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%.
• Tactician'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
Overpower 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
Mortal Strike afterwards unless I have a swing timer.” These changes add enough Rage, and enough
Overpower 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 Fervor of Battle swap places (Avatar to 90, Fervor of Battle 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
Deadly Calm 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:
• Skullsplitter generates 20 Rage (was 30 Rage).
• Anger Management no longer affects Deadly Calm. It now only affects Colossus Smash/Warbreaker, and Bladestorm.Skullsplitter 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
Anger Management, we've opted to keep it simpler on the surface while still having all three 90 talents interact with it in different ways:
In For The Kill is directly buffed,
Avatar feeds extra Rage into
Anger Management, and
Deadly Calm makes it easier to set up for the more regular
Colossus Smash windows.
Oh -- we're also trying out a different animation for
Overpower.
As always, thanks for the feedback and discussion!