Hi,
For me Arms before the 11.0.5 patch has been the most fun and highest quality version of warrior I have ever played. For the first time ever, in TWW I am able to stand and fight versus the best players in the region and be able to win 1v1s no matter the spec (even frost mages and feral druids). Most of the talents are viable, general gameplay is satisfying and I feel the most in control of the lobby outcome now more then ever, almost like a Subtlety Rogue.
Arms may have felt weak because of less uptime compared to Dragonflight and patches after 11.0.5 were meant to treat that, but the patches created many changes to how arms is played fundamentally and I want to go over some of the things that I’ve noticed:
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Martial Prowess talent bug
I want to start with this because any changes while this is present still makes Arms damage profile flat and more vulnerable to CC. This talent had a 0.33x PVP multiplier in Dragonflight, at the start of TWW Mortal Strike damage was nerfed in PVP and Martial Prowess modifier got changed to 1x for compensation. First day or two of the 29th October patch it appeared that it was working fine, but now without any notes the PVP modifier is back to 0.33x making it so Slam is more valuable to press in a lot of cases then Overpower is. Even wowhead database is still showing multiplier as 1. -
Slam is more rage efficient then Mortal Strike
Slam was buffed by 80% in total since 11.0.5 for PVP. Slam just with Barbaric Training talent is more rage efficient then Mortal Strike with all the talents combined making it so it’s only worth pressing to activate mastery or spend 2 Martial Prowess or 2 Executioner’s Precision charges. -
Slam does more damage then the 40 rage Execute
Slam costs 20 rage and does more damage then Execute with all it’s talents, after the 29th October only reason to press Execute in PVP is to spend stacked up Fatality talent.
Given I’m only able to connect to my targets briefly I find myself using Slam even over the Sudden Death buff. -
Fervor of Battle with Cleave is very hard to use in PVP
This felt easier to use with Whirlwind during Dragonflight, and is very hard to make it work even when it looks like there’s 2 targets in range. I also need to be directly near my primary target for Slam to be casted and failure is a massive DPS loss. -
Collateral Damage one shot
With 10 stacks and a critical strike (32% chance in my case with Warlords Torment talent) Arms can now literally drop players from 100 to 0 with Cleave. I have gotten 7.1 million hit of damage today on a PVP Training Dummy with Cleave without counting all the other damage that’s happening at the same time (without consumables or outside help). Cleave was also buffed by 20% on the 29th. -
Cleave does more damage then Mortal Strike
If near 2 targets and able to use Fervor of Battle talent, my Cleave on the primary target does more damage then Mortal Strike (with the bugged Martial Prowess talent), costs 10 rage less and applies Mastery.
After all the changes that happened since 11.0.5 Arms feels like a different spec. Playing with the build I was using before 11.0.5 (even with all the buffs) results in me doing less damage because of the Martial Prowess bug.
Champion’s Spear suggestion:
Landing a spear in PVP is very challenging, I often use charge or other CC to make sure that it lands. If the target has a movement speed buff casting Spear on the ground exactly where they are (on my screen) will result in spear missing. Target may also blink or teleport after the cast happened and the Spear will miss. My suggestion is to make Champion’s Spear a targeted ability, keep its 5 yard radius but pull everyone from 7.5 yard radius to the middle of the of spear at the location where it lands (to compensate for no longer being able to aim it in PVE).