Haven't played in 2 years, thinking about starting again. What's new?

[Denkou]

Heya guys

So I've been out of the game for a couple of years now and I think I want to start playing again. Some background information...I started with vanilla in 2006 but didn't do much endgame. During TBC I raided and cleared up to T5 content. Took a break for WotLK, came back and raided in Cata and cleared Heroic BWD/BoT/Throne, and since then I haven't played at all.

I played Fury most of the time and really enjoyed it in every iteration, even in TBC when you constantly had to ask for salv and fight with rogues/ferals for leather +AP gear. I also MT'ed for a short time, although I don't enjoy it as much. I also did some of Arms DPS in TBC back when we were the only ones who had the 4% damage debuff, and I've always enjoyed PvP for as long as I've played, although I was never super high ranking (Legionnaire in vanilla, ~1900 rating or so in TBC).

So its been awhile and I'm just wondering, whats new? Generally speaking, how is the warrior class nowadays? Is it competitive with other classes, and is it fun to play? Coming back after 2 years of not playing seems like a daunting task, and seeing as how I've missed an entire expansion, would it be difficult for me to "catch up", both in terms of learning new game mechanics/rotations/etc. as well as gearing? And just in general, how is the game now compared to Cataclysm? More grindy, less grindy, too casual friendly, not casual friendly enough? Would you say its pointless to start again now since the expansion is coming to a close and should I wait for WoD? I'm not trying to be in a top raiding guild or be an uber high rated team every season, I'm just looking for something to kill time with.

Would love to hear what you guys think, especially those who have played as long as I have or longer and can offer some perspective on how the class has changed from back in the day. Cheers

[Fog]

I'd say the best time to start is now. The expansion is basicly over, and we're all waiting for WoD to launch. With no beta yet, you can safely assume it's about 5-6 months untill we can play WoD. You have time to level and see the new zones, try out different specs, dungeons and whatnot. Good times to be had.

With that out of the way..

The game has changed. Whether or not you'll like is up to you. I've played since Classic, like you, and I still enjoy the game.
I've played every spec this expansion, and even though I'm no tank, I love how tanking, in particular warrior tanking, has evolved. Active mitigation has improved the fun aspects of tanking.

Warriors are very competetive, with both dps specs having fights they excell in. Fury is the best single target spec while arms has strong aoe. Arms isn't that far behind in terms of raw output either, so you're fine doing the spec you prefer.
Prot warriors are strong, even favoured in some scenarios. 'Nuff said.

I'd say the game is both too casual friendly and not casual friendly at all.. At launch there were endless amounts of dailies to do, which a casual (read: a person with limited play time, not a bad player) wouldn't have time to do. And then there's dungeons, scenarios Looking for Raid and, yeah, regular raiding.
If you are not aware, since you've been away since T11, Looking for Raid (LFR) is simply a lesser version of the raids you queue up for. Like dungeons etc launched in Wrath.
The dailies did become better and easier to handle. You needed the dailies to get rep, and you can get that in other ways now.
We have the Timeless Isle now, which is great for catching up with gear. Nice place to hang as well. If you're on a busy server, loads of world pvp is being had there as well.

The warrior class has changed alot. Some for the better, some for the worse, but all in all we're in a good spot.
We still have stances, but there's no stance requirement on abilities. Shield Wall and Spell Reflection doesn't require shields either, so there's less macro clutter!
Always a good thing for PvP to get rid of things that can bug out on you..

What else is new.. Oh, yeah, for PvP, be ready to eat CCs like candy. They are EVERYWHERE. I'm not a huge PvPer to begin with, but I lost interest in PvP all together during MoP. PvE took a big chunk of my time anyway.

Other than that.. Well, there's not much to it. You just have to read up on things you want to know about and experience it yourself.
I'm always happy to see people returning to the game.

[Denkou]

Thanks for the detailed reply, I appreciate it. I know questions like these are kind of difficult to answer.

I'm looking at talent trees on Wowhead and it looks like they've really simplified it, no? I remember the old days of having 61 and 71 talent points, and then I think in Cata was when they squished it a bit, and now it looks like its one talent per 15 levels. Did they remove a lot of skills? I'm assuming a lot of the old talents got "baked in" in one way or another. How are the PvE rotations nowadays, are they pretty engaging or are they more straightforward? Boy, I remember having to have 1/2 imp. slam and a swing timer for Arms DPS in TBC and having to weave your slams in between your auto attacks. Good times! (obviously I have a lot of nostalgia going on right now)

If I do choose to return I'll probably just do LFRs and PvP for fun. I'm pretty much used to all the CCs now after playing this class for almost 8 years. What's the "premier" spec for PvP these days, and how easy would it be for me to catch up gear-wise? Resilience used to be a HUGE deal, is that still the case?

Thanks for the input so far. It looks like I have a 10-day MoP trial so I'll probably try it out, but I'd still like to know as much as I can just so I'm somewhat up-to-speed and not completely lost when I start again.

[Fog]

The talent tree has been simplified, but in my opinion gives more choices. Yes, there were more talent points before, but you had the correct way, or the wrong way.
Get that spec and you're good for that tier untill they buff/nerf something. Now it's based on fights and some are actually for preferences. The only required talents are T4 and T6 talents, since they are the raw damage talents. They change based on fights though.

PvE rotations are somewhat more indepth than they were. I made my warrior in Wrath, so I can only answer from that point.
Slam is instant and arms only. Fury got a replacement called Wild Strike that mimics the old Blood Surge (which we still have) proc making Slam instant.
Now it makes Wild Strike have 3 charges free of cost.
I like arms, but it's too forgiving. Fury does most single target anway, but a good arms warrior can excell and come close to a fury warrior any day.
I'm sure you're familiar with Fury's Raging Blow, and can only say it's more of a pain now than ever. If you don't crit with either Bloodthirst or Colossus Smash, you get no Raging Blow, which is your highest damaging ability as fury. It happens alot with low crit rating.

Many talents are baked into passive abilities and also within the active ability itself. Such as 5/5 points needed for Sword Specialization, more crit etc. Those silly talents are all gone.
I miss the old Throw Down stun we had as late as Cata, but if I really want, I can stun with both Shockwave and Storm Bolt, which can annoy the fuck out of people in PvP.

To catch up in PvP it's fast enough to get the honor gear, somewhat fast to get the conquest gear as well since the conquest cap is insane. Talking 15k points cap each week. I haven't capped once this entire expansion, not even close!
But beware, if you want some world PvP going, you'll need PvE gear, since the item level difference is too great. Max pvp ilvl is 522, where max PvE ilvl is 580, where 553 is the normal raid ilvl.
Resilience has a huge impact, but it's a baseline stat now. We start with 72% resilience, and more can be added with resil gems. We have PvP power to counter some of the resil, but it's generally not worth it, we get most of our PvP power from the weapon.
For PvP I'd say arms is the prefered spec, although fury isn't bad, arms is better.

Hey, when I mean CC, I mean CC from EVERYONE. Every class got basicly the same CC, some have insane amount of CC of the same sort, some have insane amount of variety in CCs. Just remove anyting breakable from the area when you attempt serious PvP, if you are the smashing kind of guy.. :P

[Topork]

Just remove anyting breakable from the area when you attempt serious PvP, if you are the smashing kind of guy.. :P

i Lol'ed. still, so true ((