As any self respecting aspiring theorycrafter I feel the need – no, the obligation; to write an entry about the very important subject of Rage. This is partially a whine I guess, but I’d like to think that with a little thought, reasoning and explanation I could get my point across as more of a disappointed commentary rather than a “cry more” post in the Warrior forums.

Firstly – what is Rage? For those that are not clear on Rage in regard to the Warrior class of WoW. Rage is the means by which the Warrior “casts” his abilities. Abilities that have a “Rage Cost” – just as a spell casting class has “Mana Cost” for their abilities or a rogue class has an “Energy Cost” for their abilities. Now I shall explain in a little more detail as to how these values perform as “pools ability currency”.

Mana Pools – a dynamic value for spell casters that can be “spent” to cast spells and abilities. The dynamic value is based character Intellect scores, level and equipment. Mana can be regenerated at a rate which is dynamic based on character Spirit scores, level, talents and equipment.

Energy Pools – a fixed value for the Rogue class that can be “spent” to cast abilities. The fixed values is fixed at 100 (though this can be increased with talents, but only marginally). Energy is regenerated at a fixed rate on a timer (X energy per Y seconds).

Rage Pools – a fixed maximum value for the Warrior class that can be “spent” to cast abilities. The fixed maximum value is fixed at 100. A Rage pool starts play (and combat) at a fixed value of 0. Rage is “generated” (note: opposite of other classes) at a fixed rate per net (I say net because armour, shields and other damage reducing abilities affect the rate at which Rage is generated) damage dealt to an opponent (though Rage normalisation has affected the rate in the past year).

Now to the crux of the matter. PvP and the all important statistic brought in to WoW at the time of The Burning Crusade as an effort to separate PvP equipment from PvE equipment. – Reslience. For those of you that are ignorant to the wonders of Resilience this statistic really only helps only in PvP combat (as that is the purpose of its design).

Resilience offers a % score that deducts from the Critical Strike % chance that the opponent striking you has. Second to this it offers a % score that deducts from the Critical Strike bonus damage caused to you by an opponent.

So across the board, PvP players build up (easily I might add) their Resilience scores and hence gain survivability in PvP combat. PvP combat situations as a result last longer than they did before The Burning Crusade. This is a good thing. All players, characters and classes will experience lower net damage caused to opponents with Resilience.

So where is this unfair? Well heading back to my previous points about abilities and their respective costs (Mana, Energy and Rage) – we can now easily see Warriors draw the short straw because their method of “generating” a Rage pool (for spending on abilities to cause damage) is hampered because of the lower damage output due to Resilience.

Lower Damage Caused = Lower Rage Generated

Which means less Abilities can be cast, and hence there is an even greater reduction in damage caused by the Warrior class.

So there you have it. In PvP – the Warrior class is the most underpowered (or rather, unbalanced) class in the game. But hell, they are more fun.