6.0 Warrior changes discussion thread

[87Octane]

The irony is, without introducing brand new abilities that behave differently (since blizzard likes reusing old talents for tradition's sake) - there's almost no way to make Arms flow well without putting it back to a past iteration (and it's slowly creeping back in).

It's all a circular waste of time.

[Juni]

So, What is everyone rerolling to for WoD?

Don't care.. I'll play whatever my guild needs as long as it's not warrior. I'd rather quit the game.

[CollisionTD]

It's funny you say that, because all in all, if all the three talents in the level 45 row became baseline and were replaced with the old talents of the same row, arms would be completely fine, mechanic-wise. Rend would have a high priority (especially on multi-target), Sudden Death would be a reliable procc with high damage output and slam (if they upped rage-cost and damage especially) would have its place as a filler. With so many abilities to fill up your globals, there would be little room to abuse charge, but it would still be an option for players with hawkeyes on their CD's and swing timer. Yet they make us choose between one of the three, essentially dulling down arms no matter what you pick.

I'm surprised you think fury feels dead though. Not that I don't agree, but I do see opportunity. Make WS a procc-only ability (think procc-reliant lava lash, and give it either very high DPE or a buff making it worth using over), re-implement heroic strike as primary rage-dump and an unquenchable thirst + anger management build focusing on keeping 100% uptime on colossus smash would feel way better and faster than the current, in my opinion sluggish, playstyle.

The problem with fury is that they seem completely against changing the problem. The problem is wild strike, and the cry to return heroic strike went away a long time ago. Now we're settling for slight tweaking to wild strike so that I don't have to play the game with autohotkey turned on.

Honestly the reason I came up with the IW/UQ rotation was because I was searching for some retarded bastard rotation that was so awful--yet completely optimal-- that even they couldn't turn a blind eye to it. The fact that IW/UQ completely removes Wild Strike out of the rotation (other than bloodsurge) should hopefully be enough to convince them, but I haven't seen any comment on it.

I'm sure in a build or 2 we'll see IW or UQ get the crap nerfed out of them to make sure that doesn't happen.

With Arms, I think there is hope for some fairly drastic changes simply because charge has creeped into the rotation. They might be able to ignore the fury shenanigans, but charging on cooldown will almost certainly get removed somehow. They could be douches and remove the rage gain from charge, or they could take a look at the spec and be like, "Damn, we messed up."

I appreciate all of the people providing options, but we do need to be realistic. The most we can hope for are band-aids at this point.

[87Octane]

I'm sure in a build or 2 we'll see IW or UQ get the crap nerfed out of them to make sure that doesn't happen.

*snip*

I appreciate all of the people providing options, but we do need to be realistic. The most we can hope for are band-aids at this point.

They'll give IW a longer CD or take away the direct damage portion of it - whatever makes WS the only "consistently" useable dump (which is a joke it itself with bloodsurge)

It's rather astonishing IW even existed in its current form given how adamant they were about the removal of HS and having two rage dumps. Things must be really up in the air.

[Secondwind]

I appreciate all of the people providing options, but we do need to be realistic. The most we can hope for are band-aids at this point.

Which means I should probably get used to playing my Monk or Paladin again.

[Artunias]

Which means I should probably get used to playing my Monk or Paladin again.

I doubt I'll main switch, but rogue or frost dk are both viable options for me. I still believe boys. I BELIEVE!!

[Deleted]

I mean this might be a bit drastic and all, but is there any poster on here that knows some kind of criminal gang/california mafia that could plant a horsehead infront of blizzard HQ with a printed heroic strike icon in the mouth?

[Artunias]

I mean this might be a bit drastic and all, but is there any poster on here that knows some kind of criminal gang/california mafia that could plant a horsehead infront of blizzard HQ with a printed heroic strike icon in the mouth?

We shall make them an offer they can not refuse

[mysticx]

For Arms i'd like Slam (no stacking) baseline, and the Slam talent be changed into an empowered Slam with the stack system (harder to use, but bigger payoff)

This could work, a beneficial change that shouldn't take too much work to implement.

I'm still holding out hope for arms-spec (I've been arms spec at least part-time since vanilla), but i'm keeping prot/glad as a backup plan, i'd rather quit the game than change main though.

[Saiona]

Don't care.. I'll play whatever my guild needs as long as it's not warrior. I'd rather quit the game.

But..but...the mythic gear is so sexy

[Trubo]

But..but...the mythic gear is so sexy

And I'll use it as a Gladiator/Prot Warrior.

[Bonfiggy]

Spent a good chunk of the morning wailing on target dummies with the UqT and IW rotation. This actually feels pretty good - good enough that I fear for it's long term future. I'm not nearly as experienced a warrior as some in this thread (spent most of MoP progression healing), but out of all of the changes, this seems to be something that feels closest to "home".

[Zirhark]

I would like to take the time to bring up the fact they are essentially removing the ability to sit in def stance for on demand defenses.

A hidden change to this automatic stance dancing is that if you ever want to sit in def stance because you know a big pulse of dmg is coming and it would really help the healers, you can't continue to dps. Doing so seems to take you back into battle stance. This change makes me a sad panda.

[87Octane]

I would like to take the time to bring up the fact they are essentially removing the ability to sit in def stance for on demand defenses.

A hidden change to this automatic stance dancing is that if you ever want to sit in def stance because you know a big pulse of dmg is coming and it would really help the healers, you can't continue to dps. Doing so seems to take you back into battle stance. This change makes me a sad panda.

Yeah it seems they've "fixed" warriors sitting in D-stance for to DPS/PVP, but they've also made the entire idea of stances worthless. Like I said last page, at this point it should just be a buff/debuff tradeoff (as an homage really) or just get rid of them. If stances aren't a choice - then what are they?

Honestly the "point" of stances was to keep a warrior from using certain abilities that a "tank" or a "dps" should have, because this was before non-spec abilities were forcibly removed. Now that threat buffs are pointless as well (why is righteous fury even still in the game? They could just hardcode every tank spec to generate 500% more threat) and now the new info? I just don't see a point (at least a toggle-able or passive ability, a clever tradeoff CD would work)

[Earthbound]

Spent a good chunk of the morning wailing on target dummies with the UqT and IW rotation. This actually feels pretty good - good enough that I fear for it's long term future. I'm not nearly as experienced a warrior as some in this thread (spent most of MoP progression healing), but out of all of the changes, this seems to be something that feels closest to "home".

Honestly Gladiator is the spec to play if you want to maintain the "old" Fury playstyle. There are literally no open globals and you retain Heroic Strike.

[Bonfiggy]

Honestly Gladiator is the spec to play if you want to maintain the "old" Fury playstyle. There are literally no open globals and you retain Heroic Strike.

Thanks for the insight. Gladiator is the spec I've spent the least time with so far, of the 3 dps options warrior has. The little that I have played though, SC feels a lot better than CS, being that is a personal buff rather than a ST debuff.

[Eranthe]

automatically switched stances are like the worst of both worlds. I don't mind stance dancing because I think it adds another element of possibility and complexity for those of us that choose not to macro it to every ability. So you can use all your dps abilities in defensive stance if you want the damage reduction without the macro putting you back in battle.

Gating abilities to stances imposes restrictions on us, which again, I don't mind, because I feel like it fits the flavor of the class, and we can be balanced in such a way that even though we have the drawback of needing to change stance to use our defensive abilities, they can (and should) be made more powerful compared with alternatives (dk/feral defensive cooldowns for example, which require nothing to use and are absurdly powerful when you consider that warriors need to change stances to use theirs) to compensate for the annoyingness or delay in using them. I liked my warrior before cataclysm took away my stance bars and I liked the feeling of switching stances in combat to use certain abilities.

I get that some people, even most people, don't like abilities being gated to stances. And that's fine, they're entitled to their opinion just like I am.

But having automatic shifting stances not only removes my ability to control what stance i'm in and how long i'm in it, but it completely defies the reasons for even having stances. If all your abilities automatically shift you into whatever stance they're usable in, there's no decision making involved, there might as well not even be stances at this point.

I liked when I could populate my defensive stance bar with defensive abilities that were usable in defensive stance, so that whenever I was in dstance, I had quick access to those abilities, but they weren't taking up valuable bar space when I was in battle stance. But since MoP and WoD and to a lesser extent, Cataclysm, blizzard has slowly removed most of warriors' defensive abilities/cooldowns so that fury only has 1 ability to reduce their incoming damage while still dpsing.

I like more options, not fewer. And auto switched stances means fewer choices I can make to be more effective in the game.

[Zirhark]

...But having automatic shifting stances not only removes my ability to control what stance i'm in and how long i'm in it, but it completely defies the reasons for even having stances. If all your abilities automatically shift you into whatever stance they're usable in, there's no decision making involved, there might as well not even be stances at this point...

This right here really drives home why I'm so upset with the changes. I don't like my choice being taken away. What defensive cooldowns does that leave us with? Just die by the sword? That doesn't help much against raid wide damage, only if something is attacking you if I'm not mistaken.

[Eranthe]

die by the sword still reduces your incoming damage by x amount, as far as I know. They're either going to design encounters around us having terrible defensive ability or warriors are going to get benched a lot over rogues/ferals.

[ruiizu]

automatically switched stances are like the worst of both worlds. I don't mind stance dancing because I think it adds another element of possibility and complexity for those of us that choose not to macro it to every ability. So you can use all your dps abilities in defensive stance if you want the damage reduction without the macro putting you back in battle.

Gating abilities to stances imposes restrictions on us, which again, I don't mind, because I feel like it fits the flavor of the class, and we can be balanced in such a way that even though we have the drawback of needing to change stance to use our defensive abilities, they can (and should) be made more powerful compared with alternatives (dk/feral defensive cooldowns for example, which require nothing to use and are absurdly powerful when you consider that warriors need to change stances to use theirs) to compensate for the annoyingness or delay in using them. I liked my warrior before cataclysm took away my stance bars and I liked the feeling of switching stances in combat to use certain abilities.

I get that some people, even most people, don't like abilities being gated to stances. And that's fine, they're entitled to their opinion just like I am.

But having automatic shifting stances not only removes my ability to control what stance i'm in and how long i'm in it, but it completely defies the reasons for even having stances. If all your abilities automatically shift you into whatever stance they're usable in, there's no decision making involved, there might as well not even be stances at this point.

I liked when I could populate my defensive stance bar with defensive abilities that were usable in defensive stance, so that whenever I was in dstance, I had quick access to those abilities, but they weren't taking up valuable bar space when I was in battle stance. But since MoP and WoD and to a lesser extent, Cataclysm, blizzard has slowly removed most of warriors' defensive abilities/cooldowns so that fury only has 1 ability to reduce their incoming damage while still dpsing.

I like more options, not fewer. And auto switched stances means fewer choices I can make to be more effective in the game.

I'd rather there be no stance requirements than automatic shift. I used to like stance dance in classic-wrath because we had a ton of abilities to make use of said stances. The only thing I hated was "requires a shield". That was the one dreadful thing.

Also when abilities don't have stance requirements thats bad for pvp, because warriors can go defensive stance for minimal penalty. Same problem with blood presence when the other presences aren't strong enough: makes the defensive choice too favorable.

Let's hope they don't screw up stances too bad. Also is it just me, or do other warriors have a lot of empty bar space in defensive stance?