Cataclysm

[Fordel]

That'll take another 4 patches at least.   

[Ingmar]

Arms
Juggernaut no longer increases the cooldown on Charge, but instead increases the duration of the Charge stun by 2 seconds. In addition, Charge is usable in all stances, however, the talent now causes Charge and Intercept to share a cooldown.

Why don't they get it over with and just remove Intercept already?

Because they don't want to proximity nerf fury or prot?

[Maledict]

No reason to bring melee.. ranged has interrupts aplenty and does the same or better dps.. plus most ranged can DPS on the run these days.. not tip top, but then melee can't tiptop on the run either anymore.

It's worth pointing out that Paragon's comments only apply to the heroic versions. In normals, it's the same paradigm that has existed for the last 2+ years - melee are flat out superior to ranged. They take *less* damage, not more, as they aren't eligible for a large number of boss effects and are far more easily healed due to their compact formations. Fights like Magmaw, Omitron Council, Twilight Drakes all have clear advantges for being melee on the normal versions. The idea that melee take more damage than ranged hasn't been true in raids for a significant length of time - and even when they do (Twin worms for example), it's actually much easier to heal 5 melee than 3 ranged for example due ot the way AE heals work.

Personally, I do sort of wonder if Blizzard find it very hard to come up with melee mechanics that stress melee without just annihilating them as was the case in the heroic fights. You can throw an *insane* amount of stuff at ranged in raids, and they can cope with it and still dps. You can't do that with melee - you can't put a void zone under them constantly, you can't make spawning parasite adds, you can't have a chain lightning hit them - all stuff which makes the ranged role trickier. We either seem to be stuck with fights that leave very little challenge for melee repsectively (all of ICC heroic, Magmaw / twilight drakes in the newer content), or we have effects that simply *destroy* melee and make it not viable to bring them to raids. There needs to be a better balance there so that melee don't come out of a fight saying "That was basically a target dummy (Magmaw), but at the same time don't die within 20 seconds unless they are deathknights.

[Sheepherder]

Arms
Juggernaut no longer increases the cooldown on Charge, but instead increases the duration of the Charge stun by 2 seconds. In addition, Charge is usable in all stances, however, the talent now causes Charge and Intercept to share a cooldown.

Why don't they get it over with and just remove Intercept already?

Because they don't want to proximity nerf fury or prot?

Because they obviously wouldn't remove the stance tags on Charge after removing Intercept?

[Ironwood]

I like having all 3.

[Minvaren]

4.0.6 Patch notes

Cleave damage has been reduced by 20%.
Heroic Strike damage has been reduced by 20%.

This is, what, the third warrior damage nerf since 4.0? 

[ezrast]

Hey, nobody's talked about the new instanced battlegrounds yet, and they're actually pretty okay. Not quite AB levels of good, but far far better than the crap that got put out in Wrath. Twin Peaks is WSG mkII, and Battle for Gilneas is the AB mechanics but with 3 nodes and 10 people. Only having one middle node seems slightly limiting, but at least it gets players in combat with each other and not with the BG mechanics.

Assuming the new stuff isn't broken in some non-obvious way, it looks like BG quality is now something like AB > BfG, EotS (I like EotS, sue me) > TP > AV > WSG > IoC > SotA. They're nothing groundbreaking, but it's good to see Blizz finally admitting to themselves that the vanilla BG design is the only one worth replicating, and more BGs to choose from means a smaller chance of getting stuck with fucking Strand when I do randoms.

[K9]

I like Twin Peaks, it's an uncomplicated BG.

[Ingmar]

Arms
Juggernaut no longer increases the cooldown on Charge, but instead increases the duration of the Charge stun by 2 seconds. In addition, Charge is usable in all stances, however, the talent now causes Charge and Intercept to share a cooldown.

Why don't they get it over with and just remove Intercept already?

Because they don't want to proximity nerf fury or prot?

Because they obviously wouldn't remove the stance tags on Charge after removing Intercept?

I can charge, then intercept as protection right now already. If they pull out intercept I have to wait for charge to cooldown, which means I can only close half as often as I currently can. It would absolutely be a nerf.

[Sheepherder]

They've already got Charge and Intercept on shared cooldowns for Arms, Fury has never really made much use of Charge.  I seriously doubt that Protection will remain a unique snowflake for longer than a minor patch cycle if it even makes it out of this one unchanged.

[Ingmar]

It would certainly be a "we don't want protection to be arena-viable" message. Charge triggering stun DR is bad enough.

[Sheepherder]

Prot is more mobile than the other two specs on the PTR.  Like I said, I don't see it lasting long.  In all honesty I think sticking charge on the stun DR is worse for Prot pvp than removing intercept would be, since it indirectly impacts the duration of all subsequent stuns, and the charge stun itself is short duration.

The other thing is that they need to start culling buttons, because warriors have a shitton of marginal ones.

[Ironwood]

4.0.6 Patch notes

Cleave damage has been reduced by 20%.
Heroic Strike damage has been reduced by 20%.

This is, what, the third warrior damage nerf since 4.0? 

On the one hand, that's some serious bullshit.

On the other, after the Blues admitted that HS and Incite were showing a fuckload of damage, I specced to Incite and my dps went up by 2k.

 

[Paelos]

That's cause we're not supposed to be doing dps. We're tanks, remember? If we start dpsing like druids, that's bad mmmkay?

[El Gallo]

They've already got Charge and Intercept on shared cooldowns for Arms, Fury has never really made much use of Charge.  I seriously doubt that Protection will remain a unique snowflake for longer than a minor patch cycle if it even makes it out of this one unchanged.

The whole thing is clunky and has been forever.  It's not quite as bad as it used to be, but there's a ton of overlap in warriors because they have 3 stances but only 2 purposes (dps, tankin).  So you have arms-stance and fury-stance flavors of the same abilities.    When 2 of the talent 3 trees have "you can use charge and intercept in any stance talents" that should clue you in that there's a problem.  They're slowly merging battle and zerker stances (pummel being both stances was a big step).  They should just go ahead a and consolidate to 2 stances, and either ditch intercept + shorten charge's cooldown or keep them both in, but useable in any stance, if they want to maintain the "you can occasionally do two chargercepts back to back when the cooldowns align" vibe.  Also, merge shield bash and pummel.  It's not a huge deal for people who have been playing warriors a long time, but the class is very dependent on stancedance+ability macros.

In other news:

Archaeology fragments now have a hard cap of 200 per race. Players will not be able to collect additional fragments until they complete artifacts to take them down below 200 fragments. Players with more than 200 fragments will not lose additional fragments in 4.0.6, but in a future patch we may remove any fragments above 200.

Way to make an annoying profession even more annoying.  Guess I need to catass my way to Zin'rokh this weekend.

[Ironwood]

That's cause we're not supposed to be doing dps. We're tanks, remember? If we start dpsing like druids, that's bad mmmkay?

These changes are going to mean I do more damage in Prot than in Fury due to Vengeance.

Fucking Silly.

[Ashamanchill]

Bear Druids have a pretty substantial lead on DPS over the other tanks at the moment, like north of 10%.

Thats because druids wear dps gear, and so this problem will show up again in the next content patch.

Also, if it's agreed that their single target damage has to be nerf, can they at least buff their aor damage?

[Paelos]

That's cause we're not supposed to be doing dps. We're tanks, remember? If we start dpsing like druids, that's bad mmmkay?

These changes are going to mean I do more damage in Prot than in Fury due to Vengeance.

Fucking Silly.

I think they were slightly warranted, but this is another cause of pvp gettting into pve that nobody ever seems to think happens.

[Sheepherder]

They're slowly merging battle and zerker stances (pummel being both stances was a big step).  They should just go ahead a and consolidate to 2 stances, and either ditch intercept + shorten charge's cooldown or keep them both in, but useable in any stance, if they want to maintain the "you can occasionally do two chargercepts back to back when the cooldowns align" vibe.  Also, merge shield bash and pummel.  It's not a huge deal for people who have been playing warriors a long time, but the class is very dependent on stancedance+ability macros.

To be entirely honest, I think they should change the stance swap rage dump, change all three specs to single target DPS in Battle Stance and multi-target DPS in Berserker Stance, and divvy up the situational abilities between stances.  Getting neckbeardy here, but I'd do something like this:

The immunity break from Shattering Throw should be merged into Heroic Throw, but should have a separate CD (5 min.) and only trigger upon striking an immune target.
Pummel and Shield Bash should get merged.
Shield Block, Shield Wall, and Spell Reflect should lose the shield requirement, but be subject to debuffs if a shield isn't equipped. (and get renamed appropriately)
Overpower, Revenge and Victory Rush should be passive procs that interact with HS in the way that Survival's T.N.T. interacts with Explosive/Arcane Shot.
Slam could disappear and I'm not sure anyone would miss it.

They should probably also make stance/form/stealth/aspect requirement checks more client authoritative, or include an implicit stance change in abilities which require a specific stance, but that's more a general change than a warrior specific one.

[K9]

They should make stances work like Chakra, it's a fun mechanic.

[Merusk]

They should make stances work like Chakra, it's a fun mechanic.

Now that I've got the hang of it, I totally agree. It was confusing to learn the first few times I healed, but now I've got a sense of when and how to use each chakra and it's really damned fun.  Fun healing, whoda thunk.

Archaeology fragments now have a hard cap of 200 per race. Players will not be able to collect additional fragments until they complete artifacts to take them down below 200 fragments. Players with more than 200 fragments will not lose additional fragments in 4.0.6, but in a future patch we may remove any fragments above 200.

Way to make an annoying profession even more annoying.  Guess I need to catass my way to Zin'rokh this weekend.

Err.. why are you collecting more than 200 frags anyway?  Is there some trick that I'm missing here? That's 6.25 combines without the boosters and ~8 with them. You don't get skillups for surveying after 100 skill, so why carry that many around without combining?

[K9]

If you're farming Troll or Nelf sites for the epics you'll end up clearing a LOT of fossil sites out to open up new Troll and Nelf sites, once you have the epics, a lot of people stop bothering to solve the fossil commons since they're worth fuckall.

[Sheepherder]

They should make stances work like Chakra, it's a fun mechanic.

I just did a count, and and Arms Warrior DPSing needs about 17-26 buttons just sitting in Battle Stance beating shit down in an instance.  The low number can be macroed down to 15 and is pretty much the bare minimum to be considered just shy of retarded.  Blizzard really needs to cut that down to size.

I presume you mean to suggest that some moves change form based on the stance state, the same way HW: Chastise does?  I think they would have a hard time with that.

[Lantyssa]

Button inflation is really bad.  It's making me not want to bother with any of my high levels in this trial.

[Sheepherder]

Hunters need an ability culling badly as well.

[kildorn]

They should make stances work like Chakra, it's a fun mechanic.

I just did a count, and and Arms Warrior DPSing needs about 17-26 buttons just sitting in Battle Stance beating shit down in an instance.  The low number can be macroed down to 15 and is pretty much the bare minimum to be considered just shy of retarded.  Blizzard really needs to cut that down to size.

I presume you mean to suggest that some moves change form based on the stance state, the same way HW: Chastise does?  I think they would have a hard time with that.

Don't they essentially do that anyways on the main bar? When you switch stances, it should, but I haven't played a warrior in forever, give you a new action bar.

That said, I'm having issues buying 26 abilities needs to arms dps. They have a lot of buttons, but there are only a total of 50 warrior abilities counting passives and talents from other trees.

Warlocks have a shitload of buttons, but I can fit all my instance dps buttons on a single bar, and only really need two other informational/situational bars: mounts, soulstone summon/use for timer, healthstone, banish, etc

[Ragnoros]

I'm glad you guys feel there are too many buttons. Most of the people I play with are of the same opinion, and it's good to know it's not just us. I just hope Bliz comes to share the opinion, hopes had been high they would do so in their big cataclysm.

Although it may simply be a problem of more buttons being the only way Bliz knows how to add variety/complexity to a Diku.

[kildorn]

The funny thing is most of us want fewer buttons, but when you try and yank a button out the "fun is hammering nails into my dick" crowd comes out and protests shit like fixing ISF and removing Drain Mana.

And those of us who are just silly post in RIP Sentry Totem threads.

[Ingmar]

They should make stances work like Chakra, it's a fun mechanic.

I just did a count, and and Arms Warrior DPSing needs about 17-26 buttons just sitting in Battle Stance beating shit down in an instance.  The low number can be macroed down to 15 and is pretty much the bare minimum to be considered just shy of retarded.  Blizzard really needs to cut that down to size.

I presume you mean to suggest that some moves change form based on the stance state, the same way HW: Chastise does?  I think they would have a hard time with that.

Don't they essentially do that anyways on the main bar? When you switch stances, it should, but I haven't played a warrior in forever, give you a new action bar.

That said, I'm having issues buying 26 abilities needs to arms dps. They have a lot of buttons, but there are only a total of 50 warrior abilities counting passives and talents from other trees.

Warlocks have a shitload of buttons, but I can fit all my instance dps buttons on a single bar, and only really need two other informational/situational bars: mounts, soulstone summon/use for timer, healthstone, banish, etc

26 is not at all correct. There might be 26 buttons you would think about pushing in some sort of emergency or corner case situation but in reality the number is much smaller.

[K9]

A, S, D, F and space gives you five buttons at least.

And those of us who are just silly post in RIP Sentry Totem threads.

I miss having feedback on my human priest.

[Sheepherder]

26 is not at all correct. There might be 26 buttons you would think about pushing in some sort of emergency or corner case situation but in reality the number is much smaller.

 

Oh, and that's not counting any specialized stance swap macros you might have.

[kildorn]

26 is not at all correct. There might be 26 buttons you would think about pushing in some sort of emergency or corner case situation but in reality the number is much smaller.

 

Oh, and that's not counting any specialized stance swap macros you might have.

Three of those are buffs you won't be using frequently

actions=flask,type=titanic_strength
actions+=/food,type=beer_basted_crocolisk
actions+=/stance,choose=battle,if=!in_combat
actions+=/snapshot_stats
actions+=/golemblood_potion,if=!in_combat|buff.bloodlust.react
actions+=/auto_attack
actions+=/blood_fury
actions+=/deadly_calm,if=rage<20
actions+=/sweeping_strikes,if=target.adds>0
actions+=/berserker_rage
actions+=/bladestorm,if=target.adds>0&!buff.deadly_calm.up&!buff.sweeping_strikes.up
actions+=/cleave,if=target.adds>0
actions+=/heroic_strike,if=target.adds=0&(rage>65|buff.deadly_calm.up|buff.incite.up|buff.battle_trance.up)
actions+=/overpower,if=buff.taste_for_blood.remains<1.5
actions+=/rend,if=!ticking
actions+=/colossus_smash,if=!buff.colossus_smash.up
actions+=/mortal_strike
actions+=/overpower,if=!buff.lambs_to_the_slaughter.up&rage>35&target.health_pct<20
actions+=/execute
actions+=/overpower
actions+=/slam,if=cooldown.mortal_strike.remains>=1.5
actions+=/battle_shout,if=rage<25

[Sheepherder]

That's the full list, like I said, you can whittle it down to around a dozen or so if you're willing to sacrifice a lot of your situational stuff, and stick the non-GCD stuff into macros.

[Lantyssa]

You can use conditionals? Huh.

Though I wasn't expecting to need my programming skills to play the game.

[Minvaren]

4.0.6 Patch notes

Cleave damage has been reduced by 20%.
Heroic Strike damage has been reduced by 20%.

This is, what, the third warrior damage nerf since 4.0? 

On the one hand, that's some serious bullshit.

On the other, after the Blues admitted that HS and Incite were showing a fuckload of damage, I specced to Incite and my dps went up by 2k.

 

I'm not specced in it at present, but on review, that could be pretty broken.