Class Balance Q&A: Warrior

Sherron asked:

A lot of warriors feel like the stance mechanic is a bit outdated. Are there any plans to make changes to warrior stances in MoP such as giving the passive stance bonuses to each spec or allowing all of the warrior abilities to be usable in all stances? I say the latter because I know a lot of Arms warriors would love the 10% damage boost over the 5% damage boost and 5% damage reduction. Thank you.

Ghostcrawler answered:

At the moment, we are considering Berserker as a +AE damage stance and removing all stance penalties and restrictions. Just use Battle for single-target and Zerk for AE. That isn't set in stone of course.

Landsoul asked:

While playing a Fury Warrior, missing Auto-Attacks when you are counting on the rage from them is unpredictable and frustrating, especially when it happens during an important timing. This random event can mean the difference between performing poorly or amazingly. Saving rage to have decent-sized bank can somewhat provide insurance against this, but sometimes it doesn't provide enough coverage when consecutive misses occur. This is especially prevalent with the slower swings of Titan's Grip. Is it possible to allow Auto-Attack misses to generate a full or partial rage gain as dodges and parries do? To counterbalance, the Rage per speed coefficient could be lowered from 6.5 to say, 6. I'm sure most Warriors would be happy giving up a few rage per swing to have a more predictable resource system.

Watcher answered:

One of the defining characteristics of Rage, as distinct from Energy, is its unpredictability. If you could predict with certainty what your Rage generation over the next X seconds is going to be, then the two resource types become essentially indistinguishable. That said, a dual-wielding warrior should have enough combat events occurring that the randomness is smoothed out in practice, and of course gearing for Hit and Expertise allows players to exert more control over their rage income if they want less variability, potentially at the expense of other stats.

That said, we have some changes in the works regarding Rage mechanics in Mists, including changing some core rotational abilities to actually generate Rage instead of consuming it (in addition to autoattacks). Currently, warriors need to reliably have enough Rage to perform their core rotational abilities at nearly all times, or the result can be very frustrating. However, this doesn't leave much room for Rage generation to grow without resulting in having more than a player can reasonably spend (or a return to constantly hitting Heroic Strike). This may also increase the sense of control you have over Rage generation, while simultaneously allowing us to make Rage itself more valuable and interesting as a resource.

yetifunk asked:

Is intercept being replaced by charge for fury warriors now that its usable in every stance?

Celestalon answered:

With Charge being usable in combat and in all stances, we didn't really see enough difference between Charge and Intercept to keep Intercept around. Instead, we plan to allow you to Charge more often (through talents) to get the same effect.

pewpew asked:

I noticed in one of the screencaps from Blizzcon that Slam was considered an Arms ability. What is going to replace slam for fury warriors?

Ghostcrawler answered:

There is a new attack called Wild Strike. At the moment it is an off-hand attack without Slam's cast time. The Bloodsurge proc then lets you do 3 cheap Wild Strikes on a 1 sec GCD. Wild Strike also has the MS debuff, replacing Furious Attacks.

lordthinktank asked:

How do you plan to balance Titan's Grip and Single-Minded Fury in 5.0? Will Wild Strike now hit with the main-hand as well, and if Deep Wounds is still available to Fury warriors (or all warriors in general and not an Arms-only ability), how do you plan on making that not so not-terribly-great for SMF warriors?

Xelnath answered:

It will activate the appropriate effect based on the item you have equipped.

Jabor Al-Mannai asked:

during blizzcon you said that rogues and warriors will be able to throw their weapons. is it just going to be the throw ability we have now scaled by our main hand weapon dmg ?

Ghostcrawler answered:

Yes. Throw is a base rogue and warrior ability that uses your MH. You can also get Deadly Throw as a rogue talent. Warriors still have Heroic Throw.

Guest asked:

Whats the plan on Blood and thunder and it's heavy use for prot warriors? Is it going to become a prot only spell, a class spell with pvp implications, or is there a new War AoE in the works?

Celestalon answered:

Arms and Protection will both get Blood and Thunder.