Heroic Strike Revisited

[Archimtiros]

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!

[Deleted]

i would not make Bloodsurge reduce the rage cost of heroic strike though. The whole point of HS is to bleed rage, making it not bleed rage is kind of bleh

with the rage reduction to WS, i would either just remove Bloodsurge, as it just existed to enable rage-reduced Wildstrikes, or increase the damage of WS to make it higher priority than RB so you have something else to keep track of.

[Archimtiros]

i would not make Bloodsurge reduce the rage cost of heroic strike though. The whole point of HS is to bleed rage, making it not bleed rage is kind of bleh

with the rage reduction to WS, i would either just remove Bloodsurge, as it just existed to enable rage-reduced Wildstrikes, or increase the damage of WS to make it higher priority than RB so you have something else to keep track of.

I visited all of those options as well; honestly my first inclination was to straight remove it, but I was looking for a way to keep it in.

Making it increase the damage and take priority is unintuitive, whole idea behind simplification is to keep from having shifting and conflicting priorities.

Reducing Wild Strike is a fine option. I felt like reducing the cost from 10 to 0 to be fairly unimportant? I guess there is no real difference between reducing WS from 10 to 0 than reducing HS from 30 to 20, but it feels better on Heroic Strike to me.

Reducing the cost of HS still allows us to drop rage, but lets us get a few more uses in doing so. Still it is something to be flexible on and I would not be heartbroken at all to see Bloodsurge simply go.

[Libertiner]

A lot of good ideas, but I do agree with runey, that Heroic Strike should be used to bleed rage and therefore a proc to reduce the rage cost on it doesn't seem appropriate.

Maybe it could increase the damage on whirlwind(?) making that useful in the rotation and making Bloodthirst worth in AoE situations.

[catablitz]

Question: In your scenario WS is usable only during bloodsurge or not?

[Archimtiros]

Question: In your scenario WS is usable only during bloodsurge or not?

No, 1.5s GCD always active. There is a section regarding Bloodsurge.

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A lot of good ideas, but I do agree with runey, that Heroic Strike should be used to bleed rage and therefore a proc to reduce the rage cost on it doesn't seem appropriate.

Maybe it could increase the damage on whirlwind(?) making that useful in the rotation and making Bloodthirst worth in AoE situations.

Fair point.

Again though, I do not think that anything that introduces yet another spell with conflicting priorities is a move that the class developers intend to make. The idea is to streamline, not complicate.

While it is easy to think through "whats complicated? BT > CS > RB > WS. If proc then BT > CS > proc > RB > WS!" That starts to get confusing quickly and is yet another thing to watch without any true mechanical gain. Why I'm trying to stick with easy, non priority shifting uses for Bloodsurge.

Bloodthirst is always useful in AoE situations as our Rage generator and for Enrage. Having a proc on AoE isn't great anyways because AoE is generally on demand, not happenstance. You never think "oh hey I got a proc I can AoE now"; AoE is a more conscious decision... "adds in 10s, need to AoE."

[Kaljurei]

I like these ideas, but here's my valuation.

1) Rage cost for WS is fine at 15 but not at 10. Leads to more Heroic Strike usage.
2) Bloodsurge should not reduce HS's cost or increase its damage in any way. It should only affect WS, most likely to just increase its damage.
3) Or just remove Bloodsurge - frankly I think there's already RNG in the spec through Enrage and rage management and CS windows. People that don't like the CS window management can always use the glyph, but if it gets boring for them as a result then Bloodsurge could add some spice, but I'd rather that it did something like reduce its GCD and damage done and have it replace RB's gcds.

For ex. right now we use RB inside our CS window and never WS unless we have zero RB charges. Bloodsurge could make WS better than RB such that we'd replace RB with WS inside that CS window. Outside it, it won't really matter as you can just keep it for later or use it earlier. Although this may contradict with our already low enrage uptime at high gear levels due to the Bloodthirst change leading to wasting RB charges.

[Deleted]

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.

Isn't this is the nub of the issue though? If the solution you propose does more dps than this, then people (certainly raiders) will feel they have to use the CS pooling rotation. Conversely, if the CS glyph and ignite weapon lead to more dps then no one will us CS rage pooling. Why would they, it's complicated. It's forcing Blizz to make this option sub par.

For me, there should be one rotation, the right one whatever that might be. Any other rotation creates a balancing issue within a spec. The proof of that is how few people raid as arms now. It's subpar for dps in raids compared to fury, so even if people prefer the rotation, they don't raid with it.

[Requiel]

Isn't this is the nub of the issue though? If the solution you propose does more dps than this, then people (certainly raiders) will feel they have to use the CS pooling rotation. Conversely, if the CS glyph and ignite weapon lead to more dps then no one will us CS rage pooling. Why would they, it's complicated. It's forcing Blizz to make this option sub par.

For me, there should be one rotation, the right one whatever that might be. Any other rotation creates a balancing issue within a spec. The proof of that is how few people raid as arms now. It's subpar for dps in raids compared to fury, so even if people prefer the rotation, they don't raid with it.

Pooling resources for windows of higher dps (CS) is an intended gameplay and skill cap of the Fury warrior, using the glyph and or Ignite weapon takes away from that and makes the class slightly easier to play. People should be rewarded for choosing to play the class at its maximum potential and people who chose the slightly easier option should not have the exact same dps, I'm not talking large amounts, just like ~5%. Whats the point of using a harder rotation if the easier one does the same dps?

You can't have one rotation in a spec, it gets awfully boring and all talents would have to be passive or have almost no affect.

[Deleted]

What if we change the reason Bloodsurge procs, instead of the proc itself?

Currently Bloodsurge has a 20% chance to proc off your Bloodthirst hits. Unfortunately this currently isn't quite right as it procs of HITS AND CRITS, so what if you altered it to make it have a higher proc chance (say 40%?) but actually only mean hits, not crits, of Bloodthirst?

The idea for it being free in my eyes is to make up for the fact you don't have a RB (10 rage) you don't get enraged (which is also 10 rage) and your next ability is thus going to cost 30 (if it doesn't proc) instead of 10 or nothing if you're about to use Colossus Smash after building up RB stacks.

So...

What I'm trying to say is, keep it free or better yet reduce it from 30 normally to 10 with a 50% proc chance but remove this stupid reduced GCD bullcrap. Along with this, keep Heroic Strike as a rage bleed because ...Well because fucking reasons, okay?!

[Deleted]

Pooling resources for windows of higher dps (CS) is an intended gameplay and skill cap of the Fury warrior, using the glyph and or Ignite weapon takes away from that and makes the class slightly easier to play. People should be rewarded for choosing to play the class at its maximum potential and people who chose the slightly easier option should not have the exact same dps, I'm not talking large amounts, just like ~5%. Whats the point of using a harder rotation if the easier one does the same dps?

You can't have one rotation in a spec, it gets awfully boring and all talents would have to be passive or have almost no affect.

Exactly so. I completely agree. That though gives a double balancing issue for Blizzard. We would have 'fury the harder rotation' > 'fury the easy rotation'. Currently we have 'fury the only rotation' (I accept people can mess it up ofc).

So when WoD hits, if you want to be a warrior damage dealer your choices will be (talking PvE here):
Arms - pretty forgiving no matter which rotation you chose.
Fury, easy rotation for those who are new, or can't manage the harder rotation
Fury hard rotation presumably for all raiders, unless you had that chat with your raid leader and he's fine you're not optimal on progression
Gladiator cause you're actually a tank, but you wanna dps sometimes

Gulp, that's a complete change from what we have now. It's either Arms, and you have that chat with your raid leader, or Fury, and either you hate it or not, but it's only one rotation. Overall it's not simplified, it's actually much more complex. So what I'm saying is really to Archi, I doubt Blizzard would go that way. They want a fairly simple rotation, that doesn't overly punish new players, but gives experienced players some nuance.

[Beastyn]

I wrote a similar suggestion I plan to post on the beta forums once I gain beta access. I'll copy and paste it below.

Watcher on your post you mention how Heroic Strike and Wild Strike cost the same amount of Rage(30 rage) and both deal a % of weapon damage. Two attributes that makes the abilities too "similar" and you would prefer to have them merged into a single ability. In my opinion, I think both abilities fulfill a different purpose and should co-exist.

Heroic Strike serves as an effective off the GCD rage dump ability used to prevent rage from capping. It is also used to maximize Colossus Smash windows. It is one of our primary tools to manage rage as a resource and it's what makes Fury feel furious, contributing to the spec’s identity.

Wild Strike serves as a on the GCD filler. Currently on live, it is the lowest priority for Fury even when Bloodsurge procs. I think one way Fury can be improved overall is to make Wild Strike as good as a filler as Heroic Strike is as a rage dumper. I would suggest to have the Bloodsurge proc removed, make Wild Strike a permanent 1.5 GCD attack and reduce it's rage cost to 15 rage.

With Fury Warriors generating 10 rage per sec on average while in combat. Two Wild Strikes would take 3 seconds and consume a total of 30 Rage. In those same 3 seconds a Fury Warrior would have generated 30 rage. As long as the rage cost is the same as the average rage income in a GCD, Wild Strike becomes a solid filler ability closing any open gcds and more importantly can co-exist with Heroic Strike just fine, both abilities fulfilling different roles.

I personally would like to see Blizzard iterate in this direction.

[bertzz]

Actually gladiator has the most "fluid" rotation of all three dps. Like archimtiros said, the current situation in beta is a little strange for fury, you really don't have the control on wild strike if you have fast fingers, sometimes you dump more rage than you wanted to. Arms at the moment is dead for me, i don't want to be a bunny and constantly leap and charge for rage management.

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Exactly so. I completely agree. That though gives a double balancing issue for Blizzard. We would have 'fury the harder rotation' > 'fury the easy rotation'. Currently we have 'fury the only rotation' (I accept people can mess it up ofc).

So when WoD hits, if you want to be a warrior damage dealer your choices will be (talking PvE here):
Arms - pretty forgiving no matter which rotation you chose.
Fury, easy rotation for those who are new, or can't manage the harder rotation
Fury hard rotation presumably for all raiders, unless you had that chat with your raid leader and he's fine you're not optimal on progression
Gladiator cause you're actually a tank, but you wanna dps sometimes

Gulp, that's a complete change from what we have now. It's either Arms, and you have that chat with your raid leader, or Fury, and either you hate it or not, but it's only one rotation. Overall it's not simplified, it's actually much more complex. So what I'm saying is really to Archi, I doubt Blizzard would go that way. They want a fairly simple rotation, that doesn't overly punish new players, but gives experienced players some nuance.

Hard rotation, i don't see anything hard in beta for now, is just strange, current fury rotation to master is way more dificult than that.

[Deleted]

I was only responding to Archi's point 4 - people who dislike fury on live. I'm not saying anything is harder or easier than live

I believe that the rotation people will use is the one that gives the most dps. Not the one that has the most interesting gameplay. So for Archi to get the outcome he hopes for, his proposed solution has to be higher dps than CS glyph+Ignite, else he/we won't use it.

Further, if glad or arms yields the best dps for warriors, that's where we'll be.

[Trubo]

I was only responding to Archi's point 4 - people who dislike fury on live. I'm not saying anything is harder or easier than live

I believe that the rotation people will use is the one that gives the most dps. Not the one that has the most interesting gameplay. So for Archi to get the outcome he hopes for, his proposed solution has to be higher dps than CS glyph+Ignite, else he/we won't use it.

Further, if glad or arms yields the best dps for warriors, that's where we'll be.

Depends, even with the reduced unique gear it'll be easier for damage Warriors to pick up tank pieces since there are always fewer tanks to damage dealers. Arms/Fury may sim higher but if I can get a decent gear set for Gladiator faster than for Arms/Fury then I'm going Gladiator.

[Skillfall]

Arms/Fury may sim higher but if I can get a decent gear set for Gladiator faster than for Arms/Fury then I'm going Gladiator.

This, a thousand times this.

Progression will always require the best output, so unless arms or fury is necessary for a certain mechanics etc. the majority of players will go to glad IF it put out better numbers and increases their survivability because it's a no brainer just like noone plays arms now outside of niche fights. (ala immers if allowed to turret aoe, protectors, and gal)

[Recke]

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.

Well, in light of the recent blue post on the front page, we got #2 out of 'em. Keep at it!

[Silent Earth]

What if Bloodsurge was changed to proc from WS and reset the cooldown of Bloodthirst?

This would obviously be meaningless if that new talent that removes the CD from Bloodthirst stays around, but just a thought.

[Archimtiros]

Isn't this is the nub of the issue though? If the solution you propose does more dps than this, then people (certainly raiders) will feel they have to use the CS pooling rotation. Conversely, if the CS glyph and ignite weapon lead to more dps then no one will us CS rage pooling. Why would they, it's complicated. It's forcing Blizz to make this option sub par.

For me, there should be one rotation, the right one whatever that might be. Any other rotation creates a balancing issue within a spec. The proof of that is how few people raid as arms now. It's subpar for dps in raids compared to fury, so even if people prefer the rotation, they don't raid with it.

There is a schism there that you forget.

The HC raiding crowd is not the one that dislikes CS/hates Fury though, because they are the players who do the reasearch and learn how to effectively play the spec to its highest potentials. They have never been the ones to complain about CS windows and "pooling rage".

It is and always has been the casual player, the ones who do not have the inclination to learn the better ways to play, and the ones who do not care about competing at the top levels. Those are the ones the Glyph was introduced for.

Even without Glyphs, Talents, just a basic spec, there is always more than "one rotation", and it is how you play the game. 99% of the players who complain about it though are the ones doing it wrong in the first place, who never learned the correct way to do it. As for Fury v Arms, there is no fix to that. One spec will always clearly be better than another. Maybe not by that wide of a margin, but simply by having different abilities and mechanics one spec will always trump another under different circumstances. This game thrives on variety though, whether in the form of specs, talents, glyphs or otherwise; and you can't have variety without imbalance.

Quite frankly, people constantly forget that you can't have your cake and eat it too.

[Terminal Lance]

I like your proposed ideas. Just my 2 cents though:

-Instead of upping WStrike to 15 Rage, under Areas of Concern, I would just up Raging Blow cost to 20. RB IS the second strongest attack, after all (after DW Execute, if that's still happening).
-For Bloodsurge, just increase the damage of your next two Wild Strikes by 50%. Would make the proc exciting again, with slightly threatening WStrikes.
-With 10 Rage WStrike model, obviously the proposed talent which reduces WS cost by 10 has to be changed.

All in all, great read! Please post this in the official Beta forums!