Tactical Mastery

Overview

Many Warriors specialise in one particular aspect of the martial trade: the guardian (Defensive Stance), the soldier (Battle Stance), the berserker (Berserker Stance)—whichever path they choose, it is one they must stick to with dogged determination in order to succeed.

But some Warriors go further, and through the application of mental and physical flexibility, successfully blend all three, casually leaping from role to role, even within the span of a single fight. Through rigorous training and practice, they intuitively come to understand exactly which tool is needed, and at what time, and can change their style to fit, without thought or pause...

Functionality

Tactical Mastery allows a small amount of Rage points to be carried through a change of Stance, instead of causing them all to be lost.

It is a passive Protection talent, and is always active.

Prequisites: None.

Rank	Base Effect	w/ [Stance Mastery]
Rank 1/3	5 Rage Saved	15 Rage Saved
Rank 2/3	10 Rage Saved	20 Rage Saved
Rank 3/3	15 Rage Saved	25 Rage Saved

As of patch 2.0.1, Tactical Mastery is now a three-point talent in the first tier of the Protection tree.

This has been widely decried by the vast majority of Warriors as a step in the wrong direction by Blizzard, a side-effect of which is perceived as a small nod to the minority of Protection-specializing Warriors, making a Protection/Fury cross-tree specialization (or "spec" for short) viable, while crippling all Arms/Fury Warriors, preventing the powerful combination of Fury's [Flurry] talent and Arms' [Mortal Strike] talent. Some Warriors applaud the change, but the majority see it as a "stealth" nerf to the 31/30 Arms/Fury combination, complaining over the fact that no other class has had their talents changed to a degree where it would nerf their 31/30 cross-tree designs.

Notes

Since patch 2.0.1, the former talent [Stance Mastery] (allows the warrior to keep 10 rage between stances) has been made a trainable skill at level 20, and the Tactical Mastery talent has been moved to the first tier of the protection tree. Also, the ranks were changed accordingly to three ranks of 5 extra rage each.

The ability to keep rage between stances is one of the bread-and-butter skills of a warrior. Some regard this talent as essential, and that the absence of it "gimps" the character.

It is certainly an excellent choice in an excellent tree, but as always, clever players can learn to manage without it.

Normally a warrior loses all their rage when switching stances. This effectively keeps the warrior from changing stances while in combat, unless rage is very low. Tactical Mastery lets you retain up to 25 points of rage when you switch stances. This makes a warrior flexible and dangerous.

Example:

Start in [Battle Stance]. [Charge] your enemy to start combat and gain rage. Switch to [Defensive Stance]. [Disarm] your enemy. Switch back to [Battle Stance] to fight while they ineffectively wave their fists at you. If your enemy manages to get out of melee range switch to [Berserker Stance] and [Intercept] them.