I've played with the rework in a group setting for a few hours now and have some initial thoughts. Note that I'm relatively low level (20), so high level scaling will most likely change things.
From a thematic sense, it feels weird to me that nothing on the 'spender' side of the skill set rewards dual wielding. Cleave is 2H only, Shield Bash/Shield Block require a shield, then there's Frenzy and presumably Feint(don't have it yet) - which can be used with anything, but ideally with a 2H due to everything being ratio based. Frenzy seems like the obvious candidate to emphasize dual wield. More attacks or a stronger haste buff maybe?
Rallying Shout - I still see no reason to ever use this. I've never been in a situation at these levels that warranted using it, and now with all of these new skills, the opportunity cost has gotten even worse.
Shield Bash - because the shield check is only done on ability activation, and the value is functionally just 'more threat', I very quickly realized that I can just dual wield with a shield on my cursor and swap my offhand back and forth whenever I wanted to use Shield Bash. I got the damage/threat bonuses from Dual Wielding while also keeping the free hit/threat boost from Shield Bash. Perhaps I'll stop doing this once I get Feint, but it doesn't seem intended.
I'm very well aware that people will optimize the fun out of a game if given the opportunity and that behavior is really hard to deal with, so perhaps Feint just needs to be given before shield bash in the leveling process so I'm not encouraged to do this?
Cross Cut - I feel as though I never want to use this. 75%*2 weapon ratio vs the equivalent level Rend III being 135% weapon ratio AND additional threat AND reset of our new trio of spender actions. I suppose if I was purely DPS for a group, but we're heavily disincentivized from filling a DPS role now due to the Vengeance mechanic.
Challenging Arrow - Another ability that I feel is very niche. Obviously the threat is nice, but that bonus threat is functionally lost because of the shared cooldown with other martial abilities such as Rend. I only imagine using this in a scenario where I am pulling long distances for a group where I have major threat problems.. And even then, due to the aforementioned opportunity cost of a broader Fighter kit, I still don't know what I would drop to slot this in.
Frenzy/Cleave - both of these feel incredible, my only concern is that not having any way of generating Vengeance charges when someone else is tanking [maybe two tanks are in the group, maybe a multi party encounter..] means I immediately lose access to what I consider to be the highlight of the reworked Fighter.
I highly encourage reconsidering the vengeance-only-when-tanking idea. Even looking at this purely from a social perspective, having a gameplay mechanic that actually makes things less enjoyable to play if I'm grouped with certain people is probably detrimental for the game from a macro sense - we want gameplay friction, not social friction.
Please find a way to let us continue to using these abilities when not taking damage, be it offensive stance generating fury stacks from damage dealt or some other mechanic.
I overall love the class now, but I'm considering not playing it due to this scenario that I'll inevitably run into.
