New Level 45 Talents

Hello Gladiator's,

I've put off this post while I wrapped up doing about 25 different entries for Warlords Beta keys. I've created my own hearthstone card, created Draenor postcards? You name it. However, through use of new media coming from sites like Wowhead and MMO Champ, I will continue to provide this blog as a repository for Gladiator Warrior information aggregated from those sites. Should I end up getting into the Beta, I'll be sure to start generating some video's to go along with these posts.

Today's topic is our new level 45 Talent row. This a replacement for the removal of Staggering and Disrupting shout, as well as Piercing Howl. What they've done to provide us with a ranged snare is to add the snare to Thunderclap.

The new Talents:

Heavy Repercussions - Shield Slam deals 50% additional damage while Shield Block is active.

Previously, a glyph, this should be the more commonly used Talent with our Stance. I expect most Glad's will want to use this as Shield Block gets replaced by Shield Charge, and that will end up giving us a huge bonus to Shield Slam. 30% damage from Shield Charge and 50% from HR.

Sudden Death - Your autoattack hits have a 10% chance to make your next Execute cost no initial Rage and be usable on any target, regardless of health level.

Previously available as a baseline talent to Arms Warriors, this one should be rarely used as execute hits like a wet noodle for protection, since we don't have the Perk for Execute ( missing 20% damage ) and we're not going to be Executing that much as it is.

Unyielding Strikes - Devastate reduces the Rage cost of Heroic Strike by 6 for 6 sec, stacking up to 5 times.  Once this effect reaches 5 applications, its duration will no longer refresh.

Really the only viable alternative to Heavy Repercussions, this should result in a ton of damage from Heroic Strike. Current Parses were showing that you can actually end up doing slightly more damage with US vs HR as a talent, but remember tuning is not yet done. I'd be interested to see if we end up capping on rage using this talent.

Overall this is a pretty cool tier of choices as it will greatly affect our rotation, for not only Glad, but all of our spec's.

- Cyc

Blue Tweets: Gladstance is Confirmed Competitive DPS!

Hello Gladiators!


There have been a few informative Blue Tweets on our new DPS spec that I wanted to review.

First, there was definitely some needed clarity on whether we are still intended to be able to tank with the Gladiator's Resolve Talent. Other than the obvious lack of being able to switch out of this stance in Combat, it needed to be said. Matthew is a WowInsider Editor who blogs about Warriors as well.

1. Matthew Rossi ‏@MatthewWRossi  Apr 3

   @Celestalon The way that Gladiator Stance and the talent is worded, it seems like prot warriors who take it will still be able to tank

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2. Celestalon ‏@Celestalon  Apr 3

   @MatthewWRossi If you take the Gladiator Stance talent, you can still tank, with 5% extra DR, but none of the offensive benefits.

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Second, We wanted to know if Gladiator Stance would give us the ability to compete with dps. That was confirmed as well by Celestalon, that it is not only tuned for DPS, but will remove your ability to tank all that much better than an Arms warrior.

1. Sam M ‏@JalopyWoW  Feb 21

   @Celestalon How do you plan to balance glad stance? In the essence that it's a DPS spec? Or a halfway between tank and DPS?

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2. Celestalon ‏@Celestalon  Feb 21

   @JalopyWoW Gladiator Stance will be tuned as a DPS. It will not be able to tank much more than an Arms warrior can (ie, not much).

So, to be clear, Gladiator's Resolve enables Warriors to have a 3rd DPS Spec. It will be tuned for DPS, and we can therefore expect it to compete with Arms and Fury. Thusfar, I can only think of one downside to this if you prefer dps with a shield, and simply that we as Protection are not on the list to get the Draenor Perk for 50% increased Execute damage. We're also losing Recklessness and Therefore the newly baked together Skull Banner benefit.

•Recklessness is now available only to Fury and Arms Warriors.

As with other classes, we wanted to reduce cooldown stacking. Cutting Skull Banner did a ton to help that across the whole game. But for Warriors specifically, we needed to make further changes, including merging some of the personal benefit of Skull Banner back into Recklessness. Also, to make up for Throw being removed, we modified Heroic Throw to be more frequently usable.

I managed to catch Mr Celestalon's attention today on twitter, and he confirmed that regardless of us missing out on the new Reck, and (S)Execute, we will be keeping up!

@Cyclonus_WOW Yes.
— Celestalon (@Celestalon) April 8, 2014

Here's the Protection Warrior Draenor Perks list from WOWHead:

		Improved Heroic Leap
		Improved Heroic Throw
		Improved Shield Slam
		Improved Revenge
		Improved Shield Barrier
		Improved Unwavering Sentinel
		Improved Bastion of Defense
		Improved Thunder Clap Improved Charge

Vs Fury

		Improved Heroic Leap
		Improved Die by the Sword
		Empowered Execute
		Improved Colossus Smash
		Improved Meat Cleaver
		Improved Wild Strike
		Improved Bloodthirst
		Improved Raging Blow Improved Charge

 Vs Arms

		Improved Heroic Leap
		Improved Die by the Sword
		Empowered Execute
		Improved Colossus Smash
		Enhanced Sweeping Strikes
		Improved Mortal Strike
		Enhanced Slam
		Improved Overpower Improved Charge