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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsThe Care and Feeding of Warriors: PTR Arms
by Matthew Rossi 
Apr 4th 2009 at 2:00PM
Anyone who remembers when warriors were rage starved due to us being bugged so that we were being given way too many misses, or when a missed execute ate all of your rage, can attest to the warrior class being really funny sometimes. My wife used to laugh and say that Blizzard had done a wonderful job of transferring the sensation of building rage to the player. Your character might be rage starved, but you? Oh, you'd be screaming at the computer as if you could yell your rage bar into red.
That's why I've decided to move away from talking about fury in 3.1 and to spend the next two or three columns discussing tanking and arms spec, especially as they're going to be. This week, we'll talk about Arms as PvE and PvP.
Part of the reason I wanted to test Arms on the PTR is that I finally have the gear to test out certain presumptions I've had since I looked at the changes for arms. The armor penetration on Battle Stance combines extremely well with Mace Specialization. (For reference, the build I'm playing with is this one. As always, I know it could be better.) With Mace Spec and the new and improved Battle Stance combined I'm rocking 25% armor penetration before gear: when Grim Toll procs I'm approaching 65%. Keeping in mind that I don't have any of the new Ulduar gear on my cow, I'm loaded with more expertise than I need (I passed on Weapon Mastery, for example, because I have 30 expertise just from Strength of Arms and my gear). I'm not even counting the Shattering Throw armor reduction because frankly I often forget to use it in PvE.
As you can see from my stats, I'm lower on attack power than I would want to be to really get the most DPS out of the arms spec, but even with these stats, I was pleasantly surprised with what I could do. These are not intended to be taken as true benchmarks, just examples.
This is an unbuffed (save for Battle Shout) run at a boss training dummy. Its hardly earth-shattering, but for the gear level I have (a mix of Naxx 10 and 25 epics, a Jawbone) it's reasonably solid. A later run capped out at about 1800 DPS before I moved away from the dummy, and gave me the following graphs.
Things to keep in mind: I have no swing timer of any kind on test, I'm purely just trying to find a solid rotation for these attacks, I'm still without one (For this experiment I tried to prioritize Execute - Overpower - Slam - MS but as you can see I got a lot more overpowers than executes on this particular run - I'm now thinking Overpower should be priority over Execute). Rend and Deep Wounds are still a very large part of my DPS but Vverpower was definitely providing a great deal of my raw damage here. I was pleasantly surprised that MS managed to come close to Rend, frankly. If I'd worked Slam more and gotten luckier with Sudden Death procs, I think I could have easily pushed 2200 DPS on this spec. Again, that's unbuffed.
This means that the developers have at least succeeded at one thing: they have brought Arms much, much closer to a viable DPS spec as compared to fury. Right now, with a human fury warrior dual wielding maces on live I can hit 2200 to 2600 DPS on a dummy. On test, it's lower, but still with familiarity I'm capable of hitting about 2000 DPS unbuffed, which is right about where Arms is ending up. Were I a better arms warrior with a swing timer and more experience with the spec? Arms is indisputably better on test than it is on live. In the past I've complained about the pace of change for Arms on test, but as far as Arms DPS on test is concerned right now, I have nothing to complain about. These changes have absolutely improved the spec for PvE.
Unrelenting Assault in particular is the most felt change to the spec, I believe. The armor penetration is nice, yes, and I'm definitely much more of a fan of Mace Spec for PvE now, but I think even a cursory examination of my fumbling attempts on the dummy prove that Overpower is much improved with the talent.
My personal gear level meant that I have plenty of hit and expertise, but what I found most interesting was the fact that between Weapon Mastery and Strength of Arms an up and coming arms warrior in blues will be easily able to move dodge chance entirely out of play, making Arms probably the more gear-friendly DPS spec. While still improving as gear improves, it will be easier for a new 80 going into PvE to be sure he won't be dodged while attacking from behind (important because melee is still a big source of arms DPS) while also not worrying about losing his or her overpowers thanks to Taste for Blood.
I wasn't able to get an Arena match in on test, but I did run around Wintergrasp making a nuisance of myself. Right now I can say that Juggernaut is, by itself, a positive boon. I didn't have PvP gear on, so in general I had the same problem any warrior is going to have when focus fired in PvP, I died fast. But when I got lucky enough to pick up a pocket healer the added mobility of Juggernaut makes keeping casters in range much easier, and the one-two punch of the MS debuff and the Overpower casting debuff makes healers miserable: pop a paladin's shield with Shattering Throw, then charge and MS/rend/overpower and you can hamper him a lot more effectively than warriors have ever been able to. Since we're the class with almost no real way to outlast healing, it's nice to see some viability in our old role as spoilers.
In short, Arms feels much more viable for both PvP and PvE on test. It's not perfect yet: the rotation feels ridiculously tight to me, you have to be on top of it constantly watching for procs and not missing anything, you can find youself entirely rage starved even with over 300 hit due to the fact that all of your rage generation depends on a big, slow 2h weapon. But man, it's so much better, even a middling arms warrior like myself can do reasonable damage with it. Imagine how good it will be with someone who's used to the playstyle.
Next week, we'll talk prot in 3.1. Does the change to Defensive Stance and Improved Defensive Stance mean much? Does more damage from all attacks and more damage from Thunder Clap and Shockwave produce measureable increases in threat?
This means that the developers have at least succeeded at one thing: they have brought Arms much, much closer to a viable DPS spec as compared to fury. Right now, with a human fury warrior dual wielding maces on live I can hit 2200 to 2600 DPS on a dummy. On test, it's lower, but still with familiarity I'm capable of hitting about 2000 DPS unbuffed, which is right about where Arms is ending up. Were I a better arms warrior with a swing timer and more experience with the spec? Arms is indisputably better on test than it is on live. In the past I've complained about the pace of change for Arms on test, but as far as Arms DPS on test is concerned right now, I have nothing to complain about. These changes have absolutely improved the spec for PvE.
Unrelenting Assault in particular is the most felt change to the spec, I believe. The armor penetration is nice, yes, and I'm definitely much more of a fan of Mace Spec for PvE now, but I think even a cursory examination of my fumbling attempts on the dummy prove that Overpower is much improved with the talent.
My personal gear level meant that I have plenty of hit and expertise, but what I found most interesting was the fact that between Weapon Mastery and Strength of Arms an up and coming arms warrior in blues will be easily able to move dodge chance entirely out of play, making Arms probably the more gear-friendly DPS spec. While still improving as gear improves, it will be easier for a new 80 going into PvE to be sure he won't be dodged while attacking from behind (important because melee is still a big source of arms DPS) while also not worrying about losing his or her overpowers thanks to Taste for Blood.
I wasn't able to get an Arena match in on test, but I did run around Wintergrasp making a nuisance of myself. Right now I can say that Juggernaut is, by itself, a positive boon. I didn't have PvP gear on, so in general I had the same problem any warrior is going to have when focus fired in PvP, I died fast. But when I got lucky enough to pick up a pocket healer the added mobility of Juggernaut makes keeping casters in range much easier, and the one-two punch of the MS debuff and the Overpower casting debuff makes healers miserable: pop a paladin's shield with Shattering Throw, then charge and MS/rend/overpower and you can hamper him a lot more effectively than warriors have ever been able to. Since we're the class with almost no real way to outlast healing, it's nice to see some viability in our old role as spoilers.
In short, Arms feels much more viable for both PvP and PvE on test. It's not perfect yet: the rotation feels ridiculously tight to me, you have to be on top of it constantly watching for procs and not missing anything, you can find youself entirely rage starved even with over 300 hit due to the fact that all of your rage generation depends on a big, slow 2h weapon. But man, it's so much better, even a middling arms warrior like myself can do reasonable damage with it. Imagine how good it will be with someone who's used to the playstyle.
Next week, we'll talk prot in 3.1. Does the change to Defensive Stance and Improved Defensive Stance mean much? Does more damage from all attacks and more damage from Thunder Clap and Shockwave produce measureable increases in threat?
Filed under: Warrior, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Talents, (Warrior) The Care and Feeding of Warriors
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)
toddcore Apr 4th 2009 10:24PM
The format of WI doesn't allow for the same level of detail or depth that EJ and similar resources provide, and so it shouldn't be expected. But regardless of the "intended audience" (What audience is that, anyway? The one that doesn't want accurate information?) , it should be expected that when reading the columns written here that the information and opinions they contain will be accurate and thorough.
It's for the benefit of your "intended audience" that I replied as I did to call into question the numbers, methods, and results provided by Rossi here. I have no doubt that a number of people will read what he wrote here and leave thinking "So I need to prioritize Execute over Overpower and if I can hit 2k DPS in full epics I'm doing good.", both of which are totally false.
I don't believe I was rude in my response, just direct. I'm aware plenty of people today think of those two words as being synonymous. Maybe next time I'll include more smiley faces, high-fives, and complimentary verbiage so no one mistakenly gets their feelings hurt and people like you won't feel the need to put on your armor and rush to the defense of poor victims like Matthew Rossi.
In any event, this article is right for the wrong reasons. As it stands Arms will be better than Fury going into 3.1 assuming equal levels of gear for both. Mace spec isn't likely to overtake poleaxe spec, you'll be prioritizing OP at the top of the chain because with the proper talents it has a substantially shorter GCD which maximizes the number of specials you use and minimizes GCD downtime, and hopefully if all your gear is purple you'll be doing over 2k DPS. That is all. Have a good day.
And Teaspoon: If people on the internet are so easily upset by one person telling another person they're wrong (without even being insulting in doing so), reality will be pretty hard on that person. It has nothing to do with swinging maces in a video game.
syco Apr 4th 2009 6:03PM
That's funny, I never use slam on my arms warrior, I'm not even sure I have it on the action bar, probably way off the side next to my hearthstone, but she's only 42 and I don't have that talent that occasionally gives you an instant slam yet. That may change things, but I can never see justifying doing something with a cast time when my rotation is as tight as it already is.
perderedeus Apr 4th 2009 6:15PM
Just so you know, Slam for Arms with the talent low in the tree is not instant, just fast. Like .5 second cast. It's something you get all the time, though.
The instant Slam is something Fury gets as a proc off Bloodthirst, HS or Whirlwind, also low in their tree.
Kevin Apr 4th 2009 6:21PM
You obviously don't play arms, there is no talent for an instant slam. Improved slam reduces cast time. Slam is your rage dump ablitly as Arms, it does more damage than heroic strike and does not reset your white damage swing. Don't use it unless you specced for imp slam.
Also I don't know why Rossi uses maces. Poleaxe spec > Mace Spec > Sword Spec. Get yourself an axe or polearm.
arrogance Apr 7th 2009 8:57AM
but with armor penetration changes... does this still hold true?
Yltharion Apr 4th 2009 6:55PM
I have to agree about the article poster being slightly clueless. According to the stats screenshot, the poster has 323 hit rating, 30 expertise. Way too much. Melee hit cap is 8% (or 9% is another speculation, don't agree), 323 hit rating is way beyond that. Dps expertise "cap" is 23, to boss not dodge attacks and 30 is... too much. I don't know if your gear "forces" you to such ratings, but if you have any +hit/exp gems or enchants, i'd replace them with str/ap gems or even +16 crit rating (yellow slot as hit is).
Coldbear Apr 4th 2009 7:19PM
Excellent article. Much better in both tone and content than your last one.
Teaspoon Apr 4th 2009 8:33PM
The extra armour penetration with maces isn't terrible, but if you can get an axe or polearm - even one that's a few ilevels lower than your mace - and switch to poleaxe spec you'll probably see better damage. The extra 5% crit really helps you pile up the big Deep Wounds stack. Also, forget that crummy Unbridled Wrath from Fury and pick up Endless Rage and maybe Anger Management instead. Even in half blues ER and AM are enough bonus rage to keep me raging out.
As for choosing between OP and Ex, it kinda depends on your rage level. If you're below 35 then hit OP first and then Execute away the rest and you'll have better total damage for the two GCDs than what the extra 5 rage on the execute would've given you. If you're above 35 then Execute first and you've got a chance for the follow-on OP to proc SD and give you another Execute straight up.
Until your gear reaches a certain level and you've got the points to spare for ER, MS will leave you very much rage-starved. When levelling as Arms I recommend only spending points on MS/IMS when they're needed as filler to get to Unrelenting Assault, Endless Rage and Sudden Death, and even then not casting it unless you're really high on rage. Until you've got heaps of rage to spare and you've fully talented and glyphed it, MS just isn't enough extra damage over Slam to be worth the extra rage cost.
Bruce Apr 5th 2009 2:47AM
Thank you, Teaspoon. Everyone else seems to be saying "Rossi's full of Cr@p and dead wrong" without actually providing any useful info.
Kurdon Apr 5th 2009 12:30AM
@toddcore:
While I understand that you're trying to make a point, it honestly has no place here based on all the stipulations that Rossi already offered up in the original column.
In fact, I would go one step farther. Even if he'd had years of experience playing an Arms warrior as his primary spec of choice, the best he could accurately do right now is compare the way Arms used to feel with the way it currently feels according to his perceptions on PTR. These changes to Arms are quite recent, so preliminary conjecture with blatant (and vocal references to) grains of salt included in the mix is the best that anyone can hope for... especially considering that even other players with vested interests in Arms mechanics are currently well aware that any analysis they do is subject to change on a dev's whim until 3.1 goes live.
I based my initial response to your comment entirely on your WoWinsider post history. As best I can tell, it is roughly 80% antagonistic prattle for the sake of seeing yourself in the comments section. The tone and intent were malignant, and left me with the strong impression that you are a waste of web.
So I fall back on my original assessment. If you have something significant to add to the Arms discussion that is constructive, offer it up. If your intent is to raise your self-worth by tearing down WI columnists, then consider yourself chastised. If you are simply misguided and feel the need for attention, I'm sure I've fed you more than enough for you to feel sated. Perhaps that will goad you into returning under the bridge from whence you came. Perhaps not.
Bruce Apr 5th 2009 2:57AM
OK, so I'm a prot warrior. It's been a really long time since I've played fury, and I've never played arms, ever. Now, suddenly, I'm faced with the prospect of choosing a DPS spec when 3.1 hits. I'm not geared for it, though I have a 150 emblems or so to burn, exalted rep everywhere, and have been picking up the odd thing or two that would otherwise have rotted. I expect there are others out there in a similar situation.
So, which is the way to go? Rossi reckons arms for the less well geared, it seems, though I love the idea of whacking things with 2 2handers. Opinions?
Bazzall of Vashj Apr 5th 2009 12:01PM
The reason you didnt pwnsauce all over that dummy is beacouse im not sure you know what to do. All warriors a used to 4 button fury and when it comes to a any sort of swing/rage saving rotation they cant do a thing. I am currently arms and i do 3.7-4k on patch. Here is my armory http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Vashj&n=Bazzall. I know for a fact i will be doing even better in 3.1, please dont let this article think arms sucks.
-Bazz
profglitch Apr 5th 2009 1:34PM
You do 2000 DPS on a dummy, fully geared? What?
www.elitistjerks.com learn some rotations or something. =\
Lor Apr 5th 2009 3:18PM
I ran as arms for quite a while on live and slam is a key part of it's dps. Unfortunately for mobile fights, it's difficult to keep good dps up since you have to be watching your cooldowns like a hawk and move around. That's why fury still has a big advantage. The hard fights like Sarth 3D and new bosses in Ulduar make you move around. So, even if arms can get close on a target dummy, the spec is still in trouble for pve when the patch goes live. It just isn't competitive to fury at all on mobile fights. Also, even with the changes to armor pen, I imagine axe spec will still be superior for weapon spec. Overall, I am still disappointed that blizzard hasn't found a better option to improve arms for pve yet :(
Tadelin Apr 19th 2009 11:54PM
I've been running with something close to the same Arms spec you're showing since level 20, although I just recently picked up Bladestorm with the 3.1 patch. This has given me something close to a 500 DPS boost overall. Being used to what I need to watch for, and knowing the timing of the abilities, I've been pushing far greater numbers, and I don't feel like I'm not helping. Buffed, I'm popping 2k on a regular basis, and have popped 3k during a single battle on several occasions. If you ask me, this patch was the best thing that happened to the Arms spec since two-handed weapons.
Now if I can only get myself a better axe...