This FAQ is no longer current, though it has half-finished Cataclysm changes present. You should instead refer to this FAQ if you're looking for Cataclysm information.

What you will see in this post: Simple, concise answers to frequently asked questions.
What you won't see in this post: The detailed reasoning behind those answers, advanced Warrior concepts.

NOTE: Cataclysm Warrior theorycraft is still in a rather disorganized and obfuscated state. Expect some of what follows to change or be clarified as new information comes to light. Any corrections or suggestions must provide a link to relevant theorycraft or contain in excruciating detail your own tests and theorycraft.

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Relevant Blue Posts

No recent posts.

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General


Q: I keep dying. What I am doing wrong?
A: Cataclysm content is hard and your gear went from epic to crap. Chances are you haven't adjusted. If you're having trouble: Don't stand in the fire, don't ignore healer mana, don't attack or AoE blindly, don't stand in the fire, don't ignore interruptible abilities, don't break CC, don't stand in the fire, don't assume people are familiar with fights, don't forget your defensive cooldowns and utility abilities whether or not you're a tank or healer, don't stand in the fire.

Q: How does Rage generation work now?
A: The amount of Rage you generate on a successful hit is now simply 6.5 * base weapon speed. Damage, Crit, fast vs slow weapons, glancing blows etc. no longer affect your rate of Rage generation. Only Hit, Haste and Expertise will have an affect.

Q: Is Inner Rage an Enrage effect?
A: No.

Q: Where can I learn Plate Specialization and Mastery?
A: Yes, you can learn them from your class trainer.

Q: Do Agility Amulets/Rings/Cloaks/Ranged Weapons break Plate Specialization?
A: No, as those items don't have an armor type. You still want to replace them with Strength items if you can.

Q: What happened to Armor Penetration/Block Value/Block Rating/Defense?
A: Blizzard removed these stats from the game. On pre-Cataclysm items these stats were converted into other appropriate stats.

Q: HALP! What do I gem for? What stats do I reforge? What about enchants? What-
A: I've conveniently listed stat priorities for each spec in the sections below. They apply equally to gems, enchants, and reforging. Use them.


Arms

Q: What is the best Arms spec?
A: Some variation of 31/7/3. You have a lot of leeway on Major and Minor glyphs.

Q: What rotation should I be using?
A: Maintain Rend, prioritize Colossus Smash > Mortal Strike > Overpower. Heroic Strike as rage allows, and only Slam if you have an extreme excess of rage.

Q: What about when Execute becomes available?
A: Keep prioritizing Colossus Smash and use Mortal Strike to take advantage of the Lambs to the Slaughter talent, but otherwise spam Execute. If you still have excess rage, burn it on Heroic Strike.

Q: When should I use Bladestorm?
A: When you need to AoE. It's not worth using for single targets.

Q: When should I use Deadly Calm?
A: When you're rage starved, when you need to burst, or when your procs align.

Q: When should I use Inner Rage?
A: Use it to boost Overpower and possibly Rend if you're above 75 Rage, but you'll want to cancel the effect immediately afterwards. Otherwise you'll rage starve yourself.

Q: What good is Shattering Throw?
A: It can increase raid DPS during Bloodlust if there are a number of other physical DPS present. However, it's a personal DPS loss.

Q: What are my stat priorities?
A: Get 8% Hit. After that, Strength > Crit > Mastery = Expertise > Haste.

Q: What should I use to enchant my weapon?
A: Landslide.

Q: My raid leader wants me to use Sunder Armor, I don't want to lose DPS.
A: Do it, the raid's DPS is more important than yours. Glyph of Colossus Smash makes it easy to maintain.


Fury

Q: What is the best Fury spec?
A: Some variation of 8/31/2. Swap Titan's Grip for Single Minded Fury as per preference. You also have a lot of leeway regarding Major and Minor glyphs.

Q: I don't like Rude Interruption, it sucks on bosses without interrupts.
A: If you're dying for some specific utility elsewhere that's your prerogative, but there are no other DPS talents to take.

Q: What rotation should I be using for Titan's Grip?
A: Bloodthirst -> Raging Blow (use Berserker Rage to activate if necessary) -> Bloodthirst -> Free GCD. Colossus Smash during free GCDs as the cooldown allows. Heroic Strike with any excess rage. Use Slam only when you have a Bloodsurge proc.

Q: What rotation should I be using for Single Minded Fury?
A: Same rotation as Titan's Grip.

Q: Isn't Raging Blow more damage than Bloodthirst?
A: Yes, but it has a longer cooldown and isn't always available. Building the rotation around Bloodthirst is simpler and just as effective.

Q: What about when I can Execute?
A: Spam Execute and use Heroic Strike at 70+ rage. Use Colossus Smash as the cooldown allows.

Q: When do I use Death Wish and Recklessness?
A: Use Death Wish on cooldown, but try to line it up with Bloodlust or a burn phase whenever possible. Recklessness should only be used during a free GCD when Slam/Shouts/Colossus Smash aren't available and preferably during Death Wish or a confluence of procs.

Q: What good is Shattering Throw?
A: It can increase raid DPS during Bloodlust if there are a number of other physical DPS present. However, it's a personal DPS loss.

Q: What are my stat priorities?
A: Get 8% Hit (including Precision), 26 Expertise. After that, Strength > Hit (up to 27%) > Crit == Haste == Mastery.

Q: What should I use to enchant my weapon?
A: Landslide.

Q: What about my offhand?
A: Still Landslide.

Q: My raid leader wants me to use Sunder Armor, I don't want to lose DPS.
A: Do it, the raid's DPS is more important than yours. Glyph of Colossus Smash makes it easy to maintain.


Protection

Q: What spec should I use?
A: Some variation on 2/6/33. You have a lot of leeway regarding Major and Minor glyphs.

Q: Your build is terrible, I prefer-
A: Protection is less set in stone and depend on whether you're running heroics or are raiding. The prior build is a general heroic setup.

Q: What's my maximum threat rotation?
A: Prioritize Shield Slam > Revenge > Victory Rush (with Impending Victory) > Devastate. Heroic Strike at 60+ rage.

Q: What about AoE packs?
A: Rend (if you took Blood and Thunder), Thunderclap and Shockwave become your top priorities. Use Cleave instead of Heroic Strike. Shield Block will greatly reduce your incoming damage.

Q: What are my stat priorities?
A: Stamina primarily. For ratings, Mastery > Parry >= Dodge.

Q: I thought Parry sucked.
A: Parry now converts at the same rate as Dodge, and has the same diminishing returns. It also has synergy with the Hold the Line talent. As such having about as much, or slightly more, Parry as Dodge is a good mark to aim for.

Q: My threat sucks, what should I do?
A: Expertise is your best single target threat stat before you hit 26 expertise, it gets more confusing after that. Strength is the best all around threat stat and for AoE. Look for tanking gear with these stats, or gem/enchant/reforge for it.

Q: Who should get my Vigilance?
A: Your offtank in a raid. Whoever keeps pulling threat in heroics.

I based that priority on this post. That post was using Naxx/Heroic gear, and as such may be highly out of date. If current weapons and AP scaling are such that Devastate is better threat than Thunderclap then I can update the priority.

You might want to note that it's less of a DPS loss for Fury, as the standard Arms rotation uses every GCD, and Fury has a few spare here and there to use Sunder.

Which post is this information based on? From what I've gathered, Overpower > Mortal Strike. If I'm not mistaken, there are even situations in which you would use Execute > Overpower (both TfB and MS on CD). Generally, however, the consensus I've noticed and in Landsoul's spreadsheet, Overpower > Mortal Strike 99% of the time.

I had to amalgamate from about a dozen different posts, being unable to find a definitive one. I'll readily accept that Overpower comes before MS if that's how Landsoul's spreadsheet does it.

I'm also intentionally leaving out all the various and potentially confusing circumstances in which Execute or another ability takes priority. That kind of situational priority change would require too much explanation and/or take up too much space, cluttering the FAQ. If there's a good post already on the forums detailing all of that, I'll happily include a link.

It's more that back then devestate's threat was threat from damage + threat from debuff, and refreshing 5-stack sunder didn't count as applying the debuff. It has since been changed to have the bonus threat tied to devestate itself, so it doesn't suddenly start sucking 20 seconds in anymore.

It looks like you pulled that cookie cutter prot spec from the same era. We all use deep wounds now.

Yep a better "simplifiedl" rotation for beginners would be Rend > Overpower (either through tfb or dodge) > Mortal Strike > Execute > Slam. This is mainly because a Mortal strike can be dodged, which would proc an overpower and if you still have taste for blood up, that would be a wasted overpower proc.

You should also use 2AP for comparisons sake instead of 1 AP.

As for stat priorities, the best way to go about determining them if you can't eyeball them is to use landsoul's spreadsheet. Expertise isn't as important as you make it sound for Arms. Undercapping Expertise is fine, I wouldn't waste gems going for expertise. Once again, landsoul's spreadsheet is very helpful in determining that.

I would also change the why did you use poleaxe spec to something like What is the best type of weapon for Arms. If you can't get your hands on a polearm or axe, I would still spec into whatever type of weapon you're using. In general Poleaxe > Mace > Sword.

Thank you for doing this Darian. I'd like to echo what he said, lets try to keep this pretty simple, and provide links/sources if you're contesting something. In-depth discussion belongs in the appropriate (arms/fury/prot) threads. The idea is for someone who knows nothing about warriors is able to read this and be able to jump into a raid with an acceptable spec/gear/ability usage. If they want to min/max it and understand it more in depth, that's what the other threads are for.

I'll sticky this thread so it'll have higher visibility for people visiting here.

I have to pop in to say something about the arms section. You would be very hard pressed to find any decent arms warrior that would aim for 26 expertise with either gear or gems, infact i often find the opposite. The spreadsheet rates expertise (under the cap) as by far the worst stat, with gear boasting decent ammounts of expertise being considerably worse than non expertise items (Good examples are the badge cloaks, the agility cloak comes out a fair bit ahead for arms).

Also i will argue that ArP in arms specs pulls ahead at a fairly early gear level, with everyone having atleast 232 tier gear available, i think you would find that a much higher % of players and gearsets would favour ArP as the highest value stat.

As far as I last read on tankspot (just after the devastate buff)

Devastate does more threat per hit than Shockwave or Concussive blow.

so as far as I have used for a good while now it.


Shield Slam>Revenge>(concussive/shockwave*)>Devastate (keeping up Demoshout and Thunerclap if those debuffs are needed/not given by others passively)


**only use Shockwave or conc blow when the mob is stunnable and it will mitigate some damage but again this is a threat LOSS over pressing Devastate so if your Tps capping other raiders dont even bother with either on single target)

AOE becoming

Shockwave>thunderclap>cleave spam+above prio if rage alows.

Feel free to correct me if I have made any errors.

As far as I can tell, Heroic Throw is one of those weird abilities that doesn't trigger the GCD but still can't be used during the GCD. So you can hit it then immediately devestate, but if you devestate you can't heroic throw for 1.5 seconds. Not sure what's up with that, but I've seen it on one or two other things (which escape my mind at the moment). Figured that out trying to use it as an auxillary interrupt during Deathwhisper p2.

When I was wearing 2pT9, I noticed the 5% damage bonus only applied to the weapon damage component, not the bonus per sunder stack, at least as far as the tooltip was concerned. I'm also not sure when if ever the devestate glyph will cause devestate to generate extra threat with the new implimentation.