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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-16-2007 @ 10:01PM
B Lee said...
@Bachus and Cetha
"Should I go all arms or mix in a few fury or prot talents? While soloing should I be using sunder armor? What about thunderclap/rend/heroic strike etc?"
"Also I keep reading that you should use a 2hander for lvling, but there are caster mobs EVERYWHERE, and so I end up just using my sword/shield for the spell interrupt (oh how I miss my counterspell, earth shock, felpuppy, silence, stun), so is there some trick to handling casters with a 2hander?"
Those are all important questions and definitely worthy of some answers. First, I should note that Warriors thankfully can be played in many ways, and us stubborn players (I suppose like the class itself!) stand by our choices to the death! But I'll throw in my perspective:
First, talent points. For me, the first 5 points are a no-brainer: if you're leveling up, take 5 points in Cruelty for the 5% extra crit. That gets you to level 15. And that's about all warriors really, truly agree on! I will give you some guidelines, perhaps a few different routes to take, and the reasoning for it. Then I'll give you my rather absurd approach to leveling. First, let me say that you don't need to focus on tanking specialization yet - you can safely ignore anything the protection tree has to offer at this point. That's not to say you shouldn't learn to tank! I just mean you won't need more +Defense skill yet. I should also mention that the deeper you go into a single tree, the more specialized you become. While I was leveling, I wanted to be flexible enough to use different weapons, try different fighting styles and the like without boxing myself into a single style of play. And my talent choices may reflect that. In general, the further you go down a talent tree, the more specialized (read: boxed in) you become.
Arms Core: the Arms Core is 17 talents I think help both Deep Arms leveling builds as well as higher level Fury builds. Here's what I would take:
5/5 Parry
2/2 Imp Charge
3/3 Imp Heroic Strike OR Imp Thunderclap (pref.)
2/2 Imp Overpower
3/3 Deep Wounds
2/2 Impale
I always found Heroic Strike to be useful only when I was rage-dumping, so I preferred Imp Thunderclap. But that's totally preference. You have to go Deep into Fury to reap its benefits (unlike Arms), so I'm going to continue showing you an build that will specialize you, before looking at Fury.
Deeper Arms:
3/3 Imp Heroic Strike OR Imp Thunderclap
1/1 Deathwish
5/5 Specialization
At level 30, the Whirlwind quest opened up, and hopefully you can immediately try and finish it with the help of guildies. I wanted that Whirlwind Axe right at level 30, so I chose to continue my path down the Arms tree. You're now level 40. Link to this build: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=LAMcbhwoZV
Now let's look at Fury, starting right back at 5 points in Cruelty. Here's how I would distribute talent points:
5/5 Unbridled Wrath
1/1 Piercing Howl
4 Points Preference
You're now level 24, and that lovely dual wield has opened up for you. Don't forget your level 20 armor quest either. Now comes the variety: you won't have Commanding Shout for a long time, so the benefit of Commanding Presence is limited only to Battle Shout. Blood Craze has a terrible return unless you have an unusually high amount of HP for your level, so I avoid it. Choose your talents as you see fit. I personally love using Cleave, because I often found myself engaging two enemies. Like that wolf or tiger that ALWAYS seems to come out of nowhere and attack you whenever you're in combat with something. So I went 3 points in Imp Cleave and then 1 filler point in Commanding Presence. But you may do something different. Now you're level 24. And here's what we'll take:
5/5 Enrage
1/1 Sweeping Strikes
4/5 Dual Wield Specialization
5/5 Flurry
I take Enrage because Flurry is required for it, and because it means that I can be flexible in weapon choice for a bit longer. Sweeping Strikes becomes available at level 30, and it's a solid choice for dual wielding. It's also a wicked combo when used with a sizeable 2-hander and Improved Cleave - one Cleave hits 4 times! After that, put 4 points into Dual Wield Specialization and then you can happily fill out Flurry, a core damage talent in the Fury tree. One more point into Bloodthirst and you're level 40. Like to this build: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=LZVVuzLxoVz
Two different routes, both that will provide you with solid results. I personally ended up looking at gear that would be available and speccing for that gear, something that worked for me, but may not be everyone's preference.
Now let's talk about abilities and when to use them. As you know, rage generation is key to using abilities. Fights don't usually end immediately - they take some time. So use abilities that have a lasting effect first to get the most out of them - keep your Battle Shout up whenever you can, start with a Demoralizing Shout or Thunderclap to slow the damage output of your attacker(s). I also use Bloodrage early in fights, especially those where I wasn't able to Charge. If you Charge and Bloodrage, you'll be able to use both a Demo Shout and Thunderclap. But Bloodrage damages you, so using when you're low health is kind of a suicide move! For me, Sunder and Rend are used rarely if ever in soloing encounters, just because for their cost, you can kill baddies faster. Hamstring enemies such as Humanoids who will run when they're low health - the worst thing that can happen is you aggro more. Heroic Strike adds damage to your attacks but WILL NOT generate rage - that's why it's considered a rage dump ability. Slam is useful when you have a two-hander, but not very useful when you are dual wielding.
Finally, we'll talk about counterspells, since Cetha was interested. Until your 30's, your only reliable counterspell is Shield Slam. You can use Intimidating Shout when you're only engaging one mob and you REALLY need to counter that heal, but otherwise avoid it. But, Shield Slam requires a shield. My solution was to make a macro that will switch in a shield on press, and switch in your regular weapons on another press. Or you can just use a sword/board when you know you're engaging casters. Another solution to that is take advantage of line of sight. If a caster is casting spells at you, you can try to run out of range or out of light on sight. That will cause the enemy to fail casting and run after you, at which point you can resume fighting. There are a few more solutions once you reach mid to high 30s. Intercept is a stun and can be used to counterspell: when you see your opponent casting, run straight away from your target until Intercept is usable, turn and intercept - I use a jump-turn for this. At level 38, you're able to Pummel - think Shield Slam in Berserker Stance without a Shield. Finally, Tauren have yet another solution: Warstomp - those lucky buggers.
There's a post of a reply. Happy hunting warriors!
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