Warrior protest

[Righ]

A bunch of malcontents decided that whining on the forums about gimp warriors 24/7 wasn't enough and they decided to have a mass protest on Argent Dawn. This resulted in server problems and a reboot to fix them.

Aftermath

Earthen Ring just got rebooted. People were saying that the Eastern Kingdoms weren't working because of a similar event.

[HRose]

I was one of those banned (three hours).

Lots of fun.

[schild]

They consider your appearance at the event 'griefing.' Personally, I consider your web presence to be 'griefing.' You are quite the attention whore though, aren't you?

[Rasix]

Anyone that participates in these things is a fucking moron.  Suck it up you goddamn pussies; the only thing you're doing is cornholing their number one problem (here's a hint, it's NOT YOU).

Are warriors really that bad off? It's high praise that if I let anyone into my group for an instance, it's going to be a warrior first and foremost.  Being the only plate/tank class on the entire horde makes them more valuable to our 3 person tandem than even a friggin priest.

[Calantus]

I've had a warrior to 32, and my brother's warrior is now 25. What we have noticed is that a warrior is one of the poorest solo classes in the game (priests lose that distinction as they approach 20). What we have also found is that the warrior is one of the best team classes around. With me to heal him... he's a beast. The only thing holding them back now is being a little light on killing power, and having a lack of "oh shit!" abilities to get out of bad pulls from time to time (1 ability every 30 mins isn't enough to be equitable). Some rage tweaks would also not go astray. But overall, they are a great class outside of the solo arena, and even there it only takes some patience and care to solo them through most content other classes can solo.

Also, crashing a goddamn server is never excusable. They should have given you more than 3 days for inflicting that sort of grief on the server population. I also find it HIGHLY retarted when blizzard has SPECIFICALLY stated that the next patch will be aimed at addressing player concerns with warlocks and WARRIORS. So yeah, what did you hope to achieve, get Blizzard's attention? You already had it. Be a griefing little drama queen? I think that is more likely.

EDIT: I thought it was bad at 3 days, but 3 HOURS? WTF?

[Jayce]

I love playing my warrior.  I got a mage to 20, just didn't do it for me.

People who participate in these are about the level of those who sign intarnet petitions, IMO.

[Sable Blaze]

I like my warrior, but the fact is I don't compare particularily well to other classes in effectiveness in general play. Our specials are lackluster (some would say piss-poor), the rage system is a millstone around our necks, and our tohot percentages are screwy to say the least.

There's plenty wrong with the class and it does need attention.

Now, I could really care less what the warriors as a whole do in the game to draw Blizzard's attention. Really. Yah, so AD went down <yawn>. Cry me a river. Some few people got a 3 hour suspension. Big deal. Same same.

Blizzard has announced--O-ffically mind you---that the class isn't performing up to their expectations. That's good enough for me. I recall how lackluster EQ warriors were the first year and it took about 4 months or so for a fix and another month or so for continued tweaking (then an expansion to make them the overpowered game-breakers they've been ever since...adside from some real and short-lived balance during PoP). The warrrior plays well enough for me to get by and have some fun. I can wait for some needed changes.

Now...instead of being assholes here on this forum, I'd advise the most effective course: ignore the dimbulbs. Any of us that played Diablo knows what Blizzard fanbois are like. Ignoring the anguished gnashing of clueless teeth is the best course. We also know exactly how long it takes Blizzard to change anything. So patience is a virtue in this case (a necessity, more like).

So, Rasix, put your ass away and behave.

[schild]

We also know exactly how long it takes Blizzard to change anything. So patience is a virtue in this case (a necessity, more like).

Patience is a lot harder to find when you're paying $15 a month. And I think that's the problem here. Waiting five months for a patch on a game with no monthly fee is one thing. Waiting five months in an MMOG is $75 and with the leveling curve, you'll probably max out even if your class is gimped.

[Calantus]

Now...instead of being assholes here on this forum, I'd advise the most effective course: ignore the dimbulbs. Any of us that played Diablo knows what Blizzard fanbois are like. Ignoring the anguished gnashing of clueless teeth is the best course.

Oh I know they're a bunch of clueless fucktards who wouldn't know what balance actually meant if you tatooed it on their foreheads. I wont even touch a forum thread that implies it's about "balance" or if it's a general thread that has the word "Paladin", "Shaman", or "Rogue" in its title without also having "video".

The problem is though, how do you ignore people when they crash your server (I don't play on any server that got hit though)?

[Rasix]

So, Rasix, put your ass away and behave.

How about no? Really, I basically said what you said but with dirty words.  These people need to suck it up and just wait; they're still goddamn useful if a bit underpowered.  This kind of crap annoys the hell out of me. Is it going to be a *yawn* when other pissed off dipshits start taking down realms? Hey, troll racial traits suck, I better go ruin someone's playing experience!

Here's one for the road: eat shit and die a painful death, you smurf looking, drizzt dry humping, floppy eared, cat mounting, night elf.

[Margalis]

Ha ha I find it quite funny actually. It's pretty amusing that gathering in one place is "griefing" and can crash the server. Democracy in action or something like that.

Blizzard gives basically zero feedback on their message boards. Maybe they should consider doing that. The protest was successful. It got a response. Forum threads do not get responses. The protest accomplished what it was supposed to and Blizzard is tacitly rewarding that behavior.

It all boils down to Blizzard completely ignoring their forums.

[Rasix]

Ha ha I find it quite funny actually. It's pretty amusing that gathering in one place is "griefing" and can crash the server.

Yes, it is. But you can do this to any mmorpg really.  Protests in EQ took down servers.  They did the same in UO (well, in UO you could fart into the wind and it'd take down a server).

Blizzard gives basically zero feedback on their message boards. Maybe they should consider doing that. The protest was successful. It got a response. Forum threads do not get responses. The protest accomplished what it was supposed to and Blizzard is tacitly rewarding that behavior.

It all boils down to Blizzard completely ignoring their forums.

They need a stronger forum presence or one that at least knows an inkling of what's going on. They do respond, but not often enough for most people's tastes.  But is a "we're looking into that", "good stuff is on the way", "you're wrong, it works like this" really going to satiate these frothing fanbios? Other companies have gotten roasted when they've promised the moon on their forums and Blizzard seems very hesitant to go down that path.

[Disco Stu]

There's plenty wrong with the class and it does need attention.

I'm of the opinion that 90% of the problems with the class are due to the fact that almost every warrior in the game is too stupid to use defensive stance with a shield. I can't count the number of times some douche bag warrior has decided that he's going to 'tear shit up' and uses something like a 2h pole arm in beserker stance. Warriors need to realize what their job in groups is: To stand still and let shit hit them. They do pretty shitty dps even in the best of situations compared with pretty much any class in the game other than a pally or maybe a druid (havn't grouped with enough of these to really know). Now thats not to say they don't need some love. But they arn't even the worst class in the game.

[Jayce]

Here's one for the road: eat shit and die a painful death, you smurf looking, drizzt dry humping, floppy eared, cat mounting, night elf.

As a night elf warrior myself, let me address this:

Roofle!

You can't let your chosen race stand in the way of appreciating a good insult.

[HRose]

But is a "we're looking into that", "good stuff is on the way", "you're wrong, it works like this" really going to satiate these frothing fanbios?

No, it's about searching a real and open communication without placeholder answers.

Communication is again two-way and it needs a discussion. This discussion goes only from players to devs. They need to start discussing and offer their own feedback.

It's not about posting a long programmatic announce. It's about posting it, read the reactions and engage a discussion.

[sidereal]

No, it's about searching a real and open communication without placeholder answers.

Communication is again two-way and it needs a discussion.

Jesus Christ.  What is this, therapy?  If the participants had gone out and bashed foozles for 6 hours instead they would have leveled and would already be 'more powerful'.  Jackasses.

[Sable Blaze]

Bah, hell with it, I don't have the energy today.

Suffice it to say the class needs help. I'm not much interested in "protests" or whathaveyou. I would like to have a glimmering of a clue what Blizzard is thinking in regards to rebalancing.

Personally, I think the replacement of "nexthit" attacks with instant attacks would go a long way in fixing a variety of problems warriors are seeing now.

And, yes, Blizzard is way too slow, but I simply don't see any of this happending quickly. I do want to see it happen, though. I'm also approaching level 60, so, yes, I'm not going to see much of this as a adjunct to leveling up gameplay.

[HRose]

I'm not much interested in "protests" or whathaveyou. I would like to have a glimmering of a clue what Blizzard is thinking in regards to rebalancing.

I also believe that it's the point.

Too often the best answer players can receive is about "patch notes".

What is needed it to know *why* something has been changed. Explaining what is the point of view.

Too often the players go berserk exactly because they cannot understand the reasons behind a change.

Too often this is the consequence of a complete lack of communication. It happens when the devs not care about communicating their own view.

[Calantus]

Drama++

[Murgos]

Drama++

My class is bettern yourn class so suck it Calantus!

[Morfiend]

Info from Blizzard about warriors here http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=589546&p=25

Scroll down a bit. It is a HUGE reply. Some good info, and some very good answers.

[Merusk]

There's plenty wrong with the class and it does need attention.

I'm of the opinion that 90% of the problems with the class are due to the fact that almost every warrior in the game is too stupid to use defensive stance with a shield. I can't count the number of times some douche bag warrior has decided that he's going to 'tear shit up' and uses something like a 2h pole arm in beserker stance. Warriors need to realize what their job in groups is: To stand still and let shit hit them. They do pretty shitty dps even in the best of situations compared with pretty much any class in the game other than a pally or maybe a druid (havn't grouped with enough of these to really know). Now thats not to say they don't need some love. But they arn't even the worst class in the game.

A-fucking men.

I have a priest buddy who won't group with warriors not defensive specced anymore.  They can't hold aggro and they're mana sponges 9/10 times.  Suffice to  say he's abandoned his holy-spec in favor of a shadow spec for leveling purposes because he wasn't getting shit done that way.

[Morfiend]

I would say you are both wrong about Def specced warriors. In a lot situations, Arms or fury specced warriors hold aggro better than def specced warriors. With the way taunt works now, you have to have decent damage output to hold aggro, and Arms/fury can do that.

Now, im not saying def spec is bad. I think it will be the only way to go for main tanks in Raid instances, but for the regular instances im totally not sold on it.

Now, on the other hand, any warrior that spends the majority of his time in one stance is a bad warrior. They should be constantly switching stances to get the most out of all their abilities. So, a fury/arms warrior spending all his time in zerkerstance is not much worse than a def specced warrior spending all his time in def stance. Each has their place, and the talants just make different specced warriors better for different situations and when in different stances.

Priests excel in a group, no doubt about it, and shadow priests are the least group friendly priest there is. For PVP or solo, shadow is nice. But again, for instances and for group pvp, give me a holy/desc priest any day.

[Kageru]

In WoW population terms 200 people is meaningless. You could organize a protest against poor color co-ordination of in-game pets and get that many people.

The warrior is well balanced for Elite PvE, where balancing rage is a good part of the challenge and discipline. And soloing is ultimately pretty irrelevant, since everyone will reach 60. But blizzard have placed a lot of emphasis on PvP, and there the warrior seems very limited. The latest post basically said the warriors strength is aggro management, that's great, but it's meaningless in PvP. No other class, including priests, is so shackled to PvE dynamics.

[Kageru]

I would say you are both wrong about Def specced warriors. In a lot situations, Arms or fury specced warriors hold aggro better than def specced warriors. With the way taunt works now, you have to have decent damage output to hold aggro, and Arms/fury can do that.

I don't agree at all, damage is not the best way of holding aggo. Defensive stance gives you something like a +60% aggro bonus to all attacks (before the +aggro talent is considered), and a huge bonus to aggro from specials (re. sunder armor). Not to mention the 10% mitigation bonus. In an instance I would only leave defensive stance if I have to hamstring, and I hate sacrificing rage for that.

It would be nice to have mortal strike mind you. But being able to through in a couple of stuns and shield blocks represent mitigation, which is a warriors primary job in an instance.

[Trippy]

Info from Blizzard about warriors here http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=589546&p=25

Scroll down a bit. It is a HUGE reply. Some good info, and some very good answers.

Amazing, they finally got a dev response.

The more enemies you have hitting you at once, the less your rage generation from dealing damage means to your total rage generation (compared to the rage you generate from being hit). This means that as you take on more mobs, the 1h+shield approach becomes the stronger strategy since you gain an extremely significant amount of damage reduction, while drastically narrowing the rage generation gap caused by dealing less damage than 2h or DW (dual wield) equipment choices.

Obviously, there is a chicken-and-egg scenario where warriors need some rage to get the mobs on them in order to get more rage so they can keep the mobs on them. However, it is intended that this be manageable through bloodrage, taunting, and potentially starting a fight in another stance to build some agro (and also rage if you have Tactical Mastery), then switching to defensive, and finally through rage potions if other methods still aren’t enough for that particular encounter.

[...]

All of that having been said, we agree that there are some issues with rage generation in general, and we plan to address these so that warriors dish out some more damage and push slightly more buttons than they do today (more on this still to come).

Gee it only took them like 3 months to admit to the problems Indalamar of Nurfed wrote extensively about right after the "awesome" Warrior changes where they completely changed how taunt worked. I guess that's progress. I wonder how long it'll take them to actually "fix" this problem?

[stray]

Gee it only took them like 3 months to admit to the problems Indalamar of Nurfed wrote extensively about right after the "awesome" Warrior changes where they completely changed how taunt worked. I guess that's progress. I wonder how long it'll take them to actually "fix" this problem?

Well, if other players quit, like I did, then it's high priority. I doubt the protest is the only reason they'd respond so quickly to this. 3 months isn't very long at all. Some games have remained broken for years.

Besides, it's the most important class, not done right. A broken warrior has an effect on the game more than a broken warlock or overpowered paladin. They'd be doing themselves a favor by getting it out of the way now.

[HRose]

That dev post was extremely informative and he replied again today to explain that the perceived wrong miss ratio is just the result of compensations to mantain the system balanced.

The only weak spot is that this discussion focused solely on PvE. Many design choices work concretely because the warrior is intended as an aggro manager. But what happens when this basic trait becomes directly useless in a PvP environment?

A paladin has an higher survivability 'by design' to compensate the fact that it doesn't hold aggro as efficently as a warrior:

While paladins are indeed intended to be the most survivable of any class in the game (players sometimes assume warriors are, which is not the case), paladins aren’t intended to make the best “tanks” in the game, or to have superior offensive abilities then warriors. What this means is that survivability alone does not a tank make.

The other key concept to tanking is the ability to hold agro on mobs (especially simultaneously on multiple mobs). This is the key difference between warriors and paladins in PvE. Simply put, warriors are intended to be the best at holding agro against multiple mobs (which will also be a more clear distinction once the Seal of the Crusader bug is fixed). So, assuming a group scenario that includes healers, a warrior’s survivability rivals that of a paladin’s, with the warrior having very significant advantages in terms of holding agro.

But in PvP?

[Jayce]

But in PvP?

I was wondering that too.

[Calantus]

I would say you are both wrong about Def specced warriors. In a lot situations, Arms or fury specced warriors hold aggro better than def specced warriors. With the way taunt works now, you have to have decent damage output to hold aggro, and Arms/fury can do that.

I don't agree at all, damage is not the best way of holding aggo. Defensive stance gives you something like a +60% aggro bonus to all attacks (before the +aggro talent is considered), and a huge bonus to aggro from specials (re. sunder armor). Not to mention the 10% mitigation bonus. In an instance I would only leave defensive stance if I have to hamstring, and I hate sacrificing rage for that.

It would be nice to have mortal strike mind you. But being able to through in a couple of stuns and shield blocks represent mitigation, which is a warriors primary job in an instance.

I can't see how a heavy investment in the protection tree is supposed to pay off.

Shield disclipline underwhelms me. A search on some high-end shields show about >50 damage reduction per block, which means >25 extra damage blocked which seems like nothing when compared to the hundreds of damage you'll be copping in the high-end PVE.

One-Handed specialisation is tasty, but hardly something you'd go deep into protection for.

Concussion blow is nice, but high-end bosses are immune to stun, and while it does help it's not anything that would pull me into protection outside of PVP and there I think MS is better.

Shield bash looks good, but again is not something that would pull me into protection except for PVP.

Improved shield wall is the first ability is see as being useful and something I'd consider shooting for if I needed some oomph against bosses.

Improved taunt sounds good, but most of the time you wont need it that fast with both mocking blow and challenging shout to cover your butt when the cooldown is on. And with a good group of non-retards helping with aggro you shouldn't need it regularly (only for unlucky crit runs and aggro-wiping abilities).

Improved disarm seems like not enough bang for your buck, and I'll be shocked if high-end bosses can be disarmed.

Improved sunder armor sounds good if it does indeed add aggro, but then it's hardly a tool for multi-mob aggro, and that is where a warrior sees the most trouble aggro-wise in a good group.

Basically I can't see going further than shield spec (for revenge and spikes), 1 point in shield block (for revenge and spikes), toughness, and defiance is really all that important for anyone but a dedicated raid tank. My brother is speccing for 31 arms, 20 prot (he'll either drop imp shield block or 1 point of defiance), and Imp Revenge is the only low-end talent I'd regret not taking in this instance. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but I just can't see prot spec being all that fantastic, especially when compared to the offencive boosts arms and fury provide.

Also, if you haven't got tactical mastery and aren't switching stances regularly for abilities you are holding yourself back. If you go full prot for mitigation you'd be crazy not to switch for thunderclap at the very least (10% melee damage mitigation and AoE aggro? Sign me up). Whirlwind sure is nice too. Not to mention charge that is very useful against things you don't pull, or for anything if someone else pulls them for you to charge (people always site the chain-aggro mobs as being a problem then, but a single demo shout or thunder clap gathers them).

EDIT: My brother's spec also has cruelty in it, silly of me to miss that.

[Righ]

Patience is a lot harder to find when you're paying $15 a month. And I think that's the problem here.

No, that's not the only problem. The most significant problem is that with large population MMOGs, this is about as good a place to spend your $15 on, so people are reluctant to move on. The fine dining experience doesn't exist in MMOGland. Well, it does to an extent with some MUDs and games with MUD populations like M59 and Clan Lord. As customers we realise that we're paying for TGIF gaming, we'd just like the staff at the door to set the expectation level before we sit down to wait.

However, when TGIF staff undercook your Warrior and make you wait for ages because they are short staffed, you don't march into their kitchen and piss in the other customers' food. Yes HRose, I'm looking at you.

[El Gallo]

You can be an arms/fury talent-specialized warrior and tank well, but you will have to use defensive stance and a shield when appropriate.  I think there is a mixup in the nomenclature.  Arms/fury guy who wants to run (as the only tank) BRD with his 2-hander in arms stance the whole time is a worthless fucktard.  Arms/fury guy who knows how aggro works, uses a shield most of the time and keeps everything locked on him is a great asset.

Personally, I think that the warrior's biggest weaknesses are PvP and soloing.  Mortal Strike solves these problems.  The solution is to make Mortal Strike a base ability, not a talent.  I say ditch Heroic Strike and replace it with Mortal.  

They should also let taunt work, if only for a couple seconds, in PvP, or add some damage-sharing skill, so warriors' defensive abilities aren't negated entirely by the TAB button.

As for initial rage generation, bring back inner rage from beta, nerf it to 25 rage or so.

The tactical mastery requirement is also fucked up.  They just didn't pull off the stances well at all.  At this point, I'd be tempted to let all abilities be used in all stances, and just use the stances for the base modifiers.

Those would fix 90% of the issues.  You still have the fact that most warrior skills are worthless to upgrade, and most warrior talents are shit.  But those are relatively minor.

[Miasma]

Info from Blizzard about warriors here http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=589546&p=25

Scroll down a bit. It is a HUGE reply. Some good info, and some very good answers.

 I wonder if they only got that very long, detailed and useful post because of that protest.  If so we can look forward to many more protests by every class every time a fringe group feels like they have been wronged (perpetually). You really shouldn’t reward bad behavior.

That said blizzard should have responded like that a long time ago. People are much less angry about things they know are wrong so long as you acknowledge and explain it.

[Jayce]

They should also let taunt work, if only for a couple seconds, in PvP, or add some damage-sharing skill, so warriors' defensive abilities aren't negated entirely by the TAB button.

I also think this would be great, and would address the issue I agreed with above (warrior forte being related to PvE).

They allow players to charm, fear, seduce, etc other players.  Taunt is a much less offensive form of controlling other players' actions than those, so I wouldn't think it's exploitable.  And certainly it's doable technically.

[HaemishM]

Anyone that participates in these things is a fucking moron.  Suck it up you goddamn pussies; the only thing you're doing is cornholing their number one problem (here's a hint, it's NOT YOU).

Amen, my brother. The only true protest worth discussing is cancelling your fucking subscription. Anything else is just drama queen attention whoring.

EDIT: Also, like every other "official" MMOG forum, Blizzard's forums are full of retarded assmonkeys like Hrose who can't understand why the devs don't pay attention to their special and unique snowflake selves. It's hard for devs who have real jobs to respond to the inane moanings of a mass of gibbering marsupials who think said devs have nothing better to do than placate their need for attention. It's also hard for devs to institute changes based on forum posts in any sort of a timely fashion, no matter how good they are.

Again, if the problem is so bad that you feel crashing a server or pissing and moaning on the official boards is productive, CANCEL YOUR FUCKING SUBSCRIPTION, ASSMONKEY.