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The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Fury Talents
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Care and Feeding of Warriors, the column dedicated to arms, fury and protection warriors. Despite repeated blows to the head from dragons, demons, Old Gods and whatever that thing over there was, Matthew Rossi will be your host. Tanking is what we've talked about for the past couple of weeks, so let's switch it back up. DPS warriors come in two varieties, arms and fury, and for the next couple of weeks (depending on if/when patch 4.0.6 comes out), we'll be talking about the talents of each of those DPS trees and what you can use them for. Fury's going first because I despise alphabetical order and all of its works. Do you hear me, alphabet? I do not fear you. Well, except for when I try and spell Cataclysm. I always get the Y and the S flipped around. With some of the fights in Cataclysm being among the most unfriendly to melee DPS of any expansion, it's important to consider that taking survivability and mobility talents can be just as important for PvE as for PvP. So let's take a look at fury and its talents.
One Shots: Whistling up a furious storm
When it comes to fancy mounts, you might think of having a mount that can take passengers, a unique mount you had to work extra-hard for, or perhaps one of the fanciest ones you've seen in the cash shop. However, unless you can harness the power of the weather to get around, we'd say this one stands a chance as being one of the most unique ones out there! Today's stormy EverQuest II picture (and witty title) comes in to us from fellow MMO blogger Araxes, aka Ratwarlock, who writes in to explain: "[Here's a picture of] my Sarnak Fury, crouched atop his magical storm cloud. The Sarnak have some great animations, and the way they peek out from this cloud as they fly along really looks great. It's pretty funny to see one go flying by, too. Of course, no Fury would be complete without a little lightning." One Shots is always on the lookout for more screenshots from readers. If you're playing an MMO we don't often see here, we'd love to hear from you. Just email your screenshot in to us here at oneshots@massively.com along with your name, the name of the game, and a description of what we're seeing. We'll do the rest! %Gallery-112285%
Is comparing your game to World of Warcraft really such a good idea?
Look, it should come as no surprise that World of Warcraft is king of the hill, head of the list, cream of the crop, at the top of the heap when it comes to MMOs. Whatever Blizzard did, it did it at exactly the right time with the right team and the right IP; it was a perfect storm of something. And it did other game developers a favor in that it's now possible for an MMO to do respectable business, even if the numbers don't quite approach WoW's 12 million concurrent subscribers. Naturally, though, there are studios that aren't content with having their own subscribers. They want WoW's, too. And that's a pretty tall order. To that end, they reference WoW in their ad campaigns. But what good does name-dropping the world's most popular MMO in your ad campaign even do? Let's take a look.
The Perfect Ten: The sadistic shopper's list for Black Friday and Cyber Monday
With the holiday shopping season upon us, gamers are hot for great deals and cheap entertainment. As my wife's logic goes, if something is 80% off, you buy it, even if you didn't really want it in the first place. It's the principle of the thing, an automatic 80% dose of smug satisfaction at being a savvy shopper! Not every deal should be pursued, however. Although most video games are playable for years and decades after release, not so with MMOs that have had their service shuttered. It's recently come to my attention that even though these games are completely unplayable -- rendered nothing more than a few cents' worth of a DVD and cardboard packaging -- online retailers haven't kept up with the times and keep these products on the virtual shelves long past their expiration dates. That's not to say you should avoid these products at all cost, because studies show that a large percentage of Massively readers have a sick and twisted sense of humor. What would make a better gift this Christmas than a multi-million-dollar-budget MMO that died a horrible death years before? So don't be the typical gifter who settles for a Blu-ray player or an iPod -- give a package of misery, disillusionment and broken dreams! Hit the jump for 10 items that absolutely belong in your shopping cart if you wish to be feared!
Forsaken World details protector class
Hot on the stiletto heels of their assassin and vampire spotlights, Perfect World Entertainment brings us a brand new Forsaken World class preview focusing on the protector. According to the game's official blog, protectors are "nine feet tall, carry hammers the size of people, and are regularly seen carrying dwarves on their shoulders." Dwarf-tossing references and subtlety-related snarkiness aside, the protectors serve as Forsaken World's tanking class, complete with the usual amenities such as aggro-building taunts and very large pieces of armor. Protectors also make use of a special ability called fury, which gradually charges up over the course of a fight. Theoretically, protectors grow stronger and more dangerous the longer the fight continues. To learn more about the protector class, head over to the class preview at the official Forsaken World blog.
The Old Republic clarifies advanced classes' roles, unveils first two combat ships
Whether you're a groundpounder or a space jockey, The Old Republic is gunning your way, big-time. Fans of either (or both!) aspects of the game have a little more to look forward to this week, as BioWare released additional information on the advanced classes and rolled out the first two starfighters for the public to see. In its recent Fan Friday, BioWare clarified the 16 class specializations by listing each of their top three attributes. For example, bounty hunter players have the choice between powertech or mercenary paths. Powertechs will assume more of a tank role, with flamethrowers and defense shields at the ready. Mercenaries, on the other hand, are to be the ranged DPS version of the class, dealing out the pain with dual guns and missiles. If the recently revealed space combat has you itching to jump into the cockpit, you can check out the first two starships (out of six) that will take pilots through the midst of adrenaline-pumping battles. The Fury is an Imperial interceptor (which looks like a predecessor of the TIE Interceptor), designed with speed and firepower in mind. Its counterpart, the Defender, is a standard Republic corvette that's been upgraded with turbolasers and shields for quick combat missions. Hopefully, we'll find out the remaining four fighters before too long!
The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Fury report card for Wrath
The Care and Feeding of Warriors is about warriors, who hurl themselves into the fray, the very teeth of danger armed with nothing more than the biggest weapons and armored with the absolutely heaviest armor we can find. Hey, we're not stupid, we're just crazy. A couple of months back, I had intended to start a series reviewing each of the warrior specs as they are in current endgame. While I freely admit I got distracted by all the shiny bells and whistles of the beta, the time has come to step away from the looming apocalypse and instead look again at the class as it is right now when you log on. As we established last time, there are no major changes incoming for any of the classes until Cataclysm ships. The way your class plays right now is the way it will play until the pre-expansion patch drops and changes everything. So how does fury rate overall? It's had its ups and downs ... from top of the DPS in Naxxramas to middling in Ulduar and Trial to (finally) near the top again in ICC (at least if you're in the best possible gear, much of which is still leather). Even if you're in merely solid gear, however, fury can put out a serious hurting. I have yet to be less than No. 1 on the DPS charts on any 5-man I've run since I started collecting my 264/277 DPS set. I'm hardly any great shakes as DPS; it's the nature of the spec and how rage, talents and gear all intersect for the fury warrior. A talented fury warrior (again, I make no claims to be particularly talented) can lead the DPS on any fight halfway friendly to him in ICC. Wrath saw fury gain and lose on talents -- for example, the change to Rampage (although a late one) that made it a passive crit aura was a very positive talent change -- and ebb and flow with new gear as each raid dropped.
What will fury do in Cataclysm?
One of the consequences of the proposed radical changes to rage generation and abilities like Whirlwind and Heroic Strike has been that DPS warriors (especially fury) have been sitting around wondering what their rotation will look like in Cataclysm. So this forum thread is of interest to any warrior who enjoys the fury playstyle. Since we know Whirlwind is going to be an ability you use specifically when AoE is the way to go instead of a free extra DPS on trash ability, and HS isn't going to be an on next ability, warriors will be left left with a lot of space in their rotation to fill. What will fill it? Ghostcrawler - Re: Cataclysm Fury Rotation That leaves Fury with Bloodthirst and Slam and Heroic Strike. Heroic Strike will play more of a role since it will require a GCD, but you also may not want to push it every time in low rage scenarios. So we do think Fury will need one more rotational button. The one we are messing with right now is Victory Rush. It feels pretty cool so far, but a lot of things will change with classes over the next several weeks. Not sure yet whether it works better as a proc (like Sudden Death) or something available all the time. source I'd personally like to see Victory Rush become a proc like Sudden Death or Bloodsurge Slams: in fact, it wouldn't be hard to simply add VR to both of those abilities, letting it proc either instead of or at the same time as a Sudden Death Execute or Bloodsurge Slam. You'd need to leave it enough time to not end up wasted a lot, but there's potential there. Ghostcrawler also makes a good point about glyphs and Cataclysm (if you think an ability isn't good because of a glyph or too good because of one, don't assume that glyph will still exist or be in the same form in the future) and again emphasizes the problem with Whirlwind style abilities. While it's good to see them thinking about this, we need more details: how is Bloodsurge going to be affected by losing Heroic Strike spam, for just one concern? Still, I'm hopeful they'll work out the new rotation fairly soon.
The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Fury 101
The Care and Feeding of Warriors is here to hurt things this week. Hurt them, make them bleed, make them die, stand over their corpses and find something else to kill. Hear the warsong hammering in your ears? Let it out. Let it out and show the world your rage. Matthew Rossi knows that sometimes, dead is better. Last week, we talked about Protection. Protection warriors are the tanks of the warrior class, the guys who stand up there and bang on their shields and bang their shields into things ranging the gamut from large horrible squamous tentacle monsters in Old Kingdom to giant walking bone piles in ICC. And that's fine: somebody has to keep the monsters and bosses of the game focused on a hard target so the rest of us can kill it. It's good to see prot warriors alongside bears, walking corpses and daisy picking fancylads doing the tank job. (I kid you paladins because my heart is black and full of envy.) It's good that there are warrior tanks. But that's not you, is it? You haven't read this far because you want to tank. If you did, you'd have clicked that link and been on your merry way. You don't want to tank. You don't want to stand up front and keep monsters attention focused like some kind of giant nursery school teacher for the horrors of Azeroth. No, you don't want to tank. You want to kill things. You want to rip them into bloody gobbets and leave their ruined, looted corpses in your wake. You want to wear two huge weapons crossed on your back and reach up to draw them forth as soon as things get ugly, which can't come soon enough in your opinion. You want to get on up there and rip things heads clean off. You're the kind of person who thinks Grom Hellscream had a good idea but didn't go far enough with it. Come right this way. Fury is the spec for you.
Ashen Verdict strength ring in minor content patch
Bornakk popped onto the forums late Thursday to confirm that Blizzard is planning to add a +strength version to the Ashen Verdict rings in an upcoming mini-patch. The appearance of the four current rings with patch 3.3 caused a minor furor on the forums, with plate DPS being left out in the cold. While there are +strength DPS rings available elsewhere in Icecrown Citadel, there's no replacement for a reputation ring's valuable proc. One of the interesting things about the +strength ring's initial absence wasn't its absence per se, but the reason for omitting it. Apparently the Ashen Verdict choices were a reproduction of older reputation-linked quest items (e.g. Violet Eye and Scale of the Sands rings) that allowed only four choices, and Blizzard wasn't able to get past the programming issues to add a fifth option before 3.3 went live. Well, that's going to get fixed in the upcoming mini-patch, which will also see a few other class-related changes. The date of the patch is still anyone's guess, but we'll keep an eye out for you.
The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Destroyer
The Care and Feeding of Warriors is WoW.com's weekly column for all things angry and clanky. Matthew Rossi writes it, when he's not busy being angry and clanky. Dev Chat Update: While today's post is about fury, it's worth mentioning that in addition to nerfing Shield Block's contribution to Shield Slam, we will supposedly see a threat buff to the ability. Hopefully it's a scaling, and not a static, threat buff, something that adds X threat for every Y block value or something. They'd also supposedly like to add sustained damage to prot for PvE without PvP burstiness, which would be nice if it happened.. Lately I get plenty of tanking action in raids, to the point where I honestly don't want to do it in PuG's. When musing about it the other day I realized that I'm too used to hard modes and progression when tanking: I demand perfection of myself to such a degree that I get tense and stressed over the smallest error in execution. This is possibly admirable (when not taken too far) in a raid setting on a new boss where strategies are being tested and modified constantly and everything's on the razor's edge between being able to pass the checks inherent to the content. It's not when you're PuGging Halls of Lightning for a couple of extra Emblems of Frost. In fact, what can help you get past Rotface is downright madness causing when heading down to Loken. At this point, Loken holds no surprises, and neither does the trash. Being a tanking perfectionist just leads you to tend towards freaking the heck out over stupid crap bored people do, and that's turning the game from fun to a drag for yourself. (It probably does for them, too, but they can look out for themselves.) Lately, I've taken to running the random daily and any 10 mans I PuG on my own as DPS, just to get a break from my own self-imposed desire to try for flawless execution. (I'm not saying I ever accomplish that, by the way, just that I want to.) And I have to say: fury got good again when I wasn't looking.
The dangers of PvP-focused games
The trouble with PvP is... well, there are several problems with PvP. The problems of balance are always there, of course, as they are in every aspect of the game. There are the problems of making PvP both accessible to new players and rewarding for veterans, their are issues with keeping people engaged in the game without being gimmicky, there are issues with even such little things as how players get equipment. But as Scott Jennings notes in his most recent column, a lot of the problems with PvP-centric games center around perceptions -- both those of the players, and those of the developers. Developers who make PvP-centric games frequently are players of games themselves, of course, and so when they strike off to make a game with "PvP done right" they can sometimes fall victim to tunnel vision regarding their game. (Jennings cites Shadowbane, Darkfall, and Fury as examples here.) But there's also a problem of perception from the player end, as whether or not a class is overpowered often pales in comparison to whether or not the players believe it's overpowered. From Guild Wars to EVE Online, every PvP game has had to contend with these issues, so it would be well-advised to take a look at the full column if you're at all interested in the design of games.
The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Just like it used to be
This week, The Care and Feeding of Warriors chronicles a turn. After 11 months as fury, Matthew Rossi has changed gears and transitioned his role once more. Sometimes you can go home again.I've given fury up for dead. Not because it actually is dead. You can do good DPS with it if you have best in slot gear in every slot, which is par for the course with fury, really... I'm sure we'll see some nerfs heading into patch 3.3 to soft reset fury DPS to keep it below everyone else the same way we did going into Ulduar. But for me, it's not even the fact that you have to gear with a spreadsheet and compete with every other physical DPS class for those few drops that actually have the stats you want, it's the fact that when you do this, you get to follow the exact same stultifying rotation we've had since forever. Fury may or may not be fine, but frankly, it's gotten boring.Bloodsurge can only make up for so much. At least with an Arms spec, while the DPS is slightly less, you get to do fun things. And so my DPS spec is now arms all the way since I have Trial of the Crusader/Grand Crusader gear to support it, a honking great 2h sword (and so far I'm liking the retooled sword spec) and plenty of things to swing it at. Arms is active. You're constantly using abilities, and while it's ultimately almost as predictable as fury when you get right down to it, it doesn't feel like it is. Between keeping your Rend active (letting it fall off then reapplying it for maximum Overpowers), hitting Sudden Death Executes and Slam in between MS and Overpower feels less like a clunky, hit this key then that key then this key rotation and more like you're weaving in attacks.
The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Armor Penetration
This week The Care and Feeding of Warriors finally does that long piece about Armor Penetration. You'll find Matthew Rossi screaming at the moon, caked in his own blood, after plunging into these non-Euclidian mysteries.I've been threatening to write about it for weeks. Thing is, I'm not too sure who I'm threatening, you or me.Armor Penetration has been with us in one form or another for quite a while now. There are abilities like Sunder Armor and Expose Armor that lower armor temporarily, of course, and the rogue talent Serrated Blades. My first conscious exposure to the mechanic was the epic weapon Bonereaver's Edge, which dropped off of Ragnaros. Back then, the mechanic was fairly simple. Bonereaver`s Edge would ignore a certain amount of armor with each proc of an on-hit ability, in this case 700 armor. It could stack up to three times, so in a fight that lasted for long enough Bonereaver`s could maintain an effective -2100 armor debuff on a boss that only applied to the person using it.Effects like this weren`t terribly common in Vanilla WoW. I myself never had a Bonereaver's (Don't cry for me, I did all right on Rag drops if I do constantly brag so myself) and so Armor Pen didn't really impinge on my consciousness. Of course, I was mostly either a tank or an offtank back in the old MC/BWL/AQ/NAXX40 days anyway. Back when you could tank with an arms or fury spec and dinosaurs ruled Un'Goro. (They still do, we just don't go there very often.) So it wasn't until Burning Crusade that I really started to notice ArP.Back in BC, armor pen didn't have rating yet. Enchants like Executioner read "Permanently enchant a Melee Weapon to occasionally ignore 840 of your enemy's armor. Requires a level 60 or higher item." Gear that had armor pen on it told you how much armor it was going to penetrate. Cataclysm's Edge, for instance, just said "Equip: Your attacks ignore 335 of your opponent's armor." What this meant was, when you collected a whole set of ArP gear, all you had to do was add up how much armor you were ignoring. The plus side of this was, it was very simple to understand. The down side? Well, on bosses or classes with low armor (we're talking those annoying skirt wearers who can take half of your health off in one attack that completely ignores armor, you know the ones) reducing up to, say, 3000 armor at level 70 was pretty dang nasty. So they changed Armor Pen to a rating.From there, all our troubles began.
WipEout HD Fury expansion dated July 23, priced
Zico Liu, programmer (and Trophy) on WipEout HD, recently dropped by the European PlayStation Blog to confirm a price and date for the game's latest expansion: Fury. Psychedelic speedsters in Europe can get their greasy mitts on this new content come July 23 for £7.99 (€9.99). US gamers won't miss out, as Fury will also be available on the US store for $9.99 that day. For those of you not in the brightly-colored loop, Fury adds a whole lot of new content, including game types, tracks and ships, to Sony's futuristic racer.Source - Playstation.Blog.EuropeSource - Playstation.Blog [US]%Gallery-64658%
Warrior Q&A Analysis
Well, the warrior Q&A is finally here. if you play a warrior and you were hoping that this would be the beam of sunshine that would fix your issues with the class, I'm sorry to tell you that it probably won't be. This isn't a huge surprise... so far the entire Q&A series has been fairly conservative and this one's no different... but let's go over it anyway.First off, of course, we have the intro to the class, which contains this interesting sentence: The warrior class has been a very tricky one to balance, largely due to the way rage converts into damage (which converts into rage, which converts into damage...), and we haven't completely nailed that design just yet. I think it's fair to say that anyone who remembers Rage Normalization trembles just a little bit when they see sentences like that. It's so very easy to render warriors absolutely impotent by tinkering with our rage generation, so I'm going to say right now that I desperately hope they test whatever changes they make very, very thoroughly.
Class Q&A: Warrior
Just days after the Druid Class Q&A, the blues have seen fit to post the Warrior edition. Look for in-depth analysis from our very own Warrior expert, Matt Rossi, soon. This purpose of this post is to get the news out there to you, dear readers, as fast as possible. Here's my very brief summary: Historically, Warriors have been dominant in tanking and competitive in DPS and PvP. Balance is in a "fairer place" now. Arms and Fury need a "hard look." They are happier with the Prot tree. "Arms is supposed to be about weapons and martial training and feel 'soldierly.' Fury is supposed to be about screaming barbarians in woad." They still want to get rid of stance penalties (like increased incoming damage in Berserker) eventually. In the future, Prot warriors will generate more rage through doing damage. Long-term, they need "a better solution to rage generation." "Block needs to be a percentage of damage blocked in order for the stat to do what we want" (though the frequency of block, and avoidance in general, would probably have to come down to compensate). They want tanks to not ignore DPS stats quite so much. Warriors have too much downtime when leveling. Read on for the full Q&A with Ghostcrawler and friends.
WipEout HD expansion in final testing
According to the PlayStation Europe Blog, WipEout HD's upcoming game-altering DLC, entitled Fury, is in final QA testing. Answering a short list of questions submitted by blog regulars, WipEout HD game director Tony Buckley and producer Paul Tweedle noted the expansion was in the "final phase" of testing and promised release information would be announced (via the PlayStation Blog) after it completes the process. Fury is set to add a laundry list of content, including 8 tracks, 13 ship models and 3 game modes, to the popular anti-grav racer.[Via CVG]
The Care and Feeding of Warriors: The Leveling Warrior in Wrath
I promise we'll get back to our Ulduar guide for tanks and DPS warriors next week. For this week, however, since we're midway through the sixth month of 2009 and we've seen patches up to 3.1 released (and we're waiting on 3.2) I thought it would be a good idea to go back and cover some of the things a leveling warrior might want discussed. We get emails from all kinds of warriors, and so it's only fair to cover the concerns of warriors who aren't raiding Ulduar but rather just setting foot off of the dock in Howling Fjord.Before we get started, though, the upcoming Patch 3.2 changes for Warriors in their current entirety: Armored to the Teeth: This talent now provides 1/2/3 attack power per 108 armor, up from per 180 armor. Try not to get too excited, people.First off, I'm often asked about stats for up-and-coming warriors. We have covered some of these before back in the beta, but the beta was a year ago now and things have been changed and polished. First off, I'm going to link all the posts of interest to a leveling warrior and discuss how they may have changed, and then I'll try and cover some more general advice. Building Up To It covers some target numbers and stats to focus on. I should note that this was written before the changes to Armor Penetration made it much, much better as a DPS stat for warriors: the more ArP you have, the better it is as a DPS stat until you have enough ArP to reduce target armor by 100%. We covered Hit and Expertise in two posts, one for DPS warriors and one for Tanks. The tanking post is still accurate as of 3.1, but the talent changes to Arms and Fury mean that there is currently no talent that reduces chance to dodge for Fury Warriors and Arms has both Strength of Arms for passive expertise and Weapon Mastery. We discussed the dangers of overstacking a stat to the exclusion of other, also necessary stats. Finally, we covered gearing up in a four part post just before Wrath launched Parts one, two, three and four were all published before Wrath itself had actually come out, but they're still reasonably accurate to help your warrior get from 70 to 80, We covered weapons between 70 and 80 too.
The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Patch 3.1.3 and Ulduar Tips
This week has been a heady one for me: I got my four piece Conqueror's Siegebreaker Battlegear on patch day, which was pretty sweet, and then in our second night of raiding this week we finally killed the big brain slug squid monster himself. Combine that with patch 3.1.3 dropping (which meant we had fun times like an announced server shutdown just as we were about to pull Thorim, leading to the fastest Thorim kill I've ever been on) and all in all, it's been quite a week. Heck, I even got to go prot and get some prot goodies like pants and a belt.It was a small patch all in all, so I wasn't expecting huge improvement and I didn't see it. I saw a marginal DPS increase as fury (2 to 300 DPS unbuffed, not too much more fully buffed) and I made sure to compare notes with the arms warrior in our raids, and his DPS was very close to my own. We're still below the other hybrids, but not by as great a margin, so that's nice at least. As for the PvP change to Juggernaut, well, it's painful. Before respeccing prot for my secondary spec for good this week I went out on a Wintergrasp jaunt, and I'll probably never do that again.At least with Heroic Fury I can make a choice about how long I will allow someone to kite me to death. To be fair the Juggernaut change isn't really all that bad, but over the years I've played warriors I've moved from prefering arms as my DPS/PvP spec to being a fury warrior so I'm easier to discourage from arms than I used to be.
