mostly aimed at PvP but some will have an impact on PvE as well.
In Classic the end goal for PvP with my warrior was aiming for 6k unbuffed hp while maintaining a crit chance >25% with a good 2h, preferably an axe for flat 5% crit, like Dark edge of Insanity (Bonereaver’s edge being an exception for obvious reasons). That way I felt i could take on even 1v1 on specs like an ud spriest with 400+ unbuffed sp, geared prep rogues or hunters to name a few.
In SoD the above “strategy” worked to some extent until phase 3. At the moment in a bg I have over 5k self buffed hp in full plate and decent crit and ap with Parasomnia - excellent weapon btw- still my warrior just feels way behind other specs even with a healer. The latter makes me also stray from that idea that warriors will be fine at 60.
My suggestions:
Flaggellation moved to head slot instead of Taste for Blood and changed to something like Cataclysm Colossus smash. Either as armor pen or unchanged 25% dmg increase. It would give some much needed oomph in PvP, create burst windows when we connect to the target and allow us to keep Warbringer. It would untie the dmg bonus from using zerker rage and bloodrage and let us use the abilities strategically. It would also be a nerf to PvE reducing a 24sec continuous 25% dmg increase.
Warbringer is at the moment a must have in PvP. If you’d increase the range on charge, the biggest trade off not picking the rune would be breaking roots or novas. Gone are the days when for example a mage would counterspell us to keep us in combat. Right now with old range on charge and without Warbringer everything counters our opener.
Taste for Blood moved to chest(after increased range on charge) and allow Overpower be used in any stance when procced this way. As a bonus this would also help during leveling to reliably proc overpower.
Or move the rune to waist instead of precise timing and change Bloodsurge to proc off mortal strike. As a rune, Bloodsurge, doesn’t have to favor fury right now.
Second Wind instead of Wrecking crew. For PvE Sword and Board respectively Rampage are enough. For PvP a defensive is much needed considering so many specs stun one way or another. Alternatively (or even both) have Enraged Regeneration function like Frenzied regeneration.
Victory rush could be changed to use rage to heal. It would be an alternative if you’re worried about giving too much to Enrage regeneration as described above and it would allow for counterplay in PvP. It could lead to rage starvation but i have a suggestion for that.
Rage:
Have attacks like Mortal strike, Overpower, Slam cost nothing. Stuff like shouts, Hamstring , Sunder armor, Heroic strike and what i suggested for Victory rush use rage. This would allow us to do dmg as soon as possible when attacking or attacked and still preserve the resource. It would help against shields. Obviously it would be a nerf to PvE dmg.
Autoattacks including crits give a fixed amount of rage and have more, maybe fixed but also constant rage generation when taking damage.
I didn’t mention anything on shield wall and recklessness but the post is already lengthy as it is.
It would need to be a spell reflect that last a few seconds and not eaten instantly by a rank 1 spell. The downside is you should need a sheild so its not oppressive while you go full dps on someone. Adding more tanky utility to warriors will allow them to have a niche outside of a mortal strike bot.
Good point with Spell reflect. The rune would fit the wrist slot imo as a defensive option to Rampage and Sword and Board and while it would be ideal to have it not being consumed by a rank 1 spell, I’d still rather have it then not, even if it would sometimes only buy me 1-2 more seconds.
It doesn’t have to cost that much and if it requires a shield that would be make it balanced enough already.
It is not better now without it even if it would cost 25 rage.
Spell reflect would be useless. Every caster can just deal 2k+ damage the next gcd anyway and whether they reflect themselves or just wait it out makes no difference in the fight’s outcome regardless.
Burst in SoD isn’t tied to cooldowns or easy-to-avoid/predict combos from slow paced setups and casts like a frostbolt shatter in Classic. It just keeps coming the entire time and is often times below 1.5s of cast, if not instant and with little setup required. I guess you could use it to deal with destro locks using chaos bolt, but that’s about it.
At this point PvP barely resembles classic, Spell Reflect wouldn’t do much, I think so as well.
What probably would move the needle in favor of warriors would something like this: Deadly Calm(removes rage on the next 4 abilities, 1 min cd) and Second Wind(TBC version worked fine)
Spell Reflect will be eaten by a single living bomb/moonfire/corruption/shadow word pain…
You try to counter, to buy yourself time even if this sometimes mean a few seconds, to turn the fight in your favor.
A caster could be wary of a warr equipping a shield preemptively to counter an opener.
Think mages proccing fingers of frost into deep freeze or off nova. Warlocks throwing instantly death coil after charge. Hunter scatter into freezing trap.
Wait for last 0,5 sec to trinket that deep freeze and reflect a 2k a frostfire bolt. Just a few examples out of many other possibilities…
Obviously it would be harder to spot against a warrior playing gladiator stance.
I’m a bit surprised you’d rather not have it at all, as if atm we have solid defenses.
I said this in the thread about pvp dmg reduction aura aswell. Warriors rage generation should “ignore” the new pvp dmg reduction aura. So that if you hit for 70 instead of 100 because of the dmg reduction you generate rage as if you hit for 100. Same thing with dmg you take.
I also replied to that thread that i do not think it is a good idea altogether going with a global dmg reduction aura because i think warriors would have to suffer the most from it.
Even if you would generate the same rage, if others still do twice your dmg while also having better defenses than you, what is the point?
So this is the way I would balance Warrior and keep them strong/fun. Normalising rage is a mistake as it will lead them to being rage starved all the time which isn’t a fun playstyle, think TBC Warrior.
Its better the gut or rework all the scaling Runes, Flag and every rune that increases Crit or Damage needs deleted or nerfed so hard no one takes them. Then they keep and add more Runes that Boost Rage regen.
You now have made Warrior permanently Rage capped so they can’t spend rage faster than they are gaining. So now all you have to do is give them some extra abilities to press.
The reason this is easier to balance is now all you have to do is tune their damage on abilities, if its to high you nerf, if its to low you buff and rage isn’t a problem anymore because they always have a 100. Balancing them around 100 rage/infinite rage will mean they will always have buttons to press and can be tuned to not scale infinitely with damage but this requires all there scaling runes to be removed.
It would maybe work better for PvP with your suggestion at the moment, but I think it might make rage as a resource irrelevant in the long run, as being always full rage bar what would be the point of the resource, they might as well just have warrs without it.
I still think it would be better to have certain attacks cost nothing, while others be so to speak rage spenders. This would also imply some decision making when fighting pvp, without being gimped not having rage to be able to retaliate. For example after you got into a fight maybe 5 sec later you have 2 melees training your healer and you only have smth like 20 rage. Do you disarm one of them - maybe the one you consider more dangerous or maybe the one you see popping his cds- or do you aoe fear them both.
All this while you actually do dmg regardless having full rage bar or not.
Also your idea buffing certain abilities might be tricky because at some point with the usual overall power creep some abilities might become silly or even ridiculed but other classes. Imagine for example mortal strike saying weapon damage + 1000 or smth added dmg or do 250% weapon dmg + added; tho i still think a situation like this would be the least of the problems.
