On the positive side, having Whirlwind isn't critical to being a man-at-arms damagedealer, it is merely very, very, useful. It would be much worse to lack the flurry skill, for instance.
This is totally false. Almost all fights are over before Flurry is required when you have whirlwind. It's special when you actually get to make use of flurry. Even dust devil doesn't see that much use, though it's certainly more important than flurry in terms of how often it would be useful.
I can say that Whirlwind is the single best Man-at-Arms skill. Rage is second, but only if you have Whirlwind. Battering Ram is third.
