Crushing Blow's AoE radius: Could it be wider?

[Khraizin]

Okay so I was excited to get Crushing blow, but after seeing the aoe in action I feel kinda dissapointed, only once in a blue moon will it actually hit someone other than my main target because mobs just aren't close enough for it to be a reliable source of extra damage. Could this effect maybe use a wider area of effect?

[vandana_]

Extending the radius of CB will not help to make the ability useful. Here's why.

 

By the time you get to use the AOE effect all mobs that were not crowd-controlled should be dead (because they are low HP weak targets). They are also usually in packs of more than 3 so your are better off spending your Rage on Sweeping Slash and Smash.

 

The mobs with enough HP to survive through the trash pull (Silver and Gold) are (or at least should be) crowd-controlled every time. They are normally far away from each other and fought one by one.

 

I believe the AOE effect of Crushing Blow was introduced to help with spreading sunder armor stacks and aoe aggro. Crushing Fist, changed Single Saber Mastery and Decimate are more than enough to spread the stacks and keep aggro on aoe groups.

 

Frankly, the CB AOE is extremely annoying - sometimes when you want single target threat burst you can't use it because it's hitting targets you shouldn't be hitting - for example the Shield Generator under Stormcaller and Firebrand shield.

 

Please give us our single target burst threat ability back and remove this AOE alltogether! The Immortal tree is terribly designed atm and i hope BW will address it in 1.4.

Edited August 15, 2012 by vandana_

[Khraizin]

Extending the radius of CB will not help to make the ability useful. Here's why.

 

By the time you get to use the AOE effect all mobs that were not crowd-controlled should be dead (because they are low HP weak targets). They are also usually in packs of more than 3 so your are better off spending your Rage on Sweeping Slash and Smash.

 

The mobs with enough HP to survive through the trash pull (Silver and Gold) are (or at least should be) crowd-controlled every time. They are normally far away from each other and fought one by one.

 

I believe the AOE effect of Crushing Blow was introduced to help with spreading sunder armor stacks and aoe aggro. Crushing Fist, changed Single Saber Mastery and Decimate are more than enough to spread the stacks and keep aggro on aoe groups.

 

Frankly, the CB AOE is extremely annoying - sometimes when you want single target threat burst you can't use it because it's hitting targets you shouldn't be hitting - for example the Shield Generator under Stormcaller and Firebrand shield.

 

Please give us our single target burst threat ability back and remove this AOE alltogether! The Immortal tree is terribly designed atm and i hope BW will address it in 1.4.

 

Well if their problem with it was too much damage, maybe an alternative would be to have the ability refund some rage points at five stacks?

[vandana_]

Well if their problem with it was too much damage, maybe an alternative would be to have the ability refund some rage points at five stacks?

 

The Rage generation in Immortal tree is not a problem at all. I'm never, ever Rage starved and I often find myself just spamming Vicious Slash to spend all the redundant Rage. Better lower the cooldown if we want to go in the direction of using things more often.

 

I don't see why they had to nerf the damage on CB and Backhand in the first place. Immortals were not on par with other tanks in DPS even before the nerf .

 

I believe that they wanted to nerf the damage as a trade-off for AOE effect which looked "fancy" on paper but no one really thought whether the change was practical or not really.

 

So once again. We don't need more AOE threat, we need single target burst threat without the additional aoe and sunder armor fireworks.

Edited August 15, 2012 by vandana_

[Khraizin]

The Rage generation in Immortal tree is not a problem at all. I'm never, ever Rage starved and I often find myself just spamming Vicious Slash to spend all the redundant Rage. Better lower the cooldown if we want to go in the direction of using things more often.

 

I don't see why they had to nerf the damage on CB and Backhand in the first place. Immortals were not on par with other tanks in DPS even before the nerf .

 

I believe that they wanted to nerf the damage as a trade-off for AOE effect which looked "fancy" on paper but no one really thought whether the change was practical or not really.

 

So once again. We don't need more AOE threat, we need single target burst threat without the additional aoe and sunder armor fireworks.

 

Well I can't say I would know anything about that, but thanks for letting me know it's not really worth altering skill rotation to make use of the AoE component.

[vandana_]

Well I can't say I would know anything about that, but thanks for letting me know it's not really worth altering skill rotation to make use of the AoE component.

 

Yeah, in practice you will never have opportunity to use it apart of some odd, messed up flashpoint pulls. Or when you overgear the instance so much that you are just aoe'ing everything.

[Elyx]

Well I can't say I would know anything about that, but thanks for letting me know it's not really worth altering skill rotation to make use of the AoE component.

 

In addition to the notes Vandana mentioned above, its saddening to think that CB does around the same damage as the rage dump ability we get at level 1 ! compare the two sometime...you may get 5-10% extra damage off of CB (single target), but with the extra rage cost, combined with the 15 second CD, and the almost uselessness of the AoE component, it really almost isn't worth the talent points to get there. Vicious slash (our lvl 1 ability),does almost as much damage..and it costs less rage.

 

The only beneficial thing that high in the immortal tree is the extra rage from sweeping fury, but in most raid situations, even this isn't needed. This is the reason why many people are switching over to a hybrid build. some of the builds are almost 70% vengeance tree! in spite of my love for my jugg, the Immortal tree is in pretty bad shape atm. I wont rant too much ( i could go on for ages), but suffice to say that it works. it's not well made at all, but it works. Sad thign is you can run halfway (or more ) up the Vengeance tree (DPS tree), and it works just as well...with more damage.

[Khraizin]

In addition to the notes Vandana mentioned above, its saddening to think that CB does around the same damage as the rage dump ability we get at level 1 ! compare the two sometime...you may get 5-10% extra damage off of CB (single target), but with the extra rage cost, combined with the 15 second CD, and the almost uselessness of the AoE component, it really almost isn't worth the talent points to get there. Vicious slash (our lvl 1 ability),does almost as much damage..and it costs less rage.

 

The only beneficial thing that high in the immortal tree is the extra rage from sweeping fury, but in most raid situations, even this isn't needed. This is the reason why many people are switching over to a hybrid build. some of the builds are almost 70% vengeance tree! in spite of my love for my jugg, the Immortal tree is in pretty bad shape atm. I wont rant too much ( i could go on for ages), but suffice to say that it works. it's not well made at all, but it works. Sad thign is you can run halfway (or more ) up the Vengeance tree (DPS tree), and it works just as well...with more damage.

 

Well it's not the only tree in poor shape, I sometimes get the feeling the devs didn't really think things through in some places (Shiv and Backstab are redundant abilities, the concealment talent "Waylay" could just apply bonus backstab damage to shiv, removing the need for an entire ability and likely making the rotation smoother as a result)

 

I would totally switch out right now actually but alas I am in loooove with non channeled force choke. <3 I guess i'll just have to wait and see.

[Elyx]

Well it's not the only tree in poor shape, I sometimes get the feeling the devs didn't really think things through in some places (Shiv and Backstab are redundant abilities, the concealment talent "Waylay" could just apply bonus backstab damage to shiv, removing the need for an entire ability and likely making the rotation smoother as a result)

 

I would totally switch out right now actually but alas I am in loooove with non channeled force choke. <3 I guess i'll just have to wait and see.

 

Good point

 

on a flip note...you can drop crushing blow and a few points in the tier below it to get up to unstoppable in the vengeance tree. Unstoppable is awesome for those first few seconds a boss is laying down the punishement on ya. My only regret is of the two skills in tier 6, one gives you the extra rage in soresu (really helps in flashpoints), and the other gives us internal and elemental resistance (something we are low on). but there are those who say the tradeoff isn't bad...4 seconds of immunity and 20% dr. the more you use intercede during combat the more beneficial this becomes.