Blizzard have just published their death knight Q&A (at least their initial one). That means we have less waiting to do before it’s our turn. A lot of questions have been asked all across the board, some of them even serious and without the “gief buff plxploxnaokekek?”
The themes have been many, and there have been at least two variations of each theme? As I write this we have 13 pages full of questions, so despite some doomsayer suggestions (“Why don’t you just remove warriors, you don’t like us anyway”) our class is very much alive and kicking.
So what kind of things do our fellow furies have on their minds? Quite a few things actually. Here follows a list with the highlights (and I will refrain from listing “buffs plx” as a point, since it is quite honestly too vague and Blizzard aren’t likely to touch it):
- TG…the bastard child. Understandable, but at the same time futile to ask about
- Rampage…part of our raid utility. The little useless brother of Leader of the Pack
- The lacklustre performance of fury, when compared to other so-called hybrids like DK’s and Druids
- Gameplay…the latest changes to fury have locked us into rotations more than ever
Starting with Titan’s Grip…well, what to say that hasn’t been said, screamed, hollered and whined about already? It is the bastard child of fury, and it will never become a talent that 100% of furies will love. Rather, it will divide the waters from now on and in perpetuity. Will it disappear? No. Blizzard have said that they find it cool, and that they’ve wanted it in since TBC. It’s staying, and the damage nerf is also staying.
Would all furies take it, if it were proven that 1-handed fury builds were viable? Heck no. Many people still share the view that furies should hit hard with onehanded weapons, for a more furies and frenetic pace of playing (more on that later). If I’m honest, I’d probably go for a 1-handed fury build if I could. But, it would require Blizzard to redo much of the loot, so I think it’s fair to say that TG ain’t changing. For better or worse.
Ever since Blizzard changed the buff system, people have been complaining about Rampage. And despite trying to see the logic, I still fail to see the logic in the LotP vs Rampage priorities. The duration, application requirements and limited range of Rampage all make it decidedly inferior to LotP (even in its untalented form). Oh sure, it does come into its own if there is no feral druid in the raid, but honestly, and this goes especially for 25-man raiders, how often are you in a raid without a feral?
Blizzard need to up their game on this supposed buff. How many other 41 talent point abilities are this inferior and mainly usable when soloing? Ultimately it has its place in solo situations and 5-mans, but as one of “the big 3” talents, its suprisingly useless in the endgame. It used to be grand, but required micromanagement. Now it requires nothing, but is very nearly useless in a raiding situation. Which would you prefer?
I’ll not enter into the “hybrid vs. pure” debate at this stage, since I’ve already done so in the past. The point being raised this time round is this however: How can it be, that other hybrids can spec both DPS and tanking in the same tree, essentially gaining a decent spec for both by one application of points…and THEN outperform another hybrid in all aspects of their job. This crosses over into one of the big topics for our protection warrior brethren, namely that of protection warriors being underperforming compared to druids and death knights. So, essentially, a druid will beat us in DPS, and if we both go to our tanking spec, a) the druid will do better and b) they can very nearly do it without changing specs.
While it may seem whiny and complaining, it’s worth asking the question, as some have done: “Should a class with 4 different roles in a raid be able to outperform a class with only 2 roles decisively in both roles?” While I don’t necessarily agree that there should be tiers of hybrids, I would like to see equality between hybrids, especially if hybrids are not allowed to equal pures in damage.
Finally, we come to the last point…gameplay. It’s not the most commonly named point, but it’s interesting nonetheless. Back in the day, fury used to be as frenzied as rogues nearly. It was a lot of button pushing. Along came TG and halved our button-pushing frequency. And add to that a couple of very short cooldowns on our staple abilities. The result is a very very stifled and locked way of playing, provided you want to maximise your DPS. So basically, our furious playing style is less furious than ever. In fact, it begins to resemble a paladin from the old days. Judge, Seal, Judge, Seal, Bloodthirst, Whirlwind, Bloodthirst, Whirlwind. In a time where Blizzard are moving most people out of the gridlock of rotations, it’s quite interesting that they’re seemingly burying their furious players under a layer of locked rotations.
The above is just a little sample of the multitude of questions that have been asked of Blizz. I have no hope that they can manage to answer them all. But I would hope that they will find the time to answer the above at the very least. And the blues hinted at it not being a single session, so keep the questions flowing.
Furiously 