Effort

So it's really just more for personal preference? Thats a tough decision then heh. It sure is nice to crit, but having consistent damage is nice too.

 

Jekar

I would replace all those resilience combo gems which I believe are all in yellow slots with +8 hit rating gems.

I think you need to gem for +hit rating until you get 5% +hit at least. Nothing ruins burst DPS like missing a Mortal Strike. That's my personal preference.

The World of Warcraft Armory

 

Mem

The basic idea is to get your right hand free in order to move/turn via mouse. This means: use WASD for movement but compliment it with the mouse. Furthermore bind your abilities around WASD, like ^-5, q, e, r, t, f,g, < - v. Change stances via mousewheel.

There are quite a lot of good advices burrowed deeply in this board, like:

http://elitistjerks.com/f33/t7255-3_best_button_bind/

I'll also show you an older screenshot from my raid UI which will show an example how to setup keys. Basically replace the aggro styles for DPS styles and you are ready to go. The upper bar will change depending on the stance.

ImageShack - Hosting :: wowscrnshot090507203632gt0.jpg

(I'll redo the UI probably, but in order to show the keybinds its sufficient).

Hope this helps a bit.

 

Haaris

I got my s3 mace last Saturday with a warrior/druid combo, and we ran into a couple of warlock/druid setups. The first thing I want to say is that you should definately rush the warlock right off the bat after seeing his druid buffs. You want to keep him from summoning a voidwalker because most good warlocks will have that pet out first and quickly try to summon a voidwalker upon spotting a warrior. At this point, you should coordinate with your druid to quickly take down the felhunter, he cyclones/feral charges/bashes the opposing druid to give you time to kill the felhunter. Feel free to blow deathwish to do this.

Now the warlock will probably blow his instant summon on a voidwalker, this is where the mana war starts. You want to sunder up the warlock and as soon as you get five stacks, your druid needs to put up a cyclone on the voidwalker. This makes it so that the pet will not absorb damage for 5 seconds (full damage on the warlock) and will also give your druid a chance to drink because the opposing druid will most likely need to heal through your damage. Two things can happen here, either their druid runs out of mana and you kill the lock, or the pet gets low enough that you have your druid start a CC chain on the opposing druid while you finish off the voidwalker. A key thing that BOTH of you need to keep track of is if the warlock attempts to summon another pet while you guys are busy on both the druid and almost dead voidwalker. Intercept, pummel, fear, bash, feral charge, or cyclone should be used on the warlock if he attempts to resummon.

Due to Detheroc being a server with limited talent and my druid and I having a somewhat busy schedule, I haven't been able to play arenas above the 1850 level since first getting my mace. I had to get to 1850 with a Bloodmoon, which was pretty painful even though we only lost eight games. I can only assume that mace stuns on the warlock will help tremendously when it comes to staying on top of him and staying ahead in the mana war.

EDIT: I wrote this from the warrior's point of view, but it should provide enough insight as to what you should so as a druid. Going out of line of sight of the lock and rooting the pet helps to get a drink off. Also, having your warrior hamstring either the druid or voidwalker when they're near by helps to make it harder for the druid to keep you in combat and help to keep him in combat as well as perhaps making him shift and therefore use more mana.

 

Aeze

This is what I use, I got used to it very quickly and it works pretty well for me.

I have four bars, the main bar bound 1 through = on the keyboard, and the the others are bound with the control, shift, and alt keys. These are a bit different though, because instead of binding the keys all the way through 12, I bind them 1 through 6 and then Q through Y instead of 7 through 12. So for example "Control + 0" would become "Control + R", which is much more easily hit with one hand. I also do this with other characters and most other games that I play, it lets me hit a lot more keys without having to move my hand too much, or use the mouse to click them.

The other, much more warrior specific thing I do (and this isn't a new concept) is get rid of the bar swapping on stance changes and use macros on most of my abilities to switch stances if needed using the stance dance macros. When I first decided to try it I though it'd be annoying but it actually works out surprisingly well. It just means that if I need to disarm, I'd tap the button twice, the first time it'd put me in Defensive stance, the second time it'd hit Disarm.

My bars look like this.

The way I do it isn't anything new, and there are probably better ways to do it, but I found it much better than the traditional warrior setup. I'd recommend giving it a shot if you have the time to play with it.

 

Tscullor

Hi,

Sorry if this has been asked before, but I was wondering if there was a reason -every- warrior on my server has taken the Season 3 2H Mace. I'm a week away from the sword, yet i've seen about 9 warriors with the mace. Usually I don't like copying people, and I really do believe i'd love the sword, but is there a special reason that i'm missing as to why -EVERYONE- i've seen with a season 3 two-hander took the mace?

EDIT: Sorry, I mostly play 2's with a paladin, and 3's with Priest/Paladin (Holy/Holy).

 

Travusto

Does anyone know if blood frenzy stacks with hemorrhage?

 

Murgen

The difference in damage isn't that noticeable in 5v5 where they always have more healing or snares to fall back on than in 3v3. The stun wins games by taking away one of five players' ability to proactively mitigate your damage. You will have fun with your sword in 2v2, but I think you will regret passing on the mace in the long run.

I have also read that mace spec has a higher proc rate than sword spec, even without stormherald's equip bonus, but take that with a grain of salt. I didn't test it myself.

 

Tscullor

Thanks for the response.

The only thing right now, is that i'm playing a Healer/Healer/Warrior setup (Holy Priest/Holy Paladin), and what's really letting us down is my ability to put real pressure on 2DPS teams, enough to force one of them to go into survival mode.

To clarify, i'm still using Thunder, with no real prospects of getting Deep Thunder - Since we don't know anyone on the server, and 'pugging' it has proved extremely unsuccessful, either the nether being flat out ninjalooted (Lost 5 of them to this, people saying they didn't need it), or simply not making it to the end boss. (These three characters have only been rolled a month ago, and we've had many a sleepless night farming honor to get to where we are now, and are holding a steady 1800 rating in 3v3 in the new season, on the Cyclone battlegroup, which is... unforgiving to say the least.)

The problem we've been having, and the reason we believe we haven't hit 1900 or 2000 yet, is that I simply can't do enough damage. In 3v3, with this setup, would the sword be better for this, or will it be fairly moot compared to mace DPS?

The only reason I doubt this is because with Thunder, mace spec hasn't ever really jumped out at me as "Oh crap, that was super close, if I hadn't got that mace stun, that was a loss for sure...", whereas when I imagine swordspec, I imagine all those times where my godamn target is sitting on 5%, running around a pillar, waiting for a heal, while I futily try to catch him, where a sword spec proc would've killed him outright. I fear that it's simply a problem of swordspec being more 'visible', where you can really SEE it working, whereas mace spec is more of a subtle game-winner, and i'm just not seeing it.

EDIT: Sigh, always find myself posting something, then thinking "Hey, I should've added that", just for the record, I never really intend to play 5's, just 2's with my Paladin friend, and 3's.

We may try to run 2DPS/Healer in 3v3 soon though, so I wouldn't mind opinions on how that'd change the situation.

 

woo-haa

After running a PRI/PAL/WAR i S2 and start of S3 I have become aware of some problems too. This is obviously a outlast setup as you wont have enough DPS to kill anyone in a team with a healer. I would say most of the games comes down to mana issues. However, there's one big disadvantage with this. We have no easy way to stop people from drinking. This is very easy to see against 2DPS teams with Druid healer.

Also, we have lost all our games to Lock/Rogue/Druid teams this season. The rogue will go on our Priest, the Lock will keep pressure on our Paladin with CoT and Fears, and the Druid will lock me down. I usually switch between the Lock and Druid. What we tried to do is to have the fights close to a pillar or in a closed room (starting area in RoL for example). This will give the druid less mobility and force him to melee range to CC me. Are there other tricks or tips for beating this setup? Or is this simply the anti-WARPRIPAL team?

 

Thorquiz

Try Judgement of Justice and kill the druid, while the priest burns everytime the druid is in caster form. Should'nt last too long to kill a soon-to-be-oom and slowed druid.

Until now, the only setup that beats us regularly is lock/mage/priest. Simply too much CC on both of my healers to keep up, I don't really see a way to win against this line-up.

 

woo-haa

After 2.3 I find it nearly impossible to chase a druid. 4 CCs and instant travelform will let him get away. This is quite evident on RoL where he will run between the starting areas, which is OOR from our priest (usually in middle). I should have rolled gnome, then?

 

Humbaba

You'll see an significant, noticable boost in damage going from [Thunder] to [Vengeful Gladiator's Bonegrinder]. A mace is burst damage. Every time you stun a class and remove it's dodge and parry you've given yourself effective burst. Every time you stun a class and stop them from running away, you've given yourself effective burst. Any time you stun someone and take control away from them you disrupt their plans and give yourself an advantage. You can heal through burst; you can't do a thing when you're standing there with completely helpless.

Given that you're not playing with a shaman, there's no compelling reason for you take the sword. With two healers, you're not playing a burst game, anyway.

 

Thairne

Now where to start this... I said earlier in this thread that I´m going to start a Warr/Dru 2on2. Due to queue times of about 15 minutes we didnt reach the high ratings yet, but usually we win about 80% of our games.
Last game we ran into a Pal/Hunter combo. Hunter had a scorpid... And.. I couldn't get anything done. It was basically impossible to kill anything. Between BoF, BoP, Traps, imp. Wingclip and Scattershot it was really hard even staying close to the hunter. When Cyclone went the immune of ways, the Pala could heal the hunter up easily.
Then, switching to the Paladin, it went the other way round. Trying to kill a Pal between HoJ, Scatter&Trap Combos seemed equally difficult..
Tried killing the scorpid, but the Pal could heal that up pretty easily too...

 

◊ Vectivus

I've started a 5's team that I'm pretty happy with (we're a 6/6 + 3/4 guild, trying to make some waves on the PvP scene), with the following to draw on:

Holy Paladin
Disc Priest
SL/SL Warlock
SL/SL Warlock
Frost Mage
Resto Shaman
AR/Hemo Rogue
Hunter (spec varies)
MS Warrior (that's me!)

Our most effective line-up to date has been Warrior/Paladin/Priest/Mage/Hunter. Given that's the team I'm running with for the most part, I'm wondering how I should tailor my talents to reflect it.

I've been playing around with a huge variety of Arms/Fury specs, and haven't settled conclusively on anything yet. I specced for this ( Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft ) last night to try it, and it worked well - I don't feel like I'm getting anything out of the investment into Improved Overpower, but other than that, it works alright.

I guess I'm looking for advice in a few places:
#1 - How do you spend your first 15 points in Arms? I almost always go 5/5 Deflection, 5/5 Iron Will, 3/3 Deep Wounds, 1/1 Anger Management, and 1/2 Improved Overpower. I just don't ever seem to have the rage/time to use Heroic Strike effectively.
#2 - Is there a talent sacrifice worth making to pick up Blood Frenzy?
#3 - How necessary is Weapon Mastery? I don't find I run into Disarm in 5's anywhere near the way I do in 2's (although if I can find a catch-all PvP spec, and it involves taking WM, so be it!).
#4 - Tactical Mastery. I spend 99% of my time in Arenas in Berserker Stance, and cannot fathom an active use for it (since I can dance to Intercept/Intervene on 10 Rage anyway). I know it facilitates Spell Reflect macros, but I only ever seem to get enough bang for the buck out of it when I get lucky on a cheese AP-PoM-Pyro in 2's.

Overall, unless I'm doing something horribly wrong, I'm pretty happy with my 37/24.

 

Chucifer

I've since rerolled from my warrior, however, the argument for Improved Heroic Strike was that in 5's the warrior is rarely in direct combat with melee, where deflection would come into play. impHS would then be useful for on demand burst damage where an Intercept-Mortal Strike-Whirlwind with Heroic Strike queued up would provide a decent amount of damage in a short amount of time.

As for Blood Frenzy, removing a point in Two Handed Weapon Specialization (1% damage increase) for one point in Blood Frenzy (2% damage increase) seems logical.

 

RootBreaker

Sunder the scorpid, build up rage, then have your druid CC the paladin while you drop it.

 

Crimsonstorm

I go 5 deflection 5 Iron Will, 3 Deep WOunds 2 Imp Overpower. Though I want AM too.
Imp Overpower I use when fighting rogues & druids, for whom I fight in battle stance (which also lets me rend them so they cant stealth)

No because its Blood frenzy vs Flurry or something like that. However, If youre going more heavily in arms, youre going to pick it up. Like 41/20 or something

Im trying to figure this out. Back when it was 100% immune it was LESS necessary, because no one ever tried to use it on you because they 'knew' youre immune. I tried going 41/20 last week and got disarmed a couple times.

Imo its not as good as getting flurry. Its basically for defensive stance-spell reflect or disarm.
I think its better in 5s where if they focus you you need to go defensive/shield/spell reflect.

 

◊ Vectivus

I've tried running 41/20 a few times, and the extra rage generation in 2's was a big deal. I really liked it. I only really switched back to 37/24 because I found that having Sweeping Strikes in 5's can help me cause some initial grief or mid-game panic by splitting heals amongst DPS that are playing too defensively - and, having lost ER anyway, I picked up WM.

I agree with you about WM - now that it's not an immunity, it doesn't seem as valuable. Shaving 5s/3s off of a Disarm/Riposte definitely seems worthwhile, but I think I would give it up for ER if I didn't want SS.

So, there's a question - for those of you who have actually used ER and appreciate its value, ER or SS? I like the on-demand extra damage component of SS, but having ER cuts down on the time I spend rage-starved significantly. I also like the fact that ER is passive - with the shorter duration on SS, I have to babysit my Rage sufficiently so I can pop SS and immediately get WW off on 2+ (preferably 3-4) targets. If I don't get a good WW off almost immediately, I'm unlikely to see much of a return on SS.

 

Murgen

I like 41/20 because ER allows me to be lazy and spam HS more, but I don't think anyone should play that way. SS dramatically increases your single target burst, and it is much easier to setup for now that you can use it in berserker stance. WM is necessary when you face occasional dual warrior 5v5 teams trading off disarms.

 

Davia

I tried 41/20 last night, but I couldn't stand the 10 second disarms in 2s even. We were facing warrior/druid with our warrior/paladin team, and we did end up beating them, but the druid almost got away because i was disarmed twice for 10 seconds. Honestly I would probably use ER over SS in 2s and 3s, but I cannot stand not having WM. I ended up going with a 38/23 build now that I really like so far.

 

Nutsymptom

I've been getting riposted by rogues left and right so far in 3's against all the MPR teams. Weapon Mastery is a must as far as I'm concerned. I consider Tactical Mastery necessary as well for spell reflecting and disarming in clutch situations. It has saved my ass so many times when I'm being focused by casters and I have saved many an ass myself disarming warriors when my teamate is being focused.

I play with a 33/25/3 build and I take imp slam as well. I'll keep MS/HS up on a target and build rage up and once something like Pain Suppression or BoP is used on our target I'll switch targets and intercept -> Auto + imp Slam -> MS -> WW and drop ~5000 damage before the stun wears off. I personally think imp slam is incredibly under utilized as far as pulling off a gib on a target switch. It hits incredibly hard and doesn't cost much rage if you know how to time it.

Blood Frenzy isn't important to me and is only really worth the points for PvE dps. I also spend a significant amount of time kited/snared/stunned so I don't bother with Flurry either.

 

diospadre

I'm just going to throw a weapon chain on my S2 mace and switch to that against disarm happy teams, assuming I don't go back to 35/23/3.

 

Nutsymptom

I'm curious Dios, why did you spend 3 points for 3 seconds of disarm (1.5 against a warrior with WM)?

It just seems like alot of wasted points for a PvP build.

 

Pine

Not being able to instantly spell reflect going into defensive would suck against druids and mages, saving yourself your trinket CD when you're just sundering/not trying to burst on a cyclone or poly is just too good. I've tried flurry, but I'm much more of a fan of 33/25/3, getting imp execute as the extra 2 in fury.