A Warriors Role

[]LoL[Harm]

Again, as in DAoC I've picked one of the more gimped classes in the game. In DAoC I suffered through the Blademasters early years of complete uselessness. My sexulant pickles were the only high point in Druyn's short lived career as a BM back when I played. I seem to have some skill at picking them. Anyhow, this is a great post on why the warriors seem lost in the world of warcraft.

The main skill that we have that others don't is the ability to Taunt, which is useless in PvP.

This is just the paste of the thread starter.

Full thread here: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-warrior&t=48853&s=new&tmp=1#new

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I know this has been brought up a couple of different ways, but I wanted to share my experiences with my fellow warriors.

Let me start by saying I have always played a Tank. I seek them out, because I like being the go to guy in a group. Two vital ingridents to a good group - tank and healer. Everything else is gravy. I consider myself to be an experienced MMO player. I have played 5 major MMO's, dating back to UO, and a handful of indie and small publisher MMO's. In games where soloing was a chore, I bought two accounts and rolled supporting characters (healers, buffers, DD), which gave me some good insight to other playstyles and gave me some variety without having to give up my main tank.

The sad fact is, in most of these games, the "Warrior" has been sub-par, and needed additional tweaking well past the release date to get right. Only in the last two games I have played, have I been really dissapointed, and regretted rolling a warrior. The last game I played was L2, and I rolled a Orc Raider/Destroyer. I suffered through roughly 30 levels in beta (x2 I was duel boxing) and 40 levels in retail. If ever there was an example of a nerfed class, this was it. And guess what, it happend to be a tank. Big surprise. I didn't care enough about the game, which wasn't helped by the complete lack of developer feedback. So with disgust at wasting time on a half baked game and a nefed toon I swore off MMO's. A friend talked me into trying WoW in beta, and after two days I was hooked once again. Smashing things with my Tauren warior and having a great time. This is such a strong game, it took the best features from those that came before it and improved on nearly everything.

This is the only reason I am sticking to a class that is gimped by design, and no fix to any of the complaints people have brought up anywhere in site.

Many of you disagree, and think that we are fine just the way we are. Some people say that we are fine, berate others for posting their opinions, and then proceed to list all the changes they feel are nessisary. And then theres the vast majority of us, that feel we need minor changes to bring us up to speed with everyone else.

A lot of people have talked about the glaring issues, but I'd like to touch on why we are gimped by design.

I think that once warriors were fixed in DAoC, this is the best example to pull from when talking about warriors in WoW.

The way the devs structured classes and skills, instantly gave us a role in PvE. We were able to wear the best armor in our realm, had great HP pool, and while not the only class able to use shields, we were given access to the best shields and given specific shield styles and passive defensive abilities. However, if another class came close to doing any of these things, our role in the game would instantly become cloudy.

The other "Tank" class was a pure damage dealer. They wore leather armor, and were given amazing offensive capabilities, but if they pulled aggro off the tank, their health would sink like a rock. What this would do is make the healers burn through mana, generate additional aggro and potentially get the whole group killed by goig OOM or by generating too much aggro.

Healers were given access to shields and the same armor, and were given large amounts of health....but they couldn't take damage nearly as well due to the lack of passive and active defensive skills the warrior recieved.

This seperation of skills instantly created roles for everyone to play.

In PvP, warriors sucked....especially in the first stages of the game after release. This was the tradeoff however, PvE vs PvP. Many classes were on the other end of that scale....PvP centered classes that had a hard time in PvE. However in the early stages of the game warriors had 0 role in PvP.

Shields didn't work like they were supposed to, and at one point they didn't work at all in PvP. Once this was fixed, we instantly had a role. Our ability to guard the soft targets (read: Healers/Mages) that we had in PvE was transfered over to PvP. We had two important skills, one being we were able to use our shields to block incoming attacks for other members of our groups.

What this little thing did was give us two primary roles. Running around guarding the main assist, or staying behind and guarding the casters.

We didnt' dominate in PvP by any stretch...but we had a role and that was enough.

Now this brings me to Warriors in WoW. Frankly we have very little role in this game. Flame away, but the simple fact is that its true. More so for alliance then for horde. Shammans aren't viewed the same way as pallys, even though they play a very similar role in the game.

We have a very hard time maintaing aggro. Right now at 41 I have two tricks up my sleves. Mocking Blow and Challenging shout. And of those two, only one is reliable. Anyone who chimes in with taunt is playing a different game then I am. Tuant is only reliable on equal or lower level mobs, and who fights yellow mobs in a 5 man group.

This would be more of an issue however if Shammans didn't last so long. And since one shamman can support a group of 5, they are the groups defacto healer. A defacto healer who can crit like me, can tank like me, and if he's using a shield, has a higher AC then me. Honestly if mobs didn't intterupt heals, we would have absolutley no place in this game.

And as for abilities, there are 3 different lines, each with their own strenghts and weaknesses. As of recently, there is no "Uber" build anymore. With the nerfing of MS, its not required anymore to spend 31 points in Arms.

But more so then any other class, we would benifit from having less options. Right now, in order to keep up with other classes, we are required to utilize all 3 stances. And here in lies one of the bigger design issues to me. No matter what you want to spec, you are required to spend at least 10 points in arms. This is just to keep the rage that is required to use all the nifty skills the devs wanted to give us.

The sheer amount of skill it takes to be competitive shows that there are some serious flaws. I am talking about both PvE and PvP. Sure I can sit back, and spam heroic strike all day in group, but to maximize group efficiency, and to keep/get us out of trouble you have to work with a maximum rage pool of 25, as you will be switching stances left and right.

Summary of what I think contributes to this problem:

- The ability of other classes to use the same armor class as warriors.
- The ability of other classes to use the same shields as warriors.
- The ability of other classes to use the same weapons as warriors.
- Survivability of other classes while taking damage (this is actually different then armor/shields/health) compared to warriors.
- Lack of significant difference in health between other classes and warriors.
- Lack of dedicated healer class.
- Lack of "defense of others" skills.
- Access to all 3 skill lines for 31/20 warriors
- Unbalance between the 3 spec lines
- Forcing Every warrior to spend 10 points ina specific line. Not only that, forcing 5 points into a teir 2 talent.
- This is more of a personal gripe: Making the red-headed stepchild so dependant on Equipment, giving access to mounts and plates at the same time, to both warriors and Pallys....yet givng the golden boys free mounts(did the Ultimate warrior run over a devs dog?).
- 0 abilites for Group PvP. We were given exactly 0 abilities that we can use to make a role for ourselves.
- Elite level skills are needed to compete with average players from other classes.
- Rage:

The warrior is designed around rage. Charge is designed to get a warrior started, this is the only way to generate rage without gimping yourself. Blood/Zerk Rage require you to either lose health or take 10% more damage. Blood is great for getting enough rage to do that one style, but your doing this at the expense of health, which is very dangerous for us. Zerk Rage helps you generate more rage, but at the same time your stuck in zerk stance and are taking 10% more damage. Another dangerous proposition. And once you hit over 25 rage, your potentiall wasiting rage. If you see a condition pop up (dodge for instance), your going to lose the extra rage these skills generated. This sounds complicated on paper....imagine how hectic PvP is.

The way timers work, the way rage is handled, everything needs to be looked at again. There is no way a casual gamer is going to pick this up. On top of that, throw in weapon macros, and you've got trouble brewing.

Anyhow, thats my 2 cents. I know this is a long post, but wanted to get everything off my chest.

wait for it....wait for it....

Flame away.
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[Murrie]

Yes they over nerfed warriors in the beta, they need some loving, but as a Shaman the Warrior is the one class that really scares me. In fact I dont think ive ever beaten a warrior other than much lower level ones. Ive beaten up on higher level mages, pallies, and whipped a 45 rogue the other day, but Warriors own me.

I definately agree they need some group assisting abilities especially for PvP.

[]LoL[Harm]

We have some skills that make PvP nice. If you run I have ways to make it so you don't get away. And I can completely trounce mages. I almost killed a mage that was 2 levels above me the other day in the Marsh, he had to sheep me and run. As soon as I get the talent that makes my sheild bash silence my target for 3 seconds I'll be even happier to fight casters. But this all relies on ONE thing, I get to charge. Without charge I'm a dead man to any CC'er. And since I can't charge in combat (unless in Beserker stance and I happen to have 10 rage in my pocket) pretty much 9/10 times I'm going to go down to a caster that gets the jump on me.

And Rage potions are nice, but they take over any chance of me using a healing potion. So they aren't useful unless I'm grouped with a healer.

[Aasimon]

I know I am always glad to have a warrior in my group.

More importantly, I am always glad I have a friend in my group, regardless of how gimped he thinks his character is.

I've also seen combos that incude a warrior that are far stronger than combos of other classes... I mean hps and AC = durability. And lasting longer is always better. (right ladies)

Anyway,

I know Harm isnt basing this off of just the forums alone, for that would be folly. I myself made the observation of a lack of definition to the warrior. But I have seen underpowered classes become overpowered/ vice versa.. I try not to worry about it and just play to have fun. I personally see 2 glaring benefits of the warrior right off... Badass looks, and that damn charge ability.

[]LoL[Harm]

I'm not saying I'm useless. If I'm in a group of people at + or - 2 levels of myself and I'm the only warrior I can tank and hold aggro like a pro. I'm very usefull in instances that are around my level. I was only comparing myself to my old BM to be funny. My warrior in WoW is far more useful and capable then my BM in DAoC ever was (at least while I played the class). PvE I am an asset. In PvP I'm an asset in certain situations, but I can be replaced by a number of other classes because my taunt ability won't work. And charge only works out of battle. Other than that I love my warrior and won't be changing anytime soon.

[Noleader]

I agree warriors need help but what this guy was asking for is a IWIN button again. He wants to make warriors so far above everyone else that it would take a mage 3 bars of mana to take them down.

His example of balanced is a joke in its self, when he talks about how DAoC had it right, he is talking about old frontiers right before NF was released. Back then there was only one gank group setup.

Tank, Tank, Tank, Tank, Healer, Healer, Healer, Speed Class

Basicly master assisting became the only way to PvP because soft targets went down to fast when faced with that group and where not able to out damage the healers ability to heal.

All he is asking for is warriors to be bumped up to UBER god status as tanks where in OF DAoC.

[Aasimon]

Also, know this, Blizzard stated from the get go that class definitions would blurr. They WANTED the classes to mesh without a go to class in most situations.

[]LoL[Harm]

I agree warriors need help but what this guy was asking for is a IWIN button again.I didn't really see this, can you point out some examples?

I agree with the areas he addressed, mainly:

- The ability of other classes to use the same armor class as warriors.
- The ability of other classes to use the same shields as warriors.
- Survivability of other classes while taking damage (this is actually different then armor/shields/health) compared to warriors. I believe we should have the ability to take more damage than any other class out there. A higher AC contributes to that. I don't see this as an IWIN button.

- The ability of other classes to use the same weapons as warriors. I really don't care for this one, it doesn't really matter. However I do believe that as warriors we should be able to wield our weapons better than other classes. Bumhug, a Warlock, can wield a sword as well as I can, the sword he uses as a warlock is better and can do more damage to a mob per swing than I can due to the better equipment. My skill should make up for this, but my skill doesn't.

- Lack of significant difference in health between other classes and warriors. I don't really care for this one either, Armor makes up for this.

- Lack of dedicated healer class. Strays off point due to comparison to DAoC, not anything I care about as a warrior.

- Lack of "defense of others" skills.It would be nice to have something, like our taunt be useful in PvP. Being able to block for another player would be nice. Since they would still get hit (block rarely negates all damage) and spells would still be delayed but I could help them not die as quickly. This however is not a must have. Paladins have a Seal of Sacrifice that kinda describes this type of ability where they take 50% damage done to the targeted person.

- Access to all 3 skill lines for 31/20 warriors
- Unbalance between the 3 spec lines
- Forcing Every warrior to spend 10 points ina specific line. Not only that, forcing 5 points into a teir 2 talent.
- This is more of a personal gripe: Making the red-headed stepchild so dependant on Equipment, giving access to mounts and plates at the same time, to both warriors and Pallys....yet givng the golden boys free mounts(did the Ultimate warrior run over a devs dog?).
- 0 abilites for Group PvP. We were given exactly 0 abilities that we can use to make a role for ourselves.
- Elite level skills are needed to compete with average players from other classes.
- Rage: All of these are minor tweaks that I think will get attention in some mannor. At least concerning the skill trees and rage.

Overall I just want two things to make my warrior perfect. Better ability to take damage, better ability to use weapons. Those are, in my opinion the two defining points of a Warrior, but both are almost matched by Paladins, where the difference is almost negligable. A warrior should be the best with weapons and should be able to take the most punishment. I can already take considerable punishment, with the defensive stance, which negates 10% damage taken and if I choose protection talents I can increase the value of armor by 10%. However with weapons I have very little over any other class when it comes to miss/hit ratios.

[Riddick]

The rage thing is what makes me mad. I can definatly see having to switch stances to be effective but having to put 5 talent points in just to make sure i don't lose all my rage stinks, I have made a few talent trees for my warr and I always forget to include that damn talent..

I would rather have them keep everythign the way it is but instead just make it like a 5 or 10pt cost to your rage to switch stances instead of losing everything.

[]LoL[Harm]

A prime example of a talent that a warrior should have, or something that is just a natural skill for a warrior that Hunter gets:

Precision - 5/5 points
Increases your chance to hit with melee weapons by 5%.

Wouldn't this talent make more sense for a Warrior, where as a 5% increase in ranged weapons chance to hit moreso for a Hunter?

[Aasimon]

Well Put Harm, an excellent way to suggest believable improvements to a class without demanding everything under the sun.

Weapon skill and taking more damage IS the paramount of the warrior.

[Noleader]

I am not disagreeing... When I said the IWIN button I met that with all the things he wanted to take away from the other classes and the boosts he wants done to warriors he would make them the end all be all of PvP.

One of the simplest fixes that could go live tomorrow for all I care is keeping rage between stance switches, battles are dynamic and you should be given the chance to take part in them to the best of your ability. Also while in defensive stance you should earn rage from magic damage.

[]LoL[Harm]

The rage thing is what makes me mad.The nice thing with giving warriors a better chance to hit with weapons over other classes is that hitting mobs/PC's is the primary way we generate rage. More hits, more rage.

I am not disagreeing... When I said the IWIN button I met that with all the things he wanted Gotcha, I definitely agree that if everything he stated about DAoC were to come true for WoW, WoW would probably be ruined.

[Boom]

I honestly don't see how you can balance a tank class for pvp in any game. Balancing a tank for pve is easy, give him a GOOD taunt and the ability to take more damage than any other class. With those 2 things a tank is a great asset in any pve group. I don't know if warriors in WoW have that, if they don't, blizzard should fix it.

But for pvp its much more complicated. Taunts don't work in pvp. If they did, it would really suck for other players. In pvp I want to be able to choose my target and blast them (or shoot them or whatever). If a warrior was able to pull me off my target and make me target him, it just would be weird. Maybe it could work, but it just seems weird.

So what can warriors do in pvp? They can take tons of damage. Great. A lot of good that is going to do you when your enemies are killing your healers and casters. When you are the last man standing, it doesn't matter how much damage you can take, you are going down. So all warriors can do in pvp is do sub-par damage to enemies while those enemies kill all his groupmates. If no one can really protect your healer, why would you want a warrior in your pvp group doing 100 dps when you could have a rogue doing 300 dps (made up those numbers but you get the idea).

How do you fix that? I don't know. The first thing that comes to mind is give warriors more damage, then they are at least useful in pvp because they can kill stuff. But that is no good, because it would make warriors the best class in the game. Why be any other toon if warriors can take more damage than anyone and at the same time do comparable damage to other toons? If a warrior could do 80% of the dps of a rogue and have 3 times more survivability, which one would you want in your pvp group? Warriors have to have sub-par damage otherwise we wind up with a daoc situation where the best group is tank, tank, tank, healer, healer, and no other classes are necessary.

So how do you fix warriors for pvp? You can't give them more damage, so you have to give them some other role. The obvious thing is a way to protect the healers and casters. But how do you do that and make it still fun? No one wants to be a "guardbot" like in doac. Equip your shield, put some sort of "guard" or "protect" on your healer, then go afk? Boooring. The only other possibility I can think of is some way to taunt in pvp, but I don't see how that could be done. Maybe when a warrior attacks in pvp he could build up some sort of agrro and if he does enough of the right styles his target will lose whatever its currently targetting and target the warrior. But that seems really complicated and would be really hard to implement.

Its a puzzlement!

[feril]

how bout they delete the warrior class;) problem fixed!!! :)

[Murrie]

bah warriors are the bread and butter of the entire Warcraft line of games. You dont mage rush, you dont rogue rush you tank rush. Warcraft armies without good warrior numbers generally do not do well.

I would like the Warriors to be stronger - specifically I think that a warrior that gets into melee range should be able to own just about anything but another warrior. Warriors should be fodder at range(which they pretty much are, but once they are on top of you then everything should favor them. I dont think they are far off that mark, but do think they need a bit of tweaking, specifically some groups abilitys.

[Noleader]

Murrie the issue I have with that is then Mages would need a big boost to damage. I am not sure what Warrior you played but anytime I ran into a warrior in PvP on my mage they where in melee range within 2 seconds. Now I do not have time to even cast my polymorph before they are on top of me. Warriors are far from fodder at range but they are not a threat at range.

No one would be able to kill any other class just because my class is better, part of the reason I want to see shammys nerfed. Giving a class more damage ability at this stage in the game would destroy the balance all the other classes have. Is damage the simple fix, yea. The problem is then you would have warriors running around doing mage damage.

[MickeyFinn]

Warrior is fine imo

[PoxTheSmall]

Ask Skiz on Alliance what his feelings on Warriors is. He's the highest lvl warrior in LoL, and he feels quite reasonably that there're just too many warrior counters in the game, the miss rate is pretty bad, etc. My personal view as being one of the higher lvl shammy on Stormreaver is that warriors are horribly outclassed by other classes.

My experience fighting a warrior 5 levels over me was that I just needed 2 buttons to kill him, and that's it...he rushed in, missed his Intercept, and I just hit War Stomp, backed up and just Frost Shocked him to death. There wasn't a damn thing the guy could do about it. My problem with that is that I had plenty of room for error, in that if I got a resist, the snare from FS lasted long enough for me to either drop a snare totem or whatever, but missing an opening attack on the warrior's side, decides the fight.

Now, all he'd have to have done is land it, then Hamstring, and I'd be in dire straights...then again, I could still last in the fight. On the other hand, there's little a Warrior can do against a Mage 1v1...they're basically fodder. Rogues can own Warriors pretty easily as well. My impression is that most classes come with something to counter a Warrior pretty effectively, and a Warrior has very little in the arena of blocking other classes in the same manner (they do have tools but they don't completely undermine other classes).

[MickeyFinn]

Haaaang on a sec, all he has to do is put on his frost resist gear (easy to get to 80 resist for a warrior if he equips the right suit) and guess what, your frost shock hits him for nil.

Even so, just because a warrior can't kill every other class doesn't mean they need a nerf.

Warrior miss rate? What miss rate. 5% is nothing, really. They aren't a damage doing class, they're a damage taking class. That means they're a group friendly class... I don't think it's fair to compare them in only a solo instance. A pally can't even hold water to skiz for tankage

[]LoL[Harm]

(easy to get to 80 resist for a warrior if he equips the right suit) Well send some my way! I have never seen a peice of resist gear in the 36 levels I've played. Now maybe they saved all them resist gears for the last half of the game. Dunno.

5% is nothingMy cosmo's thing says its 11%. Duel wield I'm closer to 23%. Thats more than 5%.

They aren't a damage doing class, they're a damage taking class. I agree, however this role isn't as useful in PvP. I want to have a semi useful role in PvP other than taking damage. Like, perhaps, taking damage for my squishies.

Now, WoW Dev's, don't agree. Otherwise two of our three talent trees wouldn't be geared towards using weapons and causing damage. Arms and Fury are all about doing more damage and having more crits. I went Protection cause I have my own vision on what a tank is, but this vision and your statement does not agree with WoW's implementation of warriors.


My impression is that most classes come with something to counter a Warrior pretty effectively, and a Warrior has very little in the arena of blocking other classes in the same manner (they do have tools but they don't completely undermine other classes).We have plenty of tools, the problem is we rarely get to use 2/3rds of them due to rage cost or timers. Three of my best skills are on synchronized timers, if I use one of them, all three are timed out for 30 minutes. What sucks though is each has a hefty rage cost and are used in different stances. Now the rage cost could be offset by improving our hit ratio, each hit generates more rage. Lower my miss rate down to 5% as it is already perceived by the above post and I'll be happy. Missing 1 out of every 20 swings would be sweet. But I've missed four times in a row multiple times in a single session (in probably a 4+ hour span of time). These are misses now, not the opponent dodging or parrying or what not. So in those instances I should only miss once for the next 80 swings. That don't happen.

[MickeyFinn]

I'm sorry harm, but level 36 is nothing. Skiz has a full suit of gear that are mass resists. Your complaints I think come from playing a character whose resists are 0-0-0-10-0 or something very similar.

Here is a player crafted version that you will see at a mere level 45.

http://www.thottbot.com/?i=10096
http://www.thottbot.com/?i=3873
http://www.thottbot.com/?i=4202
http://www.thottbot.com/?i=13449
http://www.thottbot.com/?i=6879

I would like to encourage you to hold out on your opinion, and try things out with huge resists at higher level =)

[Riddick]

His opinion though represents the same opinion of the majority of all warriors out there tho including those who are at the end-game level. Everyone has different views on what the root cause of the problem and how to fix it is but I think most can agree there is a problem.

I don't think the point is that he can frost shock one to death either, the point is that there is not much versatility to a warrior, especially in PvP and doing something as simple a stun and chain nuke can take one down fairly easy. Having resists is the common sense solution to a problem but that doesn't solve everything and I am sure once PvP really takes off the NORM will be max resists and spells will be geared around that so that solution gets blown out of the water.

[Aasimon]

When I group with Aguloth (Harm) I affectionately refer to him as my:

5th DOT
or
My 2nd pet.

I think that says it all.

And now he looks less than studly with his foo foo elven headwrap.

[]LoL[Harm]

I'm sorry harm, but level 36 is nothing.
Nothing to be sorry about, they apparently DID make all the resist gear for the second half of the game. Which helps me none at all right now as I try to do my quest in contested lands and constantly get in to PvP action.

And I never have had complaints about people spell chaining me to death. My point above has yet to be refuted as being overpowered or proven to be untrue. Our miss rate as a class that is defined by weapons and armor is too high. I want that 5% you said we have.

[Aasimon]

me too! I hate it when my Warrior DOT misses all the time.

[Murrie]

Murrie the issue I have with that is then Mages would need a big boost to damage. I am not sure what Warrior you played but anytime I ran into a warrior in PvP on my mage they where in melee range within 2 seconds. Now I do not have time to even cast my polymorph before they are on top of me. Warriors are far from fodder at range but they are not a threat at range.

I was talking about the Warcraft RTS games was using it as a overall vision of what i think of as Warcraft combat.

The warrior is the bread and butter of an army. without that strong melee contingent out in front of your archers and mages you have a big disadvantage on the battle field.

When I imaging warcraftian battles they are not a mass of mages, warlocks and priests running around with a smattering of rogues and druids; I imagine a decent rank of melee classes (Warriors Pallies, and Shammys i guess) followed by a mix of archers and casters, with a contingent of rogues flanking or otherwise trying to disrupt the enemy.

Then melee classes get hung up on other melee classes, with the archers and casters raining death into the ranks of the opponents.

The dynamic is very different in WOW though since everything is done on a much smaller scale.

[Murrie]

I think ive hit on something that might help the warrior. If they gave the warrior some type of intercept ability that allowed them to "catch" opponents that are trying to simply bypass the warrior on the way to kill the casters. This gets to the heart of the issue, warriors role in PvP. I dont think they need to do more damage, nor have more hitpoints (although I wouldnt mind if they gave a slight armor bonus to warriors) what they need is a group role in pvp.

2 things might be able to do that.

A. A passive always on ability, some type of native warrior ability that say 25 or 33% of the time a Player or mob running past a warrior gets stunned for a couple seconds. Nothing major, just that little stun that happens when you get hit in the back. Make it automatic, try to run through a warrior to bypass him to get the squishy folk in the back and you just might be stunned and jumped on by the warrior your running past. I would even say make the chance of catching or stunning another melee type class even higher. The range should not be very large (like the warriors melee range) so someone could run around a warriors auto stun - but even that would serve a similar purpose of slowing down a melees rush to smack around the casters in the back and force people to at least think about the warrior before going after the casters.

B. An active ability, probably in the defensive stance that acts similarly to the priests absorb spell; except the warrior would take whatever damage they 'absorb' from the protected person. The Warrior would go into a protection mode, standing close to and i would say in front of the target they are protecting to fend off melee attacks. Couple ways and levels that could be done. The ability could absorb some damage (IE - warrior takes 1/2 of the melee damage directed at protected target as long as he is very close to protected target) or could absorb all damage to a set point (IE - warrior absorbs 100% of all melee damage directed at protected target up to ### damage amount) again as long as he stays very close to the protection target.

Both of course would need to be balanced so as to not be overpowering. Im sure the numbers i pulled out of my ass are not even close to what would have to be implemented in game.

I think both abilities would give the warrior more of a PvP role without drastically altering the class much at all since other than a group pvp role they are pretty well balanced and imho a very good class. It would also cause my vision of the order of battle to be more of a reality.
If warriors have the ability to cause other melee to deal with them, at least for a short period of time before moving onto the squishies in the back, then i think their role in pvp would be exactly what it should be, the front lines of PvP combat between both sides, able to take a large amount of damage as well as dish out a decent amount while trying to protect the softer folk behind them.

[Riddick]

A "hold the line" ability would be sweet, like anyone behind the warrior in a 90degree arc gets either some defensive benefit from the warrior or people attacking the players behind the warrior have reduced abilities to the warrior or something like that.

Wasn't it Final Fantasy that made it so if you taunted a player then you were the only person they could attack for a certain period of time? I don't think that is completely fine but I think it is a step in the right direction.

[Hello]

I love having Harm in my group. We die lots that way, and well I get a sick enjoyment out of a group wipe. Just ask Bum and Pookey >=)

I have to agree with Harm that warriors need a little more definition. I'm not sure what that should be, but it reminds me of when EQ came out. No one wanted to be a warrior because all of the other classes got all the same or better hps/ac/damage but got all the bonuses of being a hybrid class. We almost always had rangers as tanks since they had as much defense and more taunt since they had spells that added lots of taunt. Now I know EQ isn't the best game to compare with WoW, but its all I have really.

What I would love to see is maybe have the taunt skill clear the target's target. Example: if an alliance warrior and mage jumped me I would let the warrior go at me while I owned the mage (Actually I would probably fear or mez, but same idea). If the warrior taunted me it would remove his mage friend from my target and most likely cause him to become my target as I would most likely be hit first by him. That could make taunt a benefit for pvp. It doesn't force you to attack the warrior but it makes it so the warrior is able to protect his friends to a certain extent.

I also have an issue with the way rage works. It frustrated me to know end being a druid in bear form to have to deal with rage. That's part of the reason I'm a warlock. My mana doesn't go away when I stop fighting, quite on the contrary it goes up.

[MickeyFinn]

Be sure to pick up some resistance potions. The 30% ones are really easy to make, I know pox can do em.

There are some great trinkets for warriors, one of them is called [Prismcharm]. It gives a 20% bonus to all resistances for 30s when used, very nice item to have.

[Boom]

Keep in mind that 80 frost resist isn't 80% frost resist.

I learned this because there is a pet that hunters can tame that has 100 resist to everything. When it was first posted about on the hunter boards we were all like, "Omg, this is too good to be true! Where is this pet! I want a pet that is 100% immune to everything!" We soon learned that you can get up to like 250 resist for each thing. So that pet that has 100 resist to everything really has about 40% resist to everything. Still nice but once we realized that, a lot of hunters (including me) decided the pet isn't all that ublar since it does poopy damage and has a slow attack. Its also a really rare spawn so its a pain to find and tame.

[PoxTheSmall]

Be sure to pick up some resistance potions. The 30% ones are really easy to make, I know pox can do em.

Yeah, but who wants 30% resist...they're way too explicit and they don't last long enough. If only they had like a resist all 30% for 1 hour, that'd be much more useful :(

[spyder913]

I think one way that taunt could work in pvp is like Hello said, where the warrior absorbs damage (like intercept in DAoC). So if I was attacking someone, and a warrior taunted me it would either send the next 500 (whatever) damage to the warrior instead, or 50% of the next 1200 damage or something. This would allow them to 'defend' without having to sit next to someone to bodyguard them.

Anything that changes targets (or drops target) is just dumb because it either forces you to target someone you don't want to target or it just forces you to click on the guy you want to hit a lot.

[Coplann]

so, warriors are very dependent on their gear? wow, now thats new. :p

cmon, if you want to run arround in rags and still do good you should reroll as a Warlock or Priest. ;)

playing alliance in the final EU beta I see lots of warriors and am always happy to have one in group. of course, alliance has no shamans either. ;)

[MickeyFinn]

That about sums it up Cop :)

[Riddick]

Fount out that I do have an IWIN button, against other melee classes atleast. Was level 20 and 3 level 16-17 elites jumped me so I hit Retaliation so I counterattack every time they swing at me, owned all 3 in like 8seconds flat. 30 minute cool down tho.

Warriors definatly got some good things and are not broken, but they do need some polishing.

[MickeyFinn]

Try out retaliation, bloodthirst, and last stand. Specialk and Skiz seem to like those, I'm curious if anybody else does

[]LoL[Harm]

Shield block/Revenge is pretty much my bread and butter since I'm protection spec'd.

Retaliation and Shield Wall and the beserker one are on 30 minute refreshers so the warrior doesn't really get to use those as part of his normal tactics.

[SchismakaSkynird]

Yes I do have a full suit of thorium armor with + resists across the board collecting dust in my inventory because-

a) I've tried it on a equal lvl mage and the resist rate didn't sky rocket through the roof
b) I lose ~700 hit points and ~ 15-25 str/agi/sta also my armor drops
c) I don't have a macro made up to switch out all my armor at a moments notice when I see a mage

Basically the trade off isn't worth it, I lose so much stats it takes the mage less mana to kill me then and I can't dish out enough to take him down first.

Warriors do need some <3

Beef up some of our abilities or make us more versatile without haveing to waste points in talents to do our job right!!

Talents should inhance your character not make your character viable in groups/solo/pvp!

This is just my opinion but I've also read alot of the complaints on the warrior forum and I agree with alot of what they are saying. What needs to happen is the dev team needs to focus on one aspect and improve it we just need a little boost in pvp ability. Improving all of all abilities collectilvy might make us *gasp* overpowered but actually saying 'ok warriors could use some work here, but the rest of the class is fine as it' would be a good start. I am of the opinion that stances hinder us more then help! The fact that we have to switch out between stances to be effective is ludacris and on top of that it kills our rage bar unless you spent points on tactical mastery - witch brings me full circle on my point about using talents to be viable.

I think we will get some love though - I have faith! :)

[PoxTheSmall]

Talents should inhance your character not make your character viable in groups/solo/pvp!

That's VERY similar to the argument that a lot of folks had of Tankers in CoH. Basically, they had to all go a cookie cutter route to do their job and be viable...so the devs gave them those abilities for free in the end, and afaik it did well for the class overall, without making them overpowered in the least.

[]LoL[Harm]

Does any other class out there become less effective when purchasing their higher level skills?

I'll do a breakdown here in a little bit about what I'm talking about with a warrior.

[Boom]

Stances seem dumb. I remember when I was first reading the basic description of the classes on the WoW website to get a feel of the game and decide what I might want to roll. Soon as I read about the stances I was like, "Screw that, I'm not rolling a warrior."

[]LoL[Harm]

The life of a protection specialized warrior. Do I even need a trainer? :)

We have 33 Fury skills, 12 are unique the rest are higher ranks.
We have 38 Arms skills, 9 are unique the rest are higher ranks.
We have 16 Protection skills, 8 are unique the rest are higher ranks.

By level 28 you have purchased all your protection skills that you will ever have as a warrior. And over the next 22 levels (11 even levels where skills can be purchased) there are only 8 upgrades and these upgrades only apply to 3 of the 16 skills. So 13 of the protection skills cannot be upgraded. Out of all of the protection skills, only 2 of the 16 actually improve defense any. Shield Block and Shield Wall. And Shield Wall has a 30 minute timer. So we basically have only a single skill in the protection line that improves our defense. And it only has a single rank and is attained at 16th level. Talents do improve this skill, and it does become essential to a protection specialized tank. At full talents I have a 75% chance to block the next 5 attacks over 7.5 seconds. But that’s my only defensive skill I can actively use in every encounter.

So, since many believe our main role is to be a tank, to take the damage, then why do we have only a single skill that enhances that role?

And why, out of our 87 different skills, is there only a single skill dedicated to this supposed main role?

Confuses me.

[Aasimon]

I haven't realy given it alot of thought, so don't see this post as anti-player or anti-warrior.

Maybe those of you who think that a warriors main job is to be a defensive tank are missing Blizzards intended role/direction of the class and their balancing. Blizzard clearly stated from the beginning they were tryng to avoid "Defined Roles" for classes, but instead promote diversity in grouping and creating an environment where every class can "solo."

So wouldn't attributing warriors as THE tank kinda be outside of their goal?

Many times I have seen other classes fill the role of tank without major deficiencies. I've seen Shamans, Druids in bear form, hell.. even myself as a warlock can stand in front of an elite a few levels higher as long as i can lifedrain. The point being here is that to define a class by a specific roll is against what blizzard wanted in its balancing AND promotes constant disection of abilities/rewards/deficiency instead of promoting the exploration of everything a warrior can do, and the situations they can do that in.

Judging by harms post, If they have so few talents available in the defensive line, it would seem obvious that as blizzard planned it, there isn't an end all template for a defensive warrior. It appears that a Warrior MUST diversify. It seems to be the polar opposite of DAOC, wher eyou'd gimp yourself if you went something other than full spec. Here... it seems you should focus, but for a warrior a Full spec would be limiting and/or dissapointing.

I can hear many of you saying "Well I AM THE ONE PLAYING the game, why can't I play the char the way I want to?" There is nothing stopping you from doing that, but your results probably wont meet your expectations.

I want nothing more than Aguloth (Harm) to be able to make the best damn defensive character, Full Defensive, and be able to have the highest AC and best defensive talents and by far be the best tanking char around. But I doubt the warrior as World of Warcraft will ever end up as that type of end all answer.

I think its gonna come down to the Warrior being a potent multitasking force, with a mix of good offensive, good defensive abilities and skills. I see that most successful classes/players in WoW are the ones who find ways to be as useful as possible in every situation, with flexibility. I'd be happy with a char that could drop into a group with reliable above average hps, solid AC, some taunting ability, and some emergency talents.

I read the forums, and it's always the same, for everyclass. There are lots of players complaining about theri class because they can't get <insert class here> to be exactly as they had envisioned/or wanted. So rather than accept the deficiencies or rework their vision, they try to get the class changed. I am NOT saying you guys are this type, In fact I know you aren't. You guys are the thoughtful analytical types. But you guys are eventually gonna get frustrated with the class.

So however you mix all those talents of the warrior, one thing remains, I think there is gonna have to be a mix for a warrior to really shine, and when I mean Shine I dont mean to be the GOD of anything, just to be a class thats as steady as a rock, always ready for combat however it faces them, solo or group.

any way.. thats a long post.

thoughts?

[Figtoria]

I want my hunter to be able to kill anything, anytime, anywhere.

Solo.

When will they right that game?

[PoxTheSmall]

The thing to take note of is that a warrior should have higher AR and defensive rating to be able to stand and take aggro without dying relatively fast, giving the healing classes ample time to heal them, without taking aggro. This central role gives the remaining group members the chance to drop the mob(s) while the warrior just keeps the monster's attention on him/her...that's their role, pure and simple. To say that a warrior is a damage dealer is not false, because they are capable of putting out some good damage, but I'd think a rogue or mage would be better to fill that role.

Other classes fill different roles and some are more designated to be solo classes than others...a tank though, is more of a support toon than anything else, although they CAN solo...

[MickeyFinn]

Aasimon, that was the entire idea with talents. Through talent spec (and choice of what styles/stances to use) a warrior can either go offensive or defensive. It's true what they say about the offensive warrior though, they don't hold water. I mean, if you wanna do 400 damage per second, roll an Axester ;)

[]LoL[Harm]

it would seem obvious that as blizzard planned it, there isn't an end all template for a defensive warrior. It appears that a Warrior MUST diversify.
You can't diversify with the system they have in place, unless you don't want the third rank of abilities down any particular line. They've designed it so you CANNOT diversify if you wish to gain those end talents. Not that I'm complaining one bit about the talents in the protection line, in fact they are to me, the most effective of all Warrior talents and aren't really all that faulty. It is the talents that practically make me effective as a tanking warrior, which is probably true for all classes; your talents make ya what you are. Which is by design I believe.

The last post was just to state that I found it funny that I can effectively never visit my trainer for the remainder of my WoW career with my warrior and he'd still be pretty much as effective as a protection spec'd warrior that did.

I just found it humorous.

[Imass]

I think any problems warriors have can be fixed by doing two things - more hitpoints and more armor.

To explain a bit, it bothers me that a warlock of similar level is only 100 or so hitpoints lower than I am. And when I say similar level, I'm talking of a level 35 warrior.

As far as more armor is concerned, I think warriors should get a higher armor rating for the SAME piece of armor as someone else. If a hunter can wear a helm that has 210 armor, then the warrior wearing the same helm should have a 250 armor rating on it or so on. I know it doesn't sound realistic, but warriors should naturally be able to take more damage than any other class, including paladins.

I don't think that's saying they need to be defined, but it's been the rule in almost any game I've ever played that the fighter/warrior/barbarian class has higher hitpoints and armor than any other, i.e. Diablo II.

I think those would help the warrior class more than any other thing needed, not even new skills. More rage might help, like maybe when you hit 40 it goes up to 200 or so, but then you'd just be running around smacking low level stuff to build up rage before getting into a major fight.

Either way, warriors are, imho, the class most in need of repair in WoW. I love my 35 warrior and of all the other classes I've tried, only druid comes close to warrior as my favorite, (well, warlock, but then again, I've not played 20 levels of warlock, either) but warriors do need a severe looking at and at least a minor overhaul.

I also think warriors were the first class to get 'nerfed' in live game by the change of the berserker stance. 20% more damage and 10% faster attack speed sounds way more "berserk" to me than 10% more damage and 3% better chance to critical hit. I mean, c'mon!

[PoxTheSmall]

At lvl 40, warriors get Plate, and no other class (asside from Paladins, I believe) can wear that, although, Druids can match it with their self buff + bear form.

[Aasimon]

That is actually quite humorous if it works out that way.

I guess I have experienced it somewhat differently from my experience as a warlock. My baseline abilities are what defines me, the Talents are only icing that gives my particular warlock a flare that suits my playing style. My talents dont really define my role in a group or as a character at all. If I went full spec Demonolgy, Affliction, or Destruction I would still function in the same manner.. ie it wouldn't define me.

I am not sure how the points work out... but Wouldnt it be possible to max defensive talent line then spec another line almost halfway? That is what i meant by diversifying.

To be fair I am gonna go spec out a few warriors just so i understand it all a bit more before I make any more comments.

[Aasimon]

LOL ok .. all i have to say is. woah

Yeah, Warrior talents behave like an entirely different beast than what i am used to. Wow they really change the nature of things. I tried to spec around a bit and hmmm..

Its really quite confusing. Its never really clear IF you need an Ability or not. Nothing easy, then again I spent months planning my warlock pre-beta and during.

"Good luck guys" is all I am gonna say on this anymore. I hope you guys get some loving, and I am all for it as long as you dont get my fear taken away.

[]LoL[Harm]

About the skills that get weaker the higher the ranks go:

Hamstring is our snare, at Rank 1 (level 8): 70% slow, 5 damage. At level 32 we get Rank 2, 60% slow, 18 damage. At level 54 Rank 3, 50% slow, 45 damage.

I don't understand why the take away the primary effect and increase a secondary effect. Especially when the secondary effect could completely disappear and the skill would be essentially unchanged. I'm actually wishing I didn't up the rank on my skill. Unlike casters I can't go back to the previous rank of skills. I, in a sense, nerfed myself with my own coin.

Now, everyone knows about channeling right? When you get hit as you channel a skill the little bar backs off a little and delays you finishing whatever you are channeling. Well for some off the wall reason they gave the warriors a channeled attack. Blows my mind why they would give a person who is generally getting whacked a channeled skill (and it's our only one). To boot the skill itself doesn't do anything except a little more damage than our normal attack. Here's it is in a breakdown.

Slam Rank 1 at level 30. Takes 1.5 seconds to cast for 15 rage (15 is a lot).

The 1.5 seconds is ideal (you're not getting hit). At level 30 it does weapon damage + 32 damage. No other effect. Now if you're using a weapon slower than 1.5 then it might be useful (if you're not getting hit a bunch), but we already have a skill that at level 24, Heroic Strike, that does +40 to weapon damage for the same rage cost but it comes in on the next swing. At level 32, 2 levels after slam, it does 52 damage. Both skills are usable in all stances. I guess if you had a full bar of rage, which is rare, and you weren't getting hit that you could spam a slow, but powerful weapon, a bunch of times but that's the only use I can find for it. It would increase it's worth if they just made it take 1.5 seconds to proc, instead of interrupting combat to channel a skill, or make it have a 1.5 sec cooldown since it currently has none. Dunno. Just seems odd.

[]LoL[Harm]

As far as more armor is concerned, I think warriors should get a higher armor rating for the SAME piece of armor as someone else. If a hunter can wear a helm that has 210 armor, then the warrior wearing the same helm should have a 250 armor rating on it or so on. I know it doesn't sound realistic, but warriors should naturally be able to take more damage than any other class, including paladins.We do get this, it's in our defensive talent line and I believe nothing needs to be changed in this area. All armor I wear gives me 10% more armor rating than any other person on the server. I believe our AC issues are fine and that we can tank better than any other class. Most of my complaints are on our miss % and our lack of a good PvP role; and as of late the oddities of our skills.

[Aasimon]

Harm, Reread your hamstring line.

Hamstring (Rank 1)
10 Rage 5 yd range
Instant
Requires Melee Weapon
Requires Battle Stance, Berserker Stance
Maims the enemy, causing 5 damage and slowing the enemy's movement to 70% of normal speed for 15 sec.

That means a 30% snare effect on the target.

Hamstring (Rank 2)
10 Rage 9 yd range
Instant
Requires Melee Weapon
Requires Battle Stance, Berserker Stance
Maims the enemy, causing 18 damage and slowing the enemy's movement to 65% of normal speed for 15 sec.

That means a 35% snare effect on the target.

Hamstring (Rank 3)
10 Rage 9 yd range
Instant
Requires Melee Weapon
Requires Battle Stance, Berserker Stance
Maims the enemy, causing 45 damage and slowing the enemy's movement to 60% of normal speed for 15 sec.

That means a 40% snare effect on the target.

And so on. So it is actually getting better.

[]LoL[Harm]

Sweet! So glad it was just stupid human error on my part, cause it was really not making sense at all.

[Imass]

I think it should be that all warriors have better armor than any other class. Not that we have to use talents for it. Those warriors who want to use protection talents could get an extra bonus, but I don't see why a weapon/armor master should have the same armor as a warlock who shouldn't be geared towards armor anyway.

[Aasimon]

I think it should be that all warriors have better armor than any other class. Not that we have to use talents for it. Those warriors who want to use protection talents could get an extra bonus, but I don't see why a weapon/armor master should have the same armor as a warlock who shouldn't be geared towards armor anyway.

Warlocks have crap armor. Unbuffed I am like 488-500 AC. Buffed maybe 880 or so. Compared to warrior AC of over 3000 and stuffs.

The only thing we can compete with is HPs, but thats just because we focus on stamina as our primary stat most of the time, AND we get an ability that can add 15% more stamina at a cost of 5% of our total spirit.