Cataclysm Class Preview: Warrior

[nomad1206]

the most interesting thing ive seen in this preview its the whirlwind change i mean yeah its a nerf if u have only one target, but with more the damage will be awesome.

[andis35]

MS 20% == happy healers

[Xcruiser]

You don't have to work them into the rotation, their rage generation would be situational only as far as I can tell like horn of winter.

Heroic Strike has changed into an Execute between the 10 and 100 Rage, eating up to 30 Rage every time it is used for additional damage. If there is no CD on it, you can dump that Rage almost instantly coupled with Inner Rage proc'd, leading me to believe that working Shouts into your rotation may become mandatory.

Again, this is all pure speculation as the Rage generation in Cataclysm will differ from the way it has worked for years.

[Rukh]

That's exactly what they are doing.

There will be 1H weapons with strength for fury warriors and frost DKs, and then there will be 1H weapons with agility for enh shamans and rogues. Large chancesare that the rogue and shaman weapons will be axes, where the warrior and DK (aka rogues in plate) weapons will be swords.

Bah I hope not. I *hate* having to use axes on my rogue. Swords are much cooler. Axes are big hefty smash weapons, much more suited to warriors.

[Ceara]

Heroic Leap - Charge + Thunderclap.

I'm not seeing the difference except that one makes you jump and the other makes you run.

[Ander1345]

MS 20% == happy healers

Not really. They're changing how healing is balanced. So it's impossible to say if it's better or worse than how it is now. For all intents and purposes it could even get WORSE.

[Arandmoor]

So, will we be getting the protection notes later?

Underwhelming is the least that comes to mind here...

I dunno about that. The notes about block and crit-block are kind of fucking huge. Unless they up and give paladins something similar (I highly doubt they will) Warriors are going to have some serious-damn mitigation. AD's 15% reduction can eat a dick compared to crit block where big hits are concerned.

It's going to be interesting to see how block and parry interact because you KNOW there's going to be a boss that lands extremely huge hits on a predictable timer, and somewhere a warrior is going to crit-block the big attack directly following a white-swing parry. That's a lot of damage not being taken if they're not mutually exclusive on an attack-to-attack basis.

[cise4832]

-removing whirlwind out of fury rotation which already was so few buttons. (i loved our niche where we could be kings on small trash packs and others on the really big).

Read the HS and cleave changes.
There you go, two new abilities in your regular fury rotation.

[Laan]

At first glance i thought "wow warriors got screwed"

then reading between the lines for pvp

disarm able to fear a target(warrior's get CC....)
heroic leap(ANOTHER gap closer....)
A bleed that stays on indefinitely unless the target stands still for you to hit them(and prolly hit and reapply said bleed

I mean, i know its a bit early to cry OP without seeing how they fix up some other classes but just thinking about how they would have to buff all classes to become balanced with changes like these.... well....im getting the feeling cata's first season is going to be worse than Wrath's first season.... and that's pretty damn impressive considering how bad wrath's first season was.

[andis35]

Not really. They're changing how healing is balanced. So it's impossible to say if it's better or worse than how it is now. For all intents and purposes it could even get WORSE.

For me as a priest any changes will make it better than it is now

[pacobird]

the most interesting thing ive seen in this preview its the whirlwind change i mean yeah its a nerf if u have only one target, but with more the damage will be awesome.

Except that unless you have more than 3 targets (4 if you've glyphed it), Cleave only has to do base weapon damage to be a better use of a GCD than Whirlwind.

If you've got more than 4 targets up, you're probably fighting non-elites, so have fun with that I guess.

[spudzalot]

I think shamans have had the coolest changes so far. I love the idea for a stacking bleed for movement, kinda makes sense since moving around while your limb just got hacked would hurt more...

Poor Bladestorm. At least I'll hear less complaining about it in BG's haha.

Anyway still cant wait for Mages! ;S

[RTS]

Not that many changes to be honest, but that's what Blizzard announced earlier. Some classes won't be changed that much.
Overall i do believe it's a slight nerf for both PvE and PvP. I don't see Gushing Wound as a great talent for PvE, might work for PvP but only if it could be applied because of Whirlwind/Bladestorm crits aswell, rather than having to apply it to each individual opponent manually. Heroic Leap doesn't seem that heroic as it is right now, possibly even a nuisance because of removing crowd controls.

I do like the ragecap buff though, i wonder how that will work out for tanks, who by the way get this great AP buff rom Mastery =)
Finally! one-handers for Fury are coming back =) it's my personal preference to be honest to swing very fast, i do wonder how it will work out. Guess either 2x 1h or 2x 2h will be best in the end, so all will specc it thus ending the 'freedom of choice'.

Overall though, i'd say it's a slight nerf as it is right now.

[Laan]

Not really. They're changing how healing is balanced. So it's impossible to say if it's better or worse than how it is now. For all intents and purposes it could even get WORSE.

^^

this. TBH looking at some kind of solid numbers(percents) for only one side of the coin just means that the balance on the other side changed. AKA your healing/efficiency got nerfed by that amount, or more.

[Xcruiser]

At first glance i thought "wow warriors got screwed"

then reading between the lines for pvp

disarm able to fear a target(warrior's get CC....)
heroic leap(ANOTHER gap closer....)
A bleed that stays on indefinitely unless the target stands still for you to hit them(and prolly hit and reapply said bleed

I mean, i know its a bit early to cry OP without seeing how they fix up some other classes but just thinking about how they would have to buff all classes to become balanced with changes like these.... well....im getting the feeling cata's first season is going to be worse than Wrath's first season.... and that's pretty damn impressive considering how bad wrath's first season was.

Gushing Wound only refreshes when it gains a stack, making it last a maximum of 27 seconds if the target moves right when it's about to fall off, or a minimum of, say 11 seconds, of constant moving. Reread its description.

Heroic Leap will not be an additional gap closer - it shares a cooldown with Charge.

[Marvdatboi]

You jump onto some poor sod's face, dude. You crush it with FUCKING LIGHTNING and like a ton of plated muscle. It's friggin' awesome.

Not to mention a nifty stun.

[Ander1345]

The WW change kind of worries me. I hope they add another strike or make a talent that allows sunder to actually be a decent part of your DPS. Because even with Heroic trike becoming instant, most Furies are using it now. But then again, now that it's on the GCD Fury might have an actual rotation with the rage normalization.

[Laan]

Gushing Wound only refreshes when it gains a stack, making it last a maximum of 27 seconds if the target moves right when it's about to fall off, or a minimum of, say 11 seconds, of constant moving. Reread its description.

Heroic Leap will not be an additional gap closer - it shares a cooldown with Charge.

you're right about the leap, i didn't read for content there.

but the gushing wounds im not convinced(unless there was a Q-A about it somewhere from blizz that clarified) that that's true.

"If the target moves, the bleed gains an extra stack and refreshes its duration"
no where does it say it doesn't just refresh if it has 3 stacks. Just if the target moves, 2 effects happen, it gains a stack(if it can gain a stack) and it refreshes. I think of it like deadly poison, if you have 5 stacks up and proc another, it doesn't "NOT" refresh the duration because you had a full stack.

[Noctus78]

Read the HS and cleave changes.
There you go, two new abilities in your regular fury rotation.

dunno about you, but i already use those?

[Arandmoor]

Gushing Wound only refreshes when it gains a stack, making it last a maximum of 27 seconds if the target moves right when it's about to fall off, or a minimum of, say 11 seconds, of constant moving. Reread its description.

To be fair, assuming GW shares the same standard DoT functionality the look to be giving every DoT in the game, once you stack it to 3 you will be able to refresh the duration by hitting the mob with another GW and it will simply reset the duration at 3 stacks without so much as clipping a tick. I dunno...do I want to have to maintain two bleeds (assuming Rend somehow stops sucking as hard as it has since release)?