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Ready Check: Cataclysm Class Changes and their effects on raiding
Your intrepid WoW.com staff has obviously been glued to the official forums just like everyone else, as we anxiously watch for each new bit of the Cataclysm class changes to be announced. Since the class changes apply to both PvE and PvP, it can be hard to get a good picture of how these announcements will affect the raiding game in Cataclysm. Heck, we don't even know what the raiding environment is going to be entirely like in the new expansion, so it's hard to get a handle on what anything really means. That being said, however, some of the old standbys of raiding are going to obviously be pretty mixed up. The warrior Sunder change is probably one of the biggest deals. As Matthew Rossi pointed out in his analysis, Sunder Armor and Devastate have been so iconic to the warrior class that this debuff has been a staple of raiding since vanilla. It's so thoroughly pervasive that there are entire guilds named after the ability, like Wait for Sunders. Although warriors aren't by necessity the main tank any longer, most physical heavy raids will at least wait until a full stack of sunders are applied to the boss before keying Heroism or Bloodlust. The decreased effect of sunder will mean that this key ability isn't such an obvious timer any longer. We'll get by, and we don't know how much the debuff will matter to our overall input, but raids will definitely feel different.
Cataclysm Class Changes: Warrior analysis
Well, hey, how about that Inner Rage, huh? I seem to recall asking for something like that a couple of weeks ago. Maybe I can see the future. In which case, where are these insights when big lottery jackpots are on the line? So far, looking over the warrior changes I see some good, some bad, some very good and some we don't know yet. So let's get down to brass tacks, as it were. Bornakk Heroic Leap (Level 85): This ability makes the character leap at their target and apply the Thunder Clap ability to all enemies in the area when they land. Heroic Leap will be usable in Battle Stance and shares a cooldown with Charge, but the Juggernaut and Warbringer talents will allow Heroic Leap to be used in any stance and possibly while in combat. The cooldown for this ability might be longer than the Charge ability, but it will also apply a stun effect so you can make sure the target will still be there when you land. source I really have nothing negative here. I hope they can make it work out, since in Wrath the biggest issue with this ability was its targeting. I assume they're getting around that by making it require a target to work, as the language seems to indicate.
