Thanks for the great article, Mr. Rossi. I agree on pretty much all points, and like you, I was curious about Single Minded Fury, enough so to give it a try before heading back to Titan's Grip. This talent sounds good on paper, but currently falls flat in execution, even with the minor 4.06 buff. Granted, the faster swing speed and smoother rage generation of using two 1H weapons is attractive, but still not enough to even things out. The raw stats on 2H weapons prove roughly a 10k health boost (much more useful in the melee unfriendly world of Cata than it ever was in Wrath), and upwards of 300 points of strength, plus more crit, haste, or what have you. The final strike against SMF is the considerable loss of stats like hit and expertise, which could be fixed by baking some extra hit and expertise into the talent itself. I want to like SMF, but it just needs more buffing to be competitive.

I'll miss HS and Cleave, too. I find it amusing that Blizzard never intended HS to be a primary damage button, yet they made two talents specifically to buff it. The 4.06 changes seem to have made HS a rage dump again, so here's hoping Bloodthirst will step up to fill in the gaps. Overall though, Fury feels fun again, and hitting things with big weapons is equally viable in heroics and progression raiding. Now if only they would give us even one genuine crowd control ability besides the poor-man's CC of Piercing Howl and glyphed fear shouts... :-)

Reply