WoW The War Within Beta: Warrior Talent Changes

With The War Within beta build now live, players will get to try out the new upcoming expansion and test many of the new features and changes that were added to World of Warcraft. A lot of improvement and quality-of-life updates were added, coupled with some very exciting balance changes that will certainly shake things up both in PvE and PvP content. 

Having that in mind, we will take a look at all of the talent changes that were added to all three of the Warrior specs so you can decide if you will be rocking a new class in The War Within when it officially launches later this year. 

The War Within Beta: Warrior Talents

Warrior

• Many talents have moved locations or have had their pathing updated.
• Berserker Rage now auto-learned at level 12.
• Thunder Clap Rage cost reduced to 20 (was 30).
• Blood and Thunder no longer increases Rage cost or damage of Thunder Clap.
• Crackling Thunder also increases damage of Thunder Clap by 10%.
• Frothing Berserker now refunds 10% Rage for Arms and Fury, and 25% Rage for Protection.
• Shockwave no longer generates Rage on cast.
• Champion’s Spear generates 10 Rage on cast (was 20).
• Thunderous Roar no longer generates Rage on cast.
• Thunderous Words now causes Thunderous Roar’s Bleed effect to increase damage targets take from all the Warrior’s bleed effects, rather than passively increasing it all the time.
• Slam damage increased by 130%. Arms Slam damage bonus reduced to 50% (was 75%).
• Bladestorm damage increased by 70%.
• Ravager damage decreased by 10%.
• Second Wind gains an additional effect – While you are below 35% health, restores 1.0% health every 1 second. The amount restored increases the closer you are to death (max 2%).
• The following talents have been removed:

  • Titanic Throw
  • Sonic Boom

Arms Warrior

• New Talent: Finishing Blows – Overpower generates 8 Rage when used on a target below 35% health.
• Barbaric Training has been redesigned for Arms – Now grants 20% damage and 10% critical damage to Slam and Whirlwind.
• Storm of Swords has been redesigned – Now grants Whirlwind a 30% chance to make your next Whirlwind cost 100% less Rage.
• Rage generated from auto-attacks reduced by 16%.
• Whirlwind base Rage cost reduced to 20 (was 30).
• Rend base Rage cost reduced to 20 (was 30).
• Ignore Pain Rage cost reduced to 20 (was 40).
• Cleave damage increased by 5%.
• Cleave cooldown reduced to 3 seconds (was 6 seconds).
• Battlelord no longer resets the cooldown of Cleave.
• Storm of Swords now triggers from Whirlwind or Cleave and reduces the Rage cost of your next Whirlwind or Cleave.
• Fervor of Battle now also triggers from Cleave.
• Barbaric Training now also affects Cleave. Damage bonus reduced to 10% (was 20%).
• Seismic Reverberation now also triggers from Cleave.
• Whirlwind damage reduced by 33%.
• Collateral Damage’s damage bonus now applies to Cleave as well as Whirlwind.
• Unhinged now will cast Mortal Strike on your target if valid, falling back to a random target.
• Warlord’s Torment no longer triggers from Colossus Smash. Duration of Recklessness buff increased by 50% and bonus Rage generation reduced to 25% (was 100%).
• In for the Kill’s Haste bonus now lasts as long as Colossus Smash does.
• Improved Overpower increases number of Overpower charges by 1.
• Dreadnaught no longer increases number of Overpower charges.
• Strength of Arms no longer causes Overpower to generates 8 Rage when used on a target below 35% health.
• Tactician chance to reset cooldown of Overpower per Rage spent reduced to 1% (was 1.3%).
• Deft Experience increase to Tactician’s chance to reset cooldown of Overpower per Rage spent reduced to 0.5% (was 0.6%).
• Valor in Victory’s Versatility bonus increased to 2% (was 1%).
• Battlelord no longer generates Rage when triggered.
• Skullsplitter now accelerates Rend’s Bleed baseline.
• Ravager is now a choice node with Bladestorm. All existing Bladestorm sub-talents updated to work with both Ravager and Bladestorm.
• Bladestorm no longer generates Rage on cast.
• Dreadnaught damage reduced by 58%.
• Strength of Arms now also increases Overpower damage by 15%.
• Crushing Force now increases Mortal Strike damage by 5% and Mortal Strike critical strike damage by 5% per point (was Slam damage and critical strike chance).
• Battlelord no longer increases Overpower damage, and now generates 10 Rage when it resets the cooldown of Mortal Strike.
• The following talents have been removed:

  • Tide of Blood
  • Reaping Swings
• Unhinged has been redesigned – Every other time Bladestorm or Ravager deal damage, you cast a Mortal Strike at your target or a nearby enemy.
• Critical Thinking now restores 10% of Rage spent on Execute per point (was 5%).
• Hurricane has been removed.

Fury Warrior

• New Talent: Powerful Enrage – Enrage increases the damage your abilities deal by an additional 15% and Enrage’s duration is increased by 1 second. On a choice node with Frenzied Enrage.
• Fury Warriors now learn Defensive Stance by default.
• Wrath and Fury now increases the chance for Improved Raging Blow to reset Raging Blow’s cooldown by 10% while Enraged.
• Deft Experience no longer reduces Bloodthirst’s cooldown, instead it now increases Bloodthirst’s chance to trigger Enrage by 2% per point.
• Tenderize no longer increases the duration of Enrage.
• Bloodthirst damage increased by 43%
• Bloodcraze now triggers from Raging Blow instead of Bloodthirst.
• Deft Experience now causes Bloodthirst to extend your Enrage effect by 0.5/1.0 sec if you are Enraged.
• Swift Strikes now also increases Bloodthirst’s Rage generated by 1.0/2.0 Rage.
• Crushing Force now increases the damage of Bloodthirst by 10/20% and critical strike chance of Bloodthirst by 5/10%.
• Slam’s Rage cost removed.
• Bladestorm now generates 10 Rage per damage event for Fury (20 with Storm of Steel).
• Bladestorm is now a choice node with Ravager. All existing Ravager sub-talents updated to work with both Ravager and Bladestorm.
• The following talents have been removed:

  • Frenzied Flurry has been removed, its effects have been added to Single-Minded Fury.
  • Raging Armaments
  • Annihilator
  • Storm of Swords

Developer’s note: Annihilator and Sword of Swords provided an option for Fury players who wanted a lower “actions per minute” playstyle. However, we’re not happy with how they changed which abilities warriors used in their rotations. We are instead providing Powerful Enrage as a new option for a slower playstyle that synergizes with Fury’s rotation and flavor.

• Hurricane replaced with Unhinged – Every other time Bladestorm or Ravager deal damage, you cast a Bloodthirst at your target or a nearby enemy.

Protection Warrior

• New Talent: Fight Through the Flames – Defensive Stance additionally reduces magic damage you take by 5%.
• Battle-Scarred Veteran has been updated – When a damage event reduces your health below 30%, the portion of that damage event that would apply to the last 30% of your health is also reduced by 80%.

Developer’s note: For example, if you are at 50% health and receive damage for 40% of your health, your damage taken will be 20% + 20% * (1-0.8), or 24%, and you will have 26% health remaining when Battle-Scarred Veteran activates." Additionally, this change will be deployed to the 10.2.7 environment over the next few days.

• Whirlwind base Rage cost reduced to 20 (was 30).
• Whirlwind damage reduced by 33%.
• Rend base Rage cost reduced to 20 (was 30).
• Defensive Stance no longer reduces damage dealt by Protection Warriors.
• Improved Heroic Throw has been removed.

And that covers all of the talent changes to Warriors in The War Within beta. Of course, all of these updates are subject to change as players start providing feedback to the devs before the official launch of the expansion later this year.

A lot of interesting design choices this time around, especially with the addition of new talents for players to opt for either increased damage, survivability or utility. The War Within is set to be a very promising expansion what with all of the new features, content and overall quality-of-life changes.