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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsCataclysm Class Changes: Warrior
by Adam Holisky 
Apr 8th 2010 at 12:01PM
Some of the major highlights:
- Inner Rage (Level 81): Whenever the character reaches a full 100 Rage, he or she will gain a buff that causes attacks to consume 50% more Rage and do 15% more damage for a short amount of time.
- Gushing Wound (Level 83): This ability will apply a bleed effect to the target. If the target moves, the bleed gains an extra stack and refreshes its duration, up to a maximum of three stacks.
- It's baaack! Heroic Leap (Level 85): This ability makes the character leap at their target and apply the Thunder Clap ability to all enemies in the area when they land.
- "...we're planning to try out a talent called Single-Minded Fury that is parallel to Titan's Grip and will provide a large boost to the damage of a pair of one-handed weapons."
Warrior PreviewWorld of Warcraft: Cataclysm will bring with it several changes to class talents and abilities. Here you will get a glimpse into some of the changes we have in store for the warrior. The information you're about to read is not complete, and is only meant to act as a preview for some of the exciting new things to come.
New Warrior Abilities
Inner Rage (Level 81): Whenever the character reaches a full 100 Rage, he or she will gain a buff that causes attacks to consume 50% more Rage and do 15% more damage for a short amount of time. This is a passive ability so it won't need to be activated by the player. The goal for this ability is to provide a benefit for hitting max Rage instead of it feeling like a penalty. However, we also don't want warriors to feel like they're supposed to pool Rage and do nothing until they hit 100, so we'll be closely monitoring how this plays out during the beta testing, and making adjustments as needed.
Gushing Wound (Level 83): This ability will apply a bleed effect to the target. If the target moves, the bleed gains an extra stack and refreshes its duration, up to a maximum of three stacks. The ability is currently planned to have no cooldown, cost 10 Rage, and have a 9-second duration. Gushing Wound is designed to be weaker than Rend with one stack, but better with three stacks, which will be reached when fighting a moving target.
Heroic Leap (Level 85): This ability makes the character leap at their target and apply the Thunder Clap ability to all enemies in the area when they land. Heroic Leap will be usable in Battle Stance and shares a cooldown with Charge, but the Juggernaut and Warbringer talents will allow Heroic Leap to be used in any stance and possibly while in combat. The cooldown for this ability might be longer than the Charge ability, but it will also apply a stun effect so you can make sure the target will still be there when you land.
Changes to Abilities and Mechanics
In addition to learning new abilities, you'll see changes to other abilities and mechanics with which you're already familiar. This list and the summary of talent changes below it are by no means comprehensive, but they should give you a good sense of what we intend for each spec.
New Talents and Talent Changes
Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses
Arms
Melee Damage
Armor Penetration
Bonus Swing
Fury
Melee Damage
Melee Haste
Enrage Intensity
Protection
Damage Reduction
Vengeance
Critical Block Chance
Bonus Swing: This is similar to the Sword Specialization talent that is currently in the game, but Bonus Swing will work on all attacks and with all weapons. You have a chance to proc a free, instant weapon swing that hits for 50% damage.
Enrage Intensity: Every benefit of being enraged is increased. This includes doing more damage/healing/ etc. from abilities like Bloodrage, Death Wish, Enrage, Berserker Rage, and Enraged Regeneration.
Critical Block Chance: As we mentioned in the stat changes preview, block rating is changing to a chance to block 30% of a melee swing's damage. Protection warriors have a chance that the block will be a critical block and block for 60% of a melee swing's damage instead. There will likely be talents available to push the amount blocked even higher.
Vengeance
We hope you enjoyed this preview, and we're looking forward to hearing your thoughts and feedback on these additions and changes. Please keep in mind that this information represents a work in progress and is subject to change as development on Cataclysm continues.
New Warrior Abilities
Inner Rage (Level 81): Whenever the character reaches a full 100 Rage, he or she will gain a buff that causes attacks to consume 50% more Rage and do 15% more damage for a short amount of time. This is a passive ability so it won't need to be activated by the player. The goal for this ability is to provide a benefit for hitting max Rage instead of it feeling like a penalty. However, we also don't want warriors to feel like they're supposed to pool Rage and do nothing until they hit 100, so we'll be closely monitoring how this plays out during the beta testing, and making adjustments as needed.
Gushing Wound (Level 83): This ability will apply a bleed effect to the target. If the target moves, the bleed gains an extra stack and refreshes its duration, up to a maximum of three stacks. The ability is currently planned to have no cooldown, cost 10 Rage, and have a 9-second duration. Gushing Wound is designed to be weaker than Rend with one stack, but better with three stacks, which will be reached when fighting a moving target.
Heroic Leap (Level 85): This ability makes the character leap at their target and apply the Thunder Clap ability to all enemies in the area when they land. Heroic Leap will be usable in Battle Stance and shares a cooldown with Charge, but the Juggernaut and Warbringer talents will allow Heroic Leap to be used in any stance and possibly while in combat. The cooldown for this ability might be longer than the Charge ability, but it will also apply a stun effect so you can make sure the target will still be there when you land.
Changes to Abilities and Mechanics
In addition to learning new abilities, you'll see changes to other abilities and mechanics with which you're already familiar. This list and the summary of talent changes below it are by no means comprehensive, but they should give you a good sense of what we intend for each spec.
- Heroic Strike will no longer be an "on next swing" attack, as we are removing this mechanic in Cataclysm. To keep the niche of Heroic Strike as a Rage dump, it will become an instant attack, but will cost between 10 and 30 Rage. This ability will not be usable until you have 10 Rage, but if you have more than 10, it will consume up to 30, adding additional damage for each point of Rage consumed above the base 10. Other abilities, such as Cleave, Execute, and Maul (for druids) will work similarly. The goal is to provide players with an option where if you can't afford the Rage, you don't push the button, but if you have excess Rage, you can push it a lot.
- Battle Shout, Commanding Shout, and possibly Demoralizing Shout will work more like the death knight's Horn of Winter ability. Specifically, these shouts will cost no resources, generate rage in addition to their current effects, and be on a short cooldown.
- Whirlwind will hit an unlimited number of targets, but only for 50% of weapon damage. The intent is for this ability to be used in multi-target scenarios and not on single targets.
- Overall, heals cast by players in Cataclysm will be a lower number relative to players' health than the current game. So to make the Mortal Strike debuff less mandatory but still useful in PvP, Mortal Strike will reduce healing by only 20%. All equivalent debuffs, including the Shadow priest and Frost mage debuffs, will be for 20% less healing. At the moment we aren't considering giving this debuff to anyone else, though we will certainly consider PvP utility for historically under-represented specs that use other mechanics.
- Sunder Armor will be reduced to three stacks instead of five, and still provide only a 4% reduction in armor per stack. We want to make this debuff easier to apply and less of a damage swing when it falls off.
New Talents and Talent Changes
- The Furious Sundering talent in the Fury tree will make the Sunder Armor ability cause 25/50% weapon damage and reduce the threat generated by 50/100%.
- The Mace and Poleaxe Specialization talents in the Arms tree will be removed. These provided just passive stats, which are not the kinds of talents we want to design in the future. We will keep the Sword Specialization talent, but it will be changed to a talent that applies to all types of weapons.
- As a Fury talent, Booming Voice will increase the Rage generated by shouts.
- While we like how Titan's Grip plays, we recognize some warriors liked the Fury tree because of the really fast swings that dual-wielding one-handed weapons could provide. Therefore, we're planning to try out a talent called Single-Minded Fury that is parallel to Titan's Grip and will provide a large boost to the damage of a pair of one-handed weapons.
- Several talents that reduce the Rage cost of abilities will be changed to focus on increased damage for those abilities instead.
- The new Arms talent called Disarming Nature will make successful disarms cause the target to cower in fear for 5/10 seconds.
- Another new Arms talent called Blitz will make the Charge ability hit for extra damage. The amount will possibly vary depending on the distance travelled.
- Improved Pummel, a Fury talent, will cause a successful interrupt to generate 10/20 Rage.
Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses
Arms
Melee Damage
Armor Penetration
Bonus Swing
Fury
Melee Damage
Melee Haste
Enrage Intensity
Protection
Damage Reduction
Vengeance
Critical Block Chance
Bonus Swing: This is similar to the Sword Specialization talent that is currently in the game, but Bonus Swing will work on all attacks and with all weapons. You have a chance to proc a free, instant weapon swing that hits for 50% damage.
Enrage Intensity: Every benefit of being enraged is increased. This includes doing more damage/healing/ etc. from abilities like Bloodrage, Death Wish, Enrage, Berserker Rage, and Enraged Regeneration.
Critical Block Chance: As we mentioned in the stat changes preview, block rating is changing to a chance to block 30% of a melee swing's damage. Protection warriors have a chance that the block will be a critical block and block for 60% of a melee swing's damage instead. There will likely be talents available to push the amount blocked even higher.
Vengeance
We hope you enjoyed this preview, and we're looking forward to hearing your thoughts and feedback on these additions and changes. Please keep in mind that this information represents a work in progress and is subject to change as development on Cataclysm continues.
Ghostcrawler"All equivalent debuffs" means if you have the debuff today, you will have it in Cataclysm, but at 20% healing received. To avoid further confusion, we are talking about Mortal Strike, Furious Strikes, Wound Poison, Aimed Shot, Permafrost and Improved Mind Blast.
We are also strongly considering having all of these effect cause the same debuff, called Mortal Wounds, which is a physical effect and therefore undispellable. This allows the behavior to be more consistent regardless of who is applying it and lets us consider things like how easy it should be to dispel poisons (since Mortal Wounds would not be affected).
Heals will be smaller and health pools will be larger in Cataclysm, so we don't expect Mortal Wounds to feel as mandatory as it does today, but this is clearly the kind of thing that will require a lot of playtesting and feedback.
--
Almost all dots will crit. The exception will be things like Deep Wounds and Ignite because those are already the product of a crit. Rend will crit.
We are really striving for scaling parity for the various specs and classes. This means that stats like haste and crit can't be awesome for some characters and terrible for others. Most abilities need to benefit from haste and crit.
We are also strongly considering having all of these effect cause the same debuff, called Mortal Wounds, which is a physical effect and therefore undispellable. This allows the behavior to be more consistent regardless of who is applying it and lets us consider things like how easy it should be to dispel poisons (since Mortal Wounds would not be affected).
Heals will be smaller and health pools will be larger in Cataclysm, so we don't expect Mortal Wounds to feel as mandatory as it does today, but this is clearly the kind of thing that will require a lot of playtesting and feedback.
--
Almost all dots will crit. The exception will be things like Deep Wounds and Ignite because those are already the product of a crit. Rend will crit.
We are really striving for scaling parity for the various specs and classes. This means that stats like haste and crit can't be awesome for some characters and terrible for others. Most abilities need to benefit from haste and crit.
In addition to commenting, don't forget that we're also looking for guest posts on the above changes.
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it. Nothing will be the same. In WoW.com's Guide to Cataclysm you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion. From Goblins and Worgens to Mastery and Guild changes, it's all there for your cataclysmic enjoyment.
Reader Comments (Page 9 of 9)
leeroyjohnson1127 Apr 16th 2010 8:25PM
I don't think the mechanics of whirl wind should change its already hard enough to keep dps up on a single target. I don't really like the concept of things costing you more rage if you have more rage. That would only work if Blizzard gives the one handed thing a try so that you could compensate for the loss of rage. I think the warrior should get something to shake dots even if it has a big cool down or only works for a few secs. I also twould like to see the cool down on Intimidating shout should be lessened. It would be nice for warriors become more like DKs and be able to tank in multiple talent specs. Overall the class isn't bad in raids but I think it needs some better burst damage ability in PVP or take some of the cool down time off intimidating shout. Also the War should have a move that knocks down instead of stuns like charge for instance. I like the Barb leap concept but i doubt it will anything but a pretty show. The bleed effects piece should have been like that from the start great change. Inner rage is a wasted effort my bar never gets to max unless I am stunned by a rouge or a pally in which case I won't live long enough to use it. if your going to put that somewhere put it at the bottom of the PROT tree.
leeroyjohnson1127 Apr 16th 2010 9:03PM
All you have to do to allow tanking in the other classes for the warrior is move the toughness up in the tree like the DKs is. Thats really not asking for much just don't allow a sheild to be equiped in other stances if that is the issue. how ever i think beserk stance would be the only one that needs that. Warriors have very short range which is understand able but could we get either a shorter cool down on the intimidating shout or push the range to 6-7 on some of the attacks.
leeroyjohnson1127 Apr 16th 2010 9:05PM
Holy paladin!!! I would have said god but this is sufficeint why not just make a game shark for wow so we can put in cheat codes. Are you kiding me Guardian of the ancient kings! The rouge gets a smoke screen so he can rape you in the dark, Mage gets fog screen, DK gets mirrior attack, preist gets awsome save ability. Wars get inner rage and a leap attack that shares a cool down with charge, we already know your going to nerf the gushing wounds. Just delete the warrior class all together if you hate it that bad my nerves can't take this anymore I am just going to wait till Diablo 3 comes out and then I'll start a Pally! you destroyed the warrior with your SS style campaign of neverending nerfs. Make the new gear for the warrior a wuffle BAT and a football helmet it would be appropriate. the only thing that will survive is prot but pallys druids and Dks will out tank them till they get maxed gear and no latency issues.
tjitze1991 Apr 18th 2010 1:10PM
I think those are some really cool ideas and all, but i think warriors dont need any of that for pvp.
I *know* they need something more like a beast within like ability to make em immune to slow/stun/root or whatever for x secs or have a passive 50% reduction to slow/root effects.
So they may actually have a proper chance to actually beat mages without having to chase them all the time while spamming spellreflect and timing charges, while all mages know how to beat it anyway.
As for the disarm/fear thing it sounds pretty cool, but the warrior will just bash the fear out of him again, and if youre using disarm as a CC in case u fight multiple people it may already be the deciding factor that you will lose (unless you outgear em greatly) first of all it drains your rage becouse you have to switch stances and doing that takes time, first you have to go def stance, then get an auto attack swing for rage, and then you can do disarm, and after that you go back to battlestance, in other words....sux.
It will take like 2.5 seconds if macroed for just one ability and if you do that it gives the other enemy all the time they need to kill you. and if not you just fell behind on your rotation which means losing the fight anyway.
My idea is simplifying the warrior rotation, like the paladin or ench shammy...wars got too much of a rotation to be able to do other things next to dpsing, if youre hitting a priest while you see a mage is casting sheep on you, you wanna spellreflect it ofc. but while you attempt to do that, its just the question the macro did it on time (the macro delays coz of lag) and even if you succeed the priest is back on full health and even free from hamstring if youre unlucky because you had to switch to shield for spellreflect... sigh.
I know that as a pally u can spam whatever u want untill u see the enemy dies while you can cleanse/heal yourself while your abilities are on CD.
If it is like that then the warrior wont fall back on its rotation as much if they want to for example disarm anyone becouse its in between the CDs anyway.
if you like or disagree on my ideas please bother to comment on me :)
tjitze1991 Apr 18th 2010 1:20PM
one more thing, if you nerf sword spec like that i will never roll a warrior again, warriors hit avaragely like 1.5k if geared (this is very random gamble) so if you get the sword spec proc it means that you will do a big ass 750 xtra dmg, which is like equal to 2 crappy rend ticks, we really needed that....
leeroyjohnson1127 Apr 18th 2010 4:25PM
I agree on the roatation thing the warrior is way to complicated with the melee range and lack of cc. If you add into the equation that warriors have nothing to power out of the cc that is being done to them this makes for an endless issue of range-damage. Even with 23k armor and 817 resil in prot I still take 6-10k shots from time to time and have just the trinket to break out of cc. the fact that I am wearing plate seems like a nerf compared to some of the sheilds that mages, preist, pallys, and DKs have. The mage having and preist having a sheild is understandble but the pally is a bit OP. The preist sheild is a little rediculous right now as well but its a preist. I would just like to see things a bit more even the warrior has the biggest gear dependency with the least amount of cc and shortest range. if we get slowed we are done. I think our range should be extended on some attacks.