Hello everyone!
I am Triumph, and I'll be making a Player vs. Player guide regarding the upcoming patch (4.3.4)!
As most of you know, or have heard of, warrior has been "nerfed" on 4.3.4, but it's still playable.
I'll probably miss out on this season because of the time I need to dedicate to my school at the moment, some of you that play on Frostwolf might know me already [Triumph, Night Elf Warrior].
This is the audio version of the guide, sorry about the hissing thingy and the bad accent, if you don't like it you can always read this thread instead.
[YT]ooLaUtlmEBY[/YT]
Basically, most of you wonder: "But..but..will I get to say GET SH*T ON? :("
-This one is up to you, if you put your time into mastering a Warrior, then yes, you'll be able to say GET SH*T ON.
Table of Content:
- Introduction and thoughts about 4.3.4
- Patch Changes throughout Cataclysm and a comment about it
- Spec
- Professions
- Gems
- Enchants
- Glyphs
- Stats priority
- Macros
- Best in slot items [BiS]
- Rated Battlegrounds
- Tips!
- Viable comps for 2v2 and 3v3! [What to do.]
- Add-ons!
- Credit!
Introduction and thoughts.
As you can see by clicking on this link, Warriors make only 3%~ of classes above 2200 in 3v3.
After a little usage of brain, you can conclude that WLS will be the strongest comp, since Warlocks are on 15% and Shamans are on 16%.
Imagine what will happen in 4.3.4 and how complicated will it be to find partners for most of the warriors. We will have troubles of finding Warlocks and Restoration Shamans because they will all want a Rogue with them, and I don't blame them.
I guess we will experience what Warlocks did in this patch, but hey, news flash! There were Warlocks here on Molten that had 2.6k+ in 3v3. On the other side, I can count them all on the fingers of my right hand, but it's important that they were there. Leaves a bit of space for hope?
Some warriors will re-roll and some will not. Which is totally fine, I hate the fact that there are 17% of the warriors on 4.0.6a realms anyway.
I wanted to make a video, with some footage of and in-game commentary, but my PC was too crappy to tape anything even when I set my settings to low. Hopefully I'll buy myself a new PC in June.
Basically, you'll see a lot of frustrating things on this patch, starting from this.
What will be crucial in actually mastering a Warrior on the next patch:
- Do not despair! Have a bit of faith in yourself and don't reroll after first arena failure.
- Do not switch comps like socks! It takes a while to master a comp and it isn't easy!
- Most crucial part is: DO NOT QUE DODGE! Find a way to beat the opposing team! If you're going for perfect ratio and you don't want to ruin it, just queue again, practice makes perfect.
- This will be a tough patch for us, that means no playing with friends! As tough as it can be, if you want to be successful at a warrior, you cannot play with your friends that play classes which do not simply work with a warrior.
Before I start, I'd like to write the important changes that happened to Warriors from 4.0.6a to 4.3.4!
- Charge and Intercept no longer have diminishing returns on their stun effects.
- Colossus Smash now ignores 50% of a hostile player's armor
- Intercept now has a 1.5-second stun, down from 3 seconds.
- Pummel is now usable in all stances.
- Rallying Cry (new ability) is available from trainers at level 83. It temporarily grants the warrior and all party or raid members within 30 yards 20% of maximum health for 10 seconds. After the effect expires, the health is lost. It has no cost, no stance requirements, and is not on the global cool-down. It has a 3-minute cool-down, but also shares a cool-down with Last Stand.
- Shield Bash has been removed from the game.
- Overpower now has a 1.5-second cooldown and global cooldown (Taste for Blood's Overpower cooldown has not changed).
- Retaliation, Recklessness and Shield Wall no longer have stance requirements.
- Throwdown and Charge do not share Diminishing Returns.
- Deadly Calm cannot be used in the same time as Recklessness.
- Spell Reflection cool-down has been increased to 25 seconds, up from 10.
-Talent Specialization Changes:
- Improved Hamstring now reduces the global cooldown on Hamstring by 0.5/1 seconds in addition to its current effects.
- Juggernaut no longer adds 2 seconds to the Charge stun, but instead lowers the cooldown of Charge by 2 seconds (to 13 seconds total without the glyph).
- Lambs to the Slaughter now causes Mortal Strike to refresh Rend in addition to its current effects.
- Strikes of Opportunity value per point of mastery has been increased by 10%.
- Charge (and related abilities) should now correctly path to a target even if the target moves during the Charge. This change should decrease the likelihood of the warrior Charging to a different location than the target.
The last change won't probably work on Molten.
* Thoughts:
I think that they made a mistake by deleting something that only warriors had, The Stance Dance. Not all Warriors actually used all stances, and now they can use every spell they need, except Disarm and Intervene, while sitting in Battle Stance. They're basically "dumbing" us even more, while in the same time "nerfing" us.
Even though they did a favor to us by not putting Charge and Throwdown on the same DR, they "nerfed" Charge stun, as you can see it's 1.5 Second now. But this is good while doing 3s, you no longer have to fear if you'll get a full Throwdown, you can safely Charge your focus target into Throwdown, makes the CC chain better.
Spell Reflection is really a hard blow to us, and it wasn't really necessary to "nerf" it that much, I mean come on! 25 seconds! Even though you have a glyph available, it makes the cool-down 20 seconds, it's still not that good.
Also we got a small mastery buff, at least it makes going for mastery more viable, but in my opinion it still isn't as good as crit.
Okay, lets get started with this.
Talent build! [SPEC]
When it comes to talent build, I use Slam spec over Heroic Strike spec.
* Why?
-I'm just used to it and it's a bit more "bursty". When you fill out Heroic Strike spec, you are left with 2 bonus points, and when you fill out Slam spec, you have 3 points left. Even though Heroic Strike isn't a bad choice, it won't be as good as Slam because of the extra burst you are getting with it. Hoodrych explained it very well in this video.
Here's the spec I'm using:
http://www.dodaj.rs/f/3i/13a/4IMNYQn...3013170821.jpg
This is still Slam Spec mainly but without Drums of War and Rude Interruption, but it has 2/3 Incite.
The next one is for Heroic Strike users, at least the one that I would use if I'd use that spec.
This one is for one that use Heroic Strike with Gag Order, I heard that some warriors can pull it off at high ratings but I don't really see the point in "torturing" yourself, as you don't have an AoE Snare. I tried it out, it worked out for me in some duels, but I failed with it in arena. That is only my experience though, you might pull it off but it's not easy to do so. I'd recommend the first spec after all.
I won't be writing what does every talent do, you need to read something on your own.
*Regarding Drums of War:
It's a neat talent if you're having problems with rage, I have ?ยข there because I don't want to be unable to Pummel in crucial times, just imagine how frustrating can it be to see a healer casting at 5% and you don't have any rage to pummel it?
Professions:
- Jewelcrafting
Access to special gems that give 67 strength: Bold Chimera's Eye. Up to three can be used at the same time. - Alchemy
Access to flask that gives 80 strength: Flask of Enhancement. - Enchanting
Access to +40 strength on your rings: Enchant Ring - Strength - Leatherworking
Access to 130+ strength to bracers: Draconic Embossment Strength - Inscription
Access to shoulder enchant adds 130 strength and 25 crit rating: Lionsmane Inscription - Blacksmithing
Access to two extra gem slots. One on bracers, one on gloves: Socket Gloves and Socket Bracer - Tailoring
Cloak enchant proc for 1000 attack power: Swordguard Embroidery - Engineering
Access to 480 strength proc on gloves: Synapse Springs
Gems.
- Red - Bold Queen's Garnet
- Yellow - Potent Lava Coral
- Blue - Etched Shadow Spinel
- Meta - Reverberating Shadowspirit Diamond
Enchants.
- Head - Arcanum of Vicious Strength
- Shoulder - Greater Inscription of Vicious Strength
- Cloak - Enchant Cloak - Greater Critical Strike
- Chest - Enchant Chest - Peerles Stats
- Bracers - Enchant Bracer - Major Strength
- Hands - Enchant Gloves - Mighty Strength
- Legs - Dragonscale Leg Armor
- Boots - Enchant Boots - Lavawalker
- Weapon - Enchant Weapon - Landslide
Glyphs.
When it comes to glyphs, you will have freedom in choosing. In my opinion, these are the ones that are worth mentioning. Always have them trained and always have at least a stack of Dust of Disappearance in your bags, you might need to change them from time to time, for example, when you're getting same comps over and over in arena (and your glyphs doesn't fit you).
Prime glyphs:
- Mortal Strike - Improves Mortal Strike damage
- Slam - Improves Slam damage
- Overpower - Improves Overpower damage
- Bladestorm - Lowers the cool-down on Bladestorm for 15 seconds, this might not be so essential as Overpower, because you won't really be Bladestorming every minute and fifteen seconds, unless you're on a Restoration Druid.
*Choose one that you won't use.
Major glyphs:
- Sweeping Strikes - You should use it if you're using Sweeping Strikes.
- Colossus Smash - Is a must! Get this asap.
- Shield Wall - I choose this one because it can pull you out of really difficult situations, even though the CD is 6 minutes. This is a must for 3s IMO, but not such a big deal in 2s
- Spell Reflection - Lowers the cool-down on Spell Reflection by 5 seconds.
- Piercing Howl - Increases the radius in which the players will be affected by Piercing Howl.
- Long Charge - Increases the range of Charge by 5 yards.
- Rapid Charge - Lowers the cool-down of Charge by one second.
*You have a bit more freedom here.
Minor glyphs:
- Glyph of Battle
- Glyph of Command
- Demoralizing Shout
- Berserker Rage
*Also choose one that you won't be needing. It's best to keep Berserker Rage and Demoralizing Shout and to choose which buff you're using (depending of the comp).
Stats priority.
Just follow the next pattern.
5% Hit > Strength > Crit/Resilience > Mastery > Haste
*Where is expertise?
This is a matter of perspective, whether you prefer a safety stat (such as expertise) or crit.
You must have at least 20, you don't want to miss casters because you won't have many chances to actually do some damage to them. While reading Arena Junkies forums, I saw that a lot of warriors stacked expertise up to 28~ because of the amount of ferals and rogues in arena. (The amount is TOO DAMN HIGH!)
*Take note that expertise might be bugged here.
Macros.
*Macros changed a bit, because there's no stance dance anymore, and we got Rallying Cry.
Battle Stance Macro:
Quote:
/cast Battle Stance
/equip 2Hander's Name
Defensive Stance Macro:
Quote:
/cast Defensive Stance
/equip 1Hander's Name
/equip Shield's Name
Berserker Stance Macro:
Quote:
/cast Berserker Stance
/equip 2Hander's Name
Spell Reflection Macro:
Quote:
#showtooltip Spell Reflection
/cast [stance:1/2,equipped:Shields] Spell Reflection; [stance:3] Defensive Stance
/stopmacro [equipped:Shields]
/stopcasting
/equipslot 16 1Hander's Name
/equipslot 17 Shield's name
*This one doesn't have the annoying weapon switch sound. Keep in mind that you must have an eye on your focus' casting bar too. If he's casting a cyclone, fear, hex, polymorph, or something like that, you better reflect it! It will help your team a lot because it's a CC which you probably cannot provide otherwise, and it's awesome if you reflect full Hex or Cyclone for example. Also, you can use this macro to just switch to Sword and Board with just one click. Personally, this one is binded on my lower middle mouse scroll, so one scroll would usually result in popping out my sword and board.
Cancel Spell Reflection Macro:
Quote:
/cancelaura Spell Reflection
*This one is really a must. It comes in handy in arena and in duels. Especially when mages see spell reflect on you, they will try to Polymorph themselves to get some HP before you cancel it with damage.
Focus Target Charge Macro:
Quote:
#showtooltip Charge
/cancelaura Bladestorm
/cast [target=focus,exists] Charge
/cast Charge
Focus Target Fear Macro:
Quote:
#showtooltip Intimidating Shout
/cast [target=focus,exists] Intimidating Shout
/cast Intimidating Shout
Focus Target Pummel Macro:
Quote:
#showtooltip Pummel
/cancelaura Bladestorm
/cast [target=focus,exists] Pummel
/cast Pummel
Focus Target Throwdown Macro:
Quote:
#showtooltip Throwdown
/cancelaura Bladestorm
/cast [target=focus,exists] Throwdown
/cast Throwdown
Disarm Macro:
Quote:
#showtooltip Disarm
/cast Defensive Stance
/cast Disarm
/cast Battle Stance
Intervene Macro:
Quote:
#showtooltip Intervene
/cast Defensive Stance
/cast [target=Derp] Intervene
/cast Battle Stance
*Replace Derp with the name of your healer. This macro is ESSENTIAL in arena, you must have good communication with your healer because he can sense when the next CC is coming at him, you will need to Intervene as much as you can.
Shield Wall Macro:
Quote:
#showtooltip Shield Wall
/cast Defensive Stance
/equip 1Hander's Name
/equip Shield's Name
/cast Shield Wall
*Even though you do not have to go to Defensive Stance since Shield Wall isn't restricted, you will get +5% damage reduce.
Regeneration Macro:
Quote:
#showtooltip Enraged Regeneration
/cast Rallying Cry
/cast Enraged Regeneration
*Always BUT always use Rallying Cry before Enraged Regeneration because it adds the percentage to the heals received by Enraged Regeneration.
*Also have an own keybind for Rallying Cry if your partner is on low HP.
As for burst macros, it's up to you. I have one macro that is:
Quote:
/use Dps trinket
/cast Deadly Calm
*Even though you can use Retaliation and Recklessness in the same time, never, but NEVER use them together. You can be easily CC'd during it and you can waste two very important spells. Even when you're using Retaliation alone, no brained player will attack you unless he has chances of finishing you off, or has a healer on his back and is topped. Also I prefer using Recklessness in the beginning because you can apply a lot of pressure, and after that you will still have Deadly Calm and your DPS trinket.
Charge Macro:
Quote:
#showtooltip Charge
/cancelaura Bladestorm
/cancelaura Hand of Protection
/cast Charge
*I use this one when I need to cancel Bladestorm or Hand of Protection, so I don't waste another bind just on these.
**You can add /Rend or /Hamstring to this macro as it will save you a bind that you can use on something else, I personally don't use it because I'm used to my shift+2 bind for rend and Q for hamstring but it's up to you, it's really useful if you don't have a lot of binds that you can use/reach.
*Make a few macros with built-in /startattack because auto-attack keeps bugging after you do a Charge on your focus target.
For example:
Quote:
#showtooltip Mortal Strike
/startattack
/cast Mortal Strike
*Make at least one more for Slam.
Best in slot items [BiS]
Okay, okay, maybe it's even too basic to explain. Obviously, cataclysmic set with a pinch of PvE items.
You need one PvE trinket and of-course GURTHALAK EHMERGERGERD.
Anyhow.
The best PvE trinket you can get is surely Bone-Link Fetish.
- -This trinket is amazing! Not only does it scale for attack power, but it cleaves as a whirlwind [IGC is 27 seconds]. Yes, it can break CC's, but the positives far overwhelm that. This trinket is essential for any comp that relies on burst, especially TSG or kittycleave. Get this if you can, if you cannot, get Eye of Unmaking, but as we don't have Dragon Soul available now, the price of the items on the Marketplace eases things for us, since Bone-Link Fetish is 28 coins and Eye of Unmaking is 32.
The best weapon you can get on Cataclysm is Gurthalak, Voice of the Deeps.
- -Not only does this sword have amazing damage to begin with, but it has a chance to proc a tentacle with 15,000 hp that does a 2 second mind flay for massive damage, upwards of 25k to a target dummy. This proc has no internal cooldown, and is absolutely deadly if it double or even triple procs. Tentacles create more pressure by targeting your target and slowing them down. the tentacles sometimes target another person but you can easily switch to him while its on him too. So yes, the tentacle decides your kill target, lol. Check out Bajh's 3v3 videos from 4.3.4 if you want a full insight on this
Rated Battlegrounds
Although this isn't very popular here on Molten, it's worth mentioning.
Arms warriors while not being a bad class in battlegrounds, were not so much wanted in high rated groups. Arms warriors can do a tone of damage with a healer behind them in battlegrounds, but the problem is the only thing warriors are bringing with them to benefit the group is Rallying Cry, which isn't that helpful, we can't hope to do any AoE with Bladestorm because we'll (at least should be) disarmed because for sure the group you're going against will have a rogue, warrior or a priest that will disarm you.
Although, even this is an arms guide, a protection warrior is highly viable flag carrier in rated battlegrounds on this patch.
-Protection
Our overall package is excellent. The survivability is excellent because of Shield Wall, Disarm, Spell Reflect, etc.
These spells in addition to the enormous amount of damage being absorbed by other active and passive talents in the protection build, lots of armor and resilience make the warrior strong in terms of being able to survive a long time.The difference is that warrior's mobility is just by far better than the mobility of any other class with a tank-specialization. Heroic Leap, Charge and Intervene are in addition easily better than anything any other class with a tank specialization can provide.
Tips.
- If you're reading all this, and thinking, meh I don't need these focus macros, or I can click on few spells, I'm better like that. Believe me, you're not. I was hard-headed too, it didn't work out very well for me, as you might have guessed.
- Try to keep 3 stacks of Sunder Armor on the target at all times, once you get 3 stacks it should be easy to maintain them because of the Glyph of Colossus Smash
- Slaughter stacks are gained through the use of Mortal strike, stacking up to 3 times and giving us 10% extra damage with each stack. This is where all our damage comes from, try everything you can to keep 3 stacks once you have them. The buff lasts 15 seconds, if you find its about to fall off and you cant reach your target, just look around for pets or totems to hit to keep the stacks up.
- Also, communication with your team is essential. You must use a program to communicate while doing arenas if you're aiming at high rates. For example, this prevents poorly executed bursts, and you can soak traps far more successfully. Also you can actually sort out who will interrupt the next cast etc.
- Always make sure rend is up on your target, after the first application, Mortal Strike re-applies it, so it's not too hard. Never miss a Taste for Blood (Overpower) proc, Overpower's high crit chance and low rage cost of 5 makes it a high dps/dpr ability.
- The Taste for Blood buff lasts for 9 seconds with a 5 second cool-down. That means if you do not use overpower before 3 seconds left on the buff, you will have 'wasted' an overpower since it's been replaced by a new one. However if you time it right and use overpower between 3-4 seconds left on the buff, you will get a new proc in between the global coold-own. Landing back-to-back overpowers as opposed to using it as early as possible allows for moments of burst damage that would otherwise not be possible.
- Colossus Smash (CS) is a powerful burst cooldown on a very short CD. However, it's easy to waste and quite hard to use effectively. The cooldown on CS can be randomly refreshed by any of your attacks, try use colossus smash as soon as you get these procs, known as Sudden Death procs, but never CS when low on rage.
- Colossus Smash lasts 6 seconds. If you factor in the GCD it takes to use it, you have 4.5 seconds, or 3 abilities you can use before it falls off. The best way to maximize damage during CS is to use the double overpower trick:
Mortal Strike -> Overpower -> Overpower - When doing duels or arenas versus Death Knights, Rogues, Ferals or Warriors, always keep Thunder Clap up! Believe me it will help you out. It would be good to keep Demoralizing Shout too if you think you can afford yourself that 1 second global cool-down.
- KITE!
It's not true that warriors cannot kite! You need to practice this as it is highly useful in duels and in arena. For example: You're at 20% Hp and your healer is CC'd, you must kite your target if it's melee, or LoS if it's range. But also keep in mind that you need to be in range and in sight of your healer! Don't you dare blame him afterwards. Kiting in duels, warrior vs. warrior at least, is highly useful, don't mind what other people say, (such as: OMG FIGHT LIEK A WURRIOR U RUNNING AVAY LUL NOOB] this is hard to master. They're just mad because they lost. - Always, but ALWAYS keep Rend on your primary target! If lets say, your target is on 1k HP and you're not in his range, and he somehow heals up after that, you will eat yourself, believe me that. It happened to me for a lot of times.
- KEEP THE F*CKING SNARE ON THE TARGET!
Either you or your partner need to keep some kind of a snare on your kill target. Keeping your target snared helps you keep him in melee range and thus allows you to do damage.
Comps that are worth playing:
Comps for 2v2:
In 2v2 on 4.3.4. you will want to have a Restoration Shaman with you, it's the best choice as far as 2v2 with a healer go.
As for 2 damage dealers, you should be okay with a Hunter or a Feral, although Warriors are kind of constructed for arenas with a healer on your back.
If you see the opponents going for your healer always try to keep them slowed, always. If they're melee it would be good if you could do Demolarizing Shout+Thunderclap.
Comps for 3v3:
WLS - Warrior, Warlock, Restoration Shaman
*This comp is the hardest one to master.
Kitty Cleave - Warrior, Feral Druid, healer of choice basically.
*Basically every healer works very well with this comp.
KFC - Warrior, Hunter, healer of choice.
*Most of the players say that Holy Paladin is the best healer to go with while running this comp because of Unstoppable Burst, since Hunter can cast Master's Call on himself, and Paladin can cast Freedom on you, so neither one of you can be slowed.
TSG - Death Knight, Warrior, Mostly Holy Paladin.
*I don't like this comp because in 80% of the times, kill target is the healer. I like running smooth comps in which healer gets CC'd, plus it won't work as well as it did on 4.0.6a because the warriors aren't as "bursty" as before.
Even though these are the only comps you can play, TSG and KFC are not as viable as Kitty Cleave and WLS.
As far as 3v3 go, as we already stated, you must use macros (2v2 too of-course). Just practice CC chains with your teammates and have a steady communication going on in your team.
Note that it would be good if you could get(afford) yourself heroic versions of Gurthalak and Bone-Link Fetish, you will most likely need to have at least HC Gurthalak to compete with high rated RLS' and RMP's.
Add-ons!
The ones I'd recommend are:
- Soundalerter
- LoseControl
- Gladius
- SnowfallKeypress
- OmniCC
- Tidyplates
Credits:
Thanks to: Thomson, Thorrior, Sinix, Poonxo, Vexxius, Bajheera, Swifty
(good videos on how to duel other classes on 4.3.4), Hoodrych, Saffie and Baggen!
This guide is based on personal experience , videos from Poonxo, SkillCapped, Bajheera, Hoodrych and post that Sinix made on Arena Junkies, also some messaging with Vexxius on AJ. I tried to gather the best peace of information regarding warriors on 4.3.4 from a lot of different guides while providing also providing my own knowledge to put everything in this one guide so it'd be easier for you. The guide wouldn't be the same without the intel I gathered from the people above.
I really hope that you liked this guide (AND YOU BETTER LIKE IT BECAUSE I PUT SOME TIME INTO THIS!) and I hope that it helped you on your way of becoming a good warrior! If you read it carefully and apply all steps in-game, I guarantee you that you will not have problems in getting 2.2k in 3s!
Remember:
Quote:
Practice makes perfect! Behind our avatars of Mighty Warriors, we're all people in the end, not pixels or machines, and people make mistakes. Don't give up! Lets get some glad titles next season! :)
Once more, good luck to all of you in achieving some high rates, lets show everyone that we're not dead.
P.S: I really recommend that you watch some videos made by Hoodrych or Bajheera regarding 3v3, and to read some topics at Arena Junkies forums! Also, check out SkillCapped channel on YouTube, they have some really nice tips
