The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Titan's Grip

So as I predicted, I did not get a second weapon for SMF. I've decided this is the universe telling me that my fury spec is to forever be Titan's Grip, and I'm okay with that. What with the holidays raiding itself was slow over the past two weeks, so I jumped onto the beta and messed around with some older content to test out my theory about Second Wind, and I was right - it's a significant kick in the teeth to our ability to solo older content. Granted, it mostly means we need help with Wrath era raids, but if you were feeling cocky about being able to solo, as an example, Trial of the Crusader 10, adjust your expectations.
So far in Mists raiding, TG seems to be on par with SMF for the most part. I've had days where I handily beat the SMF warriors in our raids, and days where they beat me just as easily. I raided with Shockwave instead of my customary Bladestorm/Dragon Roar last night and it worked out fine, but in the end I switched back to Dragon Roar for its being useful both as a single-target and a multi-target ability. In general, I feel fairly confident in saying that fury warriors can raid with either TG or SMF, depending entirely on the combination of personal preference and what drops for you. That being said, four piece tier 14 is pretty much essential for parity as a DPS warrior, and even more so for fury with its desperate need to crit on pretty much every Bloodthirst. Since TG swings on average a full second slower than SMF, it seems exaggerated.

Keep in mind that SMF sims better at present, so all things being equal it might be the best possible choice for a DPS warrior min-maxing obsessively.

Of course TG rewards the best possible weapons, which at this stage of the game is whatever flavor of Shin'ka is available to you. There's no maces at all this tier of raiding and only one sword, so if you're raiding you're either using Shin'ka or trying to get one. (For players running heroics, there are several 2h weapons available in heroic dungeons and a crafted axe at the same ilevel) There's really not much else to be said about weapons for TG - there are two of them, and Shin'ka is by far the better option.

Right now, in terms of itemization, once you get hit and expertise in the right general ballpark of 7.5% apiece, get crit. Crit crit crit as much as you can get. All fury, indeed all DPS warriors love crit, but TG loves crit like a mouse loves a teddy bear. (Trust me, mice love teddy bears.) You should be gemming for crit unless you need to gem for hit/crit to make a cap, you should be slapping the crit enchant on your cloak, you should be reforging for crit or choosing crit gear whenever possible. We talked before about how crit interacts with Bloodthirst, so I'll just summarize it - your critical hit chance is doubled for Bloodthirst, so if you're looking at your character pane and seeing a 31% crit rate, what that means is that you have a 62% chance to get enraged every BT. Since enrage gives a 10% damage buff for 6 seconds, the more crit the better until you hit 50% raid buffed. Since you can hit BT every 4.5 seconds, the higher your crit rate, the closer you can get to being enraged more or less constantly and getting a flat 10% damage buff.

I really can't say enough how good the four piece set bonus is. Beingh able to use Recklessness every two and a half minutes is huge for fury, since it will push you very close to 100% crit on Bloodthirst while it's active.

After crit, most sources will tell you mastery over haste. This is in part because of how bad haste is for us, and in part because mastery has good synergy with crit because of how our mastery works. The closer you get to that complete uptime for the Enrage damage buff, the more mastery does to increase that damage buff. Mastery is a distant second to crit, it's absolutely true, and you'll want to get hit and expertise around those soft caps first. I'd put strength ahead of mastery as well, although behind crit (I'd recommend gemming for crit over strength for TG warriors). As for weapon enchants, Dancing Steel if you've got the money or mats for it, with Windsong as the backup enchant.

I personally love Bladestorm, but unless you're expecting to really need AoE damage (say, the adds that get summoned by Heroic Feng's shield throw or during Shek'zeer) Dragon Roar and Shockwave are probably better. Shockwave is annoying for DPS due to its 20 second cooldown (to become 40 seconds in 5.2 unless adds are up) which means that for me Dragon Roar is the talent I take for bosses. For level 90 I tend to prefer Bloodbath due to its low cooldown. It's easy to use Bloodbath both in conjuction with other cooldowns and by itself to increase overall DPS, while Avatar seems lackluster in comparison. Is the 20% damage increase of Avatar over 24 seconds worth losing the 30% extra damage over 36 seconds you'll get with three Bloodbaths? Storm Bolt can be used every 30 seconds, but the admittedly impressive extra damage it does to targets that can't be stunned doesn't really make up for the ability to pop Bloodbath and have it buff everything you do for 12 seconds.

Rotationally, you're going to want to hit Colossus Smash so that you can follow it with a Bloodthirst and a Raging Blow if possible. Prioritize Bloodthirst to proc Raging Blow, which is your highest damage strike, and Raging Blow over anything while it's lit up, but keep in mind that Raging Blow consumes your Enrage so you may want to delay it if you get a Wild Strike proc to keep your Enrage. Hitting Raging Blow just before your next Bloodthirst gives you a better chance to try and keep Enrage up as long as possible. So in terms of priority it's Colossus Smash, then Bloodthirst, then Raging Blow, then Wild Strike after a Bloodsurge proc, with HS and Cleave as rage spenders. Keep in mind that the Glyph of Raging Wind means that in AoE situations your Raging Blow will hit multiple targets after you use Whirlwind.

That should cover the basics of Titan's Grip right now. Here's hoping I get something for SMF for next week, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

WoW Warriors: Talent specializations and abilities

In some ways, we're fortunate that Cataclysm has simplified these for us. There are fewer must-have talents; several passive talents were rolled into the talent specialization bonuses for picking a spec; and there's room for us to choose what we want and don't want. First, we'll look at each spec's talent specializations and then the talents and abilities therein. We covered mastery bonuses for all three specs in this column, so we won't discuss them again here aside from mentioning what they are.

Arms talent specializations are Mortal Strilke for the active attack and for passives, Two-Handed Weapon Specialization and Anger Management. The mastery is Strikes of Opportunity. The fury talent specializations are Bloodthirst (an active attack) and Dual Wield Specialization and Precision for passive bonuses, with Unshackled Fury as the mastery. There's no real choice involved in any of these save for the choice that you make between each tree at level 10, so simply be aware of them and their interaction with your chosen spec.

An arms warrior will be using a priority-based system based around the Mortal Strike ability, applying bleeds with Rend and the Deep Wounds talent and using Overpower and Colossus Smash as they proc. Slam and Heroic Strike are rage dumps, with Execute becoming a powerful attack when your target is below 20 percent health. We'll take a look at arms talents of consequence now.

Tier 1 arms talents are War Academy, Field Dressing, and Blitz. Field Dressing is a talent for leveling and tanking; most arms warriors will probably use it for a while but abandon it in a pure DPS spec. It's also strong for PvP. Blitz is also a good PvP talent for an arms warrior as well as a solid tanking talent, very useful for flag defense and the like. War Academy is simply a DPS boost that all arms warriors will take.
Tier 2 and 3 arms talents include Deep Wounds, Taste for Blood, Sweeping Strikes, and Impale. These are all straightforward DPS increases either through additional damage, allowing procs, or increasing how many targets you hit. Tactical Mastery allows for rage conservation when switching stances (useful for PvP or when trying to use abilities from Defensive or Berserker stance in general); Second Wind provides a little extra survivability when stunned; Drums of War allows you to save rage when interrupting or debuffing; and Improved Hamstring gives you a chance to immobilize someone you've snared. You don't have real CC, but you can provide excellent snaring with this talent.
For the fourth and fifth tier of the arms tree, we have Improved Slam, Deadly Calm, Blood Frenzy, Lambs to the Slaughter, Juggernaut, and Sudden Death. Unless something changes drastically before we reach level 85, Improved Slam is probably the least desirable of these talents. Deadly Calm is an excellent cooldown for either situations where you're low on rage but need to put out damage now, or for when you reach execute territory and want to keep all of your rage for the next execute. Blood Frenzy is still a solid debuff; it helps with rage generation, which is always a plus for arms. Lambs to the Slaughter is a DPS increase for using arms' main attack; Juggernaut is just plain awesome and increases your damage after you use Charge; and Sudden Death makes Colossus Smash a viable part of your rotation, which is awesome due to Colossus Smash's ability to bypass armor.
Finally, we have Wrecking Crew, Bladestorm, and Throwdown. Take all three. Frankly, I'm not even going to bother going over why you should; just do it. If you don't want to take these talents as a DPS warrior, you want to be fury.
Speaking of fury, the fury "rotation" is more fluid and dependent on enrages. You'll use Bloodthirst on cooldown, with Heroic Strike taking up a big part of the rotation up now due to its being off the global cooldown (meaning that you can hit HS and BT at the same time without stepping on, say, a Raging Blow proc) and Raging Blow when it procs. You're intended to use Bloodsurge-procced Slams on cooldown, as well. But with Slam damage being lackluster for the foreseeable future and Colossus Smash, Raging Blow, and HS for the single-target rotation (and Cleave/Whirlwind for adds), Slam may end up sliding down the priority queue. I've done parses at level 80 that indicate it might still be worth using, but we'll have to wait and see. (My level 85 beta parses ended up within 100 DPS between my ignoring Slam runs and my using it on every proc runs, which has me scratching my head.)

Tier 1 fury talents are Blood Craze, Battle Trance, and Cruelty. Blood Craze was heavily nerfed in recent weeks and is now a leveling curiosity at best until/unless you combine it with Field Dressing; even then, it's lackluster. The Battle Trance/Cruelty combo will get you to Tier 2 and are both excellent talents.
Tier 2 is Executioner, Booming Voice, Rude Interruption, and Piercing Howl. These are all fairly solid talents, with Executioner being good solid DPS in that 20 percent execute phase. Booming Voice is more and better rage generation; Rude Interruption gives you a nice DPS boost for doing what you should do anyway and interrupting spell casts; and Piercing Howl is good for PvP and PvE situations. It's a fairly well-loaded tier.
Tier 3 is Flurry, Death Wish, and Enrage. Let me just say it now: You'll max all of these. Just take them and move on.
Tier 4 is Die by the Sword, Raging Blow, Rampage, and Heroic Fury. Die by the Sword is a nice concept but does not do enough for the points, in my opinion. I get that it is intended to save a fury warrior who steals some aggro from horrible death, but even so, I have a hard time imagining putting points there with Raging Blow, Rampage and Heroic Fury in the same level.
Tier 5 is Furious Attacks, Meat Cleaver, and Intensify Rage. Furious Attacks is pretty useless now for PvP since it can only reduce healing by 10 percent and it can only be applied by an autoattack; it's not reliable. Meat Cleaver and Intensify Rage are excellent talents.
Tier 6 and 7 are Bloodsurge, Skirmisher, Titan's Grip, and Single-Minded Fury. TG and SMF are what you choose if you want to dual wield two-handed or one-handed weapons, respectively. Bloodsurge will be good at 85 if Slam damage scales reasonably and not if not. Skirmisher is excellent for high-mobility fights and PvP.
In addition to all this, there are several new abilities to consider for DPS warriors. These are Inner Rage, Colossus Smash, and Heroic Leap. Inner Rage will serve you as a DPS cooldown in cases of high rage (and arms warriors, you can't use Inner Rage during Deadly Calm), while Colossus Smash will be used on cooldown by both specs (arms will get Colossus Smash reset procs from Sudden Death, getting more use out of it). Heroic Leap is both more freedom to move around (basically a targetable Charge, it could serve to evacuate an area quickly) and an added attack. One could imagine Intervening to an ally, then using Heroic Leap to get back into the fray and add some extra damage at the same time.

What stats do I want as a DPS warrior?

What stats do I want as a DPS warrior?

Each DPS spec uses the same stats but has different targets for each. One of the nice changes Cataclysm has in store for you as a warrior is that the game automatically does the math for rating conversion on your character pane as you level, so you won't need to worry about exactly how much hit rating you'll need; it will tell you.

Hit Rating Arms has an easier time hitting its target than fury, but for either spec, hit is possibly the best DPS stat until you hit the cap. When looking at your character panel, you'll see exactly what your chance to miss an attack is with your current hit. You can adjust it via gemming, enchanting and gearing. In general, you should at least aim for the minimum amount of hit necessary to not miss special attacks, which is 8 percent. As we level to 85, boss-level mobs will go from level 83 to level 88, but the percentage of hit we'll need to hit them will remain fixed at 8 percent, unmodified by talents or racial abilities. The rating needed to get that much hit will increase with every level. As you can see in the screenshot above, hitting the 8 percent hit you'd need to be completely hit-capped on an arms warrior will be doable by the first tier of Cataclysm raiding. Fury hit capping will be much, much more difficult.

Strength With the removal of ArP, strength is your go-to red gem of choice when socketing your gear; it is the main source of raw damage output for a warrior. While you definitely want to make sure your attacks hit, you also want to make sure they do some damage.
Expertise You need exactly 26 expertise to push a raid boss' chance to dodge your attacks off of the table. The parry cap is not worth considering, since it's fairly high and you aren't supposed to be attacking your target from in front, where it does all those nasty cleaves and special horrible attacks that we let the tanks soak up. Frankly, hitting the 26 expertise cap is not going to be much of a problem by the time you're in the first raid tier of gear. You may even have to start reforging it off at that point. I suggest hit, if you're a fury warrior. Arms will most likely move it to crit.

Haste With the changes to the rage mechanic (as discussed here and in numerous other places), haste, expertise and hit rating are now the only stats that increase a DPS warrior's rage generation. Expertise and hit work by reducing dodges and misses, since an attack that doesn't connect doesn't generate rage. Haste works by increasing the speed of your white swings, thus getting more swings in to generate more rage with. Since haste doesn't work on arms warrior's DoT damage, it's still a fairly lackluster stat for arms, but in tests I've run as fury, it can provide a fairly significant DPS boost. I'd rate it below the "must cap" stats and strength, but it is surprisingly close to critical strike rating in some situations for fury.
Critical strike rating Even in raid gear, your critical strike chance is going to plummet in Cataclysm. With stats that just have to be capped and agility almost useless for us (while it generates both attack power and crit for agility classes), you're going to most likely end up with much lower crit at 85 than at 80 for a good long while. Gear has to scale somehow. I'd prioritize crit below hit and around the same as haste or expertise, depending on your spec.
Mastery We've recently discussed mastery in detail. It's the "do whatever you do better" stat added just for Cataclysm. While it's a very good stat, it will probably benefit arms faster than fury, due to arms' having less punishing hit caps to reach.

What are the WoW warrior DPS specs? And their benefits\drawbacks?

What are the warrior DPS specs?

This one's fairly easy. When you hit level 10 or selected your talent points after the Shattering, did you choose protection as your primary spec? Yes? Then you're not a DPS warrior. You're a tank. Thank you for your interest in DPS warriors; please do not show up for an instance with a sword and board and 31 points in protection and try to DPS in defensive stance. You'll give the tank fits, generate little to no DPS, and confuse everyone.

If you chose arms or fury, however, congratulations. You're a DPS warrior. That's right, two out of the three warrior specs are all about hurting things. Whether you like hitting things with a big two-hander, two smaller one-handers, or two big two-handers, it all comes back to hitting things.

Arms is, in a nutshell, the finesse spec. You're still interested in picking up a colossal sword, axe, mace or polearm and ruining someone's day, but you do so with an eye towards efficiency and precise, debilitating strikes. Arms warriors deal their enemies small wounds to cause them to bleed and crippling wounds that inhibit magical healing. They take advantage of their opponent's tendency to duck out of the way to deal strikes that overpower their defenses entirely. Arms warriors are specialists, tacticians on the battleground. They can even weave their weapon into a storm of strikes at higher levels.

At its heart, fury is about grabbing a couple of weapons and smashing everything hostile with them until everything is dead ... and then probably hitting them a few more times. In the words of Théoden, "Fell deeds awake, fire and slaughter! Spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered, a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises! Ride now, ride now! Ride to ruin, and the world's ending!" Or as that notable fury warrior the Incredible Hulk might put it, "Hulk smash." Leveling fury warriors will use two weapons that are designed to be used in one hand, but the talent Titan's Grip will allow a fury warrior to dual wield two-handers if desired. (If you'd rather not, Single-Minded Fury allows you to continue using one-handers while boosting damage to compensate for losing the higher damage of two-handers.)

What are their benefits?

If you prefer offense to defense, these are the specs for you. Either DPS spec can generally produce much higher damage output than a tanking warrior. If you want to dual wield, fury is required (it's one of the specialization bonuses for fury), while arms gets significant bonuses to two-handed weapon use. Most PvP (player vs. player) warriors are arms warriors, due to the talent spec's combination of debuffs, offensive power and mobility. Fury warriors are generally more popular for PvE (player vs. environment) content such as dungeons and raids, but each spec sees use in each context.

If you want to be one of the ones doing the direct killing, these are the specs for you.

What are their drawbacks?

Warriors are intended to be a hybrid class, one that can fulfill more than one role in the game. The roles are defined as tanking, DPS and healing. Since warriors can specialize their talents to either tank or DPS, they are designed to be inferior DPSers than classes that can only DPS. (Crowd control abilities, such as are possessed by most pure DPS classes, are not considered a role in this case.) Warriors do not have any significant CC (not counting the Glyph of Intimidating Shout) and so cannot fulfill that role in an instance group or raid. In essence, if a warrior is there to deal damage, that's all he's going to be able to do, save for perhaps emergency tanking for a few seconds.

WoW Warriors: How to level in Cataclysm

One of the things I get asked to do is explain not how talents and abilities work, but rather how best to level a warrior. I'm always taken aback by these kinds of questions, because I feel that leveling (whether it be a warrior or another class) in WoW has never been easier than it is in Cataclysm. But, since the question comes up a lot between emails and Twitter, I feel like I should spend some time discussing it. I expect to be doing a lot of discussion of wow patch 4.2 in the weeks ahead, so now is probably as good timing as it gets to cover the leveling game.

Let's discuss leveling. For purposes of the discussion I went and rolled a tauren warrior on Sisters of Elune. Yes, I have a problem. Still, I managed to level out of the tauren starting area without any heirlooms in one night, so it should serve as a useful tool for discussion.

Starting Out

For starters, having recently leveled a druid, a rogue, a shaman and a hunter past level 20 (the druid is level 77, the shaman max level, the rogue level 32 and the hunter level 19) I can tell you that leveling a warrior is no longer harder than leveling any other class. Between level 1 and 10, you lack the power of picking a talent specialization, but you still have all the tools you need as the 1 to 10 content is designed around your character and his slowly growing toolkit. Really, what's most important to keep in mind for a leveling warrior is how to focus on one target when questing. With Victory Rush as powerful as it is for soloing and questing, you simply need to maximize your one-at-a-time killing rate so as to pop up another Victory Rush in order to heal you while fighting more than one mob.

Your best bet as a warrior of those levels is to quest. Do not grind unless there's a quest that rewards grinding. Pick up as many quests as you can, especially ones that can be completed in close proximity to each other. Once you get access to Victory Rush at level five, you now have an ability that counteracts the greatest of warrior leveling weaknesses from the first four years of the game -- namely that warriors couldn't survive more than one mob adding on them. VR means that you, as a low level warrior, now have even odds of surviving when more than one quest mob adds. It makes it possible to grind quest mobs with little to no downtime. I can't praise VR enough as a leveling tool. The only ability that has more of an effect is Charge at level 3 because it gives you an opening move that guarantees you'll have some rage to hit Strike with. Strike is actually a fairly lackluster ability and you'll happily replace it with whatever your talent specialization attack is at level 10.


Once you reach level 13 or so, instances open up. Running an instance or two a day while questing in zones between them is probably the fastest way to level up, especially if you have heirlooms. Even if you don't (this article is written assuming you don't need them, because frankly, you do not) you can easily clear a zone in a few hours. As it stands right now, you can successfully level in any talent specialization, can level via tanking, can level through PVP, or mix in all these types of activity. I personally prefer to run one instance and do a few battlegrounds during a play session, then focus on clearing out a zone's quests. This usually nets me between five and seven levels for a few hours of play, depending on what level I am and how abundant the zones are in quests. PVP is probably slower than either questing or instancing, but it's still quite possible to gain four or five levels in three or four hours of PVP.

Try everything

As a warrior, you can tank in instances. Dual Talent Specialization is available at level 30 for a mere 10 gold, and if you have any interest in leveling more quickly and growing to understand the tank role, I recommend getting a second spec and speccing protection. At least until level 50, however, it's not necessary to spec prot to tank in the leveling instances. Any warrior can equip a shield and use Sunder Armor (gained at level 18) and their main attacks to hold threat in most situations. I myself have tanked up to Sunken Temple (an early 50's instance) as arms with a shield and one-hander. There's no reason not to try out protection as early as possible to gain access to talents and abilities that help with both threat and survival, but keep it in mind. Tanking is probably the fastest way to level a warrior right now, as you can queue pretty much instantly from the moment instances become available all the way to level 85.


After tanking, clearing a zone's quests is probably the fastest way to level, and is quite possible in any spec for a warrior. Gone are the days where tank specs couldn't kill anything, or fury simply didn't have the oomph under max level. Arms remains one of my favorite leveling specs simply because leveling as arms helps you grow into an understanding of one of the games more complicated melee DPS priority systems. Arms also works well as a tanking spec at lower levels and is, of course, a solid PVP spec pretty much from level 20 on. Fury really comes into its own at level 69 when you gain Titan's Grip or Single-Minded Fury, but arms and protection are always good from 10 to 85, and can easily be used to level through any zone, run instances, and PVP in battlegrounds. I found that PVP is very strong for buying gear at level 60 and 70 that will surpass what you could get in same level instances. The 60 PVP set and epic weapon will last you almost through to the next expansion's content, so if you're not using heirlooms please keep PVP purchases in mind. Frankly, even though I admit I'm hardly the best PVP warrior around (not even close) I found the rewards definitely worth running a few battlegrounds a day, and I even had fun doing it.

To sum it all up, I spent a little over week working on this toon, running instances, questing, and doing PVP between them. I got in maybe two to three hours a day, more on weekends, and without heirlooms I'm well into level 64. I'm wearing a full set of level 60 PVP epics simply because I could (I gathered the honor fairly easily). It's on par with Outland gear, although I expect I'll be replacing all of it soon with Northrend instance gear. It doesn't take long at all to level with the improved questing in the 1-60 zones, tanking is easy in any spec up to level 50, and I keep a prot offspec handy for when I feel like tanking now that I'm into more complicated content. Leveling a warrior has absolutely never been easier, and if you're one of the people asking me about it, I recommend giving it a try.

Blizzard has updated the community site tier 12 armor preview with the final 2 armor sets -- warrior and druid.

Blizzard has updated the community site tier 12 armor preview with the final 2 armor sets -- warrior and druid. Patch 4.2 is coming soon, as players prepare for the invasion into the Firelands to confront Ragnaros for the (potentially) last time. Each armor set for this raid tier has its looks originating from something in the Firelands, going for the instance motif over the class motif.

Warriors will dress themselves in the Molten Giant Battleplate, made in the image of the new molten giant model. You may remember molten giants and molten destroyers from the Molten Core. They also wander fields of lava in the Firelands, ready to lumber over to unsuspecting players.

Druids will be donning the Obsidian Arborweave sets, based on what appears to be the tree that Malfurion and the Avengers of Hyjal are growing in the Firelands as the foward base against Ragnaros. Maybe, as a restoration druid, you were upset that Tree of Life was not a permanent form anymore. Well, now you get to dress up like a tree. Compromise. Hit the jump for a pic of the druid set.

By the way, Obsidian Arborweave is the most "Blizzard" name for anything I have ever seen. I hope that guy got a raise.

Warriors: The changing face of AoE

I can't even believe I'm typing this, but frankly, enough is enough. Yet another long thread about warrior AoE tanking in Cataclysm and frankly, I'm sick to death of the debate. Let's break this down into its simplest component parts.

AoE tanking is going to be cut back in Cataclysm, as will AoE DPS.
There will be more use of CC and more danger that trying to tank a lot of adds can kill the tank.
With 1 and 2 being the case, warriors most likely have enough tools for multi-mob tanking situations.


Ghostcrawler - Re: Twitter chat on Warrior AoE tankingOur goals are that you won't be spending as much of your tanking time AE tanking in Cataclysm as you did in Lich King. A second goal is that when you are AE tanking, you should use different abilities than when you are single-target tanking. A third goal is that when you are AE tanking, you should use more than one (or maybe two) abilities. None of those seem contradictory. ...

Maybe I'm misremembering something, but the goal going into LK was that warriors should be able to AE tank rather than every group using paladins for trash, and that casters should be able to use their AE spells, otherwise what are they there for? We succeeded in both of those, but a little too well on the latter to the extent that anything with more than 1 mob became a job for Blizzard / Hurricane / Mind Sear, etc.

In Cataclysm, there will be more threat to the tank of dying if you try to just AE tank every pull. Likewise, AE damage won't be quite as awesome so that single targeting things will probably be a better strategy when there are say 3-5 adds. If it's a dozen twilight whelps, then sure, AE away.


source

Asking for another AoE tanking tool when the stated goal is that there will be less AoE tanking and that AoE tanking will be inherently more dangerous is like asking for a meat suit to go diving with sharks. Not only is it not necessary and possibly even dangerous to encourage it, but just as you're already made of more than enough meat to attract sharks without actually wearing more, you've already got enough AoE for the new instances. If anything, expect other tanks to be brought more in line with the warrior AoE tanking model.

To my mind, the issues with the new tanking paradigm in Cataclysm, from a warrior perspective, aren't any need for more AoE at all. Rather, we need the following.

Tanking warriors need a smooth and reliable way to control their own threat generation rather than having it band-aid controlled for them by abilities like Tricks of the Trade or Misdirection.
Tanks need to have sufficient short-term cooldowns to be able to endure increased risk of death from trash tanking when it is necessary to do so. (I would argue that warriors are almost there in this regard and would only need the glyphs of Last Stand and Shield Wall to be baked into the abilities to be fine in this regard. Other tanking classes might need work here.)
DPS warriors will need a viable form of CC in this new world.
The first of these three might well be given to warriors via the Vengeance mechanic worked into all tanks' mastery abilities. We also know warriors will be given new ways to ensure rage generation when it is needed, which is often a great component of the difficulty in locking down early threat. The second, we more or less have addressed, but it would be nice to see it without a two-glyph requirement.

But it's DPS warriors I'm the most concerned about as we shift back to CC as a requirement for a successful instance run. While it's fair to say that Wrath swung the pendulum too far to the point where AoE tanking was the expected norm and CC abilities were used sparingly at best, no one who remembers trying to get a DPS slot on a class without a reliable form of CC in Burning Crusade can entirely welcome its return with open arms.

It's possible that new abilities like Disarming Nature will serve as warrior CC. It's hard to imagine a 10-second duration cower effect being as valuable as a sap or sheep, of course. And with the LFD tool doubtlessly changing the way we group, it's possible we'll simply just have to grin and bear it when we get queued in a group with no viable form of CC and struggle our way through an instance.

The issue with giving DPS warriors a form of CC is of course that it will be used in PvP. People who played in MC remember Mace Specialization and Stormherald, which was colloquially called "Stunherald." Nobody wanted to face an arms warrior with mace spec and that thing in his or her hands, not even other arms warriors. (I once saw two arms warriors stun each other for a solid 25 seconds or so.) There are ways around this ... Make the CC something that would impede NPCs but not PCs, like a root or snare or pacify effect or cower, something that could easily be countered by a player but which would keep an NPC from using its abilities ... and it may not even be necessary. But if you want to keep some DPS specs from being wildly more popular than others in a game environment where CC comes even close to the level of prominence it had in BC dungeons and heroics, then you have to consider some form of CC.

Frankly, demanding more AoE threat for warrior tanks is wanting new abilities to tank old content. We're not going to see dungeons and raids designed around those kinds of pulls anymore. What warriors need are tools that give them viability when tanking and DPSing the new content that awaits us.

WoW Patch 3.3.2 patch notes Release

If there were any doubts left that today was the day of wow Patch 3.3.2's release, dismiss them now because the official patch notes have been released. These notes are more or less identical to the Korean patch notes that were posted last week, except without our less-than-desirable translation job. A few highlights:

• Halls of Stone: Brann Bronzebeard has been getting into shape and now feels comfortable walking faster when escorted.


• Concussion Blow: The damage done by this ability has been reduced by 50%, but its threat generation will remain approximately the same.


• Violet Hold: The time between a boss being defeated and a new portal opening has been decreased.


• Season 8 has officially begun featuring all-new rewards!

Check behind the cut below for the full WOW Patch 3.3.2 patch notes.

Dungeons & Raids

• Icecrown Citadel
  
  
  
  • Frostwing Halls, the final stronghold of the Scourge and their Lich King, has been added.


• Halls of Stone
  
• Brann Bronzebeard has been getting into shape and now feels comfortable walking faster when escorted.
  
• The Forge of Souls
  


• The Devourer of Souls will now cast Mirrored Souls less often.


• The Spell Reflect ability has been altered on several creatures. It now has a cast time, only has 2 charges, and has a 75% chance of reflecting spells.


• The Nexus
  
  
  
  • Anomalus will now use the Create Rift ability only once, down from 3 times.


• The Old Kingdom
  
  
  
  • Elder Nadox now only gets one Ahn'Kahar Guardian during the encounter.
  
  
  • Jadoga Shadowseeker now only ascends once during the encounter.
  
  
  • Several enemies between the Befouled Terrace and The Desecrated Altar have been removed or had their pathing altered.


• Pit of Saron
  
  
  
  • Players can now zone back into the instance if they are dead while encounters with Krick and Ick or Forgemaster Garfrost are in progress.


• Utgarde Pinnacle
  
  
  
  • Skadi the Ruthless can now be removed from his drake with 3 harpoon strikes, down from 5.
  
  
  • Svala Sorrowgrave now casts Ritual of the Sword 1 time during the encounter, down from 3.


• Vault of Archavon
  
  
  
  
  • Toravon, the latest boss to join the Vault's giants and masters of the elements, is now accepting challengers in 10- and 25-player formats.


• The Violet Hold
  
  
  
  
  • The time between a boss being defeated and a new portal opening has been decreased.

PvP

• All healing abilities (including items such as potions) will be decreased in effectiveness by 10% when in Battlegrounds, Arenas, or Wintergrasp.


• Arenas
  
  
  
  
  • Season 8 has officially begun featuring all-new rewards!

Druids

• Talents
  
  
  
  • Balance
    
    
    
    • Earth and Moon: This talent now increases the druid's spell damage by 2/4/6%, up from 1/2/3%.

Shamans

• Talents
  
  
  
  • Elemental Combat
    
    
    
    • Shamanism: This talent now provides 4/8/12/16/20% extra spell damage to Lightning Bolt/Chain Lightning, up from 3/6/9/12/15%, and 5/10/15/20/25% to Lava Burst, up from 4/8/12/16/20%.

Warlocks

• Talents
  
  
  
  • Affliction
    
    
    
    • Shadow Embrace: This effect can now stack up to 3 times, up from 2. However, the periodic healing reduction effect has been reduced from 3/6/9/12/15% to 2/4/6/8/10% per application.
  
  
  • Demonology
    
    
    
    • Demonic Pact: The damage bonus granted the warlock by this talent has been increased from 1/2/3/4/5% to 2/4/6/8/10%. The buff granted to a raid or party by this talent remains unchanged.
  
  
  • Destruction
    
    
    
    • Conflagrate: The damage-over-time effect of Conflagrate has been increased to 40% of the spell's total damage, up from 20%.
    
    
    • Empowered Imp: The pet bonus damage provided by this talent has been increased to 10/20/30%, up from 5/10/15%.
    
    
    • Improved Shadow Bolt: Damage done by Shadow Bolt increased by 2/4/6/8/10%, up from 1/2/3/4/5%.

Warriors

• Talents
  
  
  
  • Protection
    
    
    
    • Concussion Blow: The damage done by this ability has been reduced by 50%, but its threat generation will remain approximately the same.
    
    
    • Devastate: This ability now deals 120% of weapon damage, up from 100% of weapon damage.
    
    
    • Shield Slam: The damage scaling from block value for this ability now diminishes faster and diminishes starting at a lower block value. The difference should be negligible for players in high-end tanking armor. In addition, the threat caused by Shield Slam has been increased by 30%.
    
    
    • Warbringer: This talent no longer allows Charge and Intercept to break roots or snares. Intervene remains unaffected.

User Interface

• The party leader is now referred to as Guide in chat when a group is formed via the Dungeon Finder.


• Fixed a bug where players with Raid Assist capabilities were unable to perform a Ready Check.


• Fixed a bug where the first couple of tutorials were not displaying upon logging into the game.

Items

• New strength-based melee DPS rings are now available from representatives of the Ashen Verdict.


• Tier-9 Sets: The Aspirant vendors at the Argent Tournament grounds have worked out a deal with merchants in Dalaran so that all item level 232 set pieces will now be available on armor vendors in the city. Set pieces which require trophies will still be available for purchase only from vendors at the Argent Tournament grounds.


• Tier-10 Balance Druid 4-Piece Bonus: Fixed a bug to allow for this bonus to properly trigger.


• Tier-10 Elemental Shaman 4-Piece Set Bonus: Redesigned. Successful Lava Burst casts now increase the duration of Flame Shock on the target by 6 seconds.


• Tier-10 Tank Sets: The gloves and chest pieces for warrior, death knight, and paladin tanks have had their stats adjusted slightly to provide additional armor value.


• Tier-10 Warlock 4-Piece Bonus: This bonus should now correctly be applied to the warlock's pet.

Technical Support

• The cvar 'processAffinityMask' controls which CPU cores are available for the World of Warcraft client to use. Previously the game client was limited to 2 cores as a default which players could override in the configuration file. In the past this provided a performance boost on some CPUs and operating systems. We have identified several systems that are experiencing severe performance issues with this restriction and have removed it. Players who would like to restore the old behavior can do so by updating the Config.WTF file by adding: SET processAffinityMask "3".
  

WoW Warriors: Old Mechanics

This week, The Care and Feeding of Warriors looks back at the legacy of the Warrior class through the original game and two expansions. Matthew Rossi remembers when Taunt cost rage. Remember that? Makes you shudder, doesn't it?

I don't mean crotchety guys in stained overalls working on your car.

No, what I'm talking about is the foundation of the warrior class itself, those abilities that are holdovers from the very beginning of the game. It's hard to remember sometimes, with a game that changes and flows with time the way WoW has, that things were once very, very different... I still remember when they fixed the bug that kept dodges, parries and blocked attacks from generating any rage, hoo boy was that one a killer for warriors... and some of our abilities date back to the very beginning of the game or shortly after it. (Pummel was removed in patch 1.1.0, for instance, and returned in patch 1.2.0, when Maraudon was introduced.) I personally have a very hard time remembering not having Pummel, which is probably because I didn't use Berserker Stance enough before that patch went live. It's even more interesting to note that before patch 1.2.0 Berserker Stance granted a flat 10% melee haste instead of 3% crit, the kind of stat that probably would have had me scratching my head in confusion back then. (I don't scratch my head now, I just kind of grunt softly and bang on the monolith with a bone.)

Having been ridiculously sick this week, I've had plenty of time to sit and think about the game and how it has changed over the years, since I couldn't actually play much. (I tried logging on and I got so dizzy I nearly passed out, it wasn't until today that I could even stomach it for a few minutes.) With Cataclysm looming on the horizon (and man, it feels like it's coming out next month or something to me, I don't know why) I started thinking about abilities and mechanics that could be revamped or even tossed out entirely. One easy one? Take Mortal Strike and Bloodthirst off of the same cooldown. That one's kind of a non-issue, admittedly. I mean, you could spec for both, if you wanted to, but you wouldn't. It just annoys me that they're on the same cooldown, I don't really care if anything is done about it.

What do I care about, then? I'm glad you asked.

Heroic Strike. It's possible that no other ability (outside of Charge, anyway) has as much claim to be an iconic, everyman ability for Warriors as HS does. You have it no matter what spec you are. It's useful for DPS and tanking. Sure, it's not as flashy as Mortal Strike, Bloodthirst, or Devastate, not as sexy when you're tanking as Shield Slam, not as impressive when DPSing as an Bloodsurge Slam or an Overpower or Execute made possible through one of Arms' proc abilities But HS is still there, helping to bleed off rage and convert it into damage or threat (or both, depending on what you're doing) pretty much the same way it always has.

The problem with HS is twofold: first off, it's basically constantly in use when tanking. Especially as damage taken increases and Warrior tanks have to worry less and less about rage generation and more and more about survival (meaning that they gear almost exclusively for survival when tanking) all the rage that comes in is almost immediately converted back out via constant use of the Heroic Strike ability. I actually have HS macro'd to my Devastate and Revenge keys so that when I use either of them I queue up a Heroic Strike as well. Quite frankly, when I'm tanking, it's very unlikely that I'll get a 'not enough rage' error even with the macro in place, especially when tanking in raids. (In five mans, I may have to adjust my gear for more threat stats, as if I wear my raid tanking set I can avoid too much damage to keep up with DPS threat, I simply won't have the rage. That's a different issue, however.) By itself this might not seem like that big a deal: make Heroic Strike something you don't want/need to spam, you might say. Change it to have a cooldown, jack up its threat to compensate, we're good to go.

That would be fine, except that HS isn't just a tanking ability. Arms Warriors use it infrequently to bleed rage, but Fury uses it (especially glyphed so that an HS crit will generate 10 rage instead of costing rage) as a crucial part of its rotation. Since it serves a role in DPS rotations, making it a Junior Shield Slam (cooldown, big threat) is untenable unless it is replaced for DPS. Taking HS out of its current 'jack of all trades' functionality without a replacement of some kind would neuter Warrior DPS (especially Fury). Similarly, just adding a toggle so that you didn't have to press the HS button at all (the way some Hunter pet abilities work, firing whenever the pet has enough focus) doesn't seem likely or desirable.

The two solutions that seem most obvious to me (and please, feel free to suggest your own) are either to split HS into two abilities, a 'tanking' HS that had the extra threat and a cooldown of some kind or some other limitation that would prevent it from being spammed (but again, this runs the risk of transforming it into Junior Shield Slam or Junior Revenge, both of which we already have) and a 'DPS' HS that doesn't have the added threat (frankly, I've always hated that HS has added threat when I use it in my DPS rotations, especially since Arms/Fury Warriors have no threat dump). Another possibility would be to change the ability so that the added threat is only provided when it is used in Defensive Stance, perhaps by altering it into an instant attack with a short cooldown instead of an on-next attack ability, while removing the threat when used in Battle and Berserker Stance but retaining its on-next status. Since rage generation is much more of a concern for DPS, this might be tenable.

Then again, I could be missing the fact that in Cataclysm, warrior tanking will be far different and not nearly so 'stand there and soak ridiculous amounts of damage' oriented. Perhaps HS will become a rage generation attack, similar to how some Death Knight abilities generate runic power, which will make it something warriors use when they specifically need rage for other abilities (perhaps that Mortal Strike/Bloodthirst combo once they're not on the same cooldown calm down and put the pitchforks away it was a joke sheesh people).

Next week, hopefully I will have been able to sit in front of my computer for more than 20 minutes without hurling so that I can talk about gearing a new Arms warrior at 80 like I promised two columns ago.

The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Patch 3.2 gets weird

Another week, another series of patch notes to leave me scratching my head and saying "Seriously?

This is what we're doing, nerfing the crap out of agility for tanking? Did dodge rating steal

somebody's lunch money as a kid? And Shield Block, I trusted you." It's strange to feel betrayed

by a core tanking ability. I get why they're nerfing it, since they're increasing the amount of

Block value on gear that has to double it's current values, I've already heard Prot warriors and

paladins contemplating putting together BV sets for PvP and this change will keep warriors from

using SB to get hideous crits in PvP with Shield Slam. At least I think that's the reasoning: I

can't believe that anyone was actually worried about Prot Warriors' DPS while tanking in PvE

content being too high after the change for 10 seconds out of every 40. Even if Protection

Warriors put on every single piece of Block value gear imaginable, that 10 seconds of double

damage with Shield Slam would still leave them at the absolute bottom of the tanking basement in

terms of damage dealt while tanking.

The agility change is a near non-issue for almost all Warrior tanks: maybe you had Agility as your

cape enchant or a few AGI gems, but for the most part Warriors don't stack Agility as tanks.

However, since Dodge is at the moment probably the best stat a warrior can stack, the Dodge rating

changes will sting quite a bit. (I am aware they're more like a hammer to the back of the head for

Druids, but even so.)

Let us look at the specific changes (both Warrior and general) that stood out to me from the most

recent patch notes. First we'll look at the changes from the general items section.

Agility: The amount of agility required per percentage of Dodge has been increased by 15%. This

change required recalibrating the amount of Dodge a player has with 0 Agility by a slight amount

as well, so all players will see their Dodge percentage vary a small amount. Block Value: The

amount of bonus Block value on all items has been doubled. This does not affect the base Block

value on shields or Block value derived from Strength. On-Use Block Value Items: All items and set

bonuses that trigger temporary increases to Block value have been modified. Instead of increasing

their Block value amount by 100% like other items, they have all had their effect durations

doubled. This applies to Glyph of Deflection, Gnomeregan Autoblocker, Coren's Lucky Coin,

Lavanthor's Talisman, Libram of Obstruction, Tome of the Lightbringer, Libram of the Sacred

Shield, the tier-8 paladin Shield of Righteousness bonus, the tier-5 paladin Holy Shield bonus,

and the tier-5 warrior Shield Block bonus. Dodge Rating: The amount of Dodge rating required per

percentage of Dodge has been increased by 15%. This is before diminishing returns. Combined with

other changes, this makes Dodge rating and Parry rating equally potent before diminishing returns

apply. Parry Rating: The amount of Parry rating required per percentage of Parry has been reduced

by 8%. This is before diminishing returns. Combined with other changes, this makes Dodge rating

and Parry rating equally potent before diminishing returns apply. Parry still diminishes more

quickly than Dodge. The Block value changes we were already familiar with, of course. I do get

that they want Parry and Dodge to be roughly equivalent in terms of their effectiveness to tanks

and they have to take gear inflation into account, but man, I was not expecting it. Perhaps this

just shows how out of touch with tanking I actually am. I do find it interesting that Block rating

alone escaped being reduced but with them buffing Block value it would be kind of surreal to nerf

the least desirable tanking stat. Perhaps it's Block rating's unique status as half a tanking

variable (neither Dodge nor Parry have a rating to determine whether or not they happen and then a

value to determine how effective they are as Block does) that spared it the chopping block, or

perhaps the changes are meant to bring both Dodge and Parry in line with Block's effectiveness or

lack thereof.

Since both Dodges and Parries effectively negate a melee attack (you take no damage on a

successful Parry or Dodge) while Blocks only reduce an incoming attack's damage by the Block value

of the tank in question (this can reduce an attack to zero, making high Block rating/Block value

sets shockingly good against trash pulls and shockingly bad against mobs that hit for more than,

say, 4 to 5k damage with an attack) maybe reducing both Dodge and Parry in this way is the only

way to equalize them with Block. I guess nerfing every other tanking stat is one way to make Block

more comparatively attractive.

Now let's look at the specific changes to warriors.


Warriors

Bloodrage: This ability now generates 20 rage initially, and 10 rage over the next 10 seconds. The

health cost is unchanged. Execute: This ability now never costs more than a total of 30 rage. The

tooltip for Sudden Death has been revised to remove reference to that maximum, since the ability

now behaves that way even when untalented. Shield Block: Shield Slam no longer benefits from the

increased block value granted by this ability. However, while Shield Block is active, Shield Slam

generates 100% additional threat Talents
Fury Armored to the Teeth: This talent now provides 1/2/3 attack power per 108 armor, up from per

180 armor. Bloodsurge: Notification that Slam has become instant now appears in floating combat

text. Protection
Devastate: Weapon damage increased to 60% and bonus per Sunder Armor on the target increased by

20%. Shield Specialization: Now provides 5 rage on a block, dodge or parry instead of 2 rage on a

block. Well, the Bloodrage change is good and long overdue. With full talents, we're looking at 40

Rage from the ability, good for both DPS and tanking. The Execute change angers me, although it's

a non issue for Arms (for the most part) one of the things I liked about execute was being able to

wait a couple of seconds to build rage while a boss ticked down to 20%, then hit Recklessness and

the crit for an obscene amount three times in a row. Is it really going to change the way I, or

most DPS warriors, play? Not really. It's better DPS to spread your executes out into your normal

rotation than it is to just spam the ability and if you're an Arms warrior this is exactly how

Sudden Death works anyway, so the only time you'd even notice a change is when the boss enters

what is currently called 'Execute range' and in the future will be called "Great, I have to weave

another instant attack into my rotation" range. (I kid, it's not like you could spam Execute

before.)

The Shield Block change irritates me. Just leave the damage on it! It's not going to make Prot

Warriors the kings of DPS among the tanks! Adding a static threat modifier to compensate for the

damage loss just irks me. Yes, you read right, it irks me! It's necessary to compensate warrior

tanks for the threat they'll be losing, but there's no good reason outside of some theoretical

case of stacking every possible block value item and going to Wintergrasp with it where the damage

from SB/Shield Slam was going to be that great anyway. So what if a prot warrior occasionally

shield slams for 10k (I'm deliberately overstating this) in a battleground, when the rest of the

time he's plinking along for 2 to 3k? I just find the idea of lowering prot warrior DPS while

tanking, or at all really to be absurd. Is it just against the rules of the game for warriors to

hurt things now?

The Devastate and Shield Spec changes are both good. More damage, more rage, good for tanking.

Anything that allows a prot warrior tank to put out more damage while tanking I can get behind.

I hopped on test and did a heroic Nexus run last night to test the Bloodsurge change and it was

spotty: despite having combat text turned on, I didn't get many Bloodsurge notifications at all.

It didn't actually hurt my DPS that much, but I'd like to see this change go live working properly

since at present I have to use power auras to inform me of a bloodsurge proc. Armored to the Teeth

we already knew about, and it's a solid 200 or so AP for me, but I'm in all plate at this point

anyway.

All in all, the changes go from confusing to maddening to somewhat positive to somewhat negative,

it's a roller coaster but not one of those really fancy ones at the good theme parks, more of an

older one built really close to a flume where you get splashed a lot. Honestly, I still feel hurt

by what Shield Block has done, and that's ridiculous, I know Shield Block isn't a sapient being

that can actually betray me and yet how could you do this to me, Shield Block? Next week, I get

some tissues and eat some brownie ice cream while holding a picture of the Shield Block icon

during a montage of all the times I pushed the Shield Block button set to the music of Zamfir,

master of the pan flute. (Yes, okay, the Shield Block change is not that big a deal, just go with

it.)

WoW The Leveling Warrior in Wrath

I promise we'll get back to our Ulduar guide for tanks and DPS warriors next week. For this week, however, since we're midway through the sixth month of 2009 and we've seen patches up to 3.1 released (and we're waiting on 3.2) I thought it would be a good idea to go back and cover some of the things a leveling warrior might want discussed. We get emails from all kinds of warriors, and so it's only fair to cover the concerns of warriors who aren't raiding Ulduar but rather just setting foot off of the dock in Howling Fjord.

Before we get started, though, the upcoming Patch 3.2 changes for Warriors in their current entirety: Armored to the Teeth: This talent now provides 1/2/3 attack power per 108 armor, up from per 180 armor. Try not to get too excited, people.

First off, I'm often asked about stats for up-and-coming warriors. We have covered some of these before back in the beta, but the beta was a year ago now and things have been changed and polished. First off, I'm going to link all the posts of interest to a leveling warrior and discuss how they may have changed, and then I'll try and cover some more general advice.

Building Up To It covers some target numbers and stats to focus on. I should note that this was written before the changes to Armor Penetration made it much, much better as a DPS stat for warriors: the more ArP you have, the better it is as a DPS stat until you have enough ArP to reduce target armor by 100%. We covered Hit and Expertise in two posts, one for DPS warriors and one for Tanks. The tanking post is still accurate as of 3.1, but the talent changes to Arms and Fury mean that there is currently no talent that reduces chance to dodge for Fury Warriors and Arms has both Strength of Arms for passive expertise and Weapon Mastery. We discussed the dangers of overstacking a stat to the exclusion of other, also necessary stats. Finally, we covered gearing up in a four part post just before Wrath launched Parts one, two, three and four were all published before Wrath itself had actually come out, but they're still reasonably accurate to help your warrior get from 70 to 80, We covered weapons between 70 and 80 too.

TALENT SPECS FOR LEVELING

Okay, to start with, if this is not your main and you have access to the heirloom shoulders, by all that's holy get them. Especially now that they give you 10% more experience from quests and from mobs you kill, even if you just have an old pair of the leather or mail ones hanging around, send them to your leveling warrior. When I decided to test leveling on my Draenei warrior this month I didn't think it would make that big of a deal, but between his rested bonus and those shoulders he went from 70 to 76 in a matter of days. (I'm letting him catch back up on the rested before I try and get him the rest of the way up.)

We've covered talent specs for leveling warriors before, but I'll touch on it again here to say that for leveling either Arms or Prot are probably the easiest to gear for and are both strong for the job. I'm leveling my Draenei Fury purely out of spite. I leveled my Tauren Arms and my human Protection, and so far I'd still give the nod to Protection as a really good leveling spec and my personal favorite for dealing with big trash pulls and group quests you may want to try and solo. A lot of this will depend on the gear your warrior has as you start the climb between 70 and 80, though. If you're bringing a warrior you started a couple of months ago to Northrend in Outland quest greens, Arms is probably a stronger choice for leveling than Protection since there's lots of decent Northrend greens that are itemized towards an Arms playstyle. If you're bringing an uber-geared Sunwell warrior out of retirement, go with whatever your gear supports.

Talents will, of course, vary by your spec, but some abilities go across the board and benefit all warriors: we get Shattering Throw at level 71 (since you won't get Heroic Throw until 80, Shattering Throw is not to be underestimated as a cheap pulling tool as well as a PvP talent), and the incredibly handy Enraged Regeneration at level 75, followed by Heroic Throw at 80. You also get new tanks of all your pre-existing abilities, of course. Unlike the 1-60 game but similar to Burning Crusade, you'll basically be able to train something every level so don't go too long without visiting the trainer.

QUESTING ZONES

I have to say that 70 to 80 as a warrior is much less painful than it was to level a warrior back in the old days. I promise not to regale you with tales of leveling my warrior in Winterspring uphill in the snow both ways, but I will say that as long as you play with reasonable attentiveness you'll find it much less of a slog than it was to kill oozes in Un'Goro and get diseased over and over again. I still stand by my first impression from all the way back into the Wrath beta and advise you to do both Howling Fjord and Borean Tundra, but it's not strictly speaking necessary. You could easily go from the Fjord to Dragonblight to do the Wrathgate questline (which, for a leveling warrior, not only has several decent rewards along the way, but is also a heck of a nice questline if you've not done it yet.)

You'll of course want to do the Borean Tundra questlines to get access to some very nice blues to start the climb to 80 with, but there are similarly rewarding quests in both starting zones. If you can manage to do the quests around Utgarde Keep and the Nexus you can accumulate quite a few blue quest items to supplement whatever gear you had when you arrived. Grizzly Hills has two major questlines and a third that points you towards Drak'Tharon Keep, Zul'Drak has the Ampitheatre of Anguish in addition to quests for a tanking weapon and ones that point you towards Gun'Drak, and the whole of Sholozar Basin has significant quests that involve Hemet Nesingwary and the Avatar of Feya. It's actually quite possible (even, dare I say it, easy) to level to 80 with minimal instance time if that's what you want to do, but with instances in both starting zones, Dragonblight, Grizzly Hills (Drak'Tharon Keep straddles GH and Zul'Drak), ZD and finally the Storm Peaks having two five man dungeons, there's certainly no lack of options.

WRATH REPUTATIONS

As we covered in the gearing posts, you don't want to ignore the various factions of Northrend (please pick up a tabard for every faction available as soon as you can, even ones you won't immediately need to work on like the Kirin Tor), and it's fairly easy for a level 77 warrior to begin working on his Argent Crusade, Knights of the Ebon Blade and Sons of Hodir reputations once you reach Icecrown and the Storm Peaks. There are long, rewarding questlines for each of these factions (the Argent Crusade ones actually help you unlock the Ebon Blade ones, even) and in addition at level 77 you can even start working on your Argent Tournament questing. Generally speaking, even if you're not completely done with the other zones you can probably afford to go to Icecrown and the Storm Peaks as soon as you can fly in Northrend and start working on those reputations (Don't forget about championing to make those grinds go faster.) The Sons of Hodir have no tabard so you'll have to work that reputation via the daily quests and with Relic of Ulduar turn ins/Everfrost chips.

As a warrior I would try and get my Ebon Blade reputation to at least revered for the Arcanum of Torment and see about getting Argent Crusade to revered as well for the tanking helm enchant. Since the Argent Crusade has some quests in Dragonblight and a hub in Zul'Drak as well as a long quest chain in Icecrown and the Ebon Blade has quests and dailies in Icecrown, you can probably come close to these goals without even making use of championing or the daily quest in Dalaran for reputation. Adding those in and getting those reputations to revered is not difficult at all, and can even be done before you actually reach level 80. Once you're at revered with the aforementioned championable factions, the Wyrmrest Accord has a surprising amount of tanking gear you should consider. The Kirin Tor gloves are solid, but by now you'll probably be able to get better via Emblems of Heroism (the Tier 7 glove token) before you'll make the reputation needed to purchase them, assuming you don't just get an equivalent drop running Naxx-10.

If you're a new warrior or just new to Northrend, please feel free to ask for additional advice or an answer to a question I missed in the comments and if necessary I'll revisit this topic next week. If not, back to Ulduar.

WoW Warriors: WoW Patch 3.1.3 and Ulduar Tips

This week has been a heady one for me: I got my four piece Conqueror's Siegebreaker Battlegear on patch day, which was pretty sweet, and then in our second night of raiding this week we finally killed the big brain slug squid monster himself. Combine that with wow patch 3.1.3 dropping (which meant we had fun times like an announced server shutdown just as we were about to pull Thorim, leading to the fastest Thorim kill I've ever been on) and all in all, it's been quite a week. Heck, I even got to go prot and get some prot goodies like pants and a belt.

It was a small patch all in all, so I wasn't expecting huge improvement and I didn't see it. I saw a marginal DPS increase as fury (2 to 300 DPS unbuffed, not too much more fully buffed) and I made sure to compare notes with the arms warrior in our raids, and his DPS was very close to my own. We're still below the other hybrids, but not by as great a margin, so that's nice at least. As for the PvP change to Juggernaut, well, it's painful. Before respeccing prot for my secondary spec for good this week I went out on a Wintergrasp jaunt, and I'll probably never do that again.At least with Heroic Fury I can make a choice about how long I will allow someone to kite me to death. To be fair the Juggernaut change isn't really all that bad, but over the years I've played warriors I've moved from prefering arms as my DPS/PvP spec to being a fury warrior so I'm easier to discourage from arms than I used to be.



The title of today's post mentions patch 3.1.3 Ulduar tips. Since I've started doing some tanking in there when we're short (we lost a few tanks to RL issues) I've gotten to experience some of the fights from the perspective of the guy trying to stay alive and hold aggro. Strangely, I still find tanking to be the most serenely chaotic aspect of playing a warrior and one that's the most enjoyable to keep up with. I'll cover tanking and DPS warrior tips (I'm stealing from Chase here, I admit it, but I realized I hadn't talked about these fights that much.) Today we'll cover the bosses of the Siege of Ulduar.

Obviously I have nothing to say about tanking or DPSing Flame Leviathan. I took a demolisher this week, it was fun, I didn't really think very hard about it. We did a two towers hardmode this weekend on our usual ten man, but I don't know when we'll be trying that on 25 (some of the 25 man hardmode kills seem harder than 10 just due to the complexity of getting 25 people in synch, which is nice, since 25 man hardmodes generally give better loot than 10 man they should be harder) - at any rate, it doesn't matter what your normal role is here, you run away when he targets you and DPS him when he targets someone else, launch casters at him, it's the same for any class.

Ignis the Furnace Master is a pain to DPS, frankly. I hate fights with so much kiting. I find Flame Jets to be more annoying than really painful (although that's due to our good healers I'm sure) and Scorch is pretty easy to avoid as long as you stay behind him, which is where you're supposed to be as DPS anyway. If you have a Shield macro ready (perhaps for spell reflecting in PvP) get ready to use it if you go into the Slag Pot. You can Shield Wall in there and make your healers lives less hectic. As a tank, I find Ignis himself to be boring, since aside from dragging his giant butt around the room to get him fairly close to the water when he scorches (to make it easier for the tank or tanks kiting the adds to get them brittle.

I actually find add tanking on the iron constructs to be more fun and challenging than tanking Ignis himself. This is one of the few fights where Shockwave really feels powerful to me: the ability to cone stun two or three molten iron constructs is worth the price of admission, and it's pretty easy as a warrior tank to pick up new constructs, between being able to throw your weapon, charge to them, or taunt them over. It's a very mobile fight for the add tank, always having to find new adds, drag them through the scorch effect on the ground, then get them to the water so that a ranged can blow them up and remove the stacking Strength of the Creator buff from Ignis. Since that buff is pretty much the tank killer on Ignis, keeping it low is the priority. I've never had to tank more than three of the contructs at once (we have enough tanks that we can keep a tank covering each side of the room) but with Shield Block and a decent block value set (see, a use for Block, if not a particularly glamorous one) you can mitigate a fair amount of the non-fire damage from even three hasted adds and get them into the water. Warrior tanks can do either job in the Ignis fight, but I'd say, if you're asked, you'll have more fun tanking the adds.

Razorscale is an interesting fight for a warrior, tank or DPS. If you're a tank, you'll probably start out tanking adds as they spawn from the borers to left and right of the platform. The main difficulty here is picking them up while avoiding the patches of Devouring Flame that Razorscale drops on the ground. Warrior tanks are a pretty good choice to tank either the Dark Rune Watchers (thanks to our interrupts and spell reflect) and the Dark Rune Sentinels, since we can disarm them and give melee a break from doing it. DPS warriors are probably the better choice to disarm over rogues as well, since the Sentinels hit for 8k or so on plate armor. (Granted, rogues can Feint here and take 50% less AoE, but still.)

Warriors are not a good choice for harpoon duty, as they'd have to run out of melee to do it. Let a hunter or mage or other ranged handle that.

During phase 2, especially once Razorscale is grounded for good, tanks take a solid amount of damage here. In my experience we usually taunt Razorscale between two or more tanks (we usually have at least three in the raid, so we use all three) every time a tank has two stacks of Fuse Armor on him or her. It's very reminiscent of Al'ar tanking if you ran Tempest Keep at all. You have to try and move Razorscale out of the Devouring Flame (definitely use Warbringer to charge back into range if you get buffeted out) and keep taunting her between tanks so as to not have Fuse Armor stack to five and stun a tank.

DPS warriors have to conserve their cooldowns and not blow them on trash. The time to use every trick in the book is when Razorscale is dragged down by the harpoons. Ideally you want to burn Razorscale down to 50% in two harpoon phases or less. (It usually takes us two, I have no doubt there are guilds who can burn her to 50% in one phase) - pop Death Wish, Recklessness, Shattering Throw for arms warriors (fury can do it too, but it requires switching stances so it's a big personal loss of DPS time), potions of speed, whatever you can do to put the most DPS possible on Razorscale. If you don't have a rogue to expose you should be sundering (unless you have a warrior tank who will be using Devastate, then you can just ignore that) - your priority once Razorscale drops is to pour DPS into her, you can safely ignore adds (they will most likely be offtanked) for the entirety of a ground phase. Once she's grounded for good, just avoid Devouring Flames as much as you can and follow her around smashing at her hindquarters while the tanks move her around and juggle taunt.

XT - 002 Deconstructor is a DPS race with some complications. First off, there's the Searing Light and Gravity Bomb debuffs. These really don't matter all that much if you're tanking XT himself, since it's not like you as a tank could move away from the boss even if you got them. (I've not seen a tank take either debuff while tanking XT, but I'm not willing to say it doesn't happen, I can't be at every raid simultaneously.) As DPS, the light debuff is farily easy to deal with for warriors: you group the melee at one of his feet and if you get Searing Light, you move over to the other foot by yourself and minimize the damage you deal to others. For Gravity Bomb, my raid tends to keep the right and left sides of XT -002 as clear as possible, and if melee gets a Gravity Bomb, they just light out to whatever clear side is closer. You need to run as soon as you notice you have the debuff, don't stand there trying to get off one last Bladestorm or what have you. There's not much you can do about Tympanic Tantrum except hope your healers have lots of mana - I tend to use Shield Wall or Last Stand when I hear a Tantrum announced as a tank.

You also may end up tanking pummelers. Try and keep them away from the boombots if possible, but if you can arrange it to shockwave the scrapbots as you pick up the pummelers it's not a bad idea. A reasonably well geared warrior tank can hold three or four pummelers without too much difficulty. Some raids have ranged DPS focus the pummelers down while others simply have one or two tanks offtank them for the duration of the fight and focus all DPS on XT, it really depends on your raid makeup.

The add phase is where the real action is for warriors. First off, the Heart of the Deconstructor drops and that's where most of your focus will be as a melee DPS. You do double damage to the heart and whatever damage you do to it is transferred to XT himself, so this phase is a pretty important one for getting through the fight as quickly as possible. However, if you're not doing a hard mode kill, don't kill the heart. Or to put it another way, if you kill the heart you are about to try hard mode whether you want to or not. This is an especially bad thing to do on your third add phase when he's almost dead and the raid is out of mana, by the way. Not that I know anything about how that is from personal experience.

After the heart goes back up, if there are any scrapbots that the mages, warlocks and other ranged didn't catch that are threatening to reach XT, go kill them. Then get back on XT and make sure not to forget to watch for Searing Light and Gravity Bomb. Rinse and repeat for each phase shift: DPS XT, watch for debuffs and adjust as necessary, switch to the heart and burn it down making sure not to kill it unless you intend to do hard modes, clean up the adds and go back to XT. There's nothing terribly special here for warriors to do: both arms and fury warriors should make use of their mobility to help clean up adds (juggernaut/heroic fury is very helpful here) while prot warriors picking up pummelers should make use of Heroic Throw and Warbringer.

That's the Siege covered. Next week, we'll be handling the bosses of the Antechamber of Ulduar.

WoW, Casually: Rating the classes for casuals

In my experience, the best class to play as a casual player is one that is easily soloable, with little downtime, but also able to find groups quickly when necessary, particularly at max level. Following is how I rate each class according to those criteria.

Rogue: Sneaking past mobs you don't want to mess with and stunning your enemies so they can't fight back make the Rogue a fun character to solo. They are extremely gear dependent, however, and self-healing is limited to profession-related skills. While rogues make a fight go quickly, there are many of them and you'll have a hard time finding groups while leveling and in the endgame. (Edited to add note: Many readers have pointed out that there aren't as many rogues as there used to be. Perhaps there are more leveling on PvP servers. Ganking me. Like just now. Regardless, there are many DPS classes vying for group spots and rogues still have a harder time finding groups than all tanks, healers and DPS classes who can also heal as necessary.)

Warlock: Warlocks are extremely easy to solo. They have pets, they have self-heals and they have nasty damage. Their spells make downtime pretty non-existent and they can often solo group quests. A skilled Warlock can find groups at max level, but they are not in high demand at this time.

Warrior: Warriors have become much more fun to solo, but are still hampered by a lack of class specific self-heals and therefore require some downtime. If you do make it to the endgame, however, you will find that tanks are in high demand and that a skilled DPS Warrior can also get work.

Shaman: Leveling a Shaman is not difficult. You can blast, melee and heal. If you want to hang out with the big boys in the endgame, however, expect to keep one of your specs Resto, because non-healing Shamans just aren't in very high demand.

Priest: It takes a while to pick up speed when leveling a Priest without a lot of grouping. Shadow Priest soloing is the fastest and gets much easier when you get Shadowform. If you take one to the endgame, you'll be the belle of the ball. They'll want you for your heals and Shadow Priests can even get spots in raids these days.

Mage: Mages are definitely soloable and are very fun to play, but they tend to have a lot of down time for healing and mana regeneration. With no non-profession-related self-heals and nothing but comfy clothes to wear, you really need to be on your toes with your spells and abilities to battle alone. To partially make up for your downtime, your travel time is greatly reduced by the ability to teleport to major cities any time you like (as soon as you're high enough in level, of course). In groups, Mages are in demand for their DPS and crowd control. Don't discount the utility spells as well. The buffs, food and drink and making convenient portals at the end are all highly valued by groupies.

Druid: I've been playing a Druid since open beta. I love the class and have Night Elf droods abandoned across multiple servers -- once I went Horde, I never rarely go back. Druids are great for soloing as either Balance or Feral spec and are usually welcome in any group while leveling. Because of their multiple forms, Druids rarely get boring and make traveling speedy even at low levels. Druids are also extremely versatile at max level. Groups will want you as a healer, tank or DPS. The only drawback to playing a Druid is that they are not easy to just pick up and play (unlike DKs and Pallies). You really need to learn the nuances of all of your options and it can be hard to go back to after a long absence from the game or playing another class. Many don't consider this a negative thing about the class, however, and enjoy the extra brainpower involved in playing.

Death Knight: Death Knights are cake to solo. Not only do they start at level 55, but they are practically indestructible and mow through mobs speedily. They pair up nicely with any other class for those lucky enough to have a quest buddy. DKs also rock the endgame. They make great tanks and are awesome melee DPS. Their main drawback is that they are a dime a dozen. Once you make it to max level, you'll find many others like you competing for instance and raid spots both in your guild and in PuGs. I highly recommend a DK to every casual player as an alt, but you may find getting groups too time consuming for your busy schedule.

Hunter: The Hunter is one of two classes that I have never played past level 11. It's just not my bag. They are, however, arguably the easiest class to solo. The fact that they have no non-profession-related healing abilities is countered by the fact that their pets take most of the damage and the mobs drop quickly due to massive DPS. Hunters are so easy to solo that they tend to be the class of choice for gold-farmers (do they exist anymore or do they just hack and steal now?) as well as children and players new to MMOs. Because their damage dealing skills are so powerful, they are definitely wanted in the endgame. But you have to have the spec, gear and skills to be able to function in groups and raids and 80 levels of soloing isn't going to get you these. Expect to have to work hard on your gear and grouping skills before being invited to the good PvE group activities.

Paladin: Before Blizzard "fixed" Retribution, leveling a Paladin was easy, but kinda boring and with a lot of downtime for mana regeneration. Now that Ret Pallies are OP (which I think is pretty much an uncontroversial statement), leveling is a breeze and a ton of fun. With barely any downtime and usually multiple mobs at once, I tear through content on my formerly boring, previously mana-challenged paladin. Also, when I have to make sudden AFKs due to my main job of taking care of The Spawn, I rarely come back to a dead Blood Elf. (Though I run the risk of being run off cliffs ever since I taught her how to run around in game. "Oops!", she says.) And once you get to the endgame, the world is your oyster. You'll be wanted as either a tank or a healer by everyone and be favored for (though not guaranteed) DPS spots as Retribution.

When making your decision as to what class to play, think about what role you want to fill when you are ready to participate in the harder group activities. Regardless of how you like to play, you are more likely to get into PuGs and scheduled raids if you are speced in a group-friendly way. So if you are unwilling to play certain roles, choose a class accordingly. Are you against both healing and tanking? Then pick a Hunter or other class that is completely unable to do either. Are you willing to tank, but find playing the whack-a-mole heal game a chore? Then choose a Warrior or Death Knight. But if you are happy to be flexible until you are able to get into a group that allows you to play your favorite spec, then a Paladin or Druid is for you. Taking either class to the endgame will allow you more opportunities and faster grouping than any of the other classes. And for the first few encounters, you will probably want to try healing. Groups are much more likely to be lenient on your mistakes (which you will definitely make) and poor gear if you are a healer, more than any other group role.

When it comes right down to it, no one can tell you what your favorite classes are to play. So if you pick a class that is tougher to level, but you enjoy it more then you have made the right decision. If you are torn like me, however, the above guidelines should help. What did I decide? Well, like I said, I'm a proud altaholic, so I picked two. My Pally is working her way through Outland and my Druid is thoroughly enjoying the quests in Northrend. My guild leader has promised me a healing spot in the second string 10 man raids once I hit 80. Of course, the fact that I'm married to him may have biased his decision a bit. But the healing gap helped too. Anyway, I'm off to play with a rejuvenated sense of purpose after my (kinda) decision. May you have as much fun as I'm having.

Warrior builds 3.1 PTR 9658 changes

Matthew's caught up in the tangle of this thing called RL, so don't be surprised to have a different voice going over the Warrior changes this Warrior builds 3.1. Don't worry, though, it looks as though most of the changes this round are aimed squarely at PvP, so I'm covering for him in the meantime. I'd like to call this build the Brown Pants Edition for PvP Warriors. Are you ready? Get a pair of brown pants, because you'll need them.

Battle Stance - Increases the armor penetration of all your attacks by 10%.
This is a straight up buff, and because Armor Penetration is a better PvP stat now than it is for PvE, this is clearly going to help. Considering armor reduction effects are now percentage-based, this buff is going to help quite a bit. Nothing exciting yet, right? Right. I hope you've got those brown pants on, because the next one is downright insane.

Shattering Throw *New Skill* - Throws your weapon at the enemy causing [ 50% of AP + 12 ] damage (based on attack power), reducing the armor on the target by 20% for 10 sec, and removing any invulnerabilities. 25 Rage, 30 yd range, 1.5 sec cast, 5 min cooldown
I just had to put that in bold letters and underline it. Aren't you glad I told you to wear brown? Warriors are now one of only two classes that can break a Paladin's Divine Shield or a Mage's Ice Block. It's a baseline ability, which means that all Warriors will have access to it. This improves Warrior viability in a Paladin-dominated Arena environment substantially. It's on the same cooldown as the aforementioned invulnerabilities, as well. This means that every time Paladins or Mages put them up, a Warrior can demolish it. Just in case you missed it -- Shattering Throw also deals damage and reduces armor (and it's likely used when in the armor penetrating Battle Stance!). Not only do you remove their precious invulnerabilities, you spank and strip them, too. That's just naughty.

Berserker Stance - Now increases all damage taken by 5% (Down from 10%)
Warriors are primary targets for an instagib in Arenas because Berserker Stance is just too painful. As the recent matches in the ESL Arena Tournament show, sitting on a Warrior throughout the match yields excellent results. Blizzard isn't having any of that. This buff should tone down Warrior vulnerability a tiny bit.

Intimidating Shout - Cooldown has been lowered from 3 min to 2 min.
What is there to say? This is one of the best peels a Warrior has in Arenas, and lowering the cooldown is a great way to improve their viability and survivability. Straightforward buff. Good times.

Defensive Stance - Now reduces damage caused by 5%. (Down from 10%)
This took us at WoW Insider some time to digest, but Eliah pointed out that this buffed Warrior damage while in Defensive Stance (we initially read it to mean that damage reduction was nerfed to 5%). It wasn't a necessary buff but Blizzard gave it, anyway. It turns out even Protection gets some love in this build.

Disarm - Now disarms the enemy's main hand and ranged weapons.
The new version now works similarly to Dismantle, and should help Warriors dominate Hunters even more. With Hunter representation in Arenas at an all-time high, and Warriors becoming more and more scarce, abilities like this contribute to evening things out. Ghostcrawler makes no secret about the changes this build -- they're aimed at PvP. He points out that Paladins are "extremely powerful in PvP right now", and that Warriors "are weak". A Disarm that also removes ranged weapons won't be needed against Paladins, but it sure as heck doesn't hurt.

Blizzard seems extremely serious about balancing things for PvP, and these changes -- every single one of them a buff -- all work together towards that goal. They also have some minor impact on PvE, but for the most part these just mean that Warriors should find themselves a little less gimped in PvP. Most of the Warrior builds 3.1 changes are just baby steps, but Shattering Throw is a giant leap forward. Enjoy this moment and hope that these changes (and more) make it live. Now run along and change those pants...

WoW Patch 3.1 PTR build 9658 Warrior changes

WoW Patch 3.1 PTR build 9658 Warrior changes - Matthew's caught up in the tangle of this thing called RL, so don't be surprised to have a different voice going over the Warrior changes this build. Don't worry, though, it looks as though most of the changes this round are aimed squarely at PvP, so I'm covering for him in the meantime. I'd like to call this build the Brown Pants Edition for PvP Warriors. Are you ready? Get a pair of brown pants, because you'll need them.

Battle Stance - Increases the armor penetration of all your attacks by 10%.

This is a straight up buff, and because Armor Penetration is a better PvP stat now than it is for PvE, this is clearly going to help. Considering armor reduction effects are now percentage-based, this buff is going to help quite a bit. Nothing exciting yet, right? Right. I hope you've got those brown pants on, because the next one is downright insane.

Shattering Throw *New Skill* - Throws your weapon at the enemy causing [ 50% of AP + 12 ] damage (based on attack power), reducing the armor on the target by 20% for 10 sec, and removing any invulnerabilities. 25 Rage, 30 yd range, 1.5 sec cast, 5 min cooldown

I just had to put that in bold letters and underline it. Aren't you glad I told you to wear brown? Warriors are now one of only two classes that can break a Paladin's Divine Shield or a Mage's Ice Block . It's a baseline ability , which means that all Warriors will have access to it. This improves Warrior viability in a Paladin-dominated Arena environment substantially. It's on the same cooldown as the aforementioned invulnerabilities, as well. This means that every time Paladins or Mages put them up, a Warrior can demolish it. Just in case you missed it -- Shattering Throw also deals damage and reduces armor (and it's likely used when in the armor penetrating Battle Stance!). Not only do you remove their precious invulnerabilities, you spank and strip them, too. That's just naughty.

Berserker Stance - Now increases all damage taken by 5% (Down from 10%)

Warriors are primary targets for an instagib in Arenas because Berserker Stance is just too painful. As the recent matches in the ESL Arena Tournament show, sitting on a Warrior throughout the match yields excellent results. Blizzard isn't having any of that. This buff should tone down Warrior vulnerability a tiny bit.

Intimidating Shout - Cooldown has been lowered from 3 min to 2 min.

What is there to say? This is one of the best peels a Warrior has in Arenas, and lowering the cooldown is a great way to improve their viability and survivability. Straightforward buff. Good times.

Defensive Stance - Now reduces damage caused by 5%. (Down from 10%)

This took us at WoW Insider some time to digest, but Eliah pointed out that this buffed Warrior damage while in Defensive Stance (we initially read it to mean that damage reduction was nerfed to 5%). It wasn't a necessary buff but Blizzard gave it, anyway. It turns out even Protection gets some love in this build.

Disarm - Now disarms the enemy's main hand and ranged weapons.

The new version now works similarly to Dismantle , and should help Warriors dominate Hunters even more. With Hunter representation in Arenas at an all-time high, and Warriors becoming more and more scarce, abilities like this contribute to evening things out. Ghostcrawler makes no secret about the changes this build -- they're aimed at PvP . He points out that Paladins are "extremely powerful in PvP right now" , and that Warriors "are weak" . A Disarm that also removes ranged weapons won't be needed against Paladins, but it sure as heck doesn't hurt.

Blizzard seems extremely serious about balancing things for PvP, and these changes -- every single one of them a buff -- all work together towards that goal. They also have some minor impact on PvE, but for the most part these just mean that Warriors should find themselves a little less gimped in PvP. Most of the changes are just baby steps, but Shattering Throw is a giant leap forward. Enjoy this moment and hope that these changes (and more) make it live. Now run along and change those pants...

Patch 3.1 PTR Patch Notes update

The official patch notes have been updated for the Patch 3.1 PTR. You can see a complete list of changes after the break, or take a look at the fully updated notes.

This update is much more substantial than the one we posted a couple nights ago. Nonetheless, it has been added to our Patch 3.1 patch notes archive. Via the archive you can also view other iterations of the patch notes to see how things have changed.

As always, these notes should be considered incomplete (it's in bold because we can't say it enough). A number of things that are on the PTR are not reflected in the patch notes, and several things that will eventually be on the PTR aren't in the notes either (many of the class changes, for example).

General

• New high-resolution player textures for Northrend armor sets have been added. Players can enable this feature by setting Player Textures to High in the Effects Panel of the Video Options.


• Players can now return items purchased with an alternate currency back to the original vendor within 2 hours of the purchase time for the original cost of the item. Stackable items (such as Frozen Orbs and gems) and charged items that can be purchased with an alternate currency are not eligible.


• Confirmation boxes have been added to purchases over 150 gold.


• Copied Test Realm characters will no longer be copied with their achievement history in order to better facilitate the character copy process.

Death Knight

Blood

• Abomination's Might: This effect can now also be caused by Death Strike.
  
• Magic Suppression: Now has 3 ranks (down from 5) for 2/4/6% magic damage reduction.


• New talent: Improved Death Strike. Increases Death Strike damage by 10/20.


• Outbreak: Increases the damage of Plague Strike by 15/30/45% and Scourge Strike by 10/20/30%. Scourge Strike: Damage increased.

Druid

• Lifebloom: Mana cost of all ranks doubled. When Lifebloom blooms or is dispelled, it now refunds half the base mana cost of the spell per application of Lifebloom, and the heal effect is multiplied by the number of applications.


• Maim: This ability is now considered a stun, and shares a diminish category with all other stuns. It no longer has a chance to break from the target taking damage. Duration lowered to 1 sec. per combo point.
  
• Heart of the Wild: Stamina bonus changed to 2/4/6/8/10%.
  
• Intensity: Now grants 17/33/50% of mana regeneration while casting.

Hunters

• Ammunition: All types of gun and bow ammunition now stack to 1000. All quivers and ammo pouches no longer provide haste. 15% ranged haste is now built in to Hunter Autoshot.


• Call Stabled Pet: This new ability lets the hunter remotely access the stable. 30 min cooldown.


• Cunning, Ferocity and Tenacity pets now all have +5% damage, +5% armor and +5% health bonuses. This should make more pet families feel viable, while additional talents have been added to distinguish a pet's abilities based on its specializations.


• Disengage: Cooldown increased by 5 sec.


• Pets now inherit more spell hit from the hunter. Pets with magic attacks should not require a player to stack additional hit compared to pets with physical attacks.


• Viper Sting re-designed: Stings the target, draining 4% of mana over 8 sec (up to a maximum of 8% of the caster's maximum mana), and energizing the Hunter equal to 300% of the amount drained. Only one Sting per Hunter can be active on any one target.


• Explosive Shot: Base damage lowered by 10%. Attack power scaling reduced by 12.5%.

Hunter Pets

• Bullheaded now adds 20% damage reduction for 12 sec along with its current CC-removal effect.


• Cornered: The crit reduction when this ability is active has been increased.


• Feeding Frenzy increased to 8/16% damage up from 6/12%.


• Furious Howl (wolf special ability) now stacks with Battle Shout and Blessing of Might, however, it only affects the wolf and hunter. Its effect and cooldown have been doubled so that it provides the same benefit but isn't up 100% of the time.


• Gorillas now have a new family ability, Pummel, which works like the warrior ability and has a single rank.


• Grace of the Mantis and Roar of Sacrifice are now also available to Cunning pets.


• New Talent: Shark Attack: This new two-rank talent is available to Ferocity pets. It increases pet damage.


• New Talent: Silverback: This new two-rank talent is available to Tenacity pets. It heals the pet when Growl is used.


• New Talent: Wild Hunt: This new two-rank talent is available to all 3 pet trees. It increases the stamina and attack power inherited from the hunter.


• Roar of Recovery cooldown decreased to 3 min, down from 6 min.


• Thunderstomp is no longer a gorilla-specific family ability and is now available to all Tenacity pets. It has been reduced to one rank.

Mage

• Mage Armor: Now grants 50% of mana regeneration while casting.
  
• Arcane Meditation: Now grants 17/33/50% of mana regeneration while casting.


• Pyromaniac: Now grants 17/33/50% of mana regeneration while casting.

Paladin

• Improved Concentration Aura: The resistance to silence and interrupt granted by this talent now becomes active when any Aura is used, not just Concentration Aura.
  


• Improved Devotion Aura: The additional healing granted by this talent now becomes active when any Aura is used, not just Devotion Aura.


• Divine Protection: Cooldown reduced to 3 min.


• Sanctified Retribution: The bonus to damage done granted by this talent now becomes active when any Aura is used, not just Retribution Aura.

Priest

• Meditation and Improved Power: Word shield have changed locations with each other.


• Meditation: Now grants 17/33/50% of mana regeneration while casting


• Renewed Hope: This talent also now allows you to proc the Renewed Hope buff on all party/raid members every time you cast Power Word: Shield, reducing damage taken by 3%. Lasts 20 sec.
  


• Psychic Horror: Has been redesigned and is now a 1-pt talent. You terrify the target, causing them to tremble in horror for 3 sec. and drop all weapons (disarm effect: including bows) for 10 sec. 1 minute cooldown. Instant cast. The horror effect can be dispelled, but the disarm cannot.


• Improved Spirit Tap: Now grants 17/33% of mana regeneration while casting.


• Spirit Tap: Now grants 83% of mana regeneration while casting.

Rogue

• Shiv: This ability can no longer generate a critical strike, and the poisons it applies cannot be critical strikes either.

Shaman

Enhancement

• Unleashed Rage: Reduced to 3 points, down from 5. Each point now also increases your total Expertise by 3/6/9%.

Warlock

• Drain Soul: Each time Drain Soul deals damage to a target which can grant experience, it now has a chance to generate a Soul Shard.


• Soul Shard: This item now has a maximum count of 32 in inventory.

Warrior

• Charge: Duration of stun effect now lasts 1.5 sec. This effect no longer has diminishing returns.
• Last Stand: Cooldown reduced to 3 min.
  

User Interface

• Spell Effect Level setting has been split into Particle Density and Projected Textures. Previously, Spell Effect Level controlled both of these features.


• Added new Video Mode Ultra (should only be used on the highest-end systems).

Items

• Hearthstone: Cooldown has been reduced to 30 min. down from 60 min.

Glyphs


Death Knight

• Glyph of Blood Boil: Now only applies a snare to diseased targets.


• Glyph of Dancing Rune Weapon: Increases the duration of Dancing Rune Weapon by 10 sec.


• Glyph of Death Coil: Reduces the cost of Death Coil by 8 runic power.


• Glyph of Disease: Your Pestilence ability now refreshes disease durations on your primary target back to their maximum duration.


• Glyph of Howling Blast: Your Howling Blast ability now infects your targets with Frost Fever.


• Glyph of Hungering Cold: Reduces the cost of Hungering Cold by 10 runic power.


• Glyph of Plague Strike: Bonus lowered to 20%.


• Glyph of Unholy Blight: Increases the duration of Unholy Blight by 10 sec.

Druid

• Glyph of Berserk: Increases the duration of Berserk by 5 sec


• Monsoon Glyph: Reduces the cooldown of your Typhoon spell by 3 sec.


• Glyph of Nourish: Your Nourish heals an additional 6% for each of your heal over time effects present on the target.


• Glyph of Savage Roar: Your Savage Roar ability grants an additional 6% bonus damage done.


• Glyph of Wild Growth: Wild Growth now affects up to 6 targets.


• Glyph of Shred: Now increases remaining duration on Rip by 2 sec. each time it is used, up to a maximum of 6 sec.

Hunter

• Glyph of Chimera Shot: Reduces the cooldown of Chimera Shot by 1 sec.


• Glyph of Explosive Shot: Increases the critical strike chance of Explosive Shot by 4%.


• Glyph of Explosive Trap: The periodic damage from your Explosive Trap can now be critical strikes.


• Glyph of Kill Shot: Reduces the cooldown of Kill Shot by 6 sec.


• Glyph of Raptor Strike: For 3 sec. after using Raptor Strike, you take 20% less damage.


• Glyph of Scatter Shot: Increases the range of Scatter Shot by 3 yards.

Mage

• Glyph of Arcane Barrage: Reduces the mana cost of Arcane Barrage by 20%.


• Glyph of Deep Freeze: Increases the range of Deep Freeze by 10 yards.


• Glyph of Ice Barrier: Increases the amount of damage absorbed by your Ice Barrier by 30%.


• Glyph of Living Bomb: The periodic damage from your Living Bomb can now be critical strikes.


• Glyph of Mirror Image: Your Mirror Images gain the Winter's Chill talent, granting their Frostbolt spell a 100% chance to apply the Winter's Chill effect, which increases the chance spells will critically hit the target by 1% for 15 sec. Stacks up to 5 times.

Paladin

• Glyph of Beacon of Light: Increases the duration of Beacon of Light by 30 sec.


• Glyph of Divine Plea: While Divine Plea is active, you take 3% reduced damage from all sources.


• Glyph of Divine Storm: Your Divine Storm now heals for an additional 15% of the damage it causes.


• Glyph of Hammer of the Righteous: Your Hammer of the Righteous hits 1 additional target.


• Glyph of Hand of Salvation: When you cast Hand of Salvation on yourself, it also reduces damage taken by 20%.


• Glyph of Holy Shock: Reduces the cooldown of Holy Shock by 1 sec.


• Glyph of Shield of Righteousness: Reduces the mana cost of Shield of Righteousness by 80%.

Priest

• Glyph of Dispersion: Reduces the cooldown on Dispersion by 45 sec.


• Glyph of Fade: Now reduces cooldown by 9 sec.


• Glyph of Guardian Spirit: If you Guardian Spirit lasts its entire duration without being triggered, your Guardian Spirit cooldown is reset to 60 sec.


• Glyph of Holy Light: Can no longer crit and has had its range updated.


• Glyph of Hymn of Hope: Your Hymn of hope provides 2 times the normal amount of mana per time, but its duration is 50% shorter.


• Glyph of Mind Sear: Increases the radius of effect on Mind Sear by 5 yards.


• Glyph of Pain Suppression: Allows Pain Suppression to be cast while stunned.


• Glyph of Penance: Reduces the cooldown of Penance by 2 sec.

Rogue

• Glyph of Backstab: Now increases remaining duration on Rupture by 2 sec. each time it is used, up to a maximum of 6 sec.


• Glyph of Cloak of Shadows: While Cloak of Shadows is active, you take 40% less physical damage.


• Glyph of Fan of Knives: Increases the damage done by Fan of Knives by 20%.


• Glyph of Hunger for Blood: Increases the bonus damage from Hunger For Blood by 3%.


• Glyph of Killing Spree: Reduces the cooldown on Killing Spree by 45 sec.


• Glyph of Mutilate: Reduces the cost of Mutilate by 5 energy.


• Glyph of Shadow Dance: Increases the duration of Shadow Dance by 4 sec.


• Glyph of Sprint: No longer reduces the duration.


• Glyph of Tricks of the Trade: Your Tricks of the Trade grants an additional 10% bonus damage to your target.

Shaman

• Glyph of Earth Shield: Increases the amount healed by your Earth Shield by 20%.


• Glyph of Feral Spirit: Your spirit wolves gain an additional 30% of your attack power.


• Glyph of Hex: Increases the damage your Hex target can take before the Hex effect is removed by 20%.


• Glyph of Riptide: Increases the duration of Riptide by 3 sec.


• Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem: Your Stoneclaw Totem also places a damage absorb shield on you, equal to 4 times the strength of the shield it places on your totems.


• Glyph of Thunder: Reduces the cooldown on Thunderstorm by 7 sec.


• Glyph of Totem of Wrath: When you cast Totem of Wrath, you gain 30% of the totem's bonus spell power for 5 min.

Warlock

• Glyph of Chaos Bolt: Reduces the cooldown on Chaos Bolt by 2 sec.


• Glyph of Demonic Circle: Reduces the cooldown on Demonic Circle by 4 sec.


• Glyph of Haunt: The bonus damage granted by your Haunt spell is increased by an additional 3%.


• Glyph of Life Tap: When you use Life Tap, you gain 20% of your spirit as spell power for 20 sec.


• Glyph of Metamorphosis: Increases the duration of your Metamorphosis by 6 sec.


• Glyph of Shadowflame: Your Shadowflame also applies a 70% movement speed slow on its victims.


• Glyph of Soul Link: Increases the percentage of damage shared via your Soul Link by an additional 5%.

Warrior

• Glyph of Bladestorm: Reduces the cooldown on Bladestorm by 15 sec.


• Glyph of Enraged Regeneration: Your Enraged Regeneration ability heals for an additional 10% of your health over its duration.


• Glyph of Last Stand: Now reduces the cooldown of Last Stand by 90 sec.


• Glyph of Shield Wall: Reduces the cooldown on Shield Wall by 3 min, but Shield Wall now only reduces damage taken by 40%.


• Glyph of Shockwave: Reduces the cooldown on Shockwave by 3 sec.


• Glyph of Spell Reflection: Reduces the cooldown on Spell Reflection by 1 sec.


• Glyph of Vigilance: Your Vigilance ability transfers an additional 5% of your target's threat to you.

Bug Fixes

• Leaving a group while in an instance will now port you to the nearest graveyard rather than your Hearthstone location.


• Mace of Unending Life is correctly a 2H weapon.

Death Knight

• Dancing Rune Weapon: Fixed a bug making it trigger an unusual number of effects from the weapon equipped by the Death Knight. In addition, it will now only echo Death Knight spells whose primary purpose is dealing damage. Also corrected a bug making the effect last 8 seconds longer than intended.

Hunter

• Savage Rend (raptor special ability): Fixed a tooltip error to correctly note this ability boosts damage rather than attack power.