Warrior Talents Updated

[Concillian]

I do. Early reports have Hunters kicking much Rogue butt in the DPS department, Warriors beating them (before yesterday's changes), and haven't seen anything on Mages but they were already equal to Rogues and got many, many more +damage% talents than Rogues did.

The warrior changes yesterday did nothing that will help raiding "DPS warriors" They wouldn't be getting top end arms talents anyway. The changes bring arms warriors more in-line with fury warriors and to make the bottom fury talents worth taking over going fury / prot and getting 1H spec. The utility talent blood frenzy is easier to get in a hybrid, which should make you happy, as rogues and hunters will be the primary beneficiaries.

Just as you discount the damage added to the bottom end of the assassination and subtlety trees as useless because an "ideal" raiding spec will be combat, the bottom of the arms tree can be equally discounted. The changes made are incredibly PvP oriented, few warriors are seriously talking about 41+ arms as a raiding or even a hybrid raiding spec. Most talents practical in arms for raiding will be ~33 points IMO. This gives decent DPS and room for your important protection talents.

Just as happened with the rogue trees, the damage added here brings the non-raid DPS tree more in line with the raid DPS tree. Do not confuse this with adding warrior DPS to a raiding DPS spec, because it won't.

And every day Blizzard releases one minor change for Rogues while some other class got a complete overhaul I'm getting more angry. Seriously, stop with the stupid games and trying to lull us into sleep with tiny changes hoping we won't notice just how minor they are while everyone else is going up in leaps and bounds.

Don't pretend rogues got nothing.
- The 41 pointer in combat is about 2 - 2.5% DPS increase if I modify the damage spreadsheet accordingly.
- Assuming a 1.6 speed offhand and 85% hit rate, potency is looking to add around 16% energy on average, which allows for more backstabs. Assuming you still ahve to use SnD all the time and never another finisher, you still get a backstab DPS increase that is point for point is better than Lethality.
- Add in the small agility increase of Vitality and you're talking about a total of around 8-9% total damage increase from 10 new talent points, even counting the 'filler' points.
I'm not buying the whining, I don't think your complaints are valid. The initial complaints were justified, the first shot at the rogue talents weren't great... but Blizzard has "nickel and dimed" rogues back into the ball game. Many small changes are adding up to be a decent overall improvement in the "raid DPS" build.

[Quark]

Don't pretend rogues got nothing.
- The 41 pointer in combat is about 2 - 2.5% DPS increase if I modify the damage spreadsheet accordingly.

I get 2% for my stats. Let's not forget, this is 2% for what is listed as an 8% talent. They could make it 10% and I still wouldn't like it, because the talent as it stands is boring, lame, adds nothing new, is counterintuitive, and only works because they decided to keep bumping up a damage bonus until they forced it to work. Shadow Strikes, even if it only managed to boost my DPS by 2% (just like the current Suprise Attacks), would still have been better. Blizzard cannot get a "win" for this without a talent redesign, as it simply fails compared to what could have been, no matter the numbers.

Assuming a 1.6 speed offhand and 85% hit rate, potency is looking to add around 16% energy on average, which allows for more backstabs. Assuming you still ahve to use SnD all the time and never another finisher, you still get a backstab DPS increase that is point for point is better than Lethality.

I put it in as just extra energy converted to Backstabs, as it is inconsistent, thus hard to cycle. I get 7%. This makes it better than Dagger Spec per point, worse than Relentless Strikes and Dual-Wield Spec per point (as comparison). So it gets a checkmark.

- Add in the small agility increase of Vitality

Fully buffed, .55% increase total, an incredible .275% per point! Let me get right on that!

and you're talking about a total of around 8-9% total damage increase from 10 new talent points, even counting the 'filler' points.

~9.5%. Let's compare.

First? Compare to a build I could have come up with before the talents were announced. Drop AR, only going so far as to grab WeapEx. You lose AR, one Dagger Spec (point for point a small sacrifice), and 2 filler. You finish Lethality, gain Imp Poisons, gain Cold Blood, gain far superior "filler" in the new Fleet Footed and/or Quick Recovery, and get 4/5 Seal Fate. Before Combat Potency, it wasn't even a question -> this was the far superior path. Now, it gives you the versatility Combat Dagger severly lacks (combo points), has less waste, for what will end up to be about the same damage. Using only 2 or 3 new, mid-tier talents. Remember, the first time Blizzard ever said talents would be higher tiers of current trees, it was in the Rogue forums, with a CM claiming the new tiers would help outweigh people just trying to go 30/31 and such. By the way, 30/31 is still a clearly superior Sword build (especially since Combat Potency will help them less, having slower OHs).

Second? Compare to Fire Mages. Already on equal footing for damage with Rogues. Could currently go 31/20 (high damage Fire, nice damage Frost), 30/21 (slightly less damage Fire but with Ice Block), or something like 13/31/3 (boost efficiency and keep Fire high). I can see a 10/46/3, getting 6% from Playing with Fire, Pyromaniac. My very quick-and-dirty compilation (using a T2-geared mage) got me 9% for Empowered Fireball, let's say it's 5% given some comes from Ignite and I might be wrong on calcs. That leaves Molten Fury, which will max at about 6% (if fight is long enough to fully matter). My very rough estimations are giving them over 15%. Oh, and they get a new, unique, ability on top of it.

This is why I'm looking at Mitzy right now.

[Klaus]

Fair enough. Given the right stance, or the right spec, a warrior has one, maybe two, answers to fear. Not tremendously good answers, but it works out well enough.

-Jester

Actually, an undead warrior with blacksmithing gets 2 more. :)

[Jester]

Actually, an undead warrior with blacksmithing gets 2 more. :)

The undead have an answer to everything, except the omnipresent "rotting flesh itch."

I figure that's what the Royal Apothecary Society is *really* after. A good skin ointment.

-Jester

[oldmandennis]

<stuff>

Not every tree and every playstyle is going to see a huge buff. Look at resto shamans - Earthen Shield is about it.

I still don't see why you are married to combat daggers. It seems really boring - stand behind, backstab and slice and dice. Don't you want more playstyle variety? Not to mention you guys are getting a huge buff from probably having WF + BOK/Might. Firemages on the other hand, are getting a pretty big nerf just by going from 40->25 (or less) - fewer mages means fewer rolling ignites.

[Quark]

I still don't see why you are married to combat daggers. It seems really boring - stand behind, backstab and slice and dice. Don't you want more playstyle variety?

I'm not. In fact, I'd love for Mutilate to work out as it brings many interesting things on trying to max out DPS. But, just like Seal Fate currently, it's not enough. People who grabbed Mutilate are still averaging more damage with Backstab.

Think about that. They went 41 points into a tree to get one skill, and it's still beaten by a trainable skill. And worse, they sacrificed a bunch of talents that help that trainable skill to get even better. So now they're below the bar on two abilities instead of being ready for one.

Combat Dagger? Only sticking with it (at least at first) if Blizzard gives me no reasonble alternative. Currently, there is none.

[Concillian]

You were complaining about how rogues got screwed compared to warriors, now you're complaining about mages instead and that a talent isn't exciting enough, that it's too boring and lame.

I think this kind of junk belongs on the WoW boards with the other whiners.

If you're estimating a 9.5% damage increase from 10 talent points, I don't see why there are complaints. 1% per point is great considering you have to have some filler talents too.

I'd encourage you to play your mage in the same situation. I think you'll find that what you have is a "grass is always greener" issue.

[oldmandennis]

People? Or Wodin? Even he said mutilate is better when the target is poisoned. And rogues just got a new skill that garentees a poison.

Even if it's substantially worse solo or 5 man, it may get better if two rogues are working togeather to keep a target poisoned in a 25 man instance.

Totems are your missing 5% compared to a Fire mage. I checked it today (don't have Excel at home).

[Brista]

People? Or Wodin? Even he said mutilate is better when the target is poisoned. And rogues just got a new skill that garentees a poison.

Even if it's substantially worse solo or 5 man, it may get better if two rogues are working togeather to keep a target poisoned in a 25 man instance.

Totems are your missing 5% compared to a Fire mage. I checked it today (don't have Excel at home).

A lot depends on whether raid mobs are vulnerable to poison. They weren't in Molten Core and most other level 60 raid content. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see that mobs generally are effected by it in BC 25 man raids

If they are affected by it then 3 or 4 Rogues is pretty much a guaranteed permanent poison effect. Sum poison damage with extra Mutilate damage and the game's top dpsers just got a lot stronger. Remember there are 40 debuff slots, remember too that some poison effects are very nice (eg Mind-numbing).

It seems early for misery when no one is yet raiding the level 70 content ;)

[Artega]

Haven't you seen the new spell reflect skill? That should take care of a lot of your range and cc concerns.

It requires 25 Rage, which is a hefty sum for a two-handed Warrior (especially since TM will only reach 25 points with three points invested into Protection), and a very large amount for a sword-and-board user.

It also has a 10 second cooldown, and requires either Defensive or Battle Stance. Most Warriors, in PvP, will be in Berserker Stance.

It also includes a noticeable animation (the same as Shield Block's, it seems), which further alerts enemy spellcasters to not hurl something powerful in your direction until five seconds pass or you take off your shield. Alternatively, they could just tag you with a rank 1 instant (Shadow Word: Pain, Fireblast, Corruption, and so many others), which would cause them little damage (or none at all if they're under the effects of something like Fire/Frost/Shadow Ward or Power Word: Shield) and still eat your reflection effect. It might inconvience them somewhat, requiring them to waste 1.5 seconds on an instant spell before sheeping you, but overall I can't see it making a lot of difference against an alert caster. Frankly, I'd rather use the Engineering trinkets (since it's quite funny watching a Fire mage kill himself by casting a ToEP or ZHC Pyroblast at someone that hit the Flame Reflector before being sheeped.)

If they reduced the Rage cost to something more practical (like, say, 10 or 15), you might have a point, but I don't see many people blowing 25 Rage on something that's so easily countered.