Many warriors in WoW Classic are currently frustrated. While they were absolute top damage dealers in Classic and Burning Crusade, warriors find themselves in the back ranks in Wrath of the Lich King. The pros from the warrior Discord “Fight Club” have therefore long pondered how they can improve their damage output. But Blizzard is now throwing a spanner in the works.
This is how strong warriors used to be: In WoW Classic, warriors could always rely on securing the top spots in the damage meters. This is mainly due to the fact that this class scales particularly well with gear and buffs. We remember Classic, where raid groups often brought a lot of warriors along because, thanks to world buffs, hardly any other class could compete.
Also in The Burning Crusade, Fury warriors always mixed at the top. Although there were some difficulties at the beginning of the expansion, with better gear, warriors were able to reclaim their top spot.
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This is how things are going for warriors now: With WotLK Classic came the rude awakening. Both weapon and Fury warriors find themselves, in terms of damage, in the back ranks. But don’t worry, it’s not because warriors have become worse from TBC to WotLK.
Rather, it is that the other classes currently simply scale better. Many classes and specializations have received new talents and abilities that are responsible for their current success.
So it’s no wonder that some warriors have looked for ways to improve their damage. Their solution? A pair of gloves for level 53.
Warriors use items from Classic to increase their damage
What has the warrior Discord discovered? Now it gets tricky: Warriors have a talent called “Deep Wounds” (via wowhead). This talent ensures that your critical hits apply a bleeding effect to your target.
This effect deals 48% of your average weapon damage over 6 seconds. If you land a critical hit while the effect is already active, it renews itself for another 6 seconds. The more often this talent is triggered, the higher the damage dealt.
The pros from the warrior Discord have now discovered that weapon effects like the enchantment “Fiery Weapon” (via wowhead) can also critically hit and trigger the talent “Deep Wounds”.
This also applies to the “Fiery Plate Gauntlets” (via wowhead), a pair of gloves for level 53, which can be crafted by blacksmiths and add fire damage to your attacks. If you use both the enchantment and the gloves, you increase the chance to trigger the talent “Deep Wounds”, which in turn results in a higher average damage output.
Blizzard changes a talent to prevent a toxic meta playstyle
What has Blizzard changed? The discovery of the warrior Discord did not last long. With a hotfix, Blizzard has already reacted and removed the interaction between the talent “Deep Wounds” and non-physical effects from the game.
This is primarily aimed at preventing this trick from establishing itself as a new meta playstyle. Players might feel compelled to replicate this to continue getting invited to groups or raids. Also, from a technical standpoint, it should be noted that this playstyle would have become increasingly prevalent throughout Wrath of the Lich King. This is due, as explained earlier, to how warriors scale with better gear.
Although some players have pointed out that this is not a new bug, Blizzard insists that this interaction was not intended.
How is this received by the community? Most players see the whole issue with humor. There is much praise for the theorycrafters from the warrior Discord, who have previously popularized some curious discoveries.
On Reddit, there is a lot of schadenfreude, and numerous memes have emerged that make fun of the situation. Some warriors have already invested large amounts of gold to utilize the new playstyle in the next raid. On the largest servers, the prices for the enchantments or their reagents have already dramatically increased shortly after the news broke.
As always, there are also critical voices. Some players question whether Blizzard is setting the right priorities. There are numerous other problems and bugs that they believe deserved Blizzard’s attention first.
What do you think of these discoveries? Did Blizzard intervene too early? Or is it a good thing that Blizzard is also addressing such matters? Feel free to share your opinion in the comments!
