Offensive Sword and Board

I’ve been thinking about toying around with a new talent build that will allow me to quest/farm using a 1h weapon and shield (taking advantage of Shield Slam, as well as having the shield to block hits and interrupt spells).  I’m not going to get into too much detail about it right now (I don’t have time) but here’s the basic idea:

Arms (18 points)

    5/5 Deflection
    3/3 Improved Rend
    3/3 Improved Thunder Clap
    2/2 Improved Overpower
    3/3 Deep Wounds
    2/2 Impale

Fury (5 points)

    5/5 Cruelty

Protection (38 points)

    5/5 Anticipation
    5/5 Shield Specialization
    5/5 Toughness
    1/1 Last Stand
    1/1 Improved Shield Block
    3/3 Improved Revenge
    3/3 Defiance
    2/2 Improved Taunt
    1/1 Concussion Blow
    1/2 Improved Shield Bash
    3/3 Shield Mastery
    5/5 One-Handed Weapon Specialization
    1/1 Shield Slam
    2/3 Focused Rage

Click here to see the talent trees.

Any warriors out there use this kind of build?

Intervene

One of the new BC warrior skills is Intervene.  Acquired at level 70, Intervene does this:

Run at high speed towards a party member, intercepting the next melee or ranged attack made against them.

Pretty straightforward, but damn near impossible to get to work right.  It basically stems from the fact that you need to be targetting the party member in order to use the skill.  So in the heat of battle this requires you to either A. press F in order to “assist” the mob you’re fighting in order to target the party member he’s about to kill and cast Intervene, or B. click on your target’s target and then cast Intervene.

These are both really twitchy and in terms of “holy shit he’s gonna die” reaction times, they’re quite time consuming.

I think (hope) I’ve found the answer.  I did a search and came across a couple of macros that allow you to easily use Intervene.  I hate macros.  I can’t figure out how to make them work, and I don’t see why they’re even necessary.  But in this case, I might make an exception.  For those who are wondering, here’s the macro command:

/cast [nostance:2] Defensive Stance; [help] Intervene; [target=targettarget, help] Intervene

Apparently this macro will put you in Def Stance (why wouldn’t you be?), or do nothing if you’re already in Def Stance; then it will check to see if the target is friendly, and if so, it will Intervene; if the target is not friendly, it will target the target’s target (say that three times fast), check to see if he is friendly (which he should be) and Intervene.

Seems like a good idea to me.  Now, I’m at work, so I obviously haven’t had a chance to try this out yet.  But I intend to try it ASAP, and I will let you know how it turns out.

Any warriors out there have some input?

Warrior Guide Update

Check out the newest installment to The Warrior’s Path.

I present to you, Tanking for Dummies.

Every warrior can tank, even if they’re not talent specced for it.  Every warrior has the defensive stance (unless you didn’t complete the quest back in the day in which case you should really just quit the game).  Every warrior has the skill to use a sword and board.  Every warrior has the essential abilities that I’ve talked about in order to tank. 

Not every warrior can tank as well as every other warrior, but they can sure as hell try.

One of the things that helps me be a good tank even when I’m Arms specced is the knowledge that I am a good tank.  What I may lack in talents and gear, I make up for in confidence in my abilities and knowledge of my class.  And honestly, that’s a big part of what you need to tank the under 70 five man dungeons while leveling.

Go check it out and be sure to let me know how much it sucks and/or doesn’t suck!

My first guide!

As you may have noticed, there’s a new link under the Guides page.  This is because I’ve decided to start writing my first guide.  It’s not much right now, I’ve only had time to write up the first part so far.  I’m mostly writing this at work and I do have other things I need to get done (stupid job).

This is intended to just give some good advice to noob level 60 warriors taking their baby steps in Outland.  Although, after writing it, I realized that the first part of the guide can actually apply to any Outland first-timers.

Here’s an excerpt:

I figure that someone who has already undertaken the task of getting their warrior from 60-70 might have a handle on how to go about doing this again next time. But who knows, maybe you’ll find some helpful tips.

I also figure that someone who had the time and experience to get full BWL or Naxx loot probably knows what they’re doing; and therefore might even know more about playing a warrior than I do.

Finally, you might call yourself a casual player, maybe you don’t even have a guild.  Or, if you do have a guild, all of your guildies are too busy playing with their level 70 friends to run your noobish ass through Hellfire Ramparts. That’s what I’m here for.  You’re probably not just interested in getting to 70 as fast as humanly possible.  That’s ok too. You may even want to “stop and smell the roses” and have some fun along the way. For that, I applaud you. 

Click here to read the rest of The Warrior’s Path: To 60 and Beyond!

Please let me know what you think of this first part.  Any feedback would be awesome, because then I’ll know what to do or not to do for the next parts (and next guides).  Seriously, I’d appreciate it. 

Devs Doom Devastate

WoW Insider reports that all the warriors out there who were pissing their pants in glee at the damage Devastate was putting out on the PTR are in for quite a letdown.

The change to Devastate in 2.1 is being reverted and will not be a change for the patch once it goes live. We’ve done some additional damage testing and the output is in far excess of what we had thought it would provide.

Apparently in the patch, Devastate while duel wielding would cause you to hit with both of your weapons for a big chunk of damage (big for a prot warrior, anyway).  I know a few warriors in my guild who were testing the patch seemed very excited at this change.  But alas, it is not to be.

It’s funny how one poster from the forums puts it.

OMG, so we’ve been nerfed before we were even buffed?!

LAWL.

Time for a change

I know, yet another talent spec post.  Don’t worry, this’ll be brief.

I’ve come to the realization that having no points in protection does not make for a good time in the 70 instances.  And I really enjoy the 70 instances.  As I’ve mentioned before, I have no dreams of becoming a Karazhan or Gruul’s Lair MT anytime soon, but I would definitely enjoy being an awesome tank in 5-mans.

Therefore, when I get home from work tonight I will be respeccing to this hybrid arms/prot spec build I’ve come up with.  As you can see, it’s 21/5/31 which gives me pretty much everything I need to be a good tank and still be able to chew through mobs pretty well while farming/questing.  The only thing that I’m sad to miss out on is Mortal Strike, but I think having Shield Slam will make me a much better tank.

In the protection tree I skipped over stuff I really don’t need and grabbed only what I think will benefit me the most (while allowing me to get 30 points in there so I can have Shield Slam).

I chose Imp Revenge and Imp Shield Bash because I think they will help me control trash mobs.  I know most bosses (all bosses?) are immune to stun (and probably to silence) but I’ve run into plenty of annoying trash mobs, especially casters, who could stand to be stunned or silenced.

Obviously Concussion Blow for the same reason I just stated about Imp Revenge, and also because it’s the gateway to Shield Slam.  Shield Slam for tanks is a no brainer.  An ability that does decent damage and is also the single best instant threat generating ability available?  Yes please.

And on the DPS side of things, like I said I’m sad to be missing out on Mortal Strike, but it has to go.  I still get all the additions to critical strike (Axe spec, Cruelty) which is sweet.  I miss out on a boost to attack power from Commanding Presence but I think I can live without it.  Some people might laugh at my choice to go with Imp Rend, but I love Rend.  Maybe that’s just me.

Overall, I think this is a pretty decent choice of talents.  Of course, only time in the field will truly be able to prove me right or wrong.  I’ll be sure to let you know how things turn out.

This wasn’t very brief, was it?  Oh well.

It… can’t be…

I ran Steamvaults last night and it made me realize a horrible truth: I might not be able to main tank the level 70 five mans without being protection specced.

I don’t know if it was people in my group being jackasses or what, but I had a hell of a time holding aggro (on trash, I was fine on the bosses).  It didn’t help that most of the pulls in there have 4 mobs, warriors aren’t the greatest at holding onto multiple adds (especially when the fight is unorganized, but you’ve heard that rant).  Every once in a while, the mage would pull aggro, which I guess is kind of understandable if some kind of big crit goes off.  But there was also a shaman who was pulling aggro like crazy.  The shaman was fighting in melee range, so maybe it was a guy with the “hay doodz lookit my DPS SKILLZ!” mentality and wasn’t watching his aggro.  I tend to think it may have been.  But I also can’t get over the fact that I would have probably been able to hold aggro better had I been prot specced (duh, right?). 

This sucks, because what I want to do to enjoy the game and get the most out of my $15 a month is finish up the last three zones (I’m busting through Blade’s Edge right now).  And this is only enjoyable if I’m arms specced and dishing out nasty crits an damage.  I can’t even imagine how it would be while prot specced.

Yeah, yeah.  I know.  QQ more nub.  But when I have people in my guild telling me that I’ll need to spec to protection in order to tank and survive in some of the 70 instances, and then I start to actually see the truth to their warnings, it starts to worry me.  Have I ever mentioned that I hate this game?  =P

Not all was bad about the run though, because I managed to pick up Gauntlets of the Bold.  Pretty sweet.  Now to find some gems…

Oh, you know what else I hate.  I hate when people don’t loot a beast’s corpse.  Screw you, guy, that crocolisk had some fine hide I could skin.  But noooo, you didn’t feel like taking the broken crocolisk tooth off the corpse.  So there the crocolisk lies, taunting me.  Here’s a hint.  Pressing shift + right click loots everything off the corpse at once.  Try it out sometime.

Warrior Woes

It’s always said that warriors are the most gear-dependent class in the game.  This doesn’t really bother me all that much, because half of the fun of WoW is getting new gear.  What does bother me is trying to figure out what stats will benefit Thodin the most.  Especially when I hate doing all sorts of calculations.

Do I want more Strength, Attack Power, Crit?  I’ve been going crazy lately trying to get the most AP out of my gear, but after searching through the forums (::shudder::) I’ve found that for my build (Arms with a bigass 2h mace) I should concentrate on my weapon’s top damage and my +Crit.  A lot of my gear has +Crit on it (though some of my socketed stuff has a lot of AP gems in it, I might start switching those out in favor of +Crit).  Also, I’ve found out that Agi is pretty much worthless for a warrior’s DPS, so I’ll keep that in mind.  And apparently 1 Str=2 AP, and I think I tend to overlook +Str. 

One of my basic philosophies about this game is to not get way too caught up in the technical aspects, but lately I’ve found that I’m not listening to my own advice.  From what I read, it seems that the route I’m taking is basically ok.  I think from now on I might just start to concentrate more on +Crit gems and such (+Crit and +Str gems would be good).  But the most important thing for me is to just have fun playing the game the way I enjoy playing it.  I know I’ll never have the best tanking gear or the best DPS gear, but I do know that I will always strive to make the most of the gear that I have and allow my skills as a warrior to make up for anything people think I’m “missing” in my stats.

Speaking of tanking and DPSing, I just worked out a talent build for when I hit 70 that I think will allow me to tank and DPS pretty well.  We shall see.

Anyone have any comments or suggestions?

Not yet in Nagrand…

I was all ready to step into Nagrand last night, buuut I didn’t.  I don’t know what it is about Nagrand, I just can’t wait to get there.  It looks like an awesome zone.  I’m very excited to go there when I get home from work tonight.

I was sidetracked last night by a Mana Tombs run.  A couple of my guildies wanted to go, so I said, “sure I’ll go” because I have never been there, and I’m always up for learning new instances (and also, I wanted to get The Shield of the Void from Pandemonius).  We finally got a full group together, but then we had to wait around for 10+ minutes for everyone to arrive (this was probably the first sign that this PUG wasn’t going to work out too well).  Eventually everyone got there.  It was me, a guildie (Vilhemriker, 69 warrior), a 68 mage (my IRL friend), and two PUGgers, a 69 priest and 68 oomkin drood.

Everything went smooth, we downed the first boss with no casualties (except I didn’t get my shield), but then we got to a hallway after Pandemonius and things started to break down.  There was one pull that had 4 or 5 mobs, and our priest had the bright idea to try and MC one of the mobs (we were doing just fine with mage sheeping and me offtanking).  This failed miserably and we wiped.  The priest blamed it on the mage (“he iced too close to me”).  I blame it on foolish ideas, but what do I know I’m not a priest.

After the first wipe, Vil took control of the group and got everyone in line, and it started to go a bit smoother.  We had another wipe because of the stupid Nexus Stalkers fearing people into other groups, but the rest of the instance went pretty well.  The Nexus-Prince Shaffar fight is a biotch, though.

I did manage to get Nexus-Bracers of Vigor which I wasn’t really that excited about, but they are a sidegrade for my Bracers of Might, so I can’t complain.

All in all I think it was a good experience.  Note to warriors: I never use zerk stance so I didn’t know about this, but I was pleased to discover that Berzerker Rage can actually cancel fear.  Stance-dancing ftw.  I’m glad I got to learn the instance, because I will be back (still need the shield and I need to finish the escort quest).

Well that’s all for now.  This weekend I plan to get into Nagrand and start questing there, as well as do my level 10 hunter quest on Natasya.  There will be more updates soon (with more picture and screenshot goodness, don’t worry).

New Kid on the Block

Behold!  Another World of Warcraft blog has joined the ranks. 

I’m a big fan of blogging.  I have a personal blog that I update (semi) regularly even though I don’t seem to have many readers other than friends and family.  I read a bunch of other World of Warcraft blogs, and I was inspired to created my own WoW-themed blog for two main reasons (neither of which include becoming famous).

1. There are no dedicated warrior class blogs as far as I can tell.
2. I wanted a place to “collect” information about WoW so that I have one central point of reference for everything that I need.  Whether it be a leveling guide, a warrior talent spec, or a list of weapons I want to acquire.

It is an added bonus that anyone who comes to this blog will also have access to all this WoW goodness.  Win, win, as I see it.

I’m not going to make any claims about what this blog will be.  Because to me, blogs can be anything, everything, and they should always evolve and change to fit the needs of the blogger and the readers.  I’m not going to pigeonhole myself into “The Barracks is a blog for warriors only, other WoW players need not come here” because that 1. limits my readership, and 2. limits my creativity.  Besides, I know that I enjoy reading about other people’s WoW adventures, so I’ll probably do a good bit of “journal keeping” for my characters here as well.

Ergo, at this point you can think of The Barracks as a warrior’s insight into World of Warcraft.

And speaking of warriors, allow me to introduce my main (who is level 67 at this point and almost ready to leave Terrokar forest). 

Ladies and gentlemen, I present, Thodin!  Dwarven defender of the Alliance! 

I hope you enjoy what you find here.  If you have any suggestions for new content or you have any tidbits of information you want to share with me, you’re more than welcome to get in touch with me.  Feel free to take a look around and let me know what you think of my little piece of WoW pie.