Edited after leaving out Blood Rage.

New Section 3.5:

[top]Rage Management Talents

The effects of Anger Management (AM), Improved Berserker Rage (IBR) and Unbridled Wrath (UW) have alreade been covered above in section 1.2. All of them can provide you with additional rage for Heroic Strike usage as long as you are not heroic striking at 100% already.

When deciding which of the optional talents to take, it is useful to have a comparison of the talents’ yields on a per-point-basis.

For the three rage-generating talents, this list looks as follows:

Rage per Minute
Talent Points AM IBR (max rage) UW (base rage)   1 20 30 6   2 - 60 12   3 - - 18   4 - - 24   5 - - 30

As can be seen, Improved Berserker Rage gives you the most rage per minute per talent point, but at the same time requires a global cooldown to be spent. This means that in a typical situation, its rage per minute will be lower as your will not want to mess up your rotation just using Berserker Rage. Its actual rage per minute gain is therefore more likely in the region of 20 to 25 per talent point. Anger Management comes in second but is a passive talent which can be good as it doesn’t require any of your attention or global cooldowns, but can also be bad as the rage is not delivered on demand. Unbridled Wrath comes in last although its worth can increase with haste as the proc chance for the rage gain is not diminished by haste. However, you will never have enough haste to bring unbridled Wrath up to the other two talents' levels. For details on proc mechanics see ***(link required)***.

Using an optimized fury build with Commanding Presence for Improved Commanding Shout and/or Improved Demoralizing Shout, you will usually not have more than five points to spend on these talents, one to three of which will go into unbridled wrath (depending on whether you take Commanding Presence or not), leaving two for free allocation. Those are usually spent best on Improved Berserker Rage. If you’re not on shout duty and are skipping all the shout talents, you will necessarily have Unbridled Wrath maxed with another two points to spend in Improved Berserker Rage. One point in Anger Management may make sense if you find Berserker Rage interfering with your rotation too much.

No, not really. Liberal abbreviation works nice, though.

It's still finals week for me, and between raids and arena it's hard to find any time at all to do any writing here, so just be patient.

I've got a slight overload here at work this week and the next week but I will start working on the gearing/gemming section as soon as possible.

oh by he way, no one would get improved bloodrage, that's really dumb. I like the rage talent comparisons otherwise tho. By teh way, don't even mention any odd ball or off the wall specs (like incite) please keep it relevant.

Might want to double check on UW scaling with increased attack speed and insert a note about that those values are base and that increased PPM rate is referenced to somewhere else. Also I would recommend listing the IBR values as a range between predicted and max use (like 15-20 rage per minute per TP) due to availability of free GCDs Then the minisection should be ready to go.

Also, I put in more clarification on impale as you lined out.

Several edits made, but still a work-in-progress:


 

Contents

1General Gearing Strategy 1.1The importance of your attack power 1.2Explanation of differing stat gains and conversions at 80 1.2.1Strength 1.2.2Attack Power 1.2.3Agility 1.2.4Critical Strike Rating 1.2.5Hit Rating 1.2.6Haste Rating 1.2.7Expertise Rating 1.2.8Armor Penetration Rating 1.2.9Stamina 1.3Relevance of Base Weapon Speed 1.4One stat pool inflating the worth of another

[top]General Gearing Strategy

Warriors are very often cited to be the most gear-dependant class in the game. Be that as it may, gearing your character correctly is generally of paramount importance to your success and is part of what is very often considered to be a player’s “skill”.

Simply comparing the points attributed to an item’s stats is usually not suitable for determining the best available gear. It is also not possible to attribute a certain weight to a stat that will then help determine an item’s worth for any warrior. Rather, the worth of a specific piece of gear depends a lot on the warrior’s stats or, in other words, on his current gear and raid buff/debuff situation. It therefore changes over time, especially with new tiers of progression.

For determining the best equipment for your character, it is therefore best to use flexible tools that take into account your character’s current gear and spec as well as the availability or lack of buffs and debuffs during your regular raid sessions.

As an example for such a tool, you will find landsoul’s Warrior Spread Sheet here ***link***. There are quite a few other tools out there which may help you – with varying accuracy - in making the right gearing decisions.

[top]The importance of your attack power

Your attack power is the main factor determining the power of your strikes. The more AP, the harder you hit. Any other gear stat (apart from weapon base damage) only serves to increase the base damage your strikes already cause. A critical strike doubling your strike damage depends in power on damage of the strike which is determined by your AP. 30% haste increase the frequency of your attacks whose power is determined by AP. Armor penetration lets your attacks ignore your opponent’s armor, increasing their damage – which depends on AP - by a certain percentage, etc.

Your attack power therefore is a major factor in determining your damage potential. Its power influences and is influenced by every single other stat. You might get by with zero critical strike percentage, zero haste and zero armor penetration, but you will never get by with zero attack power.

[top]Explanation of differing stat gains and conversions at 80

In order to understand how the different item stats influence your damage, it is necessary to understand what each stat does. Gains in a specific stat very often have additional effects to the one jumping to mind. Please note that the rating conversions given below are for level 80.

[top]Strength

One point of strength gained gives you 2 points of attack power. However, due to Improved Berserker Stance, the amount of strength you gain from an item is increased by 20%. It is further increased by 10% from BoK. For the effects of attack power, see below ***link***.

abbr. Str

[top]Attack Power

Attack Power determines the size (power) of your attacks. The more AP you have, the harder every strike hits. For every 14 points of AP, your weapon DpS is increased by 1. For effects on actual strike damage, see below under “Relevance of Base Weapon Speed” ***link***.

abbr. AP

[top]Agility

Agility increases your chance to critically hit an opponent. For every 62.50 points of agility, your critical strike chance is increased by 1%. For the effects of critical strike chance, please see below***link***.

Unlike rogues, hunters and shamans, warriors do not directly gain AP from agility. However, 1 point of agility gives you 2 points of armor. Armored to the Teeth (3 talent points) gives you 1 AP for every 60 points of armor. 30 points of agility therefore give you 1 AP.

Agility also increases your chance to dodge attacks which can help with survival in some encounters. 75.53 points of agility increase your chance to dodge by 1%.

abbr. Agi

[top]Critical Strike Rating

Your critical strike rating increases your chance to critically hit an opponent, much like agility does. You need 45.91 points of critical strike rating for a 1% increase in critical strike chance.

Your critical strikes have a basic damage bonus of 100%. A critical strike therefore deals double damage. This is further increased by the talent Impale and by the critical strike bonus damage from your meta gem. For details on this, see above ***link***.

In addition, each of your critical strikes procs the effect of Flurry. An increase in critical strike chance therefore also increases your Flurry uptime. For a detailed description of Flurry’s effects and its uptime see ***link***.

Finally, your critical strike chance also directly influences your ratio of applying Deep Wounds. For a detailed explanation of Deep Wounds’ effects, see ***link***.

abbr. Crit Rating

[top]Hit Rating

Your hit rating decreases your chance to miss a target with your attacks and abilities. For every 32.79 points of hit rating, your chance to miss with your attacks is reduced by 1% until your chance to miss is 0%.

Until the yellow hit cap (explained here ***link***), hit rating will very likely be your top priority, together with expertise. Above that, its worth diminishes.

Hit rating has another effect that differs between your yellow and your white attacks. For your yellow attacks, hit rating increases the effectiveness of your critical strike chance due to the two-roll system that’s used for yellow attacks. For further information, see ***link*. For white attacks, hit rating increases the Crit Cap. For further information on this, see ***link***.

Additionally, hit rating also helps to smooth your rage generation. With a 27% chance to miss with your rage-generating attacks and the slow attack speed that usually comes with wielding two-handed weapons, a miss in between attacks can leave your without rage for some time, thereby preventing your from using your special attacks for that period. Additional hit rating helps smooth out these gaps. It also helps reduce the chance to miss more than one hit in a row which can have a serious impact on your rotation. At 8% hit you still have a 19% chance to miss. Your chance to miss two times in a row is 3.61%, three times in a row 0.686%, and four times in a row 0,013%. These chances might look small, but they exist and they can mess up your rotation, especially if you are a bit too generous with Heroic Strike usage.

The rage you receive from missing fewer off-hand white attacks can also help you in achieving a near 100% heroic strike frequency. For more information on this topic, see ***link***.

Finally, reduced chance to miss with your attacks can also increase the frequency and uptime of proc-effects - the lower your chance to miss, the higher the chance of a proc (that is based on a successful attack) actually happening. This also helps re-proccing effects that are subject to internal cooldowns (e.g. trinket procs such as [Mjolnir Runestone] or [Mirror of Truth]).

[top]Haste Rating

Haste rating increases the rate of your auto melee attacks. For every 32.79 points of haste rating, your attack rate is increased by 1%. Contrary to a common misconception, this does not decrease your swing timer by the hasted percentage but increases the frequency of your strikes. Consequently, with 20% haste, you cannot simply take 20% off your swing speed to calculate its effects. Rather, you are performing 20% more swings in the same amount of time, effectively granting you a swing speed reduction of 16.67%. The exact formula for swing speed reduction can be found here ***link to +Attack Speed Effects in the “Mastering raid buffs” section***.

Unlike for casters, haste rating does not decrease your GCD.

With an increased number of attacks over the same period of time, your rage income also increases and becomes smoother. This can help with your Heroic Strike frequency. Not only this, but with an increased number of main hand attacks comes an additional number of opportunities to queue Heroic Strikes. However, please note that this will have an effect only if you are at or near 100% Heroic Strike frequency. If you are not, your Heroic Strike usage is usually not limited by your strike frequency but rather by your rage income.

Increased attack speed also helps re-proccing your proc-based effects that are subject to internal cooldowns. It can also increase the uptime of procs that are not ICD-limited, even if the proc chance is determined on a PPM-basis. For details on proc mechanics, see ***link to proc mechanics; the TTT-Article on proc mechanics is pretty outdated and – according to rezarel’s findings - wrong; might be good to explain the basics in a section in this article***

[top]Expertise Rating

Expertise rating reduces the chance an opponent will dodge or parry your attacks. For every 32.79 points of expertise rating, your opponent’s chance to dodge or parry your attacks is reduced by 1%. Please note that expertise rating actually increases your expertise (32.79 points of expertise rating grant you 4 points of expertise which in turn grants you a 1% dodge/parry reduction). Human, Dwarf and Orc racials grant you expertise and not expertise rating.

As you should not stand in front of a mob, the dodge reduction is the relevant part of this stat for you.

Together with hit until the yellow cap, expertise should be your first priority until reaching the dodge cap. For further information on this, see ***link***.

Expertise also raises your crit cap for white attacks (see ***link*** for further information) and increases the effectiveness of your critical strike chance for yellow attacks (see ***link*** for further information).

[top]Armor Penetration Rating

Armor Penetration Rating effectively increases the damage dealt by most of your attacks by reducing the damage reduction usually incurred from a target’s armor.

In principle, every 12.32 points of armor penetration rating grant you 1% armor penetration. However, this percentage reduction is not directly applied to your target’s armor but only to a part of it. A certain amount of any target’s armor is not affected by the reduction. The maximum affected armor is referred to as the “ArP effectiveness cap”.

To better grasp these mechanics, it is useful to be aware of the following constants:

MobArmor - The mob’s armor is determined by its type and level. For a lvl 80 warrior mob, this value is 9729, for WotLK bosses it’s 10643.
DebuffedArmor – MobArmor minus all armor-decreasing effects from Debuffs, e.g. Sunder Armor, Faerie Fire, Shattering Throw
ArmorConstant – This is a fixed armor constant which usually determines the amount of damage reduction a creature receives from armor. For the below calculation, this constant is based on the attacker's (your) level and is 15252.5.

The ArP effectiveness cap is determined by the following formula:



For WotLK boss mobs with Sunder and Faerie Fire debuffs, the ArP effectiveness cap is therefore 7773.73. Your armor penetration percentage is applied against this number only.

However, your armor penetration percentage can go beyond 100% (e.g. due to trinket procs like [Mjolnir Runestone]) and is not limited at 100%. This can lead to an armor reduction greater than the ArP effectiveness cap, thereby actually reducing armor beyond the cap. In no case, however, the remaining armor of a mob can go below zero. ***probably needs an overhaul as soon as the exact impact of the new limitations is known***

It should be noted that the value of ArP increases the more you already have on your gear. When using an ArP-proc trinket, ArP’s value may go beyond that of strength as early as early Ulduar gear level, depending on the amount of ArP pieces in your gear.

abbr. ArP

[top]Stamina

First of all, Stamina is not a DpS stat. It helps your survivability by granting you a larger health pool. In principle, being able to survive can make the difference between failure and success, especially on progression fights. However, if your primary role is to provide DpS (and that is what it should be if you’re specced Fury), you should NOT focus on getting your stamina high. Plate gear (which you will be using to a large extent) already provides you with more HP than most other DpS-classes. Nevertheless, every point of stamina gained at no cost to your DpS-viability is nice.

Additionally, your health pool determines the amount of healing you receive from Bloodthirst and Enraged Regeneration. Both abilities regenerate health based on your maximum health. An increase to your maximum health pool therefore also increases the healing granted by these abilites.

[top]Relevance of Base Weapon Speed

The Base Speed of your weapon determines the time between your white attacks and the amount of damage your attacks hit with.

Multiplying your Base Weapon Speed with the DpS of your weapon gives you the average Base Weapon Damage. Base Weapon Damage is the second factor (besides AP) to determine your Weapon Damage.

For white attacks, the total average damage of your attacks (not considering any DIMs) is determined by taking your AP, dividing it by 14 and multiplying it by your Base Weapon Speed. Your Base Weapon Damage is then added to the equation.

For yellow attacks, the effects of Base Weapon Speed are a bit more complicated. Most yellow attacks use “normalized” weapon speed. This means that the AP-portion of an attack’s damage is not determined by multiplying your AP-DpS with your weapon’s Base Speed but rather by multiplying it with the normalized weapon speed for the type of weapon you are using. Normalized attack speeds are as follows:

1.7 for daggers
2.4 for other one-handed weapons
3.3 for two-handed weapons
2.8 for ranged weapons

So if you’re using a two-handed weapon with a Base Weapon Speed of 3.6, your yellow attacks will, in principle, still only use a speed of 3.3 when determining your damage from AP. Your AP-DpS is therefore not increased by 3.6 but only by 3.3. Please note that Base Weapon Damage is not normalized. Therefore, while you may not gain as much from slow Base Weapon Speed for your Whirlwind attacks as you would without normalization of AP-damage, you still gain the increase to your Base Weapon Damage.

However, there are several portions of a fury warrior’s yellow damage that are not normalized. First of all, there is Slam which still uses non-normalized AP-damage. Slam therefore profits additionally from slower Base Weapon Speed. The same is true for Deep Wounds damage for your yellow attacks. Deep Wounds damage is always calculated from your Average Weapon Damage shown on your character tab. It therefore fully profits form slower Base Weapon Speed.

It should be noted that contrary to common misconception, it is not the “Top End” damage of your weapon that determines its value for your DpS but its average damage. While individual hits might be higher with an increased “Top End” damage, the same amount of hits will be lower by the same amount of damage.

[top]One stat pool inflating the worth of another

As already indicated above with regard to the importance of your AP ***link***, your DpS stats are interdependent, meaning that an increase in one stat can increase the value of another stat. This is the main reason why different gear levels provide different yields for individual stats. An increase of one point to one of your stats does not always yield the same amount of absolute DpS. E.g. ArP not only increases the damage of your normal hits but also the damage your critical hits cause. Increasing your critical strike chance by 1% at zero ArP will therefore grant you less of a damage increase than increasing it at 50% ArP. The same is true the other way round. Generally, the higher an individual stat, the more your gain from an increase in other stats dependant on that stat. Stat balancing therefore is important to maximize your gains.

UW haste scaling information is based on rezarel's blog which I found conclusive (March 2009):

http://elitistjerks.com/blogs/rezare...t_results.html

I don't think that I will find the time to double check this by testing it on my own in the near future, but I will see what I can do.

Final edits to this small sub-section will follow tomorrow.

I have changed the mini section on rage management talents, incorporating your comments. I have left the numbers in the table the way they were but have included a comment indicating that it's base/max rage. Explanations are given in the text below the table.

By the way, it would look nicer for this specific table if the numbers in the table fields could be center-aligned. Is this in any way possible?

Again working on the gearing section.

Looks like you have some broken links in your Ulduar Hard gear table.

I am done with the introduction to section 6 and points 6.1 to 6.4 for the gearing section. I have modified my above post accordingly and am waiting for your comments to do the polishing. Next on is the enchanting and gemming section.

I'm going to do some work on the Enchants and Gemming sections over the next few days.