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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsThe Care and Feeding of Warriors: This is the year that was
by Matthew Rossi 
Jan 4th 2008 at 1:00PM
The Care and Feeding of Warriors strides forth like a colossus, possibly my favorite X-Man because he's the team tank (I also kind of like Cyclops because he can shoot people with his eyes, which is just cool) to present you, the reader, with an overview of the year in warrioring. No, warrioring isn't a word. Yes, Matthew Rossi knows he can't just make up words whenever he feels like it.
Ah, 2007. A roistering, boistering year. What? No, I'm pretty sure boistering is a word. You can't find it in the OED, you say? Look again, I'm sure it's in there.
So what can we say about what's gone on the past year for warriors? The big changes (to my admittedly jaundiced eye) were the total overhaul of the honor system, the addition of the Arenas, allowing Thunderclap in defensive stance (a tacit admission that warriors were deficient multi-mob tanks compared to druids and paladins), the nerf to Thunderfury's aggro (okay, not so much important as just kinda sad), and rage normalization.
The change to the honor system (taking place in December of 2006) caused a flood of poorly geared warriors, my tauren among them, to flood the BG's looking to improve their gear. I know at the time I was fed up with running instances for marginal upgrades and then losing the rolls on those items (items I'd already collected twice on two previous 70 warriors) over and over again. While the old system forced you to grind for ranks on a ladder week in, week out, the new system simply allowed you to collect honor and marks . While a lot of long time PvPers protested seeing the same gear they'd sweated for suddenly available to more people, in general it was a positive change allowing a lot of players to step through the Dark Portal with better gear than they otherwise would have had. In the time between 2.0.1 and the actually release of The Burning Crusade, I managed to get a whole set of PvP blues and a couple of epics, and I wasn't really running the battlegrounds all that much.
Rage normalization, on the other hand, was a giant kick in the teeth. I'm still angry about it a year later. To me, rage normalization was the biggest change of 2007, the earliest screw up in the class balance, and is still felt the most almost a year later.
Rage is generated by taking and dealing damage. However, 2.0.1 introduced rage normalization, which changed the way dealing damage would generate rage. Previous to that change, it was effectively linear - the more damage you did, the more rage you got. (I realize this is an oversimplification.) Now, this would have been broken if it had continued into TBC, I'm not arguing that rage didn't need to be normalized. However, when 2.0.1 rolled out, rage normalization was set too low, leading to many warriors (especially tanking warriors, with their higher defense and damage mitigation, meaning that they weren't generating as much rage from taking damage) being literally starved for rage. A warrior starved for rage can't tank effectively, and combined with a lack of sustainable AoE tanking options (switching stances to Battle to pop thunder clap was at best a workaround, since just switching stances costs you rage, and rage is what we were starved of) you saw a decline in warrior tanks. During the crucial period between the launch of the game and until March of 2007, in fact, warriors almost became obsolete as tanks. Groups prefered druids and paladins as tanks in the new five man instances, as they didn't have to stand around and wait, and wait, and wait for the rage-starved warrior tank to finally generate enough rage to get solid aggro, a problem exacerbated by the combination of having to tank three or more mobs fairly often and having no real way aside from tab targeting and sunder/devastate spamming to hold aggro on them. (The high rage cost of Shield Slam made it fairly hard to use in these situations.)
Luckily, in patch 2.0.10 this was to some degree fixed. The Rage Normalization equations were adjusted upwards to allow for more rage generation (I believe these are the current formulas), and several smaller buffs were implemented (1% crit increase, thunder clap in defensive stance, a buff to Commanding Shout) that made tanking easier in the new instances. However, thanks to the Arenas being implemented at the same time, a lot of warriors seemed to have given up on tanking by this point. If anything came close to souring me on the game to the point where I would have stopped playing, it was the drastic negative effects that I witnessed, not only on my own warriors but on warriors I'd known for more than a year previously. Watching them stop tanking, or worse, stop playing entirely over this issue. The ones who stuck it out showed that common trait of stubbornness that seems to form the bedrock of all warriors. We're ornery cusses, I guess.
Warrior dominance in arenas has been commented on before. We're certainly a very common presence in there. But rather than seeing this as a sign of warriors being overpowered I've always viewed it as a consequence of the opening months of 2007. Quite frankly, druids and paladins were finally viable tanks for the new instances, which was fine and good. Nothing wrong with that. However, for those crucial weeks when the rush of 60's heading into Outland were first looking for tanks, warriors weren't. This is easily seen reflected in the changes from patch 2.0.10: warriors were behind in rage generation (since, unlike a bear druid, they had higher total mitigation meaning that they couldn't generate rage as quickly) and their inability to provide much in the way of snap group aggro meant that groups were preferring to use the new tanks which didn't force them to wait and wait and wait for aggro to be established. Since we know that warriors were and still are one of the most played classes in the game, what were they expected to do? Were all warriors going to reroll druids and paladins over that six week or so period when they simply couldn't tank nearly as effectively against the trash in the new instances?
No, they didn't do that. Instead, they went out and PvP'd. They ran BG's, they did world PvP in Halaa, and as they hit 70 they formed arena teams. Since the rage normalization effect wasn't nearly so pronounced for non-tanking warriors, they were still quite capable in PvP, and by the time the situation was addressed the domino effect couldn't be stopped. Meanwhile, warrior supremacy as single target tanks still hasn't gone anywhere, meaning that a lot of tanking druids and paladins got disenchanted and stopped doing it when bosses made hash of them (a lot stayed, upgraded their gear, and are stellar tanks now) so we have the current situation where DPS and PvP warriors don't see a need for them to tank, there aren't enough druid and paladin tanks (each class being about half as populous as warriors) to make up the difference, and those few warriors who stuck with the class through the rage normalization drought usually end up tanking for their guilds instead of PuG's. So yes, I credit the rise of the PvP warrior and blame the tank shortage on rage normalization, specifically the mistakenly low original rage normalization formulas.
It hasn't been all bad this year... clearly, patch 2.0.10 fixed a lot of problems... but aside from Flurry being nerfed in 2.1.0, the weird back and forward changes to Sword spec, and the changes to the warrior arms and fury trees in 2.3.0 (well, okay, there was also that sweet change to Devastate meaning that my tanking warriors could finally take Sunder off of their bars) warriors haven't changed all that much. We got new talents and abilities back at the beginning of the year like Victory Rush, Spell Reflection and Intervene, but those haven't been altered or buffed much at all. Warriors still seem to believe that the 41 point talents in both the Arms and Fury trees aren't all that great for PvP, although Rampage seems to be getting some love from DPS warriors in PvE at least. There were several changes later in the year that were very nice (Taunt getting benefits from hit rating, Tactical Mastery increasing threat for the signature instant attacks from the Arms and Fury trees when in Defensive Stance to try and help non-prot tanking, probably to encourage more PvP and DPS warriors to try tanking for PuGs) but nothing earth shaking. Generally, since March, warriors haven't changed much at all. Patch 2.3.0 saw some confusing juggling of talents and a few changes to how disarm works and introduced the Expertise mechanic, the biggest change to the class since 2.0.10.
It's hard to properly rate how things like the new Blacksmithing weapons and armor affected the warrior class. Mace Specialization in PvP would never have been so attractive without the crafted maces, that's certain, as Stormherald's popularity shows us. Warriors as such a gear dependent class can only benefit from 'sure' upgrades, that is to say, upgrades one can quest for, PvP for or craft rather than having to hope for a random drop and then either spending DKP furiously or hope a dice roll goes their way. Certainly in 2007 it's been easier than ever to get reasonable gear for your warrior, and the move of Arena Season 1 gear to the honor system has been the icing on the cake for warriors looking to get equipment with the least rigid investment of time. Both the craftable gear and the PvP gear affects other classes as well, of course, which is why it's hard to rate how warriors were affected by it, but in general I'd have to say they were positive changes to the class.
Now that we're moving into 2008, what I'd most like to see is the last lingering bad effects of the original poor implementation of rage normalization swept away - more warriors tanking and willing to tank would be a positive change, in my opinion. PvP can continue as it is, and the DPS warrior will always be a factor, but warriors need to step it up and tank more often to show themselves that they've finally recovered, that warriors do in fact have all the tools now to tank anything in the game. Those of us who were burned, come on back to tanking, it's actually fun again. If you're that special kind of masochist who likes tanking, anyway.
So that's my year in review. Feel free to use the comments to discuss the big changes of 2007, including the ones I just know I missed.
Filed under: Warrior, Blacksmithing, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, (Warrior) The Care and Feeding of Warriors, Battlegrounds, Arena
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 3)
Matthew Rossi Jan 4th 2008 2:09PM
See, your comment is true now. But the change back in 2.10.0 is what makes it true now: a lot of people hit 70 before those changes went live. (I hit 70 twice, as a matter of fact, on my human and tauren warriors.) And back then, even with the blacksmithing epic 1h sword rage was just pitiful in tanking gear, and the lack of thunderclap in defensive stance hurt. It hurt a lot.
Nowadays, it's just inertia. People who gave up tanking for PvP or DPS don't see a need to go back.
nalthien Jan 4th 2008 2:22PM
Spoken like someone who has never played a warrior. As armor / mitigation scales upward, a warrior's ability to generate rage (required to generate threat) actually decreases. In my epics, I am LESS effective at tanking a regular 70 instance run than I was in my blues. I require a lot less healing--but I generate a lot less threat.
Prot warrior rage generation is based almost entirely on TAKING damage--not dealing damage.
B Lee Jan 4th 2008 2:50PM
To add to Nalthien's point, warriors have two major conflicting points regarding their tanking style. As you know, bears use high armor, stamina and dodge to tank (possibly in that order of reliance). Warriors on the other hand use miss mechanics as their primary means of tanking - +defense grants dodge, parry, blocking to remove crit, armor and stamina. The difference is that when you get hit, you generate rage. When you don't get hit, you get none. Our gear gets better, but we'll tank worse because we're getting hit much less. For druids, their gear scales but it mostly means they get hit FOR less, as opposed to getting hit less often.
Now consider aggro generation, which is hinged on rage generation. Unlike warriors, Druids have a high crit rate even while tanking, and that their crits generate additional rage via talents (a Swipe that crits all 3 of its targets makes the Swipe absolutely free - it's also off the swing timer and spammable unlike Cleave). It all adds up to a tank that is capable of generating and maintaining aggro easily, is hard to kill, is able to add more damage to the group's targets, and has a steady supply of rage to continue doing his or her job.
I'm not saying Warriors are bad tanks - I'm just saying that for a class that was originally designed to be the tank, we have it much tougher than our furry hybrid counterparts.
superfrank Jan 4th 2008 10:34PM
Nalthien I think I didn't make myself clear. What I'm saying is, you're a level 60 nub tank in ramparts you're probably short on rage, but by the time Gruul is smacking you you have plenty of rage. The well-known rage starvation problem when warriors outgear instances isn't really relevant to this, and incidentally I think the benefits of having a stronger weapon speak for themselves when your rage bar is at 0.
Gyr Jan 5th 2008 3:43AM
B Lee, some of the problems plaguing warriors are unfortunately the very same that plague bear tanks. An endgame bear will scale primarily by stacking agility (indeed, past the armor cap, agility is the ONLY way for our mitigation to scale), and a raiding bear tank in good gear will typically have 40-55% dodge. As our gear improves, we're certainly taking less damage from the hits that actually land, but we're increasingly not getting hit at all. I've hit 0 rage on tier 5 raid bosses (my guild's about to hit Kael and I've tanked just about everything but him) after an unlucky dodge streak too often to count. Heroics are getting markedly more frustrating as a result, because the amount of rage that is necessary to hold aggro against well-geared dps (even those being ultra-careful about their aggro) VASTLY exceeds the amount of rage you can realistically expect to generate when you actually need it. Frankly I think rage generation for both warriors and bears could use a look; I don't think anyone can really argue that it's not a flawed mechanic when better gears results in a much more frustrating experience tanking.
Swipe is far less useful for aggro generation than people tend to believe it is, btw. Even in a normal (let alone heroic) dungeon it's not going to hold a mob against dps aggro; in a heroic, it's not even going to hold aggro against your healer. If my group isn't heavy on CC, I use Swipe to gain mob attention and buy some time against healing aggro at the very beginning of a pull, and after that it's a marathon of tab-targeting. TPS-wise Swipe is now virtually useless for aggro until a bear is sitting on several pieces of tier and clears 2K AP - and even after that, due to the 2.0.1 nerf, it's arguably more useful because, as you note, Swipe has a separate chance to crit on every mob it hits (up to 3) and add or at least refund some precious rage.
A number of druids continue to complain that the heavy nerf to bear health and damage arrived at a time where the issue was simply one of itemization; new feral gear at 70 was simply better than the warrior counterpart (still is, imo). But that's an issue for a different day.
coop Jan 4th 2008 3:07PM
TBC and its 25-man raids have left the DPS warriors out in the cold. Why bring a DPS warrior when you can use a rogue with better dps? The only situation where DPS warriors are useful is in Mount Hyjal. You need the extra tanks for all the trash waves, but you don't have time in between the last wave and the boss to port out a prot tank for a rogue. So you can use the dps warrior to tank the trash, then in between the last wave and the boss, the dps warrior is out of combat and switches to dps gear.
I understand that some of you may argue that dps warriors have enough dps to justify a spot in the raid. DPS warriors + (raid buffs i.e. Imp Battle Shout) would increase total raid dps, but the increase would still be less than just having a rogue. If Blizz put Blood Frenzy (boss debuff that increases all physical damage taken by 4%) in the Fury tree, then fury dps warriors may be viable.
I played a dps warrior in vanilla wow. I leveled as fury dps in TBC, but I promptly spec'ed to Protection. I was sad to not reprise my role as dps, but I enjoy Prot more than I expected. Even the farming isn't bad. As a Prot warrior, your main dps comes from Shield Slam. Shield Slam damage is modified by your Shield Block Value (SBV). For farming, I equip any tank gear that has SBV then replace the rest with dps gear. So I am maximizing my shield slam with SBV and supplementing my weapon dps with dps gears. My dps isnt stellar, but the difference in DPS and DTS (damage taken per second) is phenomenal. I can farm ten minutes non-stop (for example the nethermines) without having to eat. So the time saving is in the fact that I am not haivng to stop and eat after every second or third mob (maybe more) like a dps warrior.
Finally, my biggest wish for warriors: remove the global cooldown (GCD) from Shield Bash. Many, many situations require the tank to counterspell (CS). In these situations, if you are the only CS, then the tank has to spam Heroic Strike only (HS does not trigger GCD) and sit on the Shield Bash button. This situation is very counter-productive to generating threat.
MartinC Jan 4th 2008 3:28PM
Paladins are good for trash, Warriors are still top choice for bosses. I don't see that changing anytime soon.
Also, with the right gear a Prot warrior can put out as much DPS as a Feral druid. If there was one thing I wish I had known about earlier, it would have been to start collecting DPS gear earlier on my Prot warrior. Originally I ignored anything DPS related, as all I did was tank. Then after getting more into raiding, I realized there were many situations where I needed to DPS, and thus had to backpeddle and start collecting all my DPS gear, which ideally I should have had already.
Bart Jan 4th 2008 3:29PM
Matthew Rossi seems to blame the low number of warriors tank to rage normalization, but there are a lot of other factors that IMHO should be even more responsible for this tank shortage:
- first, tanking is not as simple as smashing buttons. Its basically a L2P problem, if a dps war thinks he can start tanking just because he can, he will have to wipe a lot to learn its not that simple.
- about gear: quests, 5-10-25 instances, and even PVP offers you choices on gear, and if you prioritize dps gear, your tank gear will be obviously inferior and most time not suitable for the tanking tasks.
- about gameplay: its really, really, really boring to be a tank, on most cases you are the one paying more repair, you are not a good solo farmer, questing is sometimes harder or even impossible, pvping is a pain, and so on. Thats why a lot of tanks respecs only for raiding, its like an secret identity, during the day they are dps, and during the night the main tank of some guild.
- greed for power: for me its the main reason, everyone wants to do epic things to own someone else, to crush and resist a lot, and a dps war is really capable of doing all of that. A tank is a weaker char on a lor of terms, and being weak is not that good.
But, why do warriors want to be the main dps and the main tank class ? its like natural that if you can get one you cant get the other, but doesn't it seems logical that if you want to be the best on one thing, you can assume the penalty of being the worst on the other ?
But, from my point of view this game have several class balance problems, imagine an RPG charactersheet where you have like a certain number of points to distribute between doing damage, resist damage and healing.
Using this view a mage / rogue / warlock should have a fixed charactersheet with 9/1/0 (doing, resisting and healing dmg).
But, obviously since warriors can do the same (or almost the same) dmg as those classes, and even without the appropriate gear they can resist a lot of dmg, so they would be something like 8/4/0. Yeah, its now a 12 pts char.
I wouldn't even touch a druid or pally char, because those would be something like a 14-16pts chars.
So, why does every class in the game has to be good at dps ? ( even ret pallies are receiving a lot of attention on this matter ).
Why do arms/fury warriors have to resist damage better than any other class in the game ( except those with tank roles ) and being capable of doing the same amount of dmg output ?
Because blizz still feeding us with the greed for power. Unfortunatelly some classes (like wars) suffer more from this then others...
Angus Jan 4th 2008 4:03PM
Except you failed in your equation for those classes.
Mage: 9/4/0
Rogue 9/4/0
Warlock: 9/5/2
Priest: 6/2/8
Hunter: 9/5/1(pet)
Shaman: 7/1/7
Druid: 6/9/8
Paladin: 5/7/7
Warrior: 8/8/0
Are closer.
You fail to even consider the fact that the classes you pointed out have HUGE ways of mitigating incoming damage. I don't hurt you when I am a sheep. I can't melee you rooted in spot or running around like an idiot in fear or if you are evading or stealthed or have me stunlocked. Warlocks can heal themselves while killing me. Hunters can outrange me, kite me, break a spellcast with an interrupt, have a pet to do damage while hiding and other fun tricks.
Warriors want to do good damage, well, so do other hybrids. It isn't fair for the "pure" classes to get to do the lions share of the damage and act like all their mitigation and avoidance techniques mean nothing so we should ignore their hybrid role in stopping damage or healing it. Heck most of the hybrids can't even claim to be those numbers as one spec.
Shaman:
7/1/2
or
2/1/7 are actually fair numbers as they aren't able to do jack while the other spec.
Same concept goes with Paladins, Priests, Warriors and Druids.
Meanwhile the Pure classes are always at those numbers they enjoy.
Disgruntled Jan 4th 2008 3:45PM
I've all but retired my 70 prot warrior in Kara/Gruul gear and 70 dps warrior in crafted/S3 gear and have decided to reroll rogue Horde side. Most guilds have established Main Tanks and like a previous poster said, why bring 2 prot warriors to a 25 man? So I guess for me 2008 will be the year I finally play a different class after 2 years of only playing warriors.
ruerelic Jan 4th 2008 3:52PM
The changes to help dps warriors tank did make a huge difference, but there is still a major block to pvp/dps warriors making the move back to tanking. I've been trying to tank with an arms/prot build, I have mostly blues for armor and one epic, and I do pretty well. Sure, it takes a very diverse group with strong cc and I have less redundancy when things go wrong, but I do ok. My biggest problem tanking isn't the instance itself, but with getting groups. People take a look at my spec, and then my gear, and don't want me. Even runs where we clear start out with a whisper: "Are you sure you can tank this?" I am slowly building a reputation, but without epics and with my spec people are wary, and so I have trouble getting epics to help me tank easier. There is an invisible wall, in my experience, to warriors trying to move back into tanking without abandoning the pvp/dps they've come to love. Sure, we can try to run as dps and roll on tanking gear, but most groups are only comfortable with that if they know you, or no one else could possibly use the gear (since we're not a "true" tanking spec). Plus, if you come from pvp like I do, you're probably arms, and just try getting dps invites then :(
Alkahn Jan 4th 2008 4:01PM
IMO you cannot overstate how useful expertise is for prot warriors and how nice 2.3 was for prot warriors in general. First off, 3% total threat gained from defiance in addition to its stated purpose (1.5 less parry and 1.5 less dodge) and also when mobs parry you is when BAD things start happening to a group. Hasted boss swings are prolly the #1 cause of "where did the tank go?".
Also, playing a very geared shadow priest I never ever EVER ground stuff on my prot warrior, but the change to devastate singlehandedly gave me a reason to spec the talent and honestly very passable grind-ability. You don't have to choose if you want to tuck in for a long fight and waste 5 GCDs on sunder or just try DPSing w/out the armor penetration. Now I put on DPS gear, a shield (gemmed +hit and w/ shield block enchant) and devastate/shield slam and stuff.. dies. It's night and day.
The biggest change in the launch of the burning crusade wasn't devastate, it was focused rage. The number of players who cried about tanking in the early TBC was silly. Now it's practically ez-mode w/ thunder clap in def stance, the ludicrous rage buff that is focused rage, and the addition of expertise. I'm touching 1200 TPS in omen at the opening seconds of heroic trash w/ the devastate buff and my expertise gear. If you can't hold threat as a prot warrior you really can't blame game mechanics anymore.
Honestly tanking has never been more fun, and I'm glad they made rage normalization more reasonable after its initial rediculous state for my DPS bretheren :).
Angus Jan 4th 2008 4:04PM
Matthew:
You may want to change your article's picture. At least edit out something...
So, like your server? How's the Horde side, I'm shopping for a new server.
Matthew Rossi Jan 4th 2008 4:21PM
That dude's not a main, I don't care if people know about him: I barely play him anyway.
The server is not good. It's in Stormstrike.
Angus Jan 4th 2008 4:25PM
Damn.
My Tauren needs a home. My current server only wants healers for end game and I don't think they've ever had a good enhancement shaman in 2 or 3 of the top 5 guilds so they refuse to try one out.
Joran Jan 4th 2008 4:07PM
Great points about the rage normalization. Another effect also helped steer warriors away from tanking; the non-scaling of our threat generation.
Previously, I was the main tank for my little group of friends whenever we did 5-mans (Strat/Dire Maul) and 10-mans (UBRS). I never specced anything near protection, sticking to the mainstay 31/20 build of yesteryear, and yet was able to hold aggro. Multi-mob pulls were also smaller, almost never above 2-3 mobs. A sunder/heroic strike/revenge was usually good enough to make them stick to me, even with no points in protection.
When I hit 70 in B.C., I was faced with the nightmare of trying to manage a 5-6 pull in Shattered Halls, without thunderclap in defensive stance, and with my threat generation skills (sunder armor and revenge) not keeping up with the amount of damage everyone else was dishing out. It was disheartening.
I think you hit the nail on the head though; those early days really killed whatever interest I had in tanking. I was better off DPSing with my paladin and druid friends tanking for me. In fact, for all of our heroics, Karazhan, and Zul'Aman runs, we have a grand total of zero warriors tanking them.
deviationer Jan 4th 2008 4:11PM
we need some serious multi-target tanking abilities. Thunderclap just doesn't cut it. AOE sunder/devastate would be nice
mdisloki Jan 4th 2008 4:12PM
ok, I'm brand new to the game, been playing a week. Everyone I know that plays tried to talk me out of making a warrior, but I couldn't help myself. So I have an undead warrior (herbs and allchemy). Does anyone have any advice for a true noob? Am i out of my mind playing a warrior?? Is there anything I HAVE to do early on??? Will i run into any major problems down the line????
roger3 Jan 7th 2008 2:25PM
Tip #1 Level as Arms, there is very little Fury gear out there. You will be unhappy as Fury.
Tip #2 Keep a shield with you at all times. You cannot tank an instance w/o a shield. Period, end of story, discussion closed.
Tip #3 On your way up to 70, from level 62 on, pick up gear with Hit rating on it over gear with tanking stats. You can use these for a nice Fury DPS build once you hit 70.
Tip #4 You are not using Shield Block enough. I guarantee it. Shield Block is not on the GCD, use it every time it is up.
Tip #5 Shield Block procs Revenge, Revenge keeps aggro on you. Aggro on you == win for DPS and healers. You are not using Shield Block enough.
Tip #6 Use Shield Block.
dan Jan 4th 2008 4:38PM
WoW needs to work on threat mechanics. The reason bear tanks are so beloved is because they hold agro with real damage BECAUSE the feral tree is home to physical tanking and melee damage. Prot tanks hold threats with gimmicks and tricks via talents and skills that have multipliers. If blizz wants to stick to that concept the best thing they could do is to allow those multipliers to scale overtime instead of always remaining flat. That's the core issue with prot tanking today: real dps and hence real threat scales quickly and absurdly (especially with the ease at which dps classes get upgrades: badges, battlegrounds, arenas, raids, etc.) while our threat mechanics do not.