[Cataclysm] Warrior FAQ - 4.2 - Read while patching, before posting.
 

This is the Warrior FAQ, up to date as of patch 4.2. Please read this before posting.

What you will see in this post: Simple, concise answers to frequently asked Warrior questions.
What you won't see in this post: The detailed reasoning behind those answers, super advanced Warrior concepts, BiS gear discussions.
What to do if you think something is incorrect or missing: Post in excruciating detail as to why it's wrong or missing, or send a similarly extremely detailed PM.

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Relevant Blue Posts

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General

Q: How does Rage generation work now?
A: The amount of Rage you generate on a successful hit is now simply 6.5 * base weapon speed, and half that for offhand hits. Damage, Crit, fast vs slow weapons, glancing blows, dodges and parries no longer affect your rate of Rage generation. Only Hit and Haste will have an effect.

Q: Is Inner Rage an Enrage effect?
A: No.

Q: Where can I learn Plate Specialization and Mastery?
A: You can learn them from your class trainer.

Q: Do Agility Amulets/Rings/Cloaks/Ranged Weapons break Plate Specialization?
A: No, as those items don't have an armor type. You still want to replace them with Strength items if you can.

Q: What happened to Armor Penetration/Block Value/Block Rating/Defense?
A: Blizzard removed these stats from the game. On pre-Cataclysm items these stats were converted into other appropriate stats.

Q: HALP! What do I gem for? What stats do I reforge? What about enchants? What-
A: I've conveniently listed stat priorities for each spec in the sections below. They apply equally to gems, enchants, and reforging. Use them.


Arms

Q: What is the best Arms spec?
A: Some variation of 31/7/3. You have a lot of leeway on Major and Minor glyphs.

Q: What rotation should I be using?
A: Rend if it isn't up, prioritize Colossus Smash > Mortal Strike > Overpower. Heroic Strike when you have 70+ rage or on Battle Trance procs. Slam as much as Rage/GCDs allow without clipping Mortal Strike.

Q: What about for AoE?
A: Bladestorm, then use Thunderclap as a replacement for Slam in your normal rotation while spending excess rage on Cleave. If you took Tactical Mastery or have Deadly Calm available you can stance dance for more AoE damage, making the rotation TC -> Zerker+MS -> WW -> Battle+OP. Blood and Thunder is a large AoE DPS boost, but comes at the cost of Executioner.

Q: Is there any reason to stay in Battle Stance once Rend is up?
A: Overpower is a cheap and potent ability, but taking Tactical Mastery and stance dancing is an option for advanced players.

Q: What about when Execute becomes available?
A: Spam Execute to build up Executioner stacks and then resume your normal rotation. Use Execute only to maintain the Executioner stack, or fill in spare GCDs.

Q: When should I use Bladestorm?
A: When you need to AoE. It's not worth using for single targets.

Q: When should I use Deadly Calm?
A: When you're rage starved, when you need to burst, or when your procs align.

Q: When should I use Inner Rage?
A: In some AoE situations Cleave spamming is useful, but otherwise you should rarely be generating so much rage that normal Heroic Strike usage is insufficient.

Q: What good is Shattering Throw?
A: It can increase raid DPS during Bloodlust if there are a number of other physical DPS present. However, it's a personal DPS loss.

Q: What are my stat priorities?
A: Get 8% Hit. After that, Strength > Crit > Mastery = Expertise > Haste. Expertise is better than Mastery if you're stance dancing.

Q: What about the Expertise cap?
A: It's not necessary, but it becomes fairly trivial as you gear up and it's a large quality of life improvement. Many Arms Warriors cap Expertise once they've geared up.

Q: What should I use to enchant my weapon?
A: Landslide.

Q: My raid leader wants me to use Sunder Armor, I don't want to lose DPS.
A: Do it, the raid's DPS is more important than yours. Glyph of Colossus Smash makes it easy to maintain.


Fury

Q: What is the best Fury spec?
A: Some variation of 8/31/2. Swap Titan's Grip for Single Minded Fury as per preference. You have a lot of leeway regarding Major and Minor glyphs.

Q: Which is better, SMF or TG?
A: Depends on which weapon type you have easier access to.

Q: What rotation should I be using for Titan's Grip?
A: Bloodthirst -> Raging Blow (use Berserker Rage to activate if necessary) -> Bloodthirst -> Free GCD. Colossus Smash between Bloodthirsts, delaying Raging Blow if necessary. Use Slam only when you have a Bloodsurge proc during a free GCD. Heroic Strike should only be used at 90+ rage with a threat of capping and should be lined up with Colossus Smash as much as possible.

Q: What rotation should I be using for Single Minded Fury?
A: Same rotation as Titan's Grip. However, Slam is more important to SMF than Raging Blow. Prioritize accordingly.

Q: What about for AoE?
A: Whirlwind and Bloodthirst on a choice single target. Cleave as rage allows.

Q: What about when I can Execute?
A: Spam Execute to build up Executioner stacks and then resume your normal rotation. Use Execute only to maintain the Executioner stack, fill in spare GCDs or burn excess rage.

Q: When do I use Death Wish and Recklessness?
A: Use Death Wish on cooldown, but try to line it up with Bloodlust or a burn phase whenever possible. Use Recklessness when an encounter requires burst, or during a confluence of procs.

Q: When should I use Inner Rage?
A: Rarely if ever. In some AoE situations Cleave spamming is useful, but otherwise you should rarely be generating so much rage that normal Heroic Strike usage is insufficient.

Q: What good is Shattering Throw?
A: It can increase raid DPS during Bloodlust if there are a number of other physical DPS present. However, it's a personal DPS loss.

Q: What are my stat priorities?
A: Get 8% Hit (including Precision), 26 Expertise. After that, TG prioritizes Strength > Crit > Hit > Mastery > Haste. SMF prioritizes Strength > Crit > Hit > Haste > Mastery.

Q: What should I use to enchant my weapon?
A: Landslide.

Q: What about my offhand?
A: Still Landslide.

Q: My raid leader wants me to use Sunder Armor, I don't want to lose DPS.
A: Do it, the raid's DPS is more important than yours. Glyph of Colossus Smash makes it easy to maintain.

Q: Help! My threat is crazy and I keep pulling aggro! What do I do?
A: Beg your Paladins for Hand of Salvation and, fight mechanics permitting, Intervene from your fellow Warriors. Given equal DPS and time on the boss Fury will out-threat any other DPS save Hunters, so you should be able to make a case for yourself unless your DPS is bad.

Protection

Q: What spec should I use?
A: Some variation on 5/2/34. You have a lot of leeway regarding Major and Minor glyphs.

Q: Your build is terrible, I prefer-
A: Protection is less set in stone and depends on the content you are running and the demands placed upon you. See the protection thread for in-depth discussion.

Q: What's my maximum threat rotation?
A: Prioritize Shield Slam > Revenge > Rend > Devastate. Heroic Strike at 60+ rage.

Q: What about for AoE?
A: Rend (if you took Blood and Thunder), Thunderclap, Shockwave and Revenge become your top priorities. Use Cleave instead of Heroic Strike.

Q: When should I use Inner Rage?
A: Whenever you can make use of additional Heroic Strikes or Cleaves without breaking your rotation.

Q: What are my stat priorities?
A: Stamina primarily. For ratings, Mastery > Parry > Dodge.

Q: I thought Parry sucked.
A: Parry now converts at the same rate as Dodge, and has the same diminishing returns. It also has synergy with the Hold the Line talent. As such having about as much, or slightly more, Parry as Dodge is a good mark to aim for.

Q: My threat sucks, what should I do?
A: Expertise is your best single target threat stat before you hit 26 expertise, followed by Hit. If you have good healers or a boss fight with a forgiving start you can use Recklessness during Shield Block for better threat. Retaliation is a less dangerous, and also less effective, option.

Q: When do I use my survival cooldowns?
A: It's generally fight/boss/trash pack specific. Shield Block should be used on cooldown unless some specific mechanic demands otherwise. Shield Wall is used either as an emergency survival cooldown or to smooth over high damage phases/burst abilities from bosses, trash and adds. Last Stand is almost always an emergency survival cooldown.

Q: Who should get my Vigilance?
A: Your offtank in a raid. Whoever keeps pulling threat in heroics.

I think you should change the spec for Arms from 2/2 Rude Interruption to 2/2 Executioner, because currently Rude Interruption is bugged and you lose the damage buff after using MS.
€: Oh, and Recklessness doesn't require a gcd anymore.

This seemed off to me as I have been using simulationcraft to generate equivalence point values for my gear.
This could mean 3 things:
1. My gear is terrible and doesnt represent the distribution at higher levels.
2. Simulationcraft doesnt properly model mastery for fury.
3. The assumption Crit == Haste == Mastery is wrong.

I could verify item 1 by checking against another, better equipped character.
A quick search of the warrior thread found me Moozhe from Vodka and running his profile netted me the following results.
Strength=1.6395, ExpertiseRating=1.0538, CritRating=1.0272, HitRating=1.0253, Ap=0.7720, HasteRating=0.7686, Agility=0.7329, MasteryRating=0.4876

Assuming simulationcraft properly models mastery rating for fury then mastery rating is clearly the worst dps stat that we have. However I have no evidence for the correctness of the simulationcraft implementation so I cant pick between 2 or 3.

This has been hot-fixed as of today.

If you're running TG,isn't Raging Blow more DPR than execute?Why would you spam execute in that case?

Until Landslide is widely available what's the best enchant to have on weapons?

[Enchant Weapon - Hurricane]

25% haste from executioner talent fully stacked increases your rage generation enough that the damage per rage efficiency is no longer a concern so the higher damage of execute per GCD results in more DPS.

I also use Inner Rage and Colossus Smash to increase the damage of execute.

I am not certine that using inner rage is a DPS increase vs dumping extra rage with heroic strikes, maybe someone can modle that for us?

I assume that in higher tiers of gear we will be using Inner Rage and Heroic Strike during the execute phase, I just can't do that currently or risk being rage starved and dropping my executioner stack.

Do you mind somehow backing that up? The thread starter editing the post hints that he agrees with me, and I often run totally out of rage by spamming execute. Also,judging from the tooltip, I don't think execute is most effective when used at low rage any more like in the past (The added damage from 20 rage is twice the damage you get from the initial 10 rage), so raging blow having better DPR than execute does matter unless you're capping on rage.

Does the plate specialization stack with gems/enchants placed on the armor, or are those added in after the 5% increase in the primary stat for a spec?

Plate specialization factors in gems, enchants, etc.

I've just tested it. Stamina from gems, as well as from Commanding Shout, is multiplied by both Sentinel and by Plate Specialization.

I would assume that it applies to all sources of stamina such as food, but I didn't test anything aside from gear, gems, and commanding shout.

Something to consider with regard to execute phase is that inner rage has almost no effect on the efficiency of execute. It only increases the base cost, so the total cost of a high rage execute goes from 30 to 35, a ~17% increase for a 15% increase in damage.

Why does this matter? Well, inner rage increases white hits by 15% too. If you maintain inner rage during the execute phase, you can get an essentially free 15% boost to white damage, in a phase where your white damage is particularly high because of executioner. Inner rage lasts quite a while so you don't need to try to hover above 75 rage the whole time to do this.

If you find yourself consistently with more rage than you can spend on execute though, it probably wouldn't be worthwhile to do this unless you canceled it before heroic strikes.

This works best for SMF where you don't have raging blow overtaking execute in rage efficiency.

Edit: Damn it. Lost track of what thread I was looking at. Meant to put this in the general fury thread and not here.

Expertise an afterthought for Arms? (PvE)
 

If you'll please pardon a noob question from a casual player, could someone explain why Arms warriors can basically neglect expertise while Fury warriors must prioritize expertise soft-cap above all other than the first 8% of Hit? From the tooltip on the character sheet, it appears to be of roughly equivalent importance for both specs.

What am I missing?

Overpower procs from dodges. Overpower also can't be dodged or parried. Overpower has 50% increased chance to crit, and is incredibly rage efficient. Auto-attacks generate full rage when dodged.

Overpower makes up for a significant amount of lost damage from dodges, thus devaluing expertise.