The title may be confusing, and you may be thinking, “How is Fury perfectly designed when it doesn’t have much going for it?”. And that would be a good question, and it’s exactly why it’s perfectly designed. Let’s take a look at a few key things that make it perfect.
Defensives
Fury warrior only has two real defensives and one pseudo defensive. Rallying Cry which gives 20% increased hp for 12 seconds with a 3 min cd and Enraged Regeneration which reduces dmg taken by 30% and your blood thirst heals for 23% of max health (can use 2 times during it IF you are on target for the whole time) for 8 seconds with a 2 min cd. And lastly, we have Ignore Pain which costs 60 rage and absorbs 50% of the dmg you take to a maximum of 10k dmg.
What is really good about these defensives is you can still easily die while using your defensives AND using ignore pain crashes your dmg output so it’s a real choice to use it. You may be asking how they are good defensives when you can still die and the reason it’s good is because fury is a dps spec - it’s not a healer, it’s not a support, it’s not a tank - it’s a dps spec. You shouldn’t have get out of jail free cards as a dps and you SHOULD be able to die if you aren’t getting support.
Choice between more cc, mobility, or more survivability.
Unlike other classes, fury warrior has one base line cc which is your aoe fear on a 1.5 min cd. If you want more you have to give up something else and this is their lvl 25 talent row. On this row you have to choose between giving charge an additional use, a 30 sec cd 5 sec stun or the use of victory rush every 25 secs which heals you for 40% of your health as opposed to only being usable when YOU get a killing blow (without talenting it, if you personally don’t get the final hit on something you can’t use it).
This is great design - it forces the player to make a key choice in what they need as opposed to just having built in multiple stuns, fear, good defensives etc like so many other classes have. The role as a dps is to dps and you SHOULD have to make a choice in what you want to have extra of.
Final thoughts.
There used to be a time when nearly every dps spec was similarly designed. Mages didn’t have access to walls like iceblock and had to rely on their ability to kite people to stay alive. Paladins used to do 50% less dmg when bubbled, rogues couldn’t stealth and heal to full or be immune to spell dmg with cloak of shadows, hunters didn’t have stealth or aspect of turtle and had to rely on kiting to stay alive and there are a myriad of other examples.
During this time, pvp was at it’s best because classes didn’t have access to every tool at it’s disposal while still pumping out crazy high dmg. Like the fury warrior, there should be trade offs - if your class has access to a ton of cc or survivability then your dps should be much lower compared to a class that doesn’t. In other words you should be a support class with all those abilities.
So basically, this is why I think fury is the One True Perfectly Designed DPS in this game.
Fury is designed to give you carpal tunnel as you thoughtlessly slam rampages into the least mobile guy on the enemy team while using as few non-damaging globals as possible.
It can be used 3 times without enrage with like 15% haste, or 3 times with 0% haste if you’re enraged the whole time. It’s not difficult to get the third bloodthirst in.
Some of these responses remind me of a political discussion between a hardcore democrat and republican where instead of paying attention to the reasons behind what the other is saying, they instead hear one word and instantly ignore everything else the person says and just refutes the other person.
My bad, forgot about the increased haste while enraged. However, the use of bloodthirst can easily be shut down with a root, stun, disarm or keeping the warrior slowed - and this is good because as stated fury is a dps spec and shouldn’t have crazy good defensives.
Thank you for bringing this up. Fury is a young man’s game. Would strongly suggest not touching this spec if you’re over the age of 25 or you’ll face serious medical consequences.
Not to be critical of something but this touches on a key design aspect that I think gets overlooked and forgotten by players and blizzard alike.
Hot take or generous use of the word but Warriors are a hybrid. Not a dps spec. They have the option to fill another role as a tank. Since creation they’ve had strong mitigation defensive cooldowns that reflect this. And rightfully so. Fury was also the talent tree that granted self healing iirc. Although pretty minor back then.
Granted fury traditionally has been awful in pvp for whatever reason, just wanted to point out that warriors should absolutely have good defensive cooldowns imo.
I actually kind of agree with this take insofar as having long cd defensives with some counterplay is good. However Fury does way too much passive sustain healing where they can easily keep themselves alive with no healer by just beating on a target (barring dying in a stun), and their dps rotation is anything but complex.
IMO it would go a long way in PvP if most defensive cd’s were more like Rets where they have longer cd’s, some counterplay, and are on the gcd (wouldn’t happen cuz PvE but I like the idea of needing to know beforehand what’s coming down the pipeline for you and holding a global to be ready to react). I also despise passive/no thought self sustain and would like to see any dps healing themselves give up something offensively for it (e.g. ignore pain fits this model, battle trance does not).
Overwhelming offensive pressure. They just kill their target. That’s what they’re good at. So when they’re good people aren’t having fun.
Wotlk is probably the first time they were super popular. Envenom build after 3.0.5 just shredded even heavily armored targets making them a scourge. Especially when 2s still gave gladiator.
You could cb envenom for like 9k on a good crit on 25k health inside 10s of stuns.
Envenom also helped wound uptime which is frustrating for obvious reasons.
Assassination rogues will hate hpals ans their blessed cleansing with a passion
