Our favorite class was just posted over on the Blizzard Cataclysm forums not too long ago. I'll post the preview and the Q&A, then /discuss. Quote Bornakk:
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will bring with it several changes to class
talents and abilities. Here you will get a glimpse into some of the
changes we have in store for the warrior. The information you're about
to read is not complete, and is only meant to act as a preview for some
of the exciting new things to come.
New Warrior Abilities
Inner Rage (Level 81): Whenever the character reaches a full 100 Rage, he
or she will gain a buff that causes attacks to consume 50% more Rage
and do 15% more damage for a short amount of time. This is a passive
ability so it won't need to be activated by the player. The goal for
this ability is to provide a benefit for hitting max Rage instead of it
feeling like a penalty. However, we also don't want warriors to feel
like they're supposed to pool Rage and do nothing until they hit 100, so
we'll be closely monitoring how this plays out during the beta testing,
and making adjustments as needed.
Gushing Wound (Level 83):
This ability will apply a bleed effect to the target. If the target
moves, the bleed gains an extra stack and refreshes its duration, up to a
maximum of three stacks. The ability is currently planned to have no
cooldown, cost 10 Rage, and have a 9-second duration. Gushing Wound is
designed to be weaker than Rend with one stack, but better with three
stacks, which will be reached when fighting a moving target.
Heroic
Leap (Level 85): This ability makes the character leap at their
target and apply the Thunder Clap ability to all enemies in the area
when they land. Heroic Leap will be usable in Battle Stance and shares a
cooldown with Charge, but the Juggernaut and Warbringer talents will
allow Heroic Leap to be used in any stance and possibly while in combat.
The cooldown for this ability might be longer than the Charge ability,
but it will also apply a stun effect so you can make sure the target
will still be there when you land.
Changes to Abilities and
Mechanics
In addition to learning new abilities, you'll see
changes to other abilities and mechanics with which you're already
familiar. This list and the summary of talent changes below it are by no
means comprehensive, but they should give you a good sense of what we
intend for each spec.
- Heroic Strike will no longer be an "on next swing" attack, as
we are removing this mechanic in Cataclysm. To keep the niche of Heroic
Strike as a Rage dump, it will become an instant attack, but will cost
between 10 and 30 Rage. This ability will not be usable until you have
10 Rage, but if you have more than 10, it will consume up to 30, adding
additional damage for each point of Rage consumed above the base 10.
Other abilities, such as Cleave, Execute, and Maul (for druids) will
work similarly. The goal is to provide players with an option where if
you can't afford the Rage, you don't push the button, but if you have
excess Rage, you can push it a lot.
- Battle Shout, Commanding
Shout, and possibly Demoralizing Shout will work more like the death
knight's Horn of Winter ability. Specifically, these shouts will cost no
resources, generate rage in addition to their current effects, and be
on a short cooldown.
- Whirlwind will hit an unlimited number of
targets, but only for 50% of weapon damage. The intent is for this
ability to be used in multi-target scenarios and not on single targets.
- Overall,
heals cast by players in Cataclysm will be a lower number relative to
players' health than the current game. So to make the Mortal Strike
debuff less mandatory but still useful in PvP, Mortal Strike will reduce
healing by only 20%. All equivalent debuffs, including the Shadow
priest and Frost mage debuffs, will be for 20% less healing. At the
moment we aren't considering giving this debuff to anyone else, though
we will certainly consider PvP utility for historically
under-represented specs that use other mechanics.
- Sunder Armor
will be reduced to three stacks instead of five, and still provide only a
4% reduction in armor per stack. We want to make this debuff easier to
apply and less of a damage swing when it falls off.
New
Talents and Talent Changes
- The Furious Sundering talent in the Fury tree
will make the Sunder Armor ability cause 25/50% weapon damage and reduce
the threat generated by 50/100%.
- The Mace and Poleaxe
Specialization talents in the Arms tree will be removed. These provided
just passive stats, which are not the kinds of talents we want to design
in the future. We will keep the Sword Specialization talent, but it
will be changed to a talent that applies to all types of weapons.
- As
a Fury talent, Booming Voice will increase the Rage generated by
shouts.
- While we like how Titan's Grip plays, we recognize some
warriors liked the Fury tree because of the really fast swings that
dual-wielding one-handed weapons could provide. Therefore, we're
planning to try out a talent called Single-Minded Fury that is parallel
to Titan's Grip and will provide a large boost to the damage of a pair
of one-handed weapons.
- Several talents that reduce the Rage cost
of abilities will be changed to focus on increased damage for those
abilities instead.
- The new Arms talent called Disarming Nature
will make successful disarms cause the target to cower in fear for 5/10
seconds.
- Another new Arms talent called Blitz will make the
Charge ability hit for extra damage. The amount will possibly vary
depending on the distance travelled.
- Improved Pummel, a Fury
talent, will cause a successful interrupt to generate 10/20 Rage.
Mastery
Passive Talent Tree Bonuses
Arms
- Melee Damage
- Armor
Penetration
- Bonus Swing
Bonus Swing: This
is similar to the Sword Specialization talent that is currently in the
game, but Bonus Swing will work on all attacks and with all weapons. You
have a chance to proc a free, instant weapon swing that hits for 50%
damage.
Fury
- Melee Damage
- Melee Haste
- Enrage Intensity
Enrage
Intensity: Every benefit of being enraged is increased. This
includes doing more damage/healing/ etc. from abilities like Bloodrage,
Death Wish, Enrage, Berserker Rage, and Enraged Regeneration.
Protection
- Damage Reduction
- Vengeance
- Critical
Block Chance
Critical Block Chance: As we mentioned
in the stat changes preview, block rating is changing to a chance to
block 30% of a melee swing's damage. Protection warriors have a chance
that the block will be a critical block and block for 60% of a melee
swing's damage instead. There will likely be talents available to push
the amount blocked even higher.
Vengeance: This is a
mechanic to ensure that tank damage (and therefore threat) doesn't fall
behind as damage-dealing classes improve their gear during the course of
the expansion. All tanking specs will have Vengeance as their second
talent tree passive bonus. Whenever a tank gets hit, Vengeance will give
them a stacking attack power buff equal to 5% of the damage done, up to
a maximum of 10% of the character's un-buffed health. For boss
encounters, we expect that tanks will always have the attack power bonus
equal to 10% of their health. The 5% and 10% bonuses assume 51 talent
points have been put into the Protection tree. These values will be
smaller at lower levels. Remember, you only get this bonus if you have
spent the most talent points in the Protection tree, so you won't see
Arms or Fury warriors running around with it. Vengeance will let us
continue to make tank gear more or less the way we do today – there will
be some damage-dealing stats, but mostly survival-oriented stats.
Druids typically have more damage-dealing stats even on their tanking
gear, so their Vengeance benefit may be smaller, but overall the goal is
for all four tanks do about the same damage when tanking.
We
hope you enjoyed this preview, and we're looking forward to hearing your
thoughts and feedback on these additions and changes. Please keep in
mind that this information represents a work in progress and is subject
to change as development on Cataclysm continues.
