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Hey Guys,

I played WoW from Jan 2007 to October 2008, and quit right before WotLK. I quit partially do to Real Life and partially because it looked like Warriors were getting Shafted. (It looks like some of that has been fixed) However, the urge to play has hit me again. I thoroughly enjoyed the game in hindsight, especially PvP (battlegrounds far more than Arena). What also caused issues for me was all the macro programming for the warrior and the stance dance. What has changed? Sell/Unsell please!

If you want to return as a warrior? Don't unless you enjoy pain and are a fucking idiot. The class has still the same problems with everything magnified. If you are in a guild that does Icecrown Citadel as farming and doesn't mind carrying you through heroics, fine. Enjoy becoming a god. If you aren't? Every other DPS will laugh at you. And tanking? You're not even best at single target anymore.

PvP? Same as PvE. If you are BiS, you Bladestorm and laugh. If you aren't, you're a free kill.

Sorry, I've been away a long time, what is BiS? I should elaborate some more: I never got into a serious PvE guild. Or a PvP guild for that matter. I'd like to join a serious PvP guild, but that would require changing servers and I don't know which one has the most/best/serious PvP guilds.

HeavensThunderHammer wrote:Sorry, I've been away a long time, what is BiS? I should elaborate some more: I never got into a serious PvE guild. Or a PvP guild for that matter. I'd like to join a serious PvP guild, but that would require changing servers and I don't know which one has the most/best/serious PvP guilds.

B = Best
i = in
S = Slot

Meaning whatever slot you are referring to(ring, head, chest, etc) is the best that can be there stat wise for whichever spec you have.

And there are no serious PvP guilds because PvE gear outdoes everything. You get around max resilience, and it barely makes a difference when a warrior comes running in with Shadow's Edge or Shadowmourne with 100% armor penetration. Hell, top end arena found loopholes to essentially do what they did in Arms by doing Sword and Board and raping. Blizzard then nerfs warriors because the top 1% figure out this. But that's never changed for Blizzard.

Either way now arenas are literally get a cleave team of sort, watch as DPS wins, gets a little heal and runs after next target. Battlegrounds are send in Cleave like teams, heal them, collect daily.

All the best PvP geared people are in high end or access to high end PvE guilds.

Wow, that does sound like quite a bit of a change, I recall pre WotLK, the best PvPers had a little bit of PvE gear, but not like what you're describing. My issues with raids was the time sink required to complete them and the rigorous schedule required to do them. Battleground and Arena PvP was great for my more "casual" interest... Until I tried to get good in PvP and just got so dang frustrated with crappy BG planning.

So as far as raids go, is actually feasible for the more "casual" player to get higher end gear? Or is that still a pipe dream like it always was?

HeavensThunderHammer wrote:Wow, that does sound like quite a bit of a change, I recall pre WotLK, the best PvPers had a little bit of PvE gear, but not like what you're describing. My issues with raids was the time sink required to complete them and the rigorous schedule required to do them. Battleground and Arena PvP was great for my more "casual" interest... Until I tried to get good in PvP and just got so dang frustrated with crappy BG planning.

So as far as raids go, is actually feasible for the more "casual" player to get higher end gear? Or is that still a pipe dream like it always was?

Arena is still the same. First season depends on class and who has raid end gear, second is a bit more balanced, third is getting ugly, fourth is who has a weapon that can do thousands of DPS per hit.

The only change to BGs is they allowed to have them done in the way they did dungeons. The newest system is a random daily wherein you get into a que, the que lines you up with a group, you do dungeon or battleground and you get loot/points. Only difference is with random BGs you can get Arena points for winning. Which means that people who are serious will go in with their groups and tip the scales.

Casual raids are dependant on server population. Some high end servers have easily a decent clear of ICC(especially because of the buff that they implemented) and is easy access to gear and badges and the raids are not especially hard these days.

So the game is more friendly towards casuals getting high end gear then? That was my one particular beef, was lack of options for casuals. It sounds like a lot of that has been fixed.

They have raised the gear ceiling for casual players by having Heroics and old raids drop the emblems from the previous raiding tier (ie ICC drops Frost emblems, so everything else drops Triumph).

The current system is cumbersome since there are now 5 distinct emblem tiers, especially since only 3 of them are still used (Frost for ICC, Triumph for everything else, and trading them for Heroism to buy Heirlooms and gems). But it did address the problem of having casual players hit their gear ceiling when there's still a year and a half left in the expansion.

If I had to guess how Blizzard will handle it in Cataclysm, I'd say they'll probably keep the "current" and "everything else" badge system, and when a new tier is added they'll reprice the previously current badge gear so they can be purchased with the everything else badge.

HeavensThunderHammer wrote:So the game is more friendly towards casuals getting high end gear then? That was my one particular beef, was lack of options for casuals. It sounds like a lot of that has been fixed.

Like Civil War said, it is friendlier by far. My bit is that if you are using a warrior? Don't. That was my bit about not returning as a warrior. Warriors are still their most broken class in every respect that is broken. At the low end, you suffer because your abilities need a decent weapon, melee, and a resource that you are always starving for, along with very small amount of stats you need. At the high end you are doing more damage then anyone except a very very very lucky warlock, with unlimited resources, AoE abilities that are able to constantly applied to foes and that outdoes mages, and capping Armor Penetration, Criticals, and absurd strength.

Tanking? Every other tank class has now something better then you, and the only way one competes is to outgear said other classes for a time or be the Raid leader/Guild leader or high end officer.

PvP nearly mirrors PvE for warriors. You lack so much or you get so absurdly geared that you become Conan incarnate.

Ghost Rider wrote:

HeavensThunderHammer wrote:So the game is more friendly towards casuals getting high end gear then? That was my one particular beef, was lack of options for casuals. It sounds like a lot of that has been fixed.

Like Civil War said, it is friendlier by far. My bit is that if you are using a warrior? Don't. That was my bit about not returning as a warrior. Warriors are still their most broken class in every respect that is broken. At the low end, you suffer because your abilities need a decent weapon, melee, and a resource that you are always starving for, along with very small amount of stats you need. At the high end you are doing more damage then anyone except a very very very lucky warlock, with unlimited resources, AoE abilities that are able to constantly applied to foes and that outdoes mages, and capping Armor Penetration, Criticals, and absurd strength.

Tanking? Every other tank class has now something better then you, and the only way one competes is to outgear said other classes for a time or be the Raid leader/Guild leader or high end officer.

PvP nearly mirrors PvE for warriors. You lack so much or you get so absurdly geared that you become Conan incarnate.

Just as a note: When I quit, I was level 70, and pretty much had the best possible gear a "casual" player could get, S4 gloves, S2 Weapon, (mace I think, that's what was good back then), S3 Helm and Chest, S2 Shoulders and whatever other piece was S2. All my other Honor Gear was the best that could be possibly be bought with a lousy Arena rating. I then put in all the best Gems & whatnot... Then quit. I believe I still have a blacksmithed a T4 axe, so I could build myself a Fury 2-2hander for leveling without sucking for that too badly.

I know that for leveling up my gear would be fine...But if the 70/80 gear split is what similar to the 60/70 gear split, my guess is that my equipment would be the rough equivelant of 80 decent greens/ crap blues. So by the sounds of it, I'd be right up shit creek. At the same time, the warrior is the class for my play style. I just can't conceive of re leveling a character ever again, I enjoy the end game material so much more than the level grind. Maybe it'll be different post Cataclysm.... I could see a paladin, maybe.

Any other useful info?

HeavensThunderHammer wrote:

Ghost Rider wrote:

HeavensThunderHammer wrote:So the game is more friendly towards casuals getting high end gear then? That was my one particular beef, was lack of options for casuals. It sounds like a lot of that has been fixed.

Like Civil War said, it is friendlier by far. My bit is that if you are using a warrior? Don't. That was my bit about not returning as a warrior. Warriors are still their most broken class in every respect that is broken. At the low end, you suffer because your abilities need a decent weapon, melee, and a resource that you are always starving for, along with very small amount of stats you need. At the high end you are doing more damage then anyone except a very very very lucky warlock, with unlimited resources, AoE abilities that are able to constantly applied to foes and that outdoes mages, and capping Armor Penetration, Criticals, and absurd strength.

Tanking? Every other tank class has now something better then you, and the only way one competes is to outgear said other classes for a time or be the Raid leader/Guild leader or high end officer.

PvP nearly mirrors PvE for warriors. You lack so much or you get so absurdly geared that you become Conan incarnate.

Just as a note: When I quit, I was level 70, and pretty much had the best possible gear a "casual" player could get, S4 gloves, S2 Weapon, (mace I think, that's what was good back then), S3 Helm and Chest, S2 Shoulders and whatever other piece was S2. All my other Honor Gear was the best that could be possibly be bought with a lousy Arena rating. I then put in all the best Gems & whatnot... Then quit. I believe I still have a blacksmithed a T4 axe, so I could build myself a Fury 2-2hander for leveling without sucking for that too badly.

I know that for leveling up my gear would be fine...But if the 70/80 gear split is what similar to the 60/70 gear split, my guess is that my equipment would be the rough equivelant of 80 decent greens/ crap blues. So by the sounds of it, I'd be right up shit creek. At the same time, the warrior is the class for my play style. I just can't conceive of re leveling a character ever again, I enjoy the end game material so much more than the level grind. Maybe it'll be different post Cataclysm.... I could see a paladin, maybe.

Any other useful info?

Wait for Cataclysm. The gear gulf actually increased, by an enormous amount. The only time absolute high end T6 was compared was to low end Naxx-25 gear. But when people knocked down KT, it was overshadowed. Luckily they did make that more accessible that highest heroic dungeons drop T8+ gear. So getting up to basic ICC is basically grind to 80, do random heroic dungeons until your eyes bleed so you are in T9 armor and 1/2 232 DPS weapons...you are basically 4000 DPS.

Therein lies the problem. At level 80 fully heroic geared you are still a risk. PuGs, in general don't take unless you're a friend(PuG raids are retards who want a free ride through but don't want a guild) and guilds are iffy of warriors because they know you become godly but you aren't until you are geared(a lovely catch 22).

With Cataclysm relatively around the corner, if you feel the WoW bug, then sure. It'll be a fresh start for 99.9% of players and new changes that everyone will have to get used to. Right now, the difference is not your gear now, it is fresh 80 with best heroic gear versus high end raiders. While many are in the in between, warriors have little to nothing in that large gulf except look like a leech of gear.

I think the difference between what you can get in ICC 10 man normal (what I have) and what you get in ICC 25 man heroic (what GR has) is as big as the difference between Karazahn and Sunwell was. That's within a single raid tier, which is kinda crazy.

But it's not so bad if you go the casual route, there are tons of things to do in Northrend, and the quest writing is mostly awesome (from a Horde PoV, you Alliance, I dunno).

If you have a lot of characters to level up, you could start now and just take it slow instead of rushing to see the endgame.

Oh, and how the game has changed. Our ICC10 main tank was invited to go see Molten Core, and they responded "Okay! 10 or 25 man?"

It's not worth it, not to level a warrior at this point in the game. There is such a gulf between what's obtainable from heroics and casual pug raids, and what high end raiders can get that you will never ever close the gap - not unless you have a friend that's the guild master of an ICC25 HM guild whose willing to pour gear into you.

Another class maybe, a rogue/mage/warlock can do really good dps even in the badge/heroic gear, but warriors are just not going to happen. Even for pvp, you're too far behind, and you won't have access to anything that'll make pvp work for you. It'll just be a parade of frustration for you.

I'll echo what GR said, you're better off waiting for Cataclysm if you really want to play a warrior. You never know, Blizzard might actually not make a colossal fuck up of Cata (lol when pigs fly) and they might actually finally fix the way warriors scale, but until then you're going to be up shit creek as a fresh 80 warrior. You won't get to experience endgame, not as a tank and not as a dps.

Paladin - maybe you'd get to see some endgame, but likely not as a dps or a tank - very rarely do high end guilds recruit new tanks, the tanks in guilds like that are well established and entrenched - its the only fucking reason you still see warrior MTs, because they've been there since Vanilla - but as a healer you can get into a guild, and paladin healers are the easiest to gear. Spellpower plate is pretty much exclusively yours, and pug raids always need healers.

Minischoles, Darmalus and Ghost Rider thankyou very much for your information. I think I'll just wait it out and see how things are after Cataclysm. Quite frankly, I play the game to be a warrior, not much else. I've actually read psychology papers about this, I think I identify too much with the class on a personal level. So since it sincerely sounds like I'd be very frustrated for similar reasons as I quit, waiting seems wise. Thanks again for all the advice you guys!

Well, if you might want to get in before Cat to take part in the 'liberation' events. Horde will be retaking the echo isles, and the Alliance will be retaking Gnomeregan.

The game is agonizingly soulless now. Yeah, you can get full epics playing casually. Hope you enjoy doing random dungeons with random people who never speak and whom you will never see again. Let me know how much fun you're having on your 50th Oculus run in a group where nobody even bothers to use names.

That's odd, if anything, I spend more time interacting with people in an enjoyable manner now that I don't have to stick my nose into the sewer of trade chat to find one more DPS/Tank/Healer who isn't saved. I spent an entire Heroic Culling of Stratholm run having a duel of the (horrible) puns with the healer, who I most likely will never see again and I certainly don't remember their name. Automating the process of finding warm bodies has freed up tons of time for chattering away in guild chat, daily quests, and giving humorous narration of how I am getting stomped in random Battle Grounds. I assume anyone who isn't talking in the random dungeon groups is probably doing the same, why would you play an MMO without talking to people?

If you can't get random runners to talk, you're doing it wrong. Besides, most northrend heroics only take 10 minutes.

Since much of this discussion has been about the state of Warriors, I figure this would affect whether the OP would want to return or not.

Bornakk made a big post listing off the current plans for Rage generation in the next expansion.

Rage Normalization in Cataclysm

Short version:
1. Auto-attacks generate a fixed amount of rage based on weapon speed (ie slow weapon = more rage per swing). Auto-attacks that crit generate twice as much rage. Off-hand auto-attacks generate half as much rage. Haste = More auto-attacks = More Rage
2. Rage generated from incoming damage will be based on the Warrior's health. More Stamina = More Rage. It sounds like the Warrior gets the Rage even if they completely avoid the attack.
3. Shouts are getting the same treatment Horn of Winter did for Death Knights. They now generate Rage instead of consume it.
4. No more next swing attacks. Existing next-swing attacks will probably become instant abilities that use a variable amount of Rage and deal damage based on the amount of Rage consumed (like Execute).

Since I don't have a max-level Warrior yet (currently at level 76 for that character), I can't really predict how this will affect end game next expansion. The change to Shouts is one I welcome, since it's inconvenient to have a group buff that requires a resource that can only be generated in combat. Hasn't really impacted my levelling of that character, though, since I'm often swimming in Rage while questing, particularly if I can chain fights, due to being decked out in Heirlooms.

LMAO...rage normalization, again! Go Blizzard!!! Goddamn fucking retards decide to retread the same fucking thing they did with BC AND have the same haste problem TBC has. Holy shit these motherfuckers are dumber then I thought. To put it bluntly, the problem with this was that at a fixed amount, you are always starved within the time spans of your instant attacks, unless it's 3.4-3.8 weapons giving 40 rage. No really, it needs to be massive rage being funneled or we get TBC "Warriors rage starved, worse then naked rogue in DPS.".

No more next up attacks? So you rage starve and ADD an instant attack? I don't give a fuck if they are 10 Rage every time I press. Holy shit.

Fuck it, after I see Heroic Arthas die, just leaving. I'll make a bank alt to talk to friends but I'm fucking sick of their repetition of mistakes to make a class as fucking useless as they can to scale only with one things, and still have us struggle with a hybrid tax that makes zero sense.

Or just, and I know this is a huge stretch, stop playing warriors if you're not happy with warriors. Seriously. I don't play rogues, because I don't want to play rogues. Now if I played a rogue and hated playing a rogue and kept playing a rogue, it'd be more of a problem. Or, in other words, let your login do the talking; Blizzard's going to pay more attention to plummeting class numbers than any amount of vocal forum-grumbling.

Personally, I may come back in the runup to Cata. I quit back in December, if memory serves, after being sucked back into the whirling vortex of omnomnom that is EVE. US-Mannoroth, if anyone else happens to be.

P.S. Mannoroth is so full of dicks that there are 'On Mannoroth...' jokes in the random dungeon groups from entire other servers.

White Haven wrote:Or just, and I know this is a huge stretch, stop playing warriors if you're not happy with warriors. Seriously. I don't play rogues, because I don't want to play rogues. Now if I played a rogue and hated playing a rogue and kept playing a rogue, it'd be more of a problem. Or, in other words, let your login do the talking; Blizzard's going to pay more attention to plummeting class numbers than any amount of vocal forum-grumbling.

It's about the last class I wanted to put any effort into. Have pretty much every other class at raid level and then some, and the warrior was the only one I gave enough to care. Now, I am thinking of just sitting in vent talking with them on off times.

And sick of nerf, buff, nerf, who cares what numbers you shove our way...we say differently, buff, nerf, justifing nerf by claiming XXXX is too powerful, wash rinse repeat. Sorry, when every class is starting to have a real reason, and one has every class? No more reason to play. I gripe because they are repeating TBC mistakes. Same mistake they rectified when they realized how fucking poor it was. When they repeat this, screw it. One more month to see Heroic Arthas dead and then let someone else either have it or off to the abyss. I have vent and email.

I will say that it was smart of Blizzard to announce rage normalization this early in the Cataclysm development cycle. Imagine if we got all the way to Beta before the blues said "oh btw normalization". Breaking the news now lets those who won't see it as a deal breaker get used to the idea.

True, but I love how they go "You'll have more ways to gain rage!", which then runs into the ...GCD mess that we have. If I could remove the GCD or have a rogue's GCD? I would gladly take a 40-50% reduction in my DPS.

But as said, they did bring all of this now, rather then 1 month before it comes out as another fuck you to warriors.

Well this Cataclysm change looks interesting. Thanks for posting!