Hi all,
I’ve been playing SMF for a long time and lately been frustrating over how weird my spec feels over the expansions and seasons, so I decided to jump into some experiments on the Fury spec changes, after testing numerous fury builds and simming through Raidbots in both ST and AoE situations(and real action in raid/10+ m+ keys), I wanted to share some findings on three major things:
- The viability gap between SMF and TG - the “it sucks” and “remove it” from the game discussion + identity crisis on both
- Outdated AoE damage caps
- The rigid talent tree, which limits creative or flavorful builds - the most annoying part especially in this season 2 and probably onward to the end of the earth till they remove warrior from the game.
This post includes Raidbots sim links and talent strings for reproducibility. I hope it opens up healthy discussion and helps guide class tuning for future patches or expansions.
cannot post link directly due to im not worthy to attach link!
just add the suffix afterhttps://www.raidbots.com/simbot/to go to report
SMF vs TG — Performance Gap
Even with identical gear and the best possible pathing, SMF lags 10–15% behind TG in both single target and AoE. even though I want to put it around 7-10% but it seems the gap gotten wider now.
| Build Type | Scenario | DPS Output | Raidbots |
|---|---|---|---|
| TG (Meta) | ST | 2.4m | (report/hKReseuNqa2qkUYCpzJWzp) |
| SMF (Meta) | ST | 2.2m | (report/h3akAwkeMyJBw4kpDqzm93) |
| TG (Meta) | AoE | 4.8m | (report/jPSFmL68WvmjenrUn5aqQp) |
| SMF (Meta) | AoE | 4.4m | (report/1LT9scDnhqEXhJQpT4Uwq6) |
SMF Issues:
- Weapon damage scaling is significantly worse
- Rampage and Raging Blow hit softer
- Enrage uptime suffers in Bloodthirst-focused builds
- Haste scaling doesn’t sufficiently close the gap
Even flavorful builds like Odyn’s Fury or Bloodthirst-focused SMF fall short:
- Odyn’s Fury SMF ST:
[2.1m] - (report/s8gz43uQqAKaSfhJy5bCcZ) - Bloodthirst SMF ST: [
1.9m] - (report/jWeoc55vdzfkV9qrmSYunu)
imagine reworked Titan’s Torment talent and that beautiful phrasing about Odyn FUry being an iconic talent in the patch note ended up making it conflicts with the whole talent tree and 0 synergy talents. - also that Bloodbath DoT damage, spam BT and extended it to 30 sec before recklessness expires and you have 70k DoT - ew.
AoE Scaling — Fury Still Capped
Fury suffers disproportionately in AoE due to:
- Whirlwind cleave still capped at 5 targets
- Reliance on cooldown alignment (Odyn’s/Recklessness)
- Inability to path into full cleave potential and sustain talents
| Build Type | AoE DPS | Raidbots |
|---|---|---|
| TG (Meta) | 4.8m | (report/jPSFmL68WvmjenrUn5aqQp) |
| SMF (Odyn) | 4.1m | (report/gFda7RJd2iAJEwaWkQqm1P) |
| SMF (Bloodthirst) | 3.8m | (report/mBboV8PTKZ8RJ6fQRSTySF) |
Compare that to a Ret Paladin in AoE: [
6.2m] - (report/pQ2pDicdwkfWJbMmw4zheH)
Talent Tree Lock-In — A “Monolith” Problem
Currently, every viable build must take:
- Anger Management (for cooldown cycling)
- Titanic Rage (AoE or not)
- Reckless Abandon or Unbridled Ferocity
- Improved Whirlwind or lose cleave entirely but cant go full ST without choosing that Execute spam talent
There’s no room to explore:
- Onslaught/Slam-based burst
- Storm of Swords - gone, making slam a relic of the past in fury spec while still having several talents buffing it(but not affects Onslaught - stupid? or “by design” ?)
- Utility picks like Berserker Shout or Wrecking Throw or intimidating shout without major damage sacrifice - cannot pick these without losing a few damage throughput nodes
Even tiny deviations result in 100-200k DPS losses, making the tree feel like a fixed railroad rather than a flexible sandbox.
Ravager/Bladestorm vs. Odyn’s Fury — Conflicting Design Paths
One of the most puzzling aspects of Fury’s talent tree right now is the weird conflict between the two major AoE-focused packages:
- Ravager + Bladestorm
- Odyn’s Fury + Dancing Blades + Titanic Rage
You can’t take both without gutting other key talents like Reckless Abandon or Anger Management. This forces AoE builds into binary paths, neither of which is fully satisfying or flexible.
Ravager/Bladestorm Path:
- Feels strong and thematic
- Doesn’t scale well with SMF weapon damage
- Weak ST damage; only viable in burst AoE scenarios
Example sim (TG AoE, Ravager): [
4.8m] - (report/jPSFmL68WvmjenrUn5aqQp)
Odyn’s Fury Path:
- Offers more consistent cleave, less bursty
- Scales better with Bloodthirst-focused builds
- Still underperforms vs Ravager/Bladestorm in AoE due to capped cleave and lower spike damage
- boost auto-attack and what? in my experience the Enrage proc from SMF is unreliable as much as bloodthirst enrage proc even with this gatling-level auto-attack that put any rogues to shame(but still ok for rage gen)
SMF AoE Odyn build: [
4.1m] - (report/gFda7RJd2iAJEwaWkQqm1P)
TG Odyn-style Bloodthirst focus AoE: [
4.1m] - (report/9PAAEqGZQg6vCq2mL3KaMK)
while both has its identiy(and its great) there is a problems
The Problem:
- Odyn’s Fury and Ravager are mutually exclusive due to pathing, even though both are designed for AoE
- This creates a rigid “either/or” trap instead of letting warriors adapt between burst and sustained AoE
- You lose Anger Management or key utility talents if you try to grab both
- while ravager/bladestorm have synergy of its own, odyn fury that rely on dancing blade now have nothing(was synergize very well with annihilator due to auto-attack boost - fits perfectly for SMF)
My takes to improve on the spec
For SMF:
- Consider a +10-20% flat buff to SMF damage or give its identity back - the fast auto-attack style build due SMF people play because they like faster rage/pace instead of clunky 2h smash, not just aesthetics.
- OR design SMF as a proc-heavy, Enrage-cycling spec with unique haste scaling
- Give Bloodthirst or Odyn’s builds synergy that compensates for low weapon damage - this season butchered this synergy badly(
see the titan torment conflict with the new bloodcrazed for example)
For AoE:
- Remove or soften the 5-target cleave cap (e.g., similar to Ravager or Bladestorm behavior)
- Introduce an optional AoE capstone node with a clear risk/reward
For Talent Tree:
- Rework unused nodes like Onslaught or making it an upgrade version of Slam, OR bring back both annihilator and Storm of sword for it - making slam an option again.
- Add more conditional modifiers or utility options that don’t gut DPS
- Shift minor throughput into passive class bonuses to give flexibility back
- add a node to just let people choose between TG/SMF and be done with it.
bottom lines is that Fury talent tree is currently somewhat like a mess covered in a giftbox - many left over talents and changes with 0 synergy conflicting talents, almost monolith pathing giving no room for some fancy build of their own style, no identity or a person that doesn’t know what they want to be.
SMF is behind TG - yes, sucks? no - still do reasonable throughput but could be better.
talent tree sucks? - yes
forcing everyone to use hack and slash and spam RB to oblivion or get out? - yes(try remove that talent and see your dps drops significantly about 500k)
thats all from me, sorry for a long post and probably offend someone or two.
what do you think about what I observed? leave a comment.
Cheers,
A fellow warrior and an azerothian that doesnt need 80k int to swing an axe