Warrior changes in Beta build 8962

So how have warriors fared in the current build? Well, while I'll be going into more detail tomorrow we can cover some specifics now.

The neverending saga of Titan's Grip continues as it now only imposes its melee miss chance penalty on damaging abilities that require a weapon. Bloodthirst's health return has been nerfed from 1.5% of total health to .6%, turning a great soloing ability into a much less great one. In addition, Bloodthirst now requires a weapon, making it useless when you are disarmed and making it clearly affected by the Titan's Grip miss penalty. Trauma is now going to work for all melee critical strikes, including specials. Improved Thunderclap moves from Arms to Prot, and Tactical Mastery moves back to Arms after having been switched to Prot in The Burning Crusade.

For all these changes and more, we shall adjourn to the viewing parlor and discuss. Jump with me, if you will.

First off, Heroic Leap and Justified Killing are just plain gone.

Arms sees some changes: Trauma now works on all melee critical hits including specials, Two-Handed Weapon Specialization is now three ranks with up to 6% making it equivalent to other classes, Iron Will now reduces durations by up to 30% putting it on par with other related nerfs, and the Imp TC/Tactical Mastery switch. Blood Frenzy grants a 3/6% speed increase (I'm not sure if that actually made it into the Beta yet, it does not seem to be listed on the tooltip.)

Fury sees Titan's Grip clarified to affect all damaging abilities that require a weapon to be equipped, and Bloodthirst is nerfed to require a melee weapon (meaning that it is intended to be affected by Titan's Grip's miss penalty) as well as has its healing reduced to .6% of total health. Unending Fury no longer mentions Enraged Assault, reducing rage costs on Slam, Whirlwind and Bloodthirst. Heroic Fury replaces Heroic Leap, remobing any immoblization effects and refreshing the cooldown on Intercept, while Booming Voice is a mere 2 ranks for the same effect, and Armored to the Teeth gives you 1/2/3 strength for each 400 armor, in a clear attempt to make plate more appealing to fury warriors. Honestly, I'll probably grab this talent for any tank I might have.

In protection, Warbringer now incorporates the movement impairing effect clear that used to be part of Safeguard. Vigilance has unlimited charges again. Improved Spell Reflection no longer reduces the cooldown of Spell Reflection, making me a sad panda. Imp TC in protection is a nice move, it now means I'll never need more than 5 in arms as a protection spec warrior. Toughness is reduced to match other classes, granting up to 30% duration reduction to movement impairing effects. In addition, Intervene now also reduces your target's total threat by 10%, which is a nice active threat reduction ability.

In general, things don't change much. Neither Arms nor Fury are really any better, and may be seen as slightly worse depending on how you look at it, while Protection is going to benefit from the new fury talent more than fury itself probably will.