The Care and Feeding of Warriors: A Lament For Arms
by Matthew Rossi 
Feb 6th 2009 at 4:00PM
But in the cold light of day, I'm frustrated. Fair warning: this is not going to be a fair and balanced overview piece. This is an opinion, an editorial, of the way Blizzard keeps underestimating what the warrior class needs. Why is arms still broken in PvE months after the beta? Why is one of the biggest changes to warriors in this patch a change to the shielding mechanic we can't even choose to apply to ourselves?
It's no secret that last year, I was one of the few people willing to be lambasted for calling attention to prot warrior liabilities. I got hammered for this, and I won't pretend it didn't irritate me, because all I ever wanted was to see protection spec get the buffs it needed to make sure it kept up with other tanks as viable. A lot of what prot saw happen in patch 3.0 was nearly perfect in my eyes. Vastly improved DPS, real AoE tanking options, a significant overhaul to how threat works, faster cooldowns. Prot got significantly loved, it's true.
The recent change to Sunder Armor isn't a panic moment for protection yet. As far as I can tell, it's not very significant at all. It's not game breaking or unfair, it's simply vastly annoying. It's irritating to me to see proection get such a minor and PvP oriented reduction and the idea that it might in any way hurt protection in PvE content infuriates me. Prot doesn't need any downsides to PvE right now. While we still don't know how the four tanking classes will shake out once we move out of Naxxramas and into Ulduar, the way things stand right now in tanking all tanks kind of feel unfinished and the last thing I as a warrior enthusiast want to see is any reason, however small, for a raid leader to decide to bring a tank who can generate AoE threat faster than a warrior (as an example) since there's no down side or lost utility to her raid when she does so.
However, as annoyed as I am on behalf of prot for a change that hasn't even been demonstrated yet, I'm positively livid for arms. It's been months. Beast Mastery hunters get nerfed too much and everyone explodes in protest, meanwhile arms warriors have just been quietly sitting there waiting for their DPS to catch up since the release of the expansion. Throughout beta, throughout release and leveling, and throughout endgame raiding we've all said the same things over and over and over again and there have been vague promises made and then patches come and go and arms is still not doing enough DPS. Now, I know this kind of thing is hard, I'm not advocating that we form a Transylvanian Housewarming commitee here and go all torches and pitchforks, but it is maddening to keep seeing the same issues beset the spec over and over again.
I haven't even started in on PvP because we all know I'm not really into it. Sure, Id did it on my tauren because for some weird reason when I'm playing the tauren I could kill things better (I don't pretend to understand it, maybe it was the racial health modifier or maybe I have a mental block) but the very fact that people who made their names as PvP warriors are now playing death knights just feels like I got hit in the back of the head with a hammer when I think about it. And man, why wouldn't you? You'd have to be very dedicated, very talented and perhaps very masochistic (I know there are still PvP warriors out there, so if you guys want to come and explain what the attraction is, I would love to hear from you) Protection spec is the only one I can think of that has the stuns and movement and silences necessary to get much of anything done in PvP nowadays.
Ironically, I play a raiding fury warrior. We're actually doing pretty well. Deep Wounds hotfix lowered our DPS some, but I'm used to that kind of thing. I wish I knew which classes warriors were allowed to exceed in DPS. It's not warlocks, mages, rogues, hunters, ret paladins, feral druids, moonkin druids, death knights (who are also tank/DPS), shadow priests, elemental shamans or enhancement shamans. These kinds of discussions always exhaust me and I leave them to others. Fury right now, I'm pretty happy with the spec, so I sit paradoxically like an old man yelling at kids to get off other people's lawns, basically. If nothing major happens for fury, we'll still be in good shape, we'll probably just drop in relative DPS position as other classes get buffed. And frankly if the baseline reduction to mob armor comes in (Creature armor has been globally reduced) then both rogues and fury warriors will see a DPS increase.
So basically I'm saying this: get to work on some concrete buffs for arms warriors, please. No more vague promises. No more awesome changes. You're making huge changes like removing consumable ammo from the game, do something for arms spec. It has all the components for an excellent DPS spec, the procs are fun and require real skill to manage, the changes to stance penalties you promised are a good step for it in PvP, now get crazy and give them something. I know you're looking at overpower and slam for them, but can I please recommend another look at Bladestorm? The damage itself is fine, but consider relaxing some of the penalties on the ability. Let people intercept when using it, or do more than autoattack? Something?
Well, I'm done with my impression of an Old Testament figure if said figure played WoW instead of, well, tending to the spiritual welfare of an entire people. Next week, the interrupted Hit/Expertise post.
Filed under: Warrior, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, News items, (Warrior) The Care and Feeding of Warriors
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
DragonFireKai Feb 6th 2009 4:09PM
You should have titled it "A Farewell to Arms"
Zayd Feb 6th 2009 4:17PM
Hemmingway ftw
PeeDub Feb 6th 2009 4:16PM
How about:
"Arms is for hugging" ?
Tyrrum Feb 7th 2009 3:02PM
One random idea I had for arms would be a auto cleave for each swing that would do like 10% damage to mobs around, or something like a proc that would do something similar that focus' on the use of a large weapon.
Todesritter Feb 6th 2009 4:10PM
Well written Matt. I agree, if ARMs were to ever get fixed for PVE I'd be there in a heart beat. If not, my warrior stays at 70 and I keep tanking on my DK.
kayron Feb 6th 2009 4:12PM
I feel like its worth noting that other classes, notably rogues, are in the same boat as PvE Arms, and have been for pretty much just as long. We were definitely a bit op in beta, got the nerfbat, and ever since we've been pulling up the rear on single target encounters, even in the best gear available.
TLDR: things will get fixed, and pve arms is far from the only spec suffering at the moment.
Clevins Feb 6th 2009 4:51PM
But, you know, this is 6 months after the start of beta. Having things fixed a year into an expansion is kind of... unprofessional.
If we assume gear and player skill are equal, then pure dps classes should edge out hybrid dps who should all be pretty tightly bunched. The specific encounter will affect this, but that's what should happen. If that's the case after 3.1, yay. If not, boo.
I still think the 'all 30 specs should be equally viable for PvP and PvE' approach was misguided. It will take the rest of this expansion to really make that close to happening...
muffin_of_chaos Feb 6th 2009 5:13PM
Most classes and specs that used to dominate in arena, suck more in general. Somehow it seems fair to me that there should be a lag.
If freaking Arms Warriors want to QQ about PvE when they can just respec for the most awesome ability and some of the highest damage in the game with the same gear, more power to them. I guess. Kinda like marching in protest of a global financial crisis. Wee bit ridiculous.
(Let's get some nerfing in before the buffing please. Blood spec DK tanks are wiping the floors with the other tanking classes even if no one realizes it and ret pallies continue to be overpowered despite the old promises that it would even out by 80.)
Mark Feb 7th 2009 1:04PM
I'm not sure thats the case. in our guild, the #1 dps in raiding consistently is a rogue. he has spent a lot of time working out optimal weapon speeds and rotation but the rogue class easily tops out at or above all the others (he does 2x my damage and I am a mage)
draeth Feb 7th 2009 7:01PM
@ mark
You're rogue must outgear most of your guild because I am a fury warrior and wipe the flooooor with rogue dps even after the deep wounds nerf (which Im really starting to feel).
Moxxy Feb 6th 2009 4:15PM
"I wish I knew which classes warriors were allowed to exceed in DPS. It's not warlocks, mages, rogues, hunters, ret paladins, feral druids, moonkin druids, death knights (who are also tank/DPS), shadow priests, elemental shamans or enhancement shamans."
Warriors shouldn't exceed any of those. Warriors should, in an ideal world, be equal to all but the locks, mages, rogues & hunters. Even with the deep wounds nerf/fix, fury warriors are still going to be above quite rogues, unless a bevy of changes were left off the rogue list. I do feel for Arms warriors though.
thebvp Feb 6th 2009 4:51PM
I respectfully disagree.
I don’t buy the argument that just because your class can only dps, it should naturally do more than a hybrid. If this was the case, in the interest of min/maxing, there would be no real reason to bring hybrid dpsers except to buff the dpsers, and if you’re only there to buff the dpsers, you might as well just be standing around in greys and whites. Second, if you spend the time and effort that it takes to gear, research, and spec your hybrid character as its dps variant, I see no reason why you shouldn’t reap the same rewards as a “pure” class.
The usual response to this is “but you bring utility to the raid! You can tank OR dps!” Sure, but you have to spend the time to gear up for both. You can’t just walk in and tank whatever you want, nor can you just cruise on in and dps your brains off. In fact, it used to be (not sure if it’s still true) that fury took more time and effort to gear for than any other spec in the game. For the sheer dedication it took to get there, I think you should see some reward.
I did raid as fury back in the vanilla days of wow (/cry edgemasters handguards, I will always love you!) and was top dps in my guild that did Naxx, but was not really a hybrid. I had fewer than 4k hitpoints and while my dps gear may have been T3, my tanking gear was more like Tier 1- certainly not acceptable for anything except for trash and my threat generation was abysmal. The amount of time and effort it took me to become top dps in our guild was head and shoulders above everyone else, but I had to do so to be able to prove that I was of some value to them.
Euripides Feb 6th 2009 4:16PM
The ratio of whine to content is getting dangerously high.
Randy Feb 6th 2009 4:41PM
You were fairly warned at the top of the post it was highly opinionated, you chose to read on, get over it.
comradesean Feb 6th 2009 4:35PM
hmm, you ever notice that when warriors have legitimate concerns that we're heralded as lunatics by the other classes but the other classes will cry their body's worth of tears over their own classes issues and concerns?
I bet you fifty cents that if you were to compare the number of "Whine" threads amongst all the classes that warriors would be on the bottom by a very large margin.
Alkaios Feb 6th 2009 4:55PM
@Euripides:
Definitely.
Seems like there's been a switch, now all the whining plate-wise is coming from warriors, while paladins are relatively tame atm.
I'm keeping my warrior at 70 for now. It's disappointing that PvE arms doesn't seem to hold a candle to Fury. But...it doesn't stop me from playing my paladin with all the
Liltimmy Feb 6th 2009 8:15PM
"you ever notice that when warriors have legitimate concerns that we're heralded as lunatics by the other classes but the other classes will cry their body's worth of tears over their own classes issues and concerns?"
Replace the word warriors with any other class in that sentence and you've got the basic anatomy of a post that goes on every single editorial like this.
draeth Feb 7th 2009 7:42PM
Everyone whines about everything in this fucking game. They even get people who love their class (Fury is fucking incredible, I love it) to whine about the whining! It's terrible.
Fury is fine people, arms needs help, lots of help but let's face the fact that arms probably wont get any love until next expansion, and then we'll be QQing about fury like we did in BC.
So arms warriors just do what I did and ride the Fury boat until it sinks and you'll be alot happier. I know, I know, you don't want to get forced to play something you don't want to or whatever it is that is keeping you spec'd arms but drop the crap already and play the superior spec!
Tinwhisker Feb 6th 2009 4:17PM
While not perfect, Prot is quite good. For DPS, you have/chose the option to spec Fury and raid quite well (probably better than you should be able to). You have one tree that's weak, Arms.
Rogues were balanced against bugs in the beta (Master Poisoner) and once fixed we slowly migrated to the bottoms of the meters in all specs (unless you spec'd into the bug'd HAT which is technically against the ToU). Blizzard has admitted this on several occasions.
They also said they chose not to buff us at all in PvE because we were strong in PvP... Read that sentence again and tell me that Warriors are the ones being unfairly treated.
bobafet Feb 6th 2009 4:32PM
The top arena teams, all have a unholy DK and a Paladin.
Death Knights took the place of Warriors in PVP and originally that was not supposed to happen, DK's were supposed to be a tanking class, not the best DPS in the game.