The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Destroyer
by Matthew Rossi 
Jan 15th 2010 at 6:00PM
Dev Chat Update: While today's post is about fury, it's worth mentioning that in addition to nerfing Shield Block's contribution to Shield Slam, we will supposedly see a threat buff to the ability. Hopefully it's a scaling, and not a static, threat buff, something that adds X threat for every Y block value or something. They'd also supposedly like to add sustained damage to prot for PvE without PvP burstiness, which would be nice if it happened..
Lately I get plenty of tanking action in raids, to the point where I honestly don't want to do it in PuG's. When musing about it the other day I realized that I'm too used to hard modes and progression when tanking: I demand perfection of myself to such a degree that I get tense and stressed over the smallest error in execution. This is possibly admirable (when not taken too far) in a raid setting on a new boss where strategies are being tested and modified constantly and everything's on the razor's edge between being able to pass the checks inherent to the content.
It's not when you're PuGging Halls of Lightning for a couple of extra Emblems of Frost.
In fact, what can help you get past Rotface is downright madness causing when heading down to Loken. At this point, Loken holds no surprises, and neither does the trash. Being a tanking perfectionist just leads you to tend towards freaking the heck out over stupid crap bored people do, and that's turning the game from fun to a drag for yourself. (It probably does for them, too, but they can look out for themselves.) Lately, I've taken to running the random daily and any 10 mans I PuG on my own as DPS, just to get a break from my own self-imposed desire to try for flawless execution. (I'm not saying I ever accomplish that, by the way, just that I want to.)
And I have to say: fury got good again when I wasn't looking.
Part of it is that I finally went out and stacked the ArP I was resisting for so long. I knew it was good, mind you... I've been saying that they were going to make us want ArP since before Ulduar came out... but I resisted it myself because I have always liked stacking strength. It's kind of annoying to admit that to myself now. Then again, it's a lot easier to get a lot of passive ArP now: before a trinket I can be at an easy 75% ArP if I wear every piece I have (which I won't because it drops my expertise too low, mind you, but even at 26 exp I'm at 60% ArP right now).
Part of it is also the weapons. Current weapons have more raw DPS, better stat spreads, and in the case of Bryntroll an absolutely savage proc. (Now, I tank almost exclusively in 25 man raids so I'm not getting a Bryn until everyone who DPS's with a 2h gets one, mind you, but truth is truth and Bryn's proc is a solid 4% of a fury warrior's DPS.) Set pieces for DPS warriors seem pretty solid to me but it's really 2h's like Ramladni's and the Citadel's having really nice spreads that helps jump the DPS up quickly. (Upgrading from the Sharpened OEB and Reckoning to the two ICC 10 2h saw close to 700 DPS almost immediately.)
To be honest, some of the non-set plate has been underwhelming so far, at least in 10's. Comparing the Deathspeaker Zealot's Helm to the Helm of Thunderous Rampage is somewhat underwhelming for a fury warrior. (I know very little about ret paladins but I'm told the haste on the DZH is better for them than ArP.) It's certainly not a bad hat, mind you, but it doesn't stand out as astonishing the way the weapons do. Still, this isn't meant to be a gear list piece (I should do one of those, mind you) and for the most part a mixture of TotC/TotGC and ICC gear will serve a fury warrior just fine. For that matter, there's some very nice pieces in the new ICC 5 mans for those of us coming in late, so to speak: solid trinkets, good weapons, even solid DPS plate. And of course Emblems of Triumph (and Frost if you're raiding and/or doing the daily random) for tier and non-set pieces like the aforementioned Helm of Thunderous Rampage and its Horde equivalent, which my tauren is grinding for when I get the chance to run on him.
All of this is really beside the point, however, and deserves (and will get, I promise) a full column or more to really explicate. The point is simply that, at this point in the expansion's life cycle there's plenty of gear for you to equip your fury warrior in order to get serious about putting out DPS, with options to help you customize your stats without desperately waiting for Malygos 25 to drop a pair of boots he'll never drop. Up until TotGC I saw warriors still trying for those bloody Melancholy Sabatons, man. You can argue that the Grinning Skull's aren't quite as good (which is debatable depending on your other stats) but man, they're a lot easier to get.
You can get iLevel 232 or better gear just by sticking out the grind and move into raiding pretty easily, and in general the fights (especially the trash) in the new 5 mans and the ICC raid itself are pretty fury friendly. Well, okay, Deathwhisper's a PITA and Rotface makes you run all over the place, but fights like Deathbringer Saurfang and Festergut are pretty solid DPS fights for fury. You'll probably not be number 1 on the meter if you have a good solid rogue in your raid, but you can definitely contribute. As for heroics, a lot of that depends on how much threat your tank can put out, how much moving he or she does, how much AoE there is, etc etc but I'm not having any trouble as DPS in them so far. Threat's my only real limiter (I really, really wish I had a threat dump). How much of this is just the spec once again proving that it scales ridiculously well with the right gear and insanely poorly without it... well, there's always been that aspect to playing fury.
I'll also admit to dusting off one of my warrior alts I abandoned months ago on another server and occasionally PuGging with him just for giggles. He's level 77 now after a couple of days of dungeon finder madness, and while I'm hardly setting any DPS records on him in my mismatched blues and greens, it's been pretty fun so far.
Ironically, now that I'm a dedicated tank and pretty happy about it, DPS is finally fun again. I'm working on an arms set to play around with now that I have a decent axe and sword to compare against each other (you'll probably hear about that next week). I'm also contemplating writing about fury tanking some of these instances. No, I don't mean wearing tank gear, I mean in full DPS gear, in zerk stance, just going ballistic on everything in sight. It requires a tolerant, well geared healer, but it's not that hard to do at this point. (You can even slap on some PvP gear if you're worried about crits. I don't, but you can.) However, that does fall under the category of stupid warrior tricks and I don't want to encourage fresh 80's in quest gear to try it, so we'll see.
Also, yes, I avoided talking about prot PvP nerfs this week. Why? Well, because I'm waiting to see them in action, and also, I'm kind of torn between being afraid they wreck the class for tanking and hoping that they make prot warriors so incapable of doing anything but tanking bosses that we end up de facto main tanks because other classes are better for everything else. Rotface's oozes come to mind. Sure, a warrior can taunt spam one but with paladins and DK's having so much more options for ranged threat, why would you have the warrior do it? Put him on the boss.
Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.Filed under: Warrior, Instances, Raiding, (Warrior) The Care and Feeding of Warriors
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Slartibart Jan 15th 2010 6:27PM
Yup Rossi,
As a ret, the haste is far more valuable as with our split between phys/magic damage, that benefits all our attacks, seals, etc. As opposed to armPen which benefits the warriors, and I believe Dk's far more than us?
This is for rets, if it's an upgrade with armpen, and you're rolling against a dps warrior, you might want to bow out. There's better out there for you.
Adodido Jan 16th 2010 11:07AM
It mostly stems from the fact that, like you said, paladins are all about the spell damage.
While not so much as shamans, who get most of their dps from totems, shocks, lighting, lava lash and windfury, and only a little bit from stormstrike and white damage.
Paladins, atm, feel to me like a bit of a broken class.
There is no rotation, no rhyme or reason between their attacks.
They just throw out attack after attack and then wait on what one comes of CD 1st.
"I'm gonna use a weapon strike now!"
"Now I'm gonna make a giant holy hammer come at you from above!"
"Now I'm gonna blast you with a holy-fire spell thing!"
"Now I'm gonna make a big holy tornadoe with some spinning hammers come out of me!"
"Now I'm gonna throw a hammer straight at you!"
You could argue that pallys are the hammer bros., but if you ever dps as one you'll see they feel a lot like they've been cobbled together.
Anyway, back on topic, for armour pen. you really just have to think about how your class deals damage to figure out if its good for you.
Warriors and blood dks get a MASSIVE benefit from APen., simply because 90% of their attacks are physical (Heart strike, Death strike, Mortal strike, auto-attack, Overpower, Slam, Whirlwind etc.) and the only exception is the case of Death coil and Blood boil, which are only really used as filler or aoe attacks.
Frost/Unholy knights rely less on physical attacks then their blood brethren, but still appreciate Armour pen. a great deal.
Obliterate, Scourge strike, Blood strike and auto attack make up a good deal of those two specs damage.
I believe the same rings true for hunters, who use a lot of spell damage in their attacks (Stings, Explosion shot, traps, Black arrow etc.) but also a lot of physical attacks (auto shot, steady shot, silencing shit, aimed shot etc.) in their rotation, making them appreciate arm pen., while not as much as blood dks and warriors, but still quite a lot.
Then you got paladins, bottom of the barrel on the Armour pen. totem pole.
Judgement, Divine storm, SoC/SoV, Consecration and Exorcism receives no benefit from armour pen at all, and these are pretty much 90% of a paladin's dps.
Docp Jan 15th 2010 6:31PM
I find that raiding, especially at a high level, tends to be so demanding and time consuming that it's almost impossible to have fun doing other stuff with my main character. I guess as a Rogue I don't have another spec that's so vastly different as swapping from DPS to tank so I spend most of my time on alts and such to get that feeling of 'difference' in my offtime.
I have two questions if you don't mind me asking them.
1) Do you think the supposed prot nerfs will make prot unusuable to PVP or merely scale it back to be competitive but not overpowering? I suspect I'll still be good against other melee but will struggle more with spellcasters.
2) Do you reckon you could take Adam Holisky if he has a poisonous spear?
:D Jan 15th 2010 6:36PM
IS it me or does he REALLY like to show off his warrior in his T10 armor.
jimbob Jan 16th 2010 1:56PM
Totally!
Xonate Jan 15th 2010 7:13PM
If you pay close attention, you will notice that every single picture Matthew Rossi puts on his articles is of one of his warriors, usually looking from the ground up. I need to eventually make a slide show or a compilation to show how similar every single picture is. ^^
Matthew Rossi Jan 15th 2010 7:23PM
Could be worse, I could do this again
http://www.wow.com/2009/11/28/the-care-and-feeding-of-warriors-a-warriors-bounty/
jbodar Jan 15th 2010 7:57PM
He *does* look like a pretty BAMF.
jbodar Jan 15th 2010 7:58PM
The Draenei, that is. ;p
Qot Jan 15th 2010 6:57PM
I had a warrior I had leveled up fury, thrown in some ilevel 200 blues and purples, spec'd Arms (since that was "the" DPS spec for heroics, etc.), ran a few instances... And left him alone. Arms wasn't fun for me.
Fury, while extremely simple (Whirlwind, Bloodthirst, Slam procs, Heroic strike for rage dump), is also extremely fun. I've been tearing up dungeons lately. The new dungeons tend to have whirlwind-sized multi-mob pulls (HoR especially, but even the trash in PoS and FoS tend to be grouped up in about that size), which are built for whirlwind and cleave. It's also nice to hit /grid standby and just go "Wheeeee DPS!"
I was expecting to be low DPS and get taunted for my low GearScore, but there hasn't been a dungeon where I'm not pulling competitive to top DPS. Plus the long waits in queues let me get my daily Argent Tourney quests done.
Donaghy Jan 15th 2010 10:49PM
Really? I'm the exact opposite. I find Fury to be soul-crushingly boring, where Arms I find the playstyle really fun.
Kinch Jan 15th 2010 6:58PM
Why not? T10 looks awesome, especially compared to the last.
Sleutel Jan 15th 2010 6:59PM
"I'm kind of torn between being afraid they wreck the class for tanking and hoping that they make prot warriors so incapable of doing anything but tanking bosses that we end up de facto main tanks because other classes are better for everything else."
Unfortunately, in a high-end raiding guild, that's more like, "Sit outside the instance twiddling your thumbs while the less geared and less experienced tank who lucked out with better class mechanics and more buffs than nerfs goes in until the fight is on farm."
Chamual Jan 15th 2010 7:22PM
Welcome to the life of the Paladin tank, right through the Burning Crusade expansion.......
DecoyTPH Jan 15th 2010 10:07PM
Except that Paladins in BC had a niche. They were the best at (at the very least) one thing, trash/aoe. A Warrior's niche right now is to be last (or tied for last) in every way; Dps, EH, avoidance, mitigation, aoe threat, cooldowns..
Slartibart Jan 16th 2010 12:03AM
Thank you for setting him straight Decoy. I wasn't sure what he meant, they for sure had a niche, you could add MH up to Arch in there as well.
MusedMoose Jan 15th 2010 7:59PM
I don't always read your columns because a lot of the recent ones have been about tanking, but this was definitely a good read. I played a Fury warrior for a while before setting her aside due to wanting to level other characters in specific amounts of time, and I'm looking forward to getting back into the character and talent build when Cataclysm hits (worgen Fury warrior FTW).
On that note, I do have a question: do you think you'll be doing any sort of "new to the class" guide when Cataclysm hits, or something to cover the changes? I ask because while I liked playing a warrior, I was never very good at it, and I was often confused over what stats to get more of. (Might be why I only hit level 34.) Thanks.
slartibart Jan 16th 2010 12:37AM
Especially at level 34, this is easy.
Get moar:
STR
AP
AGI
In that order.
cb Jan 15th 2010 9:17PM
"hoping that they make prot warriors so incapable of doing anything but tanking bosses that we end up de facto main tanks because other classes are better for everything else."
Nah, you'd have the warrior switch to a dps spec so that one of the extra bears or paladins can do the boss tanking. That's my worry.
r06ch Jan 15th 2010 11:27PM
Indeed my worry is related to this too. Are warriors any MORE capable at MT'ing (single target boss) than pallies or DK's? Without an ability such as ardent defender, it seems like the answer is, "No."
So what gives? They can do everything warrior tanks can do, and more? That doesn't seem too balanced. Sounds like bring the class, not the player.
It can be pretty frustrating in raid, being the absolute bottom of the dps chart, watching my co-tank paladin doing dps on par with that of the dps classes half the time. Because of this, I'm happy to see the devs desire to increase pve sustained damage. However, Mr. Rossi seems a bit skeptical..