The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Six months of Cataclysm
by Matthew Rossi 
May 21st 2011 at 8:00PM
This expansion launched on Dec. 7, 2010. That means we're into our sixth month of the expansion now. That makes it a good time to stop and take stock of the expansion so far, what it's meant for PVP and PVE, DPSing and tanking. With patch 4.2 and the Firelands right around the corner, we're on the cusp of some pretty significant changes. New gear (including a whole new tier) will expose the class and its scaling in ways the first tier never can, and new encounters will alter the balance between ranged and melee classes. As a melee class and a tanking class, warriors are always pretty solidly mired in these kinds of changes, for good or for ill.
So let's take a look at where we're coming from this far.
The ups and downs of mastery
Mastery as a stat was developed to provide a cross-class itemization that did different things for different talent specializations, meaning that each spec (shadow priest, fury warrior, arcane mage) would desire mastery for different reasons, based on their spec. For warriors, we have three talent specializations (same as every other class) to consider.
Strikes of Opportunity is the arms mastery, Critical Block the protection mastery, and Unshackled Fury is the fury mastery. Right now, I would say that Critical Block is probably the best of the three due to the rather savage mauling that Unshackled Fury's base took in patch 4.1, dropping from a starting point of 8 mastery for fury warriors to 2 mastery before gear. Strikes of Opportunity has been buffed enough that I'd say it takes the #2 position. In terms of how mastery has worked out as a "killer stat," it's clearly had its ups and downs for each spec. For tanking, right now it's an extremely desirable stat. For arms, I'd put it just behind crit and possibly even before capping expertise.
Before 4.1, I'd have said it was rivaling crit and hit for fury warriors, although now it's been relegated to a less exalted position. The nerf to Unshackled Fury's base was aimed at keeping mastery balanced for higher levels of itemization, so we'll see what effect patch 4.2 has on the stat. If you find this disturbingly familiar, then you played a fury warrior in Wrath during the big armor penetration explosion.
Essentially, before patch 3.1, it wasn't possible to collect enough ArP to get enough return on your investment, so to speak. Now, with Unshackled Fury being rebalanced, clearly there was concern that it was too easy to collect enough mastery to make that specialization ridiculously powerful, and it was only going to get worse as mastery on gear went up. In essence, the mastery change for fury is a "room to grow" change. This makes me wonder just how much mastery we're going to see on gear.
Reforging, of course, complicates this issue, since you can always put more mastery on your gear if it doesn't have any. In fact, let's discuss reforging now.
Reforging and the average warrior
Reforging, when it debuted, was described as a way to make gear that you might otherwise not use (tanking gear, perhaps) more desirable by letting you take some of the dodge off of a dodge/hit piece and change it to something like crit or mastery. I personally have used it that way when a tanking or DPS piece was just overwhelmingly better in other respects (higher stamina and armor for a tanking perspective, as an example).
However, what I've seen most warriors use reforging for is stat tweaking. Cataclysm has created with reforging a unique period in which all players can customize their stats to a degree that was absolutely impossible before, and nowhere is this more clear in seeing how each talent specialization reforges its gear. It's become required for anyone serious about getting as much out of their gear as possible to figure out which stats they want to prioritize and to reforge away as much of the undesired stats as they can. In my experience, for DPS players, haste is usually the victim of choice, followed by expertise over the 26-point cap (since 26 expertise is all you need to push dodges off the attack table, and DPS warriors aren't supposed to be in front of the boss, so they shouldn't be getting parried). Tanks tend to strip hit and expertise, since these stats are less potent with taunts not missing and bosses not gaining powerful, parry-hasted attacks.
In essence, reforging has become equal parts an optimization process (sure, these legs are good, but they'd be better with some critical strike) and a way for players to respond to changes in the game's design between patches. If mastery gets buffed for arms warriors and nerfed for fury, each spec can compensate to some degree by taking a trip to the reforger. This has never been possible before. In Wrath, if you got a set of DPS legs with a ton of haste on them, you simply had to live with it. Reforging allows players to sit down, decide which stats they want, and trim away the stats they don't. Even with the inherent limitations of the process (not being able to reforge a piece to have more of a stat it already has, not being able to completely remove a stat), it's an extraordinary level of flexibility, and its benefits are obvious to warriors as we've seen stats rebalanced. Reforging is one of the biggest quality of life changes ever made to the game.
Rage normalization
Rage normalization in Cataclysm worked out significantly better than it did in The Burning Crusade. That doesn't mean it was good. In terms of warrior viability, it added a significant penalty (a far less easily increased rage generation mechanic) without any of the benefits seen in resource acquisition systems such as mana.
Part of the problem is that alternative systems like runic power often have a secondary system like runes built in to act as a governor to spikes of their resource or troughs of no resource. A DK who lacks runic power can spend some runes to use abilities to generate some. Similarly, the new paladin Holy Power mechanic works to counterbalance paladin mana issues. Whether these work perfectly or not isn't really the issue in this case, but rather that they are designed to provide a counterbalance that even now rage hasn't been designed for.
To some extent, fury is balanced around entering enraged states, but if one has played arms recently, one's felt the choked, cramped effect of feeling almost completely locked in terms of abilities and rage. It's not so much that arms never has any rage, but rather that rage isn't really arms' resource anymore. Arms dances with the global cooldown instead. Arms basically is going to have an ability ready to fire as soon as the global is up, and the real challenge in most cases is simply making sure you don't step on your own feet, miss an ability, and cripple your own DPS.
Meanwhile for a tank, the issue with rage is the same as it always has been: Either you're not taking enough damage to generate enough rage to hold your threat, or you didn't get a chance to start generating it before the mana classes opened up since they can do that and you can't. Assuming the warrior manages to get initial threat, rage is no longer an issue at that point, and no tank is really worried he or she won't have enough rage for a boss. I've yet to run out of rage tanking Cho'gall, for instance, because everything is on fire or shadow crashing or he's hitting me in the face hard enough to half kill me. With so much damage being hurled at me, I'm far more concerned with not dying than with my rage bar, which I simply can't spend fast enough even using Inner Rage. For tanks, rage is still either feast or famine.
It's possible that DPS specs will finally see enough benefit from haste in patch 4.2 to start actually wanting the stuff. Tanks, not so much.
Next week, hopefully we'll see some warrior changes in the patch 4.2 PTR. If not, we'll talk about raiding Bastion of Twilight as a tank and as DPSer.
At the center of the dury of battle stand the warriors: protection, arms and fury. Check out more strategies and tips especially for warriors, including Cataclysm 101 for DPS warriors, a guide to new reputation gear for warriors, and a look back at six years of warrior trends.
Filed under: Warrior, (Warrior) The Care and Feeding of Warriors, Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Jabadabadana May 21st 2011 8:24PM
Fury mastery has been gutted in terms of pure number yes, but is it really any weaker than it was? The %per mastery is the same. Especially considering that it gives at least a linear increase in dps, unlike crit or haste.
jacksworth May 22nd 2011 11:05AM
You are correct. The actual value of each point of mastery from gear did no change.
But the value of hit increased, because of the white dmg buff, to compensate for the mastery reduction.
Heri'theron May 21st 2011 10:06PM
Rossi, you always make me want to level my warrior. Your analysis of the warrior class makes the other class writers seem lacking. They are fine if read by their own, but when compared to your instructional, fact-filled articles I am left wanting more.
Fletcher May 21st 2011 10:47PM
Hm. I'd been going after (or at least not reforging) mastery on my fury warrior, second only to the unattainable goal of hit (17.48% with buff food and potion right now). Should I be chasing other stats instead?
Sleutel May 22nd 2011 9:39AM
Yes. IIRC, Crit has been beating mastery for the entire expansion, even when a Crit/Mastery build was favored for Titan's Grip. (Same goes for SMF if you like to rock the one-handers.)
jacksworth May 22nd 2011 11:06AM
Crit > Hit (even after special cap) > Mastery >>> Haste
Fletcher May 22nd 2011 11:57AM
Somehow I'd gotten the idea that it was Hit > Expertise > Mastery > Haste > Crit. Now I think about it, that may be for frost DKs.
Natsumi May 23rd 2011 9:25AM
No, Haste is way up there for frost and unholy DKs. DKs LOVE the Haste.
Jordan May 25th 2011 6:04PM
Always love to read these. But yeah, I normally retorts to keep do and pa about 3% apart (to avoid diminishing returns) and stack mast as much as possible on my tank. Up to 53% block.and that's without the 90 mast/stam well fed buff.
Austin May 21st 2011 11:54PM
I was actually just thinking about how Warriors' rage mechanics is the only thing stopping me from playing mine. (He's level 85 in 333 and some 346 gear.) I really don't care for any of the dps specs because I feel like I'm constantly out of rage as fury and arms doesn't provide the necessary fluidity of the other dps classes I play, and protection is just plain frustrating for me because I can never seem to establish enough rage to gain initial threat, even when charging in and commanding shouting. Makes me wonder if the class needs a secondary resource, or perhaps the class just isn't for me. Oh well =/
Baba May 22nd 2011 4:45AM
For low-geared fury warriors try stacking as much hit from gems / enchants and reforging as you can, it'll make your rage aquisition much smoother.
When you start getting raid gear, trim away that hit rating and put it into mastery, crit etc.
For my tank, I Battle Shout, charge the boss, taunt it, jump-rotate to turn it on the spot, shield slam it, and then I'm good to go. Then I follow up with Devastate / Heroic Strike spam until Revenge procs or shield slam is back up, don't ever loose threat unless my battle shout was on cooldown when I go in.
Jeff May 22nd 2011 1:41AM
"In terms of warrior viability, [Rage normalization] added a significant penalty (a far less easily increased rage generation mechanic) without any of the benefits seen in resource acquisition systems such as mana."
But that's not true, is it? The whole point of rage normalization was to make Warriors less rage-starved at lower gear levels, and less rage-glutted at higher gear levels. The latter is your significant penalty, but the former is the benefit that offsets it. I know I certainly didn't feel as rage-starved at low levels of gear while DPSing as I did back in Wrath - and the same goes while tanking, frankly.
I'm more than happy to take not being ridiculously overpowered at the end of the expansion, and needing nerf after nerf to balance my class, in exchange for not being hideously underpowered at the beginning of it.
Big Shoe May 22nd 2011 3:17AM
I'd love to see a trainer ability added where the warrior can have 10 rage on his bar at all times, and possibily 15/20 rage if talented. This would be there only until the warrior entered combat, at which time all rage would be handled normally. Once the warrior was out of combat, the 10 rage would regen over a few seconds, like health and mana do. This would give us so many more options at the start of a pull, and would help Prot warriors when they can't Charge. Few things are worse than having a pack of mobs pull unexpectedly and rush toward you, while you sit helpless because none of your buttons are lit for the first few seconds of combat. The various Shouts were made to address snap rage generation issues, but between their relatively long cooldowns and the rapid decay of rage, they aren't always enough. Always having some rage "in the tank" for emergencies would help alleviate the rage normalization problems, and it can easily be disabled if it unbalances the all-important arena. But really... mana users begin every pull with a full mana bar. Is letting warriors sit on a tiny bit of rage really asking so much?
Tim May 22nd 2011 10:46AM
We do have that ability. It's Beserker Rage, and if youre not using it, youre doing it wrong
Raker May 22nd 2011 4:57AM
I actually get the same feeling playing arms now as I did playing retribution in wrath. You have a resource you rarely run out of (mana/rage), the point is not to waste a single global CD and you make fantastic AOE when you want to...
Fletcher May 22nd 2011 7:52AM
There's one problem with a rage bar that starts out full; *unstoppable burst dps power*. If you think that's not a problem, go ask ret pallies how it worked out for them.
Kaphik May 22nd 2011 10:31AM
That's how the shouts work now. When I'm tanking and there's a pull I'm not using Charge, I'll save my Battle Shout (or Commanding Shout if we don't have a Fort buff) until combat starts so I have enough Rage. Having Heroic Throw up at those times helps to get some threat as well.
Rage is a problem at the start of a pull when you have jump DPS. To me, that's part of the fun of warrior tanking - fighting the DPS for the first minute of combat. Once some Vengeance stacks, no one is pulling threat off of me unless I fall asleep and stop hitting my buttons.
As far as for DPS, starting out with little to no Rage is good, it helps slow our threat generation so we don't immediately rip aggro from the tank.
Val May 22nd 2011 12:13PM
Oh Rossi. It pains me to be reminded that such a good writer and insightful warrior, spends most of it as an Alliance player & a Space Goat at that.
Brutal Man May 22nd 2011 4:23PM
So does Landsoul (well, he's a worgen right now, but he was a night elf).
ashtin May 22nd 2011 1:13PM
I'm probably not going to worry about tier gear until the last patch of the expansion that way I can just do heroics for jp and get my stuff that way lol