AfterBurn
12-25-2004, 08:01 PM
Hey I have never posted here, but I played CB with these guys and this is the best forums I know for class discussion, esp warriors. I was Santeria, WhatIGot, Airetnas in beta for those who care. Enjoy.
Rogues in Plate Armor
The Dual Wielding Fury Warrior
- Full article at with intro:
http://exiled-guild.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=142
I played a Paladin for year in beta, but with the latest changes to the class in beta, I gave up any hope for the class as an offensive PVP class. I did not want to be a support class in my PVP encounters anymore, so I decided to be the closest class to a Paladin, a Warrior. I had played the class somewhat in beta and at the time, I figured I wouldn’t have much to think about when I rolled one in retail, I was going Mortal Strike, obviously.
As I leveled my Warrior I loved it, it was fast paced and powerful, I was enjoying the class and couldn’t wait to get to some PVP. As I leveled though, I decided I was going to spec for my leveling and grinding, so I split my talents into Fury and Arms instead of going 31 arms. I figured I would respect once I hit 41 and got a decent 2 hander to MS with. As I leveled I ditched my shields and started dual wielding. At the time I just wanted to do more damage for faster leveling, my leveling party was all about damage so this worked well.
People will attest that I said I was going MS the whole time; I was bent on getting MS when the time was right. Finally at level 50 I had 20 points in Arms and 20 in Fury and it was time to go to MS, but I couldn’t, I was far to happy with my duel wielding so I went Fury just to, “test it out” till 60. I figured, what the hell, why not see what this line is made of instead of just going MS without question. I talked about my build with others constantly; I wanted approval from others that I wasn’t some gimp Warrior with Fury over Arms. As I went around I saw nothing but 2 handers on other Warriors, not a single sword/shield or dual wield Warrior for the longest time. I still struggle to find other, non MS Warriors; they do not seem to exist.
Now you are reading this, thinking I suck already, I am not a MS Warrior! What am I thinking; don’t I know MS is the one and only option for a good PVP Warrior? Weeks ago, I would have agreed with you, but now I don’t see it like that.
The fact is MS is just mediocre ability now and that Warriors have other viable builds other than MS. Many Warriors I talk to even say our class has gone from the best PVP class to one of the worse, while I don’t think that is the fact, I do think that method of thinking is in place because they all rely on Mortal Strike and have known nothing but MS. Warriors are not the same class they were in beta, but people try to play them the same way, hopefully this sheds some light on the other side of PVP Warriors.
First, my build:
Arms Talents (20 points)
Deflection - 2/5 points
Increases your Parry chance by 2%.
Improved Rend - 3/3 points
Increases the bleed damage done by your Rend ability by 35%.
Improved Charge - 2/2 points
Increases the rage generated by your Charge ability by 6.
Tactical Mastery - 5/5 points
You retain up to 25 of your rage points when you change stances.
Anger Management - 1/1 points
Increases the time required for your Rage to decay while out of combat by 30%.
Improved Overpower - 2/2 points
Increases the critical strike chance of your Overpower ability by 100%.
Deep Wounds - 3/3 points
Your critical strikes cause the opponent to bleed, dealing 60% of your melee weapon's average damage over 12 seconds.
Impale - 2/2 points
Increases the critical strike damage done by your abilities in Battle, Defensive, and Berserker stance by 20%.
Fury Talents (31 points)
Cruelty - 5/5 points
Improves your chance to get a critical strike by 5%.
Improved Demoralizing Shout - 5/5 points
Increases the attack power reduction of your Demoralizing Shout by 25%.
Piercing Howl - 1/1 points
Causes all enemies near the warrior to be dazed for 6 seconds.
Improved Battle Shout - 4/5 points
Increases the Attack Power bonus of your Battle Shout by 2.25 minutes.
Improved Execute - 2/2 points
Reduces the Rage cost of your Execute ability by 5.
Enrage - 5/5 points
Gives you a 40% melee damage bonus for 4 swings any time you are the victim of a critical strike.
Death Wish - 1/1 points
When activated, increases your melee damage by 20% and makes you immune to fear, but lowers your defense against all types of damage by 20%. Lasts 30 seconds.
Improved Intercept - 2/2 points
Reduces the cooldown of your Intercept ability by 10 seconds.
Flurry - 5/5 points
Increases your attack speed by 35% for your next 3 swings after dealing a critical strike.
Bloodthirst - 1/1 points
Activates after dealing a killing blow. Your next melee weapon attack deals a 100% increased damage.
Protection Talents (0 points)
None
This build is made for dual wielding Warriors mainly, but it works for 2 handers and sword/shield users as well. This build is focused on Critical strikes to make use of the Flurry talent which increases my attack speed by 30% after a crit. This build would be best with items that give a chance to crit, which are hard to come by at times, but it helps the build tremendously.
With my 20 points in Arms I continue this focus on crits and PVP.
Improved Overpower allows me to crit very often Flurry and Deep wounds, but more importantly, this handles Rogues. This ability alone makes the Warrior able to defeat a Rogue. Other Warriors may struggle vs Rogues, especially if they get the jump out of stealth, but I am able to hold my own and win more often than not.
Improved Charge is needed for the rage of course.
Tactical Mastery and Anger Management are vital for PVP Warrior, especially this type. You will be switching stances a lot in your PVP encounters, so this is a must. More on switching stances in PVP after talents are taken care of.
Impale is needed because I rely on crits, so if I critting 20% of the time I need this talent. Deep wounds is a nice bonus for this as well since that is a free DOT after a crit.
My Fury tree is a little more flexible than the Arms talents, which I consider a must.
5 in Cruelty for Crits
5 in Improved Demo Shout for both the use and as a pre req to Piercing Howl. Both these skills are under appreciated and you will learn to love them with this build.
4/5 or 5/5 in Improved Battle Shout – You can spend these points in another way if you see fit, but I think this is the best bet for the more damage.
Improved Execute – Bringing this down to 10 rage is a MUST for this build. Execute is a great PVP skill and for 2 points this is a great investment. More on why later.
Enrage – It’s a good skill and a pre req to flurry, so nab it.
Improved Intercept – Another must, this is required for this build to work. This will be your bane vs casters.
Death Wish – This is such a great skill that is vastly under used. This is a must for PVP as well, you cannot beat certain classes without this.
Flurry – This is the backbone of the build – This gives you 30% increased attack speed after a crit. This build relies on crits because of this talent. This is an awesome skill that raises your damage output a great deal.
I got Blood thirst in this build, but you can put this point somewhere else if you want. You can put in Arms or anywhere, but I have it now because I am doing some instances for gear and it helps there, but also in PVP it helps. I can execute somebody in group PVP, kill the, but I have no rage. This allows me to attack another target and get a good amount of rage from the hit quickly, as well as being high damage – so it works well for me, but others my find the point better spent elsewhere.
This build does great damage quickly and generates a large amount of rage. You will be able to switch stances often so you can address every situation better. You will be able to do many more things with this build than your MS build could ever let you do. You will be able do use all your shouts as often as needed, which more Warriors cannot afford to do because MS costs 30 rage. With all the rage you are able to use abilities in every stance instead of just one. Being able to switch stances is required to beat most of the classes, you just can not beat every class with one stance.
Why do you need to switch stances so often and why? Well you cannot win if you don’t, plain and simple. Try beating a Mage without intercept – it isn’t going to happen. It works both ways, offensive and defensive. Fight a warrior or rogue, and disarm them – it is not a pretty sight for them. Rogues cannot get combo points or use abilities – this will spell certain death for them. Warriors face the same fate too, disarm a 2 hander from a Warrior, it is sad. This is counterable via weapon chain of course, but you do not rely 100% on this to win, it just makes it much easier.
When fighting mages, it is a certain loss for most Warriors, but you can win, I promise. The secret lies with Intercept – this skill will allow you to beat mages. With a 20 second combat charge you can always been in melee range of a mage. Mages NEED the range to beat a warrior and they use the cold spells the have to maintain that and kill us. With this skill you can charge them when they blink or try to get distance on you. Then they will use mana shield etc etc – its over at that point. It takes a little practice, but you will win.
I’m not going to go into every encounter though, I just wanted to enlighten you to other options.
To help you out, here are a few more recommendations if you want to try this build out. First, get a shield, you still need one. You can make a shield bash macro that will allow you to interrupt spells at any time and this is needed. Also, make a hotkey for your stances because you will need to switch to them on the fly and will have no time to change stances via clicking.
Weapon wise, go for a 2.3-2.7 good damage main hand weapon. Your offhand should be faster, but not 1.4 or 1.5 - 1.7 is the fastest I recommend. Your offhand weapon needs a moderate damage range as well so you can get some nice rage off its hits. Also, your offhand should have a proc of some sort if possible. Its true your offhand does less damage and tends to miss more, but your proc are not cut in damage. So a proc is desirable for the offhand.
Gear wise, get things with +chance to crit. These items exist mainly as high end instance drops when it comes to plate, but they exist. With all the items out there, you can easily get 15-20% chance to crit on your weapons. If you dedicate to the build - you can get upwards of the mid 20s in % to crit. Agility adds to chance to crit so don’t pass up a little agility on items.
I know MS is still decent still and I still think it is a great ability, especially with its effect. I just think for group PVP that my build is superior to the MS Warrior. This build allows for warriors to control the fights much better. They are now an unpredictable force in group PVP, much more so than a MS warrior. Think of this what you will, take it or leave it, it doesn’t matter to me, but I will put my build vs a MS build any day – and I would win.
Full thing at:
http://exiled-guild.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=142
AfterBurn
www.Exiled-Guild.org
Rogues in Plate Armor
The Dual Wielding Fury Warrior
- Full article at with intro:
http://exiled-guild.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=142
I played a Paladin for year in beta, but with the latest changes to the class in beta, I gave up any hope for the class as an offensive PVP class. I did not want to be a support class in my PVP encounters anymore, so I decided to be the closest class to a Paladin, a Warrior. I had played the class somewhat in beta and at the time, I figured I wouldn’t have much to think about when I rolled one in retail, I was going Mortal Strike, obviously.
As I leveled my Warrior I loved it, it was fast paced and powerful, I was enjoying the class and couldn’t wait to get to some PVP. As I leveled though, I decided I was going to spec for my leveling and grinding, so I split my talents into Fury and Arms instead of going 31 arms. I figured I would respect once I hit 41 and got a decent 2 hander to MS with. As I leveled I ditched my shields and started dual wielding. At the time I just wanted to do more damage for faster leveling, my leveling party was all about damage so this worked well.
People will attest that I said I was going MS the whole time; I was bent on getting MS when the time was right. Finally at level 50 I had 20 points in Arms and 20 in Fury and it was time to go to MS, but I couldn’t, I was far to happy with my duel wielding so I went Fury just to, “test it out” till 60. I figured, what the hell, why not see what this line is made of instead of just going MS without question. I talked about my build with others constantly; I wanted approval from others that I wasn’t some gimp Warrior with Fury over Arms. As I went around I saw nothing but 2 handers on other Warriors, not a single sword/shield or dual wield Warrior for the longest time. I still struggle to find other, non MS Warriors; they do not seem to exist.
Now you are reading this, thinking I suck already, I am not a MS Warrior! What am I thinking; don’t I know MS is the one and only option for a good PVP Warrior? Weeks ago, I would have agreed with you, but now I don’t see it like that.
The fact is MS is just mediocre ability now and that Warriors have other viable builds other than MS. Many Warriors I talk to even say our class has gone from the best PVP class to one of the worse, while I don’t think that is the fact, I do think that method of thinking is in place because they all rely on Mortal Strike and have known nothing but MS. Warriors are not the same class they were in beta, but people try to play them the same way, hopefully this sheds some light on the other side of PVP Warriors.
First, my build:
Arms Talents (20 points)
Deflection - 2/5 points
Increases your Parry chance by 2%.
Improved Rend - 3/3 points
Increases the bleed damage done by your Rend ability by 35%.
Improved Charge - 2/2 points
Increases the rage generated by your Charge ability by 6.
Tactical Mastery - 5/5 points
You retain up to 25 of your rage points when you change stances.
Anger Management - 1/1 points
Increases the time required for your Rage to decay while out of combat by 30%.
Improved Overpower - 2/2 points
Increases the critical strike chance of your Overpower ability by 100%.
Deep Wounds - 3/3 points
Your critical strikes cause the opponent to bleed, dealing 60% of your melee weapon's average damage over 12 seconds.
Impale - 2/2 points
Increases the critical strike damage done by your abilities in Battle, Defensive, and Berserker stance by 20%.
Fury Talents (31 points)
Cruelty - 5/5 points
Improves your chance to get a critical strike by 5%.
Improved Demoralizing Shout - 5/5 points
Increases the attack power reduction of your Demoralizing Shout by 25%.
Piercing Howl - 1/1 points
Causes all enemies near the warrior to be dazed for 6 seconds.
Improved Battle Shout - 4/5 points
Increases the Attack Power bonus of your Battle Shout by 2.25 minutes.
Improved Execute - 2/2 points
Reduces the Rage cost of your Execute ability by 5.
Enrage - 5/5 points
Gives you a 40% melee damage bonus for 4 swings any time you are the victim of a critical strike.
Death Wish - 1/1 points
When activated, increases your melee damage by 20% and makes you immune to fear, but lowers your defense against all types of damage by 20%. Lasts 30 seconds.
Improved Intercept - 2/2 points
Reduces the cooldown of your Intercept ability by 10 seconds.
Flurry - 5/5 points
Increases your attack speed by 35% for your next 3 swings after dealing a critical strike.
Bloodthirst - 1/1 points
Activates after dealing a killing blow. Your next melee weapon attack deals a 100% increased damage.
Protection Talents (0 points)
None
This build is made for dual wielding Warriors mainly, but it works for 2 handers and sword/shield users as well. This build is focused on Critical strikes to make use of the Flurry talent which increases my attack speed by 30% after a crit. This build would be best with items that give a chance to crit, which are hard to come by at times, but it helps the build tremendously.
With my 20 points in Arms I continue this focus on crits and PVP.
Improved Overpower allows me to crit very often Flurry and Deep wounds, but more importantly, this handles Rogues. This ability alone makes the Warrior able to defeat a Rogue. Other Warriors may struggle vs Rogues, especially if they get the jump out of stealth, but I am able to hold my own and win more often than not.
Improved Charge is needed for the rage of course.
Tactical Mastery and Anger Management are vital for PVP Warrior, especially this type. You will be switching stances a lot in your PVP encounters, so this is a must. More on switching stances in PVP after talents are taken care of.
Impale is needed because I rely on crits, so if I critting 20% of the time I need this talent. Deep wounds is a nice bonus for this as well since that is a free DOT after a crit.
My Fury tree is a little more flexible than the Arms talents, which I consider a must.
5 in Cruelty for Crits
5 in Improved Demo Shout for both the use and as a pre req to Piercing Howl. Both these skills are under appreciated and you will learn to love them with this build.
4/5 or 5/5 in Improved Battle Shout – You can spend these points in another way if you see fit, but I think this is the best bet for the more damage.
Improved Execute – Bringing this down to 10 rage is a MUST for this build. Execute is a great PVP skill and for 2 points this is a great investment. More on why later.
Enrage – It’s a good skill and a pre req to flurry, so nab it.
Improved Intercept – Another must, this is required for this build to work. This will be your bane vs casters.
Death Wish – This is such a great skill that is vastly under used. This is a must for PVP as well, you cannot beat certain classes without this.
Flurry – This is the backbone of the build – This gives you 30% increased attack speed after a crit. This build relies on crits because of this talent. This is an awesome skill that raises your damage output a great deal.
I got Blood thirst in this build, but you can put this point somewhere else if you want. You can put in Arms or anywhere, but I have it now because I am doing some instances for gear and it helps there, but also in PVP it helps. I can execute somebody in group PVP, kill the, but I have no rage. This allows me to attack another target and get a good amount of rage from the hit quickly, as well as being high damage – so it works well for me, but others my find the point better spent elsewhere.
This build does great damage quickly and generates a large amount of rage. You will be able to switch stances often so you can address every situation better. You will be able to do many more things with this build than your MS build could ever let you do. You will be able do use all your shouts as often as needed, which more Warriors cannot afford to do because MS costs 30 rage. With all the rage you are able to use abilities in every stance instead of just one. Being able to switch stances is required to beat most of the classes, you just can not beat every class with one stance.
Why do you need to switch stances so often and why? Well you cannot win if you don’t, plain and simple. Try beating a Mage without intercept – it isn’t going to happen. It works both ways, offensive and defensive. Fight a warrior or rogue, and disarm them – it is not a pretty sight for them. Rogues cannot get combo points or use abilities – this will spell certain death for them. Warriors face the same fate too, disarm a 2 hander from a Warrior, it is sad. This is counterable via weapon chain of course, but you do not rely 100% on this to win, it just makes it much easier.
When fighting mages, it is a certain loss for most Warriors, but you can win, I promise. The secret lies with Intercept – this skill will allow you to beat mages. With a 20 second combat charge you can always been in melee range of a mage. Mages NEED the range to beat a warrior and they use the cold spells the have to maintain that and kill us. With this skill you can charge them when they blink or try to get distance on you. Then they will use mana shield etc etc – its over at that point. It takes a little practice, but you will win.
I’m not going to go into every encounter though, I just wanted to enlighten you to other options.
To help you out, here are a few more recommendations if you want to try this build out. First, get a shield, you still need one. You can make a shield bash macro that will allow you to interrupt spells at any time and this is needed. Also, make a hotkey for your stances because you will need to switch to them on the fly and will have no time to change stances via clicking.
Weapon wise, go for a 2.3-2.7 good damage main hand weapon. Your offhand should be faster, but not 1.4 or 1.5 - 1.7 is the fastest I recommend. Your offhand weapon needs a moderate damage range as well so you can get some nice rage off its hits. Also, your offhand should have a proc of some sort if possible. Its true your offhand does less damage and tends to miss more, but your proc are not cut in damage. So a proc is desirable for the offhand.
Gear wise, get things with +chance to crit. These items exist mainly as high end instance drops when it comes to plate, but they exist. With all the items out there, you can easily get 15-20% chance to crit on your weapons. If you dedicate to the build - you can get upwards of the mid 20s in % to crit. Agility adds to chance to crit so don’t pass up a little agility on items.
I know MS is still decent still and I still think it is a great ability, especially with its effect. I just think for group PVP that my build is superior to the MS Warrior. This build allows for warriors to control the fights much better. They are now an unpredictable force in group PVP, much more so than a MS warrior. Think of this what you will, take it or leave it, it doesn’t matter to me, but I will put my build vs a MS build any day – and I would win.
Full thing at:
http://exiled-guild.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=142
AfterBurn
www.Exiled-Guild.org