[Warrior PvE] Casual DPS Gameplay: Arms or Fury

So I've looked at EJerks.com at their FAQ about warriors since I'm leveling my warrior as my tank. Right now I'm questing as prot since that's really all I know how to play as a warrior but I'd like to speed things up a bit by doing some more dps.

Which is generally an easier spec to quest in? I won't be raiding or doing any type of min/maxing. This is purely for ease of questing. I'm leaning towards arms because I like throwdown and the use of charge in combat but if fury is easier to play, I'm open to suggestions.

if you can play a prot warrior, you can play an arms
arms is more proc oriented, but i think more effective
(note this is very casual and should not be used as a raid dps guide)

basically its a set of prioties
1. are you in combat?
yes: good move on to #2
no: WAT? charge something QUICK!

2. is rend up?
yes: good move on to #3
no: rend away!

3. do you have colossus smash on cd?
yes: move on and godspeed
no: play hulk and smash them in tha face!

4. is mortal strike off cd?
yes: and you havent hit it yet?
no: darn cooldowns, move on to #4

4. is overpower proc'ed?
yes: hit the shiny button
no: are you sure you have rend up?

5. is there another armor debuff? (just in case you dps in a group)
yes: enjoy relax time and smash face
no: sunderx3 is your friend

all other times
rage>75 Heroic Strike/cleave
rage<75 shout for more rage

and that is pretty much it, i havent leveled a warrior in a while, but the same principles apply
colossus smash is a nice buff, just makes it so you kill stuff faster
i have slam on my bars, but honestly its for those RARE times when i am 30-60 rage, everything is on cd, and i have an open GCD
be ready to not hit it much

edit: added links. fixt some spelling

That's perfect. Thanks for the help. Now I just need a two hander. I like the proc-iness from my frost mage/prot warrior so if you think there are some procs to watch in arms, then I'm sold!

I'll keep reading on EJ to know when to use Inner Calm/WW/etc but this helps out.

thatguy wrote:That's perfect. Thanks for the help. Now I just need a two hander. I like the proc-iness from my frost mage/prot warrior so if you think there are some procs to watch in arms, then I'm sold!

glad i could help
what level are you?

and as far as weapon, pretty much any 2hd sword mace or axe will work
just get the biggest one, with the most str and highest weapon damage, pref with slowest swing time

it will boost your rend, smash, MS, ...well pretty much everything
so just get a big weapon and beat things with it

and since you like procs (like me) then def go arms over fury, fury is almost a set rotation, its boring as hell, plus you need a crap ton more hit if you do wanna raid as fury (or even run dungeons)

83 currently. I had to go back to Vash since I stupidly didn't train my mining to 525 while leveling in Hyjal so 84 and 85 might be a little slower.

I know there is a decent blue 2H weapon from the Deepholme quest lines so I'll be looking for that one. Arms certainly looks like fun.

Oh boy. What a fun spec to play! I only had 15-20 minutes of actual play time after setting up my action bars, typing macros, setting my spec/glyphs but stuff dies very fast. I only need to pummel and throwdown once for each mob so I'm barely taking damage but the procs are fun and seeing big numbers is fun. Thanks again for the advice.

Now I just need to get rid of this crappy 2H agility mace that I have. Haha. (It was the only thing on the AH that worked.)

I think I might change my Long Charge glyph to Rapid Charge. I blast through mobs fast enough to where the reduced time might be better served to avoid "downtime".

Mashing overpower is fun. I assume this means that I'm supposed to keep my arms warrior in Battle stance, instead of Berserker stance, despite not getting to Whirlwind.

You can also go Fury, dual wielding weapons that you'd otherwise use for tanking. Fury has a lot of self-healing. Bloodthirst gives you (effectively) a HoT every time you use it, and Blood Craze is frequently up. You get damage bonuses for interrupting casts and using Execute.

I just noticed you're 83. That means you can get most of the juicy selfhealing stuff from Fury tree as Arms. >:)

Kelaan wrote:Mashing overpower is fun. I assume this means that I'm supposed to keep my arms warrior in Battle stance, instead of Berserker stance, despite not getting to Whirlwind.

You can also go Fury, dual wielding weapons that you'd otherwise use for tanking. Fury has a lot of self-healing. Bloodthirst gives you (effectively) a HoT every time you use it, and Blood Craze is frequently up. You get damage bonuses for interrupting casts and using Execute.

I just noticed you're 83. That means you can get most of the juicy selfhealing stuff from Fury tree as Arms. >:)

I'll keep an eye on my health bars. I haven't been worried about it yet but maybe I will later down the road. Sudden Death procs... I laugh maniacally when that happens...

Although I stupidly took Incite over Rude Interruptions. I love interrupting. I might go respec again tonight to make it right.

rude interuption is one of my favorite talents...
being able to smash in a mobs face with my fist AND getting a damage bonus for doing it???
OH HELL YA!

bldavis wrote:rude interuption is one of my favorite talents...
being able to smash in a mobs face with my fist AND getting a damage bonus for doing it???
OH HELL YA!

Yeah, my thinking exactly. I must have been tired when I spec'd. Ah well.

The one thing I noticed is that I rarely had the time to put in a Slam or even a Heroic Strike betwen the procs/priorities. I don't mind this but it's much different being close to GCD locked as compared to my enh shammy where you have some dead GCDs. I'm going to have to really work on my power auras given all the items that I think I should be looking for.

thatguy wrote:

bldavis wrote:rude interuption is one of my favorite talents...
being able to smash in a mobs face with my fist AND getting a damage bonus for doing it???
OH HELL YA!

Yeah, my thinking exactly. I must have been tired when I spec'd. Ah well.

The one thing I noticed is that I rarely had the time to put in a Slam or even a Heroic Strike betwen the procs/priorities. I don't mind this but it's much different being close to GCD locked as compared to my enh shammy where you have some dead GCDs. I'm going to have to really work on my power auras given all the items that I think I should be looking for.

this is why i didnt go for incite on either my prot or my arms specs, i have too many priorities over HS that i am almost always gcd locked

bldavis wrote:

thatguy wrote:

bldavis wrote:rude interuption is one of my favorite talents...
being able to smash in a mobs face with my fist AND getting a damage bonus for doing it???
OH HELL YA!

Yeah, my thinking exactly. I must have been tired when I spec'd. Ah well.

The one thing I noticed is that I rarely had the time to put in a Slam or even a Heroic Strike betwen the procs/priorities. I don't mind this but it's much different being close to GCD locked as compared to my enh shammy where you have some dead GCDs. I'm going to have to really work on my power auras given all the items that I think I should be looking for.

this is why i didnt go for incite on either my prot or my arms specs, i have too many priorities over HS that i am almost always gcd locked

Two things: When is the best time to use Inner Rage? During the execute phase? During heroism? Both? Neither?

I liked incite for soloing as prot and prot pvp. I still have it in my tank spec because I find that I can afford it. I'm not sold on Blood and Thunder or Thunderstruck. I find HS a decent way to burn excess rage while tanking. Maybe I'm doing something wrong though.

wat is this inner rage you speak of?
oh that is right that ability i learned, tried a couple of times and promtly forgot about

lol you will prob never have enough rage to make IR worth it, esp not how currently implemented
if they cut the duration, or possibly the rage cost boost, then maybe it would be a great dps cd

as far as blood and thunder, great aoe tool
charge, rend, t-clap

thunderstruck, im always hitting ss or revenge so i am almost never exactly on cd with t-clap, so by the time shockwave si up, i dont have 3stack
its not a bad talent, but its not one i see stacking to full, so i use my points elsewhere (like rude interuption!)

Haha. Okay, I'll have to fiddle with Inner Rage then. Maybe when I'm at 100 rage, have hysteria, have a battleshout ready and be in the middle of a heroism/execute range.

I don't disagree on the AoE tool. I'm just a douche bag that likes to CC as much as he can so AoE pulls become 1 or 2 mob pulls where my Revenge keeps them on me if there is some splash damage. If I start to see that I'm losing out on threat, I'll just tab, Heroic Strike once and maybe Shield Slam them to get back into the green. However, I'm not running with uber dps. Just your average PuG dps so maybe it's something I'll need when I step into the deep end of the pool.

thatguy wrote:Haha. Okay, I'll have to fiddle with Inner Rage then. Maybe when I'm at 100 rage, have hysteria, have a battleshout ready and be in the middle of a heroism/execute range.

I don't disagree on the AoE tool. I'm just a douche bag that likes to CC as much as he can so AoE pulls become 1 or 2 mob pulls where my Revenge keeps them on me if there is some splash damage. If I start to see that I'm losing out on threat, I'll just tab, Heroic Strike once and maybe Shield Slam them to get back into the green. However, I'm not running with uber dps. Just your average PuG dps so maybe it's something I'll need when I step into the deep end of the pool.

well if you read the frustrations thread ( and success one too, double post ftw!) you would see that in my new guild, we have several AMAZING healers, so if im with them i dont even bother ccing most pulls

for those its:
Commanding Shout
Heroic Leap (mid pack, or just to the front of them if they are tightly grouped)
shield block either mid air or right before i jump (depending on twitchieness)
Rend the closest one
T-clap
shockwave
cleave
profit

Yeah, I'm sure I would get kicked if I tried that. Haha.

I'm excited to get to 85 for heroic leap. That looks like the most fun spell/ability out of the entire Cata expansion, all other classes included. Leap of Faith is a close second.

Do you view Shield Block as a cooldown? In wrath I didn't because it seemed weak so I macro'ed it into my Shield Slam for maximum uptime. But with block now mitigating 30%, it seems way more powerful to me. (derp!) I'm still noobing it up with the SS/SB macro but I'm wondering if I should strip it out to have as another "Oh Noes" button.

I've been playing Prot warrior since lvl 10 and I keep considering swapping...

Compared to Prot would you say it's easier, same, harder - more buttons, less buttons, requires more awareness or less awareness?

I am very smooth with my toon and I can easily cast all my AoE or single target abilities - while monitoring my movements (Charge ect) as well as stuns and survival CD's.

I can't imagine it being HARDER but .. I have to ask

I am still very early on in the learning curve as I'm only doing questing at the moment. I spent some time at the dummy trying to get some muscle memory down but it feels more engaged. .

When I was soloing as prot, it felt slow and methodical. Shield slam, revenge, devastate, heroic strike to burn rage. Rinse/repeat. Arms feels fun and I'm not having any downtime. Victory rush makes you feel invincible. Kill a mob, charge a mob, heal up, kill a mob, charge next mob, heal up, etc. I'm still toying with my keybindings a little and power auras is helping me lots.

I know that totally dodged your question but I'd say it's not harder than prot. More buttons to push while dpsing so it feels more engaged. You have more stuff to keep track of but the basic priority seems intuitive to me now.

thatguy wrote:When I was soloing as prot, it felt slow and methodical. Shield slam, revenge, devastate, heroic strike to burn rage.

While soloing as a Prot. Warrior, you really should be pulling 3 or more mobs as often as reasonably possible. Otherwise it will definitely be a drag. When I'm doing TB and Wildhammer dailies, its always as Prot, and its MUCH faster. You forgot to include throwing up Rend, which is a DPS boost single target, plus if you have specced BnT, you can T-Clap to spread that Rend to other mobs, and you also rarely have to worry over getting killed by respawns. I typically run in, pull all I can, and just drag a pile of mobs around as I Leap, Charge, and Intercept my way to pretty much everything in sight. Spell Reflect if there are casting mobs. Pop a cooldown if I overdo it, and Victory Rush as mobs drop. Without pulling lots of mobs at a time, yes, Prot is relatively slow.

So with 4.06 and the buffs to slam, after keeping up our priorities (Rend, Colossus Smash, Overpower, Mortal Strike), is it best to use our empty GCDs with Slam or Heroic Strike? I did that long quest in Twilight Highlands (kill that big ugly gronn looking thing) that had 3.1mm health.

By prioritizing slam, I did 8.5k dps. Halfway through I switched to Heroic Strike and did 8.4k. I made sure to take a peek before I got into Execute phase but it felt like it was the same no matter what I did. I had set up my power auras so that I could keep track of everything better and it "felt" easier with Heroic Strike still.

Am I missing something?

I'm glad I found this thread. I just leveled to 85 last night and not once all the way between 80 and 85 did I use Rend. Overpower naturally only lit up during phases where my expertise wasn't capped so I was about to take it off the bar and put something else there till I stopped in here.

Why are people saying HS is on the GCD? It isn't, it's like an extra strike you can just throw in now off the GCD. I always open up Victory Rush->HS->Colossus Smash->MS and HS goes in w/o costing me a GCD, so I use it a lot.

Also I guess I need to be keeping Rend up, which will proc Overpower and that will fill some GCD's. Slam hits very hard, as hard as MS sometimes (can't remember if it gets buffed from that one proc that gives you 30% bonus damage), so I have used it a lot when other stuff is on CD, but I guess that will go down some now.

What is the stat priority for Mastery vs Crit vs Haste? This is something I've been wondering all the way to 85 but hadn't taken time to learn.

iirc for arms
Str>Hit8%>Mastery>Crit=haste
haste will increase the speed of your white swings, crit will adds more bleeds
so if you are rage starved, go with haste, if not go with crit

exp will help a little, but with overpower as part of our rotation, its not a priority like it is for fury
keeping rend up will increase your overpower usage alot

for aoe packs, make sure your tank has a NICE threat lead, charge (or heroic leap) rend one, t-clap (your specced into B&T right?) and hit bladestorm....then pray your tank can hold aggro lol

as for rage burn, i normally use slam for stationary fights, or HS if i have to move alot

for my arms spec, check my armory (in sig), right now my warrior is in her dps gear/spec and i will try to log her out in arms gear for the next few days

bldavis wrote:for aoe packs, make sure your tank has a NICE threat lead, charge (or heroic leap) rend one, t-clap (your specced into B&T right?) and hit bladestorm....then pray your tank can hold aggro lol

How does Sweeping Strikes work? Will it make Bladestorm hit things twice as often? I never really know when I should be using it.

Kelaan wrote:

bldavis wrote:for aoe packs, make sure your tank has a NICE threat lead, charge (or heroic leap) rend one, t-clap (your specced into B&T right?) and hit bladestorm....then pray your tank can hold aggro lol

How does Sweeping Strikes work? Will it make Bladestorm hit things twice as often? I never really know when I should be using it.

sweeping strikes is for smaller aoe packs, just 2 -3 mobs
bladestorm is the massive 4+ mob packs (trogg packs in GB, murlocs in ToT)
afaik, they do not stack (that would be WAY OP!)

bldavis wrote:iirc for arms
Str>Hit8%>Mastery>Crit=haste
haste will increase the speed of your white swings, crit will adds more bleeds
so if you are rage starved, go with haste, if not go with crit

as for mastery, the extra swings add rage, right? So Mastery is superior to both because of more hits that can both crit and bleed and give you more rage?

bldavis wrote:exp will help a little, but with overpower as part of our rotation, its not a priority like it is for fury
keeping rend up will increase your overpower usage alot

so is it better to have an attack not connect and hit with an overpower, consuming a GCD in the process, or is it better to just have the hit connect?

bldavis wrote:as for rage burn, i normally use slam for stationary fights, or HS if i have to move alot

you can cast slam on the move now iirc. I seem to be able to strafe while the cast bar is going.

Thanks for the discussion and good info here; i need to update my spec. i'm specced wrong . My gear is horrible but I'm fresh 85 so that will just get better.