RSS feed2008-08-01 18:12:01
With the the addition of the Death Knight class, competition is steeper than ever before for melee DPS spots in a 25 man raid. While the introduction of raidwide shouts are a great change for the flexibility of group composition, the fact that there are only two shout buffs means that the synergy benefits of bringing more than two warriors sharply declines. I think that it is fair to say that the majority of raids, particularly those with a desire to maximize their efficiency, will be looking at only taking 2 warriors - 1 tank, and 1 dps.
As such, the location of Blood Frenzy is a point of major concern that hasn't sufficiently been addressed on these forums.
The Blood Frenzy debuff provides a 4% bonus to all physical damage. In an average 25 man raid, we can assume an average of about 10 people whose DPS will directly benefit from this buff (including the tank, whose increased threat will benefit everyone). This 4% damage bonus for 10 people can be roughly considered equivalent to a 40% personal dps increase in terms of what the warrior brings to the raid. Obviously, Blood Frenzy is an amazing warrior talent. Unfortunately, it is so amazing, that it is essentially a must have in a 25-man environment. Why is this unfortunate, you might ask?
The problem is that the location of this talent, and the lack of any equivalent in fury makes the deep fury tree completely nonviable. If you are the only DPS warrior in a 25-man raid, you MUST spec at least 32 points into arms. If you enjoy the fury playstyle, the best fury that you can hope for is to play as a 32/39 hybrid. There is nothing that you could spend those points from arms on in deep fury that could possibly provide an equivalent 40% DPS boost. No matter how good your personal DPS as Titan's Grip (assuming that the talent was changed), it simply wouldn't be comparable without creating a pretty massive personal DPS imbalance.
My proposed solution? We have increasingly been seeing buffs to other classes to give various playstyles more raid synergy and desirability. This is great. In fact, this is why Blood frenzy was initially introduced. Fighting with a single two-handed weapon is a completely different playstyle than dual wielding one handers, which is different than the new concept of dual wielding two-handers. As such, blood frenzy was introduced to give arms a place in a raid. While traditionally the personal DPS tree, I think that deep fury needs to be able to pick up some sort of additional raid synergy talent to make it a desirable choice instead of or in addition to Blood Frenzy. Obviously, in keeping with the original intent of the blood frenzy talent, enhancing the overwhelmingly lackluster deep arms talents would also be valuable so that the playstyle associated with deep arms remains a viable option. This sort of fury raid synergy buff would provide a potential raid desirability and viability for all three DPS warrior playstyles that will be presented in this expansion. Optionally, changing the location of the current Blood Frenzy debuff would also be possible. Either way, something needs to be done to make more dps warrior playstyles viable, particularly those with points deep into one talent tree or the other.
As such, the location of Blood Frenzy is a point of major concern that hasn't sufficiently been addressed on these forums.
The Blood Frenzy debuff provides a 4% bonus to all physical damage. In an average 25 man raid, we can assume an average of about 10 people whose DPS will directly benefit from this buff (including the tank, whose increased threat will benefit everyone). This 4% damage bonus for 10 people can be roughly considered equivalent to a 40% personal dps increase in terms of what the warrior brings to the raid. Obviously, Blood Frenzy is an amazing warrior talent. Unfortunately, it is so amazing, that it is essentially a must have in a 25-man environment. Why is this unfortunate, you might ask?
The problem is that the location of this talent, and the lack of any equivalent in fury makes the deep fury tree completely nonviable. If you are the only DPS warrior in a 25-man raid, you MUST spec at least 32 points into arms. If you enjoy the fury playstyle, the best fury that you can hope for is to play as a 32/39 hybrid. There is nothing that you could spend those points from arms on in deep fury that could possibly provide an equivalent 40% DPS boost. No matter how good your personal DPS as Titan's Grip (assuming that the talent was changed), it simply wouldn't be comparable without creating a pretty massive personal DPS imbalance.
My proposed solution? We have increasingly been seeing buffs to other classes to give various playstyles more raid synergy and desirability. This is great. In fact, this is why Blood frenzy was initially introduced. Fighting with a single two-handed weapon is a completely different playstyle than dual wielding one handers, which is different than the new concept of dual wielding two-handers. As such, blood frenzy was introduced to give arms a place in a raid. While traditionally the personal DPS tree, I think that deep fury needs to be able to pick up some sort of additional raid synergy talent to make it a desirable choice instead of or in addition to Blood Frenzy. Obviously, in keeping with the original intent of the blood frenzy talent, enhancing the overwhelmingly lackluster deep arms talents would also be valuable so that the playstyle associated with deep arms remains a viable option. This sort of fury raid synergy buff would provide a potential raid desirability and viability for all three DPS warrior playstyles that will be presented in this expansion. Optionally, changing the location of the current Blood Frenzy debuff would also be possible. Either way, something needs to be done to make more dps warrior playstyles viable, particularly those with points deep into one talent tree or the other.
Blayloc
