Welcome to Gladiator's Resolve!

Hello Gladiator's!

     I've decided to create a blog based around the new Gladiator Stance Warrior in World of Warcraft. I've played Warrior a ton since the game first came out, and like to think that I actually played its predecessor in Everquest way back in the day :). Everquest had a class named Warrior, and it's primary role was to keep threat on every single mob, and to do the most damage. A little bit like our MoP challenge modes now that I think about it :). I wanted to have a place to try to contribute back to the community! I've never seen a game with so much community support behind it, and it is awesome.

About Me:
     I've tanked and dps'd my way through Vanilla up to Loatheb in Naxx 40, and only got C'thun once. From there I've played off and on since and really started to play the most in Ulduar ( as fury ) and then Dragon Soul. Right now I've tanked my way to 11/14H in MoP in Siege of Orgrimmar and am Guild and Raid leading a casual 10man group with my Girlfriend as my OT. We are progressing on Iron Juggernaut.
In Real life I'm an IT guy. I help companies dealing with our AV Software. I like to think that the customer management and support skills i've honed sync nicely with raid leading and troubleshooting other peoples trials in the game as their raid and guild leader. WOW is definitely my primary hobby and I probably spend too much time reading patch notes. Which leads me to the reason for creating this blog! Warlords of Draenor Alpha Patch Notes are out! Along with a ton of tweets from helpful blizz staff there's a ton of new information on the coming changes, and I've never been more excited to play Warrior than I have today. Each of the new features of the class are exciting on their own, however one stands out far above the rest for me. Gladiator's Resolve. Our level 100 Talent. This talent allows us to DPS as a Protection Warrior!

The soundtrack for reading this ability is as follows: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=IP__m7xQYOA#t=15

Gladiator's Resolve Passive Requires level 100

Increases the damage reduction provided by Defensive Stance by 5%. Also allows you to forgo your defensive role, and instead focus only on offensive capabilities, by replacing Battle Stance with Gladiator Stance.

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Gladiator Stance Level 100 Instant cast

A dauntless combat stance. Increases physical damage dealt by 20%, and replaces your Shield Block with Shield Charge. You cannot change into or out of this stance during combat

Shield Charge Level 100 20 Rage 10yd Range Instant cast 15 sec Recharge Requires Warrior Requires Gladiator's Resolve

Requires Shields Raise your shield and charge a short distance to your target, increasing the damage of Shield Slam, Revenge, and Heroic Strike by 30% for 6 seconds. Maximum 2 Charges.

At first glance, this might be somewhat confusing. You have images of 300 playing in your head, and you know you're going to be dropping BOMBS with your shield. I am so goddamn excited.

Rotation

Remember this is all hypothetical :)

Shield Charge > Shield Slam > Revenge > Devastate. With Heroic Strike as your rage dump.

Setting up the shield charge to precede shield slam is very doable either with Charge itself, or Battle Shout.
Since Shield Charge lasts 6 seconds, and has two charges, we should be able to maintain an uptime around for 12s every recharge. Think of it a little bit like Colossus Smash.. WITH YOUR SHIELD.

Gear
To consider this properly we should also note that Dodge and Parry were being removed.. Prot Warriors are going to wear Mastery, Crit, and Haste gear! So we'll be able to turn around and tank if we want as well! However, please remember we'd have to switch stances, and you can only do that out of combat :)

Mastery

• Warrior
  • Mastery: Critical Block now also passively increases Attack Power by 12% (percentage increased by Mastery), in addition to its current effects.

Mastery: Critical Block Requires Warrior (Protection) Requires level 80

Increases your chance to block by 4% and your chance to critically block by 18%.

I believe since this is a straight attack power increase, we're going to want all the Mastery we can get our hands on, especially if it continues to stack so well per point as it did in Warlords!

Haste

• Headlong Rush is a new passive ability for Warriors:
  • Headlong Rush: Haste reduces global cooldown and the cooldowns of Mortal Strike, Bloodthirst, Shield Slam, and Thunder Clap.

This means we're going to have a lot faster play, which I believe will be a lot more fun. I'm already used to making sure I hit an ability every global, and now I'll get to play at the speed I've been loving on my Brewmaster for a year now!

Crit
I believe this still still be a top priority. But I think we're probably going to want to hit some sort of haste cap so we can guarantee we're able to spend all the rage we're generating. This will definitely require some testing.

Also, it should be mentioned that we're going to have some really nice defensive abilities as Glad... ( holy shit we have a shortform )

• Riposte has been redesigned.
  • Riposte gives the Warrior +100% to Parry chance until they Parry an attack after getting a critical strike with an Auto Attack. 

This is a big deal, as we're going to be able to make amazing use of our ability to Parry with add waves ( as dps ). Think of the Embodied Phase for Sun on Protectors. DPS warriors are already dropping taunting banner to help with adds, now they can parry every time they crit with an auto-attack and also block!


And thats it. I'm sure the coming Alpha is going to be exciting and I hope to keep you guys updated on how this Spec plays and changes. We might be a lot different from now till launch, but Blizz definitely has the intent to let us be Spartans :)

- Cyclonus
Cyclonüs of Area 52 - US - Horde
@Cyclonus_WOW
Cyclonus.A52@gmail.com