Fury Warrior: Midnight Expansion Preview

Welcome to our Midnight expansion guide for Fury Warrior. Ahead of launch, this page will contain everything you need to know about the Fury Warrior spec in the forthcoming Midnight expansion, including changes, Hero Talent Trees, and some light predictions on the state of the spec going into the expansion.

This page is a constantly evolving work in progress, with regular changes expected as updates hit Midnight Alpha. This is not meant to be a launch guide for Fury Warrior, but instead serves as a resource for you to keep up to date with how the spec is evolving on Alpha, and what you can expect from its playstyle and feel on launch.

While many talents have been added or removed, the core abilities and capabilities have remained fairly well intact, even improving in Midnight. Because new Apex and Hero talents have yet to be revealed, it is not yet entirely known how individual gameplay and rotations for Slayer and Thane will look, though with no change to their core abilities, it is likely to remain somewhat similar to that of The War Within.

The biggest removal for Warrior is the loss of several talented abilities, though this is also something of a gain, as there is no longer as much setup required to begin an effective rotation.

On the other hand, the biggest gain for Warriors is a huge leap forward in utility, as Piercing Howl and Battlefield Commander now provide two Wind Rush-like speed increases and Champion's Spear has been redesigned as a mass grip! Additionally, Interpose now offers increased mobility with a minor defensive component, and Pummel has a lower cooldown than ever before. All of this combined is a huge improvement to Warrior capabilities outside of raw damage and defense, and answers a long-time request for more helpful group utility.

As indicated by the development notes, Thunderous Roar has been removed, Avatar has been moved to the specialization tree since Mountain Thane still depends on it, and Champion's Spear has been reworked from an offensive cooldown into a utility one. All of the associated talents for each have also been removed.

Major additions in their place include Battlefield Commander moving over from PvP talents, Last Stand as an emergency heal passively triggered when close to death, and Anger Management moving in from the specialization tree.

• Honed Reflexes now reduces cooldowns by 10% (was 5%).
• Piercing Howl now also spurs all allies within 12 yards, increasing their movement speed by 30% for 4 seconds.
• Menace no longer causes Intimidating Shout to knock back enemies.
• Barbaric Training now increases damage dealt by 20% and critical damage by 10% for Slam, Whirlwind, and Thunder Clap for Arms and Fury, and Revenge for Protection.
• Champion's Spear now pulls affected targets toward the spear until they are within 8 yards of it. The first time an enemy runs away from the spear while chained, they will be pulled towards the spear again.
• Intimidating Shout now causes all in range to cower in fear. Menace causes all enemies other than your target to flee. Target cap removed from all versions.
• Shattering Throw and Wrecking Throw range reduced to 25 yards (was 30 yards).
• Thunder Clap damage increased by 100%.
• Crushing Force is now a 1-point talent.
• The talent tree layout has been updated and many talents have changed positions.

The following talents have been removed:

• Avatar(moved to Fury and Protection talent trees)
• Berserker's Torment
• Blademaster's Torment
• Champion's Might
• Immovable Object
• Piercing Challenge
• Seismic Reverberation
• Thunderous Roar
• Thunderous Words
• Titan's Torment
• Unstoppable Force
• Uproar
• Warlord's Torment

The following talents have been added to the class tree:

• New Arms and Fury Talent: Interpose – Run at high speed toward a target location near your allies, taking 30% of all damage dealt to allies within 3 yards for 8 seconds or until you take at least 20% of your max health in damage from this effect.
• New Arms and Fury Talent: Rend – Lash out with your weapon, striking all targets within 8 yards for Physical damage and wounding them for an additional Bleed damage over 15 seconds.
• New Talent: Anger Management – Every 20 Rage you spend reduces the remaining cooldown on Colossus Smash, Recklessness, or Avatar by 1 second.
• New Talent: Last Stand – When your health is brought below 20%, you marshal your inner strength to increase your maximum health by 30% for 15 seconds and instantly heal yourself for that amount. This effect may only occur every 4 minutes.
• New Talent: Resonant Voice – The duration of your shouts is increased by 20%.
• New Talent: Blood and Thunder – Thunder Clap affects 5 nearby targets with Rend, causing them to Bleed over 15 seconds.
• New Talent: Deft Strikes – Mastery increased by 1%/2% and auto-attack damage increased by 50%/100%.
• New Talent: Retaliation – When you take any damage from an enemy within melee range, you have a chance to strike that enemy for Physical damage.
• New Talent: Battlefield Commander – Your Shout abilities have additional effects.
• Battle Shout: Grants you an additional 3% attack power.
• Rallying Cry: Grants 5% Leech and 30% movement speed to allies.
• Piercing Howl: Radius increased by 100%.
• Berserker Shout: Radius increased by 8 yards.
• Intimidating Shout: Cooldown reduced by 15 seconds.

Continuing the efforts to prune down extra cooldowns, Onslaught and Ravager have been removed, as have several passive follow-on talents including Unhinged, Titanic Rage, Ashen Juggernaut, and Slaughtering Strikes. Another standout change is the removal of Single-Minded Fury, which is speculated to be replaced by the ability to transmog two-handed weapons into one-handed appearances.

Notable additions in their place include several new talents which trigger bonus effects when Bloodthirst critically strikes, reinforce the use of Execute, and there are two new talents increasing Fury's multi-target capability against a high number of targets. One particularly interesting addition is Kill or Be Killed: inspired by the hidden Legion artifact effect, it grants Fury Warriors a sort of cheat death, though the need to personally get the killing blow on a specific target makes it very impractical for most PvE content.

• Powerful Enrage modified – Enrage increases your Mastery by 15% and your Leech by 3%.
• Improved Whirlwind – Causes your next 4 single-target attacks (was 2) to strike 4 additional targets.
• Meat Cleaver has been redesigned – Whirlwind deals 100% additional damage when it hits 3 or more targets and you have no stacks of Improved Whirlwind.
• Bloodborne has been redesigned – Targets critically struck by Bloodthirst take 20% additional damage from your Bleed effects for 12 seconds.
• Deft Experience has been redesigned – Bloodthirst’s chance to Enrage you increased by 10%/20% and if you are Enraged, Bloodthirst extends your Enrage by 0.5 seconds/1 second.
• Frenzy has been redesigned – Rampage increases your Haste by 1%/2% for 12 seconds. Multiple stacks of this effect may overlap.
• Critical Thinking has been redesigned – Raging Blow’s critical strike chance increased by 5%/10% and critical strike damage increased by 5%/10%.
• Rampage now replaces Slam.
• Improved Bloodthirst is now a 2-point talent and each point increases Bloodthirst’s damage by 5% and critical damage by 5%.
• Cruelty is now a 2-point talent and each point increases Raging Blow’s damage by 10% while Enraged.
• Bloodcraze now increases the critical strike damage of your next Bloodthirst (was critical strike chance).
• Recklessness increases all Rage generated by 50% (was 100%).
• Odyn's Fury now Enrages you and generates 20 Rage (was 15).
• Bladestorm now Enrages you and generates 5 Rage per strike (was 10).
• The talent tree layout has been updated and many talents have changed positions.

The following talents have been removed:

• Ashen Juggernaut
• Dancing Blade
• Depths of Insanity
• Onslaught
• Ravager
• Single-Minded Fury
• Slaughtering Strikes
• Storm of Steel
• Tenderize
• Titanic Rage
• Unhinged

The following talents have been added:

• Apex Talents will be available for testing in a future build.
• New Talent: Deep Wounds – Execute inflicts Deep Wounds on the target, causing high damage over 6 seconds.
• New Talent: Scent of Blood – Rampage increases the damage of your next Bloodthirst by 10%, stacking up to 2 times.
• new talent: Unslaked Thirst – Bloodthirst critical strikes increase the damage of raging blow by 10% for 4 seconds.
• New Talent: Ragedrinker – Bloodthirst critical strikes restore twice as much health and Enrage you for 2 seconds.
• New Talent: Executioner's Wrath – Execute generates 5 additional Rage and increases the damage of Rampage by 10% for 4 seconds.
• New Talent: Surge of Adrenaline – When Raging Blow resets its own cooldown, your auto-attack damage and speed are increased by 30% for 6 seconds.
• New Talent: Kill or Be Killed – When you would sustain fatal damage, you fly into an unstoppable rage, becoming unkillable and immune to movement-impairing effects for 8 seconds as you seek revenge on your would-be killer. If you kill your killer in this time, you emerge triumphant from your rage with at least 20% of your max health intact. If you are not victorious, you die. This effect can only occur every 5 minutes.

Aside from the changes to Fury Warrior's core features, Midnight also introduces three new Hero Talents for each tree, new tier sets, and a stat squish reducing general numbers across the board. Instead of having millions of health and damage, players will be back to thousands instead.

New Hero talents have not yet been revealed for Slayer or Mountain Thane.

New tier set bonuses have not yet been revealed for Warriors.