Should Improved Slam be replaced/removed?

[Terrax of the Wind]

As the title says, currently on live Slam is pretty useless by both DPS specs. But to keep it simple, it is even more so to Arms.
Pulling out of my ass is the following suggested new talents (because I am that bored ) :

Sundering Strikes - Increases your melee haste by 10/20% and when your Overpower critically hits your next Sunder Armor will cost 5/10 less rage and generate 50% less threat/no threat.

With this though, I think that the bonus crit to Overpower via Taste for Blood should be lowered to 10/20/30% vice 20/40/60% to keep it fair. Probably too much procs to watch out for though...(Obviously a PvE talent)

OR

Master-at-Arms - After dealing a critical strike with Overpower your chance to Parry is increased by 15/30% for 3 sec, and you become immune to disarm effects for the duration.

The duration is short enough that it probably won't have 100% uptime, and it would bring back the feel of an Arms warrior being a master of any weapon, not letting anyone disarm him/her easily. (PvP/leveling talent)

Either of these talents would be a tier below Taste for Blood, and would require 3/3 in TfB.

Thoughts?

[Duckmeat]

Why is slam useless?

[Terrax of the Wind]

It just doesn't hit hard enough (currently) to warrant the rage cost, and HS hits much harder anyway to burn off excess rage. From what I hear, only time to use this is during Deadly Calm.

[Underskilled]

They're probably going to buff it's damage to actually be useful, but they could revamp it to make it more useful, and have it be something to think about, not just mindlessly use when everything else is on cooldown.


Improved Slam - The cast time of your slam is reduced by 0.75/1.5 seconds, but the cooldown is increased by 5/10 seconds. After using slam, you have a 50/100% chance of refreshing the duration of your rend.

I think this would give more use in PvE, not make so much of a mindless spam when you have nothing else to hit, and it would actually be used in PvP, since we aren't casting anything.

[Deleted]

They're probably going to buff it's damage to actually be useful, but they could revamp it to make it more useful, and have it be something to think about, not just mindlessly use when everything else is on cooldown.


Improved Slam - The cast time of your slam is reduced by 0.75/1.5 seconds, but the cooldown is increased by 5/10 seconds. After using slam, you have a 50/100% chance of refreshing the duration of your rend.

I think this would give more use in PvE, not make so much of a mindless spam when you have nothing else to hit, and it would actually be used in PvP, since we aren't casting anything.

I like that idea. Auto-Refreshing Rend is a good utility effect.

My gripe with Slam is that I simply don't like Melee attacks with a cast-time.

[Deleted]

It just doesn't hit hard enough (currently) to warrant the rage cost, and HS hits much harder anyway to burn off excess rage. From what I hear, only time to use this is during Deadly Calm.

So let me make this clear... Slam doesn't have a sufficient damage to rage conversion so the solution is to remove it altogether instead of actually trying to fix it?

Your really over thinking this.

Just increase the base damage and make Bloodsurge Slams free for Fury, or reduce the rage cost altogether. Problem solved.

[Battousai]

Personally I don't think Fury will ever use slam in its current state.

GCDs and rage are pretty much locked in with Raging Blow, Bloodthirst, Sunders, and addition of CS. I don't have the rage or the time for slams as fury atm.

Lower the rage cost...thats nice and all...but if you want me to use it...its got to hit harder than BT or RB...or offer some nice buff like CS.

As for arms...its needs to hit harder in general to warrant the rage cost.

[Snes]

I think the talent would see more use if it buffed the damage more, and/or added utility.

With the talent they could actually give Slam more of a "SLAM" feel, and add utility, some ideas:
-It also gives slam a 30/60% chance to daze the target for x sec.
-Using slam has a 7/15% chance to reset the cooldown on Shattering Throw.
-Slam lowers the remaining cooldown on Bladestorm by 1/2 seconds.
-Slam unbalances the target, decreasing their chance to hit you with spells and attacks by x% for y sec.
-Your Slam gives you a brief boost of momentum, increasing run speed by 30/40% for x sec.
-Your Slam has a 50/100% chance to also apply Sunder Armor.

etc.

[kinetiks]

From what I gather, Slam is very powerful at 85 for Arms and Fury.

[Terrax of the Wind]

So let me make this clear... Slam doesn't have a sufficient damage to rage conversion so the solution is to remove it altogether instead of actually trying to fix it?

Your really over thinking this.

Just increase the base damage and make Bloodsurge Slams free for Fury, or reduce the rage cost altogether. Problem solved.

Maybe I should've clarified, or added more options. I definitely want Slam to be usable by both specs, but it's just not there. I guess I'm thinking too much of the current state and not the possible fixes. My apologies.
Snes made a nice list of possible 'buffs' for Slam but Arms already has alot of procs going (Deep Wounds, TfB, Blood Frenzy, LttS, Wrecking Crew, Sudden Death @81). Maybe just a straight damage buff and/or an even more reduced cast time (cause Arms casting something is just silly) would suffice.

Slam refreshing Rend definitely sounds nice. It's sometimes hard for me to keep track of Rend (I don't use much addons) due to it's relatively short duration.

[Freedom]

Or scrap Bloodsurge entirely and make Bloodsurge allow you to use Rend in Berserker stance for its duration since it seems to do more damage anyways right now... and change Slam's functionality to fit arms better.

[Lazoric]

with the new beta build we see a decrease in the amount of rage it uses. I dont know if it's on the servers yet but I would like to wait for beta testers to give us feedback on slam at 85.

I do like the talent idea that underskilled gave though.

[Pingu]

I remembered the old slam casting animation where your character stands shaking his/her her weapon at their hip for 1.5 seconds before releasing a shield slam noise when it lands. Would had been +10 awesome if it has a knockdown effect. By making it a less spammy move, maybe they could add an additional effect to it. I like the ideas of imbalancing the target because of the cast time required.