Reasoning behind T18 4 piece set advice for Arms

[BMaxwell00 0]

I've been using the Arms guide in Icy Veins to try and squeeze the most out of my spec, and I'm satisfied with how I'm doing up to this point, but having completed the T18 4 piece set, I'm a little confused with the advice the guide is giving me.

 

Apparently, Whirlwind and Thunder Clap are not supposed to be part of my rotation anymore, which makes a little bit of sense considering Rend will be ticking faster and therefore the chance of Mortal Strike's cooldown resetting will occur more often, but it's still a 50% chance per tick.

 

Sure, if each Rend tick was guaranteed to reset Mortal Strike's cooldown, that would make sense, but what am I supposed to do if I'm unlucky and don't get the resets? I'll be forced to use Thunder Clap and Whirlwind otherwise I'll be rage capped.

 

And then there's this other bit which I found absurd:

 

"If you have the Tier 18 4-Piece Set Bonus, then you should only use Mortal Strike during Colossus Smash."

 

Colossus Smash has a cooldown of 20 seconds and a duration of 6 seconds, meaning that unless I have the trinket from Archimonde that resets its cooldown on a proc, I'll have to wait 14 seconds between each Colossus Smash without using Mortal Strike at all. This makes absolutely no sense.

 

Sure, in a multi-target situation where I'll have multiple instances of Rend ticking, 33% faster than usual and each tick with a 50% chance to reset Mortal Strike, I probably won't ever have to use Whirlwind and Thunderclap, but on a single-target situation it's very unlikely that I'll get enough resets to forgo the use of these abilities entirely.

 

Am I missing something? Is the guide wrong? What's going on here guys?

Edited November 4, 2015 by BMaxwell00

[Sajakain 104]

Good morning, BMaxwell00.
 
Hopefully I'll be able to clear up a little confusion without causing more of it, lol.
 
 

Apparently, Whirlwind and Thunder Clap are not supposed to be part of my rotation anymore, which makes a little bit of sense considering Rend will be ticking faster and therefore the chance of Mortal Strike's cooldown resetting will occur more often, but it's still a 50% chance per tick.
 
Sure, if each Rend tick was guaranteed to reset Mortal Strike's cooldown, that would make sense, but what am I supposed to do if I'm unlucky and don't get the resets? I'll be forced to use Thunder Clap and Whirlwind otherwise I'll be rage capped.

 

The assumption here is that, with the T-184PC, you most likely will not need to cast Whirlwind / Thunderclap that often because of other higher-priority abilities such as Mortal Strike. It's not guaranteed, obviously, but you do have other options as well; ie, your talent abilities (Storm Bolt, Siegebreaker, etc.) If you have your class trinket, then you will also have your Colossus Smash resets to fill in as well.

 

In the effort to not waste rage nor stay capped (if that situation ever presents itself) then yes, you should use Whirlwind as a filler until another priority ability comes into play.

 

 

And then there's this other bit which I found absurd:

"If you have the Tier 18 4-Piece Set Bonus, then you should only use Mortal Strike during Colossus Smash."

Colossus Smash has a cooldown of 20 seconds and a duration of 6 seconds, meaning that unless I have the trinket from Archimonde that resets its cooldown on a proc, I'll have to wait 14 seconds between each Colossus Smash without using Mortal Strike at all. This makes absolutely no sense.

 

This is not advising you to literally save Mortal Strike solely for your Colossus Smash window. It's saying that, while the debuff is applied, you should prioritize Mortal Strike. If you have your class trinket then Colossus Smash should be up quite a bit if you're lucky and, obviously, Mortal Strike will have itself reset, too.

 

There are exceptions, as well, obviously such as an Execute proc or Execute phase (sub 20%) that should take priority. Note that, in the single target rotation section, it directly states "If you have taken the Sudden Death talent, then Execute procs are your highest priority at all times."

 

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I hope this helps clear things up a bit. If you should have any other questions, don't hesitate to ask.

[BMaxwell00 0]

I figured it out. The guide was last updated on 23 June (patch 6.2.0), but both the T18 2 and 4 piece set bonuses have been changed on September 01 (patch 6.2.1). Here are the changes:

 

Patch 6.2.0

2 Piece bonus - Rend ticks have a 60% chance to reset Mortal Strike's cooldown.

4 Piece bonus - Rend ticks 50% faster.

 

Patch 6.2.1

2 Piece bonus - Rend ticks have a 50% chance to reset Mortal Strike's cooldown.

4 Piece bonus - Rend ticks 33% faster.

 

This means that when this guide was last updated, the T18 set bonuses were much more powerful, and therefore it made sense to suggest the reader to forgo the use of Whirlwind and Thunder Clap entirely, as Mortal Strike's cooldown would reset faster and more often.

 

With that in mind, I believe that the T18 4 piece set bonus single-target rotation section should be revisited to reflect the current values of the 4 piece set bonus. From my experience, I found that you cannot rely on Mortal Strike alone to spend all of your rage because the cooldown resets are much more sporadic since the 6.2.1 changes, strictly in a single-target only fight. Whirlwind and Thunder Clap must be thrown in to deal with the inevitable excess rage.

 

Regarding the "If you have the Tier 18 4-Piece Set Bonus, then you should only use Mortal Strike during Colossus Smash." line, we seem to have a case of ambiguity. This phrase could either mean:

 

"During Colossus Smash, you should only use Mortal Strike." <- Probably what the author meant.

or

"Mortal Strike must only be used during Colossus Smash." <- A rather absurd suggestion.

 

Sorry for the inconvenience, I was just confused about what I was reading, but I understand now. I'll contact the author and see if an update to the guide is possible.

Edited November 4, 2015 by BMaxwell00

[Archimtiros 10]

"If you have the Tier 18 4-Piece Set Bonus, then you should only use Mortal Strike during Colossus Smash."

 

Am I missing something? Is the guide wrong? What's going on here guys?

 

It's an understandable issue with the way the sentence is worded.

 

You're reading it as "you should only use Mortal Strike during Colossus Smash"

With the emphasis making it sound like you should not use Mortal Strike outside of Colossus Smash.

When it should have been "you should only use Mortal Strike during Colossus Smash" or "During Colossus Smash, you should only use Mortal Strike".

 

Now, it says this because even with unreliable Mortal Strike procs due to the neutered set bonus, Whirlwind and TC are extremely inefficient attacks. Although you can work Whirlwind or TC into the rotation, because of Rends awkward tick timing (2.25s), it will clash with the GCD depending on where it is in the cycle. This means that unless you are cognizant of that timer, you will very likely end up using a Whirlwind when you could have used a Mortal Strike.

 

This isn't a very big deal outside of Colossus Smash, because you just use the MS on the next GCD, before Rend ticks again. However, because you are time limited during the CS window, it ends up being detrimental. While you would think it's about the Rage, that's actually non-concern until the Execute phase, and efficient use of GCD's is much more important.

 

Now why do I say this? Well, it's a personal decision, but I've found that players who make the most use out of these guides are not experienced enough to do things like counting Rend ticks, and suggesting it only overwhelms them. It's difficult to set up, easy to mess up, and has a very low gain. If you can correctly work Whirlwind in there, you'll gain ~2k dmg, but if you end up bumping a Mortal Strike back outside of the debuff, you stand to lose upwards 40k. Therefore I don't suggest it and instead give the simplest advice: Inside Colossus Smash, just worry about Mortal Strike.

 

With that said, you are absolutely correct in pointing it out, and a much better way of wording it probably should have been: "You should prioritize Mortal Strike during Colossus Smash", with a caveat explaining the opportunity cost of using Whirlwind. To help alleviate this, I will go back and work with the IV staff to clean up the language and look for any other inconsistencies.

Edited November 9, 2015 by Archimtiros

[BMaxwell00 0]

I appreciate the response, mate. Sorry for the late reply, but I've been busy.

 

It didn't occur to me that I should be more preoccupied with being able to cast Mortal Strike whenever it resets than with not getting rage capped. Doesn't make sense to delay the use of my second strongest ability just because I triggered a GCD by casting a much weaker spell, although it's probably unavoidable if you have bad luck with the cooldown reset RNG. I mean, there's only so much time you can afford to wait for it.

 

I've actually been missing some Mortal Strike casts during CS because I'm still trying to get used to reacting to the cooldown resets, and because for a very long time I played without the tier 18 set bonuses, so I was used to spending as much rage as possible (with Mortal Strike being the top priority, of course) during the debuff.

 

I'll try being more patient to avoid delaying MS casts with needless GCD uses and see how that goes.

 

Thanks again for the response!