I raid as slam MS.
I'm in BT/MH stuff, with 2 t6 (gloves and shoulders), I have helm in bag (but not wearing it 'cause of hit cap)
I should get chest soon.
I now have 148 hit.
If I don helm and chest, I'll have a big hole in hit, probably 100ish.

So for the people that have had the pleasure with 4 t6, is it worth it to use hit gems/food just for the bonus or ignore the 4pc completely and stick with the current stuff? Keep in mind we're not in sunwell yet so no access to any other t6 and i want no part of the legs (in fact I want legs from Bloodboil which would further brings down my hit)

I never used 4 peice until Sunwell, as there are better options for gloves, legs, chest, and helm. Shoulders are the only T6 that are best in slot from BT/MH. 4 Peice looks like its really good, but its really not, especially for 33/28.

Agreed with the above poster. MH/BT T6 is largely crap for DPS warriors.

I hit the same problem as you did. I switched from midnight chest guard to the crafted BS breastplate (29 --> 0), from Red belt of battle to T6 belt (14 ---> 0), from silent justice gloves to immortal dusk (15 --> 0). Losing 58 hit in 3 upgrades. I had to go from my T6 helm to illidari shatterer (0 --> 34) and i'm still like 6 hit short ATM. I'm hoping T6 boots happen soon so i'm hit capped again.

Out of Bt/MH alone, the following are better then T6;

Gloves; Silent justice off of akama, hell, i THINK the mail badge gloves are better then our T6 gloves going from memory
Helm; Illidari Shatterer, Cursed Vision are straight up better then T6 IMO and S3/S4 are very nearly as good.
Chest; Midnight chest guard off of Archimonde is better with S3/S4 being nearly as good as T6.
Legs; Divine Ret off of blood boil...period
Shoulder; The only piece of MH/BT T6 that's worth it IMO, and even this could be argued against blood-stained if you really need the hit.

Optimal setup for T6 4 piece is boots/belt/bracers and shoulders, but i think math has shown that getting the SW shoulders is even better then keeping the set bonus.

Think about it, 5% increase in an ability that only makes up 16-18% of our damage is....weak, at best. Less then 1% dps increase over all. For example, 15 hit rating when you are below the hit cap > 4 piece bonus....yeah, it's THAT bad.

On that note, why are our DPS set bonuses such utter garbage? 2 rage off of execute and 5% more MS/BT damage is really underwhelming compared to rogue, enhancement shaman or even ret pallys. We get the 2 piece bonus of "1 free fury talent point" and "less then a 1% damage upgrade overall".

Look at rogues for example; 5% more haste on slice and dice, and primary attacks increased by 6%. So translated into "warrior stats" this would be like 5% more haste on flurry, and 6% more damage on MS/BT/heroic strike.

Enhancement shaman? Shocks cost 10% less mana and stormstrike grants 70ap for 12 seconds. Translated to warrior stats? Heroic strike is -2 rage cost and MS/BT grants 70AP for 8 seconds.

Ret paladins? Melee attack have a chance to restore 50 mana and hammer of wrath damage increased by 10%. Warrior translation = chance on melee hit to gain 3-5 extra rage and 10% execute damage increase.

Both mages and locks have their primary nuke (making up 90%+ of their damage) increased by 6%.

With the exception of maybe ret paladins, almost every dps class has significantly better set bonuses then warriors.

If you EVER see a Ret paladin using HoW (outside of PvP), you need to shoot him/her. It's a small point, but with current Ret pally itemizing and the fact that HoW resets your swing timer, our 4 piece bonus is completely useless as well. Actually, even more useless than Warrior 4pc since HoW makes up 0.00% of our dmg in PvE. Warrior 4pc definitely blows though...

Much <3

Shocks cost 10% less mana: We got almoust unlimited mana(twisting, shocking & stormstriking infinity) so dps value 0%
Stormstrike grants 70ap for 12 seconds: This is 1-1.5% dps increase.

Before sunwell t6 items no-one did wear 4*T6. Now 4/8 is much better but best of slot gear use only 3/8 T6.

Tier 2 has the best set bonus for dps wise, 30 ap increase for battle shout that like nearly half of Solarian's trinket.
At the moment im keeping 4 set bonus but really cannot find much different for my Mortal Strike damage. Maybe just too much RNG involve in it.

6.25% is most likely not the definitive cap for expertise vs lvl 73 mobs. What it is is that 6.25% is as close to 0% as is easily achievable with current itemization, and at such a low percentage of dodge chance that the extra expertise you would have to get to get the next .25% would most likely not be worth the item points. The other possibility is that expertise, like spell hit, is not completely cappable and therefore there will always be some small chance to be dodged. I personally think that the cap is slightly higher than 6.25% but that 6.25% is close enough to the cap to stop there and focus on ap/crit/haste for dps stats.

I've got 6.25% with SoC and Orc racial, ended in whole BT with 0.004% Dodges (Trash should not be able to dodge)
So you are very near the dodge cap, also dodges give you Rage, or you need less Rage for dodged specials, so 6.25% -> 6.5% doesn't make a big difference.

I think Blizz should change several Melee 4*T6 Bonus, ie after MS/BT all dmg increased by 5% (still weaker than WL) for 8 sec.
Ret palas: inc all dmg by 5% for 8 sec. after Crusaderstrike
Enh Shaman: inc WF dmg by 15% (WF is almost always 30-33% of Enh Shaman dmg done -> ca 5% dmg inc) (Maybe a bit to much fun in Alterac Valley going for a 20k WF crit on a lvl 61 Lock :p)
For Rogues all dmg increased by 1%(stackable to 5 Times) after Main attack, for 10 Sec because of their amazing 2*T6 bonus, but beeing a Raw DPS Class.

Maybe Blizzard thinks thats too strong in PvP, but isnt in Lock T6 bonus? 2 T6 Locks crit a full s3 Warrior with 4 Spells, CoS included, and this they do on 36 yard range, behind a Tree (Not directly seen, so they have a 5k Opener(if critical) after that they crit for 6k and do normal dmg for 3.5-4k).

In Arena you will die immediatly with 4*T6 because of resilience/stamina leak.

Hello comrade warriors!

I am currently raiding BT and starting SW in the good old fury spec. However, I am asked to spec into 2H BF to help us progress through SW.

My problem is, that I live pretty damn far away from the server location and my current latency never goes below 350ms. It typically bounces in between 350ms and 450ms. In my current spec, I don't notice any problems because of it but I am curious about 2H slam built. I know latency affects it and everything I read says that lower ping is better.

My question is, is it even worth trying to slam spec with my latency? What can I do to help my DPS if it is worth trying.

1st) Gear - get rid of pieces with hit. Ashtongue trinket is horrible, chestpiece is bad, hyjal ring is good for rogues - worst case you can get badge rewards that are bettetr - but if your guild starts sunwell getting t6 chest shouldnt be that hard - badge ring is your best choice, and almost everything is better then ashtongue (probably solarian/dst preferred). Try to get Zul'jin bow or trash Sunwell ninja star. Boots are hard to obtain - if RoS drops his then you are in luck, if not wait till t6.

Whats your 2h ? f its a sword just go with a "low slam rotation" if you have high ping. All in all you can do a no slam with any weapon (and honestly you dont need DsT like some people claim).

Low slam rotation is pretty simple:

MS/WW/MS/MS/WW/MS/WW for instants , you can as well do a castsequence macro
In the 3+ sec gaps if you are close to 100 rage you spam
/castsequence reset=0.1 Heroic Strike,Slam - it overcomes your ping and does slam server side (although at cost of very ineffective heroic)
If you arent close to 100 rage, just cast hamstring if you have a sword, or nothing if you have something else.

At most you get around 2 slams per 30 sec timeframe (while a quartz casted slams can go as high as ~8), but you compensate it with some extra heroic damage, more instants and white attacks. Its probably best you can do with 350 ping - remember that watching quartz can only basically cut HALF the latency because of mechanics in place.


@ Shed - 6.25 is as close as you really need to get. As a NE there is really no options that will be a dps upgrade from getting more expertise , and at most you would need 6.50. Personally I believe 6.2% is a hard cap, and occasional dodge is a result of a server error (possibly due to lag). They do happen - I had this week a MISS on heroic strike with 165 or so hit + precision + moonkin FF (16% hit). That happens seldom enough on other hand that Id rather account it to some game error then some "cant overcome last %" or something.

Can someone explain to me exactly how this macro works? Do you spam it without regard to your swing timer? If you spam it too slowly, it appears that all it will do is Heroic Strike. Is there something special that happens when you spam it quickly, and it tries to cast Slam while already having a Heroic Strike queued?

Forgive me if this is documented in the 2H warrior thread, but being fury, I personally don't read that thread. However, I've seen this slam macro referenced here quite a few times now, and it would be nice to get some kind of background on it in this thread, other than "spam this macro when you have lots of rage."

I stopped bothering with Slam, but wouldn't using a macro like that make your DPS much worse than if you were babysitting a swing bar? Someone can correct me if I've simply been doing it wrong, but whenever I would watch a swing bar I would start the Slam right around the 0.3 mark leaving room for any latency errors. Most of the time my Slam would come out at the same time my auto attack hit or barely 0.1 - 0.2 seconds after. With this macro it would be 0.6 every time wouldn't it?

Seems like it's good for not having to monitor a timer as well as preventing you from crippling your white damage with badly timed Slams, but if you're always going to be doing 0.6 second delays you may as well just skip Slam altogether.

Thats actually a double-edged sword the whole delay thing.

First of all using this macro makes you have essentially zero delay since it moves the casting of slam into the realm of "queued spells". Just as they changed few patches ago behavior of spells (and spamming a spell button essentially queues a 2nd instance of it, to be executed server side with no delay), same applies here.

However the drawback is, that you will ALWAYS cut any potential sword spec/wf proc from the heroic strike in that sequence. Its a 100% given, so while you dont have any delay, you lose approximately 25% of the WF swing (which is lets say 10% harder then normal one).

All in all slam is not really all that great of a skill atm - mainly due to this clipping. It is a clear dps increase if executed properly, but even slight mishaps with it, kill its efficiency. With 2h build I usually have better results using no slams for majority of the fight, then this macro when i have a huge rage surplus at same time as a long delay before next major instant (WW/BT/MS depending on spec).

Oh and for me (300 ping) the behavior of the macro is somewhat strange :P. I spam it, it shows Heroic strike on SCT, then slam way earlier then 0.5 sec (sometimes they appear at same time), then i see the cast bar for slam advance AFTER it actually went off. Still it produces no real lag on slams - testing can be done this way:

- Spec without flurry or any haste procs/effects. Same for effects that can generate increased attack number (getting someone to tank a blasted lands mob for example to avoid parry haste).
- start combatlogging
- Autoattack, using macros at any real times you feel (assuming you have rage)


- Check the full combat length - It should be exactly (number of white hits+heroic strikes)x(weapon speed)+(number of slams)*0.5 with a very good accuracy.

What do you mean by this? I'm not talking about a delay from the time your auto attack hits until you start casting Slam, I'm talking about the delay after your auto hits before Slam does. As I said, correct me if I'm wrong, but Slam doesn't actually reset your swing until it lands, and unless latency is just playing tricks with my perception you can cut out part of the 0.5 reset by starting the cast before your auto is about to hit so that Slam lands just after. I've never hit Slam after I saw an auto attack hit. Even if you begin the Slam at the exact same time your auto (Heroic) lands, you're still going to be adding more time to the delay than if you manually did it. I suppose at 300+ latency (which I sometimes end up having to play with too) it might come out ahead but typically it shouldn't.

Imagine it as being a caster. When a warlock is casting shadowbolt, and pressed SB again ahead of time, the server "queues" the 2nd SB to start casting immediately after 1st one finishes - server side, so its with 0 latency and basically fastest possible.

Latency is not the same as cast time. I'm not sure how I am confusing you or what you think I'm confused about.

Auto > Next Auto is about to hit in 0.5 seconds > 0.3 begin Slam > Auto hits > 0.2 Slam hits

vs

Auto > Next Auto is about to hit in 0.5 seconds > Heroic > 0.5 seconds Slam hits.

All that macro does is prevents you from going over a 0.5 second delay (when manually you can go lower) but is only any good in a surplus rage situation. And if you're going to spend that much just to Slam you shouldn't bother with it. And clipping extra attacks with it sucks too.

Are you saying you can start casting slam before your auto-attack has hit? I have never heard about such a thing and I am pretty sure it only looks like you do in a high latency situation.

That is how I've always done it. If you consider 120 - 180 ms high latency then I suppose that's the cause. Doesn't really make a whole lot of sense though if it's just latency problems when I do that so the Slam comes out as close to instant as possible after the auto would hit. I'm fairly sure seeing both the auto number and Slam number popping up at the same time isn't after a 0.5 second delay.

If it wasn't actually working like I thought it was, then wouldn't the auto be frozen while the Slam was casting and then the swing timer reset as the Slam landed regardless of latency? That isn't what happens though, so the auto can't be frozen during the cast. Unless what I'm actually seeing on screen has already taken place and the swing and swing timer are off from what the server already registered. Still doesn't really explain seeing two attacks land virtually at the exact same time, one white, one yellow and not a sword proc.

You can easily test that the autoattack is reset at beginning of cast by cancelling the slam early, however I have also experienced that the numbers on the screen do not always follow the swingtimer due to reasons I cannot explain.

Slam definitely resets the swing when you start casting it, as does every cast time spell.

As for the precasting Slam its simple - assuming you have 300 latency (two way)

Normal casting slam (assuming 0 human reaction time)

TIME Your PC................................................Server

0.0 sec nothing...............................................auto attack goes off
0.15 sec receives "auto attack message"...............nothing
0.15 sec sends "start slam".................................nothing
0.3 sec nothing...............................................receives "start slam" command and executes it

0.3 sec delay between auto and slam

Precasting by 0.3 (aka latency)

-0.15 Swing timers shows 0.3 to next white swing......nothing
(it operates on the messages received from
server not the server order of events. So 0.3
sec to next swing popping on YOUR screen)
-0.15 Send the "cast slam" command......................nothing
0.0 nothing.......................................................auto attack goes off, "cast slam command received), start casting slam
0.15 Auto attack confirmation, Started slam confirmation

I'm a fan of the site wwsscoreboard.com. The site has a lot of interesting metrics from WWS reporting. A particularly interesting cut that they offer on their site is this one:

WWS Scoreboard

It's a breakdown of the top dps by class for different bosses, in this case Teron Gorefiend. There are also what I would classify as "nifty" bar charts that show you the distribution of class dps across a range.

From what I gather researching on this site, it seems that in the end of the current end game, fury warrior mechanics appear to break. Fury warriors are jumping ahead of everyone else, just like hunters, and this appears to be related to a higher number of heroic strikes when I look at the breakdowns. To jump to my point, does it become reasonable to have a fury warrior be interchangable with a rogue at the end of Sunwell?

It may also be because of itemization; so much of the tier 6.5 and better tier 6 pieces have haste rating on them, making them less useful for arms. We're only 4/6, but we're a pretty well geared 4/6. I'm thinking it might be a possibility to start including a fury warrior in our raids for fights that have a lot of raid damage (and therefore give the fury warrior the ability to HS on almost every swing).

So going by this, is there actually a 0.5 second delay or greater doing it the way I've been doing it (I guess I've acidentally been adjusting for latency) or is it less? If it's less, then it seems like with a lower latency DPS might actually decrease? It can't really be much more than 0.5 if it's even that though and I've never intentionally cast a Slam after I see a white hit unless my instants were on cooldown and I just gained enough rage for the Slam with that hit. If there is a latency issue happening, shouldn't it be affecting auto attack the same as a cast ability? I'd assume so for all of those times where you suddenly get an out of range message and then the game resyncs and you see you actually are out of range.

It's pretty much a moot point for me anyway though considering I stopped using Slam due to random latency issues, but still something to know if my connnection ever becomes reliably stable again (550 ms in Sunwell for the past two weeks = super!).