The Future of Threat for Arms?

#0 - July 9, 2010, 4:16 p.m.
Blizzard Post
I've been a tank since I started playing in BC right before the Black Temple patch, I know a lot about threat mechanics and how to use them. I've played around with Fury in BC and in WotLK, and I know that probably 90% if not closer to 95% of all DPS warriors that I know of are Fury. Fury warriors say a couple of things when I ask them why they chose Fury as opposed to Arms: "I like swinging two big weapons instead of one," "Fury DPS beats Arms everyday of the week", "It provides the 5% crit buff", or "I don't like pulling threat and dieing". I've been dual spec'd as Arms since dual talent specialization came out. First, because it was a lot easier as a MT(at the time) to get one nice weapon instead of two, for my offspec. The rotation was simple and I liked how it did not use Heroic Strike every swing like Fury tries to do. I never liked pushing the HS button every second or so as a Tank, just to maintain threat on something from BC so I welcomed the change. Also, since Slam is not normalized, like HS is at 3.4 speed, it does about the same damage per cast as HS does but generates rage in the process. Once I was Armor pen capped in my OS I started to out DPS most if not all of the DPS'ers in my guild at the time. Since I had second pick on loot for DPS gear they were amazed how my DPS was as high as it was with Arms. They started to use me more and more as DPS in raids and I basically became the OT. Needless to say I fell in love with the Arms spec versus the Fury alternative. I've since switched to Arms as my MS, and Prot as my OS(for looting purposes) with patch 3.3.

Regardless of the topics covering which spec nets you or the raid more damage, this thread is about threat. All class/specs in the game get some sort of threat reduction talent, mechanic, "stance" modifier or ability. Whether they choose to spec into or use these mechanics is their choice. Arms has no choice. They simply need a threat reduction choice, other than to make "Cast Salv on me now!" macros. Here are most the threat choices each class has.

As of 3.3.5 Live:

Death Knights - 25% from Blood talent tree, first tier

Druids - 30% from Balance and Resto talent trees, 3rd and 2nd tiers respectively
- 10% Cat "stance" and Cower

Hunters - 100% Feign Death, also Misdirection of threat frequently

Mages - 40% for arcane spells, 20% fire spells, 10% frost spells

Paladins - 30% from Fanatacism talent in the Ret tree, 8th tier, otherwise Salvation

Priests - 25% from Shadow talents, 2nd tier
- 20% from Disc tree talents, 2nd tier

Rogues - 100% Vanish, Tricks of the Trade is a misdirect mechanic, and Feint

Shamans - 30% Enhancement, 4th tier
- 30% Elemental, 5th tier
- 15% Resto, 2nd tier
Also Wind Shear

Warlocks - 20% Affliction talents, 2nd tier
- 20% Destruction talents, 4th tier

Warriors - 10% Fury talents, 8th tier
- 20% Battle and Berserker stance passive

For the most part I covered them all. My question to Blizzard is:

Why does Fury get a talented threat reduction and Arms does not?

I understand that Fury uses HS often in their rotation and it has extra threat on that ability, so the talent may be there to help them specifically for this. I'm just asking for a bit more of balance with threat as far as DPS warriors go, I don't care how you do it, but consider giving Arms something, anything. With the Cataclysm changes to sunder armor, making it useful for DPS warriors to use, don't you think the added threat on that plus the new 50% weapon damage, that it will give all warriors threat issues?

Here's an idea, make warrior shouts a powerful Feint/Cower mechanic that scales the more AP we have, and make them on a short timer much like the Horn of Winter is for DK's. This way they are refreshed often enough for threat to be reduced as a part of the natural rotation.

Readers, please give this post respect, and constructive criticism. I normally do not post, but this is a big issue for me and I'd like to at least hear some good ideas and get some feedback regardless of what Blizzard decides to do or not to do.

Thanks!
#8 - July 10, 2010, 5:25 a.m.
Blizzard Post
The new "reduced fat" talent trees have no threat reduction talents.