Warriors are actually not getting any really profound changes, at least baseline. Blizzard did emphasize that Warriors are going to build on their rotations a lot through talents, so I'll remind you that these are the bare bones on which you'll build the rest of your rotation. Some old abilities were explicitly mentioned, like Overpower, as coming back, but are not described in the various specs.
Arms:
I'm actually kind of puzzled by their description of Arms Warriors. I always saw them as the kind of calm master of arms, Samurai/Blademaster type, whereas they're talking about them as the sort of people who grew up in Dueling Pits and Gladiatorial Arenas. It's a very different concept for the spec, and one that I worry isn't really going to provide much to work with. But it does look like some of the old mechanics of the spec are coming back, so maybe I shouldn't complain.
Mortal Strike is still going to be the center of the rotation. It costs 20 Rage and does strong damage, with a 6 second cooldown.
Slam is now baseline, costing 15 rage and doing moderate damage and with no cooldown - so this will presumably be used to burn excess Rage.
Colossus Smash now merely increases the damage the target takes by 20%, but it's affected by two significant passives that we'll get to.
Execute looks mostly the same, with a 10 Rage baseline cost and burning up to 30 additional Rage for more damage.
Tactician is a passive that causes Slam, Whirlwind, and Execute to have a 20% chance to reset Colossus Smash's cooldown - it's basically the equivalent of the old Sudden Death, which was sorely missing from the Warlords rotation. Honestly, this might save the spec for me.
New Mastery: Colossal Might, increases the effectiveness of Colossus Smash.
Sample Talent: Titanic Might
A passive that doubles the duration but halves the effectiveness of Colossus Smash.
So this is a step in the right direction, but I don't know that I'll be happy with it until I see the talents. I was expecting something more radical, like using a different resource than Rage, but I'll wait and see here.
Fury:
Fury's getting a little less proc-reliant, which I'm actually fine with, even as a big fan of procs. You're still going to want to get Enraged as much as possible, but you'll still have stuff you can do when you aren't.
Bloodthirst looks largely the same, but with a 40% crit bonus now. It only generates 10 Rage, though.
Enrage now increases attack speed by 100% and "damage taken" by 30%. The wording here is a little confusing. They're either making Fury a little more vulnerable, or perhaps making you harder to kill if they actually mean reducing damage taken (which is what seems to be implied in the flavor paragraph.) But Enrage is now more about attack speed and thus Rage generation.
Raging Blow no longer has charges. You can still only use it when Enraged, but I believe that as long as you have the Enrage, you can keep using it.
Rampage is a new ability that seems to be replacing Wild Strike. It costs a whopping 50 Rage, unleashing a series of 5 brutal strikes over 2 seconds. It always acts as if you are Enraged, which means you'll always be able to burn excess Rage without wasting it.
Fury's version of Execute always costs 30 Rage now.
Mastery: Unshackled Fury will add a damage buff to Enrage, much as it does now, but that will be on top of the 100% haste increase.
Sample Talent: Frenzy:
15 Rage attack that stacks up a Haste buff (I think this is a Diablo 3 Barbarian ability.)
Protection:
Protection still has a ton of abilities baseline. I actually expected some of this to get slimmed down, but Prot Warriors seem to be Blizzard's sacred cow. There are some changes to defensive abilities.
Devastate, Revenge, Thunder Clap, Shield Slam, and Heroic Strike all look largely unchanged.
Deep Wounds can now be canceled if the target is healed to full, which I imagine will only really be a factor in PvP.
Shield Block is relatively cheap at 10 Rage, with 2 charges on a 12 second recharge. Also, Heavy Repercussions is now baseline, with Shield Slam's damage getting buffed by this.
Ignore Pain is a new AM ability that replaces Shield Barrier. It costs 40 rage and lets you ignore 90% of the next "massive" strike against you, with what "massive" is being determined by your max health.
Spell Refleciton remains, and Mastery: Critical Block looks mostly the same.
Sample Talent: Shield Discipline:
Passive that makes Shield Slam extend the duration of Shield Block and makes Shield Block increase the damage of Shield Slam by an additional 30%
So Prot really looks like it only has the one major change. Blizzard seems to want Ignore Pain to be the go-to AM ability.
Warrior Analysis:
Given the profound reworkings we've seen with other classes and specs, I've got to be honest and say that I really expected a lot more from-the-ground-up redesign for Warriors. Still, it does look like there's at least a solid mechanical base for all of the specs. Fury should be less concerned about waiting to do something (which seems anathema to the whole Fury flavor) and Arms seems to have the tools it needs to feel like a cohesive spec (though I still think Whirlwind just seems wrong for them - they should be using Thunderclap.)
Later today, we'll get Monks and Druids.
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