So Warrior head runes consist of Shield Mastery, Vigilance, and Taste for Blood. Shield Mastery is for Gladiator, Vigilance is for tanks. Taste for Blood is for nobody. It might be a slight damage increase for Arms at the cost of a much clunkier rotation. It will be a damage loss to try to weave it into Fury. This feels like it was just copy pasted from WotLK with zero thought, much like Blood Surge in phase 2 which still doesn’t proc off of Mortal Strike. Is this rune slot just gonna be a dead space for DPS Warriors?
4 Likes
Blood Surge, even if it worked with Mortal Strike, is just flat out worse than Precise Timing for Arms. There is no reason for BS to work on Mortal Strike. BS is for dual wield builds only.
As for Taste for Blood: I like it a lot for Arms and two-hand Fury. You can basically just stay in battle stance on a single target. MS/Slam/OP leaves you with one free global every 6 seconds, which will sometimes be used to re-apply Rend. All of those abilities are stronger on a single target than Whirlwind.
It is pretty bad for dual wield builds, though.
3 Likes
You can’t just sit in battle stance. You lose 3% crit. You’ll have to stance swap for Berserker Rage and Pummel. For any cleave fight, Whirlwind becomes a better button, meaning more stance swapping. The only way Taste for Blood isn’t trash is if they allow Rend and Overpower to be used in Berserker stance when using the rune.
As for Blood Surge, it’s supposed to be a choice between Slam on a CD, or a free proc. Arms players don’t even get that choice since the proc doesn’t work with MS (works fine with Quick Strike Arms though)
2 Likes
Overpower has a 50% crit bonus when talented. You can absolutely sit in battle stance and give up a passive 3% crit in exchange for being able to use an ability with 50% crit on cooldown (which btw crits at 220% damage thanks to Impale, unlike your autos)
It’s not a choice. Even if it worked with Mortal Strike: the guaranteed instant slam every 6 seconds is always better than a 30% chance to get an instant slam every 6 seconds.
Two-hand Fury would also use Precise Timing, if you were playing that build. It’s just a better rune than Blood Surge when you have a two-hand weapon equipped. BS is for dual wield only, which is why it only works with Bloodthirst.
If dual wield Arms ever becomes a thing: we have bigger issues to worry about than this rune.
I’m not a huge fan of it in kebab, but to OP’s original point I’m kinda reserving judgement until I see how it feels. I think given how disappointed I felt the hit situation was, big 2h arms is looking interesting.
That said I am the world’s worst DPS.
-Horse
We’ll be hit capped 10 ways to Tuesday at 50.
Holy crap I am super excited about it too. Just getting all 3 rewards from the class quest was damned massive.
-Horse
Wat. I didn’t hear about that.
They’re so extremely thorough with the foam padding on any even remotely sharp edge in Classic.
I am going to respectfully disagree here, and here’s why: Razorsteel Shoulders and Fury visor are fun, but you and I both know Diamond Flask is the clear winner. Later on, there’s other quests where the choices get harder for folks - Druids with Mark of Tyranny or Blackhand’s Breadth.
This is a seasonal server and a seasonal game. And while it kinda sucks sometimes to have put in the hours to have gotten something the hard way (like having them change the Ashenvale quest to be daily now - so, not sure what queues will be like), I like having the ability to spin up alts and experiment and experience as well, without the risk of bricking my character.
Dunno, man, Phase 2 was a damned slog as a tank. It was long and awful. I’m happy to be getting a bone and playing a bit for play’s sake. I hope something in the kit and quest is doing that for you too.
Regards,
-Horse
I don’t mind opportunity cost. Different strokes.
1 Like
Im dual specced, and playing on an alt. Keeping gear and hot bars and such up to date is good enough for me.
Just “That may have been your forever bis, now you have to run alchemy” isn’t something I want to say.
You bring up a good point with opportunity cost. The longer a character lives, unlocks things, grinds rep, levels, fishes - the more that oppportunity cost becomes, so I’m not surprised to see those sharp edges becoming less so as we age. I’m old and clumsy. 
I think Dps warriors are getting the melee hunter treatment. Not the damage just the forced gameplay style. Looks like glad stance might be the top dps spec based off speculation on the fightclub discord. Shield slam is now double scaling.
Is a insane rune to have for warriors… if it’s the wotlk version which its looking it is… it’s insane don’t buy into this cope people
Just making sure…no HEAD rune for DPS WARRIOR?
What is Wrecking Crew for then?
1 Like
Wrists /10
Says ‘helm’.
If Gladiator Stance is competitive for damage (I really hope it’s not) then you won’t be talented for Shield Slam… you will be talented for Flurry + Deep Wounds while spamming Devastate.
Super boring and lame thematically. I hope that Devastate just does not proc while in Gladiator Stance, otherwise it will be competitive.
Ideally, Gladiator Stance is just a PvP rune for Prot Warriors (so they’re not totally useless if they queue up for PvP while talented as Protection). I don’t think it will be necessarily good in PvP… but at least it’s something for people who enjoy that playstyle.
I really don’t get the people undervaluing Taste for Blood. Instead of sitting in Berserker Stance and stance dancing to hit overpower, this will incentivize sitting in Battle Stance and stance dancing just to hit Berserker Rage and WW (in cleave situations). Since those abilities are on a set CD, you can plan your rage management to minimize the rage loss from stance dancing far more easily than you could when the mob randomly got a dodge while you were at high rage and your big rage dumps were on cooldown.
In exchange for the 3% crit from Berserker Stance, we will get to use our most impactful ability with an enormous crit chance and low rage cost every 6 seconds instead of relying on RNG.
This is the best rune for Arms so far in SOD. I can’t wait.
Edit to add: This is the exact kind of rune that I missed in phase 2. It’s not some passive thing that doesn’t affect our playstyle. It’s actually encouraging a slightly different gameplay. I only hope it is available early in our leveling to 50.
2 Likes
Shield Mastery isn’t confirmed yet
Let’s assume for the moment that taste for blood is worthwhile for Arms, most everyone says it’s not, but let’s just suppose it is. What Helm rune is there for Fury? You can’t just not have an option for one of the specs.