Rage reworked in 4.0

Rage will be changed in cataclysm. See here

http://www.mmo-champion.com/news-2/rage-normalization-in-cataclysm/

Some initial thoughts:

1) Heroic strike is going to be very difficult to balance. Arms and prot warriors already have a full rotation so either those specs will never hit heroic strike, or there will be some rage level where heroic strike is better than one or other of their attacks (probably devastate or slam). For fury, we have spare GCDs already so can slot in a heroic strike, but again if it hits harder than bloodthirst above a certain level of rage we'll need to monitor that.

2) Because rage generation will increase as haste and crit increase, end game warriors will still have more rage than fresh level 85s. I think this aspect could be unbalancing, although rogues and hunters will also gain energy/focus faster via haste in cataclysm. Since our resource gathering will increase via two stats instead of one there is still the possibility that stacking crit might be the way to go.

3) The way that rage is gained for prot warriors means that tanking farm content is going to mean that we are more rage starved than currently. If rage gain is based on the proportion of health lost from damage, incoming damage will contribute little or no rage as tank health increases.

4) If offhand weapons cause 50% threat, I guess that will be multiplicative with the 50% damage penalty for offhand weapons, meaning that 2h fury builds receive 125% rage gain. This corresponds to the arms talent which increases rage gained by 25%. When you take the talent that increases offhand damage done by 50% however, this means that fury rage gain will be 137.5%, meaning that fury will generate more rage than arms. I suppose that ability costs will need to be balanced around this.

5) If battle shout gives me 10 rage and is trumpeted as a rage gain mechanic I will be disappointed, to put it mildly. I don't want lots of itty bitty rage gain buttons (bloodthirst/improved zerker rage/battle shout), I want one button on a short cooldown to increase rage.