Page 1 of 5
1
2
3
... LastLast
  1. #1
    I am Murloc! Seramore's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Location
    Millbrae, California
    Posts
    5,036

    Mists of Pandaria Arms Warrior Guide

    Introduction
    The intention behind this guide is to inform Warriors who are new to the Arms spec, Warriors who haven’t had the chance to play the Beta yet, and Warriors who are simply confused and not sure what to do. This guide will cover the basics of the spec, as well as some tips and tricks. The beta is being constantly updated with changes to abilities and others, so I will attempt to keep this guide as up to date as possible. As this is a guide, I will leave my opinions behind and keep this as informative as possible.

    Basics

    • General Information
    In Mists of Pandaria, many changes and additions have been introduced to the Warrior class. Both Talents and Glyphs have received a significant changes compared to the way they were before. Glyphs are now more unique and don’t just simply add damage or crit chance to a certain ability. Previous talents were taken out and changed to Glyphs, such as Rude Interruption. Talents received a complete overhaul and many of them are now non-mandatory and dependant on the situation or fight you will be in.

    Stances are now completely different. Berserker Stance and Battle Stance are now no longer the stances that you once knew in Cataclysm and prior expansions. Both of these stances are now usable with both specs, and both are intended to be used for different situations. Battle Stance is a stance that is intended to be used the most; it now generates high rage from normal melee attacks and no longer gives a damage bonus. Berserker Stance is a stance that won’t be used as often as it used to be, and is intended to be used as a situational stance; it now generates some rage from normal melee attacks, and some rage from damage taken. This will likely be useful on some fights where there is damage going out to the raid multiple times

    Enrage now only procs from Mortal Strike and Colossus Smash critical strikes. It has also been reworked to grant you 10 rage, as well as a 10% increase in physical damage. Berserker Rage also applies the same effects as Enrage.

    Many abilities that once required you to be in a specific stance are no longer required to do so. You can now use Taunt in any stance, as well as use Shattering Throw in any stance.

    Taste for Blood has been reworked. With the removal of Rend, Mortal Strike now procs your Overpower. In addition to that, whenever you use Overpower, there is a 30% chance to allow you to use Overpower again. Each time this happens, you will gain a stack to the Taste for Blood buff which will increase the damage of your next Heroic Strike or Cleave by 100%. This can only stack up to 5 times and will last for 9 seconds. Whenever a stack is gained, the time frame on the buff will be refreshed back to 9 seconds.

    Banners are a new set of abilities to the Warrior class. Skull Banner increases the critical damage of all raid members by 20% for 10 seconds, Demoralizing Banner will reduce the damage of all enemies within 30 yards by 10% for 15 seconds, and Mocking Banner will AoE taunt all enemies within 15 yards to you for 15 seconds. Each banner has a separate 3 minute cooldown, but only one can be up at once.

    • Gemming
    Gemming is the same as it was in previous expansions. Bold gems will go in red sockets, Etched will go in blue sockets, and Inscribed will go in yellow sockets.

    • Enchants
    Chest: Glorious Stats
    Wrist: Exceptional Strength
    Gloves: Super Strength
    Boots: Pandaren’s Step
    Back: Superior Critical Strike

    • Gear
    The following is a Best in Slot list for Dungeon gear. I will eventually edit this with raid gear.

    Head:Sightfinder Helm
    Neck:Cloudstrike Pendant
    Shoulders:Serpentstrike Shoulderpads
    Back:Cloak of the Failing Will
    Chest:Riverbed Chestguard
    Bracers:Commanding Bracers
    Gloves:Dark Blaze Gauntlets
    Belt:Binding of Broken Dreams
    Legs:Pyretic Legguards
    Boots:Anchoring Sabatons
    Ring 1:Firefinger Ring
    Ring 2:Blade Trap Signet
    Trinket 1:Lessons of the Darkmaster
    Trinket 2:Carbonic Carbuncle
    Weapon 1:Warmace of Taran Zhu

    Playing The Warrior

    • Rotation
    The rotation in Mists of Pandaria isn’t all that different compared to the rotation in Cataclysm. A few notable things that have changed are:
    • No more stance dancing!
    • Rend is now gone and has been replaced with Deep Wounds
    • Sweeping Strikes is now similar to Blade Flurry. Instead of being a cleave that can be used once every minute, the cooldown and duration has been reduced to 10 seconds. You can now have a 100% up time on it.
    • Slam now no longer has a cast time and can only be used when specced as Arms.

    The priority list is as follows:

    1. Colossus Smash (with no debuff up)
    2. Dragon Roar
    3. Mortal Strike
    4. Execute
    5. Overpower
    6. Heroic Strike (if 2+ stacks of Taste for Blood)
    7. Slam
    8. Heroic Strike (0 stacks of Taste for Blood)
    9. Colossus Smash (with debuff up, no other abilities available, and no rage for Slam or Heroic Strike)

    • Stat Priority
    The stat priority at level 90 is the same as it was in Cataclysm. A notable difference is that the Expertise and Hit caps are now at 7.5% instead of 8%.

    Hit (7.5%) > Expertise (7.5%) > Crit > Mastery > Haste

    • Talents

    As was previously said, talents aren't as mandatory as they were in previous expansions. However, there is a small list of ideal of talents to choose from.

    Disrupting Shout
    Dragon Roar
    Avatar

    Level 15 Talents
    You aren't going to charge much. The choices for level 15 talents don't really matter, I personally chose Juggernaut because I prefer being able to charge every 12 seconds. Double Time could be a decent alternative if there are multiple adds on a fight (or attackable objects) that are spread around and you need to get across a room fast. Warbringer will only really be useful on a fight where you need to stun a mob, like the sons on Ragnaros for example.

    Level 30 Talents
    Second Wind is a great talent to choose from on progression or fights where you will be dipping low a lot. Impending Victory is another decent talent, but you will likely not be using it as often.

    Level 45 Talents
    These are all situation talents. Disrupting Shout is a great choice on fights where you can interrupt so you can use it as a back-up interrupt, or get two interrupts in a row on occasion.

    Level 60 Talents
    Dragon Roar is arguably one of the best talents to choose from in this tier. With cooldowns rolling and Skull Banner down, I've seen up to ~500k crits. Imagine that on fights with multiple targets. I haven't done much testing with Bladestorm, but I can imagine it being powerful on fights with a bunch of adds with health, such as Sha of Anger when you're AoEing.

    Level 70 Talents
    These too are situational talents. Vigilance could be used both as a cooldown on a tank and as an ability to get an easy Enrage every 2 minutes. Safeguard is a great talent to help with someone that will be needing a damage reduction cooldown, and Mass Spell Reflection is very situational, but could be useful on fights where Spell Reflect works.

    Level 90 Talents
    On most fights, you will be wanting to choose Avatar. The extra rage bonus is way too good, and the damage increase is great, too. Bloodbath needs to be tested more, but I can see it being a great ability paired with Bladestorm on AoE oriented fights.

    • Glyphs
    Compared to Cataclysm, there are now a handful of glyphs that you can use. However, mostly all of them are situational and should be used when needed on a specific encounter.

    Glyph of Sweeping Strikes
    Use on fights where you'll be using Sweeping Strikes for extra rage.

    Glyph of Enraged Speed
    Use on fights where movement is required.

    Glyph of Rude Interruption
    Use on fights where you will be interrupting.

    Glyph of Unending Rage
    Allows you to pool an extra 20 rage.

    Glyph of Overpower
    If you'll be cleaving on a fight, use this.

    Glyph of Death From Above
    Useful on fights where you'll be using Heroic Leap to get out of situations or to deal damage.

    Glyph of Colossus Smash
    Use if on Sunder duty.

    Glyph of Furious Sundering
    Use if on Sunder duty.

    Miscellaneous

    • Macro
    Below is a list of macros. Again, I will update this with more content later in the Beta.

    Code:
    /cast [target=focus]Pummel
    • Tips
    Below is a list of useful tips. I will edit this with more content later in the Beta.

    • If your cooldowns are close to coming back up, try to delay Dragon Roar and use it once you have your cooldowns rolling with Colossus Smash up. You will deal a lot of damage.
    • Shattering Throw is an important ability and a lot of people overlook it. If you're on progression, use it at the beginning of a fight or during lust to help with the raid DPS.
    • If you're an Orc, remember your racial and try to use an Axe. The extra bonus to Expertise is great.
    • When you're asked to drop a banner, drop it. Don't wait for a time where you'll have a free GCD to do it.
    • If your tank isn't taking a lot of damage and you don't need to use it as a cooldown, use Vigilance to get a free Enrage.
    • If you get a Taste for Blood proc, wait to use Overpower after a Moral Strike to attempt to stack your buff even further.

    Epilogue
    Thank you for reading my guide! As I said in the introduction, I will attempt to keep this as up to date as possible with the updates that roll out in the beta. In the future, I will try to work on a guide for Fury as well. I will also update the Macros and Tips section as the Beta and Expansion progresses.
    Last edited by Seramore; 2012-08-04 at 05:49 AM.

    Quote Originally Posted by Bigbazz
    MMO champion for example used to be the center of WoW theorycrafting

  2. #2
    Good stuff, unfortunately might be a little soon for that heh, the latest patch saw some changes for Enrage for instance.

    Anyway, couple things:

    - Since you have Dragon's Roar in your priority list, I'd say you should list Stormbolt as well. Crits for ~300k damage with trinkets procc'd.
    - Shout should be over CS with debuff up.
    - I feel there should be mention to only HS with 2 stacks over Slam if you don't suffer an empty GCD or the stacks are about to fall off anyway. Otherwise you may want to push and try to increase the DPR of HS further.
    - Regarding gemming, one thing to note is that the hybrid gems now offer about twice as much ratings as before, so maybe the answer isn't as clear cut anymore? Maybe orange gems could eventually be placed in red sockets depending on EP values...not sure.

    Anyway kudos for the guide.
    Cairne wanted to thank him again, to offer encouragement, praise for a task so successfully completed. For being able to bear such burdens. But Saurfang was an orc, not a blood elf, and lavish compliments and effusion would not be welcomed or wanted.

  3. #3
    Due to the recent patch notes, we may be to prioitize MS like on live since it procs enrage, but then again we can get a free enrage with Berserker Rage which you could pop right after the CS with it being off the GCD for the 10% damage on Dragons Roar and the rest of the rotation.

    Although I live Avatar , Bloodbath will have its uses, the stacking bleed will be nice, I just hope that they can fix any damage munching (like issues with Ignite).

  4. #4
    Colossus Smash also procs enrage. Also there are other things that push MS over CS on live and don't exist on beta: 4pc T13, MS hits way harder than CS (CS hits pretty hard on beta), LttS, Wrecking Crew and instantly applying a Rend tick.
    Cairne wanted to thank him again, to offer encouragement, praise for a task so successfully completed. For being able to bear such burdens. But Saurfang was an orc, not a blood elf, and lavish compliments and effusion would not be welcomed or wanted.

  5. #5
    Keyboard Turner Onomatomanic's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Jul 2012
    Location
    In the United States of America.
    Posts
    4
    You may want to include something about which stance Arms is using. I'm pretty sure it's battle stance but perhaps Berserker should the situation call for it, i.e on fights with a lot of incoming damage.

  6. #6
    You can barely keep a rotation in Battle Stance now. Berserker stance is just a dream with current tuning.
    Cairne wanted to thank him again, to offer encouragement, praise for a task so successfully completed. For being able to bear such burdens. But Saurfang was an orc, not a blood elf, and lavish compliments and effusion would not be welcomed or wanted.

  7. #7
    I am Murloc! Seramore's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Location
    Millbrae, California
    Posts
    5,036
    Quote Originally Posted by Onomatomanic View Post
    You may want to include something about which stance Arms is using. I'm pretty sure it's battle stance but perhaps Berserker should the situation call for it, i.e on fights with a lot of incoming damage.
    Stances are now completely different. Berserker Stance and Battle Stance are now no longer the stances that you once knew in Cataclysm and prior expansions. Both of these stances are now usable with both specs, and both are intended to be used for different situations. Battle Stance is a stance that is intended to be used the most; it now generates high rage from normal melee attacks and no longer gives a damage bonus. Berserker Stance is a stance that won’t be used as often as it used to be, and is intended to be used as a situational stance; it now generates some rage from normal melee attacks, and some rage from damage taken. This will likely be useful on some fights where there is damage going out to the raid multiple times
    1234567890

    Quote Originally Posted by Bigbazz
    MMO champion for example used to be the center of WoW theorycrafting

  8. #8
    Keyboard Turner Onomatomanic's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Jul 2012
    Location
    In the United States of America.
    Posts
    4
    Quote Originally Posted by Seramore View Post
    1234567890
    I apologize for missing it then. Good guide.
    Last edited by Onomatomanic; 2012-07-19 at 02:34 AM. Reason: Grammar.

  9. #9
    High Overlord
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Nov 2010
    Location
    Milwaukee, WI
    Posts
    138
    I do believe Stormbolt is way too underrated - 400% weapon damage every 30 seconds against bosses, doesn't reset swing timer, costs zero rage and only need to really line up with a CS.

    Avatar is a short duration with a long CD (probably the most useful on bosses with increased damage taken, such as Zon'ozz types, etc)
    Bloodbath (based on various posts I've seen with some math against Stormbolt is significantly weaker)

    As it stands though, I see stormbolt being the clear winner in a majority of fights.

    http://www.wow-heroes.com/character/...l/Deviltheory/
    “We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” - Plato
    http://www.twitch.tv/seanmphoward / http://www.youtube.com/user/ASoulByondRepair/videos

  10. #10
    The thing about avatar is the increased rage generation and the potential of lining up with cooldowns (Lust/Stormlash/Skull Banner/Reck). While I agree Stormbolt is underrated, I think it's hard to top that kind of sinergy.
    Cairne wanted to thank him again, to offer encouragement, praise for a task so successfully completed. For being able to bear such burdens. But Saurfang was an orc, not a blood elf, and lavish compliments and effusion would not be welcomed or wanted.

  11. #11
    According to Siguror's maths, Stormbolt is coming out as far and away the best level 90 talent to pick for PvE as it will net you way more damage over the course of a fight. While the rage generation in Avatar is great and allows you some more heroic strikes, it doesn't offset stormbolt's damage contribution.

    Also, arms really isn't competitive in PvE comparative to either fury spec.

    Quote Originally Posted by Siguror View Post
    he rage generation change breaks the level 90 talent tier. Now that Storm Bolt isn't displacing anything, it becomes a pure 400% weapon per 30 seconds.

    This means it does 800% weapon damage every minute. In order for Bloodbath to match that, you need to do 2666.7% weapon damage over 12 seconds, or ~333% weapon damage per GCD (assuming full GCDs). Considering that not all GCDs will be filled, and attacks do between 150%-200% weapon damage, Storm Bolt is some 50% better than Bloodbath.

    Storm Bolt does 2400% weapon damage every 3 minutes. With 60% Enrage uptime, Windfury Totem, and 12% Haste, Arms will generate 4 RPS from auto-attacks. Avatar will give 2 RPS for it's duration, which means 40 rage (i.e. 1.3 Slams). This means Avatar needs to do 2140% weapon damage from it's bonus damage modifier, or 10700% weapon damage over 20 seconds. Assuming 7 auto-attacks and 14 special attacks, that's an average of ~714.29% weapon damage per GCD to match Storm Bolt.
    Link to source: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...458015?page=15 Post #293
    Last edited by Flaks; 2012-07-19 at 06:34 PM.
    Quote Originally Posted by High Overlord Saurfang
    "I am he who watches they. I am the fist of retribution. That which does quell the recalcitrant. Dare you defy the Warchief? Dare you face my merciless judgement?"
    i7-6700 @2.8GHz | Nvidia GTX 960M | 16GB DDR4-2400MHz | 1 TB Toshiba SSD| Dell XPS 15

  12. #12
    High Overlord
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Nov 2010
    Location
    Milwaukee, WI
    Posts
    138
    Quote Originally Posted by Satori View Post
    The thing about avatar is the increased rage generation and the potential of lining up with cooldowns (Lust/Stormlash/Skull Banner/Reck). While I agree Stormbolt is underrated, I think it's hard to top that kind of sinergy.
    So it's better based on needing other things supporting it - it's just like Recklessness, great for burst, useless for the most part in the grand scheme of things. I'll take steady damage > RNG/Proc/Cooldown based damage anyday of the week.

    With the ability to change talents on the fly, I'm sure we'll see uses for all of them - but based on the napkin math I've seen, the gameplay I've done in beta and watching streams/talking to people (Landsoul and I had a lengthy discussion on this during a few of his recent streams) - Stormbolt seems the safest and most effective cooldown hands down.

    Avatar = highest potential damage - Stormboly = consistent, amazing, non-reliant on other things damage

    Edit: I realize useless is a rather bad word for recklessness, not sure how I want to word that, actually lol
    Last edited by Sentientsix; 2012-07-19 at 06:43 PM.

    http://www.wow-heroes.com/character/...l/Deviltheory/
    “We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” - Plato
    http://www.twitch.tv/seanmphoward / http://www.youtube.com/user/ASoulByondRepair/videos

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Flaks View Post
    According to Siguror's maths, Stormbolt is coming out as far and away the best level 90 talent to pick for PvE as it will net you way more damage over the course of a fight. While the rage generation in Avatar is great and allows you some more heroic strikes, it doesn't offset stormbolt's damage contribution.
    That's for the old enrage and rage generation formulas. Also his Avatar calculations don't discredit it's viability, you still have to math out the scenario of max rage+pop everything+dragon roar, etc. For a few other classes that I follow (ie: Shaman) and are blessed with active theorycrafters the on demand burst talents are pulling ahead, so I dunno.

    Quote Originally Posted by Sentientsix View Post
    With the ability to change talents on the fly, I'm sure we'll see uses for all of them - but based on the napkin math I've seen, the gameplay I've done in beta and watching streams/talking to people (Landsoul and I had a lengthy discussion on this during a few of his recent streams) - Stormbolt seems the safest and most effective cooldown hands down.
    Yeah hopefully Storm Bolt is indeed awesome, I love those Execute/Storm Bolt crits. I just can't refute the power of cooldown lining lol.
    Cairne wanted to thank him again, to offer encouragement, praise for a task so successfully completed. For being able to bear such burdens. But Saurfang was an orc, not a blood elf, and lavish compliments and effusion would not be welcomed or wanted.

  14. #14
    I am Murloc! Seramore's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Location
    Millbrae, California
    Posts
    5,036
    One thing about Avatar is that you have to remember that it buffs the shit out of Dragon Roar's damage. Another thing is that with our 4pc, Reck will be able to sync up with Avatar which will in turn, buff our damage even more.

    As for the comparison between Stormbolt and Avatar, here are two logs of my testing. I did a 5 minute test and later a ~3 minute test. I will do more, better tests once the servers go back up with the patch.

    Test 1, Stormbolt: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/d...ce/?s=44&e=347
    Test 1, Avatar: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/9...e/?s=434&e=738

    Test 2, Stormbolt: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/d...e/?s=618&e=743
    Test 2, Avatar: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/d...e/?s=820&e=981
    Last edited by Seramore; 2012-08-02 at 08:10 PM.

    Quote Originally Posted by Bigbazz
    MMO champion for example used to be the center of WoW theorycrafting

  15. #15
    Siguror's post was after the rage generation nerf and there hasn't been a change since. It doesn't take into account the new enrage but the overall difference won't be too much.

    Interesting parses Sera. I guess the enrage change would more beneficial towards Avatar. I'm not entirely sure why it comes out on top though. Stormbolt being used on cd should net you a huge amount of damage over all the abilities buffed by avatar.
    Last edited by Flaks; 2012-07-19 at 07:31 PM.
    Quote Originally Posted by High Overlord Saurfang
    "I am he who watches they. I am the fist of retribution. That which does quell the recalcitrant. Dare you defy the Warchief? Dare you face my merciless judgement?"
    i7-6700 @2.8GHz | Nvidia GTX 960M | 16GB DDR4-2400MHz | 1 TB Toshiba SSD| Dell XPS 15

  16. #16
    Brewmaster MORGATH99's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Sep 2010
    Location
    SOMEWHERE ONLY SHE KNOWS
    Posts
    1,296
    can we have a guide for fury warriors in mop like this one

  17. #17
    I'm not sure if four parses are really enough data here to make a decision. Also, why would reck "buff the shit" out of Dragon's Roar? Dragon's Roar always crits.

  18. #18
    20% extra damage on an already ridiculous hard hitting ability.

    Quote Originally Posted by Flaks View Post
    Siguror's post was after the rage generation nerf and there hasn't been a change since. It doesn't take into account the new enrage but the overall difference won't be too much.
    Rage from swings doesn't show up in tooltips, but GC mentioned increasing it a bit to 3 or 3.5.
    Cairne wanted to thank him again, to offer encouragement, praise for a task so successfully completed. For being able to bear such burdens. But Saurfang was an orc, not a blood elf, and lavish compliments and effusion would not be welcomed or wanted.

  19. #19
    I am Murloc! Seramore's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Location
    Millbrae, California
    Posts
    5,036
    Quote Originally Posted by Underskilled View Post
    I'm not sure if four parses are really enough data here to make a decision. Also, why would reck "buff the shit" out of Dragon's Roar? Dragon's Roar always crits.
    I mixed Reck up with Skull Banner when I said that, my b.

    Quote Originally Posted by Bigbazz
    MMO champion for example used to be the center of WoW theorycrafting

  20. #20
    Banned Video Games's Avatar
    15+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Location
    Portland (send help)
    Posts
    16,130
    Do we know if arms is going to be better than fury? I honestly don't even care, I just need to min/max at 90 asap.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •