Since the Arms Warrior tier bonuses were reworked a few builds ago, the set is now in
a far better place than it was. While the first pass was obviously overpowered (granting +20% strength for a nearly 27% gain), it was since nerfed down to a reasonable level - the two piece is currently worth ~5%, while the four piece adds about 8%, for a combined 13.5% for both, which appears to be the rough target range based on other bonuses seen on the PTR so far.
Although there has been some criticism that the bonuses are not rotationally defining enough, this is something of a mischaracterization. It's true that the set does not encourage any new talents or major rotational changes, but it does greatly increase the amount of
Overpower procs, resulting in more active gameplay and less downtime, but the most important part of the bonus is how reliable it is. Absent extended periods of downtime, the four piece strength bonus can be stacked very quickly at the start of an encounter and is extremely easy to maintain nearly 100% of the time due to the high uptime on
Colossus Smash and very frequent
Tactician procs. While this consistency lacks the exciting highs (and unfortunate lows) of more random procs, removing the extra layer of RNG should be welcomed by the more meticulous players looking to perfect their rotation and DPS output on a given encounter - especially when progressing on new content.
- Although they may appear to be predominantly single target focused set bonuses, they work very well in multitarget encounters too. The two-piece increasing the damage taken debuff from Colossus Smash adds around 8% to the important burst damage phases, while the four-piece's extra Overpower procs combined with Dreadnaught and Crash the Ramparts add a great deal of extra sustained multitarget damage. Meanwhile the strength bonus directly increases all ability damage.
- Both of the set bonuses synergize extremely well with Enduring Blow. Although the two-piece does not extend the duration of those legendary procs, they do benefit from the increased damage debuff... and with the high uptime on Colossus Smash that the legendary provides, that results in the two piece being a lot stronger than it first appears.
- The four piece is somewhat awkwardly worded and has two distinct parts. Firstly, Tactician has a higher proc rate while Colossus Smash is active on at least one target hit by an ability (e.g. Whirlwind's 30 rage cost would have a 30 * 1.4 * 1.5 = 63% chance to proc Tactician). This also has a great deal of synergy with the legendary Enduring Blow, however, the stacking strength bonus is independent of Colossus Smash - every Tactician proc causes the next Overpower to stack or refresh Pile On, making it very easy to maintain over the course of an encounter, even if the target isn't currently affected by Colossus Smash.
- Interestingly, the set neither greatly weights or greatly devalues Windfury Totem. While the totem does allow spending more rage which in turn results in more Tactician procs, Overpower is used so much more frequently that the rotation doesn't need as much extra rage to spend GCDs either. It's still greatly beneficial, and Arms easily gets more out of Windfury than any other specialization, but unlike the first version, the tier set doesn't appear to double down on the problem.
- As stated above, the benefit of being such a reliable and non-invasive set bonus is the downside of not changing the dominant Arms build in any major way - the talents, legendaries, and covenant rankings are largely unchanged.
Overall, whether or not this bonus is exciting may depend on what you were hoping for, but I consider the consistency of the set bonuses to be a major strength. It's still somewhat unclear which specialization will pull ahead next tier, as Fury has a lot of new potential with its highly synergistic Necrolord build, but various fights seem to favor different specializations and the last three encounters are still unknown. At the very least, Arms now has a very easy to use and reliable tier set, which should serve it well no matter what content it's doing.
