Rokk Talk

Blizzard has not officially announced the release date for patch 4.1, but given the latest release build it will probably happen this Tuesday, April 26th.

Cataclysm seems to be the expansion where they try to desperately reach class balance between PVP and PVE and fail miserably.  Will they keep the streak alive with Warriors this time around?

• Charge and Intercept no longer have diminishing returns on their stun effects.
• Colossus Smash now ignores 50% of a hostile player’s armor (PvP), but continues to ignore 100% of a non-player character’s armor (PvE).
• Heroic Throw is now available from trainers at level 20.
• Heroic Leap is no longer on the global cooldown, similar to other warrior movement abilities.
• Inner Rage is now available at level 56.
• Intercept now has a 1.5-second stun, down from 3 seconds.
• Pummel is now usable in all stances.
• Rallying Cry (new ability) is available from trainers at level 83. It 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.
• Shield Bash has been removed from the game.
• Spell Reflection cooldown has been increased to 25 seconds, up from 10.
• Whirlwind now has its cooldown reduced by 6 seconds when it deals damage to 4 or more targets. The Whirlwind effect caused by Bladestorm remains unchanged.

Arms

• Improved Hamstring now reduces the global cooldown on Hamstring by 0.25/0.5 seconds in addition to its current effects.
• Juggernaut no longer adds 2 seconds to the Charge stun, but instead lowers the cooldown of Charge by 2 seconds (to 13 seconds total without the glyph).
• Lambs to the Slaughter now causes Mortal Strike to refresh Rend in addition to its current effects.
• Strikes of Opportunity value per point of mastery has been increased by 10%.

Fury

• Precision (passive) now increase auto-attack damage by 40%, in addition to the 3% hit it offers currently.
• Unshackled Fury now only grants 2 base points of mastery, down from 8.

Protection

• Shield Mastery no longer affects the cooldown of Spell Reflection, however, it now allows Shield Block to proc a second aura that reduces magic damage by 7/14/20% for 6 seconds.
• Gag Order now applies to Pummel and Heroic Throw, giving these abilities a 100% chance to silence the target for 3 seconds. In addition, Gag Order lowers the cooldown of Heroic Throw by 30 seconds.

Glyphs

• Glyph of Spell Reflection reduces the cooldown of Spell Reflection by 5 seconds, up from 1 second.

Let’s also not forget the changes to the Dungeon Finder and the effect it will have on Warriors:

• The Dungeon Finder now attempts to avoid putting damage-dealing classes with the same armor type in a group.
• Players will now get bonus rewards 7 times per week (while earning less than 980 Valor Points) instead of once a day when using Dungeon Finder.
• When there is only 1 player left in a Dungeon Finder group, they will now be able to queue for replacements as long as they queue within 2 minutes or stay in the dungeon.
• The Dungeon Finder: Call to Arms will now identify which class role is currently the least represented in the queue, and offer them additional rewards for entering the Dungeon Finder queue and completing a random level-85 Heroic dungeon.
• The least represented class icon will show within the Dungeon Finder to indicate the role that is eligible to earn the bonus reward.
• Players must queue solo with the currently indicated least represented class (by the system) and complete the dungeon up to and including the final boss in order to be eligible for the bonus reward.
• The bonus reward will be displayed to eligible (system identified as least represented) classes within the UI.
• Once the dungeon is completed the eligible player will receive a Satchel of Exotic Mysteries (account bound) with various potential rewards including: gold, rare gems, non-combat pets, and (very rare) mounts.

Only one plate-wearing DPS class per group = Longer queues for DPS Warriors and Death Knights.  Meanwhile, Tank classes will not only continue to receive instant queues, but if they stick around to the very end they’ll get a goodie bag.

This will end badly, and I will bathe in the tears that will flood from the official forum boards.

… and my tank got a rare mount at the end of the run!  My wife?  No, her warrior still queues as DPS.