Patch 3.3.3 and Warriors

Long time, no see. I let a fair amount of time pass since I last posted, and this was to allow my guild a little bit more progression into Icecrown Citadel, as well as see where the finalization of Patch 3.3.3 was going to put warriors. So far, we've gotten every sub-boss down on 25 man difficulty, and have come close to downing Professor Putricide and Blood Queen Lana'thel. We have downed everything up to Sindragosa on 10 man.

That being said, I also managed to obtain quite a few gear upgrades since then. I finally crafted my Shadow's Edge, and I also got Cryptmaker to round out my BiS until we down the Lich King. Landsoul has what he considers the ICC BiS gear for both Arms and Fury up on Elitist Jerks, and he has included pre-Arthas and heroic loot as well. If you are progressing as a DPS warrior, take the time to stop and check it out. There is also a link to download his spreadsheet so you can figure out what gear will optimize your damage output with what gear you currently have, and can obtain.

I've also changed what was going to be my PvP Arms spec to Protection to tank for our ICC 10 mans. As it turns out, the recruits we've been getting have been extremely flaky, and I suppose those who are already a part of our core 25 man team that tried out their respective tanking specs just didn't like it enough to volunteer full time as a 10 man raid tank. To be honest, I completely understand that. In Burning Crusade, I leveled my warrior from 1-70 as a tank, and then tanked a few raids as both main and off-tank. It can be extremely difficult, as your actions decide whether or not the DPS and/or healers die or not. Dealing with DPS who explode out of the gate with as much AoE power as they possibly can before you get your Thunderclap or Shockwave down is indeed stressful, and requires a lot of focus and practice to keep your mobs from picking your raid members off like fleas. I've had a nice break from tanking, and seeing as how I have my roots in that role and enjoyed it for a long time, I'm ready to pick up the sword and board and have another go. So with that, let's have a look at Patch 3.3.3a and /discuss.

 
Arms

• Bladestorm: Warriors can now be Disarmed while under the effects of this ability.
• Trauma: The debuff from this talent now lasts 60 seconds, up from 15 seconds.

Fury

• Rampage: This effect is now passive instead of being a proc from critical strikes.

Protection

• Revenge: Damage done by this ability (base and scaling) increased by 50%.
• Thunderclap: This ability now counts as a ranged attack, granting it double damage on critical strikes instead of 150% and ranged miss chance, and still cannot be dodged or parried.
• Improved Revenge: This talent can no longer trigger a stun, and instead causes Revenge to strike an additional target for 50/100% of Revenge's damage.
• Vitality: Now boosts Stamina by 3/6/9%, up from 2/4/6%. Strength and expertise benefits have not changed.

While Bladestorm got a nerf, it's not something all that unexpected. Arms warriors can be shut down by rogues and other warriors. Well, what else is new? The Trauma buff is nice, especially for Arms warriors who are still leveling and are that far down into the tree who might not have a decent amount of crit to keep the old 15 second 'duration' (fixed for McSars, omfg) up constantly. It also helps out druids and some rogues in high mobility fights where the DPS need to leave the boss in favor of survival, allowing their bleed damage to keep ticking. (Lady Deathwhisper and Prince Valanar come to mind.)

The now passive effect of Rampage is nice, but still useless in a raid where there is a feral druid. Since it is passive, you can't proc Enraged Regeneration anymore off of Rampage.

Warrior tanks are a bit beefier with the increased damage and second target hitting ability that Improved Revenge now gives, as well as the flat stamina increase to Vitality. Of course, the Revenge buff only applies to warriors who take the talent in the first place. A lot of raid tank builds, including mine, pass up Improved Revenge and grab Improved Disciplines for the Shield Wall cooldown. Either way, Imp Revenge is still something to consider if you are generally tanking heroics, and/or leveling a Protection Warrior.

Icecrown Citadel Bosses

Lord Marrowgar 

 

Lady Deathwhisper 

 

Gunship Battle 

 

Deathbringer Saurfang

Icecrown Citadel is Serious Business

All in all, I am enjoying the new patch much more than I did the previous one. Icecrown Citadel is a lot more fun to raid than Ulduar, in my opinion. I also kind of love things that have to do with the Scourge, and I believe that's why i still like Naxxramas.

Lord Marrowgar has an awesome looking model, being something Blizzard didn't copy and paste for once. His mechanics on the other hand, are rather simple. He uses an ability called Bone Spike Graveyard that traps people, and other players have to free them before they die from the damage the spikes do. He hits the tanks rather hard, and his chorus ability was taken from Leotheras the Blind in SSC. Bone Storm is just that; he does a Bladestorm like ability and spins around the room, all the while shooting trails of deadly blue fire out towards the casters during the entire encounter.

Lady Deathwhisper isn't all that difficult, but she takes quite a bit of communication. She summons adds which have to be tanked and burned, some by melee, others by casters. Every now and then, she will cast her own form of Death and Decay that players must watch out for, and she has a mana shield that has to be burned down first to actually kill her. After surviving phase 1, players have to watch out for ghosts that chase them periodically in phase 2 (Think those spirits in Sunken Temple.), which is really just a 'pop-heroism-and-burn' phase.

The Gunship Battle, which is the third encounter of the first part of ICC, is perhaps one of the more fun fights that I've encountered in a raid. Being able to put on rocket packs and jump from your airship to the enemy's ship, and back again is what makes the encounter. Also, there is Rocket Bare. We are Alliance, so we start out on the Skybreaker and are intercepted by Ogrim's Hammer, the Horde's airship. A few melee and any offtanks man the cannons on your ship's port side, while the casters in your raid play defense and battle against the enemies boarding. The rest of the melee and a tank hop ships and kill the rocketeers and 'Below Zero' mage that freezes your ships's cannons. 

Deathbringer Saurfang gave us some problems. He works by gaining Blood Power, and using that to execute rather deadly abilities and heal himself. He will put a permanent mark on some people and they will begin to take massive amounts of damage, to the point of having to be raid healed. If they die, he heals himself a ton, about 5% I believe. We found it much easier to allow the first marked people to actually die, and heal those up later in the fight when he's close to dying. Melee pretty much get to sit and DPS, much like Patchwerk. Ranged on the other hand have to make sure they are spread at least 12 yards apart, so when he casts Blood Nova, the only one affected will be the one he casts it on, and not anyone standing too close. (Think Kel'thuzad for ranged.) He summons blood beasts that must kited by our hunters and killed by our elemental shamans and balance druids, using their knockback and trap abilities respectively. If the beasts get hit by a melee swing, Saurfang gets 1 Blood Power for every hit.
 
This was the first time I've been able to be among some of the first on my server to clear raid content when it is still new, and I'm glad to have experienced it. In a week or two, Blizzard will release the next part of Icecrown Citadel, and I think I like how they are doing this. We won't be seeing the Lich King until about April, and that works well so players don't get burnt out on this expansion too fast. After all, the Lich King is what the game is all about at the moment, and he deserves a good build up.