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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsWhat will fury do in Cataclysm?
by Matthew Rossi 
May 27th 2010 at 1:00PM
Ghostcrawler - Re: Cataclysm Fury RotationThat leaves Fury with Bloodthirst and Slam and Heroic Strike. Heroic Strike will play more of a role since it will require a GCD, but you also may not want to push it every time in low rage scenarios. So we do think Fury will need one more rotational button. The one we are messing with right now is Victory Rush. It feels pretty cool so far, but a lot of things will change with classes over the next several weeks. Not sure yet whether it works better as a proc (like Sudden Death) or something available all the time.
I'd personally like to see Victory Rush become a proc like Sudden Death or Bloodsurge Slams: in fact, it wouldn't be hard to simply add VR to both of those abilities, letting it proc either instead of or at the same time as a Sudden Death Execute or Bloodsurge Slam. You'd need to leave it enough time to not end up wasted a lot, but there's potential there.
Ghostcrawler also makes a good point about glyphs and Cataclysm (if you think an ability isn't good because of a glyph or too good because of one, don't assume that glyph will still exist or be in the same form in the future) and again emphasizes the problem with Whirlwind style abilities. While it's good to see them thinking about this, we need more details: how is Bloodsurge going to be affected by losing Heroic Strike spam, for just one concern? Still, I'm hopeful they'll work out the new rotation fairly soon.
Filed under: Warrior, Analysis / Opinion, News items, Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 3)
Cyrius May 27th 2010 2:39PM
And we don't give a damn you find it lack lusting and a faceless grind.
:P
Ilunc May 27th 2010 2:45PM
Huhu also typical that a comment saying some problems with wow on a wow site would be grayed out. Oh well enjoy your stay in wow!
feniks9174 May 27th 2010 3:14PM
Your comment was grayed out because it has nothing to do with the topic at hand. Your opinions on the direction of the game aside, coming into a discussion about Whirlwind's removal from the Fury rotation and the specs need for another button to push in the hole it will leave just to say "This game is boring now and I don't care what you think" is not going to win you any internets.
Mythik May 27th 2010 1:59PM
Warriors get nerfed too much. Blizzard favors the flower picking fancylads known as paladins
BitterCupOJoe May 27th 2010 2:09PM
Yes. That would be why warriors were the only hybrid class allowed to do pure DPS damage in vanilla and BC, while still being the only real raid tank, and why warriors were the only tank that was balanced to be the MT in BC, with paladins were stuck with being backup healers only in vanilla, one of the weakest hybrid DPS specs in BC and also the healer that got dropped when it was time to go to Sunwell. Oh, but they could trash tank then! Oh and hey! At the end of Wrath, a fury tank is almost always going to be a ret paladin on the DPS charts, assuming similar skill and gear. Yes, those poor put-upon warriors.
clundgren May 27th 2010 2:11PM
Paladins? Are you on freaking crack?????
Paladins have been nerfed more than any other class in Wrath, except possibly DKs. *Every* patch but the last one, which mercifully forgot us altogether, has contained substantial paladin nerfs. We had our burst nerfed repeatedly, we had lay on hands effectively removed, self healing almost halved, raid wall effectively removed... Paladins are sinking back towards vanilla status while fury warriors, who have never been anything less than competitive, have now been buffed to the top of the charts.
Look, I just gotta say it: for a buncha badass barbarian types you guys sure whine an awful lot. Especially fury warriors. Arms have a definite case to make for PvE, though one could argue that their PvP dominance offers compensation. But fury warriors?
Rhabella May 27th 2010 2:22PM
And as proof of your statement, you would point to the fact that for 2 expansions Blizzard didn’t even ask warriors to pay the hybrid tax despite being the one and only “true” tank?
Oh Wait…
Or maybe you would point out that early in the original beta, the paladin shield slam was given to warriors.
Oh Wait…
Or maybe you would point to the fact that for the entirety of TBC, warriors were able to dominate PVP play but the minte paladins became perceived as “faceroller” in PVP in Wrath they were nerfed.
Or Wait…
Or could it be all the plate gear with ArP on it that is much more advantageous to a warrior’s dps than a paladins.
Oh Wait…
Damn dude, I really can’t come up with anything to help your argument.
Killik May 27th 2010 2:30PM
How does warriors getting nerfed have anything to do with paladins? If your sandwich tastes bad do you demand a nerf on pizza?
feniks9174 May 27th 2010 3:05PM
/agreed. - Nerf Pizza.
And Mac'n'cheese. That stuff is way too OP.
clundgren May 27th 2010 2:23PM
You know what: warriors don't know what it is to struggle as a class. Most other hybrid dps classes had to endure lengthy periods when they basically sucked. Paladins, Shaman, Priests, Druids...if you were DPS specced you sucked in Vanilla WoW, and probably in most of BC, too. Especially paladins. Paladins were the joke dps class for years. Warrior *tanks* did more dps than ret paladins in Vanilla WoW.
Meanwhile, warriors got to be the only hybrid that did "pure" levels of dps all the way through. So I'm sorry if your moaning, from where you currently sit at your usual place at the top of the dps meters, doesn't exactly evoke a ton of sympathy.
But even more galling is that some very vocal warriors constantly whine about how other classes, about how other hybrid classes, have it so much better. Paladins this, DKs that...
You know what I would like to see? I would like to see some of those warriors, the whiners, have to spend years fighting just to be allowed to be competitive. Then maybe they'd appreciate how good your class has always had it.
Matthew Rossi May 27th 2010 2:40PM
As I pointed out in a response to a comment you responded to, ret paladins and fury warriors are producing almost identical DPS in ICC 25.
http://www.wow.com/2010/05/06/icc-dps-analysis-by-spec
Go ahead, take a look at some numbers instead of just assuming your class has it bad.
Not that any of this has to do with what's coming in Cataclysm. I mean, if we wanted to talk about paladins doing poorly, Wrath sure as hell hasn't been that expansion.
Doughtar May 27th 2010 3:11PM
Jeez, can we get off the warriors vs pally thing already?
Warriors do know what it's like to struggle as a class. The vast majority of pally's were forced to be healers in vanilla? The vast majority of warriors were forced to be tanks.
Warriors didn't get nerfed as much as pally's? Bullcrap! Remember patch 2.0, which brought Blizz's first attempt at rage normalization? Pally's got massive buffs to their prot tree. Warriors got broken, especially prot warriors. 2.0 was preceded and followed by nerfs damn near every patch. So forgive us if we're more then a little leery about Cata.
Arm pen gear favors warriors over pally's. Yup, I'll give you that...oh wait, that's right. Any melee dps gear favors warriors. That the main problem with us. Everybody else gears incrementally, we gear exponentially. Nobody remembers that noob warrior who just started raiding or pvping and how bad he sucked. They only remember that same warrior after he got his gear and how awesome he was.
clundgren May 27th 2010 4:00PM
Second post, as my first reply ended up in the ether.
@Matthew Rossi:
I looked at your numbers. Mine are from WoW Meters Online:
http://www.wowmeteronline.com/rank/classrank/dps/9/0/3
and show warriors above paladins in every fight. What to make of this difference? Well, given that WoW Meters tracks only the top performers for each class, I hypothesize that, combined with the other data, it shows warriors and ret paladins perform similarly given average gear and ability, but that warriors have significantly more upside. I welcome alternative hypotheses, though.
You are absolutely correct about Cataclysm. What sparked the response from myself and, I note, several others was an instant response from certain posters, not you or most warriors, but a persistent vocal minority, to A)whine once again about whirlwind as if they are the only class getting an AoE nerf, and B)target paladins in particular.
As far as Cataclysm goes, I think the virtually identical AoE nerf to my class is a good thing, both as far as game play goes, which has become sloppy, and because it opens the door to single target dps buff, which is needed. As far as fury warriors go, they certainly will need a new single target ability to fill in the rotation, as will ret paladins, but I would think a reliable form of single target CC would be at the top of the fury wishlist, given the stated design intentions for Cata.
Finally, I think that my comments about some (again, a minority, but a very vocal minority) warriors being a bit myopic about the history of the classes is fair. Wrath was certainly good for paladins, but I know you are fully aware of how hard we and most other dps hybrids had to fight to become competitive. Warriors did not go through that in anything like the same way, which is not to say that they have never had issues. And the ret paladin trajectory in Wrath has been steadily downward, from suddenly, shockingly OPed at the pre-Wrath patch, to average now (which is fine...as long as that trajectory stops at average!).
Djinn May 27th 2010 4:12PM
I seem to remember on the podcast a few weeks ago Rossi stating things like once a fury warrior got geared up they basically were unstoppable and that in any case he was going to take his fury warrior there was no way the tank was going to hold aggro. Specifically stating that as rage works now it is a virtually limitless resource for him once he gets the engine going, boom I have a full tank, i think those were close to his words. Not that I have had it too bad lately as a DK but as a shaman I remember thinking a lot that fury warriors don't pay the hybrid tax as much as the rest of us hybrids and thats true up until you see a really good feral druid in action. Ive seen good and I mean GOOD rogues have a hard time keeping up with a well played feral druid. But don't get me started on druids... But I am happy with my Unholy DK at the moment so I won't be complaining too much but for god's sake buff shamans... There I covered all the hybrids... Oh and nerf ret pallies... or at least make them require some skill to play...
clundgren May 27th 2010 4:28PM
@Doughtar
Re. the paladins vs. warriors thing. You are, of course, correct, but why is it the case that so many warrior columns immediately spark the paladin haters to come out of the weeds (c.f. Mythik above) and spew the same nonsense about us being Blizzard's "favoured" class? I'm sure you can appreciate how paladins who played from Vanilla onwards react to being described as "favoured" after years of being called "lolrets," "shutupandhealadins", "buffbotadins," etc. It is especially irksome because it mostly come from warriors, who for the first 4 years of this game got all the group and raid spots that we non-healer paladins coveted. :)
With regards to nerfs: you are correct that paladins did not suffer a great number of nerfs in Vanilla and BC...what was there to nerf? Our dreaded "auto-attack?" On the other hand, after we got ridiculously overbuffed in the pre-Cata patch, Blizzard has clawed us back nerf by nerf. We are now a pretty solid class with some unusual strengths (5 mans, yay!) and weaknesses (arenas, sadface). Warriors have certainly had more of a rollercoaster vis rage normalization, etc.
The gear issue you allude to is absolutely accurate. However, for end-game players the result is that fury warriors feel very powerful, because end game raiders are all in the best gear. As the figures I link to above show, amongst the most elite of players, fury warriors are strong indeed. My question to you: would you want to give up some of that dramatic upside in return for being a bit stronger when you first start gearing up?
MusedMoose May 27th 2010 2:31PM
"What will fury do in Cataclysm?"
My hope is that it'll kick ass and take names. Or maybe not take names. It's hard to remember your enemy's name when you're frothing at the mouth, and when their face has been smashed into a pile of goo only vaguely resembling what it looked like pre-Fury, there's not much point in remembering the name either way.
*grin*
Marvelous May 27th 2010 2:33PM
Fury and Prot are not broken. I don't believe they will be able to fix what is not broken.
Pyromelter May 27th 2010 3:04PM
this this this this and this. Warrior dps is simple. People who play warriors have a choice of simple dps, or something more complicated like enhance shaman or feral druids. If Blizzard wants to make warrior dps more complex, they should do something to buff arms in PvE, and give them maybe one other ability to hit, so you have a complex rotation dps cycle and a more simple one within the same class.
Mayhew May 27th 2010 4:05PM
"Warrior dps is simple."
I have a hard time agreeing with this statement. Certainly, it is simple to do mediocre DPS as a warrior. But in order to do maximum DPS, you have to juggle a lot more:
* Spamming Heroic Strike or Cleave every weapon swing
* Hitting Whirlwind and Bloodthirst the instant they come off cooldown
* Hitting Slam whenever you have an opening and a Bloodsurge proc is up
* Stance-dancing to Battle just long enough to reapply Rend just as soon as it falls off, without clipping it, and stance-dancing back to Berserker without losing any time on Bloodthirst or Whirlwind
* Maintaining a 5-stack of Sunders at all times on the target
* Monitoring your rage levels to avoid a dry spell when Bloodthirst or Whirlwind come off cooldown
* Working in a Heroic Throw in case you do somehow get rage-starved
And this doesn't even consider little things like maintaining Battle, Commanding, and Demoralizing shouts when the situation calls for them. Maybe it's just my low warrior intellect, but I don't consider that to be a simple prospect.
Mayhew May 27th 2010 4:08PM
"Warrior dps is simple."
I have a hard time agreeing with this statement. Certainly, it is simple to do mediocre DPS as a warrior. But in order to do maximum DPS, you have to juggle a lot more:
* Spamming Heroic Strike or Cleave every weapon swing
* Hitting Whirlwind and Bloodthirst the instant they come off cooldown
* Hitting Slam whenever you have an opening and a Bloodsurge proc is up
* Stance-dancing to Battle just long enough to reapply Rend just as soon as it falls off, without clipping it, and stance-dancing back to Berserker without losing any time on Bloodthirst or Whirlwind
* Maintaining a 5-stack of Sunders at all times on the target
* Monitoring your rage levels to avoid a dry spell when Bloodthirst or Whirlwind come off cooldown
* Working in a Heroic Throw in case you do somehow get rage-starved
And this doesn't even consider little things like maintaining Battle, Commanding, and Demoralizing shouts when the situation calls for them. Maybe it's just my low warrior intellect, but I don't consider that to be a simple prospect.