World of Warcraft - Warriors, Taunt, PvP

Originally, I slated this article to be a review of nearly all of the Warrior skills, talents, and the rage system. However, it was definitely apparent that the Warrior class is a sum of its parts and that debating the power of each part was an ineffective way to present my view on the balance of Warriors in WoW PvP.

Warriors are the tanks of World of Warcraft. They are the best damage absorption class in game. To the delight of most warriors, they are also quite capable of producing large amounts of damage. Offensively built and equipped warriors are a force to be reckoned with, and while defensive warriors will not achieve stellar damage numbers, they make up for it in sheer hit points, defense, and the melee advantage in regards to stats.

What is the melee advantage of stats? Basically, it is the simple fact that WoW melee classes benefit much more from each stat point when compared to the caster/hybrid classes. Casters essentially only gain benefits from one stat: intelligence. Melee classes derive an excess of benefits from every stat other than intelligence. Since stats in WoW are determined via gear, it makes sense that the essential melee class, the warrior, would derive the greatest benefit for gear. In essence, a warrior is more about the gear they wear than the skills, abilities, and talents they use.

Warriors are the melee class in World of Warcraft and are completely dependent on the gear they wear. When it is removed, their class skills do not pick up where their gear leaves off. The power of their skills, abilities, and talents are directly defined by the warriors’ gear. Almost every other class in WoW receives enhancements in their skills from the gear they wear, but are not dependent on it.

You take away the gear from a rogue, mage, or priest, and they are not completely destroyed. A warrior is not so fortunate. This concept is hard to grasp, but fortunately there has been a great video made that demonstrates the point. It focuses on the Rogue class, but it shows very well the concept of how classes other than warriors are carried by their skills and not their gear. The gear enhances these classes, truly making them better, but the foundation of the class is not the gear.

This is a departure from what I feel is good balance. Warriors that strive towards better gear are becoming terrors on the battlefield. Their skills scale upwards with their gear in a fashion that is greater than the rest of WoW classes. Over time, gear is only going to get better, and in essence, balance is at stake.

Warriors would have fared better if their PvP prowess was defined from their skills. I will use a clear example of what was missed for warriors. The taunt skill allows warriors to direct targets towards themselves to hopefully save fellow group members. However, in PvP it does nothing. This is a key skill that could have helped define warriors in PvP. However, it does not, and warriors are left chasing towards more power and damage through gear.

I will even go a step further and say that taunt would have defined warriors in PvP, if it worked to clear an enemy’s target box. A simple delay of 3-5 seconds before the enemy could re-acquire the removed target would have given warriors a defined roll in PvP. This in no way would of pigeon-holed all warriors into being taunt machines in PvP and nothing else. Warriors would still have the same choices they have now, but they would have had a much more obvious role in PvP, outside of being the person with the most hit points, armor, and damage.

Sadly, due to the lack of a defining role in PvP, warriors are delegated into just doing more damage and charging head-first into the enemy. While this is what many warriors may wish to do, there is a piece of that tank title that is lost when warriors are unable to get targets off of their support classes. Blizzard seems more than content to simply increase the power of gear with each and every patch/expansion, therefore further propelling warriors into a *must do more damage* mold. There were opportunities missed to make warriors less gear-dependent and offer the ability for every warrior to have a more clear and concise role in PvP.

Update: 6 Nov, 2006 - Removed post, but this will be kept as a placeholder for historical value.

This post originally linked to a Gamergod.com (now defunct) article that I wrote about World of Warcraft warriors and their effects on PvP. Unfortunately no copies of the article were saved.

Update: 9 Feb, 2007 - Article has been saved from an old post on WarcraftRealms.com. I will edit it sometime in the future.

My Chrismas list!

Books -

The Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King
The Wheel of Time - The Fires of Heaven by Robert Jordan
The Wheel of Time - Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan

iPod Nano

Stainless steel frying pan
New slippers

No video games... I hate games as presents! I always make it clear that I will do all my game purchasing on my OWN!

Whats on your list?

Naked man jumps to death... recieves parking ticket!

I don't stray from gaming too often... err well I don't try anyways, but its 5 AM in the morning and this just cracked me up. Partly because I've had friends that visited DC and got in a good bit of trouble over parking tickets. This story from the Washington Post is just odd.

Cut and pasted for your enjoyment.

"A naked man darted from a sport-utility vehicle into a downtown Washington office building at lunchtime yesterday and then jumped to his death from the eighth floor, officials said.

The man double-parked in the 1000 block of 15th Street NW about noon, bolted from his still-running gray Jeep Cherokee, dashed past a crowd on the street and ran into the lobby of an office building, witnesses said.

Police were still trying to identify the man yesterday and to determine why he jumped. Witnesses also were trying to sort out what happened. The man had no apparent connection to the building, according to people who work there.

"He didn't even have shoes on," said James Crouch, who was working as a temporary security guard at the building. Sitting behind the security desk, Crouch first saw the man from the waist up and thought "maybe he was a rather strange jogger. But then I stood up and saw the rest of him."

The man told Crouch that he was "handicapped," asked him for 50 cents to make a phone call and then spoke incoherently, mumbling something about his father, Crouch said.

Then the man ran to an elevator. Minutes later, he emerged from a stairwell on the eighth floor. The fire alarm had been set off, presumably by the man, and the office doors on that floor were open as people began to file out, witnesses said.

The man pushed his way into one of the offices, where he said "excuse me" several times while charging toward a window, witnesses said. He smashed the glass and jumped through the window, falling onto a parapet between two buildings. Some downtown workers saw him fall.

D.C. firefighters and emergency medical service personnel arrived at the scene, and police quickly cordoned off the block.

Workers in the eighth-floor office said they had not seen the man before and did not believe that he had ties to the offices there. They didn't hear anything he said other than "excuse me," a witness said.

Before it became apparent what was taking place, the city's parking enforcers reacted to the abandoned SUV, which had leather seats, Maryland plates and no sign of clothing inside. They slapped a ticket on the windshield."

Pepsi Online

Good read over at Virgin Worlds.

Best part is the picture! No game, other than World of Warcraft, could illustrate the point better!

How To : The key to the World of Warcraft Auction House

This is a cut'n'paste of my response on Tobold's MMORPG blog about the World of Warcraft auction house. Find the article here.

Controlling the market is key. I have the items I watch and I will buyout and low sellers and undercutters. Then I will repost at my price. I usually can bully out the undercutters because they are usually aren't dedicated AH watchers. They got some cash and that's all they cared about.

My keys to AH riches while still playing the game are as follows...

1. Pick your poison and stick with it. Don't switch back and forth between multiple items unless you really want to waste hours in the AH. If you are a disenchanter... stick with it. If you are a miner... stick with it.

2. Own the market every login. Take the few minutes to buyout every undercutter. This is tough at first because you probably will take losses on some purchases, but you are ensuring your future market.

Don't be afraid the mail people if they constantly undercut you. Don't be mad at them! Explain to them that you would like to purchase at a set price and see if they will stop using the AH. It is MORE profitable for them to sell lower to you because they are NOT losing money on AH fees.

3. Don't flood the market. You have bank space... SO USE IT! If you find the market empty and a demand for your goods you will have the "stock" in the bank to fill up the market... and usually you can charge a bit extra.

30 minutes a day can make you 100 gold a week easily and I've proven it time and again. Just the question of what to buy/sell... I'll let you figure that part out.