Warrior class changes in patch 3.1 PTR build 9684
by Matthew Rossi 
Mar 13th 2009 at 9:45PM
- Improved Intercept and Weapon Mastery have once again swapped places in the talent tree.
- New Talent: Juggernaut: Grants the warrior the ability to Charge while in combat.
- Unrelenting Assault: Now also increases the damage of Overpower and Revenge by 10/20%, and causes Overpower (when used to attack a casting target) to decrease the effectiveness of all the target's non-physical damage and healing by 25/50% for 6 seconds. Tooltip and visual updated.
Unrelenting Assault sounds like a promising buff. I won't know how promising until I get back onto the PTR tonight, but a damage buff and an anti-caster function? Yes please. It does PvP and PvE duty, can't complain about that. All in all, it's a trickle, but a trickle is better than nothing. Not too thrilled about the loss of Weapon Mastery for fury warriors, but it's survivable.
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, News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
XPol Mar 13th 2009 10:17PM
I think Unrelenting Assault change is cool way to make our fights bit easier against melee specced hybrids (RET's, enhancement shammys etc.), however, mages sometimes dodge too :-D Its just a great change:-) Same with Juggernaut!
Kuroneko Mar 13th 2009 10:20PM
Go away you. More intercepts for fury, yay. But I can't decide if it's cool enough to lose weapon mastery... I love my intercepts though.
Hevnlyst Mar 13th 2009 10:23PM
The Juggernaut talent is a buff for both trees, as fury still has its instant intercept cd reset.
This will help alot for rage starvation for arms in pvp too, mostly when fighting priests.
And keep in mind that arms can still intercept too, so overall, a massive buff for pvp arms
Eric Mar 13th 2009 10:26PM
I was playing today and I am not really taken with the new update.
Can-O-War Mar 13th 2009 10:35PM
More Fury DPS nerfs? We are so far from OP anymore that it feels like blizzard is beating a dead horse. People don't pvp in fury so there is no advantage to taking improved intercept, and even then, we can instantly break cc and refresh its cooldown just up the tree. This, combined with the Titan's Grip nerf and the Heroic strike glyph nerf is an extremly excessive lowering of DPS to a class that is already doing below average DPS even in the highest brackets. Throw Fury a freaking bone here and at least give us some help in form of an increased buff to Berserker stance. That way, at least they can claim there also buffing their new love child Arms too.
Nookan Mar 13th 2009 11:07PM
The heroic strike glyph change was reverted.
Most warriors currently PVP as Fury. After 3.1 this may change (likely will), but to say that people don't PVP in Fury is silly. This will go along nicely with Heroic Fury. Fury has issues, but this is not a nerf.
Nando Mar 13th 2009 10:49PM
Juggernaut is such an amazing buff! I went protection just cause I loved the concept behind warbringer, especially in pvp where the strategy was to put a warrior in combat so he couldnt charge right away- this should help some rage issues greatly.
Phil Mar 13th 2009 11:02PM
And I was just saying the other day "Wouldn't it be great if arms could charge whenever they wanted?" sweeeeet.]
The Overpower Caster debuff sounds good :O
Still, thoose are nice, along with the other set of buffs. but still.. I don't think it's enough.
And yeah.. stop nerfing fury.. you're going to crush my childhood dream of DWing Armagedeons! (Refering mostly to the tg nerf, could care less about the expertise.. you can work around it.)
Nadril Mar 13th 2009 11:04PM
I do hope that they keep Arms and Fury both viable for PvP. The reason being, of course, is that one of my main reasons for continuing on with a warrior was the awesome titan grip talent :P.
As a PvP warrior this sounds good to me though. Fury warriors will now have a 15 second Intercept (with set bonus) that we can also reset if we need to with Heroic Fury on a 45s CD. This means that we'll probably be able to stay on our target at pretty much all times.
The arms buff is very interesting. From what it seems you need to use it while an opponent is casting, but instead of locking them out of that school for 6 seconds and interrupting the cast it simply makes their damage and healing less effective for 5 seconds. This is going to be pretty damn harsh versus casters, that's for sure.
I'm looking forward to how warriors are going to scale with 3.1 gear anyways. Keep in mind that warriors were in a bad place S1 of TBC, but once they got better gear they were beasts in S2/S3/S4.
Leyvan Mar 13th 2009 11:05PM
Wait for it....wait for it...
"I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!"
jbodar Mar 14th 2009 6:33AM
You know everyone and their mothers are going to macro that with /y.
I weep for the future.
Snipe Mar 13th 2009 11:12PM
So... if Unrelenting Assault is 50% reduced healing outcome and Mortal Strike is 50% reduced healing income, how does a healer survive that if not assisted by another healer?
Unless they change something like Resilience now decreasing the effect of healing reduction debuffs, I don't see that change making it to Live.
Onnaug Mar 14th 2009 1:11AM
im almost certain that they're going to remove the -healing component from the new overpower buff, either that or make it not stack with ms
Yaikage Mar 14th 2009 10:04AM
If it does stay in, it doesn't mean it's uncounterable. For one thing, damage absorbtion is pretty common nowadays, what with shamans getting a 4k shield and absorbtion is unaffected by MS and the overpower debuff since it's technically not healing. Sure paladins are in a bit of a disadvantage from this standpoint, but they can just beacon themselves and heal a teammate for sacred shield procs.
Finally, hots applied when the debuff is not on are not affected, so ES, riptide, earthliving, renew, many druid spells, and possibly prayer of mending, are all unaffected if cast before the debuff or right after it expires.
From a 1v1 standpoint, this largely equalizes the gap between arms warriors and dps classes that can self heal like retadins or feral/balance druids. In a team standpoint, it might give people a reason to pay attention to the warrior for once, if it seems too OP in a burst situation, then just CC the warrior till you down his teammate(s) then take him down or just burn the warrior, afterall non prot lacks survivability.
Snipe Mar 14th 2009 2:25PM
"Sure paladins are in a bit of a disadvantage from this standpoint, but they can just beacon themselves and heal a teammate for sacred shield procs."
Sounds logical, until you consider Mortal Strike into the equation. The paladin's heals would be halved when reaching the teammate due to Unrelenting Assault and that half throughput would be once again halved when reaching the paladin (through Beacon of Light) due to Mortal Strike.
Of course in that case he could use Divine Shield, but remember Warriors have Shattering Throw now aswell. Sure, Holy Paladins could use a tone down, but I doubt this to be the underlying purpose of this new mechanic.
I just can't see any implementation of a healing output crippling, as long as healing income reductions (Mortal Strike, Aimed Shot, Wound Poison) remain so strong.
The mechanic does look interesting, though, and the magic damage reduction could definitely be useful, but then the "Pummel problem" wouldn't be solved.
Aries Mar 14th 2009 5:35AM
Improved Intercept being in the Arms tree was stupid in the first place.
Dump rage by switching to berserker stance, use improved intercept, go back to battle stance, have no rage left over to do anything else, dead.
Soteria Mar 14th 2009 5:38AM
I think they're hoping that the it will be balanced by the need to actually have overpower available at the right time, be in battle stance (vulnerable to fear), and forego a pummel. In a lot of cases this won't be overpowered at all, but in the cases of assist trains, especially in 5v5, a warrior will be a death sentence for holy paladins and resto shammies especially.
jbodar Mar 14th 2009 6:30AM
Just an FYI, Warriors are not exactly "vulnerable" to fear in Battle stance, since Berzerker Rage no longer has stance requirements.
http://www.wowwiki.com/Berserker_Rage
kala Mar 14th 2009 7:19AM
Any info on what level talent will the Juggernaut be?
Jows Mar 14th 2009 10:22AM
Anyone is saying losing warbringer is a DPS nerf is severely undergeared. Also the effects of expertise that we already have is getting increased by ~25% next patch. Valor Legs, Gloves and Ruthlessness should cap you.
Quit whining.