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Classes Deathknight Demon hunter Druid Evoker Hunter Mage Monk Paladin Priest Rogue Shaman Warlock Warrior
Class races DK DH Dr Ev Hu Ma Mo Pa Pr Ro Sh Wl Wr
Quests DK DH Dr Ev Hu Ma Mo Pa Pr Ro Sh Wl Wr
Abilities DK DH Dr Ev Hu Ma Mo Pa Pr Ro Sh Wl Wr
Trainers DK DH Dr - Hu Ma Mo Pa Pr Ro Sh Wl Wr
Armor sets DK DH Dr Ev Hu Ma Mo Pa Pr Ro Sh Wl Wr
Useful macros DK DH Dr - Hu Ma Mo Pa Pr Ro Sh Wl Wr
Class Halls DK DH Dr - Hu Ma Mo Pa Pr Ro Sh Wl Wr
For related articles, see Category:Warriors.
Swagdog Custom T-shirt Warrior Class Icon

New Class Icon

Warriors are melee fighters highly trained in the arts of weaponry. They are strong and quick on the battlefield. As such they can deal large amounts of damage; they are also capable of withstanding large amounts of damage to protect other party members. Warrior abilities depend on rage generation. This is different to all but one melee class, which is the druid; specifically a druid in bear form. Rage is generated through damage being dealt to and by the warrior and is capped at 100. Warriors have several talents capable of aiding rage generation.

Warriors can change between three combat stances: Battle Stance, Defensive Stance and Berserker Stance. Many abilities have a stance requirement. However, stances give the class a fluid play style allowing the player a variety of responses to any given PvE or PvP situation. Warriors can wear any type of armor; plate armour becomes available at level 40. They are able to use shields and can wield any weapon with the exception of wands and relics.

The primary warrior attributes are strength and stamina. Agility is also useful while levelling as critical strike rating on gear is rare until later levels. Warrior-oriented gear found towards end-game provides a wider range of attributes. Gear oriented specifically to damage dealing warriors may include critical strike rating, armor penetration or haste. Gear oriented to warrior tanks usually includes some combination of defense rating, block value, block rating, dodge rating or parry rating. Hit rating or expertise rating are also commonly found on gear and can be useful for warriors performing either role. It can be difficult to find rings or cloaks with the relevant attributes. As such warriors may improvise; for example, damage dealing warriors may seek "rogue" items that contain agility and attack power in place of elusive items containing strength.

Background

See also: List of warriors

As long as war is waged on Azeroth, there will be men and women who fight those wars. The warrior is no mere sword-swinger; they are skilled combatants, combining strength of arm, knowledge of weaponry and practiced maneuvers to slice or bludgeon their foes into little red bits. The warrior is the most versatile of the combat classes, and they supplement their fighting prowess with the ability to rally their allies and spur them to victory, but not only can they rally their allies into victory; they can themselves charge into the heart of the battle, take several lives and live to tell the tale. All races fight, and all races boast many warriors in their ranks. Warriors are common among dwarves, Forsaken, humans, and orcs, but are less so among the other races. Masters of swords, spears, and weapons of all kinds, warriors share a common way of life on Azeroth. Using their abilities to deal pain and cause bloodshed, warriors are deadly adversaries and welcome friends in violent times (which seem to be all the time in recent decades).[1] Warriors have existed in every race, from the murlocs to the tauren. Anyone willing to take up arms to defend their people can be classed as a warrior. A knight is the warrior elite among humans.

Notable warriors

2

Races

Main article: Warrior races

The warrior class can be played by the following races:

Race Strength Agility Stamina Intellect Spirit Armor Health
Horde Blood elfBlood elf Blood elf Bc icon 20 22 20 24 19 ? ?
Horde ForsakenForsaken Forsaken 22 18 22 18 25 36 60
Horde GoblinGoblin Goblin Cataclysm 20 22 22 23 18 ? ?
Horde OrcOrc Orc 26 17 23 17 22 34 70
Horde TaurenTauren Tauren 28 16 23 16 22 32 71
Horde TrollTroll Troll 24 22 22 16 21 44 60
Alliance DraeneiDraenei Draenei Bc icon 24 17 22 20 22 34 60
Alliance DwarfDwarf Dwarf 28 16 23 19 19 32 70
Alliance GnomeGnome Gnome 18 22 22 24 20 44 60
Alliance HumanHuman Human 23 20 22 20 20 40 60
Alliance Night elfNight elf Night elf 19 24 22 20 20 48 60
Alliance WorgenWorgen Worgen Cataclysm 26 22 22 16 19 ? ?

Until the Cataclysm expansion comes out, blood elf players are the only race that cannot be warriors. Blood elf warriors are a standard class for blood elves in the RPG. Some blood elves become warriors (or scouts or hunters) — especially those seeking to be spell breakers, demon hunters, and rangers.[2] In addition, there were High Elf Swordsmen in the Undead campaign in Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, so Elven warriors have technically always been justified.

Upon the release of Cataclysm, warriors will be the first non-hero class to be available to all races.

Racial advantages

  • Humans: Sword and Mace specializations give 3 increased expertise with swords and maces, which are two very popular warrior weapons. Perception passively gives the ability to detect stealthed units, which can be useful for those in PvP situations. Humans also gain the "racial PvP trinket" – Every Man for Himself – effectively freeing up a trinket slot which warriors might find more useful.
  • Dwarves: Inv gauntlets 03 [Stoneform] removes poison, disease and bleed effects, and increases armor by 10%. Both of these can be very useful in PvE fights. The additional Frost resistance is always useful. Increased expertise with maces provides additional threat generation when using them. Though warriors will not primarily be using guns as their main weapon, they can be useful for a pull, and Gun Specialization helps with this category. Lastly, warriors are notorious for their high repair bills. Treasure Finding can help alleviate some of this payment, though it is minimal at best.
  • Gnomes: Ability rogue trip [Escape Artist] can be very useful, primarily in PvP situations, but also in PvE situations. Warriors being the prototypical tank often have to lead mobs and bosses away from the healers and ranged fighters, thus making Escape Artist very useful. Gnomes also benefit from increased Arcane resistance, which is always useful. Because of their small size, gnome warriors are useful in PvP environments, posing a difficulty to target. Inexperienced or careless opponents can be quickly hit by Hamstring, Thunder Clap, and Sunder Armor before they have any idea as to what happened.
GnomeWarriorTCG

Gnome Warrior

  • Night elves: Quickness adds an extra layer of survivability to night elf warriors. The enhanced nature resistance is always nice. Ability ambush [Shadowmeld] provides an interesting element to night elves, who can stealth to avoid mob detection (more useful for solo play). In addition, in PvP settings, Shadowmeld can be devastating. Stealth, Charge, Hamstring, Thunder Clap, etc., and Ta-da! You just became a rogue in heavy armor! An additional bonus to Shadowmeld is the ability to temporarily drop threat in combat, and possibly even save your life (if you're the last person standing).
  • Draenei: Spell holy holyprotection [Gift of the Naaru] reduces downtime for warriors who are soloing, and helps conserve the mana of the group. The extra shadow resistance is always welcomed. Heroic Presence can help Off tanks or the Main tank perform better, depending on what role you may be fulfilling. For a DPS warrior, Heroic Presence will also reduce the amount of gear you (and your party/raid) need to dedicate to reaching hit caps.
  • Orcs: Inv axe 02 [Axe Specialization] increases expertise by 5 when wielding an axe or fist weapon. This is equal to 41 expertise rating, and reduces player's chance to be dodged/parried by 1.25%. Hardiness reduces stun duration, which can save a warrior in PvP settings, or save their group in PvE settings. Racial orc berserkerstrength [Blood Fury] increases either spell power or attack power, (depending on class) and scales with the players level. The formula for scaling attack power is [(level*4)+2]. The spell power formula is [(Level*2)+3]. This grants 322 AP or 163 spell power at level 80.
  • Trolls: Racial troll berserk [Berserking] increases attack speed by 20% for 10 seconds, useful for all warriors, particularly DPS warriors, but can also provide a marginal TPS buff to tanking warriors. Regeneration can help keep you alive during PvP fights, or boss battles, and the increased healing can reduced down time for soloing players. The increased damage against beasts can be useful, since beasts are located almost everywhere in the world. Inv misc idol 02 [Da Voodoo Shuffle] reduces the duration of movement impairing effects by 15% as well, and the less time you spend walking to something then the more time you spend hitting it.
  • Undead: The increased shadow resistance is always useful, as is Ability racial cannibalize [Cannibalize], which can reduce down time while soloing, and save your healer's mana. The increased Underwater Breathing is also useful, especially when soloing, where a warrior might not have access to an alchemist or warlock. Spell shadow raisedead [Will of the Forsaken] is one of the best racials in game, and can be the difference between life and death in both PvP and PvE settings.
  • Tauren: Ability warstomp [War Stomp] is a useful form of crowd control. Endurance provides tauren with extra health, meaning tauren warriors can have the highest possible HP of any warrior tank. The additional nature resistance is always a plus.

When Cataclysm goes live, worgen, goblins, and blood elves will be able to be warriors, giving every race in the game access to warriors. The racial abilities of Goblins and Worgen may change between now and Cata's release, so it is presently unclear how their racials will help them as warriors. While the chance to resist spell damage will undoubtedly be useful for both tank and DPS Blood Elf warriors, it is unclear at this point how the Spell shadow teleport [Arcane Torrent] ability will work for warriors.

Rage

Main article: Rage

By default, a warrior's rage bar is empty. Warriors can gain rage by being struck in combat, dealing damage, drinking rage potions, or using certain abilities. Most of their abilities require a certain amount of rage in order to be activated - this makes rage the warrior's equivalent of mana. When a warrior exits combat, any left-over rage slowly decays until the bar returns to empty. The rate at which rage decays can be controlled through talents. A warrior's rage bar will drop to 0 immediately if they switch their stance. At level 20, the passive ability Spell nature enchantarmor [Stance Mastery] allows them to retain 10 rage through a stance change, and the Spell nature enchantarmor [Tactical Mastery] talent increases this by 5 rage per rank up to a maximum of 25 rage.

Warriors need to be in combat or use a rage-generating ability to generate rage. The longer the battle, the more rage a warrior can accumulate. This often leads the warrior to the strategy of "filling up" their rage bar on a weaker foe before moving on to a more powerful enemy. A warrior with a full rage bar can quickly unload a large amount of damage.

Stances

Main article: Stance
ArtTaurenWarrior

A tauren warrior in art.

The warrior has different stances for different situations. Which stance to use will also be determined by the warrior's talents.

  • Ability warrior offensivestance [Battle Stance]: The standard starting stance for all warriors. A balance of offensive and defensive abilities (-20% Threat Generated) and also increases Armor Penetration by 10%.
  • Ability warrior defensivestance [Defensive Stance]: As it suggests, more defensive oriented and fewer offensive damaging moves. Best used when playing in the main tank role (-10% Damage Received, -5% Damage Inflicted, +45% Threat Generated).
  • Ability racial avatar [Berserker Stance]: All out attack with little regard to the warrior's own health. Best used when somebody else is tanking and you need full-on DPS (+3% Crit, +5% Damage Received, -20% threat Generated).

Some warrior abilities are not available based on which stance you are in, so choose wisely! Remember that your rage is reduced to 10 whenever switching stances unless you have Tactical Mastery.

Abilities

Main article: Warrior abilities

The warrior has various abilities, which are typically limited to certain stances.

  • In Defensive Stance, the warrior can use abilities such as Ability warrior revenge [Revenge] and Taunt. These abilities are useful for keeping aggro.
  • In Battle Stance, the warrior can use a balanced array of abilities. Ability warrior punishingblow [Mocking Blow] temporarily redirects threat to the warrior, while Ability meleedamage [Overpower] and Ability demonhunter demonspikes2 [Retaliation] are useful for dealing damage. Some abilities usable in Defensive and Berserker Stances are also usable in Battle Stance.
  • In Berserker Stance, the warrior is focused on maximizing damage potential with abilities such as Spell nature ancestralguardian [Berserker Rage] and Warrior talent icon innerrage [Recklessness].

How stats affect the warrior

(Original can be seen at WoW: World of Warriors)

Normal stats

Stat Effect
Strength Increases the warrior's Attack Power, thereby increasing the warrior's damage. Strength also increases the damage that a warrior can block with his shield.

1 Strength = 2 Attack Power

2 Strength = 1 Block Value

The protection talent Vitality, when maxed, increases strength by 6%.

The arms talent Inv gauntlets 26 [Strength of Arms], when maxed, increases strength by 4%.

The fury talent Ability racial avatar [Improved Berserker Stance], when maxed, increases strength by 20% while in Ability racial avatar [Berserker Stance].

Stamina Increases health points. This is critical for warriors due to their melee range restriction and inability to significantly heal themselves while dealing damage, as well as to absorb the large amounts of damage mobs will try and cause against a party while tanking.

1 stamina = 10 health

The protection talent Vitality, when maxed, increases stamina by 6%.

The arms talent Inv gauntlets 26 [Strength of Arms], when maxed, increases stamina by 4%.

Mitigation and avoidance stats

Stat Effect
Armor Armor augments a character's health to a higher number (if the armor is positive), which represents the amount of physical damage a player can withstand. For instance, a character with 5000 health and 50% armor would be able to absorb 10000 damage before dying.
Defense Defense rating reduces the chance to be critically hit by attacks from PvE mobs. At the lvl 80 defense cap, you will effectively reduce this chance to 0%. Defense Rating also increases your chance to Dodge, Parry or Block.
Dodge The warrior moves out of the way of the enemy's attack, and takes no damage from it. It is extremely useful to have a trinket which increases dodge rating for a short time to help healers keep up with healing. (If you're not getting hit, you don't need heals.) A warrior can only dodge frontal attacks. Attacks from behind cannot be dodged.
Parry The warrior parries the enemy's attack and takes no damage from it. Parrying attacks increases the warrior's melee haste rating, causing him to hit faster than normal. A warrior can only parry frontal attacks. Attacks from behind cannot be parried.
Block Rating The warrior raises his shield and blocks the enemy's attack. Block rating increases a warrior's % chance to block. Unlike dodge and parry, blocking an attack only reduces the amount of damage done to the warrior. A warrior can only block frontal attacks. Attacks from behind cannot be blocked.
Block Value The amount of damage a Block reduces depends on the block value of your shield, any enchantments, talents and strength. Damage reduced by blocking is calculated after other damage reducing factors, such as armor, which increases the effectiveness of blocking. In addition, block value increases the damage dealt by shield slam.

DPS/ Threat boosters

Stat Affect
Hit Rating Increases the chance for the warrior to hit his enemy. Hit rating requires 32.79 per 1% of hit for physical damage. Raid bosses require an additional 8% chance to hit for you to never miss.
Expertise At level 80, every 8.2 points of expertise rating grants one point of expertise. One point of expertise decreases the chance that melee attacks made by the warrior will be dodged or parried by 0.25%. This stat is useful for tank and DPS warriors. When a warrior tank is parried, it may trigger a boss to begin to swing faster, causing burst damage. Raid bosses have a 6.5% chance to dodge your attacks, and approximately 15% chance to parry (varies).
Crit Rating Increases the chance for the warrior to critically strike his enemy, dealing double damage. At level 80, 45.91 Critical Strike Rating is required to gain 1% melee crit chance.
Armor Penetration Reduces the effective armor of the warrior's target, increasing all direct physical damage (excluding Bleed damage) done by the warrior to his target. At level 80, 12.31 points of Armor Penetration Rating are required to reduce the target's armor by approximately 1%, subject to a normalizing formula.
Haste Increases the autoattack speed of the warrior. More commonly used by fury warriors to improve their rage generation. This stat is largely panned by arms warriors as very little of their damage comes from their auto-attack. At level 80, a warrior requires 32.79 Haste Rating to gain a 1% increase in attack speed.

Talents

Warrior talents are split into three trees: arms, fury, and protection.

Arms

  • Specialties: Strong bleeding skills, high burst damage with a two handed weapon. Able to execute at any time with Ability Warrior ImprovedDisciplines [Sudden Death]. Can reduce healing on enemies with Ability warrior savageblow [Mortal Strike].
  • Strengths: High rage gain (Ability warrior endlessrage [Endless Rage]) and rage efficiency skills (Ability meleedamage [Overpower]). Access to [Tactical Mastery].
  • Weaknesses: At a disadvantage on fights that require constant movement due to the cast time on Slam. Must be played with skill and a fast reaction time to successfully compete with other damage dealers.

The arms tree consists of abilities which focus on slow two-handed burst coupled with heavy bleeding damage to better effect. The arms talent tree is capped by the Ability warrior bladestorm [Bladestorm] ability, which when activated, whirlwinds every second for 6 seconds and causes the warrior to become unstoppable, unless killed, for the duration. Due to almost every arms skill being based on weapon damage, such as Ability gouge [Rend], Overpower, Ability BackStab [Deep Wounds] and Mortal Strike, slow two-handed weapons are favored by almost every arms warrior to maximize effect. Bleeding skills are enhanced as well with the talent Inv mace 118 [Trauma] and Ability druid ferociousbite [Taste for Blood] allows Rend to open up opportunities to use Overpower regardless of whether the the target dodged your attacks.

Fury

  • Specialties: Powerful sustained damage and can regenerate with Spell nature bloodlust [Bloodthirst] and Spell shadow summonimp [Blood Craze]. Can passively reduce healing on enemies with [Furious Attacks]. Able to wield two 2 handed-weapons with Ability warrior titansgrip [Titan's Grip].
  • Strengths: Powerful sustained damage with dual wielding and capable of high burst damage with Ability warrior bloodsurge [Bloodsurge] and Bloodthirst.
  • Weaknesses: More fragile than the other specs, taking in more damage with Ability Racial Avatar [Berserker Stance] and relying on two weapons to perform at best, forsaking the use of a shield save for highly situational times.

The fury tree bolsters the use of dual wielding (but does not limit the warrior in any way), to dish out the highest damage that the warrior is capable of. Critical strikes allow the fury warrior to File:Ability GhoulFrenzy.png [Flurry], while the attacks they use most have a chance of proccing Bloodsurge, throwing in high Ability warrior decisivestrike [Slam] burst damage with their already high sustained damage. While the cost to uphold this kind of damage taxes on rage heavily, dual wielding solves the problem. With the final talent, Titan's Grip, the warrior is able to dual wield two 2-hand weapons, greatly increasing rage gain in bursts, allowing the warrior the needed rage.

In the past, going too deep in the fury tree was undesired for PvP due to its lack of the Ability warrior savageblow [Mortal Strike] healing debuff, but as of patch 3.0.0, the fury tree gained Furious Attacks, which applies the needed healing debuff.

Protection

  • Specialties: Access to many stuns Ability warrior shieldbash [Shield Bash]/Ability ThunderBolt [Concussion Blow]/Ability warrior shockwave [Shockwave]. THE tank spec proficient at both AoE tanking ([Damage Shield]) and singular tanking.
  • Strengths: All-new powerful damage that was unheard of before Patch 3.0.0, making the shield not just a defensive tool, but a powerful offensive one as well. Able to take very high amounts of damage and dishing high amounts back.
  • Weaknesses: Technically rage-starved if not being hit, though speccing deep in protection allows you to make your hits crit more often, still allowing you to burst damage without rage (Ability warrior swordandboard [Sword and Board]). No healing debuff. Damage output very limited when not the focus of enemy attacks, due to key abilities dependent fully or partially on blocking (i.e. Ability warrior revenge [Revenge], Sword and Board.)

Tanking has been redefined by Blizzard, and so the protection tree likely got the biggest change (for the better) in comparison to the other trees.

The protection tree features the traditional one-handed weapon + shield combination with talents to improve its use. It is likely that one would think the overall damage is lower due to not using a "powerful two-hander" or "dual-wielding two weapons". But when facing a protection warrior, they need to consider the shield as well. With it protection warriors could absolutely crush anyone foolish enough to attack him/her in melee, and use it to harass and silence casters. Protection warriors now scale with attack power more so than they did in the past, causing them to do much more damage. The protection tree boosts overall survivability, but also offense with the kind of tools that prot warriors use, namely the one handed weapon and shield. And with that new offense comes higher aggro buildup, making them threat machines.

Pre Patch 3.0.0, protection warriors were almost never considered for PvP due to their lack of damage, utility against players, and lack of everything that PvP stood for, but now they return with a new style. Still lacking a healing debuff, protection warriors now focus on stunning, crippling and harassing with their new high mobility talent, Warbringer.

Blizzard's talent calculator can be found here.[1]

Wrath of the Lich King changes

Spells

Battle Shout and Commanding Shout will affect the raid, not just the party.

Talents

  • Ability warrior titansgrip [Titan's Grip] is a new fury talent and allows warriors to wield a two-hand weapon in one hand, thereby allowing two-handed dual wielding.
  • Protection warriors have a new spell called Ability warrior shockwave [Shockwave] allowing them to damage and stun all the enemies in front of them.
  • Ability warrior bladestorm [Bladestorm] is a new arms talent whirlwinding 4 enemies in range every 1 second for 6 seconds.

Protection

Blizzard improved the protection spec so that it is more viable outside of tanking by increasing damage, with improvements to all damaging abilities, including Ability thunderbolt [Concussion Blow]. Shield Slam will also be available to all warriors now.

Cataclysm changes Cataclysm

General preview

Cataclysm Class Preview: Warrior | 2010-04-08 16:01 | Blizzard Entertainment Bornakk

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will bring with it several changes to class talents and abilities. Here you will get a glimpse into some of the changes we have in store for the warrior. The information you're about to read is not complete, and is only meant to act as a preview for some of the exciting new things to come.

New Warrior Abilities

Ability warrior innerrage [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.

Ability rogue bloodsplatter [Gushing Wound] (Level 83): This ability will apply a bleed effect to the target. If the target moves, the bleed gains an extra stack and refreshes its duration, up to a maximum of three stacks. The ability is currently planned to have no cooldown, cost 10 Rage, and have a 9-second duration. Gushing Wound is designed to be weaker than Ability gouge [Rend] with one stack, but better with three stacks, which will be reached when fighting a moving target.

Ability heroicleap [Heroic Leap] (Level 85): This ability makes the character leap at their target and apply the Spell nature thunderclap [Thunder Clap] ability to all enemies in the area when they land. Heroic Leap will be usable in Ability Warrior OffensiveStance [Battle Stance] and shares a cooldown with Ability warrior charge [Charge], but the Juggernaut and Warbringer talents will allow Heroic Leap to be used in any stance and possibly while in combat. The cooldown for this ability might be longer than the Charge ability, but it will also apply a stun effect so you can make sure the target will still be there when you land.

Changes to Abilities and Mechanics

In addition to learning new abilities, you'll see changes to other abilities and mechanics with which you're already familiar. This list and the summary of talent changes below it are by no means comprehensive, but they should give you a good sense of what we intend for each spec.

  • Ability Rogue Ambush [Heroic Strike] will no longer be an "on next swing" attack, as we are removing this mechanic in Cataclysm. To keep the niche of Heroic Strike as a Rage dump, it will become an instant attack, but will cost between 10 and 30 Rage. This ability will not be usable until you have 10 Rage, but if you have more than 10, it will consume up to 30, adding additional damage for each point of Rage consumed above the base 10. Other abilities, such as Ability warrior cleave [Cleave], Inv sword 48 [Execute], and Ability druid maul [Maul] (for druids) will work similarly. The goal is to provide players with an option where if you can't afford the Rage, you don't push the button, but if you have excess Rage, you can push it a lot.
  • Ability Warrior BattleShout [Battle Shout], Ability warrior rallyingcry [Commanding Shout], and possibly Ability warrior warcry [Demoralizing Shout] will work more like the death knight's Inv misc horn 02 [Horn of Winter] ability. Specifically, these shouts will cost no resources, generate rage in addition to their current effects, and be on a short cooldown.
  • Ability Whirlwind [Whirlwind] will hit an unlimited number of targets, but only for 50% of weapon damage. The intent is for this ability to be used in multi-target scenarios and not on single targets.
  • Overall, heals cast by players in Cataclysm will be a lower number relative to players' health than the current game. So to make the Ability warrior savageblow [Mortal Strike] debuff less mandatory but still useful in PvP, Mortal Strike will reduce healing by only 20%. All equivalent debuffs, including the Shadow priest and Frost mage debuffs, will be for 20% less healing. At the moment we aren't considering giving this debuff to anyone else, though we will certainly consider PvP utility for historically under-represented specs that use other mechanics.
  • Ability Warrior Sunder [Sunder Armor] will be reduced to three stacks instead of five, and still provide only a 4% reduction in armor per stack. We want to make this debuff easier to apply and less of a damage swing when it falls off.

New Talents and Talent Changes

  • The Furious Sundering talent in the Fury tree will make the Sunder Armor ability cause 25/50% weapon damage and reduce the threat generated by 50/100%.
  • The [Mace] and [Poleaxe Specialization] talents in the Arms tree will be removed. These provided just passive stats, which are not the kinds of talents we want to design in the future. We will keep the [Sword Specialization] talent, but it will be changed to a talent that applies to all types of weapons.
  • As a Fury talent, Ability warrior commandingshout [Booming Voice] will increase the Rage generated by shouts.
  • While we like how Ability warrior titansgrip [Titan's Grip] plays, we recognize some warriors liked the Fury tree because of the really fast swings that dual-wielding one-handed weapons could provide. Therefore, we're planning to try out a talent called Warrior talent icon singlemindedfury [Single-Minded Fury] that is parallel to Titan's Grip and will provide a large boost to the damage of a pair of one-handed weapons.
  • Several talents that reduce the Rage cost of abilities will be changed to focus on increased damage for those abilities instead.
  • The new Arms talent called Disarming Nature will make successful disarms cause the target to cower in fear for 5/10 seconds.
  • Another new Arms talent called [Blitz] will make the Ability warrior charge [Charge] ability hit for extra damage. The amount will possibly vary depending on the distance travelled.
  • Improved Pummel, a Fury talent, will cause a successful interrupt to generate 10/20 Rage.

Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses

Arms
  1. Melee Damage
  2. Armor Penetration
  3. Bonus Swing: This is similar to the Sword Specialization talent that is currently in the game, but Bonus Swing will work on all attacks and with all weapons. You have a chance to proc a free, instant weapon swing that hits for 50% damage.
Fury
  1. Melee Damage
  2. Melee Haste
  3. Enrage Intensity: Every benefit of being enraged is increased. This includes doing more damage/healing/ etc. from abilities like Bloodrage, Death Wish, Enrage, Berserker Rage, and Enraged Regeneration.
Protection
  1. Damage Reduction
  2. Vengeance
  3. Critical Block Chance: As we mentioned in the stat changes preview, block rating is changing to a chance to block 30% of a melee swing's damage. Protection warriors have a chance that the block will be a critical block and block for 60% of a melee swing's damage instead. There will likely be talents available to push the amount blocked even higher.
Vengeance
This is a mechanic to ensure that tank damage (and therefore threat) doesn't fall behind as damage-dealing classes improve their gear during the course of the expansion. All tanking specs will have Vengeance as their second talent tree passive bonus. Whenever a tank gets hit, Vengeance will give them a stacking attack power buff equal to 5% of the damage done, up to a maximum of 10% of the character's un-buffed health. For boss encounters, we expect that tanks will always have the attack power bonus equal to 10% of their health. The 5% and 10% bonuses assume 51 talent points have been put into the Protection tree. These values will be smaller at lower levels. Remember, you only get this bonus if you have spent the most talent points in the Protection tree, so you won't see Arms or Fury warriors running around with it. Vengeance will let us continue to make tank gear more or less the way we do today – there will be some damage-dealing stats, but mostly survival-oriented stats. Druids typically have more damage-dealing stats even on their tanking gear, so their Vengeance benefit may be smaller, but overall the goal is for all four tanks do about the same damage when tanking.
We hope you enjoyed this preview, and we're looking forward to hearing your thoughts and feedback on these additions and changes. Please keep in mind that this information represents a work in progress and is subject to change as development on Cataclysm continues.

View original post

Q&A

Re: Cataclysm Class Preview: Warrior | 2010-04-08 18:20 | Blizzard Entertainment Bornakk

Here are some follow ups based on what is being discussed.
Will the rotation for a Fury Warrior just be Bloodthirst and Slam with Heroic Strike to burn off rage?
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.
Are one-handed Fury warriors going to be competing with rogues for one-handed weapons?
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.
Why are warriors not getting some kind of AoE tanking tool?
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.
Is only Sunder Armor being changed?
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.
What about rage loss when changing stances?
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.
Is the intent of Gushing Wound that warriors constantly ask for targets to be kited around?
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). :)

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Q&A with Ghostcrawler

Re: Cataclysm Class Preview: Warrior | 2010-04-08 07:56 | Blizzard Entertainment Ghostcrawler

You said nothing to address the vastly different ways 1-handers will generate rage compared to 2-handers and how you will close the damage gap between them.

Are 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.

Why? Both I can understand, but why exclude threat management? Why is tank death more engaging than threat management? The former primarily involves one or maybe two members of the group, the latter is engaging to everyone.

I 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.

I know that's slightly off topic, but I respect Vontre's opinions and wanted to go into a little more detail.

They should've just combined the three specializations into one from the start rather than remove Poleaxe and Mace spec's entirely. I'm sorry, but Blizzard, you screwed us on this one. Both Poleaxe and Mace spec's gave us more DPS than the extra swing proc from Sword spec and you nerfed that by screwing with its proc.

I'm sure we'll end up saying similar things several times this week, but if it helps, imagine that every number in the game either doubles or gets divided by half at random. In other words, you don't know how much damage or even how much crit a (theoretical, since we're curtting it) Poleaxe spec talent would provide you anymore. You don't know whether cutting it is a buff or a nerf. Since you aren't armed with that information, all you can really provide is whether the chance to get an extra swing is more fun than a talent that just increases your damage.

I can understand some of the confusion. When we do patches like 3.3 or even 3.3.3 then it makes sense to view everything through the lens of the current status quo. This isn't one of those patches. You are gaining more levels. Stats are changing. Many things are changing. Don't assume that numbers that we don't strictly call out will stay at all the same. In fact, you can probably assume the opposite. :)

Mechanics probably will stay the same unless specified otherwise. For example, you don't need to go as far as to say "Who knows if warriors will even use axes in Cataclysm?" They almost certainly will. But speculating on whether axe spec or sword spec would cause more damage in Cataclysm is fraught with risk.

To clarify, will Inner Rage only affect the rage cost of abilities if we are at 100%? If so I see this only as a plus. I read it as such, meaning it would only affect the one ability used when at 100% rage and would only come up if we were constantly hitting 100% again and again.

Inner 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.

So if I'm understanding this correctly. Single-minded fury will basically turn a 1H into a 2H. So a 1H's weapon speed will get slowed down and the damage ranged increased, and maybe the stats on it increased as well. I guess that's the only way it'll work otherwise you'll see a lot of fury complaints saying I have to go 2H cause 1H spec sucks or vice versa.

No, the whole point is to get to use the faster one-handed weapons. The talent just needs to boost the damage so that it feels competitive with Titan's Grip.

Videos

New talents and abilities preview:


Protection tanking guide:

See also

Dwarfwar

Dwarven warrior

  • Warrior twinking guide for details on making a warrior twink.
  • Warrior instance grouping guide for tips in Instances.

Notes

References

 
  1. ^ World of Warcraft: The Roleplaying Game, 54, 88
  2. ^ Monster Guide, 65
  3. ^ Warcraft: The Roleplaying Game, 54
  4. ^ World of Warcraft RPG Conversion Document, 1

External links

  • Tanking Tips Tankingtips.com is a great resource for information on warrior tanking.
  • TankSpot Tankspot.com is pretty much "the" website for warrior tanking information and resources.
  • Prot Warrior Tanking 100: Part 1 Part 2 A basic guide to tanking at early levels.
  • Warrior Guides For advanced warrior topics (although some parts are outdated)


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