Update: This little picture on the left is Titan’s Grip from WoW: Trading Card Game. Hint hint?

I was wondering for a while if I should write this post since it’s not official info, but considering that this information flows all around the internet, I think I’m cool with it. I’m not going to post source of that information, but it’s not hard to find :P. I used to be quite skeptic about so-called leaks, until some time ago when we had some leaked information about patch 2.4 (I think it was) that turned out to be, partially, real. So yeah, all of that is pretty early stage of development and will probably change few times, but overall the ideas are here.

Before I start talking about 51 pointers and other new talents, I’d like to cover what is apparently changed, and there is quite a lot of changes. First of all - holy jeebus protection! I remember posting after patch 2.0 and before TBC about protection being offspec unfriendly and how everyone and his dog will be arms/fury as it used to be on 60. Well, it looks like it finally got to the devs, protection 0-21 looks really really sexy. I’m not going to copy-paste the notes from the leak (again, if you want the source, it’s not hard to find at all *cough* wikidot *cough* ok… where were I…), but I’ll instead try to list them in a more compiled way to fit them all here. So the changes to prot as far as I embrace them are:

• Bloodrage changed: now gives 25/50% more rage on bloodrage.
• Defiance changed to Incite, now gives 5/10/15% increased critical chance on heroic strike, cleave and thunderclap, swapped places to tier 2 instead of toughness, the extra 15% threat is now built into def stance without any talents.
• Anticipation changed to 1/2/3/4/5% extra dodge, swapped to tier 2 instead of shield specialization.
• Last Stand cooldown reduced to 2 minutes (!!!)
• Improved Shield Block now two-pointer reducing cooldown of shield block by 5/10 seconds, there are more Shield Block changes, but that’s not something I want to talk about (PvE lawl!)
• Improved Disarm - reduce the cooldown of disarm by 5/10/15 seconds and increase damage done on disarmed target by 4/7/10%!
• Concussion Blow - cooldown reduced to 30 seconds, now also deals 25% attack power as damage and generates ‘high threat’.

What’s also worth to highlight is that Shield Bash is supposed to deal 20% attack power as damage and Shield Slam is now a trainable ability (replaced with some boring PvE ability - ding! - we just got a trainable offensive dispell)! Overall those changes makes me feel happy in the pants, even if I won’t get as high as 21 in prot, I might pump 18 points into it, having on-demand 10% damage boost against nuked target for your whole team on arena can redefine the way warriors work in 5v5, add last stand on 2 minutes cooldown as a counter to flash nukes and we are home. Trainable Shield Slam and Shield Bash dealing damage can be a good counter for disarms while not having weapon mastery, got disarmed when finishing someone? Shield Slam fucker while screaming THIS IS SPAR… well, you get the idea.

Next on the list - Fury changes…

Now before you start reading this, you will probably think it’s fake - the point is it’s alpha talents, and while I don’t really believe this is going to get into live, no signs on earth or heaven would cleary say ‘fake lol’, and the source (for the third time - not hard to find) seems quite reliable. Why am I talking about this now? Well, you will see in a while, but I’ll start from the bottom of the tree:

• Blood Craze buffed to 2/4/6% hp regen after crit, if you weren’t sold to this talent with TBC and increased stamina on gear, I think most if not all warriors will finally mark this as a pure PvP talent and get it instead of commanding presence (well, at least those who will put points into fury).
• Death Wish back on it’s place as fury 21-pointer, you might start thinking - what the heck is Blizzard thinking, it will be again better than new arms talent. Here is the trick, Death Wish now not only doesn’t stack with Enrage but also doesn’t give fear immunity, hardly mind blowing, especially considering what Blizzard has put on top of Arms this time.

And few of the new talents:

• Bloodsurge - bloodthirst critical attacks have 33/66/100% chance to make your next slam instant attack. Ok, who the hell is using slam as dual wield fury you might ask? Well, Slam is crap for dual wielding, unless you have…
• Titan’s Grip - allow to equip two-handed swords, axes and maces in one hand, but you attack 28/26/24/22/20% slower. Ok, let’s stop for a while. When I said I don’t believe this will make into live - Titan’s Grip was the thing I had in mind. The possible burst damage this could deal with whirlwind (unless they make whirlwind hit only with main hand weapon for Titan’s Grip) and boosted stats from having two two-handers can be just too much. However, the idea is pretty damn neat, and after all - Blizzard has done it before, and not only that…
• Heroic Leap - more of Diablo 2 Barbarian. 8-25 yards range, warrior leaps through the air, causing 50% weapon damage and dazing everybody in 5m area for 6 seconds. Basically a cool looking intercept with Piercing Howl effect instead of the stun, considering improved intercept was moved to Arms in TBC fury needed something to compensate the loss, so here it is!

There is more in fury, not something that I want to put a lot of attention at, but I just wanted to show that fury did feel the love. Ok, let’s move to the point of this post - the changes to Arms.

I’m going to hold you guys with new 51 pointer for a while (you probably googled it on your own already tho :P) and talk about our “favorite” moves from Arms - Rend and Thunderclap. First of all, Rend is getting buffed, they are increasing the scaling with weapon damage and cutting the duration (I’ve read it’s going to last half of what it’s now) while keeping the total damage it deals - in other words, they are doubling the dps of rend by just that. Thunder Clap on the other hand is (finally) going to scale with attack power, now considering the new protection talent giving it +15% crit chance (and assuming it’s now labeled a melee ability and receives crit from melee crit and not spell crit like it used to be) it can be a nice ability, not PoM-Pyro league, but always something worth clicking not only for the debuff. Then we get a new trainable ability called Bloodbath - Wound up to 5 enemy targets within 8 yards, causing 244 to 256 damage and causing them to Bleed for 250 damage over 15 seconds. If the target becomes Enraged, the Bloodbath bleed effect causes four times the normal damage. If that enraged part has our enrage talent on the list and not only monster’s one, this can be an end of 20+ fury offspecs in PvP. 250 damage over 15 seconds weak? Well, it can be, but there is more:

• Improved Rend renamed to Bloodletting - same effect but now also affects our new Bloodbath ability. Now it looks promising, doesn’t it? And there is still more…
• Iron Will changed to 3-point talent, now reducing the duration of stuns and charms by 10/20/30%. Two good changes with one talent, first they just gave us 2 free talent points to spend on something (like thunderclap or rend, or both), second - less RNG is always a good thing when talking about “e-sport” on the arena.
• Sweeping Strikes back on it’s place with 5 charges, and you will soon realize why that is a really sexy change for us.
• Improved Disciplines replaced with Sudden Death - critical attacks have 10/20/30% change to allow to use Execute on a target regardless of it’s HP. This I doubt will make it to live, and it wouldn’t be that good anyway once people gear up, considering how weak Execute has become nowadays.
• Trauma - requires 35 in arms and blood frenzy, critical attacks increase the effectivness of bleeds on the target by 15/30% for 15 seconds. The whole idea of rend + bloodbath + impale just gets sexier.
• Bull Rush - requires 40 in arms, increase the stun duration of charge and intercept by 0.4/0.7/1 second. Feels a bit like a filler talent, not a bad one, but I’d rather see that reduced to two points for what it does.
• Unrelenting Assault - requires 40 in arms, reduce the cooldown of Overpower and Revenge by 1/2/3 seconds. Well, will see how it works out, the Revenge part can indicate it’s a talent that’s supposed to make Arms tanking a bit more friendly.
• Strength of Arms - requires 45 in arms, increase strength and total health by 1/2/3/4/5%. Again a bit of a filler, but what did you expect considering arms warrior are “top of the chain”. It’s basically vitality from protection, just the other way around, vitality gives 10% str and 5% stamina, we get less str but 5% total health > 5% stamina.
• Bladestorm - here is the big one, our new 51 pointer, the thing you all were waiting for. Instant whirlwind and another whirlwind every 1.5 second for 4.5 seconds (4 whirlwinds in 4.5 seconds), probably a cool animation (Blademaster from WC3, woohoo). While under the effect of blade storm warrior can walk, but cannot attack or use any other abilities and, here comes the best part, do not feel pity or remorse or fear and you cannot be stopped unless killed. From what I’ve read so far, the rage cost is 25 and the cooldown is 90 seconds. This is extremely sexy ability, not for it’s damage (don’t get me wrong, 4 whirlwinds in 4.5 seconds is pretty darn good), but for the CC immunity, our own little bestial wrath. Even if using Bladestorm won’t break CC we already got, using it before someone cast cyclone/poly on you, after intercept on a mage and before nova or while walking into a hunter trap can be godsend. Druid running away in bear with nature’s graps up? BLADESTORM MOTHERFUCKER!

All in all I’m extremely happy with the direction Blizzard is taking with the class, they didn’t make Arms overpowered, while giving us something nice and worth taking all the way up to the end of the tree, and they FINALLY made protection off-spec friendly, which will hopefully break the arms/fury scheme and allow for some more diversity.

Terhix