[Warrior PvE] Casual DPS Gameplay: Arms or Fury

[thatguy]

Yeah, I'm sure I would get kicked if I tried that. Haha.

I'm excited to get to 85 for heroic leap. That looks like the most fun spell/ability out of the entire Cata expansion, all other classes included. Leap of Faith is a close second.

Do you view Shield Block as a cooldown? In wrath I didn't because it seemed weak so I macro'ed it into my Shield Slam for maximum uptime. But with block now mitigating 30%, it seems way more powerful to me. (derp!) I'm still noobing it up with the SS/SB macro but I'm wondering if I should strip it out to have as another "Oh Noes" button.

[Shyrtandros]

I've been playing Prot warrior since lvl 10 and I keep considering swapping...

Compared to Prot would you say it's easier, same, harder - more buttons, less buttons, requires more awareness or less awareness?

I am very smooth with my toon and I can easily cast all my AoE or single target abilities - while monitoring my movements (Charge ect) as well as stuns and survival CD's.

I can't imagine it being HARDER but .. I have to ask

[thatguy]

I am still very early on in the learning curve as I'm only doing questing at the moment. I spent some time at the dummy trying to get some muscle memory down but it feels more engaged. .

When I was soloing as prot, it felt slow and methodical. Shield slam, revenge, devastate, heroic strike to burn rage. Rinse/repeat. Arms feels fun and I'm not having any downtime. Victory rush makes you feel invincible. Kill a mob, charge a mob, heal up, kill a mob, charge next mob, heal up, etc. I'm still toying with my keybindings a little and power auras is helping me lots.

I know that totally dodged your question but I'd say it's not harder than prot. More buttons to push while dpsing so it feels more engaged. You have more stuff to keep track of but the basic priority seems intuitive to me now.

[Hokahey]

When I was soloing as prot, it felt slow and methodical. Shield slam, revenge, devastate, heroic strike to burn rage.

While soloing as a Prot. Warrior, you really should be pulling 3 or more mobs as often as reasonably possible. Otherwise it will definitely be a drag. When I'm doing TB and Wildhammer dailies, its always as Prot, and its MUCH faster. You forgot to include throwing up Rend, which is a DPS boost single target, plus if you have specced BnT, you can T-Clap to spread that Rend to other mobs, and you also rarely have to worry over getting killed by respawns. I typically run in, pull all I can, and just drag a pile of mobs around as I Leap, Charge, and Intercept my way to pretty much everything in sight. Spell Reflect if there are casting mobs. Pop a cooldown if I overdo it, and Victory Rush as mobs drop. Without pulling lots of mobs at a time, yes, Prot is relatively slow.

[thatguy]

So with 4.06 and the buffs to slam, after keeping up our priorities (Rend, Colossus Smash, Overpower, Mortal Strike), is it best to use our empty GCDs with Slam or Heroic Strike? I did that long quest in Twilight Highlands (kill that big ugly gronn looking thing) that had 3.1mm health.

By prioritizing slam, I did 8.5k dps. Halfway through I switched to Heroic Strike and did 8.4k. I made sure to take a peek before I got into Execute phase but it felt like it was the same no matter what I did. I had set up my power auras so that I could keep track of everything better and it "felt" easier with Heroic Strike still.

Am I missing something?

[Brute]

I'm glad I found this thread. I just leveled to 85 last night and not once all the way between 80 and 85 did I use Rend. Overpower naturally only lit up during phases where my expertise wasn't capped so I was about to take it off the bar and put something else there till I stopped in here.

Why are people saying HS is on the GCD? It isn't, it's like an extra strike you can just throw in now off the GCD. I always open up Victory Rush->HS->Colossus Smash->MS and HS goes in w/o costing me a GCD, so I use it a lot.

Also I guess I need to be keeping Rend up, which will proc Overpower and that will fill some GCD's. Slam hits very hard, as hard as MS sometimes (can't remember if it gets buffed from that one proc that gives you 30% bonus damage), so I have used it a lot when other stuff is on CD, but I guess that will go down some now.

What is the stat priority for Mastery vs Crit vs Haste? This is something I've been wondering all the way to 85 but hadn't taken time to learn.

[bldavis]

iirc for arms
Str>Hit8%>Mastery>Crit=haste
haste will increase the speed of your white swings, crit will adds more bleeds
so if you are rage starved, go with haste, if not go with crit

exp will help a little, but with overpower as part of our rotation, its not a priority like it is for fury
keeping rend up will increase your overpower usage alot

for aoe packs, make sure your tank has a NICE threat lead, charge (or heroic leap) rend one, t-clap (your specced into B&T right?) and hit bladestorm....then pray your tank can hold aggro lol

as for rage burn, i normally use slam for stationary fights, or HS if i have to move alot

for my arms spec, check my armory (in sig), right now my warrior is in her dps gear/spec and i will try to log her out in arms gear for the next few days

[Kelaan]

for aoe packs, make sure your tank has a NICE threat lead, charge (or heroic leap) rend one, t-clap (your specced into B&T right?) and hit bladestorm....then pray your tank can hold aggro lol

How does Sweeping Strikes work? Will it make Bladestorm hit things twice as often? I never really know when I should be using it.

[bldavis]

for aoe packs, make sure your tank has a NICE threat lead, charge (or heroic leap) rend one, t-clap (your specced into B&T right?) and hit bladestorm....then pray your tank can hold aggro lol

How does Sweeping Strikes work? Will it make Bladestorm hit things twice as often? I never really know when I should be using it.

sweeping strikes is for smaller aoe packs, just 2 -3 mobs
bladestorm is the massive 4+ mob packs (trogg packs in GB, murlocs in ToT)
afaik, they do not stack (that would be WAY OP!)

[Brute]

iirc for arms
Str>Hit8%>Mastery>Crit=haste
haste will increase the speed of your white swings, crit will adds more bleeds
so if you are rage starved, go with haste, if not go with crit

as for mastery, the extra swings add rage, right? So Mastery is superior to both because of more hits that can both crit and bleed and give you more rage?

exp will help a little, but with overpower as part of our rotation, its not a priority like it is for fury
keeping rend up will increase your overpower usage alot

so is it better to have an attack not connect and hit with an overpower, consuming a GCD in the process, or is it better to just have the hit connect?

as for rage burn, i normally use slam for stationary fights, or HS if i have to move alot

you can cast slam on the move now iirc. I seem to be able to strafe while the cast bar is going.

Thanks for the discussion and good info here; i need to update my spec. i'm specced wrong . My gear is horrible but I'm fresh 85 so that will just get better.

[bldavis]

i believe the extra swings from mastery add rage, but im not 100% sure on that
but that is what i have been going on, thus the Mastery>Crit/haste

if you ahve mastery already on an item, and are hit-capped, then its crit or haste, but generally that is for reforging, and you should have crit or haste on the item already, esp if you have mastery on it

i just said exp is not a MANDATORY stat like it is for fury
Overpower is a really hard hitting strike, and is one of the top priorities in our list
as it is part of our rotation anyway, all you are doing is replacing a slam or HS with a OP so you really arent losing a GCD

[Shyrtandros]

With the recent announcement of 4.1 - once it's live it will once again make Arms look like the best choice for warriors for PVE.

Arms Specific
• Improved Slam increases Slam damage by 20/40%, up from 10/20%.
• Mortal Strike damage has been increased to 175% weapon damage, up from 150%.

General

• Colossus Smash now ignores 70% of an opponent's armor, down from 100%.
• Inner Rage is now available at level 56.
• Overpower damage has been increased to 140% weapon damage, up from 125%.
• Rallying Cry (new ability) is available from trainers at level 83. It temporarily grants the warrior and all party or raid members within 30 yards 20% of maximum health for 10 seconds. After the effect expires, the health is lost. It has no cost, no stance requirements, and is not on the global cooldown. It has a 3-minute cooldown, but also shares a cooldown with Last Stand.
• Whirlwind now has its cooldown reduced by 6 seconds when it deals damage to 4 or more targets. The Whirlwind effect caused by Bladestorm remains unchanged.

*snipped out PVP related changes*

[Kelaan]

With the recent announcement of 4.1 - once it's live it will once again make Arms look like the best choice for warriors for PVE.

While I realize that Arms is getting buffs, how does that equate into it being better than Fury?

Whirlwind now has its cooldown reduced by 6 seconds when it deals damage to 4 or more targets. The Whirlwind effect caused by Bladestorm remains unchanged.

Also, that seems pretty nice - similar to DS's buff.

[bldavis]

the combination of fury nerfs (CS nerf) and buffs to the arms rotation (overpower buff is op ) will at least make the gap closer, if not push arms slightly ahead

oh and i was browsing the tankspot forums and found this
BiS-Arms-Warrior-Pre-Raid-Gearing-Guide

[Kelaan]

Fingers of Light (reforge parry) NOTE: You may have to struggle with tanks about these. They have 10 more strength than any other heroic gloves and parry is arguably a better stat for arms than haste. Make sure your group knows upfront that you want to roll for these.

Whaaat? Why would Arms want Parry? Someone seems to be on crack. I can't comment on the merits of pvp gear or not (set bonuses are still juicy!), but I can't imagine tanking stats being competitive, even when reforged, and especially don't understand why Arms would want Parry.