Jesus, does still matter? you know very well which one im referring to
If both ways works and fix the problem so be it
Or do it and pvers find another way 
Random $0.02 of idea:
How would you all feel if Arms had more ātacticsā or the like than just Sweeping Strikes and they shared 2 charges but were oGCD?
No idea what those tactics would be for now, save that they shouldnāt much favor 2-target situations nor feel like anything that feels like it should just be wholly automatic.
very long time Warrior player, here is my take on what I would like to see changedā¦
My issue stems from having hand movement issues so the more button bloat
for a rotation the harder it is for me to perform well. So hereās what I would doā¦
Take Sweeping Strikes off of the GCD.
Instead of Cleave replacing Whirlwind, let Cleave replace
Mortal Strike (If keeping the debuff) or Slam (if simply being an multi-target filler.)
while Sweeping Strikes is active, revert Whirlwind to being
a hard-hitting AOE on a cooldown that benefits from Sweeping Strikes.
(Essentially hitting an entire AOE pack 2 or 3 times in one cast to give it that āClassicā feel.)
Demolish, as already stated, Take away the target requirement and instead make it a frontal cone AOE.
Essentially guarantee anything that got hit by a Shockwave, to get hit by a subsequent Demolish.
I would make Skullsplitter a passive bonus effect to Colossus Smash on a talent choice node with something else (That isnt Bleed related.)
I essentially want to play Arms one of 2 ways. Bleed focused or Upfront damage focusedā¦ Swapping the stat requirement to push either high mastery or high crit
both styles wanting to contribute haste about evenly.
Also if we use defensive stance, can we get that visual of wearing a shield back? That was pretty cool to see (and never made me forget to swap my stance back)
It wouldnt take much to make it feel better as far as the base rotation. The aoe aspect needs the most work. Currently we have whirlwind, cleave, thunderclap dot spread, sweeping strikes, warbreaker. In my opinion if they dropped most of this and just focused on one of these abilities for aoe it would feel betterā¦ as far as single target, if they dropped the colossus smash windows and need for 4 modifying attacks to make mortal strike hit worth a lick, that would improve things alot. Its hard enough in pvp to even stay in melee range enough hit a target these days, much less do 4 modifying attacks then mortal strike. Just my 2 cents
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I donāt get how we keep getting this assumption that Arms AoE is tripping over itself, let alone that WW and Cleave can still be used simultaneously.
We have an augmentable AoE on a short CD, a DoT on a short CD, and 30-45s CDs. Thatās it. Weāve been making it sound as if Roar is blocking our ability to Cleave, or that Sweeping Strikes is just some broad AoE ability regardless of whether one takes Dreadnaught.
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Itās weird to me too, Arms right now gameplay wise is some of the better flowing interactions between attacks.
Overpower being a solid rage free filler which procs based on how aggressively youāre spending rage works as a driver for harder hitting single target or AoE attacks, we also have options within the talent trees to further augment burst through smart play via Collateral Damage.
Correct DoT management through Rend/Thunderclap help provide nuance on when you would want to refresh bleeds vs focus on more direct damage when it comes to finishing off trash or boss fights.
A nice and simple form of skill expression.
Might be a slightly unpopular opinion but I really enjoy how Skullsplitter plays, it adds some much needed interactivity to the bleeds Arms has and plays well with Thunderous Words. I would like a talent that turns it into an AOE version similar to how Warbreaker turns Colossus Smash into an AOE ability.
I however started disliking Rend, itās begun to feel like a maintenance button more than anything. Skullsplitter also exacerbates this by forcing earlier reapplications. I would like for Rend to be removed and itās damage baked into Mortal Wounds.
Outside of this, I really enjoy Arms AOE with Cleave effectively replacing WW fully when talented, it was a good first step towards fixing the button disparity between ST & AOE specced Arms.
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As much as arms warriors should be like this, they never will because of never ending pvp player tears.
Of all the forms of skill expression available to Arms, Rend has seemed to me about the least engaging or capable of nuance, tbh, especially since Blood and Thunder was returned and permitted to spread Rend without its prior application.
That said, I donāt think Skullsplitter fairs much better. If Skullsplitter trimmed Deep Wounds duration down to something that truly needs funneled MS casts to maintain, itād be of some gameplay interest to me, especially if that were supported by a few more tiny changes to make its timings feel more choiceful and impactful, but as it stands it just feels like a third DoT.
- Weāve got a DoT that amps our DoT (and everything else) and then a just-a-DoT DoT and finally a DoT that makes our DoTs DoT with less āoTā in their DoT.
I could do a whole breakdown of what little tricks and considerations and minutia Iām comparing them against but overall, and perhaps most usefully/constructively, for the time being, it just feels like they ought to have a bit more actual gameplay (especially, cognitive load, with an emphasis on decision making) going on for what tooltip and button space they occupy.
personally? get rid of some of the button bloat.
Rend now replaces slam, put cleave has its own button again but make thunderclap replace whirlwind instead, make cleave replace sweeping strikes *it would still give sweeping strikes but now do a bonus attack that puts up deep wounds.
*By replace i donāt mean in their current form that deals weaker upfront damage, but deal the full damage then gain whatever effect they had.
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I see a lot of agreement about de-emphasizing bleeds, reducing button bloat, and allowing movement during Demolish.
- remove rend - either let mortal strike apply it or just buff deep strikes and leave it at that.
- Slam, Cleave, WW, Sweeping Strikes need to be reworked to reduce bloat and GCD tax. I suggest remove Slam and make Cleave baseline.
- Thunderclap applying rend is not thematic. WW doing it is.
I also feel that executes in general feel very weak - just a replacement filler for overpower in last phase. Fatality is a very underperforming talent which is sad for the class fantasy. the Talent tree setup contributes to this problem by making execute talents very expensive to get to for not enough payoff.
I hope someone designing classes sees this thread and considers the great ideas everyone is suggesting here for Arms
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Colossus Smash 25 sec CD.
give it some flavor again, Iām an Arms Warrior not a ā2H Axe ONLYā Warrior
enough with all the CDs alreadyā¦ Iād love to do damage and be able to survive without a wild array of major cooldowns
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As much as I enjoy Warrior (though Powerful Enrage RA Slayer far less than most iterations), sometimes I canāt shake the feeling that even its core resources as they are presently used are pretty mismatched with their name, results, and/or its specsā alleged intentions.
Why should a spec known for keeping cool, being tactical, or even managing a battle trance allegedly capable of bank, burst, and outright Blitz be purely builder-spender (even if Charge, Skullsplitter, and Avatar do go a long way to undo that), let alone get angry only by (outside of CDs) hitting with its most half-assed attacks while calming itself with any of its other hits? If so many CDs are needed to lend it its thematic burst, might it not have been better off as more of a spender-rebuilder in the first place?
Similarly, itās hard to imagine a calming Rampage, exactly. I would think one would usually get deeper into their rage from such long before they start winding down. If anything, Iād have expected something more like a DnD Barbarian, feast or famine though that might be, whereby Rage (and subsequent modifiers) just ramps and ramps with damage dealt or taken, a la Legion Voidform.
And then thereās Protection, which gains no rage from damage taken, gets pissed when he hits with his shield or stomps with his foot yet calms when striking with his mainhand weapon or when dealing with painā¦ It almost feels like it should just center around a group of mid-short CDs, the defensives among which have partly flat value (i.e., AP based caps), that one can spend Rage to ārushā before their normal cooling times, thereby increasing output with incoming damage (perhaps among other things) as to add a further scaling factor.
Idk. Just some food for thought. I like Rage well enough thematically, but sometimes it feels like its existence --assuming near-equal APM if it were a non-factor and one simply charged Rampage and whack-a-moled rotational CDs on any spec as we already do-- should be more than just a way to ensure we start each flight with, in effect, our fillers on cooldown and our first rotational big hit or repeatable AoE threat-grab delayed.
- Maybe something more like a resource with a variable maximum that determines how much resource (as % of max) can be spent at a time, with Enrage or Battle Trance or certain defensive able to drain from of over time for some further value.
- Idk. Still very hazy for me. I just know the underlying bits feel dated to me, even if the result feels mostly fine.
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that was my hope that having everything consolidated here would lead to a dev seeing it and then does something with actionable and well thought-out and constructed feedback
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Ok, so I will try to keep this short and simple.
One of the big issues I see with arms is that we really donāt have a good dps way to burn rage fast. Mainly due to GCD. Now this wouldnāt be such a problem if it wasnāt for the fact that weāre trying to get as many big hits in a Colossus Smash window. Now to compound things even worse, Mortal Strike takes a lot of luck to get max buffed (2x Overpower + 2x Sudden Death proc). Good luck getting all this in the span of a Colossus Smash window.
Colossus Smash window is 10-13 seconds.
GCD is 1.5 seconds
2x Overpower, 2x Execute. Mortal Strike = 7.5 seconds.
Good luck having this proc perfectly. So you usually end up having to use slam or skullsplitter and thunderclap to refresh rend.
So now it looks more like this, [Note, this is not a rotation, this is simply listing the attacks used]:
Thunderclap, Skull splitter, 2x Slam, 2x Overpower, 2x Execute. Coming to 12 seconds. So unless your pure single target, GG.
Anyways, thatās only part of the problem. The real crux is that it takes way too much build up for one attack. What I would do is bring Arms warrior back to a similar state as Cataclysm. You had abilities that meshed together well, you had a rotation that wasnāt totally a gamble. It had procs, but those procs were something you hit instantly for payoff. Currently, we hold procs of Sudden death and that aināt right. Tactician use to proc Colossus smash reset of itās cool down and was massive gains. It had you dumping rage to have that window open as much as possible. It was a fine balance of rage gen and spend. Currently, until execute phase I have more rage than I can spend unless I spam Ignore pain. Which is pointless now, [Test of Might can never return to power as far as Iām concerned].
Overall, the state of Arms warrior is just random expansion stuff duct taped to us. Dreadnaught, Test of Might, Battlelord, unhinged. All are just slapped on from other expansions. What Iām saying is they need to clean things up. Make it more streamlined and give us a rotation that makes more sense.
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Iāve been an Arms Warrior main for nearly 15 years now, ever since I started back in late Wrath. Itās had its ups and downs in PvP and PvE throughout the years, and yet Arms has always been my pick for everything.
That being said, I think the best description I could use for the current state of Arms Warrior would be ādecentā. Good single-target, decent AoE, however as with all things, it can always be better. I think most people would agree that the best iterations of the spec were Cata 4.3 and MoP 5.4 (and Iād even argue Legion was up there too), back when it had just about a little bit of everything (feel free to disagree but that was just my experience back then).
Anyway, hereās what I would change about its current iteration:
Baseline Abilities/Talents
Thereās plenty of these that could or should be baseline at this point, and some of them have been turned into that (looking at you, Berserker Rage). In their place, there could be choice nodes or other talents that amplify the already existing baseline ability, for example:
- Intimidating Shout. Iām still surprised this one is not baseline. Could easily make it so and have the choice node between Cacophonous Roar and Menace take its place.
- Intervene. Both an utility and mobility option that should be base.
- Spell Reflection. If this were to be made baseline, Iād add a choice node between making it reflect all spells cast on you but having its duration reduced to 2 seconds, or turning it into Mass Spell Reflection.
- Shockwave. Having it baseline and replacing it with a choice node between Rumbling Earth and Sonic Boom (deals increased damage and always critically strikes) would be ideal imo.
Talents that could/should be reworked or removed
- Bitter Immunity. Remove it. Seriously, I donāt see anyone using this EVER in any types of content.
- Leeching Strikes. Replace it with something more interesting. Does leech even matter anymore?
- Wild Strikes & Endurance Training. Both of these could easily be made into 1 rank talents, but Iād like to hear some thoughts on this.
- Crackling Thunder. I think this should be baked into Thunder Clap normally, more so if weāre gonna be using it to apply Rend to multiple targets.
- Championās Spear. The big elephant in the room, in my humble opinion. I havenāt seen anyone use it since DF Season 1 and Season 3 (and probably the worst pick in PvP due to how inconsistent it is). Does decent damage but it doesnāt last long enough to make good use of it especially in a CS window. Either buff it or remove it with something far more interesting (cough cough, Conquerorās Banner).
As for the Arms tree:
- Bloodsurge. Nowadays I havenāt seen anyone take this and itās not like we suffer from rage starvation (on the contrary, weāre overloaded with it in most fights). Iād say either remove it or change it into something more useful.
- Rend. I know everyone has said it at this point but forcing us into bleeds is so tiring. Nobody wants to waste a GCD to use this ability; I reckon itād be better if this was just baked into the spec and refreshable with Mortal Strike a la Lambs to the Slaughter (iykyk) while synergizing with Bloodletting.
- Finishing Blows. Again, I donāt think any Arms Warrior suffers from rage starvation. Iād remove this and replace it with something more useful (like Crushing Assault; itād make Slam worth pressing honestly.)
- Exhilarating Blows. Shadowlands Mortal Combo conduit.
- Cleave and Whirlwind. Iāve seen others make the argument that Cleave shouldnāt replace Whirlwind as a whole, and honestly, Iām 50/50 on this. If Storm of Swords functioned how it did originally (added a cooldown to WW while increasing its damage), then Iād like to see both of these being their own abilities again.
- Dance of Death. Iām curious, does anyone actually use this talent? Iād like to hear some thoughts because honestly I donāt know what Iād do with this one.
For the rage overload, we could have one of two things: Focused Rage (which is unlikely, considering Overpower already buffs Mortal Strike) or (and Iāll throw a curveball here) Heroic Strike. For the latter, Iād make the argument that the only rage we spend is on Mortal Strike, Thunder Clap and Execute during execute phases (and Ignore Pain if youāre specād into that and wanna make your healersā life easier, without attributing to your damage or Anger Management). If they were to add Heroic Strike back into our spec, then something like Incite would make it worth pressing during moments of excess rage, but maybe Iām asking for too much.
Lastly, I didnāt mention either Slayer or Colossus during these because I think those are good enough as they are imo (though, as someone else has pointed out already, Demolish could use a higher crit chance).
Iād like to hear what my fellow warriors think, what you agree with or what you disagree with. At the end of the day, we all love wielding big two-handers and hitting big numbahs.
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My wet dream
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So, another small, seemingly random question:
How would you feel if Armsā Warriors GCD pace were more varied ā perhaps even as if it followed more from our animations than from any strict GCD?
Take a look at Demolish or any of the animations (past and present) of FFXIVās Dark Knight, for instance, and how there are quicker (often tighter) and slower (often wider) strikes.
Would you like if we had a bit more control over our pace and could make some interestingly leverageable use of those varying paces, even if it meant occasional 1-2 second lulls between rushes of action that we had previously built up to?
I would love to see Arms return to a high bleed damage style with a āpump and dumpā approach during burst windows, similar to the Mists of Pandaria (MoP) design with Deadly Calm and Heroic Strike/Slam spam burst windows, or even the Dragonflight Skullsplitter haste build from Season 2. I absolutely hate the current design of building up procs and buffs for one big Mortal Strikeāitās mind-numbing and reflects poor game design. I havenāt truly enjoyed Arms Warrior since Warlords of Draenor (WoD), and Iāve now retired the class after 19 years