Warrior - Cataclysm Preview Compilation

[Lotena]

Personally I sort of welcome a warrior aoe nerf. WOO WW + CLEAVE CLEAVE CLEAVE = SKILL GUYS LEMME OUTDAMAGE SOMEONE WITH 3 MORE PIECES OF 264 THAN ME.

Why do people say this is an aoe nerf? it's not an aoe nerf. it's a single target damage nerf for whirlwind. read better.

[Mothric]

Yeah you're looking at it the wrong way. There will be reason to play warrior in the expansion. If health pools and armor are gonna increase for cloth and leather, why do you think plate will get no increase at all? They also mentioned that there will be lowered combat and healing numbers all around. Perhaps we will see greater special ability numbers, lesser ability to heal, lesser ability to prevent heal, higher health and armor. Everyone is going to be durable not just rogues, hunters, warlocks etc.. but warriors too. I'm also seeing a trend that is going to say crit is going to be overall lower, much to the detriment of mages too. Its starting to sound like a whole new game, so wait until we can actually try this out before you make any rash judgements.

Uh... have you missed all discussion on the topic? They're narrowing the gap in health and armor. That would mean that plate receives nothing in that department.

Do I think Blizz is intent on wrecking warriors? Of course not. Am I extremely leery of how the first few months will play out? Yes, yes I am.

[Rawrtank]

Gah if they just tweaked Heroic Leap a little bit it could be awesome.
War stomp instead of thunder clap, or a fear instead of thunder clap or ANYTHING instead of thunder clap.
Or make it not share a cd with charge

Also, will heroic leap always need a target to be used? Would be kinda cool if you could jump to a target if targeted but if not just jump 20 yrds forward or something like disengage.

Would be worth it for the lulz

[Garthok]

Ok a simple way to do this is...

[Focused Attacks] A new 2 point talent that increases the damage done by whirlwind by 25% each point and decreases the amount of targets it hits to 8/4 or maybe even 4/2

I think this would be awesome as a warrior really because it lets us use our Dual spec as dps for something other than Tanking or PvP (personally hate PvP and just got off a 4 year stint of tanking)

Either that or they need something of equal damage to counter-act the amount of dps we would loose, seeing as WW is alot of damage per hit.

[fishleg]

You all fail to see the biggest and greatest dmg buff of them all.

We get a new instant mainhand strike (heroic strike)

sure our mainhand hits will now be glancing or more chance to miss and crits will be lower but it will generate rage for another strike!

[Busterblade]

Does mages have the exact same healing debuff as warriors now?

[Maelstrasz]

Uh... have you missed all discussion on the topic? They're narrowing the gap in health and armor. That would mean that plate receives nothing in that department.

Do I think Blizz is intent on wrecking warriors? Of course not. Am I extremely leery of how the first few months will play out? Yes, yes I am.

I didn't miss the topic, I'm saying you're looking at it the wrong way. They say they are narrowing the gap in armor and health, but that does not mean they are going to make tanking specs for rogues and the like. They are making them harder to kill which is understandable. All of the values are changing for the better so I have no weary doubt in my mind that it will be interesting or fun to play warrior in the expansion. That is all.

[Boukun]

How i picture Heroic leap to be is like the Ghoul leap on death knights pets and also on army of the dead but much further.

[Astray]

Inner Rage (Level 81):
Whenever the character reaches a full 100 Rage, he or she will gain a buff that causes attacks to consume 50% more Rage and do 15% more damage for a short amount of time. This is a passive ability so it won't need to be activated by the player. The goal for this ability is to provide a benefit for hitting max Rage instead of it feeling like a penalty. However, we also don't want warriors to feel like they're supposed to pool Rage and do nothing until they hit 100, so we'll be closely monitoring how this plays out during the beta testing, and making adjustments as needed.

I think this is one of the most interesting abilities that will be added. Since they dont want hitting 100 Rage to be a penalty but also don't want players to stay at 100 rage~ i guess it will come down to hitting the 100 for a shortest moment or something like that. To me, this looks like something that will separate the wheat from the chaff~ related to players performance. These days bad warriors ragestarve themselves or waste rage because they can't really control their rage right and this ability means the proportion between incoming and used rage will not change because of aoe damage and raidbuffs only but also because of this ability.

In my eyes, this abilities developement and actual use will be very interesting to see.

[Deleted]

The thing that worries me the most is that our rage regen will be the same from the start of cata to the last raid. If with one attack we get 30 rage, 2 years later we will get 30 rage no matter what.

At the moment our rage gets increased by gear, the more strength you have the more rage you generate, but indirectly talents that increase your white damage, also increase your rage inputs.
For instance Wrecking Crew. It increases all your damage by 10% when you score a critical strike, so theoretically your rage inputs while enraged is increased by 10% also. Rage being normalized won't be affected by this talent, which for me is a bad design. All active damage increases like, Wrecking Crew, Enrage and Improved Defensive Stance should account also for rage regen. Even passive mastery bonus, if you ask me. And class should be balanced around having, or not having these talents, in my opinion.

[Astray]

The thing that worries me the most is that our rage regen will be the same from the start of cata to the last raid. If with one attack we get 30 rage, 2 years later we will get 30 rage no matter what.

First: no, it wont, you gain more haste = more rage, more critchance = more rage
Second: that is the reason why things will change. Right now if you got a new warrior to 80~ you would be almost always ragestarved while using blue gear, then it will become better and playable with some epics, and finally you come into rage-excess for the rest of the game. To me having 100% teh rage you need for 100% of the time seems better than ragestarved for a time, and then changing into "too much".

You could say "but we need /too much rage/ for our damage", yes we do. And warriors are balanced around this rage-excess. No more 100% of mainhand = HS means damage can be added to other components. If warriors are dealing the damage a dps player is supposed to do is decided by some other numbers as well, but a solid rage system will prevent a lot of nerfing and buffing in the future.

You can expect a lot to chance.

[sithorion]

I actually see a lot utility in these changes. Adding gushing wounds for PvP fights will be a nice change, because it will give the warrior a nice amount of annoyance, making them more versatile, instead of just being a MS nuker.

Also, with the rage problem: remember you have to deal with HS 10-30 rage. That means you have to try not to overkill yourself, with spamming HS all the time. Will it get more HS hits? yes, but remember HS only hits for 275 more then a white hit. So making this a 30 rage ability will increase dps more.(not calculated, but that's my theses)

I personally like the one hander coming back the most. I always loved having fast hits, and since I don't have a rogue, shammy or dk lvl 80, I can do this now on my warrior. Yay!

[Battousai]

I actually see a lot utility in these changes. Adding gushing wounds for PvP fights will be a nice change, because it will give the warrior a nice amount of annoyance, making them more versatile, instead of just being a MS nuker.

Also, with the rage problem: remember you have to deal with HS 10-30 rage. That means you have to try not to overkill yourself, with spamming HS all the time. Will it get more HS hits? yes, but remember HS only hits for 275 more then a white hit. So making this a 30 rage ability will increase dps more.(not calculated, but that's my theses)

I personally like the one hander coming back the most. I always loved having fast hits, and since I don't have a rogue, shammy or dk lvl 80, I can do this now on my warrior. Yay!

I really don't mind the fact that they're bringing back 1hders...in fact I'll go as far to say they have to do it. With their currently itemization changes they HAVE to add Str 1hders to the loot tables for Frost DKs. Past experience dictates Blizz doesn't like to have loot drop from raid bosses that are exclusive to one class...aside from relics and such. They moving most of those items to badge rewards...random drops...there are some still, but not many at all. They want an additional class to benefit from those str 1hders...and its us. Ok I get it.

the probelm with the 1hders to 2hders is the balence issue. Its not going to balence as well as they say it is. I don't care what GC says..."Its a lot easier to balence DW 1hders to DW 2hders rather than a single 2hder to DW 1hders"..it doens't hold water, there will always be a difference...especially considering the new rage system. 1hders are going to to give more rage because they are going to hit more often...crit more often. You can say ok 2hders give 20 rage per AA and 1hders give 10...but then a 3.6 speed weapon isn't 2xs the speed of a 2.6 but its more than 2x as much as a 1.5. All of this is going to be affected by haste as well. This is only an example of a couple things off the top of my head...don't get me started on computing all the weapon damage +_abilities.

This is going to an incredibly hard calcualtion , one that will have many intrinsic variables that are not going to equate. And when you change one to compensate...you will ultimatily and instrinsically change another.

All this leads to one thing, that neither are going to be balenced...andwe're gonna seesaw abck and forth ...never getting it right. This is ultimately bad for the warrior class in general...and the fury tree more specifically. We won't get as many cool new abilities in the fury tree...and the ones we do get...SMF..won't work as well as they want..and ultimately one of the 2 will be wasted space in the fury tree, taking up a spot where there could be someting much cooler.

[ziggi94]

the inner rage. wont this be a problem? with that buff, you do 15% more dmg, but youl become rage starved after 2 attacks as arms, as fury you get 3, but fury has alot more rage regen attacks :-\

[Sl@yer]

Its my first post here~
And BTW, English is not my first language.

In my aspect, if you want to design the warrior more fun and skillful, you must take the ideas from FTG.(Fight Game)

I dont worried about how the warrior skill complicated, just worried that there are no skill to use in many situations...

1. Inner Rage (Level 81) - Its a fool design, cuz you never know if the rage is enough next second when you passive run out all you have by consume 50% more rage(maybe 2 skills MS:30+15 & WW:25+12 total:82 rages) for only 15% dmg instead of spell reflection for deadly situation later... even no mentioned about the stance change that you can do nothing at all.....
Fool by ur own petty trick....then die-.-

In FTG, if you got the power gauge max, you can store the energy for the second gauge or got a star for special moves....

My ideas for the max rage:
If you got 130 rages, first gauge max and second gauge store 30 rages, and if you use MS(30 rage consume from first gauge and maybe 15 rages from second one for 15% dmg plus automatic if enough rage), this way you wont lose your basic rage for situation and the same effect without think about how to adjust the passive duration or when to start clock.

I will set a star got when the second gauge max, then you can active consume for maybe 10 sec gauge count down for fully 15% dmg plus without second-guage rage.

The best is the power up abilities have a different halo or special colors~ ;D
Of course 15% dmg is not the only choice, make the abilities sublimate, make it more fun~
Abilities melee range +2y in battle stance,
Additional effect / even second effect @@!!
CD -1s,
Duration +10%
critical +10%
There are many possibes.... 15% dmg is unexciting-.-

2. Gushing Wound (Level 83) - Its powerful to warrior, but I miss the "Bloodbath" its pretty good for situations, maybe 25% weapon dmg and 25% DOT(compare to new WW), does it possible come back?
BTW, its fool that you can disarm the bladestorm warrior, its too dangerous to put ur hands into WW;D and disarm CD is shorter than BS, Its ridiculous-.-

3. Heroic Leap (Level 85) - This is an old ability-.- no comment....

4. Blitz - Good idea!! But Always the effect more than dmg, Better if additional the charge max range +2y & min range -2y.

From "Blitz", I got another warrior ability idea, in many situation, warrior just only can stand and watch enemy for few seconds-.- and every time only warrior was seized with panic when enemy casting a big deal for you-.- Now its ur turn

5. "Crouch Start" - 3 sec channeled ability, can not attack and move, crouch to prepare for start, reduce 1 sec CD of charge & intercept / per sec channelling, and first 1 sec cant be interrupt and reduce any Immobilization effects 1sec. During the channelling(After 1 sec), you can use charge or intercept (Of course CD must be ready) with no min. range (you will drag ur target to 8y forward if target is between 0y~7y) and you can start charge / intercept forward without target or out of range or even target is blocked by sth., you will just run straight forward.

I think it maybe the Arms talent, maybe 30~45 sec CD, thats the really fun design^^

6. Last one, does "spell reflection with 2-handed weapon" for Arms talent is too imba?

Thanks~

[Angrydeer]

Deff wanna see heroic leap useable for D stance even if it something i need to glyph or spec into.

[Astray]

the probelm with the 1hders to 2hders is the balence issue. Its not going to balence as well as they say it is. I don't care what GC says..."Its a lot easier to balence DW 1hders to DW 2hders rather than a single 2hder to DW 1hders"..it doens't hold water,

If we take take that literally, he's right. I dont see why it should be harder?

there will always be a difference...

Like i already said, if 1H-DW being 2% behind is a reason to not even include it, the solution is deleting the arms tree as well, since not best = worthelss, right?

especially considering the new rage system. 1hders are going to to give more rage because they are going to hit more often...crit more often. You can say ok 2hders give 20 rage per AA and 1hders give 10...but then a 3.6 speed weapon isn't 2xs the speed of a 2.6 but its more than 2x as much as a 1.5. All of this is going to be affected by haste as well. This is only an example of a couple things off the top of my head...don't get me started on computing all the weapon damage +_abilities.

This is going to an incredibly hard calcualtion , one that will have many intrinsic variables that are not going to equate. And when you change one to compensate...you will ultimatily and instrinsically change another.

Try to see it as "rage over time" instead of rage per hit. If 2Handers give 20 rage per hit at a speed of 3.6, it will be 5,55~ rage/per second, so a 1Hand weapon with a speed of 2.6 will need to generate 14,444 rage per hit.
I dont know what is expected to be the average amount of rage generated by a 1H hit, but if its for example 10 rage per hit at a 2.6 speed, there needs to be a talent that increases it by roughly 40%.

Haste and Crit are a percentage, if 2.6 1H and 3-6 2H generate the same amount of rage in a period of time, they will as well generate the same amount if both of them do double the amount with a 20% chance. Same with haste. The factor that has to be found is between 1H and 2H rage/speed, the rest is just~ +% for both.

Weapon damage is just the same. Most attacks are normalized, so you can expect 2Handers to be always a % stronger than 1-Handers, and that percentage has to be calculated and put into talents as +weapon damage and +talent damage.

Last difference is the stats. 2Handers have a lot more stats on them. At a certain gear level 2-handers give a certain amount of bonus stats compared to 2-handers. This can be compensated by adding +%damage to 1H-Talents based on the dps gain of the additional stats, but another way would be giving a talent that increases stats by % of stats on the used 1H-weapons. Ferals have a talent that increases feral-ap-gained from weapons, so i guess that would be a solution.

I think what GC wanted to tell us is: 2H-DW vs 1H-DW is number tweaking that includes equalizing rage, weapon damage and stats gain compared to fury vs arms which is balancing one mechanic versus another one. The biggest advantage of balancing fury vs arms is that arms and fury both have talents the other spec will never reach, so they can just tweak those while fury-2H vs fury-1H has to be tweaked by using a shared pool of talents.

If i was blizzard, i'd make some "mirrored"-talents which are 2H and 1H only so there is a good number of "easy to patch" variables for balancing.

[morious]

i thought that i would be happy with mage changes and warriors wont get anything...i was wrong am loving everything about the new stuff warriors [might :-[ ] get all tho i got few questions

why heroic leap?
i know it does thunderclap or when a rogue is front of me waiting for his kindey shut cd to be on i can heroic leap and charge him but blizzard said it might not be able in combat so what i know is its like charge.

cant be used in combat,and go into enemy's its just does thunderclap more than one enemy and stuns them if am correct.


one thing i am unable to understand which is main and offhand fury spec
i feel that blizzard regrade adding TG because before the 10% nerf on it,it was
OP and after the nerf it become useless unless your having really good pve gear.

i would say remove TG because with it people well QQ over it and when its nerfed its useless.

[Battousai]

At the moment, the reason to have an arms spec is either to bring a couple buffs to a raid assuming you don't do more personal dps as fury than arms by the difference, to pvp, or to Bladestorm Valks in the LK fight. That's pretty much it...blizz didnt get that one right either when it came to equating dps. GC isn't a number crucher...he's management...I can't count the number of times I've caught his "numbers" being off when describing to the masses the inner workings of ArP and the like.

Not saying he's not a competant theorycrafter...he very well could be. His job however when giving bad news is to placate the masses...and he does it well. Endgame is where they balance the classes, and at endgame there will be a difference...and becuase of that difference one talent will get ignored completely...and we will be left with either a worthless 51 point talent...or a worthless Cata talent when we could'vehad somethign fresh and new.

That's all I'm saying...I wanted something new, fresh, unique. We may still get it...it was just a preview, I for one am hoping for something more coming down the pipe.

[Hellorco]

Try to see it as "rage over time" instead of rage per hit. If 2Handers give 20 rage per hit at a speed of 3.6, it will be 5,55~ rage/per second, so a 1Hand weapon with a speed of 2.6 will need to generate 14,444 rage per hit.
I dont know what is expected to be the average amount of rage generated by a 1H hit, but if its for example 10 rage per hit at a 2.6 speed, there needs to be a talent that increases it by roughly 40%.

Haste and Crit are a percentage, if 2.6 1H and 3-6 2H generate the same amount of rage in a period of time, they will as well generate the same amount if both of them do double the amount with a 20% chance. Same with haste. The factor that has to be found is between 1H and 2H rage/speed, the rest is just~ +% for both.

You are forgetting a kinda BIG thing ie the GCD. Rage over time means nothing for us since we're not rogues or ferals. What will matter will be the rage intake in comparison to our GCD (we don't know yet if it will scale with haste), rps or rpm are a bad way of understanding how the class works. Missing (and in cata even dodges/parries) will completely stop the rage and it only evens out in the very long therm.
This is further emphasized as arms because of the single weapon and is probably also randomly going to be spiky if both sword spec and bonus swing provides rage (with a much higher chance to waste rage).

An easy example is taking a swing sample of 3.2s in a very short timeframe. Unless we have very cheap spells compared to the rage gains we will end up having a GCD waste. IF you can hit 1 spell you'll be starved for 1.7s, if you can hit 2 then it's 0.2. With a faster weapon even if the rage over time is the same you have more opportunities to fill the GCD and thus gaining efficiency.
It is very likely that a faster weapons setup will give more dpr and the same rage gen, while the 2handers may skew this difference with additional stats, but it's a wild speculation to do it now.

What will be quite sure is that Arms, being able to cap hit and prolly exp too, will not be able to really use the rage gains from GCDs like shouts because in a raid scenario the swingtimer will hardly be over 3.0s. When you cap both hit and exp you will surely be able to hit a GCD every swing (unless they screw badly with balance) and the 2nd GCD will overlap another swing, so you effectively lose damage to get rage that would be dumped on HS or Exe. To skew the result so that you gain damage by using a rage GCD when starved, HS and Exe should be nearly meaningless at low rage and hit much much harder at 30. Yes, this could happen, but will result in other issues, ie the scaling on the high end.

I understand your point for 2x2h vs 2x1h, but don't dismiss the GCD as if it wasn't a resource for warriors. I'm pretty sure in Cata will be our real limitation because rage will scale from even more stats (despite it won't scale with damage done).