Warrior PvP Through WotLK
WoW Blogs - Little Ball of Rage Warrior Blog
It hasn't been the easiest of journey's that is for sure!
Since the early early days of PvP warrior has had a basic problem, which is lack of utility. This means we have always required a support class or 9 around us to provide what is missing.
To list our utility in pvp, I have created a few categories. here it is:
Offensive Utility:
Hamstring (worst snare in game)
Intimidating shout (2 minute cooldown)
Shattering Throw (introduced late)
We could include Sunder in here, and it definitely does have it's place. However only really in 2v2 with healer vs healer team.
Hamstring is our bread and butter 'please don't run away from me' ability. The only problem is that at 50% snare it is a bit rubbish compared to all the classes which we hate the most. Rogues have a 70% snare which requires no gcd and constantly refreshes. Mages basically ditto. Shamans, hello frost shock and earthbind! Also > 50%. In an expansion which saw a huge amount of utility normalisation I have often wondered why snares were not normalised. It would single handedly have lifted up warriors in utility and into the realms of more competitive without other classes being 'essential'.
To be clear here, warriors are perfectly viable in PvP/Arena, and have been the whole expansion. The problem is that there is very little freedom in who we play with. While nearly ever other class can basically mix and match to specialise however they want, warrior can not do this. We must have a healer, and we must have something to provide crowd control/dispels. Hence Warrior has lived in the realms of dk/pally/warr and double healer teams. The only other setup which has really been viable is lock/warr/druid which is extremely hard to pull off. So in short, for the majority of warriors in wow through wotlk, Arena has been a pretty horrible place to be.
So to continue.
Defensive Utility:
Shield Wall
Shield Block
Spell Reflect
Intervene
All of these are great abilities no question. The problem is one of cooldowns and the fact that all of this is 'active' defense. In other words, something is required from the user in order for it to be applied.
So to address the first problem, the necessity of equipping a shield for 3 of these 4 is a huge burden for warriors. While every other class with active defense can apply theirs without any significant or notable penalty to their offensive ability, warriors must enter a situation where we kill our own damage completely. So the moment a warrior puts a shield on the game is quite often slipping away uncontrollably, because the opportunity to build pressure in response is gone.
The issue with having only active defense is a very real one. Warriors have only physical damage to their name and can only defend against sustained physical damage in turn. In short, we have only our weapons and armor to keep us alive.
However, all other classes have non physical damage.... problem? I THINK SO! This means that in practice warriors are in fact incredibly squishy.
There are other squishy classes to be sure, but while warrior basically has to soak it up the other classes have a variety of ways of avoiding this damage through their far higher levels of utility.
Attacks
Mortal Strike
Overpower
Execute
That basically covers it!
Mortal Strike is a nice ability and always has been. The problem is that it is mitigated by armor. It is reasonable that the damage not be huge from it, because of the 50% healing penalty. HOWEVER, again, let us compare to other classes....
Warrior has a significant problem with maintaining mortal strike because of the lack of utility which keeps us out of contact time with the target. However:
Rogues: Constant reapplication with no damage penalty.
Mages: Same
Hunters: Can have their damage limited by pressure, but nowhere near to the extent that warriors are.
The necessity of increasing Mortal Strike's damage is one which has been overlooked through LK, which has caused problems in other ways. MS is an essential and non negotiable part of our damage, as without it we may as well stop hitting the target completely. However this necessity is also limiting any opportunity we have for burst. In an expansion where healing has gone somewhat out of control in Arena, a Mortal Strike which hits for 4-5k followed up by an overpower for the same amount simply isn't a big deal when the average heal landing (even through MS) is going to be for similar amounts. Read back up to problems warriors have with snaring targets and it isn't a stretch to keep a target alive vs a warrior.
The change to overpower was a welcome one, not least because it gave another usable attack. The damage is acceptable and the occasional bonus from the debuff is also. However, as with all things warrior related, this must come with the rider of a warrior struggling to stay with a target without significant support from team mates.
So to summarise:
Warrior pvp works!
Warrior pvp is NOT easy to do well, or even half well.
Let's hope certain things are normalised in Cataclysm!
Last Updated on Wednesday, 15 September 2010 21:12 Written by Flanks Tuesday, 14 September 2010 10:28