• Morsexy

Before we get the fury thread cluttered up with arms posts, we can just start this thread.

I'm working on a large fury compilation post first, and then I can work on arms if someone doesn't by then.

 

Healranktwo

Doesn't seem like many arms warriors exist anymore =(

What stats are arms war prioritizing?

 

Oliria

As I wrote in the fury thread I started out as arms.. and I love the rotation, its really cool, but the damage... ohh..

Arms is really not competetive atm, if anyone have seen or experienced otherwise please share your thougts!

Fury on the other hand, has sick damage!

 

Xplicit

I would disagree with Arms not being competetive. Here's a WWS of last nights raid (Wow Web Stats), where I was 4th overall for the evening, 2nd on Boss encounters (Behind the Fury warrior). Not sure if that's just the other dps not doing what they should be.

I went fury over the weekend, on our off nights. Ran some 10 man Naxx/10 man Sarth. I found my dps to be a good 500-600 higher then it is with arms. However with our guild already having one Fury warrior, I found it to be more beneficial to the raid to stay arms, due to increased physical damage/bleed damage.

My question is if any Arms warriors are managing to top the meters, especially ahead of fury warriors.

 

• LodeRunner

Hi people. This is the PvE Arms DPS thread. This is the thread to discuss the mechanics and nuances of Arms DPS. Successful Arms DPS is currently less intuitive than Fury DPS. This is not an excuse to ask dumb questions you can easily figure out the answer to by simply engaging your brain or using the search function. If you want to talk about Fury, use the Fury thread. They're very different playstyles; both are viable.

 

Ellurion

Thanks!

 

bluelise

I would love to hear about the more common rotations for the arms build. I have seen several rather different ones and wonder if there is a generally accepted "top rotation" on these forums.

 

Glory

9% Hit 6.25% Expertise against Bosses check your character sheet

205 Expertise
295 Hit

 

mirarant

I refrained from writing this earlier and shame on me if the information is already collected in some warrior thread's original post. It seems both this and the Fury thread could benefit from having some information in a nutshell in the original post, especially the hit/expertise-values come to mind. If I've understood correctly, the collected knowledge would then be later transferred to the theorycraft think-tank.

As I am at work at the moment I can not compile the information myself right now so this post borders the infraction line but I'll get to work on this later today if someone already hasn't beaten me to it.

No, you may not roll a spiked chain wielding half-ogre.

 

Furrymaker

As far as arms vs. fury I've found them to be pretty comparable in terms of dps. On some fights I'll out do our fury warriors and vice versa. A raid benefits from having one of each generally. Here's a WWS of a fury warrior and myself both neck and neck at 4k dps (WWS).

As far as the rotation i prefer to use it's much like one mentioned in a different thread. Basically a priority queue.

• Keep up rend
• Execute on sudden death procs regardless of rage
• Overpower whenever up
• Keep bladestorm on CD (use with trinket)
• Keep MS on CD
• Slam to burn excess rage
• Slam & heroic strike with full rage bar and everything else on CD
• Don't let sunders fall off (Assuming non warrior tank)

 

Reliknom

Isn't a 50-21 talent build with death wish better, than anything with bladestorm? At least that was my assumption after reading people's beta experiences and doing some bosses as arms in naxx25. Might e worth to do some math on this if noone has a definite answer yet.

Also what I've found - and this might be the cause most people will say that fury outperforms arms - is that the arms rotation or rather priority list, is much more complex, than good old fury. It requires more focus, and favours stationery fights much more.

On a related note: leading a raid as arms DPS compared to fury or as a protection OT was much harder, because I had to concentrate so much on which skill to use at any given moment.

Another point I couldn't decide for myself was if there is any point in using heroic strike, or if any excess rage should be dumped via slam.

"Morituri Nolumus Mori!"

 

Glory

Well Deathwish is 4-5% Dmg over all (20%/(180/30Uptime) + Bonus because you can Pop it with Trinkets/BL execute phase...)

Compared to Bladestorm 5% dmg overall +9-10 Attacks in 6 Sec (High Deep Wounds)

You may Test it?

 

Tankietka

I dare to say that there is no one "top rotation" for arms.

The major point for me is that Arms (unlike Fury or pre-WotLK Arms) have now spammable damage ability that can be used at any time - Slam.

While Fury generally must wait for cooldowns to end (+proc from ability that is on cooldown) Arms has much more dynamic playstyle - at any point of time there are many things that can be done. Which action is the best often cannot be decided beforehand and put into static, unchangeable rotation. It is rather context of the moment (for example how much rage do you have, which abilities procced, what is on cooldown, how much time is left till next white swing, etc) that decides what is best, or what probably is best.

In other words - Arms warrior should not in my opinion stick to one predefined rotation without further thinking, rather decide on the fly what to use and in what order. Of course some general rules or "precalculated" priority lists for some situations (ie use Execute before Slam if under/above x rage) can be used, but sticking mindlessly to one is not good.

Let's see what would Arms rotation could look like if there was no slam (intentionally skipping Bladestorm):
1. refresh Rend each 18s
2. use Overpower if procced
3. use Execute if procced
4. use MS every cooldown

And that's all. In such rotation all you can decide about is which ability to use first if more are available at the same time. You are constrained by cooldown, proc from Rend (each 3s) and Sudden Death proc (can be from white hit - more or less each 3s, from Overpower - bound to Rend tick, from MS - bound to cooldown).

Now, let's add slam. Rotation would be more or less the same but with additional point:
5. Slam

Now, we have
- additional ability that can be used at any time - another thing we can decide about
- step up in complexity of how to prioritize all available procs/cooldowns/abilities
- you are less bound to procs/ticks/swings - there is even a bit of control over Sudden Death proc - it can proc from Slam which you use when you want, not when tick or swing happens

Due to the above I think there won't be one rotation for all Arms warriors. Rather guidelines for given gear level, some general priority lists, some rage sweet points etc.

 

Typhon

I suspect the math will say that in terms of baseline numbers on stationary single targets, Deathwish is better, but Bladestorm (especially used in conjunction with Sweeping Strikes) has so much more utility usage overall in all areas of Arms PVE (Trash, Grinding, Heroics) that I think it is worth having instead of Deathwish. Remember Recklessness in the old days, how much of a "get-out-of-jail" free card it was? That's Bladestorm's role nowadays.

There's little to no point in using heroic strike as Arms PVE. Relatively speaking for our purposes, its somewhere between "useless" and "pathetic".

 

gia

My main questions about arms dps revolve around a single problem:

When to execute? Always? Do I risk being at 10 rage when MS comes off cooldown and having to wait? Do I dump 100 rage into an execute when I could burn off some with Slam/HS before it? And so on.

Currently when I play arms I use NeedToKnow to track Sudden death/Taste for Blood and Rend durations so that I can try to better fit them into the rotation without skipping the MS cooldown and holding onto rage between MS and the white swing that happens just before it. This means I sometimes will waste procs because they will refresh in the 3-4 seconds I wait to use them. Is not skipping MS worth the wasted proc?

 

Gregor

What enchant should an arms warrior go for?

Massacre, or Berserking? Does the AP increase beat the AP decrease (from Armoured to the Teeth) by more than 110?

 

Dayone

You linked to Loatheb, an encounter that intentionally inflates damage in exchange for healing restrictions. The only fight that would provide a more inaccurate comparison would be Thaddius.

One thing that has really bothered me is the lack of slow of 2 handers. The best weapons being 3.4 speed while the slower polearms being shared with hunters seems like blizzard's way of discouraging arms .

 

limbsdeath

I have seen the math on tankspot (although math goes in one ear out the other), and it turns out that execute is most effective if used under about 50% rage. Over that and you are loosing dps. If you have more then 50% rage and execute procs you can use ms/slam/overpower whatever abilities you have to burn rage within the 6 sec proc time then use execute.

 

Oliria

I would love to hear if there's a secret? or I simply ruled arms out too early (seeing that I tried it with mostly crap gear). I think Im gonna tru it again in a few raids, see how I do!

1 question, can you keep up on AOE? fury has WW, arms has.. well bladestorm? and SS, but they have a large CD.. and so far AOE'ing mages/hunters/DKs/TGwar blows everything off the table. Overall damage is so dependet on thrash now (not that overall damage really counts, but you know - for the epeen) that I find it hard to compete as arms. but again might just have been my gear at the time!

 

• LodeRunner

I don't mean to be cynical but this isn't so much evidence of competitive Arms play as much as it is evidence of a bad Fury Warrior. Loatheb has always been a Fury Warrior's fight, from 60 Naxx to TBC to now. You may want to talk to him and have him reexamine his playstyle. It's probably safe to say he's doing something wrong.

 

Keyzersoze

Now maybe it is just me, but I couldn't give 2 coppers on trash damage. When comparing my DPS to our raids or other warriors I always look at bosses. That is where the status, epeen, and phat lewts come from imo.

 

TigerG

Arms is probably the best aoe/trash killer in the game solely due to bladestorm. If you pop trinkets and Sweeping Strikes before hand, I can usually do around 8-10k dps within those 7 seconds of bladestorm on trash mobs. Arms is much better than Fury when it comes to AOE, but is lacking in single target dps because of it. This is part of the reason why there aren't many WWS of Arms on the Patchwerk fight, it's just a single target Boss fight with no additional damage and no adds. Arms dps on other bosses is dependent on the strat for that individual boss.

 

• LodeRunner

I'm not convinced of this at all. Bladestorm has an abominably long cooldown, and Fury's Whirlwind hits almost twice as hard; my napkin math says a TG Whirlwind does 195% of a regular Whirlwind. Also, I don't believe the Whirlwind Glyph works for Bladestorm, so a Fury Warrior's Whirlwind is a massive amount of damage. You could be entirely right, but if you are I don't think it's by the margins you believe it to be. A Bladestorm will set an Arms Warrior far ahead on the meters for trash. However, while it's cooling down, Fury will catch up with double damage whirlwinds and Cleave spam which we can do because our offhands still generate rage. This is offset by how fast you pull, pack size, and how much the Arms Warrior can mash Sweeping Strikes of course.

edit- Also Unholy DKs are the best trash killers in the game.

 

TigerG

You may be right about Unholy DKs, because I personally have not seen that many geared or good DKs in action to properly review them myself.

I will test the Whirlwind Glyph with Bladestorm later today, because I was under the impression that the two did work together. Anyway, though Bladestorm does have an abyssmal cooldown, I can usually use it every other trash pull in a raid. However, my gripe with regular whirlwinds is that by the time you use it a second or third time, at least half the mob will be dead so it won't be utilizing its full potential, while bladestorm can do all its damage within 6 seconds. Though you do have a point, I did not mean to come across that Arms wiped the floor with fury in terms of AOE.

 

Oliria

Dno about your naxxgroups, but we manage to pull atleast 5-6 groups during a bladestorm CD.. most of the time we pull multiple groups at a time, and never stops pulling.. if the pack is about to die, a tank runs forward pulling another..

and then ofc rend is useless on thrash making OP not very good. Sudden death seems bad aswell!

but again some ppl think thrash doesn't matter, imo it does matter alot- the difference between clearing naxx in 1 night, and not doing so lies with the thrash!