Warriors NEED to be Vanilla Warriors (Not 1.12)

One consistency throughout all classes in vanilla; and this is especially true with hybrids,is that they perform one roll optimally with the others being viable but not comparitive. This intent drove the development of all classes and was a part of vanillas design from the very beginning.
Recently Classic WoW original developer Kevin Jordan who designed the original spell and talent systems appeared on multiple podcasts such as Count-Down to Classic and ClassicCast announcing that throughout the entire entire lifespan of vanilla wow they consistently saw warrior rage generation as a problem.
The original WoW Developer asserted that it was a common view within the Blizzard team that the Warrior class was scaling too hard at the end of content and continuously having to be re-tuned to account for this power-creep.

To bring them inline with how they actually played in Vanilla and with the actual blizzard intent of the warrior class in vanilla; their rage generation granted by their DEALT DAMAGE (e.g rage from their swings) needs to be addressed. This mechanic needs to be adjusted so that it scales quite strongly early-on and exponentially scales less throughout later content and gear cycles; to keep the gameplay of the coming Classic WoW in line with how original Classic WoW played.
This could easily be achieved through implementing rage normalisation (e.g establishing a static figure based on the type of attack be it critical or not, the speed of the weapon and the weapon type) rather then scalar values based on damage which broke during the final patch of WoW due to dev’s not having time to address this new power-creep before the BC release. This could also be achieved through the introduction of a a dynamic cap to rage generation which would also assist return the class to the state it was in for 90% of Vanilla wow and it’s actual truly intended state. Due to the unintended power-creep during the final patches before BC release they are now the only true hybrid class in the game being able to DPS and tank while paying no hybrid tax which similar hybrids such as druids, shamans and paladins must pay for their granted utility this is not how the class played at all throughout vanilla; warriors were only brought to tank and rare DPS warrior was few and far between due to their significantly lower DPS, similar to how druids, shamans and paladins were only brought to heal).
Addressing the power creep which took place in the games final patches will also reduce the massive percentage of the community intending to roll warrior (as is shown in the frequent census polls) due to their intention to abuse a class which was never intended to function the way it does in 1.12 , and only functioned like that in the original real version of the game in its final patch, which many have become familiar with on private servers; and to some it is all they actually know of Vanilla WoW.

TL;DR: Please make warriors play as they were always intended to play and actually functioned for the majority of vanilla

EDIT: In-lieu of further posts created throughout this thread some suggestions made by both Apocalypse and Tarregor, seem to present some quite solid idea. Among these they advocate for the normalisation of rage generation, or introducing a dynamic cap to rage generation, which would ensure that the strength of warriors would be consistently well placed, strong and most importantly balanced throughout all stages of content. My addition of this edit in no way affiliates their opinions or posts with mine but rather i thought they presented quite well stated arguments and agreed with them on many points.

EDIT:
Posted in another thread these stats outline the IMMENSE over-representation of warriors on one given private server shortly after launch (scroll down to find sources):

Warrior 81,864
Mage 41,964
Rogue 39, 138
Hunter 37,088
Warlock 28,673
Priests 26,476
Druid 19,460
Paladin 18,215
Shaman 16,263

17 Likes

Didn’t realize that my intention of rolling a warrior was to abuse the class. That’s news to me.

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This would easily happen by just rolling in pre 1.11 threat levels.

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Using pre-1.11 threat levels would help, but Blizzard has already said they’re not doing class balance.

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The majority of the people complaining about warriors here won’t even get the gear levels necessary to turn them into wrecking machines.

The OPs suggestion to make them “scale hard early” would just make warrior over represented in various twink brackets and do nothing to adjust the warrior to population.

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Blizzard will normalise rage in classic so warriors arn’t OP.

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I play a warrior.

Do not change my class.

Thanks.

Love.

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Firstly scale systems can be applied based on the individual level bracket, it wouldnt be hard or take much work at all you would just have a different coefficient for each level bracket, i mean there are only 6 of them e.g 6 different numbers… it isnt retail this would result in no imbalance in the twink brackets.

secondly the second warriors get preraid bis they are op this wasnt/isnt how vanilla wow functioned, and i can only hope this isnt how they will function when the game is released… according to my own personal experience and the majority of dps guides, this being a prominent one; they are the top DPS bar none from the start, and this in no way is how vanilla was for the vast majority of it… this is an abstraction and distortion of how the warrior class actually played.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0wciSPO9zg

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no. they arent “balancing” (nerfing) classes for classic.

and i am glad they arent.

your tears will be delicious.

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According to DPS logs from private servers, Mages are actually the top DPS.

5 Likes

I dunno, I remember a COUPLE of warriors DPSing here and there, mainly in PVP because I followed them around on my paladin and healed them. I’ve never played on a private server so no idea how popular or good they got once everyone had 10+ years to play them and figure out exact bis gear and other nonsense to make them work but back in the day, they were exceptionally rare to my experience but did indeed exist and hit very hard.

Hi, thanks for posting mate

You might not be aware (if you are sorry for the assumption); that in the final patches of Vanilla Wow, a few months before the release of BC the warrior class recieved MASSIVE buffs, and the gear which was released in this later content also massively changed the class. As you said, DPS warriors in pvp were great but even still they were rare, and in vanilla raids viturally none existant… because all private servers use the final patches of WoW, the few players who used to play warrior now make up the majority of the player base. they by far are now the most overplayed class, mainly because of the huuuge optimization enacted in the final phase of vanilla WoW. I made this post so that we could make sure the true spirit of vanilla is maintained and we can play the game as it actually was and not how it was in the final month or so…

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Only whichever mage gets the ignite stack.

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Wouldn’t you need to change every other class as well? Can the data be recreated? Is the data available?

Every other class cant be the best tank in the game and the best dps in the game, due to a patch which came in right at the end of vanilla wow. What I am advocating for is restoring the class to how it actually played in vanilla and not how some private server players wish it did play due to their experience on servers 1 patch before TBC.

As is asserted in the first post, all hybrids pay a hybrid tax… you dont see druids healing tanking and dpsing, or paladins or shamans, warriors are the only class able to do so and its only because of a patch change which was not present for the majority of vanillas life span, the reality is in vanilla noone brought warriors for dps.

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The tax is asinine to begin with, you’d think people would want more incentive to roll tanks and healers, not less. Leave warriors alone.

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Seems pretty adamant, they don’t have any plans to do it.

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iirc only shield slam was changed super late in the game. It went from 30 rage down to 20, the listed damage on the ability was nerfed by a decent amount but they added the ability for it to scale with your shield block value.

Fury/prot warriors on private servers are already doing more threat then prot warriors, I would imagine most guilds that wanted to push damage would just fully switch to that spec for their tanks if prot threat was nerfed.

(all this is assuming warriors will at least have their 1.6 talent revamp)

Warriors were very much intendended to be WAY overpowered due to Tigole, Furor, And Kalgan’s Bias towards them. Those same devs also ensured hybrids were gimped into only being able to pocket heal the warriors.

You are correct in pointing out how many of us former hybrids will be the overpowered flavor of the forever class this time around. No nerf to threat gen will stop that since it’s really the absurd damage that warriors do that makes them/future us OP.

/evilgrin

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Dialing warriors back to a state where pure DPS had to throttle down in PVE would solve so many issues in one swoop.

It would not be balancing beyond what was within the vanilla timeframe. It would simply be making aggro management a meaningful gameplay element again.

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