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?

DPS as a Warrior (Part 3)

After a long bout with throat infections and flu, from which I still have not recovered, and some desktop problems, this is finally here. Enjoy.

Warriors have been around a very long time, so naturally it follows that Arms warriors have been around just as long. PvP veterans of old learned to fear and revere Arms warriors for their deadly Mortal Strike. In those days, Arms was THE warrior PvP tree, and PvE Arms was non-existent. Come Wrath, and especially patches 2.4 and 3.1, Arms was no longer a PvP only tree. Now, there isn't any one talent that really defines the tree, except maybe for Bladestorm, and even that is a point of contention among many warriors.

The tree has seen many changes, notably, the changes to Poleaxe Specialization, where it previously gave +5% crit, it now also gives +5% crit damage, the introduction of Taste for Blood, making Rend and Overpower now primary skills in the Arms arsenal; whereas previously Arms warriors had no defining stance for DPS, they now almost always use Battle Stance. There was also Sudden Death and Unrelenting Assault (UA is an interesting and unorthodox tanking talent too, more on that next time), Wrecking Crew, and Juggernaut, which provides much-needed mobility.

Previously, Juggernaut provided a +100% chance to crit, but patches 3.1.2 and 3.1.3 reduced that chance to 25%, and increased the cooldown on Charge by 5 seconds, respectively. Needless to say, this must have been an attempt to balance for PvP. Still, it is a great PvE talent, and that is what we are interested in.

The Arms DPS cycle is somewhat more complex than its Fury counterpart. In a nutshell, you simply Charge a mob, Rend, followed by Mortal Strike, while using Execute/Overpower procs when they become available, refreshing Rend when there is less than 6 seconds left, squeezing Slams in whenever possible, and using Bladestorm, combined with Sweeping Strikes if there are additional mobs around. It therefore naturally follows that you will be specced for Improved Slam and have the Glyph of Rending to go along with it.

It must be said that Slam, however strange it may seem, is essentially a large part of Arms DPS and cannot be ignored. Since Arms warriors generally have no rage issue without environmental raid damage, Slam is an effective way of burning excess rage. With the 2T7 bonus, which increases Slam damage by 10%, a 2/2 Improved Slam + a queued Heroic Strike after will provide some nice damage along with burning excess rage. What I've noticed people saying is to use Slam instead of Heroic Strike. I respectfully disagree... I use both! Its true that Slam>Heroic Strike for rage dump, but if you can somehow manage to get both to come off together, which I've been able to pull off on multiple occasions, that would increase DPS and burn more rage (for situations with extremely high raid damage).

Of course, there is also a question of prioritizing procs. This is where the fun starts. The Arms DPS cycle is so hectic that you'll probably never ever have a free global cooldown. So then, what happens when Execute lights up, Overpower lights up, Rend has less than 6 seconds remaining, and Mortal Strike is off cooldown at the same time? First things first, don't panic! Always prioritize it such that Execute is the highest on your list, since Sudden Death can proc off itself, then followed by Mortal Strike/Overpower in no particular order, then refreshing Rend, and finally Bladestorm. Bladestorm is last, because while it may be a nice DPS boost on paper, you are unable to do anything for that 6 seconds, save white attacks and moving around, which also means you will be unable to press Execute and Overpower... the list goes on.

All weapon specializations in the Arms tree were not created equal. Sword spec may look nice, but is very lacklustre. Mace spec provides more oomph, but the work done by Landsoul and many others over at Elitistjerks have shown that the ArP is insufficient to justify speccing into this, so we are only left with... Poleaxe specialization. 5% crit chance is big, but 5% extra crit damage is enormous, or so the experts say. I'm just going to trust their math on this one, and say that Poleaxe spec is THE 2H spec.

A standard Arms spec would look something like this. Note that the points in the first two tiers of the Arms tree are mostly fillers, as are the points in the second tier of the Fury tree. Also, it is VERY IMPORTANT to note that Trauma is provided by Feral druids in the form of Mangle, and Blood Frenzy is provided by Combat rogues in the form of Savage Combat. If you have those two in your raid, feel free to stick the talent points elsewhere; Anger Management would be a good choice. If you are intending to go it solo, or have neither of these in your raid (unlikely), I recommend you take the 2 points out of Improved Execute and stick them into the necessary abilities.

With regards to gear, there are two schools of thought: Armour Penetration and Strength. While the kind folks at Elitistjerks have already concluded that gemming (and looking for) Strength on gear is generally superior to ArP, it might have changed since this was written. 8% hit is the absolute maximum you should have, 7% with a Draenei in your party. Mix and match your gear with Weapon Mastery so that you'll sit at 6.5% expertise, which is the dodge soft cap.

Glyph-wise, never leave home without Glyph of Rending, Glyph of Mortal Strike, and Glyph of Execution. For minor glyphs, you can use the same as those for Fury, which are here.

Next: Conclusion!

DPS as a Warrior (Part 2)

The sole defining talent of the Fury tree in Wrath is definitely Titan's Grip. Having seen a multitude of balances ever since its inception, TG is now straddled with a 10% damage reduction component when wielding a 2-handed weapon in one hand. On the bright side, patch 3.1.3 brought some life back into the Fury tree, namely, reducing the cost of Bloodthirst(BT) from 30 rage to 20 rage, and reducing its cooldown from 5 seconds to 4 seconds.

After some testing on the heroic dummy, I noticed a marked increase in DPS from what I used to have. When the 10% damage reduction to TG went live, many warriors were noticing, and suffering from, rage starvation at some point or another, due to a drop in white hit damage. As in the link in the previous post, GC has said that the rage formula hasn't changed, and the TG nerf did take white-hit rage generation into account, but warrior DPS was a tad too low. Still, it doesn't explain where large chunks of other warriors' DPS went. Now, with this fix, Fury DPS cycles seem to be much smoother, allowing more Heroic Strikes, and rage starvation issues should be a thing of the past. Let's just hope that this is not another band-aid fix on top of what promises to be a great talent for warriors.

A Fury warrior's DPS cycle is somewhat priority-based. Fury warriors have 2 instant attacks, one proc-attack, and a rage dump. Most of the time, it does not matter whether you hit BT first or Whirlwind(WW) first, its just that WW provides a bigger initial damage boost. Bloodsurge procs, however, are a different story. There exist differing opinions on whether to prioritize WW before instant-cast slams, or BT before instant-cast slams, but a good rule of thumb is to fit your instant slams into a free GCD whenever possible. Keep in mind that while you are doing all this, you should also be diligently queueing Heroic Strike, never letting your rage bar fill up completely.

In an infinite rage situation (think lots of raid damage), all your mainhand attacks should be Heroic Strike. Of course, sometimes there is little raid damage, and your offhand white damage doesn't generate sufficient rage for you to do that. Thats where rage generating talents come into the equation. Bloodrage, Berserker Rage, Glyph of Heroic Strike, and Anger Management are all your friends. Even with such a wide array of tools at your disposal, you might still find yourself short of rage. This is where its time to think about a weapon upgrade, or more Strength/hit.

A standard cookie-cutter Fury spec would look, therefore, something like this.

Gearing as a Fury warrior is relatively easy. You'll want pieces with high strength and crit, while hit, expertise, armour penetration, and haste are mostly secondary. 8% hit from talents and gear will be sufficient, although 3-4% above this number will help to smooth out rage generation. 6.5% expertise is recommended for bosses, to ensure that none of your specials get dodged. Finally, you should be primarily gemming for Strength, anything else is mostly sub-optimal.

As for glyphs, must-have major glyphs would be Heroic Strike and Whirlwind, while the third slot could possibly be filled by Glyph of Execution. Minor glyphs are quite standard; you'll want Glyph of Battle, Glyph of Bloodrage, and Glyph of Enduring Victory.

Next: DPS as Arms.

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.