Warrior Wednesday: Enchants and Gems, Giant Weapon(s) Edition

Another week, another Warrior guide. I've been trying every week to make my blog posts more towards being guides than a personal blog post, but I can have some fun can't I? I try and keep the personal bloggy stuff near the top for those of you who don't give a damn. :P

It seems that luck hasn't really been on my side lately. Random disconnecting in the game and high latency, both of which others don't seem to be having. I'm blaming my internet provider by sending as many complaints as possible to F***You@(internetprovidernamehere).com. Yeah, I am that much frustrated, although now I've used that joke so many times on Ventrilo it's probably as outdated as this picture to the right. A warrior using one-handed swords and fist weapons? A thing of the past for sure... Other than that, I got a Nobles Deck. Finally! :D

Anyway, this guide will be about enchants and gems for your Warrior that likes wielding the giant weapons and likes hitting things with them, whether there are one or two of them. The enchants for Arms and Fury are pretty similar, but there are some interesting theorycrafting ideas going on in the gemming department, but more on that later. I can also say that, unlike the guide for Protection Warrior enchants and gems, the enchants and gems for DPS warriors are a lot more straightforward.

Enchants:
Head: Arcanum of Torment - Requires Knights of the Ebon Blade - Revered.
Shoulders: Greater Inscription of the Axe - Requires Sons of Hodir - Exalted. If you're a Scribe, you get an upgraded version.
Back: Major Agility - No other real options
Chest: Powerful Stats - No other real options, again.
Wrists: Greater Assault - If you need expertise, there is an option, but you usually won't need it.
Hands: Crusher - There are also options for hit and expertise on gloves, but again, you usually won't need them.
Waist: The usual. Stick what you need as far as stats go in the socket. If you need nothing in particular, see the gems section below.
Legs: Icescale Leg Armor. Nothing else.
Feet: Greater Assault. If you need more hit, get Icewalker.
Rings (Enchanters Only): Assault on both of them.

Weapon(s): Less choices here than Warrior tanks, but there is a little money-related philosophy that I use for those that are just hitting 80 and gearing up for raids. If your weapons aren't top-notch or really close to it, meaning not a blue weapon out of a heroic dungeon, then I wouldn't bother with the really expensive enchants unless you don't care about spending your money or you can spare it. With that said, if you're at the top of your game in gear, put Berserking on your weapon(s). You might lose armor when it procs, but the attack power gained is the best benefit compared to the others. If you're still gearing up without the best of weapons, you can go for the 2H weapon enchant of Greater Savagery, or Massacre if you can afford it.
Shield: OH WAIT. Haha...you didn't think I was serious did you? :P

As a DPS warrior, it is relatively easy to reach your expertise and hit caps through talents and gear without the aid of enchants. Still, if the enchants get you to that cap, feel free to use them until you can stay above the caps without the enchants. At that time, you would switch over to the preferred enchant.

Gemming your gear
(Note: Same gem name rules apply as in the Prot Warrior Gem section of the previous guide.)

There's mostly only one rule for gems for a DPS Warrior. If you're not capped somewhere, gem for it. Still, keep in mind that it's still pretty easy to reach all your caps without gems and enchants helping you. Also, like Prot Warriors, if the socket bonus isn't outstanding, you're going to stack the sockets with the appropriate Red gem depending on whether you are Arms or Fury.

Meta: Chaotic Skyflare always. You'll need 2 blue gems to activate it, which actually means 2 of any blue, green or purple gem.
Red: Fury - Bold. The life-giver of Fury DPS. Stacking this is what you should be doing.
Arms - Fractured. Stack only after you reach about 3200 attack power with enchants and gear.
Yellow: Fury - Inscribed is your best choice, but Jagged and Smooth are also options. Accurate and Etched are there too for expertise and hit needs.
Arms - Same as Fury. No Orange gems have Armor Pen, and Green ones aren't supposed to have it.
Blue: Fury - Greens can also go here, but purples are mostly used. Namely, the only one for Fury is Sovereign, for obvious reasons.
Arms - Puissant until 100% armor pen, then Sovereign.

Fairly easy to understand overall. You should only gem and enchant for expertise and hit only after you see what you're getting from your gear and talents. Then, you can stick some hit and expertise gems or enchant your gear accordingly. Again, it's far from being as complicated as Prot Warrior enchants and gems when it comes to doing the same for a DPS warrior.

That's it for this week. Next week, I guess I'll have to think of something else to write about! I'm having a small mental block at the moment. >.<

Until next time, Cláymore out!

Warrior Wednesday: Enchants and Gems, Shield Slammer Edition

Holy hell, what a hectic past couple of weeks it's been. Beyond the vast changes that will be happening to Warriors next patch, I've switched guilds. Twice in fact. In my own defense, let's just say that I'm not as gullible to accept a tanking spec as viable as I used to be, and I have a lot of lost respect for some certain people now. No, it isn't any of you readers or any of my fellow bloggers. I still love you guys. :)

Anyway, I digress. Enough about me. Time for a guide! This is a continuation on my previous guide on the basics of stats to concentrate on as a Prot Warrior. Now, you may know these things, but what about enchants? What about those colored rocks that I'm supposed to be putting in my armor? Well, that's what I'm here for. I'll be covering Warrior tanks in this guide, so sit back and...well, just read.

Enchants:
Head: Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector, Must be revered with Argent Crusade
Shoulders: Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle, Must be Exalted with The Sons of Hodir, or if you're a Scribe, invest in the Master's.
Cloak: Titanweave, Mighty Armor, or Major Agility. This depends on, respectively, whether you need defense, effective health, or threat.
Chest: Greater Defense, Super Health, or Powerful Stats. See Cloak.
Wrists: Major Stamina. You probably won't need Expertise or Defense, but they're still there.
Hands: Armsman. Alternatives include more health or more avoidance, or Engineers can add more armor.
Waist: Do I really have to explain? As far as gems go for the buckle, put what you need in it. If you don't need anything, then you need Stamina. See below. :)
Legs: Frosthide Leg Armor, and nothing else really. No tank I know would take anything otherwise.
Feet: Greater Fortitude, but I personally prefer Tuskarr's Vitality. It may sacrifice a little bit of stamina, but the extra bit of run speed is very helpful when you need to get to a position quicker or get out of a position quicker. I hear that most raid bosses like to make players position themselves in certain ways around them and they also like making areas on the floor around them where the players get hurt when standing in those areas. (See what I did there?)
Rings(Enchanters Only): Stamina on both. No other choices really.

Weapon: Several choices here. Blood Draining is recommended for main tanking because you're taking the most damage as the main tank and it helps slightly with the healers. If you're not main tanking, then you can choose between Blade Ward and Accuracy. The first is a little cheaper in terms of mats, so you could go for it if you don't need hit while you save for the second one, but if you need the hit (which you most likely will eventually), you'll want the second. More pricey, but more worth it.
Shield: Major Stamina, Defense, or Titanium Plating. Take your pick of health, defense if you need it, or threat.

As a tank, you should be able to generate enough threat through your abilities, talents, priority rotation, and maybe a couple threat enchants, but overall, my advice is to mostly stick with the health and stamina. Depending on where you're having problems, whether it be survivability or threat issues, you can adjust your enchants accordingly.

Gemming Your Gear:
(Note: Seeing as Dragon's Eye gems are going to be mono-colored next patch, I will assume this for this part of the guide. Also, all gems have the same prefix before the gem name, so I'll just mention these prefixes. You should always be using the best gem available to you, meaning blue gems pre-3.2 and epic gems post-3.2.)

Gemming as a Protection Warrior isn't just "put the correct color into the according socket". As far as gemming goes, stamina is your best friend. If you're a smart player, you'll know that if the socket bonus isn't worth getting for your class, then you can gem however you please. Still, keep in mind what you are putting in for gems so you can keep your meta gem active.

As far as a Prot Warrior goes, you want stamina. LOTS of stamina. If the socket bonus doesn't offer extra hit that you need or something like +9 or +12 stamina or something similar that you absolutely need, your socketing will be pretty basic, or, shall I say, solid, if you know what I mean. With this in mind, here are some alternatives to activating your meta gem or getting the socket bonus:

Red: Need defense? Go Stalwart. Need Expertise? Go Guardian's. Need both? Go Resolute. Hit and Expertise? Accurate. Otherwise, whether you want more avoidance or threat, go for Regal or Shifting respectively.
Yellow: The orange options can work here too, but you can also use Enduring if you just need defense, or if you're really in desperate need for defense, you can use Thick.
Blue: Do I really have to explain? Again? Still, for those Jewelcrafters out there, please, for the love of The Light, use three of these. I don't care where. Just use them. Please.
Meta: Only found in your helmet. Austere Earthsiege Diamond should be your go-to choice for your meta, but Eternal Earthsiege offers some more defense if you need to reach the cap.

Once again, if your socket bonus isn't worth it (see above), stick a Solid blue gem in it. Not really complicated honestly.

All the information here is fairly obvious, especially if you want to be an outstanding end-game tank, meaning you keep up on current information on your class and you make decisions based on what you believe you need most as a tank. In the end, this guide is mostly from my own experiences, and for the tank that wants to have a DPS offspec or wants to tank with just one set of gear. There are those of you that want to do nothing but tank and want several sets for different situations. For this kind of information, I can refer you to Kazeyonoma's guide on tankspot.com. It covers all your recommended enchants, gems, and even gear pieces for all the possible kinds of tanking sets you would want.

Next time, DPS enchants and gems! Until next time, this is Cláymore signing off!

Warrior Wednesday: Patch 3.2 Changes, On-Time-For-Once Edition!

Here we are on Wednesday again, and for once, my post is on time! Hooray! Warriors rejoice! Okay, enough celebrating. What's more important to celebrate about are the changes that are planned in Patch 3.2 for us warriors that have been announced in the past few weeks. Those changes that have been added are the following:

• Bloodrage: This ability now generates 20 rage initially, and 10 rage over the next 10 seconds. The health cost is unchanged.
• Execute: This ability now never costs more than a total of 30 rage. The tooltip for Sudden Death has been revised to remove reference to that maximum, since the ability now behaves that way even when untalented.
• Shield Slam: The benefit from additional block value this ability gains is now subject to diminishing returns. Diminishing returns occur once block value exceeds 30 times the player's level and caps the maximum damage benefit from shield block value at 34.5 times the player's level.
• Talents
• Fury
• Bloodsurge: Notification that Slam has become instant now appears in floating combat text.
• Protection
• Devastate: Weapon damage increased to 60% and bonus per Sunder Armor on the target increased by 20%.
• Shield Specialization: Now provides 5 rage on a block, dodge or parry instead of 2 rage on a block.

Well, those are certainly a lot of additions! So, I'll break them down bullet by bullet:

Bloodrage: This ability now generates 20 rage initially, and 10 rage over the next 10 seconds. The health cost is unchanged.

A very welcome change. All types of warriors use their Bloodrage ability. More rage means more chances to use our abilities! The health cost is unchanged as well, which is still good, but most of us use the appropriate glyph anyway (you do use it, right? I thought so...)

Execute: This ability now never costs more than a total of 30 rage. The tooltip for Sudden Death has been revised to remove reference to that maximum, since the ability now behaves that way even when untalented.

Well then, This could be good in the fact that DPS warriors have some more usability with this, erm, ability. Still, the way that Execute works is that the more rage you have, the more of it is consumed, and the more damage it does. With a maximum limit set in place, this will probably lower our DPS, which is rather unfortunate. :(

Shield Slam: The benefit from additional block value this ability gains is now subject to diminishing returns. Diminishing returns occur once block value exceeds 30 times the player's level and caps the maximum damage benefit from shield block value at 34.5 times the player's level.

Putting diminishing returns on Block Value? WHAT?! This isn't entirely good people. I mean sure, we probably won't hit the diminishing returns through just gear as warrior tanks, but when we use Shield Block, according to Ciderhelm of Tankspot.com, we will most likely pass this point with only a few pieces with the stat on them, meaning we get less benefits than usual from block value, meaning we generate less threat. That, my friends, is the warrior tank's shot in the chest with the nerf gun.

Now for talents:

Bloodsurge: Notification that Slam has become instant now appears in floating combat text.

Very minor, seeing as most people use some sort of addon to replace the Blizzard floating combat text, let alone using it at all if they don't replace it. Moving on...

Devastate: Weapon damage increased to 60% and bonus per Sunder Armor on the target increased by 20%.

Previously the weapon damage for devastate was 50%, and the bonus being increased is great as well. Wonderful for our threat and damage output, but it hardly makes up for the shield block nerf in my opinion.

Shield Specialization: Now provides 5 rage on a block, dodge or parry instead of 2 rage on a block.

Oh crap! We're going to be more angry than ever! And when I say angry, I mean we're going to have more rage to use than ever. Not only do we generate more rage per action than before (increased from 2 to 5), but we get this every time we block, dodge, or parry instead of just blocking, which is AMAZING. More rage = more abilities thrown at mobs = more threat = more happy warrior tanks! Nice!

What a vast array of changes we have so far. Okay, so they're not as vast as some other class changes going on next patch (See Druids and Paladins. Good God!), but there are some very important things going on with warriors, especially with the tanks. It's good to know that Blizzard seems to be paying at least some attention to their players as well as noticing some problems themselves.

Next week, things! Maybe even more things! Eh, I don't know, I'll have something. Maybe a second part to a guide I suppose. Not entirely sure. Anyways, Cláymore out!

(I finally learned the alt code to the wierd A in my name! 0225 :P)

Website Problems

So as you may have noticed we have been having some technical difficulties with our website, now we have switched back to our blogger website until we can get everything fixed with the old site and everything back up and running fine again, i will keep everyone updated on what is going on.