Feedback: Slayer Warrior

Don’t like this, fury’s fantasy isn’t to turn into a beyblade and spin around, that’s arms. Execute seems like its just in this tree to make spinning around better with bladestorm not the star of the tree. I was hoping this tree would help warrior get back to being the best execute in the game and bring back feelings of fury in legion. Even with this tree execute still will feel like a wet noodle for fury and on top of it we’ll have this high apm spec interrupted by a channel/bladestorm procs. And we still have no utility for keys like a bloodlust shout/banner that myself and many others have suggested before as at least something that can be done.

I will add that I do like the mobility node. I wish the fury part wasn’t tied to bladestorm like arms but instead was odyn’s fury with some things changed to fit that or even ravager instead to not conflict with the rotation as I feel like that would be more fun for the spec and theme over spinning.

TLDR: when I hear slayer I think going on a killing spree Doom style putting mobs down and juicy executes wading through the blood of my enemies with heavy metal playing not cosplaying a spinning top.

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I agree this is a huge concern but that’s not what hero talents are really supposed to address from my understanding. It’s obvious both our class and spec trees are getting changes to go alongside this and feedback around utility will be super important for those trees.

‘Death drive’

Wot…

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There’s no way to know how anything will go because of the Fury rework but if we’re forced to use Bladestorm instead of Ravager, It’ll be really, really boring for 6 entire seconds while we just sit there twiddling our thumbs, especially in single target.

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honestly stoked for this. I was pretty down on Mountain Thane but this tree makes me excited to play Fury.

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Really do you guys not understand your own class fantasies? Mountain Thane and Slayer are spot on for Arms. Fury will go back to the waste bin once again.

  1. Mountain Thane is bad for Fury Thematically and Mechanically. YOU WIELD 2 GIANT WEAPONS WHY WOULD YOU SMASH THE GROUND TO ACTIVATE CLEAVING???

  2. Slayer is even worse for Fury putting its focus entirely on Execute. Execute is a very iconic ability for Warriors, flavor wise its cool.
    Mechanically this garbage for Fury. Fury’s Execute has a cooldown and really doesn’t hit that hit that hard in comparison to some of their other abilities AND its so limited in usage its a stupid ability in ST because most non-raid bosses (M+) 35%-0% you only get 7-8 executes 9ff because it dies so fast and this bonus isn’t even 100% so it could be wasted altogether. Secondly, Fury had Bladestorm before and we had to make a macro for Rampage to cancel the aura pf Bladestorm because if Bladestorm wasn’t hitting 4+ targets it lowered Fury’s DPS. This is terrible design all they way around.

  3. You guys are missing your own Class Fantasy here. Legion gave us all Class Halls. Warriors was basically Valhalla led by Odyn. The Legion artifact weapon for Fury were literally blades forged and wielded by Odyn. Shouldn’t Fury be Odyn’s Chosen ones? We already have an underused ability called Odyn’s Fury.

Looks like my all time Fury main (classic-Legion. Shadowlands-Dragonflight) will be switching to Frost DK because you guys nailed it there.

Warriors trees for Fury need to go back to drawing board.

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I think it’s worth mentioning that the fury version of bladestorm was a baseline 3 second channel which was then further compressed by haste which fury typically has quite a bit of through enrage and effects like Frenzy.

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I wish it had more of a heroic theme to it. The talents themselves are fine, but they aren’t very heroic sounding. They just look like an addition to the regular talent trees that we already have. There’s no flavor to them, not like how mountain thane is. Even Colossus, which how basic that tree is as well, has a 5% character size increase for some flavor.

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Nah. Odyn was a prick and a loser. I hate that Legion associated us with Vrykrul when other races had plenty of Warrior themes we could have played on similar to Paladins and their variations on their respective races.

Skyhall was awful.

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I didn’t say it wouldn’t be a part of the rotation, I simply said that the developers comments and this preview imply Bloodthirst would become the basis of Fury rotations.

E.g. Legion/BfA style gameplay, where BT was kept on cooldown and RB was a filler, instead of the SL/DF style gameplay, where RB is spammed with constant refreshes and Bloodthirst is used as an infrequent filler (or not at all).

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Themes and General Feedback

  • Thematically I like the concept. (Although it should be called Blademaster IMO) Hard hitting single target with Execute and big AoE damage with Bladestorm.

  • Bladestorm finally being back in the Fury toolkit is great. It has had the move longer than it hasn’t and it Bladestorm doesn’t feel as core to Arms as CS or MS. It always felt like an upgraded Whirlwind which is a key Fury move.

  • I don’t like the idea of Bladestorm’s CD getting reduced as just watching your character spin around is kinda dull if you do it too often. I would rather you buff it up. (I also kinda think it’s time for a Bladestorm Rework where it becomes a Damage CD and has an animation like it does in HotS but that’s unlikely.)

  • Overall I think this is a good tree with a few things to hammer out.

General Issues

  • Bladestorm 100% should trigger Enrage or be treated as one for Fury.

  • I don’t see a lot of visuals in this tree so I hope that is fixed to make it as flashy as others.

  • Bloodthirst and Overpower do NOT need to be up more often. They already eat up too much of the rotations and have too many things tied to them as is. I hope the CD reduction is a sign these are being addressed.

  • Too Many Debuffs for Arms in particular. Prune some or consolidate them please.

  • I feel like there should be Bleeds involved with this spec. The enemy should look like a bloody mess. I suggest Deep Wounds becomes baseline. (Feels odd that Fury is the only one that doesn’t have it)

Specific Talent Feedback

Slayer’s Dominance

  • I like it. I think a cooler name would be “Condemned”

Imminent Demise

  • I think tying to a talent that not everyone picks is a little iffy but I enjoy the idea personally.

Overwhelming Blades

  • I like the concept of using Bladestorm to make our enemies vulnerable. But I think this could stand to be buffed and placed later in the tree.

Choice Node: Relentless Pursuit and Vicious Agility

  • I think Relentless Pursuit is too good to not pass up in PvP. Vicious Agility is a cool concept.

Death Drive

  • All for survivability options but RNG is either too good or frustrating when trying to survive.

Choice Node: Slayer Reflexes and Constant Pressure

  • Both Overpower and Bloodthirst are already spammed constantly and/or have procks, to the point of carpal tunnel, so I do not think these are needed or good for the playstyle, barring some major changes.

Choice Node: Tunnel Vision and Thrill of the Kill

  • Tunnel Vision sounds annoying, especially for Arms who already have lots of debuffs to apply.
    Thrill of the Kill sounds great.

Slay

  • Very similar to a talent we already have. But I like it.

Frenetic Flurry

  • I do not like the idea of randomly having to pause in my rotation. I think this needs to be redone or made a choice node for people that don’t mind it.

Slayer’s Focus

  • Again, unless Overpower and Bloodthirst are getting real CDs they are already used too often and already proc too many things. Again, barring some changes.

Unrelenting Onslaught

  • Again, I do not like the idea of Bladstorming more in the rotation. I would rather it be buffed up than used more often. If Bladestorm has changed this could be a non issue.

Final Thoughts

  • Overall I like the concept.
  • I think we need more info on the CDs of Bladestorm/Overpower/Bloodthirst to make any final judgments. As well as how many procs Overpower/Bloodthirst will do compared to live.
  • It feels like the tree needs a Bleed of some sort. Or it needs to affect one all specs have. (Deep Wounds for all!)
  • More Bladestorms will likely feel bad barring a Bladestorm redesign of some sort.
  • This does not have as much control as the other Hero Talent trees so it needs something. Hamstring interaction perhaps?
  • Add some flashiness of some sort.

Edited for formating.

1 Like

Its not even execute focused, execute is second fiddle here to bladestorm which makes no sense. Also for the rest of your point anyone that plays fury right now knows how useless of a button execute feels to press, you literally only use it if you need rage or if you have literally nothing else to press because it does wet noodle damage. Tuning would need to drastically change in tww to fix this, I miss the days of legion fury.

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I don’t want to get into the thematic debate of Mountain Thane, Colossus, or Slayer, but this comment here is completely rose-tinted if not outright misinformed.

The Halls of Valor have nothing to do with Warriors as a class in WoW whatsoever. It is entirely about Vrykul as a people.

  • Narratively the only reason the player character is even there is because they stumbled upon a Vrykul war party (several of which weren’t even Warriors, by the way), and blindly decided to join what was very overtly explained as a suicide mission for no apparent reason. I mean, you literally abandon the entire reason for going to scout the Broken Shore and are like “eh sure, I have nothing to live for.” It’s bad writing all the way around.

  • The player character is also explicitly chosen by Odyn as the only non-Vrykul to be invited to the Halls, specifically saved from their own suicidal valor, despite all the other players visibly present in the Halls the entire time. While narratively, there’s only one of each Order champion, there’s at least some suspension of disbelief in the idea that other Paladin or Rogue players are simply various members of The Uncrowned or Silver Hand, but this doesn’t work with Skyhold, as it is specifically elaborated on what a great and unique honor it is to be the only mortal (non-dead Vrykul) chosen in such a manner. No explanation is given for all the other random people who show up either, like Saurfang or the Hozen mascot. Again, this was just bad writing.

  • Many of the NPCs within the Halls aren’t Warriors in the first place: they’re Hunters, Shaman, the occasional Mage, etc. At least half of our champions weren’t Warriors either: a couple never-before-seen Vrykul who might be, a completely generic and random Iron Dwarf who is closer to Shaman than Warrior, two titan-forged Keepers who are directly related to Shaman, and a twice-undead dungeon boss who is literally a Death Knight both times we faced him. This wasn’t even bad writing, it was just a lazy attempt to salvage the Warrior order hall with some familiar characters that wouldn’t conflict with future story plans (again: Shadowlands).

I know Valhalla is a popular concept, but the Halls of Valor ain’t it in the slightest.

  • It was supposed to be - the original alpha concept was an afterlife for notable fallen Warriors like Grom Hellscream, Nazgrel, Thoras Trollbane, Varian Wrynn, Anduin Lothar, Orgrim Doomhammer, Mankirk, Cromush, and several other characters who aren’t even narratively dead yet (there were like 35 of them datamined). Blizzard scrapped this plan after realizing that it introduced a lot of lore conflicts (cough: Shadowlands) and issues like “how would Lothar react to the presence of his killer (Doomhammer)?” as well as “why would Orcs from Draenor show up in an Azerothian afterlife?” and “why are the spirits of Thoras Trollbane and Nazgrim here if they’re also resurrected Death Knights?”

So instead, all of that was scrapped and hastily rewritten to the extremely mediocre and even outright contradictory Vrykul halfway-house that is the Halls of Valor.

Bonus example of how lazy and disconnected Skyhold is from Warriors compared to every other Order Hall: go back and count the uniquely named characters present within the halls. There are less than twenty, and about half of them are service NPCs specifically created for mechanical game purposes.

By contrast, other Order Halls are full of named and unique class-specific NPCs. Damn near every Rogue ever seen in the game shows up in the “super secret” Hall of Shadows at one point.

Sorry for straying off-topic, but I will never not be annoyed by how disappointingly disconnected the Halls of Valor were from anything to do with the actual Warrior class in WoW. If I had my way, Odyn’s Fury also would have been renamed two years ago, because he’s depicted as kind of a horrendous monster, but that’s another story for another day.

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You aren’t the first one to make the debuff complaint, but I am curious as to the logic behind why you think this is a real problem. Of all of the debuffs that Arms has, the only one that you really care about and track in any way is Executioner’s Precision. Both primary bleeds are kept up by the normal rotation, there’s no reason to track Fatality or Thunderous Roar stack count or duration, and it seems unlikely that you’ll track or make decisions around this new debuff, Marked for Execution.

You could argue that if the debuffs are not worth tracking then they aren’t worth having, to which I would disagree (to a point). Something like Fatality is still a cool effect to have, even if its not worth tracking outside of some occasional min-maxing of trying to proc it during a ToM window. Similarly, I love having both Deep Wounds and Rend, even if neither impact my decision-making really at all.

I just don’t see or understand why adding another debuff, that also most likely won’t need to be meaningfully tracked but has a cool effect/implications, is problematic.

Obviously only the Blizzard dev(s) behind this tree know for sure, but I think it is extremely unlikely that the intention is to actually take away control of your character when this effect procs. It’s one tick of Bladestorm, not one second of Bladestorm. It’s far, far more likely that it’s just going to be some spin animation you can think of as a “super whirlwind” proc, rather than an actual Bladestorm proc.

My only question about this node is if the bonus Bladestorm ticks from Imminent Demise will affect it. I very much hope it does, cause periodically firing off 1-4 Bladestorm ticks for free during the normal rotation sounds cool af.

I agree with this concern, but I think it just largely depends on A. how impactful Bladestorm feels and B. how Bladestorm is implemented. Best-case scenario in my mind would be that Bladestorm goes to a 3 second hasted channel for both specs, and its damage is increased slightly so it feels good to use in ST for its damage on its own, and not just the Overwhelmed and Hurricane stacks. Spending 2 GCDs (which it would be if it was 3s hasted) every ~45-60 seconds to do an impactful feeling Bladestorm would be perfectly fine.

If it stays at 6 seconds (unlikely, especially for Fury), and its damage stays where it is now, where it only feels ok in ST because of Hurricane, then I would be very sad. An easy fix to make Bladestorm feel noticeably better would be to include an effect along the lines of “Damage increased by X% when striking only one target.” to the baseline ability.

Agreed with most other points.

3 Likes

To clarify, as I’ve explained this point several times on discord already, the practical impact would appear to be very low. As you explain, the talent specifies that it deals damage once and Bladestorm ticks once per second, giving us two basic scenarios:

  1. The Bladestorm proc is an instantaneous background action, in which case there is no loss of control whatsoever; at most just a little spinny animation and immediate damage.

  1. The Bladestorm proc is a 1s channel, which is probably also hasted. Because it procs from Bloodthirst/Overpower, this would allow it to channel during the GCD, which means the actual loss of control is functionally irrelevant - you can still auto-attack or move during Bladestorm, and now you can interrupt/stun too!
    • The worst case scenario is you may want to Leap immediately during that GCD, which should be a fairly niche situation that can always be accounted for by simply not pressing BT/OP immediately before you want to leap; it’s also possible that a /cancelaura macro could avoid this issue, assuming Hurricane won’t stack with such a short and potentially frequent proc or is just removed entirely in favor of higher direct Bladestorm damage.

So in either case, this is probably a non-issue, and it seems very likely that the developers designed it this way specifically to avoid the proc impinging on the normal rotation. The more accurate observation would be that Unrelenting Onslaught CDR results in hard-casting Bladestorm more often, but we still don’t know how often it will be - there are definitely unrevealed baseline class/spec changes to come.

6 Likes

Visual noise mostly. They are all mostly red or brown colored splotches and it gets annoying.

But it’s not just current Arms but these new ones being added to it. So it is the best time to clean house.

There is in PvP with target switching.

Pretty much my argument. It’s not too ridiculous now, but with these I think it needs a look at.

Given that the talent also says “You can now use Pummel and Stormbolt while Bladestorming” I think it will infect block you from pressing buttons for that tick.

And it’s on 2 (currently) spammy moves so it could trigger quite often.

This is why I wish they would show us the rest of the talent trees, because the only info we have to give feedback on is based on the live trees.

I very much agree with this. It would solve a lot of issues brought up by me and others.

Yeah, I hope there are changes being made.

Part of me wishes it was a Damage CD where it duplicates a % of each attacks damage as an AoE while the animation is playing instead of a ‘channel’. And had the animation from HotS. Unlikely I know.

In fact, give it that animation anyway.

That would be the ideal.

Though I did not enjoy constantly spinning as WoD arms >_>

Unfortunately, we kinda need to know what’s happening with the rest of the Trees/Classes to get the bigger picture. So here’s hoping any concerns based off live are already dealt with

I feel like now that Fury is getting Bladestorm, Arms is going to be thrown to the wayside like in the early days post titans grip, they were only viable in PVP.

For Fatality, fair, but not Thunderous Roar. Even then, Fatality is so significantly nerfed in PvP that you could put the talent point in to it and completely ignore its existence and it wouldn’t change much for you.

Again, we can’t know for absolute certain at this point, but I strongly believe that the “You can now use Pummel and Storm Bolt while Bladestorming” part of that node is intended as a separate effect from the Bladestorm proc, and is not an indication that the proc will be disruptive. They just knew they wanted to add that functionality to Bladestorm in the tree somewhere, and decided to put it in that node.

There is simply no way that they are going to implement a procced single tick of Bladestorm in a way where it drastically impacts the flow of the rotation. As Archi pointed out, it will almost certainly be either an instant tick, or happen during the GCD and be irrelevant 99% of the time.

Depends if you have battlefield commander and want to optimize the affect.

But again I’m not saying Arms is too troublesome now perse so much as saying adding a bunch more is going to be messy and now would be the time to adjust it.

Agreed. Just pointing out potential concerns.

I think that indicates the exact opposite. I do not see them wanting to tack anything on that specific unless there would be issues with the talent itself they foresaw.

You have much more faith than I do lol

I am hoping he’s correct, but so far it indicates the opposite in my eyes at least.

I agree, it just sounds like a more empowered warrior.