Warrior changes in Beta build 8962
by Matthew Rossi 
Sep 18th 2008 at 5:29PM
So how have warriors fared in the current build? Well, while I'll be going into more detail tomorrow we can cover some specifics now. The neverending saga of Titan's Grip continues as it now only imposes its melee miss chance penalty on damaging abilities that require a weapon. Bloodthirst's health return has been nerfed from 1.5% of total health to .6%, turning a great soloing ability into a much less great one. In addition, Bloodthirst now requires a weapon, making it useless when you are disarmed and making it clearly affected by the Titan's Grip miss penalty. Trauma is now going to work for all melee critical strikes, including specials. Improved Thunderclap moves from Arms to Prot, and Tactical Mastery moves back to Arms after having been switched to Prot in The Burning Crusade.
For all these changes and more, we shall adjourn to the viewing parlor and discuss. Jump with me, if you will.
First off, Heroic Leap and Justified Killing are just plain gone.
Arms sees some changes: Trauma now works on all melee critical hits including specials, Two-Handed Weapon Specialization is now three ranks with up to 6% making it equivalent to other classes, Iron Will now reduces durations by up to 30% putting it on par with other related nerfs, and the Imp TC/Tactical Mastery switch. Blood Frenzy grants a 3/6% speed increase (I'm not sure if that actually made it into the Beta yet, it does not seem to be listed on the tooltip.)
Fury sees Titan's Grip clarified to affect all damaging abilities that require a weapon to be equipped, and Bloodthirst is nerfed to require a melee weapon (meaning that it is intended to be affected by Titan's Grip's miss penalty) as well as has its healing reduced to .6% of total health. Unending Fury no longer mentions Enraged Assault, reducing rage costs on Slam, Whirlwind and Bloodthirst. Heroic Fury replaces Heroic Leap, remobing any immoblization effects and refreshing the cooldown on Intercept, while Booming Voice is a mere 2 ranks for the same effect, and Armored to the Teeth gives you 1/2/3 strength for each 400 armor, in a clear attempt to make plate more appealing to fury warriors. Honestly, I'll probably grab this talent for any tank I might have.
In protection, Warbringer now incorporates the movement impairing effect clear that used to be part of Safeguard. Vigilance has unlimited charges again. Improved Spell Reflection no longer reduces the cooldown of Spell Reflection, making me a sad panda. Imp TC in protection is a nice move, it now means I'll never need more than 5 in arms as a protection spec warrior. Toughness is reduced to match other classes, granting up to 30% duration reduction to movement impairing effects. In addition, Intervene now also reduces your target's total threat by 10%, which is a nice active threat reduction ability.
In general, things don't change much. Neither Arms nor Fury are really any better, and may be seen as slightly worse depending on how you look at it, while Protection is going to benefit from the new fury talent more than fury itself probably will.
Filed under: Warrior, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Expansions, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Ezlo Sep 18th 2008 5:38PM
Somedays I feel sorry for you warriors, nothing much is new for you guys, all I ever hear about it Titan's Grip.
Berethed Sep 18th 2008 8:09PM
I find Titan's Grip rather over-hyped, there are lots of other great things, Sudden Death, Bladestorm and Shockwave to name a few off the top of my head, but people seem to be obsessed with Titan's Grip, which I personally am not all that hyped about.
Friday_Knight Sep 19th 2008 7:12PM
I understand why some people may not really care about Titan's Grip. WoW's own website describes warriors as either "a raging berserker or an iron-clad juggernaut..." and while some players were drawn to the class by the "iron-clad juggernaut" part, I was drawn to it by the "raging berserker" part.
Just the idea of Titan's Grip evokes a few thoughts, namely "Increased DPS, extra stat gains and FREAKING AWESOME LOOKING." As the pinnacle of the warrior DPS tree this 51 point talent should cement your warrior in a different playstyle. It should give you a decent DPS boost as a passive benefit. Just as a side-effect you look like a total badass swinging two 2 handers.
It does 2 of these effectively. A DPS boost it is not.
VSUReaper Sep 18th 2008 5:41PM
I personally am not crazy about the the addition of Armored to the Teeth. It almost feels like a required talent that would not let me pick up imp HS as well as everything in the Prot tree that I would like/need to get.
Mattimus Sep 18th 2008 5:46PM
Is there an issue with Heroic Leap that caused to be removed? I'm not a Warrior, so I haven't been following their various plights, but this sounded like a cool ability.
Guess it just didn't work out as well in practice as it did on paper?
VSUReaper Sep 18th 2008 5:49PM
They said it was taking up to much developing time to work out the bugs, and that the more they worked with it, the less happy they were with all the potential problems.
TiM Sep 18th 2008 6:48PM
I know it (heroic leap) had issues. Lack of true control (flying off a cliff anyone?) One of my guildies came across a bug while using it underwater. it apparently hurtles you straight down when used underwater. Funny, but he did kill himself when he swam too far out past the continental shelf thingie and triggered it.
Jay Sep 18th 2008 6:02PM
I've found heroic leap to be easy to use after the first 3 times, and extremely fun :D
deviationer Sep 18th 2008 6:13PM
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=10043216058&pageNo=1&sid=2000#7
Aaron Sep 18th 2008 6:27PM
I used Heroic Leap quite a bit in beta and there were two problems with it:
1. It jumped to a spot completely away from the mob you targetted, so it doesn't stun/damage them.
2. While you're mid-air, the mobs occasionally disappeared then re-appeared again, as if you were getting too far from them that they disappear from your terrain (but heroic leap wasn't going that far from the targetted mob anyway)
Memzer Sep 18th 2008 5:55PM
Definitely sounds like they're rushing to get the new talents and abilities out the door to make that release date ;)
arycogre Sep 18th 2008 5:59PM
Heroic Leap was pretty disappointing. No real control over the leap other than pointing yourself in a direction. Without plenty of practice you would just overshoot your target, undershoot it, affect fewer targets than what was in the area, etc. If it had a target like an aoe spell it would have worked a lot better.
Daku Sep 18th 2008 5:59PM
...
I think I was more excited about Heroic Leap than anything else.
That's just messed up.
Kakistocracy Sep 18th 2008 6:00PM
Why exactly does titan's grip only apply to Swords, Maces, and Axes? I don't see why a Titan couldn't have gripped any of the other two handed weapons in the game (whether one would want to, is of course, quite irrelevant), I simply don't see what lore aspect might be the warrant for this, so it may just be a game balance issue (though I don't know what that would be either).
Jaisin Sep 18th 2008 6:18PM
They didn't want us DWing those badass new fishing poles from The Kalu'Ak
http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/news/2008/september/8962/tk_4_01.jpg
( I know fishing poles don't count as weapons, but it hits harder than the s2 2-h honor pieces on live)
deviationer Sep 18th 2008 6:10PM
I have a feeling blizzards just going to give up on TG and remove it just like HL.
Clint Sep 19th 2008 9:27AM
I disagree. TG is just a balancing issue, no real bugs like heroic leap had.
Wish I would have gotten to try HL :-(
Clifton Sep 18th 2008 6:25PM
Heroic Leap was cool. That sucks they removed it. Maybe they will one day learn how to fix it and put it back in. Looks like my tank warrior will become even more bad ass now.
Mayhew Sep 23rd 2008 5:53PM
This may be old news, but 3/3 Improved Thunderclap now only gives a 30% damage bonus, instead of the 100% damage bonus that it used to grant.
Also, the change from Heroic Leap to Heroic Fury is a nerf in multiple ways. HL was on a separate cooldown from Intercept, while HF just resets your Intercept cooldown. So you lose some of the mobility you used to have.
Furthermore, HL didn't require a target, while Intercept does. So you could use HL as a wonderful escape tactic when things got scary, and it gave you a lot more mobility than HF does (not to mention saving you from potentially deadly falls).
No longer being able to use Bloodthirst while disarmed makes me sad, too. Armed to the Teeth is interesting, but overall this patch feels like a substantial Fury nerf, to me.
Jay Sep 18th 2008 7:15PM
"In addition, Intervene now also reduces your target's total threat by 10%, which is a nice active threat reduction ability."
This is actually really, really terrible for Warrior offtanks. One of our lesser known abilities was to be able to take a blow for the MT at key moments, and let the healers get to us when they could, giving them a break. With the threat reducer, that's... really not much of an option anymore.
As well, and I don't know if many people have tested this in 10-mans, since I'm not in the beta, but in theory with Safeguard, and Intervene used constantly for every cooldown, the MT would be under a 30% damage reducer for almost 1/3 of any fight. Again, would have been neat to test that.