Cataclysm Changes - Fury Discussion

[RPZip]

The preview is completely, mind-bendingly terrible for Fury. Whirlwind was gutted, which makes our Rotation even less interesting, the Mastery is godawful and Heroic Leap is amusing but I'm not excited by "Charge with a free thunderclap!", especially since it shares the same Cooldown.

The chance of Blizzard balancing DW 1H and DW 2H against each other is zero; look at how it turned out for the DPS DK trees, which means the talent is a red herring. Either TG or Single-minded Fury will be the talent of choice, and the other one will be there to trick people who don't read up on much theorycrafting.

[Sidonis]

@ Battousai

I agree. Min/maxing will make having both ways a balancing nightmare that will make the first few patches of WotLK concerning TG a joke.

They need to just make TG 2h in the MH only, 1h in the OH, and remove the damage penalty of TG. Otherwise Fury warriors are going to be just like DK's have been this entire xpac, bouncing back and forth between 2H's for Blood/Unholy, and 2 1H's for DW Frost, every time a dev sneezes into the patch notes.

[Mihalik]

I am making a serious effort not to be pesimistic about all this.

But how our attacks now seem to work and how Inner Rage seems to work i strongly belive our Cata rotation in fury will look like BT-Shout-Heroic Strike-BT-Shout-(probably at some point wait around for your rage bar to hit 100) -BT-Maybee a Slam Proc-Shout. With the posibility of weaving in Sunders when needed or replacing Shouts with Sunder refreshing when (if) you have plenty of rage or your Shouts are on cooldown. The AoE rotation will most likely be identical simply replacing HS with Cleave and BT with WW.

I strongly suspect Shouting will become a major part of our rotation for sustained Rage generation. And i also think we will be using a lot fewer attacks, potentialy hitting harder, while spending alot of our time building up rage via Shouts and Swings and waiting around for our rage bars to fill up for the damage buffs to combine with our Deathwish cooldowns.

Indeed fury dps seems a very strong redesign. Warrior have for a long time been a class that was a mindless killing machine, smashing hard and constantly. Cataclysm warriors smell like something focused on building up resources and stacking up procs and cooldowns for a lot fewer but potentialy harder hits. Auto attacks will most likely become a larger component of our dps. (Something i horribly hate and the only thing i liked about HS spamming, we where always using some or other ability to actauly attack things.)

As about Heroic Leap... Yes its shiny, but it has very very little practical use to it. If its an opener out of combat only move then its useless for PvP and useless for PvE, posibly only being really used by Prot for instant Thunderclap at no rage cost reasons.

If it will be allowed to be used in combat, it will only actualy be superior to Charge if it allows you to jump to targets IN LINE OF SIGHT but without a direct charge path. Things like up hills, up elevations in Arena's and such.

Heroic Leap in its original form has become a Goblin racial essentialy, and the current version is the original's retarded little brother.

Gushing wounds....well that is a sorta interesting thing. If blink, lifegrip, teleport all count as motion it could finaly allow Arms warriors to keep things rended even while being kited. (Nice against Rogues, Feral druids considering their highly mobile play style).

But lets face it. If it does not do A LOT MORE DAMAGE then Rend is still no serious Threat to anyone. While Rend is usefull and does do some damage over longer periods of time, it is a rather weak DoT overall, compared to basicaly any other DoT out there.

The fact that Sunders have been NERFED HORRIBLY seem to be completly passed over by everyone. Down from 20% to 12% armor reduction. The PRIMARY RAID BUFF that warriors have been bringing to raids, has just been mutilated.

And now my greatest grievence.

One of these days i will dig up the blue post made a few months ago by GC in wich, he states that Mortal Strike has been an ICONIC warrior ability, and wich during WotLK has lost its flavour and status. Essentialy it is no longer the ability for wich warriors have been feared ever since the introduction PvP. And he PROMISED that for Cataclysm, Mortal Strike will once again become a truely Iconic and significant warrior ability. To use his choice of words. TO PUT BACK "MORTAL" INTO MORTAL STRIKE!

And now instead of doing anything of the sorts...Mortal Strike gets a massive nerf and is completly placed on the very same level of all other healing reductions brought by a variety of classes now, with leaving the window open for potentialy handing it out to even more classes. (Ret paladins anyone? They have been whining about it ever since 3.1.)

I am very very not optimistic about this, and honestly hope there are TONS of not yet announced changes to come, that will put my mind to ease.)

[Astray]

There will always be a clear winner in terms of the best damage...if its 2hders all the fury warriors will gravitate to 2hders and the talent will be worthless...

...then 1hders talent will be buffed to OP, and all the fury warriors will go pick up 2 1hders and rock the meters again, and their 2hders left to rot in the bank.

In the same way, you could say "if arms did 9000 dps and fury did 9001 dps, everyone would switch to fury and arms could be erased completely". Arms does less dps, but i guess someone would miss it if we deleted it right now, hm?

I think its a nice compromise to those who like 1H-DW. They probably know that for every 100 happy 1H-DW people there will be 10k crying their hearts out, but on the other hand, the wow community will always qq 24:7 and about everyting (best proof: this topic)

If TG keep its -10% damage and the new 1H-Special gets a +% it will be quite easy to tune.
A lot of trouble came from changing incoming rage. That will be gone, so i guess we wont see that many warrior-dps-patches in cata.

[Vetali]

I am cheering for 1 handed fury purely for nostalgia. Like others have said it will be impossible for blizz to balance it and one will always be better than the other. From how it sounds fury has a 2 button rotation now: Bloodthrist and Heroic Strike. I could care less about heroic leap. It was useful before but now it just sounds kinda lame. The shouting mechanic is cool I guess, long over due... but cool.

So far looks like my lock is my main in cata. Just going to have to see how the beta plays out to make my final decision.

[Thrownaway123456789]

This feels strangely like a reenactment of the posts seen when they put in the damage reduction nerf to Fury. However, even after the nerf, looking at the World of Logs damage rankings Fury warriors are still around the top. The change to WW is a nerf, yes, but it is not as much of a nerf as it is a re-working of our rotation. Theoretically, an AoE attack being our #1 damaging attack does not conclusively add up. Personally, if they are going to keep this 50% nerf to WW they should make Bloodsurge be an instant cast 100% WW instead of a Slam Proc. Thus, changing Slam to an instant ability on a similar CD. Just a thought....

[Haskel]

Hmm, not sure how I feel about the WW change. I agree that it's a step in the right direction to make the strongest single target attack not also be an AoE attack, but I was really expecting to see more abilities added to the Fury rotation to make up for it. Fury was already using fewer abilities than almost every other class, and to take one of those away seems ridiculous. As it is now, the rotation will be BT, HS HS HS BT HS HS HS, etc. Starting to look a lot like mut rogue and arcane mage "difficult" rotations. Hopefully they have an attack or two still up their sleeves that will make fury a bit more interesting.


I'm also a little confused how prot will dump rage. Prot already has a no-cooldown ability to use, so they won't see much HS use, or if they do, they'll only use devastate when completely rage starved.

[RPZip]

This feels strangely like a reenactment of the posts seen when they put in the damage reduction nerf to Fury. However, even after the nerf, looking at the World of Logs damage rankings Fury warriors are still around the top.

Not until 3 instances after the nerf went in, so I don't think it's a terribly good comparison. Fury was bad until very late Ulduar/early ToC, and the nerf went in at the end of the Naxxramas era.

[Thrownaway123456789]

That is true, maybe not the greatest comparison. However, it feels like everyone is just automatically taking WW out of the rotation. Its doing less damage, yes, but its still there. It may not be our top damaging attack but its still there and until Cataclysm-Beta actually comes out nobody will be able to tell anything justifiable.

[Battousai]

Not until 3 instances after the nerf went in, so I don't think it's a terribly good comparison. Fury was bad until very late Ulduar/early ToC, and the nerf went in at the end of the Naxxramas era.

These changes seem worse to me that a simple -10% coefficent. They seem to indicate to me a plan to compeltely change how warriors dps in pve. I foresee white damage being the number one component to our dps...and since when is that fun....right rogues?

[Ytinasni]

Hmm, not sure how I feel about the WW change. I agree that it's a step in the right direction to make the strongest single target attack not also be an AoE attack, but I was really expecting to see more abilities added to the Fury rotation to make up for it. Fury was already using fewer abilities than almost every other class, and to take one of those away seems ridiculous. As it is now, the rotation will be BT, HS HS HS BT HS HS HS, etc. Starting to look a lot like mut rogue and arcane mage "difficult" rotations. Hopefully they have an attack or two still up their sleeves that will make fury a bit more interesting.


I'm also a little confused how prot will dump rage. Prot already has a no-cooldown ability to use, so they won't see much HS use, or if they do, they'll only use devastate when completely rage starved.

I suspect they will be adding more stuff to do, this is just a pre-preview, we wont know until beta whats all in the works, and then we wont know what goes through until the very end, be patient,

to the rest of you stop qqing about aoe attacks being taken off of the primary singletarget rotation, imagine if mages used flamestrike in single target dps.

[Freedom]

Cataclysm Preview: Warrior Q&A

Here are some follow ups based on what is being discussed.

Q: Will the rotation for a Fury Warrior just be Bloodthirst and Slam with Heroic Strike to burn off rage?
A: We think Fury is going to end up needing another attack in there for single-target fights. Furious Sundering was intended more as having to Sunder being less of a penalty, but at only 3 stacks, it may not end up being a big deal and we don’t want Fury to feel like they have to purchase a talent that they may not always use. We don’t want Whirlwind to be a good button against single targets however. It essentially gets “free” damage against groups of targets when it’s effective at using against single targets. It’s okay if warriors still do more damage in fights where they can use Cleave and similar attacks often, but right now it’s too extreme.

Q: Are one-handed Fury warriors going to be competing with rogues for one-handed weapons?
A: This is unlikely. Rogues and shaman will want one-handers with Agility, while warriors and death knights will want them with Strength. I won’t be surprised when one of these classes picks up the other’s weapon as it could be an upgrade simply based on the damage, but it won’t be optimal.

Q: Why are warriors not getting some kind of AoE tanking tool?
A: We think the newly buffed Thunder Clap plus Shockwave are sufficient abilities for AoE tanking. The design of Vengeance should make sure that threat generation doesn’t start to slip behind as the dps characters gear up. It’s not our intention that tanks face a constant struggle to generate enough threat, even in group situations, but we also don’t want threat to be totally irrelevant either. The danger for tanking too many creatures should also be tank death not threat management.

Q: Is only Sunder Armor being changed?
A: Rogue Expose Armor and other abilities that apply a similar debuff are being changed accordingly. They will all provide the same debuff at 12% armor reduction.

Q: What about rage loss when changing stances?
A: We still want the act of changing stances to require more consideration than just clicking two buttons to use the ability you want. One idea we are going to explore is that you don’t lose rage when you change stances, but you won’t gain additional rage for a short period of time after changing. This lets you say swap to do an Execute without losing your rage bar, but still keeps the idea that shifting constantly comes with inherent efficiency risks.

Q: Is the intent of Gushing Wound that warriors constantly ask for targets to be kited around?
A: No, it’s intended to be a bonus when you’re in an encounter where the target either moves around a lot (Ex. BONNNNE STORMMMM-ing Marrowgar) or just has to be moved around a lot (say Lich King). Warriors shouldn’t have the expectation of forcing every PvE opponent to move but it would be entertaining to watch this (from a third party perspective).

It looks like fury is getting a new attack after all. The only upside to the change to WW that I can see is that you can fury tank better now (switch to berserker to WW to get aggro and then go to defensive stance). All I know is that I will personally miss on next swing attacks -o more WW/Cleave macros or cleave spamming trash as much as you can now.

I personally predict that WW will end up being 75% weapon damage because right now it's simply too big of a part of our single target dps to bump down to 50% and it would gimp Fury PVP (less burst), and Fury already has pretty low burst compared to other classes. Yes, you can own people in BGS with good PVE gear with WW and cleave but I am talking about PVP oriented fury (vs targets with resil) here.


I still think the fury mastery bonus is sort of gimp - unless it increases the duration of the enrages, makes them "do more" per second/whatever of their duration and reduces the cooldown on, say, Enraged Regeneration, it will be lackluster compared with Armor Pen. I know that scales exponentially and that they aren't likely to let T 14 HM gear get you 100% ArP as arms, but still.

[Ytinasni]

blizzard has already stated they want to drop the burst in pvp to make it more of a tug of war between the healer and dps over the healthbar using CDs and such to burn that last 10-15%.


and to maybe fix the burst, maybe having TG would be the pvp one where you have the higher burst potential and 1h fury for the sustained dps for pve (ideally both giving similar sustained dps potential but one being more geared for burst that might be more effective on trash or something)

[skrump]

Only 2 things really bother me about the changes

Heroic Leap - Won't be usable in Berserker stance which really puts fury even further behind on mobility
Heroic Strike - I do not like that it is not a set amount of rage that gets used for example 15 rage just seemed like the perfect cost


Also they did not state what is going to happen to the Cleave ability as it is currently a next swing attack yet not considered a rage dump but more of a necessity

[Thrownaway123456789]

The promise of a new ability to be used on single target boss fights is fantastic. This is a nice change to the fury rotation since it is slightly strange that our most damaging attack is a AoE attack. Honestly, I wouldn't even mind if they made Slam a CD based ability (like WW) and change BS procs to something else. Another option for a new single target ability would be something like:

Rage Strike

Instantly attacks the target for 100% weapon damage + STR (.75) - (Some coefficient so we don't hit things too hard)
However, the whole idea behind this ability would be something along the lines of increasing rage generation on your next three attacks by X%.

Put this on, say, a 10 second CD. Can be glyphed down to 8 seconds, like WW.

Thoughts?

[Töasty]

I like the idea of going back to one handed weapons. The whole idea to me of a fury warrior is a madman violently swinging as fast as he can until the opponent is nothing but a bloody mess, and dual wielding two-handers is just too slow for me. It always seemed like titans grip belonged in the arms tree rather than fury (Imagine bladestorm with two 2-handers). Although it would be pretty much a copy of rogue and shaman, I love mutilate and stormstrike, hitting your opponent with both weapons at the same time just feels good when you press the button.

Having a hard time coming up with a name, "Bloody Mess" isn't bad, but maybe when it crits your next heroic strike consumes zero rage but hits like you had the full 30 rage?

Another idea would be to lower the cooldown on bloodrage to have more synergy with bloodthirst, maybe a way to keep up the inner rage ability. You convert health into rage, while gaining back health with bloodthirst. Make it like a "life tap" for warriors. Maybe just make bloodrage have no cooldown when you are out of combat, so you can just slap yourself in the head a few times and get totally pissed off, get 100 rage for inner rage to proc, and then start slashing away.

[mogulkhan]

its just my inital disappointment in the lack of anything unique and creative compared to the other classes so far. Almost everything released for us is a recycled skill we heard about 2-4 years ago. I'll wait a few days to post again about it and let myself take it in and think about it more.

you said it all.

Gratz Blizzard, for being garbage again... way to go and give warriors ''fun'' and ''new'' spells/abilities.

oh hey at least our ''new'' ''mastery'' system gives a BONUS SWING ! HOW FREAKING COOL IS THAT SHIT#!?%!#?%#!

fuck off blizzard.
kthxbai

[Thrownaway123456789]

Lack of anything new? Did you completely dismiss the blue post about us getting a NEW single target ability.

[Ytinasni]

Eh? Does anyone know anyone that does this?

I do, and im fairly certain theres a number of enhancement shamans and rogues that also share this sentiment, TG always felt clunky and slow to me.

on a related note...fury specced tanks are comming closer TG+devastate bwahaha (few more expansions to goo~

[Revitalize]

You guys are all unappreciative idiots.
Honestly, the things that didnt go live in Wrath werent balanced effectively, but the idea was unique and awesome.
They obviously are going back and re-working with it on lots of classes.

You all need a hug or something.