So, I noticed some subtle changes to the fury rotation recently, and I wasn't going to invest a lot of time into trying to guess the rotation for Clysm, but since the Bloodsurge design is getting a bit of a nip/tuck, I'm starting to wonder about it.
Looking at the single target rotation, we have essentially two abilities we're likely to use. Bloodthirst and Raging Blow. Now, Bloodthirst has a 3 second cooldown and no obvious limitations on its use, so that's going to be the capstone of our rotation. Since there is the 1.5 second gcd, that means no matter what else we do, BT will be every other hit (unless something comes up that makes more sense to hit instead). Raging Blow has a 6 second cooldown, so it's going to occupy space between alternating Bloodthirsts (assuming you can keep enraged "pretty much" all the time).
So, here is our rotation:
BT -> RB -> BT -> ____ -> BT -> RB -> BT -> ____ ... etc.
The blanks signify the "gaps" in our rotation that we would be filling with things like Slam if bloodsurge were procced, Sunders, Shouts, etc.
They've said that HS will be off the gcd, which means you can hit it anytime within this rotation you like provided you have the rage for it, so that will not be considered here.
In addition, since they've changed the Bloodsurge design to have a 30% chance to proc off each "hit" from either Bloodthirst or Raging Blow (HS is not included as of this build, and you also have to consider that the effect is only available once per 6 seconds), this works out to a preliminary chance of having a Slam proc (in the first 4.5 second rotation) of about 67%, and eventually it averages out to about 41% chance each subsequent open space. So this means that our Clysm rotation will essentially only have about 3 open spots in our rotation every 22.5 seconds. Some things won't affect us, as I believe that pummel is staying off the gcd as will be HS (under current designs), but this still leaves all the sunders/shouts/etc.
On the one hand, this should be fine. Each warrior will have at MOST 2 shouts they need to use (but one costs rage, and probably would only be used if the tank didn't talent for it) and sunders. So, on average, that will basically give us exactly the opportunity that we're wanting to have, with one open spot every 22.5 seconds for, I dunno, something fun?
Of course, the variation in this rotation will be availability. Raging Blow is only available to use if you are enraged. Slam is only useful if Bloodsurge has procced, otherwise casting Slam is like nailing your toes to a stop sign so the raid can play tetherball with your head -- it's a huge headache.
I think what I'm most afraid of is that this rotation is SO set in stone. There really is no wiggle room at all. Our current rotation is mostly like this, but because of the 4 second, 8 second cooldowns which don't "quite" mix with the gcd's, we end up with a lot more spots where things could go, but they're more costly. For example, our rotation now starts with a BT -> WW -> 1 second spacer -> BT
That 1 second spacer "could" be used for an emergency sunder or a procced slam, but it will also delay the next BT by 0.5 seconds, which makes you have to pause to consider whether having the extra attack etc. in that second is worth losing the 0.5 seconds from the extra gcd, especially since right after your gcd from that next BT, you're looking at a 2.5 second free space which is easily one extra ability, plus another awkward 1 second space.
Now, BRILLIANTLY, Blizzard placed the 0.5 second gcd reduction on slam as an additional proc from the T10 set, which makes slam actually fit nicely into those awkward pauses... a la:
BT -> WW -> Slam -> BT -> Slam -> (Some other Ability) -> and so forth.
But since that only procs 20% of the time that Slam is instant, the remaining pockmarked mess looks the same:
BT -> WW -> awkward 1 second pause -> BT -> Slam -> awkward 1 second pause -> and so forth.
The catch is though, those two awkward 1 second pauses there actually give us some room to fire extra stuff, or do nothing, or whatever is called for, but possibly at a slight loss to us. If Victory Rush is procced, we can throw those in and take the 0.5 second hit. If sunders are about to fall off.... If shouts are wearing out.... etc.
I think I like that we're going to be having a nice tight rotation, but if it's this tight, it may make some of the other utility we used to provide seem kind of sketchy. If we can't be enraged (at least nearly)100% of the time, it will make our rotations very difficult to keep up with, what with hovering over the Raging Blow button and watching, and having nothing else to press really if it doesn't light up.
Of course, I'm assuming that just like the post they made about ret paladins recently they're trying to make our white damage "significant" so that haste remains "more attractive for us" and perhaps that will make all this theory crafting about yellow strike rotations null and void, but that's a separate rant for another time.
For now, that's what it looks like we have to work with, and we'll have to wait and see how things go.
Incidentally, because I haven't said anything about it here yet, notice that our rotation is pretty tight, and the cost is right at 66.15 rage per 4.5 second rotation, which works out to 14.7 rage per second. Dual Wielding, with 0 haste, that will require your main hand weapon to generate 9.8 rage per second and your off hand weapon to generate 4.9 rage per second (well, minus any "additional rage sources"). This makes it seem as though a standard white melee hit with a 3.5 second timer should yield about 34.3 rage, or with a 2.0 second swing timer about 19.6 rage.
And I know that the new Battle Trance talent is very handy, but bear in mind that you're looking at 1 proc of that per 20 Bloodthirst strikes, so figure that means one free swing every 60 seconds, reducing our rage per second needs to 14.36 rage per second. Not exactly a huge change, but that's what it does.
I figure if they're going to make this rage normalization work at all, it will have to be balanced around having "some" haste, but it can't be a significant amount since we'll already have to be stacking hit rating out the wazoo to make up for the hit penalty from dual wielding, especially if white damage is meant to be "significant" in Clysm.
Anyway, those are my thoughts on a rotation come Clysm. We'll have to keep our eyes peeled and find out what else the future has in store for us.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Monday, August 2, 2010
Glyph of Taunt for Tanks
So, I did a tiny bit of investigation today into why a tank would take the glyph of taunt even if he already had over 8% hit rating, and as it turns out, there IS actually a reason.
Since this is something that I had wrong before, and hadn't really had issues with (well, to be fair, I rarely MT anything, and when I do, I've glyphed so much for AoE threat that I only use taunt occasionally, so a 6% miss chance might not show itself easily) I thought I'd go ahead and write a quick post in case anyone was interested for future reference (assuming this won't change for Clysm, which it probably will).
The catch to this that makes it confusing for everyone is that taunt works like a SPELL. It's pretty much the only thing we have that does, so I can understand why it's confusing.
Since it's a spell, it has a 17% spell miss chance, and not an 8% melee miss chance that you're used to. For this reason, you have to use spell hit ratings to see how it works instead of melee hit ratings, and you'll find that it requires 446 hit rating to guarantee that taunt will work every time.
Now, there are mitigations, for example, if you have a boomkin or faerie fire etc. in raid, that will reduce that to 14%, or 368, and if you have a draenei (why would you, aren't you horde?) you can reduce that by another 1%, leaving you with needing 342 (barely over 341) in order to guarantee 100% landing of taunt.
That's a lot of hit rating to have to add to your gear, especially when most of the tank gear doesn't include a substantial amount of hit rating to begin with.
Now, on the other hand, if you glyph for taunt, you only need to achieve 9% (respectively 6%, 5% with raid buffs) to guarantee the taunt lands, and that's a more moderate level 237 hit rating (respectively 158, 132).
The 158 hit rating will only get you 4.82% melee hit rating, but that's not nearly as important to you anyway, since pound for pound, expertise is what you "really" want. I mean, in an ideal world, you'd want to have enough to not have to count on raid composition, so you'd want to shoot for the 237 hit rating mark (which still leaves you with only 7.23% miss chance reduction). I happen to know a tank with over 8% hit rating and also the taunt glyph, and that's really awesome, but at the same time, his expertise is lower than the recommended 26, so in that case, he's probably seeing as much of a loss of threat from dodges/parries as he would be from miss if he could trade out the hit rating he's over the 237 mark for expertise. Not that he has any problems in that area, because believe me that's NOT the case, but for all you other warriors who aren't as up on the lore, I think if you're the raid's MT, and you KNOW you have a boomkin, I'd try to adjust your hit rating slightly to about 158 hit rating mark, and funnel whatever else you have options for into expertise (while pretty much gemming/enchanting for pure stamina/mitigation) and TAKE THE GLYPH OF TAUNT. If you're NOT your raid's MT, your taunts may actually not be as vital. In fact, you may really want to have more "spread the love" glyphs, so you can keep a pack of mobs on you easily while the MT is taking the big whallops. On the other hand, you may be the tank assigned to keep adds off the clothies, and if that's the case, you'll want to have this glyph in those fights where one add can one shot a clothie in about the same time it takes your vigilance gcd to wear off so you can try a taunt again.
So, in summary:
Without glyph of taunt, you're looking at:
446 hit rating needed to guarantee a taunt is successful,
With glyph of taunt, you're looking at:
237, 158, 132 hit rating depending on your raid buffs.
And since hit is not easy to come by, you should consider that something to consider.
Since this is something that I had wrong before, and hadn't really had issues with (well, to be fair, I rarely MT anything, and when I do, I've glyphed so much for AoE threat that I only use taunt occasionally, so a 6% miss chance might not show itself easily) I thought I'd go ahead and write a quick post in case anyone was interested for future reference (assuming this won't change for Clysm, which it probably will).
The catch to this that makes it confusing for everyone is that taunt works like a SPELL. It's pretty much the only thing we have that does, so I can understand why it's confusing.
Since it's a spell, it has a 17% spell miss chance, and not an 8% melee miss chance that you're used to. For this reason, you have to use spell hit ratings to see how it works instead of melee hit ratings, and you'll find that it requires 446 hit rating to guarantee that taunt will work every time.
Now, there are mitigations, for example, if you have a boomkin or faerie fire etc. in raid, that will reduce that to 14%, or 368, and if you have a draenei (why would you, aren't you horde?) you can reduce that by another 1%, leaving you with needing 342 (barely over 341) in order to guarantee 100% landing of taunt.
That's a lot of hit rating to have to add to your gear, especially when most of the tank gear doesn't include a substantial amount of hit rating to begin with.
Now, on the other hand, if you glyph for taunt, you only need to achieve 9% (respectively 6%, 5% with raid buffs) to guarantee the taunt lands, and that's a more moderate level 237 hit rating (respectively 158, 132).
The 158 hit rating will only get you 4.82% melee hit rating, but that's not nearly as important to you anyway, since pound for pound, expertise is what you "really" want. I mean, in an ideal world, you'd want to have enough to not have to count on raid composition, so you'd want to shoot for the 237 hit rating mark (which still leaves you with only 7.23% miss chance reduction). I happen to know a tank with over 8% hit rating and also the taunt glyph, and that's really awesome, but at the same time, his expertise is lower than the recommended 26, so in that case, he's probably seeing as much of a loss of threat from dodges/parries as he would be from miss if he could trade out the hit rating he's over the 237 mark for expertise. Not that he has any problems in that area, because believe me that's NOT the case, but for all you other warriors who aren't as up on the lore, I think if you're the raid's MT, and you KNOW you have a boomkin, I'd try to adjust your hit rating slightly to about 158 hit rating mark, and funnel whatever else you have options for into expertise (while pretty much gemming/enchanting for pure stamina/mitigation) and TAKE THE GLYPH OF TAUNT. If you're NOT your raid's MT, your taunts may actually not be as vital. In fact, you may really want to have more "spread the love" glyphs, so you can keep a pack of mobs on you easily while the MT is taking the big whallops. On the other hand, you may be the tank assigned to keep adds off the clothies, and if that's the case, you'll want to have this glyph in those fights where one add can one shot a clothie in about the same time it takes your vigilance gcd to wear off so you can try a taunt again.
So, in summary:
Without glyph of taunt, you're looking at:
446 hit rating needed to guarantee a taunt is successful,
With glyph of taunt, you're looking at:
237, 158, 132 hit rating depending on your raid buffs.
And since hit is not easy to come by, you should consider that something to consider.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Some prospective Clysm Warrior Talent Builds as of 7/30/2010 (build 12644)
Ok, this is mostly a mental excercise, as I know full well this will not hit live as is, but every time they adjust this, I like to go through and work on builds I hope (or might like) to have on myself once I hit max level.
I'll start with the one that just gets juicier the more they have played with it.
Protection Self Healing Talent Build (4/3/34) (main tank, probably)
I debated a lot about how to spend these talent points, but here's what I decided. Since Heroic Strike may or may not be something I hit as often come cataclysm when I tank, I just don't know if the new Incite is worth even considering for Protection (in case you can't see the link to MMO Champs, the text reads: "Increases the critical strike chance of your Heroic Strike by 5/10/15%, and your Heroic Strike critical strikes have a 33/66/100% chance to make you next Heroic Strike also a critical strike. This effect cannot occur more than once every 6 seconds."). However, some moves in other trees have made some tasty decisions.
Arms: For example, I now have taken 2/2 in both Field Dressing and Blitz in the Arms tree, but since I'm still dubious about the utility of HS now that the mechanic has changed (although they still say it will be off the gcd) I don't feel taking even one point of War Academy is justified, and there is no "vital" talent on Tier 2 in Arms, so we'll turn instead to Fury. Although, I reserve my right to change my opinion once I can actually try some of this.
Fury: With the loss of AttT, I can only assume they're going to be tweaking Attack Power some other way, and once again, I am faced with a choice of either improving some damage from a couple talents or taking Blood Craze. Now, I don't know about you, but I can't think of anything better for a tank than if he does take damage, there is a chance he could auto heal. Add to that the improvement from Field Dressing in the Arms Tree and you're looking at a chance to recover 10% of your health automatically every so often. With health pools being larger in Clysm (some tanks already have nearly 80k health raid buffed) that could be a pretty sizeable hot. There are some other tasty threat talents to be found here, but I think I'd rather go back and get more from the Protection tree.
Protection: Ok, no lie, pretty much there are only two talents I'm not thinking of taking here. Incite, as written now, seems like it may not have as much all around utility. It may prove me wrong once I test, but right now I'm "--eh". The other one is Safeguard. IMO, not really that great of a talent. I do use intervene in battles, but I work pretty hard to make sure it's not necessary 90% of the time, so this falls into the "probably a PvP oriented talent" area. As an off tank, this could be used by the OT to give a mini-shield wall to the MT occasionally, except that if you target the MT it will also taunt the boss off them. It could be done, but it would requre that both of you were ready at exactly the right time, and even vent lags by a couple seconds. Everything else is pretty nice, I like the shield block mechanic now, and I'm working to put as much into my shield block as I can, so talents like Hold the Line, Shield Specialization, Shield Mastery, and the old Damage Shield all make shield blocking fun. Now, if it turns out that I will need more threat from this build, I would be most likely to take a point out of Shield Specialization and two points from Hold the Line and invest those three into Incite. Again, I'll just have to wait and see. The only other talent I'm not 100% certain about it's necessity is Impending Victory. Mostly, I'm taking this because of all the constant posts warning us that healers mana will be an issue again, and damage will be bad, etc. etc. etc. This is the reason I took Blood Craze and Field Dressing. The combination of these talents will give me some constant self healing to help the healers out as I go, and will also give me a situational heal I can use towards the end of a battle once mana is becoming scarce.
Furious Stance Dance TG build (9/32/0)
There is a part of me that wants badly to invest 3 points into Incite with this build, and I may go back (especially if the glyph of Heroic Strike stays with the same wording it has now). But for now, let's assume that we will want to maybe stance dance to apply rends, or whatever. For this, I don't think you can beat the overall utility here.
Arms: I really want to get to the second Tier here, so I've taken full ranks in War Academy and Field Dressing. I think they'll both serve some purpose, so no loss there. The reason I wanted to get to the second tier is for Deep Wounds, which hasn't changed (including it's cost, meaning the price has doubled, but at least you don't have to take Impale to get it). I've also spared one talent point for Tactical Mastery, which should give me up to a 35-50 rage cushion when I stance dance. With that kind of a cushion, it could actually make a SD Rend macro something that might not make you angry every time you press it (and not in a good way). I only invested one point, because I wanted the other point to go somewhere else.
Fury: Ok, so besides the decision about Single-Minded-Fury vs Titan's Grip (I've chosen Titan's Grip because I wasn't ever as enamored of the single hand DW prior to WotLK, but to each their own. If it turns out to be more dps, I'll switch too, but for now I already have 2 excellent 2 handers, and not a single good single hander to my name.) the other things I've included here are 1/2 Rude Interruption (I chose 1/2 because Pummel still has a 10 second cd, and most of the time I'm on interrupts I interrupt pretty much 2/3 to 1/2 of the time Pummel is off cd, so at worst we're talking 20 seconds between them), Piercing Howl, Heroic Fury, Furious Attacks (if you have an Arms warrior, and we're assuming that Arms dps is competitive in some way unlike presently, you can drop this and take 3/3 Blood Craze instead of 2/3) and 2/2 Skirmisher. I've passed up Die By the Sword which to me seems like an amazing PvP utility talent that could also help out in a crunch if the tank goes down and someone needs to be tanked quickly (since sword and boarding will be virtually impossible still now that gear has 0 defense). Essentially this build should give the mobility for PvE, it adds the debuffs (even if they're rng and not specified) and gives optimal excuse to use your shouts/pummels during combat.
I think that for a more damage intensive design, I might swap Furious Attacks and Heroic Fury into Improved Execute, especially if you're not void in Arms dps.
I'll start with the one that just gets juicier the more they have played with it.
Protection Self Healing Talent Build (4/3/34) (main tank, probably)
I debated a lot about how to spend these talent points, but here's what I decided. Since Heroic Strike may or may not be something I hit as often come cataclysm when I tank, I just don't know if the new Incite is worth even considering for Protection (in case you can't see the link to MMO Champs, the text reads: "Increases the critical strike chance of your Heroic Strike by 5/10/15%, and your Heroic Strike critical strikes have a 33/66/100% chance to make you next Heroic Strike also a critical strike. This effect cannot occur more than once every 6 seconds."). However, some moves in other trees have made some tasty decisions.
Arms: For example, I now have taken 2/2 in both Field Dressing and Blitz in the Arms tree, but since I'm still dubious about the utility of HS now that the mechanic has changed (although they still say it will be off the gcd) I don't feel taking even one point of War Academy is justified, and there is no "vital" talent on Tier 2 in Arms, so we'll turn instead to Fury. Although, I reserve my right to change my opinion once I can actually try some of this.
Fury: With the loss of AttT, I can only assume they're going to be tweaking Attack Power some other way, and once again, I am faced with a choice of either improving some damage from a couple talents or taking Blood Craze. Now, I don't know about you, but I can't think of anything better for a tank than if he does take damage, there is a chance he could auto heal. Add to that the improvement from Field Dressing in the Arms Tree and you're looking at a chance to recover 10% of your health automatically every so often. With health pools being larger in Clysm (some tanks already have nearly 80k health raid buffed) that could be a pretty sizeable hot. There are some other tasty threat talents to be found here, but I think I'd rather go back and get more from the Protection tree.
Protection: Ok, no lie, pretty much there are only two talents I'm not thinking of taking here. Incite, as written now, seems like it may not have as much all around utility. It may prove me wrong once I test, but right now I'm "--eh". The other one is Safeguard. IMO, not really that great of a talent. I do use intervene in battles, but I work pretty hard to make sure it's not necessary 90% of the time, so this falls into the "probably a PvP oriented talent" area. As an off tank, this could be used by the OT to give a mini-shield wall to the MT occasionally, except that if you target the MT it will also taunt the boss off them. It could be done, but it would requre that both of you were ready at exactly the right time, and even vent lags by a couple seconds. Everything else is pretty nice, I like the shield block mechanic now, and I'm working to put as much into my shield block as I can, so talents like Hold the Line, Shield Specialization, Shield Mastery, and the old Damage Shield all make shield blocking fun. Now, if it turns out that I will need more threat from this build, I would be most likely to take a point out of Shield Specialization and two points from Hold the Line and invest those three into Incite. Again, I'll just have to wait and see. The only other talent I'm not 100% certain about it's necessity is Impending Victory. Mostly, I'm taking this because of all the constant posts warning us that healers mana will be an issue again, and damage will be bad, etc. etc. etc. This is the reason I took Blood Craze and Field Dressing. The combination of these talents will give me some constant self healing to help the healers out as I go, and will also give me a situational heal I can use towards the end of a battle once mana is becoming scarce.
Furious Stance Dance TG build (9/32/0)
There is a part of me that wants badly to invest 3 points into Incite with this build, and I may go back (especially if the glyph of Heroic Strike stays with the same wording it has now). But for now, let's assume that we will want to maybe stance dance to apply rends, or whatever. For this, I don't think you can beat the overall utility here.
Arms: I really want to get to the second Tier here, so I've taken full ranks in War Academy and Field Dressing. I think they'll both serve some purpose, so no loss there. The reason I wanted to get to the second tier is for Deep Wounds, which hasn't changed (including it's cost, meaning the price has doubled, but at least you don't have to take Impale to get it). I've also spared one talent point for Tactical Mastery, which should give me up to a 35-50 rage cushion when I stance dance. With that kind of a cushion, it could actually make a SD Rend macro something that might not make you angry every time you press it (and not in a good way). I only invested one point, because I wanted the other point to go somewhere else.
Fury: Ok, so besides the decision about Single-Minded-Fury vs Titan's Grip (I've chosen Titan's Grip because I wasn't ever as enamored of the single hand DW prior to WotLK, but to each their own. If it turns out to be more dps, I'll switch too, but for now I already have 2 excellent 2 handers, and not a single good single hander to my name.) the other things I've included here are 1/2 Rude Interruption (I chose 1/2 because Pummel still has a 10 second cd, and most of the time I'm on interrupts I interrupt pretty much 2/3 to 1/2 of the time Pummel is off cd, so at worst we're talking 20 seconds between them), Piercing Howl, Heroic Fury, Furious Attacks (if you have an Arms warrior, and we're assuming that Arms dps is competitive in some way unlike presently, you can drop this and take 3/3 Blood Craze instead of 2/3) and 2/2 Skirmisher. I've passed up Die By the Sword which to me seems like an amazing PvP utility talent that could also help out in a crunch if the tank goes down and someone needs to be tanked quickly (since sword and boarding will be virtually impossible still now that gear has 0 defense). Essentially this build should give the mobility for PvE, it adds the debuffs (even if they're rng and not specified) and gives optimal excuse to use your shouts/pummels during combat.
I think that for a more damage intensive design, I might swap Furious Attacks and Heroic Fury into Improved Execute, especially if you're not void in Arms dps.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
A New Warrior Dawns
I recently decided on an experiment, now that Blizzard has done many things to make leveling more pleasant. I decided to try to level a warrior from scratch (again), but to remove any temptation I may feel, I'm doing it on a different server. The only assistance I'm allowing myself is having a couple of alts on the same server, one of whom is, I must admit, a DK. The only reason I'm allowing the DK alt is that I remember how long some of the slow grinding for money was, and now that some servers' economies are a little wacky, I wanted to have a way to get a couple hundred gold when my auctions weren't selling well. I'm not using any heirloom items, I'm not affiliated (yet) with any guilds, just grinding up.
To that end, I found a good sticky thread that covers the basic "how to" of this, which I'd like to share with you.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=23393139760&sid=1
Jackburton does a great job of outlining not only what you want to strive for, but also why. This thread is highly polished and does a great job of explaining most everything you're going to need to do if you want to try this out.
So far, I've worked for about 12 hours, and I've gotten my little Garggy up to lvl 17. I'm disregarding the DK and paladin alts that I have put in also, as they are meaningless to me at this point.
I have a couple things to add regarding leveling your prot warrior, and that is that if you find yourself doing quests as well as the DF, I would suggest looking at Tranquilien (if you're horde, obviously), as the rep purchases there are pretty nice for low level paladins or warriors, and there is a quest chain that rewards you with a sweet shield, and if you hit exalted with them, a fantastic low tanking cloak is your reward.
I won't go too far into what I have done, but since you can't use the DF until you hit 15, until about 10 I quested in Durotar, and then once I hit about 10-12 I went to Ghost Lands and started the Tranquilien quests. I loved the reward from the warrior quest at 10, as the axe went perfectly with my tanking orc makeup.
I'll occasionally keep you posted on what he's up to.
To that end, I found a good sticky thread that covers the basic "how to" of this, which I'd like to share with you.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=23393139760&sid=1
Jackburton does a great job of outlining not only what you want to strive for, but also why. This thread is highly polished and does a great job of explaining most everything you're going to need to do if you want to try this out.
So far, I've worked for about 12 hours, and I've gotten my little Garggy up to lvl 17. I'm disregarding the DK and paladin alts that I have put in also, as they are meaningless to me at this point.
I have a couple things to add regarding leveling your prot warrior, and that is that if you find yourself doing quests as well as the DF, I would suggest looking at Tranquilien (if you're horde, obviously), as the rep purchases there are pretty nice for low level paladins or warriors, and there is a quest chain that rewards you with a sweet shield, and if you hit exalted with them, a fantastic low tanking cloak is your reward.
I won't go too far into what I have done, but since you can't use the DF until you hit 15, until about 10 I quested in Durotar, and then once I hit about 10-12 I went to Ghost Lands and started the Tranquilien quests. I loved the reward from the warrior quest at 10, as the axe went perfectly with my tanking orc makeup.
I'll occasionally keep you posted on what he's up to.
A Sad Farewell
Even if you don't know who this is for, I just wanted to say to some people out there that it's been nice knowing and playing with you and I hope you won't be complete strangers. This Tauren is in a good home now and so are my alter-egos, so I look forward to making new friends along the future path, but I will remember my old ones fondly, I'm just sorry that the decision for us to part ways entirely happened.
Best of luck.
G
Best of luck.
G
Monday, July 19, 2010
Oh happy day! When Blizz announced the Raging Blow.
So, some happy news recently came out of the question and answer session:
Q: Are Fury Warriors still going to see a new attack to fill the loss of Whirlwind? Any insight?
A. Yes! It’s called Raging Blow (at least for the moment), because we wanted to distance is a little from the old Enraged Assault. It's Fury-only and can only be used when Enraged, but does not consume the Enrage. It does indeed strike with both weapons (including the animation).
and just to remind you about some of the proposed features of this ability (beyond the ability to strike with both weapons, yay!) it will only be usable when you enrage, it will not use up the enrage, and I believe it's supposed to have a very short, if any, cooldown so that it can be used as often as you like. That being said, I'd expect some serious changes around how Slam works since otherwise, if this is as good as they make it seem, it could replace any Slam interest at all.
In the end, we should see something like this for a desirability ranking:
Instant Slam, Procced Victory Rush > "Raging Blow" > Bloodthirst > Heroic Strike.
This is because we should want to hit BT when we can, unless something else has procced (which should be more desireable within that time frame) and Heroic Strike should be what we use to bleed rage if we can't hit anything else.
On multi targets, of course, we'd probably still target the main target and replace this with
WW > Cleave > Instant Slam, Procced Victory Rush > Bloodthirst
or something like that.
Q: Are Fury Warriors still going to see a new attack to fill the loss of Whirlwind? Any insight?
A. Yes! It’s called Raging Blow (at least for the moment), because we wanted to distance is a little from the old Enraged Assault. It's Fury-only and can only be used when Enraged, but does not consume the Enrage. It does indeed strike with both weapons (including the animation).
and just to remind you about some of the proposed features of this ability (beyond the ability to strike with both weapons, yay!) it will only be usable when you enrage, it will not use up the enrage, and I believe it's supposed to have a very short, if any, cooldown so that it can be used as often as you like. That being said, I'd expect some serious changes around how Slam works since otherwise, if this is as good as they make it seem, it could replace any Slam interest at all.
In the end, we should see something like this for a desirability ranking:
Instant Slam, Procced Victory Rush > "Raging Blow" > Bloodthirst > Heroic Strike.
This is because we should want to hit BT when we can, unless something else has procced (which should be more desireable within that time frame) and Heroic Strike should be what we use to bleed rage if we can't hit anything else.
On multi targets, of course, we'd probably still target the main target and replace this with
WW > Cleave > Instant Slam, Procced Victory Rush > Bloodthirst
or something like that.
The Warrior Mentality, and why it's different.
Hi, I know many blogs go on about tactics and other issues associated with a class, but I thought I'd take a step back for those new to the game to explain a little about what you're in store for if you choose to level a warrior from scratch.
First of all, there are only two mindsets to be in when you decide to level a new warrior: The patient, and the dead.
Unlike many classes, warriors are not invincible machines that can just keep churning and churning through mobs like butter. Your main resource will be your life. When your life is gone, you'll have to run back, and notice I said "when" not "if." You will die many many times. It's ok, though, just remember that you're a warrior, and the goal as a low level warrior is to learn to think tactically, and apply the abilities you have at hand to accomplishing the goal you set before you.
Now, if you have infinite patience, you can level as Protection. Your damage will be low enough that you will frequently see Arms warriors running through levels 8 million times faster (possible exaggeration) but you will also die less and have more chance of surviving multi-mob pulls than them. If you choose this route, remember that defenses, armor, shields, stamina, those are your treasures. Stay away from fancy stuff that gives you more of anything else, unless it also gives you more armor, stamina, or a shield. A shield is your friend. About the only friend you have better than a shield is defensive stance. Once you get those two things together, you're ready to find out what being a tank is all about.
If you have less patience, you can level as Arms. Arms warriors have to be crafty, but they will go faster than protection warriors. You will need to control the size of the pulls you make on solo quests, keep them to 1-2 until you know you can deal with them. Remember, as a warrior, you have no escape routes. You're in it to win it or die trying. If you finish the goal, and kill the pack of 3 raptors guarding the chest of silver, you don't have to explain that you died and ran and rezzed and killed the last raptor to do it, you just turn in your quest and go on. Escape routes are for other classes. You're going to find that whether you're a female or male, this class will make you feel "macho." You're literally going to learn the mindset of attack and no surrender. Notice, as you go, you have charge (a way to go into combat quickly), intercept (another way to go into combat quickly), and intervene (a way to go into combat quickly, and help someone else get away). I dare you to find me one ability on your bar that says "helps you get out of combat safely." Oh, sure, Intimidating Shout looks promising, but 3/5 times once they're done running away from you and they come back and bring all their friends with them, you'll be wishing you hadn't. But as arms, you have a lot of things to make it easier to take some people down, you just have to learn to be on your toes all the time, ready to use the right skill at the right time.
If you're masochistic, you can level as Fury. Fury warriors (for soloing) are the ultimate in the warrior mindset. Just look at the explanation of Berserker Stance (where you'll spend most of your time): "An aggressive stance. Critical hit chance is increased by 3% and all damage taken is increased by 5%." in the words of Stan Lee, "Nuff Said." Fury warriors are the ultimate reckless fighting machines. You don't care if you die, you don't even care if you get hit, all you care about is trying to kill as many of them as you can before you go down. It makes a fury warrior a frightening prospect in pvp until other classes learn how to kite you. If you close with them, they're going to hurt, they have to hope they can survive your assault long enough to start kiting you, or they're going to be in a world of pain. If you level as Fury, just be aware that you're going to die more than any other warrior out there. Of course, you're also going to carve through some quests faster than them too. But some of your deaths will slow you down enough that you may find that Arms will end up being faster.
Warriors are not rogues, we do not have an escape route. We do not have a bubble we can use to avoid pain and misery when we're outnumbered. We can't avoid stopping to eat every so often to heal up. We LOVE the first aid skill, and we max it out as soon as we can. We continually struggle between moving faster to avoid rage loss, and moving slower to avoid health loss. The path of the warrior is a path of balancing rage and life. Depending how much weight you give to each side will determine which of our trees you walk along. If life is more important, you will choose Protection and learn the way of a tank. If rage is more important, you will choose Fury and become a sweeping path of destruction that can only be stopped by being killed. If you value them equally, you will choose arms and have a range of abilities and approach every situation tactically and carefully and ready to respond to whatever happens.
I don't know if this mindset affects anything else in our life, but I can promise you if you want to be able to "get away" from trouble, a warrior will not work well for you. Maybe take a hunter, or shaman. Really almost any class will work for that, just not a warrior. A warrior will surround themself with death. The deaths of others, their own death. They also hold lives in the balance, their own, and others. As protection, you hold yourself responsible for every life in your group. It can be very stressful, but when others appreciate you, you feel very good indeed. As any other kind of warrior, there comes a time when you will try to take up the mantle of tank, because if you don't, no one will. As an example, the other day, I went into a random dungeon which I specifically queued for as dps so I wouldn't have to tank. The DK tank that was selected apparently thought it would be funny to pull the first group of mobs and then drop group. Some people have no honor. So, there I am in my fury gear, berserker stance, taking extra damage, and crits, and everyone around me is panicking, so what do I do? I intercept straight into the heart of the mobs, hit a quick whirlwind to get their attention, and then swap to defensive stance and hang on for dear life while I Blood thirst, rend, and thunderclap like crazy. Demo shouts and the whole nine yards. The healer, being fairly pro also, didn't miss a beat. It's fair to say that in this situation, the priest had probably had more than a few warriors do this exact same kind of thing when tanks went down unexpectedly or whatever. People just come to depend on warriors to be able to do this. By the way, once the other 3 dps kind of calmed down and figured out what was going on, we took them down pretty quickly, and no one was scathed. I was annoyed, because I had to put on my tanking gear to blow through the rest of the dungeon, and that wasn't the responsibility I wanted right then, but I knew it was my job and I did it.
Don't ever expect to be given an "easy" way to do something. You might as well wish for Blizz to mail you a pony. I guarantee that no matter what you do, you'll have it harder than most everyone else. You'll be put to the test over and over again as you pull your way up from 1 to 80 and above. You'll become intimately familiar with where graveyards are in each zone and which areas you want to die the least in. You'll learn to pace yourself and watch your aggro radius carefully. You'll learn that it's NOT ok if you accidentally pull a second group of mobs. These are all things that other classes can do and laugh about once they're safely away. These are not things you can do.
If reading this hasn't dissuaded you from choosing to level a warrior, then I welcome you to our ranks, brother or sister. Strength and honor.
First of all, there are only two mindsets to be in when you decide to level a new warrior: The patient, and the dead.
Unlike many classes, warriors are not invincible machines that can just keep churning and churning through mobs like butter. Your main resource will be your life. When your life is gone, you'll have to run back, and notice I said "when" not "if." You will die many many times. It's ok, though, just remember that you're a warrior, and the goal as a low level warrior is to learn to think tactically, and apply the abilities you have at hand to accomplishing the goal you set before you.
Now, if you have infinite patience, you can level as Protection. Your damage will be low enough that you will frequently see Arms warriors running through levels 8 million times faster (possible exaggeration) but you will also die less and have more chance of surviving multi-mob pulls than them. If you choose this route, remember that defenses, armor, shields, stamina, those are your treasures. Stay away from fancy stuff that gives you more of anything else, unless it also gives you more armor, stamina, or a shield. A shield is your friend. About the only friend you have better than a shield is defensive stance. Once you get those two things together, you're ready to find out what being a tank is all about.
If you have less patience, you can level as Arms. Arms warriors have to be crafty, but they will go faster than protection warriors. You will need to control the size of the pulls you make on solo quests, keep them to 1-2 until you know you can deal with them. Remember, as a warrior, you have no escape routes. You're in it to win it or die trying. If you finish the goal, and kill the pack of 3 raptors guarding the chest of silver, you don't have to explain that you died and ran and rezzed and killed the last raptor to do it, you just turn in your quest and go on. Escape routes are for other classes. You're going to find that whether you're a female or male, this class will make you feel "macho." You're literally going to learn the mindset of attack and no surrender. Notice, as you go, you have charge (a way to go into combat quickly), intercept (another way to go into combat quickly), and intervene (a way to go into combat quickly, and help someone else get away). I dare you to find me one ability on your bar that says "helps you get out of combat safely." Oh, sure, Intimidating Shout looks promising, but 3/5 times once they're done running away from you and they come back and bring all their friends with them, you'll be wishing you hadn't. But as arms, you have a lot of things to make it easier to take some people down, you just have to learn to be on your toes all the time, ready to use the right skill at the right time.
If you're masochistic, you can level as Fury. Fury warriors (for soloing) are the ultimate in the warrior mindset. Just look at the explanation of Berserker Stance (where you'll spend most of your time): "An aggressive stance. Critical hit chance is increased by 3% and all damage taken is increased by 5%." in the words of Stan Lee, "Nuff Said." Fury warriors are the ultimate reckless fighting machines. You don't care if you die, you don't even care if you get hit, all you care about is trying to kill as many of them as you can before you go down. It makes a fury warrior a frightening prospect in pvp until other classes learn how to kite you. If you close with them, they're going to hurt, they have to hope they can survive your assault long enough to start kiting you, or they're going to be in a world of pain. If you level as Fury, just be aware that you're going to die more than any other warrior out there. Of course, you're also going to carve through some quests faster than them too. But some of your deaths will slow you down enough that you may find that Arms will end up being faster.
Warriors are not rogues, we do not have an escape route. We do not have a bubble we can use to avoid pain and misery when we're outnumbered. We can't avoid stopping to eat every so often to heal up. We LOVE the first aid skill, and we max it out as soon as we can. We continually struggle between moving faster to avoid rage loss, and moving slower to avoid health loss. The path of the warrior is a path of balancing rage and life. Depending how much weight you give to each side will determine which of our trees you walk along. If life is more important, you will choose Protection and learn the way of a tank. If rage is more important, you will choose Fury and become a sweeping path of destruction that can only be stopped by being killed. If you value them equally, you will choose arms and have a range of abilities and approach every situation tactically and carefully and ready to respond to whatever happens.
I don't know if this mindset affects anything else in our life, but I can promise you if you want to be able to "get away" from trouble, a warrior will not work well for you. Maybe take a hunter, or shaman. Really almost any class will work for that, just not a warrior. A warrior will surround themself with death. The deaths of others, their own death. They also hold lives in the balance, their own, and others. As protection, you hold yourself responsible for every life in your group. It can be very stressful, but when others appreciate you, you feel very good indeed. As any other kind of warrior, there comes a time when you will try to take up the mantle of tank, because if you don't, no one will. As an example, the other day, I went into a random dungeon which I specifically queued for as dps so I wouldn't have to tank. The DK tank that was selected apparently thought it would be funny to pull the first group of mobs and then drop group. Some people have no honor. So, there I am in my fury gear, berserker stance, taking extra damage, and crits, and everyone around me is panicking, so what do I do? I intercept straight into the heart of the mobs, hit a quick whirlwind to get their attention, and then swap to defensive stance and hang on for dear life while I Blood thirst, rend, and thunderclap like crazy. Demo shouts and the whole nine yards. The healer, being fairly pro also, didn't miss a beat. It's fair to say that in this situation, the priest had probably had more than a few warriors do this exact same kind of thing when tanks went down unexpectedly or whatever. People just come to depend on warriors to be able to do this. By the way, once the other 3 dps kind of calmed down and figured out what was going on, we took them down pretty quickly, and no one was scathed. I was annoyed, because I had to put on my tanking gear to blow through the rest of the dungeon, and that wasn't the responsibility I wanted right then, but I knew it was my job and I did it.
Don't ever expect to be given an "easy" way to do something. You might as well wish for Blizz to mail you a pony. I guarantee that no matter what you do, you'll have it harder than most everyone else. You'll be put to the test over and over again as you pull your way up from 1 to 80 and above. You'll become intimately familiar with where graveyards are in each zone and which areas you want to die the least in. You'll learn to pace yourself and watch your aggro radius carefully. You'll learn that it's NOT ok if you accidentally pull a second group of mobs. These are all things that other classes can do and laugh about once they're safely away. These are not things you can do.
If reading this hasn't dissuaded you from choosing to level a warrior, then I welcome you to our ranks, brother or sister. Strength and honor.
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