Blizzard
Updated June 17
Hello to all of the seasoned soldiers, raging barbarians, and ironclad commanders of Azeroth! The newest Shadowlands Alpha build has a number of changes for Warriors, primarily focused on talents. We're happy with the playstyle of each spec, and our philosophy for core abilities is generally “if it ain't broke, don't fix it”. That said, there are a number of talents in each tree that could use some love. Some were underutilized in Battle for Azeroth (eg.,
for Arms, and
for Fury) and haven't seen changes yet, or their first set of changes in Shadowlands haven't quite hit the mark (
for Fury). We're looking forward to hearing your thoughts and feedback on the new and updated talents!We'd like to call out that Arms' Mastery and Deep Wounds have been redesigned. We heard your feedback that
' overwhelming contribution to the damage breakdown felt unrewarding, and we agree. The new design will be a much smaller proportion of Arms' direct damage, and should reward skillful target selection more than the previous version.
has returned to Fury Warriors, with an updated design. This means that Fury Warriors can now receive one-handed weapons as item drops, though that may not be implemented in this build.For Protection, a major topic of discussion has been the status of the
build that exists in
. There are a lot of individual effects contributing to the build: talents, Azerite Traits, and Essences. The core components, however, are the
and
talents, which can still be taken together in Shadowlands. In Battle for Azeroth, the multiplicative nature of the other effects is so powerful that
overshadows any other setup or playstyle. We'd like to leave Protection in a more conservative position until the rest of their potential toolkit is known - additional Rage generation, cooldown reduction, etc. from
s and/or Legendaries may quickly have an outsized impact on the strength of
. We hear your feedback that the playstyle is extremely fun! The intention isn't to remove it completely, and we'll be keeping a close eye on how things shape up in the next few months in order to revisit and tweak things before the game launches. Thank you for your patience and ongoing feedback - it's extremely valuable to us.
Arms Warrior- Mastery: has been redesigned. Now, Mortal Strike and Bladestorm inflict , dealing bleed damage over 12 seconds and increasing the damage the enemy takes from you.*
Developers' notes: Removing Execute as a applicator helps keep relevant sub-20% health, without relying entirely on its damage-per-Rage in comparison to .
Mastery rating will increase the “damage the enemy takes from you” effect, rather than
' damage.
- Developers' notes: We feel it is important for Arms to have a bleed in their core kit, but ' direct contribution to damage dealt was overwhelming.
damage increased by 20%.
damage reduced by 5%.
has been redesigned to give it more identity, and differentiation from
.
again replaces
when talented, and inflicts
(reverting previous Shadowlands changes). Cooldown reduced to 45 seconds, and duration increased to 12 seconds (still reduced by Haste).
now chases nearby enemies.
has been redesigned: When your abilities damage a second target due to
, they refund 30% of their Rage cost.
- Developers' notes: 's previous design turned out to be too niche. We want to support in talents, and this new version should be more broadly applicable outside of strictly 2-target situations.
has been redesigned: Replaces Sweeping Strikes. 20 Rage. 6 second cooldown. Cleaves up to 5 enemies in front of you for Physical damage, inflicting
. Cleave will consume your Overpower effect to deal increased damage.
- Developers' notes: Cleave clashed with at lower target counts, making it feel useful primarily while SS is not active. By having it replace when talented, Cleave can stand on its own and more dramatically affect Arms' AoE gameplay.
Fury Warrior- is back. Learned at level 14 alongside , Fury Warriors can once again use their abilities while dual-wielding one-handed weapons. While dual-wielding a pair of one-handed weapons, your damage done is increased by 8% and your movement speed is increased by 5%.
- now generates 40 Rage.
- The following talents have been removed: , , , and .
- is a new talent: increases your Haste by 3% for 12 seconds, stacking up to 3 times. This effect is reset if you a different primary target.
- is a new talent: generates 2 more Rage, or 4 more Rage when it critically strikes your primary target.
- is a new talent: While Enraged, Raging Blow deals 20% more damage and has a 30% chance to instantly reset its own cooldown.
- updated: has a 20% chance to immediately refund 40 Rage.
- is back: deals 30% more damage and now affects your next 4 single-target melee attacks, instead of the next 2.
- now generates 15 Rage (was 10).
- cooldown reduced to 30 seconds (was 35 seconds). No longer reduces enemy movement speed. Now critically strikes for 3 times normal damage.
- damage increased by 20% (Fury only).
- updated: generates 20 more Rage and greatly empowers and . becomes , dealing 100% more damage on a 3 second cooldown. becomes , dealing 100% more damage and charging you to your target within 10 yards.
Developers' notes: We'd love to hear your thoughts on how it feels using empowered and .
Protection Warrior- has been updated to match the changes made to Arms' version of the ability: 45 second cooldown, lasts 12 seconds (compressed by Haste), deals damage every 2 seconds, chases nearby enemies, and generates 10 Rage each time it deals damage.
- has been updated to match the changes made to Fury's version of the ability: 30 second cooldown, no longer reduces enemy movement speed, critically strikes for 3 times normal damage.
- now also increases the movement speed reduction of by 10%.
- now caps at 2x value (was a cap of 1.3x value).