I'm not getting what you are saying tbh. If it's additive either you place it before or after gear it doesnt matter.
It would be important if that was a multiplicative value but there is no evidence of this in any test.
It's quite obvious that IF talents are additive the extra arp over cap is wasted.
If you get up to 104.05% with gear (let's say 94.05% with battle) then if you are mace specced you better put 15% arp into STR (gemming) or changing gear for some other crit/ap and even haste.
Since GT sets a softcap the extra arp is just wasted for its uptime. If you want to know if going over softcap is worth then you need a spreadsheet cause it's very dependant on your gear.
I'm with you now, I think we might of been saying the same thing just not understanding each other.
Last xt fight i did stasiscl showed me with 6200 dps, 11.9% (307,859dmg) of that was Light Bomb on the melee group, not saying that's always the case (might be a stasis only bug) but it might be what's happening on those 7k wws.
To put some light on 7k XT parses mystery I took a look a them, what more or less confirmed my thoughts (I hit 6k last night arms speced with Jawbone and I knew i have had a good fight - good rotaion, no bomb debuff etc). Those crazy numbers are often due to bladestorming adds etc, so please dont loose your sleep if you cannot reach such numbers. I would say that 5k-5.5k isn't nothing bad really in 'normal' circumstances so to say.
I was just coming to these forums to say the same thing you and Adventia said before even reading your posts. Now I went back to do more testing on the targeting dummies and couldn't get over 4k DPS again which proves my previous rotation and tests over 5 minutes had more to do with RNG. I was averaging roughly 3600 DPS with these rotations across 5 different tests today:
rend > op > ms > execute > slam
rend > op > execute > ms > slam
Both those priority rotations produced similar results. I'm still conflicted in regards to which to use first MS or Execute, but slightly favor MS as it will improve with 4 piece + higher top end future weapons. Only time it's worth using Execute first is when it procs off of itself or off of a white hit or HS just after you execute. But none of us can tell the future and I think getting in more MS' over the course of a fight will outweigh the odd time you could have got in another execute. So you risk wasting the odd Sudden Death proc at the expense of many more MS'. I think it's really close now but will favor MS in the end.
But then I finally realized, why is OP so high in the priority chain? As long as you OP every 6 seconds, it's better to just keep MS on cooldown and using execute before and even slam as well. In fact, you can safely use any 2 abilities once TFB procs before you even have to OP. So with that in mind I did 5 more tests on the training dummy each 5 minutes long and finally got over 4k dps 3/5 times. The other 2 times I was in the 3800's and 3900's. I just like the consistency of this rotation but it's not a standard rotation like the ones above.
It's more like try to fit in 2 abilities after each TFB proc before you OP using this priority sequence:
rend > ms > execute > slam
What's also so great about this rotation, it uses a lot more excess rage into DPS than other rotations. It also allows you to get more slams in as well which is beneficial with the old and new 2 piece set bonus. Now I wasn't able to delay OP for slam as much as I'd like on the training dummy because rage was an issue. So I'll toy with this more in raids. But just for now I recommend people at least delaying OP for Rend (if down) and MS & Execute when they're up on a target dummy and see how that works out for you. Just try and get 2 abilities in before using OP when TFB procs.
In raids I'll test this out rather aggressively and post some results. So if rend is up and execute isn't, and MS was just used as TFB procs, I plan to Slam, Slam, then OP to really test this theory of getting in at least 2 of the main abilities in our rotation after every TFB proc before I OP.
i just attempted a few of these rotations and pulled ~3.2-3.6k over the span of 10 minutes or so; finding myself too much in low rage situations and resorting to 2x slams instead of ms (would this push swing-rage generation > 0.5s?).
not sure how you are pulling 4k+ (think our gear's fairly comparable)...would love to see some abiilities breakdowns or the results of your further test, if/when possible.
I have been trying the following spec on my warrior for arms: 54/17/0 Arms
However, I have not been able to sustain very high numbers on boss fights.
My armory is Armory. Note that as arms, I use my offhand as my weapon for the poleaxe specialization.
The rotation/priorities I have been using:
-Rend always up, let tick to end
-MS
-Bladestorm
-OP/SDexecute
-Slam
Is there something that I am doing wrong in my rotation/gear that anyone can see to help me get higher DPS numbers?
Is allowing bladestorm to go to the end helpful or should I make a macro to cut it off early?
I have been trying anything I can think of to try and get higher numbers but I don't know what I should do.
Would it be advantageous for me to go back to gear that I had before Ulduar to get back some of the crit that I lost?
Please let me know what you think, I have been trying anything I can think of and nothing has seemed to help.
P.S. On a completely different tone: I read somewhere that once I have gotten two good two handed weapons from Ulduar, that fury is actually better. Is there a point in gearing at which Fury will be doing more DPS than arms in 3.1?
I have been trying the following spec on my warrior for arms: 54/17/0 Arms
However, I have not been able to sustain very high numbers on boss fights.
My armory is Armory. Note that as arms, I use my offhand as my weapon for the poleaxe specialization.
The rotation/priorities I have been using:
-Rend always up, let tick to end
-MS
-Bladestorm
-OP/SDexecute
-Slam
Is there something that I am doing wrong in my rotation/gear that anyone can see to help me get higher DPS numbers?
Is allowing bladestorm to go to the end helpful or should I make a macro to cut it off early?
I have been trying anything I can think of to try and get higher numbers but I don't know what I should do.
Would it be advantageous for me to go back to gear that I had before Ulduar to get back some of the crit that I lost?
Please let me know what you think, I have been trying anything I can think of and nothing has seemed to help.
P.S. On a completely different tone: I read somewhere that once I have gotten two good two handed weapons from Ulduar, that fury is actually better. Is there a point in gearing at which Fury will be doing more DPS than arms in 3.1?
i just attempted a few of these rotations and pulled ~3.2-3.6k over the span of 10 minutes or so; finding myself too much in low rage situations and resorting to 2x slams instead of ms (would this push swing-rage generation > 0.5s?).
not sure how you are pulling 4k+ (think our gear's fairly comparable)...would love to see some abiilities breakdowns or the results of your further test, if/when possible.
I just ran another test right now on the level 80 target dummy for 4.5 minutes (BS duration) and this was the breakdown:
I screwed up a few times during this test so this is about 95% efficiency. But look at the number of Slams I got in there compared to MS & OP. This test easily shows the value of delaying OP to fit in 2 abilities immediately after every TFB proc before you OP. The abilities you fit in are Rend > MS > Execute > Slam in that priority. But make sure you only do 2 abilities to be safe and not waste an OP like I did twice in this test.
I screwed up a few times during this test so this is about 95% efficiency. But look at the number of Slams I got in there compared to MS & OP. This test easily shows the value of delaying OP to fit in 2 abilities immediately after every TFB proc before you OP. The abilities you fit in are Rend > MS > Execute > Slam in that priority. But make sure you only do 2 abilities to be safe and not waste an OP like I did twice in this test.
I just wanted to add something onto this. More of my opinion on Arms in general as we don't play this game to fight target dummies. I love arms and its potential and find it very enjoyable to play. But being this efficient on a target dummy is nothing like trying to do it in Ulduar. I know movement hurts the DPS of a lot of classes, but I think it really hurts Arms considering how important slam is in our rotation to maximize DPS. When I raid Fury, movement doesn't hurt my DPS as much as it does for Arms. On top of that, I find Fury much easier in a raiding situation. So easy to perfect that rotation while keeping yourself alive in encounters that require a lot of movement.
There's just too many things to focus on in our rotation when DPS'ing as Arms. Even on a target dummy, it takes a lot of focus to perfect this rotation. Throw in any distractions like the ones you get in a raiding environment and my rotation falls apart as does my DPS. I also think classes scale better with raid buffs, especially haste (BL/WF), that we're not getting the added DPS that we should be getting. We need to be buffed in another area but that would most likely have PvP implications which is what has been plaguing this game and its balance for years. Or maybe they need to simplify our rotation a bit. Allow Imp Slam a 50/100% chance to refresh rend or something. Or maybe I just need to practice Arms a bit more in a raiding environment.
Once your 95% efficiency becomes second nature I don't see how difficult it will be to maintain that in a raid setting. Just monitor your buffs for Taste for Blood, Rend, and Sudden Death - probably via some add on. A quick perusal of WMO's Warrior DPS scoreboard gives some (thankfully) balanced reports of which specs are on top. Nothing like the joke of balance pre 3.1 (I think I've seen one or two Arms parses at the top...)
Because you are given free reign to never stop moving as Fury doesn't make Arms not viable. I'm in the camp of just practice some more.
Once your 95% efficiency becomes second nature I don't see how difficult it will be to maintain that in a raid setting. Just monitor your buffs for Taste for Blood, Rend, and Sudden Death - probably via some add on. A quick perusal of WMO's Warrior DPS scoreboard gives some (thankfully) balanced reports of which specs are on top. Nothing like the joke of balance pre 3.1 (I think I've seen one or two Arms parses at the top...)
Because you are given free reign to never stop moving as Fury doesn't make Arms not viable. I'm in the camp of just practice some more.
I did do over 6500 DPS on XT last night, but even then I made countless mistakes with my rotation. I forgot to use Recklessness during the Execute phase. I remember using Bladestorm on the heart twice (mistake?) as add control was pretty good. But I know I could have easily gone over 7000 DPS if I didn't have to keep an eye on so many different things in regards to my rotation, the raid, debuffs, and mods. Hopefully with practice as I'm very new to Arms I'll perform a lot better. Most of the other fights I did much worse. Here's a WMO of the XT fight:
It also annoys me that with a damage buff 3x during the fight I can get over 6500 DPS. Last patch on Patchwerk I could get up to 7600 DPS without any special gimmick to the encounter to inflate my DPS. That was also without Hysteria as Fury. Between SCT and Dot Timers I have all the alerts I need. Just a pain in the ass to monitor everything while raiding. Hopefully you're right and that it becomes second nature with some practice.
Learning a new style was what pushed me to Arms at the moment anyway. Fury's rotation is mind-numbingly boring. The numbers it used to crank out were the best, but not having an option is lame. So far in 3.1 I've had a blast learning all this Arms stuff - and I recommend it to any DPS warriors.
Real quick though, I want to pull a relevant part of your previous statement here.
Originally Posted by Paradosi
Last patch on Patchwerk I could get up to 7600 DPS
Fury has been subsequently nerfed. I see Arms and Fury as being relatively similar now, but perhaps with Fury scaling harder and needing better gear. Just be wary of comparing apples and oranges - they taste different.
Hopefully you're right and that it becomes second nature with some practice.
Raiding as an Arms Warrior ist definitely a question of practice. When Patch 3.1 went live last Wednesday, I only managed about 4200 - 4500 DPS, which was around 500 DPS less then Fury the week before. But my playing improves from day to day, becoming more familiar with the roatation and Debuff watching and yesterday I finally managed to pull out 5200 DPS at XT-002 (can't provide a WWS because I'm at work). So I think learning Arms is as well a thin of patience and training an not not only reskilling and start smashing big holes into raid bosses. ;-)
Like Paradosi, my experience with switching to arms for ulduar isn't that great either. I do slightly better dps on bosses that's single target (eg on XT). But on movement heavy or multi-mob fights such razorscale, thorim or kologarn, my dps falls behind by a larger margin. (In other words, the gain I get from arms on single target is less than what I lose on multi-target fights). In addition, there are quite a few fights where I'm on interrupt duty, such as razorscale, auriaya, iron council and thorim. I just can't do those efficiently as arms at all.
To be fair, I didn't regem expertise. I use the same gear for both arms and fury. The weapons are BoH(s) in both specs, I can't check my arpen on armory, but I am over the 620 softcap with grim toll procs. Also, I'm hit and expertise capped in fury, but not hit capped in arms unless I have a draenei.
While I understand you LittleHamster, the numbers I am getting are kinda different to yours.
I am doing very nice in DPS on multi mob fights / bosses, like Razorscale and Auriaya, although I am falling behind rogue(s) and ench shaman on pure single target fight such as XT.
I find arms refreshing and good change compared to fury, because the rotation requires more effort to deal good DPS. Don't be afraid to use Sweeping Strikes and Bladestorm to AoE, unless you know that your tank can't handle it. (Obviously don't use it right on pull, but for example on Razorscale you can use them ~5-10 sec after an add wave comes, and on fights like Kologarn where threat isn't problem using sweeping strikes every CD to boost your dps is a good idea).
I do not have much fury vs arms numbers (yes bit off-topic), but I do got WWS from our first and 2nd XT kills. On first I did 4800 DPS as Fury and on 2nd 5600 as Arms, tells me enough as I am doing the rotation right, and I've always preferred arms over fury. Oh and btw both were done using BoHs (fury 2x) and quite equal gear.
In short: I'd recommend sticking to arms and trying it more, especially Sweeping Strikes and Bladestorm are nice tools if used at right moment.
And for the interrupt duty, I am on it only on Auriaya due fear immunity, I just activate berserker rage while she is casting fear, change berserker, pummel and back to battle. It often results less DPS loss than other classes who are waiting for Tremor Totem tick, although it does burn all your rage.
Eddie, you reminded me to check my own WWS over two weeks. I was swapping between arms/fury the first week, and only use recount and my memory as a guide. I got 0 pieces of gear from ulduar so far, so I have identical gear in both weeks.
Looking at the XT and kologarn kills where I was arms in week 1, and fury in week 2, It surprised me that I actually do more dps as fury even at XT. Both times I did the same about of light bomb damage. (Note that I'm far from maintaining a "perfect" rotation either week. We are new at Ulduar and I spent a lot of time watching the general raid situation. This would affect my arms dps more than fury, because fury is more familiar and I probably can play it better with finger memory).
With this result, I don't think we can conclude that everyone will see a dps increase switching to arms. Given that most agree fury will scale better with ulduar gear, there is no compelling reason to switch, unless you actually prefer the arms playstyle.
Last edited by LittleHamster : 04/24/09 at 9:21 AM.
I think the biggest problem with Arms, in terms of consistant DPS, is the impact of movement and focus shifts is generally a more extreme DPS loss in my experience than Fury.
Especially in raid environments where Rage is not so much of an issue (unlike Combat Dummy testing) you really need to use almost every GCD as Arms to maintain competitive DPS. This is a heavy burden on button inputs, especially given lag and the reduced GCD time on Overpower.
Often I find myself missing the occassional GCD in movement fights which, when coupled with the fact that Slam cannot be used as a filler when moving, can lead to pretty heavy DPS loss at times.
This gets even worse when having to consider keeping sunder up, interrupting, or using shouts. Fury has a number of 'free' GCDs which allow for movement, buff/debuff fillers, or interrupts without a substantial or notable reduction of DPS. On the other hand, Arms suffers pretty heavily from regularly missing GCD opportunities.
IMO, the more simplistic and 'slower' rotation of Fury allows for a greater concentration on positioning, cooldowns, and optimization of rage which makes Arms a bit more difficult overall.
I've been experimenting with Arms quite a bit in the last few weeks, and although my gear isn't all that great for it (way too much Hit at the moment and not enough ArP) I've found it fun but definitely at a disadvantage to Fury when a lot is going on. Our main DPS Warrior has gone back to Fury after experimenting with both and seeing better numbers with Fury more consistantly across the majority of bosses.
I have to disagree to those who find problems when moving. It surely was a big issue but now, given jaggernaut and a very reliable OP, slam usage has decreased a lot.
Yes you can't slam much if you are constantly moving, but charge has only 15s gcd, no dr stun (good for quick interrupts on ranged targets) and generate rage. Also you get a granted crit on next MS or Slam in a 10s window that let you anyway apply rend and start the normal rotation.
If you glyph bladestorm it could even provide a very good aoe dps for fights like raz, and sweeping strikes is decent on multitarget.
There is also something to note: heavy arp gear and battlestance are a very big boost on aoe damage where the majority of mobs aren't sundered.
Overall it may be slightly worse than fury, but you have so much more rage at this level of gear that you can even spam cleave on every other hit.
Compared to pre 3.1 arms, I really feel the mobility increase is awesome and it's much closer to fury aoe dps. Once gear starts to be BiS I'm pretty sure fury will rule again, but actually for entry level ulduar gear arms is good either in aoe and single target fights.
Well, when I say moving I don't really mean 'go to X place' but more 'moving regularly out of void zones, AoE attacks, etc.'
For instance, Mimiron P2 requires pretty regular movement when he turns to shoot at ranged and to avoid Missile target zones. Hodir requires regular movement to avoid the stacking debuff, quick-spawning void zones, and for snow drifts. Ignis and Razorscale both involve a lot of smaller movements on a regular basis. XT and Freya bombs can require quite a bit of movement if you are unlucky as well.
Being able to Charge in-combat is great, and helps on a lot of the larger movement portions (knockbacks, getting to ice blocks on Hodir, etc.) but the small, regular movements are what inflict DPS losses to Arms without really affecting Fury at all.
Like Paradosi, my experience with switching to arms for ulduar isn't that great either. I do slightly better dps on bosses that's single target (eg on XT).
I'm inclined to agree except that the only fight I find arms to be Absolutely better than fury at this time is General Vezax. (-20% melee haste aura brutalizes fury rage generation/DPS) Other possible fights might be Hodir, Iron Council, Ignis and I am still learning Yogg but maybe Yogg as well. Other than that, I believe fury does better. Including XT, Deathwish during heart phases is too good to pass up, this week I was able to do 6600 DPS on XT 25 as fury, 2nd to only a rogue who was pushing 7600.
Again, it depends on your fury gear, I am also dualing Betrayers which no doubt helps. And in my case, as Fury I spec and glyph into Cleave over Execute which helps AoE scenarios as well. And, for fights like Auryia, the interrupts are important further adding to the fury "cause".
I also don't find movement heavy fights to be too detrimental to arms vs fury. I find myself being out of range of melee more often as Fury than as Arms, because Arms will force me to be in range to constantly use my GCD, with Fury I might think I'm in range but WW/BT are already on cooldown and it might take me an extra second or two to figure out that I'm not. Just a personal observation, probably something I should be working on for Fury.
Well, when I say moving I don't really mean 'go to X place' but more 'moving regularly out of void zones, AoE attacks, etc.'
For instance, Mimiron P2 requires pretty regular movement when he turns to shoot at ranged and to avoid Missile target zones. Hodir requires regular movement to avoid the stacking debuff, quick-spawning void zones, and for snow drifts. Ignis and Razorscale both involve a lot of smaller movements on a regular basis. XT and Freya bombs can require quite a bit of movement if you are unlucky as well.
Being able to Charge in-combat is great, and helps on a lot of the larger movement portions (knockbacks, getting to ice blocks on Hodir, etc.) but the small, regular movements are what inflict DPS losses to Arms without really affecting Fury at all.
I understand perfectly the concerns you have and I probably didn't express well myself.
Anyway Slam is now around 10% damage BUT i think everyone is still using 2pc t7.
Once you lose that it's even less % of our total damage. So the relative loss from slam will be less.
Mace specs with slower weapon will surely suffer more in moving fights, but i personally find no problems (or very few anyway) in timing slams and sometime replacing it with an hs if I have to move suddenly and everything is on cd.
I don't find my slam go down by more than 2-3% even on moving fights.
Charge on the other side (supposing you CAN use it) is great and slightly skew this damage loss. 100% MS and more rage to spend.
Yes fury is less affected by movements, but the thing is arms is slightly worse now, and not unbelievably worse.
If you time well slams and move only when really needed (tbh you only need to be steady when slamming so around 12-15% of the time) your damage is not so bad in general is much better than before 3. Also if you can somehow plan when to move or have a 0.5s you are able to lose very few % of slam damage.
I don't want to say arms is better, but from my experience is more than viable, that's why I'm not particularly concerned about moving fights.
I agree with Hellord. Once you are comfortable with the playstyle of Arms, your deeps will not decrease by movement too much if any. I still pull 4700-5k on Mimiron P2 on 25man.
To the target dummy issue:
This test was done last night with a 40 str food buff, flasked, and a 5 min imp Battle Shout. Tuesday in Ulduar i received new bracers and a belt with ArP. The damage increase was so signifficant that i took out some 16 str gems and put in a few ArP gems giving me 30.20% ArP (then i hit the dummy). Currently Axe spec atm. For shizz n giggles i did another test with the same buffs and gear but went Mace spec and used the good old Titan Steele destroyer that has a 85 AP enchant on it (eww). I was amazed when i hit 3800 deeps in under the 5 min battle shout duration!! That screen shot is on my home PC though...
Practice as Arms whenever you can and get familiar with the spec. find the delacate balance between gemming for ArP and Str (yes, some str is still needed).
I am currently at 623 ArP with food buff using BoH as Arms. Last night on Kologarn 10 man I spiked to 7k DPS in the first 15 seconds (so no adds) and I finished the fight at 5.7K DPS (2% ahead of the combat rogue). What I noticed is, once you learn the fight, you learn where to position yourself and what abilities to start using at any given time.
For that fight I just stayed in the middle and used bladestorm in the beginning and then save it for adds when the arm dies again. Sweeping strikes everytime it is up and cleave instead of slam when there are no procs and MS is on CD.
For XT I usually save my bladestorm for when the pummellers are tanked on the boss (same as for razorscale when the adds are brought onto her when she is grounded). Thats the point where you want to maximize cleave and sweeping strikes, etc...
For instance, Mimiron P2 requires pretty regular movement when he turns to shoot at ranged and to avoid Missile target zones.
A few things about Arms Warriors and Mimiron
10 man is where I had these experiences.
I had a few people in guild that said melee was terrible for Mimiron. Phase one we hurt a bit, but phase two is where I catch up and even exceed the ranged. I often never have to move on two's Barrage or missile attacks, and when I do, its a very short distance so dps is never lost.
Tanking the head in phase 3 is my job. Spell reflect takes the win. I also call bomb bots in vent and immediately target them using a macro. If the bomb bots get too close to someone I taunt it off and take the hit. Also try to save heroic throws for this because taunt doesn't always last long enough if dps is lacking and a healer can die. My stance and weapons according to are macro'd so with Juggernaut I never miss a beat. This fight benefits greatly from us if done properly and with attentiveness.
04/22/09, 9:38 PM
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