A Short History of Warriors

WoW Blogs - Little Ball of Rage Warrior Blog

Last Updated on Friday, 03 September 2010 09:28 Written by Flanks Tuesday, 31 August 2010 08:30

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After my little rage at  generally rude people last week, it occurred to me that I probably should actually post about warriors this week!

With the release of a new class in Cataclysm to replace Warriors (we are being replaced with Warrior) I thought it might be helpful to look back over the 3 packs with a view to discussing not just 'why' the changes are going to be so huge, but also why it is a good thing.

Warriors, since Vanilla, have in fact been a problem class. The reason for this is simple: Rage.

Every other class in the game (bar feral druid in bear form, but that isn't a problem) has a linear power source which dictates their dps scaling. Mana is a finite thing (or at least it should be, but in wotlk it got a little out of control!) which means at some stage it will run out. This requires some sort of management in order to optimise dps. Energy (rogues and feral cats) is infinite, however it is also a fixed regeneration over time and so therefore, again, requires efficient use in order to dps optimally.

Warriors however have Rage, an infinite power source which depends on how hard you hit.... 

It shouldn't take long, once you think about it, to see the problem with this when it comes to scaling. For warriors, we can only hit hard if we hit hard. So the harder we hit, the harder we keep hitting, and pretty soon it all gets stupid. Our gear improves, so we hit harder which in turn allows us to hit harder again.

In short, whereas every other class has a fairly 'linear' scaling on their dps (straight line graph) warriors have a pretty steep curve. We start low and flattish and then suddenly the graph spikes up and just keeps going.

This is not a new phenomenon, it is simply something which for most warriors 'appears' to be new. The first class to record 1000dps (I believe) on Patchwerk in Naxx was in fact a warrior. How many players actually raided the original naxx? Something like 1%. However despite this Blizzard did recognise the problem and so there was a heavy rage normalisation at the start of TBC to scale it back again.

However as long as rage was being generated this way the problem could never disappear. So the proper rage normalisation coming in Cataclysm is definitely overdue from a game perspective.

What are the possible upsides to this from our perspective? After years of basic infinite rage why should we be pleased with this change?

The major reason is balancing. No one likes to see endless tweaking with their class, we like things to be pretty constant from patch to patch. With rage as a more dependable and linear resource, making warriors more balanced as an all around class is finally possible for the first time.

To all those crying 'what about our scaling?!' there shouldn't really be any fear.

Firstly, our linear scaling will allow Blizzard to ensure gearing will keep warriors on a parallel (at least) with other classes in terms of performance improving with gear.

Secondly, there are obviously ways for us to give a little bit of a curve ;) Haste will finally become a fairly desirable stat in late game, instead of a 'oh well, I have everything else now I may as well take Haste' stat. The effect of haste on rage generation will make it quite useful once we have reached our desired amount of Crit/Hit and Expertise.

A finally balanced class which can still perform well? Yes please! Let's do away with the Heroic Strike bug and endless scaling to infinity and beyond. I for one am looking forward to my new class. Sure it will take getting used to, but that is what levelling is for!

Now that things are starting to finalise I anticipate looking at the new changes to warrior abilities and talent trees over the next few weeks. The exploration of this new class shall continue!