Will Warrior stance penalties finally go away?
by Matthew Rossi 
Feb 3rd 2009 at 3:00PM
I realized when I got Rune Strike that it was like Revenge, only better in that it could be used in any presence. So if you are a soloing blood DK in blood presence, you can use Rune Strike as a source of high DPS without once switching a presence. And even if you did need to switch to use it, switching presences merely costs you a rune which will regenerate fairly quickly, it doesn't dump all of your runic power. This is just one example of how warrior stances penalize the warrior in three ways (loss of rage, inability to use certain abilities in certain stances, direct stance penalties) which really seems overly restricting. It's fine to say you want warriors to feel unique, but perhaps making them feel uniquely hampered isn't the way to go.
Ghostcrawler only says "This is something we are discussing" so I can only hope the discussion is productive. I don't mind there being pluses and minuses to stances, but the cost seems pretty high for meager benefits nowadays.
Filed under: Warrior, Analysis / Opinion, News items, Classes, Forums
Reader Comments (Page 5 of 5)
Gareth Feb 4th 2009 4:36AM
I have a 80 warrior too who is my main and I'm concerned here about removing the stance penalties.
When looking at deathknights I think the problem here is that they are just simply overpowered and too easy mode, switching presences should mean something, if it costs effectively nothing then its meaningless.
I'm guessing here that now the stance switch will just cost say 15 rage, if they remove the penalties and ability restrictions though we'll be left with a very simplified class.
id Feb 4th 2009 3:00AM
Sure, as soon as the similar trade offs are removed from druid shapeshifting.
Jeriel Feb 4th 2009 8:50AM
REMINDER:
Druids do not trigger GCD when switching out of form to cast a spell. Huge difference, since you can pop-out of bear and be casting a spell immediately.
Warriors on the other hand lose almost all rage AND get a GCD. In the fast paced world of PvP that 1.5 secs is an eternity when a warrior is rage starved too.
It would be great if the rage penalty was removed and the stances put off the GCD (probably on a linked 1.5 sec CD between stances only to prevent switching stances too quickly). The limited set of abilities and various penalties would then be balanced to me. This would not increase our damage in raids, but will give us more PvP viability right now (and any serious PvP warrior IS feeling the squeeze right now).
Don Feb 4th 2009 7:46AM
It's kind of a paradox between Warriors and death Knights.
If you remove penalties from stances with warriors then your coming closer to what a DK plays like.
If you penalize a DK for presence changing then your moving closer to what a warrior plays like.
I have to agree with Matthew, I feel that the mechanics of how a warriors work hasn't changed in years, where as just about every other class has had major changes that has changed the way they play the game. This is a good and bad thing, one is people who have played warriors like the mechanic and are comfortable with how it works.
Where as people who haven't had a warrior as a main, and have rolled a DK cannot understand the complexity and sublety behind having manage 3 stances and having to generate rage between each stance in order to do anything. DK are alot easier to play compared to warriors, in my opinion.
So why would anyone reroll a warrior from level 1 and level them to 80 when you can just log out and start a DK at 55 thru 80 which is easier to level and manage compared to a warrior.
This is coming from someone who had a lvl 70 tank warrior through out wrath, which has now been almost abandoned for a paladin, why because my warrior feels "stale." FYI I also have a rolled a DK, and also have a lvl 70 warlock, both classes feel new and different compared to my warrior.
For me the down fall of my warrior started with the Echos of Doom patch, the talent changes didn't impress me.
Randal Feb 4th 2009 12:14PM
Keep the stance specific abilities, keep the loss of rage, remove the +10% damage in zerker & remove the -10% damage in defensive.
You'll still go Defensive stance for tanking cause of the increased threat & damage reduction.
Fury warriors will still go zerker stance for the increased crit & access to their abilities.
Arms warriors will still be in battle stance for access to their abilities.
Nothing will change, just the warm fuzzies will feel about getting thrown a bone.
Dopa Feb 4th 2009 6:21PM
Aw waaaah. Let's remove all penalties for stances, but leave the benefits. Come to think of it, that's a great idea! Do the same for Druid forms. Merge Bear form with Cat form and let us take all the pro's of each form and forget their con's as well.
We[Druids] lose all of our rage in Bear form when we switch out and back in to it. The most we can retain is 10 rage. Protection Warriors are doing plenty of damage in PvE now and DPS Warriors (Zerker stance) deal enough damage to offset the penalty. Just as Cat's do in Cat form (Full 213+226) with my 5400 armor.
Matthew Rossi Feb 4th 2009 6:25PM
The day a warrior can switch out of Berserker Stance, throw a heal, root someone, cast moonfire, then switch back to Berserker Stance I'll agree with you. Druids can shapeshift into potentially every single role in the game: warriors are tank and melee DPS only.
I am aware you can't do all of these things well. You can still do them. You pay for your flexibility when you specialize. We don't have that luxury. A druid can tank, cat dps, caster dps and heal, they can literally fill any role in the game if they spec and gear for it. Warriors, again, cannot.
gunny Feb 11th 2009 10:43PM
oo sorry for the late comment, just found this article.
I for one don't mind the uniqueness of warrior stances with the abilities being binded to a stance. However, me being a lvl 80 warrior tank with several high lvl characters, seeing every class around me be updated and buffed in areas where mine are kept the same or get a very small change is honestly irritating.
I mean look at other classes mechanics, you have shadow form, you can't cast holy spells in that form but your dmg is increased and you take less dmg too i believe, but if you want to cast a heal, you simply click on it and you cast it automaticly, no penalties what so ever.
Druid shapeshifting, your dps as bear is already high compared to other tanks, your ability to go from bear tank to cat dps without changing gear in mid fight and do amazing dps or simply back up heal in any spec is amazing, druid forms have some penalties but it is due to the fact that they fill any role they want, they can heal dps or tank, with minimal gear change in a tight situation, tanking in raids or some heroics as healy isnt possible but to go from tanking to heal or dps is very much possible.
Then you have auras, all pally skills are able to be used regardless of what aura you have on, auras are buffs, pure and simple, thats what they are.
DK's presence is the closest mechanic there is to warriors, 3 stances, 3 presences, all are related, blood is arms equivilant, frost is defensive , and unholy is berserker. but comparable to each other there are no penalties, absolutely NONE, for chosing frost presence, the only thing you are losing is the other presence benefits. we lose the benefits AND gain penalties, it is a outdated, poorly thought mechanic that needs to be changed.
I believe that there should still be stance binded abilities, but to add penalties for being in stances and having them severely our weight the benefits is idiotic to say the least.
I also dont understand the loss of rage, rage shouldnt be lost, period, but if it must then i think a set amount isn't a bad idea.