Yeah I've been brainstorming over what I would suggest if given the chance to discuss class design face to face...
Thing is, there are dozens of ideas that could work, not to mention the complete spec overhaul some players here have recommended, but few of them are very realistic in either scope or design.
Instead I've been trying to think of ways we could make small, targeted changes that do not completely flip our gameplay on its head, but are also in line with the design philosophy stated here.
Specifically the portion regarding the conflict between Heroic Strike and Wild Strike, which is why we wouldn't see Wild Strike go off the GCD or removed in favor of Heroic Strike, because then Whirlwind would become the filler with the exact same conflict.
I know I've talked about it briefly before, but here is the best idea I've come up with.
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The Problem on Beta
0.5s Wild Strike may well seem "furious" but it fails to provide the calculating gameplay that most of the players who main Fury know and love. Latency and ability queue issues causing the ability to fire more times than intended aside, it is simply unintuitive to juggle the two GCDs, which I think would be an even bigger barrier for new players than correctly learning the nuances of an off the GCD Heroic Strike.
Even more, Warriors hate open GCDs, especially in a spec like Fury which is tailored as the relentless attacker.
Unlike a cooldown driven spec, such as Enhancement (who can even fill with hard casts or totems), there is nothing more infuriating as a player than seeing opportunities to use an ability and knowing you cannot or should not use them.
Consistency is at the very core of World of Warcraft. Whether it be trying to follow a rotation exactly, learning a raid boss encounter and executing it correctly, or doing daily quests every day, consistency drives everything.
The counter intuitive nature of conflicting GCDs and Rage management issues caused by Bloodsurge only highlight this lacking in the Beta Fury Warrior design at the moment.
With regards to skill cap, a "guide" will always be needed by anyone attempting to understand a rotation and reach higher levels of gameplay, regardless of Class or Spec. To add, with or without Heroic Strike, our class is not nearly as convoluted as some who have twice the amount of buttons or mechanics to follow as we do. Until Blizzard finds a way to work this into the game somehow, there is no amount of streamlining that can be done to avoid this issue. The most immediate way to do this would be expanding the information given in the Core Abilities page of the spell book. The long term goal in my opinion would be expanding the Proving Grounds system into a training simulator instead of a competitive time trial.
The Inspiration
I first looked at Monks and later to Protection Gladiators for guidance. Gladiator is a spec that has no problem maintaining the core tenets of the Fury style, and fill GCDs for fast and engaging gameplay. This is because of their differing Rage mechanics but there is no reason the ideas cannot be adopted for Fury. I've attempted to come up with a relatively simple middle ground, to appease the concerns set forth in our Blue response and retain the style of gameplay that most Fury Warriors love.
The Proposed Solution
1. Return Wild Strike to a 1.5s GCD. (affected by Headlong Rush)
This adds much needed consistency, as differing GCDs upset the entire tone of the rotation.
2. Reduce the Rage cost of Wild Strike to 10. (tune appropriately)
This is the core of my suggestion, it allows Wild Strike to be a cheap, reliable filler and opens the door for;
3. Return Heroic Strike as our off the GCD Rage management tool.
With its higher Rage cost, there is near zero conflict between the two attacks but reward for simply not spamming Heroic Strike is there, this gives us almost the exact same style as Gladiator Stance, while leaving a slight rage cost to other abilities both to distance the specs a bit/retain some spec flavor, account for auto attack rage generation and encourage smart decision making. GCD abilities rage costs still remain low enough that they do not get locked out by over eager Heroic Strike users.
How does it differ from Live?
In essence, it doesn't. In practice it means we would almost never rage starve to the point of not being able to fill GCDs.
- Having the same cost, Raging Blow beats Wild Strike in every way; but you still have the tactical choice of saving the charges for Colossus Smash.
- It does have the drawback of spammy play, though no more than a 0.5s GCD Wild Strike, and for the players who do not enjoy this gameplay they have both Glyph of Colossus Smash and Ignite Weapon with which to modify the rotation accordingly. However, most Warriors enjoy filling GCDs and attacking often. It is the 'furious' spec after all.
- Most importantly, it streamlines the decision making process slightly without significantly altering the gameplay.
Where is the fun? What are the dynamic choices?
- Learning how often you can use Heroic Strike without rage starving yourself to the point of missing GCDs. Means you wont simply macro Heroic Strike to everything.
- Rage pooling for Colossus Smash. With low rage costs, it should be very natural. Instead of letting GCDs go unfilled, we simply lay off Heroic Strike before Colossus Smash.
- Players who do not enjoy the revolving Colossus Smash gameplay still have access to Glyph of Colossus Smash, which lets them space out their Heroic Strikes more and effectively removes Rage pooling as a gameplay concern.
Areas of Concern
1. What about Bloodsurge?
I thought hard on this. Bloodsurges reduced GCD has always been problematic for a number of reasons, whether it be latency/lag, low priority or on Beta impacting our rage management. With Wild Strike costing only 10 rage, it doesn't seem impactful to simply reduce the cost to zero. However, I don't want to remove the ability outright either.
I propose letting it instead lower the cost of Heroic Strike by 10-15 Rage, without lowering the cooldown. This gives the proc usefulness, but does not require tracking or significantly impact our gameplay. We are simply able to press Heroic Strike a bit more often when it does proc.
Because it does not lower the GCD, our priorities and Colossus Smash remain unchanged.
2. Rage costs
This idea does lead to a lot of Heroic Strike usage. Possibly too much. Wild Strike may be more appropriate at 15 Rage instead, Heroic Strikes Rage cost could be increased slightly, or the rage generation model tweaked to give us whatever Actions Per Minute seems most suitable. Given the specs concept of furious, relentless attacks, I think a moderately high APM is appropriate and would suggest something similar to live. As I said above, tune appropriately.
3. Damage
Is not a primary concern at this point. Of course the damage of Wild and Heroic Strike would need to be tuned appropriately for new Rage costs/model and to allow Execute to still be a worthwhile ability sub 20%.
4. Those who dislike Fury on Live
I realize many people vehemently dislike the Colossus Smash window and this design reinforces that gameplay, but the Glyph of Colossus Smash and Ignite Weapon both go a long way towards addressing those concerns. I could even envision a glyph or otherwise to modify Heroic Strike (maybe rolled into Ignite Weapon) that would increase its cost dramatically to remove the want for spam.
I really hope we could get a chance to test this a design like this using those options to gain perspective on what those tools can do.
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Again, the entire idea is to find a middle ground. Something that retains our sense of identity, the gameplay that we enjoy, while addressing the Developer feedback given in our Blue Response.
If the feedback is good, I'll repost elsewhere, maybe a more well thought out SentryTotem article. I feel bad that I haven't written much on Warriors lately, due to our constant shift in design.
Thanks again for taking the time to read. I know I get long winded!