Where Are Warriors Going?

[Accalon]

yah man, im totally hoodrynch, im guessing you havnt hear that GC owned a horde on FM... and played with others... Ive been playing with GC since lvl 30 of vanilla wow...

[tet]

yah man, im totally hoodrynch, im guessing you havnt hear that GC owned a horde on FM... and played with others... Ive been playing with GC since lvl 30 of vanilla wow...

Yea man totally, which is why after playing with one of the best shamans you still don't know that anticipating is pretty much something you do out of habit in a
2200+ rated arena game. Yes?

And its why you want the warrior class to return to tunnel-vision MS/Hamstring/Whirlwind/HS spamming mode.

[Accalon]

Yea man totally, which is why after playing with one of the best shamans you still don't know that anticipating is pretty much something you do out of habit in a
2200+ rated arena game. Yes?

And its why you want the warrior class to return to tunnel-vision MS/Hamstring/Whirlwind/HS spamming mode.

That is what the warrior class is atm, it wasnt close to that playing with a shaman in S2/3/4, it actually required other things... Anticipation is a ton of the game, but its not the point where you can anticipate when ur going to intercept pummel 2 players at once...

[Veyne]

Hmm. First off my main is a shadow priest. The second character I leveled was an enhancement shaman, followed by a Death Knight (tried all dps specs), working on a Retribution Paladin and finally I have my warrior.

I'll go ahead and tell you that I'm already having a lot more fun on my warrior than I have had on any of my other classes (with the exception of the priest, considering he's decked out in some crazy gear and I have fun watching the DPS meters...). My Warrior is in his 50's and is remaining Arms until 60 when I can pick up TG. Not too sure about the playstyle of fury, but I really love Arms. There's a lot of thought involved in it. With tactical mastery, I stance dance more than I thought I ever would, mostly when Revenge Procs because with my gear, even at the 10% less damage penalty, spamming 4x Revenges in a row along with free heroic strikes (replaced my glyph of overpower with glyph of revenge) does more damage for the rage costs than anything else I can do, especially with how often I crit. I love the thinking required to decide which stance would best serve my current needs from a moment-to-moment bases. Of course a lot of this probably fades away at 80 with a TG spec, but I still have fun on my Warrior. I tried out fury back in the 30's or 40's when I had just enough points to fill out Dual Wield spec, Precision, Flurry and Bloodthirst. I even enjoyed the playstyle of that but was frustrated at the miss ration with that level of gear so went back to arms.

Now personally, I never played a warrior during vanilla WoW, but as the class stands right now, I really enjoy it. I think its fine. Hell, I'm in one of the top few guilds on my server and this particular TG warrior is -constantly- topping the damage meters.

But me having a lot of fun as a warrior over an enhancement shaman says a lot. I absolutely LOVED my enhancement shaman.

I also find playing a DK to be one of the most boring things I've done in this game, despite my initial excitement and enthusiasm. I feel too mechanical playing one. Like a robot. I feel the Warrior requires much more thought process.

As for PvP, I have no opinion either way. I'm not a PvPer, despite the joy I get out of speccing Disc on my priest and watching a Ret paladin and a DK take forever to bring me down if I let my partner die. I do suck at PvP, but it still entertains me with how much survivability I have as Disc. =)

But, IMO, if your getting bent out of shape about PvP, you're playing the wrong game.

[tet]

That is what the warrior class is atm, it wasnt close to that playing with a shaman in S2/3/4, it actually required other things... Anticipation is a ton of the game, but its not the point where you can anticipate when ur going to intercept pummel 2 players at once...

season 1 - 4:

intercept (1 gcd) -> pummel (1 gcd)
gcds used: 2

season 5:
charge (1 gcd) -> stance dance to Ber Stance (1gcd) -> pummel (off Gcd)
or
dance to ber stance (1gcd) -> intercept (1gcd) -> pummel (off GCD)
gcds used: 2

can you tell me the difference?

[Sorrow]

This thread is sad. It started out with some great conversation about the state of warriors, then slowly began declining into just another e-peen contest, slinging mud at each other's assumed arena ratings and various levels of intelligence. Really now, look at the arena tourney results and tell me that warriors are fine. I'm not going to claim to be a great warrior. I was about 1900 in S2 and s3 and just short of 2100 in s4 (gorefiend alliance has no good druids/shamans), but i think i've got a reasonable grasp of our situation.

Warriors right now are one of the easiest killed classes, doing some of the least amount of damage, with the least amount of utility. As addressed earlier, one of the issues is globals. There are simply too many buttons to press in such a short amount of time. I'm specifically talking about Arms here. Keep rend up, keep MS up, keep overpowering heals, and that's just in battle stance. To pummel, you have to go through a GCD just to land an interupt, then another to go back to rending and overpowering. To intervene, you have to do the same. Both of these are very clutch maneuvers, and the CGD delay time between when you need to interupt a cast or intervene your partner is just plain unnecessary and gimps us horribley.

Our survivability is also an issue. We're pretty much the only class that has to absolutely turtle to stay alive under focus fire. While in defensive stance, we're doing no damage and what utility we have is gone.

Accalon, you hit the nail on the head buddy. Our class needs an overhaul.

How are Piercing Howls and Hamstrings fucking damage?

a brief edit, because you seemed so upset about this.

Pretty much any class can get away from a warrior without piercing howl or hamstring.
priests get a second of fear off or a blackout proc, you're gone. you hit a mage with ice armor, you're gone. a rogue is attacking you, gone. a warlock death coils, gone. a shaman frost shocks, gone. a hunter wing clips, gone.

I know this is what intercept is for, but most classes have a way to counter that too.

[tet]

This thread is sad. It started out with some great conversation about the state of warriors, then slowly began declining into just another e-peen contest, slinging mud at each other's assumed arena ratings and various levels of intelligence. Really now, look at the arena tourney results and tell me that warriors are fine. I'm not going to claim to be a great warrior. I was about 1900 in S2 and s3 and just short of 2100 in s4 (gorefiend alliance has no good druids/shamans), but i think i've got a reasonable grasp of our situation.

Warriors right now are one of the easiest killed classes, doing some of the least amount of damage, with the least amount of utility. As addressed earlier, one of the issues is globals. There are simply too many buttons to press in such a short amount of time. I'm specifically talking about Arms here. Keep rend up, keep MS up, keep overpowering heals, and that's just in battle stance. To pummel, you have to go through a GCD just to land an interupt, then another to go back to rending and overpowering. To intervene, you have to do the same. Both of these are very clutch maneuvers, and the CGD delay time between when you need to interupt a cast or intervene your partner is just plain unnecessary and gimps us horribley.

Our survivability is also an issue. We're pretty much the only class that has to absolutely turtle to stay alive under focus fire. While in defensive stance, we're doing no damage and what utility we have is gone.

Accalon, you hit the nail on the head buddy. Our class needs an overhaul.

I don't disagree with you at all: right now Warriors DO need some help. I don't agree of course with the part that says that there are too many buttons to push. After 3.1 (NOT BEFORE), it will be fine. I don't want the warrior class to become the simple minded scrub friendly class that it was in TBC where only 3 abilities really mattered. Even so, it's not a huge difference. Sure it involves a bit of decision making but this isn't a bad thing at all. Ask any other class (that isn't an Iwin button DK or Ret paladins) about how many binds they have. I guarantee their answer will be equal if not more than post 3.1 warriors. Decision making means that more finesse will be involved when it comes to mastering the class - and this is something that Warriors need as opposed to making the class extremely easy.

And I hope you're serious about your name calling, you agree with Accalon but he was the one that started the shit slinging.

[tet]

a brief edit, because you seemed so upset about this.

Pretty much any class can get away from a warrior without piercing howl or hamstring.
priests get a second of fear off or a blackout proc, you're gone. you hit a mage with ice armor, you're gone. a rogue is attacking you, gone. a warlock death coils, gone. a shaman frost shocks, gone. a hunter wing clips, gone.

I know this is what intercept is for, but most classes have a way to counter that too.

No no no, don't take my reply out of context. He was talking about damage rotation, and then changed it to utility abilities. It's not the same when you say "damage", to when you say "what is required for damage to be done".

edit: added quotes to avoid confusion.

[Sorrow]

ah, i'm sorry. i thought you were talking about pvp situations. I'm sure you realize that in pvp, people tend to not stand and tank a warrior and try to move away. I'm sorry if I was mistaken though.

I was serious about the name-calling. You can be a jerk, yet still have a valid point and good ideas, as long as the ideas remain center stage. Thomas Jefferson was an asshole.

I can't disagree with what you said about warriors though. 3.1 isn't out yet

[tet]

ah, i'm sorry. i thought you were talking about pvp situations. I'm sure you realize that in pvp, people tend to not stand and tank a warrior and try to move away. I'm sorry if I was mistaken though.

I was serious about the name-calling. You can be a jerk, yet still have a valid point and good ideas, as long as the ideas remain center stage. Thomas Jefferson was an asshole.

I can't disagree with what you said about warriors though. 3.1 isn't out yet

Of course, I'm not intentionally being a jerk. It's only cause he brought it upon. But that's ok, I'm used to hostility in boards. It is, after all, what the internet is all about.

I hate arms as it is right now. It's downright bad, its damage is bad, its utility is the same as pre-WotLK with an added "BLADESTORM", and so forth. I'm just very optimistic about the changes, and I'm actually downloading the PTR right now to test it out. I saw some videos where basic battle stance dps was shown and it looked extremely promising. We'll see after 3.1 though, and we'll see when I actually test it out for myself. I'm hoping though that my hopes are true and that I won't have to change my mind regarding the subject - but as far as stance dancing goes, I'm completely comfortable with it, and I don't mind having to stance dance for 3 or 4 abilities.

[rabbimojo]

...
Pretty much any class can get away from a warrior without piercing howl or hamstring.
priests get a second of fear off or a blackout proc, you're gone. you hit a mage with ice armor, you're gone. a rogue is attacking you, gone. a warlock death coils, gone. a shaman frost shocks, gone. a hunter wing clips, gone.

I know this is what intercept is for, but most classes have a way to counter that too.

Well, at least blackout procs are gone.

With regard to the comments about GCDs.. Given that arms can both MS -and- halve damage/healing via Overpower.. How much do you think your anti-nuker/healer is balanced around pummeling, at this point? It's there, which is more than many classes have..

I understand the frustration, but I personally don't think it's as dire as people would like to believe. I expect warriors will make an appearance in the top ranks again this season, depending of course on counter-comps.

As a sort of aside: It really probably is the counters that are making arena a steep climb for warriors. Similarly to rogues, representation is low though the class isn't necessarily weak. If your counters have strong comps, it makes your chances lower. This is something GC's been saying regularly, lately.. Warriors may not be weak so much as DK/holydin etc are OP. I guess we'll see.

[TDWP]

Fellow warriors discover your 4th hidden specc, THE DEATH KNIGHT.

indeed

[tet]

Well, at least blackout procs are gone.

With regard to the comments about GCDs.. Given that arms can both MS -and- halve damage/healing via Overpower.. How much do you think your anti-nuker/healer is balanced around pummeling, at this point? It's there, which is more than many classes have..

I understand the frustration, but I personally don't think it's as dire as people would like to believe. I expect warriors will make an appearance in the top ranks again this season, depending of course on counter-comps.

As a sort of aside: It really probably is the counters that are making arena a steep climb for warriors. Similarly to rogues, representation is low though the class isn't necessarily weak. If your counters have strong comps, it makes your chances lower. This is something GC's been saying regularly, lately.. Warriors may not be weak so much as DK/holydin etc are OP. I guess we'll see.

Its not so much counters that is hurting representation. It's the fact that every class except Rogues have magic damage (including Ret Paladins and DKs) and can tunnel a Warrior into doing nothing (D-Stancing, Shield Blocking, Shield Walling, Spell reflecting), so basically the class becomes a minus one in your team. The damage we deal is mitigated by armor, so against plate we do shit unless we're fury and we're pooling rage from another source so we can quick swap with intercept and deathwish. With the armor pen changes though (battle stance gives you 20% armor pen) that could change. We will have to see after that. I don't know why Ret Pallies, DKs, Feral Druids and other melee classes (LOL Hunter's ES is ridic) haven't been changed so their magical damage is mitigated by armor. It just feels like the Warrior is using an outdated damage mechanic. The class IS weak, it's weak because of its penalties and its damage sources. Not because of counters. It's weak because other MS classes have so much utility no decent healer wants to get anywhere near a warrior when he wants to form a team (see hunters).

[Zephyrüs]

On the heroic strike issue... What can they really do with it? They can't change it to soak up more rage cause that would completely screw arms and fury warriors because we also use it...

Perhaps they should design us a better rage dump. Something that uses say 5 rage per second and reduces rage gained while it's up bt 50% (I have no idea what I want this ability to do I'm just throwing out mechanics), or something like a TPS execute. That would be really cool. The risk is just that it might end up like a taunt or it might be like Sudden Death (overpowered or cooldown/proc depending abilities).

Imo they definitely should come up with something though. There has to be a better rage dump then Heroic Strike...

[Chivas]

This is just a nicely written QQ post. If you look around the forums, every class and every spec is fretting and hand-wringing about falling behind. I think warrior tanking is fine presently (by fine I don't mean they are perfect or that there aren't any areas where they could be improved), I've never seen or heard of a warrior flat out getting benched by their guild because they have a Pally/Druid/DK, they are still a spec that guilds want. I think a lot of the warrior anxiety comes from not being the anointed king of tanks anymore. There's a big difference in saying 'we want other classes to be just as good at tanking' and then actually seeing the game move in that direction and having increased competition for raid spots. It's pretty easy for that to become 'oh crap someone else can do my job, I need more utility, better abilities, etc, to stay ahead'.

Fury has been considered (by the design team, and ppl that play other classes at least) to be too good so far in pve, and are getting some nerfs accordingly. If these are the right nerfs or if they're too much, etc, remains to be seen.

Arms definitely needs some help, but it seems like blizzard is making an effort to make them more competitive.

[archform]

unless 50%% of this Class/spec is failing then maybe your just not that good of a player as you think

[sejer]

I don't think there will be as much to complain about in 3.1. The only problem I think I'll have is getting used to playing in battlestance and not being able to pummel as swiftly as I used to. I'll probably just macro it anyway. I'm pretty terrible in arena so I'm not going to say much more than that.

One thing though, burst could work out a bit better for arms now, take improved charge and you could:

1. charge enemy
2. cast shattering throw whilst enemy is in charge stun (you'll have at least 25 rage at this point)
3. mortal strike with 100% crit chance, if you can get the rage within 8.5 seconds

That's going to be a nice start to some nice damage, 20% less armour is nice. As I say, I don't pretend to be some arena pro, I'm just making an observation.


I pretty much agree with 'tet' in this thread and, Accalon, just post your armoury if you haven't already. If you're going to argue like you're in the 2400 bracket then the least you could do is prove. I do agree with you on a bunch of points and I don't think Blizzard is done with the class yet but I really don't think we need to QQ about it.


IMO prot is in a nice place at the moment. It's never been so fun to play and some of our abilities, like shockwave, are just plain fun. My only complaint would be about HP pools or being sub-optimal to tank Sarth on 3D. Blizzard have acknowledged this and if warriors fall too far behind in 3.1 tanking, they will address it.



I play fury as my main in PVE and, I got to say, what could one possibly complain about up to now? I'm doing insane DPS and it was far too much for a hybrid class. I do not like the TG nerf but only because it's not very elegant - however, we needed a nerf. I do agree that shouts are kind of 'meh' for utility, maybe beefing up CS would work IDK.


Bottom line: Kind of agree with you but this thread is getting too personal/nerd rage/arena epeen/QQ and should get back on topic.

[slue1234]

Heya all. I myself been playing Warrior now for 4 years. I PLay Mt for guild and love the pve. I dont have much complains there tbh, pretty happy atm. We can take a good beating .

But for pvp, as i play arena and bgs alot. People always tells me how insane warrior dmg is, and yea its pretty nice. But what people seem to miss is that im not any better then the rest, tbh warriors do less dmg then most classes. Yea ofc we can nuke hard with cds, but so can every1 tho.

One thing i always hated with warriors is the shield and rage effect. When a person gets a shield, we get no rage when we hit. And he absorbs. Palli shield absorbs 500 dmg right. I tested this with my friend since i always has the feeling that when im hitting a shield, neither its priest, mage, new palli shield etc ( absorbtion) i sudenly loose all my dps. Like i go from 2000 dps to 500 and critt goes from 40 % to 0. So i started a duel, he only standed still, did a whirlewind. Hitting for about 3500. He uses his shield and gets the absorbtion on him. ( taking 500 dmg). I use whirlewind again. And says absorb and he looses no hps.....?Maby im missing some mechanics but i always felt that something is wrong when a warrior faces and aponent with absorbtion shield on him i do less to nothing in dmg.

If any1 else feels like this plz do comment.


1 more thing i do not fully understand. Why has it the last years ended upp beeing the more dps increase a class gets the more avoidence he gets ??. For me feral druids, hunters, mages and rogues have more avoidence then ever after they got more dmg. I would agre on dmg increase on classes, but not if they get same % in avoidence at the same time.

Its like i always say as an old warlord, i sometimes miss the old smash days. But im always hopefull more balance will come to this class to. Give Pummel to be used in any stance and Arms will be Viable.

[sejer]

One thing i always hated with warriors is the shield and rage effect. When a person gets a shield, we get no rage when we hit. And he absorbs. Palli shield absorbs 500 dmg right. I tested this with my friend since i always has the feeling that when im hitting a shield, neither its priest, mage, new palli shield etc ( absorbtion) i sudenly loose all my dps. Like i go from 2000 dps to 500 and critt goes from 40 % to 0. So i started a duel, he only standed still, did a whirlewind. Hitting for about 3500. He uses his shield and gets the absorbtion on him. ( taking 500 dmg). I use whirlewind again. And says absorb and he looses no hps.....?Maby im missing some mechanics but i always felt that something is wrong when a warrior faces and aponent with absorbtion shield on him i do less to nothing in dmg.

So you know we get rage when hitting shields now? We also get it when we are shielded and someone hits us.

[Dyo]

main problem with warriors is that we are hybrids.
In pve hybrids are meant to deal less dmg than pure classes, im completly fine with that. However lets take a look at few hybrids like warrior,druid and shaman.
Warrior brings
Battle Shout which has shorter duration than Bom and in fact is worse by 1 ap (zomg!)+ paladin can spend 2 points as leftovers into it while warr has to spend 5 points for lesser effect (not mentioning 2 points for stunning 1 minute longer duration)
Commanding shout which is easily replacable by blood pact which is pretty constant. However lock might not always be near enough to tanks to give them BP. So commanding shout is dfinately good here, yet duration still sucks. Plus ofc warlock is pure class so brings more dps.
Fury brings only rampage which is also worse than Lotp. Ofc its impossible for fury to not crit for 10 secs, but imagine situation where melee dps has to move away for 15 secs for example, druid still keeps giving 5% crit to hunters while warr does shit.
Arms brings blood frenzy and trauma. Blood frenzy is brought by rogues which again are pure class and bring more dps than warriors. Trauma is brought by druids, even the tanking ones. However i call trauma nad mangle equal since warr can apply trauma to multiple targets with ww/bs/cleave

However, lets look at what other hybrids bring, shaans or druids
shaman
mix of str/agi/spell haste/fear and sleep removal/resistances/20% melee haste/mp5/healing stream(which also get merged with mp5)/disease and poison cleansing
heroism
ankh
cure poison
+specc specific buffs like 10% ap or 5% spell crit

Druid
motw
thorns
rebirth
innervate
+specc specific like 13% spell dmg (warlocks can bring this tough), hit or mangle and lotp


So i ask you, whats the point of bringing dps warrior to a raid if you can bring feral druid instead ?
he brings more and our other buffs are being replaced by pure classes buffs.
Same goes for shaman... whats the point of bringing warrior over shaman if they deal the same dps?

Warrior lacks utility to be a hybrid.


When it comes to pvp part. Take a look at ret paladins, in 0/20/51 build they get
-15% movement speed
-30% slow/root reduction
-50% disarm reduction
-30% stun duration reduction(while we get only 20% while its paladin who has 25 sec cd stun removal)


same goes for pretty much any hybrid
now look at our trees, we have talents spread like we were pure class, not mentioning we dont even posses talent like 15% movement speed.
Also as some1 mentioned, our lower tier talents are terrible. Toughness sohuld be tier 1 not 3 so its achievable for all warriors. Not shieldblock TC or imp bloodrage which has to be the worst spent 2 talents ever.
not mentioning that fury and arms are full of useless talents.
TBH we have only 2 talents that actually fit hybrid class and are comparable to other hybrids... those talents are jaggernaut and unrelenting assault aka talents that give few effects in 1 talent.