WotLK talent Preview/Discussion - Page 46

Darmon · 08/22/08, 2:15 AM

Removing irelevant post

Addled · 08/22/08, 2:19 AM

Originally Posted by mistersix

I favor aggressive builds as well for the most part which is way dumping cruelty felt weird to me but 6 rage per parry is very enticing. Definitely eager for the prot changes to make there way through.

Prot feels a bit too deep-heavy for me, no idea about how or if Blizzard will address that in the upcoming Prot changes.

I was considering dropping Cruelty from tanking builds too. How does tanking feel so far in Beta? I know the cap level so far has been only 77 (increased with this patch to 80), but how much does dropping Cruelty affect DPS while tanking, rage supply, and threat on mobs?

Darian_TruBlade · 08/22/08, 2:22 AM

Originally Posted by Faeviactus

So looking at the new fury tree, I am very excited. As was said this is a lot of what we really needed. So I played with it and I think I came up with a decent pve/pvp hybrid with a stronger focus on pve.

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?warr...12053112501051

I didn't take blood surge, just couldn't quite figure out to work it with the rest of what I was trying to do. I probably could drop 3 points in 2 handed spec, just don't know the number crunching on that.

The arms tree I picked up mostly pvp talents just to round things out, and obviously took that passive MS effect for good measure. I think this would perform well in both environs.

Also bloodfrenzy took a nerf it seems. Half as effective now. Which makes MS slightly less competitive for that raid spot.

I'm not so keen on some of your talent choices. Unending Fury and Bloodsurge have a fair amount of synergy, so skipping the latter reduces the effectiveness of the former. Imp Charge remains a dubious talent choice without Tactical Mastery. I don't see the point in 1 point in Imp Execute over Heroic Leap.

The following is my proposed standard Fury spec. The key issue is whether Furious Attacks is required for raiding or not. If it is, the choice seems to be between Heroic Leap and the last point in 2H spec. Depending on how often we need to run in and out in WotLK, it might be better to lose full 2H spec over Heroic Leap.

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?warr...00000000000000

Chirality · 08/22/08, 2:24 AM

Originally Posted by Emeraude

The Arms Tree just kind of redefines the phrase "Warriors are RNG on wheels".

I mean people say that crap about wanting Mace spec nerfed because RNG shouldn't have such an impact on the game, but we basically traded mace spec for about 3-4 RNG moves.

Taste for Blood 30% chance on Rend ticks
Sudden Death 30% chance on crits
Imp Mortal Strike 30% chance on Enraged Assault
Unending Fury 30% chance on Enraged Assault

Honestly, nobody cares if we rely on RNG unless it effects them(Mace Spec), but nobody says a single word about the multiple RNG talents that popped up to replace it that WE have to rely on.

It's just like Mages. Missile Barrage chance to hit. Clearcast chance. Fingers of Frost. Instant Fireballs as Frost? Frostbite? People will miss the days when Mace Spec and Improved Hamstring (Why hasn't that changed?!) were the only RNG to worry about.

And just to note--Fury (through the instant slam) is just as RNG dependent as arms. More so, if you have poor +hit with Titan's Grip.

The behavior of Enraged Assault and Wrecking Crew (a terrible name for a talent) will be interesting, though. Do I eat my own 15% damage buff for some damage and a chance to reset Mortal Strike? Or do I just continue doing Auto/Slam/Instant rotation and occassionally have Overpower light up?

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if Improved Mortal Strike turns out not to be worth it. As Enraged Assault has a 10 sec cooldown, at most you're looking at like 2 'reset' Mortal Strikes per minute--averaging probably less than 3 seconds off the cooldown of Mortal Strike. That's like...one more mortal strike per minute!

Improved Mortal Strike seems to be a pure pvp-RNG talent, to me.

Edit: Someone mentioned Wrecking Crew and Enrage stacking...Was that just a guess? I would still see Enrage, or at least 2 points in Enrage, as being part of an Arms PvP spec (assuming Bladestorm is worth it--doesn't look like it though. Perhaps if it increases movement speed by 50% for the duration or something).

Steveharris · 08/22/08, 2:27 AM

I think in this case, RNG is good; Arms is all about burst/spike/unpredictable damage in a PvP environment (IMO) and keeping rend up on a target will likely allow some cool combination of Intercept, MS, switch to battle/overpower (which will likely activate Wrecking Crew), then Enraged Assault, which could activate MS again. Obviously, the chances of this happening aren't very good; but then the chances of WW mace stunning an entire 3v3 team aren't very good, though I bet it's happened.

At least this way people will be saying "Damn, I got blowed up!" (i.e. shatter combo) rather than "Goddamn mace stun!" (i.e. mace stun).

Chirality · 08/22/08, 2:34 AM

Originally Posted by Steveharris

I think in this case, RNG is good; Arms is all about burst/spike/unpredictable damage in a PvP environment (IMO) and keeping rend up on a target will likely allow some cool combination of Intercept, MS, switch to battle/overpower (which will likely activate Wrecking Crew), then Enraged Assault, which could activate MS again. Obviously, the chances of this happening aren't very good; but then the chances of WW mace stunning an entire 3v3 team aren't very good, though I bet it's happened.

At least this way people will be saying "Damn, I got blowed up!" (i.e. shatter combo) rather than "Goddamn mace stun!" (i.e. mace stun).

A great many classes seem to be going towards this. Ambush/Shadowstep rogues? Frost Mages? Death Knights in general? I'm not really excited at the prospect of reliving 2H-enhancement-shaman-pre-BC-style-burst.

Also--I'm not really convinced that RNG-damage is any better than RNG-cc. In fact, I'm going to say it's probably worse. It's much less fun to *DIE* than it is to be stunned and have the game keep going, no?

Emeraude · 08/22/08, 2:43 AM

We talked about some of the Prot changes today and they were cool enough that some of the guys who have played dps warriors before talked about wanting to spec down to try some of those talents out. Fun talents? In Prot? Stop the madness.

We might try to just bake in the Rage on Parry / Dodge. It was a slightly awkward talent, since it really only benefitted the tank who wore epic gear into a 5-man.

WoW Forums -> Stalwart Protector removed?

Gellor · 08/22/08, 3:01 AM

Well it seem to me that the current changes certainly encourage the arms warrior to stay in Battle Stance for dps, with the talents that now affect OP (Taste for Blood and Unrelenting Assault). Also with wrecking crew talent it gives them the option of another instant in enraged assault, which could quite easily become the WW of Battle Stance.

Admitedly Enraged assault can be used by fury warriors popping bloodrage/zerker rage every 20 secs with 3 points in Intensify rage, but that initially seems rather unwieldy as you have to use a GCD to use this instant attack, which is on a 10 second CD. I guess you could weave into a rotation with a macro every 10 seconds (alternating Bloodrage/zerker rage), not forgetting 2 minute talented Deathwish's. If anything fury is going to be even more twitchy to sustain a maximum dps rotaion than it was before. That's not even taking into consideration, the instant slam from bloodsurge, or the potential BT reset from you enraged assault as well. It could be a case of too many instant's not enough GCD's lol. Is it even possible to sustain a viable rotation with all the potential instants now available? Seem's like choices will have to be made, which will vary greatly depending on weapons/AP in the case of Bloodsurge slams or Enraged assaults BT timer reset. I'll let less frazzled brains than mine ponder rotations etc.

PSGarak · 08/22/08, 3:02 AM

Originally Posted by Darmon

So every prot warrior can just respec to arms/fury till they get to 80 and raiding big content?
A tank has to be balanced in all content levels, or there is no reason for tank spec to exists till certain point in game.

Then agan someone noticed that a blue said they consider a failure if most guilds have a certain class as MT. Right now that class is warrior, protection spec. They can only achieve that goal by making prot warrior underpowered long enough to reduce the number of guilds MT prot warrior.

Or maybe, they'll work on prot after end-game content gets pushed into beta, and have it done by the time it goes live.

Gellor · 08/22/08, 3:06 AM

Originally Posted by PSGarak

Or maybe, they'll work on prot after end-game content gets pushed into beta, and have it done by the time it goes live.

Well that's no good if you can't tank the instances leading up to said end game instances, and get the requisite tanking gear is it?

PSGarak · 08/22/08, 3:10 AM

You mean the instances that you're supposed to be able to tank without prot talents, because it wouldn't be fair to make people spec tank for leveling?

Gellor · 08/22/08, 3:18 AM

Fair enough point, although maybe some heroic gear wouldn;t hurt (And that is meant to be the domain of the prot spec warrior).

Although the point is moot as prot is being worked on and should be available "soon"

WoW Forums -> Blue Posts: Ghost have any comments?

Polishedhead · 08/22/08, 3:37 AM

Hmm.. i like the new changes.

Here's a built i came up with, it's a build that will dominate at hitting 2 targets or more and could also be competative on one target:

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?warr...12253120511351

It's basically an improved cleave build. Keeping Bloodthirst and Whirlwind on cooldown, with slam when it procs, using cleave then as a pretty efficient rage dump.

Shha · 08/22/08, 3:42 AM

Originally Posted by Gellor

Is it even possible to sustain a viable rotation with all the potential instants now available? Seem's like choices will have to be made, which will vary greatly depending on weapons/AP in the case of Bloodsurge slams or Enraged assaults BT timer reset. I'll let less frazzled brains than mine ponder rotations etc.

Honestly of all the goodies Fury got (which is overall pretty awesome) the Unending Fury seems to be the weakest link.

At first glance I thought the talent is amazing, now - not so much. Cleave change means basically that cleave will be a viable replacement for Heroic for fury - still it will be terribly inefficient unless you get to hit 2 targets.

But lets focus on instant reduction now. First impression - with a 20 sec rotation of 3xWW/2xBT (you can use 18 sec old school - but it seems that its impossible to get good timers on enraged assault unless you allign it with WW). you save 75 rage every minute. On a 6 minute fight its 450 rage.

It also gives us 30% chance to refresh BT. Now that again sounds really cool and stuff, but lets look closer.

Refresh cooldown doesnt mean a FREE BT. It still costs rage, and its just a reset of cd - not a totally extra BT. Usually if you look at possible rotation , there will be SOMETHING you use after BT. Either WW or some enrage effect for Enraged assault. In such case there is : BT - 1.5 sec GCD. The WW/Enrage - 1.5 sec GCD (although not with bloodrage). Enraged assault - 1.5 sec gcd. After it procs you are 1.5 sec from a new BT anyway. The proc gave you 1/4 BT! Now its possible to sometimes get it more often as in - preuse berserker rage before BT, or use berserker rage. But looking at timers you cant do that always. Add the decent chance on a slam proc from BT crits and you are looking at 3 sec TOP from the reset. Lets be generous now and say every proc (30%) gives you 1/2 BT. In fact it will be less. That means every enraged assault (3 per 40 sec tops), gives you 15% of a BT. Over 6 min fight if you are perfect with ER you might get 4 extra BT (payed with rage). Thats assuming perfect use of ER , which due to technical difficulties will be hard to achieve.

So overall in perfect world the talent will leave us with 330 spare rage and 4 extra BT over course of the fight. The problem is Heroic with 2h, costs a LOT given the rage cost. So overall you probably will convert 5 more MH swings to Heroics , and get 4 free BT. Lets look at lvl 70 since the numbers are more familiar. Heroic with a 2h adds around 1200 damage average counting the miss penalty. BT hits for ~3k. so its 18k damage over 360 sec or 50 dps. 50 dps is nice, but its 2-3% of typical warrior damage. 2-3% damage talent at end of tree is a bit lackluster.

Like I said , I'm not complaining about the talent changes, but the Unending Fury seems like a talent you might even skip alltogether. Remember - this math was done assuming perfect usage of skills - in reality its not that perfect, and on top of adding rather low dps, Unending Fury will bring some mayhem to your skill use.

Mojzin · 08/22/08, 3:43 AM

As they removed the mace stun from Mace specialization, I think it would be a good time to combine sword and mace specialization into one talent (just have the extra attack on both mace and sword). The 10 extra rage seems to me to be a kind of weak (and a very boring) five point talent, and the less specialization talents you have, the better.

Then you'd be down to choosing either Axes/Polearms or Swords/Maces, and not needing to respec so often when you find a new weapon when leveling.

Gellor · 08/22/08, 3:45 AM

Originally Posted by Polishedhead

Hmm.. i like the new changes.

Here's a built i came up with, it's a build that will dominate at hitting 2 targets or more and could also be competative on one target:

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?warr...12253120511351

It's basically an improved cleave build. Keeping Bloodthirst and Whirlwind on cooldown, with slam when it procs, using cleave then as a pretty efficient rage dump.

Just feels like your giving up too much from arms, for in essence 15% increased crit chance on your rage dump. Also as things stand cleave causes higher threat on single targets than HS.

Impale, DW and 2 handed Spec combined should prove to be easily more dps over time anyway. DW esepcially with it's rolling effects now.

Shha · 08/22/08, 3:59 AM

Why would you spec enrage though?

Also one thing to consider for everyone - Booming Voice might become a must for warriors. With raid wide battleshouts... how often right now in raids there is a problem with keeping people in range lets say in sunwell?

Spec I would go is basically http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?warr...12253120501301

Gellor · 08/22/08, 4:00 AM

For raid dps can't see much beyond this build, I'd guess atm 20/51 would be the new cookie cutter.

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?warr...12053110501351

I put 3 points in bloodsurge, but remains to be seen how easily you can weave the instant slam into a rotation. I guess if bloodsurge slams prove to problmeatic, could always put 3 points into imp cleave for better dps on you rage dump, is HS or cleave a viable rage dump now with the TG changes? with imp slam now a deep arms talent, they're the only ones available.

Shha · 08/22/08, 4:04 AM

Bloodsurge slams are not aproblem. Its 5 sec buff, so you have 3 free GCD before you need to use them.
On other hand Unending Fury procced BT destroy any rotation you had. In worst case they will force you to wait with BT ever next few cycles , until the cooldowns even out - totally neglecting any buff you can get.

Really for raid dps Unending Fury seems like a big nono - it might be good for pvp though - where rage is often enough of a problem to not be able to use all the new instants (and not getting more rage dumps)

Gellor · 08/22/08, 4:15 AM

nvm, hadn;t read your earlier post.

Gruntle · 08/22/08, 4:38 AM

I agree that Unending Fury procs will not really be usable in PvE dps (or at least will be very cumbersome to use optimally), but that doesn't make the talent useless, it still gives a 5 rage reduction on your 2 main specials. There is nothing that says that you have to press BT just because you get a proc. I'd say the main use of the proc is in pvp, where you can get insane bursts by a dual two-hander Enraged assault.

If anything these changes completely destroys any standard cycles. Instead you will have to make split second decision at each gcd on what ability is the best to use. It's going to be very difficult to optimize, but fun fun fun

My proposed spec is similar to Gellor's. I don't think imp rend will be of much use for DW fury, switching out of zerk stance will still be a pretty big nono (i'd rather take Imp T.C, although these points are not really that important). In the fury tree I believe 2/2 Imp WW will be a good option, since I think the 3BT/2WW cycle will be dead anyway. Furthermore Heroic leap is going to be a good thing to move around, well worth dropping one point in Precision/Intensify Rage. 1/2 Furious Attacks is for utility, maybe not needed, depends on how many bosses that heal in the content you're currently clearing.

New Rampage is of course a big positive surprise, but it's a pity that the raid utility of a DW fury warrior is pitted against that of Feral druid (if they don't stack, but I find it unlikely that they will). I think it would have been a lot better if the Rampage buff would have been to ArP (but problematic to balance due to how ArP scales) or given a chance to replenish energy/mana/rage on melee crits for the raid.

zork · 08/22/08, 4:47 AM

Protection warriors can go for Justified Killing right now which will net you 6 rage on a parried attack. Its not that hard to get.

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?warr...00000000000000

What do you think? In my opinion the new Shield Block is a complete waste of points. You can use it for one Shield Slam every 40 seconds. Not that kind of must-have talent. I really like the changes to Last Stand and Shield Wall though, sounds good in theory.

Gellor · 08/22/08, 5:01 AM

Originally Posted by Gruntle

I agree that Unending Fury procs will not really be usable in PvE dps (or at least will be very cumbersome to use optimally), but that doesn't make the talent useless, it still gives a 5 rage reduction on your 2 main specials. There is nothing that says that you have to press BT just because you get a proc. I'd say the main use of the proc is in pvp, where you can get insane bursts by a dual two-hander Enraged assault.

If anything these changes completely destroys any standard cycles. Instead you will have to make split second decision at each gcd on what ability is the best to use. It's going to be very difficult to optimize, but fun fun fun

My proposed spec is similar to Gellor's. I don't think imp rend will be of much use for DW fury, switching out of zerk stance will still be a pretty big nono (i'd rather take Imp T.C, although these points are not really that important). In the fury tree I believe 2/2 Imp WW will be a good option, since I think the 3BT/2WW cycle will be dead anyway. Furthermore Heroic leap is going to be a good thing to move around, well worth dropping one point in Precision/Intensify Rage. 1/2 Furious Attacks is for utility, maybe not needed, depends on how many bosses that heal in the content you're currently clearing.

New Rampage is of course a big positive surprise, but it's a pity that the raid utility of a DW fury warrior is pitted against that of Feral druid (if they don't stack, but I find it unlikely that they will). I think it would have been a lot better if the Rampage buff would have been to ArP (but problematic to balance due to how ArP scales) or given a chance to replenish energy/mana/rage on melee crits for the raid.

Can you afford to not max precision what with the catastrophic rage consequences of missing using 2handers entail? But as you say you can always drop the token point from furious attacks. Only 2 points in imp HS for anger management is probably a better investment than having 3 points in Imp HS. Also how much better is the proc rate on UW with 2h weapons to 1h? I know it is superior but cannot remember by how much.

Grillkohle · 08/22/08, 5:28 AM

Haven't seen anything posted about it yet, but it also looks like Shield Break and Blood Bath were removed.

While I liked the idea of Blood Bath for AoE tanking, I'm glad that Shield Break is gone (if these changes really are for good) because it was a pretty boring skill in my opinion.

Boorach · 08/22/08, 5:36 AM

Not seeing many fury builds putting points into Furious Attacks. Gives us the equivalent of the mortal strike debuff which can come in handy on a few bosses (Naj'entus in BT for example). So do you think it would be a bad idea speccing this build:

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?warr...12053110501351