I focused on maledicting the bard, which was not smart--I should have opened with a hurl throat, then immediately incapacitated the assassin with artery, flee/hurl torso or forearm/flee hamstring.

At that point he wouldn't be a huge threat--landing the boneshatter on the singer would have been a good next step, and depending on how much health I had left at that point, trying to land a quick hamstring before finishing off the fight.

I definitely noticed Whirlwind of Steel kicking in when I dropped an opponent's dex--if I could get enough time to work folks over, Cry of thunder/cranial would usually give me the win, throw in bloodthirst if I needed (I usually died when I used bloodthirst, so I tended to not use it much at all.)