Today we’ll be analyzing Warriors from three rating brackets 1,300, 1,900 and rank 1. If you play the Warrior and follow the PVP scene at all you’ll often hear complaints about how impossible Warrior teams are to kill. Do you think your opponents are crying tears of frustration over their keyboard how hard you are to beat an arena? If you’re below 2,400 rating then no they’re not. Give us a moment to prove to you that by following the guidelines in this video your team will become far harder to kill in the arena even if you have the worst of healers from the depths of LFG.
1:33 INTERVENE
Let’s take a look at what’s arguably the most OP defensive spell in Shadowlands right now, Intervene. With this one tool, Warriors are able to completely shut down enemy pressure. Giving them the power to single-handedly keep their team alive even in the most dire situations no matter how bad their LFG healer might be.
In the right players’ hands, Intervene is comparable to a Holy Paladin’s Ultimate Sacrifice but in the wrong hands it’ll seem worse than a Power Word Shield. And after analyzing games from over 50 Warriors across a ton of raiding brackets, we’re seeing time and time again that Warriors are failing to carry their team with perfect Intervenes and are instead allowing it to be completely useless and irrelevant. The good news is that the skill of using Intervene isn’t the hardest thing to master, it just requires planning ahead of time. This means that when you zone into the arena you can already start planning ahead for when you’re going to Intervene.
2:24 See gameplay of Warrior playing TSG and he’s up against a team with a Ret Paladin, Fire Mage and a Holy Paladin. Games being played at around 1,300 MMR.
Here’s a helpful flowchart to help streamline your decision making. What’s important to note here is that you should actually be reacting to your teammates health last and will instead react to offensive CDs and crowd control first. First you consider if the enemy team has used offensive cooldowns, when this condition is true take a second to evaluate how large the threat is and use that to determine if Intervene is needed.
For example a Ret Paladin using Avenging Wrath is usually a good indication to instantly Intervene and even pair with your Die by the Sword to shut down all damage. Whereas a Warrior using Avatar might not be enough to warrant and Intervene. It’s up to you to broaden your game knowledge by watching guides to find out where the biggest threats come from.
Next, if no big offenses have been used, you can check to see if your team has been put into crowd control that provides a significant threat to your team. You’ll of course have to consider both the crowd control on your DPS partner and your healer in addition to how much damage the opposing team is capable of outputting. For example seeing a stun land on your DPS partner against a comp that doesn’t deal much sustained damage while your healer is completely free means that you can usually hold on to your Intervene. Whereas you’ll usually get a lot of value out of Intervene by just trading it for stuns on your partners against cleaves that are capable of outputting a ton of damage at any point. In addition, the moment your team has been cross crowd controlled out a lengthy CC chain is starting on your healer such as a polymorph from a Mage or a blind from a Rogue, Intervene will also be a great trait to prevent your team from dropping low while your healer is CCed. And finally if none of those are true, you can use Intervene if your teammate is low on health in a last-ditch effort to save them.
Remember, it’s a team game and as a Warrior you’re one of the most durable classes in the game which should make soaking up damage for your team in critical moments sound very appealing. On top of this, if you have been falling into the age-old habit of just blaming your healer for letting you down, you should also understand just how powerful Intervene is. And the reason why you can single-handedly carry the game even if you’re used to blaming your terrible LFG healer for letting you down.
Time for us to prove to you why the skill difference in using Intervene is truly unreal. As we said earlier in the hands of some Warriors, they’re basically applying a Power Word Shield to their teammates. On the flip side someone like Magnusz, a multi-rank one top level Warrior is so consistent with his Intervene he’s basically like a robot. He knows when he wants to Intervene and he does it immediately. See 12:15 gameplay of Magnusz against a Warrior Mage team.
14:03 This clip showcases why even though our flowchart is an excellent basis for choosing when to use Intervene, you are at the end of the day one of the God classes of Shadowlands with tools beyond just Intervene that can be used to carry your team and keep them alive. Watch as Magnusz completely outplay the RMP’s opener with a Bladestorm that immunes his cheapshot. So although you should be trying to trade Intervene at these optimal times, remember not to neglect all of your other tools.