Warrior Patch 5.3 Changes - List and Analysis

[ragebarr 153]

This thread will contain an up-to-date list of all the changes affecting the warrior class in patch 5.3 as well as a short analysis of the reasons behind those changes and their effect on our class.

If you have any input to add or a change to list that I may have missed, you are more than welcome to let me know

Also, any opinions and other analysis on these changes would be nice to see

• General

• Defensive Stance now decreases damage taken by 25%, up from 15%. This results in defensive stance being back at its pre-5.2 status, a small buff to PvE DPS warriors, and a small buff to PvP too.
• Shield Wall's cooldown has been reduced to 3 minutes, down from 5 minutes. This change is more than welcome, both for PvE and PvP. 5 mins on Shield Wall was a bit too much for a def. cd like this one. Get your shield wall macros ready, because you'll use them much more often!

• Talents

• Enraged Regeneration no longer costs rage to use, instantly heals the Warrior for 5% of their total health, and healing an additional 5% over 5 seconds. Using the ability while Enraged doubles the healing effects to 10% of the Warrior's total health and an additional 10% over 5 seconds. This one puzzles me. The fact that it is now free is a good thing, however if you are not enraged it heals less than impending victory, which has a twice as short cooldown. Moreover, you cannot really spare the Berserker Rage to force an enrage if you are not, so this talent still looks lackluster.
• Second Wind no longer generates rage when the Warrior is struck by a Stun or Immobilize effect. Prot nerf. Probably for PvP reasons.
• Arms and Fury Warriors receive a passive ability that enables them to generate rage when struck by a Stun or Immobilize effect at level 56. This was done to let DPS warriors take something else than SW in PvP. I don't think it'll work out that great, but for PvE warriors who don't take second wind, this is a (very) small buff.
• Spell Reflection is no longer consumed by spells from player pets and guardians. PvP buff, little to no implications in PvE.
• Vigilance now resets the cooldown on Taunt in addition to its current effects. Finally. It was about time.

• Protection

• Bastion of Defense now reduces the cooldown of Shield Wall by 1 minute, down from a 3-minute reduction. For Protection Warriors, this results in no net change to Shield Wall's cooldown.
• Shield Slam now receives a 50% bonus to attack damage from attack power (down from 100%) for Warriors below level 85. Prot warrs should be a bit less OP in low level dungeons and BG's. No implications for high level play.
• Unwavering Sentinel no longer increases the damage reduction of Defensive Stance by 10%. Tied with the revert of the nerf to deensive stance. No change for prot overall.

• Arms

• Sweeping Strikes no longer causes Resilience to decrease damage to secondary targets incorrectly when the original target's damage has already been decreased by Resilience.Well, SS no longer double-dips resilience. A small but very welcome (and long overdue) pvp change.

It seems that overall, no huge changes are coming to warriors in 5.3, unless Blizzard has a hidden surprise. Looking forward to hear you guy's opinions on these changes.

-Rage

[Sajakain 104]

Seems the focused a lot on Prot warriors and PvP.

Great thread, though, Rage. At this point in time I do not really have an opinion one way or the other; each change is acceptable and nothing to really gripe or cheer over. Well... except for Vigilance. You were right; it's about time lol.

[ragebarr 153]

I agree. The only other thing would be Enraged Regen. I think what they've done here is a move in the right direction, but I still don't see any reason to take it over IV or SW.

[Estarriol 167]

Revenge or Devastate are in sore need of a buff. With a skilled offtank, holding aggro is a challenge and prot damage is subpar compared to the other tank classes. Blizz also really needs to make it possible to block with an abosrb up. Makes no sense to punish warriors if paladins can have their SotR benefit as well as an absorb. Rabble rabble.

[ragebarr 153]

I'll tend to agree with you... I haven't played prot in a while, but I've been tanking on my DK for most of MoP and warriors are pretty much the only class (with paladins who refuse to go haste) that I have to watch my threath after they taunt :(

Devastate hits like a wet noodle.

[ragebarr 153]

Added the small Arms SS buff -- seems like it had slipped under my radar. A long overdue fix to warrior PvP (even though it looks like warrior PvP is *still* back in it's 4.3 state :( )

[Sajakain 104]

Added the small Arms SS buff -- seems like it had slipped under my radar. A long overdue fix to warrior PvP (even though it looks like warrior PvP is *still* back in it's 4.3 state )

I seen the SS change and chose not to mention it in my guide because it was tendered toward PvP.

[ragebarr 153]

Yep, not much use to mention it in a PvP guide, but I figured I'd drop it here with all the other changes. Not a very satisfying patch for warriors in my opinion, be it PvE or PvP wise...