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.,
Collateral Damage for Arms, and
Inner Rage for Fury) and haven't seen changes yet, or their first set of changes in Shadowlands haven't quite hit the mark (
Frothing Berserker 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
Mastery: Deep Wounds' 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.
Single-Minded Fury 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
Unstoppable Force build that exists in
Battle for Azeroth. There are a lot of individual effects contributing to the build: talents, Azerite Traits, and Essences. The core components, however, are the
Anger Management and
Unstoppable Force talents, which can still be taken together in Shadowlands. In Battle for Azeroth, the multiplicative nature of the other effects is so powerful that
Unstoppable Force 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
Conduits and/or Legendaries may quickly have an outsized impact on the strength of
Unstoppable Force. 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 rating will increase the “damage the enemy takes from you” effect, rather than
Mastery: Deep Wounds' damage.
- Developers' notes: We feel it is important for Arms to have a bleed in their core kit, but Mastery: Deep Wounds' direct contribution to damage dealt was overwhelming.
Execute damage increased by 20%.
Mortal Strike damage reduced by 5%.
has been redesigned to give it more identity, and differentiation from
Bladestorm.
again replaces
Bladestorm when talented, and inflicts
Mastery: Deep Wounds (reverting previous Shadowlands changes). Cooldown reduced to 45 seconds, and duration increased to 12 seconds (still reduced by Haste).
now chases nearby enemies.
Collateral Damage has been redesigned: When your abilities damage a second target due to
Sweeping Strikes, they refund 30% of their Rage cost.
- Developers' notes: Collateral Damage's previous design turned out to be too niche. We want to support Sweeping Strikes in talents, and this new version should be more broadly applicable outside of strictly 2-target situations.
Cleave has been redesigned: Replaces Sweeping Strikes. 20 Rage. 6 second cooldown. Cleaves up to 5 enemies in front of you for Physical damage, inflicting
Mastery: Deep Wounds. Cleave will consume your Overpower effect to deal increased damage.
- Developers' notes: Cleave clashed with Sweeping Strikes at lower target counts, making it feel useful primarily while SS is not active. By having it replace Sweeping Strikes when talented, Cleave can stand on its own and more dramatically affect Arms' AoE gameplay.
Fury Warrior- Single-Minded Fury is back. Learned at level 14 alongside Titan's Grip, 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%.
- Recklessness now generates 40 Rage.
- The following talents have been removed: Inner Rage, Furious Slash, Fervor of Battle, and Wrecking Ball.
- Frenzy is a new talent: Rampage increases your Haste by 3% for 12 seconds, stacking up to 3 times. This effect is reset if you Rampage a different primary target.
- Seethe is a new talent: Bloodthirst generates 2 more Rage, or 4 more Rage when it critically strikes your primary target.
- Cruelty is a new talent: While Enraged, Raging Blow deals 20% more damage and has a 30% chance to instantly reset its own cooldown.
- Frothing Berserker updated: Rampage has a 20% chance to immediately refund 40 Rage.
- Meat Cleaver is back: Whirlwind deals 30% more damage and now affects your next 4 single-target melee attacks, instead of the next 2.
- Onslaught now generates 15 Rage (was 10).
- Dragon Roar cooldown reduced to 30 seconds (was 35 seconds). No longer reduces enemy movement speed. Now critically strikes for 3 times normal damage.
- Bladestorm damage increased by 20% (Fury only).
- updated: Recklessness generates 20 more Rage and greatly empowers Bloodthirst and Raging Blow. Bloodthirst becomes Bloodbath, dealing 100% more damage on a 3 second cooldown. Raging Blow becomes Crushing Blow, 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 Bloodthirst and Raging Blow.
Protection Warrior- Ravager 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.
- Dragon Roar 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.
- Crackling Thunder now also increases the movement speed reduction of Thunder Clap by 10%.
- Ignore Pain now caps at 2x value (was a cap of 1.3x value).