With 11.0.7 now live, Blizzard is steadily working on the next major patch for World of Warcraft The War Within. Given that 11.1 will mark the start of Season 2, we can expect some massive overhauls to gear, class philosophy and overall PvE and PvP balancing.
Having said that, we will go over the Warrior changes in the recent The War Within 11.1 PTR Development Notes. Keep in mind that these changes are subject to change as more players provide feedback to the dev team.
Table of Contents
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Warrior PvE Changes
Developers’ notes: We feel that Warriors are in a good place overall, however, there are a few places we’d like to make improvements to each spec, and to the class as a whole. Warrior survivability in particular has been a weak point, and Endurance Training competing against powerful throughput nodes in the bottom of the Warrior tree makes it difficult to talent into. We’re combining Endurance Training and Reinforced Plates to put the choice in the second tier, which has more choice against other utility and survival nodes and thus be easier to spend points on. The Weapon Specialization nodes have been increased to 2 points to keep the tree structure and overall talent build costs similar, and the nodes have been rearranged slightly to make the choice about how to access Avatar more distinct for each spec.
- Reinforced Plates is now a 2-point talent that grants 5% Stamina and 5% Armor per point.
- Overwhelming Rage is now a 1-point talent that increases maximum Rage by 30.
- Two-Handed Weapon Specialization (Arms) is now a 2-point talent that grants 3% damage and 2% reduction of damage from area-of-effect attacks while wielding a 2-hand weapon per point.
- Dual Wield Specialization (Fury) is now a 2-point talent that grants 3% damage and 2% movement speed while dual-wielding per point.
- One-Handed Weapon Specialization (Protection) is now a 2-point talent that grants 3% damage and 2% Leech per point.
- Thunderous Words increases your Bleed damage by 20% on affected targets (was 30%).
- Cruel Strikes, Wild Strikes, and the Weapon Specialization nodes have changed positions in the tree.
- Endurance Training has been removed.
Arms
Developers’ notes: Arms Warriors should always feel good about using Mortal Strike when it’s available, so we’re moving damage from the Overpower buff into Mortal Strike and Cleave baseline to open up more rotational and build options.
- Mortal Strike damage increased by 15%.
- Cleave Damage increased by 15%.
- Martial Prowess’ Overpower now increases the damage of your next Mortal Strike or Cleave by 15% per stack, up to 2 (was 30%).
- Bloodborne increases Bleed effect damage by 5/10% (was 7.5/15%).
- Bloodsurge now causes damage from Deep Wounds to have a chance to generate 3 Rage.
Colossus
- Colossal Might is no longer applied by Execute.
Developers’ notes: Using your hard-hitting rotational ability regularly is core to the Colossus playstyle, and Execute applying Colossal Might pushed Colossus away from that during Execute phases.
- An issue causing Demolish’s animation to not correctly play sometimes is now fixed.
Slayer
- Cleave will only trigger Reap the Storm if 3 or more targets are hit.
- Imminent Demise and Death Drive now correctly require the Sudden Death talent to be taken to function.
Developers’ notes: This was an oversight during implementation. Slayers are expected to talent into Sudden Death.
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Fury
Developers’ notes: Fury is overall in a place we are happy with, and we’re taking this opportunity to redesign some talents to keep their effects unique and powerful.
- Titan’s Torment has been redesigned – While Avatar is active Rampage’s Rage cost is reduced by 20 and Bloodthirst’s cooldown is reduced by 1.5 seconds.
Developers’ notes: We want to provide a new option for Avatar to impact Fury’s rotation, and let you make the best use of your Avatar duration with more Rampages and Bloodthirsts. This change will also allow us to maintain Odyn’s Fury as a powerful and signature Fury ability independent of Avatar.
- Reckless Abandon has been redesigned – Activating Recklessness generates 50 Rage and while Recklessness is active, Raging Blow and Bloodthirst are replaced by Crushing Blow and Bloodbath.
- Crushing Blow – A powerful dual-weapon strike that deals 10% increased Critical Strike damage.
- Bloodbath – A powerful attack that applies a Bleed to the target that is extended by its full duration when reapplied.
Developers’ notes: Reckless Abandon has been having an outsized impact on rotations and we’d like to bring the focus of the talent back to Recklessness as well as make Crushing Blow and Bloodbath abilities with unique additional effects.
Slayer
- Imminent Demise and Death Drive now correctly require the Sudden Death talent to be taken to function.
Developers’ notes: This was an oversight during implementation. Slayers are expected to talent into Sudden Death.
Protection
Developers’ notes: Protection Warriors are currently constantly flooded with Rage which undermines rotational defensive decision-making and encourages constant dumping of Rage into Ignore Pain to maximize effectiveness. We’re taking a pass at reducing Protection’s overall Rage generation to make decisions on when and how to spend it more meaningful, without reducing Protection Warriors’ ability to tank effectively.
- Chance to reset the cooldown of Shield Slam from Devastator and Strategist reduced to 20% (was 30%).
- Impenetrable Wall no longer increases Rage generated by Shield Slam.
- Booming Voice causes Demoralizing Shout to generate 20 Rage (was 30).
- Champion’s Bulwark no longer increases the Rage generated by Shield Charge.
- Bloodsurge now causes damage from Deep Wounds to have a chance to generate 3 Rage.
- Violent Outburst has been rebuilt to be easier to understand and track progress towards the next Outburst. Additional Rage generated from Violent Outburst reduced to 50% (was 100%).
- Shield Wall cooldown reduced to 3 minutes (was 3.5 minutes).
- Amount of damage ignored from each use of Ignore Pain increased by 30%.
Colossus
- Colossal Might is no longer applied by Execute.
Developers’ notes: Using your hard-hitting rotational ability regularly is core to the Colossus playstyle, and Execute applying Colossal Might pushed Colossus away from that during Execute phases.
- An issue causing Demolish’s animation to not correctly play sometimes is now fixed.
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Warrior PvP Changes
- New PvP Talent: Berserker Roar – Go berserk, removing and granting immunity to Fear, Sap, and Incapacitate effects for 6 seconds. Also reduces the duration of the next crowd control effect within 15 seconds by 50% on group members within 40 yards. Replaces Berserker Shout.
- Dragon Charge (PvP Talent) has been redesigned – You can now move slightly left and right during its effect. Cooldown increased to 45 seconds (was 20 seconds). Now available to all warrior specializations and overrides Heroic Leap.
- Dragon Charge can no longer be cast while rooted and may be double tapped to cancel early.
- Rebound (PvP Talent) now increases the damage of reflected spells by 100% (was 50%).
- Rallying Cry is now 100% more effective in PvP combat.
- Warbringer (PvP Talent) has been removed.
Arms
- Sharpen Blade (PvP Talent) has been redesigned – Now empowers your next Mortal Strike after you cast Colossus Smash or Warbreaker.
- Storm of Destruction (PvP Talent) now additionally functions with Demolish.
- Master and Commander no longer increases the effectiveness of Rallying Cry by 10%.
- The following PvP talents have been removed:
Fury
- Death Wish now causes you to grow in size with each stack.
- The following PvP talents have been removed:
Protection
- Warpath (PvP Talent) has been removed.
And that covers all of the changes posted so far for World of Warcraft The War Within 11.1. Once Blizzard releases the PTR patch for players to test, we might see even more updates to the class balancing. You can check out the official development notes, here.
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