WoW Patch 3.1 PTR: Warrior glyph and undocumented changes
by Matthew Rossi 
Feb 24th 2009 at 12:45PM
The idea of Titan's Grip being too powerful is too entrenched in too many minds, so we basically have to hope that the damage penalty only comes into play while you're actually dual wielding and is not just a flat penalty on all of your abilities while you have the talent, which would make offtanking or tanking five man instances quite painful for fury. We'll see how bad it is. Dropping fury warrior DPS by a full 10% seems pretty extreme and it hurts those warriors doing their absolute best the most (if you're putting out 4.4k DPS now, you're losing 440 DPS with this change). I guess it's a good thing I specced my tauren Arms when I did.
But enough grumbling. What about the changes to glyphs?
- Glyph of Heroic Strike -- Increases the critical strike chance of Heroic Strike by 5%. (Old: You gain 10 rage when you critically strike with your Heroic Strike ability.)
- Glyph of Barbaric Insults -- Your Mocking Blow ability generates 100% additional threat. (Old: Your Mocking Blow ability also taunts the target.)
- Glyph of Sweeping Strikes -- Reduces the rage cost of your Sweeping Strikes ability by 100%. (Old: You generate 30 rage over 12 sec when you use your Sweeping Strikes ability.)
- Glyph of Overpower -- Adds a 100% chance to enable your Overpower when your attacks are parried. (Old: 50%)
- Glyph of Bladestorm *new* -- Reduces the cooldown on Bladestorm by 15 sec.
- Glyph of Shockwave *new* -- Reduces the cooldown on Shockwave by 3 sec.
- Glyph of Vigilance *new* -- Your Vigilance ability transfers an additional 5% of your target's threat to you.
- Glyph of Enraged Regeneration *new* -- Your Enraged Regeneration ability heals for an additional 10% of your health over its duration.
- Glyph of Spell Reflection *new* -- Reduces the cooldown on Spell Reflection by 1 sec.
- Glyph of Shield Wall *new* -- Reduces the cooldown on Shield Wall by 3 min, but Shield Wall now only reduces damage taken by 40%.
Well, I'm not happy with that HS glyph for my tanking, but it will help my DPS (even with the damage tax on fury) so it's kind of a wash. I loved the synergy of the revenge and heroic strike glyphs, and I'm not sure why it was changed... I always take the HS glyph for my fury DPS rotation, so maybe someone thinks fury also has too much rage. At any rate, this makes me rethink my Blocking/Revenge/HS glyphs for my standard tank glyphing. Considering some of the new glyphs, that may be a good thing.
The Barbaric Insults glyph doesn't change the fact that I can think of better glyphs for tanking than one for an ability with a one minute cooldown. This is a major glyph, I'm probably still going to go with some combo of the Glyph of Blocking, Glyph of Devastate and Glyph of Revenge. Now that we also have the Glyphs of Shockwave and Vigilance to consider, this one seems like a lot of work to revamp a glyph no one is going to use. However, I'm sure someone has figured out a use for this that would shock and amaze me so we'll see.
The Sweeping Strikes glyph change seems good in that it makes the ability free, so you can pop it whenever it is up and not worry about having the rage. Just simplifies the whole thing. The Glyph of Overpower's a flat buff but I'm not sure exactly how much more of one. It seems mostly aimed at DK's in PvP, who else is parrying a lot of arms warrior attacks? Bosses don't parry when you attack from behind and warriors tanking don't generally stance dance just to throw an overpower out, although if the stance changes come in that might change too.
The new glyphs are generally all good. Bladestorm has a 1.5 minute cooldown, anything that shaves that down will be good for Arms DPS. As soon as Dual Specs come in I'm grinding up the 1k gold, and I'm very interested in both the Shockwave and Vigilance glyphs listed here, the trick is finding room for all the glyphs I'd like to have. It almost makes me want to have prot/prot as my spec on one of my warriors. Amything that makes it easier to AoE tank is fine by me, but I'd love to see this glyph also trade the stun off for more damage or threat from the ability.
Enraged Regen glyph buffs the ability, but unless it's a minor I don't think I'd have room to take it on any build I'd have. The Spell Reflection glyph is also in the same boat, although it's a stronger glyph merely because it's a stronger ability, especially for tanking magic damage mobs or in PvP against spellcasters. And the Glyph of Shield Wall effectively turns Shield Wall into a kind of Icebound Fortitude. With full Improved Disciplines and this glyph, you could Shield Wall once a minute. The damage reduction dropping to 40% helps balance that, I suppose. I don't like it but I can understand it.
Basically, you can now really customize your glyphing as a tanking warrior. If you want more AoE threat, the Shockwave glyph looks good, while the Vigilance one is a standard 'good' glyph for any tank and the Shield Wall glyph allows you to increase your amount of cooldowns in a minute (you could effectively use Shield Wall constantly while tanking rather than as a panic button) if that's how you prefer to tank. The DPS glyphs all seem aimed at arms, while the HS change makes it less desireable in my opinion.
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.Filed under: Warrior, Patches, Odds and ends, News items, Talents
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Vylsok Feb 24th 2009 12:56PM
So far as I can tell, the new Shield Wall glyph would only allow you to have the ability to use it every two minutes, provided you also talented appropriately for it.
By and large, this is going to be a good thing for Warrior Tanks. Combined with the existing glyphs that are in place, I can foresee having my dual specs as multi-purpose tanking and then one heavily favoring single target threat and mitigation.
As for the Fury "tax", I believe there is an anticipated buff to the Beserker Stance that will grant an additional 10% damage. The idea is to buff Arms without overpowering Fury.
Its not time to hit the panic button, just yet.
Matthew Rossi Feb 24th 2009 1:01PM
http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=12803
With full Improved Disciplines and the Glyph you're reducing the cooldown on Shield Wall by four minutes.
bigdaddyjay Feb 24th 2009 1:02PM
I remember hearing about blizz removing stance penalties. If that materialized in this ptr at some point it would erase our increased damage by 10% penalty for berserker. That doesn't make up for the nerf, but it would be a good start.
darthginger Feb 24th 2009 1:03PM
i dont get how its a buff to arms if they are forcing us into battle stance to use overpower, unless they secretly make overpower useable in zerker, i cant see this making any differance at all. except mayb buffing fury dps when you dont take TG. mayb they trying to not make it an automatic choice.. other classes 51 pointers are "must haves"
why they couldnt just add a 10% damage buff added to bladestorm talent or something that way arms gets the dps buff, fury doesnt, and everything can just carry on as is. screwing around with our already broken stance system is just going to annoy everyone.
and cmon.. what other class's 51 point talent actually adds a negative to the class. is there really any need, we represent 3% (joint bottom) of the top arena ranked players.. and they still are screwing our dps over. a DK can blow us to pieces in 3 CDs.. heres an idea to fix it. lets remove 10% of warriors dps!
i think somewhere along the line.. they actually keep getting mixed up between the classes.. they get out buffs and we get there nerfs. seriously, what in the hell are they doing.
bigdaddyjay Feb 24th 2009 1:04PM
i mean increased damage taken, of course.
Vylsok Feb 24th 2009 1:10PM
@Matthew
My mistake, you are absolutely correct. I got my numbers crossed up.
This makes Shield Wall spammable once per minute, 20% uptime during the fight, 20% loss on overall damage reduction.
Very enticing.
Thanks for catching that.
Natsumi Feb 24th 2009 1:10PM
The "tax" is because TG is "too good" right now. I use quotes because I'm ARMS FO' LYFE!
Anything done to 'Zerker Stance will have nothing to do with Arms DPS, Arms sits in Battle stance now (with the exception of the odd PvP spec). If the want to boost our DPS, give us MOAR DOTZ!! Or, you know, take RNG away from our spec, whatever works.
trunkage Feb 24th 2009 1:13PM
I hope they change more than giving Berserker 10% more damage.. what kind of buff is that for Arms when I have Overpower to worry about (which is about 10% of my damage)?
Omicron Feb 24th 2009 1:16PM
I was about to say the same thing.
Blizzard keeps going on about how hard it is to buff Arms without buffing Fury as well.
Why not just go the easy route and buff both, then add a counter-nerf into Fury to keep it where it is now? Maybe a little crude, but definitely workable.
We'll know when the final iteration of changes rolls in, I guess.
shinken Feb 24th 2009 6:35PM
This is for all the Neuro scientists.
Warriors are hybrids.
Warriors do as much dmg as pure dps classes.
Warrior scale way too fast.
Hence, scaling nerf.
GoldenGoat Feb 24th 2009 1:01PM
Please direct me to these minds in which the idea of Titan's Grip being too powerful are entrenched, so that I might suggest they donate them for scientific research.
Three words: What. The. Hell. On what planet were fury warriors overpowered, in any way shape or form, in such a way as to justify such a devastating nerf?
Matthew Rossi Feb 24th 2009 1:03PM
I'm not saying I agree with it, I'm just saying that it's fairly common both at Blizzard (lots of blue posts indicate that they feel fury DPS is too high) and among the player base. I mean, I've seen Spriests put out 5.5k damage in raids, but approaching 4.6k as a warrior is too much, I don't know why.
Farg Feb 24th 2009 1:04PM
GC has said more than once that the marksman hunter spec is about the amount of damage they want DPSers doing at the moment - does the TG nerf bring fury warriors down to this level, or is it too much of a hit?
brucimus Feb 24th 2009 1:24PM
I can show you plenty of WWS's where myself or my partner in crime Fury Warriors blow the doors off our guild's 25 man raids
And would someone explain to me how a 10% nerf and a 10% buff = a nerf?
bigdaddyjay Feb 24th 2009 1:46PM
@Bru,
I would explain it like this: if they took away the increased damage taken penalty for berserker, then fury's damage taken would be reduced by about 11%. so in the scales of comparision, does reduced damage taken make for up reduced dps? Personally, I don't think so. But none of this matters anyway, since its not even a rumor.
Allok Feb 24th 2009 1:09PM
"which would make offtanking or tanking five man instances quite painful for fury."
You're going to have Dual specs, why would you be tanking in Fury?
Matthew Rossi Feb 24th 2009 1:20PM
I'm assuming I won't be able to switch specs in the middle of a fight, and I often slap on a shield and grab a mob if the tank goes down. I usually die, but sometimes that's long enough.
And at any rate why should taking Titan's Grip reduce my Thunder Clap damage? I can't fart as well now?
Kassu Feb 24th 2009 1:27PM
And why the f*** should blizz be considering the forgettable chance of a fury warrior offtanking while administering a beating with the nerfbat?
zappo Feb 24th 2009 1:27PM
Stuff happens. Regardless of whether you have dual specs or not you won't be able to swap them out in combat. If your tank gets overwhelmed or just flat out dies, a fury warrior can still save a group by tanking.
Bishop Feb 24th 2009 1:16PM
A wash for fury DPS? Of dropping flat physical DMG by 10% and getting 5% crit on HS, you are joking right?
10% less physical DMG on 4.4K DPS is not 440DPS... how can a person who is the warrior poster oversimplify the impact of the rage loss due to less damage done. Coupled with the HS gylph change you will be talking about a likely 15% drop in overall DPS maybe more. This is huge if it remains the way it is, all the while they are buffing other classes to double the pain of these changes. Let's pray that something is in the works to undue this.