Lillyanne

I need help with the Arms "rotation", because it just makes me want to punch a baby. The problem is I can't seem to find a perfect balance of abilities.

Basically this is what I do:

Charge - Rend - MS- Slam - Slam as my opener.

And this is where procs (SD/OP) start to kick in and all shit goes crazy. Normally, I just prioritize Execute > OP > MS > Rend

But with so many procs, I often find myself playing the game of "just use whichever ability is ready first" and this doesn't strike me as a good way to play.

So..

1. How do you warriors prioritize procs? is it by rage you have left?
2. When do you do slams? (I try to do it in between other abilities.

 

Thorhammar

Yay! thanks a lot!!

What I've done so far is exactly the same as you with the difference in the slams, I only use slam when everything else is in cooldown and on those fights that you have like "perma rage" situations, I queue a heroic strike between some attacks.

 

Shha

There is basically no difference between battle stance buff and extra 123 ArP rating. Just add 123 to your arp calculations to see the battle stance effect. Same way mace spec = 185 ArP rating.

 

platen

Well this is how I usually enter a boss fight.

Charge -> Rend -> MS -> Slam -> OP - priorities

This is how my priotities look.

Rend > MS > Execute> OP > Slam

I value MS higher than execute as there is only a small chance that SD will proc twice in a row (though it is annoying when SD procs several times in a row) and I find it is more important to get my next MS faster.

 

theryl2002

Ok, so basically you have the general idea, however your prioritization needs tuning. We cant prioritize based on proc(except with SD). A standard fight for me is
Charge -> Rend -> MS -> Slam -> Slam -> OP -> Slam -> MS -> Slam -> Slam -> OP -> Slam -> MS -> Rend -> Slam -> Slam -> Slam -> MS -> OP

Fill in SD procs, reapply rend, use BS during optimal times as you generate WW's and Whites during its usage its also not a bad idea to dance to Berserker Stance at the end of your swing and use recklessness with BS, dont forget SS on multi-target fights. I always prioritize SD and MS over OP unless TFB has 1-2 seconds remaining on the buff, since TFB can proc immediately after usage. I also use the execute script the Hellorco tuned to terminate the SD Buff and use execute when the boss is below 20% and I have >40 rage(to effectively use this macro you will want a swing timer, I use Quartz, and you want to use it half-way through your swing, so after usage you white and re-generate your rage). Occasionally I will use Heroic Strike, but I dont often find myself drowning in rage to the point where i need to use it very often(mostly during Bloodlusts/Heroisms).

Webstats from our raid last night, 9 bosses down stats werent up for ignis and razorscale, but those fights arent favorable to arms due to the constant movement.
Wow Web Stats

I dont have the webstats for it, but i did record one of our mimiron fights where i was pushing 7k dps for alot of the fight, and rounded out around 6k
Backlash Mimiron 1shot

Unlike the other classes I find Arms to be a class of patient, requiring a large thought process to determine appropriate skill usage based on the circumstances. We cant just go mashing our buttons, and macro'ing our skills and hope to push anything close to decent dps. Its all based on timing, and factors during the fights.

Thats just my 2 cents.

*EDIT*
I also found that my dps remained higher and more consistant by not having recount visible during combat. The more you stress your dps the more your going to hurt yourself. Set your recount to hide on combat, and review it after the fight.

 

Speeder

I am much more liberal with HS use than you. XT kill, Ignis and Kologarn kill.

Anybody has comparable HS usage?

peace MK

 

Furrymaker

I have comparable heroic strike usage to you on those fights and it's a nice dps boost. It's especially good to time with predictable incoming damage like XT's tantrums etc. Funny enough I did on average 1k dps more than you NOT using the incite build. I know several people swear by it but I recommend going back and trying the standard 54/17 again, you may see your damage go up on most fights. Then again it may just be a gear issue.

 

Speeder

Regarding 54/17 vs 55/8/8 - I raid with second warrior, so CS is covered, and dont think imp execute does big difference. Kill time + gear (Lotrafen) is what might make difference , and skill of course.

peace MK

 

Anduryondon

World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis
More HS than you, although its an hardmode kill, so only one heart phase.

 

Danzig

Im normally a fury warrior when Im DPS for a fight, and Im good for 5K or better on most single targets

I decided to try arms and put a lot of reading into arms DPS cycles. You know, it just seems like your priority doesnt matter. I first started with this.

SD > OP > MS > Slam, no heroic strike.

Then I moved to this. Below actually proved 400-500 less DPS than using slams. I was using HS instead to dump extra rage, while keeping my MS/SD/OP on cooldown.

SD> OP > MS, HS whenever theres rage, no slams.

Then I read this on the net, and tried this total faceroll macro. This one misses 1/2 the SD procs and 1/2 the overpower procs, but guess what - DPS was only different by about 100.

/castrandom Mortal Strike, Overpower, Execute, Slam

Still no real difference. That one actually came out the highest. I didnt like how it missed 1/2 the procs, so then I tried this for a little more efficiency. This one put slam as top DPS ability, missed 0 overpowers and missed 0 sudden deaths.

/castrandom Mortal Strike, Overpower, Execute
Manually Slam when nothing else is lit.

STILL no real difference in overall DPS.

Depending on your priority order, your order of damage done by ability will change but in the end, the overall numbers didnt really change. At this point, im thinking arms DPS is just a game of wack-a-mole. Hit any button that lights up and your DPS is good. Sigh

 

Anduryondon

If you need a cast random macro you're doing something really wrong. You cant just except to switch to arms and do the same or better DPS as you did with fury. You need some time to get used to the new pattern.
In addition to this, should you have a g11/g15 you can use a better macro than cast random.

 

Furrymaker

I know someone repeats this on every page of this thread but you should only prioritize OP over anything else if it's about to over write itself. You have six seconds to put MS back on CD and use any existing SD procs before you need to use OP. Also waiting to use SD procs until you have > 30 rage can cost you dps since you may over write your proc. On top of that SD procs are great to use directly after a MS but before your next white since you may not have enough rage to use anything else at that point if OP is on CD. Another thing, using slam only when you have more than 40 rage is just silly. So you waste gcds until you have 40 rage and everything is on cd? That can be up to as many as three wasted gcds, you should never ever not be using an ability and if you don't have the rage to use an ability you're probably doing something wrong.

It's the little things that separate a good arms warrior from a great one, things like maximizing damage per rage and utilizing every gcd to its fullest. You can hit attacks randomly as they come available and do ok but you'd be surprised what kind of numbers arms is capable of when played very well. These warrior threads are getting worse every day, it seems every other poster asks a question answered multiple times in previous posts or is giving backwards advice.

 

[sean.awesome]

With the amount of rage generated from arms I'm never sitting below 30 rage unless something has gone horribly wrong. Using your sudden death procs at low levels of rage can also be a dps loss ( the base dmg for execute is 2k something, which is equal to an average melee hit and why waste a GCD on a melee hit) and leave you without enough rage for your next MS. And yes, slamming ONLY over 40 rage can be a waste UNLESS your MS or Execute abilities are ready. What I was getting at which i didn't make to clear was that you need to also manage your rage so that you don't starve yourself which admittedly is pretty hard in arms. But yes what you said is true, you should never be sitting on a period of no attacks besides auto melee. If you find yourself with everything on cd and plenty rage for your next execute/ MS then by all means Slam!

 

Danzig

I think I can though =)

I pulled about 5800 on heroic heartbreaker as fury, with cleave in rotation for life sparks. Looking over the WWS I could have done more opverall DPS without cleaving, I hardly touched the sparks anyway compared to the ranged.

I'll try arms with either this, or Ignis and try to get a solid arms number thats an actual 25, and not 10/5 man. I did 5000 on sarth pug yesterday, but it wasnt a good test. Drake tank was allover the place, got hit by lava wall, thrown in lava, drake kept moving etc. And I wasnt good about using my SS every time it came off cooldown. I coulda done better.

G15? Im willing to bet that it can do a 'sequence' macro that doesnt wait or care if something is on cooldown or not procced. Interesting

We shall see!

 

FatOgre

I've got a little question about Slam vs. Heroic Strike usage. There has been some talk a while ago about Heroic Strike doing more dps than Slam during Bloodlust and I really never understood why this was the case. Here's what I get for Slam vs. Heroic Strike:

Slam is [Unnormalized Weapon Damage] + 280 - [0.5 Seconds of Swing Damage] + [Swing Damage]
You can then rewrite [0.5 Seconds of Swing Damage] as [0.5/Swing Speed]*[Swing Damage] so the equation becomes:
[Unnormalized Weapon Damage] + 280 - [0.5/Swing Speed]*[Swing Damage] + [Swing Damage]
(note: The extra [Swing Damage] is because Heroic Strike uses up your next swing so when comparing with Heroic Strike I would either need to add a [Swing Damage] to Slam or subtract a [Swing Damage] from Heroic Strike.)

Heroic Strike is [Unnormalized Weapon Damage]+495

You can then make an inequality to see when Slam > Heroic Strike:
[Unnormalized Weapon Damage] + 280 - [0.5/Swing Speed]*[Swing Damage]+[Swing Damage] > [Unnormalized Weapon Damage] + 495

Simplify some by subtracting [Unnormalized Weapon Damage] and 280 from both sides:
- [0.5/Swing Speed]*[Swing Damage]+[Swing Damage] > 215

Add [0.5/Swing Speed]*[Swing Damage] and subtract 215 from both sides:
[Swing Damage] - 215 > [0.5/Swing Speed]*[Swing Damage]

Multiply both sides by [Swing Speed] and divide both sides by [Swing Damage]-215 (please note that the inequality never changes because [Swing Damage] > 1 and [Swing Speed] > 0):
[Swing Speed] > [0.5*Swing Damage]/([Swing Damage]-215)

Simplify a little more and you get Slam > Heroic strike when:
[Swing Speed] > [Swing Damage]/(2*[Swing Damage]-430)

If your Swing Damage is significantly larger than 430 (which it is for almost everyone that's 80) then the equation can be simplified to [Swing Speed] > 0.5. So you can see from this that Heroic Strike only over takes Slam in Damage when your swing speed is less than ~0.5 seconds, which is not possible to get with current gear and buffs.

This assumes that you don't have incite of course, which would favor Heroic Strike and raise the Swing speed by a little. Also deep wounds isn't taken into account, but without incite it would favor Slam a little more because of more attacks (not a full attack, but a partial one).

What I am trying to say here with all this is that if you had a choice between Heroic Strike and Slam, Slam is almost always the better choice even with bloodlust unless you can push your swing speed below ~0.56, which is probably not going to happen.
------------------------------------------------
On a unrelated topic, we all know the dps priority for arms is:
Rend > TfB with less than 4.5 seconds > Mortal Strike > Sudden Death > TfB with more than 4.5 seconds > Slam

But what I am interested is the priority of attacks when your target is in Execute range. When do you cancel sudden death for a full execute (discussed a little recently, but I'm still not sure of all the conditions required). Do you still Rend/Mortal Strike/Overpower for maximum dps (if so there must be conditions where using these skills would result in more dps overall). When I say overall I mean that it must take into the picture the next attack or 2. If I use execute as my swing landed with a full rage bar, I will be rage starved for the next 3 seconds (if my swing speed is 3 seconds). It would have been better to use something like a Mortal Strike and then execute. Has anyone done any kind of testing or theory with execute range dps prioirities?

 

Glory

Slam + Normalized Weapon dmg is not entirely true, because Heroics strikes can not be glancings (or have a critcap because of them only with Yogg 10er Trinket procc) and critical strikes hit harder.

 

suicuique

This is a minor omittance.
But what is way more important: HS does not trigger a GCD, slam does.

Additional rage when bloodlusted (which is plenty) has to be spent in a most efficient way (metric: DMG/time). Heroic strikes do not interfere with your usual rotation (OP, MS, SD, ...). Slams can only be interwoven when the more efficent instants are on CD. Heroic Strikes only have the drawback of going out of rage, which is quite minimal when bloodlusted.

As for the rotation in execute range: while a full rage execute hits really hard, I would reconsider cancelling SD procs. Going out of rage and waiting a whole swing timer for rage can hurt THAT much. As such I find the SD "rage rules" (max rage usage limited, no less than 10 rage guaranteed) quite convenient.

ADDENDUM: While dummy testing results can not be trivially extended to the raid environment, I'd like recommend to you some testing on a dummy in execution range. As far as I can tell, dummy testing favors the strict execute option over the regular rotation, because executes scale less. Sure the rage could be an issue and taint the picture, but consider that even in a raid setting rage is an issue. I've found that blindly executing instead of continuing your rotation severely cuts into your dps. Using executes purely as an option to burn rage (read: instead of heroic strikes) though does give a nice boost. I have never tried switching so some fast 1h, but my gut feeling says it would be no good.
Anyone tested that option thoroughly?

 

Redlimit

Tossing on two fast 1H weapons and Execute spamming hasn't really been viable since early-to-mid TBC. It was reasonably successful back then, but once the average DPS from a decently geared standard rotation rose beyond a certain point, it fell out of practice.

I would be very suprised if it was a competitive option in the world of WotLK. There isn't really any way I can see that mass Executes will provide a DPS increase over your regular 2H and rotation due to the sheer DPS that is put out with your regular abilities and gear.

 

Danzig

So in theory, a normal rythm would be

SD > OP > MS > Slam

And the speculation is, that during bloodlust or heavy raid damage, you would switch to

SD > OP > MS while spamming HS

See, the problem is once you start spamming HS attacks, your situation will quickly become a "no rage" situation. Your bloodlusted, but your denying yourself white swings so you won't receive rage anyway. The only way would be to "casually tap HS" when your bars breaking full, but if your going to casually tap HS theres not much difference than casually slamming while your instants are on CD.

Anyone have a REAL parse using the HS method during a fight with raid damage where you don't have to move much? I looked on wowmeter online, but I think the top DPSers on the list totally cheated. I see crazy things, like 50-60% crit chance on most their abilities or a ton of whirlwind damage from adds.

 

Anduryondon

Why should you stop slamming? Just queue in more HS than you do usually and use the same rotation.

 

FatOgre

In my little proof, I am trying to say that if you are given 15 rage in a situation, and you can either slam or heroic strike and nothing else (ie no tfb or sd procs and not in execute range), you should ALWAYS slam unless your swing speed is absurdly fast (ie. below 0.6 seconds/swing).

I am definately not trying to say that slam is better than anything else because it obviously isn't. Heroic strike should stay as a rage dump for when you have more than X rage.

The priority of attacks should never become Rend>TfB less than 4.5 seconds > MS > Sudden Death > TfB more than 4.5 seconds > Heroic Strike unless you can get your swing speed below 0.6 seconds.

 

KaiserJohan

New PTR build up

http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=72361.0

I do not understand the arms change. Using all rage is disasterous in pve, leaves you starving and a normal rotation does more dmg. And now they swap places with execute and SD? I guess we get 3 extra points since we won't need SD in a pve rotation.

 

Sheltim

Sudden Death used to let you use a "special" Execute that had a cap on the amount of rage used. All they're doing is making all Executes have that cap, so the Sudden Death Execute is no longer "special". Net result, no Executes, regardless of low health vs. Sudden Death, will use all of your rage.

 

FatOgre

Well the changes just gave a not so interesting rotation during execute range:
1.) Rend
2.) TfB when it's up
3.) Execute/Sudden Death

Definately a nerf to warrior dps though. Hopefully there'll be something to compensate =/.

 

Bjoepie

# Execute now works up to a maximum cost of 30 rage.

and

* Sudden Death no longer only uses up to 30 total rage. (See the change to Execute)

Means ALL executes are capped at 30 rage, and there is no more reason to specify this in the SD tooltip. So it's a buff to arms (which can now use more execute in the 20% range). And Imo its' a buff to fury as well, who can now safely consistently weave executes into their rotation in the 20% range.