Blizzard's try to balance Arms

[Darkfriend]

It's not exactly like that, more like removing OPs during an AoE rotation in the "not enough rage" GCDs.

Same thing. Either you use OP's and get fewer WW/TCs/SS or you don't and have fewer OPs.

[Kankipappa]

Same thing. Either you use OP's and get fewer WW/TCs/SS or you don't and have fewer OPs.

Tbh, they need to revert the glyph of sweeping strikes nerf from 1 to 2 rage per hit if the 10 rage OP gets in. It's not like you can afford that sweeper on 5.2 with 30 rage and still hit anything else than MS/CS when OP also costs so much rage... Or it's just OP's and zero slams in the cleaving rotation again.

[Landsoul]

Or you can not try to keep Sweeping Strikes up 100% of the time, and just use it when you put CS up after saving for 3xSlams.

[Gatsu]

Same thing. Either you use OP's and get fewer WW/TCs/SS or you don't and have fewer OPs.

Why should you spend rage for a single target ability different from MS during an aoe rotation?

[Kaljurei]

The implementation of Sweeping Strikes currently itself is a bit flawed(High rage cost for a 10s duration with glyph being woefully inadequate), but is only mildly exacerbated by the increased Rage cost on Overpower. Like Landsoul said, it would be more efficient to use SS only when you're going to unload rage inside a CS window.

However I'd like Sweeping Strikes to be modeled similar to how Blade Flurry is working in 5.2, i.e it affects more than one target. I think this could be pretty much viable AOE, at least comparable to Fury AOE. SS already makes only 50% of our damage to be applied to the secondary target, and Cleave is basically useless for every spec even with the higher damage modifier on 1H.

Personally, I'd go for a rework to Cleave, by making it an actual multi-target attack that does the same damage for all of the targets it hits.

Cleave : You unleash a mighty swing, hitting up to 4 targets in front of you for 200% Weapon Damage. Costs 30 Rage, 1.5s CD, shares a CD with Heroic Strike like usual.

I think this really feels more like Cleave, than it currently does. Hitting 2 targets for 82% damage for 30 Rage is extremely weak when you take SS and Overpowers into consideration. With the current live model of TFB, Cleave had it's usage, as TFB buffed Cleave, and Cleave buffed Overpower through the Glyph. Now we no longer have that, so we need some kind of better AOE than we currently do. You can adjust the numbers of course, but it has to be more than it currently is, and has to be better than Whirlwind as well. I think 200% maybe a bit too much considering that SS will buff it to cause mini-2-target-cleaves.

One way is to buff SS to be something like Blade Flurry for Combat Rogues, or the other is to buff Cleave. Personally, I feel that it should be Cleave, it makes a lot more sense as at least Arms would use Cleave, and Fury could stick to Meat Cleaver.

There may be some ideas as to make it good for SMF as well, but you guys think about that(Maybe make Cleave work with both 1H weapons). I think Meat Cleaver is already superior to TG, even with my above proposed implementation of Cleave.

And on another topic, I'm a bit worried about how they're going to change Haste and Mastery. This ties in a lot with the fact that the first attempt involved buffing Haste/Mastery to the point where it crossed Crit, and then was rolled back because of unnecessary competition between Warriors and DK/Rets.

I think the solution is pretty obvious. They need to first buff Str/Crit, and then buff Haste and Mastery, so that overall we scale better, Crit is still better or equal to Haste/Mastery, and we still go for Crit pieces. We may just prefer Haste to Mastery instead, but we will prioritize Crit pieces so we won't have any competition with DKs and Rets.

I still have a feeling that since GC hasn't exactly explained what his way to buff Haste/Mastery is going to be like, not to mention he likes to only implement band-aid fixes in the middle of an expac, I hope it just won't be numerical changes, because then it'll just get rolled back again UNLESS Crit is buffed as well.

[Deleted]

Well said Kaljurei, and I like the Cleave idea. It is abysmally weak at the moment.

I wouldn't mind Sweeping Strikes going back to the Cata model, but with the Glyph baked in. 10 secs of 100% damage replication on an additional target, 30 sec CD, no rage cost. This would probably be better because you could get another two Slams or Executes use of the 60 rage it would cost to match that damage.

Perhaps some sort of interaction between Whirlwind and Blood and Thunder? Maybe Slam could work like Heart Strike? Could be the identity Slam needs rather than "push this for damage"?

[Kaljurei]

I wouldn't mind Sweeping Strikes going back to the Cata model, but with the Glyph baked in. 10 secs of 100% damage replication on an additional target, 30 sec CD, no rage cost. This would probably be better because you could get another two Slams or Executes use of the 60 rage it would cost to match that damage.

I tried to math it out but I'm terrible at this so I'm going around in circles. I'm not sure so I'm just going to leave it like that.

Perhaps some sort of interaction between Whirlwind and Blood and Thunder? Maybe Slam could work like Heart Strike? Could be the identity Slam needs rather than "push this for damage"?

I don't think WW needs to have a interaction with B&T. We already have TC doing considerable damage(and almost comparable to WW for Arms), and applying DW to all targets. To be honest, I don't even want WW for Arms, it has no place in the spec, and is only prized above TC because it does more damage at higher gear levels(Read : Weapon ilvl) and TC is only required to refresh Deep Wounds(You even use the TC glyph for Heroic Wind Lord if you want to do it as Arms, which means the CD is further increased).

I'd rather have TC buffed somehow to make its usage more important for Arms than to use WW, which has nothing to do with Arms(mechanically, like it does for Fury's Meat Cleaver). Not sure if a direct buff would suffice(probably), or it should add some extra mechanic(I really don't think this is necessary as it already applies Deep Wounds and Weakened Blows). Maybe something like the old Meat Cleaver, using TC buffs the next TC by 10%, stacks thrice, etc. It only costs 20 Rage, which means we effectively replace Slams to do AOE, which seems fine.

Making Slam into Heart Strike type attack, I disagree. First of all, Blizzard's design intent for Slam is to have it do Single Target damage. That's why it's Rage cost got lowered and damage modifier got increased. Proposing to make it into a Heart Strike type attack may give off the wrong intentions. I'd rather buff Cleave.

[Beefkow]

Please buff cleave, i already have it off my bars and there is no point of using it, unless i have 50% slow glyph on cleave/heroic strike then i can slow down 2 people but pve wise... cleave isn't worth screw up my action bars.

[Kaljurei]

A slight change to my Cleave idea. I did not realize that I had just made Cleave+OP better than Slam, considering GCD cost, because Cleave could be used in ST along with OP to do 410% WD for 40 Rage.

The solution? Separate Cleave from Heroic Strike. Cleave is now on the GCD, but has the same Rage cost and the same cooldown as before.

We won't use Cleave for ST anymore because it has a GCD, and is inferior to Slam and Overpower(200% WD for 30 Rage compared to 210% WD for 10 Rage and 220% WD for 20 Rage). It'll simply be used in place of Slam to do 4-target Cleave, keeping Overpower for CS and low rage cost DPS.

I also thought of some alternative solutions for easy damage during Sweeping Strikes. We basically use the same analogy as the proposed Execute change.

When Sweeping Strikes is active, Overpower has no Rage cost

This should help rage generation during SS considerably and help us dump it on Slams instead, or the modified Cleave.

There's also a problem I didn't completely envision, which is Slam usage during Sweeping Strikes. With the modified Cleave, and the fact that Sweeping Strikes would affect it, there's probably no point of using Slam at all during Sweeping Strikes.

A solution to this would be to nerf Cleave's damage to 150%.

With SS on, let's assume we are trying to damage 2 targets, A and B, with A as the primary target, and B as the secondary target.

Using Slam
------------
Damage done to A : 220% WD
Damage done to B : 110% WD

Using Cleave
------------
Damage done to A : 150%+75%=225% WD
Damage done to B : 150%+75%=225% WD

I hope I understood properly that this is the effect that SS has on Cleave, i.e both hits are being replicated to the other target.

DPR when using Slam : 330% WD/20=16.5% WD
DPR when using Cleave : 450% WD/30=15% WD

This makes Slam's DPR during SS when dpsing 2 targets better than Cleave, but Cleave will do more damage per GCD than Slam.

Colossus Smash only makes Slam's DPR even higher(23.1 as opposed to 18), mainly because CS has to affect both targets in order to make Cleave's DPR more approachable to Slam's.

This change would probably make Slam better than Cleave for 2-target DPS, and Cleave better than Slam for 4-target DPS(Where we won't use Sweeping Strikes at all?).

[meathead]

myself i think blizz should just remove two of the three- cleave-ww-Sweeping Strikes.keep cleave or ww and buff it= problem solved.

[Grumpy Old Man]

myself i think blizz should just remove two of the three- cleave-ww-Sweeping Strikes.keep cleave or ww and buff it= problem solved.

I've been thinking that some classes/specs should get some skills removed for that reason - skill list is too bloated IMHO. Skills with similar functionality should be merged.

[Deleted]

Had an odd realisation that my DK didn't really need Icy Touch or Plague Strike in prominent keybind positions because of Festering Strike, Unholy Blight and Outbreak. I used to have them on 2 and 3, but they are so rarely used now that they are almost redundant.

Cleave atm IS redundant, and it needs to be helped. I think there is a space for Cleave, and I think (hope) there is a space for WW. And the only way you'll get rid of SS is to pry it from my cold dead hands :P

[Dawnrage]

It just seems very clunky to have to save for SS for a CS window (which we will get a lot of) while also pooling for enough rage to slam 3 times. Just seems our AoE will be kind of messed up.

I like that this is an actual discussion because I think while Blizzard is working on our single target DPS, they are ignoring that this has detrimental effects on our current AoE ability which is not that impressive. There's enough add fights to warrant this being an issue.

I feel like sweeping strikes should get the blade flurry treatment. Sweeping strikes compared to blade furry (before or after the changes) is overall just more expensive, more inefficient, and less damage.

[Deleted]

To be clear though, Blade Flurry is getting a nerf to cleaving. And as it stands, the cost isn't being reduced. If anything Sweeping Strikes needs buffing (ideally rage cost removed imo), but we'll see. You don't see Fury Warriors all respeccing to Arms for Garalon etc., whereas with Rogues that is an actual problem, when everyone respecs to Combat.

[Deleted]

could they please hurry up a little bit. I both need new raid content and arms buffs

[Flaks]

So I don't know what happened, but MS now only gives 1 OP. No matter what. Was 2. This change was never documented. The nerfs just keep on getting better and better.

[Beefkow]

So I don't know what happened, but MS now only gives 1 OP. No matter what. Was 2. This change was never documented. The nerfs just keep on getting better and better.

Yeah, just realized that too, not gonna play my warrior next patch, defiantly.

[Kaljurei]

Have you reported that bug? If not, then I'd ask you to refrain from calling it a nerf because it may just be a bug.

To be clear though, Blade Flurry is getting a nerf to cleaving. And as it stands, the cost isn't being reduced. If anything Sweeping Strikes needs buffing (ideally rage cost removed imo), but we'll see. You don't see Fury Warriors all respeccing to Arms for Garalon etc., whereas with Rogues that is an actual problem, when everyone respecs to Combat.

Not exactly. They changed it from a 2-target cleave to a 4-target cleave. Something like this is also nice for Warriors.

could they please hurry up a little bit. I both need new raid content and arms buffs

Yeah I'm wondering what the hell they're waiting for as well. Perhaps more changes than just what GC talked about.

[Deleted]

Not exactly. They changed it from a 2-target cleave to a 4-target cleave. Something like this is also nice for Warriors.

The damage is being spread to 4 targets, which means you'll need 4 targets to achieve the same damage you could do with two. So it's pretty much a nerf any way you look at it. If Sweeping Strikes just did 50% dmg to 3 additional targets instead of 1, that would be a reasonable buff, but that's not what's happening with Blade Flurry.

Edit: I am getting a bit restless with PTR at the moment, as it's impossible to test Arms until they sort that out, which is annoying.

[Kaljurei]

The damage is being spread to 4 targets, which means you'll need 4 targets to achieve the same damage you could do with two. So it's pretty much a nerf any way you look at it. If Sweeping Strikes just did 50% dmg to 3 additional targets instead of 1, that would be a reasonable buff, but that's not what's happening with Blade Flurry.

Edit: I am getting a bit restless with PTR at the moment, as it's impossible to test Arms until they sort that out, which is annoying.

It's a nerf for 2-target cleave. However, for fights where we have multiple adds to take care of, we would like some better AOE than TC spammage, or WW spammage. The only reason we actually spam WW is because it doesn't have a CD and is marginally more damage done than TC, but for Fury it leads to another AOE mechanic which we don't possess.

I like B&T, but I think TC should at least like cause the Bleed ticks to do more damage per application of TC to make it into a better AOE. An AP based DoT ticking on several targets, and not doing even close to the damage that DK DoTs do isn't really a good mechanic.

In any case, I'd like Cleave to be changed rather than Sweeping Strikes. Meat Cleaver is a wonderful mechanic, and I think Arms deserves something like that equally as good.