Heroic
LeapI think too many of you are focusing on the
Thunder Clap portion of Heroic Leap. Imagine instead the tooltip
said "Leap into combat, crushing all enemies within the
landing area for massive damage and slowing their attack speed for
10 sec."
[...] it will do massive damage and
apply the Thunder Clap debuff. That's like saying Bladestorm
is just Whirlwind with a little CC immunity thrown in, so why do
we need another Whirlwind?
[...] On the topic of
Heroic Leap, understand that these are not patch notes.
They're previews. These abilities have not been extensively
tested yet, and to be totally honest, several of them haven't
even been implemented yet. We wanted to share with you the
direction we're headed in while there was still plenty of
time for feedback and iteration. While we like all of the new
abilities we're discussing, there's certainly a chance
not all of them will make it to ship.
If Heroic Leap
needs to be used out of combat or in different stances or to not
share a cooldown with Charge in order to be awesome, then
that's certainly the kind of thing we're willing to
try.
It's a struggle with previews like this to
provide enough context (things like limitations and even numbers)
so you get the idea of where we're going with a spell or
mechanic without getting everyone over-focused on those details.
(As another example, warriors dismissing Inner Rage because they
think the numbers aren't tuned perfectly.)
At the
moment, we're focused on making fun abilities. As the beta
progresses, we'll worry more about the tuning. (
Source)
Inner
RageInner Rage isn't supposed to feel kiss /
curse. It's supposed to feel like a limit break or similar
video game analogy. When I get to 100 rage, I go into overdrive
mode and cause even more damage. Rather than hitting max rage
being a problem (because I'm wasting resources I could be
gaining) it's something fun instead.
We put in
some of that extra explanation because we don't want warriors
to feel like the right way to play is to do nothing until they
have 100 rage and then start having fun. It's supposed to
feel like getting a string of crits or eating a big hit or
something translate into higher damage for a short time. (
Source)
Demo Shout
changesActually we changed it to a percent physical
damage reduction instead of attack power reduction. (
Source)
VengeanceVengeance is based on damage actually
taken (physical and spell). This means it might take a bit to get
stacked up to the max value, but it generally will get up there on
longer fights and can even stay there in between pulls if you pull
quickly.
Remember, the problem we're trying to
solve here is sustained damage and threat. We're not as
worried about mobs sticking to you initially because you have
plenty of tools to handle that now (including telling the mages
they need to wait for half a second). Yes, your AP might start out
a little lower if you get a string of avoidance, but with lower
avoidance in Cataclysm, that is probably less of a problem as
well.
Protection TreeAs a tank, you
don't need to worry about nerfs to Sunder Armor and Demo
Shout. We'll still tune the bosses to whatever damage we
think they need to do. You don't need to worry about suddenly
becoming less survivable or generating less threat.
We
changed Sunder Armor because the debuff was too massive, meaning
realistically you couldn't raid without it. (Perhaps you
still can't, but it's closer.)
We changed
Demo Shout because it was confusing. Nobody knows how much attack
power a creature has, and we found that many players
underestimated what a massive damage reduction Demo Shout actually
provided.
I can understand PvP concerns of changing
these abilities. I'm less sympathetic if you're worried
you'll lose your spot to another class because of them, since
we're really trying to design a game where you aren't
brought along just for your awesome buff.
As far as
other Protection warrior concerns go, you're welcome to bring
up issues you think that the talent tree has. Our general feedback
from warriors is they really like the Protection tree and
playstyle (with a few exceptions, like Heroic Strike and perhaps
Vigilance) and it was really the tuning relative to other tanks
that bothered them. We try not to offer too many changes just for
the sake of change (though a few can be fun, and there will be
some in your talent tree). (
Source)
Threat
generationI understand the appeal of threat
management from a logical sense, and your point about it being
engaging to everyone is compelling, but in application we find
that it's one of those things that a lot of players just
don't find fun. The UI doesn't do a great job of
explaining threat, and even if we could build a UI to portray it
in a more exciting way (which to be fair, we probably could)
it's still a pretty intangible concept compared to damage and
healing so I'm not sure it would feel great even then.
Many DPS players don't like the mechanic that
there's this higher level of damage they could achieve if
only they weren't constantly being throttled by this one dude
up in front. It often ends up feeling not like the group is
overcoming a challenge together, but that the dude in front needs
to get his act together. It just makes tanks feel weak. When the
raid dies because the boss hammered the tank, then that feels
cooperative because it's the raid vs. the boss. When the raid
wipes because the warlock got aggro, then it feels like it's
the tank vs. the warlock (or maybe the raid vs. the warlock or the
raid vs. the tank).
We always see a lot of negative
feedback from tanks when they feel like they can't hold
aggro. To be sure some of that is relative when the warrior sees
the paladin generate more threat, but it's also a pretty
constant source of friction for tanks when they feel like they
don't have the tools they need for the job. You can write
that off as casuals who just want free epics, but I think we see
"we can't generate enough threat" feedback more
than we see "please nerf this boss; he's too hard"
feedback.
Really, we're talking about relative
degrees though. No warrior tank should be able to Thunder Clap and
then go get a beer because they're going to then maintain
aggro no matter what. In the situations where that happens today I
think it's because of overtuned abilities like Tricks or
Misdirect (or sometimes tank abilities themselves).
Perhaps put more succinctly, a lot of tank players just seem to
find the survival game more fun than the threat game. (
Source)
Unending
FuryThe kinds of talents we want to eliminate are
the ones that say "You do 5% more damage." Unending Fury
is pretty close to that because it buffs the attacks Fury warriors
use the most. On the other hand, Flurry is a pretty unambiguous
dps increase, but it does it in a way that's a little more
interesting. A talent tree that didn't buff damage of a dps
spec at all would feel lame. We just want to free up enough talent
points that you can get more of the fun utility ones. (
Source)
1H/2H Dual
Wielding and rage generation/damage gapAre you
talking about Arms vs. Fury? That's not that hard. Arms can
have a talent to let them generate more rage with a two-hander or
require less rage for their attacks.
Are you talking
about 2H Fury vs. 1H Fury? The Single-Minded Fury talent could
literally say "Your one-handed weapons do damage as if they
were two-handed weapons." The talent gives us a dial and we
can tune it up or down for whatever we need.
It's
much easier to make dual-wielding one-handers and dual-wielding
two-handers do equitable damage than it is to make dual-wielding
one-handers and using a single two-hander do equitable damage, if
that makes sense. (
Source)
Healing
reduction effects in Cataclysm"All equivalent
debuffs" means if you have the debuff today, you will have it
in Cataclysm, but at 20% healing received. To avoid further
confusion, we are talking about Mortal Strike, Furious Strikes,
Wound Poison, Aimed Shot, Permafrost and Improved Mind Blast.
We are also strongly considering having all of these
effect cause the same debuff, called Mortal Wounds, which is a
physical effect and therefore undispellable. This allows the
behavior to be more consistent regardless of who is applying it
and lets us consider things like how easy it should be to dispel
poisons (since Mortal Wounds would not be affected).
Heals will be smaller and health pools will be larger in
Cataclysm, so we don't expect Mortal Wounds to feel as
mandatory as it does today, but this is clearly the kind of thing
that will require a lot of playtesting and feedback. (
Source)
Warrior Preview Q&AQ: 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).