DPS as a Warrior (Part 1)

Warriors have two DPS specs: Arms and Fury.

A long time ago, Fury was THE PvE spec, while Arms was for PvP. That mostly changed in patch 2.4, with the advent of Titan's Grip and Bladestorm and numerous other changes to both trees.

Along comes patch 3.1, with the nerf 10% damage reduction to Titan's Grip. Many warriors, including yours truly, have respecced countless times into both trees, and, dismayed at the state of Fury DPS at sub-optimal gear levels, switched to Arms instead. To be fair, after reading Landsoul's post, one of the most revered warrior number crunchers out there, I am still at a loss to answer where all my Fury DPS went to. Now, with patch 3.1.3, Arms received a slight boost while Fury seems to be significantly boosted, with the rage and cooldown change to Bloodthirst.

The primary difference between the two trees as they stand now, is that Fury provides a constant damage output with a few highly explosive peaks, while Arms feels more bursty and requires more concentration to watch out for skill cooldowns, debuffs, and procs. All in all, Fury excels at fights with little to no movement, and with adds (think Whirlwind), your typical stand-still-and-bash-the-boss'-skull-in kind of fights. Arms probably has an edge in fluid fights with lots of movement.

Next posts: More in-depth discussion on Arms and Fury DPS.