So with the new gladiator rune it seems it is preforming far far better going arms/fury spamming devastate and abusing deep wounds rather than deep prot to get shield slam. Gladiator stance and Shield mastery runes are buffing deep wounds damage. While not expecting SS to do the #1 damage it feels it needs a bit more than simply doubling the block value damage, (raid only has 100 block value and no gear outside of the raid has any BV), on SS itself. An extra buff in the sword and board rune to allow SS a damage spike when the ability procs would be nice and/or something extra in the shield mastery rune.
It’s great there’s a build that doesn’t need SS to do damage but it feels weird that SS build is so much lower when Gladiator was all about 1h+SHIELD. The iconic shield damage skill should do a lot more for it than just extra threat.
Could even make one of the runes give you SS as an extra ability so you don’t need to go full prot to get it. If you can make melee hunters top damage and shaman amazing I think being able to slam a shield in someone’s face should be just as harmful.