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ITZ nerf: my thoughts and what warrior needs moving forward

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    ITZ nerf: my thoughts and what warrior needs moving forward

    Where to start...

    The current meta

    When the new Warrior meta build first came out, a lot of people, myself included, didn't like how spammy ITZ made things. It was especially hard to keep up with mobile, but the more you played it the easier it got. With that being said, I would agree it wasn't the most enjoyable build to play. However, it was by far the best build for Warrior, so everyone played it. Allow me to explain why.

    Unlike the other classes, where kiting and doing damage from a distance is key, the warrior is in the middle of battle getting hit with EVERYTHING all the time! This requires investment in a combination of defensive attributes and abilities in order to survive. It's not just about surviving, it's also about dealing AoE damage. Luckily this build has all the AoE skills you need to get you through the trial with Rending Slash, Leap DoT, WW proc, and Shockwave. Now let's look at the abilities Warrior uses with this meta build:

    Rending Slash - AoE and DoT needed to fuel Shockwave damage
    Cleave - 15% damage reduction

    Leap - 50% damage reduction, AoE and Leap DoT fuels Shockwave damage
    Shockwave - 25% damage reduction and 20% health regen per second!
    ITZ - 2k parry. This probably ends up being around 50% damage reduction. Personally I'm at 40.8% Parry and with ITZ it goes to 72.8%, which is effectively more than 50% DR. Additionally, the more you parry the more you will maintain Templars 5k CR, proc WW for damage and crazy amounts of LoH, and reduce cooldowns with ITZ's effect.

    Tough as Nails - +20% Armor
    Lightning Reflexes - 400 Parry Rating
    Power Infusion - 40% damage boost on proc

    Oh, and can't forgot about the WW proc from warlords 4 set bonus- 30% damage reduction.

    I play with anywhere between 93-95% damage reduction from Armor to survive trials 160+.

    ***Now, my first concern is that we're losing the cooldown reduction from ITZ. Will Warrior be able to Leap every 3 seconds for the 50% damage reduction? If not, the warrior will take twice the damage during the downtime and probably die. Will it be possible to maintain 100% ITZ uptime during mob phase? This is essential for the parry (damage reduction), damage, and recovery it provides. If it will not be possible, how is the Warrior going to survive?

    A meta shift to inspire diversity

    What does Warrior need? It needs better scaling with toughness and damage! Warriors don't scale well from attributes right now. They scale from their skills. This is why Warriors have the flattest curve. In observing the range in trials between the top 100 of each class, Warriors have the tightest range. In Discord, we had a challenge to see how high we could push with no CL points. I did TL 155 with a couple minutes to spare. The build does all the work. I agree, it needs to change. You need to scale into the late game rather than just having static amounts of damage on abilities.

    Looking at toughness, maybe change the k value of Armor for Warrior, so Armor can give higher damage reduction. I can get 95% damage reduction with almost 28.5k Armor, and that's sacrificing a lot of damage attributes already. What happens if a warrior wants to have a build without Leap? In order to reach the same level of damage mitigation needed for high trials they'll need 97.5% damage reduction or 58.5k Armor with the current k value of 1500 (not possible). Changing Warrior's k value to about 750 would give you 97.5% damage reduction at 29.25k Armor, which is doable.

    Damage reduction= a/(a+1500)
    vs

    Damage reduction= a/(a+750)

    Or you could maybe give us a passive ability that provides Warrior with a base damage reduction apart from Armor.

    Providing Warriors with alternative defensive boosts will remove our dependency on some of these active abilities that provide otherwise necessary defensive boosts. This will increase build diversity. It would also be nice to see changes in Bracer of Mastery for some abilities, so we can see other builds thrive. There is so much potential to see multiple builds competing against each other, not only for Warrior, but for the other classes too. Adjusting BoM bonuses would be a great way to balance this.

    If you are going to get rid of ITZ's cooldown reduction effect, Warrior won't be able to spam skills nearly as fast. Fewer ability casts = less damage, obviously. To compensate, why not at least buff the damage of other abilities? Is the 25% damage buff of ITZ going to compensate for 50% fewer Shockwave casts? And again, it would be nice to see skills scale with attributes. For example instead of saying Devastate will do 6,000% damage per hit, why not do something that scales with an attribute such as CR or Power. Below, are a couple examples.

    Ability damage = 1000% + (cr x 4%)

    If you have 0 CR, you still do 1000% damage per hit. If have 2000 CR, you would be doing 9,000% per hit. If you scale your CR to 3000, you're now doing 13,000% per hit.

    Ability damage = 1000% + (power + 2%)

    If you have 0 Power, damage will be 1000% per hit. 5000 Power would be 11,000% per hit. If you scale Power to 7000, it would be 15,000% per hit.

    The last thing I want to point out is how Osmosis changed the meta to AoE builds > single target builds by a long shot. Finish mob phase quickly and start stacking Osmosis on the boss, and within a few minutes you're hitting like a truck, especially during your talisman procs. Just look at these values:

    After 2 minutes: 81.7% extra damage
    3 minutes: 144.9% extra damage
    4 minutes: 230% extra damage
    5 minutes: 344.8% extra damage
    6 minutes: 499.6% extra damage
    7 minutes: 708.1% extra damage

    How would a build like old dw shine with Osmosis when it would get at max 1-2 minutes for boss? There are players who get 7 minutes on boss fights at high trials. Sacrificing a weak mob phase for a strong boss phase doesn't work with Osmosis. By efficiently pulling to AoE everything down as quickly as possible, you get rewarded with insane damage on the boss later in the fight.

    Sorry I was kinda all over the place, but I'm eager to test some builds out for myself in beta and figure out some of these answers. A lot of Warriors, myself included, are worried where Warrior will be, moving forward. If I were to guess, I would think they will easily be 10TL+ behind the other classes unless some other changes are made to compliment the ITZ nerf. Otherwise, other classes will be taking several steps forward while Warrior will be taking 10 steps back.


    Special thanks to Shade for editing!
    Last edited by Romme; 12-02-2020, 05:07 PM.

    #2
    Excellent analysis. Thanks Romme. Travis, can you raise this for discussion?

    Comment


      #3
      I agree with all of your points. It certainly would open up build diversity if there were passive options for survivability like you suggested. I also really like the idea of scaling some abilities with Critical Rating or other stats. I think it would make Warrior a bit more dynamic and more fun to play!
      BH: Shade
      Mage: Muse
      Warrior: Shade

      For a list of guides I've created, click here.

      Comment


        #4
        • Very good, hope the plan can accept your opinion! Warrior is my only class, I have seen the new version of the update, the warrior has been very difficult!

        Comment


          #5
          Now that I have beta its slower than I originally thought it would be. The majority of the time you have nothing to do but sit there and get hit while your cooldowns slowly come back up. It really takes out a lot of the fun

          leap: I cant keep then 3 second damage reduction on. Takes about 5 seconds with pretty good ar and attacking the entire time for alacrity procs (about 2 seconds not active)

          itz: I cant keep this up either. Also have about 2 seconds of downtime.

          Shockwave: if I want to keep my defensive buff stacks on me I need to use this immediately once it comes off cooldown. Takes about 5-6 seconds. So tos gives me 1 shockwave, 2 if I'm really lucky. Was easily able to get 5+ before.

          Companions: they wonder off and aggro elites into me. Takes them 5 seconds to charge back to me so I cant even stun Kara's adds before their channels buff kara. If I need a stun during mob phase I need to anticipate 5 seconds ahead of time.

          I think you also increased the difficulty? I died 8 times in my first run through of tl135. Was getting 1 shot on tl140.

          Comment


          • ShotDead
            ShotDead commented
            Editing a comment
            >Companions: they wonder off and aggro elites into me.
            I think it's only Marcus that ODed on weed. He just runs off to some random place and keeps beating around the bush, literally.

          • Romme
            Romme commented
            Editing a comment
            My norgrims follow his lead

          • ShotDead
            ShotDead commented
            Editing a comment
            I don't buy that, Norgrim that is

          #6
          Bumping this for the thoughtful analysis that Romme put together. I think it is silly that Warriors basically need to devote 6 skills to survival - as you laid out above, when other classes don't need to do this.

          Cleave, Leap, Shockwave, and ITZ are basically mandatory, as are the passives Tough as Nails, and Lightning Reflexes. That't not mentioning all the shield build skills, which IMO should be the tankiest built, but somehow isn't. Just looking at this, it appears to me that warriors need more inherent surivability built into the base class so abilities can be tuned for damage.

          Comment


          • Romme
            Romme commented
            Editing a comment
            Thanks for the bump. Let's hope the devs actually take a look at what's going on with warrior.

            Just think...warrior was right with the other classes when they were spamming abilities as fast as they could. Now that they are maybe able to do 1/5 the amount of casts as before, of course their damage is now laughable. Hell, with the ar and alacrity nerf the new warrior meta is based around auto attacking with cleave. Their auto attack is doing over half of their total damage!!

            As much as reverting itz back to its original state would help warrior, I think they would just get melted in high trials with the damage buff foes recieved. I can get 1 shot by just one elite pack on tl140
            Last edited by Romme; 01-02-2021, 04:11 AM.

          • ShotDead
            ShotDead commented
            Editing a comment
            >Let's hope the devs actually take a look at what's going on with warrior.
            Wishful thinking. They just hate warrior. The success of Fury+WL was a mistake on devs part. Now go back to your SW.

          #7
          I think they should add more tankiness to shields. So you have to decide If you go the easy way whith a shield or If you spend more Attributes and skills in surviving.
          personally i sonst Like the spamming of skills. And the increased cooldown Bring mobile and PC together. But If cooldowns get nerfed we need something to compensate the huge damage loss.

          Also the scaling of abilitys named by Romme would be a nice Thing.


          Sorry for my Bad english and the German Auto correction.


          @devs pls stop changing the GUI. We have muscle memory. So pls dont move Buttons.(or deleted Them)

          Comment


            #8
            Originally posted by MristerX View Post
            @devs pls stop changing the GUI. We have muscle memory. So pls dont move Buttons.(or deleted Them)
            This.
            +1

            Comment


              #9
              I dont know what type of elite but sometime in trial 135. My shield warrior is insta killed dunno what type of elite it is but i need to skip them cause i just insta die everytime i attack them!

              Comment


                #10
                If the devs think that stash space is such a big task for a small team, how long do you think these changes would take? I’m not trying to be funny, I’m serious.

                Comment


                  #11
                  Originally posted by Romme View Post
                  Now that I have beta its slower than I originally thought it would be. The majority of the time you have nothing to do but sit there and get hit while your cooldowns slowly come back up. It really takes out a lot of the fun
                  Snipped
                  I'm new, so I have no basis for comparison. Your comment about having to wait nailed my main problem with Warrior. Once I started Mage, battles became a lot more fun. Key abilities recharge much faster. I have a lot to learn here. Your posts give good information and perspective. The difficulties I'm having with Warrior might not be all down to newbie mistakes. Thanks.

                  Comment


                  #12
                  Bump! My warrior su-u-uuuuucks now... i spend all of my time watching the cooldowns on the left of the screen and drawing mindlessly without ever actually looking at the game play.

                  I went for the old itz build just to have a reference (i never had beta) to the changes - and because i got so used to the build. I am used to clearing up to level 120 fairly easily, even at low champion levels and/or pre-gear enchanting... cant get passed 110 for now.

                  Something is also terribly unbalanced with the mobs... i cant imagine why i should be dying SO often with just a nerf to itz and a "slight" increase to mob strength...

                  My warrior: "hello, mr. Elite summoner!"

                  New version: "you are dead."

                  My warrior: *resurrect*

                  New version: "hi! You're dead."

                  My warrior: "..."

                  New version: "uh,... ya dead!"

                  Comment


                  • Romme
                    Romme commented
                    Editing a comment
                    Yea it's fun when that happens!

                  • Turgeon
                    Turgeon commented
                    Editing a comment
                    Yeah same thing happen to me i need to skip them very bad

                  #13
                  Romme , I guess I’ll have to ask you directly: how long do you think your changes would take take the devs considering that they think adding rows and columns in the stash to be a huge project?
                  Man, I have so much respect for you and others that are always posting in the suggestions area. But how realistic is the change possible?

                  Comment


                  • Romme
                    Romme commented
                    Editing a comment
                    I dont think it would be a huge project. They have been to occupied fixing all the bugs for PvBot "arena". I mean they changed the rows and columns in our materials page, it shouldn't be hard to change it in the stash.

                    They had things right before, how hard would it be to go back to old times. The game was a lot more fun then. This update made things worse for all classes. Warrior was just 5x worse than the other classes.

                    Change alacrity and ar back to how it once was.
                    I dont care that they nerfed itz. The changes just made cooldowns take way too long for warrior, which is why auto attacking is the new meta.

                    Change trial scaling back to how it was. Cant believe I can get 1 shot on tl 140 with 28k armor (95% damage reduction) and 350k health. I cant get much tankier than that.
                    Last edited by Romme; 01-05-2021, 11:12 PM.

                  #14
                  Yes, I started playing a little over a year ago and it was fantastic. Every change since has been painful. People say it’s just a game, move on if you don’t like it, but I put hundreds of hours and over a hundred dollars in this. Not only that it’s just heartbreaking.

                  my point is it’s months before they’ve given us space (not here yet) and Travis said it wasn’t easy to do with a small dev team. Rolling back is the only quick fix and that would mean giving up bracers and such, nobody would like that. Any other change would take a very long time.

                  Comment


                  • Nhat
                    Nhat commented
                    Editing a comment
                    There are multiple issues when it comes to "development time":
                    1. Current priority of tasks
                    2. Actual "man hours" to do these tasks
                    3. Peer review of changes done
                    4. Testing...

                    It looks like inventory have been/still is very low on the priorities list, so no one is actually looking into that. Based on what I've seen so far, the expansion of the team in the last year or so have introduced additional requirement for peer review/checks that haven't necessarily been taken up by the core/lead devs - we've repeatedly seen seemingly unrelated things being changed as part of the updates... I personally felt that the core 3/4 devs did a much better job, although obviously slower, at updating the game previously. Maybe one of the new dev should be delegated to do alpha tests for new releases instead - the "NPC teleporting" bug should have been picked up before that version made it "out" of the development cycle...

                  #15
                  I strongly believe that none of the developers play the game, not seriously. It's more of a QC than alpha run. Also agree with everything Nhat said above. Not that there weren't fkups earlier but the magnitude seems to be greatly increased.

                  Where is Red (Developer) btw, haven't seen him in a while.

                  Comment


                  • Stusmith50
                    Stusmith50 commented
                    Editing a comment
                    This isn't speculation, it's a fact. No player would ever consider removing the item level. Red is currently playing World of Warcraft
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