From an Arms perspective, it seems like pressing execute feels no different damage-wise than mortal strike. I’ve really enjoyed the sudden demise talent for assassination rogue and thought a similar approach to execute would be great if Arms sticks with the bleed focus. Otherwise, I’d rather my execute be a <10% enemy health but deal massive damage satisfying kill-it-now button press rather than turn it into a spam somewhat stronger mortal strike at 25/35%. Thoughts?
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Honestly for Arms I really don’t think execute needs a change at all since it does exactly what it needs to do.
Now this is all from a purely PvE perspective focusing moreso on progression raiding / first kills than other aspects of the game.
Being so backloaded in it’s damage is a fantastic niche since most bosses throw the kitchen sink at you in their last 1/3 of the fight and current interactions are a big part of it.
Sure you could just remove Executioner’s Precision entirely and bake that into Execute directly but then Execute’s ap% coefficient would then be just ahead of MS by ~1% AP value at zero juggernaut stacks and then overtake it drastically with stacks built to where you would only bother to press MS at all if you had two overpower stacks built up or to refresh deep wounds which would lead to a somewhat even more offputting rotation than we’ve got now which is pretty smooth where you’re filling OP/Executes inbetween MS cooldowns.
One change in terms of ‘execute’ that’s needed is Fatality, the fact that this still isn’t effected by our mastery or any spec aura buffs is criminal. Building this up on boss fights was fun in DF, but since TWW’s pre patch launch and Ravager/Bladestorm being an instant lock in every build pushing this to the wayside.
Fixing this to interact correctly as it should logically would definitely go more in the way of scratching that monkey brain big hit dopamine that we grew to enjoy in DF.
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Honestly, not that your ideas are bad or anything but, i really dislike the idea of arms being a focused bleed spec. I like the big juicy hits. We have many specs that have bleeds or rather dots dps, more and more we are losing specs having good burst. If i want play dots i will, hit up the rogues or feral. I kind of like having our big hitters. Thats just my opinion though, in either case, good points and thanks for the post.
Rly lame that the only thing that a skill named execute need to do is giving a lil buff to mortal strike, that stacks 2 times. You would think, execute needed to execute the target.
No matter how you look at it, it doest look or feel good.
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From a PVP perspective and at the risk of being called a contrarian, I really like this iteration of arms warrior. The bleeds are strong and do a good job bridging the damage gap while we’re being kited. The current design has our bleeds working really well in boosting our direct damage as well as giving us a fairly decent heal over time. This all said, arms still hits like a dump truck. Especially with a demolish build, you can hit for over 2 million damage on a normal strike and obviously way more on a crit. On topic, though, I’m in the “execute is fine” camp. I understand the lore complaint where not finishing off a target makes it seem off brand, but would you be content if the name were just changed? Mechanically it’s a hard hitting mortal strike thats cheap and has no cooldown with the bonus of buffing a mortal strike hit when you need to refresh the debuff. We can demand that it be a harder hit but that obviously wouldn’t be free. We would pay in either cooldown or some other penalty, and how much harder can we even expect it to hit? Do we just want our own Touch of Death or would it just be the equivalent of spamming mortal strike 2 or 3 times? I do miss death sentence though 
Bold part is the reason why most warriors and arms players loathe and hate this iteration of arm, the freaking bleeds.
We don’t care if its strong or working “rly well”, we want that crap out.
A very slow, build-up truck, and demolish just doesn’t always land, since people can either interrupt somehow, or just walk away.
I would be content if the ability was changed, to do what it was supposed to do.
Sounds redundant, does it not? a skill that does the same as another skill, with the difference that buffs another skill?
I was discussing with other warriors about, and i think it would be on brand if execute ignored shields/absorbs when dealing damage, like monk bubble, and would deal “true damage”, executing the target.
Im fine with being a talent, and that effect working on a lower threshold, but the way it is, hardly is fun or engaging
But it literally is doing what it’s supposed to do; it deals a higher throughput damage when the target is in a specified threshold. It can ignore shields and absorbs but it’s a pipe dream to think that we just get that damage for free without losing something else (particularly because the TWW design is more or less set in stone). Either it would be smaller numbers but ignore shields or be some huge number on some cooldown that will still equate to the spammable mortal strike we have now.
I’m not opposed to change but the complaints about execute have been really vague about what the real problem is. I would argue that the build up to the power you were complaining about before is the engaging gameplay. Demolish being crazy easy to avoid is definitely a problem though which I believe we agreed on in a different thread!
If we abstract away the core design elements I think we’d see the Arms warrior turning into a build up rot class that can pump out massive numbers once fully charged (like some casters). Arms have been in a weird place for the past few years, in my opinion last peaking in Shadowland’s hyper damage (again, note; pvp), so I find it’s nice to see it landing in a focused direction. The kind of arms warrior design you want has for better or worse been absorbed into the design of the many other melee classes in the game.
Is it though?
Slam does more damage for arms and bloodthirst does more for fury(i already hitted 1 million ant 700k with bloodthirs in arena, but execute never goes above 800k) we are in a point execute is lower in priority, and should only be pressed when everything else is on CD and you proc a sudden death, cause the damage is that bad
It doesn’t do the job properly, its a meme ability, might as well give its effect to other skill and remove/rework.
Rly? i think it was pretty obvious it does piss poor damage and it only usable to build buffs to other skills, when imo, it should be the opposite.
Playing like a caster, a warrior playing like some casters, sounds rly bad doesn’t it? especially when we dont hve any pros they have, and all the cons from a melee.
Arms peaked in MOP, and i rly don’t want a focused direction if its a(imo) bad direction, a bleeder who have to add lil buffs, crazy set up until it pump something other classes can do for half the time.
I can’t speak to Fury so I’ll have to take your word for it. I’m definitely hitting for way more than 800k. I’ll concede that Mortal Strike hits for larger crits but you can’t spam that like you can execute. I’ve played arms exclusively for too many years now so I’ll defer to you about what needs to change for Fury builds.
A warrior playing like a caster doesn’t sound bad to me at all since I don’t think about design in this game in terms of lore. If the current design is to charge up a buff then there is no problem with that; it’s a standard mechanic. It’s still not clear what you’re actually looking for. It sounds like you just want the whack-a-mole!
If you play colossus, Slam does more damage than execute as well, dunno how it is with slayer, but prob does less as well, with the recent buffs and right talents slam hit hard
Its not about lore, is about gameplay, casters have a way to play because they are ranged, melee have another dynamic
Other dps just seem to do better the “charge and pump” thing, since our MS charge rely on 2+ skills and RNG.
MOP arms, thats what im looking for
Or at least more like fury plays, without crazy set ups to do what other dps do with half the time.
You have to show me the math or link me to a discussion about this where this is being demonstrated because I’m not seeing that at all. I’m happy to change my mind though.
IT what colossus players tell to me in the PVP discord, they are pumping 2100/2400 ranking, so i believe then, seeing how lame execute doe for fury.
Execute i only good for prot, weirdly enough, doing crazy damage.
Obviously that’s not good enough to go on. I don’t even see top rated colossus players even running barbaric training. There is no way that slam is pumping out execute damage but like I said before I’m happy to change my mind so if your discord friends have some kind of secret they want to share then I’m ready to start spamming slam.
It sounds like the play style you’re looking for is literally fury! I’m not at all opposed to change but to change execute for the sake of vibes doesn’t win me over, at least not for arms. If you want to win me over you could be more specific about things like how certain talents interact with it (ie; fatality).
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I did some dumming tests, and slam was able to crit for average 700-800k while execute capped at 778k and one luck hit that did 900k, dunno how.
It was more of my dps, cause sudden death procs, but when you are fully buffed, a slam crit hurts better more often.
Without crits, execute did more 50-100k in average, but still, not good numbers when MS is doing 1kk and demolish 2kk.
PS: fury gear, so, messed up.
Im looking for what arms used to be, sadly, only fury is now giving me that
I don’t rly want to win you over though, we as people think different, there is not a middle ground here, cause while you like the current iteration, i want current arms to be torn apart and made a new with a rework, we will never agree on that matter, and i’m not trying to be rude or anything, i just despise arms now
I think other classe are playing modern wow, while arms is tuck in the archaic, bad design era, slowly building up until you pump something worthy, and that is not in line with the fast paced game wow is now, especially knowing how frail warrior is, with barely no self heal to survive until you get there, unlike a paladin. So more chances you die before you do the set up, or actually kill the person even more setting up, fatality by example is dogpiss in pvp, you never get enough stacks to be worthy.
It takes AGES to pump 10 stacks of demolish, when you do it, other specs already bursted twice or more.
I think we can agree that to each their own 
. It does suit my preferred playstyle and I hope one day you get the design you’re after. I still firmly disagree about the damage output though; this is my chart on the PVE dummy after only 2 minutes of rotation. The PVP dummy would obviously have been much higher.
https://imgur.com/a/MX17B7A
For funsies, here is demolish since I got a nice crit
https://imgur.com/a/o6t8yBF
PVE and PVP are different kind of beasts with different modifiers
Okay… so something like this? This is the PVP test dummy:
https://imgur.com/a/bOMMHyu
I didn’t crit my execute with all buffs on this 2 minute run but seeing as my normal hit maxed at the crit number I think it proves the point. And the funsies demolish is way higher.
Like i said, i don think you will believe either way, and i cant proof myself since im in full fury gear, but you can hop on skyhold and ask the warrirors there for the details.
There’s the crux of the issue you’re coming at this from a PvP angle where modifiers are adjusted for more consistent damage over burst, whereas the PvE base %s are built around a consistent and burst damage profile so specs don’t exceed expected performance.
Slam has a ridiculous 2.5x PvP modifier so you’re conditioned poorly in thinking that execute doesn’t do much more than it since Slams are hitting just shy of what a Mortal Strike would hit, while Executes only have a PvP modifier of 1x so no change at all from PvE to PvP hence why there doesn’t seem to be any difference between Slam and Execute other than modifying your following MS with EP which has a 0.03x modifier on the buff so even then it’s not that much at all.
This is a massive issue with the PvP balancing team and how they balance specs due to how nerfed talents are from balance choices they made expansions ago and by no means an issue with the baseline of Arms itself.
Bleeds also look ‘excessive’ in PvP because you’re not always on target but your bleeds will always be ticking assuming you’re able to connect often enough to keep damage rolling.
Both Rend and Deep Wounds are 12% (Slayer) or 16% (Colossus) of your damage profile on a single target with full uptime.
Definitely an uptime issue that’s PvP specific and not really a problem in PvE, but they’re also different beasts. Not that I’ve really bothered to PvP much outside of just snagging the elite set and yeeting out because Arenas are awful now and nothing like they used to be, but even in some of the Colossus matches I messed about in, building up the burst as a ‘surprise attack’ after baiting them with other cooldowns did work quite well with a proper set-up. Unhinged bladestorms, Exhil blow and Battlelord procs do somewhat help in getting those stacks faster and building up CDR for the next cast but the lack of high critical strike pieces was definitely an issue.
To optimise Colossus in PvP you’d probably need to farm multiple M track high crit / low vers PvE pieces and then craft Crit/Vers gear 639 pieces on a few slots to gain the stats needed for it.
I don’t understand how this is an issue, at all, since i made sure i was talking about PVP regarding the execute x other skills, when i said arena
How im conditioned to think poorly, if it is the case?
constant clashing PVP arguments with PVE takes are honestly pointless, it looks like fighting to see which mode of game is right or wrong.
What i can agree is that in both PVE and PVP and hate the arms design.
SO it is an issue nonetheless, im sorry, i just cannot enjoy this dogpiss design of pilling up buffs and stacks until you can do something, while other classes/specs do better without this chore and set up, its way too much punishments for no good return when a feral can do with a feral bite what arms can do with demolish.
Even in PVE is boring to me since mot adds die before you pile up the stacks, or your stacks drops if you do not enter combat again, but i guess in mythic with that much afflictions is not an issue, since ages are as hard a bosses…but i hardly think a spec designed to only work well on mythic is a good one, so i still vote for a rework and an execute change, regardless of the game mode