An Arms Warrior's First Few Days in Northrend

I kinda miss having big shoulders. But I s'pose those will come in time. :D

As I wrote before, I hit Northrend with every intention of stripping off the old and embracing the new. Spec, gear, weapons... hair. So I did. Okay, haven't settled on the hair, but that's okay. I haven't replaced everything yet, either. But I've only spent a few hours in Northrend so far. More will come.

Being a noob again, though, is so much fun!

I did roll up the Deathknight, of course. Wicked story line, but probably be awhile before I go back to it. It was hysterical to see, literally, dozens upon dozens of DKs running around. Lots of fun, too.

My "Wrath Strategy" was to hit Northrend a little behind the crowd, but stay ahead of the horde of DKs that'll be power leveling through Outland. So far, so good. I haven't had any problem at all with quests, lag, over crowding, disconnects, queues, or anything like that. In fact, the whole of the expansion has been completely smooth and seamless. Awesome job to Blizz!

And Northrend?

Completely in love with it. It's gorgeous, dangerous, and full of wonders. Maybe not quite dangerous enough, but I'm sure that'll come as zone progression continues. Some of the quests in Howling Fjord, where I started, are brilliant. The ROFLplane is a favorite. And riding the flaming spear across the bay is truly a Great WoW Moment. Oh and penguins. I love penguins.

The lore and the quest progression, so far, feels smoother and more connected than Outland did (at least to me), as well.

And the place was built for Warriors. :)

So how's the Arms Warrior thang working out? Brilliant.

First off, your TBC-gear is gonna be way over powered for the first two zones. For most Warriors that'll be just fine. But if you really wanna get a feel for the experience, you'll want to switch to q-rewards and drops as soon as possible. And even with out stacked up hit, crit, Attack Power, resiliance, and your fancy gems and enchants, you'll still be way over powered. Which is a good thing because there's several times the mobs come at you back to back and super fast.

All of which is a lot of fun for a multi-mob killing machine like an Arms Warrior. You really are going to be using your abilities in a more situational mode. Now again, what follows is not theorycraft, or any of that nonsense. This is very much from the "push the button and see what happens" school, at this point. It's not efficient, it's just what's worked and what's fun.

Hold Aggro!

To which most Arms Warriors, being the calm and practical types they are, will responsd, "Well, don't pull aggro, dumbass." Prots are usually too polite/proud to say anything when someone pulls aggro off them, but Arms types aren't particularly inclined that way. Mostly we follow the "You Spank It You Tank It" school of tanking. We can spank and tank, after all. :)

The good news is, that's not really a problem any more. You can tank. Very well, actually. Pop on your shield, switch to Def, and do that tanky thang. Bash 'em with the shield, Thunderclap, and start your Sunder/Revenge rotation. If you get in a tight spot, pop Shield Block or Shield Wall. You're good to go. Granted, it's TBC tanking and you don't have any of the fancy threat moves Prots have. And you also aren't go to hold as well as a Prot, particularly if your friends are really geared and buffed up. You might have to ask 'em to dial it down a notch or two. But it's nowhere near as bad as it was in TBC.

So tank it up. :)

All the Moves

Okay, that's nice. But what about the good stuff, right? K.

You can now kill everything. At the same time. Fast.

Is that good enough. :)

Three mobs are easy. Four mobs is... well, easy. Five, though, that's... still easy. Try some different combinations in different situations. Some that I like so far:

Sweeping Strike - Not a combo, but hot key this one right away if you haven't already. You're gonna use it a lot. I missed this ability and having it back just makes an Arms Warrior right again.

Sweeping Strikes > Whirlwind - Does this really work? It looks like it does. Try it and watch the damage go scrolling by. It's neat.

Recklessness > Sweeping Strikes - Just mean. Not for use when focused, but that goes for Recklessness in general.

Recklessness > Bladestorm - Yah if you have any aggro at all you're gonna be hurting. But everything will be dead... so...

Rend - With any bleed effect boosters is a win. Nuff said, 'cept Welcome Back Rend.

Execute - You'll just mash this pretty much constantly when it procs.

Thunderclap > Bladestorm - Melee AOE. Throw in Recklessness before hand (assuming you can pull off the rage) and it's pure evil.

And I actually popped Retaliation several times over the last few days. Ha!

I'm also catching myself using Cleave a lot more than Heroic Strike, particularly in the mob packed areas of Northrend. Hitting multiple targets at once is just pure joy for an Arms Warrior.

You're Still The Same

What's best is Arms really hasn't lost much for it's PvP toughness. And we can pop a lot more consistent damage that works well in both PvP and PvE. Your top end damage is still there. You still have Heroic Strike and Mortal Strike you'll use all the time. Throw in Execute for a bit more juice. You'll still pop Whirlwind when you can. You're still easy to heal if you're wearing your Resiliance gear. The damage spikes, both taking and giving have leveled out a lot more. Damage dealing is higher and more consistent. Taking damage is still stable (healable) since you're almost impossible to crit.

I don't just Slam at all, but never used it much anyhow. It DOES still give nice damage, but it feels more like a, "Gee I have a lot of Rage and everything is on cool down so I might as well use... um... ah! Slam!" Meh. Maybe in time we'll see a new Slammer build.

If you're like me and giving up your Resilience while starting out in Northrend, don't worry too much. The Stamina on gear is insane. It's wicked. It's in the Very Good category. And that's just the greens. ;)

Basically, Arms is just a lot of fun right now. Again, cheers to Blizz for doing what they said and making it more fun to play, not just more efficient to kill stuff. I hope they never loose sight of that.

Now... how am I going to get a Dual Wield Bladestorm build to work.... hmmmm.... :D

-Fri

Two Weeks of Whoa!

I didn't post on the Zombie Invasion and Hallow's End cause I was busy. Hallow's End is my favorite Azoroth holiday, of course. So, I jumped into that with vigor. And ya know what... it just wasn't AS fun as it has been. Maybe I've just seen it too much, but it needs a few more upgrades than just some quest changes and a few extra drops. Why isn't there a massive quest chain to hunt down or fight the Dark Riders in Deadwind/Dustwood during this time? I mean come 'on. That place IS Hallow's End. I also couldn't get to the Headless Horseman this year, due to circumstance, which kinda sucks.

The Stink Bomb event in Southshore/Tarren Mill was fun, but a little whacked. The PvP was enjoyable, but not really up to the good ol' days for that area. Alliance's side of the quest was to make a scounting run on the Wickerman Festival. That involved riding all the way up to Lordaeron (no, it's not "Undercity" sheesh!), ridding up to the Wickerman, getting flagged, and then riding back to Southshore. Woopee. The Horde, on the other hand, had to run into the middle of Southshore, get flagged, drop a stink bomb, and try to get out.

So, the Horde side was actually interesting and fun. The Alliance quest sucked. Yah, I know there was an Alliance side quest for the stink bombs, but it wasn't nearly as fun. Still, there were some nice fights as the Hordies tried to complete thier quest. It would have been so much better if both sides had the same quest. Horde dropping stink bombs on Southshore, Alliance dropping... air freshner? on Tarren Mill. THEN you'd see some fights! Maybe next year...

Not to say anything bad about Hallow's End. It was great fun while it lasted. But my interest seemed to be a bit lower this year. Of course, it got upstaged mid-way through by Arthas, so that might have had something to do with it. And here it comes...

I loved the Zombie/Scourge Invasion. There. I said it. :P

I spent a great deal of last weekend fighting Zombies and griefers in Stormwind and elsewhere. It was a blast and half! Blizz created a social experiment that pretty much turned the whole of WoW on it's head for several days. And good job to them!

Yah, I tried the Zombie thing. It was fun for, oh, about 15 minutes? I was out hunting Horde around Goldshire. Finally ran them down just outside of Eastvale Lumber Camp. A small group of Alliance showed up about the same time and we all went at it. Course, the Horde gang was there to turn the Camp into Zombies and I got infected.

When I turned, I could suddenly talk to the Brutal Tauren warrior that was kicking the crap out of me 30 seconds before. Turns out he was a nice guy, and (I'd forgotten) we'd dueled awhile back outside of BRD during Brewfest. (And yah, he kicked my arse then, as well.) So we ran around trying to infect the rest of the Horde and Alliance players that were fighting. It was in an isolated area, no lowbies around, and all great fun.

I get the idea of opposing factions trying to infect each other's cities. I also agree that the starter areas should have had some form of safety catch. What I didn't get was people of the same faction infecting their own cities. Either way, it made for some spectacular fights around Stormwind and Iron Forge. I'd heard Darnassus and the Exador on my server were almost completely wiped out.

I also get what a pain in the ass it was for lower level characters trying to quest or conduct business. Neveron (my Priest) spent two hours trying to unload stuff in the Auction House, a task that should have taken 15 minutes. Every few minutes, some griefer would come Zombie charging into the AH and detonate. So I'd spend the next few minutes debuffing everyone and everything like mad. That's the one mistake I think Blizz made...

Suicide bombers? Bad form. Bad Blizz. That was unnecessary and in poor taste.

Other than that, though, it was interesting to see the two sides go at it. By two sides I mean griefers and those trying to slow them down. And I do mean slow them down, not stop. Blizzard gave the idiots that find fun in making things not fun for others the tools they needed to get the job done. For a few days, the balance shifted from the dumb asses being a nuisance to being in control.

What surprised me a little, on Fenris anyhow, was how many players stood vigil in Stormwind through most of it, doing their best to turn back the tide. Over the course of the invasion, I saw the same people over and over again fighting the zombies everywhere they could. We grouped a lot, we had to fall back a lot, we got infected a lot, and we died a WHOLE lot. But, at least in Stormwind and Iron Forge, there were long periods where the cities were safe. I'm calling that a job well done.

As a social experiment, it was kinda of horribly interesting. Those that wanted to quit in frustration. Those that were going to fight no matter what. And those that wanted to screw things up as much as they could. It really brought out the best and worst in players of WoW.

I know there those that doubt, but I think it worked exactly the way Blizz intended. It created a sense of hopelessness, frustration and horror that would come from an invasion of this sort. I saw a lot of buttheads during the invasion. And made sure to note who they were so that I don't end up in a PuG with 'em. I saw a lot of QQ. And I saw a whole lot of Heroes.

I think it also set the stage for Wrath brilliantly (and yah, there's more to come). Stormwind is bleak and you can feel the pressure building and the darkness decending. The King is back (yea!) and the call to arms will go out soon. Things are changing.

Granted, I'm into the whole fighting the Scourge thing. It's my favorite story line in WoW. Yah, even after getting everything (except the damn plate chest... drop damn you!) from the invasion points, I still go out there and kill 'em when I'm in the neighborhood. I'm loading up now on those Argent Dawn sharpening stones. I think they'll be handy in Northrend. Killing the Scourge Invaders, btw, is a great way to get Scourge Stones for Argent Dawn rep, if you're inclined and sick to death of grinding Scholo and Strath. Just be sure to wear your Insignia of the Dawn.

Yah, I wear my Argent Dawn tabard with pride. :)

Wrath is 12 days away... I can't wait to see what happens next.

-Fri