The sad state of Battle Stance
Battle Stance, Berserker Stance, Endless Rage December 3rd, 2007Not so long ago I worte about Berserker Stance penalty, today I’ll stop for a while and try to summarize the state of Battle Stance and Arms overall.
What is Arms specialization, and what it’s used to be?
There are no doubts what Protection tree is about, it’s about tanking, mitigating damage, threat and overall enhancing your abilities, mainly in defensive stance. There are no doubts what Fury tree is about, it’s about dealing damage, fast and hard, it increase your performance well and do it best in Berserker Stance. With improved Berserker Stance talent Fury warriors are bound to the stance, they stay in zerk and deal tons of damage really really hard, that’s their job. Now when you ask what Arms tree is about, the answer you can hear on forums is one - it’s about PvP. What a deep answer isn’t it? Two years ago Arms was well defined, it was a blend between all 3 stances, it was an ultimate, universal tree, nothing strange since it was the tree where Tactical Mastery - a talent allowing for effective stance dancing - was. What has changed since then? Everything. Since 2.3 Arms tree is genderless mish-mash, don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to say it’s weak, it just doesn’t have that thing.
The lackluster 41-pointer
I’m a strong advocate of Endless Rage, there is nothing wrong with 25% more rage from damage done, the problem here is - it’s not enough. I’ve been watching recent patches, and the more Rogue changes I read, the more I’m in awe. Shadowstep out of stealth, shadowstep affecting all abilities, shadowstep without minimum range, shadowstep generating extra combo point, coming 2.4: shadowstep will make everyone in 100 yards automatically /dance. Now I really think these changes really does make sense, and it’s cool that Blizzard does everything to make rogues specialize for 41 sub. What did Blizzard do to make us specialize for 41 arms? They swapped Death Wish and Imp. Intercept to Arms, what a failure:
Most popular arena builds according to geekboys.org:
- 35/23/3
- 33/28
- 31/30
- 17/44 <- LOL!
- 33/25/3
No 41 arms. Even a PvE dps build is more popular on arenas then 41 arms. I don’t know if folks at Blizzard are happy with the variety of our PvP builds, but I’m not. Seriously, Blizzard, it’s time to roll up sleeves and say: “We fucked up Arms and something has to be done about it!”. Note how I don’t really mention Arms tree but Arms as a whole, it’s not only the tree that’s defining a specialization, it’s also the set of abilities we got from trainers, and it’s not a secret that Arms tab in spell book is the least attractive one.
Where to go: blending or Battle Stance specialization?
There are two ways to make Arms tree what it’s supposed to be. One way is to bring back it’s glory from the old days, read: bring TM back to Arms. It’s a pretty cheap solution and really a required one. Moving TM to protection, while being a big step forward balance, was a huge step backwards in terms of Warrior Class design. Personally, I don’t think this is required, there is another way to get out of this, and the way to do it, is to make Battle Stance viable on it’s own for Arms Warriors. How to do that? It doesn’t take much of a research to understand why PvPing warriors prefer Berserker Stance over Battle Stance…
Battle Stance = One Button Stance
What abilities can we use in Battle Stance? Let’s take a look:
Heroic Strike - yeah, not really a two-hander thing.
Slam - yeah, useless unless talented, and talents are deep in fury tree.
Mortal Strike - our 31 pointer from arms tree.
Overpower - usable only after an enemy dodge, not reliable source of damage.
That’s it, being full arms in Battle Stance leave us with 1, literally ONE, reliable and effective damage dealing ability, and it’s coming from talents. How sad is that?
Whirlwind for everybody!
Why slam, an ability that’s useless without talents put into it (and those talents are in fury tree) is available in every stance, while Whirlwind, an ability that could benefit everybody (including tanks for aoe-tanking) is available in berserker stance only? There is nothing “berserky” about whirlwind. If I had to do my lore reference I did while analizing berserker stance penalty, in the same D&D whirlwind is a feat that’s available pretty much only for highly specialized Fighters who has at least 13 INT and DEX (read: they are smart and agile enough to rotate around fast and smash faces). Wow also have Cleave ability, which sounds more “berserky” and brutal, and it’s also, like Slam, available in all stances, while the ability that makes most sense to be available in all stances is limited to Berserker Stance.
It really makes no sense at all how I can grind mobs for hours in Battle Stance when specced for 33/28 with Improved Slam (fury ability), while I was forced to grind in Berserker Stance with 41/17/3 since being in Battle Stance meant generating a lot of rage and having no button to release it.
The curse of Berserker Rage
You know this little icon, you have used it millions of times. If you ask any warlock or priest what’s so special about Warriors the answer will be one: “they are immune to fear”. That’s it, it’s what define the Warrior class - we are fearless. There is however a price we have to pay for that, that price is staying in Berserker Stance. Why? Because Berserker Rage is the only ability you can’t stance dance for. You can stance dance for overpower, you can stance dance for disarm, you can stance dance for whirlwind, but you CAN’T stance dance for Berserker Rage. Why? Because you can’t change stance when being feared, stupid!
Endless Berserker Rage
Ok, so here is the deal: Endless Rage is lacking, it’s not bad, but it’s not good, not good enough for a 41 pointer. To make warriors able to PvP in battle stance without worrying about stance dancing, we need an alternative for Berserker Rage… or, an ability to use Berserker Rage in Battle Stance. So how about give ER an additional perk allowing Berserker Rage to be usable in Battle Stance? First, Berserker Rage is an ability that increase rage generated from damage taken, so it’s a nice synergy with ER which increase rage on damage done, secondly it would allow high Arms specced warriors to fight in Battle Stance against opponents that normally require you to stick in zerk 95% of the time (lock/priest), and since Tactical Mastery no longer belongs to Arms, Arms should no longer be blend between stances, but should be rather bound to battle stance. We would still have to dance to zerk for intercept, but that’s about it.
Terhix
December 4th, 2007 at 1:55 am
Good idea, but it still leaves you with nowhere to dump your rage outside of heroic strike. Moving slam to the arms tree (maybe swapping it with blood frenzy, or lolimproveddisciplines) combined with your idea would be pretty strong.
December 4th, 2007 at 3:07 am
This is a topic I feel very strongly about.
I don’t know of any warriors who PvP primarily in Berserker Stance because they gain a +3% chance to crit, even at the cost of taking an additional 10% damage from all sources. I, as well as every warrior I’ve talked to, PvP primarily in Berserker Stance for the utility.
You’re absolutely right. Berserker Rage is the biggest reason to remain in Berserker Stance most of the time. After all, if you’re suddenly stricken with Fear or even Gouge to a much lesser extent, you want to be able to break it instantly, as you’re not able to change stances once you lose control of your character. Pummel is another very important ability in the realm of PVP, and it, too, is Berserker Stance only. And it’d be wrong of me to forget Intercept, but I don’t think Intercept by itself is enough to warrant remaining in Berserker Stance most of the time.
Battle Stance is in need of a special something to draw warriors to it. Believe it or not, Battle Stance *does* have the most abilities available to it, but its unique abilities are sorely lacking by comparison.
December 4th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
But this is discusion about battle stance. Now it only usable on charge/overpower/(sometimes TC but usualy used that in def stance) in pvp nothing else.
Berserker stance is used for wihirlwind/pummel/berzerker rage/intercept.
Def stance is used for disarm/TClap/spell reflect/intevane/shieldblock.
As you probably know in pvp 80% of time you spend in berserker I think that is a litte to much, arms tree should be build for battle stance so we need someting else to be used in ouer main stance.
December 4th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
Once upon a time battle stance had some niche abilities: thunderclap and sweeping strikes. Now that you can tclap in def and SS in zerk, there’s less reason than ever to be in battle.
Overpower is no replacement for whirlwind, charge is no intercept, and as mentioned there’s no spell interrupt option in battle stance.
Personally I use battle stance for charge and overpower, which I believe are the only 2 “battle only” abilities. Both are pretty restricted too.
Ironically this is why TM is not needed anymore - you really have very few reasons to bother going to battle stance. Overpower, that’s it. You can get reflect and tclap in defensive. The only 2 abilities where TM really helps are reflect and disarm, and disarm isn’t so time sensitive that you can’t wait for 1 white hit after switching stances, or hit bloodrage, before doing it. Spell reflect, as mentioned elsewhere is usually only worth it if you’re being focused on, in which case you have tonnes of rage anyways. Trying to reflect pmorph/cyclone is very tough and a smart player will see your shield from a mile away and know what’s coming. 90% of the time all you’ll reflect is an ice lance.
But as Terhix said, as long as berserker rage is in zerk stance only (to say nothing of pummel and intercept) that’s where you’ll find most warriors.
December 4th, 2007 at 2:27 pm
>Personally I use battle stance for charge and overpower, which I believe are the only 2 “battle only” abilities. Both are pretty restricted too.
That’s not quite true, there’s Shield Bash. It’s a restricted ability as you need a shield to use it, but that’s no reason to count it completely out
December 4th, 2007 at 2:29 pm
whoops, wanted to quote this one:
> and as mentioned there’s no spell interrupt option in battle stance.
December 4th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
Eliminate the loss of rage due to stance dancing. Do warriors need to be penalized for changing stances? Allow warriors to retain all their rage when they change stances. This would make endless rage generating 25% more rage more useful. Or perhaps make that an additional benefit of endless rage (that you don’t lose rage when stance dancing). In addition to that move slam to Arms and replace Tactical Mastery with something else protection oriented.
December 4th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
Amen.
But seriously, I think we need more than just putting BR in battle stance. The biggest problems are that intercept and ww are berserker stance only. Another nice suggestion is the keep more rage when stance dancing, but that would never come to fruition due to balance issues.
December 4th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
jL Hit the nail right on the head. I’m fine with zerk rage and WW are berzerk stance only. Pummel shoud be added to battle stance as well. Keep in mind, with WW in zerk stance only, we eliminate the possiblity of there being no reason to dance to zerk stance.
December 4th, 2007 at 8:59 pm
Shield bash isn’t “battle only”, but you’re right it is an interrupt usable in battle stance. TBH I’ve never used it out of defensive and never even realized i could :p
December 4th, 2007 at 10:22 pm
its not really that much an of an issue… if we had all moves available in one stance we’d be even more OP by a long shot.
my only gripe is the stance bonus for zerker still. as % scale much more the higher our lvl and gear 3% crit is nothing while 10% dmg is getting even worse for us.
December 5th, 2007 at 10:09 am
My suggestion to making “Endless rage” more appealing would be adding “Player does not loose rage while changing stances” to the ability…it wouldn’t be a worldbreaker and still wouldn’t be overpowered.
December 5th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
That would be really, really good stuff. A real alternative to TM, so you don’t have to choose between 41 arms and 3 portection, when you have those 3 protection points included into Arms’ 41-pointer.
And since it’s so simple and brilliant, it will never happen…
December 5th, 2007 at 3:41 pm
That’s probably the best idea ive heard for an improvement to ER.
As Terhix says, blizz will never do it. Maybe they’ll give warlocks “casting spells no longer causes you to lose mana” tacked on to UA, but warriors will never see this.
December 5th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
you are welcome to steal my idea and take it to official wow forums
December 5th, 2007 at 4:14 pm
toyboy, read post 7 above your post 12.
“…Or perhaps make that an additional benefit of endless rage (that you don’t lose rage when stance dancing)…”
Sound familiar?
December 5th, 2007 at 4:23 pm
seems like more then i missed that jl, judging veritas and terhix answers
I Guess im just too lazy when scamming through forums, your comment was too long to read through.
December 5th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
After some more consideration,
1. Make endless rage retain all rage when stance dancing as previously stated.
2. Make TM up to 25 rage trainable like the made it trainable up to 10 rage (stance mastery). Just make it 5 rage every so many levels up to 25 near level 70.
3. Get rid of imp disciplines as it has no place in arms (or belongs in there no more than it does in any other tree) and is redundant with some of the prot talents (imp shield wall). Move imp slam into its slot.
4. Replace TM with a more appropriate prot talent since prot warriors rarely stance dance.
5. Replace imp slam with a more appropriate fury talent.
Getting a hit in to generate more rage only to lose it when you change a stance stinks. This endless rage change would certainly make it an attractive alternative to sub-41 point arms builds. Even with tactical mastery, it can be a hard choice to switch to defensive stance to disarm your opponent and be left with no rage afterward. Now that I have outsmarted my opponent by disarming him, I can’t kill him since I don’t have any rage plain stinks.
December 5th, 2007 at 4:30 pm
Thinking post 7 and Jl’s post are simmalar, your fault. You didn’t specify if it was tagged onto ER or not.
Thinking his post was too long to read, shame on you, Toyboy.
December 5th, 2007 at 4:39 pm
The low quality of this blog and the cluelessness of the author motivates me to start a real warrior blog.
Let me know when you get more then 10 visitors per day! - Terhix
December 5th, 2007 at 4:40 pm
yaya..spammers
…as long as i get my “player does not loose rage while changing stances” tagged to ER i don’t give a crap about who came up with the idea.
also:
3. Get rid of imp disciplines as it has no place in arms (or belongs in there no more than it does in any other tree) and is redundant with some of the prot talents (imp shield wall). Move imp slam into its slot.
I would rather make it prot, so you could get both this and imp shieldwall as a tank.
December 5th, 2007 at 5:11 pm
Is someone posting these ideas on the war forums? They must be heard!
December 5th, 2007 at 5:33 pm
I think all the responses here are good, and the ideas for revision are good also, but I think a few simpler changes that would make all builds mor viable:
1. Replace mortal strike with some type of 2h strike - increasing its damage.
2. Make mortal strike a 20 rage trainable strike with no cooldown that does like 50% weapons damage, usable in any stance.
3. Endless rage should be something that allows you to shred a debuff in exchange for rage.
These changes would give all warrior varietys more viability in the arenas, and it would give 2h warriors a little more burst, and it would give a 41 point talent that would be usefull in PvP and PvE.
Just my 2 cents.. excuse typoes.
December 5th, 2007 at 6:03 pm
I don’t think posting this on warrior forums would do anything. Posting on suggestion forums, maybe, but knowing how suggestion forums works, and how many people bother about it, it’s a fail before it’s posted.
Maybe if Schwick included it into his “Community’s Warriors’ Class Review” we could work something out, otherwise I don’t see a way out of this unless we start spamming forums with ‘.’ threads or bring a server down.
I just don’t believe that passing any suggestion in warrior community on forums, not because those suggestions are bad or because warrior community wouldn’t like them, but because most of the people actually don’t give a damn since they are happy with their 33-35 arms builds.
December 5th, 2007 at 6:17 pm
its time we tell blizzard these ideas and stop taking their crap for granted just send them an email or do suggestions. these ideas are awesome but wqe need 2 take an extra step and let them no about them.
December 5th, 2007 at 6:53 pm
No. Don’t suggest any of it at all. Let them stumble upon us. Us QQing about warriors directly to blizzard is going to result in a warlock buff and another warrior nerf.
December 5th, 2007 at 9:50 pm
Remove endless rage. Replace imp. mortal strike with 5 point talent for +4 to all resist (+20 total).
Put 1 point imp. mortal strike at the top of the tree.
December 5th, 2007 at 10:17 pm
the chances of them stumbelling on us is huge we need 2 do something. we need 2 take a risk so like only tell them a small idea get there attention but not for them to start looking at other classes aswell
December 6th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
@Laros:
… why? 20 resist is didily squat. Also, w/o endless rage, we wouldn’t have the rage to spam MS more.
December 6th, 2007 at 3:33 pm
@laros “Remove endless rage. Replace imp. mortal strike with 5 point talent for +4 to all resist (+20 total).
Put 1 point imp. mortal strike at the top of the tree.”
Thats the worst idea ive ever heard, im guessing you are 33/28 and want to avoid having to choose respeccing if there ever was an improvement to the arms 41p tree talent.
In what way would your suggestion increase the number of warriors speccing “Deep Arms”?
December 6th, 2007 at 5:44 pm
i’m playing as 36/26/3, actually, due to the other physical dps on my 5v5.
fair enough, I read up on resist and 20 resist is indeed a bit meaningless. I assumed, based on the tiny amount of resistance some races start with, that each point was more meaningful in PvP. my bad. I do support some level of spell resist deep in the arms tree, to make fights vs. casters a little more dynamic. Maybe a flat resist %, if that wouldn’t have mages crying foul.
Anyway, I think imp. MS is actually a pretty good skill. In arenas, from my own generation (1700 AP, 28.5 crit, swords) or from second wind ticking like mad, I definitely have at least the rage to MS every time it is up. Long term, my goal is to make sure that MS is on the target, so if I’m not whirlwinding like mad to ensure I have the rage every CD that’s fine.
Further, imp. MS means more meaningful damage from my rage, due more range being converted to MS rather than WW or slam or whatever. Imp. MS also lubricates target switching and narrows the chance that an target can escape before it is refreshed again.
The problem with deep arms has always been that, for PvP, the 6 or so points could be put to better use a variety of other ways. Adding magic resistance could definitely be attractive to arena warriors.
December 6th, 2007 at 7:06 pm
While having a decent amount of resist, or even better damage reduction from spells (15-20%) would be great, this would never happen as it would negate our main weakness: spell damage. Anything less and I wouldn’t be tempted enough to switch from 33/28.
I guess on the imp. MS topic, it depends how you play your warrior and in what type of match. 2v2: keeping MS is priority and if you are not the target, it may be the only thing you can keep up consistently. 5v5: I’m MSing slowly and building up enough rage to coordinate a burst of damage (auto MS WW auto slam) with a team mate to take someone down quickly.
December 6th, 2007 at 8:10 pm
Before the recent patch for me Battle stance was somewhere to grind with sweeping strikes mixed in with cleave. Now i find myself grinding in Beserker 100% of the time along with the 80% of the time im in it for PVP.
December 6th, 2007 at 10:23 pm
Some of these comments remind me of the general WoW forum; kinda sad. No offense Terhix or Veritas.
December 7th, 2007 at 12:31 am
Without knowing whether you are referring to my posts, I encourage you to contribute something other than criticism to the discussion, KainXavier. Otherwise, you’d best go back to where you belong.
December 7th, 2007 at 1:17 am
I enjoy reading the posts in this forum…there are often many good ideas and comments that stimulate the ‘grey matter’.
The suggestion to change ER to allow stance dancing without losing rage is a great idea (even if it only did the same as TM ‘retain 25 rage’). It would certainly tempt me to change from 33/25/3
December 11th, 2007 at 11:34 pm
The reason 17/44 is in the list is because those warriors specced that for their PvE raiding fury build, so can’t really count that.
December 14th, 2007 at 9:28 am
Ofc you can, since its more people using “pve raiding specc” then people using “deep arms” in arenas.