Concise questions seeking Answers (Warrior)

#0 - Dec. 23, 2008, 3:16 p.m.

I acknowledge the fact that trying to read these forums and acquire usefull concerns or information can be a full time job so I am going to list a few questions that hopefully will be answered. This will mostly be from a PVP standpoint as personally I am more then happy with the PVE side of things.

1) Is generating no rage on shielded targets considered to be a balanced mechanic or are possible alternatives being considered?

2) Is it intended for the new Arms tree to be so heavily dependant on RNG or was it maybe taken a bit to that extreme, and if so are there any plans to making the damage from that tree seem more on demand?

3) When comparing overall damage to survivability ratio between the three plate wearing classes (Paladin, Deathknight and Warrior) do you feel that things are balanced?

(In terms of damage capabilitiy physical vs spell for example, survivability is pretty self-explanatory)

4) Are stance restrictions for certain abilities such as 1) Pummel 2) Rend 3) Overpower still considered a functional and desired warrior mechanic? Mostly in regards to Pummel as Arms is lacking a convinient interrupt due to it being balanced around battle stance.

5) Is weapon swapping invoking the GCD while in combat something that is considered to be ok, namely for a class like warriors which rely on frequently switching between a 2 hander and sword and board to use basic functions such as spell reflect, shield wall, and possibly shield bash? This could also help with the issue of Arms not having a readily accessible interrupt if equiping a shield didnt invoke the gcd to interrupt.

6) Is changing charge to a 1 second root mechanic, similar to druids feral bear charge being considered, to help alleviate some of the issues warriors are facing in terms of not landing near their opponent, the stun not landing and lastly by invoking an early DR on stuns?

7) When comparing the damage sacrifice warriros take by equiping their shield and going into defensive stance to up their survivability to a druid going to bear form or a deathknight going into frost presence (which is further being buffed) are things considered balanced?

8) With a resource like rage which can be plentiful or crippling scarce, is the 30 rage transfer between stances (if speced) considered to be a reasonable ammount or are there any considerations of possibly slightly increasing the amount retained through stances?

9) >>Open ended question<< Ultimately I made this last one for you to write anything you think the warrior or general wow community would be interested in. Possibly some insight on future changes that are being considered.

Thanks to those that took the time to read the questions I outlined, feel free to add additional questions you feel that I missed. Please try to keep the questions contructive and try not to resort to simply complaining or demanding things you would like to be changed. If we get enough support we might get some answers to questions I am sure a lot of people are wanting to read.

Ghostcrawler

#38 - Dec. 23, 2008, 7:13 p.m.

Q u o t e:
Hm this is the perfect post for a blue to respond. All good questions that focus on what is expected of the warrior. Great list.

Heh. Well, I disagree. Many of these "questions" are worded in the form of "Why do you do something I don't like?" But I'll give it a shot anyway. :)

Q u o t e:
1) Is generating no rage on shielded targets considered to be a balanced mechanic or are possible alternatives being considered?

It's not something we think is broken. Rage is not an unalienable right. You get it when you hit things. When you hit a shielded target, you aren't hitting them.

Q u o t e:
2) Is it intended for the new Arms tree to be so heavily dependant on RNG or was it maybe taken a bit to that extreme, and if so are there any plans to making the damage from that tree seem more on demand?

we're okay with it for now. Various specs have more or less RNG baked into them. Fire and Frostfire mages are enormously RNG at the moment, but many players are okay with that.

Incidentally, it is usually the Fury warriors I see accidentally pulling aggro.

Q u o t e:
3) When comparing overall damage to survivability ratio between the three plate wearing classes (Paladin, Deathknight and Warrior) do you feel that things are balanced?

I assume you mean dps specs, not tanks? I gather from your question that you think it isn't, so why don't you bring up the specific issue instead of tying to test me on whether I am aware of it? :)

Q u o t e:
4) Are stance restrictions for certain abilities such as 1) Pummel 2) Rend 3) Overpower still considered a functional and desired warrior mechanic? Mostly in regards to Pummel as Arms is lacking a convinient interrupt due to it being balanced around battle stance.

Yes, we like stance restrictions. That is really the major thing that makes stances unique. Despite the changes we made though, I still think Battle Stance is a little neglected and that is something we'll be looking at.

Q u o t e:
5) Is weapon swapping invoking the GCD while in combat something that is considered to be ok, namely for a class like warriors which rely on frequently switching between a 2 hander and sword and board to use basic functions such as spell reflect, shield wall, and possibly shield bash? This could also help with the issue of Arms not having a readily accessible interrupt if equiping a shield didnt invoke the gcd to interrupt.

It's supposed to be a decision on whether to use a shield or not, not something you can macro around. If we wanted you to use spell reflect without a sheild, we would have just done that. (Trivia: we did consider a deep Arms talent to let warriors spell reflect and possibly even bash with a two-hander.)

Q u o t e:
6) Is changing charge to a 1 second root mechanic, similar to druids feral bear charge being considered, to help alleviate some of the issues warriors are facing in terms of not landing near their opponent, the stun not landing and lastly by invoking an early DR on stuns?

You're talking about changing the mechanic just as a work around to technical limitations. That is a last resort if we can't make the tech work the way we want. The movement code in WoW is something we need to update. We are using it a lot more (consider even things like Disengage and Death Grip) than the original architects probably intended. If we can't make it work, then we might change charge.

If we do DR on stuns, it won't be because of warriors. :)

Q u o t e:
7) When comparing the damage sacrifice warriros take by equiping their shield and going into defensive stance to up their survivability to a druid going to bear form or a deathknight going into frost presence (which is further being buffed) are things considered balanced?

Yes. To really benefit from bear form, a druid has to have certain talents. If they have those talents, they probably do not have as many +dps talents. A death knight, like a warrior, gives up a lot of damage by going into Frost Presence. The buff was made because we nerfed abilities like Icebound Fortitude and Bone Shield. You also don't have to use a shield and Defensive Stance together every time. It depends on what you are trying to accomplish.

Now, I'll assume you are wearing plate. I am less sympathetic when warriors wear leather "because it's better for us" and then complain about survivability. :)

Ghostcrawler

#39 - Dec. 23, 2008, 7:14 p.m.

Q u o t e:
8) With a resource like rage which can be plentiful or crippling scarce, is the 30 rage transfer between stances (if speced) considered to be a reasonable ammount or are there any considerations of possibly slightly increasing the amount retained through stances?

This is something we might end up changing. Losing access to certain abilities might be enough. But again, the druid and death knight both pay a resource cost for changing. Remember it is supposed to be a decision, not a test of your reflexes to see how fast you can switch.

Q u o t e:
9) >>Open ended question<< Ultimately I made this last one for you to write anything you think the warrior or general wow community would be interested in.

I'll just throw out a couple of thoughts on warriors, since I haven't done it in awhile.

Protection - very happy with the tree overall. One of our best success stories in LK I think. Still a viable tank, but with some more interesting abilities and actually a better PvP presence. Critical Block and Damage Shield may present scaling problems down the road.

Fury - Titan's Grip is cool overall, though we still worry about whether Fury has enough buttons to push and too much rage. Whirlwind Glyph change should be nice. Might generate too much threat (with no viable dump) when blowing cooldowns.

Arms -- probably the tree that still needs the most love. Some of the new talents are very cool, but mid-tree may be a bit lackluster (we don't want to make the upper tree any more attractive to Fury). Deep Wounds is probably too high a percent of overall damage, but we don't want to nerf it without compensation elsewhere. Sudden Death may be too RNG, but we'll see. Bladestorm + Retaliation can make a nice tank. :)

Ghostcrawler

#125 - Dec. 24, 2008, 7:42 a.m.

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If we do DR on stuns, it won't be because of warriors. :)
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Stuns already have DR's. :( There are 2 types for Warriors, controlled stuns (Charge, Concussion Blow, Shockwave, etc) and proc ones (Imp Revenge talent).

My bad. You said "DR" and I even responded "DR" but what I meant wasn't diminishing returns, but breaking on damage (as fear does now). That is a topic that comes up a lot. My point was that it wouldn't make a big difference on very short stuns like Charge, but it would change being stunlocked quite a bit.

To answrer several other questions, yes I realize the questions were directed at PvP. The poster even said that up front. I mentioned Fury pulling aggro because it suggests their damage may also be pretty RNG if they can't control it better.

RNG in PvP is a pretty big topic. In general you will probably find us more tolerant of random elements than players typically are. Misses, crits and resists are all very random and sometimes those numbers can determine success or failure of a match.

I also feel the need to remind you that we do ban posters when it's warranted. We usually don't draw a lot of attention to it, so it probably doesn't work well as a tactic to dissuade anyone. But it does happen. It is also sad how many repeat offenders there are. Just think twice before you hit that Post button. Any time I don't have to spend on moderation is time I can spend reading.

Ghostcrawler

#136 - Dec. 24, 2008, 8:56 p.m.

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I agree. It feels like GC is deliberately dodging the questions we really want him to answer and feigning ignorance of what is blatantly obvious. Missing happens because of a lack of hit, which can be geared out of. Crits are a controllable form of RNG where we can actually affect how often it happens. Thirst for Blood and Sudden Death are, in my honest opinion, bad implementations for PvP. As I've said, they don't take skill. You just have to get lucky, and while luck does play a part in PvP, it shouldn't be so crucial that it decides the fate of your entire experience in PvP.

Sudden death, behind mortal strike, is the signature specialty of arms. This fact alone frightens me as it's essentially saying that one of my main attacks only activates if I just happen to proc a 9% chance on hit. How can you possibly get better at PvP when your class is focused on gambling for attacks? As I've probably beaten to death already, this doesn't involve skill or careful planning, you can't prepare or set up for it, and you can't expect it to be there for you.

In other words, what we're trying to say is let US control our damage, not a random proc.
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I believe that both abilities were an attempt to make us governed less by gear and more by luck, this is why arms is, currently, strong in PvE, but, and I assure you this will happen, it won't be as good as fury in the long run. Execute and Overpower, the cornerstones of arms PvE don't scale up much with gear, only the chance for them to crit, and a slight bit of damage. Other than that they are governed solely by the role of a dice.

Applying this to pvp, however, doesn't work, because you are applying it to a situation in which you aren't given 5 minutes to set up rend and pound on your target, you need to do damage the MOMENT that mage lets you in close to him.

No, I think I understood the issue in this case (which isn't easy, since so many of these questions are typically written in "gotcha" format). We did want them to be random abilities. It would have been very easy to make them on-demand, but we have also had to nerf a lot of on-demand burst (just ask the Ret pallies). In your mind you are probably envisioning a Sudden Death that does what it does now when you want it to. But in our minds, if we made the ability less random we would also make it hit less hard. That might be a fine trade-off for some warriors. We have discussed making Sudden Death more like mini-Executes. The reason we haven't done that yet is it just waters down the ability. Players might start to think, eh, it's not a ton more damage than MS, so I'll just stick with MS. It is really easy for players to match out abilities when randomness is downplayed.

Incidentally, mage damage (less so Frost, but certainly Fire and Arcane) is very RNG prone at the moment.

Ghostcrawler

#141 - Dec. 24, 2008, 9:05 a.m.

Q u o t e:
Again, he's been doing it since mid-beta.

Ghost, you are either ignorant of, or deliberately downplaying the degree to which arms crests upon the RNG right now.

Two expansions now, you've failed us.

Come on. Do I really need to point out the right and wrong way to post feedback? I came back to check out this thread, and this is what I find. It was a good thread. Let's not let it end up like so many others do. :(

Talk about the class mechanics. Don't talk about Blizzard. Perhaps I need to make that my sig.

Ghostcrawler

#144 - Dec. 24, 2008, 9:13 a.m.

Here. If I need to make an example of someone, let's check out old Obscenitore.

Q u o t e:
GC, the problem with SD as an RNG ability is that unless you're using both HfB and SD it feels like you get proc droughts. When both are in play it feels pretty smooth, the randomness feels quite reasonable. Currently the rend maintenance and overpower usage just aren't super attractive when a pummel and MS maintenance tend to have a greater impact than either (which really a good thing).

Swapping to pummel and risking coming up short on rage for Hamstring and MS (and sunder in some matchups) really does fall into the "meh" category in many PvP situations.

Boom. Clearly stated. Fairly objective. Very specific. Totally logical. No QQ. Nothing about how Blizzard hates warriors or how we didn't implement suggestions. He or she is still ultimately asking for a change, ultimately disgreeing with us. That is totally cool. This is the kind of post we can use. If the forums had a thousand of these, we could use them. I don't even really care if you agree with the guy (or gal) or not, but this is a good post.

Ghostcrawler

#156 - Dec. 24, 2008, 9:58 a.m.

Q u o t e:
*cough zerker stance penalty 10% bs that no other class has to take for their 3% crit aka mages cough*

Was it really that hard to see?

Yeah, it is. I'll try to explain.

I think in the minds of most warriors they say "Would I like to have a 10% percent damage penalty or not? I think not."

But of course that's not the way it would work. If we redesigned the stances it wouldn't be in order to give warriors 3% more crit and 10% more health. That's just a straight buff. What we would likely do is something similar to the death knight presences -- lower your health by 10% and then increase the damage reduction of Defensive Stance and give Battle Stance a tiny bit of damage reduction. (Or maybe Battle Stance would take the same damage as Berserk, but have a more meaningful bonus like movement speed or attack speed). Now your tooltips don't use the word "penalty" so you maybe feel better about them, but the balance hasn't really changed much -- Berserk would be an offensive stance and Defensive would be a defensive stance. Being in Berserk would still be risky.

If instead you're just arguing that warriors are weak and need to be buffed, that's a different issue. But there is no reason we would have to solve that by removing stance penalties.

Ghostcrawler

#369 - Dec. 28, 2008, 5:15 p.m.

I suppose I need to clarify this since it is getting quoted out of context across the Internets.

My comment about Fury pulling aggro was to suggest that they also can be very RNG and burst-heavy and therefore maybe it is a warrior issue and not an Arms issue.

Aside: You may have noticed I do tend to bring up PvP issues in PvE threads and vice versa. My purpose is to gently remind players that despite your individual interests, that we must take both ways to play into consideration whenever we make changes. In my effort to post as much as I am able I sometimes type too quickly, but I'll try to be more clear.

I do have a lot of Arena experience as Arms. I tried Fury a few times but couldn't make it work, though some of the changes in LK were made to address that.

To the cynics in the crowd, I'm afraid you're stuck with me. Snicker about how elite you are if you must, but at the end of the day, if I don't understand your problems they aren't getting fixed. For my part I will make every effort to understand them.

We continue to discuss the direction we want for warrior stances. I will bring up the points you guys have made.