#0 - May 26, 2010, 9:34 p.m.
Basically, we all know that Whirlwind is getting changed to an ability that will be intended for AoE exclusive use. We have also been told vaguely that Fury may need an additional single target button to push, because 2(3) button rotations are boring. This isn't so much an issue for ret paladins, they have something like 5 single target buttons to push, so playing with cooldowns a bit can push DS low enough on priority that it doesn't get used on single target. Alternatively GC hinted at making their divine storm hit like meteor, which I assume is a saber lash effect, where damage is distributed among all targets, which doesn't fix the stated problem of pushing the same buttons on single target as you do in multitarget, but it does make it a tradeoff at least when you use it in multi target situations (reduced damage on the primary target, even if its the same button pressed), so I guess that's good enough.
Now here's the problem where we are currently standing:
-Whirlwind will not have this mechanic. To be clear, I am not arguing that I want it to. I am fine with the abilities finally diverging and having different uses. But this is a problem in that Whirlwind will be designed with the intent of being AoE only.
-As an AoE only ability, nobody will glyph Whirlwind. Thus, in an AoE situation, we will deal 50% weapon damage to all targets, once every 10 seconds. Whoopie. This means with 8 targets (rare) we will deal the same damage we currently deal to 4 targets. With cleave coming onto the GCD, we at least can potentially hit a button to affect multiple targets every GCD.... except Cleave is a Rage Dump, not a button you want to be spamming constantly, unless rage generation continues to be broken enough to allow us to spam rage dumps. This means in AoE situations we are stuck single targetting except for 1-3 attacks every 10 seconds.
-For single target, we already have 3 GCD gaps in our rotation every 8 seconds. With this change we have basically one reliable ability-Bloodthirst. We have a RNG procced slam that we can hit (procs 20% of the time on bloodthirst or heroic strike). Since heroic strike won't be every swing anymore, we won't have nearly as many slam procs as before. Also no whirlwind so there goes two chances at a slam proc every 8 seconds as well.
A lot of people are saying "But you have instant heroic strike now, that will fill all the gaps in your rotation!". And ideally, it would. But realistically, if you tune our rage generation such that we can use our rage dump as 2 out of every 3 attacks to fill our rotation, then there is something horribly horribly wrong. We should have a full rotation of 10-20 rage abilities that we can use, and rage dumps that cost anywhere from 30-50 rage (which fits with heroic strike/cleave + inner rage) for when you generate more rage than those abilities use. A fresh 85 warrior in blues/greens should be able to keep up his basic rotation, if barely. As he accumulates epics to give him more hit/exp/haste, he should start having a priority system evolve where Heroic Strike takes the place of one of those other attacks, to burn off the excess rage for a slight increase in damage.
The problem is, in either single target or AoE, we have significant rotational gaps. The fact is Fury lacks the buttons to press to fill your cooldowns and feel interesting.
We are being given Furious Sundering, which is a nice low cost damage attack. But, if that is considered good enough to be a rotational ability on single target, whirlwind is better (I can have 50% of mainhand damage plus stack a sunder, OR 50% mainhand+offhand damage? Okay, how about if you have a warrior tank? Unless those free gcds are filled with something better than 50% mainhand+offhand that ISN'T a rage dump, we'll continue using whirlwind on single target, which defeats the purpose of the nerf.
Now, GC did say that they acknowledge we have a lack of buttons, so we may get a new strike to replace whirlwind on single target. The general assumption is that it would be a direct copy of current whirlwind, but only hitting one target. And while I agree that a hard hitting mid cooldown ability is needed, especially something, anything, that uses both main and offhand weapon damage (because with whirlwind gone we have NO abilities that even consider that we have an offhand weapon, turning our offhand into a rage generating stat stick), we also need a spammable ability that is not a rage dump that will hit harder than whirlwind. This could be a new ability, it could be a reworked old ability, I don't particularly care. Instead of giving us Furious Sundering, put Devastate low enough in the prot tree that fury can grab it and let it be usable in zerker stance. Either way the point is to keep aoe out of single target as intended, we need something that we are able to use in ALL global cooldowns that is more effective than whirlwind, or else we'll use whirlwind simply because it's better than an empty GCD or an even worse damaging single target ability.
For our AoE rotation, I just ask that whirlwind's cooldown be reduced, or we have a proc to refresh the cooldown, or something so that we can be hitting our aoe button more than once every 10 seconds. All the ranged classes' aoes are channeled spells that they can use to the exclusion of everything else. I'm not asking for anything quite that awesome, but halving the rotation of an aoe only whirlwind so for an aoe pack we can hit whirlwind instead of bloodthirst would be awesome.
tl;dr: Warrior needs their GCDs filled without expecting rage dumps to fill them. Rage dumps should not be expected rotational filler, but should instead be higher rage cost harder hitting alternative to a different ability, to burn off rage generated beyond what is needed to maintain a basic rotation.
