Arms war concept

Classes Warrior
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Hi brave warriors! I think, many of us do not like arms war play style from SL/DF. So, what if we could change it? I know, it is just a fantasy, cuz blizz already have their own vision of arms, but there is still a hope for changes…
So, I want to show you my concept. And it would be interesting to see urs.
I am PvP player, so i will talk about PvP play style first of all. As for PvE, I think Arms should be raid/boss spec with some AoE, but less then Fury.

Right now we have fury war playstyle: fast and furious, lots of procs, hack-n-slash…
Arms warrior should be different.
Our playstyle should be build around: Mortal strike (MS), Overpower (OP), Colossus smash (CS), Execute (E), Rend (R), Deep wounds (DW), Bladestorm (BS), Sweeping strikes (SS), Anger management (AM). That is all!
Leave Cleave for PvE AOE, leave whirlwind for fury (at least they do not have bladestorm), leave heroic strike in the past, leave Avatar for tank, leave slam… just leave it! Slam is boring and useless ability. We need huge rework on slam. Probably add cast time affect again. This is not for PvP anyway.

Arms war should be a build about bleeds (R, DW) for some passive pressure and short burst windows (CS+AM).

MS must deal real damage and apply mortal effect! This is iconic spell for Arms! Do u remember classic? MS was the final and most powerful talent in arms tree. Bring it back!

OP is another iconic spell for arms. And it should be a great weapon against dodge/parry guys, hitting hard and can be procced by rend (like in the past). We don’t need dreadnault effect, OP is single target ability, not AoE! Also I like the idea, when OP casted into the cast of ur target, it reduce it’s spell power by %. It was a great mechanic in the past, we should bring it back.
Also OP must be s rage spender, 10 rage is ok, I guess.

Execute. This is a finisher, it cannot be proc! It should hit hard and useable at 20 (30 with talent) % of target’s hp. And it cannot be charge-like with a talent. I know, this is fun, but we already have 2 charges and leap. This is enough.

CS - our main burst and affected by AM. I think, ~ 25-30secs cd with AM is ok. And duration of effect should be around 8 secs.

Rend should deal real damage. Ofc we are not ferals, so it should not be that high. But still it should be noticeable. More rended targets - more OP procs (with talent). Also we should add this increased crit damage effect to one of talent as well. Same as chance to get 5 rage on R tic. Again, more rended targets - more 5-rage procs. R must be an important part of arms rotation outside of burst window.

DW - another bleed effect. Should be applied by crits, as in the past. And be affected by our mastery, as we have right now.

Bladestooorm! It should be a real damage ability with 1 min baseline cd and cannot be reduced by AM, talents or haste.
Additional talents like MS procs while BS is a great addition.

Sweeping strikes - our main source of cleave damage. Should be used against melee cleaves or classes with pets. SS should be affected by AM and “eat” it’s procs. So CS cd will be longer, but our cleave is higher.

AM is our main tool to reduce CDs of important spells. And I think, Die by the Sword should affected by AM as well. Since we do not have ignore pain (in my opinion, this is pure tank ability) anymore, shorter cd DbtS is fair, imho.

As for stats priority, I think, Arms warrior should stack crit and mastery only. Leave haste for fury.
Also depends on setup/enemy comp we should have to choose between higher bleeds damage (bleed damage/duration talents + mastery stacking) and pure damage with MS/OP (talents + crit stacking).

I am sure, both specs (arms and fury) can and MUST be playable in PvP, but they should different playstyle, so everyone can play what they like. We should not be forced to play arms or fury, cuz only one of them is playable/meta, while second one is garbage!

TY for reading, waiting for ur ideas =)

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No Rend please.

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I’m a fan of the playstyle with Thunder Clap applying rend (as in Cataclysm), I like the way the skullsplitter talent can be used to instantly consume rend/dw for a big damage burst, some cool ideas from a gameplay perspective exist within the talents but it’s quite restrictive and ends up quite one-dimensional because the talent balance is poor.

My other issues come with lack of baseline utility, too many annoying tradeoffs in the talent choices, lack of balance between talent choices making cookie cutter scenarios too common. Bladestorm for Arms should always be baseline, things like berserker rage, intimidating shout, heroic leap should always be baseline Warrior abilities.

How it actually plays out with Arms right now is a kinda bland playstyle, unless you’re in SL content where you’re carried by condemn. The spec has no real core interaction, why must they also be obsessed with this long cooldown CS window, when the spec leans so heavily on its usage that it feels mandatory and you’re weak outside those windows.

The spec worked best in Cataclysm 4.3, MOP 5.4 and Legion 7.2 patches but this resembles none of them.

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Tbh, i don’t like thunder clap + rend combo. I know, TC is classic warrior ability. But i feel it like bastion spear right now. Warrior is all about physical type of damage. No magic, no lightning. Thunder clap look like Ele sham ability, imho.

I agree about BS baseline, but not sure about leap. Charge is baseline already.

And i don’t like the idea of skullsplitter at all. This is my personal. I think bleed should stay bleed.

Anyway, concept of talent system in DF is strange. Our baseline spells like MS or OP count as talents…
In my opinion, talents should change/improve spells what we already have in spellbook. And it should be something interesting, not like 15% damage increase for MS…

My favorite Arms war version was in MoP and early Cata.

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Thunder Clap + Rend combo I think was maybe brought in in patch 4.3 I didn’t play much Arms until 4.3 so I’m uncertain without checking. In MOP the spec worked the same way, they just replaced rend with deep wounds but the majority of damage on AOE came from deep wounds from thunder clap.

I liked that gameplay personally, glad to see it back in some form. That said it’s actually not very strong in terms of overall bleed damage. Rend is alright and becomes pretty interesting with Skullsplitter, but it is weird that the old “rage on demand” ability is now also a damage cooldown that needs to be used in a very specific place/time, removing it from its original purpose, but I played with it for a bit and found it interesting.

Right now it’s hard to really tell what is good because Arms in Shadowlands is just a giant Condemn button, if you look at logs peoples damage is literally just Condemn and the Jailer Weapon (purple legendary) on use, both of which will be gone soon.

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I would prefer arms to be something more of a battlefield tactician. With banners to buff or debuffs. Precision heavy strikes etc. I hate so much the current overpower,overpower,mortal strike, slam, overpower rotation

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It needs something to keep the meta crowd hush, when fury is both best aoe , single and survivability the only variables recognised by meta, then for arms we have an issue. A single target behemoth would be nice.

Now I’m all for different ways to kill a creature like in fallout games. But meta ties the variables to pure damage output in single target, multi target and somewhat survivability.

Philsophy of what is fun IS PURELY THE DRIVER of meta. And bigger numbers is the main pull. I mean, for monsters to do die slow is boring yeah. Unless they’re dying in some crazy fashion that is fun. Our dopamine receptors only want the monster dead quick. Shame.

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Agreed but I don’t mind the Overpower Overpower MS rotation.
I’d however love to have more banners and buffs etc for my teammates as Arms.

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