While the bonuses are not yet available for testing, or even detailed in the public spell data, it is immediately apparent that the two piece bonus is wildly overtuned and subject to change. The four piece is much more interesting, however, but also difficult to ascertain since there isn’t any indication of what the proc rate will be, aside from a developer note that it will be downscaled when dealing with Mastery: Deep Wounds ticking on multiple targets. That said, we can assume the proc rate should be fairly generous to account for the 10 stack limit, else Deep Wounds is unlikely to crit frequently enough for the bonus to stack anywhere near that high.
The real question is how much rotational influence it will have, since the current single target rotation doesn’t actually use Slam anymore, spending rage with a combination of Thunder Clap, Storm of Swords, and Ignore Pain instead. Reintroducing Slam into the rotation isn’t that straightforward; because of its relatively low cost, it requires more GCDs to effectively spend rage, which starts to infringe on the use of Overpower and Mortal Strike with Battlelord. As a result, the more likely scenario is that Slam becomes a burst button used at X-number of stacks, adding another ability to an already cluttered rotation instead of replacing those other spenders – this is also how it will be used in the Execute phase, since Slam needs at least 5 stacks to outweigh the base damage of Execute and 9 stacks to outweigh a fully ramped Juggernaut.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the bonus is causing Slam to cleave onto multiple targets, and while it’s a neat callback to Patch 5.4, Arms doesn’t really need another multitarget filler right now either – already juggling Cleave, Overpower, Thunder Clap, Storm of Swords, Ignore Pain, and the occasional Mortal Strike/Execute during Sweeping Strikes. Like the single target rotation, Slam could again be saved as an infrequent burst button used near or at max stacks, though the more likely situation is replacing Cleave and Storm of Swords with Fervor of Battle and Collateral Damage – even at one stack, Fervor will double the damage per rage of Cleave, while also helping to consolidate the rotation.
Initial Impression: C+
The 2p will almost certainly be changed or nerfed, and although the 4p is intriguing, it feels like it will bloat and confuse the single target rotation more than anything else – particularly during Execute, as players try to decide how many stacks they need for one button to outweigh another. It does have an interesting impact on multitarget, however, encouraging a new build of otherwise unused talents.
