WoW Patch 3.1 PTR Warrior changes
by Matthew Rossi 
Feb 24th 2009 at 3:45AM
I want you to try and remain calm, okay? I know as warriors you're crazy excited for all the twists and turns for the class on the PTR. While I can't hit all of the highlights, I can give you a taste.Warrior
- ARMS
- Blood Frenzy improved to 2/4% increased damage.
- Heroic Throw missile speed increased.
Now's a good time to remind everyone that these patch notes are not in any way, shape or form complete, and that there will almost certainly be more changes. We've already seen posts from Ghostcrawler indicating that a lot more than this was in the works, so we can consider these changes just preliminary.
So why just roll these two out for warriors? Both are good changes, it's true, but when some classes are seeing major overhauls these look rather paltry. What's going on?
It seems that Arms is a major focus for the dev team for 3.1, for one thing. It makes sense that they might want to roll those changes out more slowly, especially if they're more major changes to the spec than we might otherwise expect. Changing arms without buffing fury accidentally has been stated to be a big priority to them so far so we'll see how that shakes out.
In addition, they're still discussing how to make the new stance system work. Since they haven't decided how that's going to work, it's not surprising that we don't see it rolled out on this patch.
For warriors this is a very preliminary patch, all told. Sunder hasn't been changed, the changes to rage generation through shields don't seem to be there (I didn't see them under the priest notes either) so I'm fairly sure we're going to see a lot more for warriors when all is said and done here. The PTR is dropping in stages this time, we have to keep that in mind.
Edited to Add: MMO-Champion has posted some undocumented changes to warriors.
- Wrecking Crew (Tier 10) now states that it no longer stacks with enrage.
- Titan's Grip (Tier 11) now reduces physical damage you deal by 10%.
- Sunder Armor now reduces target's armor by 4% per application. Stacks up to 5. (Previously reduced armor by a set amount)
Patch 3.1 brings us Ulduar, dual specs, significant changes to all the classes, and more! We've got you covered from top to bottom with our Guide to Patch 3.1.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Stefan C Feb 24th 2009 3:53AM
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/
Mouse over the Titan's Grip for a .... pleasant surprise... :(
Fellow warriors do not be alarmed, from what I hear they're gonna make zerker stance give 10% more damage, thus buffing arms tree and making fury warriors stay where they are at in the dps charts.
Bloodsliver Feb 24th 2009 12:25PM
If that's the case then I hope the stance change makes it a minor hindrance to switch back and forth from battle to berserker stance.
That being said, a redesign to the Arms tree so that it becomes the stance dancing tree might be a possibility (and I welcome a good change since the playstyle has fallen kind of flat with the past few changes in my opinion).
I think it's appropriate with the idea of "Arms" being the kind of style where a warrior hones his technique compared to "Fury" who is more unrestrained.
Then again it'll make Arms that much more work, but hell that's what I love about it.
darthginger Feb 24th 2009 7:42AM
but they are trying to shoehorn us into battle by making everything so overpower-centric.
so in pvp your still going to be flicking around your stances meaning the 10% increase is negligable as you'll only be hitting one or two swing swith it before having to switch out again.
same for pvp.. why force our playstyle as battle with overpower if they're going to buff berserker damage, meaning we have to jump around our stances dumping rage and throwing off GCDs trying to actually be useful.
surely they'd be better adding it as a bonus to bladestrom.
"also gives 10% more attack power in battle stance" or something that way it doesnt help fury, but also doesnt have us bouncing stances like a hyperactive 6 year old in order to do a little more dmg on white hits.
Veras Gunn Feb 24th 2009 3:55AM
Yeah, was thinking to myself on how boring this patch looks for changes to warriors, but I completely forgot about sunder changes, stance changes, and even all of what ghostcrawler has been talking about regarding what the people on tankspot have been discussing. Still, ptr's gonna be really boring for me outside of ulduar.
Nick Feb 24th 2009 4:58AM
It's there in the priest notes.
Check out the change to the Rapture. You Warriors (and Druids too) get 8 rage after a sheild is beaten through, pallies get 2% mana, DKs get 32 runic power.
cb Feb 24th 2009 5:48AM
Nick, that's just making shields slightly less annoying.
Kemikalkadet Feb 24th 2009 5:41AM
There's also this part which affects fury under Classes: general:
"Hysteria, Tricks of the Trade, Enrage, Wrecking Crew, Death Wish, Arcane Power, Owlkin Frenzy, Beast Within, Avenging Wrath and Hysteria damage bonuses no longer stack together."
Notably enrage and death wish not stacking. Enrage isn't really a mandatory talent, but i like to stick all my floating points into it as any incoming damage will proc it meaning a good uptime. In my current build i have 3 points in enrage, or 6% increased damage, with the new changes when i pop Death wish i'll just be gaining the 20% damage instead of 26% increased damage from enrage and death wish combined.
ARMORz Feb 24th 2009 7:38AM
#
# Titan's Grip (Tier 11) now reduces physical damage you deal by 10%.
WTF you think we need a nerf?
darthginger Feb 24th 2009 7:43AM
wow my typing is bad today... the 2nd pvp is supposed to be pve.. and its bladestorm. >
Firumil Feb 24th 2009 11:26AM
Seriously? a 10% nerf for us while other classes get buffed? Doesn't that just push us fury warriors back to the bottom again? I smell a return of fury warriors being lackluster and another lafftrollusuxrscrub session for fury warriors similar to what we saw in BC.
I mean we finally end up being able to top the charts and put ourselves out there as a major DPS class. For warriors you're either a tank or a DPS. We can't secondary heal, no rez, no cc without putting ourselves into combat, and no cc at that matter that lasts for more than 8 seconds or is re-castable within the time that the cc breaks.
Sigh. I just have a bad feeling warriors are going to sink back to the "unwanted, un-necessary" class unless you're a tank and even then, warrior tanks aren't doing the greats imo.
Kemikalkadet Feb 24th 2009 9:59AM
This change probably makes sense when looking at a tg warrior decked in full ulduar gear. The way we scale with gear likely means we'll be head and shoulders above every other class without this nerf. The problem is it will negatively affect every warrior in lesser gear.. the less geared you are the more painful this will be.
Currently i'm decked in heroic blues and epics as well as the best in slot crafted epics and i feel i'm perfectly in balance with other classes of my gear level, naxx geared players will out dps me, i'll out dps undergeared players and i'll be on a level playing field with other people of a similar gear level. However if this change goes ahead i'll lose 200-300 dps, that's before figuring in the rage lost from lower damage which will put me well behind the curve.
I understand the change as a way to counter our insane gear scaling at higher gear levels, but it's a totally cack handed fix. it would be far better to make us scale less with gear.. have us start out with higher dps from abilities, talents ands rotations with less improvements from gear, but this 10% nerf makes the gap between an undergeared and overgeared warrior even bigger.
Joester Feb 24th 2009 8:52AM
No surprise here. Warriors always gets nerf'd. I'm use to it since Vanilla WoW.
Zuf Feb 24th 2009 9:31AM
Speaking as a warrior tank here, the only significant changes to prot warriors are in other classes trees:
*Blessing of Sanctuary is no longer useful for warriors
*PW:Shield now has a chance to give a small amount of Rage
So... I get a lot less rage when I have a Prot pally tanking with me, and a little more rage when I have a priest healing me. woot?
I mean, honestly I don't think there are any changes NEEDED... except that we still don't hold a candle to Paladins or Death Knights for aoe tanking or tank dps... hm. Maybe a little bit of prot dps boost would be okay. And of course demoralizing shout is entirely useless, maybe a buff for that would be nice.
sammich Feb 24th 2009 9:41AM
well why in the world would blizz reduce TG dmg by 10% then put 10% increase in beserker stance isnt that just a wash - imean if they really wanted to help the fury warrior become a serious dps class leave TG alone and just change the stance penalty - if we as fury warriors take 10% more dmg just because of the stance we are in then darnit we should deal out 10% more dmg because of the stance we are in - make it fair and leave TG alone - since we just got the darn 5% hit penalty removed - imo blizz=fury warrior haters
Sabreth Feb 24th 2009 10:16AM
Wrecking Crew (Tier 10) now states that it no longer stacks with enrage.
I thought 3.1 was supposed to be BUFF, not NERF Arms! I just hope that the upcoming changes to Arms gets compensation for this.
Warrrage Feb 24th 2009 10:38AM
roflol...Have the dev's working on warriors been replaced by donkey's??
And Rossi as the warrior lead on wowinsider - wheres the nerdrage, the hate, the righteous anger? The warr class has been made virtually redundant and yet you seem to be hoping Blizz is gonna fix things. Since you hate pvp - and you seem to enjoy and espouse only the prot spec - i suggest we get another writer on the warr column - someone who understands what a joke we are and throws a right awful shitfest about it...while Rossi can keep the prots happy.
I remember the writer on the pally column writing the biggest column of class rage i have ever read back when Pally's were hotfix nerfed after being buffed/bugged into god mode play with the patch that gave us the new talents at 70. Result - Best AOE tanks, Best Healers (only healers in arena) PVE, Still 'God Mode' as Ret....now thats what we need on the warrior column as well - Methinks Rossi has a DK somewhere???
FuryWarrior Feb 24th 2009 12:11PM
I Agree with you. Each time I read this column about warrior, it always all about the prot spec.
Thanks to other sites, I've been able to understand the ways of the fury warrior. It's sad, since wowinsider used to be my favorite wow related site.
Clet Feb 24th 2009 11:19AM
I agree with Warrage.
Rossi, you not only represent your readers, but I'm sure word can spread quickly with your power of the pen... err computer.
Let us be heard! Given that things do have to pan out still, these initial PTR notes are just awful.
nreid Feb 24th 2009 2:39PM
WTF!
I finally get enough gear to raid as a tank turned fury warrior and blizz is looking at nerfing TG by 10%. I stopped tanking because I was sick and tired of watching pally and DK tanks breeze thru aoe content while warriors are mostly laughed at now days. Now after getting back up and standing tall as a fury warrior I read this sh(*%%*&T and watch as blizz draws the foot back to provide a nerf kick to the nuts. Screw you blizz I will not stop playing my warrior so you can have every class roll a DK or a freaking stupid ass pally. Sorry for the rage, to early in the morning to read this stuff.
ruffles Feb 24th 2009 11:46AM
Yeah I dunno how to feel about the 10% damage nerf, we'll have to see how it pans out. As it stands though I think I do a crap load of damage as fury given my gear level (Heroics, crafted and 3 naxx10). The only people that beat me (rarely) in pugs are ret pallies, well geared boomkins and occasionally other better geared fury warriors or dks (most still don't know what they're doing). I think I outperform anyone else with similar gear apart from ret pallies.
I think a good point was made about warrior scaling and we'll always be nerfed or buffed compared to current end game content which may unbalance warriors at other levels of pve. C'est la vie.