That has nothing to do with reducing the GCD... It means there is no "critical strike rating" and "spell critical strike rating" separation anymore; it's only a single stat.

The question isn't what you think it should do; it's what it actually does. The consolidation of Spell Haste and Melee Haste into one rating is no more likely to reduce the GCD of melee abilities than it is to not reduce the GCD of spell abilities. Unless you have evidence, as opposed to speculation, please stop trying to correct people based solely on your interpretation of the patch notes.

While your initial paragraph is accurate, I'm not sure they're willing to completely trash their vision of what the stances represent. I just don't see them offering an offensive buff to Battle Stance instead of one to utility. The three we currently have cover three roles, being of course defense, balance, offense. Remember, also, that vanilla WoW still *exists* more or less, to those who are leveling warriors. I don't think a 25% haste stance would make much sense in that regard, and frankly it's more desirable than the damage buff of Berserker, only offset by the abilities usable in each.

The solution, most likely, if it is indeed an Arms fix primarily, would be an Imp. Battle Stance talent. That would enable balancing of what level it would be available, and provide further impetus to spec deep in the tree.

My suggestion (a % reduction to CC or harmful effect time, whatever is most balanced) a few pages back would be an alternative that I could envision being innate to the stance, but I do find the concept of an Imp. Battle Stance to fit quite well in our trees considering there is a talent for each of the others. I would not imagine it likely to be equal to Flurry in haste, however.

That line you posted meant that the haste rating affects both spell and melee. There is no longer a "Spell haste," or "Melee haste," stat anymore, nowhere does it say it affects GCD.

A quick theorycrafting question. I apologize if this was mentioned elsewhere. I searched but haven't seen it addressed.

In the beta, does Slam still reset your swing time? More to the point, are the instant Slams granted by Bloodsurge going to be a good thing, or will Bloodsurge be something we should avoid?

Thanks for the info, trying to work out a pre-Wrath Fury build.

From what I remember earlier in the post, currently Slam still resets the timer, but the instant slams from bloodsurge do not.

Correct. Previously the talent read as this:

Reduces the casting time of your Slam by 100% (this will reset the swing timer)

100% chance of making your next Slam instant for 5 sec (this will not reset the swing timer)

Did anyone in the Beta figure out the purpose of the Charge talent in Prot yet? Is it a bug or intended? If it it's the latter, do you think Prot might get something like a Shield Charge which works like a normal charge but is triggered from Defensive stance and which ould be high threat (maybe fire a Shield Slam on impact that is not tied to your SS GCD or cooldown?). I for one would appreciate such a new skill. I always considered charging into a pack, then changing back into D-stance was sort of counter productive since you lost rage from not having TM.

Supposedly it enables Charge's use in-combat.

That's quite interesting, however I don't understand why he kept a 54/17/0 spec while trying dpsing in berserker stance.
Wouldn't a 51/20 have produced a better dps ?

[edit]Small mistake for the template :P

Didn't a developer say, not long ago, that a beta patch is the manifestation of a work in progress? It should not be seen as a sign that a particular talent tree has reached some new, stable plateau of evolution, but rather as a snapshot of the development process at a more or less arbitrary point in time.

My point is, that the reason why we are confused by the current warrior talents is that they probably aren't meant to make sense just yet. Instead we see some tinkering and some "what if"-scenarios being tried out. To me, it's such an obvious example of unfinished work that we can't deduce more from it than some of the ideas that are being bounced around by the developers right now.

So, I'm not panicing. Even though we still haven't seen a new "toy" for the prot warrior, except Shockwave, of course, I haven't lost faith; the tinkering we're seeing are adressing some of the concerns about bloating, and it seems as if the developers are very much concerned with the mobility of the prot warrior. More mobility would be very welcomed

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On a slightly different note: There has been talk of allowing two talent specs to allow players to both tank and dps or both PvE and PvP without handicap. I don't know if two talents specs are needed, but any efforts to streamlining retalenting are great and it is beside the point: I'm wondering if not the Inscription system will invalidate this idea?

Before, you could collect different gear with different enchants for your different roles, and even though it isn't costless you can easily rearrange talents. But as I assume that Inscriptions will be worth having, you'd want Inscriptions that maximize your ability to do that particular role, be it tanking, pvp or whatever. I also assume that switching Inscriptions isn't as easy (or relatively cheap) as respeccing your talents? Which means that if you are serious about PvP-ing and are serious about PvE-ing, you're facing a much, much higher cost every time you switch role, since you'd need to get new inscriptions every time.

Or have I misunderstood how the Inscription system works? I must admit, I assume that inscriptions will be in the same price-range as enchantments. Some are cheap, but the good are expensive.