Warrior spec talk

[Merusk]

Bah, priests are soloable. :P

<Be a shadow priest>

See.. and that's the problem.  All the other classes are viable to a greater or lesser degree in more than one spec.  Priests it's, be a shadow priest or stfu.

I'd rather see them give a wee bit more soloing offense to Holy or Disc, because while I recently respecced to shadow, I really preferred Holy for my playstyle.

 

I can assure you that shadow priests level faster then mages. Also, 2 of the priests in my guild are re-rolled from other classes, 1 a former hunter the other a former rogue. Both say that shadow priests level faster then either of those. Thier is NO reason you should be disc/holy before 56th level or so, i didnt make the switch till 59.

Then they were a lousy hunter. (I can't speak for the rogue, mine's only level 22.)  Hunter has been the fastest class at all levels once I got my pet. (meaning after level 10)  I was also able to survive more and take-on more mobs at one time as my hunter than I have been as a priest, rogue, or warrior.  Some of the classes it's definatly the player not fitting the classes (which, I freely admit I don't fit ofensive casters well, I'm melee as offense or healer as defense).

Only thing i would caution you about priest: Then fun goes away once u hit 60 (it did for me at least). Due to the debuff limit, thier is no room for a shadow priest in a raid, and healing any of 40 people efficiently involves CTRaid (or using blizzards now built-in version of it). This means the majority of your UI being eaten by 40 different healthbars, thier associated names, and debuffs. After my first raid as a priest i was ready to quit the game, it was the most profoundly un-fun experience i have had playing this game so far. Its like you're basically not even playing the game.


Don't get me wrong, i wasn't one of those "shadow priests who don't heal". I healed and did it well in 5 and 10-15 man instances, and it was quite fun, but the 40-man version of healing necessitates a radical (and unwelcome, unfun) alteration in the way you play.

This is the biggest problem in WOW, IMO.  You're playing a fundimentaly different game at level 60 in all classes than you were all the previous levels where you could solo and do just about anything.  It's not a gradual change, it's a 'you hit level 60' *brick wall* kind of change, which is bad.

Level 60 content is all about grouping in one form or another.  Class dynamics in a group really change and without prior experience you: 1) find a lot of folks who can't/ won't adjust to the new roles 2) discover you have leveled a class to 60 that is nothing like what was advertised the previous 300+ hours 3) don't care because you hit 60, 'won' and are now working on your new alt.

The game you describe is the exact purpose I rolled-up a priest for.  After playing a druid (when they got to be decent healers) in EQ I found I really liked it.  It's less intensive than having to worry about timing nukes, who debuffed what when and all the other nonsense that gets thrown into raiding.  You toss a few heals, buff some folks and make sure you keep your aggro low.

[Sogrinaugh]

I like healing in raids.

For me it just felt like wack-a-mole.  I never even saw the action for watching all the health bars.  The whole skill of timin greater heals and prayer of healing was just gone... flash heal, flash heal, ad nauseum.

[MrHat]

I'm going back to my warrior.

I think once I get some good equip, and some bandages, I could solo pretty well, as good, if not faster than the rogue.

But, then again, there's about 90% of quests that will take me forever to do.

[Calantus]

Bah, priests are soloable. :P

<Be a shadow priest>

See.. and that's the problem.  All the other classes are viable to a greater or lesser degree in more than one spec.  Priests it's, be a shadow priest or stfu.

I'd rather see them give a wee bit more soloing offense to Holy or Disc, because while I recently respecced to shadow, I really preferred Holy for my playstyle.

Nah that's not what I said at all. I hate shadow priests with a passion. I rolled a priest to be a healer class, and I'd like THREE talent trees to make that happen, not the 2 they leave me with. If I wanted to be a hybrid I'd have rolled a hybrid. If I wanted an offencive caster I'd have rolled a mage/warlock. What I was saying is grab "Spirit Tap" and "Improved Shadow Word: Pain". The spirit tap is IMO a "must have" for leveling a priest. Out of all the trees in all the classes, only warlocks have a better grinding talent in "Dark Pact". Then I also suggested IMP SW:P because it means I usually don't have to reapply it all the time when I do my usual sequence.

7 talent points does not a shadowpriest make. Shadow would be wasteful to me because I don't do a whole lot of shadow damage with my sequence. Don't put words into my mouth. :P

[Dren]

I'm going back to my warrior.

I think once I get some good equip, and some bandages, I could solo pretty well, as good, if not faster than the rogue.

But, then again, there's about 90% of quests that will take me forever to do.

I'll be trying mine again once I get my other alts up higher.  I started a war with alchemy and will work hard on first aid and cooking.  I figure that will give enough buffing and emergency healing to keep him alive longer than my previous attempts at the class.

[HaemishM]

BTW Haemish, what's going to be your race and build?  I'm curious after getting this much info, what your intentions originally were for your character. Being that you're talking about PVP, Stuns, and a character name of Haemcow, I'm assuming some sort of Tauren PVP Warrior?

Until I started playing my human rogue this weekend, it was a Tauren Warrior. I really don't think of template type builds, or purposes, I just take what is interesting until I get my ass handed to me. I would be a roleplayer, if RP in MMOG's wasn't ghey to the extreme. I definitely was going to be a PVP character, because uber raids are fucking stupid. I hate being a tank. I'm a goddamn warrior, a bitchslapper extraordinaire. I should not be expected to be bitchslapped as a profession.

[Dren]

Until I started playing my human rogue this weekend, it was a Tauren Warrior. I really don't think of template type builds, or purposes, I just take what is interesting until I get my ass handed to me. I would be a roleplayer, if RP in MMOG's wasn't ghey to the extreme. I definitely was going to be a PVP character, because uber raids are fucking stupid. I hate being a tank. I'm a goddamn warrior, a bitchslapper extraordinaire. I should not be expected to be bitchslapped as a profession.

You should like the rogue then.  In my opinion, Blizzard needs to look to the rogue as the fun template and change the other classes accordingly.  Try to get your character to at least level 32 before making any final decisions though.  The fun really begins when you have so many different tricks to pull during combat, you rarely lose to any mobs in any situation other than 5 on 1.  With every failure to land a finishing move, you have 3 others to try behind it if you are fast enough on the keyboard. (Little bit of twitch involved.)  If all else fails, dissappear or run like hell.

Fun.  (This class alone has kept me playing for the last 3 weeks.)

[Dren]

Damn you got me thinking more about the rogue class and what other classes, like Warrior, could learn from it.  Essentially, they have made enough powers with diverse effects for the rogue class, that you are basically playing a minigame while combat is occuring.  Take in stark contrast the Paladin class (I have a 60 paladin.)

With the Pally you initiate combat hit a few keys and then sit back for 2-3 minutes, hit a few more keys, repeat.  Sucks.  With the Rogue, you are constantly hitting different buttons depending on what happens in combat, what enemy you are facing, etc.  Why couldn't it be the same for the Pally or Warrior?

It would be nice to see some powers that build upon themselves to make you more of a tank or more offensive during combat.  The "mini-game" would be similar to the rogue's combat in that you would have to time actions right and they would have different results on different types of creatures, etc.

Warrior is almost there with the building of rage thing, but it is so dependent on how well you hit, damage, parry, etc. that some fights will cause you to just stare at that rage meter for what seems like forever and doing nothing in the mean time.  Warriors should be about all out nonstop brutal fighting.  It should feel that way at all times throughout the whole fight.  To me, it currently doesn't and certainly not for the Pally, which feels like a nap that gets disturbed every 3 minutes.

[NinjaSteve]

Well I think Warriors are actually a ton of fun if you have a lot of rage... you're constantly mashing buttons, switching stances to do things... the only problem is of course getting the rage to do these things.  Its sort of a big uphill or downhill thing that is especially evident when you're fighting other warriors.  If you happen to get a few good hits in with crits you've now got the rage to easily kill the opponent... now if you happen to miss a few times... you're probably gonna be dead.
Its sort of an hit or miss thing with warriors... always has been.  Its probably why you hear a lot of complaining because of the new weapons as one or two hits will give us the rage needed to finish anyone off quickly and easily.   

[Dren]

Yeah, I'd rather see them build up rage regarldess of hit or miss or how much damage they do or take.  While actively fighting, they should build up rage.  This would be much like Rogues except that it is still tied to the actual combat.  You wouldn't be walking around in rage all the time for instance.

That is why I just can't get into the warrior character though.  You got it right.  It is too hit or miss.

[Ironwood]

Posts here got me thinking:  The 'Mini-game' idea in the Rogue combat is exactly right.  That's why it's the most fun to play for me and why levelling my Warrior is painful.

Also, someone posted that they hated being a healing spec priest in a group since you're basically looking at bars and healing (a la tetris).  This totally crystallised why my wife plays the priest and why she LOVES this role with a passion.  It also explains why she's NEVER zoomed the camera out from default in her life.  When she's being a priest, she's playing a wee Tetris game with the healthbars.

It's strange how sometimes these games bring things into focus.

[Merusk]

7 talent points does not a shadowpriest make. Shadow would be wasteful to me because I don't do a whole lot of shadow damage with my sequence. Don't put words into my mouth. :P

You're right, I was.  I'm just so used to seeing people say, "OMGFTFBBQ play shadow noobler!" that I misread.

Yeah, I'd rather see them build up rage regarldess of hit or miss or how much damage they do or take. While actively fighting, they should build up rage. This would be much like Rogues except that it is still tied to the actual combat. You wouldn't be walking around in rage all the time for instance.

That is why I just can't get into the warrior character though. You got it right. It is too hit or miss.

The problem with warriors constantly generating rage is you'll have to adjust their entire skill & talent tree, or they become too predictable and easily botted.  (Start fight, wait 1.5 seconds, do an intimidating, wait 2 seconds do a rend, 3 seconds then sunde)

 Rogues are very similar to warriors, despite the constant energy increase, because of combo points. Skills that generate combo points can miss and you'll be short of the needed points to do a move right when you need it. Yeah, you've got more choices but your potency is reduced. 

[Dren]

 Rogues are very similar to warriors, despite the constant energy increase, because of combo points. Skills that generate combo points can miss and you'll be short of the needed points to do a move right when you need it. Yeah, you've got more choices but your potency is reduced. 

True there is a lot of hit or miss for Rogues, but the other options is the key.  If you miss with one finishing move, you just wait a split second and try a different one while the other timer is counting down.  You have options other than just sitting and waiting for the damned bar to fill up again (or not in some cases ---> death.)

Perhaps they could just tweak what the warrior is now and add more powers for more options and make it so a miss on a move is not so devastating to their rage.  In fact, I would think that (ok, now I'm going to attempt my concept of roleplaying) a warrior would become more enraged if they missed a finishing move.  I know it pisses me off.

[Merusk]

My point really was that you were comparing the wrong two components of the class.  Finishing moves and rage.  You should be comparing rogue combo points to warrior rage, because those are what's used by both classes to power their options.

Warriors and Rogues should be on-par here. Losing all your rage when an ability misses is no different than a rogue losing all combo points if their ability misses.  You're out of rage and they're out of combo points, they just have better escape options. However, I can't remember if  combo points go away or not if the abilities miss.  I haven't played my rogue since about January.

Blizzard's stance is that they do not want to create efficient rage to damage conversions for warriors. (Execute being the one 'exception' and that's not really efficent.)  This seems to be what really causes the problems people have with the class.  You can do a lot with rage, but you just can't hurt people with it when that's all you really want to do.  I like all the debuff stuff my warrior has, (armor, attack power, run speed, bleeds, attack speed) but I'd like a few more offensive buffs, other than battle shout. 

As for warrior deaths vs rogue deaths, most rogues I know flee a LOT earlier than warriors.  It's all the HPs and armor.. gives you a false sense of security so you don't flee when you really should.  I know I play that way myself.  Rogue gets an add, it's "whoopsie time to run."  Warrior gets an add, "hm I'm at 75% health I bet I can finsih them both" instead of hamstringing them and running.

[Ironwood]

No.  Combo points stay when you miss.  Cold Blood, however, vanishes like the morning dew.  Which they really, really, really need to fix, just to make us more overpowered.

[Sogrinaugh]

Blizzard's stance is that they do not want to create efficient rage to damage conversions for warriors. (Execute being the one 'exception' and that's not really efficent.)  This seems to be what really causes the problems people have with the class.  You can do a lot with rage, but you just can't hurt people with it when that's all you really want to do.

Mortal Strike doesn't fit this criteria?  With the exception of our main tank, every single warrior in my guild has this.

[Dren]

My point really was that you were comparing the wrong two components of the class.  Finishing moves and rage.  You should be comparing rogue combo points to warrior rage, because those are what's used by both classes to power their options.

That is what I was comparing just in an indirect way.  Rogues do not lose their combo points on a missed finishing move which is what I was talking about.  I wasn't talking about energy, which they do lose some of when they attempt a finishing move, hit or miss.

I'm saying I'd like to see that there both be more powers for Warriors to choose from and that they do not lose rage when they miss an attempt on a power.  It should only be used on a hit.

I'm not saying those additional powers should be damage in nature either.  They could get creative with all types of moves with other benefits in mind.  Several of which would be beneficial for groups since, in my mind, Warriors are more of a group character than a Rogue just by definition.

[HaemishM]

They could add a lot more options for Warriors to make them as interesting as Rogues, IMO. Things like knockback moves, more disarm types, grapple moves, hell even the rogue's kick would help. The rage mechanic is decent, and I like that warriors get things like debuffs but really, compared to a rogue, a warrior is just slow combat that's mostly about the same combos.

[Ironwood]

Shield bash is just kick.

Tho you're fucked without a shield.  Just as Rogues are fucked. . . er. . . If you cut off our legs...

[El Gallo]

I don't know, I am suffering carpal tunnel from my warrior and would not welcome any more button-mashing.  At least when tanking an instance, I am hitting a button almost every time the universal 1-second refresh is up and sometimes more (not all skills are on the universal refresh, which I guess makes it not so universal, but whatever).  Solo is less mashing, but not overwhelmingly so.  At least if I am being a micromanaging whore, dual wielding while swapping to the reaper for MS and OP and the shield for bash or dancing to fury for pummel.  PvP is all that and more (lotta stance dancing).

[HRose]

I don't know, I am suffering carpal tunnel from my warrior and would not welcome any more button-mashing.  At least when tanking an instance, I am hitting a button almost every time the universal 1-second refresh is up and sometimes more (not all skills are on the universal refresh, which I guess makes it not so universal, but whatever).  Solo is less mashing, but not overwhelmingly so.  At least if I am being a micromanaging whore, dual wielding while swapping to the reaper for MS and OP and the shield for bash or dancing to fury for pummel.  PvP is all that and more (lotta stance dancing).

How you swap stances quickly and reach quickeys away from 'wasd'? Mouse? Default Alt+# ?

[NiX]

I really need help speccing/playing my war. I can't for the life of me figure out what to stick to. Right now I'm running around with a 2H mace that's 18.2 DPS (I just hit level 29.) I'm beginning to think it's time to move back to sword/shield. Or is it? Bleh, I don't know. Right now I'm specced Fury/Arms for talents. MS is a must have and I know that, but beyond all of that I have no idea what I'm supposed to be hitting for. When it comes down to PvP I'll switch to whatever fits that, but right now I want to be made out for Soloing and instances.

Also, equipment. What's best at 30? Should I shoot for a certain type of armor? Certain stat above others? Right now my Stam/Str are around 100. Everything else lingers randomly under 100. I've noticed I need a bit more spirit because I'm regening really slow (31/tick roughly) and it's causing me to have to pause sometimes.

[MrHat]

Think it's all immaterial till you hit 41.  Then get the biggest slowest 2 hander you can find, and spam MS.

You get plate at 40 too.

[El Gallo]

How you swap stances quickly and reach quickeys away from 'wasd'? Mouse? Default Alt+# ?

I usually try to keep both hands on the keyboard.  I think I have the stances bound to [, ]. and \  If I was a more serious PvPer I'd move them to e,r,t or something probably.

[Merusk]

There's some folks who do use mousewheel, but I don't see how it's anywhere near as efficient as just keybinding them.

I use 12345 for common things, then rebind shift- 2345 (who swaps toolbars anyway, when they can all be on your screen) and the right side toolbar to ctrl-qwert and put once in a while things like Battleshout there.   I bind numpad - to the shift-1 position for emergency OMG I NEED THIS NOW stuff like potions.  I find it's easier to lift my hand off the mouse and slap the - than it is to hit shift-1 in those situations.  Plus, the beautiful thing about the non-numbers on the numpad is that numlock doesn't affect them the way it does the numbers/ arrows.