[Warrior] Cataclysm class preview

[fafhrd]

Supposing the damage is worth it, there's no reason Fury couldn't just stance dance to use it. They're looking at a design that doesn't nuke your rage when you switch, so given the right numbers, I could see it performing. That's assuming it requires Battle Stance at all anyway.
HL to trash group, Whirlwind, Cleavespam. With a 1m+ CD, it damn well better do some damage.
When it gets right down to it, there's no reason to write the ability off before it's even been tested and tweaked. If they really can't come up with a way for it to be a fun ability, they'll axe it and start over.

Well, at the moment it's not an assumption that it requires battle stance, that's the only stance they said it's usable in for now, and that juggernaut (an arms talent) might allow its use in other stances. And since fury can't use it in combat unless they allow fury to spec into warbringer/juggernaut it'd only be useful as an opener, for which charge or intercept would be better.

I mean, sure, the ability can be completely changed to be useful, and probably will be unless they scrap it completely, but it's funny seeing all the non-warriors saying "OMG that sounds amazing!" when everything they've actually told us about it is that it's useless.

And Whirlwind requires zerker stance btw, so what you outlined is switching to battle to leap, switching back to zerker to whirlwind, and then cleavespam. Even if they change swaps to not lose you your rage, they'll put a halt to your rage generation while swapping, so you won't have the rage to do that. Especially if unlike charge it doesn't generate rage, and like charge it requires being out of combat.

[Grehn|Skipjack]

I know what stance Whirlwind requires. What I was trying to convey is that with WW changing to be a more reliable AoE tool, and dropping it from Fury's single target toolkit, it's possible that skill will be available to Arms as well, much like Fan of Knives. They stated that HL could become usable in all stances with Warbringer and Juggernaut and possibly in combat. That was the first, most basic idea of the skill for implementation. If it doesn't work, they could just change it. The idea behind the previews isn't to ask whether the skills will work in our current, WOTLK skewed perception, but whether they sound "fun". I'd say that all the non warriors clamoring over how awesome HL sounds confirms that the idea is, indeed, a success.

[fafhrd]

I know what stance Whirlwind requires. What I was trying to convey is that with WW changing to be a more reliable AoE tool, and dropping it from Fury's single target toolkit, it's possible that skill will be available to Arms as well, much like Fan of Knives. They stated that HL could become usable in all stances with Warbringer and Juggernaut and possibly in combat. That was the first, most basic idea of the skill for implementation. If it doesn't work, they could just change it. The idea behind the previews isn't to ask whether the skills will work in our current, WOTLK skewed perception, but whether they sound "fun". I'd say that all the non warriors clamoring over how awesome HL sounds confirms that the idea is, indeed, a success.

So... success is based on the assumption that they implement something completely different from the ability they "preview"? Cool, I'll keep in mind while reading the rest of the previews that it doesn't actually matter what they said, and I can just imagine different abilities providing feedback on them.

[Grehn|Skipjack]

No, not completely different. The ability reads "leap at their target and apply the Thunder Clap ability to all enemies in the area when they land." We know it stuns at least the 1 target, if not all caught in it's range, and that is deals "massive damage". Anything other than that can be safely disregarded as example numbers to give an idea of where the ability should fit into the toolkit. You seem to be hating the ability just to hate it at this point.

[fafhrd]

No, not completely different. The ability reads "leap at their target and apply the Thunder Clap ability to all enemies in the area when they land." We know it stuns at least the 1 target, if not all caught in it's range, and that is deals "massive damage". Anything other than that can be safely disregarded as example numbers to give an idea of where the ability should fit into the toolkit. You seem to be hating the ability just to hate it at this point.

I'm hating the people who are saying "OMG THAT'S AWESOME" with considerably less justification than I have for saying it's terrible (i.e. the fact that the preview also reads "same stance, combat-req and cooldown as charge".)

The ability is good if it allows warriors a new mobility tool. If it's just a reskin of an existing mobility tool with some damage tacked on, sorry, it's not worth it. A new ability that you will use once a month isn't worth putting in a preview. And given that more mobility is probably the last thing they want to give warriors thanks to pvp, the chances are low that they'll take enough restrictions off HL to be good. The fact that it requires a target at all (the wrath beta version did not) is bad. Every single thing they've told us about the ability is the wrong way to do it, which is why it boggles my mind to see people saying anything good about it.

[Hokahey]

I'm going to do a reversal here and say that I agree with Fafhrd. They may as well not bother with Heroic Leap, if it goes live as it is described.

The difference maker for me is that it shares a cooldown with Charge, which makes it utterly worthless. I missed that initially. Some small usefulness in PvE for tanking, but still not quite 100% able to replace Charge entirely (although if it does grant Rage, it will). If it were its own separate cooldown for 1 or 2 minutes, it'd be different, but as it is now, its a *very* weak ability to get at lvl cap, particularly since Charge works perfectly fine as it is.

I'm still very on the fence about the changes to HS and Sunder in regard to Fury, and also the idea of Imp. Pummel.