Mythic+ Warrior Utility

Classes Warrior
#1

Hey all, this is only about mythic+ as I have exactly 0 knowledge about PvP and utility is ususally irrelevant in raid unless it’s a brez or wind rush totem. Now that the disclaimer is out of the way:

Utility rules in mythic plus. Even if your spec is 20% weaker than another spec in raw AoE, having the utility to pull the dungeon 30% faster means that your spec is better. That utility is often stuff that makes or breaks certain pulls in a dungeon, normally either making them possible at all or making them reliable pulls. Stuff like Force of Nature, Ring of Peace, Gorefiend’s Grasp, Sigil of Silence, etc are all incredibly strong utility spells that make certain things in mythic plus possible where they would not otherwise be due to how dangerous mobs are, and especially mobs pulled onto a boss.

Warriors of both dps varieties are looking great in terms of DPS in mythic+ right now. Kyrian warriors especially but even night fae and necrolord are slamming keys right now and have a great damage profile for mythic plus. High burst, low-cooldown damage is what M+ is about so you can nuke a pack and have your cooldowns running while you’re traveling or grouping the next pull. No complaints here, warriors are killing it. And yet, there’s still something missing…

Outside of utility that makes pulls possible, there is a lot of other utility that can make a class awesome in mythic+. Native (meaning belonging to the class, not a profession or item) Battle Resurrections and Bloodlust effects, AoE crowd control, Sap effects, Cheat Deaths, Immunities, Wipe Prevention (i.e. Earth Elemental), Tricks of the Trade/Misdirection, etc are all great utility and unique ways that each specialization can interact with the dungeons and assist their groups while not being as crazy as the utility mentioned earlier, and in the utility department, warrior is desperately outmatched by other classes, especially Fury Warrior.

5-target capped Intimidating Shout, a talented Storm Bolt that gives up Double Time, Spell Reflection, Piercing Howl, and (specifically for Arms) the combination of Intervene + Die By the Sword is all warrior has going for it here. Now that sounds like a lot, but in practice warrior is simply outmatched by other classes here very badly. A couple suggestions could be to, even if only for Mythic+ (again ignoring PvP here) give warriors a bloodlust or cheat death. If hunter pets can make people angry a warrior should be able to as well. Shockwave, removing the target cap on Intimidating Shout (and/or letting IS work on undead targets that are very prevalent in the Shadowlands), removing the cooldown on Piercing Howl in PvE, making Double Time baseline to allow taking Storm Bolt to not hurt as much, etc are all awesome changes that could really help Warriors in this area. We may not ever have a death grip, or ring of peace, or shroud of concealment, but maybe there’s hope for warriors to not be declined from every pug because it says “+17 HoA lust” or “+18 DoS hunter rogue”.

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#2

I would definitely agree here. I would say our only 2 pieces of group contribution is Battle Shout and rallying cry.

Intimidating shout is mostly useless as it breaks very easily and also can fear large groups into other large groups

Piercing howl has a long CD and very few mobs are running away needing to be slowed

Intervene is very niche for dps warrior and can often get you killed. It’s best used for the prot

Die by the sword and spell reflect are excellent spells but they are personal. I don’t know of anyone taking the spell reflect legendary which would contribute to the raid (I think that should be a talent instead of leggo that would add so much utility).

I think the “make storm bolt baseline” is a must. That talent row is arguably the most useful but they’re all grouped together so you must choose 1. The meta and obvious is double time but I sometimes take impending victory for “oh crap” moments to take strain off the healer. We simply need a baseline stun as warriors.

Overall I think you’re absolutely right a warrior is a great dps class but very poor utility and contributing class.

2 Likes
#3

Edit: I would also say that even battle shout, especially now reduced to 5%, is only a niche group utility. It’s obviously always beneficial to you individually but it’s only necessary for the group if at least 3/5 players are melee. If it’s just you and the tank it adds very little. Also, in a raid, it is vital BUT you would technically only need to bring along 1 warrior.

#4

Shattering Throw has a handful of applications in Necrotic Wake, It can also be used as error correction in Mists during the maze or on the beetle mobs. The last major place I use it is in DoS on hakkar. If you save it until the 3rd barrier you can simply do a bit of damage to adds then have Hakkar barrier killing them all and then depending in key level you can ether break the barrier or do a good chunk to it. Honestly I wish Shattering Throw had a lower CD in PVE because it would be a great tool to have more frequently.

#5

I’m learning to tank on warrior and accidentally hit fear in HoA and feared a groundskeeper into a pack of dogs and all he’ll broke loose for a minute. It seems MOST M+ areas are pretty packed. How often do you actually use it in keys? If it’s 1 target they just sit still right?

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#6

I’ve had your same problem. The fearing mobs into other mobs and it hits the fan, although I look doubly stupid since I’m dps even though I’m trying to help lol.

But yeah the primary target feared stands still instead of fleeing and there is a conduit bonus that can increase the damage taken before fear breaks. There is also a prot talent that makes all enemies cower instead of fleeing but it’s almost never taken because of the other 2 better options in that talent row and the constant aoe would break it so quickly.

So to answer your question, in my opinion, it’s almost never used especially like you said since mobs are tightly packed so I don’t see it as useful utility in M+

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#7

Thanks a lot for the answer. Yeah only thing I could come up with maybe is some of those small areas in ToP with only a couple heavy mobs, but I don’t even know if they CAN be feared. Either way, I’ve never been in a situation while tanking where I thought “if only I feared we would be alive.” Usually it’s more like “You have shield wall and last stand dumb dumb. Use them.”

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#8

I don’t disagree with you, but there are other classes hurt even more than you are. On my Ret I can’t get an invite to M+. They all tell me go holy or prot. At least a warrior has an invite. I think all classes need some TLC in the lore, roleplay to class, and utility mechanic. Each class used to bring unique items. Now it seems like every class either has everything or is missing everything.

#9

Can’t disagree with you either. I’ve said since the start of this expansion (main Enhancement, Ret, Fury/Arms 6/10M KSM on all 3) that Ret functions like budget Arms Warrior (big burst AoE damage on a 45 sec - 1 min cd), and Arms functions like budget Windwalker because WW > Arms > Ret in terms of raw damage. But also part of the equation is community perception. The different between the best ret and the best WW might be a lot in terms of damage / utility but the difference between the average ret running +15s and the average ww running +15s probably isn’t that high. No easy way to change how people perceive the specs outside of getting good numbers and good ratings as the underrated specs and posting on the forums, but certainly some changes in the dps / utility department would be good. Ret has some very good utility for keys (Freedom, BoP, Bubble, Hoj, Blinding Light, blessing of sacrifice, etc) but it can’t hold a candle to how good Force of Nature or Ring of Peace are, which is the story of every dps class that’s not a ww or boomie, so the only thing we have left is dps. Because Ret doesn’t bring a lust, no brez, and really only plays Kyrian, the options are rather limited for being invited to stuff, which is unfortunate. I’ve done and have seen Rets do some otherworldy damage in keys, but if the mobs live more than 8 seconds, our spec doesn’t really have anything left to give for the next 52. Single target generators + underwhelming AoE legendaries = underwhelming cleave outside of cooldowns, which Arms doesn’t have to worry about since Warbreaker + Bladestorm + Kyrian Spear + Merciless Bondegrinder + the follow up Sweeping Strikes + Overpower spam is a good 15-20 seconds of relatively high damage on a 45 second cooldown, with more burst than Ret in the CDs to boot. Give Ret more damage and give warriors something thematic like a cheat death / lust! >:D

#10

I agreed with you until you said keys under 20. Your IO is 150 higher than mine and ilevel is 4 higher than mine. As a fury Warrior I can join a 16 in a matter of 2 mins of queuing for those level keys. Sure 25+ is a different story tho.