does fury out-aoe arms on 4+ targets?

[Fitsu]

From what I understand, arms only has the cleave-lead because of sweeping strikes which is only 2 targets so with the recent raging blow buff and the fact we can hit 4 targets with our raging blow (3 ww procs) does fury infact out-do arms when there are this many or more targets around?

Also, are there any fights where arms out-does fury in effective dps (like, I don't really care about how much dps I do to garrosh adds in p1 as they die anyway) as I can't really think of a fight where id rather be arms than fury.

[Jaceo]

You are forgetting Slam hits all targets within 2 yards when Sweeping Strikes is up plus Deep Wounds can be applied to all targets via Thunderclap as Arms. WoL is a good start to work this out for yourself. Compare Arms to Fury DPS ranks, you will find Arms will win most encounters with high cleave or AoE uptime.

Effective DPS is an interesting term used these days. Many people over used it along with the word padding. If something needs to die including adds in an encounter then it is effective DPS and not padding because guess what? If you don't assist with killing it someone else will! Ineffective DPS or padding is when you are killing a targets which doesn't need to be killed OR dpsing it hurts the raid through some form of mechanic ie increases raid damage taken.

http://www.worldoflogs.com/rankings/...Orgrimmar/dps/

[Fitsu]

I agree with that about effective DPS, what I meant though was for instance the Garrosh fight be I arms or fury the adds will die well within time they need to meaning although as arms I would be doing more DPS, the real time we actually need DPS is during phases 2 and 3 where your single-target pushing Garrosh therefore in terms of effective DPS fury would be better. I guess in hindsight it's a foolish question to ask if anyone knows when arms is better than fury because it's a decision that needs to be made based on your raid, I guess galakras could be another example... Do we need more DPS for adds? Go arms, are adds going fine but we struggle with the dragon? Go fury.

Either way, it's clear I had a bit of brain-lag and forgot about a lot of the arms aoe stuff so it's clearly still the leader for cleaving.

[Archimtiros]

Effective DPS is an interesting term used these days. Many people over used it along with the word padding. If something needs to die including adds in an encounter then it is effective DPS and not padding because guess what? If you don't assist with killing it someone else will! Ineffective DPS or padding is when you are killing a targets which doesn't need to be killed OR dpsing it hurts the raid through some form of mechanic ie increases raid damage taken.

Well said.
Unfortunately its a hard thing to measure. What with every class having such diverse mechanics, especially when it comes to AoE damage.
Complicate that with the fact that things such as WoL rankings, Epeenbot, even Recount and Skada put a large emphasis on your individual, total damage; people will tend to do whatever they can to look better than the next.

Padding is wasted DPS. Damage that does not influence the encounter one way or another. Good example would be Paragons. They heal with each death, so any damage done to Paragons you aren't killing is wasted. Magaera is another example. Many people would attack both heads. The phase changes after one dies, so that is completely wasted, or "padded" dps.

What is not padded DPS is for example: Sha of Pride adds (reflections). They need to die, so damage done to them is not wasted, even though damage to the boss itself is more important to the encounter.

Effective DPS is thrown around a lot more, and I have taken a habit to using it myself. There are two ways to consider it.

1) Damage done to influence the encounter one way or another. Killing a single or wave of adds quickly (when it needs to be) can be effective dps if there is a negative impact on the encounter should you fail. Killing adds on Norushen is effective; because they give you more corruption which lowers your damage, which makes the encounter more difficult/impossible as you'll hit enrage without enough damage.

2) Damage done to see the encounter end. This usually means boss damage. Yes killing adds on Sha helps. But it doesn't really matter. Theoretically you could have 100 reflections spawn on Sha, run around and beat on people. If you had enough health/healing/tanks, you could just stack them to infinity while you wail on the boss.

What does this mean?
The term Padding gets misused a lot, but just because some damage is necessary doesn't always mean it is effective. Likewise just because some damage isn't going to end the encounter sooner doesn't mean it is wasted. It is all a matter of perspective.
The only way to really handle it, is to approach the fights logically, hopefully as part of a well working team. Not every class needs to go AoE spec for Heroic Malkorok to handle adds. You likely won't have enough damage to kill the boss if you do. Assigning specific people to handle them, and intelligently sharing the load, will serve your raid group better.
Unfortunately this means that some people simply won't look as good as others because they didn't kill the adds.

Example 1, Tortos: My guild always kited adds. I only single target the boss and get mediocre rankings, because I don't AoE, but we kill the boss.
The Rogue in guild constantly AoE's the bats when they fly by, and completely focuses on them during the last 20% or so of the boss. This can sometimes pull aggro and get himself or others killed; but he gets better rankings and thus looks better on the boss.
This is an example of both effective damage and padding.

Example 2, Ra-den: My guild is melee heavy and so we assigned 2-3 melee to kill the add, while another 2-3 focused the boss. If I am focusing the boss and I decide to whirlwind/rb combo the add, or even swap to it a bit; the damage isn't pad since the add needs to die, but it isn't exactly effective either, since the add will die regardless and I would likely do higher single target damage to the boss and end the encounter sooner by solely focusing it. Even more when you count the casters who will dot both adds, boss and focus damage the orbs.

Edit:
Lastly a mention for Galakras and Garrosh, since its in this tier.

Galakras I would say Arms is the better of the two because the add portion of the fight is by and large the most important aspect of the fight. The dragon at the end is a joke really compared to how easily the adds can overwhelm a group who doesn't have the damage to kill them fast enough.

Garrosh is harder to say. The add damage in phase 1 is important because without enough of it, it could be easy for adds to stack up and over run a group. We actually had this issue on our first couple of attempts (though that was more because the shaman was healing, its still possible, if unlikely).
If that is a problem, Arms is more viable. However, everything after Phase 1 highly favors Fury's single target, though there are small intermittent AoE aspects. I don't think anyone is quite as good at breaking out MC's quickly as an Arms Warrior. One Slam with SS will do the trick if the group is stacked right. But this two is largely wasted.
The last couple of weeks, most Warriors, myself included went Arms on Garrosh because 1) adds, and 2) Arms single target was not very far behind Fury at all.
This week I plan to try Fury on him, with the Fury ST buffs I think Fury would be overall competitive with Arms, even without the massive amount of damage Arms puts out in P1. Fury can also use Bladestorm to help in P1 without losing much ST damage at all, if needed.

[Damosapien]

im almost certain arms is better (on garrosh), last week i was arms on garrosh and not only did i do more aoe than our fury warrior and everyone except our druid tank, i also out single targeted everyone except our druid tank, i highly doubt the buff can close a gap of 131million over 101million.

although maybe he was just having a shit day as i out single targeted him on paragons too and he outgears me.

[Jaceo]

I guess in hindsight it's a foolish question to ask if anyone knows when arms is better than fury because it's a decision that needs to be made based on your raid, I guess galakras could be another example... Do we need more DPS for adds? Go arms, are adds going fine but we struggle with the dragon? Go fury.

This is spot on! Go with w/e will get your guild the kill. Are you multidot heavy then maybe Fury would be better to focus the boss down. Are the adds taking too long to down then maybe Arms would be better. If all raiders were to think like this we would progress at a faster rate

@Archimtiros

Holy crap that's an essay but I did read it and you covered the two terms well. As always if it gets the boss killed that's all that really matters!

[Archimtiros]

I have a habit of starting to write posts, taking a break and coming back a couple times, tabbing around while camping rares. It makes me long winded some times.

[Sagittary]

I have a habit of starting to write posts, taking a break and coming back a couple times, tabbing around while camping rares. It makes me long winded some times.

What he's saying is that he has to wait for Collision to show up and confirm his suspicions before he posts

[Archimtiros]

Psh, maybe if I want to change my mind three times a day!
If I posted everything Collision said we'd be having dissertations on Euro-American politics, rural education rates, and beards.
Hmm maybe we should leave in the part about beards. But the rest is decidedly un-warrior like. Warriors don't need that smarty pants stuff.
Hail and kill!

[Enpoli]

Fury is competitive or possible even better than Arms in short burst AoE. If all you need is a Bloodbath+Bladestorm every minute or more, I wouldn't switch to Arms for that fight. Even on a fight that is largely only 2 targets (Dark Shaman), it is better to go Arms. The sustained cleave of Sweeping Strikes, Deep Wounds (though to be really pro you should be alternating Mortal Strike targets with only 2 enemies), and Slam cleave is much higher than the clunky WW + Raging Blow combo for Fury.

As for Garrosh, if you're still progressing on this boss (don't have him down to easymode farm status) then you should be Fury. Plenty of classes have sufficient AoE that if they need you to be doing the heavy lifting to push phase 1, then I doubt your raid's chances during phase 2 and 3. If he's on farm, then go arms and pad them meters! I would also disagree with the comment that Arms is better than Fury for breaking people out of the MC's in phase 2 and 3. Just throw out a Whirlwind or two before the MC's go out and drop a Raging Blow on them. Dragon Roar also works exceptionally well to break people out. Either way, breaking people out of MC's isn't exactly a relevant dps check, and not something for which you should be choosing your spec for that fight.

[maxalyss]

From what I understand, arms only has the cleave-lead because of sweeping strikes which is only 2 targets so with the recent raging blow buff and the fact we can hit 4 targets with our raging blow (3 ww procs) does fury infact out-do arms when there are this many or more targets around?

Also, are there any fights where arms out-does fury in effective dps (like, I don't really care about how much dps I do to garrosh adds in p1 as they die anyway) as I can't really think of a fight where id rather be arms than fury.

In 5.4 there is no scenario where Fury will outdps Arms. It is just wishful thinking on Fury's part.

Solution: Go Arms, and I've been waiting 4 patches to be able to say that again. I'm so happy Arms finally blows away lolfury again.

[terkhal]

In 5.4 there is no scenario where Fury will outdps Arms. It is just wishful thinking on Fury's part.

Solution: Go Arms, and I've been waiting 4 patches to be able to say that again. I'm so happy Arms finally blows away lolfury again.

lol.

/10char

[Archimtiros]

In 5.4 there is no scenario where Fury will outdps Arms. It is just wishful thinking on Fury's part.

Solution: Go Arms, and I've been waiting 4 patches to be able to say that again. I'm so happy Arms finally blows away lolfury again.

Completely untrue. In fact fury is better for the majority of both normal and heroic encounters. That isn't to say that Arms is not competitive however, it is in a better place than it has been in recent years.

The only real problem with Arms is that it's exceptional cleave is very positional specific. The tiny radius on SS and Slam-Cleave is rediculius when competitive classes (warlock/Ele sham) are not restricted. This is a reason Fury beats Arms on many leave friendly fights such as Shaman. It's highly unlikely that they will be within cleave range unless your doing Flex/Normal maybe.

[Partyhats]

In 5.4 there is no scenario where Fury will outdps Arms. It is just wishful thinking on Fury's part.

Solution: Go Arms, and I've been waiting 4 patches to be able to say that again. I'm so happy Arms finally blows away lolfury again.

Blackfuse. Paragons. Thok. Sha of Pride (Bladestorm with CD Trinket is up for every Reflection and should be enough to kill them). Those are just the obvious. Arms cleave is fairly specific in it's usefulness, as outlined by Archimtiros.

[Bigbazz]

Deep wounds is a massive ammount of damage and even thunderclap hits like a truck (150k + crits per target), then you have slam that hits everything (though small radius) while SS is up, Arms is way ahead. Single target though, the more gear you get the more Arms falls behind.

Fights like Sha of Pride the AOE adds aren't up long enough for thunderclap + deep wounds to make any difference at all, they're dead within a bladestorm making fury better since it has superior single target. Arms is only ahead on single target in low end gear.

[Mihalik]

I think people undervalue Thunderclap for Arms a bit.
On fights like Shamans, Thunderclap is your go to ability to spread Deep Wounds safely, on things like the little green oozes. This is not really Padding because someone still has to kill them a few Deep Wounds ticks count.

Sha of Pride, again Thunderclap will help you out AoE Fury. The trick is being really quick about it, and slaming the button while you are moving away, as you have a brief window, before the adds pop up, when you can damage them, but they don't burst out yet. This will apply Deep Wounds to all targets, so when you are Bloodstorming them, the damage they receive will increase substantially.

For both of the above cases thanks to the long intervals between effective Thunderclaps, you can use Resonating Power as a third glyph for some extra damage. But on Dark Shamans if you are tanking them together, Glyph of Sweeping Strikes will be better.

[Bigbazz]

I think people undervalue Thunderclap for Arms a bit.
On fights like Shamans, Thunderclap is your go to ability to spread Deep Wounds safely, on things like the little green oozes. This is not really Padding because someone still has to kill them a few Deep Wounds ticks count.

Sha of Pride, again Thunderclap will help you out AoE Fury. The trick is being really quick about it, and slaming the button while you are moving away, as you have a brief window, before the adds pop up, when you can damage them, but they don't burst out yet. This will apply Deep Wounds to all targets, so when you are Bloodstorming them, the damage they receive will increase substantially.

For both of the above cases thanks to the long intervals between effective Thunderclaps, you can use Resonating Power as a third glyph for some extra damage. But on Dark Shamans if you are tanking them together, Glyph of Sweeping Strikes will be better.

This isn't true, on targets that die quickly it's better to use bladestorm than to use thunderclap, I've made the mistake of thunderclapping to apply deep wounds before bladestorm and the adds dying before the end of the bladestorm, whilst other warriors make big gains by simply using bladestorm only. If you consider that Fury is already at an advantage for the rest of the fight, that 5-6 seconds of AOE every 1 minute is not near enough for arms to pull ahead.

For Arms to pull ahead the other dps would have to pretty much ignore the AOE adds so that the Arms warrior gets enough uptime for TC + DW + Bladestorm, when in reality they often die within a Bladestorm duration.


On Dark Shamans it's probably better to simply swap targets and apply deep wounds with Mortal Strike.

[maxalyss]

Blackfuse. Paragons. Thok. Sha of Pride (Bladestorm with CD Trinket is up for every Reflection and should be enough to kill them). Those are just the obvious. Arms cleave is fairly specific in it's usefulness, as outlined by Archimtiros.

http://raidbots.com/dpsbot/Paragons_...14/60/default/

Check them all. I found one fight where Fury beats Arms and it's Blackfuse. These are real people. (I hope)

[Deleted]

Check them all. I found one fight where Fury beats Arms and it's Blackfuse. These are real people. (I hope)

Hmm ... should i reply in the same trollish manner? or ..... tough decision.

The Paragons fight is not an aoe/cleave fight, it's a fight where you must focus dps on certain targets. The fact that ppl can cleave their heart out is not a clear indicator that arms is best there.

[Kalmah]

http://raidbots.com/dpsbot/Paragons_...14/60/default/

Check them all. I found one fight where Fury beats Arms and it's Blackfuse. These are real people. (I hope)

http://raidbots.com/dpsbot/Iron_Jugg...14/60/default/
http://raidbots.com/dpsbot/Iron_Jugg...14/60/default/

Pure single-target. Fury crushes arms so hard, it's a bit sad.

Heroic Malkorok barely has any arms parses at all, probably because it's so far behind fury...

http://raidbots.com/dpsbot/Malkorok/...14/60/default/
http://raidbots.com/dpsbot/Malkorok/...14/60/default/

So yeah, I think it's pretty safe to say that fury is ahead of arms for single-target.