Flower Picking Plate Wearers in 3.2 (So Far)

Warriors themselves are not really getting any love in WoW 3.2. We don't need it to be the most fun class to play, of course. :)

But the changes so far have been... meh to wtf?!? I won't even go there until after the patch. At this point, I'm taking a wait and see approach, even if my inclination is to rage and bitch and throw a fit. Ahem.

The more exciting changes for Warriors are coming in professions, and if you're a casual flower-picking plate wearer, things get really fun!

All subject to change of course. Some links are from the PTR version of WoWHead, so they'll break eventually. (And, let's face it, the chance of me going back and fixing 'em are pretty slim, so after 3.2 hits ya mights need to do a little searching. :P)

Alchemy

The first big news is that pots will now stack to 20. Ha! Okay, why not 100? Oh well, 20 will do. You'll be able to pack enough of those Indestructible and Speed Pots for several dungeon runs, extended questing, or long raids without having to refill.

Professionally speaking, it'll mean less runs to the bank alt to unload all those pots you've made for sellin'. And you can sell in bulk for larger at-once pricing. It won't necessarily change the per item cost, but it'll make it more convenient to rake in the golds.

On the other hand, maybe people will get so comfortable with the 20 stacks that they'll burn through them quicker. Which means they'll buy more. Selling is all psychology anyway. :)

/endwishfulthinking

The bennie ya get from Mixology is getting a boost, but no word as to what or how much yet. For Warriors, this is always huge. Any buff is a good buff. I'm hoping for more than just longer duration. A 2-3% or so increase to the effect would be nice. Popping a Deadly Strikes or Endless Rage and getting a bigger bonus would be wicked good for DPS warriors.

A new alchemy quest! "The recipe for transmuting a Cardinal Ruby can be learned from a quest, given by Linzy Blackbolt in Dalaran." Any time we get a new Alchemy quest is a good day. No, no daily yet. Keeping fingers and toes crossed for that one, but not getting expectations up. The quest, apparently, is just transmuting the other epic gem enchants. Meh. I hope they change that. Epic gem requires epic quest, not standing in front of the mailbox wiggling your fingers.

Not exactly sure why each profession doesn't have a daily quest or five. Hmmmmm.

Speaking of transmutes... Has transmutation become a viable specialization again? Not! We ARE getting new transmutes for epic gems. I read that the cool down is currently set to 20 hours (subject to change). Which is fine. Start grabbing those gems and eternals for the initial wave of jewel crafters wanting to cut them. Do it early cause miners are gonna be charging an arm and a leg for the raw gems after the patch hits. You'll want to farm up all your Crystallized what-have yous, as well.

Warrior alchemists will, obviously, want to set aside a bit of epic goodness for themselves. Banana Shoulders has an AWESOME guide to the new gems thus far. Be sure to check it out and plan your transmuting accordingly.

Tip: If you're going for the golds, take a good reading (using AuctionLite or r) for the next few weeks of which Rare quality gems sell best. The Epic versions of those will most likely be pretty popular.

Warriors will be mostly interested in:

Red: Bold (STR) and Precise (Expertise) Cardinal Ruby
Yellow: Rigid (Hit), Thick (Def) and Smooth (Crit) King's Amber
Blue: Solid (Stam) Majestic Zircon

There's also Orange, Green an Purple combo versions of the above, of course. I'll be transmuting up and getting cut some Smooth King's Amber because my Crit sucks so bad.

The mats you'll want to start stockpiling now are:

Gems: Scarlet Ruby, Sky Sapphire, Autumns Glow, Twilight Opal, Forest Emerald, Monarch Topaz

Eternals: Fire, Life, Shadow, Air.

At this point, no Eternal Water. And Life and Shadow are actually used in two of the new transmutes. Don't forget to check your transmute eternal-to-eternal thingie. If you have Herbalism, for example, you'll end up with piles of cheap Eternal Life, which can be transmuted into the rarer Fire and Shadow Eternals.

Flask of the North is the new Neverending Gobstopper for Alchemists. Weeee! Currently you need four Frost Lotus to make one. Expensive for non-herbalists, but you only have to make it once. It gives you a nice boost to either Spell Power, Attack Power, or Strength. No word yet on if this is a random effect or you can choose to make a specific type of flask. WoWhead lists one recipe that appears to be a random effect version, and then one each for SP, AP, or STR. I'm hoping for the latter. If so, Warriors will probably make both the AP and STR version, but again, ya only have to do one of each.

While this won't replace your main Flasks or Exlixir combo, it's a perfect buff for running dailies, PvP, questing or normal/heroic dungeons on the cheap. Save those Flasks for the big runs!

I do wish these were profession specific non-BoP items, though. I know that other Alchemists can make 'em, but they may not have Herbalism which makes getting Frost Lotus a bit expensive. So why can't I farm up the Frost Lotus and make one for them? Dunno.

Endless Healing Potion and Endless Mana Potion now gives 2700 to 4500 instead of 1680 to 2160. Can't use it in arenas any more. /fine. This is an awesome boost. This, combined with your Alchemist trinket and, if you have Herbalism, Lifeblood and add in built-in Warrior healing abilities... bah, who needs a healer any more! Ha!

Okay, I do. And I love each. and. every. one. of. you! Really. I was just kidding. Heal me. Please? :)

Finally, apparently rage potions can now be used by Druids. Didn't know they couldn't... but um, hey more business is more business. Hooray for ragey druids! :D

Herbalism

Lifeblood gets a boost. From 2000 over 5 second to 3600 over 5 seconds, currently. Yah! The patch notes also say that it scales slightly with maximum health. I imagine that'll be a small percentage that balances out the total percentage healed between toons with medium-range health and toons with high health. So... Warriors will obviously get a healthy boost from Lifeblood. (Sorry, first and final pun for this post.)

Yet More Wishful Thinking

For Alchemy, I'd still like to see a new application or two. For example, I still like the idea of salves and oils that can be applied temporarily to provide an item buff. Those are fun. Nothing huge that would be "required," of course. Or incense that can be burned to provide an AoE buff/debuff. I know Blizz got away from this sort of thing, but it always added flavor to the professions that I think is lacking now.

For Herbalism, the only thing I'd like to see is a few more nodes added, and/or maybe sorta a faster reswpan rate. Not much, mind you, but just a touch. All too often lately, with two professions using herbs now, herb prices make it impossible to justify making the finished materials.

I do Glyphs, on Neveron, and Pots and simply won't do them if the price per mat isn't right. Professionally speakin, it kinda kills the market for finished goods. Mats should certainly be profitable, but they shouldn't be more profitable than the final product!

I don't think, sometimes, Blizz is terribly interested in the WoW economy, but it is a fun aspect of the game for many. A little tweaking to make the material goods professions a little more profitable would be a Good Thing. Yes, the gatherers should make golds, too, of course. But going to the expense and time needed to level up a crafting profession should have much greater rewards. With associated difficulty and cost to get there, of course.

Anyhoo... Alchemy and Herbalism are offering a lot more for Warriors. That's always awesome. If the Crusade patch keeps going the way it is, Warriors in general are gonna be visiting the proctologist to remove the nerf bat. Sigh. So take what you can get where you can get it!

Oh, and I finally found a class I like almost as much as Warriors. Don't know why I didn't try it out a long, long time ago. Shaman! :D Yah, I made a baby Dranei Enhancement Shammy... and she's a blast! Very Warriory like, yet.... very different. Different is good sometimes. :)

-Fri

All Arms

I've been Prot for... what? Five or six months now? Going back to Arms is a strange yet familiar experience. I'm not exactly sure yet where my thoughts on the current state of Arms Warriors is at. Prolly won't be for awhile. This is just some initial random impressions.

I made the switch last week. Although with dual specs and a good gear manager (I use Outfitter, FWIW), "making the switch" isn't terribly difficult in a technical sense. Thar's two areas, though, that do make it... strange. :)

First is the mental switch. The difference in how you play as an Arms Warrior and how you play as Protection Warrior is huge! Bigger than I thought six months ago. They could almost be two completely different classes. From strictly a causal perspective, going from Arms to Prot is a lot easier than the other way around.

I'm missing pieces, of course. I haven't done a lot of either in PvP, for example. For PvE, the roles are obviously different. I think a PvP Arms Warrior is (was, Pre-Wrath?) more similar to Prot in that the job is to survive and take focus while keeping your head out of your ass. Now, I'm not suggesting that Arms PvE firmly inserts thier head... but the scope of what you have to keep track of is less than that of a Prot Warrior. Arms PvE can actually focus in optimizing ability priority and the target in front of them while mainly worrying about not standing in some bad guy's excretions. A tank has to worry about that... and making sure everyone else is doing the same.

So the mental switch is one where an Arms Warrior is going to be more inward and focused on personal performance. A Prot still has to do that, to a degree, but has to me more aware of taking care of everyone else (or at least keeping track of them) at the same time. The click from Prot to Arms is a little more difficult, at least in the short term. I didn't think it would be.

I still run up to a group of mobs and TC the crap out of them when it'd be wiser to set them up for a Bladestorm first. Couple of close calls put an end to that non-sense in a hurry. :)

Oh, but for you less than uber-geared Warriors out there, like me... The rage generation from Arms is astonishing! I never could get the hang of it as Fury. Never had enough. As Prot it was always a "get it going" sort of thing you just put into your priority list. As Arms you don't really think about it. You swing, you have rage. You swing again, you have too much Rage. The hardest part is waiting for 3 second swing timer. :)

Second is gearing. Going from worshiping Def, Dodge, Bock, Parry, Expertise to Hit, Expertise, Crit, AP is a gear nightmare.

I kept a lot of the quest rewards from when I was finish off Stormpeaks and Icecrown. I also managed to have Sons of Hodir and Argent Crusade rep finished, and a Revered status with Ebon Blade, before the switch. So I didn't start scratch. But I'm still wearing a couple of Def peices and spent close to 1500g buying, gemming and enchanting.

It's not bad, mind you. It's just something you have to consider if you dual spec. Your gear needs just doubled. Buy big bags.

Consider: As prot you'll have two armor sets. Assuming a few pieces are interchangeable, you're going to end up with most of a bag full of extra gear: one for survival, one for threat. Maybe three since for survival you might have both an avoidance and a stam/armor set. You might also have a resistance set. Like I said, many pieces will be used in two or more of those sets, but it's still a lot of titan steel to lugging around.

As Arms, I don't know yet, but I can see two sets already. For one thing... I'm wearing freakin' leather!!! Yah, the best crit/hit enchanting gloves I could find so far are leather. Geez! From looking at gear lists, some of the best dps gear a mid level Arms Warrior can grab is leather and chain. Wild, eh? Luckily, most leather and chain has plenty of Stamina, but I can still see a need where I'll have to have a dps plate set, as well. And yah, I'll be spot tanking occasionally, so at the very least I'll be hauling around my lovey shield and super wicked loveittillidie nelf axe.

Oh, and don't forget the resilience set. Gah!

I haven't even gotten into the change in priorities for abilities, of course. Retraining your fingies to hit the right buttons takes a lot of practice. I didn't realize how out of practice I'd gotten. As Prot you can literally just sit in Def stance the whole time. Arms seems to sit mostly in Battle Stance. That's fine, but if you dual spec, you're switching one for the other. The only tip I can give here is make common buttons stay where they are. If TC is on a particularly button as Prot/Defensive Stance, leave it there for Arms/Battle Stance.

Common sense, but... yah, I moved it. Then moved it right back. :)

Anyhoo, Arms is just a load of fun. I started Wrath that way and gushed about how much fun Blizz had made the class/spec. And I'll gush even more. Prot is a great spec to be now, but Arms is all about being a fun killing machine.

I <3 being an Arms Warrior.

-Fri