Zirene confirms that Arms warrior doesn't exist in SoD

WoW Classic Season of Discovery
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So, we get melee hunters, tank rogues, healing mages, etc… but a baseline spec for one of the classes is essentially removed from the game?

5 hours ago on twitter Zirene says, quote “Elemental was the lowest viable DPS class and got buffed to be in low 4k”. Elemental DPS is NOT the lowest DPS in the game. Arms is the lowest, and by a large margin. So much so that Arms would need a 50% overall increase to catch a Retribution Paladin on a 90th percentile Golemagg fight. Ele is the seconds worst dps spec, far above arms warrior. Arms is far below Melee hunter. So already Zirene here is confirming that Arms just isnt a spec. It actually doesnt exist. Its so far down at the bottom that its ignored and Elemental shaman, the 2nd to last, is actually the last. But Elemental, 1h Enhance, and 2h Enhance are all specs worthy of attention…

Then, more recently, Zirene says, regarding buffs to Arms, quote “Unfortunately no. It would take quite a bit to make up the lack of Death Wish and Flurry for a Mortal Strike build on top of the other issues it has. So 2h is likely to stick to Fury for PvP and Arms for PvP.”. Basically, no buffs for Arms. The problem, is Arms isn’t good at PVP either. Ret paladins, that do 50% more raid dmg, are way better at PVP. So is boomkin, shadow priest, rogue pve specs, hunter, etc. Its impossible for a class to be good at PVP when it does no damage. A boomkin has passive 54% armor. Arms does half the DPS of a boomkin on a 0 armor target raid boss dummy on PTR with world buffs… so how much damage do you think it can do in a trade with a boomkin? Around 1/4th, if not less.

There are not “PVP specs” in WoW. There are PVP and PVE talents. I.e. Fire mage is S++ at PVE in WotLK and also a popular Gladiator spec. The talents taken are slightly different. I.e. Fury in vanilla has improved intercept (PVP) and Arms has Impale (PVE). Frost and Sub rogues are both raid viable in SoD. Arms is not. Arms is also not PVP viable. Arms will lose to a PVE spec layout of any other class in the game.

Its kind of wild that one of the primary specs of a class is completely disregarded meanwhile all sorts of new things like melee hunter and healing mage are maintained. If we can give paladins and druids insane runes that make them pump tons of dps, especially in the open world, its 100% possible to help Arms catch up. The gap right now is massive. Arms is behind most of the tanks even. Its so bad that calling it obsolete for all game activities is not hyperbole.

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Lets take a look at something real quick.

Frost and Subtlety. The two premier PvP specs of their respective classes.

When was the last time you saw a Frost Barrier or a Rogue that had Prep in PvE. Ill wait. And ill die waiting because i havent seen one of either since P3 started.

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Frost and Sub are both middle of the pack DPS right now. Arms is so far below Ele they dont even consider it a spec to maintain anymore.

Also, Arms isnt a “PVP” spec because it dies to 100% of the other “PVE” specs in a game.

There is no such thing as a PVP or PVE spec. Ret, Spriest, Boomkin, Hunters, etc all dominate PVP and are raid viable specs. Arms can’t PVP at all so its clearly not a PVP spec. It has no damage, dies easily, and low utility.

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Arms hilariously is actually REALLY good against Enhancement, both DW and 2h but its better against 2h than DW.

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Does a fraction of their damage, now has to deal with armor, can’t induce damage reduction without a dps loss the way shamanistic rage can, the list goes on. Hilarious joke.

Mortal strike doess less damage than a wrath or starsurge on an armorless target. On an armored target it does far less. Arms has no real sustain, passive mitigation, strong utility, or damage to make it viable at any aspect of the game.

The notion that a ret paladin in raid (where warrior has an advantage, because of no armor remaining, extra rage from world buffs, etc) should do 50% MORE overall damage is insane. Then enter open world content and the ret can just bubble and 3 tap you with substantially more dps (on top of all its utility) and you realize there is 0 point to play this game if you want to play Arms. Its completely obsolete by design.

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Demo Shout double dips, reducing AP and thereby cutting SP thru mental dex. Thundeclap is BRUTAL against 2h, cutting not just outgoing white speed, but also slowing Maelstrom generation. Disarm makes 2h pick between a Weapon Chain or Crusader. DW has to sacrifice their offhand enchant for it if they want immunity. 2h also doesnt have Lava Lash, meaning we have to sit and trade haymaker for haymaker with Arms hoping to hit 5 Mael stacks for a Lava Burst - assuming we dont have to burn it on LHW.

A lot of our offset gear carries agility, which translates to higher dodge. What Arms Warrior isnt going to salivate at the thought of more Overpowers against a target not wearing Plate.

MS cuts into Enh’s already lackluster self healing (my Riptide and LHW crit for 1k with ES up, riptide ticks for 140) by half, making recovering from ANY defecit impossible.

Edit: oh and i forgot. If he drops ANY totem, you can target the totem and fear him for up to 8s of free damage. It usually rattles most Shaman because they dont think of it.

Ive lived both sides of this fight more times than i can count. Arms has more than just a puncher’s chance if gear is close to equal.

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2h enh is in a terrible spot with only the one attack still right? Specifically choosing matchups where you fight a training dummy isn’t a great way to go about it. Glad warrior is great, at beating up other warriors… That’s not a flex it’s a baseline requirement to be able to beat warrior otherwise your class/spec needs help.

Not only that, lets level for a second, a lot of wow pvper’s are straight up terrible. I’ve gotten Rival titles in arena with less than 1000 games TOTAL of arena experience (On average that’s like, the top 25% of arena players, so not great this is not me flexing). I know I’m terrible. Rogue is by far one of the strongest pvp classes in the game, when played by someone with 2 brain cells to rub together and functioning hands (Ex: Perplexity, Nhyt, Traxe). I’ve dumpstered plenty of awful rogues even as arms because they fall apart 4 actions into a fight. That doesn’t make arms good or rogue bad.

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Don’t worry Gladiator Stance is a dead spec too so at least Arms won’t be so lonely.

2H Fury is mid but why play it if you can just go DW Fury? It looks like its DW Fury or bust all over again for warrior in SOD, how exciting.

At least now we know only 2 out of 4 warrior specs will be good in the remainder of SOD (DW Fury / tanking). Have fun with your Era class minus the PvP spec!

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But we get melee hunters, tank rogues, tank locks, healing mages, rets, boomkins, Spriests, 1h enhance 2h enhance elemental, the list goes on :clown_face:

Somehow the nonmagical plate 2h spec gets forgotten.

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arms is not a PvE spec :expressionless: it’s supposed to be a pvp spec. i know you don’t wanna hear this for some reason but that’s the truth

and i agree arms is not good in PvP, but well, that’s just number 1000 on the list of SoD failures. what can ya do

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Is ret a PVP spec? is boomkin a PVP spec? Is ranged hunter a PVP spec? Is assassination a PVP spec? is Spriest a PVP spec? Those classes all have no problem blowing people up in PVP and theyre fine in raid. Way more damage than Arms in raid.

Ret is doing 50% more dps than an Arms warrior. This is your baseline for understanding Arms is fundamentally broken and obsolete right now. We get melee hunter and tank rogue before we get Arms warrior in a seasonal vanilla WoW server nice.

Also, side note. There is no such thing as a PVP or PVE spec. There are PVP and PVE talents. I.e. Wotlk fire mage is S++ in raid and a gladiator PVP spec as well. Fury has improved intercept, does that make it a PVP spec? lol. Stop regurgitating this false trope. If a class is doing less damage in raid because its opting for PVP talents over PVE ones, thats way different than a spec just being terrible at every aspect of the game and obsolete.

Arms should be where Ret is. More dps than fury outside of raid and in pvp, but less in raid due to cooldown usage with fast kill times.

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Zirene really is the worst.

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The funny thing is I passed on Death Bringer, ED, and Brutality Blade multiple times because with the stated design philosophy of SOD I thought for sure there was no way in hell they weren’t gonna do something about Arms when looking at the logs throughout P4. Sucker me. Oh well time to start rolling on 1handers and getting all the macros/weakauras ready.

And I’m not playing discount Fury(2h) so don’t ask.

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lmao yeah

  1. I passed on most of the good stuff because I was unsure if the game would just get worse and I didnt want to exit with any chase items

  2. I assumed with how terrible 2h was performing there HAD to be some changes. There was no way they could leave a class the worst class by that much of a margin with no silver lining and not make changes. I guess aggrend’s hate for warriors really is that strong.

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Such little imagination.

Replace Quick Strike with Colossus Smash. Colossus Smash becomes available to press after casting mortal strike on a target. When the warrior casts Colossus Smash, it also gives a buff to the warrior making them do X% more damage for Y many seconds. Change the % numbers around or the CD on Colossus Smash or the length of time the buff stays on the warrior to balance it. Plenty of levers there.

Stuff like this shouldn’t be that hard to do to make Arms viable for pve or pvp. Steal this idea and call it your own Blizzard, I don’t care. The current quick strike sucks, even with the buff. It is a last prio button where 2h already is almost hitting buttons every GCD without it.

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If fire mage can get a guaranteed fire blast attack not only off of GCD but castable WHILE casting other spells, couldnt quickstrike be off the GCD? Sure it could. But when someone on the dev team hates warriors, this isnt going to happen.

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you guys dont expect 2h to compete with dual wield for dps, right… :expressionless:

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This makes Gladiator Stance look so much worse in hindsight, talk about wasted time investment.

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god damn it, that so rude, literally going arm was my exciting thing for this game as a long term warrior.

the fact its useless in PVP and PVE cut me so deep

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^Daaayum nice parses as Arms bro.

I gotta start un-booning on Garr/Baron before P5 lol

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