Warlords Warrior Discussion

[Sajakain 104]

 

Important Note: This thread can, and most likely will be, consistently updated either by myself or Ragebarr as information changes.

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Given the information released on our beloved Warriors and their changes in Warlords, we have the following items available for discussion. Please keep all posts respectful; we do not want to openly show our distaste for any change or any other player's comments within this discussion.

 

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Ability Pruning

• Battle Shout now lasts 1 hour and no longer generates Rage.
• Berserker Rage no longer generates Rage or increases Physical damage dealt.
• Berserker Stance has been removed.
• Cleave has been removed.
• Commanding Shout now lasts 1 hour and no longer generates Rage.
• Demoralizing Banner has been removed.
• Hamstring is now a passive ability that causes Mortal Strike, Bloodthirst, Revenge, and Raging Blow to also reduce the target's movement speed by 50% for 15 seconds.
• Rallying Cry is no longer available to Protection Warriors.
• Recklessness is now available only to Fury and Arms Warriors.
• Skull Banner has been removed.
• Throw has been removed.
• Thunder Clap is no longer available to Fury Warriors.
• Whirlwind is now available only to Fury Warriors.

 

Crowd Control / Diminishing Returns

• Charge now Roots the target (instead of stunning). The Root effect does not share a Diminishing return with other Roots.
• Warbringer now causes Charge to stun the target for 1.5 seconds instead of rooting it.
• Disarm has been removed.
• Intimidating Shout now has a 6 second duration in PvP (down from 8 seconds).

 

Buffs / Debuffs

• Weakened Armor is no longer provided by a Protection Warrior's Devastate.
• Sunder Armor has been removed.
• Thunder Clap no longer applies Weakened Blows.

 

Class Changes

 

We wanted to fix a few problems with Warriors. First, we still weren't happy with Arms' rotation (and neither were many players), so we've made some more changes, primarily through cutting abilities (see Ability Pruning above).

As with other classes, we wanted to reduce cooldown stacking. Cutting Skull Banner did a ton to help that across the whole game. But for Warriors specifically, we needed to make further changes, including merging some of the personal benefit of Skull Banner back into Recklessness. Also, to make up for Throw being removed, we modified Heroic Throw to be more frequently usable.

• Recklessness now increases Critical Strike chance by 15% (down from 30%) and increases Critical Strike damage by 10% (up from 0%).
• Shattering Throw no longer reduces the armor of the target; it only does damage and breaks immunities.
• It also is no longer learned via any specialization, but instead through a new Major Glyph, Glyph of Shattering Throw.
• Heroic Throw now has a 6-second cooldown (down from 30 seconds), but now has a 15 yard minimum range.

Haste has long been a problematic stat for Warriors, usually being of little value. As part of our commitment to ensuring all secondary stats are valuable (except Bonus Armor for non-tanks and Spirit for non-healers, of course), we're making a significant change to Warriors, to ensure that Haste has strong, competitive value. We're giving all Warriors a new passive, which lets haste affect their global cooldown, and the cooldowns of their very-short-cooldown rotational abilities.

• Headlong Rush is a new passive ability for Warriors:
  • Headlong Rush: Haste reduces global cooldown and the cooldowns of Mortal Strike, Bloodthirst, Shield Slam, and Thunder Clap.

 

Protection Warriors have received a few notable changes. First, we removed Dodge and Parry from gear, and expect Protection Warriors to value Haste and Crit as important secondary stats. In order to achieve that, we made Riposte give defensive value to Crits. The aforementioned Headlong Rush also helps for valuing Haste.

• Riposte has been redesigned.
  • Riposte gives the Warrior +100% to Parry chance until they Parry an attack after getting a critical strike with an Auto Attack.

A few Warrior Talents also were in need of revision. First, Second Wind was problematic; it was sometimes too weak, and sometimes too strong. We chose to change it from a passive health regeneration effect to the new Leech effect, so that low-health Warriors have to maintain combat in order to benefit, instead of kiting, hiding, or otherwise playing defensively. For the level-60 and level-90 Talent rows, certain combinations were proving problematic. We decided that Stormbolt would better compete with Shockwave and Dragon Roar, and that Bladestorm would better compete with Avatar and Bloodbath, so swapped Stormbolt and Bladestorm's positions.

• Second Wind no longer directly heals the Warrior while active. Instead, Second Wind grants the Warrior 10% Leech while active, which causes the Warrior to heal for 10% of all damage and healing done by the Warrior while active.
• Bladestorm is now a level-90 Talent, swapping places with Stormbolt.
  • Bladestorm no longer allows use of Shouts while active. It does still allow the use of Taunt, Enraged Regeneration, Shield Wall, and Last Stand.
• Stormbolt is now a level-60 Talent, swapping places with Bladestorm.

Fury Warriors are receiving updates to spell alerts to improve usability.

• Bloodsurge's spell alert has moved to the top slot instead of the left/right slots.
• Raging Blow now has a spell alert on the left and right slots.

With the introduction of one of the level-100 Warrior Talents, which deals Fire damage, we also expanded Enrage to affect all damage, not just Physical damage.

• Enrage now increases all damage (up from only Physical damage).
• Mastery: Unshackled Fury (Fury) now increases all damage (up from only Physical damage).

We're also making a change to the design of Deep Wounds, to try to limit is effectiveness in PvP, without hurting its effectiveness in PvE.

• Deep Wounds now lasts 15 seconds, or until the target is healed to full health.

 

 

Level 100 Talents

 

• Anger Management: Every 30 rage that you spend reduces the remaining cooldown of your Readiness-affected abilities by 1 second.
• Ravager: Throw a whirling axe at the target location that inflicts X damage to enemies within 8 yards every 1 second. Lasts 15 seconds. Also increases your change to parry by 20% for 15 seconds. 40 yard range, instant, 1 minute cooldown.
• Ignite Weapon (Arms / Fury): Ignite your weapon and deal 100% weapon damage (140% if a one-handed weapon is equipped) as Fire, and cause your auto attacks to deal Fire damage for 10 seconds. This ability is not on the global cooldown. Replaces Heroic Strike. 30 Rage, melee range, instant, 1.5 second cooldown, requires melee weapon.
  
  Gladiator's Resolve (Protection): Increases the damage reduction provided by Defensive Stance by 5%. Also allows you to forgo your defensive role, and instead focus only on offensive capabilities, by replacing Battle Stance with Gladiator Stance.
  
  Gladiator Stance: A dauntless combat stance. Increases physical damage dealt by 20%, and replaces your Shield Block with Shield Charge. you cannot change into or out of this stance during combat. - Passive, Shield Charge, 20 Rage, 10 yard range, Instant, 15 second recharge, requires shields.
  
  Raise your shield and charge a short distance to your target, increasing the damage of Shield Slam, Revenge, and Heroic Strike by 30% for 6 seconds. Maximum 2 charges.

 

Draenor Perks

• All

Improved Charge - Increases the range of Charge by 10 yards.

Improved Heroic Leap - The damage radius of Heroic Leap is increased by 2 yards.

 

• Arms

Enhanced Sweeping Strikes - Sweeping Strikes now lasts 5 sec longer.

Improved Mortal Strike - Increases the damage of Mortal Strike by 20%.

Enhanced Slam - Increases the radius of the splash damage dealt by Slam while Sweeping Strikes is active by 3 yards.

Improved Overpower - Increases the damage dealt by Overpower by 20%.

Improved Die by the Sword - Increases the damage reduction from Die by the Sword by 10%.

Empowered Execute - Increases the damage of Execute by 50%.

Improved Colossus Smash - Colossus Smash now generates 10 rage when hitting a target.

 

• Fury

Improved Die by the Sword - Increases the damage reduction from Die by the Sword by 10%.

Empowered Execute - Increases the damage of Execute by 50%.

Improved Colossus Smash - Colossus Smash now generates 10 rage when hitting a target.

Improved Meat Cleaver - Meat Cleaver now grants 2 charges every time Whirlwind deal damage.

Improved Wild Strike - Damage of Wild Strike increased by 40%.

Improved Bloodthirst - Increases the damage and healing of Bloodthirst by 20%.

Improved Raging Blow - Increases the damage of Raging Blow by 20%.

 

• Protection

Improved Heroic Throw - Heroic Throw no longer has a cooldown.

Improved Shield Slam - Increases the damage of Shield Slam by 20%.

Improved Revenge - Increases the damage of Revenge by 20%.

Improved Shield Barrier - Increases the absorb amount of Shield Barrier by 10%.

Improved Unwavering Sentinel - Unwavering Sentinel now increases your armor by an additional 15%.

Improved Bastion of Defense - Bastion of Defense now increases your block chance by an additional 10%.

Improved Thunder Clap - Increases the damage of Thunder Clap by 20%.

 

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Change Log:

 

4/3/2014: [sajakain]: Added Warrior Crest Image to post. Thanks to Kattii on the Hunter forums for giving me the idea! It beats a wall full of complete text.

 

4/4/2014: [sajakain]: Added the level 100 talents.

 

4/4/2014: [ragebarr]: Added the Draenor perks.

Edited April 4, 2014 by ragebarr

[Sajakain 104]

Here are my thoughts so far:

 

First off, I love the Arms rotation. (I guess Blizzard didn't ask me lol). But, with this being said, it'll be fun to play with in Beta to see how things work out.

 

I'm glad they're removing spells but some spells I do not believe should be removed. Throw.... for example; a great spell to remove. Skull Banner / Demoralizing Banner? Those are utility tools unique to the warrior and, in my opinion, should not be removed.

 

I couldn't help but laugh when I read Berserker Stance was being removed. (I guess there's no more standing in Fire to pool my rage prior to pulling Garrosh. Pft.)

 

Overall I think they're trying to make the spec's unique in their own right by making some abilities spec-dependent. Reading some of these now... not so sure how well I'll like it but, hey... it's all just text at this point. I look forward to testing some of this out in game.

[ragebarr 153]

They're removing all raidwide DPS cooldowns, except Bloodlust (and variants), so I'm fine with the removal of Skull Banner (especially since we get part of it back baked in Reck). I'll admit that I'll miss throwing down cool looking banners, though.

 

W/e with the zerker stance removal. I usually forget to use it anyway >_>

 

About the Sunder Armor removal: I didn't even use sunder anymore. Good riddance.

 

Looking quickly at the lvl 100 talents: I don't like fire heroic strike: Devalues Colossus Smash a lot =(

Anger management is another +value for haste.

Ravager looks like a ranged bladestorm for now. Kinda meh, until we see the damage values.

 

I'll try and post more comments tomorrow, when I have more time to look at the changes.

[ragebarr 153]

Added the Draenor Perks that we'll get while leveling. Don't look too much into the damage increases yet since we have no idea how Blizzard will balance ability damage for WoD. 

[Desos 18]

My opinions, based on the patch notes and a napkin I threw away 5 minutes ago:

Headlong Rush looks like introducing a plateau-type scaling for haste. First plateau after pushing the gcd on 1 sec and then another one every second that is reduced from our core-abilities to put them seamlessly in our play. Maybe allowing different "rotations" for arms and fury dependant on the haste plateau one can reach. Will be definitely interesting.

The changes to Riposte are nice, a further approvance of todays crit-mastery build.  

 

The swap of Storm Bolt and Bladestorm will allow for a heavy AoE talent build(DR, BS and Ravager) and 

 

The level 100 talents allow warrior tanks choosing between 4 strategies for a fight:

 

Anger Management will most likely be used in circumstances(whether fight mechanic ones or gear dependant), where your out-of-the-box cd´s have a recovery time too long. 

 

Gladiators Resolve in Defensive Stance could be of worth especially in the first raiding tier of WOD, since it provides an additional 5% of damage reduction, which is reasonable considering you will wear mostly blues, some BOE´s etc.

 

Gladiators Resolve in Gladiator Stance could be useful in fights with dps checks and/or fights with magic based attacks/debuffs, since you will still be able to use shield barrier. Also probably great for soloing stuff as tank(leveling maybe in the expac after WOD). The charge system from Shield Charge could stress the importance of the haste plateau at which shield slam will align with it, let´s say you can get every 15 sec an empowered Shield Slam. To align with these 15 sec you could push SS down to 5, 3 or 1 seconds, the latter seeming like a waste on all that haste. Exact aligning will prevent false consuming of the buff.

This is all in regards to Shield Slam, will not think about multi-target situations, where the buff to Revenge would be better.

Edit: Forgot about Sword and Board procs, which should simplify the use of Shield Charge buff: Single Target- Shield Slam, Multi-Target - Revenge.

Heroic Strike usage while Shield Charge Buff is up seems like a waste unless it is a free Heroic Strike. 

Ravager is interesting for AoE fights and picking up adds that spawn at a known spot. No more depths except positioning. Please Blizzard, don´t use the same targeting function as with Heroic Leap. I want to be able to throw my ravager up the hill/ over little obstacles.

edit: typos

Edited April 7, 2014 by check0790

[Estarriol 167]

With the changes to Berserker Rage, I feel that they're really being counter productive in their goal of ability pairing. As it is, BR is a multi-use ability that can be useful in any fight due to its rage gain and Enrage force. By removing those two components, Blizzard is contributing to ability bloat by giving us an ability that is useful only in a small number of fights. (I'm ignoring PvP)

 

Removing both Cleave and Hamstring is all fine by me. For Prot, the cleave ability is filled by Revenge and the changes they made to Cleave this expac left it almost completely useless anyway. Hamstring always felt like an extra ability. Wrapping it into the rotation sounds much better. My one concern is moving boss adds quickly. Granted, I highly doubt that will really matter.

 

I'm a bit sad that they're removing most of our banners. I can see why they're taking Skull Banner. Too many warriors were selfish about it, so it might as well be wrapped into Reck. On that topic, my jimmies are rustled about Reck being taken away from prot. Having a plethora of DPS CDs in addition to our defensive CDs was one of the things that made prot warriors feel unique from other tanks and really made it feel like there was a unity between all warriors.

 

I'm about 50/50 on Rallying. With the way it made Last Stand go on a 20s CD (and vice versa), needing to use it for my guild could put my personal CD use a bit off kilter. But with this change, prot warriors no longer have any raid-wide utility. We can boost or reduce damage taken in any way. If prot gets nerfed (aaaaand it will), we will lack even raid utility to justify our spot.

 

Throw removed? About damned time.

 

The removal of Weakened Blows/Sunder Armor is a good one. It really didn't add anything to the game.

 

The 15 yard min for Heroic Throw seems a bit much. Charge has a min range of 8 yards, so I don't see why Heroic Throw needs to be almost twice that. With the removal of the CD, I suppose I can see why they put a min range, but not really. Heroic Throw doesn't hit hard enough to matter if it's spammable.

 

I like the way they changed Riposte to make up for the removal of avoidance stats. I think it keeps the feel of the avoidance build adequately and if Hold the Line stays the same, it'll help with the damage output.

 

The change to Deep Wounds is one of the best they've ever done, in my opinion. It is an elegant change, one that accomplishes exactly the nerf needed in PvP while not affecting PvE at all. Finally!

 

I'm not really sure what to think of the Second Wind change. I agree with them that Second Wind has consistently been too good or not enough. I'm just not sure that a 10% leech will be enough with resilience factored in. However, if they increase the % for PvP, Second Wind would likely be too powerful in PvE.

 

Talents:

Anger Management sounds fun. I think it's nicely situational in that it will be useful in fights where I need to frequently use my CDs. I'm not sure how much it will really matter though. We'll certainly not have the rage generation that we do now in the first few tiers of WoD, so the question of how much reduction we'll get is the deciding factor in whether or not using the talent will provide enough benefit.

 

Ravager is something that Prot has needed for a long time. All other tank classes either have some for of continuous AoE or much short CDs on their AoE. With the ability to have Ravager, Bladestorm, AND Dragon Roar/Shockwave warriors will have insane AoE. So much so that I'm fully expecting nerfs in that area. I don't see how they could get away with not nerfing it.

 

The way they changed Gladiator's Resolve smooths my thoroughly ruffled feathers a little bit. At least now it has SOME use to real prot warriors. 5% though? Not fully apeased. In addition, the fact that they are turning prot into a DPS spec and bringing in all the problem that bear/kitty Feral had really rustles my jimmies. Maximum rustle, really. If they want a sword and board DPS spec, MAKE ONE. Don't pollute my spec. (Not that DPS warriors are pollution, but DPS prot is just sick and wrong).

 

The first three on the list of Prot levelling perks are nice, but the rest are fairly meh. They'll be nice when tanking, they're just not especially exciting.

[Artunias 0]

The new colossus smash glyph is interesting. I imagine for fury it will basically be a must have, where arms it would be a lot more questionable as to whether it's worth taking. The new bloodthirst change is a pretty big boost for fury at low gear levels too. Obviously nerfs high end gear a bit, but I think that's a pretty good trade off since fury is abysmal with terrible BT crit rates with fresh gear.

 

I also really like playing arms, but fury is so much better you can't responsibly play the spec. I'm hoping WoD makes the specs a lot more even in performance.

 

I'll miss demo banner, both in pvp and pve I feel like no one ever uses it and it's a pretty useful raid ability. Skull banner baked into recklessness is fine with me. Mocking banner had it's uses, but meh.

[ragebarr 153]

Right now, the glyph or unglyphed CS looks like they'll be pretty even, which means that with proper play, unglyphed CS should come out ahead. I honestly hope they further reduce the potency of the glyph, because if it is viable at all, it dumbs down the rotation so much, it's not even funny.

 

The BT crit buff is OK, but I think it should be even higher to reduce Fury's RNG, especially since we won't have Berserker Rage to help us with unlucky non-crit streaks anymore. If this expansion's anything to keep in mind, the new BT will be a very slight buff in the first tier (Where we had ~20-25% crit), and a nerf in any subsequent tier.

[Artunias 0]

Right now, the glyph or unglyphed CS looks like they'll be pretty even, which means that with proper play, unglyphed CS should come out ahead. I honestly hope they further reduce the potency of the glyph, because if it is viable at all, it dumbs down the rotation so much, it's not even funny.

 

 

Yeah, for sure. I really enjoy the fury play style right now. And it's pretty easy to seperate average from good. Maybe not so much good from great. But the glyph totally throws that out in its current form. I also don't like the berserker rage change at all. It gave you that backup button to ensure an enraged CS window 95% of the time. And as I mentioned I like that burst window play style, but with everything tied to enrage having the tools to make proper use of it was nice.

 

I didn't really raid this xpac until just a few months ago, but for some reason I though crit didn't breach 30 until ToT. So maybe that change isn't as great as I thought. Bloodthirst rng is definitely the most frustrating part of fury. Hey guys I got 90% bloodthirst crit and I just had 6 non crits in a row. Welcome to the dumpster of dps.

[ragebarr 153]

I don't have any records of my stats back from T14, but looking back at my stats in ToT, I was at ~38% buffed crit. Considering right now I'm at ~48% buffed crit, we can extrapolate the unbuffed crit I said we probably had for T14. (If anyone actually remembers how much crit we had back then, please let me know).

 

As long as we are above 30%, the new version of BT is a nerf, and by the early looks of it, looks like we'll need even more crit next expansion if we want to live through the awful RNG.

[Artunias 0]

Really I'm hoping arms can perform just as well and is competitive. Fury is awesome with heroic SOO gear and rolling 90%+ BT crit. But outside of that I only see it being frustrating combined with the loss of berserker rage. 

Edited April 30, 2014 by Artunias

[ragebarr 153]

I personally just hope that Fury won't change too much, and that Arms won't be the top DPS spec. I do not find it nearly engaging enough, and I do not want to relive Dragon Soul all over again. I'm OK with Arms being viable, and even optimal on certain fights like Protectors, this tier, but that's about it.

 

I'm really unsure about some of the changes being done to Fury right now, but I'll wait until beta to see them and see how they feel in game.

[Artunias 0]

I don't disagree that currently fury is the more engaging spec, but I've always thought Arms was pretty fun to play too. It's just a different kind. You have zero free gcd's basically as arms. So always knowing the best button to hit (not that hard obviously) but playing off CS procs and making sure you have adequate rage to keep slams rolling through chain CS procs. And all the aoe capability. I just think it can be a fun spec, especially if it was competitive single target.

 

 

But I think it's important that both specs are equal. Sometimes it's just that I've raided as fury for almost 10 years now, haha. So arms is different to break things up, but it's only fun to do that if you're really close to your fury output (or better in some cases)