Cataclysm-Rage
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The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Undertuned
The Care and Feeding of Warriors is about warriors, those lovable, squeezable, strokable bundles of pure joy who seethe with a burning inner fire, a rage that can only be quenched in blood. Matthew Rossi tries quenching it in delicious caffeinated beverages. You'd be surprised how often that works. I have to admit that I'm concerned. First off, I'm concerned that I don't have a rival on staff. There's no fun warrior/X rivalry like there is for mages and warlocks, or hunters and everyone else, or rogues and whoever cares about rogues (casters, maybe?). It's hard, as a warrior, to really feel like I'm in a rivalry with the other tanking classes since two of them can heal or transform into a giant turkey or a kitty or a fishing lure or whatever it is paladins turn into (I'm aware paladins don't turn into anything, stop typing) and death knights are just warrior 2.0, and in Cataclysm will be even more so with two DPS trees and a dedicated tanking tree. In the end, the other classes are just sort of there. You can't ignore them and you have to be aware of what they can and can't do, but it's hard to really feel any animosity towards them. Maybe I need to start calling Chase names. I've also been concerned about the changes coming in Cataclysm, and have spent a lot of time thinking about how the warrior class will play and feel once they come in. With armor and stamina differences between plate DPS and other melee coming down, other classes getting boosts to survivability in PvP and PvE, and long time warrior mainstays like Sunder Armor, Mortal Strike, Whirlwind and Heroic Strike/Cleave getting adjustments (as well as rage normalization coming in) the classic advantages of the warrior that counterbalance our deficiencies are being taken out. At first, this had me in a relative fevered pet, a consternation that has since faded somewhat. You see, if gimmicks like Whirlwind are being rebalanced to not be gimmicky, and armor/stamina edges are being reduced, and tanking tools like Sunder are being revamped, and the very mechanics of rage are being rebalanced, it all ends up in the same place: in Cataclysm, warriors will need sizable, sustained single target DPS increases to be viable, both as tanks and as dedicated DPS, because warriors are undertuned. Yes, undertuned. What do I mean by that?
A quick and dirty guide to rage normalization for bears
I started playing after Burning Crusade launched, so I don't have any personal history with the rage normalization fiasco that happened in the transition to BC. I'm told by old warrior hands that it went something like this: Blizzard: We're normalizing rage. Warriors: What does that mean? Blizzard: It means that normally you won't have any. Warriors: ... oh. Right now, all of what we know concerning rage normalization for Cataclysm can be found in this post here. I won't repeat stuff we already know but try to look into how the changes will affect bear tanking. Rossi covered the expected effect on warriors yesterday, and while we share a number of these changes, there are a few wrinkles that I expect will have a specific impact on bears.
Rage normalization in Cataclysm
Straight from the mouth of Bornakk this morning comes some critical news for warriors and druids concerning the rage mechanic in Cataclysm. The short summary: rage is going to be normalized, each auto-attack will give a set amount of rage. This will solve rage starvation at lower levels and make rage an interesting mechanic at the higher tiers of raiding. Some of the major points: Rage [will be] no longer generated based on damage done by auto-attacks. Instead, each auto-attack provides a set amount of Rage, and off-hand weapons will generate 50% of the Rage main hands do. If the attack is a critical strike, it will generate 200% Rage. Haste will accelerate swing times to generate Rage faster. Rage from damage taken will no longer be based on a standard creature of the character's level, but instead will based on the health of the warrior or druid. All "on next swing" attacks in Cataclysm are being removed. Heroic Strike and Maul will be instant swings that cost a variable amount of Rage. Personally, I find the removal of the "on next swing" attacks to be a major change that is long overdue. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out, especially given the years of theory-crafting and playing style that has been devoted to rage management. It's all going to change when Cataclysm comes out. The full statement after the break. This post is currently being edited.
