Slam and whirlwind (and shield slam) are rotational abilities by their very nature. If there’s no reason for a given spec to use them, then there’s no reason to have them.
The purpose of this unpruning should absolutely not be to fill an action bar for its own sake. Even if it’s not every combat, there should be a reason for a spec to use every single one of these abilities. And for the most part, that’s the case. But for these three attacks, the water is muddy.
Keeping deep wounds mastery so we can continue to play cataclysm feral druid as a warrior. Who is out there saying they liked this design and should keep it?
Yes, that’s the reasoning the lead to the Great Pruning over the last few expansions. It’s a philosophy they’re explicitly renouncing in this, the Great Unpruning.
I mean, look at Mages. They’re getting Arcane Explosion, Fireblast, and Frostbolt baseline for all three specs. Does that mean Fireblast will be rotational for Arcane and Frost? Heck no! But it’ll be in their spellbook, which will make some players very happy just for existing, and if they eat an interrupt they’ll have an option that isn’t locked out.
I fully expect that Warriors will have something similar going on. I mean sure, Execute will go on everyone’s bar, but Slam? That might not have a place in the main Prot or Fury rotation, even if it’s in the spellbook.
Frostbolt has a snare. There’s a clear reason for arcane or fire to use it. Fireblast is something every mage can use while moving. Arcane explosion can conceivably be used in tandem with blizzard, depending on how things shake out. These aren’t just fluff. In fact, I’m hard pressed to find examples of abilities that can’t find a valid and useful role across all their given specs. The closest I can see is hunters, but even then arcane shot has use for survival at range, and EOTB has only ever been a (fun) toy, yet it still has some niche PVP applications in the form of scouting.
Like I said, an ability doesn’t need to be used constantly, but there should still be a reason to use it. God knows slam isn’t an interesting and renowned piece of the warrior identity, otherwise.
Logic dictates that Whirlwind and Slam will have some type of modifier or talent or spec specific utility to make them useful for all specs. They might just end up leveling abilities? We don’t know just yet.
I do share the concern they could just end up as trap buttons for bad players, but it’s too early to say.
I won’t say I don’t have worries. Right now for Fury, Whirlwind serves a dual purpose as your AoE enabler and single-target button of last resort. If everything else is on cooldown, you hit WW. Will they split those up and make Slam your single-target button of last resort, taking up twice as much action bar space for the same effect? I hope not, but I can’t say it’s impossible.
However I’m staying calm until we see these changes in action and their full context in the Alpha. There’s no reason to fly into a panic when we have such incomplete information. And even if they do split WW’s role between it and Slam, it’s clear that the returning Fervor of Battle talent would combine them again.
So I’d not advising anyone to take the changes lying down or without registering their opinions on them. I’m just saying this is a very incomplete preview and to have patience for another day or two until the Alpha is out.
things that NEED to be baseline . Spell reflect, Defensive stance, Stormbolt, Avatar
No one in this thread has been anything except calm.
Perhaps so. I’ll admit I’ve been bouncing around to see how other classes are reacting to changes, and many of them are …not calm. It all blurs together after a little bit.
use it after shield slam so you can say shield slamslam
I guess for the bog standard rotational abilities we just need to see what utility they actually bring. More situational utility spells all good!
The Great Unpruning is all well and good provided their is a reason for things to be added. Prot Warrior doesn’t exactly lack buttons to press With all the utility that can be specced into.
Not entirely thrilled with the ability bloat for Prot. WW and Slam? Eh
I’ll need to see some better-worded patch notes because at first, it seems like they are taking away the baseline free Revenge procs and putting that into the talent. Indomitable sounds like Mannoroth bracers but it’s worded while this ability is active.
It seems pretty clearly otherwise to me. Free Revenge procs are still baseline and the talent enhances the proc to made it free and deal extra damage.
Right.
Should have seen it pre nerf in 8.0.
Am I the only one annoyed at the dps specs getting things like shield block? It’s going to be lame if I’m going to need to carry around a shield and one hander with macros to be defensively viable, something other classes do not have to do.
That’s the point though. If it’s just simple number tuning why mention it?
Also, the problem with Dreadnaught in itself is it doesn’t scale much with character power. Anger Management grows in power as the expansion progresses and your stats inflate.
Dreadnaught can scale some as overpower gets a little stronger with secondaries. But it pales in comparison to how Anger Management scales.
Deep wounds mastery needs to go away forever
Please Blizzard. Please. Anything. Just don’t even give us a mastery if that’s what it takes. But remove this terrible mechanic. Arms. Is. Not. A. DoT. Spec.
If I had to lay a bet… Shadowlands is going to be the “Holy heck Classic is popular, we better steal ideas from it that Retail has lost” expansion. So a DPS Warrior will be able to throw on a shield and 1H weapon to loltank a rare elite without having to switch specs, because they still have access to Shield Slam and Shield Block and Ignore Pain.
Of course, just switching specs from DPS to Prot is trivial in Retail, unlike Classic. So the utility of being able to do that without switching specs is limited. Maybe if your tank dies and you’re trying to save a wipe? But I don’t expect hybrid play is going to be mandatory for PvP or anything.
It also feels like they’re adding abilities for the sake of adding abilities to give the illusion of complexity to cater to classic players.
Because it’s a pretty significant change to the functionality of the ability.
The rest is a simple matter of balance and overall gameplay context. Given how important anger management is to both arms and prot, there’s a strong argument to be made for making AM a core class feature.
Probably.
Explain, please.