6.0 Warrior changes discussion thread

[Mcbenchpress]

Keep Fury the same as it is now on live, with some finer tuning.

Revert all changes made to Arms since 4.0 and change it's mastery to passive armor penetration. The original TfB, Sudden Death proccing Execute, etc. For those that don't remember, Arms toolkit consisted of:

Charge-With the old Juggernaut talent made baseline.
Rend-Procs an Overpower every third tick.
Overpower-Primary filler, used with TfB procs.
Mortal Strike-Hardest hitting ability, used on CD.
Slam-Secondary filler, use when nothing else is up.
Heroic Strike-Rage dump.
Thunderclap-Used on CD with 8+ targets.
Bladestorm- It's Bladestorm.
Sweeping Strikes-Cleave/padding
Execute-Used in place of Slam sub 20% and on Sudden Death procs.

Keep Heroic Strike for all specs to allow a skilled player to have more control over their Rage.


Warriors fixed.

[Deleted]

While the stance changes don't line up with their pre-WoD changes, I think we should focus on getting our specs in a right line, instead of arguing about something we lived with for what, 8 years? We lose mediocre damage for it and with these auto-swap buttons we don't even need macros.

Most here think that Glad is in a good condition. Do I miss something here? It focuses on shield slam, revenge, devastate, not wasting shield charge charges and balancing rage with HS. That sounds incredibly easy and seems like it does not have much gameplay depth.

[Deleted]

If I am expected to switch stances for helping the raid why are other classes not?

That's like asking hybrids if they're willing to drop their healing totem or pop aura mastery instead of using their gcd for more damage. It's a team effort after all and you can bring the boss down with going into defstance, popping x and switching back instead of using one mortal strike you should be happy to do that.

The real crux is that we get this treatment while druids get easier times (no form-restrictions), there's no clear design philosophy graspable. Is it just to keep gladiators out of arena (via cutting them out of spell reflect and more)? Then why they can't just add a "not usable while in glad stance"-line to the tooltip instead?

And you're 100% right that it just adds some skill ceiling in an area where it's not really wanted/desired.

@Anduryondon
There's no depth left for any of the speccs to be honest, that's Blizzards new approach to warrior or classes in general -> making all speccs "easy".

[Requiel]

That's like asking hybrids if they're willing to drop their healing totem or pop aura mastery instead of using their gcd for more damage. It's a team effort after all and you can bring the boss down with going into defstance, popping x and switching back instead of using one mortal strike you should be happy to do that.

The real crux is that we get this treatment while druids get easier times (no form-restrictions), there's no clear design philosophy graspable. Is it just to keep gladiators out of arena (via cutting them out of spell reflect and more)? Then why they can't just add a "not usable while in glad stance"-line to the tooltip instead?

And you're 100% right that it just adds some skill ceiling in an area where it's not really wanted/desired.

the "only usable in defensive stance" was changed for gladiator warriors and those abilities can be used in glad stance.

[Archimtiros]

That's like asking hybrids if they're willing to drop their healing totem or pop aura mastery instead of using their gcd for more damage. It's a team effort after all and you can bring the boss down with going into defstance, popping x and switching back instead of using one mortal strike you should be happy to do that.

The real crux is that we get this treatment while druids get easier times (no form-restrictions), there's no clear design philosophy graspable. Is it just to keep gladiators out of arena (via cutting them out of spell reflect and more)? Then why they can't just add a "not usable while in glad stance"-line to the tooltip instead?

And you're 100% right that it just adds some skill ceiling in an area where it's not really wanted/desired.

Real issue isn't how difficult it is or what the drawback is for us. The real question is What is the benefit? Who gains from this?

Those of you who've read the long winded dissertations I've posted on here may understand that despite being a stubborn jackass, I am generally able to see all sides of an argument (even if I vehemently do not agree with it) and I've made an effort to understand the Developers stance on things (pun har har), or their philosophy of design.

However, I can't find a single upside to Stance gating. It simply doesn't do anything good. In the end it is nothing more than an RP change.

Warriors have always had stances; they’re very important to the feeling of being a Warrior. In order to make stances more meaningful, and ease keybinds, we made stances have their own action bars, and re-added stance restrictions on abilities. However, we also made it so that you’ll automatically be shifted into the appropriate stance if you try to use an ability that isn’t usable in your current stance.

In order to make stances more meaningful. But does it really?
The most important aspect of stances has always been what modifiers it applies to your character. Increased damage, rage generation, extra defensive capabilities. You choose the correct one, for what benefit you wish to receive at that point in the battle.

Tying abilities to stances doesn't make the stance more important. The stance simply becomes a byproduct.
I want to use Vigiliance, therefore I have to use Defensive Stance. The choice wasn't to USE Defensive Stance therefore enabling new abilities, or to gain its effect.

The developers clearly made the change because they wanted it, it adds no improvement to our capabilities and doesn't add any kind of decision on using the Stance itself. Retroactively they added automatic stance changing to the abilities. While this is a great Quality of Life change, in my opinion it takes even more emphasis off the stance. Worse, because rotational abilities chance Stances back to Battle automatically (WW/Slam and WS in next build), we couldn't sit in Defensive Stance any longer even if we wanted to! This doesn't reinforce the importance of Stances at all, it reduces them, because I now have less control over what Stance I am in.

I have to be clear, I don't really care about the change much at all from a player perspective. As has been pointed out plenty of times, we can use Macros (or simply pay attention) and have near zero drawbacks from Stance dancing. However, I don't agree with the change from a philosophical standpoint whatsoever. It simply isn't good for the game.

Now I ask myself why the change and the only answer is flavor. Many players right now do not use Stances correctly. Some choose not to, some don't even realize the potential gain. Thus stances have a much smaller impact on the class as a whole, with many players simply ignoring them. This obviously isn't the design they want. Just like they wanted Fury more "wild and furious", they want Stances to play a bigger role in the class. To literally pop up more often.

So they effectively remove the decision for you, and stance dancing is forced upon us. This makes the players who want to see more Stance dancing happy, because its "cool and flavorful" that they see a new icon over their head. Because it's very important to the feeling of being a Warrior.

Is that a good enough reason for the change? I think not, but I think the biggest issue comes down to the way it was explained.
They've been defending this as a quality of life change for the newer players, but really it isn't. The automatic dancing is, but that is only necessary because the gating was forced on us in the first place. If they'd simply said "we want you to change stances more often in combat, so we are doing this." I think it might have been easier to swallow.

[Deleted]

That's why I get so frustrated, they make all these comments about how the changes are aimed at casual players, new players and veterans coming back. They don't want them to be bombarded with 500 different abilities (tbh I play with 48 bindings on my Warrior that I use in a general encounter, shouldn't really have to use Mocking Banner but intervene etc..)

Yet... They've made it harder? Removing abilities is good, albeit the wrong ones... But to add stance requirements without making it 100% passive (and thus defeating the point) is just shooting yourself in the foot. No-one gains anything from the changes, at least... No-one 'gains' anything positive.

I've gained a lot of frustration.
I've gained blood pressure.
I've gained the inability to talk to anyone that isn't "good" at a Warrior without being annoyed that their existence is the reason Warriors are completely shit at the moment (I'm partially joking here.)

[Jalopy]

It's a small annoyance in PVE, maybe a little more so in the current arms' build and how their rage gen works.

However it's BEYOND game changing for PVP. We can no longer sit defensive under pressure, and as such we'll be fucking trained into the ground and if we're forced to sit defensive, we have to do nothing, as doing any form of damage will force us battle. Combined with the fact we'll only have DBTS and rally (rally being maybe half as good as DBTS if even, and often used for other's benefit), our defensives are probably worse than rets have on live.

[Bloodletters]

It's a small annoyance in PVE, maybe a little more so in the current arms' build and how their rage gen works.

However it's BEYOND game changing for PVP. We can no longer sit defensive under pressure, and as such we'll be fucking trained into the ground and if we're forced to sit defensive, we have to do nothing, as doing any form of damage will force us battle. Combined with the fact we'll only have DBTS and rally (rally being maybe half as good as DBTS if even, and often used for other's benefit), our defensives are probably worse than rets have on live.

I'm curious where they are going to go with this. They acknowledge that Arms is overtuned in damage but really it is its saving grace in PVP. Gladiator seems to survive a lot better though so that may end up being the go to PVP spec.

[CollisionTD]

Seems simple really, but main questions here are when to use Ravager/Storm Bolt's as simcraft them listed as if=talent.ravager.enabled&cooldown.colossus_smash.remains<5, but to use Storm Bolt if=talent.storm_bolt.enabled&cooldown.colossus_smash.remains>4.

Unsure how they differ here and what it means for when to use these? Should they both be within CS, or not?

Ravager lasts 10 seconds and is affected by CS, so you want to toss it down before CS so it doesn't use up globals inside of it. I could probably cut that time down to 4 seconds.

Storm bolt is due to the 30 second cd, it's best to use it on cooldown instead of using it every 40 seconds for CS. Basically, it will only not used storm bolt on cooldown if colossus smash is coming off cooldown in less than 4 seconds. If somehow it has been delayed enough to fit that case, then it will save it for CS.

Fury:
Little less sure about the choices for Fury in WoD. Is there a big difference between TG/SMF? Seems TG pulling ahead ATM.
Talents:
Tier 45: Unquenchable Thirst or Furious Strikes?
Tier 60: Storm Bolt
Tier 90: Bloodbath
Tier 100: Ravager?

Rotation
1. Bloodthirst/CS on CD?
2. Ravager (again, lined up with CS?)
3. Storm Bolt in CS
4. Dragon Roar (before/after CS depending on procs, inside Bloodbath)
5. Wild Strike with Bloodsurge
6. Raging Blow
7. Wild Strike
8. Bloodthirst (if Unquenchable Thirst)

I guess the main questions I have for Fury come from Unquenchable Thirst/Furious Strikes and CS window priorities...
- Do we bother holding Raging Blow procs for CS windows? Or just use them as we get them and use WS/Storm Bolt inside of CS?
- Under the right circumstances, what the ideal CS window would look like, ie, CS > SB > BT > RB > WS WS WS?

Sorry for the long post - just having hard time getting a good summarized version of this information and done all I can with looking at simcraft profiles. Thanks!

Raging blows are not intentionally held for CS anymore. You'll find yourself using them within 2-3 seconds of proccing in most cases.

Perfect circumstances, probably something like this:
(Assuming enrage procs on CS)
CS WS/WS/WS-SB-RB-WS
GCD time line, with a small amount of haste. Wild strike's GCD is not affected by HLR.
CS >> 1.37 >> (WS/WS/WS) >> 2.87 >> SB >> 4.24 >> RB >> 5.61 >> WS >> 6.11 -- CS falls off.

If you don't have a RB proc, just use BT instead of RB, and then fill the final action with RB if it procs, WS if it doesn't. You'll generally want to save berserker rage for CS in case enrage falls off, but that's not always possible.

You 100% want to use wild strikes early in CS, to prevent any possibility of rage capping from a freak bloodsurge.

- - - Updated - - -

While the stance changes don't line up with their pre-WoD changes, I think we should focus on getting our specs in a right line, instead of arguing about something we lived with for what, 8 years? We lose mediocre damage for it and with these auto-swap buttons we don't even need macros.

Most here think that Glad is in a good condition. Do I miss something here? It focuses on shield slam, revenge, devastate, not wasting shield charge charges and balancing rage with HS. That sounds incredibly easy and seems like it does not have much gameplay depth.

It's not a complex spec, but it has a fun rhythm to it and has enough depth to keep it interesting. It doesn't feel awkward to play such as 0.5 second wild strike gcd fury, and it doesn't have 30-40% open globals like arms.

[Krazzorx]

So the glaring problem with Arms is its damage and not how it plays? Gotcha.

Well, he never did answer about arms' rotation one way or the other. Not mentioning it doesn't mean they think its fine. Doesn't mean there will be changes, but doesn't mean the opposite either. Only so much room in a tweet.

As shown by the tweet about keeping stance dancing, its not like he's purposely beating around the bushes and avoiding the subject I'd guess.

[Greil]

Hey let's make stances a fun and intuitive decision for the player to create depth to the class.

~AND MAKE THE CLASS STANCE DANCE FOR YOU SO YOU DON'T HAVE ANY CHOICE OR DEPTH......

I want what these devs are smoking it must be some good stuff.

...Edit for a few extra words which I randomly typed.

[hollafame]

How long until they gate D-stance by making you equip a shield/1-hander?

Next we'll get a glyph that makes lines of fire come out as our heroic leaps land and gain a War Cry ability.

[Diograo]

wall of text

I cant agree more.
Maybe we can ask devs to put an advanced option on interface menu to disable the autoshift stances part of the skills?
This way we can keep our control over stance dancing.

[Celarent]

Warriors fixed.

I adored that gameplay and I would kill for this.

Something changed in dev attitude during the Mists beta, though, and I fear this reversion to awesome wouldn't happen because it's a lost opportunity to "make a mark."

[Artunias]

We need more outcry about stances, aside from that I'm waiting for the next build of changes to come through before I bust out my pitchforks. After an expansion where fury especially was so amazing, and even if arms wasn't amazing it certainly was no where near as awful as either of the two specs are on beta at the moment.

I refuse to believe they can't make both specs really great and interactive with what we've seen in MoP, but if we get another round of changes that basically points to complete dog shit...I don't even know. As long as one of the specs remains top dps viable I doubt I'll main swap as I love my warrior. But god damn...this is the first time ever it's even been a consideration to look at another class.

[TheMightyMadmartigin]

So the glaring problem with Arms is its damage and not how it plays? Gotcha.

I won't lie, despite fully expecting a damage reduction to arms its still a little disappointing. I don't think anyone would argue that it was an outlier, but some acknowledgement of the 30-40% open GCD that Collision mentioned would be nice. I think I felt that the higher damage was compensatory to the lack of available abilities to utilize. Maybe thats true, just not to the extent that it is currently. I said it an earlier post, I would love to see ARMS regain some better melee performance footing, but not at the cost of enjoyment.

I know there has been suggestions about Slam being made baseline. I wonder if there will be any feedback about this?

[Bizerk]

Is it just me that doesn't want to use ravager for single target ever because targeting circles are stupid?

[regularspecial]

Whyyyyy is ravager on the GCD.


Feels so awkward.

[tempest420]

That's not a sign of brilliant coaching, that's a sign of holy fucksticks this spec is easy.

My feedback on the official forums was something along the lines of "this spec requires little more than a pulse to play properly." I also called it very accessible. Hue.

[Breccia]

I hope the state of Arms changes. I want to stress that I haven't played it, but from what I've read so far, it has some serious problems.

A) It seems like a correctly-played Arms warrior spends a lot of time with little to do. With unchangable 14-second rage-building periods, and from what I've seen, barely enough rage to use MS and Rend, let alone any filler, we're going to have a lot of time on our hands.

B) Slow as they are, the abilities hit WAY too hard. Despite what Blizzard has said about lowering burst, it sounds like a lot of people are going to complain about Charge-CS-MS-Execute destroying them nearly instantly. And, what does Blizzard do when PvP Arms is too strong? They nerf the crap out of PvE too.

C) The level 45 talents encourage three substantially different playstyles. I'm not sure I'd call that a problem -- it's the closest thing Arms has to a skill cap so far -- but it doesn't feel intentional.

D) And finally, Whirlwind is a stupid filler. It's been nerfed in the past because people were using it in their single-target rotation, and now it's being forced there on purpose. Their defense, that other classes/specs use splash damage in their fillers, rings hollow and false. Whirlwind isn't splash damage, it's a pure AoE. Making it a required filler (which we barely have the Rage to use anyhow) is a poor design idea.

I'm just not a fan of what I've heard so far. Hopefully I heard wrong.