A recent blue post by Blizzard outlines the changes in the rage system that will occur in Cataclysm. It sounds like yet another complete overhaul and I can only guess if it will be for the better.
Basically, the problems with the current rage system are
a) Rage starvation – you have used up all your rage and have to wait for damage to be done by or to you in order to regain rage. This is especially hard if you’re an off tank who has to maintain a constant high threat level in order to be able to pick off a non-tauntable boss or soak up occasional threat-based damage from a special ability (think Patchwerk in Naxxramas).
b) Next-swing attacks that fail to coherently soak up rage when it is there – if you have Heroic Strike off cooldown and hit it for next swing, you might be out of rage by the time that next swing comes. In my DPS spec, I have this problem with my Fury rotation (Whirlwind, Bloodthirst, Slam if free CD, rinse&repeat) whenever I try to squeeze in an extra Heroic Strike or Cleave.
c) Infinite rage: Warriors, especially tanks, don’t need to manage rage in a boss fight, period. There is not a lot of possibilities to run out of rage if you are tanking a current-level Raid boss. I don’t think this is a problem per se, but I acknowlege the fact that this somehow trivializes gameplay and might be perceived as unfair by DKs (who run out of rune power) and mana classes.
Blizzard will address these problems with a number of mechanic changes.
- Generally, rage generation will be normalized.
- Rage starvation will be fought by new instant rage generation capabilities.
- Haste will improve rage generation. This will hopefully be reflected in loot itemization.
- Crits will generate twice the rage from a normal white attack, currently the factor is lower.
- The whole formula will be revamped to be easier to handle. The current formula, if I am not wrong, is “rage = damage / (30 + 7*weapon speed)” for main hand crits, with varying factors for main and offhand crits and non-crit damage.
Full blue post after the page break.
We are going to take the opportunity in Cataclysm to try and fix some of the problems with the Rage mechanic for both warriors and druids. Some of these problems include:
- Warriors/druids in the lowest levels of gear can be Rage-starved.
- Warriors/druids in the highest levels of gear no longer have to manage their Rage when it becomes infinite.
- Warrior/druid tanks lose Rage income as they improve their gear and take less damage.
- The gameplay of warrior and druid tanks loses a lot of depth when massive boss hits means never having to manage Rage.
- Heroic Strike and Maul are effective, but tedious abilities for using up extra Rage.
- In general, warriors and druids don’t have enough control over their Rage.
To resolve these issues, Rage will be normalized in Cataclysm. This will make the Rage gained by characters more consistent and avoid drastic differences between low-end and high-end gear.
The concept of normalized Rage may leave a negative impression on some veteran players, as we tried it once before in The Burning Crusade and it wasn’t successful, resulting in them feeling weakened. However, we think that the concept is still sound — it was just that the previous implementation didn’t balance the values correctly, leading to players being Rage-starved. That is not the goal. As part of the change, we want to give warriors and druids a lot of ways to control their rage, so even in the worst-case scenarios they won’t feel like they lack the resource to do their job.
Here are some of the ways the Rage mechanic will change in Cataclysm:
- If the attack is a critical strike, it will generate 200% Rage.
- Haste will accelerate swing times to generate Rage faster.
1) Rage is no longer generated based on damage done by auto-attacks. Instead, each auto-attack provides a set amount of Rage, and off-hand weapons will generate 50% of the Rage main hands do. This amount is based on a constant formula which factors in the base swing speed of the weapon. This means the Rage gained should be averaged out between fast and slow weapons. The constant formula also gives us the ability to easily increase the rage gained if it feels too low (or reduce it if is too high). We are also implementing the following mechanics, which will still allow rage to improve to some extent as you improve gear:
2) Rage from damage taken will no longer be based on a standard creature of the character’s level, but instead will be based on the health of the warrior or druid. Again, there is a constant that is multiplied by the rage generated in order to allow for fine-tuning. This calculation ignores all damage reduction from armor, absorption, avoidance, block, or similar mechanics, so improving your gear will not reduce Rage gained.
3) We will provide warriors and druids with more instant sources of rage. For example, the warrior shouts are changing to work more like the death knight ability Horn of Winter. Instead of Battle Shout consuming Rage, it will generate Rage but have a short cooldown. Both classes will have additional methods to generate Rage in an emergency or bleed off Rage when they have too much.
4) All “on next swing” attacks in Cataclysm are being removed. Heroic Strike and Maul will be instant swings that cost a variable amount of Rage. For example, imagine Heroic Strike costs between 10 and 30 Rage. You must have at least 10 Rage to use the attack, but it will consume all available Rage up to a maximum of 30. Any Rage consumed above the minimum will cause the ability to hit harder, and in some cases much harder. We will tune the ability so that it’s generally not a good idea to hit it when you have low Rage (unless everything else is somehow on cooldown) but becomes a more attractive button the higher your Rage.
We understand this change may be scary for many players, but keep in mind that the constants in the formulas for gaining Rage will give us the ability to make quick adjustments if we feel Rage generation is too low. Our goal is for each character’s Rage to not be always high or always low, but rather a resource that needs to be managed properly by the player.
Tags: Cataclysm, class change, druid, mechanics, rage, theorycrafting, warrior, world of warcraft, wow
I was actually diagnosed for a gaming addiction because of World of Warcraft. I began 2 years ago, and even bought things like a horde guide (link redacted, nice try dude) to assist me to level up in the game. It slowly took over my full life, and to cut an extended story short, my friends needed to send me to the doctor. It is now 5 months since my treatment began, and I feel fully weaned off the game. World of Warcraft is fun, however I highly advise against it if you happen to be someone with weak will-power like myself. Simply thought I might share.