[Arms Warrior - PvE] - Stance dancing for aoe?

[8bit]

I've been leveling my warrior recently, and I'm finding in some aoe pulls/multi-target fights that I never seem to have Bladestorm or Sweeping Strikes up when I need them. In a situation with 3-4 mobs and those skills on cooldown, would I want to switch over to berserker stance and whirlwind, or just maintain my priority queue until they're back up? I know, Trash Is Serious Business™ and such, but I wanted to prepare for a potential multi-target boss fight (note: I haven't cleared everything yet, and haven't read much about what I haven't seen, so I don't know if that fight actually exists or not), and wanted to make sure I wasn't doing it wrong.

Also, would I need to pop Bladestorm and Sweeping Strikes at the same time or chain them? Thanks for any advice.

[Grehn|Skipjack]

I tried stance dancing to Whirlwind for a while but it just seemed to create headaches. If SS isn't up for whatever reason, I just single target something until it is. If you're doing like heroic trash pulls where each is being chained one after another, go ahead and stagger BS and SS. If it's just one huge pileup, I see no reason not to stack them.

[amh]

Don't understimate Thunder Clap, seeing as it procs Deep Wounds :) Obviously not as effective on few targets, but it's fun on the really big packs.

[Levantine]

Which is why all the cool kids spec Incite for AoE.

[fafhrd]

You spec incite for single-target, aoe is a bonus.

[Levantine]

Shhhhhhhhh

[Jedah]

Don't stance dance. TC + SS + BS are the obvious answers.

One thing that some people don't think of, however, is to Rend the target you expect to die last, then enjoy your overpowers on whatever targets you're actively DPSing.

[Arcand]

So my warrior finally scraped together 1000g for the dual spec last night. Level 68. My other warrior is Fury/Prot so I know almost nothing about Arms...can I toss out some really basic questions?

(I did some net searching last night and was amazed at the abundance of obsolete guides - I became afraid that I'd find one that was un-obviously out of date and start following bad advice.)

1. Battle stance all the time? Is it ever worth taking Tactical Mastery so you can Whirlwind?

2. Does Sweeping Strikes work on Cleave? Bladestorm? Mortal Strike? Overpower? Rend?

3. On a trash pack with 3-4 bad guys...get Glyph of Cleave and spam Cleave? Or pretend I'm a rogue and burn targets down one by one?

4. Nobody talks about Victory Rush. Is it even worth hitting when it pops?

[kysu]

When lv'ing my warrior I never stance dance'd.

Sweeping strikes works with everything but rend. Trend is not to waste it on bladestorm unless you know it will kill them.

I actually glyph'd for victory rush, major and minor. Its basically a free starting attack with high crit so you can get deep wounds on your target.

[Jedah]

While leveling you should definitely use victory rush, especially if you glyph it (probably a good idea).

In raids I rarely use VR, but it does have its uses -- such as when you are moving and it happens to be available, and you have no other instants available.

[Hokahey]

(I did some net searching last night and was amazed at the abundance of obsolete guides - I became afraid that I'd find one that was un-obviously out of date and start following bad advice.)

1. Battle stance all the time? Is it ever worth taking Tactical Mastery so you can Whirlwind?

2. Does Sweeping Strikes work on Cleave? Bladestorm? Mortal Strike? Overpower? Rend?

3. On a trash pack with 3-4 bad guys...get Glyph of Cleave and spam Cleave? Or pretend I'm a rogue and burn targets down one by one?

4. Nobody talks about Victory Rush. Is it even worth hitting when it pops?

1. You take TM so you can pop to zerker stance to Pummel. Otherwise, none of the talent options you have at that portion of the tree are terribly exciting, particularly for PvE.

2. Good question. I'm not sure. My Arms knowledge has decayed a lot.

3. Sweeping Strikes or Bladestorm, or both, imo. Cleave is too pricey ragewise, since there isn't a second weapon auto attacking to give you more rage.

4. I use it when rage is low, if its up, or when I'm squishing clumped together groups of low health mobs where VR and maybe 1 auto attack kills them, and I'm just needing to target something new quickly to keep my auto attack going. I use it *all the time* while soloing.

[Arcand]

I went out last night and did Blood Furnace and Underbog just to get an idea. It seems like there's never time to do a Zerk-Whirlwind, I was busy playing whack-a-mole with Overpower, Mortal Strike and Execute.

As with several other characters, the struggle is going to be making myself use Bladestorm on cooldown instead of saving it for The Perfect Moment. I should probably just macro it to something...

[Grehn|Skipjack]

I went out last night and did Blood Furnace and Underbog just to get an idea. It seems like there's never time to do a Zerk-Whirlwind, I was busy playing whack-a-mole with Overpower, Mortal Strike and Execute.

As with several other characters, the struggle is going to be making myself use Bladestorm on cooldown instead of saving it for The Perfect Moment. I should probably just macro it to something...

Macro Bladestorm? That could lead to issues if it just came off cooldown at the end of a trash pull.

[Arcand]

Yeah, shortly after posting that I started thinking of reasons why it's not a good idea.

I learned to hit Berserk on my cat, I'll train myself to hit this one too eventually.

[Joanadark]

1. You take TM so you can pop to zerker stance to Pummel. Otherwise, none of the talent options you have at that portion of the tree are terribly exciting, particularly for PvE.

My understanding is that your DPS suffers less by simply equipping a shield and 1hander for 1 gcd and shield bashing, instead of stance dancing, pummeling, and stance dancing back.