I was working on a new post about professions for tanks but it will have to wait.
The release notes for patch 4.03 are out and they’re none too tender with warriors. Now, I know that I keep saying how great we are but to be honest, I thought we were simply in a good spot, pretty much on par with Pallies and DKs. Then this dropped on our head:
Warrior
- Cleave damage has been reduced by approximately 17%.
- Execute damage has been reduced by approximately 17%.
- Heroic Strike damage has been reduced by approximately 17%.
- Overpower now does 125% weapon damage, down from 150%.
- Rend base damage has been reduced by approximately 17% and percent of weapon damage per tick lowered to 25%, from 30%.
- Shield Block now only increases block chance by 25%, but excess block that pushes avoidance plus block to over 100% is now converted to critical block chance.
- Slam now costs 15 rage, down from 20, and now does 125% weapon damage, down from 150%.
- Victory Rush damage has been reduced by approximately 17%.
- Whirlwind now does 65% weapon damage, down from 75%.
Arms
- Mortal Strike now does 150% weapon damage, down from 185%.
- Second Wind now heals for 2/5% of total health, down from 5/10%.
- Strikes of Opportunity now does 100% weapon damage, down from 115%.
Fury
- Blood Craze now heals for 1/2/3% of total health, down from 2.5/5/7.5%.
- Bloodthirst damage has been reduced by approximately 17%.
- Raging Blow now does 110% weapon damage, down from 150%.
- Unshackled Fury now gains approximately 50% more benefit per point of Mastery.
Protection
- Critical Block now grants an equal amount of block chance and critical block chance (1.5% each per point of Mastery).
- Devastate no longer provides bonus threat.
- Shield Slam: Contribution of attack power reduced to 60%, down from 75%, and base damage brought up so that a level 85 warrior in Heroic dungeon gear deals the same damage with no Vengeance, but Vengeance has less impact. In addition, Shield Slam no longer generates 30% bonus threat from its damage.
- Vigilance no longer provides 3% damage reduction, but still refreshes Taunt and provides Vengeance.
I’m sorry, but are you kidding me?
I’ll focus on the Protection Warrior part as this is the topic of this blog. I just finished doing Heroic Lich King twice and Business Time had decided that we were done with ICC and were now just raiding to hang out or get one more Warhorse out of TotGC. I’m glad that we’re done now as it would have been quite difficult to do it after this patch.
In phase 1 of our H LK fights, I was tanking the Horrors and Ghouls. Since the number of enemies to tank was quite large, I was using Cleave continuously to supplement Thunderclap and Shockwave. I still lost a lot of Ghouls to healer aggro that had to be taunted back. This is a nerf to our AoE threat. Warriors were never the AoE kings so that hurts. Also, those who used the Blood and Thunder Talent are also having their Rend effect nerfed.
For single targets, I am quite happy that Shield Slam will no longer be so dependant on Vengeance but again, I thought we were in a good place single target threat wise. I am also not a fan of baked in threat bonus so I’m happy it’s going away but I am concerned about keeping that threat up if there is no compensation on the damage side for the lost threat.
I usually try to be positive about changes but you must admit that this one is a hard one to be positive about. If we had been dominating (Like Fury Warriors), I would agree that a nerf was needed but this doesn’t feel warranted except if they were seeing huge discrepancies on the Beta at 85.
This is my gut feel reaction so I could be wrong and I’ll be doing some more research to be sure. Right now, it sure feels like taking a mace blow in the codpiece.
Are these full on nerfs? Or, are they going to work like the Warlock nerfs, for 1-79?
Hmm, I’ll need to check. You and Anafielle might be right. It would actually make a lot more sense if it was since, like I said in the above post, I think we’re in a good place right now, not too powerful and not too weak.
I know they’ve gone on record in various blue posts saying they feel classes are “Overtuned” to the point of being Overpowered in sub-80 content… and they’ve detailed the way the “balancing” tools are set up to allow them a lot more flexibility in ability changes, rather than the overhauling nerfs/buffs of the past…
So, positivity maybe?
We’ll see how it is. We’re officially done with raiding in BT until Cata so it won’t matter as much. But like I said to Kadomi, it might be another case of scaling too well with better gear.
Wow Voss, this is incredibly heavy-handed. I’m confused by this as well – our Guild Leader/Main Tank is also a Warrior, and it’s not like he’s been facerolling and just dominating threat/DPS during raids or anything. These are HUGE hits. I imagine the warrior community will be a sad one for the next while.
Are you sure that’s not the expected 1-60 nerf that is happening to every class? These changes look WAY too drastic to be endgame changes.
I know everyone was really panicing about the incoming nerfs to their favored class when in reality the devs were just trying to balance the absurdly broken experience that is 1-60 right now. I hope these changes aren’t as bad as they look.
You’re actually giving me hope that I was wrong. I really hope that I am. So how did they make it work for those classes?
Also, are the warriors that strong in those levels? I’m playing a baby warrior right now and they feel strong but not overly strong compared to the other classes. I know you’ve been levelling too, what do you think?
I don’t have any hands on experience except on the priest (absurdly overpowered), seeing Antigen on the mage (absurdly overpowered), seeing my tanks in low level dungeons (the decent ones generally top recount unless Antigen whoops out the Blizzard), and getting ganked in PVP (where every class feels like they have a 1 shot ability).
Low leveling is broken. Across the board.
I can’t tell you how warriors are specifically, but the devs have said outright that they didn’t even bother to balance the “new level 10″ abilities and the low levels of the new rank-less spells. They are fixing leveling right now, shortly before Cata.
I will try to find a blue post if you want more proof
Really I’m just hoping you don’t have all these nerfs to be depressed about! I love my warrior cousins (I know, terrible but true) and I don’t want the nerf bat to come down this hard!
Speaking as a lowbie prot warrior (and I did level another one before, don’t ask): stuff is dying MUCH too quickly. Since I’ve been tanking I don’t notice as much (too busy trying not to suck) but leveling to fifteen was ridiculous. I basically ran through Azuremyst/Bloodmyst going “lololol dead, dead, whoops I touched you, you are DEAD.” I ran SM: GY last night and the ‘elite’ mobs were dying in two seconds, literally. I’d move it into position and it would just flop over and die.
If these nerfs were purely for folks sub-60, it would make sense to me. We’re probably as OP as everyone else. (In other news: Warbringer!)
That is true. We’re just mowing down the mobs. I know that levelling my little warrior, Mortal Strike is an insta kill. I’ve even been able to tackle a group of 7 mobs 3-4 levels higher than mine and I still won.
So yes, if it’s for pre-60, then that would be fair.
I know what you mean. I don’t want the pallies to be nerfed below the warrior. I just like a nice level playing field.
And no worries, all I’ll need is a couple of charge/intercept/intervene combos to make me feel better.
If you do find the blue posts, please let me know. I’d be curious to read it too!
I am equally shocked and disappointed about the flat out nerfs across the board. I don’t feel prot warriors are overpowered enough to warrant anything like this. Just as comparison I do 3.5 to 4k DPS on fights where our paladin tank goes to 5-6k DPS. Why do we get nerfed?
Also, this is equally bad for Arms warriors who were already at the bottom DPS-wise and not competitive with other classes.
I am disappointed, I also thought we were in a good place.
/sigh
Yes, I know. I guess it’s another case of us scaling awfully well with better gear which might get us back to par with 85 level gear. Who knows? It won’t lessen my love for the warrior at all, but I’m just a tad miffed about it.
Stuff is dying way too fast to be a credible threat.
On my mid 30s fury warrior (in some heirlooms) last night, I was shredding equal level mobs with Charge, Bloodthirst, Victory Rush, Heroic Strike, dead. I took on a bunch of high 30s and one level 40 mob, who were a lot more dangerous. But with some careful pulling, followed by ‘spam abilities with no real plan or priority system in mind’ I managed to shred them to bits too.
Perhaps this is a bit overpowered.
Don’t know about Protection Warriors, though.
I was online last night, queuing for Alterac Valley, when I asked one of our guild’s more ardent PvPers if he’s been running them lately. Much to my surprise, he said no: Warriors being nerfed so badly, Hunters can’t really kill anything in BGs right now, and his Rogue doesn’t have PvP gear yet.
I still don’t understand why they were nerfed so badly. Even Ret didn’t get that much of a hit, although it was already nerfed when 4.0.1 dropped.
Everything I’m reading about this refers to 85th level in the beta where warrior tanks were doing more dps than dpsers. I guess we’re stuck in the infinite buff/nerf cycle for us.