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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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

205 Expertise
295 Hit

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.

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.

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?

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.

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?