That was implied in my statement, sorry if I wasn't clear enough. Obviously if you are spending extra in Arms, you are giving up already tight points from Fury.

I was thinking about the DW/SS swap, and since, as has been mentioned, Arms doesn't really need a buff, the only explanation that actually makes any sense is that the switch is a response to the "tank crisis": open up Arms/Prot for Arena, so that the PuG pool will have more semi-tank-spec tanks at any given time.

Mortal Strike, Death Wish, and Improved Intercept are all essentially required talents for the PvPing Warrior. This has locked Warriors into a deep Arms/Fury build for PvP since BC came out, and as such, Warriors have seriously lacked a spec option that worked well for both PvP and PvE. In my experience, 33/28 comes close, but the last two points in Arms force a choice between two extremely powerful talents, and the one you choose essentially defines the build as PvP or PvE.

The DW/SS and II/WM swaps address this, since they open up 35/5/21 as a viable Arena spec. Given that I don't generally get attacked in Arena unless a 5v5 team decides they are going to burst me to death, I have to question Enrage's continued usefulness when weighed against Last Stand and Concussion Blow. Piercing Howl is a loss, sure, but the issue is debatable.

Ultimately, however, 35/5/21 provides you with a now-viable Arena spec and a VERY viable 5 or 10-man tanking spec. It would take some getting used to, sure, but I'd give it a shot just to save myself 2 respecs a week.

Point taken. It seems like one would have to give up 2% to hit and another talent point for meaningless talents in Arms. There is no synergy in a 21/40 build, which makes it all the more frustrating that, in a dead heat, Deathwish is a superior talent to Rampage.

Really, with 2 slow weapons, imp WW is pretty awesome. Rampage is still "eh" but ill be worth the one point. I even had a hard time getting impale in. Depating 2% hit or 2 in imp execute atm. Its a tough choice.

Because the 35/23/3, and 33/28 builds remain totally unaffected in any way and become stronger then before, I think.

I will stop you here because you should recognize many things:
- AP affects the off-hand AND the main hand
- 250 AP becomes 275 AP with improved berserker stance. 302.5 AP with an enhancement shaman
- AP adds directly to your instant attack damage. BT gains 302AP * .45 = 135.9 dmg = 22 DPS. Whirlwind gains base damage which will depend on weapon speed.
- AP increases white damage, which increases rage, which increases special attacks, which increases total DPS

It's a more complex problem than it looks. However, like other posters have said, you also need to sacrifice 3 additional points in arms to get to death wish. It's going to be very hard to justify.

It really depends on whether Shade of Akama 2.0 shows up in Sunwell, IMO =)

I disagree.

- It's very easy to understand how much the new whirlwind will affect our single target DPS. You get one more off hand special hit every 10 (or 9) seconds. It doesn't require a spreadsheet.

- It's also very easy to understand how much the new threat change will affect your DPS on fights where you are not threat limited (Hint: 0).

The important change here is without a doubt weapon mastery granting -4% chance for attacks to be dodged. The other important change is that whirlwind & sweeping strikes on groups of mobs will simply be more fun.

Does whirlwind still cannibalize SS charges? I.e. WW hits 4 mobs and each hit eats a SS charge, but you only actually get one additional hit from SS. So if you were to use WW twice with SS up, you would only gain 4 additional hits instead of 10.

Even if imp slam were to move, there's still flurry, there'd have to be something amazing in upper arms to make people drop that.

Meh, bug with the new WW change atm. Off-hand crits don't proc Flurry or light up Rampage. I was going crazy trying to figure out why.

Is the offhand hit from WW affected by Dual Wield Spec (Like DW spec for Mutilate Rogues)?

Another first or second tier Prot talent would also work in moving people over. As it stands, points 6-10 are strictly tanking talents. Something that interacted with Stamina or health would be pretty beneficial to both PvPers and tanks of all flavors. If all you do is tank trash, 5mans, or heroics, you don't need shield spec or imp shield block. I know that I would have appreciated a lot more money talents in low Prot every time I took up the sword and board, and with new TM making hybrid tanks a lot less painful I think that they'd appreciate being able to take a talent that was helpful in more aspects of the game. The only time health isn't great to have is when you have another target to distract the mobs.

Hm, how will the warglaives be with the new Whirlwind? Aren't Blizzard, more or less, preventing us from using a fast off-hand. And the warglaive off-hand has a 1.40 speed, which will be quite bad with the 2.3 Whirlwind?

They're basically narrowing our play-style? (Different weapon types; Fast / Fast, Slow / Fast, Slow / Slow)

edit; grammar

Since WW is a normalized attack all that really matters is the average damage range. The difference in average damage between a [Syphon of the Nathrezim] and the offhand warglaive is ~127 damage. With imp whirlwind, and after taking into account the offhand damage penalty, the prearmor DPS gain on WW from using the higher damage range weapon is ~8.9. In other words, the DPS loss from using the fast glaive over the slow mace is almost neutralized simply due to the higher innate DPS on the faster weapon.

What about those of us who aren't rocking Warglaives. :P

I've always been partial to fast off-hands due to rage generation.

Also something to keep in mind is the 103 DPS Arena weapons, and most likely buffed Black Temple/Hyjal weapons in 2.3.

Does anyone know if Expertise will work in PvP ? I mean, it doesn't make sense to have a talent with two -totally- seperate parts, one that's good for PvP and useless in PvE, and vica versa.

Offhand speed actually doesn't matter much; thanks to a 0,625x damage multiplier and the cooldown. As long as it's not a dagger, all that matters is the difference in base damage. [Syphon of the Nathrezim], for example, has got 130 damage over [Swiftsteel Bludgeon] on average. Worst case (2/2 in Whirlwind) it will be around 14 DPS better, and that should be pretty much static. The rest of your damage comes from attack power, which thanks to normalisation is unaffected.

Wowhead and Thottbot are both currently displaying the "test" Whirlwind as requiring a one-handed weapon and doing 50% weapon damage. Is there any significance to this or am I being needlessly paranoid?

Thottbot World of Warcraft: Whirlwind
Whirlwind - Spells - World of Warcraft

Isn't WW normalized because it is an instant attack? Therefore would it matter what the speed was of the OH as long as it wasn't a dagger.

I'm almost positive that only the attack power portion of an attack is normalized and not the damage range on the weapon itself, so it is still beneficial to have a slower weapon for normalized attacks just not as good as it used to be.

One thing that has been happening over the course of this game is Blizzard obsoleting gear choices.
For casters, the MH/OH versus staves selection (in terms of itemization points): we are seeing an endangered gear choice. Already, daggers (the defining weapon of a rogue?) are useless today to a raiding rogue as swords and fists prove superior, and maces are the choice for pvp. Enh shams have already seen the need for 2 slow weapons.
I suppose the warrior class is the final melee class to be pushed into subtle gear requirements to retain viability, when you take a look at the progression of gear choices.

In Zul'Aman last night I was 2h fury and whirlwinded just fine.

My guess is that "trigger spell" you are seeing is for the off-hand Whirlwind attack.