gia

I speculated this would happen when they first hinted at consolidating itemization and so far it has been proven true, there are no new items so far with additional armor. I'm guessing that with the removal of crushing blows on bosses and with druids being uncrittable just through talents they no longer need the extra armor.

Armor - Items - World of Warcraft

 

Unity

If every raid absolutely has to have a Warrior tank then good luck going on a 10 man as Fury or Arms.

 

Liar

It will be interesting to see how they will handle Arena gear which, traditionally, comes with extra armor for Cloth and Leather armor classes. Are they going to disable this in instances like Resilience? What about outdoor bosses? Should they disable it? And so on. I can't wait to see how they are going to solve this problem.

Protection Warrior PvP video | Unexpected TankPoints error

 

Gellor

I probably am over reacting, but history shows us that Blizzard normal gets it wrong with regards to warriors (i.e. Rage generation at TBC release). With regards to mitigation I am purely referring to talents not gear. Divine Protection on a 4 minutes taleneted CD providing 50% mitigation for 12 seconds. Our "polish pass" needs to be a significant overhaul, if were to be anywhere near paladins and druids (I can't speak for DK haven't read up enough on them). A lot of the advantages we enjoyed, have now been given to other tanking classes as well (Pally/Druids gets a TC type effect now, ferals can use potions in bear form now, and have their own "oh shit" LS esque button now as well).

 

Liar

Which ironically is a on a shorter time than Last Stand (5 mins vs 6 mins) while offering CC immunity/break.
I really expect the CD on Shield Wall to go down by quite a bit (and PLEASE pull it off the GCD). If we are lucky, they might even make Retalation useful some time while they are at it.

By the way, anyone else think that the Death Wish' drawback of 5% increased damage has to go? Taking increased damage was fine when DW broke fear to balance it out, but now it just is a relic of the past and should be removed.

Protection Warrior PvP video | Unexpected TankPoints error

 

Tornaz

There are a large number of things that need to be rethought about Warrior. I'm hoping that the opportunity is taken to do a total rebuild on the class.

However, you're certainly correct in that I don't think that the Disciplines can stay at a 30 minute CD for so little, whith the changes planned for the other tanking classes.

I really think Warrior is being done last because it's the most difficult to fix.

 

Nezralix

You may feel that, but at least one blue poster noted that they did the warrior and priest talents first because they were "easy":

Paladin Alpha Devs Speak - TankSpot

We figured it was easier to tackle those issues on comparatively easy classes like the warrior and priest before figuring out how we were going to have to change the paladin. Hunters got pushed to the back for a similar reason -- we were overhauling how their pets worked and needed to nail those changes first before figuring out their new abilities and talents.

 

Machinator

I find it curious that this stance is not always applied to the other 'hybrid' classes. As a dps warrior I carry tank gear, which is pretty much universally accepted that all warriors should. But it is not seen that druids and paladins should be always carrying tank gear regardless of spec. Some do of course, but blizzard has put their main tanking abilities in talents and warrior's now are basic skills. When you come to a large pull in a raid how often is the ret pally given a tank target before the dps warrior? Resto Druids and Holy paladins too but usually they have the fact of someone has to heal in their place. I don't think that any hybrid class should have an assumed role because that is what makes it hard to balance.

As for blizzard trying to make all warriors viable 5 man tanks, this has a big potential for either making prot not as useful outside of raids or overpowering(for lack of a better term) prot. As fury, I find its much harder to MT a 5 man than to help tank in a raid. Multiple mobs that often don't give a lot of rage. DPS warriors now I see as being more a crowd control, both in 5 mans and raids, and Im not sure they should be balanced around having to main tank. I would balance them around being able to help in 5 mans by dps tanking a mob or two on large pulls, being that extra taunt to get adds off the healer, and so on. In raids, no one wants to bring 5 main tanks for trash, but as now it should more either holding something until a MT gets to it or having a head start on threat.


Now that I think about it, since DK tank using 2H could we see some defensive 2H that warriors could tank with? DK probably have their runeswords but Titan's Grip tanking could be fun.


Edit: Yes the disciplines need to be shorter cooldown as well, its just archaic. Though it probably shouldnt be used in arena so 15m I think?

"Information is ammunition."

 

Gellor

I think the disciplines are one aspect of the warrior that need a serious overhaul. Down to 10 min CD's that triggers a CD so they cannot be used simultaneously, but can be used consecutively if so desired.

As things currently stand I would say the Prot Pally is most durable tank (4 minute talented CD on 50% damage mitigation for 12 seconds, coupled with ardent defender 30% less damage when below 35% health which i suggest at level 80 is going to be significantly larger health pool than a warriors due to superior stam gains, and the new Lay on Hands) means its nigh imposssible to kill a prot pally quickly.

They should even be pretty useful in PvP, their Shield of righteousness will hit like a truck and bypass all armor mitigation as its Holy Damage! About the only thing a prot warrior has that a pally doesn't is Demo shout.

I also agree than the damage increase component warriors take when they pop DW should be removed, it's a legacy from classic wow, and has no place in teh current environment. The same can be said for the zerker stance penalty too, it's one of the best debuffs in the game, and it's self inflicted.

 

• LodeRunner

How about we all stop whining until after we see what the overhaul contains for Warriors, hmm?

Can't you see what I'm doing here? I'm holding my own urine in a cup because I have responsibilities. Won't you help?

 

Gellor

On the plus side Deep Wounds is currently rolling like mage ignites. Seen a screen shot of a warriors Deep Wounds ticking for over 4k after he popped recklessness

ImageShack - Hosting :: 4kdeepwoundsay8.jpg

 

Shuror

Very possible that there won't be any leather +armour items. However there are new armour rings and even an armour necklace introduced. They just forgot to colour the armour tooltip green.
Armor - Items - World of Warcraft

 

• landsoul

People say over and over that deep fury warrior provide nothing to raid synergy and theres no reason to bring one over a rogue if you already have a BF Slam warrior in the raid. From the whole time I have been playing BC, from SSC to Sunwell, and in different guilds, I have always kept pace with rogues in overall damage. With similar gear levels, I never really found myself getting outclassed by them. I was either 5% ahead or 5% behind. In fights where raid synergy is stacked towards physical DPS and threat is not an issue, I would have the slighter edge. Does everyone's guild have every rogue with warglaives or am I completely missing something? Are my rogues bad? Am I outclassing my rogues?

 

◊ Fellwraith

Without seeing a WWS it's difficult to say, but rogue's definitely have a pretty serious mechanical advantage in TBC. I'd be surprised if it's possible for a fury warrior to keep up with a comparably-geared rogue in most fights. All of our big damage abilities are on a 6-9 second cooldown. Rogue's only limiting factor is energy. If you have excess rage, you don't have the ability to dump it into another instant attack as fury (unless you're going to slam with a 2.8 speed or faster weapon). Your only option is to increase your MH swing by ~200 damage and knock glancing blows off the table or to execute. If rogues have excess energy, they generate another combo point (which has a damage value) and another instant attack.

As weapon damage, haste, expertise and hit scale up, they start having highly-correlated increases to yellow and white damage output. Abilities like sword specialization, slice 'n dice, rupture, combat potency and bladefury give them amazing scaling. A lot of people are talking about how "fury warriors scale up", well, that's nothing compared to how a properly-geared rogue scales. They derive far bigger benefits from stats like hit, expertise, haste, and agi than warriors do. Since they have more levers, they're able to do more damage with less itemvalue. Fury is far better when there's multiple opponents, but rogues are quite a bit better vs 2 or fewer opponents. When your guild is focused on the boss WWS parse (and not the trash leading to it), yes, rogues look amazing.

I don't really think that's broken since warriors can actually tank and provide some party buffs, but they probably want to close the gap between BF builds and Fury. This is more of a warrior problem than a rogues vs warrior problem. When one class can perform 2 raid roles, the class that can only do one is going to (justifiably) cry foul if they can't perform better in their specialization.

 

DarthGreg

It's Rogue survivability and threat management that makes them an easier choice than a Fury Warrior. Granted, threat ceilings aren't often a problem, and incoming damage isn't always a problem, but they are often enough that it's just more convenient to Bring A Rogue. It sets up a bias that can be hard to overcome.

 

Machinator

The perform 2 raid roles is the crux of this whole thing I think. There is performing 2 roles during a fight and there is a class that can pick its role by specing differently. Its not really a rogue vs warrior thing, but if rogues are the baseline for single role melee dps, then other classes that are doing dps and don't bring other raid utility should be roughly equal. I don't think off tanking, which drops dps, or shouts, which can be done by tanks is much extra utility. I am not saying warriors do or don't equal rogues now, there are way too many changes to be made. But say fury got no more raid utility in wotlk and equal dps to rogues. I don't see a difference in rogues that would cry foul on that and the prot warriors complaining about druids at the start of TBC, just don't want to have to compete for their raid slot. But how much this is an issue or not will have to wait until blizz finishes their warrior pass.

"Information is ammunition."

 

• landsoul

Wow Web Stats

Heres one of our 2nd Brut kill. Compared to the rogue, I did 100k more. One of them was imp EA. This has been the trend on bosses for some time with me, even in other guilds and other raids.

 

nfw

I guess you are never on debuff duty?

 

Shha

Read what he said 1st:

If you are on debuff duty you bring stuff to raid synergy.

If you are not , you dps comparably to rogues (and in fact you still bring utility - battle shout - same as one rogue can bring imp EA).

 

Graul

While this may be true now, most of the concerns are about the expansion where shouts are raid wide and you already have an Arms Warrior.

 

Alaron

I've found the same thing. We're not so much questioning the personal DPS of fury compared to the personal DPS of a rogue as we are questioning any spec with nothing but personal DPS (and in particular deep fury) compared to someone that brings raid synergy.

If you're choosing between that generic dps and a class that will give a good boost damage to a good sized group of people, the synergy is a pretty easy choice most of the time. I'm of the opinion that any valid raid playstle needs some sort of synergy debuff so that some playstyles aren't necessarily left out simply because there isn't room for them. There are 30 specs, 25 raid slots, and an average of 7 healers minimum (selected only 5 specs) and 2 spots for classes that primarily tank (prot paly/war). You end up looking at fairly bad odds for the dps spec slots. With so many classes bringing useful/necessary raid synergies in wotlk that they didn't have before, especially with raidwide buffs, specs with nothing but strong personal are going to be in a rough spot.

Rogues are a bit lucky in that a few of them are guaranteed slots just for their drops if nothing else (not to mention far superior survivability, agro control and the fact that 2 of each class are desired for fairness), but fury as it stands certainly can't say the same thing. You likely have 2 warriors (tank+CS, BF+BS), your drops are shared with multiple classes, you take 10% more damage from everything, and you traditionally have a tighter threat threshold with the lack of an agro drop and moves that boost threat.

So, just who are you competing with if not with rogues? Here are some currently "important/necessary raid buffs and debuffs", each of which corresponds to a spot in a raid: BF+BS+demo (you want this spot, but can't have it because you don't have BF), Enh, Ret, Feral, Ele, Moonkin, S.Priest, CoR, Blood DK, CoE/Ebon Plague (heard they might not stack), Survival, 2 mages (11 pt arcane and new imp scorch), beast (10% damage pet proc beyond high personal dps, not to mention 2nd hunter).

So that is 7 healers, 2 tanks, and 14 dps that bring some form of synergy. Throw in 2 rogues for their loot/threat/survivability/dps, and to be fair to the players that play those classes. That is 25 people. Now, if you want a spot as deep fury, you have to evaluate which of those synergies+personal DPS is weaker than your personal DPS alone, not to mention which drops are going to waste if you replace someone. Obviously not all guilds min/max. Some people get taken to a raid because we like them, because they are more senior, because they need gear, because they are better players than the alternative, because we don't have the massive skilled recruiting source on a smaller server, or whatever the reason. Ideally though, the class should compete on its own. To do that, we need to spread synergies out, and possibly overlap them so that X or Y are both valid choices. Luckily, the devs seem to agree that buffs and debuffs need some looking at, as mentioned above, so we'll see if they fix this problem in the next few weeks.

 

Shha

Well I read his post as a suggestion that fury can only do dps comparable with rogues if you arent on tclap/sunder/demo duty - which is true, but you cant argue then that you dont have raid synergies.

 

nfw