In criticism of Sword Spec
Axe vs Sword, Talents March 30th, 2007In my previous post I sang the virtues of going sword spec in the arms tree, rattling off the (often overlooked) benefits of the spec.
One of our visitors argued I had missed the most important drawback of sword spec - and he was right. No minor drawback either, it reduces the effectiveness of the proc by something like 25-33%.
The theory was that when your sword spec procs it resets your swing timer. This is no problem for procs off of white hits, since the timer would be at 0 anyways. But for yellow hits, having a sword proc when you were 0.1 seconds away from your next white swing anyways means you get next to nothing. A 0.1s faster swing. You are not actually getting “an extra attack” as the tooltip suggests. Rather you are getting “your next attack immediately”. So its still good if it procs early in your swing timer, but the farther into your timer you get the more the proc becomes a very minimal haste type buff (for 1 swing) than it does an “extra” attack.
Frankly this is mind boggling. The tooltip is misleading, and with this knowledge the spec is strictly inferior to axe or mace. It is like spending 5 points in axe spec for 3% crit, since a good chunk of the procs will be basically wasted. Any proc off a yellow will be a haste-proc, not actually an extra attack. Sadly one of the biggest advantages I was arguing for in sword spec was that it gave a nice damage buff on hamstring and pummel procs, and gave rage on all yellow procs. Now we see a lot of those “procs” are damage you were about to get anyways, rather than free damage.
The evidence below:
The screenshot shows this:
45:16 - victory rush (proccing ss)
45:17 - SS proc.
45:21 - white hit (+4 seconds since SS proc)
45:24 - white hit
45:26 - hamstring proccing SS
45:26 - SS proc
45:30 - white hit (+4 seconds since SS proc, +6 seconds since last white hit)
The first proc came 4 seconds after the last white hit (you cant see the previous hit unfortunately). Sword is 3.6 speed so this is what we would expect if the swing timer was reset after the proc.
The undeniable proof is in the second proc. If the timer was not reset my next white hit should have come either at 45:27 or 45:28 (3.6 secs after the previous white hit). However it came at 45:30 - SIX seconds after my previous white hit, 4 seconds after my Sword spec proc.
What blizzard was thinking in doing this boggles the mind. But do I care enough to go back and craft the ugly looking axe?
Veritas
March 30th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
As i said in the topic below, this isn’t only a sword spec issue but all extra hit mechanics like the hand of justice and so on. pre bc schamans didnt have instant hits so their totems did only affect autoswings. otherwise they would have recognized this too. sword spec for roques… well.. DW…offhand procs…another topic. without this “behaviour”, the sword spec pro’s would overweight its con’s with ease and making it clearly superior to axe in my opinion. if one day blizz decides to change it into a REAL extra hit, i’d go sword again for sure.
March 30th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
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April 1st, 2007 at 9:25 pm
Even though it does reset the swing timer, sword spec still can be great. The two main examples of this would be abilities which remove the white swing altogether and abilities which hit multiple targets.
Sword spec can proc off of a heroic or cleave, but where it really shines is with slam. Slam while casting holds off your autoswing timer and resets it, this is especially noticeable when using slam spam. Having sword spec procs off of this is great, especially when doing a slam spam dump. Combined with windfury you’re rage will actually go up while slamming spam and it can be a great dps boost.
Obviously this becomes nice off of cleaves as well when fighting multiple targets for a similar reason of replacing your white swing. You can get multiple sword spec procs from whirlwind as well which is always nice.
Pre-expansion, when everybody still said slam sucked, I would use a build with enrage, deathwish, improved cleave, Sweeping Strikes, Sword spec and improved slam and no 31 point talent. Most people criticized the build because omg you cant play w/o an instant! I was a genuine wrecking ball, able to crush handfulls of opponents at the top. I was never below #1 in damage done, kills, and HKs.
Slam was my single target move, but with enrage/deathwish sweeping strike synergy and then throwing out whirlwinds and claves with sword spec procs, I was doing thousands of damage and sword spec would give me the rage to fuel this. I also had a hand of justice.
Anyway, I suppose for arena this style of play would be less feasible and it does suck that sword spec resets your white swing, but one must remember that we do often use abilities which negate white swings altogether and sword spec is huge in these situations. SS whirlwinding and seeing rage go up is nice too.
April 2nd, 2007 at 2:17 pm
Keep it in context. Axe and mace spec also proc off all those sweeping strikes and cleaves and whirlwinds. Sword isn’t doing anything there that the rest of the specs don’t do as well.
Spamming slam, as a rule, is a pretty weak use of rage. Something I only do if I’m pushing 80-100 rage with MS and WW on cooldown.
When I had imp slam I would use it a lot more, adding it in after white hits (but not “spamming” it).
We kind of concluded though that if you’re pvping there is no question blood frenzy > improved slam. And even in pve for the most part that holds true. Imp slam is fun, but its something you can live without - esp for 4% more damage on your char (vs everything except bleed immune mobs).
Also, imp cleave is terrible. It adds to the BONUS of cleave not the total (same goes for imp MS). You’re adding like 80 damage or something to 1 ability for THREE talent points. Terrible.
April 2nd, 2007 at 3:05 pm
“Keep it in context. Axe and mace spec also proc off all those sweeping strikes and cleaves and whirlwinds”
No, sword does not proc on the additional targets of Cleave/Whirlwind, just on the target you are focussing. Mace does.
You are right on Improved Cleave, the tooltip says it increases the bonus damage. The tooltip of Improved MS says the damage caused will be increased, so you are wrong here.
April 2nd, 2007 at 5:53 pm
There is a lot of debate about whether imp MS adds 5% to total MS damage or only the bonus damage.
At this point I’m not about to cough up the 100 gold to spec it, find out, then spec back to my build.
If you are going arms/prot - 41/5/15, you take imp ms. If you’re going amrs/fury - 35/23/3 (or some variation) you won’t be taking it regardless.
Maybe when they give us a serious 41 point arms talent it will matter more.
April 3rd, 2007 at 2:50 pm
The point is off of all those attacks you are getting even more rage.
Yah I realize Imp Cleave is kind of weak, it was sort of a build just to see how it would workout given the synergy of all the specs, especially deathwish enrage and Sweeping strikes. The Imp Cleave was just to minmax the most dmage you could get from the second multipliers.
And I will still take Imp Slam over Bloodfrenzy any day of the weak. Intercept,white, slam, MS, WW is alot more damage than 4% added on. Another usefull damaging single target attack, not to mention efficient, is a great addition to any arsenal.
April 3rd, 2007 at 5:27 pm
I’d like to know where you’re getting all this rage that you need to use slam. Right after a charge you can slam, MS, and WW? That’s pretty damn good considering you’d need 70 rage.
Personally its charge - hamstring - white swing - MS - white swing - deathwish/ww - white swing - MS.
You’ll be lucky to be able to use MS and WW everytime they are up in most cases both pvp and pve. Imp slam is just a toy.
I’ll take 4% more damage over a toy that just replaces other sources of damage without improving them. Using imp slam usually just means you don’t use whirlwind and you’re not hitting MS everytime the timer is up (since you need a crit or 2 hits to generate the rage for it if you’re slamming after every white).
Regardless, slam vs blood frenzy, imp MS 5% bonus, and imp cleave are sidetrack discussions not really relevant to sword spec at all.
April 5th, 2007 at 9:24 pm
hi sorry im putting it in this topic but i’ll soon have enough arena points to get a GLADIATOR 2hand and im confused about what spec will be most useful with this uber weapon. please help
April 6th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
im going for pvp action btw. and all gladiator weapons are the same. well except polearm but im not going for that. and im wondering,axe,sword or mace? ive heard mace is good and ive heard sword spec is only good if the person has loasds of crit percentage.
April 7th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
please help me someone
April 7th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
@ Swima,
this may seem a little rude, but have you read the article at all that you just post this question in or the article before this one? if not, please do. we have many warrior that have explained the pros and cons of all specs and weapons. the choice is yours.