The official release date for Warlords of Draenor (WoD) was Nov. 13, 2014. No there 6.1 patch has landed and a few additional changes were made.
The big change, as far as Warriors as concerned, is just the ten levels and the level 100 talents. Warrior tanks will lose their Vengeance, but will get a replacement, so should be fine. Ah yeah, lots of abilities are going away or being consolidated.
Arms Warriors, with their new Mastery, should actually feel more like Arms Warriors. Ditto Fury and Prot.
So are the changes good? Leave a comment and state your piece.
Skip to: 6.1 changes — Stats — Ability Changes — Arms — Fury — Protection — Talents — Glyphs — Perks
6.1 Warrior Changes
Talents
- Avatar now lasts 20 seconds with a 1.5-minute cooldown (up from lasting 24 seconds with a 3-minute cooldown.)
- Second Wind now increases Leech by 25% (up from 10%.) I guess no one was taking that talent?
- Siegebreaker (Arms, Fury) damage and knockback distance has increased by 50%.
- Slam (Arms) damage has increased by 43%.
General
- Execute damage (for all specs) decreased by 11.4%. (Sob.)
- Shield Barrier now absorbs 24.4% more damage. (Nice.)
- Thunder Clap‘s (Arms, Protection) snare effect now lasts for 10 seconds or 8 seconds while in PvP combat (up from 6 seconds.) (That works.)
Protection
- Improved Defensive Stance now increases armor by 10% (up from 5%).
Armor Sets
- Tier-17 4-piece bonus for Arms Warriors now causes Colossus Smash to generate only 20 rage (down from 30 Rage.)
Changes to Stats
The following changes are not particular to Warriors, everyone is getting them, but they’re still important.
There are some new stats to take note of:
- Bonus Armor: Increases Armor and Attack Power for tanking specializations.
- Dodge and Parry have been replaced with Bonus Armor. If an item had both Dodge and Parry on it, it has been replaced with an additional useful secondary stat.
- Multistrike: Grants a chance for spells and abilities to fire up to 2 additional times, at 30% effectiveness (both damage and healing.)
- Versatility: Increases damage, healing, and absorption done. Reduces damage taken.
- Readiness: At one point there was a “readiness” stat, which reduced cooldown times. Readiness is now dead.
Hit, Expertise, and Reforging are all going away
Bliz has decided that those two stats and the reforging game are “not fun,” so they killing off all three. But don’t worry, you may never miss again. In Warlords all characters will have a 100% chance to hit, 0% chance to be dodged, 3% chance to be parried, and 0% chance for glancing blows, when fighting creatures up to 3 levels higher (bosses included.)
- Dual Wielding still imposes a 19% chance to miss, to balance it with two-handed weapon use. Some abilities might cancel this.
- Unwavering Sentinel now also reduces the chance for attacks to be parried by 3%. All tanking specializations receive a similar ability that provides an additional 3% reduction in chance to be parried. Tank attacks now have a 0% chance to be parried vs. creatures up to 3 levels higher.
Stat Attunements
Warriors, along with all other classes, will be getting a bonus. This will take the form of a 5% boost to your “best” secondary stat, the one that, in Blizzard’s eyes, most improves what you do. It can also act as a guide to those wondering “which stat is best.”
These boosts will take the form of abilities and will add that 5% once you learn them.
Arms: Mastery – via Weapon Mastery at level 90
Fury: Critical Strike – via Cruelty @ level 90
Protection: Mastery – via Shield Mastery @ level 90.
And some other changes: Parry & Dodge
- Each point of Strength now grants 1 Attack Power (down from 2.) All other sources of Attack Power now grant half as much as before.
- Weapon Damage values on all weapons have been reduced by 50%.
- Attack Power now increases Weapon Damage at a rate of 1 DPS per 3.5 Attack Power (up from 1 DPS per 14 Attack Power.)
- Attack Power, Spell Power, or Weapon Damage now affect the entire healing or damage throughput of player spells.
Bliz likes the “Active Mitigation” more than the Parry/Dodge model, so they’re going to do away with a lot of that Parry & Dodge. Items in Warlords of Draenor will not have Dodge or Parry on them as a stat. Some Dodge and Parry can still be gained through class-specific effects.
- The amount of Parry gained per point of Strength has been reduced by 25%. But see Riposte in the Prot. Warrior section, below.
- For you PvPers, the amount of Dodge provided by Agility is also being decreased. Those pesky Rogues and Ferals will now be that much easier to hit.
Haste? For Warriors?
Yeah, Haste. That stat that most Warriors try hard to get rid of. Bliz tried to make it better for Warriors in Mists, but didn’t succeed. So they’re gong to change it up with a new ability.
Blizzard says:
Haste has long been a problematic stat for Warriors, usually being of little value. As part of our commitment to ensuring all secondary stats are valuable (except Bonus Armor for non-tanks and Spirit for non-healers, of course), we’re making a significant change to Warriors, to ensure that Haste has strong, competitive value.
And the new ability is:
- Headlong Rush is a new passive ability for Warrior. Your Haste reduces the global cooldown and the cooldowns of Mortal Strike, Bloodthirst, Shield Slam, and Thunder Clap.
Warrior Abilities Removed and Changed
For Warriors, Bliz focused on removing abilities that were redundant, and making some tweaks to rotations. Redundant and unnecessary ability have been hacked.
- Berserker Stance has been removed.
- Cleave has been removed.
- Demoralizing Banner has been removed.
- Disarm has been removed.
- Flurry has been removed.
- Skull Banner has been removed.
- Sudden Death has been removed.
- Throw has been removed.
- Unbridled Wrath has been removed.
- Vengeance has been removed (See above.)
Ability Consolidation and Refinement
Not only are a number of abilities being removed, other are being restricted to one or another spec and others are being merged. This should help clean up the action bars and the spell books.
- Inspiring Presence is a new passive ability for Arms and Fury Warriors which grants 3% Versatility to the Warrior and all allies within 100 yards.
- Battle Shout now lasts 1 hour and no longer generates Rage.
- Commanding Shout now lasts 1 hour and no longer generates Rage.
- Demoralizing Shout now lasts 8 seconds (down from 10 seconds.)
- Colossus Smash is now Arms only.
- Defensive Stance now reduces damage taken by 20% (down from 25%.)
- Deep Wounds is now available only to Protection Warriors.
- Blood and Thunder’s effects have been merged into baseline Deep Wounds for Protection Warriors.
- Hamstring now costs 10 Rage and deals 20% weapon damage, in addition to the movement speed slow.
- Thunder Clap now costs 10 Rage, and also reduces the movement speed of nearby enemies by 50% for 6 sec.
- Mocking Banner is now available only to Protection Warriors.
- Rallying Cry is no longer available to Protection Warriors.
- Shield Wall is now available only to Protection Warriors.
- Mortal Strike now replaces Heroic Strike for Arms Warriors.
- Whirlwind is now available only to Arms and Fury Warriors.
- Recklessness is now available only to Fury and Arms Warriors.
- Thunder Clap is no longer available to Fury Warriors.
Warrior raid buffs
- Rallying Cry now increases health by 15% (down from 20%), and is no longer available to Protection Warriors.
- Inspiring Presence is a new passive ability for Arms and Fury Warriors which grants 3% Versatility to the Warrior and all allies within 100 yards.
Warrior Crowd Control
There are a lot of changes coming to CC across the board and Warriors get their share of those changes. The actually CC effects are mainly aimed at PvP, but will carry over into certain other aspects of the game. Other bebuff effects, such as “weakened armor” are also included here.
- Disarm has been removed.
- Charge now Roots the target (instead of stunning.) The Root effect does not share a Diminishing Return with other Roots.
- Intimidating Shout now has a 6-second duration in PvP (down from 8 seconds.)
- Safeguard no longer removes movement-impairing effects.
- Warbringer now causes Charge to stun the target for 1.5 seconds instead of rooting it.
- Sunder Armor no longer applies Weakened Armor. (This ability may have been removed?)
- Colossus Smash no longer causes Physical Vulnerability ( and is Arms only.)
- Devastate no longer applies Weakened Armor
Stance Changes
Blis says that “Stances are now more for different gameplay modes (dealing damage vs. tanking.) There shouldn’t be cases where you find yourself swapping stances, use an ability, and then immediately swapping back.”
- Warrior Stances now once again have their own action bars.
- Attempting to use an ability that requires a different stance will now automatically switch to that stance.
- Colossus Smash (now Arms only) now requires Battle Stance.
- Recklessness now requires Battle Stance.
- Sweeping Strikes now requires Battle Stance.
- Shield Barrier is now available for all Warrior specializations (was Protection only) and requires Defensive Stance. For Arms and Fury Warriors, Shield Barrier can be used without a shield.
Arms Warrior Changes
The following changes are intended to bring Arms more into line with what Arms “ought to be.” The cleanup is intended to make Arms more efficient and “deeper,” whatever that might be.
Also, since a lot of little strikes doesn’t seem to be appropriate for two-handed weapon use, on a character intended to SMASH!!! things, the mastery has been changed.
- Mastery: Strikes of Opportunity has been removed, and replaced with a new ability, Mastery: Weapons Master: This ability increases the damage of Colossus Smash, Mortal Strike, and Execute abilities by 20% (increasing with Mastery.)
Removed for Arms: Enrage, Heroic Strike, and Overpower. Arms Warriors should now use Rend and Whirlwind instead.
- Slam has been changed to a level 45 talent.
Other Changes:
- Rend is a new (brought back from the dead) ability for Arms Warriors. Rend causes bleed damage over 18 seconds, and a final burst of bleed damage when the effect expires. Costs 5 Rage.
- Arms Warriors now generate Rage from taking auto-attack damage. Each 1% of health taken as damage will generate 1 Rage, up to 5 Rage per hit.
- Battle Stance for Arms Warriors now generates 115% more Rage from auto-attacks and Critical Strikes now generate double Rage.
- Defensive Stance for Arms Warriors now generates 50% as much Rage from auto-attacks as in Battle Stance.
- Colossus Smash now costs 20 Rage and deals 225% increased damage.
- Execute for Arms Warriors now costs 10 Rage, and consumes up to 30 additional Rage to deal additional damage.
- Mortal Strike now costs 20 Rage (instead of generating 10 Rage.)
- Sweeping Strikes now costs 10 Rage (down from 30 Rage.)
- Seasoned Soldier now increases damage by 10% (down from 15%.)
Fury Warrior Changes
Blizzard has a few thoughts on Fury:
Fury Warriors received a few additional changes. In particular, Heroic Strike has been removed for Fury Warriors, and modified Wild Strike to fill the role of quick excess Rage dump. We also made a revision to the Critical Strike chance of Bloodthirst to make them less crit-dependant. A new glyph has been added which gives Fury Warriors a choice for a notably different playstyle. Auto attack damage had become too high, so we also moved some damage from that into Execute (which has been changed to deal damage based on Weapon Damage, instead of just Attack Power.) In order to make sure that you’re able to spend all of your resources within each Colossus Smash window, we added an extension to it onto Raging Blow. Plus, we’ve updated some to spell alerts to improve usability.
- Bloodsurge’s effects have been merged into baseline Bloodthirst and no longer reduce Wild Strike’s global cooldown. Its spell alert has moved to the top slot instead of the left and right slots, and now has 2 charges (down from 3 charges.)
- Bloodthirst now replaces Heroic Strike for Fury Warriors.
- Bloodthirst now has 30% additional Critical Strike chance (instead of double the normal Critical Strike chance.)
- Wild Strike now has a 0.75 second baseline global cooldown, and costs 45 Rage.
- Crazed Berserker no longer increases auto attack damage. Instead, it also causes Execute to hit with the off-hand weapon. I also increases all damage by 30% (up from 20%) while using one-handed weapons.
- Raging Blow now extends the duration of Colossus Smash by 2 seconds, and has a spell alert on the left and right slots.
- Single-Minded Fury’s effects have been merged into Crazed Berserker.
- Titan’s Grip’s effects have been merged into Crazed Berserker.
- Meat Cleaver’s effects have been merged into baseline Whirlwind for Fury Warriors.
- Piercing Howl is now available to all Fury Warriors as a baseline ability.
Protection Warrior Changes
Vengeance is Dead, But…
Bliz feels that tanks providing “meaningful DPS” to their group is a good thing, but that DPS with Vengeance would vary wildly from fight to fight. So they killed it. This is, however, a replacement:
- Vengeance has been removed and replaced with a new passive ability, Resolve.
- Resolve: This ability adds nothing to DPS, but greatly increases survivability of tanks. It increases self-healing and absorption based on Stamina and damage taken (before avoidance and mitigation) in the last 10 seconds. Without Resolve, Tanks now deal significantly less self-healing and absorption. Resolve has been made much stronger to counteract this, and it increases the amount of self-healing and absorption as appropriate for the fight.
- Mastery: Critical Block now also passively increases Attack Power by 8% (percentage increased by Mastery), in addition to its current effects.
Protection Warriors have received a few notable changes. First, we removed Dodge and Parry from gear, and expect Protection Warriors to value Haste and Critical Strike as important secondary stats. In order to achieve that, we made Riposte give defensive value to Critical Strike. The aforementioned Headlong Rush also helps for valuing Haste.
- Mastery: Critical Block now increases critical block chance by 12% (down from 17.6%.)
- Blood Craze is a new passive ability for Protection Warriors. Blood Craze causes Multistrike auto attacks to trigger a Blood Craze, which regenerates 3% of the Warrior’s health over 3 seconds. When this effect is refreshed, the remaining duration is added to the new effect.
- Riposte has been redesigned. Riposte now gives the Warrior Parry equal to their Critical Strike bonus from gear.
- Shield Block now regenerates a new charge every 12 seconds (up from every 9 seconds.)
- Unwavering Sentinel no longer increases Armor, but now also reduces the chance for attacks to be parried by 3%. (See also: Hit and Expertise Removal.)
- Last Stand now lasts 12 seconds (down from 20 seconds.)
- Shield Wall now lasts 8 seconds (down from 12 seconds.)
- Sword and Board’s effects have been merged into baseline Devastate.
- Ultimatum’s effects have been merged into baseline Shield Slam.
Burst Damage Cooldowns
Stacking cooldowns is a popular activity and Bliz want to knock it back a bit. So they made some changes…
- Skull Banner is dead.
- Heroic Throw is now a high-threat ability, generating 300% extra threat, has a 6-second cooldown (down from 30 seconds), but now has a 15 yard minimum range.
- Recklessness now increases Critical Strike chance by 15% (down from 30%) and increases Critical Strike damage by 10% (up from 0%.)
- Shattering Throw no longer reduces the armor of the target; it only does damage and breaks immunities. It also is no longer learned via any specialization, but instead through a new Major Glyph, Glyph of Shattering Throw.
Talent Changes
A few Warrior talents also were in need of revision. First, Second Wind was problematic; it was sometimes too weak, and sometimes too strong. We chose to change it from a passive health regeneration effect to the new Leech effect, so that low-health Warriors have to maintain combat in order to benefit, instead of kiting, hiding, or otherwise playing defensively. Enraged Regeneration was changed to account for the removal of Enrage from Arms.
The level-45 talent row was removed for crowd-control disarmament reasons, and also wanted to allow you to choose more rotational complexity through talents. We replaced the row with new talents, many of which are specialization-specific, giving you a variety of playstyle choices for your Warrior.
For the level-60 and level-90 Talent rows, certain combinations were proving problematic. We decided that Stormbolt would better compete with Shockwave and Dragon Roar, and that Bladestorm would better compete with Avatar and Bloodbath, so swapped Stormbolt and Bladestorm’s positions. We also adjusted the effects of a few talents in order to make them more competitive with the talents on their row.
Level 30 Talents:
- Enraged Regeneration now heals for 100% more but the amount healed is no longer increased by being Enraged.
- Second Wind no longer directly heals the Warrior while active. Instead, Second Wind grants the Warrior 10% Leech while active, which causes the Warrior to heal for 10% of all damage and healing done by the Warrior while active.
Level 45 Talents:
- Staggering Shout has been removed and replaced with 3 new talents that vary by specialization.
- Arms: Taste for Blood: Each time Rend deals damage, gain 3 Rage.
- Fury: Furious Strikes: Wild Strike costs 15 less Rage.
- Protection: Heavy Repercussions: Shield Slam deals 50% additional damage while Shield Block or Shield Charge is active.
- Piercing Howl has been removed and replaced with a new talent, Sudden Death. Sudden Death causes auto-attack hits to have a 10% chance to make the next Execute free and useable on any target, regardless of health level. These Executes do not consume additional Rage to deal additional damage.
- Disrupting Shout has been removed and replaced with 3 new talents that vary by specialization.
- Arms: Slam: Slam an opponent, causing 100% weapon damage. Each consecutive use of Slam increases the damage dealt by 50% and Rage cost by 100%. Requires Battle Stance.
- Fury: Unquenchable Thirst: Bloodthirst no longer has a cooldown.
- Protection: Unyielding Strikes: Devastate reduces the cost of Heroic Strike by 6 Rage for 6 seconds, stacking up to 5 times. Once this effect reaches 5 applications, its duration will no longer refresh.
Level 60 Talents:
- Stormbolt is now a level-60 Talent, swapping places with Bladestorm.
- Dragon Roar’s damage is no longer reduced when hitting more than 1 target.
Level 75 Talents:
- Mass Spell Reflection’s cooldown has been reduced to 30 seconds, but it now replaces Spell Reflection.
Level 90 Talents:
- Bladestorm is now a level-90 Talent, swapping places with Storm bolt. Bladestorm no longer allows use of Shouts except Demoralizing Shout while active. It does still allow the use of Taunt, Enraged Regeneration, Shield Wall, and Last Stand
The Level 100 Talents:
- Talent 1: Anger Management. All specs. Every 15 rage that you spend reduces the remaining cooldown of a number of abilities abilities by 1 sec.
- Talent 2: Ravager: Throw a whirling axe at a location that does damage to all enemies within 8 yards every 1 second for 10 seconds. Also increases your Parry chance by 30% for the duration.
- 3rd Talent
- Arms & Fury get Siege Breaker: Slam the target with your weapon and knock him back and down (for 1 sec.) Replaces Intimidating Shout.
- Protection has Gladiator’s Resolve: Defensive stance damage reduction is improved by 5%. Can choose to go “offensive” by replacing Battle Stance with Gladiator’s Stance. This increases physical damage by 20% and replaces Shield Block with Shield Charge. Raise your shield (a shield is required) and do a short charge towards your opponent. It increases the damage of Shield Slam, Revenge, and Heroic Strike by 30% for 6 seconds. You cannot change in and out of this stance during combat.
Glyphs
One of the interesting glyphs changes is automatically learning some as you level. Just like you do with abilities you’ll learn a few glyphs. You still have to install them, as before. The rest can still be bought from friendly (or greedy) scribes and off the Auction House, as always.
- At level 25, the following Glyphs are automatically learned by all Warriors: Long Charge, Victory Rush, Bloodthirst, Gag Order
- At level 50, the following Glyphs are automatically learned by all Warriors: Fear, Executor
- At level 75, the following Glyphs are automatically learned by all Warriors: Bull Rush, Enraged Speed, Shield Wall
New Warrior Glyphs
We all love new glyphs, right?
- Glyph of Cleave: Your Heroic Strike now hits 2 targets. Note that HS ins now basically “Protection Only”
- Glyph of the Drawn Sword: Each time you parry while Die by the Sword is active, you gain 5 Rage
- Glyph of Heroic Leap: Increases your speed by 70% for 3 sec after using Heroic Leap.
- Glyph of Mocking Banner: Your Mocking Banner (Prot only) now causes creatures to attack the tank specialization player you had targeted when placing the Mocking Banner, instead of attacking you.
- Glyph of Raging Blow: If both of your attacks from a single Raging Blow are critical strikes, then your next Bloodthirst within 10 sec heals for 200% more.
- Glyph of Rallying Cry: While your Rallying Cry is active, you also gain 20% leech, healing you for 20% of all damage and healing you cause.
- Glyph of Shattering Throw: Teaches you the ability Shattering Throw: Throws your weapon at the enemy causing 12 damage or removing any invulnerabilities.
- Glyph of Flawless Defense: You have a 25% reduced chance for attacks against you to be critical strikes while Die by the Sword is active.
Perks
Instead of receiving new abilities post 90 you will get enhancements to existing abilities. These are your Perks. Also, unlike abilities, they are awarded randomly. At level 95 you might have entirely different perks from that other warrior of the same level and spec, though by level 100 they will all be the same.
Perks are learned just like any other ability.
| Arms | Fury | Protection |
|
|
|
Warriors in Warlords PvP
Tank specs (all tank specs) will be somewhat more viable in PvP, come warlords. They’ll still be tough, but will take, and deal, more damage than before.
- Tanks now take 25% additional damage while engaged in PvP combat.
- Resilience is dead, increased health pools will make up for that.
- PvP Power still loves
- Hit and Exp are gone
- CC has been changed, see the changes above for details.