Durabolin

No arguing any of this. In terms of "overall" viability arms is the way to go for the top-end arena player. You could play with a titanium chain to compensate for the disarm talent but most warriors with two beasty 2hs are fury so aren't going to bother with a chain in PVP. It would be fun and possibly have some "LOL" moments though. Also, mobility actually isn't that bad in a serious fury pvp spec.

 

Laurana

Reliable MS turns out not that reliable against DKs with their ~15% parry and rogues with or even without evasion. Furthermore, 15sec intercept CD is not really that bad mobility wise; you also have HF which comes really handy against mages and druids.
Bladestorm is great, especially since it also makes you perfectly mobile and unCC-able but imagine a comp like fury/enhancer/holy paladin; death wish should work wonders together with wolves, anti-snare and anti-root.

I'm not arguing that fury is better on the whole (yet); there are still a lot of problems like rage starvation (no second wind; no endless rage; intercept costing rage instead of creating it), fragility (zerk stance + deathwish are kind of a "rape me" sign) and chunky mechanics like switching to battle stance for shattering throw; having 0 rage and no way of getting more till in melee range afterward.
BUT I was thinking that maybe (MAYBE) we might soon get to the point where the better scaling of fury might make up for all these disadvantages and prove more successful on the whole, especially when played in the right comp.

 

Krazykankles

I haven't seen this question asked or answered lately since S7 started. It's a question regarding shields for PvP as Arms for Sword and Board reasons. I do raid but my luck with shields isn't very good for drops and the only thing I have to work with is Hero's Surrender - Item - World of Warcraft. I was wondering if this would be better for defensive situations or if Relentless Gladiator's Shield Wall - Item - World of Warcraft would be wiser. I have been trying to figure out whether the avoidance stats would outweigh the extra armor, Block, and Resilience for this situation especially seeing as I lose 74 Resilience when I go sword and board. All in all, I'm completely stumped when it comes to this question and would appreciate some input and opinion regarding this matter.

 

◊ helliax

I'd say that going with the ilvl 251 shield over an ilvl 213 shield and giving up some block/parry for tons more health and resilience would be far, far better. Especially considering block/parry do nothing against magic damage, and resilience is better than defense in PvP situations.

 

Krazykankles

Your correct and I appreciate the feedback. Analyzing my playstyle the last few days I thought about the time and reasons I go sword and board and usually its completely negligible for the defensive stat purposes. Can't mitigate magic and can't block/dodge/parry while stunned. Thanks for the feedback!

 

MatsT

Also keep in mind that the stamina us more or less useless since you never use a shield while on full hp anyway. The armor and resilience on pvp shield typically make them the correct choice anyway, but if you had a pve shield with higher ilvl it could maybe be a better choice.

 

Laurana

Surprisingly many top warriors seem to prefer gemming STR over ArP and take sword over axe nowadays. I can understand that sword spec has the advantage of being quite bursty so that you can justify sacrificing some total damage. But what is the reasoning behind gemming STR instead of ArP?
I do know that neither Rend nor Deep Wounds benefit from ArP but shouldn't the total increase in damage and the burst potential of a GT proc Bladestorm more than outweigh this?

 

goodolarchie

Armor pen, especially with 100% grim toll proc'd is great for getting burst against plate or mail, but gemming strength actually offers more damage against cloth and leather, as well as bleeds like you mentioned. Removing 10% physical armor reduction from a warlock, for instance, isn't a big deal compared to having an additional 600 attack power. Compound this with the badge trinket with 1000 AP on use and you have just as much burst as a grim toll proc without the randomness of the proc. The extra hit also affords them the crit pvp cloak.

 

Piston

I prefer Arp over Str. because of the quantity of TSG ( dk, war, holy pal ) teams. Since Tsg can get fairly high with a faceroll strat ( train the cloth ). I would rather defeat them easily then risk losing 20+ points to a 2300 all plate team.

If you play with a paladin you get the benefit of kings if you gem str. 10% more str. vs. 0% more arp.

 

Laurana

Thank you very much for the answer. The next question that comes to mind is: what will we do next season?
We all know that the SEP value of ArP increases as the overall equip level rises. In S8 you will very likely get another ~1-2% crit and ~800-1000 AP from the pvp gear and improved pvp set bonuses alone. Thus, the benefit you will get from 20 ArP (increasing almost all of your damage) will become more potent when compared to 20 str. Will this increase be enough to outweigh BoK, bleeding damage and low armor targets?

edit: I play TSG myself for lack of proper teammates other than my DK and Pal. The 'train the healer' strategy only works so far against players who know how to peel. Also, spell cleave obliterates us so badly, it's not even funny. Just sayin'...

 

Piston

I will continue to gem Arp into season 8. Right now the teams that are giving me trouble will not be solved by hitting cloth harder. Being in the top 10 in a bg you fight quite a few lower rated teams with the change to how queues work. ( The 1.5 minutes before you can face the same team ) Therefore, the most important games you play might be the 2100 TSG because you can possibly win 1 and lose 20. I am beating these teams quite reliably because I can kill one of their players much faster then they can train my priest healer due to high arp ( 55% passive with battle stance ) Even if I could farm the number 1 team at the sacrifice of losing to plate cleaves I think the team would tank the heavily.

I also like Arp because it makes anyone a viable target. A warrior's quick devastating switches is part of what makes it fun. If a dk, paladin, feral druid or warrior put themselves in a bad position or situation I like being able to take advantage of it and be able to get results.

P.s. I played TSG to 2650 last season with a 85% win ratio. This season I started out TSG but spell cleaves after the first week sent me back to the drawing board. 60% win ratio and I was at a loss for a good strat against quite a few comps.

 

servitude

I am looking for any suggestions on my gear, spec and gem/glyph choices.

The World of Warcraft Armory

I am aware I need to get an Armor Pen proccing trinket to go along with my gem choices and the reg TOC one. Any suggestions outside of that?

 

RevenueGuy

@servitude

The only two things I see you need to fix/ work on are:

1. You need more hit.
2. You need to replace the glyph of bladestorm or rending with the glyph of sweeping strikes.

Your spec looks good your gear is fine other than the hit issue mentioned above.

 

doogless

Can you explain your reasoning on using the Sweeping Strikes glyph? I never thought that it was terribly useful; my Warrior is rarely rage-starved in arenas.

 

RevenueGuy

@doogless

I do not find myself rage starved in arenas, but the rage is just a one of the reasons I use SS glyph and 30 rage is a lot in my book. The other reason is in how SS works.

Sweeping Strikes functions similarly to Cleave; for the next five melee swings, all melee attacks hit both the target, and the enemy nearest to him as well. This applies to any abilities used within the duration as well. These five charges do not get consumed unless you hit something else in melee range. Also the cool down for SS is only 30 secs.

So basically you take an ability you only use if you know someone is in melee and if you have rage. To an ability I can keep on CD all the time and anyone who comes in melee range of target is going to take at least 5 hits of damage of any my abilities that can be some serious burst potential.

 

Piston

I am fairly certain you realize that sweeping strikes combined with bladestorm is some serious pressure, if not I will explain why it is after. There are some really amazing opportunities that come up when sweeping stikes with bladestorm will easily win a match. It isn't that over the duration of a match that saving 30 rage is why you will fall in love with the glyph, it is the fact that in order to activate SS + bladestorm you need 55 rage total. Which means you can potentially lose some amazing chances to use it if you need a white swing or two to build up 55 rage to activate both. For example, a switch involing an intercept, a pummel, or activating recklessness.( What is more devastating then a SS +BS while interrupted with reck and there is a secondary target nearby).

There is no question at the quantity of pressure you can do with sweeping strikes combined with bladestorm. Catching two targets together with SS + BS can turn the tide on losing battles really easily. Imagine a dps about to peel off his healer, both are slowed with piercing howl and in 6 seconds you hit both targets 6 times, your auto attack on one, plus 5 more hits spread out between both targets, even if the healer does get away you can easily switch to the dps who is most likely low health now.

 

Piston

I really like rending because I find myself "global locked". There are simply not enough gcd's to refresh rend and have time for everything else. With so many devastating combinations of spell cleave keeping up unrelenting assault is a neccessity, especially with heroism. I sometimes feel like a guy in the old corn pops cereal commercial frantically trying to keep up hamstring, mortal strike, rend, and unrelenting assault on a caster. (Ok, gotta keep up hamstring or he gets away, gotta keep up rend or i don't get tfb procs, OH but if I rend I may not have the gcd and miss a chaos bolt cast and my healer is getting LOW! Oh geez Ms is almost off, if it falls off then I don't have any pressure and we lose anyways!! lol)

 

Annihilus

honestly, that couple extra seconds is not overly worthwhile. Free SS and reduced BS CD are far superior to a couple Rend ticks. It really just comes down to prioritizing your abilities and when to use them against each comp.

 

Piston

I think you misread my point. I was not saying " You will do more damage then rend over glyph of bladestorm."( I never mentioned replacing glyph of Sweeping Strikes ) However, glyph of rend offers you much more utility then glyph of bladestorm.

It takes 7 and half minutes for you to get your "free" bladestorm from glyph of BS. 7 minutes and 30 seconds.( If used on cooldown and instantly which never happens ) Warrior 1 (without the glyph ) is on his 5th bladestorm and warrior 2 ( with the glyph ) is on his 6th. How many wotlk arena matches do you have that last 7.5 minutes?

Imagine you are playing vs. warlock, shaman, rogue, your trinket is down and you get hexed. You were just about to apply your 15 second rend before you were cc'd, your last tfb proc goes away and the warlock is winding up a chaos bolt on your 50% health healer. My glyph of rend has saved me so many times by producing that extra tfb proc while I was cc'd to reduce the insane damage of wotlk.

 

Annihilus

Nope, read your post just fine. I still believe there is more utility in BS and SS glyphs. I Bladestorm more than once quite often actually. I've used BS many time just to break a root because we gained an advantage and it made sense to use it for that purpose. We all play a little different but the general consensus is the SS/BS/MS setup is better.

 

Piston

I guess you need glyph of bladestorm if you are using it as a cc breaker. I don't see that working past the 1900 bracket with a win record of more then 51%.