Civil Discussion, Juggernaut nerf.

#1 - Feb. 9, 2011, 9:49 p.m.

Firstly, This nerf is not the end of all things. Warriors will still be represented in arenas and overall playable. realistically we move down from 6 Gap closers a minute to four. but I think with this change there are some things that need to be addressed like:

1.The Usefulness of Heroic Leap.

2.Why the Nerf seems so harsh.

1. I the best quote i can provide to sum up my thoughts towards Heroic Leap is "Don't Have a path not available in your heart". Heroic Leap has the potential to be great, but right now it leaves a lot to be desired. I suppose its only proper to talk about desires before reality; so I would really like to have Heroic leap become easier to use. right now the interface / actual gap closer itself is a little tricky to effectively place. that being said it can be very frustrating when the ability says "you cant use that right now" or "no path available" when you are depending upon it for a gap closer. my desire would be to see either the ability or the interface(which are probably the same) improved. whether it be a stun or a slow or a small root that is applied after we touch down, or simply making the way it is used (point to an area and "Jump" there) better.

Now time for everyones reality, lets start with the reality for warriors. We probably wont see heroic leap improved much past how it is now. and no matter how horrible this nerf may seem it is not that bad. now the reality for our good friends blizzard is that if you want to see warriors remain the Unique and beautiful class they are some of the problems with the class have to be addressed. I did not mention all of them but only the some of the most serious, that is of course in my opinion.

2. Before i make my points as to why this nerf seems harsh, I have to say the for the most part the way the warrior community has responded is abhorrent to me. This is not how I define my class, I do not define warriors as over-dramatic whiners who have a habit for grandstanding. This is not what were about.

But I have to say the nerf feels harsh for a couple reasons. First of all intercept was a crutch we all leaned on, whether or not leaning on it was just is not what i am here to discuss. ultimately if you take a crutch away from someone who can walk he stumbles for a while but he ends up walking away fine. and secondly we leaned on this crutch more than anything else in 1v1,that one gap closer followed by an immediate second ,that is to say in most 1v1 fights we used the crutch to bash people over the head. While blizzard does not balance the game around 1v1, there are a lot of people who rest the fate of their ego on 1v1, and it can be devastating to lose a duel.

Also on a deeper level there are those that feel our lose of mobility was coupled with a net gain of ranged Crowd control, who i am slightly inclined to agree with. But I will admit I am bias in this, I love dueling and that is where this nerf is felt the most.

In conclusion I would like to see the issues above addressed, while I know it is perilous to speak too early, I feel it is something that we as a class deserve.

Daxxarri

Community Manager

#73 - Feb. 18, 2011, 2:31 a.m.

2.Why the Nerf seems so harsh.

Warriors had gotten used to having extremely high mobility. Arms warriors were so mobile that kiting wasn't very effective against them, and their uptime was very high as a result. In fact, we'd arrived at a place where melee in general just had too much up-time on casters, especially healers. Conditions were prompting a move toward more instant cast spells and casting on the move, when we wanted to take PvP back to a place where cast time spells could still have a place on the battlefield. We feel this approach introduces more choices in PvP both for the casters and melee in terms of what abilities to use, when to close the gap, when to make space, what to interrupt, etc. Rather than give casters yet more tools to generate breathing space and perpetuate that arms race, it made sense to take a second look at melee mobility instead.

We understand that you need to be on your target to do your jobs, but it didn’t really make sense to allow close to 100% up time either. On the other hand, we understand that without high up-time warriors might not bring as much to an Arena or Rated Battleground team, and we're adding new utility in a future patch to help address that, though we’re not yet ready to share details.

Going back to the point though, we didn't want to funnel warriors into speccing into Fury, and that was never the intention. While it would be nice if both specs were equally viable for PvP and PvE, we realize that's a tough goal to meet. On the other hand, if Fury is the best spec for both PvP and PvE and Arms is left with nothing, then that's not a great place to be either.

As for some general notes, we do think Arms damage is a little low in both PvP and PvE, and we might adjust that soon. This isn't a solution to current PvP viability issues, and we understand that. I'm just mentioning it because we're on the subject of Arms and it's worth noting. While we’re on the subject of stuff ‘worth noting’, we also don’t like jumping to avoid Charge, so we're examining some potential solutions for that too.

We're not looking at changing the talent trees at the moment, since we’re very happy with both the Arms and Fury trees as well as the results of some of our core mechanics changes, such as normalizing rage, redesigning Heroic Strike and changing stance penalties.

1.The Usefulness of Heroic Leap.

Heroic Leap involves a lot of movement code, which is among the most challenging things we can do in our engine. We wouldn't have included it if we believed that it was useless, or wasn't usually effective. We think it's a cool ability that does offer greater mobility on the battlefield, even if it isn't as useful specifically for closing with a target as intercept or charge are.

It doesn't help us, or you, to just say that it's useless or almost never works on the forums. Heroic Leap functionality is something we're actively working to improve, so if you find yourself consistently unable to find a path to the jump target, when you submit a report let us know when it didn't work, where you were, and what you were trying to do. The more specific and detailed you are, the more tools you give us to make your tools work better.

Daxxarri

Community Manager

#82 - Feb. 18, 2011, 2:53 a.m.

02/17/2011 6:49 PMPosted by Blackclaw
but to suggest that you're happy with the way warriors are when we have no mobility and grip, and our level 85 ability is fundamentally broken, I think is a bit silly.

We're happy with the talent trees themselves in terms of their current structure and content. That's not the same as saying we're completely happy with the current state of warriors in general. "Broken" is also an exaggeration that I prefer to avoid, because it occludes more than it reveals.

Daxxarri

Community Manager

#125 - Feb. 18, 2011, 3:26 a.m.

I don't have any specific replies to make at the moment, but I wanted to drop in to let you know that we're still reading the thread and to thank you guys for the constructive posts.

So, yes, thanks. =)

Daxxarri

Community Manager

#164 - Feb. 18, 2011, 3:58 a.m.

As for some general notes, we do think Arms damage is a little low in both PvP and PvE, and we might adjust that soon. This isn't a solution to current PvP viability issues, and we understand that.

are we talking soon as in "hotfix" soon or soon as in "next tier patch" soon?

It isn't certain, but we're looking at "hotfix soon™" right now.