Arms Legion Discussion

[Toppy]

How to set things right.

1. Make FR baseline.
2. In its place on the talent bar, add Heroic Strike as an off CD rage dump that replaces FR.
3. Remove slam rage cost.

Arms needs a rage dump, that itself is a flaw in design. Slam doesn't cut it since it's on the GCD and is competing to much with other skills, it should be a 0 rage filler. FR fits to many slots on its own since its something the spec flat out needs. So just make FR baseline, but give us Heroic Strike as an option for people who do not care for FR playstyle.

There, spec fixed. No more down time. A rage dump for everyone. Maybe buff Overpower so its useable.

[Niwes]

shouldnt that numbers released today make arms way to overpowered ? 10% and all the other buffs... when i look at arms on warcraftlogs statistics and calc with that percent values, it seems arms will be horrible overpowered. i assume these are filler numbers ?

cause being OP at patch start is something i really would hate. because always when a class was massive overpowered at patch start, blizz overdid it in the other direction (as usual) and nerfed the spec so hard, that it sucked the whole raid tier.

[Bigbazz]

shouldnt that numbers released today make arms way to overpowered ? 10% and all the other buffs... when i look at arms on warcraftlogs statistics and calc with that percent values, it seems arms will be horrible overpowered. i assume these are filler numbers ?

cause being OP at patch start is something i really would hate. because always when a class was massive overpowered at patch start, blizz overdid it in the other direction (as usual) and nerfed the spec so hard, that it sucked the whole raid tier.

You have to take into account that Arms only does well in Nighthold with the use of Draught of Souls, Old War is disgustingly strong for Arms too and both these are getting a heavy nerf with the 20% Mastery nerf that also comes with this. Not only that but FR + Dauntless and Anger Management (on ST) are getting nerfed making the spec much less rage efficient (in addition to causing bad battle cry cooldown sync), so playing as you would play now will just heavily rage starve you and cooldowns don't line up as well.

That means the spec is going to be much more RNG, due to having less tactition procs. The potential damage of the spec through RNG increases while the lower tactition procs will bring the average down. I just tested between live and PTR and the difference on a dummy was small. The short of it is that effectively the same playstyle is still the best but it now plays like shit while hitting harder.

[Sorshen]

Avatar baseline, move Overpower in its place.
Maybe change the design of FR, while keeping the MS theme of that talent line. FR stacks give extra critical damage on your next MS crit? That would be a good SD synergy and would also make crit a bit more valuable.

[Niwes]

You have to take into account that Arms only does well in Nighthold with the use of Draught of Souls, Old War is disgustingly strong for Arms too and both these are getting a heavy nerf with the 20% Mastery nerf that also comes with this. Not only that but FR + Dauntless and Anger Management (on ST) are getting nerfed making the spec much less rage efficient (in addition to causing bad battle cry cooldown sync), so playing as you would play now will just heavily rage starve you and cooldowns don't line up as well.

That means the spec is going to be much more RNG, due to having less tactition procs. The potential damage of the spec through RNG increases while the lower tactition procs will bring the average down. I just tested between live and PTR and the difference on a dummy was small. The short of it is that effectively the same playstyle is still the best but it now plays like shit while hitting harder.

ah ok. thx for explaining. that dont sound good

[Rorke]

Ravager is going to be so good now.

[Kirbydude65]

ah ok. thx for explaining. that dont sound good

This is the first numbers pass, so I would expect additional changes coming forward.

Re-adjusting the talent tree maybe in order due to the strength of talents like Avatar, but that might change going forward. A large part of the Strength of Avatar is that its very easy to line up with Battle Cry maximizing its power.

With the T20 tier bonus, also affecting Ravager (Ravager's Cooldown lines up perfectly with Battle Cry) it may be worth forsaking it for something else in certain situations.

Still the first number pass, like I said. Best thing people can do is login to the PTR, and play around with the spec.

[Tatsujin]

Either make FR a baseline, or remove FR and buff the hell out of MS so it can do very amazing damage. I tried ALL talents on PTR with and without FR and godmode gloves ... and FR is a flat 100-140k+ DPS increase. :/ ... Problem is what we have now on PTR is DPS loss due to the nerf to Dauntless and increase in rage cost of most abilities - note, I'm not referring to the Mastery decrease or several flat damage increase as those were numbers to reduce the reliance of Mastery and increase the overall DPS outside of CS.

[mysticx]

Either make FR a baseline, or remove FR and buff the hell out of MS so it can do very amazing damage. I tried ALL talents on PTR with and without FR and godmode gloves ... and FR is a flat 100-140k+ DPS increase. :/ ... Problem is what we have now on PTR is DPS loss due to the nerf to Dauntless and increase in rage cost of most abilities - note, I'm not referring to the Mastery decrease or several flat damage increase as those were numbers to reduce the reliance of Mastery and increase the overall DPS outside of CS.

I'm all for removing FR (maybe replacing it with heroic strike), put together with shattered defenses it's just too much stacking up on MS now, so baseline MS damage has to be relatively low to prevent people being one-shot in PvP by an "all buffs stacked" MS, best to make the rage dumper its own DPS source which can be tuned seperately rather than keeping it stuck to MS, MS and everything affecting it has turned into a tuning Gordian knot.

[Uriel]

Removing FR would lead to removing rage as a Ressource. With FR you have to be careful not to starve yourself but without you remove a major mechanic that makes the spec fun. Without FR you will basically sit at 80+ rage all the time making it pointless.

Also believe it ir not : FR IS HS. It is an off gcd that does damage "on next swing". It has no striking animation but you can use it while away from the boss. FR is basically your only ranged "attack" besides "notsoheroic" throw.

FR was the thing thst drew me to Arms pre legion cause i liked the Ressource Management and i liked the spammy playstyle seperating quick Arms from boring sterile fury
It puzzles me that noone sees that.

[Valkaneer]

I just fired up the PTR for testing sake, the only specs that do any dps have FR in them. You can run overpower if you want, you can run Ravager or Opportunity Strikes if it pleases you, but unless you're running FR with Deadly Calm your dps is gonna be shit. I tried it, non FR + DC builds were easily 200k+ dps behind just on a dummy because you have nowhere near as much burst synergy, you're over capped on GCDs and you cant effectively turn rage into damage.

I personally don't mind, I like FR. But yeah, people getting fantasies that suddenly FR is not the best (and i've heard it from a few guys tonight, as I actually played WoW tonight, what is this!), those fantasies are going to remain fantasies unless something big happens. Of course yes you have FR being less rage efficient and dauntless is nerfed, but MS/Exe/Slam/CS are all buffed in damage so the spec is just more shitty to play with more RNG while doing similar (or more) damage to live.

My experience with some limited testing on PTR.

Are you using the exact same gear as your live FR build though? Pretty sure your stat weights would be very different for a Non FR build. I would not be surprised at all to see Mast and Haste almost the same in value in a Non FR build. If your walking around with 90 mast and 20 haste that might throw your numbers off.

[Katie45]

Removing FR would lead to removing rage as a Ressource. With FR you have to be careful not to starve yourself but without you remove a major mechanic that makes the spec fun. Without FR you will basically sit at 80+ rage all the time making it pointless.

Also believe it ir not : FR IS HS. It is an off gcd that does damage "on next swing". It has no striking animation but you can use it while away from the boss. FR is basically your only ranged "attack" besides "notsoheroic" throw.

FR was the thing thst drew me to Arms pre legion cause i liked the Ressource Management and i liked the spammy playstyle seperating quick Arms from boring sterile fury
It puzzles me that noone sees that.

Cause people like different things?

[Uriel]

Cause people like different things?

You mean simplify an already simple spec further stripping it from every thought process involved? Yeah i can see why some people would want that.

[Tatsujin]

Look everyone, we're all arguing here pointlessly while Blizzard is focused more on other specs, especially Aff. Locks. We have good amount of constructive posts on their Feedback and 7.2.5 PTR forums and yet there is still ONE response from Blizzard. Right now, the spec is broken on the PTR and no explaination was given as to where the spec needs to be from Blizzard or what we should be focusing on. Sarri is still trying to simulate the new stuff that's happening from the PTR ... so yes we're waiting on Discord to hear from him but the nerf to Dauntless really hurts and trying any other talent without FR will reduce your overall DPS by 100Kish. FR needs to be a baseline, or changed to Heroic Strike and still be a baseline, and put another talent in there. Dauntless as well needs to be a baseline. Or, remove all of these and buff all of our other abilities together so we can do the damage we're supposed to be doing.

[Anbokr]

Yeah, I'm starting to come around to the idea that heroic strike should have been baseline, and FR be the talented "upgrade" to it. There just isn't really a way to make Arms rage management interesting without something small off the GCD -- it just doesn't work. You are either going to have a slow WoD spec where you are sitting there auto attacking for a bit (which nearly everyone hated) or a spec that can dump a bit off the GCD when necessary.

Without redesigning Deadly Calm and/or and buffing Mortal Combo to hell (I'm not even mentioning In for the Kill cause it's a stupid ass talent), FR will be king. And while again I appreciated the philosophy behind these changes all they ended up accomplishing was making the FR build feel clunky as hell while keeping it on top. Not a good first look.

However, even if they aren't directly responding to us, it's clear they are listening. So we should definitely keep hitting them with feedback on the forums, on here, on the discord, and most importantly imo -- on twitter. They seem very receptive to twitter, which is great but also unfortunate because twitter forces you to distill complex discussions and feedback into dumb one liners.

[Toppy]

You mean simplify an already simple spec further stripping it from every thought process involved? Yeah i can see why some people would want that.

Do you honestly think that FR is that complicated? Takes all of a minute to learn and is easy to do properly. Hell you can make macros for it so you can shut off your brain.

If you're looking for something with skill based rotations, you're playing the wrong game.

[Uriel]

I said Arms is a simple spec didnt i? Macroing FR is not what i ment rather than managing you rage properly. If you tKe that away what is left? Pressing buttons while at 100 rage all the time?

[Tatsujin]

Those who are complaining about FR - I did the same in the very beginning of Legion. Then about two weeks in, I saw an FR Arms Warrior ahead of me with 280K while I'm struggling to sustain 220-230K - on every boss in a mythic dungeon. So, I decided to switch to FR. It takes no more than two weeks to master FR, with some people doing it in few days. FR makes Arms fun, Tactician is not fun ... I'm okay with FR or Heroic Strike. Both are cool mechanics to work with.

If you're complaining more about FR, then I can't think of anything else than you are a clicker and not a keybinder (seriously, if you are then that is an issue on your end), you're a keybinder but have limited keys (time to get a multi-button mouse like the G600 or new Corsair MMO mouse), you think FR/Heroic Strike are not fun (both are LITERALLY the same thing, rage dump), or you're just simply a hard-headed person that doesn't want to learn FR all-together and want to mash buttons without worrying about other things. I mean no offense to people who complain about FR/Heroic Strike, but Arms' fantasy focuses on doing insane ST DPS and FR/Heroic Strike makes sense.

Tactician is honestly not fun because of the heavy RNG - both on live and on PTR (especially with rage-cost increase on most abilities and dauntless nerf).

[Rorke]

It would be cool if they just put Cleave off the gcd with no cd like it used to be.

[Atherions]

Yeah, I'm starting to come around to the idea that heroic strike should have been baseline, and FR be the talented "upgrade" to it. There just isn't really a way to make Arms rage management interesting without something small off the GCD -- it just doesn't work. You are either going to have a slow WoD spec where you are sitting there auto attacking for a bit (which nearly everyone hated) or a spec that can dump a bit off the GCD when necessary.

Without redesigning Deadly Calm and/or and buffing Mortal Combo to hell (I'm not even mentioning In for the Kill cause it's a stupid ass talent), FR will be king. And while again I appreciated the philosophy behind these changes all they ended up accomplishing was making the FR build feel clunky as hell while keeping it on top. Not a good first look.

However, even if they aren't directly responding to us, it's clear they are listening. So we should definitely keep hitting them with feedback on the forums, on here, on the discord, and most importantly imo -- on twitter. They seem very receptive to twitter, which is great but also unfortunate because twitter forces you to distill complex discussions and feedback into dumb one liners.

Time to petition for the return of Heroic strike. Nerfing rage regen and turning us into 6.0 Arms would really suck.