I don’t mean Blackhand’s son. Of course we all like him. I mean the warrior ability. Because I was just digging through patch 12.1 stuff and saw this in the early development notes:
Is it? Because I have always hated that stupid ability. It never feels good to press. Warriors are all about big hits with big weapons. Bleeding should be a given. So having a dedicated “make enemy bleed” button is just silly and redundant. Especially since apparently the only spec to have it as a dedicated button is now going to be Arms! That’s so dumb!
You spend rage and don’t feel any impact. The passive bleed of deep wounds has always felt like the appropriate way to give warriors a bleed. They should just utilise that more. They did for a while. For a supposedly iconic and core ability we got by just fine without rend.
Iconic, sure.. at least in the sense that it’s old (spell ID 772, circa 2004 or something like that).. with longevity as well. Enjoyable.. I don’t know. Always thought Warrior was the worst class in the game. Anyway, they could change the sound effect.. would go a long way to making it feel better imo.
I don’t really mind it, without it it does feel like warrior becomes a bit too low upkeep for my taste and I remember wanting to put it on a couple target in aoe and it would generate a lot of rage to spam I think. Last time warrior has felt interesting to me was Legion so my opinion is a bit dated.
I like Rend, and I think it is an iconic ability. That being said, I am open to new ideas.
Yea, the heavy hitting attacks like Mortal Strike are more fun to press, but I don’t think you’re improving the Warrior by taking anything away that isn’t a heavy attack. I enjoy having utility attacks like Hamstring and Rend, these are options that I can use strategically, making decisions in combat on the fly is part of the experience to me.
Try asking people who play it if they want another low rage cost, low damage button. Hint: no.
High cost & high damage would be interesting. A way to spend more rage during Test of Strength. A dot that’s actually worth maintaining uptime on. Something that you want to press, not something that plunks its fat rear down in the middle of a rotation and demands to be fed a GCD for nearly nothing.
Now… do I care about it? It’s fine, since they removed my favorite ability: Thunderous Roar. But as Fury, I apply it without having to hit the Rend button.
I still miss Thunderous Roar and would rather have that. But I don’t know why the sudden obsession for Fury to have it since most of its existence was Arms only.
Yes, it makes things interesting in upkeeping a DoT, it’s been a cornerstone of Arms since it’s inception and it’s a nice point of reference between a good and bad Warrior.
I think their changes to make it entirely passive in AoE for Arms as well is a mistake adding it onto Cleave as it removes a fun point of skill expression in M+ content especially with the adjustments to the CDR mechanic removal on Demolish for Colossus. It also shouldn’t really have been something added to Fury imo and the changes are largely based on them making it passively applied by WW/Thunderclap for Fury and Thunderclap for Prot but I do understand why they added it to fury due to it’s weakness in uncapped AoE situations.
I do not think it’s good game design for a DoT to excessively longer than the cooldown of the ability that applies it overwriting it before it’s even had a chance to get to the pandemic window.
Do I think Arms could have enjoyable gameplay without a maintenance DoT? Yes.
I wouldn’t like Rend to be removed as an ability entirely it’s still a good way to break up the cadence of how you press your buttons but it could be a good way to put more emphasis on bleeds through a pseudo rework.
Ideally rend gets made into a 12s CD (hasted ofc) made into an AoE attack again and it’ll have the following properties added to it.
Deals direct damage ~300% AP in a 10y range additionally applies Deep Wounds on hit and also an additional stack of Deep Wounds on Critical strikes. Could even make the on crit portion a Colossus only hero talent augment.
This way it enables uncapped AoE for the spec in the same sense that Rend does right now for Arms, it requires players to press it inbetween their Cleaves and it enables more focus on Deep Wounds for Colossus and crit synergy helping out with it’s sustained ST in raids.
Animation wise as Survival isn’t using it, Rend would then be changed to Butchery’s Whirlwind animation and even the same crunchy sound effect to go with it. This also scratches the itch of players who enjoyed the Storm of Swords whirlwind gameplay from DF while also still keeping a somewhat unique interaction for Arms with Critical Strike and it’s bleeds being follow on effects from them showcasing the raw power of their strikes.
Mind you my opinion on Arms always comes from a fun angle of enjoying it in moments where I’m not pressing the same button more than 2-3 times in a row often. Even though my experience also lends weight from a higher M+/raid pov as well.
I’m also surprised to see that list of changes over the years. Not just because the sheer amount of changes suggests they’ve never really settled of a satisfactory way for this ability to function. But also because I was so sure it was removed completely for a long time. That seems like it was only properly gone during bfa! I guess there were other points where it did exist but was very optional. And I opted out.
I appreciate the different opinions from people. A lot of folks love it from a gameplay pov. That’s cool. For me it was always the way it clashed with the fantasy that I couldn’t get into it. I mean just going by what’s depicted in the card art, I guess the idea is supposed to be a big slice that leaves them bleeding. But how would that not just be happening from all our hits? I do realise how pedantic that probably sounds.
100%! Now that’s how you give them another bleed! Shout the blood out of them!
Meh. I don’t like having it as a button as fury. I’m glad that’s changing. I’m fine with it as long as it’s automatically applied and I don’t have to think about it.
They have the perfect place to put it already. Just like Heroic Strike occasionally replaces Slam, they can occasionally replace mortal strike with Rend. Give it a unique visceral animation that explodes into blood and a heavy short DoT that gushes out following the enemy with a trail.
They’ve identified it’s an iconic ability just like Heroic Strike, so give it the same treatment. I don’t think many Warriors would find it particularly bad having yet another reason to slam their MS button lol
This would also push the sweeping strikes gimmick even harder I guess?
Since they can never figure out what they want to do with Arms, or make it fun to play I suggest they simply replace Arms with the oft-requested Dance-fighting spec.
I will forever see rend in the days of vanilla when there was a cap of how many debuffs could be applied to a mob, and raid leaders would demand warrior not rend a boss because it took up a debuff slot that could be better used by any other class.
I’ve always hated it, and hate the devs’ obsession with it. If I’m playing arms, it’s because I want to play “Hulk smash” with a giant two-handed weapon that hits like a truck, not because I want to poke them and watch them bleed for the next minute. This whole “arms should be about bleed damage” thing is completely asinine.
