4.1 Warrior Changes

So Blizzard has pretty much finalized the Patch 4.1 changes detailed in a recent blog post. The release candidate also hit the PTR a little while back, so I’m expecting 4.1 to go live this Tuesday or the one after — hopefully.

Unlike the other patch note posts I’ve made this one is going to only focus more heavily on Warriors for two reasons. First is that I’m a Warrior (:D) and second is that the other tanks don’t really have much to talk about. Druids have one nice change in that the Savage Defense absorb will now function more like Blood Shield. Death Knights aren’t really gaining anything, but some minor tweaks related to Blood Shield that shouldn’t effect game play at all. As far as Protection Paladins go, my earlier post on patch 4.1 covers anything in that regard.

So, let’s get to it. The first change that impacts Protection Warriors is removing Heroic Leap from the global cool down. I love this. Nice little overall survivability boost when kiting and just generally moving to avoid things.

The second big (really it’s huge though) change is Pummel coming to all specs as our 10 second cool down interrupt. This is of course wrapped up with the change to all non-damaging interrupts off the global cool down not requiring hit to land. Expect to start interrupting full time now as a tank in any setting. Overall it should make encounters such as Heroic Omnotron and Heroic Nefarian (especially on 10 man) a little less composition dependent.

Things keep getting better though. Inner Rage is now available at level 56 with Rallying Cry as our new level 83 ability.

“Rallying Cry temporarily grants the warrior and all party or raid members within 30 yards 20% of maximum health for 10 seconds. After the effect expires, the health is lost. It has no cost, no stance requirements, and is not on the global cooldown. It has a 3-minute cooldown, but also shares a cooldown with Last Stand.”

Not too shabby at all. I definitely love it for when I’m Fury and as Protection I wish that it didn’t share a cool down with Last Stand, but having another cool down (or another interesting option) is always something I like. I’m already seeing times when I would use Rallying Cry over Last Stand, like an Electrocute on Nefarian when the group is near me or during a Feud on Chimaeron. There’s still times I wouldn’t sacrifice my Last Stand for anyone else though. As I’m using Last Stand reactively (and sometimes not at all) on the majority of encounters right now though, I’m glad for the chance to increase my raid utility instead of wasting a cool down (as an unused cool down is essentially wasted).

And that’s it… Or is it? Nope.

Shield Mastery (the talent) is also being adjusted. It now no longer affects Spell Reflect, but instead produces an aura that reduces magic damage by 20% (with 3 talent points) for 6 seconds. Awesome, just plain awesome.

Aside from the being a clear buff, I like that this will add another decision to Warrior tanking (like should I use Rallying Cry or Last Stand). Timing your Shield Blocks well while still having as many as possible is going to create an nice little meta-game to reduce as much damage as possible and raise the skill cap for Protection Warriors.

I am extremely happy with the changes this patch brings. Do I feel like we needed it? Not entirely, but will I turn them down? Hell no. Once the patch has hit, I’ll be playing around with some of the decision making points I brought up above. Expect some posts in the future to elaborate on those thoughts. Cheers!