Today I want to talk about these two talents and how I really enjoy what they do to the rotation. They are both alternate resource consumers, acting as a compliment to Soul Cleave. Soul Cleave takes pain and souls and turns that into healing and damage reduction. Fracture is half of that, taking pain and turning that into potential for healing and damage reduction. Spirit Bomb is the other half, taking souls and turning that into actual healing and damage reduction. (And the damage reduction I’m talking about in these cases is Painbringer and Fueled by Pain.)
In a low burst-damage situation, you can completely remove Soul Cleave from the rotation and replace it with these two abilities. Fracture and Spirit Bomb are higher dps too, so in less dangerous situations you can get a lot of benefit out of using them exclusively.
Soul Cleave still ends up being pretty important in high damage situations (at least in my experience). But that doesn’t mean Fracture and Spirit Bomb are less important. Hell, they really shine here because damage in raids ebbs and flows. Sometimes you’re getting trucked, sometimes you’re not taking any damage whatsoever. Having a way to spend resources during low periods keeps things interesting at the very least.
But beyond just being interesting for damage, Fracture and Spirit Bomb both act as investments. You may be taking little damage now, so you can use that as an opportunity to turn pain into souls that you can use in the near future. You might not need a big burst of healing, but increasing your healing over the next 20 seconds will keep you prepared for when you do need it.
I’m grateful that these abilities exist, almost too grateful. I struggle to do anything without these talents now because without them I feel so limited. They provide both damage and the ability to prepare for the future, and it’s hard to give that up.
And both talents compete with talents I love. Even though I haven’t used it in a while, I do love Feed the Demon. It provides a nice simplicity and linear damage reduction, to compliment Fracture’s complexity and multi-dimensional damage reduction potential.
And Fel Devastation has been one of my identity talents. It looks so cool, and it’s so great for recovery that is often hard to find as Vengeance.
Really, those two talents are still viable (at least in my world of constantly changing talents to fit needs). But I’m so attached to what Fracture and Spirit Bomb bring that it always feels bad to spec out of them.