Potential Changes, Arms

The following was posted by Celestalon today on WoW forum thread about Fury Feedback, but in it he dropped a ton of information on "potential" Arms changes.

"So, we don't often share our thoughts on upcoming changes this early, as plans can change very rapidly. Please keep in mind that none of the following is set in stone – it hasn't even been developed yet – and there’s any number of issues that could cause us to decide to take a different approach. That said, we definitely agree that Arms feels a bit empty at the moment, and want to fill it out a bit more, and we want to add some talent choices to both Arms and Fury that provide options for more involved gameplay. Here’s what we're thinking:

Rage generation increased by 20% for Arms.

Rend returns for Arms. Costs 10 Rage, deals damage over 18sec, with a burst of bleed damage at the end. Total damage is similar to a Mortal Strike.

Thunder Clap is usable in any stance. AoE damage and snares, 6sec cooldown. 30 Rage cost for Arms, free for Protection.

We’re replace the level 45 talent row (Staggering Shout / Piercing Howl / Disrupting Shout) with:

Varies by spec:

Arms – Taste for Blood: Passive. Rend ticks grant 3 Rage.

Fury – Furious Strikes: Passive. Reduces the cost of Wild Strike by 10 Rage.

Protection – Heavy Repercussions: Passive. Shield Slam deals 50% additional damage while Shield Block or Shield Charge is active.

Sudden Death: Passive. Auto attacks have a chance to trigger Sudden Death, making your next Execute free and usable on targets above 20% health.

Varies by spec:

Arms – Slam: Active ability. Costs 10 Rage. Deals 100% weapon damage. Each consecutive use increases Slam’s damage by 50% and Rage cost by 100%, stacking up to 2 times. Benefits from Mastery.

Fury – Unquenchable Thirst: Passive. Bloodthirst has no cooldown.

Protection – Unyielding Strikes: Passive. Devastate reduces the Rage cost of Heroic Strike by 6, stacking up to 5 times. Lasts 10 sec. No longer refreshes while at 5 stacks.

Again, this is all very much in the formative stages. Any or all of the above could end up changing in any number of ways. But we are listening, and are doing our best to make Warrior gameplay awesome in Warlords.

EDIT: As mentioned, lots of iteration on these early plans. Changed the +25% Rage gen to +20%, so that 3.6speed weapon swings generate an even 30 rage. Changed Slam's max stack count to 2, since Slamming at any point higher than that is a trap.

EDIT 2: Clarified that Heavy Repercussions does count Shield Charge as well.

EDIT 3: Oh, forgot to mention, Slam benefits from Mastery."

So in the bold we have the Arms specific changes, which as I wrote about earlier show that we are in fact getting slam back. The  change to the level 45 talent row, which to me makes no sense what so ever, they should have replaced the level 75 talents with these new ones. I am not anti stance dancing we have been doing it for as long as I can remember, even to this day we can do it in Siege of Orgrimmar for added survive-ability against Garrosh, my issue with the current iteration of stance dancing is that it is going to completely neuter DPS out put. Now to the pros of this change we get an interesting choice between Taste for Blood, Sudden Death and Slam, early on Taste for Blood could be the best option, especially since white hits are so slow currently on beta which means rage generation is equally slow. However if Rage generation normalizes with the 20% increase mentioned, the real choice will be between Slam and what essentially is our T16 4 piece bonus, I have personally enjoyed the T16 bonus game play wise but Slam could also be good depending on the base rage cost which was not given.

Rend comes back which I have actually missed for awhile now and Thunder Clap is now usable in any stance which gives 2 more abilities to use in our rotation.

These potential changes were put before I code type up my initial impressions of the Beta Arms so here are some notes so far.

In T16 normal raid gear, mobs in the first 2 zones are butter, however rage gen is an issue. I am getting 2-3 white attacks in before I have rage for an ability and by that point the mob is almost dead anyway, which hey makes me feel super powerful, but is not very fun. My second issue was the lack of abilities, which Blizzard seems to be addressing. Other than that the beta is amazing I said I wouldn't quest, but that didn't last long and to tell you the truth I am enjoying every bit of the story, even if we are lacking the pre-event to explain a little bit of the stuff. And the item squish on level 90+ content isn't noticeable, but I have not tried out my favorite solo farm run Black Temple, when I find a moment I will run it and report on how it felt.