WotLK Changes: An Arena Perspective
by Arcan | 25/07/2008 14:20:07 First off, an Armory plug, to at least establish that I have some idea of what I'm talking about. Note that my spec fluctuates from 41/17/3, 35/23/3, and 35/5/21 depending on what bracket I'm playing/what I'm up against. http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Mal%27Ganis&n=Arcan After testing various specs and abilities against other players in the beta, I've made up my mind on a lot of the changes and the new talents. I've been lurking these forums extensively during the last week or two (before acquiring my beta key), and I've noticed that there are several changes that no one has brought up. I will try to stay away from discussion on the 51-point talents, there are already enough posts and everyone knows how bad they are. Many of the following changes are pulled either from the talent trees or from the patch notes. I'll stick to the big talents and changes, and only those that pertain to PvP.
I'll tackle the worst first. This is a huge nerf to Warriors that I feel is warranted, but I don't think it was completely thought through. Pros: -Hamstringing other warriors on your allies can no longer result in a crit, giving the Warrior Enrage and causing him to give your allies more trouble. -You can hamstring crowd-controlled targets, granted you're watching your auto attack timer. Cons: - Hamstringing a target cannot result in any sort of proc anymore. Because it does not deal damage, you will never receive a Sword or Mace Specialization proc, nor a Sudden Death proc. This is a good thing in terms of balance, as it completely eliminates "spamstring." - We cannot reliably kill Shaman totems anymore. There is no spammable low-rage cost ability that we can use to kill totems now that Hamstring doesn't deal damage, and is a huge nerf when fighting any team with a shaman in it that forces you to ignore Grounding/Tremor totems unless you'd like to waste a 3.6 second swing on it. I really hope that the Warrior developers realize that there is no effective way of killing Shaman totems and offers some sort of change to hamstring (perhaps to remove the chance for it to proc anything/crit) or another recourse entirely.
This is actually a very interesting change to Warriors in PvP. Any 2v2 or 3v3 team without a dispeller on it will most likely have the Warrior start the fight by shield-slamming off his enemy's buffs. This is a fun change that will probably see a lot of use.
This is a welcome change that helps us kill multiple pets in long games much easier. Mocking Blow can also be used as an extra burst hit every minute now that it deals weapon damage!
Any change that reduces RNG's ability to make or break a match is welcome.
I'm personally happy to have Sweeping Strikes back, though grinding with two two-handers right now without this talent feels very odd. Death Wish no longer having a fear break attached to it means Warriors are no longer indefinitely immune to fear, and makes speccing Fury slightly less appetizing for me.
These changes make speccing 21 prot for PvP much more viable than it already was (though it isn't listed in the changes, Conc Blow has also had its cooldown reduced to 30 seconds!) This also solves the problem of speccing out of Enrage versus Warriors that do: If another Warrior focuses you, you have no choice but to fight back, but with 25% less damage. With 1k+ Rend ticks thrown into the mix against them that you're immune to (at 70 with S4 2hander, rend ticks for 230~ with Bloodletting/Trauma against non-enraged targets) this will even the scales and fix the problem of speccing out of Enrage when facing other Warriors. Now you can enjoy the utility added of speccing Protection without feeling so bad about missing out on the better Fury talents. Besides the 51 point talents which are bugged and awful (including almost all of the talents in Arms leading up to Bladestorm), and the Hamstring nerf (which is TERRIBLE, and I dearly hope is modified somehow), Warriors are looking to be very fun in Arena come 80. |
by Koraa | 29/07/2008 10:19:33 We're currently getting back to work on the Warrior, expect changes in an upcoming build. Class Designer |
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