Suggestions for the new talent system.

[Pua]

Despite the excitement about the new talent system, and how positive I am about it, it's only a first step - albeit in the right direction. Looking through the system as a whole, however, it has a truckload of (in my opinion) unrealised potential as far as warriors are concerned. As I see it at the moment, there are three problems with the system:

1) Six talents feels a bit... Small. This could easily be increased.
2) Many talents, particularly for tanks, are simply too weak or situational to be of interest.
3) The overwhelming miasma of PvP is all over these talents.

To start the ball of discussion rolling, I've gone through the talents themselves and presented what I think would be more interesting for the warrior levelling experience. I've gone for ten talents in total; one picked up at level 10, two at level 90, and one for every 10 levels in between. I've tried to capture what I reckon is more interesting for every warrior, not just those who play PvP, while also taking certain liberties with what's already presented.

I started by removing Enraged Regeneration, Shockwave, Bladestorm and Avatar. Enraged Regeneration should be a cross-spec trainable ability rather than a talent, while Shockwave and Bladestorm should be in the Protection and Arms trees respectively (similar to Titan's Grip/Single-Minded Fury). Avatar is too cool to rob warriors of at all, so I'd make it the level 87 "new" ability for Mists of Pandaria.

I also chose to rename Double Time to Warbringer, while taking the Warbringer effect out altogether as the talent "Cripple" and a fix to jump-charging should already deal with that problem. Finally, I took out Bull Rush altogether because I think it's crap.

So without further ado, this is what I came up with:

Level 10

Blitz: Your Charge generates 5 extra rage and stuns up to 2 additional nearby targets.
Juggernaut: You can Charge every 12 sec instead of every 20 sec.
Warbringer: You can use Charge twice before incurring its cooldown.

Level 20

Impending Victory: You can use Victory Rush at any time, but with a 30 sec cooldown and a 20 rage cost.
Second Wind: Whenever you are struck by a Stun or Immobilize effect, you generate 20 Rage and 5% of your total health over 10 sec.
Blood Craze: After taking any damage, you have a 15% chance to regenerate 5% of your total health over 5 sec.

Level 30

Heroic Fury: Removes any Immobilization effects and refreshes the cooldown of your Charge ability.
Relentless: Snare effects placed on you cannot slow for more than 25% at any time.
Defensive Impact: Your Intervene ability can now be used to target enemies and it increases your parry chance by 75% for 3 sec after it is used.

Level 40

Gag Order: Your Pummel and Heroic Throw have a 100% chance to silence the target for 3 sec.
Throwdown: Knocks the target to the ground and stuns it for 5 sec.
Rude Interruption: Successfully interrupting a spell with Pummel increases your damage by 5% for 30 sec.

Level 50

Cripple: Your autoattack hits and Rend ticks maim your target, reducing movement speed by 50% for 15 sec.
Vigilance: Focus your protective gaze on a party or raid member. Each time they are hit by an attack, your Taunt cooldown is refreshed and you deal an additional 5% damage for 12 sec.
Safeguard: Reduces damage taken by the target of your Intervene ability by 30% for 6 sec.

Level 60

Blood Frenzy: Your bleed effects cause targets to take an extra 4% physical damage and applying a bleed effect increases all bleed damage taken by the target by 30% for 1 min.
Rampage: Increases the critical strike chance of all party and raid members within 100 yds by 5%.
Terrifying Demeanour: All enemies within 30 yards of the warrior have their physical damage reduced by 5%.

Level 70

War Cry: Your Intimidating Shout now causes a single targeted enemy to be terrified in place for 30 sec. During this time he will be unable to move or attack, but damage caused other than Rend will break the effect.
Piercing Howl: Causes all enemies within 10 yards to be Dazed, reducing movement speed by 50% for 6 sec.
Disrupting Shout: Interrupts all spellcasting within 10 yards and prevents any spell in that school from being cast for 4 sec.

Level 80

Deadly Calm: You enter a calm state, causing your next 3 Heroic Strike of Cleave attacks to cost no rage. Lasts 15 sec.
Death Wish: You attack with reckless abandon for the next 10 sec, which Enrages you and causes you to generate additional rage from damage received. While under the effects of Death Wish, you take 5% additional damage.
Taste for Cruelty: Increases your Overpower, Wild Strike and Revenge critical strike chance by 15%. In addition, whenever your Rend ability causes damage, you have a 100% chance of allowing the use of Overpower, Wild Strike or Revenge for 9 sec. This effect will not occur more than once every 5 sec.

Level 90

Blade Reflection: Your Spell Reflect has its cooldown reduced by 10 sec and no longer requires a shield.
Magical Paragon: Your Spell Reflect will now reflect spells cast at up to two party or raid members within 8 yards.
Spell Breaker: You passively take 5% less magical damage.

And:

Lambs to the Slaughter: Your Mortal Strike, Bloodthirst and Shield Slam abilities cause the Slaughter effect, refreshing the duration of Rend on the target and increasing the damage of all three abilities by 1%. Stacks up to 3 times.
Sweep and Clear: Your Mortal Strike, Bloodthirst and Shield Slam abilities strike their main target for 80% normal damage, but hit up to an additional two targets in front of the warrior for 60% normal damage.
Brutal Lashing: Your Slam, Raging Blow and Devastate abilities now strike an additional nearby target for 100% damage.

A couple of quick notes to all this could be in order.

I know the talents are not finished and we only got a first look; please don't remind me. I just happen to think some are pretty poor and this is hopefully the start of a discussion that gets some good feedback on the go. Secondly, this is entirely subjective and opinionated. As such, please understand that it's what I personally think would be cool and I'm totally comfortable with any disagreement to my list. Lastly, I know certain talents might not "fit" where they currently are, but we're trying to find strong choices that aren't obvious while ensuring we don't end up overpowered or just picking something that's the best of a bad bunch.

That said, have a look through and share what you think.

What would you like to see as an option for warriors in Mists of Pandaria?

[xebtria]

1) Six talents feels a bit... Small. This could easily be increased.

they don't want many talents. I guess they've stated that somewhere. 6 feels just right - at least for me.

2) Many talents, particularly for tanks, are simply too weak or situational to be of interest.

they want every talent be useful for all specs (so there is not that "one" cookie cutter spec everyone has to take. if there would be a strong defensive talent, it would be exact that scenario. that's why there isn't one of it.)

3) The overwhelming miasma of PvP is all over these talents.

can't say anything about PVP. :P

To start the ball of discussion rolling, I've gone through the talents themselves and presented what I think would be more interesting for the warrior levelling experience. I've gone for ten talents in total; one picked up at level 10, two at level 90, and one for every 10 levels in between. I've tried to capture what I reckon is more interesting for every warrior, not just those who play PvP, while also taking certain liberties with what's already presented.

Well, as said above, they don't want many talents. so I don't mention this anymore. but keep it in mind when responding to my feedback. :P

I started by removing Enraged Regeneration, Shockwave, Bladestorm and Avatar. Enraged Regeneration should be a cross-spec trainable ability rather than a talent, while Shockwave and Bladestorm should be in the Protection and Arms trees respectively (similar to Titan's Grip/Single-Minded Fury). Avatar is too cool to rob warriors of at all, so I'd make it the level 87 "new" ability for Mists of Pandaria.

Enr.Regen: yes. should be baseline. Shockwave+Bladestorm? no. Bladestorm is a little bit more AoE for prot tanks besides blood & thunder nowadays (I love the Idea of bladestorming as Prot) and shockwave is a bit more "CC" for DPS warriors. I also like.

I also chose to rename Double Time to Warbringer, while taking the Warbringer effect out altogether as the talent "Cripple" and a fix to jump-charging should already deal with that problem. Finally, I took out Bull Rush altogether because I think it's crap.

a root (old warbringer) is not the same as movement reduction. but well. that's personal opinion I guess.

Level 10

Blitz: Your Charge generates 5 extra rage and stuns up to 2 additional nearby targets.
Juggernaut: You can Charge every 12 sec instead of every 20 sec.
Warbringer: You can use Charge twice before incurring its cooldown.

agreed. nothing much to say about this.

Level 20

Impending Victory: You can use Victory Rush at any time, but with a 30 sec cooldown and a 20 rage cost.
Second Wind: Whenever you are struck by a Stun or Immobilize effect, you generate 20 Rage and 5% of your total health over 10 sec.
Blood Craze: After taking any damage, you have a 15% chance to regenerate 5% of your total health over 5 sec.

looks also nice. however, in this case, IV still sounds just so much better than blood craze from a PVE perspective. question would only be number crunching for balancing issues.

Level 30

Heroic Fury: Removes any Immobilization effects and refreshes the cooldown of your Charge ability.
Relentless: Snare effects placed on you cannot slow for more than 25% at any time.
Defensive Impact: Your Intervene ability can now be used to target enemies and it increases your parry chance by 75% for 3 sec after it is used.

DI looks too op, considering you could have a charge every 12 second, maybe still intercept (IDK if this is baseline or whatever) PLUS heroic leap PLUS another charge? doesn't sound like this could be going live EVER.

Level 40

Gag Order: Your Pummel and Heroic Throw have a 100% chance to silence the target for 3 sec.
Throwdown: Knocks the target to the ground and stuns it for 5 sec.
Rude Interruption: Successfully interrupting a spell with Pummel increases your damage by 5% for 30 sec.

removing distrupting shout here would be way to OP. two 100% silences (although one is on 40 sec CD) could make or break a kill vs a caster in PVP. not going to happen. bad idea.

Level 50

Cripple: Your autoattack hits and Rend ticks maim your target, reducing movement speed by 50% for 15 sec.
Vigilance: Focus your protective gaze on a party or raid member. Each time they are hit by an attack, your Taunt cooldown is refreshed and you deal an additional 5% damage for 12 sec.
Safeguard: Reduces damage taken by the target of your Intervene ability by 30% for 6 sec.

looks a little weird. the way I understood blizzard's talents, is that you have a special thing per tier. tier 1 handles charge, another tier handles self heal, the next handles crowd control (slowing stuff for warriors) in different ways and you need to choose which way the one is you want to take. here it is three completely different mechanics. a slow, taunt refresh stuff + dmg increase, shield wall for other players. doesn't fit at all imho.

Level 60

Blood Frenzy: Your bleed effects cause targets to take an extra 4% physical damage and applying a bleed effect increases all bleed damage taken by the target by 30% for 1 min.
Rampage: Increases the critical strike chance of all party and raid members within 100 yds by 5%.
Terrifying Demeanour: All enemies within 30 yards of the warrior have their physical damage reduced by 5%.

considering the above comment from me, this would be the "raid buff" tier. looks good. especially for 10 mans, now a prot warrior could bring the 5% crit or 4% physical dmg if no one else does. the -5% dmg done is already in demo shout. it's 10% and a lesser range but ... well. I doubt that this would stack anyway.

Level 70

War Cry: Your Intimidating Shout now causes a single targeted enemy to be terrified in place for 30 sec. During this time he will be unable to move or attack, but damage caused other than Rend will break the effect.
Piercing Howl: Causes all enemies within 10 yards to be Dazed, reducing movement speed by 50% for 6 sec.
Disrupting Shout: Interrupts all spellcasting within 10 yards and prevents any spell in that school from being cast for 4 sec.

as said above, disrupting shout is way too op on this tier. get it back on lvl 40 and we're talking again. same with piercing howl btw. back to lvl 50 (to cripple) and we're talking again.

Level 80

Deadly Calm: You enter a calm state, causing your next 3 Heroic Strike of Cleave attacks to cost no rage. Lasts 15 sec.
Death Wish: You attack with reckless abandon for the next 10 sec, which Enrages you and causes you to generate additional rage from damage received. While under the effects of Death Wish, you take 5% additional damage.
Taste for Cruelty: Increases your Overpower, Wild Strike and Revenge critical strike chance by 15%. In addition, whenever your Rend ability causes damage, you have a 100% chance of allowing the use of Overpower, Wild Strike or Revenge for 9 sec. This effect will not occur more than once every 5 sec.

as many people already said, THAT death wish is a joke. I don't know how to fix that, but in this version this won't go live. pretty sure about that. don't know what to say about deadly calm. taste of cruelty looks fine.

Level 90

Blade Reflection: Your Spell Reflect has its cooldown reduced by 10 sec and no longer requires a shield.
Magical Paragon: Your Spell Reflect will now reflect spells cast at up to two party or raid members within 8 yards.
Spell Breaker: You passively take 5% less magical damage.

1+2 both versions are very OP (but it's good that they are on one tier so you cant have them both which would be even more OP) while 3... well... I'd consider this as mandatory as well. that's a tier I like.

And:

Lambs to the Slaughter: Your Mortal Strike, Bloodthirst and Shield Slam abilities cause the Slaughter effect, refreshing the duration of Rend on the target and increasing the damage of all three abilities by 1%. Stacks up to 3 times.
Sweep and Clear: Your Mortal Strike, Bloodthirst and Shield Slam abilities strike their main target for 80% normal damage, but hit up to an additional two targets in front of the warrior for 60% normal damage.
Brutal Lashing: Your Slam, Raging Blow and Devastate abilities now strike an additional nearby target for 100% damage.

sounds not that bad. although the cleaving SS/BT/MS would be way too op. also cleaving RB? u mad bro?^^ never going to happen. maybe with white hits, but not with the hardest hitting abilities per spec.

[Pua]

A very good start - lots of disagreement with fair commentary all round.

they want every talent be useful for all specs (so there is not that "one" cookie cutter spec everyone has to take. if there would be a strong defensive talent, it would be exact that scenario. that's why there isn't one of it.)

That's the problem, though; as a career boss tank, I could literally skip every talent and it wouldn't matter that much. I know the reasoning for the change but, honestly, I think they've put "balance" for PvP at the absolute forefront of their minds. Frankly, I find the idea of picking up what are essentially PvP talents, just because I have to, pretty difficult to stomach.

Not enough attention has been paid to tanks, IMHO.

Well, as said above, they don't want many talents. so I don't mention this anymore. but keep it in mind when responding to my feedback. :P

The idea is to get the ball rolling, and your post was excellent. All borne in mind, sir.

Shockwave+Bladestorm? no. Bladestorm is a little bit more AoE for prot tanks besides blood & thunder nowadays (I love the Idea of bladestorming as Prot) and shockwave is a bit more "CC" for DPS warriors. I also like.

The problem is that Avatar is almost always going to be stronger than Brostorm, while I would imagine a tank doing it will see him unable to defend himself. Additionally, the fact that Shockwave is a necessary part of our AoE repertoire, yet finds its way into our talents to stop up picking up Avatar, is hard to accept.

DI looks too op, considering you could have a charge every 12 second, maybe still intercept (IDK if this is baseline or whatever) PLUS heroic leap PLUS another charge? doesn't sound like this could be going live EVER.

I think Intercept is gone, but I see your point.

removing distrupting shout here would be way to OP. two 100% silences (although one is on 40 sec CD) could make or break a kill vs a caster in PVP. not going to happen. bad idea.

Yeah, I'll look at jigging them around.

looks a little weird. the way I understood blizzard's talents, is that you have a special thing per tier. tier 1 handles charge, another tier handles self heal, the next handles crowd control (slowing stuff for warriors) in different ways and you need to choose which way the one is you want to take. here it is three completely different mechanics. a slow, taunt refresh stuff + dmg increase, shield wall for other players. doesn't fit at all imho.

/agree. The problem is I like the talents, so would want to fit them in somewhere. >.<

the -5% dmg done is already in demo shout.

Demoralizing Shout is being removed. Can't remember who said it (I think Ghostcrawler), but definitely recall it as a BlizzCon statement.

I don't know how to fix that, but in this version this won't go live. pretty sure about that. don't know what to say about deadly calm. taste of cruelty looks fine.

Taste for Cruelty's only problem is that it's potentially a no-brainer - I tried to go for steady and consistent damage versus another cooldown (assuming Avatar at baseline), but both of those are abnormally weak.

sounds not that bad. although the cleaving SS/BT/MS would be way too op. also cleaving RB? u mad bro?^^ never going to happen. maybe with white hits, but not with the hardest hitting abilities per spec.

The idea is basically to find talents that are strong for single-target, strong for AoE, and strong for cleave fights. Not easy. >.<

In any event, thanks for a really good post - you've given me good words to ponder.

---------- Post added 2011-10-25 at 01:27 PM ----------

Okay, quick set of changes - the only awkward talent is Taste for Cruelty, but I suppose a good PvE talent Vs a good PvP talent isn't so bad. I also lost one tier to bring us to nine, as I still think a talent every 10 levels is preferable to every 15.

---------------

10

Blitz: Your Charge generates 5 extra rage and stuns up to 2 additional nearby targets.
Juggernaut: You can Charge every 12 sec instead of every 20 sec.
Warbringer: You can use Charge twice before incurring its cooldown.

20

Impending Victory: You can use Victory Rush at any time, but with a 30 sec cooldown and a 20 rage cost.
Second Wind: Whenever you are struck by a Stun or Immobilize effect, you generate 20 Rage and 5% of your total health over 10 sec.
Blood Craze: After taking any damage, you have a 20% chance to regenerate 5% of your total health over 5 sec.

30

Heroic Fury: Removes any Immobilization effects and refreshes the cooldown of your Charge ability.
Relentless: Snare effects placed on you cannot slow for more than 25% at any time.
Cripple: Your autoattack hits and Rend ticks maim your target, reducing movement speed by 50% for 15 sec.

40

Gag Order: Your Pummel and Heroic Throw have a 100% chance to silence the target for 3 sec.
Throwdown: Knocks the target to the ground and stuns it for 5 sec.
Disrupting Shout: Interrupts all spellcasting within 10 yards and prevents any spell in that school from being cast for 4 sec.

50

War Cry: Your Intimidating Shout now causes a single targeted enemy to be terrified in place for 30 sec. During this time he will be unable to move or attack, but damage caused other than Rend will break the effect.
Vigilance: Focus your protective gaze on a party or raid member, reducing the damage they take by 3%. Each time they are hit by an attack, your Taunt cooldown is refreshed.
Safeguard: Reduces damage taken by the target of your Intervene ability by 30% for 6 sec.

60

Blood Frenzy: Your bleed effects cause targets to take an extra 4% physical damage and applying a bleed effect increases all bleed damage taken by the target by 30% for 1 min.
Rampage: Increases the critical strike chance of all party and raid members within 100 yds by 5%.
Terrifying Demeanour: All enemies within 30 yards of the warrior have their physical damage reduced by 5%.

70

Piercing Howl: Causes all enemies within 10 yards to be Dazed, reducing movement speed by 50% for 6 sec.
Rude Interruption: Successfully interrupting a spell with Pummel increases your damage by 5% for 30 sec.
Taste for Cruelty: Increases your Overpower, Wild Strike and Revenge critical strike chance by 15%. In addition, whenever your Rend ability causes damage, you have a 100% chance of allowing the use of Overpower, Wild Strike or Revenge for 9 sec. This effect will not occur more than once every 5 sec.

80

Blade Reflection: Your Spell Reflect has its cooldown reduced by 5 sec and no longer requires a shield.
Magical Paragon: Your Spell Reflect will now reflect spells cast at up to two party or raid members within 8 yards.
Spell Breaker: You passively take 5% less magical damage.

90

Lambs to the Slaughter: Your Mortal Strike, Bloodthirst and Shield Slam abilities cause the Slaughter effect, refreshing the duration of Rend on the target and increasing the damage of all three abilities by 1%. Stacks up to 3 times.
Sweep and Clear: Your Slam, Wild Strike and Devastate abilities strike their main target for 80% normal damage, but hit up to an additional two targets in front of the warrior for 60% normal damage.
Death Wish: You attack with reckless abandon for the next 10 sec which Enrages you and causes you to generate additional rage from damage received. While under the effects of Death Wish, you deal 15% additional damage and you take 5% additional damage.