Patch 2.3 and you: Warrior edition [UPDATE: Weapon Mastery nerfed]
by Eliah Hecht 
Sep 26th 2007 at 7:10PM
What, you thought just because no one understands your job you were going to be excluded from the patch 2.3 love-fest? Not a chance. Get in here, meatshields! (See below for the new Weapon Mastery nerf.)- [Warrior] Yes, we do plan to reduce the chance for Mace Specialization to occur in patch 2.3, but it will provide 7 rage instead of 6. (Bornakk)
- [Warrior] We also plan to have healing reduction effects affect all drain spells and abilities. As the example that most people bring up, Mortal Strike will affect Drain Life. (Bornakk)
- [Warrior] While arms/fury warriors aren't meant to be as good as protection warriors at tanking, we do plan to make an additional to Tactical Mastery that may help them out. This talent will grant greatly increased threat from Mortal Strike and Bloodthirst when in Defensive Stance. (Bornakk)
- [Warrior] It may also simplify things a bit to when we make Devastate combine the effects of Sunder Armor into it's effect and be affected by all talents and items that affect Sunder Armor. We plan to make this happen in 2.3. (Bornakk)
Update: Since posting this, a new change has come to light. And it isn't a happy one.
- The Arms talent Weapon Mastery is going to be significantly changed. Instead of providing 50/100% chance to avoid Disarm effects, it is going to reduce the duration of Disarm effects by 25/50%. The reason for this is that having full immunity with this talent really took the idea of disarming out of the game and we want it to be more viable. (Bornakk)
Filed under: Warrior, Patches, News items, Forums
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Wind Jun 18th 2008 7:33PM
Blizz stinks, they are wasting this warrior's time and money, I didn't make a warrior and bring him to lvl 70 to be toyed with by the other classes. Every close encounter with warrior should bring a fear into the other classes, instead we are mocked and toyed with, beat-down in PvP, Blizz sucks. The other classes should feel lucky and talented to have beaten a warrior, they laugh when they see you coming. I am about to votes with my dollars, because the warrior is for me. . . and warrior needing buffs at this point not nerfs
G Rat Sep 26th 2007 10:46PM
Mace stun nerf FTL.
Marcus Sep 26th 2007 7:24PM
I think that means Devistate will get the same buffs and debuffs from items and affects that Sunder does. How much of a buff is this really?
Matthew Rossi Sep 26th 2007 7:26PM
The mace spec change is a nerf. It's probably a necessary nerf to bring mace spec into line with the other weapon spec substyles, but yes, it's a nerf.
Gill Sep 26th 2007 7:46PM
I like that tactical mastery change!
petre Sep 26th 2007 7:54PM
The macespec change stinks, I really like that prod rate, especially with deep thunder. The change to tactical mastery is useless, if you use MS or Bloodthirst when tanking you are wrong since HS causes more threat. It would be nice if they now get the same aggro or more than HS.
Azureus Sep 26th 2007 8:15PM
oh I am not a happy camper about that Weapon Mastery change....
Whitburn Sep 26th 2007 8:22PM
How unnecessary all of that was; especially the disarm nerf.
A good melee class (or spec) could kill an arms warrior disarmed or not. This just unbalances meleer pvp as I see it which to my mind was perfectly fine
And if a warrior wants to tank, spec to prot. I feel as if nothing is earned anymore in this damn game, free epics from arena,and now free protection spec for all warriors. The way I see it why not go the whole hog and give every class 180 talent points.
And I'll repeat - these changes are completely unnecessary. A failed attempt by Blizzard to make it seem they are trying to fix the warrior class.
hpavc Sep 26th 2007 8:57PM
If imp Sunder may reduce the rage cost of Devastate as well that would be amazing.
Ehrgeiz Sep 26th 2007 8:57PM
Great more nerfs making more of a warriors talents worthless. Why do I still waste my time with this class when its clear all warriors are intended to do is tank anymore.
Rich Sep 26th 2007 9:11PM
"And what do you think about the Mace Spec change: buff or nerf, overall?"
You don't play a Warrior, I see. It's a big big nerf. One extra rage on the proc is nothing. If they'd made it 15 or 20 instead of 6, that would be something, but unless they're only reducing procs by 14%, people will still see less rage overall from mace spec now.
The TM changes are nice...when I tank the first boss in Heroic Mech I don't even use Shield Block because I need more rage for threat to let my group beat the 3 min enrage timer. That said, using a 1h tank weapon and in tank gear, MS barely hits harder than Revenge, so we'll have to see if it ends up being rage:threat efficient.
Ferocious Sep 26th 2007 9:55PM
MS affecting Health draining effects? doesnt make much sense to me,they can already be dispelled and reduced when the damage gets reduced.
I guess devs didnt want any class to stand chance 1vs1 to warriors.
Heraclea Sep 27th 2007 1:25AM
I'd still like to be able to tank for guild members when needed without speccing Prot.
Warrior tanking was no fun anymore, which is why I dropped Prot to begin with. I tried tanking too many pickup groups and got burnt out, I think. Warrior tanking feels like you aren't playing against the monsters who are trying to kill you. Warrior tanking is a demented contest, a race against your teammates, with you on a bicycle and them riding motorcycles, where they chivalrously agree to give you a ten yard head start.
The Tactical Mastery change makes me wonder, where are the extra points going to come from? What can I afford to lose? Precision? - could be overcome with gems and enchantments, perhaps.
The Disarm nerf looks like it is mostly PvP oriented, and so it won't touch me. Few PvE oriented warriors I know of specced Weapon Mastery so they would not be disarmed by PvE opponents.
Savok Sep 27th 2007 1:57AM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7HbqGzO1Bo
I find the video somewhat appropriate.
Paul Sep 27th 2007 2:17AM
Mace Proc = nerf
Healing reduction = warlock nerf, not warrior buff
Non-Prot Tanking = who cares? most dps warriors don't know squat about tanking and no talent changes will make them better
Devastate/Sunder Armor = uhh what? How about making Devastate work as described in the tooltip first.
Weapon Mastery = obvious nerf
soo where's this so called love?
Greeneyed Sep 27th 2007 3:19AM
What the hell? Why did they add additional threat to mortal strike and bloodthirst IF you have tactical mastery? That's retarded. A lot of people skip tactical mastery with a pure dps build. And this won't solve the problem of having to respec for pvp and pve every night. A lot of pvp warriors skip tactical mastery to get 3/5 flurry. Why don't they just buff sunder threat and call it a day?
Grrr I hate these devs and their pseudo buffs. Atleast if they're gonna make this change they should put tactical mastery back in the arms tree. It should be trainable to begin with.
Not too thrilled about the disarm change either. I'll have to get a weapon chain again and I'll be losing 70 atack power. Or I'll have to buy the disarm immune gloves which have no resilience.
Anteia Sep 27th 2007 3:25AM
Ugh. They're already making warriors suck. We have little to no 'neat' abilities. The one thing I always DID love was that nothing could disarm me and that snaring me gave me life back through Second Wind...now things will be able to disarm me again? BLEH. The way this is getting, I'm seriously going to wind up making my boomkin my main and abandoning my warrior. Good going, Blizz. Way to fix the supposed tanking problem- Make being a warrior suck even more. -_-
Greeneyed Sep 27th 2007 3:33AM
They're going about the mace spec nerf the wrong way. I have a season 2 mace and I can verify personally that it barely ever procs. Maybe once per match. It's the Stormheralds and Deep Thunders that were out of control. If anything mace spec needed a buff. And how is it fair to nerf warrior mace spec but not rogues? My healers complain a lot more about combat mace rogues than they do about stormherald warriors.
I also hope they buff the pvp weapons swing timers from 3.6 to 3.8
nea Sep 27th 2007 4:00AM
"Tactical Mastery is a choice".
Patch 2.3:
"We want to buff arms and fury tanking, so we will buff Tactical Mastery, which is PROTECTION talent, to make it even more must have talent for anyone who even thinks about doing any pve at all. Oh, yes, it's still a choice."
Trudie Sep 27th 2007 5:25AM
I quote #6 - "And if a warrior wants to tank, spec to prot. I feel as if nothing is earned anymore in this damn game, free epics from arena,and now free protection spec for all warriors. "
This small change is hardly a "free protection spec for all warriors." And excuse me, but any dps warrior with half of a brain can tank non-heroics fine. And this, I believe, is the way it should be. I don't mind helping guildies in non heroic mechanar complete a few quests for their alts without having to drop tons of gold respeccing. Don't argue that I shouldn't be able to do this. Just don't.