Post by Razel on Jul 11, 2006 8:20:20 GMT -5
Overview
A Warrior is a class in World of Warcraft that excels in melee combat and playing the role of a tank. They are also more than competent DPSers. Warriors are exceptionally good at playing the former role because they have a vast amount of health, and their abilities at gaining and keeping aggro, and the latter because they equip powerful high-damage weapons and have strong armor to keep damage away.
Rage
Warriors are analogous to Fighters in other RPGs. Rather than drawing on Mana to power their abilities, they have an unusual system for making use of their special abilities, based on an attribute called Rage. Rage is normally at zero until a warrior enters combat. It then builds up as a result of taking or dealing damage. Rage is expended every time a warrior performs a special move (Such as Heroic Strike). More powerful abilities (such as Mortal Strike) require more rage than other abilities. Once out of combat, rage quickly decays back to zero.
Rage is the opposite of a Rogue's energy. With a rogue, a battle begins with a flurry of special moves (if the player initiates) until the energy of a rogue is depleted completely. With a warrior, the battle starts out as a normal fight but the longer it lasts, the more special attacks the warrior can unleash on his enemy.
The Role of a Warrior
When playing in a group, the warrior is tasked with the job of keeping the monster(s) occupied so that the activities of the rest of the party, such as priests and mages, will not attract the monster's attention. This is called keeping aggro[aggression] or tanking. The reason for tanking is simple: it forces monsters to focus on the character most able to absorb damage, while preventing classes with less damage tolerance from becoming the focus of the monsters' attacks. The typical secondary job of the warrior is damage-dealer, they are exceeded only by Rogues in single-target damage potential.
Warriors almost always have the highest combined armor and health amongst all of the classes in the game. While Paladins may have more armor and Warlocks can have more health, the Warrior often has more health than the Paladin and much more armor than the Warlock. They are capable of absorbing the damage from multiple attackers and the longer they fight, the more dangerous they become, due to generation of rage. They are generally better at the job of keeping aggro than a Paladin due to the amount of aggro generating skills available to them, including Sunder Armor, Taunt, Revenge and Heroic Strike. A Warrior's armor sets are also more geared towards adding Stamina and Defense (a skill that lowers the amount of critical strikes a character takes, among other things). Only Druids mostly have more armor, more health and generate more threat, but take more magical damage and in some cases more physical damage (if the mob has high critical hit chances).
Warriors can shift between several stances or combat modes. The Battle Stance is the normal stance, good for both attacking and defence. The Defensive Stance is geared for tanking, commonly used when the warrior is part of a group and his job is to hold aggro. The Berserker Stance is for when the warrior is the main damage dealer (or has a lot of healing support). Different skills are available in different stances.
Strengths
The warrior is the supreme melee fighter. No one except another warrior can hope to survive in an all out melee fight; although Rogues can stand up to them if they get the first strike. They wear the best armor, often achieving 40+% physical damage reduction, and with either big, slow weapons and an instant attack of which to take advantage, or two fast weapons and a flurry of attacks, their DPS output to DPS input in melee is extremely high. One of their skills, Overpower, allows them to take advantage of the rogue's and hunter's dodge, which usually acts as a defensive factor. When their opponent dodges, the Overpower skill becomes available, doing instant melee damage plus some more, and with two talent points increasing its critical hit rate by 50%, it's often devastating. They have three stances, Battle, Defensive and Berserker, which they can switch to in order to adapt to different situations.
A warrior is largely based on gear, allowing for a much greater power potential. With the items from rank 14--Grand Marshal or High Warlord--you will have a greater chance to destroy your opponents, considering your high armor and health values, and some of the most powerful weapons in the game.
The warrior is also very sought after for instance groups, a large aspect of the game, for their ability to hold "aggro" and take the least damage of all classes.
When in group Player vs. Player (PvP) encounters, the warrior is a very formidable foe. The fact that they have so much life as well as defense makes them generally the last person the enemy will target. This effectively negates most of the weaknesses that warriors may have and allows them to deal damage to opponents without being attacked themselves thus leaving their oft damage-intolerant teamates open to attack. Warriors must, however, be wary of crowd control spells like Polymorph. It is a very effective tactic to put a warrior out of action, kill his teammates, and then overwhelm him when he's alone.
Weaknesses
Warriors, for all their heavy armor and HP, have few defenses against magic spells. A fireball that says it will do 500 damage on the tooltip will most likely hit the warrior for 500. One of the warrior's two best strengths, armor, is totally nullified when fighting a caster class. Some may argue that warriors have high HP to counter this, but a mage can easily burn through 5000 HP (the standard for level 60 warriors) with no trouble.
Although warriors are supposed to be the best melee class, it is quite possible and even easy for skilled Rogues and Paladins to beat them toe-to-toe in a close combat fight. This is a constant cause of complaint from many warrior players; they feel like "paper dolls" for gear without finesse that can be toyed around with by skilled opponents.
A warrior is gear dependent. It is said that the effectiveness and strength of a warrior has a much higher correlation to the quality of items being worn than other classes. Warriors often complain of the disparity between the strength of warriors with epic weapons and armor (obtained from end-game raid dungeons and pvp rewards) and those without.
Compared to other classes, warrior advancement becomes very slow and difficult above level 40 unless the warrior belongs to a large guild which can subsidize equipment purchases and instance runs. Many high-level adversaries use magic, which cuts right through a warrior's defenses, increasing downtime and expense on supplies.
They also have limited control in a fight. Warriors who spend their talent points in the Protection tree gain a stun skill and 40% chance to stun when activating Revenge, a skill usable upon the dodge, block or parry of an attack. The Protection tree is not suited to Player versus Player environments, so most people don't allocate their points there.
The more standard Arms and Fury warriors, however, only have their slowing ability, Hamstring, to use. Arms warriors have a 15% chance to completely root their opponent in place when using Hamstring. Fury warriors don't have that 15%. Other than that, they have no control.
Warriors are also not effective at healing. They have no abilities to heal others, and only three that heal themselves. One is a third tier talent in the fury tree which, when hit with a critical strike, activates buff that heals a small percent of health over time. The other is the 40-point fury talent that allows the warrior to regain small amounts of health for six hits after activation. The third is a 10-point talent in the protection tree, which gives the warrior 30% more health from their maximum health for 20 seconds, which is lost after the end of this duration. If such a deduction would result in 0 or less health, the warrior will remain with 1 health point. There is another skill, intimidating shout, which indirectly heals by disorienting the target (and fearing other enemies nearby) and allowing the warrior to band-aid themselves. A warrior can also use potions or leave a bad fight through hamstringing and running away. In an instance group, warriors are dependent on priests and other healers to stay alive.
Against a mage, with their multitude of instant "stay away" abilities, a warrior has nothing to use except Intercept, which is a Charge that can be used in battle, and Hamstring which is not very efficient. The mage also utilizes magical offense, which goes through plate armor. Against a priest, through their Psychic Scream, which makes all nearby opponents run in fear for 8 seconds, their damage over time spells, their painful Mind Blast attack, and their Shield which negates attack, it becomes very difficult to penetrate their defense. A warlock will either use a Fear spell or its Succubus will seduce the warrior into not attacking until damaged. However, this is where being a protection warrior comes in handy as they can learn a resistance to fear. The only ranged class Warriors have a fair chance against are Hunters, and this is because the warrior's high HP and armor defend against the hunter's impressive damage, and with recent Freezing Trap/Scatter shot nerfs, warrior versus hunter has become more viable, although a skilled hunter still has an adequate chance to prevail. Rogues, which are supposed to be the easiest class for warriors to beat (by design), can easily humiliate even epic-equipped warriors if proper tactics are used. Their total control of a fight by use of stun moves like Kidney Shot, Gouge, Cheap Shot makes sure that the warrior's raw power almost never comes to bear during the fight. Some Rogues can simply go straight at warriors and front-load all their insane damage; killing the warrior faster than the warrior can kill the Rogue.
Warriors have received a class review by Blizzard developers as of patch 1.6; many warriors argue that a second one is needed.
Hopefuly this info helps with your next creation ;D
A Warrior is a class in World of Warcraft that excels in melee combat and playing the role of a tank. They are also more than competent DPSers. Warriors are exceptionally good at playing the former role because they have a vast amount of health, and their abilities at gaining and keeping aggro, and the latter because they equip powerful high-damage weapons and have strong armor to keep damage away.
Rage
Warriors are analogous to Fighters in other RPGs. Rather than drawing on Mana to power their abilities, they have an unusual system for making use of their special abilities, based on an attribute called Rage. Rage is normally at zero until a warrior enters combat. It then builds up as a result of taking or dealing damage. Rage is expended every time a warrior performs a special move (Such as Heroic Strike). More powerful abilities (such as Mortal Strike) require more rage than other abilities. Once out of combat, rage quickly decays back to zero.
Rage is the opposite of a Rogue's energy. With a rogue, a battle begins with a flurry of special moves (if the player initiates) until the energy of a rogue is depleted completely. With a warrior, the battle starts out as a normal fight but the longer it lasts, the more special attacks the warrior can unleash on his enemy.
The Role of a Warrior
When playing in a group, the warrior is tasked with the job of keeping the monster(s) occupied so that the activities of the rest of the party, such as priests and mages, will not attract the monster's attention. This is called keeping aggro[aggression] or tanking. The reason for tanking is simple: it forces monsters to focus on the character most able to absorb damage, while preventing classes with less damage tolerance from becoming the focus of the monsters' attacks. The typical secondary job of the warrior is damage-dealer, they are exceeded only by Rogues in single-target damage potential.
Warriors almost always have the highest combined armor and health amongst all of the classes in the game. While Paladins may have more armor and Warlocks can have more health, the Warrior often has more health than the Paladin and much more armor than the Warlock. They are capable of absorbing the damage from multiple attackers and the longer they fight, the more dangerous they become, due to generation of rage. They are generally better at the job of keeping aggro than a Paladin due to the amount of aggro generating skills available to them, including Sunder Armor, Taunt, Revenge and Heroic Strike. A Warrior's armor sets are also more geared towards adding Stamina and Defense (a skill that lowers the amount of critical strikes a character takes, among other things). Only Druids mostly have more armor, more health and generate more threat, but take more magical damage and in some cases more physical damage (if the mob has high critical hit chances).
Warriors can shift between several stances or combat modes. The Battle Stance is the normal stance, good for both attacking and defence. The Defensive Stance is geared for tanking, commonly used when the warrior is part of a group and his job is to hold aggro. The Berserker Stance is for when the warrior is the main damage dealer (or has a lot of healing support). Different skills are available in different stances.
Strengths
The warrior is the supreme melee fighter. No one except another warrior can hope to survive in an all out melee fight; although Rogues can stand up to them if they get the first strike. They wear the best armor, often achieving 40+% physical damage reduction, and with either big, slow weapons and an instant attack of which to take advantage, or two fast weapons and a flurry of attacks, their DPS output to DPS input in melee is extremely high. One of their skills, Overpower, allows them to take advantage of the rogue's and hunter's dodge, which usually acts as a defensive factor. When their opponent dodges, the Overpower skill becomes available, doing instant melee damage plus some more, and with two talent points increasing its critical hit rate by 50%, it's often devastating. They have three stances, Battle, Defensive and Berserker, which they can switch to in order to adapt to different situations.
A warrior is largely based on gear, allowing for a much greater power potential. With the items from rank 14--Grand Marshal or High Warlord--you will have a greater chance to destroy your opponents, considering your high armor and health values, and some of the most powerful weapons in the game.
The warrior is also very sought after for instance groups, a large aspect of the game, for their ability to hold "aggro" and take the least damage of all classes.
When in group Player vs. Player (PvP) encounters, the warrior is a very formidable foe. The fact that they have so much life as well as defense makes them generally the last person the enemy will target. This effectively negates most of the weaknesses that warriors may have and allows them to deal damage to opponents without being attacked themselves thus leaving their oft damage-intolerant teamates open to attack. Warriors must, however, be wary of crowd control spells like Polymorph. It is a very effective tactic to put a warrior out of action, kill his teammates, and then overwhelm him when he's alone.
Weaknesses
Warriors, for all their heavy armor and HP, have few defenses against magic spells. A fireball that says it will do 500 damage on the tooltip will most likely hit the warrior for 500. One of the warrior's two best strengths, armor, is totally nullified when fighting a caster class. Some may argue that warriors have high HP to counter this, but a mage can easily burn through 5000 HP (the standard for level 60 warriors) with no trouble.
Although warriors are supposed to be the best melee class, it is quite possible and even easy for skilled Rogues and Paladins to beat them toe-to-toe in a close combat fight. This is a constant cause of complaint from many warrior players; they feel like "paper dolls" for gear without finesse that can be toyed around with by skilled opponents.
A warrior is gear dependent. It is said that the effectiveness and strength of a warrior has a much higher correlation to the quality of items being worn than other classes. Warriors often complain of the disparity between the strength of warriors with epic weapons and armor (obtained from end-game raid dungeons and pvp rewards) and those without.
Compared to other classes, warrior advancement becomes very slow and difficult above level 40 unless the warrior belongs to a large guild which can subsidize equipment purchases and instance runs. Many high-level adversaries use magic, which cuts right through a warrior's defenses, increasing downtime and expense on supplies.
They also have limited control in a fight. Warriors who spend their talent points in the Protection tree gain a stun skill and 40% chance to stun when activating Revenge, a skill usable upon the dodge, block or parry of an attack. The Protection tree is not suited to Player versus Player environments, so most people don't allocate their points there.
The more standard Arms and Fury warriors, however, only have their slowing ability, Hamstring, to use. Arms warriors have a 15% chance to completely root their opponent in place when using Hamstring. Fury warriors don't have that 15%. Other than that, they have no control.
Warriors are also not effective at healing. They have no abilities to heal others, and only three that heal themselves. One is a third tier talent in the fury tree which, when hit with a critical strike, activates buff that heals a small percent of health over time. The other is the 40-point fury talent that allows the warrior to regain small amounts of health for six hits after activation. The third is a 10-point talent in the protection tree, which gives the warrior 30% more health from their maximum health for 20 seconds, which is lost after the end of this duration. If such a deduction would result in 0 or less health, the warrior will remain with 1 health point. There is another skill, intimidating shout, which indirectly heals by disorienting the target (and fearing other enemies nearby) and allowing the warrior to band-aid themselves. A warrior can also use potions or leave a bad fight through hamstringing and running away. In an instance group, warriors are dependent on priests and other healers to stay alive.
Against a mage, with their multitude of instant "stay away" abilities, a warrior has nothing to use except Intercept, which is a Charge that can be used in battle, and Hamstring which is not very efficient. The mage also utilizes magical offense, which goes through plate armor. Against a priest, through their Psychic Scream, which makes all nearby opponents run in fear for 8 seconds, their damage over time spells, their painful Mind Blast attack, and their Shield which negates attack, it becomes very difficult to penetrate their defense. A warlock will either use a Fear spell or its Succubus will seduce the warrior into not attacking until damaged. However, this is where being a protection warrior comes in handy as they can learn a resistance to fear. The only ranged class Warriors have a fair chance against are Hunters, and this is because the warrior's high HP and armor defend against the hunter's impressive damage, and with recent Freezing Trap/Scatter shot nerfs, warrior versus hunter has become more viable, although a skilled hunter still has an adequate chance to prevail. Rogues, which are supposed to be the easiest class for warriors to beat (by design), can easily humiliate even epic-equipped warriors if proper tactics are used. Their total control of a fight by use of stun moves like Kidney Shot, Gouge, Cheap Shot makes sure that the warrior's raw power almost never comes to bear during the fight. Some Rogues can simply go straight at warriors and front-load all their insane damage; killing the warrior faster than the warrior can kill the Rogue.
Warriors have received a class review by Blizzard developers as of patch 1.6; many warriors argue that a second one is needed.
Hopefuly this info helps with your next creation ;D