Any WAR mains here that can give me their SB patch change impressions since its been out for a while now? There's been a lot of negativity, but after trying all 3 tanks (just got Paladin unlocked, have DRK to 60 before the SB changes) I still feel the most attached to WAR since I ran ARR with it. I'm only lvl 60 though and haven't really played with it much post patch since I've been busy leveling other classes, so I'm interested to hear what someone with more experience has to say.
As an aside, AST is a blast. I didn't think I'd like the card mechanic this much, but I'm still constantly forgetting to actually draw.
I just hit 68, but so far I'm liking WAR.
Pros:
- The beast gauge thing is nice in that you can stock up more "wrath" than before, letting you bank big moves like Fell Cleave/IB/etc both offensively and defensively, if you want. It loosens up the rotation a bit if you want to keep your options open. It probably tightens itself back up again at 70 though, once people start establishing set rotations on how to use your Berserks.
- No pacify and shorter cooldown on Berserk is nice, though now it's so short I'm never sure if I should save it or if I should just burn it on cooldown.
- The Storm's Path change is nice in that now it's a part of your main rotation, and all three combo paths have their own purpose.
- New aggro tools like the AoE provoke and Shirk will help in raids, though they won't help much in pugs/dungeon runs.
- I agree with the removal of many skills like Mercy Stroke, Foresight, Fracture, and so on. Helps reduce clutter.
Downsides:
- Beast gauge penalty on stance dancing is quite punishing, though you partially could work around it by trying to burn as much meter as possible before stance switching. It hurts a lot during dungeon runs because normally you'd start a big pull with Defiance and then switch into Deliverance later. That doesn't work nearly as smoothly anymore.
- I REALLY miss Bloodbath. I'm not sure if it's because the SB dungeons are harder in general, but everything feels like it hurts a hell of a lot more. Midsized to big trash pulls are a lot harder to do without it.
- Aggro management has gotten a lot harder. Because your max aggro combo is no longer also your max damage combo, you always have to pick and choose between damage and aggro on single target. Other jobs, especially Red Mage and Samurai, burst like hell these days and it's a lot harder to grab/hold aggro on them, especially when you're trying to minimize your stance dancing because of the Wrath penalty.
- With the new Infuriate trait and shorter Berserk cooldown, it feels like I might not be able to plan out Fell Cleaves in Berserk so much anymore, because of a slightly unpredictable Infuriate cooldown that comes from its trait. I'm not sure about this yet, but will probably find out at 70.
- I'm mixed about disabling Infuriate outside combat. On one hand, it ends the debate about super unwieldy 50 second openers. On the other hand, not being able to pop a quick Infuriate > Unchained before pulling is awkward as fuck, especially now that the servers have moved to a location that's made it impossible for me to double weave without losing GCD time. Combine that with the extremely high burst damage from RDM and SAM, and you have a puzzle I haven't figured out yet.