Gorrog666

I am sorry but I have to make something more clear I believe because people somehow missed it, I wrote my post not clear enough, or people just didn't read it. First of all boss armor is not 10643 in WotLK, you could be right about that in BC but in WotLK Boss armor is 13083. There is a post on Boss armor in this forum clearly stating the right armor. It has been easil determined through Thunderclap data and through Maexxna. You also use a wrong C value in your calculation. Now the part which most people missed I believe.

ArP tested with Thunderclap:

Battle Stance (ArP = 10% Debuffs) + (ArP = 52% Equip), Damage done with Thunderclap = 395
Battle Stance + Sunder, (ArP = 30% Debuffs) + (ArP = 52% Equip), Damage done with Thunderclap = 444
Battle Stance + Sunder + Grim Toll (ArP = 30% Debuffs) + (ArP = 102% Equip), Damage done with Thunderclap = 561
Battle Stance + Sunder + Grimm Toll + Mace (ArP = 45% Debuffs) + (ArP = 102% Equip), Damage done with Thundeclap = 608

Damage is increased with ALL ArP effects while having over 100% ArP through Equip, where please is there a CAP? There is no cap!

 

Zarà ck

As for the arms rotation i find these parcitulary useful in the starting line up.

1: Charge - insta crit if you've the talent so i suggest letting the tank get a good hold first
2: Mortal strike - insta crit like i said also = Trauma
3: Rend
4: Slam + Heroic Strike

Now i'd say like the rest when Taste of Blood and Sudden Death proc hit them as often as you can, but thats my starting line up and its definetly some nice spam damage ^^.

 

Bokeh

Since juggernaut is a 10 second buff, are you not better off doing a rend as the first thing after you charge? I think this would be better partially because of the bursty threat generation that arms suffers from, but also because getting rend up as soon as possible means you can overpower earlier. Trauma could possibly be an argument, though i am not sure how much of a difference this will make.

On another note, i've been playing around a bit with a priority graph (based on the protection priority graph that's floating around the net) for some guildies to show them how an arms rotation works out, but i am not 100% sure if the graph is correct, so i'm wondering if people could scrutinize it.

Basically, priorities are shown from top to bottom, the red/yellow bars show your rend ticks (colour coded to separate each Taste for Blood proc) and your gcd's are shown in the green bars. There's also some timing info regarding mortal strike and bladestorm at the bottom as well to show how to weave it in to your rotation. Red MS icons show when the ability is on cooldown, red TfB icons show when the ability HAS to be used to prevent losing the proc.

I think it's pretty much solid, keep in mind you can do the overpower at any time but i put it in at a fixed moment, just to show how to prevent losing TfB and SD procs.



so, any suggestions on things that need to be improved here?

Disclaimer: i know the title is wrong, it should say something like "arms 3.1 priority chart".

 

Kysimir

Questions:

(1) What do the green bars mean?
(2) What do the red shaded icons mean? I know you said the red Tfb icons are when CD is lost. Mortal Strike / Bladestorm?

Suggestions:
(1) Offer a clearer time sequence. the 6s { thing is kind of misleading. That and typically, every GCD a special is going off, so wouldn't 5s be 5 yellow attacks?

Possible Problems:
(1) Mortal Strike > Slam, so those need to be swapped in position
(2) Taste For Blood can not proc until 3 seconds into the rotation (it procs when rend ticks. Rend ticks every 3s)

You've got a good idea, it's just kind of confusing (to me). Other than a bit of confusion, the only "problem" I see is Mortal Strike and Slam are backwards. If Slam > MS, and Slam has no CD, then you'd never use MS. Since MS > Slam, and MS has a CD, you use Slam when everything's on CD.

 

Bokeh

Green bars are your gcd's, red/yorange/yellow bars are your rend ticks. I just noticed that i made a mistake at the end, that's the wrong colour.

The red shaded icons indicates - in the case of mortal strike - for how long you cannot use that ability again (taking gcd's into account), and - in the case of bladestorm - for how long you cannot do anything.

Mortal strike and slam can be switched around, yes, and i think i can make the amount of icons a bit less confusing by just doing a MS first, then slam until MS comes off the cd again.

Regarding TfB ticks, you are indeed right in that i forgot to take the fact that it can only proc once every 3 seconds into account, i'll try and update that.


The main reason why i made this chart is because some people are interesting in arms, but they are not really into the whole theorycrafting behind optimum dps rotations (the dps is fine, but they wouldn't know where it goes wrong if they are relatively low), so i was hoping that by visualizing the rotation i could make it a bit more clear for them.

 

hellord

Bosses armor BEFORE 3.1 were 13083, after 3.1 the armor value decreased so that the residual armor after debuffs stay more or less the same.

before 3.1
13083 - sunder (3925) - ff (1260) = 7898

after 3.1
10643 * (1-sunder (20%))*(1-ff(5%)) = 8088

There are many posts about this change and this link shows the method used to test armor values on dummy (that before patch 3.1 it was the same as Naxx bosses one)

The C used is relative to attacker then makes sense that is 15232.5 (and with it the formula fits experimental data)

ArP Whore

 

tmacismagic

Whats a good addon to use my LD50_Bar does not seem to be working correctly when i use slam it resets it after the patch and there's no update of the addon. Does Quartz do the job or are there better suggestions.

 

Kysimir

If green bars are GCD then the 5.5s{ is incorrect. :/ They're also not the same size, makes it kind of confusing to a glass joe.

 

Finnplayer

Overpower GCD is only 1 second, that's why the bars are different size.

 

Bokeh

The smaller green bars are a 1s gcd, i'm sorry i forgot to mention that. As far as i know, if you have UA your overpower only causes a 1s gcd, right?

 

Paradosi

I am rather new to Arms as I can't stand gearing up for Fury anymore and find Arms a lot more enjoyable despite it being twice as hard to maximize DPS, especially when you have to move as much as you do in Ulduar.

Anyways, I've done many different tests practicing different rotations over 5 minute durations with BS. One thing I noticed is using Bladestorm over Slam when nothing instant is up seemed to work best for me. Breaking your rotation when you have instant attacks ready to use is not ideal. I also noticed when I switched to all Str gems from all Arp gems (when GC filled us in on the new Arp caps) my DPS went up 150. I know this may differ on actual bosses.

But the other thing I noticed which goes against almost everything I'm reading on these forums is that Mortal Strike > Execute in my rotation seems to be a lot more DPS. I sustained 4100 DPS over 5 minutes two different times using this method on a target dummy. My rotation is:

Rend > Op > MS > Execute > Slam

I don't use HS on the target dummies as I mostly find myself rage starved but obviously use them a lot more in raiding. When I prioritize Execute over MS, I'm anywhere between 3500-3700 DPS over 5 minutes. This could very well be RNG, but in raids and the target dummy it's been working out a lot better so far to use MS > Execute. I do this on the level 80 target dummy btw as the level 83 target dummy is always in execute range.

Now I realize execute hits a lot harder, that I won't dispute. But the only reason I decided to test this because of how Sudden Death works. The odd time you can chain back to back 30 rage executes if Sudden Death procs multiple times in a row which is a nice increase in DPS but it doesn't happen to often. Sometimes it happens when both OP & MS are down and I get to do that anyways.

But with that in mind, Mortal Strike is a cooldown and I figured better to use a cooldown since I have so much time on the Sudden Death proc to use it when Op & MS are on cooldown. What this does is increase the amount of instant attacks you use on GCD's instead of having to fill those gaps with additional slams. I noticed in both my tests 1 Sudden Death proc went to waste. But I used Mortal Strike 6x & 9x more with prioritizing it over execute in my 2 tests compared to the tests where I Execute before MS. However I had 7 more slams in both tests of using Execute over Mortal Strike.

My question is, wouldn't it better to use MS a lot more than Slam at the risk of wasting the odd Sudden Death proc when it procs back to back when MS is off cooldown? I just find my rotation not only easier to use, but just producing better results when it consists of more instant attacks instead of slams which is lower damage and delays the swing timer. Delaying cooldowns is a waste of DPS, but delaying Sudden Death most times isn't a DPS loss because you never know when it will be back up again. So as long as you use it at some point, it's no DPS loss at all. I just don't see the benefit of using Sudden Death early if it doesn't come up again for 3-30 seconds. It's pretty much just weighing probability.

 

Zarat

Given that Arms doesn't gain much from haste, at least compared to AP, are potions of speed better than indestructible potions or perhaps even insane strength potions?

 

Paradosi

I have a bunch of potions of speed made already so I figure the best time to use them is 19% or lower since haste seems to be more of a DPS increase during that phase for Arms. Not sure how other potions compare.

 

Pepine

I'm new to this forum but have read the recent Arms and Fury In-Depth discussions. It seems from the discussions and from my own testing that Arms is the better spec, at least until one is wearing more Ulduar gear. I leveled my warrior Arms, but went Fury with Titan's grip and never looked back, until the past couple days.

My first question is regarding Armor Penetration. I'm not great with all the math, but the basic gist that I'm getting is that the value of ArP goes up dramatically the more you have. Currently (since it was not a stat that I prioritized), my ArP is 71. I do use the Jawbone as my weapon and have the mace specialization, and obviously mostly use Battle stance in arms and receive that bonus to ArP. If I sub in my Dragonsworn pendant and the Argent Crusade rep helm, I get my ArP up to 177 (at the cost of AP, hit, and crit from my Fool's Trial and Titansteel helm). I could also gem up ArP quite a bit, using the 16 ArP gems I could theoretically get it up at least another 160-200 (again, at the cost of Strength and/or crit). Assuming mace spec and battle stance, how much ArP should I be wearing to reap the rewards? And, if/when the mace spec is removed (for an axe or polearm eventually), how much additional would that require?

Regarding rotation, my basic rotation is currently Charge/MS/Rend/OP/Ex/MS/HS (rage dump) /Rend (when expires)/repeat. I watch for Greatness procs for Bladestorm, or use at appropriate times in fights (last night on XT I popped it right after first Rend so that it would be up again for the heart). I have not started working in slams yet but have been using HS spamming instead. It is working reasonably well, I was frequently top 3-5 in our Naxx25 raids, was dead last amongst dps overall on Razorscale in fury, and came up considerably vs. XT in arms (8-10 overall, as high as 5th on some attempts). What can I do to tweak this a little, am I really missing out on a lot of dps by subbing in Heroic Strike in lieu of timing swing slams? I prioritize OP, then Execute, but try to catch Mortal Strike on every CD regardless of other talents.

 

Gorrog666

Your right I forgot about the armor change. C is however the higher value Blizzard posted an exmaple calculation for the ArP on a boss.

 

MÃ¥gius

This question is already answered in earlier posts.

So far it is assumed that the boss armor is 10643 in patch 3.1 before debuffs such as sunder and ff. When the debuffs are applied, armor pen cap is re-calculated (going on multiple tests).

These are the values:

Since this is an Arms topic we will always add in Battle Stance calculations- which gives you an additional 10% armor pen.

IN BATTLE STANCE (To hit our theoretical cap):

No Debuffs on Boss: 113.39% armor pen or 1396.96 armor pen rating
5 Sunders: 97.56% armor pen or 1201.94 armor pen rating
5 Sunders + Farie Fire: 94.05% armor pen or 1158.70 armor pen rating
5 Sunders + Farie Fire + Mace Spec (5/5): 79.05% armor pen or 973.90 armor pen rating

Keep in mind this does not include any grim toll procs. Simply subtract 49.68% armor pen or 612 armor pen rating from these values to see the assumed cap during a grim toll proc.

 

MÃ¥gius

We know that GC said that C was supposed to be the target's level, but experimental data shows that C is actually the attacker's level.

 

Pepine

So then, since I am so low in ArP anyway, it seems that it would be more effective to stick with Strength gems and current gear rather than downgrade gear otherwise (except in relation to ArP). Correct? Or get as much as I can now, even if I am nowhere near the cap (and I don't have Grim Toll either - use MoT and Greatness)? Seems from earlier discussions that may be the case.

 

MÃ¥gius

What I would personally do is try to cap as much as you can. I am very OCD when it comes to hitting a cap. If I am at 263 HR I would go crazy to get that extra 1 HR to cap my yellow attacks.

So what I am saying is, I would get hit cap, expertise cap (although as arms I really dont think it is THAT essential - however I am still capped), and then start working on Arp. There are two items from BADGE OF HEROISM - a leather wrist and a mail waist. You can eat armor pen food as well. Check out my armory and you can see what I am using for armor pen gear. There are also legs from wyrmrest accrod and a mace from another faction that has armor pen.

As Arms, these are my stats (all unbuffed):

AP: 3122
Crit: 36.99%
Hit: 267
Expertise: 18
Haste: 201
ARMOR PEN: 495

Single-Wield Betrayer

I will see how my DPS is with these new stats.


Yesterday I was at:

AP: 3230
Crit: 36.99%
Hit: 267
Expertise: 18
Haste: 201
ARMOR PEN: 495

Single Wield Betrayer

DPS on Patch and Widow:

Patchwerk: Wow Web Stats (5872 DPS)
Widow: Wow Web Stats (5924 DPS)

I do not get hysteria or Tott

I also hit around 6k DPS on 10 man Deconstructor in Ulduar as Arms. When I did that, I had around 343 Arp, but more AP. I could have just been real lucky.

I will get more WWS parses when we go back in there and other raids. Also I still need to work on my rotation, since i have only been Arms for a few days. I have always been Fury (owning the charts pre 3.1)

 

Hindukel

I've swapped out all of my STR gems with armor pen which puts me at 274 armor pen or up to 22.25% armor ignore. I'm missing melancholy sabatons, which would be another 84 (5.5%) armor pen and I'm hoping for the ironsoul 2h mace which also has 84 (5.5%) armor pen. Those two pieces would put my armor pen at 442, or ~35.36% armor ignore (passive) before my mace specialization or battle stance.

Now i"m still working on tightening up my rotations and such, but fully socketed for ArP I pulled ~4.3k DPS on patch with no sunders up. I"m thinking once i get a few more armor pen pieces I might swap out some armor pen for strength but I will do that experiment when the time comes.

A point of clarification: the mace specialization and battle stance stack together on your armor penetration rating right? So let's say you have 20% armor ignore in your current rating, do you add 10% for battle stance and an additional 15% if you are mace spec'd? Or are these numbers worked into the armor penetration numbers that you see on your character sheet?

Thanks.

 

MÃ¥gius

Yeah from Dysent's testing, it shows that Battle and Mace are additive. From what I notice, it is not included in the tooltip same as taking 3/3 precision as fury which reduces hit by 3%.

So whatever tooltip you see, just add 10% in battle stance and 15% more for mace.

And if you notice, your armor pen on your character sheet is the same in Battle Stance as it is in Zerker.

 

maand90

I'm still very confused of what glyphs I as a Arms warrior should use

What should be the best Arms raid glyphs?

Bladestorm
Mortal Strike
Rending

or

Execution
Mortal Strike
Rending

or

Bladestorm
Mortal Strike
Execution

But I've seen many using the 2nd one. So I dunno, which one is the best?
I'm thinking of the last one, as I don't think there will be a problem in DPS by using rend more often

 

Hindukel

The second one is best because with the extra 6 seconds on rend you save yourself global cooldowns. Also, while the bladestorm glyph is nice, an example was made earlier with a typical 6 minute fight. Unglyphed, bladestorm has a 90 second cooldown, so if you glyph it then it goes down to 75 seconds.

There are 360 seconds in a 6 minute boss fight. 360/90= 4 exactly. But, if the fight ends before that 6 minute mark the last bladestorm is null and void anyways.

Assume that you glyph the bladestorm then: 360/75=4.8, but you can't round up with something like that. So, even if you glyphed for bladestorm you wouldn't be getting any more out of it then you already do.

Go with rend and save some GCDs.

 

maand90

Alright, thank you it's the best response I've had for this question (yes I've asked on an other forum, not on this one tho). I guess I'll go for the rending MS and execution one then

 

Septra

i still haven't figured out what that blue post about APR meant.
i'm specced ARMS atm with sword and i changed all my gems from STR to APR. (plus 2gems for hit cause of hit cap)

but im not sure if the geming is right, i mean is it really better to gem APR over STR?

i got 27.85% armor penetration(not battle stance included) from gear and i'm doing ulduar bosses atm, would i get more dmg from penetration or strength? also if sunders is there am i already over the cap?

also how can i know the armor that bosses have? are there any sites showing it?