Choosing what to write a blog is fairly simple: write what you know. Apart from talking about himself in third person, the owner of this blog knew about Warrior Tanking; distinguished from druid tanking, paladin tanking, or even Death Knight tanking. He has been tanking as a warrior practically ever since there was a World of Warcaft, so this was a no brainer. Determined he wouldn’t take anything public unless he could draft out 20 entries, he went on his quest.
Choosing what to write a blog is fairly simple: write what you know. I know about Warrior Tanking; distinguished from druid tanking, paladin tanking, or even Death Knight tanking. I have tanked as a warrior practically since there was a World of Warcaft, so this was a no brainier. I felt the bug, but determined I wouldn’t take anything public unless I could draft out 20 entries. That was done in short order.
Choosing a title for a blog on the other hand can be difficult. I had blog-posts, but no title. A title needs to be catchy, and say a little bit of everything about your blog. There is no ambiguity about, say, World of Matticus. But I wasn’t about to rip off Matt and call this thing “World of Tarsus.”
Fortunately, I had an idea, a synergy between concept (Self-Help/Advice Blog) and humorous anecdote. Warriors, you see, have the lowest Intellect score in the game. I suspect this comes from all of the brain damage we get from taking it to the face all the time. Regardless the reason, this has always resulted in some amount of ribbing. Nothing personal - right? It’s not like we haven’t had the stereotype of the Big Dumb Fighter since the dawn of fantasy gaming.
In case you missed it, part 2 of Eyonix’s World of Warcaft Class Updates reveal had some interesting bits for World of Warcaftwarriors. Most of these seem like they’re designed to address warrior DPS and raid utility, but most of them qualify as fairly sweeping changes to existing class mechanics, particularly for tanks. To cut to the chase, the warrior specific section says:
- Changing stances now has a much reduced cost: you lose a maximum of 20 rage (10 with Tactical Mastery). For example, if you have 100 rage and change stances, you will have 80 rage remaining. If you have 10 rage and change stances, all of your rage is lost. In addition, we may change the penalties associated with some stances.
- You now gain rage when damage done to you is absorbed, such as through a Power Word: Shield.
- Blood Frenzy now causes 2/4% physical damage done.
- Sunder Armor (and similar debuffs) now reduces armor by 4% per application, and is now a single rank. Creature armor has been globally reduced so that debuffed targets should take about the same damage from physical attacks that they did before this change. The net effect should be that this debuff is slightly less mandatory in World of Warcaft PvE and is not disproportionately more powerful against cloth targets in PvP.
- We are also adding increased damage to Arms, possibly through Overpower or Slam.
- We are also looking at granting rage when the warrior blocks, dodges or parries.
Some of these obviously have a pretty major impact on World of Warcaft tanking. So let’s break it down.
“Changing stances now has a much reduced cost: you lose a maximum of 20 rage (10 with Tactical Mastery). For example, if you have 100 rage and change stances, you will have 80 rage remaining. If you have 10 rage and change stances, all of your rage is lost. In addition, we may change the penalties associated with some stances.”
At first this should seem like mostly a buff for DPS warriors, but on a second glance it occurred to me that this may present an interesting opportunity for stance dancing to return to the repertoire of the Warrior Tank. Adding a Whirlwind couldn’t hurt AoE tanking while Thunder Clap and Shockwave are on Cooldown (especially if they decide to remove the damage penalty to Berserker Stance). Overpower might also have a role, especially if you’re hurting for expertise. It basically changes the cost/benefit equation as far as Stance Dancing is considered. I am not even going to start on the already existing practice of using retaliation to get a Threat Boost.
“You now gain rage when damage done to you is absorbed, such as through a Power Word: Shield. “
How long have Warrior Tanks been clamoring for this? I hated how an otherwise great priest ability felt like it was handicapped by our rage generation mechanic. This feeling was doubled with the changes made to the Discipline Tree and the focus on using absorption as a healing strategy. Rage starvation hasn’t been an extraordinary problem in Wrath, like in the past, but I am glad they removed the unstated debuff to priest healing.
“Sunder Armor (and similar debuffs) now reduces armor by 4% per application, and is now a single rank. Creature armor has been globally reduced so that debuffed targets should take about the same damage from physical attacks that they did before this change. The net effect should be that this debuff is slightly less mandatory in PvE and is not disproportionately more powerful against cloth targets in PvP.”
I am going to take Blizzard’s word on this one and assume they will be more careful with this than they were with, say, Hunters recently. I’m not exactly sure what they mean by by “slightly less mandatory in PvE” though. It sure as hell is mandatory for Devastate, weak by comparison that it is. And let us not forget Expose Armor, the red-headed step child of Sunder Armor. I assume that is the “similar debuff” that they are talking about. As long as Sunder is coupled with Devastate, Expose Armor is going to sit unused.
“We are also looking at granting rage when the warrior blocks, dodges or parries.”
If this goes through, it would be a huge buff for those tanks that like to stack avoidance stats. Looking at the big picture, however, it helps to boost the notion that adjusting the amount of avoidance you use depending on the fight should be more viable. It blurs the choice between threat stats and avoidance stats a little. That makes gear choice a little less black and white, but I think will likely be good for Warrior Tanking in the long run. I think the one question that is important, however: does this buff stack with Blessing of Sanctuary?
I had thought they might be done with World of warcaft Warriors Tanks for a little while, after the very little they changed in 3.0.8 - but apparently there’s some excitement left for us yet.