Warrior Talent Diversity Issues 11.1.0

In Development Undermine(d) PTR Discussion
1

To put it simply, the aforementioned change to the warrior class talent tree coming up in 11.1.0 while welcome in it’s defensive increase by putting our stamina talent in the 2nd rung of the tree over the 3rd, it’s brought forward some issues with mandatory talent pathing and reduced the ‘free points’ that we have in the current live build that players could customise and pickup talents they liked over others or the ability to pickup utility which is no longer the case with the projected changes.

To put it simply we’ve got too many points to invest into damage in the 2nd rung of the tree which leaves us with next to no points free to pick what we’d like to bring utility wise.

Mandatory point allocation is the following for each spec.

1/1 Spell reflect - 1/1 Rallying Cry,
2/2 Crushing Force - 1/1 Overwhelming Rage - 2/2 Reinforced Plates
1/1 Barbaric Training/Sidearm, 1/1 Double time.

And for AoE - 1/1 Seismic Reverberation, which can be skipped by Slayer Fury however it is mandatory in Most AOE builds especially for Colossus prot unless this bug has been fixed, Revenge will not generate colossal might stacks without it talented which is/was a major bug oversight (someone can confirm this if they’re more up to date, but it still counts as a mandatory dps investment for all hero talent combinations excluding Slayer Fury).

This spends 9-10 of our 12 available talent points once we enter the 2nd rung of the tree leaving us next to no freedom in actually picking up utility that we could not pickup along the way, most likely the 2 ‘free’ points in the AoE builds will be locked into Shockwave + Rumbling Earth meaning we have no free points as this also pigeon holes us into not being able to take abilities such as Intimidating Shout, Berserker Shout/Piercing Howl, increased thunder clap range for Arms/Prot/Thane Fury, Bitter immunity, Bounding Stride, Hones Reflexes, Wrecking Throw/Shattering Throw alongside many more since once we’ve filled out the 2nd rung every single point of our remaining 11 talent points is dedicated to the 3rd rung of the tree with no chance of going back and picking utility we want like other classes.

Previously on live with Overwhelming Rage being a 2 point allocation it was the first talent to dump if you wanted additional utility since we could dial this back to a 15 rage cap increase to put a point elsewhere, but the move to Reinforced Plates being a 2 point investment instead has lost us our flexible points and has given us next to no agency in picking what we prefer or want for a certain encounter since the opportunity cost of losing a 30% rage cap increase over a 15% increase is not worth it at all.

The easiest fix in this would be to change both Crushing Force and Reinforced Plates to 1 point talents rather than 2, this allows us to have 4-5 free points to go back and pickup utility we otherwise would never have the chance to, which also puts us inline with other class trees who have a much better time with free points who can pick and choose at will.

I’m aware that the warrior talent tree has less nodes than others, but it does share a similarity with the rogue class tree in the amount of node options that are available in the 1st/2nd rungs of the tree of which they’re all 1 point allocations for rogues.
So there is precedence set already in being able to have only 1 point nodes in a class tree that has a lower amount of available nodes right now. For reference Warriors have 29 nodes available in the 1st/2nd rung with 2 nodes being 2/2 point, while the rogue tree has 26 nodes all of which are 1/1 point investments meaning warriors being able to take 20/29 nodes as opposed to 18/29 nodes will not be broken comparing it to something like rogue which has 20/26 nodes to pick from out of their available talents.

Warrior’s are also unique in that every single point of their last 11 talent points is dedicated to throughput increases in their 3rd and final rung of the tree, with no hope of going back to pickup earlier utility like other classes have access to do or they have utility in the 3rd rung they can pick instead.

Changing these two talents for warrior would open up a lot more options for players to actually get a shorter leap, larger thunderclap radius, a self dispel, actually being able to pickup our fear or piercing howl and is the best way of fixing our class tree until you decide to rework it and nuke most of the throughput nodes we’re forced into the 3rd rung as mandatory investment.

TLDR: Changing Crushing Force/Reinforced Plates to 1 point investments with their 2 point values as they stand now will actually allow warriors to have freedom in their class tree picks as opposed to being locked into cookie cutter builds with no variability of being able to customise what utility they can bring to a group.

P.S. Lastly feedback on the 3rd rung for a future ‘rework’. Just get rid of most of the pointless dps nodes in the 3rd rung. Merge the current follow up nodes of Thunderous Roar/Champion’s Spear into them and put them both on a choice node where you pick between a DoT focused shorter cooldown that’s better on higher target counts or a direct damage focused longer cooldown that’s better for lower target counts.

10 Likes
2

or honestly just leave it the way it was and just buff the nodes. But instead gently fixing a loose nail with a small hammer they pulled out a sledge.

3

I commented on another these, but it feels like I had more utility in Shadowlands than I do now in TWW or Dragonflight, and even than in Shadowlands Warrior utility was considered poor.

In SL I had access to…

Storm Bolt
Intimidating Shout
Piercing Howl
Shattering Throw
Battle Shout
Rallying Cry (With a Giga 30% extra HP)
Ancient Aftershock/Spear of Bastion (very short CD)

Now I realistically have access to…

Stormbolt
Shockwave
Rallying Cry (pitful in 5 man content)
Battle Shout

It’s crazy how few things Warriors can grab without sacrificing throughput, and now our decent areas (Stormbolt and Shockwave) DR with themselves, and thats before a Shaman or someone else throws out an AoE Stun.

More baseline talents please!

7 Likes
4

Shockwave needs to go back to being a Protection Warrior only skill, doing nearly 400% current scaling damage, with no stun unless talented. It and stormbolt feel kinda redundant.

Rally needs to have that fancy “in 5 mans, effect is doubled” thing that other abilities have.

Battle Shout should just be versatility at this point.

Our talent tree is severely bloated. We have a ton of throughput talents in very strategic positions in our tree that prevent getting utility without massive cost, which is not a fun or engaging design choice.

3 Likes
5

So you want arms and fury 2 have less reasons to be brought to mythics?

2 Likes
6

I’m curious as to which nodes you think need to be buffed? Realistically buffing stuff won’t really do anything in our current tree set-up as we’re hard locked in picking certain offensive/utility options along the way to our full 11 point 3rd rung lock in.

Yup, the mandatory talent pathing next build makes this even worse on what we can actually pick. Given that one of the main issues with Warrior in general is the lack of group utility they can bring to the group, this isn’t helping our case at all.

The second part regarding Shaman’s DRing stuns, they need a little more awareness of the groups they’re in and what they’re stunning and if they even should be taking double cap over short cap.

That sounds awful, Prot doesn’t need another AoE attack they’ve got plenty of snap threat options available and taking away from Arms/Fury for no reason just sounds like a bad time for all.

Could agree on this point, giving it some help in smaller group settings but even then Rally is only a good group defensive when used correctly.

Battle Shout keeping it’s AP% and if it had a second stat added to it like 2% crit that would pair nicely with it to give it at least some benefit to casters, on the other hand they could just make this 1% Crit and also add 1% crit to Arcane Intellect so you’re incentivised to always bring both to get the full value.

100% the reason of this post, we’ve got way too many mandatory nodes most of which are DPS nodes to collect along the way to our awfully designed 3rd rung which is “oops all throughput nodes”.

7

Just more proof of how out of touch the devs are with our class. 1 step forward, 2 steps back is all we ever see.
Buffed to be in a good state at the start of the expansion. Maybe a couple things that could of had a small nerf, but they just keep knee jerking and big cuts. It happens way too damn often.

6 Likes
8

Fair point. I just feel that the presence and earlier availability of Storm Bolt and the current ecosystem of other AE stuns creates a situation that makes Shockwave redundant for Arms/Fury in most situations. I admit that I don’t particularly care for PVP and that’s probably a big ticket ability for Arms/Fury in that ecosystem.

We need a tear down and rebuild of the class/spec trees. You can’t just buff nodes currently due to how the tree is designed. There are too many mandatory throughput nodes.

Honestly we don’t have a lack of group utility on paper. We have the choice of bringing and AE fear or Knockback, ST stun, AE Cone Stun, AE Fear Break or AE slow, and a skill that does massively increased, or destruction of bubbles.

The reality of the situation is that none of those are very good or are provided to a group in more functional skill, or are in terrible locations that no viable or competitive build will actually take, or are so seldom necessary that it’s never a real choice to take. The only real utility that most specs will take are Storm Bolt/Shockwave and those stuns get DR’d hard by other classes as well.

I agree that Battle Shout needs to be addressed in some way to make it more universally attractive.

9

the nodes they buffed in the ptr…

10

They honestly didn’t buff any nodes outright, they made some stronger for sure, but not without also requiring more investment. The only real buff was to make it easier to get extra stamina by tacking half of Endurance Training’s effect onto Reinforced Plates, and at the cost of also increasing the cost of Reinforced Plates to two talent points. For most protection warrior builds that’s a net neutral talent point spend for an extra 5% stamina, and for most arms/fury builds an increase of 10% stamina for the cost of 1 additional talent point, which is going to be invested because of Armored to the Teeth.

The second part of Endurance Training, the reduction of fear, incapacitate, and Sap effects being reduced is just gone.

Weapon Specialization is now two talent points and shifted to the far left of the talent tree, which makes not a lick of sense, as a required node for Thunderous Roar. On live that’s where Cruel Strikes currently resides.

For all Warriors it’s now an extra point of expenditure for no reason other than to restrict our options for talents.

For Protection: We trade 1% leech for 1% damage. (which is a buff to dps, and an almost nothing nerf to sustain)

For Arms: It’s a straight buff; 1% extra damage and 4% avoidance. Totally worth another talent point.

For Fury: Another straight buff; 1% extra damage and 4% additional movement speed. Great investment.

Warrior was already incredibly restrictive with talent choices. It’s worse now on the PTR. Ptotection Warrior already only had a single free talent point to move around. On the PTR in order to accomplish the same goal, that point would have to be pulled from Bounding Stride, Shockwave, or Crackling Thunder. That is, without pulling from throughput talents at the bottom of the tree.

That’s not an improvement.

Blizzard Please: Revert the cost of Weapon Specialization and Reinforced Plates back to 1 point, even that would drastically loosen the restrictive feeling of the talent tree.

11

It’s not even heading to revert class talents, they just need to combine some of them or make them only 1 point. That way we at least get a choice. Which to be honest, I thought was the whole point of the initial change.

12

That was the stated goal. It feels like Blizzard doesn’t know what to do when it comes to warriors.

2 Likes
13

That is painfully obvious. Even on live, all the knee jerk nerfs they gave us still feel wrong.

14

well that’s my point keep the “slightly” buffed nodes where they were and points needed or hell combine some of them or make them class baseline. Remember when Thunderclap was just you know a warrior ability every warrior had?

15

I’d like to see rallying cry be a stronger button overall and they can balance it by adding an exhaustion like debuff with a 5min timer to prevent warrior stacking to cheese checks.

For example it increases max health by 15% (1.5 times in 5man) and gives everyone the effect of second wind at 50% effectiveness for the duration of the ability.

Numbers are just for illustration purposes. Feels thematically on point and broadens warrior utility.

4 Likes
16

Was super surprised when they nerfed a lot of group defensives in DF S3, and Darkness got a buff to be good in 5 man content, but Rally recived no compensation.

3 Likes
17

Yeah, I wish I knew what the devs goals for warriors are. Our group utility is mediocre and we have neither meter topping damage nor best in class self sustain or personal DRs.

We have mid damage especially arms. Arms falls over more than fury which seems like we’re in the upside down when arms is supposed to be the tactical methodical spec.

They won’t give us lust, we can’t yell at anyone loud enough to bring them back from the dead. We can’t even DR somebody else like we used to with intercept cause of our talent point economy. :man_shrugging:

Despite all our rage…

18

Fixed that for Protection Warriors out there!

Joking aside. The main issue with warrior talent diversity at the moment is that our tree is very bloated from a “number of talents” stand point, how heavily gated the final area of our talent tree ended up being in terms of required talents, and how design and philosophy of talents have changed since the initial design of the current talent trees in DF Alpha. Warriors were one of the first completed and show-ready trees and much has changed since then and warriors have not.

As much as I would hate to have a tear-down and rebuild in the middle of the expansion (which historically has not ended well for warriors), current track record of performance of classes that have had one completed is positive.

It has become readily apparent that there isn’t one, or there is a vision or goal that’s execution has been thoroughly lackluster and underdeveloped.

1 Like
19

I just want to know what dev sat down and said… Who needs a nerf… I know lets gut Warrior rage so they lose both Def and Off power and that should be a good nerf. Blizzard do us a favor and fire that dev they have no idea how warrior works and is fooling you into giving them a paycheck.

1 Like
20

I was going for the Bullet with Butterfly Wings by Smashing Pumpkins reference. Haha. Us being rats in a cage.

Pour one out for prot warrior. Prot Pal is always waiting in the wings to come and over shadow them mid season due to a massive over-correction by blizzard.

I’m not sure why we give any feedback tbh, it doesn’t feel like anyone’s listening to us.

1 Like