Warrior PvP: The return.

Many of you have been bugging me and asking me to do a new post on my blog! Well I can't just turn around and do a new post about nothing. When I post, it's to QQ dammit! Whine with a some flair that might make you smile, but also, and more importantly makes actual sense so you when you walk away from reading my rant, you might actually agree with me!

So what's the topic this time? WotLK Warrior PvP. First off, on beta I won't even lie about this, I've probably PvPed on a Death Knight far far more then my beloved Warrior class. Their survivability just makes for a far easier and fun experience when you're solo and without a pocket healer. It's like this: I run into a group of 5 people of the opposite faction, pop Icebound Fort to reduce all their damage by 50%. Then when that's over, pop Anti-Magic Shell, for runic power/spell damage reduction/cc immunity. Then before that's over throw down a Death & Decay, periodically fearing everyone who's beating on me(Rogues hate this especially), and right when they think they're about to kill me....I rune tap back for 20% of my health! Then they're like "omg that's down, now she'll die." No, wrong, now I'm gonna pop Vampiric Blood, and Death Strike one of them for 3k, which will then heal me for another 9k. Or maybe I had a Bone Shield up somewhere in that mess of slaughter, or maybe I popped Hungering Cold and froze half of them. Somewhere along the way a healer may show up and save me, but even if that doesn't happen I have the satisfaction of knowing I wasted a good minute+ of their time attempting to kill me(And I probably killed one of them too!). :P

You try to run into...a group of 5 people as a Warrior?...it's the wrong kind of enjoyment. I get stun locked, and one of those fucking mages sees me and starts drooling, so even though I'm already stunned by the Pally or Rogue, the damn mage uses Nova on me anyway, then the nuking comes, and I'm taking 10% more damage the whole time because you're stunned and you can't change stances, and by the time I'm free, I'm not free(Matrix reference), because SOMEBODY in that cluster-fuck of enemies threw a snare on me, and by this time they see I'm free and they're all running away from me while I'm snared, I sadly attempt to intercept and hit somebody before I die horribly, but at least I can take solace in the fact I wasted a good...10 seconds of their time, ahhh the Warrior class, how I love our dependence on a healer to function. At least I have the awesome that is Enraged Regeneration though!

One of the first things you notice in PvP in Wrath as a Warrior, and I mean first things is Hamstring has lost some of it's flare, I'm not going to say EVERY class has a snare reduction talent, but it certainly freakin feels like it. If a Death Knight specs for PvP it's almost a 100% certainty they'll have it, it's the first tier of their Frost tree. Other classes have to go deeper, Warriors have it Tier 3 Protection(Face-palm), Shaman have it Tier 4 Enhancement, Rogues have it Tier 5 Assassination(If you can ever hit one to begin with), etc. Your original anti-snare nemesis the Druid/Paladin have their snare removals. You spend an awful large amount of time keeping Hamstring up.

The hamstring problem kind of leap-frogs over to the Taste for Blood problem. Keeping Rend up in PvP is about as much fun as keeping hamstring up in PvP, which is to say it's not really fun to keep up in PvP, it's downright annoying, and the proc isn't as obvious in the heat of PvP as when a target dodges, so it takes some getting used to before you can master the art of Taste for Blood Overpower procs. I think more advanced Warriors who have faster reaction times and the pro gamer crowd would enjoy this talent better then Joe Average Warrior, who will become frustrated every time they realize it proc'd and they missed their window of opportunity for whatever reason.

I do like that they're at least trying to make Battle Stance more viable so I can sit in it instead of Zerker(At least when I'm Arms). By adding Berserker's rage to all stances I don't have to worry about fear as much as before, if they made pummel available in Battle would also be awesome as well, but then you start running into reasons why you ever want to pvp in Berserker save the occasional intercept. I still feel I should never be discourged from switching to one stance from another because I fear the downsides of going into said stance, the only thing that should be going through my mind is "I'll miss taking 10% less damage but.., I'll miss having 3% more crit but...I'll miss rend/overpower spam procage but..." It's sad that if Battle Stance becomes the cat's meow PvP stance it'll only be because it allows the Warrior to do damage and take the same amount of damage as the 9 other classes in the game.

You can choose Axe or Mace or Sword Specilization!.....or just Axe. Sword specilzation is just in a sad state, 6 second cooldown, can't proc off hamstring, it saddens me, I was a career Sword Spec Warrior since WoW Classic...ok I was a tank in WoW Classic, but when I went Arms I was sword! I was sword at the start of BC, yes I admit it, I crafted a bloody Lionheart Champion, I loved swords. I cannot justify using a sword over an Axe at the moment. Axe has far too much consistency and Sword Spec's random sword procs are limited by it's cooldown. Yes, back to back sword procs are rare in BC, but they COULD still happen, now that's an impossibility, and your biggest sword-spec procer in Hamstring is gone. Mace is a bit more consistent, but it's obviously weaker against anything lower then cloth/leather, and arguably equal or greater to the mail->plate crowd(and cuddly bear tanks). It's rather hard to test at the moment because Mace is a bit bugged at the moment and allows me to hit for a cool million+ damage on occasion, but I'm sure there's some math on the subject somewhere out there where at what point Mace or Axe is better, but again Axe is consistent against all 4 armor types, Mace may only be better against 2, so once again Axe is wins out. -_-

This rant actually is alot bigger then I had anticipated, so I'll stop here, and touch up on Bladestorm/Fury in another post soon. :)

Death Knight Envy.

So Jayde started a little thread over in the Death Knight forums about Death Knight survivability here. His argument was basically along the lines of him being able to live for absurd amounts of time with no healer, on the strength of his abilities alone as a survival spec. Oh Death Knights, how I envy you and your "problems". I don't think Warrior and survivability should even be mentioned in the same sentence together, unless you have a healer attached at the hip, but then that's not OUR survivability now is it? For a Warrior, it's not really "How long can I survive?" it's "How long until this person horribly kills me?"

I don't really feel like getting into one giant song and dance about Death Knights vs Warriors because I already did that before here. I also don't have my pocket healer or pocket Druid on beta to get that full "Warrior" experience that makes the class such a "joy" to play. So who's to say how my Warrrior will perform on live right? Now if you'll excuse me I have an arena match to get into vs Warlock/Shadow Priest, that should be fun, survivability don't fail me now!