Hey there,
I decided to go warrior, despite how popular this class is going to be, because I love the feeling of the class.
I have quite a few questions:
Right now, I'm trying to decide on a faction for warrior, and it's tough as hell for several reasons:
-going horde means you're probably going to have more fun in pve due to windfury totem generating insane amounts of rage, to the point where the horde meta lets tanks dual wield as fury (in prot stance) to generate as much aggro as possible and let fury warriors go all out. You can even dps with a two hander in fury thanks to windfury, it's quite viable.
The orc racials are OP: stun resist, ap trinket, axe skills...it's just the best warrior race overall. In pvp it helps a lot and you have shamans who will assist your dps and give you, again wf totem, which is nice, they can also dispell poisons and heal for a decent amount.
The big problem is that you don't get the insane utility that pallies have, which turns you into a monster in pvp, so I feel like pvping as horde is actually harder for warriors.
-Going alliance means you're gonna get the OP paladins blessings: kings, might, salvation...you can go all out a lot of times without being too worried with aggro. In general, alliance pve is very easy (some would argue it's too easy in fact), so you gear up faster than your horde counterparts, which is a very important thing.
In pvp, paladins enable you more than any other healer (probably): blessing of freedom, cleanse, auras, blessing of sac, BOP, lay on hands, super tough healer to kill with divine shield and high armor, hammer of justice, ...all in all a paladin is probably the best pvp healer in the game hands down.
The issue is that you don't get windfury totem, so gameplay is prob quite a bit less fun in pve and pvp.
So here's the thing: is pve-ing as a warrior on alliance less fun due to the absence of windfury totem (although you do get blessings which make you do more dmg overall = generate more rage), and is pvp-ing that much harder on horde due to the absence of paladins, even though the orc racial is op?
Sounds to me like a horde warrior would be more fun: the visceral aspect of it, windfury, and so on...also I prefer axes, IDK why. But on the other hand, alliance warriors look like they're set with paladins.
Thanks a lot guys
PvPing on both factions have their own appeal. I cant say that either is more fun, they are just different. I guess I'll go down a different route... Lets consider your gearing path and quality of life.
Human warrior is BiS. You will need swords. Every raid you will compete against 5-7 other warriors for swords. You will also compete against 4-6 rogues in raids for swords. You will also compete against meme rets for 2 handers and plate dps. When gearing for pre BiS alliance have 3 viable tanks (will count prot pallies) in comparison to hordes 2 (I refuse to count shamans). This means that you will have less opportunity and more competition when it comes to gearing.
Orc is nutty for both PvE and PvP. You want axes. Rogues cant use axes. You want plate. No other class uses plate. You will compete against warriors. Enhance shamans will take some 2handers but there are FAR fewer enhances than there are rets. Most serious alliance guilds will make room for a ret or two, most serious horde guilds MAY run a single enhance for nightfall, but even this can be rare. This is likely due to the shear population of Rets, there are a ton of them. Shammies result in far less competition for your 2handers.
From a quality of life perspective while gearing, horde is probably a bit better.
From a flavor perspective, windfury is fun and orc racials suit a warrior well from top to bottom.
You mention that paladins have good synergy with warriors. This is undeniable. Paladins are OP AF in both PvE and PvP. Outside of this, horde wins in every category for a warrior (IMO). This choice is super subjective though.
edit: fixed a few sentences / spelling
Orc warrior unless all your friends play Alliance. Stun resist vs rogues is nice if you plan to go PvP server or PvP in battlegrounds. My first char was a orc warrior and I still remember this WSG where I was alone trying to go to the flag room and meet my team when I started to get hit by something. "Where is the damage coming from??", "There is no one around..." And then I suddenly look down and see this gnome rogue trying to kill me.... I had resisted every stun, thus why I didn't realized it was there. I used to play with music on so I wasn't hearing the stabb effects very well. He died with my axe and meanwhile my team was coming back and we scored a flag. Good times.
Stun resist vs rogues is nice if you plan to go PvP server or PvP in battlegrounds.... I had resisted every stun, thus why I didn't realized it was there.
Hardiness = BiS pvp racial by a landslide. No close second. Add bloodfury and axe specialization... What more could a warrior want?
Thanks a lot for your answers so far guys.
If it helps, I gotta say I'm much more excited to play an orc warrior than a human warrior...I don't know why, it just sounds much more fun to me.
I suppose I kinda answered my own question there :D. Min-maxing apart, I think that's what I'd like to do for sure.
PvPing on both factions have their own appeal. I cant say that either is more fun, they are just different. I guess I'll go down a different route... Lets consider your gearing path and quality of life.
Human warrior is BiS. You will need swords. Every raid you will compete against 5-7 other warriors for swords. You will also compete against 4-6 rogues in raids for swords. You will also compete against meme rets for 2 handers and plate dps. When gearing for pre BiS alliance have 3 viable tanks (will count prot pallies) in comparison to hordes 2 (I refuse to count shamans). This means that you will have less opportunity and more competition when it comes to gearing.
Orc is nutty for both PvE and PvP. You want axes. Rogues cant use axes. You want plate. No other class uses plate. You will compete against warriors. Enhance shamans will take some 2handers but there are FAR fewer enhances than there are rets. Most serious alliance guilds will make room for a ret or two, most serious horde guilds MAY run a single enhance for nightfall, but even this can be rare. This is likely due to the shear population of Rets, there are a ton of them. Shammies result in far less competition for your 2handers.
From a quality of life perspective while gearing, horde is probably a bit better.
From a flavor perspective, windfury is fun and orc racials suit a warrior well from top to bottom.
You mention that paladins have good synergy with warriors. This is undeniable. Paladins are OP AF in both PvE and PvP. Outside of this, horde wins in every category for a warrior (IMO). This choice is super subjective though.
edit: fixed a few sentences / spelling
The quality of life of not dealing with rets and rogues using swords (since you'll go axe as an orc) didn't occur to me, but I see how big this could be. Thank you.
it looks like you and others are sold on orcs, and that's fine. taking a hammer of justice and then getting molested by a pally in gear that you wish you had, sucks. stuns are good in pvp and hardiness is awesome.
but i want to offer a different perspective, at least as it relates to warriors in pvp.
i prefer my strong abilities to be ones i can use tactically, not a passive chance of something not happening (and some classes have 0 stuns to worry about anyway). warstomp is amazing for warriors because it works best when you're in the middle of things - where a warrior is right at home. an aoe stun is useful against every class, in every facet of pvp (world pvp, bg's, duels, you name it).
you know what else is useful in pvp? health. health is always important, and tauren have the most of anybody. in vanilla it is 5% of your total hp, so all of the gear that increases your hp (are there many of those in pvp? :lol:) is 5% more effective.
how about one of our favorite topics around here, tauren hitboxes! the increased melee "reach" is a slight disadvantage against melee enemies, but the bonus of hitting ranged characters from almost 2 yards farther away is godly. you get hit more because you're the easiest to click on? that's the healer's problem, just means more rage!
and if it's the sort of thing that matters to you, tauren have the biggest shoulder armor :cool:
i prefer my strong abilities to be ones i can use tactically, not a passive chance of something not happening
I hear that a lot and I definitely understand, aoe stun + 5% more hp + longer reach (and there's melee leeway right now) makes tauren one of the best warrior races imo, if melee leeway stays tauren could actually be more broken than orcs on average in pvp.
I just prefer the way female orc warriors look in comparison: as a tauren, you'll be focused first every time because of how big your ass is :D
it looks like you and others are sold on orcs, and that's fine. taking a hammer of justice and then getting molested by a pally in gear that you wish you had, sucks. stuns are good in pvp and hardiness is awesome.
but i want to offer a different perspective, at least as it relates to warriors in pvp.
i prefer my strong abilities to be ones i can use tactically, not a passive chance of something not happening (and some classes have 0 stuns to worry about anyway). warstomp is amazing for warriors because it works best when you're in the middle of things - where a warrior is right at home. an aoe stun is useful against every class, in every facet of pvp (world pvp, bg's, duels, you name it).
you know what else is useful in pvp? health. health is always important, and tauren have the most of anybody. in vanilla it is 5% of your total hp, so all of the gear that increases your hp (are there many of those in pvp? :lol:) is 5% more effective.
how about one of our favorite topics around here, tauren hitboxes! the increased melee "reach" is a slight disadvantage against melee enemies, but the bonus of hitting ranged characters from almost 2 yards farther away is godly. you get hit more because you're the easiest to click on? that's the healer's problem, just means more rage!
and if it's the sort of thing that matters to you, tauren have the biggest shoulder armor :cool:
I don't want to turn this into an Orc vs Tauren debate but if you are choosing a PvP race for warrior on horde side from a min/max perspective. Orc is the clear choice. This topic has been done to death on this forum (mostly because of me). Tauren increased range works both ways, making them one of the easiest warriors to kite and making taurens have a very difficult time dodging aoe's/snares. Depending on what version of leeway we get, tauren range could be substantial, but this will typically hurt you without a dedicated healer. If you have a dedicated healer, range is excellent though. The shitty reality for most warriors is that they will spend the bulk of their game time WITHOUT a dedicated healer.
I'd also like to touch on this... "some classes have 0 stuns". This is untrue. IF you are basing your race choice on performance, you should be making choices based on opponents of equal skill and preparedness which means ALL of your competent opponents will have engineering and thus, have a stun. A meaningful ranged stun that has potential to completely change the momentum of a fight.
When we look at classes though... Spriest has a stun. Warriors have multiple stuns. Rogues have multiple stuns. Druids have stuns. Fire mages have a stun. Hunters have stuns. Paladins have a stun. All of them have nades. Most of them will use other stun based gear pieces like tidal charm. This doesn't even account for prevalent weapons like Unstoppable Force which will be wielded by a LARGE portion of the playerbase as THE premier welfare epic 2hander.
This leaves us with Warlock and Shaman? Shamans will be on your team as horde so they don't really matter... So warlocks? Of your opponents as a horde warrior, Warlocks are the only class without a stun but ALL competent opponents will have engineering. We will have to see the final version of leeway and you will have consider if you have a dedicated healer who will quite literally follow you around at all times, but outside of this, Orc is far superior.
Tauren HP racial is base hp (is it not?) and is garbage for PvP to be honest. Warstomp is okay but is nothing compared to Hardiness. Add axe spec for PvE and Blood Fury and Orcs are definitively superior.
Choosing a race for alliance warriors is a bit more nuanced... Gnomes present an excellent case for PvP and Humans are BiS for PVE. Dwarves are no slouches and Shadowmeld has some great world PvP applications as well as flag defense in BG's. The nightelf and dwarf being the weakest two options here, but alliance warriors have a lot to think about. Horde do not.
Choosing a race for alliance warriors is a bit more nuanced... Gnomes present an excellent case for PvP and Humans are BiS for PVE. Dwarves are no slouches and Shadowmeld has some great world PvP applications as well as flag defense in BG's. The nightelf and dwarf being the weakest two options here, but alliance warriors have a lot to think about. Horde do not.
you think horde warrior (orc) is as decent in pvp as its alliance counterpart, or does the absence of blessing of freedom + cleanse hurt a lot?
Choosing a race for alliance warriors is a bit more nuanced... Gnomes present an excellent case for PvP and Humans are BiS for PVE. Dwarves are no slouches and Shadowmeld has some great world PvP applications as well as flag defense in BG's. The nightelf and dwarf being the weakest two options here, but alliance warriors have a lot to think about. Horde do not.
you think horde warrior (orc) is as decent in pvp as its alliance counterpart, or does the absence of blessing of freedom + cleanse hurt a lot?
The absence of paladins hurts a lot in every aspect of the game. If I had a friend struggling to decide between a shaman or a paladin and we were both intending to push rank together, I would advocate that we played on ally and he went paladin to heal me. Every individual circumstance will be different... Generally speaking I think that for the average warrior who does not have a dedicated healer, both PvP experiences will be similar in pug groups with no organization. If you are playing as part of an organized team, you wouldnt be asking these questions anyways.
This is to say that despite paladins having great synergy with warriors, most of the paladins you randomly run into wont provide excellent value anyways and wont prioritize you as a target because most players are relatively bad at the game.
Orc is the clear choice. This topic has been done to death on this forum (mostly because of me).
I was waiting for this :lol:
My recent experience fighting against orcs on RetroWoW - I do not remember landing one successful Pounce on an Orc. It was so frustrating and I would always forget to use Ravage instead of Pounce (I'm also not used to fighting orcs, as a horde player). Obviously some landed, but there is no way it was only 25% chance to resist - man oh man it was annoying :cry: stealth buffed to 99% chance to resist??
Orc is the clear choice. This topic has been done to death on this forum (mostly because of me).
I was waiting for this :lol:
My recent experience fighting against orcs on RetroWoW - I do not remember landing one successful Pounce on an Orc. It was so frustrating and I would always forget to use Ravage instead of Pounce (I'm also not used to fighting orcs, as a horde player). Obviously some landed, but there is no way it was only 25% chance to resist - man oh man it was annoying :cry: stealth buffed to 99% chance to resist??
Hahaha! Believe it or not they have done some large tests on each of these prevalent pservers and after 1000 or so stuns they have found that it is quite accurate. Confirmation bias though right? We remember the stuns that dont land more than the ones that do, because your opener SHOULD land. Its actually startling to think about... 30... percent... Ughhh.... So broken.
Confirmation bias though right?
Definitely.
Also an orc warrior with 5/5 Iron Will has a total added 40% Chance to resist Stun, which is just insane. With 5% based chance to resist stuns (iirc) that's 45% chance to resist stun. Yeh, its OP.
Confirmation bias though right?
Definitely.
Also an orc warrior with 5/5 Iron Will has a total added 40% Chance to resist Stun, which is just insane. With 5% based chance to resist stuns (iirc) that's 45% chance to resist stun. Yeh, its OP.
Actually broken. It doesn't even make sense.