DPS as a Warrior (Part 4)

Warriors are an easy class to learn to play, but are extremely difficult to master. It takes lots of practice, practice, practice, and then more practice. It involves a lot of reading up on class mechanics to really understand what's going on and why you need to press something at a certain time.

Admittedly, my Wrath experience has been limited to heroics, Naxxramas and certain fights of Ulduar, but from what I can deduce, Fury still has a slight edge over Arms at the highest of gear levels. Below that, Arms is probably a better choice if you want to maximise your DPS. Granted, the recent Fury buff has reduced the gap somewhat at lower gear levels, but truth be told, I had favoured Fury over Arms from day one. Arms did feel more dynamic, but it lacked a certain oomph that I felt while playing Fury.

To add on to all that I've said regarding both trees, one must note that there is absolutely no benefit for you to be hitting a boss from the front, and doing so WILL lower your DPS. Therefore, always make sure to hit mobs/bosses from behind, where they are unable to parry your attacks. They will, however, still be able to dodge attacks, and this is where your Expertise comes into play.

Also, for you budding and veteran warriors out there alike, DO note that warriors are one of the most, if not the most, gear and buff dependent class, to produce maximum DPS. The DPS jump from ilevel 200 blues to ilevel 200 epics is larger than that from ilevel 200 epics to ilevel 213 epics. Raid buffs like Might (Battle Shout), Kings, MotW, Trueshot Aura, Sunder Armour, etc etc, would almost double your DPS at most gear levels; credits for this go to Landsoul's warrior spreadsheet which can be found here. Go on, try it out on a heroic dummy, and then try it on a raid boss fully buffed. You'll see what I mean.

Having said that, it is easy to see why warrior DPS can seem so inflated on certain fights, because of the way the fight mechanics/buffs scale with the rage mechanic. This can be read here. Matt Rossi has kindly explained that with a white damage buff from fights like Thaddius or Loatheb, a warrior would have more rage to convert into specials, which converts into even more DPS. I can understand Blizzard's need to respond to all the complaints about warrior DPS being too high, but come on! You designed these fight mechanics, and didn't see this coming? And now you, in the interests of having to pacify all these other classes, are nerfing warrior DPS where it didn't really need a nerf. Warrior DPS WILL be exceptionally skewed on fights like these, and you need to explain that fact to other classes, instead of hitting us with such a bad nerf and then applying some band-aids over it because you thought warrior DPS was a tad too low.

Since I've almost always been a Fury/Prot warrior, I'm just going to put my trust in Blizzard again and hope they do something about it. I understand warriors are ridiculously difficult to balance, but I'm sure they'll come up with something.

As for you folks out there, my advice is: Try both trees out, find out which one you like more, and stick with it. After all, there's not much point in playing a style you dislike, is there?