The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Patch 4.1 PTR Warrior changes
by Matthew Rossi 
Feb 26th 2011 at 6:00PM
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Care and Feeding of Warriors, the column dedicated to arms, fury and protection warriors. Despite repeated blows to the head from dragons, demons, Old Gods and whatever that thing over there was, Matthew Rossi will be your host.
It wouldn't be a patch without warrior changes, and patch 4.1 is nothing if it isn't a patch. What are the really big standouts from an initial overview pass of the changes?
- Rallying Cry is a new ability that seems to work like Last Stand for the entire party or raid.
- Colossus Smash now only lowers armor by 70% for 6 seconds, down from 100%.
- Intercept stun is reduced to 1 second. In addition, Juggernaut will no longer increase the stun duration of Charge.
- Whirlwind will now reduce its cooldown by 6 seconds if it strikes four or more targets.
- Several arms abilities have had their damage increased, from Mortal Strike (175% weapon damage) to Overpower (145% weapon damage) to the talented Improved Slam (increases slam damage by 20/40%, up from 10/20%). These are most likely intended to compensate arms for losing Colossus Smash's armor penetration, indicating that nerf was aimed at fury DPS.
- Finally, Improved Hamstring will now also reduce the global cooldown on Hamstring by half a second for 1 point and a full second for two. Less stunning for warriors and more snaring seems to be the order of the day.
First up, let's look at the complete patch notes.
Patch 4.1 PTR Patch NotesWarriors
- Charge and Intercept no longer have diminishing returns on their stun effects.
- Colossus Smash now ignores 70% of an opponent's armor, down from 100%.
- Inner Rage is now available at level 56.
- Intercept now has a 1.5-second stun, down from 3 seconds.
- Overpower damage has been increased to 140% weapon damage, up from 125%.
- Rallying Cry (new ability) is available from trainers at level 83. It temporarily grants the warrior and all party or raid members within 30 yards 20% of maximum health for 10 seconds. After the effect expires, the health is lost. It has no cost, no stance requirements, and is not on the global cooldown. It has a 3-minute cooldown, but also shares a cooldown with Last Stand.
- Whirlwind now has its cooldown reduced by 6 seconds when it deals damage to 4 or more targets. The Whirlwind effect caused by Bladestorm remains unchanged.
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Talent Specializations
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Arms
- Improved Hamstring now reduces the global cooldown on Hamstring by 0.5/1 seconds in addition to its current effects.
- Improved Slam increases Slam damage by 20/40%, up from 10/20%.
- Juggernaut no longer adds 2 seconds to the Charge stun, but instead lowers the cooldown of Charge by 3 seconds (to 12 seconds total).
- Mortal Strike damage has been increased to 175% weapon damage, up from 150%.
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Arms
Overall, it's kind of a mixed bag for warriors. Fury warriors are already kind of broken for AoE damage, especially in 5-mans, and being able to lean on WW to the extent I imagine is going to lead to some ridiculous numbers on trash. I pretty much already lead the pack on trash DPS even after Cleave got nerfed, and the ability to hit WW every 4 seconds on big trash pulls is only going to exaggerate that.
Losing Colossus Smash is a DPS hit, but it's only 6 seconds out of every 20, and arms will be compensated for the loss with more DPS across the board, so I call that a wash.
Rallying Cry interests me most of all. A party- or raid-wide Last Stand? As soon as the PTR gets downloaded, I intend to check that out and see if it's restricted to a spec or stance. A DPS warrior who could effectively give the whole group LS? That's utility, right there.
Starting out on the PTR
Of course I wanted to test these changes out on the PTR, and so I quickly went to transfer my main over. He has yet to arrive. However, premades leapt over there with the greatest of ease, and I even got the chance to faction transfer, so I now have a worgen and blood elf warrior. The worgen is fury/prot and the blood elf is arms/prot. Sadly, on initial testing I found that both Skada and Recount were having major framerate issues (I have no idea why, could very easily be something I was doing wrong) and so I was forced to eyeball it, so to speak.
DPS for both arms and fury felt solid enough in the quick test run I managed. I took my worgen to Zul'Gurub and got some attempts in on Venoxis and did some pickup PvP on my blood elf. I noticed that Rallying Cry didn't seem to work right around the time we died after I used it. It's to be expected that there will be bugs and unforseen issues in a PTR, that's why we have them, after all. I can say that the gameplay for all three warrior specs seems relatively unchanged, even with the loss of stuns for PvP arms hits fairly hard and can snare more effectively now with Improved Hamstring. It's not perfect, but it worked in a few duels and the large Horde vs Alliance free for all that developed outside of Orgrimmar for some reason.
Sadly, with these expected bugs comes the difficulty in really understanding exactly what the changes are doing to the class. If Rallying Cry worked, it probably would have prevented a wipe. Since it didn't, I really can't evaluate it.
We'll see if these changes bring arms and fury to parity (they look promising for that) and how crazy fury DPS gets on trash pulls. I don't think the change to Imp Hamstring is going to make up for all that lost stun potential. It reminds me of the days of Stormherald all over again.
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Filed under: Warrior, Analysis / Opinion, Cataclysm, (Warrior) The Care and Feeding of Warriors
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Sleutel Feb 26th 2011 6:05PM
I'm excited for Rallying Cry, but tentatively. It's such a huge ability that I almost can't imagine it making it to live in its current form.
VSUReaper Feb 26th 2011 10:14PM
I'm not. I dont want some stupid weak version of Last Stand locking me out of my Last Stand.
I know at the moment, the patch notes do not have it listing a debuff that will be placed on the raid to keep us from chaining it (think sated for bloodlust), but I feel confident that there will be one, and it will effect prot warriors, and maybe druids.
Call me old fashioned, but dont fix what isnt broken. Want warriors to have some group utility? Then give them a CC, or a lust, or a crit aura for all specs. Dont give them a survival CD.
Sleutel Feb 27th 2011 1:40AM
Even if they share a cooldown (versus being unable to be simultaneously triggered): If you'd rather have a 30% HP boost on yourself than a 20% HP boost on 10-25 players, you're doing it wrong.
Iirdan Feb 26th 2011 6:06PM
"It has no cost, no stance requirements, and is not on the global cooldown."
I'd say at the moment it doesn't, but I'll be damned if Blizzard doesn't change it at some point. One of those "too good to be true" things.
Ice Feb 26th 2011 8:08PM
At first it might seem unique snowflake new shiny ability but I would say its more of Warrior styled ability of http://www.wowhead.com/spell=70940 .
While paladins are in style of "holy light guides me to aid others from taking less damage" warriors are "shouting to boost strength to fight(read:health) and leading the party to victory".
Yeah yeah "lol rp" but you know what I mean, I'm sure devs had same feeling when designing something like this.
It also makes http://www.wowhead.com/spell=70940 type of cooldown more accessible to wider raid combos.
Kadin1399 Feb 26th 2011 6:32PM
Quick question... Does Rallying Cry stack? So if you had two warriors, could they both use it, or is there a debuff similar to what you get for heroism?
jacksworth Feb 26th 2011 6:41PM
whose BE warrior is that? you should be ashamed
Angus Feb 26th 2011 7:49PM
What? His guild needed classy elves!
Evelinda Feb 26th 2011 9:31PM
as a true warrior connoisseur, he needs to have one of every flavour to truly appreciate the class.
othragon Feb 26th 2011 6:52PM
Rallying cry sounds indeed usefull but i can easily see it restricted to def stance, wich is fine, losing a little bit of dps to pop a raid utility is ok in my book.
Veras Gunn Feb 26th 2011 8:04PM
There's one last change you forgot. Raging Blow is getting increased back to 120 percent to help make up for the DPS loss from the CS nerf.
Elrandir Feb 27th 2011 8:20AM
Skada and recount are doing the same for me, unfortunate, i wanna test out frost dk dps ;p
alpha5099 Feb 26th 2011 9:38PM
How does Rallying Cry interact with Last Stand? I'd heard some reports that they shared a cooldown, which would be very uncool. Perhaps it'll be like trinkets, where triggering one locks the other out for 30 seconds or so? If they don't stack, it'll be interesting to see whether Last Stand will be worth it still.
Big Shoe Feb 28th 2011 5:58AM
Last Stand and Rallying Cry cool each other down when used. Also, RC is 20% health for the raid for 10 seconds, as opposed to LS granting 30% tank health for 20 seconds. RC is definitely useful, but the timing has to be tight, using it proactively rather than recatively.
Chris Feb 27th 2011 4:06AM
Keeping my fingers crossed for 4.1 to happen.
Hih Feb 27th 2011 6:18AM
Nope, 4.1 is actually just a big 4/1 (April Fool's) joke and we're actually skipping straight to 4.1. 4.1 will not happen.
Hih Feb 27th 2011 6:18AM
er, straight to 4.2. wtb edit button -_-
Blayze Feb 27th 2011 2:57PM
So when do we get Heroism? :D
Casey Mar 1st 2011 9:26PM
You mean Bloodlust.
Titanwatcher Feb 27th 2011 5:55PM
I just have one question: Rossi states several times about lost stun potential but doesn't it say specifically in the blue post he has in the column that: "Charge and Intercept no longer have diminishing returns on their stun effects."?
Unless I'm being an idiot, doesn't this mean that once again we will be able to charge and then throwdown for a 6.5 second total stun?