PvP and PvE Arms Warrior Spec For Max DPS In 3.1
Posted on May 30th, 2009 by Nameless Demon Hunter under Build, Efficiency Tips, General Tips, PVE, PVP, Raiding, Spec, Warrior, World of Warcraft, WotLK
Wanderer Dominating In BG’s As Arms Warrior
As of patch 3.1, arms warrior dps > fury in pve. For pvp reasons, fury isn’t even a plausible spec, you are either arms or prot unless you want to get face rolled all day.
PvE
Despite only having crap ten man gear and welfare epics, I still enter 25 raids and top charts, especially over fury warriors who out-gear me by a couple thousand via gear score. I can’t give people a reason why this is the way it is, but what I can do is explain how to get the best dps from your arms warrior.
Arms PvE Spec for Patch 3.1+
What you do with the last 2 points doesn’t matter. Having anger management and improved bloodrage will help keep your rage up, especially at the end of fights when you are spamming execute. Most of the best weapons in the game are axes, but obviously go with the spec you have your weapon with. I’ve been waiting for ironsoul to drop from Leviathan since Uldaur came out, because I want to test how much armor penetration I can reach. Right now I am sitting at 20% unbuffed, adding mace spec will up that to 35% with a goal of 40-45% in mind.
Rotation Priority
- Charge/Rend – The first thing in battle you will do is charge then apply rend. After, use up the juggernaut proc with mortal strike.
- Bladestorm – When your tank has established agro, use bladestorm right away. A lot of people like to save their special abilities, but this is foolish. Unless you know there is a specific part you must save your special cooldowns for, use them up right away. Bladestorm is the highest dps we have, so get that right off the bat so the cooldown can begin its process.
- Execute is the highest priority ability during the fight. Execute crits will do the most damage over the rest of your abilities and you want to use this immediately so your white hits can proc it again.
- Overpower is your next highest dps ability, mostly because it will always crit. With taste for blood, you will always have an overpower proc with a cooldown of six seconds.
- Mortal Strike – is your base attack, you should be using this whenever the cooldown is over, give execute priority though.
- Rend – must always be applied to the target. Using Glyph of Rending helps keep this up.
- Slam – With improved slam, this ability will be used whenever there is a small opening. Usually when you don’t have any execute procs and MS is on cooldown, improved slam is the fill in. It won’t be until you fully understand and get the rotation down solid, that you will see the small openings to add this ability every now and then.
- Sweeping Strikes - should be used whenever there is more than one opponent around. Combining this with bladestorm will give you a massive burst dps but by doing that you are not getting the best dps outcome. Don’t use sweeping strikes with bladestorm, use it with your regular rotation and you will get much more damage applying overpower crits and executes – only then should you add the standard damage of bladestorm (use both together in pvp in certain situations).
- Don’t ever use heroic strike or cleave. It will rob you of your rage and there isn’t even much damage it will add.
What you need to know about overpower
- When overpower procs, you have 9 seconds to use it and 6 seconds to use it so that it will not reset your charge. Meaning, when your overpower procs, you don’t necessarily have to use it right away. If you get an overpower proc and an execute proc at the same time, you still have 6 seconds to use that overpower and it won’t mess up the 6 second cooldown timer. What this means is, use overpower right before the timer hits 4 seconds, if you do this another overpower will proc right after. Using your overpower rotation correctly will yield more dps. Even if a mortal strike cooldown ends the same time an overpower proc does, use the MS and then carry out the overpower. You are getting much more dps this way. The thirst for blood overpower proc does not tie in to the basic overpower proc (when an opponent dodges). However, reaching an expertise cap should be applied so none of your attacks are dodged. You could think, “But if an attack is dodged I could just overpower crit it back.” This will actually hurt your rotation and your damage, especially if you are giving up execute crits.
Glyphs
Major
- Glyph of Rending
- Glyph of Whirlwind
- Glyph of Mortal Strike
Minor
- Glyph of Charge
- Glyph of Bloodrage
PvP
Arms PvP 3.1 Max DPS Neckstomper Build
The PvP build is not much different, you are switching things like improved slam or improved bloodrage to reach bloodcraze in the fury tree. Bloodcraze is the best survival trait in pvp and must be active. Piercing howl and anger management are more of a choice.
The advantage of using piercing howl over hamstring (other than the AoE effect) is that it can’t be dodged, blocked or parry. The best instance to use this is if a hunter gets a wing clip on you and your hamstring fails, you’re his toy until charge reaches its cooldown.
Glyphs
Major
- Glyph of Rapid Charge
- Glyph of Mortal Strike
- Glyph of Bladestorm
- Glyph of Hamstring – replace MS if you wanna spec in this
Minor
- Glyph of Charge
- Glyph of Bloodrage
- Glyph of Battle
Another way down the road is hamstring spec. By dropping anger management piercing howl you can apply two points to improved hamstring and then glyph in it. Either way, you should be able (with a little practice) make life miserable for your opponents and Dominate in Battlegrounds or any other PvP situation using this spec.
how come you don’t take imp execute? i know you mentioned that execute is huge, so I was wondering why you didnt take it?
Imp Execute isnt worth the points coz all it does is reduce cost of execute by like 5 the 2 points can be better spent else where
i been playing arms since 3.1 and have been doing pretty good dps especially against fury warriors but the otherday i decided to try fury again and i did even better … so im fury again … personally i think to be able to dps well in fury u need pretty good gear. and for both arms and fury you have to know what ur doing otherwise ur gonna fail amrs is pretty tricky to get right but once u get it its good … hardest thing with fury is keeping rage
GL
Any reason why you went with second wind and blood craze for a pure pve dps spec? doing that means you have to sacrifice something like improved execute…
oh fail i just look at the actually build .. that is terrible for raid dps
Your a Idiot this is the PVP spec read before you bitch please
Pretty good guide, but a bit wrong in some places. A good arms warrior will ALWAYS prefer glyph of execute (execute deals damage as if you have 10 more rage) to glyph of whirlwind. Weapon mastery is also a useless talent in the long run. you should go down to imp. execute in fury, as execute is usually around your top dps abilities.
The strategies you suggest are nice for topping dps charts because you do a lot of unnecessary dps on trash. It really is better to wait on your long cooldowns for stuff like Bloodlust or Heroism to be active; it will improve your dps when it matters, give the raid leaders more control of how the boss fights progress, and not artificially rocket you to the top of the list so you can feel good about “outplaying” people.
I’m not saying your tactics aren’t useful in some cases, but some of the stuff you’re advising is stuff I have to try really hard to get people to STOP doing a lot of the time. Comparing epeens should happen when the raid is done, and there are much better metrics than overall dps, in any case.
oh and btw BS Cooldown is bugger all so if ur worried bout not having it for boss dont use it the trash pull before a boss … problem solve …
imo use Bladestorm as much as possible
otherwise u will fail
Well said, Carrion, the over-emphasis on trash DPS is just astounding to me. Really folks? We’re in WOTLK now, can we let go of the “DPS IS ALL” mentality, finally? I often will keep my Recount toggled to “current fight” so I can see how things are progressing, particularly in boss fights. Also, are folks sacrificing more useful abilities (such as their interrupts on a KT fight for example) just so they can keep DPS maxed? Are warrs keeping their shouts up? etc..
I like the ideas in this spec though, and I plan on giving it a try, thanks for the article.
didnt mean to post twice guys, post wasnt showing up at first XD
A little clarification.
If using imp cleave then only 54 talents can be used in the arms tree. Most warriors actually leave out imp slammed and spec into imp cleave.
Imp slam is a big damage booster when your execute crits arn’t proccing, and having 2% chance to not be dodged is alot better then -5 rage from execute.
Infact, the only time imp execute will help is when you are spamming it at the end of a fight. But -5 vs a 7-12k crit being dodged is not worth it.
Saying that, if you are expertised cap then by all means go deep into fury and get imp execute. But my character still isnt at the expertise cap, I would rather spec in arm pen, crit, and hit if need be and use talents for my expertise.
For the pve build, you DO NOT need second wind and bloodcraze. The spec that was linked was to differentiate a hybrid spec so that you can use it as pve and pvp. If you are going full pve then put a talent in anger management and improved 2/2 blood rage.
Glyphs: Bladestorm is the only aoe we have, not only that its our best dps output that is consistent. There are alot of fights in which aoe’ing down mobs is appropriate, and having a bladestorm ready (espeically in ten man) is very appropriate.
However, if you are only capable of doing single target, then by all means, use execute glyph. I was using it until the new rend glyph came out. It sucks not having it but this is my preference.
As far as I’m concerned rotation should be:
Overpower every time it’s up
MS on cooldown
Slam otherwise
If Sudden Death is up:
If MS is on cooldown and rage is over 88, slam
If MS is on cooldown and rage is under 88, execute
If MS is available and rage is over 70, MS
If MS is available and rage is under 70, Execute
If you’re in an unlimited rage situation, then you should prioritize:
Execute > MS > OP > Slam
(Note: OP may move above MS as we factor in deep wounds damage from that crit; it’s the one thing I haven’t factored into my sheet).
I have been with arms all my warrior life and have found it a lot better at pve than fury. My dps is around 2.4K in 10 mans and 3K in 25 mans but i am in most pvp gear as well. What makes this funny is my dps is low compared to other people but my damage is almost 1 1/2 times theirs this makes me laugh because people think dps it what is needed the most when I’m hitting 1m damage and evy1 else is still at 750K.
I have problems in fury spec when i tried to have as my dual spec, I was dieing left and right in grps and when i was doing dailies. I didn’t understand how when i had all these ways to pwn the crap out of mobs.
I switched back to arms and found it 3 times faster to kill a mob and do dailies. So i stuck with it and now my dual spec is prot so that if my dps is to low for the people that think dps is everything than I will just tank it. This makes pve and pvp easy to do.
I feel like fury spec is just a spec that is there for the little touches on your actual spec(s) to help complete what you are looking for. I know a couple fury warriors that are geared well but couldn’t beat me in damage even if they tried their hardest.
I feel that arms warriors get bad rep when they join a raid/heroic and are usually one of the first that people say bye/soz to. It makes me mad that people do this for no apparent reason when all they see is 2-3K dps with way more damage than the 2.5K+ dps pally that is ret. I’m glad that we are getting a little more people realizing that we own in pvp as well as pve and shouldn’t have to respec or make our secondary spec fury and be crap for damage.
*Fatbull*
*Aman’thul*
Your glyph of whirlwind seems incorrect in this build. If you are in an arms build, aren’t you in battle stance? What about using this build with some modifications and going with a shield? Shield Slam can fill in where you have Slam.
Worst “guide” I’ve read. So wrong in so many places.
Bad.
If you know so much, why don’t you share with everyone your corrections? It’s one thing to say “that sucks,” it’s quite another to prove YOU know better with something that resembles better information. As it stands you can’t prove you know anything either.
Arms warrior is vague concerning a calculation, the whole class is related to the amount of rage available which is in direct relation to the adversary you are fighting.
Guilds that use addon programs ie recount, basically dont understand the warrior class which is not a pure dps class.
The plus aspect of a warrior is the varying dps that occurrs during the rotation, the amount can be amazing!
However, the above does not adjust properly to add-on programs which rely on keeping an average count.
This varying dps (single strike) amount is what is necessary to pull your group out of a dismal situation.
Obviously, we cannot depend solely on pure dps since Blizz has taken this fully into account and structured the end game to make it interesting.
Varying warrior dps is what will get you to the end game, this is a hit the ground running area that has a lot to do with luck and the ability to take a chance.
A sterile group/guild that relys on strict dps will only become frustrated and troubled since they will rarely ever see the end game.
The majority will survive to the 10–11 boss (Uluar) and run completely out of steam; continual wipe factor.
Generally, this is due to poor leadership, not meaning an insult but simply not knowing what they are up against; sadly the entire group will suffer under the incompetence of the leader/officers.
Hexgen
Alliance
Please don’t follow this guide if you want to max out your dps.
Rend
MS>Execute>OP>Slam
Easy as that.
For AoE always do Sweeping strikes on trash, especially before you apply Bladestorm.
I’ve been playing Fury dps for my entire time as 80′warrior.
For the first time i’d tried arms spec. and were actually quiet impressed, i followed this guide. (with some tiny modifications in talent)
At first I were outnumbered by Fury, but as I’ve been keep going, trying raising my dps.
I’ve managed to maintain a higher Dps than when I were fury. Because as Fury, it’s hard to keep rage up.
So now I am actually Arms/Prot.
- Great guide for me! thx.
this guide seems good at first but when I got down to trying it out it was really caught off guard….
Even a brand new dps warrior like myself realized right off bat that whirlwind glyph should never be used for arms… you need the bladestorm one. Also, theres so much better things to spend your glyphs on than rend and charge…
Guys. Stop whining about his “glyph of whirlwind” the reason why he is using this, is bcuz if you read closely in the BS tooltip it says somthing like: “Bladestorm will perform whirlwind every second in 6 seconds” as far as i got it, glyph of whirlwind is increasing the numba of targets, thereby increasing your dps with – idk – maybe 1k-2k dps if youre geared. Care
This spec wont be dominating servers any time soon.
Blood Craze and Second Wind in a PvE build?!?
I like 54/17/0. It has good raid utility since it has improved shouts ( a ret pally takes care of battle shout ), but commanding shout is unique to warriors meaning it stacks with everything. Most tanks don’t spec into imp shouts so have a huge commanding is always nice. Also in fury I use imp execute. Why? Because its the bane of arms.
Also the best rotation for MAX DPS for an arms war is as follows:
Charge, Rend, Mortal Strike, Overpower, Slam, Slam, Execute(if it procs), mortal strike, overpower, slam, slam, execute (if it procs), mortal strike, overpower…….
Only use execute (when target is above 20%) if you have an overpower proc to use directly after this will always keep your rage up.
You will never have a single rage issue with that rotation thus giving you the max dps you can achieve.
1. Boss fight dps please, since when is there trash in boss fights other then like 2 bosses is naxx?
2. The dps done means nothing. It’s nice to look at to have a self esteem boost.. But what you want to pay attention to is dammage done, bladestorm doesn’t do that much dammage done, it only boosts the dps for a few seconds to make you top on the DPS charts (which suck). Your other attacks as arms are obviously going to lower your dps, fury is the way to go.
Check out Zalgorage, Uldaman server. He pulls 7-8k dps, and a ton of dammage done as FURY. And Natas, special characters over the A’s, also fury.. His dammage blows me away. I never see any arms warriors anymore except in pvp. And they still suck in there.
This is an insult to arms warriors, ppl have you checked the build??? secon wind recover health when youre crited thats pvp build /FAIL/
This has some good and bad points. I think the major idea missing here is the fact that Arms warriors are not necessarily “rotation” specific like other classes; they are (or should be) masters of RAGE MITIGATION. It’s not necessarily a specific rotation, but more in the route of “what amount of rage do I have at this moment, until my bloodrage CD is up, and what is the MAXIMUM dps I can do with that rage.” it changes depending on a lot of factors, but it boils down to rage mitigation and thinking on your feet, so to speak.
I always though it was silly that people save Bladestorm. The best strategy is to pull out your big guns right away and strike some fear into their hearts.