So who plays arms, why? And how viable is it for 12+keys? Or we as arms just gonna get reworked?
Short answer, yes.
Is it great or meta, no.
With the buffs we just got itâs roughly middle. Problem comes down to how squishy Arms is compared to Fury. Not to mention the general rotation and mechanics of the spec are clunky AF.
MadOx has a pretty entertaining on Arms warrior. Iâd suggest checking it out. Canât link, but here is a mutilated version of the link.
youtube(.com)/watch?v=zZi-LEY9QkM
Edit: Wrong video, new one
youtube(com)/watch?v=8fWrQnbIGXU
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Yes, Arms is more than a viable option.
Itâs got some solid throughput post buffs and can compete with and even beat the other Plate Melee in terms of overall in keys now however it isnât going to be bringing the extra utility of a bres, but you do bring Battle Shout / Rally over these options while also being able to bring an engy bres in the back pocket.
Colossus in keys right now feels even better than Last week by a decent margin. It aint the meta, but it can compete with the meta.
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I have tried both Colossus and slayer in keys but havenât been able to through put as much as I expected, Scoring was still at 93 pars so obviously there is room for improvement. Rotation no doubt is clunky as heck which I think is the main issue along with lack of through put with target cap, as for utilities warâs utilities are not that that great, battle shout is good now when since itâs malee heavy metal but for how long?, as for rally cry 5% hp is just pathetic, as for survivability it depends on player and how you use your ignore pains, defensive stance, die by the sword and sr, but my main issue is with how arms is performing compared to other malee specs and how to change community view on arms so it doesnât take me 6 hours to get into a key as pug or people leaving my group just because I am arms.
Iâve had multiple keys this week with 2.2mil / 2mil / 1.9mil overalls and beating other âmetaâ specs. Recently Iâve been playing with Warbreaker/Exhilarating Blows which seems pretty solid so far.
Colossus is pretty player driven when it comes to throughput, you need to actually play well to get good results since youâll need to judge on the fly when to just consume your collateral damage cleaves or when to set them up for the following pack.
The âtarget capâ nerfs from a previous week didnât really effect Colossus at all since even with it running short roar, the DoT component wasnât nerfed and only the direct damage was.
Community perception only changes over time with people seeing more of said spec performing well. I donât really have too many issues getting into a key within a reasonable amount of time (5-10mins wait at max), and have no real issues making my own keys. Then again I do have a 633ilvl on my side and somewhat solid gear pieces for the spec itself too, so my experience on my warrior wont be the same as yours since youâre still somewhat gearing / climbing score.
Pretty sure iâve logged out of the build iâm using too, if youâre needing any adjustments to your own.
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I timed a few 12s earlier this week with my team and the timer was never an issue. The bigger issue is just your passive survivability is much lower than other specs.
Other than that just play well and the timer generally isnât a factor.
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Didnât really feel rough in the 12s Iâve done this week. Could maybe see pushing 2 points out of wild strikes into endurance training though at 14+ just for the extra cushion which we REALLY should have in a much higher place of the class tree instead of being in the final rung.
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One day Iâll stop having the lowest HP in our group.
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Ha, ainât that some crazy shyt? Though, I suppose we could dump some passive healing for ignore pain. That and D stance should be enough to keep you alive through something like DB 2nd bossâs pulse blasts.
Top Arms keys still favor Slayer, I think, at least from when I looked a couple days ago.
Colossus is fun to play, but the priority is muddy again with when to Cleave spam with FoB. The ST feels bad, and Demolish still doesnât feel satisfying to hit in keys.
Theyâre viable to push up to 13-14s, though.
Seems like an even split, mostly CN players sticking to Slayer and others as Colossus or Slayer pending key/comp.
Logged keys seem to back up Colossus having the edge on overall throughput most of the time. But this dataset isnât exactly always a good resource since not everyone logs keys so itâs flawed from the get go.
I will add though, sometimes Colossus can feel a little off without a shaman in the group. You can definitely feel the lack of skyfury, especially with b2b MS/Cleave resets, but more testing is needed on this end on alternatives regarding if the free point from 2/2 bloodborne is better moved from it to either Battlelord or Bloodsurge.
But Iâm usually grouped up with at least 1 shaman most of the time so will test as I go.
Doesnât seem that muddy at all from this end with FoB youâd want to press cleave after or before MS to consume or to send on cooldown before building OP stacks for the skill you want to buff pending if youâre in the SS window, or if youâre building up a CD cleave during a boss fight.
The same ends up in the reverse, if Cleave doesnât reset itself with Exhilarating Blows, and youâre not overcapping Overpower youâd tend to follow up with a MS during SS to get more Demolish CDR or build stacks for Demolish.
Maybe itâs a gear thing, with having almost optimal Colossus stats, I still get giddy seeing the demolish crits go off.
While the Haste/X priority that Slayer prefers works with well enough for throughput, it also conflicts a little with the Crit/X that Colossus leans more into. Once you have the higher crit %s, alongside a little haste with some extra mastery/vers itâs damage from the recent buffs seems more than fine on ST especially if youâre still using the same pre build tech to set-up Collat Cleaves whenever possible for those insane cleave bombs.
Colossus also greatly benefits the group for priority target damage, bosses with add waves melt with proper execution from the Warrior allowing others to focus more on the boss. Itâs a group effort afterall and generally you want to balance your DPS in the group between differing profiles that cover the weaknesses of others.
I have tried both Colossus and slayer build with 30%haste and 30% crit yet just feels more clucky and lack luster. Sure cleave bursts are great and all but thatâs all it has, neither executes nor demolish does much damage. Over all 46% of the damage comes from empowered cleaves which just means using cleave is more befitial then using mortal strike, or even execute, slayer does solve some of that but clucky gameplay of arms is just unreal for me and parsing 96- while still not being able to keep up the damage check requirements is an issue. For those who say just play fury, I personally hate playing fury since itâs too mindless and spamming, but forcing to just play a spec that you donât is justing because spec that you want to play is completely unplayable seems like a issue in design and balancing.
Idk if youâre playing on a different character, but all your arms parses are grey on heroic and green / barely blue tier on normal mode.
So thereâs got to be something youâre doing gameplay wise that might not be helping you in getting a proper assessment of actual performance.
Might I suggest going back to basics entirely and focusing on that.
Thatâs not the breakdowns Iâm seeing with Warbreaker/Exhil Blows. Cleave tends to be between 23-25% overall with MS/Demo following afterwards at ~15%.
Cleave is meant to be your top damage as Colossus as it is your main AoE ability, and the talents you take fuel into it to boost it even further. However MS and Execute are by no means useless abilities to press, both of them will help you CDR Demolish heavily even moreso during Sweeping Strikes.
Iâve got a feeling the gameplay just hasnât clicked for you yet, maybe have a look at what buttons some warriors whoâve logged dungeons are pressing in what order and why theyâve made that choice. It might help you get a better grasp of the gameplay and help you improve on your own.
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Might want to update that, bhav- azhara, 94 is the most recent arms parse on dawn breaker
Arms actually has a few highlights where it beats Fury aka Single Target, but thatâs it. Thereâs not many people who play Arms so probably not.
Respectfully, that was not logged itâs the leaderboard only.
There are way too many variables in play to even consider an individual performance and very much you couldâve been carried through.
So that â94 parseâ means nothing, leaderboard only percentiles are just based on completion time of the group relative to others playing your spec.
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Thatâs fair to assume but I can tell you for a fact that, I have not been carried. But as for my logs or leaderboard or whatever is that you want to call. My issue is with fluidity with rotation and how clunky it feels as arms main, if you have advice on how to solve that is what I am asking or is it something everyone else is also experiencing, along with that, issue is abilities like execute doesnât feel rewarding enough to press. Warriorâs whole neesh is that you bring big damage with minimal utility, while your contrast classes like dks, pally, monk does on average 20-30% more damage while bringing more utilities to the party.i am not asking for buffs I am asking for fluidity to which I can play class and the spec.
Regarding Fluidity of the spec, I guess that comes to each ownâs definition of fluid.
The main Colossus key build is very much GCD play and planning your cleave bombs. You will have downtime in moments when youâre not proccing tactician or youâre needing to wait that extra second for rage income due to chain Exhil Blow procs and no tact procs.
Throughput wise, Iâm definitely on par with / slightly ahead of other plate dps in keys now post buff they are by no means 20-30% ahead of a well played Arms warrior.
Given execute talents are largely bypassed in a dungeon build when youâre focusing on maximising AoE, youâre only ever really going to be using it during boss fights to feed your MS damage sub 20%. If you really wanted to you could change some points around to get it at 35% / more rage refund, but thatâs largely to a detriment of your AoE / overall so itâs not quite worth it given Fort will always be active alongside Tyran at higher key levels.
Shaman buff is definitely a big factor in Arms being GCD locked vs having some downtime, Skyfury is that good for us in terms of enabling a higher APM due to a higher rage income.
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So between Colossus and Slayer, Colossus is a lot more clunky. Slayer you actually get a pretty smooth rotation. Problem is, Colossus does a lot more damage in M+ scenario. I suppose you could lean more to ST with Slayer, but at that point Fury pulls ahead.
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My Colossus ST in keys is on par with Thane Fury, but I completely itâs ST as Slayer Fury.
To me, the main draw of Colossus is itâs slightly better a erage priority, and consistent AoE damage in uncapped situations. Otherwise, I find Slayer to be more reliable.
At this point, I almost feel Sweeping Strikes should be passive, but 20-30%, and we activate it to be empowered. However, Iâll admit my Arms stats are not as optimized as my Fury. However, itâs not so much of a disparity that I think it could close the gap.
I do need to run some practice 10s as Slayer Arms. At the moment, I only push with Slayer Fury.
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