Warriors, the perfect class?

[Ryanite]

Putting aside the dull rotations of the current warrior specs I believe that the warrior is a perfect example of what blizzard should have shot for with all classes.

I believe a class should have all of these things in common.

- obvious strengths and obvious weaknesses
- Limited CC that fits thematically
- Talents that replace other abilities
- Limited healing unless it fits thematically
- Abilities that make sense for said class to have

The warrior has every single point of this.

Talents that replace abilities, for example Siege breaker replacing intimidating shout. It promotes thoughtful choice about the situation you might use these in and helps reduce the button bloat that blizz wants to cut back on and cuts back on key binds. Every single class talent tree could make use of this in some way.

It seems like everyone and their mother has been given an ability that makes such little sense for that class to have. Priests, mages and hunters with invisibility. Classes just being given some sort of heal just because and oh so many immunities. These are the kind of spells that should be pruned back.

I find my warrior overall frustrating to play in any sort of solo PvP environment (random bg's etc) because it's one of the only classes to have properly followed the design goals of WoD that blizzard had stated in the patch notes. Most other classes were left with way too much wiggle room, spells they don't need to be good and the only argument you'd have for keeping them is because classes other than warrior also have a similar load of abilities. Oh and what was that? blizzard don't balance around bg's? they balance around what? 5v5 and 3v3? oh no wait only 3v3's now? Balance an entire part of a game around a single mode, it just doesn't make very much sense.

Some classes just have the best of all worlds while some others are closer to the promised design of WoD PvP, which is why PvP in it's current state is so bad and I believe the Warrior is at the best point of power vs weakness, using team mates aka healers to negate their weaknesses and become extremely powerful. Arena comps should be based around which classes negate each others weaknesses not which classes can make the longest no DR chain cc's.

PvP in MoP, everyone was super and yeah it was fun to all be super, many cc's, great healing for all but it had a negative effect on the competetive part of PvP but now in WoD some classes have had their super removed and some classes had been touched but to a much lesser degree, making it loads of fun for the super and not so fun for everyone else.

edit - What I mean by fit thematically is like, a warlock has fear ok he has to have it, he's a warlock. So he can spam fear but because he has that ability he gets a downside to potentially being able to chain fear someone, which is it can be kicked and there for he is locked out for 4 second, it has DR and a potential to break on dmg. That's a good example of a well balanced thematic ability.

[Saladfork]

I agree. Warriors are one of those classes where when I face them in 3's, I don't immediately get that sinking feeling. They are a viable CC target and they are a viable kill target. They certainly aren't perfect, but they probably are the most balanced class at the moment.

With WoD, Blizz pruned and merged some CC, but they really did not touch anyone's mobility except for warriors' (with the safeguard root-break nerf). This created an imbalance in favor of melee. I remember when I logged in during the prepatch. My arena partner and I were testing different classes in duels etc. finding out how much was pruned. When I logged on my rogue, I was confused as I realized that I really didn't lose anything. I still had all my CC (besides dismantle), and all my resets. When I was testing it in duels, it was laughable how much I countered casters (esp. with burst of speed), and my control was insane. I genuinely swore that they were going to nerf rogues' utility, but they didn't. I had a similar experience with my feral. Honestly, when I play those classes I just feel like I'm playing one of those private servers where you donate $$ to be a god. But that loses its charm rather quickly.

I'm not saying those classes are without weakness--but they are quite "super". It is just weird the way WoD's first season ended up given their PvP goals. As a result, 3's, 2's, and even 1v1's are often determined by things like dampening.

[Kezotar]

I agree. Warriors are one of those classes where when I face them in 3's, I don't immediately get that sinking feeling. They are a viable CC target and they are a viable kill target. They certainly aren't perfect, but they probably are the most balanced class at the moment.

You mean a easy class you can kill without the class being equally OP as yours? Sure.
Warriors are far from fine.

[Ryanite]

You mean a easy class you can kill without the class being equally OP as yours? Sure.
Warriors are far from fine.

that's the point, warriors are fine, in fact they should be the bench mark for fine, it's other classes who are out of line with WoD's PvP goals.

[Accendor]

The problem is: A class can not be balanced as long as the majority of all other classes is not balanced. E.g. if the general understanding is that warriors are fine, they are probably to weak (compared to most of the other classes).

[Saladfork]

You mean a easy class you can kill without the class being equally OP as yours? Sure.
Warriors are far from fine.

You're missing the point. I'm not referring to whether a class is an easy kill (and warriors certainly aren't an easy kill if the warrior plays correctly), I'm talking about kill viability.

When someone enters the arena, obviously there can be a preferred target--but all targets *should* be realistic to kill (in my opinion). In the current state, you're limited on target selection due to the number of defensives to exhaust as well as the targets' reset mechanics. Warriors have reasonable defensive mechanics that you can work around (namely die by the sword, enraged regen, reflect, rally, and shield barrier). When you force a defensive from them, it is actually significant. Compare that to other classes such as rdruid where you have 3 1 min cds to cycle through (barkskin, ironbark, NS), or rogues where you have a consistent feint and vanish/evasion x 2 + cloak + mobility, or mages where you have short windows to kill them only after you've gotten two blocks.

Not only that, but a lot of classes have passive damage reductions (warrior included), which makes them even less worth it to swap to. And that leads to stale gameplay--as well encouraging training healers (since none of the healers really have flat passive reduction mechanics). My point is that the way classes are currently designed limits swapping potential (for anything besides RMD) and encourages training one person all game. But if a class has the right amount of defensives and sufficient cooldown times, swapping to that class becomes a potential option, which makes arena a lot more fluid (imo).

As for your comment on warriors--could you explain?

[Kezotar]

that's the point, warriors are fine, in fact they should be the bench mark for fine, it's other classes who are out of line with WoD's PvP goals.

Oh, so then Warriors are fine in a perspective that they're so terrible bad. Right. Makes sense. And nerfing all the classes to Warriors is not likely to happen.

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You're missing the point. I'm not referring to whether a class is an easy kill (and warriors certainly aren't an easy kill if the warrior plays correctly), I'm talking about kill viability.

"Play correctly".
Warriors have the least defensives. Warriors are very, if not the only target you SHOULD kill.
Imagine a good player on a "Lock", or even a "DK".

Blood Presence.
Icebound.
Death Strike.
Lichborne.
Sacrifice.
Empowered Runeweapon.
Weapon Enchant.
Stun Immunity.


VS WARRIOR.
Defensive Stance.
Die by the Sword. No immunity or CC break. Can be easily broken by hitting behind.
Rallying Cry.

That's it.
Oh of course, their uptime on a target, due to charge. Other than that, they're a lovely target to train. Or CC, easy!


Let me not start on a Warlock, or even a Mage, with dozen Blinks, Novas, Shields, Blocks and what, evocation? Alter time?

[Deleted]

Oh, so then Warriors are fine in a perspective that they're so terrible bad. Right. Makes sense. And nerfing all the classes to Warriors is not likely to happen.

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"Play correctly".
Warriors have the least defensives. Warriors are very, if not the only target you SHOULD kill.
Imagine a good player on a "Lock", or even a "DK".

Blood Presence.
Icebound.
Death Strike.
Lichborne.
Sacrifice.
Empowered Runeweapon.
Weapon Enchant.
Stun Immunity.


VS WARRIOR.
Defensive Stance.
Die by the Sword. No immunity or CC break. Can be easily broken by hitting behind.
Rallying Cry.

That's it.

Let me not start on a Warlock, or even a Mage, with dozen Blinks, Novas, Shields, Blocks and what, evocation? Alter time?

You're painting an incomplete picture here my friend. Warriors also have frenzied regen, shield barrier (which admittedly blows chunks), heroic leap to make distance (since you're counting blinks) as well as spell reflect and probably something more i've forgotten. DKs have vastly superior utility, don't get me wrong, but the warrior picture isn't as bleak as you make it out to be.

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The problem is: A class can not be balanced as long as the majority of all other classes is not balanced. E.g. if the general understanding is that warriors are fine, they are probably to weak (compared to most of the other classes).

No, warriors really are fine, but many other classes have things that make them completely out of line. There shouldn't be any class where your first thought (like vs DKs as a warrior) where your first thought is: I'm fucked.

[rouce]

Warriors have the least defensives.

Have you ever played a Shadow Priest?

[Ryanite]

Oh, so then Warriors are fine in a perspective that they're so terrible bad. Right. Makes sense. And nerfing all the classes to Warriors is not likely to happen.

actually nerfing everyone down to warriors is the next step, as really there's not much you can buff for a warrior other than adding completely new abilities, which they don't want to do as they've said time and time again they are cutting back abilities, they've also said that going forward they are going to continue cutting abilities. Add a healer to a warrior and you have a killing machine, this is an interaction that all classes should have in some way or another with specific combo's.

My bets on next xpacks PvP being some of the best we've seen in a long time as this xpack was pretty much just one big experiment in terms of PvP, lets hope they take the data and do something useful with it.

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No, warriors really are fine, but many other classes have things that make them completely out of line. There shouldn't be any class where your first thought (like vs DKs as a warrior) where your first thought is: I'm fucked.

Yeah, classes should have natural counters though. In a perfect world the abilities a hunter would have should be enough to deal with a warrior in a 1v1 situation since everything they have directly counters what a warrior is all about but the mentality should bring this. "ok hunter is my counter but if I play well enough I may be able to win" but in most cases you'd expect the warrior to lose since the aspects a hunter brings is exactly what a warrior should hate most. To negate that you'd want a class who'd be good at taking care of your natural counters, sadly though in WoD's current state only a better hunter really counters a hunter.

You are right though, when you go in and see a certain class in arena, it shouldn't bring to mind welp I'm fucked lol. I've thought that many times this season.

[Deleted]

Oh, so then Warriors are fine in a perspective that they're so terrible bad. Right. Makes sense. And nerfing all the classes to Warriors is not likely to happen.

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"Play correctly".
Warriors have the least defensives. Warriors are very, if not the only target you SHOULD kill.
Imagine a good player on a "Lock", or even a "DK".

Blood Presence - 10% and a bit of stamina.
Icebound.
Death Strike.
Lichborne.
Sacrifice.
Empowered Runeweapon.
Weapon Enchant.
Stun Immunity.


VS WARRIOR.
Defensive Stance.
Die by the Sword. No immunity or CC break. Can be easily broken by hitting behind.
Rallying Cry.

That's it.
Oh of course, their uptime on a target, due to charge. Other than that, they're a lovely target to train. Or CC, easy!


Let me not start on a Warlock, or even a Mage, with dozen Blinks, Novas, Shields, Blocks and what, evocation? Alter time?

Blood Presence.
Icebound.
Death Strike.
Lichborne.
Sacrifice.
Empowered Runeweapon.
Weapon Enchant.
Stun Immunity.


VS WARRIOR.
Defensive Stance - 25% reduction in 6.2
Die by the Sword. No immunity or CC break. Can be easily broken by hitting behind.
Rallying Cry.
Shield Barrier
Double Charge
Spell Reflect
Berserker Rage
Enraged Regeneration

[Resike]

Blood Presence.
Icebound.
Death Strike.
Lichborne.
Sacrifice.
Empowered Runeweapon.
Weapon Enchant.
Stun Immunity.


VS WARRIOR.
Defensive Stance - 25% reduction in 6.2
Die by the Sword. No immunity or CC break. Can be easily broken by hitting behind.
Rallying Cry.
Shield Barrier
Double Charge
Spell Reflect
Berserker Rage
Enraged Regeneration

Defensive Stance - 25% reduction in 6.2 (Only for prot)

Shield Barrier - Almost 0 absorb and you give up all your rage for it.

Double Charge - Double Grip.

Spell Reflect - The reflect damage is useless, it's only to prevent cc.

Berserker Rage - Yeah thats not gonna stop any damage.

[Borfl]

Warriors are far from perfect. If anything they're one of the most imbalanced because pulling 2 shots out your ass is fucking retarded compared to every other class in the game in terms of balance in fact warrior has always been the most imbalanced class since the beginning of arena. Garbage healing, gradually worse survivability options each expansion, but Blizzard just keeps feeding them more and more damage to the point that all a warrior needs to do is mongo damage to win because thats ALL they can do.

Low skill cap, high reward is bad design and warriors are the poster child. The numbers speak for themselves with arms warriors being the 2nd most represented class in arena.

[zknm7]

Blood Presence.
Icebound.
Death Strike.
Lichborne.
Sacrifice.
Empowered Runeweapon.
Weapon Enchant.
Stun Immunity.


VS WARRIOR.
Defensive Stance - 25% reduction in 6.2
Die by the Sword. No immunity or CC break. Can be easily broken by hitting behind.
Rallying Cry.
Shield Barrier
Double Charge
Spell Reflect
Berserker Rage
Enraged Regeneration

Defensive Stance is not getting buffed to 25% in 6.2, rather, Improved Defensive Stance is, which is only applicable to Protection Warriors.

[Ryanite]

Warriors are far from perfect. If anything they're one of the most imbalanced because pulling 2 shots out your ass is fucking retarded compared to every other class in the game in terms of balance in fact warrior has always been the most imbalanced class since the beginning of arena. Garbage healing, gradually worse survivability options each expansion, but Blizzard just keeps feeding them more and more damage to the point that all a warrior needs to do is mongo damage to win because thats ALL they can do.

Low skill cap, high reward is bad design and warriors are the poster child. The numbers speak for themselves with arms warriors being the 2nd most represented class in arena.

I am not speaking of rotational balance, I speaking from a design point in terms of talent set up and utility available to them, in terms that they have a very good balance of strengths as you pointed out but their weaknesses shine through if they don't have a healer or that healer is controlled. You are rationalizing only because in comparison to the imbalanced warrior seem weak, but it's not warriors who need to change, it's the others in order to make this game better.

[Gandrake]

i think most people would have quit the game in a frothing rage if their class turned out as shit as warriors did

[Saladfork]

@Kezotar: least would be spriest. But yes, I agree that their pure defensives are few in number compared to other classes. My point was that other classes should have their defensives brought down to a warrior's amount so that it is something that can be played around.

Also, just thought I'd point out that mages no longer use shields (due to flameglow being superior) and alter time (again, due to flameglow) and that evocation no longer exists. You might be thinking of the wrong xpac. :P

@Borfl: I agree that they could use more skill-driven moves. The prune has made them a lot less fun compared to MoP & previous xpacs since you no longer have charge as a stun and since you're often just a sitting duck. But they still have strengths outside of pure damage; namely their AoE fear, stun, uptime, and reflects. Still, I can understand why they are perceived so negatively, especially since you'll usually see them in KFC or brainless melee cleaves. But in more interesting comps like WMD, there are still interesting options to make, especially since they synergize well in helping a healer and in helping the mage land CC. My point is that warriors are partially a victim of the comps they're played in. They have potential, but none of their popular comps demand interesting decisions, so they're reduced to a healer-training bot.

But I definitely agree that low skill cap/high reward is the opposite of what blizz should strive for. One thing that irked me about this season is that we saw almost nothing but damage tweaks. Even with noticeably cookie-cutter builds, they really didn't alter utility for anyone--they simply tweaked cd's and tweaked damage. And it isn't fun to play with such limited options--there are fewer means of demonstrating intelligent decisions, so it feels like you're on autopilot. The talent tree respeccing thing was such an interesting dynamic added to arena, but it is boring when it isn't fluid.

[Deleted]

Low skill cap, high reward is bad design and warriors are the poster child. The numbers speak for themselves with arms warriors being the 2nd most represented class in arena.

stop it your making me blush. i finally broke 2.6k after 5 years of trying. low skill cap has nothing to do with it. Im sure of it! my healer said I was skilled. Well he was laughing when he said it but.. oh dear.

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i think most people would have quit the game in a frothing rage if their class turned out as shit as warriors did

Well I rerolled to Arms war and Im not regretting it.

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To OP warriors are over powered right now. If your looking for something a little more balanced in the middle try ret pali.

[Rennegadelawlz]

To OP warriors are over powered right now. If your looking for something a little more balanced in the middle try ret pali.

I'm not going to say Ret is OP, however, they are FAR better than warriors right now. Rets are above the middle absolutely especially if you know how to play them defensively. The Damage is better than warriors too. Example. I have not lost a 1v1 to a Warrior on any of my Rets since the launch of Mists of Pandaria.

Granted I am a high rated player. could make the difference.

[Gandrake]

The numbers speak for themselves with arms warriors being the 2nd most represented class in arena.

representation has always been a shitty argument to use against warriors because it's such a popular class. cataclysm was one of the worst times for warriors in pvp yet their representation was about 7%

Well I rerolled to Arms war and Im not regretting it.

then you must be doing something very wrong or are about to say some stupid shit like it's okay that playing solo is aids because the class is ok in arena

i mean really, look at this ret bragging about his 1v1 skills.

that he largely owes to invulnerabilities and just overall being better built for solo play. probably would have quit playing a paladin a long time ago if he did not have divine shield or freedom.