PvP weapon in 2.3, just to answer the post title? IMO, S3 mace wins with a miniscule advantage over T3 mace and Torch. Basically, raiders with or without access to BT will use the Stormherald and spend points on armor, while people without HC raiding guilds will grab the S3 mace. Raiders with access to Torch and a "Skillherald sucks, everyone uses it" attitude will use their Torches... until they sort of become commonplace as well, since the S3 weapons got their skins changed, and the mace won't look like Morgaine's Might, after all. It will be based on the Torch of the Damned model.
As some blue poster said,
/discuss
:)
Source: http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=1371487155&sid=1&pageNo=1
* 0. What will be THE PvP weapon in 2.3? Look! | 23/10/2007 10:45:39 UTC
Well, my fellow warriors, since my current work comes in „waves”, thus leaving plenty of spare time at my disposal, out of pure boredom and curiosity, I decided to analyze the best weapons for our WoW class in terms of PvP efficiency.
There has always been a lot of controversy and confusion regarding this matter. Crit ratings, agility, AP, strength, procs, stuns, different speeds, armor penetration, haste… All of these factors make it pretty challenging to seriously compare weapons. However, I made this effort. I compared their stats, based on the following assumptions:
- warrior is a top-end arena player, has full Vengeful/Vindicator’s gear, and with Deep Thunder (which was my basis for comparison), 12,404 HP and 1,772 AP;
- normalized attacks (MS, WW, OP) happen as often as non-normalized ones like white hits (roughly correct);
- armor penetration calculated based on frequency of opponents (cloth, leather most frequent, then mail and finally plate), with appropriate mitigation reductions applied;
- crit dmg mitigated by 15% due to 300 resilience;
- mace stun proc incorporated based on PTR tests; a 3 sec stun allows 1 extra attack (quite conservative IMO);
- resilience mitgates around 30% of enemy attacks (30% crit chance assumed);
- only “warrior weapons” included in the comparison (no paladin maces, polearms, etc.) – basically, we’re talking about maces, axes and swords with warrior-relevant stats;
- all procs were incorporated based on ingame mechanics and empiric tests;
- cutoff point was Deep Thunder in terms of average damage – even if e.g. Thunder may beat some of the listed weapons, it was too low DPS/avg dmg to make it onto this list. The S1 Gladiator’s weapons didn’t make it, either.
*DISCLAIMER*
Since the attempt to compare weapons "apples to apples" was made based on several assumptions (some of them certainly being objectionable), and PTR tests may not be a representative/final sample for the live 2.3 mace stun proc frequency, I hereby cannot claim any responsibility for possible wrong decisions based on the following preliminary recommendations and ratings.
:)
Very interesting results – the following rankings emerge when we compare the top weapons based on:
- damage output potential:
1. Torch of the Damned – 104.54
2. Stormherald – 103.9
3. Vengeful Gladiator’s Bonegrinder – 103.44
4. World Breaker – 100.96
5. Deep Thunder – 100
6. Cataclysm’s Edge – 99.82
7. Soul Cleaver – 99.81
8. Vengeful Gladiator’s Greatsword – 99.5
9. Merciless Gladiator’s Bonegrinder – 99.45
10. Vengeful Gladiator’s Decapitator – 98.81
11. Jin’rokh, The Great Apocalypse – 98.74
12. Twinblade of the Phoenix – 98.1
13. Bloodmoon – 97.21
14. Lionheart Executioner – 96.35
15. Merciless Gladiator’s Greatsword – 95.63
16. Merciless Gladiator’s Decapitator – 94.97
- damage output potential and survivability boost (equally weighted):
1. Vengeful Gladiator’s Bonegrinder – 105.34
2. Stormherald – 104.38
3. Torch of the Damned – 103.73
4. Vengeful Gladiator’s Greatsword – 101.4
5. Merciless Gladiator’s Bonegrinder – 100.79
6. Vengeful Gladiator’s Decapitator – 100.71
7. World Breaker – 100.64
8. Soul Cleaver – 100.45
9. Deep Thunder – 100
10. Cataclysm’s Edge – 99.34
11. Twinblade of the Phoenix – 98.5
12. Jin’rokh, The Great Apocalypse – 98.26
13. Merciless Gladiator’s Greatsword – 96.97
14. Merciless Gladiator’s Decapitator – 96.31
15. Bloodmoon – 92.78
16. Lionheart Executioner – 91.92
- damage output potential and survivability boost (weighted 2:1) – IMHO, the fairest PvP viability ranking, since survivability matters in the arena but warriors are supposed to keep the MS debuff on targets and deal as much damage as possible to kill the enemy healers/clothies first:
1. Vengeful Gladiator’s Bonegrinder – 108.78
2. Stormherald – 108.28
3. Torch of the Damned – 108.27
4. World Breaker – 101.6
5. Vengeful Gladiator’s Greatsword – 100.9
6. Soul Cleaver – 100.26
7. Merciless Gladiator’s Bonegrinder – 100.24
8. Deep Thunder – 100
9. Vengeful Gladiator’s Decapitator – 99.52
10. Cataclysm’s Edge – 99.16
11. Jin’rokh, The Great Apocalypse – 97
12. Twinblade of the Phoenix – 96.6
13. Merciless Gladiator’s Greatsword – 92.6
14. Merciless Gladiator’s Decapitator – 91.28
15. Bloodmoon – 89.99
16. Lionheart Executioner – 88.27
Conclusions:
1. Maces rule supreme. The stun, even nerfed, is still an incredible asset. Not even taking into account that more than 1 extra hit can be scored, plus casts are interrupted. The top 3 weapons in all rankings are maces.
2. Stormherald and Deep Thunder are still fantastic weapons. The T3 mace only competes with S3 mace and Torch. The rest is inferior. DT, amazingly, is on par with S2 mace, and clearly beats the other S2 weapons, along with Archimonde sword, Zul’Aman sword and T3 axe!
3. World Breaker is only inferior to S3/T3 maces and Torch. A very strong weapon, a bit underestimated IMO.
4. Cataclysm’s Edge is overrated, it may seem like a blasphemy, but it’s beaten by the “lowly” Deep Thunder in every category! It’s a sword, and way too fast for warriors to be a really great PvP weapon. PvE is a different story of course, but in arena environment, the blade is not a reason to boast.
5. T3 sword/axe and S2 axe are a pretty bad choice for everyone aiming for pure efficiency. Stormherald beats the crap out of them, S2 mace as well. If you don’t like maces because of playstyle/personal preference, craft the axe or purchase the arena sword.
6. Soul Cleaver is the best axe in the game.
7. Jin’rokh is nothing to get really excited about, if you really want that infamous Zin’rokh model recolored, go for the S3 sword, it’s much better than it's PvE-acquired counterpart.
8. If you’re saving up points for an S3 weapon, get the mace by all means. If you already have Stormherald, consider the mace but don’t even touch the other two. If you have Deep Thunder, upgrade to S3 mace, or, if you’re bored with maces and/or you love the ZG sword model, grab the S3 sword. Don’t bother with the axe, it’s not remotely worth the points.
9. Last but not least - what is THE PvP weapon in 2.3, just to answer the post title? IMO, S3 mace wins with a miniscule advantage over T3 mace and Torch. Basically, raiders with or without access to BT will use the Stormherald and spend points on armor, while people without HC raiding guilds will grab the S3 mace. Raiders with access to Torch and a "Skillherald sucks, everyone uses it" attitude will use their Torches... until they sort of become commonplace as well, since the S3 weapons got their skins changed, and the mace won't look like Morgaine's Might, after all. It will be based on the Torch of the Damned model.
As some blue poster said,
/discuss
:)