Post by Ninjitsu
Hello fellow warrior's
Since i was borred at class, I was thinking it could be fun to make a brainstorm over
important things that I do as a warrior dps'er and hope that people who does'nt know
the basic things I do, could find it useful.
Ive been playing warrior for around 9 month's now and through that time. There are
some things that needs to be taken as under concideration.
Listindex:
1. macro
2. Glyphs
3. Geming
4. Rotation
5. Situational rotation
6. Spec
MACRO
Macro's is your best friend when it comes to play a warrior.
Fx:
A macro that makes you jump in shield and onehander instead of two hand = So you
can use Spell reflection, shield bash, shield wall etc
There is a macro that activates Bladestorm and cancels it when you click it again = usefull
if you get rooted and want to get away emmidiatly. Very useful in pvp, but also priceless in
bossfights. Like Faction Champions in Totc. Its also nice to be able to cancel an "uncontrolable"
ability, when it comes to threat.
I will list all the macro's Im using when I play in raids / pvp
1: Stance
Battle stance
/cast Battle Stance
/equipslot 16 Duel Blade Butcher
/cast Charge
Defensive Stance
/cast Defensive Stance
/equipslot 16 Last Laugh
/equipslot 17 Wall of Terror
/cast Entervene
Berzerker Stance
/cast Berzerker Stance
/equipslot 16 Duel Blade Butcher
/cast Intercept
2: Swap to shield in a stance (only usable in Defensive or Battle Stance)
Spell Reflection
/equipslot 16 Last Laugh
/equipslot 17 Wall of Terror
/cast Spell reflection
Shield bash (interupt)
/equipslot 16 Last Laugh
/equipslot 17 Wall of Terror
/cast Shield Bash
Shield Slam (to dispel a target)
/equipslot 16 Last Laugh
/equipslot 17 Wall of Terror
/cast Shield Slam
3: Bladestorm (first press activates, Second press Cancels it)
#Showtooltip Battle Stance
/cast Bladestorm
/cancel aura bladestorm
Note, that Im an arms warrior. So every macro is designed for that dps spec... Fury
warriors has a slight difference, but i never took the time to check it out, since Im a arms
type of player.
GLYPH'S
Glyph of Rend: 6 seconds extra on your rend is gold, because of 2 factors.
1: The Taste for blood proc is slowered and makes it easier to succesfuly priorities abilities
in your "rotation"
2: The extra 6 seconds is a luxuary for both pvp and pve... You dont need to keep it up all
the time and get stressed to have everything under control, when you are pounding your
keyboards to make xxxx+ dps
Glyph of Bladestrom: 15 seconds of its cooldown is just plain sick. Its means that your
Bladestorm is almost ready every time adds needs to be burned down. Very important
in totc and nice in heroics. But can be Swapped with Glyph of Execution, since that glyph adds 10 extra rage to your Execution (the most hard hitting ability you have) and the 10 extra rage does stack with your "sudden death" proc.
I know there is a big discusion about that glyph, but I have done my own test about it and
the glyph added around 300 extra dps after i Stomped the heroic dummy for 5 mins x2, one
with the glyph, one without.
Glyph of Mortal strike: 10% extra dmg to next most used ability? Ofc a musthave.
GEMING
Arms warrior = Armour Penetration Junkie.
As an arms warrior, you are a slowhitting monster Instead of a gazilion 2 k criter in 2 seconds...
You will see random 12-15000 crits. And one of the reasons that you do that is because of Armour penetration. Armour Penetration Effects your raw dmg from abilities, by ignoring a % of the targets armour
You have to go for armor penetration, like its a fix you cant get enough of. BUT!
Once you get a powerfull armor penetration trinket, like "Mjoldnirs Runestone or Grim Toll". You have to balance it out, since there is a cap (unfortunatly)
The cap is around 82% on a raid boss with every possible armor reducing ability like: Sunder Armor, Fearie Fire, Shattering Throw etc. If you get overcapped, you hit for more then its realistic possible on the target and the gamemechanic's for that try's to balance it. Meaning you hit for less then you should.
If that ocures, you gem the next best thing. STRENGH! 1 str = 2 AP and it gets improved with abilies like Blessing of Kings. And logicaly with more attack power = more dmg = More rage = more dps.
Im only talking about those 2 core gems to go after when you have end game gear. If you have hit rating issues, You HAVE to fix it, since a "miss" Provides no dmg and ergo no rage.
Expertise is not that important, since you are not interested in getting "Unparryable", because you should NEVER hit a boss from the front. You will eventualy get expertise through gear, but if you really want to be undodgeable. The cap is "6,5%" = 26 expertise. That is pretty nice since you wont have have to randomly use the Overpower Abitity and you can 100% focus on your priority rotation instead.
ROTATION
Its very simple answer...
There is no rotation, arms dps is a priority that works with the different procs you get.
The priority list is:
Priority 1: Rend (Rend is your "redline" through the entire bossfight, Without rend = no Taste for blood proc = huge
rage generation lost = lower dps)
2: Execute
3: Mortal Strike (rage dumber and second highest dmg ability)
4: Overpower (rage generater and its the ability that grants most rage pr dmg aswell)
5: Slam (if there aint any procs and you need to burn rage because of Mortal strike is on cooldown, that is when slam is used)
SITUATIONAL ROTATION
The Opener: Charge in, put rend on the target use Mortal strike, Bladestorm and then use Mortal strike again.
Reason is that since you are a slow hitter when it comes to dps.. With that opener you have theoreticly done 11 hits in 10 seconds (depends no your haste). Which is why I can keep up with feral cats in burst at start and you have nice bit of dps form the beginning. Just hope that tank has some sick Threat pr second or you are gonna killed before the heals can even see what happened.
The raidbuffer: Shattering throw, I use it at the start of the fight when there are 5 stacks of sunder armor, to buff the raid dps for 10 seconds (If you want to have the stacks faster on the target, help the tank with sunder armor.
Its an nostance ability) and its usualy of cooldown at the last 20% of the bossfight.
The suicidal: Sweeping strike, Retaliation, Charge, Bladestorm, cleave. and if you wanna *!@# it even more up, use Recklessness
That is my favorit rotation in heroic's, Sure its risky that you overaggro the tank on purpose, but mobs dies faster
then they can kill you most of the time. The rotation provided me 15000 dps in burst (record). Which is allways nice to see on recount =)
Edit (30-11-09): If you use cleave right before Bladestorm. Cleave will be used while in Bladestorm. That is extremely usefull, since you gain 1 more hit in that rotation, so you can add 1 more ability in your aoe rotation = Sweaping Strike > Cleave > Bladestorm > Cleave
SPEC
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#LcrcbfIt00bRdGuioGx00xb:sqm0ozArms spec is a personal thing that is only done through tweaking it by testing what fits the best for your playstyle.
The spec I linked, Is the one Im using atm and i find it perfect for my raidperformance.
Edit (30-11-09) im using a new spec, that is more designed for totc
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#LhrcbfIt00bRdGuioGxso0b:Iqs0oMI hope that you could use some of the tips yourself.
I will try to update with things that I find important...
Post by Ninjitsu
personaly i find this a bad guide for many reasons
first, why would you want charge/intercept/intervene attached to your stance macros?
also, this guide is mainly for PvE (pretty much everything is towards PvE)
contains invalid information
this would be a better PvP build You are completely correct LoreKeeperMoblus, this is a 100% pvefocused post, sorry that i didnt mention it,
and the reason why I inserted Charge/Intercept/Entervene in my different stance macros. Is mainly because I use the stance specific abilities in the same button. Giving me more room on my hotbars. Im not saying that everyone should use it, but it works great for me.
I only posted this, to give "some" advices, not to say that "thisistheonlyway" to play an arms warrior. Take some of the tips or dont ^^
btw. Thanks for all that are adding tips in this thread or lighting up missinformations, really appreciate it. Might make this post even more usefull then entended