WotLK Warrior Suggestions

Warrior class discussion.

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Heartwood
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WotLK Warrior Suggestions

Post by Heartwood »

The most recent blue post was that Warriors were next up-to-bat for a review and tweaking for their WotLK abilities. However, here is an interested feedback post from a beta tester on the current Prot War build:



These are my thoughts on the state of prot warrior talents thus far:

- Shield Specialization: Clearly meant to be a staple prot warrior talent as you can't get very far into the tree without dumping some points here. Let's be clear, block rating is a stronger stat than it used to be, but only because its been forced that way by a mechanics change. A lot of warriors are going to begrudgingly take this talent primarily because, as a tank, you don't need tactical mastery. That doesn't mean that this talent is bad, per se, but having no clear alternative is a bad thing. I have a suggested alternative, see below:

- Tactical Mastery: Here's a talent that simply doesn't belong in prot. It was put here long ago in an attempt to diversify the trees, and it's long since due for reconsideration. My suggestion is this: swap Tactical Mastery with Improved Heroic Strike. They're both tier 1 talents, so the move shouldn't be debilitating. Arms warriors, who do the most stance dancing by far, will appreciate the change. The change shouldn't be noticeable for Fury warriors, and Protection warriors will finally have one of their key talents in the correct location.

- Improved Bloodrage: Only thing I might suggest here is to consider revising this into a 5 point talent that increases rage generated by Bloodrage by 20/40/60/80/100%, particularly if Tactical Mastery and Improved Heroic Strike are not swapped.

- Incite: Very Excellent talent. Consider adding Devastate to the list of affected abilities.

- Anticipation: Even though the change from Defense to Dodge is a net increase in avoidance, I think I still might have preferred the Defense... but this is in line with similar talents so not too much complaining here.

- Last Stand: Love the change to 6 minutes... anything we can do to convince you guys to get it down to 3?

- Improved Revenge: With the change to blocking and the increased power of skills like Shield Slam, Shockwave, and Heroic Strike, Revenge is quickly being overshadowed. Yes, it's still the most rage-effiicient move we've got, but efficiency isn't really a concern when this move is at its most useful, ie, tanking bosses. The talent may be fine, but the ability itself needs some love.

- Improved Shield Block: This is kind of a slap in the face. We understand you're throwing us a bone here, but it's not good enough. Shield Block needs to be able to be used continuously, or else it's going to get lost under the mess of cooldowns you've given us. This talent, and Shield Block itself, need to be reviewed. No specific suggestions here because I really don't know where you want warriors to go as far as blocking is concerned.

- Toughness: 2% is good... 3% would be better.

- Improved Sunder Armor: Nothing to see here.

- Improved Disarm: Here's a delicate balancing act. The damage buff is a nice addition that actually makes me consider the talent, but the cooldown is still too long for an ability which too many mobs are immune. Of course, the pvp applications could be deadly... it's probably fine where it is.

- Improved Taunt: No real desire to take this talent, especially if one wanted Vigilance in its current incarnation. How about something like a 10/20% reduction on cooldown for Taunt, Mocking Blow, and Challenging Shout. That might get my attention.

- Improved Shield Wall: A longer duration would be nice, but the talent is fine. The problem is with the skill. Is there really a need for this to be on a half-hour cooldown at this point in the game?

- Concusion Blow: Great change with the added damage and reduced cooldown.

- Improved Shield Bash: Great change with the damage added to Shield Slam.

- Shield Mastery: Still a great talent. Nothing new here.

- One-Handed Weapon Specialization: Still a great talent. Nothing new here.

- Improved Defensive Stance: Would love to see this increased somewhat substantially - 5% per point would be great.

- Focused Rage: Still a great talent. Nothing new here.

- Vigilance: You shouldn't need to contrive situations where a 31-pt. talent is useful - it should be universally helpful. That's not the case with Vigilance. Situationally, its of moderate utility. If we're doing things right and everyone is balanced correctly, Vigilance shouldn't even be needed. I love the idea of having a persistent buff that I can drop on somebody, but this is really lackluster. Move Shockwave here - it makes more sense following Concussion Blow - and put an entirely new version of Vigilance in its place.

- Vitality: The added strength is much more helpful with the itemization shift, but we could really use some extra health - bump our stamina up to 2% per point.

- Stalwart Protector: A lot of warriors are complaining that the rage generated by this talent isn't enough. Situationally, it does actually provide a good amount of rage, and when you need it the most. I don't think a change is needed here, although many warriors are bound to disagree with me.

- Safeguard: This is a hard sell. Tanks don't like moving around more than they need to, and they certainly don't want damage flying around arbitrarily, so most tanks will avoid this talent on principle. As a pvp talent, it has quite a bit of use, and I understand the desire to add viability to protection. Is this good enough? Again, hard to tell. Arms warriors would kill for it, so its obviously desirable. A possible fix would be to swap Safeguard and Unrelenting Assault, but looking at Revenge once more, that won't benefit us very much unless Revenge gets some love.

- Critical Block: A great talent in theory, but one that stings as an apology for nerfing Shield Block. I don't have any complaints about Critical Block, just blocking in general.

- Devastate: This is still a great ability, but I feel like it'll start to get overshadowed by our other new tricks. More attack power coefficient please! Also, I don't know how this works, but I am a little bit concerned that if Sunder Armor adds threat based on attack power now, will there be situations where SA scales better than Dev after five sunders are applied? Would be good to check into that before it goes live :)

- Sword and Board: This is badly in need of review. The basic concept is great - do a lot of Shield Slams and Devastates, and get free Shield Slams in return. The execution is clunky. There's too much to pay attention to while tanking to notice the buff, and even so, depending on when it procs, you may get drastically more or less bang for your buck. For five points, this is more of an inconvenience than a buff. Give us a 10% chance to get an automatic Shield Slam proc. It's not going to grossly change or overbalance the talent, and you'll have a lot of happy protection warriors.

- Shockwave: This is a great talent that belongs where Shield Slam used to be. A slightly increased area would be nice.

In summary:

Protection is in a pretty good state. It'll play as it is, but some tweaks to keep us competitive would make us happy. There is one giant missing factor: where's the talent that makes us unique? The cry that's been heard over and over again the past couple weeks is that paladins and druids are getting the abilities that used to give us an edge, while retaining the advantages that they had previously. Paladins can do it all, now - they're the masters of AoE tanking, and their single target threat and survival matches ours. Druids can now out-survive us handily, and Deathknights do so much damage that they'll be the first choice of off-tanks... whenever they're not needed to soak magic damage. Warriors need to have a compelling reason to take them over a specialist. The increased damage is good, but that's not going to do it. Give me a reason to not go for a 2-hander/shield build with Titan's Grip or reroll Deathknight.
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