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As I posted recently in the hunter forums, we increased the armor on level 83 raid bosses by 10%. This will be a nerf to warrior dps.
In the case of Arms and Protection, we don't think any adjustment is necessary at this time. Arms is doing very competitive dps, while Fury has fallen behind. We experimented with lowering the proc chance of Sudden Death, from where Arms gets a lot of its damage, but weren't happy with the result and ultimately decided to buff Fury instead.
First, we increased the percentage of AP that contributes to Bloodthirst from 45% to 50%.
Second, we reduced the hit penalty on special attacks on Titan's Grip from -12% to -5%.
As I have said before, we have been somewhat reluctant to give Titan's Grip such a huge buff. It is now likely more powerful than several other talents in the tree and risks being the 51-point talent to which all other classes compare their 51-point talent. Nevertheless, we feel it was the right change to make.
When a Fury warrior missed a Slam or Bloodthirst on a boss, they ended up building up a lot of extra rage that couldn't be spent fast enough. I understand some players suggested an additional attack for Fury, and that is something we may still consider when we see players hit 80 and start experimenting more with the build. But it would be a very big change that involved touching talent trees and glyphs, as well as a lot of time necessary to iterate on the right values. The Titan's Grip change by contrast was a simple one, and judging by the number of players who have asked for it throughout beta, one that will be welcomed by the community.
In the case of Arms and Protection, we don't think any adjustment is necessary at this time. Arms is doing very competitive dps, while Fury has fallen behind. We experimented with lowering the proc chance of Sudden Death, from where Arms gets a lot of its damage, but weren't happy with the result and ultimately decided to buff Fury instead.
First, we increased the percentage of AP that contributes to Bloodthirst from 45% to 50%.
Second, we reduced the hit penalty on special attacks on Titan's Grip from -12% to -5%.
As I have said before, we have been somewhat reluctant to give Titan's Grip such a huge buff. It is now likely more powerful than several other talents in the tree and risks being the 51-point talent to which all other classes compare their 51-point talent. Nevertheless, we feel it was the right change to make.
When a Fury warrior missed a Slam or Bloodthirst on a boss, they ended up building up a lot of extra rage that couldn't be spent fast enough. I understand some players suggested an additional attack for Fury, and that is something we may still consider when we see players hit 80 and start experimenting more with the build. But it would be a very big change that involved touching talent trees and glyphs, as well as a lot of time necessary to iterate on the right values. The Titan's Grip change by contrast was a simple one, and judging by the number of players who have asked for it throughout beta, one that will be welcomed by the community.
I never in my wildest dreams thought they'd go that far with the miss penalty, but despite what GC's saying, they clearly realised that any more is making the talent a waste. Seriously, if they really thought the talent was now too overpowered, they'd make it 10%, which I'm sure would be just as acceptable. 5% indicates to me an "admission of guilt" on their part, and they are rectifying it while trying to cover it up with a little disclaimer ;-)
I wonder if the "Experiment" they performed on SD proc chance was the 3.0.3 change, and if they're rather going to switch it back up to where it is currently.
I fiddled around last night with a long fight (target dummy), and can unequivocally confirm that the lack of the extra attack makes Fury lackluster ... I found myself spending loooong stretch waiting for something to happen while BT and WW was on cooldown, and even more noticeable when you hit BT and WW at around the same time your auto attacks go off ... then you sit around, not only with nothing to do, but with nothing happening for 3 seconds. Hell, I even started weaving in untalented slams to break it up a bit.
Now, I never noticed this deficiency while questing, as the fights are over so quickly. But on long sustained dps runs ... there's very definitely a problem. The actual DPS I was putting out was noticeably lower than Arms as well (but then we knew that). This change might help with the DPS side of Fury, but it's not going to change things that much from an interactivity point of view ... right now Arms wins there ... hands down.
Edited, Oct 22nd 2008 4:30pm by robertlofthouse