It does not play as a tactical warrior should but an amped up Whack-A-Mole featuring 4 procs which often overlap and screw with rage dumping. Our supposed ability to rage dump (Slam) is essentially worthless even with all 4 related talents invested.
We’re essentially forced to build around bleed effects (3 of them now with Deep Wounds, Rend, and Thunderous Roar) as a measure to pad our damage due to this otherwise broken rotation, and I never rolled Arms to play plate Feral.
The main aspects I enjoy as of now are Executioner’s Precision/Martial Prowess for building big MS hits, yet this is undermined by constantly having to address procs.
Arms really needs another good look at, it does not fulfill the spec fantasy as it is now.
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Depends on your class fantasy. Mine is the tactical warrior that uses precision cuts to bleec their opponent out, which is what arms is.
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Sure, that is one way too look at it, and I would not argue for the removal of builds based around bleed effects, but them being essentially mandatory to make up for an otherwise broken rotation is what I have a problem with.
Personally I simply don’t find bleeds to be engaging, I want my damage to come primarily from big built-up hits, yet the proc Whack-A-Mole interferes with this. One cannot really do away with any of the proc talents either which cements the issue.
Arms rotation should be controllable whether via building up big hits or bleed effects rather than this proc madness that feels more suiting of Fury.
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Arms being, you know, the master of arms. The swiss army knife of melee classes that uses the appropriate set of tools for every situation. I’d like to see weapon swapping and proper stance dancing make a comeback. idk why druid gets to have stances and we don’t.
I liked when the damage was more about debuff management on your target. Refresh rend for UA procs. Stack sunder armor.
Also when rage management was an actual thing that mattered because more of our utility cost rage and we didn’t get a bunch of free / reduced rage cost damage ability procs.
I don’t really mind skullsplitter build. Like it’s not uniquely disappointing compared to any other current arms spec.
arms is a mess, and has been for ages.
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For me Arms should be the master of combat. A wider array of stances/expanded stances and methods to fight should be the spec. It should look like a mess because Arms should be capable of many styles of fighting. Not just 2 handed. Hell they could use arms to reintroduce Gladiator Stance. Of all the specs, Arms should have the most options and customizable choices on how your master of arms operates.
When was this? UA and Sundering a Target never existed at the same time.
I understand this fantasy, but gameplay wise it has always been bad with stance swapping and ability uses. Overall it leads to macros and the knowledge of have and players who know how to utilize them (macros) and players who do not.
I do think however Arms IMO would be a great candidate for an identity re-work. Something like how Combat became Outlaw in Legion, something similar could happen for Arms Warrior.
A master of arms character that pulls out different weapons with unique animations, that you could assign different favorite transmogs to would be really cool, and a way to preserve that master of combat spec visually.
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points to wrath classic
And again, why did druids get to keep stances with stance restricted abilities?
That ship has already sailed though. If you want to play the game optimally on any spec, you need macros. Heck, you need third party addons.
They can definitely do things to streamline stance dancing and weapon swapping compared to what it used to be. Like giving actual buttons to weapon swap in your spell book, and not making it actually swap weapons in your inventory so you don’t need to use convoluted macros.
I like arms more than fury but I would love for both dps specs to get a rework like ret paladin. They did such a good job with ret.
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In Wrath OG you let a Rogue Expose Amror in PvE over Sunder or you had a Prot Warrior do so. Are you referring PvP?
Old stance Dancing, locked you out of key abilities and utility without being in the right stance. For example you couldn’t interrupt a spell cast (a key function for melee) unless you were in the right stance or had the correct weapon combination equipped. If you didn’t have macros (and even when you did) it was an obnoxious way to build flavor into the class.
And when things aren’t stance locked you sit in one stance for the vast majority of your play. And than it begs the question of “If you can do everything from every stance, why do these exist?”
A druid is able to have a baseline of abilties and utility that don’t require shapeshifting. Short of Stampeding Roar, a druid doesn’t shapeshift mid-combat to use their utility. They don’t shapeshift to use their Combat Rez, they don’t shapeshift to interupt (Unless your a resto druid), they don’t shapeshift to dispel curses.
There’s also a very visual and strong idenity for Druids with Shapeshifting for the few spells they do have to use. As opposed to a Warrior who just had a small icon appear above their head and suddenly they’ve forgotten how to punch someone to stop a spell cast.
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Yes. Shocking, I know.
shield bash for battle / defensive and pummel for zerker.
Again though, how is literally any of this different from druid forms?
And you say all this as if half our kit didn’t carry across stances.
There is at least SOME truth to this after years of streamlining and quality of life changes to druid forms. You still swap to do things like go into bear when getting trained, use whatever form’s version of wild charge is appropriate in a given situation, cyclone. Resto has a spec where they spend a lot of time in cat form. Saying they don’t swap in combat is misguided.
And this couldn’t also apply to stances why? I mean aside from the fact that 99% of people are looking at weak auras, there’s also a massive icon over your head when you swap stances. They could actually, you know, have unique animations for each stance, adjust the color of the smear on your weapon animations to be yellow for defensive and red for battle stance. If they wanted to make weapon swapping and stance dancing one thing, having a big shield is a pretty good indication that someone is in defensive stance.
You seem to think that I’m arguing in favor of returning to exactly how stances used to work. I see no reason they could not be reintroduced in a more streamlined manner that isn’t the watered down unimaginative trash version of stances we have now.
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Never trust someone who thought stance dancing was a good design.
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Bleeds gives the spec some much needed aoe damage, which is a significant profile to have in PVE content. You can’t change that without having either more baked in cleave or just letting MS run wild. GL balancing Pvp with that.
I do think they could play into a master of arms vibe, but not sure how to do it without making it stances again (Blegh) or random like combats rtb (more Blegh).
I just picked up the spec, but I think it plays okay.
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The shift to bleed-focused damage occurred in BFA along with changing Arms Mastery from Colossal Might to Deep Wounds. It was done to make the spec less demanding, yet those of us who enjoyed how it played in Legion and prior were left behind.
Dragonflight should be the chance to provide choices for varying playstyles yet so far that has not really been the case for Arms.
Bleed-focused builds being more forgiving and AOE focused makes sense if there is an alternative focused on instant ST/Cleave damage with a more demanding playstyle.
As for Outlaw being random with RTB, Arms is quite random with 4 procs which overlap and eat up too many GCDs which interferes with rage dumping. Then our supposed ability to rage dump (Slam) is essentially worthless even with 4 talents invested. I see this proc Whack-A-Mole as the primary reason why the spec is not designed well.
A tactical warrior that … yells really loudly to cause things to bleed … sick class fantasy Blizz lmfao
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I mean, if you really think about it, how sick would that be if you had that kind of power?
Thunderous Roar?
The ability to make someone bleed just by screaming at them. Like, if that were a real thing. (In reference to previous poster’s knock on class fantasy)
Some people on these forums have that power…
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Personally, I feel Arms, being a master of arms, should not require any specific weapon for any abilities. As they sit, the only ability requiring a 2h is MS. 1h/shield stats are exactly the same as a single 2h; why not have a sword and board dps spec?
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