Colossus Smash Removed from Fury

[nicarlitos 13]

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/13733923537?page=23#442

Colossus smash removed from fury.

Ruined!

[AMonkeyCourier 2]

They're moving that kind of playstyle to arms. Read the post.

[Sajakain 104]

This is PTR. Public Test Realm. It's not 100% final and should not, under any circumstance, be taken as something that is final. They're making adjustments for testing and want to see how things go.

 

I would encourage you to first get on the PTR and try these changes out when you're able to instead of jumping straight to conclusions and posting them.

 

"Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future." - J.F.K.

[nicarlitos 13]

@AMonkeyCourier- I did read it and I didn't like it.

@Sajakain- it's not a public test realm, it's beta (I'm not going to embolden and underline this though). I shall be testing this in the beta, so don't worry about that. I did a post after heroic strike got dropped, as the testing I did led me to believe that this change was positive. My opinion is that this latest change is a step too far and that the spec has now lost its identity completely.

And, please correct me if I'm wrong here, but are these forums not for discussion? I was trying to start some debate, not argue tedious semantics!

[AMonkeyCourier 2]

You don't start a debate with a loaded title and post that show a clear misunderstanding of the intentions of the changes.

 

They're essentially swapping around the current playstyles for arms and fury since they're thematically inappropriate.

[nicarlitos 13]

Contrary to your observations, I have indeed started a debate. You appear to be contributing to said debate, albeit antagonistically.

Loaded comment or not, I have a strong opinion here and I feel free to voice it.

Moving on to thematic appropriateness....

"A furious berserker wielding a weapon in each hand, unleashing a flurry of attacks to carve his opponents to pieces."

With colossus smash in fury, one most certainly does unleash a flurry of attacks. Doesn't say anything about constantly doing this.

Regardless of the fury blurb, the spec appeals to players due to its depth. The CS window and heroic strike created this depth. I really enjoy this play style and don't want to see it gone. Maybe arms will live up to this, but I remain unconvinced. Hence my moral outrage.

[Sajakain 104]

@Sajakain - I shall be testing this in the beta, so don't worry about that. I did a post after heroic strike got dropped, as the testing I did led me to believe that this change was positive. My opinion is that this latest change is a step too far and that the spec has now lost its identity completely.

And, please correct me if I'm wrong here, but are these forums not for discussion? I was trying to start some debate, not argue tedious semantics!

 

You're right. It's posted for the next Beta Build and not the PTR. I can only assume, though, that seeing as how ability pruning and the class / spec changes will take place in 6.0 that this change, too, will come to the PTR as well. Perhaps I'm wrong.

 

You are also correct that these forums are open for members to discuss the warrior class and, most definitely, the changes being brought in the next patch and expansion. I'd encourage you to do so more openly though, and not necessary by titling your thread in the manner that you did. Perhaps, next time, name it something to the effect of "Colossus Smash Gone From Fury" or something relevant - not "Fury is dead."

[Estarriol 167]

Fury is in a state of flux, but certainly isn't dead. I can somewhat agree with Blizzard's decision and reasoning. Fury, from its description, sounds like it'd be an all-out frenzy of attacks. I'm not sure they're going about this change the correct way, though. What they've done is turned Fury into a hyperactive game of whack-a-mole. Hopefully, they'll find some way to preserve some modicum of complexity for Fury while staying within the lore-lines that they've said they want.

[Krygan 1]

Not gonna lie I'm pretty butthurt about this. That being said, I was thinking that fury was going to be pretty damn OP in 6.0 (and WoD once enough crit gear is available) without a nerf. This though... WTF.

[Sajakain 104]

It'd be interesting if they could keep up with a proc based rotation. Right now it's managing of a CS burn window but, if they could change it to something similar to the 6.0 Slam... that may be something worth while.

 

Having attacks that do consecutively more damage the more you use them but also cost more rage is what I'm talking about. It wouldn't need a rage dump and, in essence almost, we'd be going on that rampage but, in the same time, have to manage how far we go so we don't blow rage too much.

[Estarriol 167]

I think something like that would be a good compromise between their vision and a good amount of complexity.

[nicarlitos 13]

I tried to get on and test tonight....server was very laggy, but, man, does it look bleak. 

 

Here's what my 'action' bar looked like.

 

http://tinypic.com/r/2gwywky/8

 

Looks like the rotation is:

 

BT

RB if proc

WS if proc

WS if enough rage

Talents as available (e.g whirlwind/stormbolt)

Execute if available.

 

Uhm....that's it for your single target rotation. Basically 3 buttons. What I love about fury right now is that its complicated. The IV guide has 21 points in the rotation. 21! Its a spec that's hard to master.

 

When/if the beta servers calm down, I'll create an Arms build and give it a whirl(wind) . But apparently they are the new Arcane Mage...no offence to any of our berobed brethren.

 

I understand the comments other contributors have made about 'nothing being final' at this point, but Celestalon's prose seems to make it pretty clear that CS will be leaving Fury. Maybe if enough people make overly dramatic posts in forums, they won't....but I have a feeling that they are serious about this. Probably my next post will be FURY IS TOTALLY DEAD!!111!!!! OMG!!!!1!

 

To me, this is serious stuff and I am pretty riled about it. Best melee spec in the game ruined.

[ragebarr 153]

I am not good with words, and there's going to be a lot of them in the coming paragraphs, so bear with me for a while if you please.

 

First off, Fury isn't dead. It might become braindead, it might be the lowest DPS spec out of all 11 classes (unlikely, but for the sake of this argument let's assume so), some people will still play it. You still have people playing Arms Warriors and Shadow Priests on live, so it's not because a rotation is simple or a spec has low DPS that it's "dead". To further emphasize on this point, I think it's safe to say that Blizzard is becoming better at balancing the damage across all specs in WoW.

 

Now, that doesn't mean that I agree with the changes that have been done to Fury (and to Arms to, but I'll get to that later). However, the point that bothers me the most is that a change as important as this one is allowed to happen less that 2 months before the expansion release, likely less than a month away from the 6.0.2 prepatch. This gives Blizzard awfully little time to try and create a new and engaging rotation for Fury (and let's all hope that the new Fury rotation is more engaging than what they've done to Arms).

 

I think we can all agree that the MoP iteration on Fury was the best one yet. Regardless of whether or not you liked the playstyle, Fury had a deep, complex and well thought rotation that required planning, resource management, reaction to procs and split-second choices. The 2 main issues Fury had in MoP were its reliance on crit and the abysmal value of haste, and both were fixed within the first few weeks of WoD beta with the BT change (x2 Crit to +30% crit) and the addition of Headlong Rush. 

 

From that point onward, every chance they made to Fury made little sense and broke the spec a bit more.

 

First, we had the HS removal. I can understand why having 2 rage dumps with the exact same cost can be confusing, but mastering the balance between HS and WS was, in my opinion, one of those points that made Fury an "easy to learn, hard to master" spec, to put it in Blizzard's own words. It might have been *too* hard to master (at least that's my guess has to why Blizzard removed it) but it creates the issue of having only 1 rage dump as Fury, and having a proc that makes this rage dump free. When we get to the point in WoD where rage will flow as generously as it does now (and don't worry, it will happen) we might reach a point where Bloodsurge procs will be more hurtful than beneficial.

 

Second, the CS removal. Blizzard removed it because it didn't "thematically" fit Fury. I am, however, of the opposite opinion. I always saw my warrior as a berserker that unleashed a Flurry of attacks that decimated its enemy, but that then needed to rest a bit before being able to attack that Furiously again (Kind of like the Rage ability of the DnD Barbarian, if any of you ever played that). Moreover, removing the one defining ability of Fury and not even proposing anything in return feels flat out wrong. This change alone makes most of what made Fury engaging (Resource management and planning, mainly) completely nonexistent. I have a really hard time believing that Blizzard will find something to make Fury at least slightly less braindead before the 6.0 patch, and even if they find something, I can't imagine it would be nearly as interesting as Fury's playstyle is now.

 

These changes, especially in the light of the Arms changes, really make me question myself concerning the direction Blizzard is going with warriors. I am not very hopeful that we'll get a spec that's going to be as interesting to play as it is now (I'd dare say even MoP Arms is better than both DPS specs on the beta, and that's saying a lot coming from me). That leaves us with Gladiator as the only spec with an interesting playstyle (somewhat reminiscent of MoP's Fury) and Heroic Strike (Though I still ask myself every day in why Blizzard thought that out of the 3 specs *Prot* was the one that needed HS), however that spec has the horrible default of actually being Protection, which means you'd be sharing gear with tanks and you'd bring no raid utility.

 

In summary, Fury isn't dead, but it's definitely not looking pretty, and neither are Arms or Glad (the latter being in the best position, rotation-wise, at the moment). I do not agree on the changes that have been made to warriors, but I can understand why Blizzard would do them. I am mainly flabbergasted by the fact they would change something as deeply rooted in Fury's rotation as CS is less than 2 months away from release.

 

Thanks for bearing with me and reading my thoughts. I also took the liberty of changing the thread's title, sorry if you liked it the way it was.

[Estarriol 167]

Very well written, you should really post that to the official forums.

 

I can, however, see why Blizzard left Heroic Strike in for prot. It's essential because we otherwise have no rage dump. With Heroic Strike, managing rage as prot would be impossible. It allows us to have high uptimes on SBar/SBlk at the right times without hemorrhaging rage into waste or into SBars that end up not being used. That isn't to say HS isn't needed for the other specs,  but prot would suffer substantially without it, particularly in the later tiers.

[Sajakain 104]

I can, however, see why Blizzard left Heroic Strike in for prot. It's essential because we otherwise have no rage dump.

Right now, this is how Arms is. We have no rage dump. Other abilities come up in rotation priority and it seems we're always full on rage (at least in the PTR). I've only tested it for about an hour or so... so I may be missing something right now but that was one of my first impressions; where's my rage dump???

[ragebarr 153]

where's my rage dump???

 

Whirlwind.

 

Unless you take Slam, about half your GCDs as Arms are spent on Whirlwind. 

[Estarriol 167]

HS is such an iconic spell that all specs should have it, whether they need another rage dump or not.

[Sajakain 104]

Whirlwind.

 

Unless you take Slam, about half your GCDs as Arms are spent on Whirlwind. 

 

I don't consider it a true rage dump, though. It's on the GCD as all other spells are. Something off the GCD should be placed as a dump for not only arms but Fury as well. 

 

=====================

 

Speaking of Fury; it's what I'm currently testing on the PTR.

 

Furious Strikes (25 Less Rage on the new build)

Bloodbath

 

Those are my current talents; I haven't tried Bladestorm yet.

 

It seems the rotation, with these talents in mind (Single Target):

 

1. Bloodthirst (Macro'd Bloodbath into this)
2. Raging Blow
3. Wild Strike (Proc)
4. Tier 60 Talent (Currently using Storm Bolt)
5. Wild Strike (Non-Proc)

 

You can get more WS in a CD rotation off BT than you can WW so, even without your proc, WS will ultimately do more damage. If it weren't for the reduced GCD of WS then, yeah, WW would be comparable.

 

I tested this rotation and I then tested using WW instead of WS and it came out to about 800 - 1000 DPS difference (again, single target). 

[ragebarr 153]

Currently Arms doesn't generate enough rage to fill all it's GCDs, even with whirlwind. It just feels weird as hell to use Whirlwind in a single target rotation.

 

For Fury, I've mostly been testing with UqT (No CD on BT) and Bladestorm, since it's, imo, the best talent for questing (which is mostly what I'm doing on the beta atm), and it feels awful. You're always either dropping enrage, losing RBs or rage capping. Fury won't use WW in single target.

[ragebarr 153]

Fury won't use WW in single target.

 

Welp. Apparently I need to prove myself wrong. Current sims show that using WW instead of WS at low rage is a significant DPS increase for Fury. Then again, WW is probably going to get nerfed soon, as it is currently hitting waaaay hard.

[Krygan 1]

Dono if you guys have seen this yet, but here are the most recent sims afaik.

 

edit: removed link because it no longer exists =(

 

 

At least they did something about the 40% damage loss that occurred as a result of the changes. I'm still pretty sad overall, but this'll shut me up... FOR NOW

Edited October 4, 2014 by Krygan

[Edo 6]

Krygan, I get a broken link from that. It could just be my phone being goofy.

[Krygan 1]

Sadly it appears the link no longer exists. Basically, Fury is currently simming 3rd overall behind Arcane and Arms, with pretty decent initial burst damage.

[Sajakain 104]

Here's a current ranking of DPS for T17 Normal, post patch 10/3/2014. 

 

Edit: It seems the file has been removed, as well.