Warriors who choose the Defense specialization become a great analogue of the Tank, able to withstand strong physical damage, hold onto bosses and strong monsters while maintaining mobility and having a wide range of tools to ensure control over opponents.
The class has a stable and resilient damage control mechanic that makes it strong in raids, PVP and PVE.
Major Changes In The Dragonflight Update For The Defense Warrior Specialization
The main skills of the specialization received changes due to the overhaul of the talent system
Returned some old abilities:
Combat Stance – Increases the power of a critical attack and reduces the chance of getting a negative effect that limits the speed of movement.
Defensive stance – reduces all incoming damage to the war and increases outgoing attacks on enemies until canceled by the selected position.
New class skills in the Dragonflight update:
Spell blocking – for 20 seconds, the warrior becomes immune to enemy spells with a cooldown of one and a half minutes.
Grief Immunity – Instantly replenishes 20% of the Warrior’s health and removes all limiting skills that impose the effects of poison, bleeding and curses.
The new update has prepared several new build options and class usage variations.
The first option is a full-fledged warrior with a shield due to damage blocking, extending the duration in seconds and increasing the cooldowns for defense and counterattack.
The second option is to build a build for full-fledged finishing attacks in the form of an active skill Bloodletting, which deals damage to a target with a health indicator below 20%, and a passive skill that allows you to use this skill regardless of the state of the target, if you have enough rage points gained in battle in the process of defense.
You can read and study all the latest information about the Warrior and other classes for the Dragonflight update and future additions in a dedicated WoW Blog
The Main Tasks Of A Warrior With The Defense Specialization
Since the Warrior with a shield is primarily the keeper of his own life and the health of his allies, the task is not only to take a hit, but also to use his speed as an opportunity to aggro the target and keep it at a distance, so as not to lose health and not waste the healer’s resources.
Generate defensive spells and accumulate rage for sudden transitions into counterattacks and inflicting heavy damage on the boss and tough monsters.
What Characteristics Should Be Strengthened First Of All To Strengthen The Warrior Class
Speed
The primary parameter that affects the quality of the game for the Warrior in any specialization, including Defense.
Haste provides movement speed, which is essential for shield block maneuvers while allies are decimating foes.
The parameter also affects the attack speed, which is useful when switching to counterattacks and will help in the farming process when you are not in a group and get gold and consumables for yourself.
Versatility
An important criterion that evenly develops attack and defense indicators, which plays a significant role in the profession of a warrior with a defense specialization.
When a warrior has a high defense indicator, he can be a full-fledged analogue of a tank, and not a situational replacement, and at the same time, the attack indicator will allow you to save opportunities for self-farming and causing damage in PVP and PVE.
Critical hit
An important parameter for most heroes capable of dealing quick and frequent physical damage.
A critical strike will increase the power of the strike, which depends on the strength of the weapon. Power will be doubled and by combining this characteristic with attack speed and versatility, you can get a defensive class with good potential in attack.
Artifice
This is a criterion that affects the quality of the use of skills.
All defensive skills will have a chance to work better, debuffs will happen more often, and offensive skills will deal more damage to your opponents.
This parameter should be pumped last, since the class is often on the defensive, and for personal pumping, ordinary physical damage is often used without reference to specific skills – they are used in raids, and there is someone to deal damage besides you, the main thing is to focus on keeping enemies at bay.
Advantages And Disadvantages Of A Defense Warrior
Advantages
High resistance to physical damage with a chance of being completely blocked by skills.
Receives consistent and predictable damage by blocking physical attacks with the shield.
Skills for quickly approaching an enemy or an ally. In the case of an opponent, you will have a chance to knock over the target. In the case of a friendly unit, you will close in and take the damage that was meant for your ally.
Power-up skills that provide bonuses to the entire group and an increase in health and overall attack for a limited period of time.
Massive stun and scare skills that do not allow the enemy to freely act on the game map.
The ability to create three builds at once for any situation – full defense, single combat, massive AoE skills.
Flaws
Doesn’t hold onto targets as well as a tank, so mistakes in positioning and tactics are more likely to lead to the defeat of the entire group if the player plays with the enemy and forgets to protect and control allies from the actions of enemies.
Sometimes he can’t level up and get bonuses alone, he needs strong damage dealers.
Blocks most physical and magical damage, or makes it predictable, but hard to reflect skills with a periodic duration of action – poisons, bleeding.
