Warriors, PvP, and Taunt

heartless_ · Post by **heartless_** » Mon Dec 05, 2005 6:50 am

http://www.gamergod.com/article.php?article_id=2984

Originally, I slated this article to be a review of nearly all of the Warrior skills, talents, and the rage system. However, it was definitely apparent that the Warrior class is a sum of its parts and that debating the power of each part was an ineffective way to present my view on the balance of Warriors in WoW PvP.

Warriors are the tanks of World of Warcraft. They are the best damage absorption class in game. To the delight of most warriors, they are also quite capable of producing large amounts of damage. Offensively built and equipped warriors are a force to be reckoned with, and while defensive warriors will not achieve stellar damage numbers, they make up for it in sheer hit points, defense, and the melee advantage in regards to stats.

What is the melee advantage of stats? Basically, it is the simple fact that WoW melee classes benefit much more from each stat point when compared to the caster/hybrid classes. Casters essentially only gain benefits from one stat: intelligence. Melee classes derive an excess of benefits from every stat other than intelligence. Since stats in WoW are determined via gear, it makes sense that the essential melee class, the warrior, would derive the greatest benefit for gear. In essence, a warrior is more about the gear they wear than the skills, abilities, and talents they use.

Warriors are the melee class in World of Warcraft and are completely dependent on the gear they wear. When it is removed, their class skills do not pick up where their gear leaves off. The power of their skills, abilities, and talents are directly defined by the warriors? gear. Almost every other class in WoW receives enhancements in their skills from the gear they wear, but are not dependent on it.

You take away the gear from a rogue, mage, or priest, and they are not completely destroyed. A warrior is not so fortunate. This concept is hard to grasp, but fortunately there has been a great video made that demonstrates the point. It focuses on the Rogue class, but it shows very well the concept of how classes other than warriors are carried by their skills and not their gear. The gear enhances these classes, truly making them better, but the foundation of the class is not the gear.

This is a departure from what I feel is good balance. Warriors that strive towards better gear are becoming terrors on the battlefield. Their skills scale upwards with their gear in a fashion that is greater than the rest of WoW classes. Over time, gear is only going to get better, and in essence, balance is at stake.

Warriors would have faired better if their PvP prowess was defined from their skills. I will use a clear example of what was missed for warriors. The taunt skill allows warriors to direct targets towards themselves to hopefully save fellow group members. However, in PvP it does nothing. This is a key skill that could have helped define warriors in PvP. However, it does not, and warriors are left chasing towards more power and damage through gear.

I will even go a step further and say that taunt would have defined warriors in PvP, if it worked to clear an enemy?s target box. A simple delay of 3-5 seconds before the enemy could re-acquire the removed target would have given warriors a defined roll in PvP. This in no way would of pigeon-holed all warriors into being taunt machines in PvP and nothing else. Warriors would still have the same choices they have now, but they would have had a much more obvious role in PvP, outside of being the person with the most hitpoints, armor, and damage.

Sadly, due to the lack of a defining role in PvP, warriors are delegated into just doing more damage and charging head-first into the enemy. While this is what many warriors may wish to do, there is a piece of that tank title that is lost when warriors are unable to get targets off of their support classes. Blizzard seems more than content to simply increase the power of gear with each and every patch/expansion, therefore further propelling warriors into a *must do more damage* mold. There were opportunities missed to make warriors less gear-dependent and offer the ability for every warrior to have a more clear and concise role in PvP.

Hybuir · Post by **Hybuir** » Mon Dec 05, 2005 9:34 am

However, in PvP it does nothing.

Target aquires Warrior.

Warrior in PvP = Fear Bomb.

Skyfire · Post by **Skyfire** » Mon Dec 05, 2005 11:53 pm

No.

Mages are as gear-dependant as Warriors, if not more so.

Wrong forums anyway. Geez!

Hybuir · Post by **Hybuir** » Tue Dec 06, 2005 11:50 am

Gear dependant would mean that Talent Points for a Warrior, like damanges (for example), only increase "weapon damage+X". Se the Talents > Arms > on Pat's build (http://wow.allakhazam.com/profile.html?456109. Even our skills such as Heroic Strike and Mortal strike are both mellee damage +X. See http://thottbot.com/?sp=11567 HS and http://thottbot.com/?sp=21553

Conversely, the Talent Points for a mage, are more for cooldowns, percent to crits, mana costs, etc... except for damage with wands (up to 5 points). See http://wow.allakhazam.com/profile.html?192185. Their Talent Points are on top of spells, which come with every other level.

heartless_ · Post by **heartless_** » Tue Dec 06, 2005 10:05 pm

Skyfire wrote:No.

Mages are as gear-dependant as Warriors, if not more so.

Wrong forums anyway. Geez!

Watch the video linked in the article (I'm aware its borked atm and I will get it fixed). It is a link to the World of Roguecraft 3 video. It will explain ALOT about stats between melee and casters.

Casters could go naked and be effective. A Rogue can go full grey gear and be effective. Both these classes skills are not gear dependant like a warriors.

However a Rogue gains more out of +stats on gear than mages.

Warriors are unlike either and scale upwards with their gear.

Skyfire · Post by **Skyfire** » Tue Dec 06, 2005 10:23 pm

I know what Roguecraft 3 is about, I just haven't watched it.

I think our notions of gear dependant are different. Gear dependant seems (to you) how many stats you can pack onto an item. Gear dependant to me is how much "x" class can get of "x" stat, for example +damage. At 60, a Mage must have a good +damage / stam suit to do anything. Or +crit/stam. Whatever the case may be, the notion that warriors are more gear dependant than other classes isn't correct.

And don't say you need more than one set of gear. So do Mages. Or Rogues. Or "x" class.

Let's assume something. A Warrior has everything he could want, Pre-MC. A Mage has everything he could want, Pre-MC. This Warrior has an AR, and the Mage has a Rod of the Ogre Magi. Given a single item (e.g, an OEB), the Warrior's DPS will increase dramatically, as compared to the Mage being given a similar item, such as the Staff of Dominance, will not see anywhere to near the same DPS increase. This means the Mage is more gear-dependant than that Warrior.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue Dec 06, 2005 11:39 pm

No it means he is less. He doesnt need a new weapon to do more damage.

Skyfire · Post by **Skyfire** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 12:09 am

You mean, he is more, because he has to collect an entire set to do his job, whereas Warriors/Hunters need 3, maybe 4 pieces.

Vek · Post by **Vek** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 12:55 pm

As a Restoration/Enhancement shaman, I myself am very gear-dependant. At the moment, I have 2 gear sets: healing and DPS. Both of these sets have over 200g invested in them each. They are as follows:

DPS set:
Beaststalker's Cap
Pauldrons of Elements
Frostwolf Legionaire's Cloak
Black Dragonscale Breastplate
Lordly Armguards
Gauntlets of Elements
Cord of Elements
Abyssal Legguards of Striking
Odious Greaves
Bonecrusher (+7 weapon damage)
Rune of the Guard Captain

Adds:
Approx 400 attack power
+8% crit chance
Total of 310 STA/260 STR

Abilities that supplement my DPS set:
Thundering strikes - Increases chance to get a critical strike by 5%
Flurry - Increases attack power by 10% on a critical strike
Improved Lightning Shield - Increases damage done by your Lightning Shield by 15%

Whereas my healing set is:
Beaststalker's Cap (Don't have a healing hat yet)
Blue Dragonscale Shoulders
Cloak of the Cosmos
Blue Dragonscale Breastplate
Bindings of Elements
Dracorian Gauntlets
Cord of Elements
Blue Dragonscale (Pants? Hell, I don't remember the actual name for it)
Odious Greaves
Steel Warhammer (Or something like that.. I got it off a Duke in Silithus the other day, and it increases damage and healing effects done by 11. It's nice.)
Enamored Water Spirit - +27 mana every 2 seconds for 40 seconds

Blue Dragonscale set bonus:
All resistances +4
Increases damage and healing effects done by up to 28.

Hammer adds +11 to healing
Total INT: approx 290-300/SPI: 270

Abilities that enhance my healing abilities:
Mana Tide Totem (Rank 3) - +255 mana every 3 seconds for 12 seconds
Ancestral Fortitude - Increases armor value gained on the target of a critical heal by 25%
Improved Lesser Healing Wave - Your Lesser Healing Wave spell has a 90% chance to avoid interruption from physical damage while casting.

So yes.. I'm very dependant on my equip.

I think I'm going to respec to a 0/21/30 build so I can have Flurry (Rank 5). I think it buffs your attack speed by 25 or 30%.. Which would be nice.

Vek · Post by **Vek** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 1:16 pm

Skyfire wrote:You mean, he is more, because he has to collect an entire set to do his job, whereas Warriors/Hunters need 3, maybe 4 pieces.

On that.. Which would you rather have? A 3.7 attack speed weapon with a 53.1 DPS or have a 3.00 speed weapon with the SAME DPS.. And best of all, Bonecrusher doesn't cost as much as an epic mount to obtain =)

Hybuir · Post by **Hybuir** » Mon Dec 12, 2005 9:44 am

Skyfire wrote:You mean, he is more, because he has to collect an entire set to do his job, whereas Warriors/Hunters need 3, maybe 4 pieces.

You mean do his job well. A warrior's job is to take damage and agro away from squishies. You'll never hear someone say "our mage was horrible and we wiped and disbanded the raid" whereas for Healers/Tanks yes.

Given a single item (e.g, and OEB), the Warrior's DPS will increase dramatically, as compared to the Mage being given a similar item, such as the Staff of Dominance, will not see anywhere to near the same DPS increase.

Mages don't use weapons, they use spells. If you want to compare dps to dps, put up a fury warrior with a fire spec mage. End of story.

Vek · Post by **Vek** » Mon Dec 12, 2005 11:43 am

Mages don't use weapons, they use spells. If you want to compare dps to dps, put up a fury warrior with a fire spec mage. End of story.

My mage is a fire mage. Homigawd, 4300+ crits with teh fireball are in my future. <3

Skyfire · Post by **Skyfire** » Mon Dec 12, 2005 10:30 pm

Vek: You will never see 4.3k crits with Fireball anywhere except for BWL...

Hybuir: Yes, being a bad mage can wipe the raid... It's our job to kill the mobs, and if we don't kill them fast enough, then the healers run OOM, the tanks run OOH, and then they go for the squishies.

I did compare a fury warrior to a fire mage. The fury warrior with the same level of equipment (at or above MC) as a fire Mage... the fury war will win.

But I'm arguing a side-point, which I probably shouldn't be. I felt that he discredited himself with the words he started off. I am all for the fact that Warriors should have the ability to Taunt in PvP.

Vek · Post by **Vek** » Tue Dec 13, 2005 3:06 pm

Look up a video of a gnome mage named Doink.. Or something like that. He's a fire/arcane mage who was busting out 4380 crits in PvP.. Was nuts.

Skyfire · Post by **Skyfire** » Tue Dec 13, 2005 8:12 pm

He's full epiced out.

4300 crits are impossible, and if not that, then only 1/100000 of every Mage will be able acheive that kind of damage...

Vek · Post by **Vek** » Wed Dec 14, 2005 9:18 am

All I can say:

Epic gear
Talisman of Ephereal Power
+ Arcane Power
----------------------------------
4300 crits with fireball

Skyfire · Post by **Skyfire** » Wed Dec 14, 2005 7:49 pm

Ok, that's what I meant by epiced out.

ToEP + ZHC (ZG trinket) + AP + Zerking + lots of plus-damage.

You won't see 4k crits without at least those two trinkets. And not even then...

Vek · Post by **Vek** » Sat Dec 17, 2005 12:30 pm

And I meant Joink, by the way.

I'm working on getting ZHC myself, at the moment.. So nice.

Maulgak · Post by **Maulgak** » Sat Dec 24, 2005 9:57 am

I did not read everything posted as it seemed to get a little off the OP's topic, but to the OP, did you not read in the class descriptions where Warriors (and Paladins I might add) are very gear dependant? Blizzard stated this from the beginning and it is intended. As for the taunting in PvP, I think it's a novel idea, but again, not only warriors are affected here. If they were to somehow change taunts to affect PvP battles, I'd hope that they changed other PvE only skills to be PvP useful as well such as Judgement of Justice for the Paladin. I think it would add more depth/strategy to PvP battles, but I highly doubt that such changes will be made.

Vaisteen · Post by **Vaisteen** » Thu Feb 02, 2006 10:18 am

Warrior in PvP = Fear Bomb.[/quote]

actually i would have to say that for some odd reason preists are pretty savage in PvP