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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsThe Care and Feeding of Warriors: The Year 2008
by Matthew Rossi 
Jan 2nd 2009 at 11:00AM
At this time last year, I wrote about the launch of The Burning Crusade and rage normalization as the big, defining change in the warrior class. Let there be no mistake. Even two years later I am still furious at rage normalization. I was so angry then that I picked normalization over expertise as the big change to the class, which in a way was fair, as it wasn't clear yet just how important expertise would be for both DPS and tanking warriors. At this point last year, I was a tanking warrior finishing up 10 man content and moving into 25 mans: I had just completed my first full ZA clear the week before, if I remember correctly.
Fast forward a year: I've gained 10 levels, I'm DPS, we've cleared all 10 and 25 man content and are waiting for Ulduar. The game has changed and I've changed substantially with it, my role, my play time, even my guild is different than it was a year ago. Rather than do what I did last year and focus on one change, let's take some time to look at 8 changes (yes, in honor of the year) that have really changed the warrior class. None of these changes is meant to be any more or less important. The first one I list isn't the ultimate change and neither is the last (well, technically yes, the last is the ultimate because that's what ultimate means, last, but you understand the colloquial meaning of the word) these are just eight very important (to my eyes, at least) changes to warriors that took place in the past year.
Now that we've stomped that explanation into the ground, let us discuss warriors in 2008.
Fast forward a year: I've gained 10 levels, I'm DPS, we've cleared all 10 and 25 man content and are waiting for Ulduar. The game has changed and I've changed substantially with it, my role, my play time, even my guild is different than it was a year ago. Rather than do what I did last year and focus on one change, let's take some time to look at 8 changes (yes, in honor of the year) that have really changed the warrior class. None of these changes is meant to be any more or less important. The first one I list isn't the ultimate change and neither is the last (well, technically yes, the last is the ultimate because that's what ultimate means, last, but you understand the colloquial meaning of the word) these are just eight very important (to my eyes, at least) changes to warriors that took place in the past year.
Now that we've stomped that explanation into the ground, let us discuss warriors in 2008.
AoE Tanking Viability for Protection Warriors
Sure, paladins loved to talk about the tools warriors have for main tanking and how unfair it was for any other class trying to MT in 25 man raids. But there wasn't much discussion of their superiority in 5 and 10 man raids, especially in any fight that required real multi-mob tanking. Could a warrior do it? With a lot of help and patience, yes, a warrior could multi-mob tank. A lot of help and patience. And on certain fights (any Hyjal trash wave, Jan'alai, Tidewalker offtank) there was simply no way a warrior tank could perform even remotely adequately without working him or herself into an absolute frenzy.
Patch 3.0.2 fixed this for warriors. (It did a lot more, but we'll be mentioning it again.) The addition of Shockwave and Damage Shield combined with the removal of the target limit on Thunderclap made warriors a truly viable multi-mob tanking class. It went from possible if everyone was on their best behavior and helped as much as they could to yes, I can do that. No more aching wrists, no more grunting, no more savagely pounding on your tab key while frantically devastate spamming.
Threat mechanics overhauled
This is another patch 3.0.2 change, and one that affected all tanks and not just prot warriors. In fact, it also affected fury and arms warriors: the basic threat from the old prot talent Defiance is now added to defensive stance while Shield Slam was made trainable. This means that a DPS warrior with good tanking gear can MT an instance and put out solid threat, especially single target. (While Thunderclap will also hit all targets for them, they won't have the prot warriors AoE tools for real multi-mob threat, but it's a lot easier for them than it was before.) Frankly, as someone who loves tanking, I've enjoyed tanking five mans as fury. A prot warrior, bear druid or prot pally can do it better, as can a dedicated DK tank, but I can tank a lot more effectively than a fury warrior would have been able to do a year ago.
Mace spec stun removed
This was a big change for PvP warriors. Pretty much everyone but PvP warriors was pretty happy about it, and since I wasn't a PvP warrior at the time (and still am not) it didn't affect me at all. I still maintain that the fault lay in Stormherald and not mace spec itself, which by itself was barely noticeable before the rise of the crafted weapons: Sword Spec still outperformed it once the weapon wasn't one with its own on-board stun proc.
Ah well. I was never that invested in this argument so I can't really bring myself to rehash it now, it's over and the current mace spec doesn't really grab me.
The Total Revitalization of Protection
Name the best all-around leveling spec for warriors right now. It's protection. Name the spec that combines the best surviability with solid single target and excellent area dps. Protection. Good for soloing, questing, grinding and tanking, the only place where protection is still middling at best is PvP and even there it's light years ahead of where it was. This goes beyond AoE tanking: prot warriors are fiendishly strong right now, and they only get better and better as their gear improves. They may not have the fastest or highest threat generation of the tanking classes, but they do have solid threat, generated with much less button mashing than before. They still have excellent panic buttons and can both hold aggro and contribute as DPS when they're not the ones tanking. I've never seen a talent revamp so totally succeed as protection did for warriors. Improved Revenge is worth taking!
Titan's Grip
The ability that single (well, not single) handedly got me to switch to fury. Seriously, I've written psalms about this ability. It is not possible for me to have loved this ability more, or more publicly, than I have. It would be a ridiculous travesty of a list if I were not to include TG on it, and it would be ludicrous for me to waste your time saying any more about it than I have.
It's awesome, we all know it's awesome, it's one of the best and best looking, most iconic abilities warriors currently have and it will be getting better soon. There. That's all I think needs to be said.
Aaaaaaahagh I can't do it Titan's Grip aaaaaagh I've been waiting for this for three years and now it's here oh my God guys I'm dual wielding two hand weapons here aaaaaahahhahahhaahahahaha paladins and DK's have to settle for one and I have two.
Okay, I'm calm now. I'm not even using italics anymore.
Arms gets weird
Okay, weird may not be the right word here. Arms is in fact a lot of fun now, once you understand it. Frankly, arms is very raid viable and a good, solid leveling spec now, and still seems (for the moment) to have strong power in PvP. If I ever get over my current PvP ennui I will be speccing arms to play around. The addition of talents like Taste for Blood, Trauma, Unrelenting Assault and the usefulness of Rend to help proc Overpower makes arms much less the one trick, spam MS as soon as its up pony it has been almost since its inception. The change to Poleax spec makes it actually worth taking (especially if you're PvE) and the spec in general is just unique, it manages to feel fundamentally different and yet avoids feeling alien. You know how this works: you go out hit things with a great honking mace, axe, sword or polearm. You just do more with that great honking weapon, like Bladestorming and getting Sudden Death executes.
Badge/Emblem gear
Frankly, badge gear saved tanking for me. I could get geared up even when luck wasn't on my side and it made it so that my dozens of runs to get a Sun Eater were more than just a frustrating exercise in seeing something else drop. Except for that time one dropped a a rogue took it for an offhand. Thank god the healer in the party had a rogue main and totally lost his marbles right in party chat on the guy, so I could at least laugh bitterly.
While I think the Emblem of Heroism/Valor system is a good refinement of the basic Badge of Justice idea, badge gear really took off in patch 2.4 (well, okay, the Gods of Zul'Aman patch almost exactly a year before the release of Wrath of the Lich King also introduced a lot of good badge gear) really made gearing up as a tank much less dependent on drop luck. I know a lot of people hated seeing T5/T6 equivalent gear available to people who'd never gotten past running Karazhan, and I think the emblem system helps address that concern, but I can remember desperately trying to get a shield to drop from Nightbane or Gruul, hoping that a tanking chest would drop from Mags, cursing the very name Leotheras as he just plain refused to drop a pair of pants for me. Badges made it possible to fill some of the holes in itemization and kept us raiding when the loot gods thought that cloth was the only armor anyone worse and that tanking rings and trinkets were wasted. And you'll never convince me the Brooch of Deftness was a bad thing, or that the Mirror of Truth is now.
I hope Ulduar has some form of Emblem drop as well, as I really think the system was a godsend for warriors (especially ones who want to try and gear up a DPS and tanking spec).
The Big Three Cooldowns are unlinked and their cooldowns drastically reduced
While the specifics of some of the changes may or may not be all for the good (I miss old Recklessness on boss fights) it's fair to say that this change is possibly the most drastic change the class has seen in quite some time. Having Recklessness, Retaliation and Shield Wall sharing a linked 30 minute cooldown has been part of the class for so long that we had become like the donkey in the old tale who says 'What weight?' when asked about the enormous load he's carrying. I think, outside of some bad pulls while soloing, I may not have used retaliation in over a year before this change. Not only was it a 30 minute cooldown, it also locked out Shield Wall! I was a tank! I needed Shield Wall! (Even when I was no where near an instance somehow I felt that the fact that using one of these abilities would lock out the other two for half an hour meant that I must save that cooldown until all hope was lost, making them less like panic buttons and more like futile Hail Mary gestures.)
Now, with all three being on five minute cooldowns that are not shared (and yes, their power reduced to compensate) you can use one without fearing that you'll rob yourself of the other two or worrying that you won't have it when you need it. I actually use Retaliation while tanking now with impunity, knowing I'm not cheating myself out of panic buttons when I need them. I use Recklessness every single time it is up to get a crit Bloodthirst/Slam/Whirlwind rotation. I'm much freer with my Shield Walls. It's a nice, liberating feeling to be able to use your abilities, and I'm glad Blizzard finally made this change.
There's a lot else we could talk about... Shield Block no longer spammable, taunt at range, Pummel off of the global cooldown but does no damage, Heroic Throw... but these eight should serve. Have a safe and happy new year, everyone, and next week we'll talk about what the future might hold for warriors.
Titan's Grip I am seriously freaking out over here it's like a wonderful magical dream full of cookies and it's about to have no penalty at all I find myself smiling at the oddest times okay, I'll stop now.
Sorry about that. If I don't let that happen once or twice a day I start shaking.
Filed under: Warrior, Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, The Burning Crusade, (Warrior) The Care and Feeding of Warriors, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)
Frapter Jan 2nd 2009 1:21PM
I play a holy priest. So you know, I heal. I get a good opportunity to observe the survivability of my tanks.
I really have no clue where the druid-tanking hate is coming from.
Perhaps this is out of the norm, or maybe this guy is kickass, but one of the wonderful tanks in our guild is a bear druid. He has 43k HP raid buffed and dodges a LOT of attacks (I really don't know his dodge chance, he logged with his DPS armor on so armory is inaccurate).
He never loses aggro unless he dies, which is generally the fault of the healers, or of an error in the strategy - not that he suddenly got burned down).
We tend to not have to heal him for extended periods of time just because of how little damage he takes and for how long he can take it, and it makes my job easy having him on a boss or on trash.
I may be an unusual case, but as a healer, I like druid tanks, and don't prefer a warrior, pally, or DK over one. They all tank just fine, and there's no extreme reason to not have any specific class.
Satn Jan 2nd 2009 9:55PM
Just fyi, my heroics geared fury warrior is pulling top dps on my guilds 10-man naxx/arc/OS runs and 25-man os/arc i was second to an overgared DK. I also off-tanked most everything in 10-naxx up to killing kel'thezad before going fury. And I hadn't even gotten past Kara before wrath.
Sorry if you suck, but not all of us warriors do.
Robert M Jan 3rd 2009 2:03AM
@Satn,
LMAO...you suck doesn't even begin to address the mitigation that pallies were robbed of when Blizzard decided to give all the Pally abilities to a warrior.
Your overly retarded comments about a fury warrior OT'ing only prove that warriors have all the tools needed to tank even without the proper spec, and for that your arrogance is exponetially appreciated.
draeth Jan 2nd 2009 12:43PM
Ok thunderclap has always been a baseline ability, lets get that out of the way first.
Prot pallies got a new aoe also.
And dude honestly every week I run 10 man naxx with my guild and we use a prot war and prot pally and the tankadins are still king of aoe tanking, don't worry. They may not be the best at main tanking bosses but they do something far more important in my opinion, they help the guild get to the bosses a million times faster than a warrior could ever bring us there.
draeth Jan 2nd 2009 12:46PM
BUT. I will agree with you on the drood tanks, they got shafted this expansion. I have ran with several and they have all sucked horrrrrribly except for one guy, who was by far the best tank I have ever seen in my life. I think they just screwed gearing over for feral tanks by gimping armor values.
Robert M Jan 2nd 2009 1:27PM
I know that Tclap has always been base, but they essentially turned it into consecrate jr. I don't have a real issue with warriors, but they did get
1. things like their tclap buffed to no longer have a target limit
2. they got a pallies reflective dmg as well with damage shield
3. they got even more mitigation from their shield with critical block.
and
pallies got
1. hammer of the righteous and though a beautiful ability, it offers ZERO mitigation and/or avoidance when shockwave is going to reduce dmg from the stun period.
2. sheild of righteousness, which like the aforementioned, is a beautiful ability, but offers zero mitigation/avoidance
3. an interrupt that we so desperately needed in the form of an improved hammer of justice that provides us with an interrupt every 30 abysmal seconds (and that's talented with a VALUABLE 3 talent points that don't do anything else but reduce the cool)
Blizzard can make a worg in the Fjord deflect (or parry to oversimplify) an incoming blow, but druids can't? What's the rationale there?
I do agree with you about druids, and though pallies are fine, it doesn't change the fact that it feels they have been violated like a convicted felon who gets his name changed to Sally in the pen. Previously great druid tanks are left to try and figure out when exactly they forgot to tank when the only thing that happened is Blizzard abandon them this expansion.
Henry Jan 2nd 2009 1:05PM
I've had the experience in Wrath where 2 out of the 3 warriors that I can remember running instances w/ them as tank didn't use demoralizing shout, and they didn't Devastate, except maybe against a boss. I have a Warrior tank who's level 55, and I was recently allowed to respec my girlfriend's level 71 Warrior to prot, so I understand that these skills are good things. What would you say to these people/what are your opinions on this?
Soliduck Jan 2nd 2009 3:24PM
It really depends.
As far as Devastate goes, trash just dies too quickly for you to use it much. Shield Slam/Revenge/Shockwave are all higher priority than Devastate because they do more damage.
Demo shout is nice and all, but I'm not going to worry about it too much on trash in a heroic.
Bosses should obviously have 5 Sunders and Demo Shout up.
Aganon Jan 2nd 2009 1:14PM
Demo shout is good...devastate is very good...in certain circumstances. If you're pulling a regular/heroic/naxx trash...it's not that important. Devastate has a low aggro coefficient compared to other abilities. The only reason I use it is for the armor debuff. Now, when you're doing trash or anything where mobs die quickly, there is small chance you will see me use devastate in lieu of more threatening abilities. Demo shout is also just a filler for me when I have enough rage while spamming cleave, using thunderclap, and pressing shockwave whenever the cd is up. Demo shout helps greatly on boss fights though. Every debuff counts. Although...there is a great margin between the tanks you see now that warriors are the flavor of the month, and the tanks you will see when the difficulty rises. Personally, as a person that considers themself half-way decent with a lot to learn, I won't pug a tank if I look at his gear and see something retarded. I have that advantage over some people that might not know as much about tanking. It's all a matter of opinion and play style. With the content currently out there, everyone doesn't have to play the same to win the game. You can differentiate as long as it works.
- my 2 cents
Kurdon Jan 2nd 2009 3:37PM
I do seem to feel like warriors need just a little more AOE help, but that's mostly coming from the fact that the mages I run with are putting out absolutely insane TPS right now when they're well-geared and frostfire-specced for all-out DPS. Even when they sport threat-reducing gems, cloak enchant, and talents, it's not enough. So if they're spoiled by their expectations formed from 5-man runs during the 'golden' 6 month period where prot pallies were suddenly the tank everyone wanted because it turned everything into brainless face-rolling damage meter races, nothing we can do can keep up in a multi-mob situation or even a single-mob situation to make up for their play style preference. I'm occasionally able to push upwards of 5k and 6k TPS and they can still sometimes win out if all the procs happen for them in rapid succession. Enhancement shamans can be a problems as well, but that has a lot to due with their gear also and not being willing to wait a second or two.
I suppose if I was all Naxx-25-geared, maintained minimal 540-545 defense, and stacked everything else I could for strength and block value to help with TC/SS/damage shield, it might not be as noticeable, but I don't like the fact that they expect to not be able to hold back and that expectation is currently unrealistic.
By comparison, those same mages that I talk to are happy when they run with pally and DK tanks because they don't have to hold back, and that makes me a sad panda. At least druids can spam swipe and everything in the cone in front of them is staying right where they want it. Thunderclap and Shockwave, while effective, are not back quickly enough to be comparable to reliable AOE threat with a persistent area effect damage+high threat ability like Consecrate or Death & Decay (especially the glyphed version). Maybe *my* expectations as a now-AOE-capable tank are unrealistic, but I don't like feeling like a 2nd or 3rd rate tank when it comes to tanking for groups that utilize the play style that most Heroics embrace, these days - no CC, balls-out DPS, next pull please. Most people would argue that I just need to let those mages keep dying until they learn their lesson, but failure by any other name tastes just as bitter.
With regards to paladin mitigation concerns listed above, I haven't felt like they truly *needed* any more mitigation/avoidance. They still seem to take less damage overall in raid settings except when our shield block is up (aka mini-shield wall), and the cooldown on that is also a lot longer than most of us are used to. Perhaps I'm insane for contemplating a request for more AOE threat, but recent experiences have left me wishing for just a little more. Maybe a noticeable boost to damage shield threat to compensate for a lack of persistent area damage+threat? I dunno. I'm sure that it has a lot to do with how significantly our damage, health, mitigation, and avoidance scale with gear. Maybe a couple of months from now, I'll be laughing about this. Time will tell, as always.
Soliduck Jan 2nd 2009 3:58PM
As far as AOE tanking (meaning holding aggro on groups of mobs while they are killed with AOE) Paladins are still the undisputed kings of it, but Druids/Warriors/DKs are fairly close and each has their own strengths and weaknesses.
Warriors have excellent snap aggro with Thunderclap and Shockwave, but after that our threat is less than other classes. Things can get hairy if new mobs come while TC/SW are on cooldown. Thunderclap being an AOE in a circle around you is very useful, especially when you look some of the Druid's weaknesses.
Swipe is pretty fantastic at putting out threat, but the positioning limitations are not something to dismiss easily. Picking up mobs that are outside of the Swipe area can be troublesome, and mob positioning is extremely important.
One of the nicest things about Paladins is that Consecrate is always going. Staggered or unpredictable spawns don't really cause problems because you will immediately pick them up . Death and Decay has similar strengths, but its use is more restricted. My impression is that Pestilence/Blood Boil produce less snap threat than Thunderclap, but almost certainly produce more threat over all. Many tanks also have Howling Blast, which can make up the difference.
Cudd Jan 2nd 2009 8:50PM
The change that has affected my play style the most is the ability to charge while in defensive stance and while in combat.
jbodar Jan 2nd 2009 10:13PM
I want to marry Warbringer and make babies... and then invite Glyph of Charge over for a 3-way.
Mohrlock Jan 2nd 2009 10:10PM
Mr. Rossi are you going to change the name of your column to "The Grip & Fury of Warriors" for 2009?!
Come on we all know how much you love TG... I'm even tempted to drop prot for a few weeks to give it a shot... I've got Despair & Arcanite Ripper collecting dust in the bank...
*ponders*
Adori Jan 5th 2009 8:36AM
yo mr. rossi
ive actually read most of your posts and i have to say, this is what i was looking for on the net. Ive been playing for around a year now and ive run into quite a dilemma.
I have a 73 draenei warrior atm and im happily questing in northrend to 80 but really i sense a flaw. When i was 70 i could not get into any good guild or any good raid to get better armor, even though at the time i had good enough armor for TK/SSC raids. Ive asked around and ive found out that not many people wanted to have DPS warriors in their raids. My initial reaction was ofc just a flabberghasted WTF?!
Anywho apparently on my server (Aerie Peak) it is better to have some other full DPS char like a rogue or something than a DPS warrior. I'm a DPS by nature, i cant stand tanking or healing and i dont like casters so DPS warriors is my favorite choice. My question to you is, what should i do? I have a 73 warrior but it is EXTREMELY hard to get into groups and guilds. So right now im pretty much stuck, i dont feel like leveling because it gets boring and i want to do instances and no one wants to take me in.
Also i have a starter tauren shammy that i thought of leveling too but then again there would be a need for either tank, healer or DPS and even though shammy are good DPS, in raids rogues go before DPS shammys.
Again, my question to you is can you help me figure out what to do in the near future with my characters??
draeth Jan 5th 2009 9:04PM
Im not Rossi but I can offer some tips dude.
You can most definitely raid as a DPS warrior, just so long as your gear is on par with the content. Fury warriors can put out similar if not more dps with any equal geared class.
Level to 80. Get Hit Cap. Gear up properly, you'll get into raids. If not then you must be doing something wrong that you're not telling us.
Also DPS Shammys (Elemental) will always have a spot in a raid due to heroism and caster enhancing totems, unless they have 2 resto shamans in every raid, which is probably unlikely.
tom Jan 5th 2009 9:15AM
Warrior tanks are most definitely not overpowered right now, nor are they broken. They are pretty well balanced with the other tanking classes.
The limitless thunderclap and the addition of damage shield and shockwave have made warriors VIABLE AoE tanks. Pally's are still king though because consecrate puts out much more TPS and pulling with their shield gives them snap agro on multiple targets. Warriors stack up a little better against bosses though because of their bag of tricks.
Warriors definitely do have better AoE capability than druids, that's for sure. However, druids often raid with over 10k more health than warrior tanks and rock much more mitigation and about equal avoidance. If druid tanks are willing to give up their enormous health pool and ridiculous armor levels, then we can talk about giving them more AoE capability.
DK's put out sick TPS but their incoming damage and mitigation can be streaky. The particular fight and mechanics may give a warrior or DK an slight edge but these classes are pretty equivalent.
This game is all about balance. You have to realize that each class must have strengths and weaknesses. And to anyone that still thinks that druids or pally's are underpowered compared to warrior tanks; I tell them that they will get their improvements as soon as warriors are allowed to heal as well as druids or pally's.