We have become pretty dissatisfied with the on-next swing mechanic. Come Cataclysm, we’d love to get rid of all of them. Obviously that will necessitate some pretty significant changes in how warriors generate threat or do damage (unlike Maul or Rune Strike, Heroic Strike gets a lot of use outside of tanking), which makes it too risky a change for 3.3. We think some of the other ideas like toggling the ability are also risky in the sense that they might require a lot of iteration to feel right, or worse, might mess up threat generation or damage dealt.

The original design of HS as a tanking tool wasn’t that you replace every white swing with a Heroic Strike. You did it when you wanted to burn off rage. These days tanks (and increasingly dps warriors too) are rarely rage starved beyond perhaps the first few seconds of the fight. That turns Heroic Strike into a button you always push.

A couple of other ideas we have considered, as someone above referenced, were making Heroic Strike do more threat the more rage you have but also spend more rage. Another is that you somehow go into “high rage mode” at which point everything costs double but hits harder. This would work for dps warriors too. Those are just ideas at this point, not announcements. Please don’t tell us in a few weeks that you were promised these changes for 3.3.

(Source)
could mean that heroic strike generates more threat than some of our other abilities and since the incite build heroic strike is used more than intended

Heroic Strike generates an additional 270 threat in addition to the damage we do. It's not a significant amount (i.e. it's as if we did 337.5 damage more than we actually did: 270 / .8).

Regarding threat generation, it seems I'm not the only one having problems with threat, the last guild I've been in I had a warrior playing fury next to me, when I plugged our gear in Landsoul's spreadsheet, his gear was ~1k dps over me but his tps, on the contrary is ~1k under me, I know fury has 10% reduced threat but for 10% to mean 1k tps that would mean we should be doing around 9-10k tps which I don't even know if it is possible at the current gear level. That I do 1k more threat than a better geared fury warrior, I am pretty sure is also due to our increased and bigger critical strikes. Maybe that 10% threat should come into Arms tree like weapon mastery did, then again that would probably make fury generate too much threat, but this is just an opinion

Im fairly certain critical strikes don't do bonus threat; that is, only the damage matters. If you do 10k damage in 2 seconds with a big crit, it should generate the same amount of threat as doing 4x 2.5k normal hits in 2 seconds.

The problem has more to do with the lower passive threat reduction combined with certain moves (Whirlwind and Execute) doing high threat (or ignoring passive/baseline threat reduction, I can't exactly tell). While Heroic Strike is small, in comparison, it still adds up.

Currently, though, you need Salvs, MDs to the tank (prod your Rogues and Hunters to keep doing it, I think a number stop after the opening one), get Vigilance if you have a Warrior tank, get Intervened by other Warriors, etc...

After reading alot in this topic about different setups i am still not sure how to increase my dps.

Currently my dps is somewhere between 4,5k and 5k bit depending on the boss. I think my gear is okish, but there is still room for improvement.

This first thing what i would like to know is "To ArP or not to ArP", currently i have 500+ ArP but i have not gemmed for it. Some of the writters here suggest to gem for it and some not. So based on my gear what should I do?

For further dps increasement i am wondering what addons do you use? (for priotity of your attacks)
I am currently experimenting with priotityQueue but I havent been in a raid yet with it so no hard results there

What Rotation is the optimal to use after 20% Boss-HP as arms? MS > Execute? Execute-spam? Or just maintain normal rotation with Execute instead of Slam?

I was under the assumption that a 30 rage execute was more damage than MS. Why then would you want to use it sub 20%?

(first time posting on this forum)

I've seen to notice that my Sudden Death procs really make or break my dps. If I happen to get a massive spree, I've seen a dps increase of almost 1000. I watch all of my execute, MS, and OP crits. Execute hits the hardest hands down.

So why should I be continuing normal rotation, but with more executes involved after 20% when execute does more damage than all of my other moves? (After 20% I do still keep up rend) I do generate nearly enough rage to spam execute, and if I happen to not have enough, I will have an overpower up and ready. It just seems completely silly, so any words of wisdom would be helpful.

Sorry, I wrote from my perspective, and I'm using an Incite build that has neither Improved Execute or Glyph of Execution, so MS is better than Execute for me. Your mileage may vary.

Rend, in and of itself, may not do more damage than Execute, but it does a fair amount of damage, and it procs overpower. Overpower is your best move, period. Execute may have higher max damage, but Overpower has 50% more crit chance, which means it does, on average, a hell of a lot more damage. Rend-Overpower together are better than their GCDs in Execute.

I missunderstand something, some of you said "Expertise is a nerf for arms warrior" ok, but why put 1 point in weapon mastery? Anger Management is not suppose to be better if expertise is a nerf for arms?

An other things, I want to respec arms but I hesitate between Bladestorm Glyph and HS glyph in place of Execution glyph. Wich one is the best? I know glyph of bladestorm is superior on encounters like Anub but I want to know generaly.
Thanks.

The only time the Bladestorm Glyph is going to be worthwhile is if you spam Bladestorm every 75 seconds. I find this to be a problem because while Bladestorm can be excellent single target dps, I tend to reserve Bladestorm for situational AoE (snobolds on fellow melee, Mistresses of Pains/Infernal spawns, Empowered Darkness/Light buff) and most of those situations occur more than 90 seconds apart. As such, I would much rather use another glyph that I'm going to get maximum usage from.

In TOTC 25 you want to use Bladestorm on Gormok after your very first TFB proc, then on Acidmaw and Dreadscale again after your first TFB proc so you will most likely hit them both if you position yourself right then another time during the stun on Icehowl.

-On Jaraxxus you also want to use it after your very first TFB proc so your bladestorm will be back up on the infernals and if your tank's positioning allows it you can bladestorm them down for extra dps.
-And about faction champs, the only reason I ever use bladestorm there is to break out of roots and then immediatly cancel it again.
-Then on Twins you also want to use it after your first TFB and then keep it off cooldown unless you know that you'll be getting the damage buff anytime soon.
-Anub'arak, the moment your offtank(s) have enough aggro on the adds and then use it every 2 add waves.

If anyone has better uses of bladestorm please let me know since I'm doing fine on the dps meters with these methods but I'm always open for suggestions.

If you target a snowbold and hit Bladestorm it will hit that snowbold and Gormok as well as Sweeping strikes will bounce off the two. It will not hit the other snowbolds but getting it to hit two targets is more dps.

If you are targeting Gormok, Baldestorm will not hit any of the snowbolds and you will get no sweeping strikes procs.

Its worth noting that Cleave works in the same manner. It will chain from a Snobold to Gormok, but not vice-versa.

And as a bonus, with Arms, you will likely have the highest threat on the Snobold you are targeting. More rage!

I am pretty sure this is wrong about bladestorm. Even if targetting the snobold, you will only hit Gormok. I've targetted the snobolds and hit Bladestorm and all I see go by are single hits of my Bladestorm, which means I'm hitting Gormok, not the snobold.

The above poster is correct that if you target the Snobold and cleave/SS, you'll hit both the snobold and gormok.

I didn't belive you, so I checked a WOL for damage done against snobolds and I found no damage from "whirlwind" on Snobolds. I've been saving bladestorm for a snobold on melee switching targets to snobold and popping it, but I will stop that unless someone can find definitive evidence that it does work?

Perhaps the sweeping strikes are coming from the white attacks which occur for the duration of the Bladestorm? This would account for no "Whirlwind" hits on the Snowbalds but Sweeping Strikes still hitting Gormok.

I entirely sure that AOEs such as Whirlwind (and cleave when Gormok is targeted) will not harm the snowbalds.

I also think that those strikes have to come from the white swings.

I usually use bladestorm at the beginning of phase 2, when both worms entered the arena. Althoug the disance between them is aproximately over 10 meters, i can hit both of them when i'm in the middle

I was sure something like this had already been posted, but i looked pretty far back and couldn't find anything recent so here goes.

I've been wanting a grim toll for the longest time for my pvp set, and i finally got it monday night. I remember before a lot of toc gear became available, most arms warriors were looking for that magic number that a GT or mjolnir proc would bring you up to 100% armor pen, and after they reached that they would look for more strength. Is this still applicable?
In my full pve set i have 57% armor pen without battle stance, meaning that i would have to drop a good 16% armor pen to get to the 41% base + 16% bstance + 43% gt.
Overall, do you think that regemming str at this point would be a good idea?

If the tanks aggro is fine, you can pop Bladestorm pretty quick into P1 with Gormok before snobolds start coming out, and the CD is up by the time the worms come out. I was using Bladestorm glyph when I did this, but I believe there is still enough time even without the glyph.

I can confirm that, I can use Death Wish at the start of P1, P2 and then during Crash in P3. Longer CD than Bladestorm

Has anyone tried out using Retaliation - Spell - World of Warcraft when a snowbold's on you? Never got around to do that this week (bloody bolds kept avoiding me) and i was wondering if it'd work on them or not.