The Care and Feeding of Warriors: In arms' way
by Matthew Rossi 
Nov 19th 2011 at 2:00PM
Last month I was in the middle of discussing arms with you when I got sidetracked. Long-time readers of this column were not surprised that yet again something shiny caught my attention and I went crawling off to follow it like a cat with that stupid red bug that is in no way connected to that device the idiot human keeps waving around. At any rate, with patch 4.3 on its way, I thought it was time to start talking about why you should give arms a shot.
The first thing I did was dedicate myself to raiding and running instances and doing Battlegrounds as arms more or less exclusively, which I've done for the entire month of November to date. Having done this, I can report the following:
- Arms is still lagging behind other melee in terms of DPS. It's not terrible, mind -- I don't embarrass myself as arms -- but on fights where fury can pull 28k, arms is lucky to pull 24k or less. What we saw in the state of Firelands DPS post holds true. Arms doesn't perform as well as melee DPS specs that are getting buffed in 4.3, even though arms itself will see no such buffs.
- However, it's not all bad. Since arms has two bleeds (Rend and Deep Wounds) and a debuff that increased bleed damage taken (Blood Frenzy), if you have to move out of melee range to avoid splash damage or to switch targets, arms can actually fare better than fury.
- Blood and Thunder means that when properly played, arms can hit a surprising amount of adds with Rend. Rhyolith adds, Rageface and Riplimb's coming into range of Shannox, Majordomo Staghelm's cat phase, and of course the various trash pulls all provide opportunities for arms to spread around bleeds and thus extra damage from Blood Frenzy.
- Combining arms' mobility and Throwdown's 5-second stun means that if you need to get to something and keep it from moving (Sons on Ragnaros, for example), you're very suited to it.
Arms in 4.2
I won't lie: I originally went arms purely for Throwdown. It's simply much easier to help handle Sons on heroic Ragnaros with that 5-second stun. Since I don't have two complete sets of DPS gear to reforge differently for arms and fury, I made the decision to be arms over fury in the rest of the raid, based in part on my wanting to really give arms the most thorough shakedown with solid gear I could arrange.
What surprised me wasn't how well I did in PvP with it. I knew arms was still strong in PvP, especially once you have enough resilience to keep you upright. Arms can flatten people, keep flag caps down, help hold bases; it has tools for just about any situation you'll run into. But I was surprised at how well it can do in 5-man instances. Possibly because there tends to be so much trash in a heroic, arms is an absolute beast in 5-man content. Even a moderately geared arms warrior's ease in reaching the hit cap, ability to spread the Rend debuff around, 4% increased physical damage (and the increased likelihood of not having to share that debuff with a lot of other melee/physical DPS), and being able to hit Whirlwind on trash pulls makes arms ridiculously fun and scary in 5-man content.
The same things that make arms so good in 5-mans don't provide anything like the same oomph in raids, and the bigger the raid, the more likely arms will fall behind. In a 10- or 25-man, it's likely someone else will have a debuff similar to Blood Frenzy, and even if you are the one providing it, every physical DPSer is going to get that 4% increased damage, not just you. Similarly, every person with a bleed is going to get that extra 30% bleed damage, meaning that you're buffing the classes who already do more damage than you do at the same time that you're buffing yourself.
Combined with the other issues I mentioned for arms (a lack of scaling for stats like hit, an insufficient bite to Strikes of Opportunity for PvE content, a lack of burn-phase cooldowns aside from Recklessness, which underperforms for arms due to Overpower's high crit rate, and nothing like Flurry), and arms simply can't help but lag behind. However, as I pointed out in the bullet list opening this post, arms does have strengths for raiding. It's trivial for arms to spread the Blood Frenzy debuff in an area with Blood and Thunder, for instance. Combined with Sweeing Strikes and Bladestorm, B&T gives arms a lot of flexibility in terms of how it's going to spread damage around the battlefield. (A Blood and Thunder-spread Rend to a large trash pack followed up by a Bladestorm on mobs taking an extra 4% damage is a beautiful thing.) Arms also suffers a lot less from stat capping. Arms can completely hit cap and can even afford to drop some expertise for other offensive stats, thanks to Overpower. Arms can also do a good deal of burst damage wen Sudden Death lines up properly for you.
In short, right now arms is a fun, engaging, and versatile spec with a lot to offer, but in order to access all of that potential, you have to accept between 2k to 3k DPS lost at the highest levels and around 1k in heroics. It's up to you how acceptable that is.
Patch 4.3 will bring higher DPS for arms, of course, with all buffs that provide attack power now providing twice as much melee AP. But since every other melee player is going to get exactly the same benefit from this and arms isn't seeing any other buffs, it will remain low and may in fact become the lowest melee DPS spec in 4.3. From a balance point of view, of course, someone's got to be the lowest and with fury doing fairly well (even being slightly nerfed in 4.3), it's most likely acceptable to the developers that arms continues to lag behind. This is regrettable but familiar to those of us playing arms in ICC.
Still, with better gear coming out in 4.3 and the Mortal Strike debuff moving from 10% back up to 25%, arms will not only still be viable in 5-mans, it will most likely see a renaissance on any fight with a healing component as well as in PvP. I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I really believe arms needs a short-term DPS cooldown, but with there being no sign of any such thing in 4.3 and MoP on the horizon, there's not much point in hoping for it.
Make no mistake: Arms is going to fall way behind in patch 4.3. It's going to need a buff to some core ability to prop it up, or it's simply going to become completely uncompetitive. This will be a shame, as arms has a very engaging playstyle right now. But while it's possible to argue that arms' utility is worth the 2k DPS (or more) lost right now, when it's magnified to a 4k or 5k DPS loss in Dragon Soul, I don't think anyone will be willing to make that sacrifice.
Arms in 5.0
My hope is that in Mists of Pandaria, arms finally manages to shake the spectre of PvP balance. Make no mistake: Arms' poor performance in PvE content is entirely due to worries about how it would perform in PvP, and much of it stems from a player presumption of arms' potency that dates back two expansions. Simply put, casters (despite their unmitigated rulership of PvP) still insist that arms warriors are their bane. This simply isn't so. Yes, a well-played arms warrior can give anyone trouble, but no one lacks counters of sufficient power to successfully engage and defeat a warrior. Despite the talent, warriors aren't PvP juggernauts and haven't been for two years.
With talents being shared across all three specs, arms will hopefully now be able to create a talent spec for pure PvE DPS and not have to worry about synergy with PvP abilities, since you'll have to choose between them. Having the option to take Shockwave, Bladestorm or the new Avatar (a short-duration DPS cooldown) really frees arms up, and I'm hopeful that Dragon Soul will be the last patch for a while where arms clearly falls behind fury.
To sum this all up, right now arms has enough going for it (in my opinion) to make the trade-off in terms of lower DPS worth it if you enjoy the playstyle or really feel like you need the utility. While you can argue that you shouldn't have to dump DPS for it (and I'd agree with you), right now, it's bearable. But without significant change to the spec in 4.3, it won't be anywhere near as viable, and you'll see a lot more of a struggle to justify arms as a PvE spec. In PvP, it should stay about the same or even get a little more popular with the buff to Mortal Strike.
Next week, my ideal arms revamp. It's been seven years, and it's long past the time that arms became the Blademaster.
At the center of the fury of battle stand the warriors: protection, arms and fury. Check out more strategies and tips especially for warriors, including Cataclysm 101 for DPS warriors, a guide to new reputation gear for warriors, and a look back at six years of warrior trends.
Filed under: Warrior, Analysis / Opinion, (Warrior) The Care and Feeding of Warriors, Cataclysm, Mists of Pandaria
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Martinel Nov 19th 2011 2:46PM
Well-written, and your points are spot on. Always enjoy your articles, Mr. Rossi.
joshua_h519 Nov 19th 2011 3:02PM
Are you stance dancing in arms just to use whirlwind? and why
vocenoctum Nov 19th 2011 4:05PM
I think he meant Bladestorm, since any warrior can use Whirlwind, it's not really an "arms advantage" or anything.
Plus, Bladestorm is just fun.
MrJak Nov 19th 2011 6:47PM
Heh, this reminds me of that time when some dude tried to call me out for being arms and having whirlwind on his recount logs. It's weird how recount used to just count bladestorm as whirlwind hits (don't know if it still does)
Guy: Hey (insert expletive) why are you using whirlwind while playing arms?
Me: Huh?
Guy: You are using Whirlwind (expletives)
Me: You are looking at what abilities I'm doing on recount while we're doing a dungeon??
Guy: Of course (more expletives about my genealogy etc)
Me: I got one word for you my friend: Bladestorm.
/Guy has left group.
Moral of the story? Open your big mouth and a fly is sure to waltz on in.
jacob.rabjohns Nov 19th 2011 3:35PM
I'd have to agree with the whole arms pvp/pve balance issue being old hat. As a paladin healer (Im a spellcaster too damnit) I find arms warriors pose no serious threat, and can survive one with no real effort once his stuns etc are out of the way. To be honest, some of this may well be down to the fact that my armour is just a bit silly compared to other healers/casters, but I feel its more an issue with certain aspects of pvp in general. Since the emphasis on resistance is now pretty much gone, and so is ArP, it leaves melee at a serious disadvantage as armour mitigates so much damage. With 4.5k resilience and around 40k armour (easily achievable even as a healer) no melee is going to provide a real threat, no matter how well played, unless it doles out damage in some other form, such as retadins or frost/unholy dks. Maybe these issues will be fixed in 5.0, but untill that point, I can largely look at rogues, feral kitties and warriors as a non-issue in pvp. And actually, as someone who remembers back to when an arms warrior could simply take me to peices, as could a rogue, thats kind of sad. Either normalize armour, like they have done with resistance, or bring back ArP, which, for all its flaws, atleast meant a melee could kill a paladin.
clundgren Nov 19th 2011 3:39PM
I know that ideally being a powerful pvp spec shouldn't prevent a spec from excelling in pve. At the same time, though, I can appreciate that it is difficult to buff the dps of a spec that has a lot of pvp tools. Thus, we see that some specs that are perennially strong in pvp, and in control abilities in particular - arms, sub, frost - almost always lag a bit behind their brethren in pve. Also, I can see that if Arms was just as good as Fury in pve, a lot of players might complain that Fury had lost its niche. It's a bit of a catch 22 for Blizzard.
So you wind up with a situation where Arms, which really is lagging behind, doesn't get a buff where a melee spec like Retribution, which currently does similar dps to Arms, is getting a significant buff. Obviously Ret isn't close to Arms in pvp utility, but it also doesn't have another dps spec to compete with, so Blizzard can buff or nerf it without much fear of players dropping/switching to the spec.
Hopefully the talent tree revision for 5.0 will remove some of the issues that perennially make Fury the pve spec and Arms the pvp spec, but I'm skeptical.
jacob.rabjohns Nov 19th 2011 3:52PM
Rets actually pretty decent in pvp. Maybe its not got ALL that utility, but it does have a tonne of cooldowns and unmitigatable damage, along with a stun and a cc. I'd say that rets issue isnt potential output, because sometimes that can be great, its just WAY too random. Wheras arms is pretty stable. I hate the idea of seperate pvp and pve specs for each class, but to be honest, maybe it would stop the game feeling so homogenized? Make it so ret cant pvp, so arms will be useless in pve, so a bloody demo/affli lock cant thrash my arse on the dps charts and then in arena too. It'd mean each class would keep a unique flavour for each spec. Then again, the new talents look awesome too :D Ill wait for 5.0 to see how the whole spec pve/pvp balance thing plays out...
jacob.rabjohns Nov 19th 2011 3:54PM
Also ret can bubbleheal.
I hate bubbleheal.
Emophia Nov 19th 2011 4:41PM
Rets are one of the most useless specs in organized PVP.
Outside of silly 3dps zerg comps like Warrior DK ret or DK rogue ret there is no real place for them.
They will be all but pointless in 4.3 without their burst from wings cause of no auto crit HoW.
jacob.rabjohns Nov 19th 2011 6:04PM
Yeah, but those silly 3zerg specs are horrible..... I once got teamed by 2 rets and an unholy dk.... CC Stun Stun while they all blew their CD's.... I agree about the lack of HoW crit as a nerf though.... I imagine their burn phases wont be as scary. I disagree about the lack of a place in organised CC though. You need someone to have burst in a team, otherwise its hard to force a peel or a target switch. Like killing tree droods etc.
clundgren Nov 19th 2011 6:20PM
@jacob: Ret hasn't been able to bubbleheal effectively since Wrath. They can heal for about 40k and use up their entire mana bar; you could bandage yourself at the same time for about the same amount.
Ret's problem, shared by many low-control specs, is that high level pvp is always dominated by specs that can exert significant control over the match; ret is an inherently reactive spec, like fury. Arms does well because it can do a much better job dictating the other team's actions, and the (needed) buff to MS will enhance this.
My main point isn't about ret, though I would love to see a ret column where we could discuss why that spec has been so hard to balance for pvp. Rather, I was trying to explore why Arms is so hard to balance in PvE. I think it comes down to the developer's fear that if Arms ever overtakes Fury there will be no reason for anyone to spec Fury. Having one as the de facto pve spec and the other for pvp gives each a niche, even if the developers don't explicitly admit that's what they are doing.
In theory, making a lot of utility cross-spec in 5.0 could make it so that you could design a Fury pvp build as well as an Arms pve build, but I am still skeptical. I think that it will be very hard to get away from having one spec that lends itself better to pvp, and then you almost have to give the other pve by default.
I guess the other side of the argument is that maybe having a de facto pvp/pve split isn't such a bad thing. It gives players access to an "expert" spec for both kinds of gameplay. However, that leads to balance questions, QQ from other classes... In a nutshell, I don't envy Ghostcrawler his job when he has to resolve these sorts of issues.
Revynn Nov 19th 2011 3:45PM
Sounds like it's time to give Fury another whirl (Ha! Whirl? Whirlwind? Seewhatididthere?) which is too bad. I've really been enjoying Arms so far this expac and couldn't get comfortable with Fury.
Admittedly, the last time I tried Fury was when I was leveling through Northrend during 4.0, so I'm sure gear and a total absence of hit rating played some part in that.
clundgren Nov 19th 2011 6:27PM
I'm no great shakes on my Fury warrior, but I love how the spec plays. My only beef right now is that they aren't going to let me transmog my shirtless chest piece. Shirtless barbarian FTW! Blizzard, let us have it!
JiggyBOOM! Nov 19th 2011 4:00PM
I thought Deadly Calm + Execute was a burn phase cooldown?
phfantunes Nov 19th 2011 4:05PM
I've been raiding as Arms for the past 3 or so weeks, and I can break the 30k mark on tank and spank fights like Occu'thar and Baleroc, which is a decent enough output. However, the rotation is really clunky right now with having to macro stance switches for maximum performance.
On a side note, regarding the column, I'd like to see some discussion on the proposed new stance model for MoP (Battle - Single; Berserker - AoE), because I really dislike it. Stance changing used to be a defining skill and good warriors were beauty in motion when utilizing their skill repertoire to full. Now, with most of the restrictions lifted, there's little gap between an average warrior and a masterul one, and the new stance will just make everyone macro Zerker to Whirlwind/Bladestorm/Thunderclap and Battle to MS/BT.
Emophia Nov 19th 2011 4:55PM
'Despite the talent, warriors aren't PvP juggernauts and haven't been for two years.'
I'm sorry but did you miss Season 9? When we had that 2 handed weapon specialization buff + 100% colossal smash, where we annihilated anyone and could random rng 2 shot people? Where every arena game with a warrior was basically gib the warrior or someone WILL die? Were DK's ran from us out of fear and priests cried? Or Season 8 where we could basically solo anyone and the DK's just was just to keep people near/away from us while we gibbed someone in a bladestorm, the only ones prominent or deadly as us were LSD?
We've been pretty lame for basically all of season 10, but don't act live we haven't been juggernauts in recent history, we have, like most classes and specs. We all have our moments.
Voltron Nov 19th 2011 6:04PM
I hope they change Slam for 5.0, it is my biggest problem with arms. I use HS in place and i know thats bad but it makes the rotation feel better and im not raiding so not too much harm done.
Jordan Nov 19th 2011 7:17PM
I have to agree, the current Arms is a bit behind. I can pull a good 22k in raid however, and it is my offspec, so my raid leader is happy that when the tank goes into DPS spec I'm not dragging to the point where I'm pulling less than the main tank.
Also apparently some of the fights in the next patch have a healing component that my raid leader is happy to have a DPS that can put an MS on the healed target. If it heals for 1million HP then it will only heal for 750k HP and that's 250k less to DPS back down.
harr01 Nov 19th 2011 10:36PM
I've been Arms so long now that I'm pretty sure Fury would be a dip in dps for me. I don't get to raid much so I'd have to bow to your experience there (although you are more used to Fury), but yeah Arms in 5mans is full of awesome right now.
In any case, I think which spec you are more used to would factor into your results in a big way.