Blizzard
In the next Beta build, you'll see a few changes for Arms that should address the Rage economy issues pointed out in threads like this one. The baseline pacing is slightly lower than intended, and talents can cause too big of a swing in either direction (slowing down or speeding up the pace).
• Rage generation from auto attacks is increased by ~16%.
• Tacticien's proc chance is increased to 1.4% per Rage spent (it was 0.9%).This adds more button presses to the rotation regardless of your talent build, and pushes
Fulgurance more than other abilities to avoid creeping too close to "Slam-spam" territory. The moment we're trying to eliminate as much as possible is the, “I have enough Rage to Slam right now, but I don't know if I'll have enough to
Frappe mortelle afterwards unless I have a swing timer.” These changes add enough Rage, and enough
Fulgurance procs, to make that a rarer occurrence.
However, pumping more Rage into the rotation doesn't solve the problems with certain talent setups that have been highlighted here. There are a handful of Rage management talents that have big impacts on the spec's feel and flow, but it is easy to accidentally put together a build that is either starved or flooded.
• Avatar and Ferveur du combat swap places (Avatar to 90, Ferveur du combat to 45).
• Trauma removed, and replaced with the new Massacre design: "Execute is now usable against targets below 35% health."This makes the purpose of each row clearer. 45 is all about spending more Rage. The row will have a more predictable impact on total button presses over time, while each talent still has a distinct impact on moment-to-moment gameplay.
Similarly, the 90 row is now all about cooldowns. Putting
Avatar and
Sérénité meurtrière against each other limits the pacing swing between different talent setups, as well as lowering overall burst potential (something at which Arms already excels). Having strengths is important, but pushing them too far can lead to feeling like you're a one-trick pony.
Finally, two more related tweaks:
• Casse-crâne generates 20 Rage (was 30 Rage).
• Maîtrise de la rage no longer affects Sérénité meurtrière. It now only affects Frappe du colosse/Brise-guerre, and Tempête de lames.Casse-crâne was adding too much activity, relative to the other options on the 15 row. Even with this change, it is still the most active choice for players who enjoy being closer to GCD-locked.
Rather than adding
Avatar to
Maîtrise de la rage, we've opted to keep it simpler on the surface while still having all three 90 talents interact with it in different ways:
Mise à mort is directly buffed,
Avatar feeds extra Rage into
Maîtrise de la rage, and
Sérénité meurtrière makes it easier to set up for the more regular
Frappe du colosse windows.
Oh -- we're also trying out a different animation for
Fulgurance.
As always, thanks for the feedback and discussion!