I’ve had a bit of a chance to fiddle with 4.0, get most of my critical addons working and rebalance Baen around her new setup. Much reforging was done, I’ve respecced a few times, added tinkers to my gear alongside 90% of my wiped enchants (THANKS BLIZZ LOL) and have kind of sort of figured out what I am doing with tanking on Baenhoof.

Its intimidating at first, because nearly every stat tanking is associated with was changed in some way, as has the -way- we tank and the mechanic in which to do it. Its a whole new ballgame.
The rage normalization, while admittedly not as bad as I thought it would be, still needs some work. On bosses with primarily physical damage, I couldn’t get rid of the stuff fast enough. Rage was constantly stuck at 100% with no way to get rid of it. The CD on Heroic Strike needs to be shortened a little- down to 2 seconds, maybe. On bosses with primarily spell damage, I was hurting for rage pretty bad. The 3 second cooldown on Cleave is fine- I was hurting for rage on AoE trash packs anyway.
It seems really wonky. In heroics, I can’t afford to hit cleave too much, but I can still effectively tank trash. On heroic bosses, I ragestarve myself into the ground without even touching heroic strike. Its bonkers.

I’m a fan of the more relaxed playstyle prot offers now. I finally unbound heroic strike from my mousewheel and rebound it to my camera zoom The change to heroic strike is a welcome one, and fairly well-implemented.

The one thing…the ONE thing that I cannot fucking stand about this patch is the goddamned ability queueing. I dont -want- to have to WAIT until a dev lands onto one mob before I can tab over to the next (tab is fucked up now, by the way) and slowly hit that one, too.
I like mashing keys. Its fun. Its part of the reason why the warrior is my main and not the paladin or the DK. The ability queueing feels sluggish and unresponsive and needs to be gotten rid of. It was part of the reason I enjoyed WoW over say, Aion- everything was more streamlined and tended to feel faster.
I’d really appreciate a choice to revert back to the old, quicker way of doing things- and from the look of the official forums, so would everyone else.

TALENTS

Let me go over my talent choices real quick.

BLOOD AND THUNDER (For the Horde!)
First off, Blood and Thunder is a waste of time and energy. I can understand the intent behind the design, but no. The execution was piss-poor. The added AE damage behind the rendclap isn’t bulky enough to warrant wasting a massive* GCD opening with rend. I refuse. AoE has indeed been made harder, and this changes the mindset of the game. But I refuse to ask DPS to wait three GCDs to open up in a heroic. If there was perhaps a talent that made shield slam apply a rend on a crit, then yes, I can see that potentially making Blood and Thunder worth it. As it stands? No.
Rend either needs to be applied in some other way or do FAR more damage than it does currently.
As it stands, I’m not having enough of an issue with AE threat to warrant going through the irritation.
*When I say massive, I mean retardo-long. With the ability queueing, everything is -much- slower and it feels like my reaction time is being punished.

INCITE
With the changes to rage, you’ll likely find you can’t fucking get rid of the stuff during raid bosses, if you still do that sort of thing. Heroic strike is the key to getting rid of 0f it, and since you’ll be hitting Heroic Strike every time its up now, Incite makes it lovely and hefty. With Incite maxed (3/3) I was getting some chunky threat from using it. You likely won’t see much gain from it during heroics, but I’d definetely recommend it all the same. Solid talent all around.

TOUGHNESS
Pick up Toughness. Max it out. With the changes to armour you likely lost a hefty chunk with the patch. You need it.

SHIELD SPECIALIZATION
I didn’t think I’d need the extra rage from Shield Spec so I skipped it my first time around. Hoboy. If not 3/3, at least pick up 2/3. Even if you’re -just- raid tanking, you will run into situations where you will be ragestarved. I can guarantee this. The spell reflect effect off this is fucking god tier, too. A flat 50 rage is massive, especially with this new system.

SHIELD MASTERY
I picked up one point in Shield Mastery, because even one point in there is a solid increase. I don’t think anyone needs more than 2/3, though if you’re still doing hardmodes it might be worth it.
At 1/3, you get 20 seconds shaved off your Shield Block CD, a minute off Shield Wall and a second off Spell Reflect.
This is perfect, imo. Shield Block is a 50 second cooldown- this makes it 30 seconds, which is pretty respectable for one talent point. A minute off Wall drops it to 3 minutes, and I haven’t ever felt like Spell Reflect needed a shorter cooldown since the patch. 9 seconds is fine for most encounters.

HOLD THE LINE
HtL is fairly decent- I haven’t been able to do much testing on it but I feel like the points were well-spent. 10% Crit chance after a parry isn’t bad. Obviously scaleable with gear- you may get less effect with this if you’re in lower level tank stuff. I have a 20% parry, so I see a decent return off of it. Try it out, see how it works for you.

VIGILANCE
Conc Blow got a buff, and it’s threat is now on-par with Revenge, I believe. Worth picking up. It also opens up Vigilance, which, I believe, is still very much essential. They removed the threat component to Vigilance, so now more than ever, Vigi goes on your offtank or someone valuable who may be taking a fair amount of damage throughout the fight.

IMPENDING VICTORY
I -didn’t- take Impending Victory. In theory, its a useful talent. I would argue, however, that there are points better spent elsewhere. A 5% heal is decent, especially on a fight like LK or Sindy where that last 20% (0r 10% in LK’s case) where it can start to get a little hairy- but Victory Rush does little damage, comparatively, and the threat modifier is loooooow. Perhaps worth taking at 85, but not at 80. Way too much stuff to spend talent points on right now.

THUNDERSTRUCK
(Cue AC/DC here)
Thunderstruck is kinda nice. The 6% isn’t that huge but I was having some issues with my AE threat- as everyone is; this helps Cleave and Thunderclap somewhat. If you’re feeling a little shaky on your trash pack threat, might be worth it to pick this up.

BLOOD CRAZE
From there, I went into Fury and grabbed a quick 3/3 Blood Craze cuz lolol self heals. It seems like this is ALWAYS up, too. Baen is sitting at 50.5k unbuffed now, so 9.5% of that is nothing to sneeze at.

FIELD DRESSING
Darted into Arms next for Field Dressing- I have yet to test if the self healing applies to Blood Craze or not but if so, lololololol.

GLYPHS

I went out and spent about a thousand gold on all them when patch day rolled around. But the change is fucking snazzy- the ability to switch them out at your leisure, in the middle of a raid instance depending on what the encounter needs? Thats sexy. I used to carry around stacks of a couple different kinds because LK, at the time, required a different setup- I needed to be beefier because we were still learning the fight. No need now!
My current setup is as follows:
Prime
Shield Slam
Devastate
Revenge

Major
Sunder Armour
Resonating Power
Cleaving

Minor
Commanding
Demo Shout
Furious Sundering

The prime glyphs mentioned are really the only ones worth taking at the moment, as the others are all arms/fury I expect once Cata launches we can expect some new ones to fill out the repetoire.
With the majors, you have quite a few directions to go in, depending on what you’re finding you need the most.

REFORGING

This is a fantastic, magical new feature, and you should be in love with it if you aren’t already.
Basically what this lets you do is take 40% of a shitty stat on an ilevel 200+ item and turn it into something you need -more- like hit, expertise or mastery.

For those of us that are hit/expertise capped already, load up on mastery. Do NOT reforge out of dodge, you still need a lot of that shit.
Mastery will make your already (hopefully) chunky Shield Slams even chunkier. If you’re under expertise cap, fill that out first.
Hit cap was changed in 4.0 so you likely have a lot of excess hit sitting around (our elemental shaman had 34% on tuesday), reforge it. It costs 10g each time.
Reforgers can be found in every major city near the Enchanting trainers.

ROTATION

(IE, what the FUCK am I doing now?!)
A few things have changed. Revenge got nerfed pretty much back to where it was pre 3.3, so once again it has taken a backseat to Shield Slam. Heroic Strike and Cleave have 3sec cooldowns  and they eat -way- more rage than they used to, so you can’t spam them anymore.
I haven’t done too much testing on this, but this is what I’ve been hearing from external sources and seeing on my own time.
Shield Slam is back to our best threat per rage move, and as with Sword and Board, you’re going to want to hit this whenever its up. If you’ve enabled spell alerts (enabled by default, turned off in Interface>Combat) Sword n Board will pop up as two red shields as shown in the image above. (You’ll have to excuse the wonky action bars, they’re still a mess post-patch.) Not too much of a difference if you were using PowerAuras pre-patch, but its a nifty sort of change. I kinda like it.
Anyway.
Revenge is still high on the list, however. I have a feeling it may be slightly higher than Devastate as far as threat goes, but this remains to be seen. I would still place it above Devastate for now. Conc Blow, if you feel like you need more buttons to push, is apparently right on par with Revenge now.
Devastate is very chunky, it doesn’t hurt to spam this if you can’t hit anything else.
Heroic Strike only when over 55-60 rage- your abilities are expensive now, you can’t afford to ragestarve yourself.
So! For Single Target you want something like this:
1. Shield Slam
2. If over 60 rage, Heroic Strike
3. Under 60 rage, Revenge
4. Devastate

AoE is more challenging now, though still not as impossible as other warriors or the warrior forums would have you believe. I have an easier time holding aggro on Baen than I do on my DK, paladin or bear, for instance. The priority and strategy is the same as it was pre-patch; keep Thunderclap & Shockwave on cooldown, tab Shield Slam, Revenge and Devastates around. Cleave usage is the only real change- you’ll have to be smarter with it. It also means you’ll have to pull smarter.
With this, I haven’t had much trouble at all tanking something as simple as a heroic providing the dps isn’t being stupid. And if they are, they die. Simple!
AoE Threat follows as such:
1. Thunderclap
2. Shockwave
3. If over 60 rage, Cleave
4. If under 60 Rage, begin tab-target Shield Slam/Revenge/Devastate in that priority. If during the tabbing you get over 60 rage, Cleave.

All in all, not a truly cataclysmic (hurr hurr) event like we thought it would be. I was seeing some riddikerous numbers during the weekly raid earlier (20k sustained TPS with no MD or Tricks and nigh-on 6k dps on Patchwerk as MT) so our jobs are clearly still doable. With Chill of the Throne gone, our avoidance numbers are ribonkerous.
If something doesn’t feel quite right, it could be that someone put a decimal in the wrong place, or it could be that its currently balanced around lv 85. By the game’s viewpoint, we are no longer level cap, and as its always been, the game is designed to work around the level cap. Come December, I have a feeling things will feel a lot smoother.

I do have a few issues. The rage normalization, while a nice change as a well-geared tank in heroics, is lacking in a few areas and definetely needs some tweaking. Heroic bosses ragestarve me to the point where all I can do is hit Devastate and Revenge, while on raid trash & bosses I can’t get rid of the stuff fast enough, and I’m consistently capped at 100.

The ability queueing is absolute bullshit. I hate it. Get rid of it, or give me an option to turn it off.

Overall, I’m not entirely impressed, but its not game-breaking. It was a pretty huge change (cataclysmic, in fact! …I promise I’ll stop) and obviously not everything was going to be 100% solid and smooth on the first go. Lets be realistic, it just doesn’t happen.

Be forewarned.
This is going to be a bitchy, ranty, whiny post. It may not make sense, it may not make me look like a shining example. I don’t care.

Anyone who is even remotely familiar with ICC10 loot tables and a tank will know about [Neverending Winter]. The blue glowy eye thing shield that drops off Gunship.

This shield has eluded me for six months.
Half a year. HALF A YEAR.

Its not that I’ve lost any rolls.
Its not that we never run 10s.

I have never seen this piece of shit drop. Ever.
We run ICC10 consistently to at LEAST Putricide every week.
Every.
Week.

HOLY PALADIN ALTS in the guild have this shield. MY CASUAL ALT friends have this shield.
EVERYONE WHO CAN WEAR A SHIELD FUCKING HAS THIS SHIELD.

Except for me. Me who does NOTHING but tank fulltime for my guild and my friends. Me who has been doing ICC10 exclusively since its release. Me who has been tanking AS A SHIELD-WEARER for nigh-on four years now.
If there is anyone who works hard enough ingame to deserve this shield, it is me. A potentially narcissistic comment, but whatever.

I know its just a bunch of ones and zeros applied into some code with a pretty bunch of pixels tied to it.
I know this shouldn’t be pissing me off.
But it is.

I physically lack the words to describe how frustrated I am with this. My vocabulary is neither descriptive enough nor filled with enough hateful words to aptly describe myself.

I am this close to ticketing a GM on how to fix my obviously corrupted game files, because the shield is not physically there on my computer. My ability to see it on other players is nothing short of some malicious code placed into the game by some hateful deity.

What have I done wrong? Who have I pissed off? What can be done?

It has gotten to the point where it is actually affecting my mood IRL. A game. Affecting me.
This never happens. Ever. I don’t get pissed over things ingame. I don’t get sad, or stressed, or worried. It just doesn’t happen.

I need to step back from the game for a little bit. Focus on anything but. Take a break.
Of course, while I’m gone, the fucking shield will drop for my OT.

Hello. My name is Baenhoof, and this is a public service announcement.
I’m here to tell you that if you put a good amount of effort into your WoW character (and perhaps many alts) and you do NOT have an authenticator, you are ASKING to get your shit broken into and stolen.

It is LITERALLY like leaving your doors and windows open with the lights on, and a sign on your front lawn/door that says ‘FOR FREE MONEY AND GOODS, MAKE YOURSELF COMFORTABLE INSIDE.’ Feel free to drive down to the shitty part of town to give those unsavoury characters a ride back to your house, too. You wouldn’t want to inconvenience them at all.

Buy an authenticator.

But Baen! I run spyware, antivirus, and don’t go to any weird sites! I don’t open any suspicious email and I’ve never clicked on a link from the official forums ever!
It doesn’t matter. You could be doing EVERYTHING right, and still get ‘hacked.’ I’ve seen it happen countless times, TWELVE this week alone.

This is another thing I want to clarify, by the way. Getting ‘hacked’ does not mean some guy who’s like REALLY good with a computer sat there and hacked ur datas a la Swordfish. Well…sometimes it does. But the most common methods hackers use to get into your account is malicious programs and phishing sites/emails.

Malicious programs are things like trojans, tunnelers hidden away in addons or torrents or literally anything else you might download. People offer WoW account hacker programs to download from google. Seriously. I wouldn’t advise actually downloading any of these, you filthy fucking guy, because they will no doubt work against you as well.
The best way to combat these is to regularily run a spyware/antivirus and scan everything you download. Use common sense when downloading something- does the site look trustworthy? Who’s the developer? Does it have any guarantees? Think twice before downloading addons that don’t have a lot of downloads already, and ALWAYS check the comments before downloading- if it contains a virus, people will say something.

‘Phishing’ is a word used to describe when someone pretends to be someone they are not (in this case, Blizzard) in order to get personal information, such as your email, account name and account password. Sometimes, these phishing sites can be *incredibly* realistic.
You also may recieve whispers ingame saying that you’ve won a free mount, gametime, minipet or that your account security is in question with a link after. These are always (ALWAYS!) phishing attempts.
The Blizzard GMs will NEVER whisper you ingame- only when they speak to you about a ticket. Then they will have a little ‘Blizz’ graphic before their name, and their text will be blue. The text will also pop up in a seperate window- this allows you to be 100% sure it its actually a Blizzard GM you’re talking to.
Another thing- GMs will never ask you for your email, account name or password. They have that shit on file, they don’t need to. Don’t. Tell. Anyone.
How to combat phishing: Don’t click on links from the WoW forums unless you KNOW what it goes to, NEVER enter any personal info, unless you have FIRST checked the url. It will start with http://www.worldofwarcraft.com and ONLY that url. Or the EU variation. Blizzard GMs or emails will NEVER ask you for any kind of personal information including your password. Don’t use public computers.

The best way to keep your account safe, though? Buy an authenticator.

I have four level 80s. I have many alts, most of whom I adore. Baenhoof is in full t10, with enough gold to do anything I wanted from now til Cataclysm. I have 144 days /played on her alone. I have invested more time into this account than most parents will invest in their freaking children.
I would be heartbroken if I lost her.

If you can afford the $15/month, you have ZERO excuse. Don’t have a credit card? You can buy prepaid credit cards from a lot of corner stores.
I’m not going to be nice about this. If you refuse to buy an authenticator to keep your account safe, enjoy getting your toons deleted. Seriously.
This is tough love from me. I’m writing this because I care about my friends and readers.

In an old guild, our GL was a computer security specialist. We had a lot of raid mats in the bank- about 500k total worth of stuff, all told. He did all the smart stuff, probably a helluva lot better than you currently do…lo and behold, the GBank was cleaned out, his main deleted (likely after vendoring all his gear and posessions) after transferring the guild to what was thankfully an officer.
Computer. Security. Specialist.
This was BEFORE hackers/scammers/phishers were trying so hard and so frequently to break into WoW accounts, and BEFORE authenticators.

The problem is growing. It will not stop and it will not falter. But there is a solution.

Buy an authenticator.

They are six dollars and fifty cents US. It turns out to about $10 with shipping, and $15 total if you’re outside the US (but not European/Korean). That’s basically a nice lunch.

Simple solution.
The scammers and hackers are only going to get more sophisticated and better at what they do. But it is incredibly difficult to bypass an Authenticator- and its the best defense you have.

For your own good, guys. Buy an authenticator.

Early yesterday morning, something new went up for sale in the official Blizzard store. It was a mount- the first one available to be bought with real world currency.
Immediately following the update, people started to flip the fuck out.

The horse is $25 USD, compared to the $10 USD price for vanity pets in the Blizzard store. It is BoA, meaning it is automatically given to every character you make on the account you buy it for. Your characters still can’t ride until lv 20, and they still have to buy training for it, however. The horse’s flight speed (yes, it flies) is only as fast as your fastest flying mount. So if you have a 310%, it will fly at 310% speed. If you only have a 280%, thats how fast it will go maximum.

The concern is that Blizzard is essentially ‘selling out’ and devolving into microtransactions instead of providing meaningful content, and that we’ll be able to buy tier gear in a few months. No doubt, right?

Are you serious? Are people REALLY thinking this?
It blows my mind to think that people are flipping their shit over a horse.

NO, Blizzard is not selling out. You will NEVER be able to buy any kind of statted gear with real-world currency short of doing it illegally (and hey, enjoy losing your account). It breaks the spirit of the game. Why do you think 310% mounts and titles like ‘the Kingslayer’ continue to be put on endgame bosses and hardmode content? So the people who actually play and deserve and EARN their shinies can flaunt it over the casuals.
This is something that Blizzard has said they like, and I can’t see it changing any time soon. It works.

This horse, on the other hand, is something that everyone and their mother with $25 bucks kicking around already has. It isn’t unique, it isn’t cool. You aren’t any better of a player than anyone else for having it.
Remember when the Zhevra (a la Recruit-A-Friend) was released? Y’know what it is now?
Something that only casuals ride, because they don’t have anything cooler. Thats what this horse is.

The horse, along with the vanity pet, has ZERO impact in the game world. It is just that, a VANITY item.
You STILL have to buy training to actually ride the damn thing- the economy is not inflating. Flying mounts cost what, 90g? Big deal- you can make that in under an hour with a lv 80. This is not a giant fucking deal.

Microtransactions do not hinder the game, they HELP.
Okay, lets look at this.
They took an EXISTING wireframe. Hippogryphs. An artist had to edit an EXISTING skin (the lv 20 Chargers). And extend the skin onto the wings. Lets say all of this takes 30 hours (and I can almost assure you it didn’t even take that long). Lets say the artist earns $20/hr. Blizzard spends $600 on this horse.
They had sold over 140,000 of the horses as of 7am this morning. You don’t need to do any math to know that the profit margin for this horse was fucking gigantic.
Now, I can’t say what Blizzard is planning to do with this money- I’d like to say I think they’ll spend a large portion on Cataclysm.
Thats what I mean by this helps the game- even if they spend a small amount of the profit on WoW, it will still be an upgrade. It will still be an improvement for us- whether it be more testing on the new raid encounters, more polished graphics, more content, who knows?

You’re still paying $15 a month, flat rate. This is only benefitting you.

All that said, the horse is freakin’ ugly. And looks bad on tauren. If they released a nightsaber? Yeah sure, I’d buy one.

I thought I’d start up a new series of posts for newer warriors after all that crap about Cataclysm- back to basics. This’ll also cover the fun stuff.

What is the Chargebomb?

The chargebomb, (otherwise known as the bear bomb if you’re a druid) has been around since Vanilla WoW. You can chargebomb in many different situations, and you can get quite creative with it.
Essentially, what the bomb entails is the warrior executing a charge in midair to avoid fall damage. You can also modify the chargebomb to an intervene or an intercept- whatever gets the job done.

Executing the Chargebomb

So you’re up in the air. You’re waaaay up in the air. You might die. Its a scary thing.
Your first task is to pick a target on the ground. This can be tricky- your charge’s unglyphed range is only 30 yards maximum. Adding to that, you can’t be within 8 yards of your target either. Fortunately, yardage is counted in 3 dimensions in WoW, so you can be 8 feet up in the air from your target’s hitbox and still chargebomb them with no problem. Your second task- hit Charge as soon as it lights up, and as long as you didn’t charge the Lich King or some silliness, you should be okay.
The chargebomb is all about finesse and speed, however.

For example, most bosses’ hit boxes are nowhere near what they look like graphically, from the circle around their base. Some of them seem to be taller than others- making some bosses and mobs harder to bomb.

The other thing- you have to be QUICK on that charge. Your window of opportunity will likely only be a second before you either splat or get out of range.

Where and When to Use the Chargebomb

The list of situations when to use the bomb is long and varied.

• Jump off the cliff into the Mine in Arathi Basin (Bonus points if you can land on the flag)
• Off Lumbermill, also in Arathi Basin
• Acidmaw/Dreadscale knockback in ToC
• Icehowl knockback (never charge him when he massive crashes, though!)
• Onyxia knockback
• Surprising those level 65 DKs trying to take over Halaa
• Fun & profit!

Why Chargebomb?

To avoid taking any damage at all from falling.
The second reason is the most important one, however- to get yourself back into melee range as fast as possible to avoid letting your threat drop off for too long.
Getting knocked back is dangerous in WoW. Not only are you more likely to lose aggro, you’re also losing valuable boss dps AND you’re potentially getting out of heal range.
Knockbacks also give you a percent negative to your threat- you have to work to overcome that negative and get back into the positive tps numbers again. The faster you can do that, the better.

Have a video
(Warning: There is music. It has probably been audioswapped. There goes all my hard work.)

So like YESTERDAY (I’m slow, shut up) Blizzard unveiled the Cataclysm warrior preview.
I’m…well, I’m not surprised.

Blizzard’s main intent is to keep the game interesting. They change it up a little- mostly in the interest of balance. Mostly.
I’m actually pretty happy that we got a WHEE FUN ability- I bet everyone knows about the Heroic Leap thing by now.

If you haven’t, this was the text given:

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.

Part of why warriors are such a blast to play, for me anyhow, is how zoomy we are. We are BY FAR the most mobile tanks (hell, even class) in the game- this just makes it that much more fun.
I don’t subscribe to the idea that this will share a cooldown with Charge, but I’m not the sort of person to go QQing on the realm forums for something so trivial.
If they DON’T allow this to be used in combat, though, I just might have to.

Inner Rage (Level 81): Whenever the character reaches a full 100 Rage, he or she will gain a buff that causes attacks to consume 50% more Rage and do 15% more damage for a short amount of time. This is a passive ability so it won’t need to be activated by the player. The goal for this ability is to provide a benefit for hitting max Rage instead of it feeling like a penalty. However, we also don’t want warriors to feel like they’re supposed to pool Rage and do nothing until they hit 100, so we’ll be closely monitoring how this plays out during the beta testing, and making adjustments as needed.

Needless complication. Do not want. Perhaps useful for arms warriors, but as prot?

One of the major things we have to keep in mind, though, is that the game is changing substantially in Cataclysm. We have to trust that our jobs will still be doable in the xpac. Perhaps the threat modifiers will be changed so that Heroic Strike is no longer a spammed thing- this would certainly be an improvement.
I just have to sit here with my paper bag and try not to hyperventilate, is all.
EVERYTHING WILL BE FINE, DON’T PANIC. (I forgot my towel!)

Heroic Strike, by the way, is slated to be Execute 2.0:

Heroic Strike will no longer be an “on next swing” attack, as we are removing this mechanic in Cataclysm. To keep the niche of Heroic Strike as a Rage dump, it will become an instant attack, but will cost between 10 and 30 Rage. This ability will not be usable until you have 10 Rage, but if you have more than 10, it will consume up to 30, adding additional damage for each point of Rage consumed above the base 10. Other abilities, such as Cleave, Execute, and Maul (for druids) will work similarly. The goal is to provide players with an option where if you can’t afford the Rage, you don’t push the button, but if you have excess Rage, you can push it a lot.

I hope they don’t mean A LOT a lot, though. *pokes disfigured left hand*

Sunder Armor will be reduced to three stacks instead of five, and still provide only a 4% reduction in armor per stack. We want to make this debuff easier to apply and less of a damage swing when it falls off.

I’m actually none too happy about this. I can understand the reasoning for it, sure- sometimes, Sunder falls off. It happens. But I don’t think the damage swing Bornakk is mentioning here is that big of an issue. I actually kind of LIKE that it takes awhile to ramp up to the full dps- and on fights mobile enough to make it an issue, encounter design should account for it falling off.
That said, again, I can see where Blizzard is coming from with this. Raids should not be punished for not having a warrior, or for not having a prot warrior.
But hey, I’ve been raiding exclusively as a protection warrior for three years. Whaddya mean, no Sunder? (Insert winky face here)

And finally, the upcoming Path of the Titans- Protection warriors will be as such:
Damage Reduction
Vengeance
Critical Block Chance

Damage reduction? Sounds tanky! I’m a fan. But this Vengeance and this Critical Block Chance crap…this is new.

Critical Block Chance: As we mentioned in the stat changes preview, block rating is changing to a chance to block 30% of a melee swing’s damage. Protection warriors have a chance that the block will be a critical block and block for 60% of a melee swing’s damage instead. There will likely be talents available to push the amount blocked even higher.

Awesome. I didn’t like how weak block was, and for a tank class that is designed around a shield, it didn’t make a whole lot of sense for it to be the weakest stat for us. This will make our damage a lot less spiky, too, without having a built in Chill of the Throne in all the new raids.
It really all depends on what the percentage is, though. But hey, for stuff you get just for picking a majority of prot talents…we really can’t complain.

Vengeance: This is a mechanic to ensure that tank damage (and therefore threat) doesn’t fall behind as damage-dealing classes improve their gear during the course of the expansion. All tanking specs will have Vengeance as their second talent tree passive bonus.

(Woo, more free junk! I like the idea behind this. Lets see where it goes.)

Whenever a tank gets hit, Vengeance will give them a stacking attack power buff equal to 5% of the damage done, up to a maximum of 10% of the character’s un-buffed health.

(Ew. AP, really? But…well, I suppose its useful. I mean, right now at level 80, my tauren (with maxed Vitality and Mining skill) has an unbuffed hp of 44k with my stam trinkets on. 10% of that is a fairly hefty AP bonus.)

For boss encounters, we expect that tanks will always have the attack power bonus equal to 10% of their health. The 5% and 10% bonuses assume 51 talent points have been put into the Protection tree. These values will be smaller at lower levels. Remember, you only get this bonus if you have spent the most talent points in the Protection tree, so you won’t see Arms or Fury warriors running around with it. Vengeance will let us continue to make tank gear more or less the way we do today – there will be some damage-dealing stats, but mostly survival-oriented stats. Druids typically have more damage-dealing stats even on their tanking gear, so their Vengeance benefit may be smaller, but overall the goal is for all four tanks do about the same damage when tanking.

I can get behind this. Seriously, we can’t bitch…its like being given free money. We’re not sacrificing anything for this.
Well, actually, I can bitch, and I will bitch.

This does absolutely fucking nothing to address a problem we’ve had for a long time- prot warriors have zero (and I mean fucking zero- like sub thousand) dps while not tanking a mob. When we’re actually getting hit- yes, definetely, we do some decent damage. If rage isn’t an issue most of us can get between 3k and 4.5k dps.
But their intentions are admirable. Prot warrior dps has been comparitively (between other tank classes) shitty, and its good that Blizzard is attempting to rectify that.

I’m a redheaded stepchild when it comes to warrior dps, so as far as the DPS changes, you’ll just have to look at the preview for yourself if you’re interested. Certainly there are some things that are interesting about them, but overall it seems like arms and fury warriors just got the shaft again.

Overall, I’m getting a resounding meh. Sure, it covers all the bases. Whee fun, balance and fixes, but I don’t feel like the class is where I was expecting it to be. I was expecting something to address AoE tanking, just because it feels like thats what the community is always whining the hardest about…not because thats what I think the class needs.
I am not a paladin or a deathknight, and I respect that those classes deserve their niche. Plus I feel that with enough focus and skill, I can AoE tank pretty much anything in the game…and look like a BAMF doing it, too.
Another AoE tool was not needed. As previously mentioned, warrior tanks are percieved as being hardcore- I don’t want to be a faceroll class. If I did, this blog would be about pala…*cough*.
Our preview was pretty much on par with the rest of the classes so far, though, so I don’t mind it.
Keep in mind that these will likely not be the ONLY changes taking place, and that things will quite likely change before the expansion goes live. Please to NOT be freaking the fuck out. The game is not broken, no one’s class is retarded. Keep your fucking pants on.

Thanks for reading!

Warrior class changes for Cataclysm are slated to come out today, and I feel like a kid at christmas time. Who might possibly get a stocking full of goose poop.
What, I, personally, would like to see on the list:

1. HEROIC STRIKE CHANGES
Please. Make it be less spammy tiems nao. I don’t want carpal tunnel, I don’t want a calcium buildup on my tendon sheath, I don’t want aching wrists.

2. Intercept useable in defensive stance!
Yes, another charge please. I wish for more zoomzooms.
(Hurr durr we can already do this. Woot for latenight blog posts!)

3. Taunt hit!
Spellhit on taunts (16%) is fucking retarded. Just make the hit cap for taunts 8% like sane people.

3. Avenger’s Shield. Can haz?
Totally not going to happen, but I can hope. (That spell paladins have that lets them fling their shield at shit, its awesome)

4. Change Shield Block (ability).
Right now its just something I have macroed to Shield Slam. Its fire and forget- theres no reason for it to be on anyone’s bars. Make it cooler or delete it altogether and just dump what bonus it gave into Shield Slam passively.

5. Dual wield shields.
Totally retarded and totally awesome at the same time. Like another cooldown, maybe. OR OR OR have a second shield floating around me like a Dancing Rune Weapon type thing.

6. Vigilance.
I’ve had issue with this ability for a long time. It feels like a crutch that warriors are balanced around having…it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. I mean sure, it has its uses, threat wise…but I’d much rather move the threat portion into my other abilities passively and just pass out a 3% incoming damage decrease (perhaps upped to 5%)  & taunt proc to my healers or squishy dps.
Another thing that would be cool to see would be if your Vigilance target was hit, on top of refreshing your Taunt, it would refresh your Intervene cooldown (if any).

Some of this stuff is tongue-in-cheek, by the way. Regardless, I’m excited to see what they unveil later today.

Being a warrior myself (hurr) and having been one for a long damn time, I have a few things to say on the matter.
If you follow me on twitter (I’m so popular on the internet, lawl) you may have seen my initial reaction to the news this morning. It was in all caps, included a few obscenities and a few words like derp and wtf. I was not impressed. But, with some thought, my opinion on the subject has changed slightly.

Let me first say that this is NOT an issue we need to get our panties into a twist about. Rage IS an outdated mechanic, and does need some tweaking.
Let me ALSO say that post 3.3.3 I am a happy warrior. I feel my class is in a good place, but not unbalanced in comparison to other classes. So why do we need to fix what ain’t broke?

It may not look like it from our end, but it is broke.
At 80, no matter what spec you play, rage is never an issue. Even prot warriors in gear such as mine (250 ilvl average) are able to tank low-end content such as  heroics with ease. Arms warriors don’t even have to look at their rage bars, ever. High-end fury warriors don’t care much either.
In level-appropriate raid content, rage is a joke. I’m not actually going to complain about never having to worry about my rage while raidtanking, because its nice. Its one less thing I have to focus on. For the sake of balance and keeping the game interesting, however, it needs to change. Rage is a resource.
Resources are things to be managed. This is especially true in WoW.
Resources are not supposed to be a thing you forget about because you don’t need to concern yourself with them. Its the same reason healing is getting revamped come Cata. Their regen is so ridiculous its a non-issue. In Burning Crusade, shadow priests were as much of a staple raid class as a shaman because of their mana battery capabilities.
The point is, the mechanic is not working as intended.

Blizzard has already tried to update the rage mechanic in Burning Crusade. Long story short, it was a disaster. You couldn’t get rage for ANYTHING. Warriors with gear any better than tier four (and even then!) couldn’t even tank a basic heroic for lack of rage.
But I think Blizzard is on the right track here. I’m not going to do the math here (and I never will. Damnit Jim I’m an artist, not a mathematician!) but the simple formula Blizzard is talking about really does make sense.

The only problem I can visualize is that rage would be harder to get. This might be helped by the Horn of Winter-styled shouts we’ll be getting. That is to say- thats what our shouts are being turned into. Shorter duration rage-generating buffs. I really can’t complain.
You also have to remember that tanking as a whole is changing in Cataclysm. With the paths, you’ll just be able to go down the tanking tree and be defense capped. Likely there will still be gear with ridiculous amounts of stamina and avoidance on them to be classed as specifically tank gear, but this also means that we’re likely going to have more freedom with our gearing decisions.  I would go so far as to say we’ll probably see tanks with mixtures of dps and tank gear on, for a balance between threat/dps and avoidance/survivability.
But with this part, at least, it’s going to have to be a ‘wait and see’ game. We don’t have solid enough knowledge right now to know for sure whether this is something that will help or hinder.

The next thing that was mentioned is the end of on-next-swing abilities. Heroic Strike, our notorious enemy.
I’m not too surprised with this one. HS is an ability that Blizzard has always had beef with- I believe this is their first attempt to revamp it. Its certainly a welcome change- it allows our ragedumps to be more precise with a more immediate effect.

Those who know me well will know that I have been having medical problems in my left wrist…likely because of the way I used to tank. Up until about a month ago, I had Heroic Strike bound to my 3 key on my action bar. Lots of mashing of this key. I’ve had carpal tunnel multiple times from tanking.
With how frequently I was hitting HS (‘mashing like a crazy person’ is a phrase I would use) I actually started to develop a calcium buildup on my tendon sheath in my wrist from sheer overuse. This made life incredibly painful for awhile. It got to a point where I was having problems tanking heroics for 20 minutes, nevermind a 4 hour raid. I bought and used a wrist brace. Ultimately, I had to change my setup. I had heard of warriors using their mousewheels for HS spam, and I did try it out at one point. Didn’t like it- it was awkward moving the mouse and wheel-spamming at the same time. But unless I changed, it was either going to get worse or I had to stop tanking altogether.
I would never have had this problem if Heroic Strike was designed differently. I would LIKE if they changed HS to something other than a spammy ragedump…but this is what is changing for now.
One concern I would have is that currently, in endgame tanking, HS accounts for a good percentage of a prot warrior’s threat output. If they change the way we tank, they’ll have to change the threat values too. I have no doubt that they will, but it will likely be messy on patch day.

It will be nice, at least, for low-level warriors, who have nothing but low amounts of rage to deal with. I would like to see warrior tanking become a little more similar from 20-80 instead of the roller coaster it currently is. I like the steep learning curve, though. Good warriors are renowned for being beast players, and that is something I don’t want to see changed.

All in all, I’m cautious. Warrior changes have sometimes been for the better, but in the long run, Blizzard has a history of horribly mauling us for long periods of time. Cataclysm will be a whole new game, and this is just one more thing we’ll have to adapt to. Whether they decide to go with the new system or keep it the way it is, we’ll just have to see. Yes, it will be difficult to adjust to the new system. But prot warriors are already one of the most difficult class/spec combinations to play effectively…this will only serve as a new challenge for us to overcome. And overcome it we will. While screaming at our enemies. A lot.

As a small sidenote~

Baen’s Protip of the Day:

Stormrage by Richard Knaak cover

I recently picked up a copy of Richard Knaak’s newest WoW book, Stormrage. I don’t normally review books like this and don’t really have any credentials anyway, but I love to read and I love a good story.  Thats all you really need anyway.

A warning: I won’t spoil much of anything, if you haven’t read the book. But if you absolutely don’t want ANY hints on how the book goes, you should probably stop reading.

First, a word on the cover. It is fucking gorgeous and I love it. The detail on those lips is great…the snarl! Those eyes! His skin looks like it might be fused with bark, which is great. Love the cover.
Now, let me give a bit of foreword on this review. I have always been a fan of the night elf race- they were my favourites in Warcraft 3 and for a long time were my favourite things to draw; back when tauren were hard. I have read (and own!) the entire War of the Ancients trilogy, also written by Knaak, and I enjoyed them very much. I found them to be engaging and well-written, which is why I want you to understand where I’m coming from when I say this.

This book is utter crap.

I am not being kind, no. It doesn’t deserve kindness. There is ONE THING I enjoyed while I was reading it. The one thing is that Knaak never describes any cities or towns besides Darnassus, and then he only does so because roughly a quarter of the entire book takes place in Darnassus or around Ru’theran Village. I enjoyed it because it was nice to know that Knaak knew his audience…we’ve all been to Auberdine and Stormwind, we know how they look. No description needed!
But now, I can only wonder if it was laziness or just a lack of caring.

The cast of characters is quite large, first and foremost being Malfurion Stormrage. I enjoyed reading about Malfurion as a child- he was the quintessential ‘good kid’ to his brother Illidan’s ‘Bart Simpson.’ Tyrande was a flat character to begin with, but then I don’t think Knaak is physically capable of writing good female characters, so we’ll leave that alone.
Broll Bearmantle, who I understand is an action figure and a minor faction leader (faction figure?), is another incredibly one dimensional character that I felt a lot more could have been done with. The problem with Broll is that you never learn anything about him besides that he was once a gladiator and that he couldn’t save his daughter and she died. Both thing Knaak brings up INCESSANTLY to the point where it is all Broll talks about. Invincible is to Arthas as Anessa is to Broll…thats about how irritating it becomes. Its all he fucking talks about.

Hamuul Runetotem was kind of cool, because he’s a tauren. Yep, thats pretty much it. There are two Horde characters in the book, and Thrall gets a few mentions. The second Horde character is a write-off because of Knaak’s aforementionedly terrible skill with female characters. For a problem that threatens all of Azeroth…you’d think the Horde would maybe get involved a little more? We have druids too, damn you elves! I’m actually kind of tired of the Alliance-centric books and comics these guys are putting out. Its at a point where I’m not expecting much love from the movie and its lessening my excitement for it. Its depressing in itself.

The one character I felt Knaak wrote well is Varian Wrynn. Varian, in this book, is actually a minor character. But he brings up just how Hordephobic Varian is, and to a point, how nuts he is. How much he loves his son was also something I enjoyed, but maybe its because I’m Horde 99% of the time so I don’t have to deal with him much to begin with. Those of you who play Alliance will have to let me know your feelings on this one.

The villains are laughable. At no point in the book did I ever really feel threatened by them…they were just annoying roadblocks to a victorious ending I knew was coming. And knowing the ending will be a happy one does NOT always account for bad writing. A favourite book series is Dragonlance by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, and they do it just fine. The big bad baddie is pretty cliche- one of those ‘you thought he was dead, but he wasn’t, and now he’s messing everything up! Ho ho!’ Very eyeroll inducing. The big bad makes Malfurion feel as if his every move is what the big bad WANTS him to do. This is not written subtly. It is hammered into you fairly hard, many times.

The plot is decent in the way that a little kid’s movie plot is decent. The issue I had with the book is just how badly paced it is. Some authors can write fast-moving action very well, with different characters hopping to different locations all over the place. Knaak fails at this. I can only imagine that Blizzard gave him a list of topics to cover and a cap on pages to get there (gamers don’t like reading, obviously) and Knaak just fumbled it horribly. You can REALLY tell it was one of Blizzard’s advertising moves before Cataclysm. One of the thoughts foremost in my head while I was reading is ‘how much of this is going to play out in the xpac and how much of it in the pre-xpac event?’ It feels rushed. Very, very rushed. Unfinished, almost.
At one point, a character is impaled. Next moment she’s alive and well in Darnassus. No explanations. Shouldn’t you be dead? What happened?
The book is centered around the lines between the Nightmare/Emerald Dream and Azeroth blurring. So you’d expect a lot of subtle real experiences transitioning with NO warning into nightmarish ones, right? Kind of “nice happy ooh yay happy” into “oh SHIT WHAT IS THIS” without really having any distinction between the two. So it might actually be happening. Scary stuff.
Knaak attempts this…and fails. Miserably. Things shifting into the Nightmare will inevitably involve rotting plant matter, people barfing centipedes, spiky trees or spectres. Yawn-worthy. A little more differentiation in nightmare sequences would have been lovely. Keep people on their toes and all that good stuff.

Reading the first 4/5ths of the book can only be described as trudging. Plodding…with a fading glimmer of hope in one’s eye, thinking that perhaps the plot will go somewhere before the book ends. It goes somewhere…like a Disney movie. I can only liken it to reading the end of Harry Potter. So…it was love that could have saved us all along? Really? Why did it take seven books to get that out? Its that kind of fuzzy horseshit ending. And before you ask, no, love does not save Azeroth. But I got the same feeling I would have gotten if it actually DID end like that.
I can understand the WoW books were written for a very large, broad audience, and I can understand that many of them may be younger kids. But I still feel that with Stormrage, in particular, my intelligence is being insulted- and I’m not exactly Stephen Hawking, here.

All in all, didn’t enjoy it. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who is merely looking for something good to read. If you’re a WoW lore nerd, yes, by all means, read it. You will not enjoy it, but there is some info in it that you’ll undoubtedly want to know. The last bit in regard to the section of the Emerald Dream where it all began, especially, is a loregasm in itself.
If you’ve read the book, let me know what you thought, I’d love to hear your opinion.

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed

YOU ARE SEARED!
*ahem*

Things have been going great lately. My guild, <Adamant> is awesome. I’m very happy to be a part of it. Not just because they’re a competent bunch of players- but they’re extremely friendly, easy to talk to and a fun bunch of people.
I used to have this terrible idea of endgame raiders being elitist assholes who didnt give a shit about anyone but themselves and their epics. Its still true, of course…but to a lesser extent. I cant help but wonder if thats because of one of two theories.
1. Because the game is now more accessible to casual type players, more people are seeing content and thus being considered endgame raiders.
2. More people play the game, so there is a bigger pool of players for guilds to pick from- thus the players with bad attitudes aren’t included anymore.
3. I used to be a pretty scrubby player- green quality gems in my epics and such. Maybe because I’m playing smarter, I’m given more respect.

Of course there are still assholes. But I’m finding that players with good gear are more friendly than they used to be, whatever the reason.
Anyway, yes. Adamant is wonderful. The officer core is GREAT. One problem I had with <Mark of Whatever> (my old guild) was that the officer core was incredibly cliqueish. We only ran with each other, and screw everyone else. And yes, I was an officer in Mark. I also believe I was the only one that saw this and tried to work against it, but you try campaigning against four other officers plus the Guild Leader for something they have no interest in- it generally doesn’t work out.
Adamant is very fair- they have a good system. Everything is laid bare on the table; theres no whispering behind closed doors.
Two weeks ago, we began our first ICC10 group 2 after getting enough members for it. Group 2 was not put together well. We had one spell dps, and on Lady D, that doesn’t really cut it. Anyway, after two wipes on her, our MT pally leaves the raid without a word. And we don’t have a replacement for him. So essentially, 9 people were screwed out of their raid.
I offhandedly asked one of the officers about it- kind of a ‘so whats up with so and so?’ He was frank, told me ‘yeah, Taeh and the officers talked to him, hes not raiding with us anymore.’ I was impressed that sort of thing was told to a low-ranking guildie (at the time I was still a Trial ffs!). It meant a lot to be given that much trust, and its one of the things I respect about the guild most.

I’ve been spending a bit of time leveling up two tanks, as well as practicing on a third. I’m slowly converting all of my characters to tanks or healers, I’ve noticed- the DPS queue is just too much to handle. Probably why the 74 hunter is taking so long to level.
I have a gnome warrior tank on Rilgon’s server, and a tauren DK tank on Ktok’s server I’ve been leveling. I’ve edited my lowbie tanking guide a little after getting a refresher course on how it goes for warriors, so if you’re still considering leveling a prot warrior I would go reread it if I were you.
The third tank is Baenblade, my old 80 DK still on Rexxar. She used to be a decently geared unholy DPS, so shes in mostly tank blues and some badge epics. Its slow going. I tried frost, and while I wasn’t as squishy, my threat generation was almost nil. I went unholy after how much success I’ve been having on my 60+ alts, and the threat is a bit better, but if bone shield isn’t up I feel very sorry for my healers.
I want to say its a problem with gear but very honestly I’m probably doing something wrong. I can hold two or three targets off low 2k DPSers but any more or any higher than that and I run into problems. I have seen some EPIC awesome DK tanks, though. Madd threat. So its possible.
I’ve had healers leave group on me in H ToC5 saying ‘You’re taking way too much damage, I can’t heal this.’ It makes me a sad Baen. Huge switch going from my warrior with an 85% overall damage reduction to the DK with…much less.

Also dinged my holy priest Nosferata (formerly Halfabee, also formerly shadowpriest) 80 a few weeks ago. Healing heroics has been terrifying and also boring. It really depends on the tank. Also raidhealing continues to scare the shit out of me and I will likely not do it for a very long time.

Anyway I’ve got a DnD 4e campaign I have to finish making a character for in three hours. I’m making a dragonborn guardian fighter…yes, a protection warrior. With black scales.
No, its totally not a scaly version of Baenhoof. Why would you say that? 8D

Preview art for something I’m doing in my spare time! Enjoy.