Warrior talent trees and especially the arms one could get some love. We are too often forced to choose some talents and most of all, a full ST or full AOE gameplay. Many specs can easily provide both ST and AOE at the same time, for example rogues, dhs and our Fury cousins too. We also suffer from rage overflow and management problems overall, sometimes conflicting with important talents like Anger Management and Test of Might.
I have two main concepts in my mind:
talents which could be made baseline OR better placed into the trees, both the class and spec trees but especially the latter.
brand new ideas borrowed from previous expansions.
class tree:
Spell Reflection and Heroic Leap made baseline.
Bounding Stride and Shockwave to get a better placement. You could also move Anger Management from the spec to the class tree, being shared by all three specs and favorite choice of both Arms and Protection Specs (and Fury too during season 2).
spec tree:
Martial Prowess, Improved Overpower, Tactician, Die By The Sword, Sudden Death, Colossus Smash, Improved Execute, Bladestorm and Incite made baseline. Bloodborne could also be reduced to 1 point talent.
Dreadnaught, Battlelord, Fatality, In For The Kill/Test of Might and Unhinged/Hurricane choice nodes and Juggernaut to get a better placement.
cool ideas and effects from the past:
wotlk: Trauma, Juggernaut
cataclysm: Wrecking Crew, Lambs to the Slaughter, Executioner, Incite
mop: Staggering and/or Disrupting Shouts, Bloodbath, Recklessness, Skull Banner (this one is insanely strong)
wod: Taste for Blood, Slam, the fire stuff, Enhanced Rend
The Arms tree is certainly one of those that received the least attention from blizzard with them ripping away all the baseline tools and forcing us to pick between which 65% of them we want back with very few new additions and some things completely removed. Bladestorm really should have been much earlier on the central root of the tree, maybe where the vers talent is right now. It is inexcusable that one of the core abilities of the spec that is shown on the sample abilities is so niche. It also just happens to be a weak capstone ability only used for the Bonegrinder/Hurricane buffs.
It also doesn’t help that they did the same with the class tree, leaving us with almost none of the shouts or utility we used to have. Warrior is so sad to play in DF, i pick ignore pain just to have something to press. Its even worse on fury, who always suffered from a one page spellbook, but with all utility competing against damage talents, there’s barely enough meat for 2 action bars. If we didn’t have battle shout this class wouldn’t see any play whatsoever.
I agree on everything but the thing that bugs me the most is that there are many talents which are effectively baseline (taken all the time) but they could and should be replaced with other more efficient talents and effects, some of which I’ve listed
Great ideas i would also want to see opportunity strike from legion.
Improved mastary: deep wounds bfa mastary.
Mortal compo from shadowlands.
Improved better skull splitter from dragonflight.
Battle Field commander pvp talent.
Blade of destruction ( bladestworm 33% cd reduction) pvp talent.
Shadowlands head and waist legendary 6% chance of mortal strike to apply colossal smash legendary.
Necrolord Covent ability call it champion’s banner just like spear of bastion and add horde or alliance flag with the improved soulbound thingy.
That maybe a long list but one can dream of perfect arms warrior one day.
I feel like the whole spec is a misnomer. How do our arms (weapons) affect anything. Not a single talent feels like we care about our weapon choices or makes it sound like we know how to handle weapons better than a ret paladin … The class fantasy of arms is basically dead and all warrior specs suffer from a severe lack of utility, which would only be acceptable if we were outshining most other specs on dps, which isn’t the case either.
I am always gonna say it: Arms needs to bring buffs/debuffs to the play. Banners or Shout that you buff or debuff thats it. Make us more useful. Plus i would prefer slower gameplay but with bigger crits