Warrior Changes - 12539 and 12604

#0 - July 21, 2010, 9:07 a.m.

So some pretty big Fury changes in this new build, and a new ability for Arms. I won't touch much on Arms since I don't really play Arms much and they didn't really get many changes.

Arms
Arms is still pretty densely packed with DPS talents and you don't really have a lot flexibility in builds which is a decently big problem I'd say.

That being said, Throwdown seems pretty cool. A decent enough CD and duration to be a cool new ability for Arms. I just don't know if you'll have the points to really pick it up.

I think Rend's damage was increased, so that's good I guess.

Fury
The big addition here is Raging Blow. If we're enraged, our rotation is going to be pretty furious with our main skills being on a 3 second CD (RB) and a 4 second CD (BT), but I worry that if we can't get enraged, our rotation is going to be horribly sparse. An idea would be for RB to hit for about 80% weapon damage and have a CD of 9 seconds while not enraged. It'd be much closer to what we have right now and really closer to BC's FUry rotation.

It's actual numbers I like, though. 100% weapon damage on a 3 sec CD and a 20 rage cost. When we are actually enraged, we're going to be hitting for something fierce and I like that. It's got a definitely furious feel.

Alright, going tier by tier changes (not really taking into account changing positions other than PH)...

Unbridled Wrath: Now 5 rage on a white hit. That's a pretty substantial difference from its current implementation, but it almost feels mandatory in its implementation. For a 2.6 speed 1h weapon, when it procs you're basically increasing its rage gains by 50% (11 rage without, 16 with). It's not as big of a difference with a 2h weapon, but still... That's almost too much if it has a similar PPM that it does now. Is this still going away or is this your answer to its currently bad form?

Piercing Howl: It's a T2 talent now. Awesome.

Improved Execute: It still feels a bit bland, and with some of the other talent names, can we rename this maybe to Executioner and add something else to it?

Fury in the Blood and Enrage: I feel that one of these has to go. I can see maybe a way to get closer to 100% enraged state using both of these in conjunction, but it feels like you're possibly putting too many points to get the same effect, just a different way. It's also a weird thing to have Fury, the Enrage tree, to have an inferior Enrage talent in Enrage compared to Wrecking Crew and Imp Def Stance.

Meat Cleaver: A far better name than Even the Odds, but it still feels a bit bland. An idea to spruce it up would be maybe to allow Raging Blow a low change to increase Bloodrage or Berserker Rage's duration by 5 seconds with enough of an ICD to insure you can't just have a continuous enrage effect up. You can currently get 75% enrage uptime with just Berserker Rage and Bloodrage, and this might increase it a bit. Just a thought. Did I say yet that I love the talent's name?

Rampage: Any plans to have this have a sort of selfish part to it?

Heroic Fury: I love the 30 second CD now, awesome change.

Bloodsurge: Can we add Raging Blow to this? We won't really be using Heroic Strike and Whirlwind as much, so we'll really be relying on Bloodthirst for Slam procs. I still don't like Slam as the proc, and losing Impending Victory sort of sucks. I think Victory Rush would work better as Fury's proc.

Titan's Grip and SMF: First, making these two talents one talent but making sure you only get the benefits from one would be a good ease of life change. It's not a huge problem, but having Fury (and Frost, I suppose) be the only tree that has to respec if they get 2 better weapons in a world without weapon specs doesn't really feel right to me. It's not a huge problem (okay it really is but it won't kill Fury), but it's worth thinking about.

Second, TG's penalty needs to go with SMF as it is. There's just no reason for it anymore.

One thing I would mention about Fury is that BT's CD can probably be changed to 4.5 or 6 seconds so we don't have these weird GCD issues we do now, especially with Raging Blow's CD being 3 seconds.

Also, Slam. I don't like it. Having a cast timer doesn't add any flavor, it just makes it a pain to use, especially with Arms being, supposedly, the mobile PvP tree.

Cleave. Is this going to get the HS treatment? I honestly think it should because as SMF, it's damage is going to be high enough to warrant using it on single target which isn't intended.

Two things I want to mention about Prot:

1) Can we rename Thunderstuck to Mansecrate? Thunderstruck sounds cool and all, but Mansecrate makes me want to bench press a grizzly bear while listening to Manowar and chewing on buzzsaw blades. I feel this is something every warrior can get behind.

2) Impending Victory. I'm not happy that Fury lost this, but to put in Prot? That doesn't fit Prot at all. Prot can't even use Victory Rush right now.

I think I should go to sleep or something. Oh well, feel free to add your thoughts on the changes we got.

Oh damn, I didn't see this. Berserker Rage now apparently requires Berseker Stance to be used now. Is this intended, because if so that's a pretty damned big change.

Enraged Regen doesn't consume any enrage effects? Sweeeeeeeet.

EDIT: Rolling in any changes from Thursday's patch, 12604.

Ghostcrawler

#233 - July 26, 2010, 5:15 a.m.

Q u o t e:
We don't need to use Bloodrage much now because we don't have any use for the extra rage. We will pop it on cooldown in Cata because rage will matter and squeezing every point we can out of every source we can will be integral to maximizing DPS.

Rage isn't utility, it's damage. Rage isn't utility, it's damage. Rage isn't utility, it's damage. Any ability that gives rage is a damage ability. Any talent that creates more rage, or reduces costs, is a damage talent. You have to stop looking at rage through the WotLK lens. It is damage, it is something we will always take.

If you have to pop Bloodrage on cooldown for rage, then we've failed. It's there for emergencies, not as the primary way you gain rage. Hitting things is the primary way you gain rage.

Just because rage won't always be unlimited doesn't mean that it will go to always being limited either. If that was the case then we wouldn't need abilities like Heroic Strike or Inner Rage.

Ghostcrawler

#260 - July 27, 2010, 4:48 a.m.

Q u o t e:
Blood Haze: Every time you regain health from your bloodthirst ability, you gain 1 stack of Battle Lust. When your Battle Lust reaches 9 stacks, you become enraged, gaining 10% bonus to all damage done, and enabling use of Raging Blow.

This was the most elegant solution for a fury enrage I have heard. With a little bit of tweaking it can easily achieve whatever uptimes you are looking for. Want a 75% uptime? Well you know it has ~6 seconds of rampup, so have it last 18 seconds, now you spend 6 seconds ramping up, 18 seconds enraged, then go back and spend another 6 seconds not enraged.

I'd personally recommend tweaking it so that bloodthirst is on a 6s cooldown, and make the ramp up ~10 seconds (so still 2 bloodthirst casts), and the duration 30 seconds. This makes the uptime nearly identical to fury in the blood, with no randomness involved, with a much more streamlined mechanic that still makes sense.

Wouldn't this lead to "Hey, Mr. Priest, I don't want you healing me this attempt, because I need to heal myself with Bloodthirst?"

Ghostcrawler

#262 - July 27, 2010, 4:56 a.m.

Q u o t e:
What we will find is people will start using WW as a Single target attack when not enraged to fill a GCD. 50% Weapon dmg is nothing to turn your nose up to if you have no other button on the GCD to press. If they have Meatcleaver, their WW's will be hitting for a decent amount anyway, I'm not sure if the buff stacks or not though.

Except 50% weapon damage is worth turning up your nose at if it prevents you from having enough rage for a Bloodthirst on the next GCD. If you have enough rage that you're looking for something -- anything -- to spend it on, then rage still isn't a resource.