Friday, 8 November 2013

Blizzcon's First Day, Warrior Talents, and my boys at PvP Live.

Well, it happened. Warlords of Draenor is the new WoW Expansion. It's going to spring loads of graphical updates to the character models and the models they showcased so far (Orc Male, Gnome Male/Female, Dwarf Male/Female, Tauren Male) all look fantastic and I can't wait to see the rest.

The new zones, the story, I love it all. Blizzard have made an expansion that I've really fallen in love with. The high-fantasy style that they've embraced here, while it might anger a few of the completely lore-correct people amongst Roleplaying communities, I feel will be able to drive WoW out of the rutt that it got itself into with Mists of Pandaria.

On to the Warrior-Based stuff! New Talents:

Blade Barrier - When you Whirlwind or Thunder Clap, whirling blades continue to spin around you for 30 seconds. These blades to 1000 damage every 1.00 seconds to all enemies within 8 yards. (Passive)

Ravager - 40 yd range, 1m cooldown, 0.879 sec cast -Throw a whirling axe at the target location that inflicts 3000 damage to enemies within 8 yards every 1 sec. Lasts 15 sec.

Extreme Measures -
[Arms and Fury] - Masochism - Deal damage to yourself equal to 20% of your maximum health and gain 30 rage.
[Protection] - Gladiator Stance - Increases all damage dealt by 20%. Also causes Shield Slam to consume Shield Barrier as additional damage, and have an increased chance to critically strike equal to your critical block chance. (Replaces Defensive Stance)

So. Blade Barrier is of course, completely situational, as a tank this will be pretty good for AoE damage. As a DPS it will be good for AoE burst and AoE sustain. No downsides to this one in an AoE situation.

Ravager is along the same lines, completely situational. I guess as a tank, I'd use this to pull a group of adds I know will be spawning somewhere so that they're immediately aggroed on me before I HC Leap onto them or something along those lines. As a DPS this is going to be a bit iffy as it has a cast time and it requires the adds stay in the axe. Blade Barrier superior in this scenario.

Extreme Measures is just... Wow. For a Tank, if this doesn't reduce damage taken while in the Defensive Stance then this is the most useless ability besides maybe... no, nevermind. It needs to replace Berserker Stance for Protection or it's just complete trash. As a DPS, trading 20% of my health for 30 rage seems like a massive trade for what is basically the old Bloodrage, just with no cooldown. Except that the old Bloodrage cost 4% less health. I really think that this could do with some tinkering, and it can't be something to do with single-target damage, else it makes it the clear winner vs Ravager and Blade Barrier.

Lastly, I've been very active on Twitter during Blizzcon supporting the guys at http://pvp-live.com/ - If you PvP at all, or want to start and don't know how to get going, I recommend signing up and getting invovled with this project and the amazing people there. Brief shoutout to Mwi (@notoriousMWI) for getting me involved with it all!

May write a brief write-up tomorrow after further information regarding Warlords of Draenor, but until then, seeya!

Exhil (@DrExhilMD)

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