Feedback: Warriors

In Development The War Within Beta Test
504

Protection Warrior Feedback

First, a disclaimer, as it happened in Dragonflight, we can all bet that everyone will claim that we are Meta and oppressively too strong. This basically means other tanks have no gear and while no one has gear, Shield Block is king. As soon as people start to reach normal levels of gear other tanks will dethrone us as it happened during S1 DF. This being said lets move on and try to not let Protection Warrior on the gutter as one of the least played tanks for an entire expansion past the first month.

So, this feedback goes into the Mythic plus genra since there are way too many variables for raids (including group composition).

I think we few things need to be adjusted so we aren’t left behind as people get more gear these are my suggestions:

  • Spell block cooldown increased to 2 minutes (from 1,5) but added to Anger Management CDR so, with more gear we can deal with blockable magic damage better;
  • Indomitable healing increased to 2% (from 1%) per 10 rage spent, with more gear (haste) the more selfsustain we gain;
  • Disrupting Should changed to be a silence instead of an interrupt, especially now with BDK getting a 3 second silence on mass grip;
  • Our Mastery is boring, hopefully with more Spell Block we it would become slightly better but maybe baking into it Tough as Nails and scaling it with mastery could be fun, making us value mastery as a stat.

Spec tree

Our spec tree is fairly bland and our capstones aren’t exciting. I don’t think Shield Charge is exciting as capstone, for me it’s just another macro baked into charge and pressed on cd. Ravager itself is a button that feels good to press, but anything that is added further on it is beyond bad and pointless as it has been for an entire expansion and lastly Battle-Scarred Veteran has been bugged through most of DF, activating before mitigation was taken into account and, even fixed will likely see 0 play.

We could use a shift and I feel our tree is a missed opportunity, especially considering how Avatar is such a big thing for Prot Warrior and so iconic.

Things that could be removed or be made baseline because realistically it doesn’t make much sense.

  • Devastator, no one plays with Devastate in modern wow, its button bloat and a bad filler, sure the animation used to be awesome but that’s not even ingame anymore, it’s just a bland, no cd, no resource filler on a spec that has no free time to press anything else. Make Devastator Baseline and remove Devastate (or keep it for leveling and then gets replaced after X level).
  • Instigate, with Devastator being baseline this should be baked into it as well, good for raids and that’s about it.
  • Dance of Death and Storm of Steal, another 2 talents that see no play and wont see play unless a tier set forces us to - a bad idea btw, don’t troll please.
  • Battering Ram and Champion’s Bulwark, two addons for a talent that shouldn’t be a capstone to begin with.
  • Battle-Scarred Veteran, the issue is prot warrior has not enough self sustain for a Cheat death that doesn’t instantly gets you to full HP, either remove or buff it beyond reason else its going to be useless most of the time.

This would allow for some changes.

  • Shield Charge would move to Devastator’s place.
  • Champion’s Bulwark and Battering Ram become a choice node in Instigate’s place.
  • Bastion of Might (new talent, old azerite trait) is added as a capstone. When you press Avatar it increases your Mastery by X amount or % and instantly casts an Ignore Pain.
  • Deafening Crash (new talent, old azerite trait) comes where Champion’s Bulwark was. Can even be changed to, During Avatar, Thunder Clap extends the duration of your Demoralizing Shout on affected enemies by 2 sec, up to 6 sec.
  • Avatar modifier (new talent) during Avatar you take 5% less magic damage and every time you take damage (some sort of internal cd) you do thorns damage, dealing X% damage back to the attacker. In the place where Battering Ram was.
  • Aberrus 4-set in the place of Dance of Death and Storm of Steal choice node, with a minor change. Reading for 20 sec sec after Ravager ends, Shield Slam unleashes a wave of force dealing (X% of Attack power) Physical damage to enemies in front of you and reducing damage they deal to you by 5% for 5 sec.

Cosmetic stuff:

Avatar animation is showing its age compared to a lot of other specs, this could use a cool new facelift. Especially now with the new Dwarfs. And to be fair Mountain Thane Avatar animation is much much much better than regular Avatar, so really good job, it just could increase your size a little bit. But, that doesn’t mean regular Avatar doesn’t deserve to be updated.

The best Avatar animation I’ve seen was in Heroes of the Storm, that could be it, both the start and the end animation. We could even get some cool quest chain to get more cosmetic appearances for Avatar (since warlocks got both Greenfire AND now more pet skins!). Here are some ideas:

  • Stone Avatar (Heroes of the storm)
  • Fire Avatar
  • Lightning Avatar (which we get from mountain thane)
2 Likes
505

Are there aby plans to shake up prot talents at all? It feels pretty much the same exact thing as DF with very little choice in what is played.

After playing tanks over df, warrior dk and brew, I can say without a doubt brew and blood dk feel even better than before. They also had updates while prot didn’t really have anything in the spec tree change.

As it is now, despite loving my warrior, I am going to end up benching him for my dk without a second thought. (Though slayer fury pvp has been fun on the beta)

506

Also could be interesting to have Conqueror’s Banner and Glory legendary as a capstone for protection warrior.

3 Likes
508

Ignoring numbers, and talking strictly playstyle - I absolutely adored how fury played up until 7/3. I know some changes were necessary - but please do not tip this spec back into full on RB spam. It’s not fun, rb spam is old, outdated, and unfun to actually play, regardless of numbers/tuning. A more balanced rotation is much more fun and can be attained without significantly lowering the APM of the spec.

1 Like
509

It’s not going full RB spam, and the tuning does not change the APM whatsoever. APM is dictated by haste.

Without the high Recklessness uptime or extra Enrage duration in Dragonflight, Bloodthirst’s Enrage procs and Deft extensions are still necessary to maintain the rotation; the tuning seems more about wanting to avoid the most frequently used button to also be the strongest by such a wide margin.

510

Please fix Arms Warriors for PvP.

I will say I am PvP-focused over PvE, and this is why I subscribe to WoW. Arms Warrior in PvP is my favorite spec in the entire game. I know the game mainly caters for PvE folks, but the current state of the beta has Arms nerfed VERY hard for PvP. And maybe, it’s time for a rework.

NERFS:

Arms warriors, since DF to the WW beta, has seen a massive nerf within our talent trees, especially for PvP, in my opinion. Specifically, the change of Blademaster’s Torment to no longer grant Bladestorm and instead Sweeping Strikes essentially kills it in PvP. My class fantasy when hearing about Slayer announced was going Slayer Arms with Blademaster’s Torment and have very powerful Bladestorms. Arms arguably NEEDS the second bladestorm to have counterplay vs other classes. However, it was removed, and I believe the reasoning from the patch notes was focused on its interaction within PvE, something about having “too many bladestorms.” Well, it’s a choice node, right? You can go Warlord’s Torment if you don’t want the extra Bladestorm. Or you can play Colossus. This is confusing even more as Fury not only gained Bladestorm, but they are able to talent into DOUBLE Bladestorm…as an Arms Warrior main, this decision was difficult for me to understand, as typically Bladestorm is a signature ability of Arms Warriors. I get that times change and all, and I’m in no way saying to remove it from Fury Warriors or to nerf them. But, why would double Bladestorm be removed from Arms and given to Fury? IMO at least let Arms have it. Or, is it possible to have the node interact differently in PvP vs PvE? As in, let Blademaster’s Torment cast Bladestorm in PvP, and if you’re adamant about not having it in PvE, then it can just do Sweeping Strikes there. But really, the name is called Blademaster’s Torment…so having the talent not even cast Bladestorm is a bit silly in my eyes.

Another change was how the talents that modify Overpower were rearranged – and effectively nerfed, as now we have to choose between Dreadnaught and Strength of Arms. Maybe part of the issue here is that there are too many nodes revolving around Overpower, and I think it might just be better to bake some of these talents into Overpower by default, as it still feels there is some talent and ability bloat – I don’t press Rend ever when I can press Thunder Clap, nor do I ever want to press Rend as its adding to the amount of buttons I need to press. Slam is also not pressed very often unless both Mortal Strike and Overpower are on CD. It also just does not seem to do very much damage at all. On the topic of button bloat, I will add as Colossus Arms, having Demolish on my bars is yet another button I have to worry about, something I feel I simply do not have room for on my bars – another reason why I lean towards the Slayer talent tree.

Furthermore, Unhinged is seeing a minor nerf as well – only casting Mortal Strike every other time Bladestorm or Ravager deal damage – this is a PvP nerf as many people will do their best to kite Bladestorm, so if they are avoiding it correctly, they essentially can avoid the damage from this talent. This wouldn’t be a huge issue on its own – but, the other talent nodes you could pick from this are essentially not good at all for PvP and would never get picked. It would be nice to see Hurricane here but it seems to have been removed – which is another nerf in of itself.

REWORK:

As you can see, we’re already down a few nerfs for Arms when it comes to PvP. Generally, I mentioned the need for a rework above because it doesn’t seem Arms got anything new besides the Hero talents. They are nice, and I will say I’m much more excited for Slayer over Colossus, especially since Demolish requires you to stand still, and in PvP its not that difficult to move away unless you have the target locked down with CC such as a stun or Champion’s Spear. I think Demolish gameplay kind of requires taking Spear over Thunderous Roar, but personally I prefer the gameplay of having Thunderous Roar in PvP combined with Warbreaker as my burst window, and then sending a huge Avatar Bladestorm on top of them. If you can stack 2 or 3 people within an arena (or even more within a BG), it’s VERY rewarding.

With that being said, the rework I would hope for Arms Warriors would involve emphasis on fat Mortal Strikes, fat Executes, bigger Overpowers, and effective Bladestorms + Sweeping Strikes. To me, that’s what Arms warrior has always had at its identity. We swing slower than Fury, but we hit hard. I also don’t really agree with the general population complaining about Rage economy; I don’t think it’s ever an issue when I have the resource I need to press my abilities. Especially in PvP when we NEED that rage to spend – ie. a huge part of Arms Warrior defensive sustain comes from keeping up Ignore Pain + pressing Impending Victory at the right time (when below 70% hp). Ignore Pain is 40 rage, and we don’t want to be rage starved when trying to stay alive – because we still want to put out that pressure. Again, if its a problem in PvE, maybe just nerf the rage gen in PvE if its THAT much of a concern, or increase rage gen from abilities in PvP? Just my thoughts. I really don’t think we need to worry about rage economy when every other spellcaster etc. don’t really have to worry about their resource. But if you’re going to nerf it anyway, at least make our rage-spenders more effective. More damage, a better shield (from Ignore Pain), etc. But I’ll emphasize this – I really cannot sympathize with other warriors in this forum saying they are in favor of nerfing rage economy. Why is it ever a bad thing when we can press our buttons? I promise it feels much worse when we can’t press anything because we lack the rage to do so and are stuck there auto-attacking. Another idea could be give Slam or other “fillers” rage generation so we have a reason to press those buttons – that is only if we are staying with the idea that rage generation needs nerfed. Another small change that worries me is with the PvP talent change with Battlefield Commander and how Piercing Howl interacts with it – no longer rooting enemies, instead increasing the radius by 50%. This is a bit sad to see it go. I think the root is VERY valuable in PvP, as Arms damage is entirely reliant on keeping uptime on our targets, especially when every class seems to get more and more mobility.

COMPARISON TO OTHER CLASSES:

It just seems a lot of these decisions were made for Arms warriors solely with PvE in mind, but please don’t forget about the PvP side. Arms, since classic, has always been a strong PvP spec, but now in the beta it’s becoming harder and harder to compare with other classes, or even Fury warriors, one of the biggest reason being them having access to double Bladestorm. Not only that, but Mortal Strike is one of the best abilities in the game for PvP, and we’ve lost a bit of class identity since every class essentially has a Mortal Strike ability. I understand its a very strong ability and it might make sense for other classes to have access to it, but my opinion is that Arms should retain the “best version” of Mortal Strike, especially since it’s so iconic to our class/spec. But the core of the issue is, from participating in PvP with the WW beta, is that Arms feels so much weaker compared to so many other classes/specs. Warriors in general struggle compared to DKs, Monks, Mages, etc. I find myself relying so much on Second Wind to stay alive – turning Warrior into a class that has to run away and recover MUCH more than we ever had to, just to stay alive, and this gameplay is something I’m really not a fan of. We just don’t have the same pressure or sustain as we had in Dragonflight it seems. It’s just hard to read how every other class is getting these significant improvements while playing Arms it feels we were heavily nerfed. I sincerely hope this changes soon.

PVE:

The last thing I’ll add is – while I’m not a huge PvE fan, I did do some PvE in seasons 3&4 of Dragonflight to try and get the Legendary Weapon as it was BiS for PvP. Trying to gear for PvE to get into Heroic/Mythic content was very challenging and not enjoyable, as many groups did not want to bring a DPS warrior. And the reason I always got was, Warriors just don’t bring any utility for a dungeon or raid group. I hope there is something to do about that, as this is a huge barrier for me when I want to main my warrior. I could spec Tank, but if my main spec is Arms etc. then I will have to adjust my loot settings for that, and then I won’t get Tank upgrades to continue doing PvE. Some people would tell me, “if your raider,io or ilvl were higher,” but how am I supposed to improve either of those if its already so difficult to get into a group? Nobody accepts the DPS warrior in random groups, I essentially have to rely on a guild group, but unfortunately I am on Tichondrius and there are not many PvE guilds here that are active. I’m hoping the change in WW to allow cross-server guilds can help with this, but my fundamental issue is that DPS warriors have a very hard time getting accepted into a group for PvE, and I think that is something that should be addressed.

Again, I sincerely hope you take my thoughts above into some consideration when designing Arms Warrior for the War Within. Arms is an amazing spec that deserves more love. Many specs and classes have seen wonderful reworks and boosts to their power, while it seems Arms has not gotten the same attention. I’d be more happy in fact, if Arms was untouched from Dragonflight as it feels very good in the current Live client. But that is not the case, we’re down several nerfs, despite the upcoming expansion, and this has turned my favorite spec in the game into something lackluster. Hope this changes, and I’ll be looking forward to see where this goes.

1 Like
511

Hi,

Is there still some reworking going on for Warriors. The talent trees have not really changed much per se, and we are spending a lot of points with not having much cool/fun/interesting choices/abilities.

I am actually thinking of benching my warrior for the first time ever this coming expansion if things remain the same. I have been playing since Day One, my warrior is my main. But I am just not excited, or feeling it this expansion due to the lackluster effort that it seems has been put into the warrior class. I don’t want to be that guy/a downer, but how else can I best communicate my sense of frustration for my beloved class?

Any Blue/Dev care to give us a bit of an update on how things are going for us?

Thank you!

-Kern

3 Likes
512

tbh I’d be amazed if we saw anything before launch. Maybe we’ll get lucky with a mid expansion rework the way so many specs did in DF. But they might also think the class is fine (which would be kind of a bummer).
The stuff they tried to fix in shaman and hunter trees echoes a lot of the issues that plague our trees.

At least second wind prot warrior might make you a reasonably hard to kill flag carrier / base sitter.

513

What sucks about this is that Mages and Rogue got mid expansion reworks and now they’re getting more attention than most classes (again). It never amazes me how much attention Mage and Rogue get over other classes.

One thing I wish they’d do is like shrink our cooldown bloat a bit, part of what made Annihilator a valuable talent was that we had to leverage Odyn’s Fury, Thunderous Roar, Recklessness, and Avatar. Moving into War Within we have to add Ravager/Bladestorm while also fitting in Raging Blow back into our rotation. And they made Bloodcraze function off Raging Blow for some strange reason and the whole spec feels so disjointed with having so many buttons in the normal rotation, especially as Mountain Thane, all the hero talents work on different skills in our rotation and it just feels weird when you’re adding Thunder Clap into your rotation too with 5 cooldowns.

514

Speaking of Odyn’s fury, i know this is just a pet peve, but in a world where other specs have such flashy animations and class fantasy. Warriors could totally have a bit more of that considering we had our Class hall with Odyn and the Valkyrs.

Even if behind some cool questline or just glyphs added.

515

Rogue is getting no attention at all.
Blizzard early on removed Shadow Dance from the class tree, and then just left the class half-baked. Assassination Rogue is now borderline unplayable in dungeons.

The Annihilator build did drop Raging Blow, but it replaced it with Slam. So there’s no difference in the amount of buttons you pressed there.

Thunderclap replaces Whirlwind in the Mountain Thane rotation, so it’s not an additional button.

3 Likes
516

Rogues are verifiably being ignored completely right now; they have so many reasons to be upset. We do not.

None of those bloat things you listed caused any bloat; they literally just replace a different button as Avadd pointed out, fury plays almost identically to now and how it’s played for quite awhile, we are in an EXTREMELY healthy place barring some minor ST tuning and some bug fixes.

2 Likes
517

Maybe an unpopular opinion, but the one thing I don’t like about prot is I feel like it has too many buttons to push when all your cd’s are up on pull before you start going back to just shield slamming, thunder clapping etc.

518

for fury? prot has a surprisingly low amount of cooldowns to start and I have less cooldowns as Arms compared to DF

519

I’m finding with Fury – and to a lesser extent with Arms – the amount of threat we generate is astonishing. In M+ is remarkably hard to be able to go into a pack and not rip threat off of a tank when we send our cooldowns. I’ve found this happens even if we wait a few seconds before charging in and using cooldowns.

I’ve seen this even happen on live when I just charge in and press whirlwind on Fury.

The bizarre thing is that I’m not noticing this at all for other classes on Beta which, currently, are often doing more damage than us on pull (e.g., Surv hunter, Arcane mage, DK, and etc)

You’ve adjusted threat in the past for dev evoker. They also have a very upfront, bursty damage profile. Can a pass be made for warrior (and even other classes as appropriate) which have similarly bursty damage profiles?

3 Likes
520

In my current talent build I did not take Bladestorm. I am not happy feeling forced to take talent points from other options I wanted to be able to pick it up so I can go with the Slayer Hero Talents. Can Bladestorm be moved higher up in the tree?

Sure I just have to give up Odyn’s Fury but should I have to?

521

You can take Odyn’s Fury and Bladestorm at the same time.
It’s what I do.

522

But then I am giving up Unbridled Ferocity and/or Depths of Insanity. My point is that the Hero talents shouldn’t force any choices in the talent tree. I don’t even like Bladestorm.

523

This actually not new at all. Warriors have had extremely high threat generating abilities for some time now. The first time I really started noticing it was BfA.

I would appreciate a pass over the amount of threat our abilities generate.

1 Like
524

Unfortunately, they’re so weak it’s depressing. But you could simply drop TR/DB and have those if you’d prefer.