PTR patch 3.1.2 build 9889: Juggernaut, Auriya's cats nerfed
by Eliah Hecht 
May 11th 2009 at 6:00PM
A small new build was pushed to the patch 3.1.2 PTR today. The majority of the changes were relatively minor, but one is headline-worthy: the Arms Warrior talent Juggernaut now gives your next Slam or Mortal Strike an additional 25% chance to critically hit if used within 10 sec, down from 100% chance. Forum posters have been asking for a Juggernaut nerf quite vocally recently; they ought to be pleased with this one. Warriors also got a second small nerf: the Glyph of Rapid Charge is being changed from a 20% cooldown reduction (3 seconds) to a 7% reduction (1 second).
Other changes included some small tweaks to the Ulduar encounters Iron Council and General Vezax. Auriya's cats took a good hit from the nerf bat, with the damage from their Savage Pounce ability being cut in half. Finally, Priests' Divine Hymn, which was completely reworked in patch 3.1, had its bonus healing to affected targets nerfed from 15% to 10%; I never use the spell, so I don't much care.
Filed under: Warrior, Patches, News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Hansbo May 11th 2009 6:07PM
Divine hymn is a really nice clutch spell to use in an emergency (or with careful planning if trying a difficult hard mode). The nerf isn't that bad, since it's the spell's enormous healing output that's the main draw of it, rather than the healing done increase.
Arucar May 11th 2009 6:10PM
F2ck that Blizz! I don't care about the Juggernaut nerf it was OP it's true but what pisses me off it's that u nerfed INMEDIATELY after saying in a forum that you people were still considering what to do and not even 24 hours later after that post BAM nerfed Juggernaut so players stopped QQing about it.
If it works like that then how about nerfing SoM and Consecrate since it's doing too much damage in PvE!?
Beatphreek May 11th 2009 6:14PM
Ummm they didn't nerf it yet man, calm down. It's been pushed to the PTR for the next patch... doesn't even mean it will make it live.
You are going to hurt yourself getting that excited... Nerd Rage is bad mmmkay.
(P.S. They usually do hot-"fix" Pally rebalances directly into the game...)
Zinn May 11th 2009 6:58PM
Yeah coz being able to Juggernaut a critted MS/Slam into someones face every 12 sec isn't a bit too good?
danawhitaker May 11th 2009 7:58PM
@Zinn
Do you get a lot of warriors that repeatedly charge you during the exact same fight? It's on applicable within ten seconds of a *charge*. That means, typically, once in combat, unless you're constantly running from the person at maximum speed and they aren't making an effort to catch you. If someone keeps running from me, I may or may not be able to use charge depending on the distance they can get. I suppose if you're a squishy sort of class, yeah, you'd be running. But do you get far enough away every ten seconds for the warrior to charge you again? I have trouble believing this is actually impacting you as much as you think it is. Maybe *you* just suck.
I'm guessing this is more overpowered in a PVP sense. I don't do a lot of PVP. I know it was tremendously beneficial during the beginning of a fight in PVE for me to get a nice big burst of damage in. Even in PVP, when I charge, half the time I just charge the nearest hostile target regardless of who I was previously fighting if someone runs from me. I've found the range on charge to be glitchy at best when used against other players who are on the move, and I even use the extended range glyph.
Ultimately, it's not going to decrease my DPS dramatically during a boss fight. But frankly, given the amount of cheap tactics I've seen used in battlegrounds and in duels (warlocks fear-spamming, for instance), I'm not sure now what advantage arms warriors actually have. Time will tell if this makes it to live or not. I lived without Juggernaut before, and I'll be able to live with a nerfed version, I just hate when a PVE useful tool is nerfed because of PVP whiners.
Craig R May 11th 2009 6:10PM
I still only hate chargespam, so...
condolences on your nerf, juggernaut.
soul May 11th 2009 6:11PM
Wow, not using Divine Hymn? You are missing out on a lot of aoe raid healing.
ibuprophen May 12th 2009 12:27PM
every 6 mins or so... woudnt call that a lot
Zinn May 11th 2009 6:54PM
It actually has a 10 min cd, but I have to agree. I use this on most fights in Ulduar and it can take care of one wave of massive aoe pretty much by itself. Awesomely hpm efficient when used right (use it with Inner Focus for extra much sugah)
Wyred May 12th 2009 3:15AM
Yeah, divine hymn rocks the house. My guild happens to run with a lot of priests, and when learning the XT-002 fight I was able to brute force the tympanic tantrums by having one priest pop divine hymn each time, it's that good. Combined with inner focus (not sure whether the IF crit bonus affects it, but 2k mana anyhow) I got 120k healing from one cast. So yeah, it could do with a nerf, 10 min cd or not. It'll still be awesome after this.
hedyd May 11th 2009 6:31PM
Charge? Mortal Strike?
I never use those spells, so I don't much care.
Bubsa May 11th 2009 7:07PM
Win.
Sleutel May 11th 2009 6:55PM
Nerfing Rapid Charge? Ugh, thanks for removing a great utility for PvE Warriors because of PvP QQing. Let's hope this one doesn't make it to the live realm.
When is Blizzard going to stop trying to balance a primarily PvE game for PvP play? It's never going to work out so that both sides can be happy. We should be able to create separate max-level PvP characters with special PvP versions of their class abilities.
Wulfhere May 11th 2009 6:59PM
The problem is, they can't balance warriors. They just keep nerfing them and when they start to get over it, they nerf them again. I stopped playing mine after BC came out, there's just no point.
Terrimo May 11th 2009 7:27PM
Good point, Sleuty.
I don't PvP much, so I forget that that's the source of most of this QQing and subsequent Nerfing.
I'm with you in hoping that this doesn't go live.
Robert May 11th 2009 7:52PM
I agree completely Wulfhere. I just left my warrior when LK came out and didn't touch him again till i pushed to 80 and even that was a chore they just aren't fun to play anymore. its sad seeing DPS warriors pretty much constantly get nerfed, yeh we got TG but the world and his wife complained about it now its worthless to the point where i've seen Arms out DPS me in similar gear...
Terrimo May 11th 2009 7:18PM
So, GC says Blizz doesn't want Hunters head and shoulders above in DPS terms, but instead battling it out with Locks, Mages, and Rogues.
But Warriors...
What?
are supposed to be head and shoulders BELOW everyone else??
i.e., if it's accepted as common knowledge that Warriors are the low man on the DPS totem pole, why the Hell would we need a Nerf????
/baffled
Ramsay May 13th 2009 2:08PM
Hmmmm....seems to me that if they are going to nerf the glyph from 3 to 1 seconds they should probably change the name from Glyph of Rapid Charge to Glyph of Charge. Taking that 2 seconds away takes all the rapidness out of it.
Noscy May 11th 2009 7:31PM
Playing both a mage and a warrior, I find it annoying that kiting a warrior was moderate, now it will be just all that more easier.
Second thing Resil not only reduces the critical strike chance but it reduces the amount of critical strike damage inflicted. Stack that with plate classes, and oh wow, your critical strike hits 'x' DK for 2000 (Critical). Clothies have more of an issue with Juggernaut, which I can understand.
Until Warriors have more of an ability to free themselves like Ret Pali's (BoF, Bubble, and Cleanse), or Druids who can be snared as long as it takes to shape shift. I don't see any way around it. Maybe take less damage whilst snared, or increase the healing from Second Wind.
I don't know suggestions?
smileyy May 11th 2009 7:33PM
Its not as big of a nerf as it might seem. I'm guessing a raid-buffed Arms warrior will be around 40% crit as is.
Now Juggernaut will have them crit ~2/3 of the time after a charge, rather than 100% of the time.