5.4 Changes

[Deleted]

http://ptr.wowdb.com/spells/145990-readiness

So Recklessness, Shattering Throw, Rally and Shield Wall gets reduced by the trinket.

I guess those are the general spells, and then MS/CS for arms, BT/CS for fury and SSlam/Revenge(?) for prot?

Edit: after checking some of the other classes' affected spells, I guess they won't be the ones I listed. Of course warriors are the only class that is missing spec specific spell listing as of yet.

Edit2: disregard that, one of the listing has Last Stand instead of shattering throw.

[Calamari]

Seems they are pushing hard to make Arms a cleave+aoe heavy spec. Very nice, but without single target dps buffs to go with it, it's simply going to be a convenient and powerful trash clearing spec. Will be interesting to try out the changes on a council style cleave fight though.

[Xanthan]

Seems they are pushing hard to make Arms a cleave+aoe heavy spec. Very nice, but without single target dps buffs to go with it, it's simply going to be a convenient and powerful trash clearing spec. Will be interesting to try out the changes on a council style cleave fight though.

It's such a terrible direction to go with. Swapping specs every fight based on whether it has enough adds or not is just awful.

[Flaks]

It's such a terrible direction to go with. Swapping specs every fight based on whether it has enough adds or not is just awful.

All while ensuring that arms stays behind damage-wise in PvP as well.

[Everest]

Do the changes in the original post still apply? I think the reduction in the CD of Bladestorm is interesting, but I do like the utility that DR gives in addition to a solid burst.

[Flaks]

Do the changes in the original post still apply? I think the reduction in the CD of Bladestorm is interesting, but I do like the utility that DR gives in addition to a solid burst.

The bladestorm change has gone through on PTR. The shield wall and spell reflect changes seem to be in limbo right now as both abilities are unusable with or without a shield on PTR; I'd imagine they'll get that fixed and we'll be able to test them without a shield for the first time ever, can't wait.

[Baracuda]

The bladestorm change has gone through on PTR. The shield wall and spell reflect changes seem to be in limbo right now as both abilities are unusable with or without a shield on PTR; I'd imagine they'll get that fixed and we'll be able to test them without a shield for the first time ever, can't wait.

Blood DKs were tough last build as warr, immortal now with new trinket bonus . We need some damage buffs in addition to the shield abilities actually working. And mobility.

[Spectral]

It's such a terrible direction to go with. Swapping specs every fight based on whether it has enough adds or not is just awful.

This will be done if there's any demonstrable benefit to swapping specs. In any circumstance where Arms and Fury are reasonably close (they're not, at the moment), if one has an advantage in cleave situations, people will swap to it on cleave fights. Ask Rogues about their history of going Combat for cleaving.

I'm not saying it's optimal, but I'm saying it's pretty much unavoidable for min-max players. If two specs are reasonably close, but somewhat different in what they excel at, you'll wind up swapping specs.

---------- Post added 2013-06-29 at 10:13 AM ----------

The bladestorm change has gone through on PTR. The shield wall and spell reflect changes seem to be in limbo right now as both abilities are unusable with or without a shield on PTR; I'd imagine they'll get that fixed and we'll be able to test them without a shield for the first time ever, can't wait.

I'm under the impression that those are going to go live. They're very much in the vain of what Blizzard wants, overall. I don't think forcing people to have to use macros is supposed to be intended, and there's certainly no choice about the matter on Live realms. Also, a small defensive buff isn't going to break PvP beyond recognition or anything; Warriors currently get trained pretty hard, in my experience.

[Flaks]

As great as those changes are, they need to stop side-stepping the single target dps issue. Because right now arms is behind not only in PvE but also in PvP in both sustained damage and especially in burst.

Blizzard clearly is opposed to reducing our overall gcd but we majorly need help in both our damage and especially in our ability to stick to a target which I feel is the main reason warriors are doing so terribly in competitive PvP.

I hate to be asking for all of this but they've really made the game into "if your class doesn't have everything then you're screwed".

[cFortyfive]

I hate to be asking for all of this but they've really made the game into "if your class doesn't have everything then you're screwed".

Actually it's quite funny how that went. And it is still about the funniest thing how they are absolutely reluctant to give arms just a bit of dps for single targets.
Overall I am still quite entertained by the whole process especially now with giving melees in general their cleaving niche back because casters having that ridiculous mobility. Getting something back you had basically for half the time the game was around in return for huge improvement of ranged classes. Sounds like a pretty good deal.

[Spectral]

Blizzard clearly is opposed to reducing our overall gcd but we majorly need help in both our damage and especially in our ability to stick to a target which I feel is the main reason warriors are doing so terribly in competitive PvP.

Not that it's a fix-all, but taking Hamstring off the GCD should be pretty nice on this front. Honestly, I'm against going to a one-second GCD overall simply because I don't like the aesthetic feel of classes that play that way. For me, the feel of Warrior is the 1.5 GCD and mashing buttons off the GCD. Provided we have enough rage to do so (which we don't, when forced to sit Defensive), Hamstring and HS should satisfy that flavor.

I agree with your overall point though - our uptime is OK, but not amazing, and our damage is OK, but not amazing. Combine that with being not very good defensively (somewhat better in 5.4) and we're just not good at the moment.

[Beefkow]

I look at the HUGE list of warrior changes (all buffs surprisingly) but then again, not a single damage increase in single target... i am really in a QQing mode right now.

The 35% cleave to slam is completely random, i don't see the point... i'd rather stick to using whirlwind and thunderclap, and 2 yards is WAY TOO SHORT, it won't make it live because that cleave is 100% pointless in pvp hence slam hits like a wet noodle so the cleave doesn't scare me, and in a PVE POV 2 yrds still seems like a little (if adds are spilt up too much) and SS is still having issues regarding its ridiculous rage cost and range requirement, and again HENCE our damage is extremely laughable.

Someone bring this to the feedback forums or something, i grow less optimistic and more tired the more blizzard buffs everything that doesn't involve out pathetic single target damage.

[Deleted]

The Slam change seems really bizarre to me as well. I'm not really concerned about the 2 yard number because they aren't doing a numbers pass yet on PTR, but my main issue is with it's purpose. They took out Whirlwind from the single target rotation of Fury at the beginning of Cataclysm in order to remove collateral AoE (AoE damage occurring with no change in rotation and no single target dps loss) and although it's snuck back in with Titan's Grip and the Raging Wind glyph, that always seemed like an unintentional side effect for what is primarily a multi-target glyph. This Slam implementation seems much more direct and I'm wondering if this is indicative of a change in philosophy?

[cFortyfive]

This Slam implementation seems much more direct and I'm wondering if this is indicative of a change in philosophy?

They specifically mentioned they want to find a new niche for melees as casters are getting more mobile seemingly every patch and have essentially the same or even better multi target abilities.

[Deleted]

I think the game has become a bit too defined and its nice to see a bit of extra stuff that doesn't make a massive difference but it splits the specs from feeling too similar.

[Rorke]

Slam is such shit. I can't believe they keep pushing this horrid ability onto Arms.

[Beefkow]

^^ the only time i actually liked this ability was when it was pretty viable in T13, it hit pretty hard.... but other than that i never found it appealing in pvp ever since classic.

[Eranthe]

This Slam implementation seems much more direct and I'm wondering if this is indicative of a change in philosophy?

It's pretty annoying that they're just now realizing they made a mistake taking whirlwind out of the single target rotation. Rogues had blade flurry buffed shortly after warriors lost whirlwind and frost death knights never lost howling blast, so the idea that incidental aoe was a bad thing was hypocritical to say the least.

Maybe we'll become dominant at cleave and reclaim our throne at the top of add fights.

[Angelicat]

Having played around with the new slam on the PTR, I can safely say that the 2 yard range on it's cleave was probably tacked on randomly and wasn't thought out well at all. It just felt like they wanted to add something to slam and decided to go with this.

At this point it's not something you will effectively try to make use of it, it's more of an added bonus when you happen to slam something and there are mobs on top of it.

I really don't foresee arms getting the buffs it needs to be competitive. There just isn't a big enough community of PvE arms warriors who want to push the devs to let the spec be viable (like locks when KJC got nerfed =\). Not blaming the community, but just saying at this point I think most warriors are probably happy being TG/SMF.

[meathead]

Having played around with the new slam on the PTR, I can safely say that the 2 yard range on it's cleave was probably tacked on randomly and wasn't thought out well at all. It just felt like they wanted to add something to slam and decided to go with this.

At this point it's not something you will effectively try to make use of it, it's more of an added bonus when you happen to slam something and there are mobs on top of it.

I really don't foresee arms getting the buffs it needs to be competitive. There just isn't a big enough community of PvE arms warriors who want to push the devs to let the spec be viable (like locks when KJC got nerfed =\). Not blaming the community, but just saying at this point I think most warriors are probably happy being TG/SMF.

if they want to "buff arms" then blizz should be buffing MS and OP.MS should be much stronger then it is now.