When 'should' you change from Arms to Fury?

[kelnoctis]

I'm not saying you 'should' swap to fury at any given point, but hypothetically speaking.. what sort of gear is required for you to actually make a DPS gain in fury, provided you can play both specs equally as well?

I've tried at 528 iLvl with titans grip and I found it to be more a struggle and much more effort to keep up the DPS in fury than Arms.. I can pull about 150k single target in arms at the before mentioned iLvl, yet i'm hovering around 130k in Fury.

Am I right in thinking I should probably wait until I'm in normal gear on my warrior (553+ MH/OH) before I swap to fury spec/have it as a viable off spec?

And any warriors who are knowledgeable in fury.. (I'm not, i've always preferred Arms play style, yet sometimes I like to compromise if it means I can be more valuable to the raid team) What are the differences between single minded fury and titans grip in terms of play style? I could google this, but I want an opinion from someone that's actually properly experienced both.

Thanks in advance

[Fog]

I guess there's some magic number when fury starts pulling ahead of arms. Some say 30% crit unbuffed, some say 550 ilvl, some even say 565 ilvl.
The clue is what you make of it. Fury is without a doubt harder to play than arms, so don't expect that you will do better in fury right away.
The thing is that arms is very forgiving when you mess up, fury isn't. You switch when you feel it's time.

[Gandrake]

Some people are gonna say "when you have gear", but I'm going to say when you have a very good feel for the priority system, incoming and outgoing rage, two good trinkets and a pretty decent chunk of crit rating. There really is not much point to playing Fury if you aren't going to play it right. It's a bit more complex than Arms, and Arms was doing pretty decent damage the last time I checked anyway. Fury is just a spec that really rewards players who utilize everything it has to offer. It doesn't give much more to those who don't even though it's still more than possible for those players to put out okay numbers.

As for the difference between SMF and TG? The last time I was playing Fury, it was that SMF has a better Execute and in large groups TG does significantly better AE damage, making SMF for single target and TG for big cleave. I'm not sure anymore with some of the changes brought on in the Siege of Orgrimmar patch, but I am sure there are more Warriors around who can answer this particular question more adequately

[Fog]

As for the difference between SMF and TG? The last time I was playing Fury, it was that SMF has a better Execute and in large groups TG does significantly better AE damage, making SMF for single target and TG for big cleave. I'm not sure anymore with some of the changes brought on in the Siege of Orgrimmar patch, but I am sure there are more Warriors around who can answer this particular question more adequately

Execute has been nerfed so much SMF don't have a real benefit from it. You're right that TG has always been better at aoe than SMF, and that's the case now as well.
What makes TG excell now is the buff to Storm Bolt. It does insane amount of damage, with both your weapons. It scales from pure weapon damage, which makes TG the clear choice. The added SMF bonus is not enough to dish out 2 million damage between the 2 weapon effects.

[kelnoctis]

I see Well yeh, I did find fury a little harder to play, I guess it was made even harder by not having an optimal amount of crit. I guess i'll go back and try it again when i've got some more crit and higher iLvl weapons for Titans Grip. Thanks for the replies.

[sjsctt]

Collision and I talked about this the other day. Even in high end gear, a mediocre arms warrior can probably keep up with a mediocre fury and beat him on aoe heavy fights. The error threshhold for arms is much higher than it is for fury. Yes--fury when played well will smoke arms at the highest gear levels, but particularly in low to mid-high gear levels, arms is very capable of keeping up in the hands of a novice player (novice fury and novice arms.) Do not mis-interperet -- fury will beat arms at high gear levels in a skilled player's hands.

TLDR: Perfect play -- fury pulls ahead around the 565 i level mark. Exception -- if the i level of your weapon >>> the reset of your gear (at which point arms beats fury)

[Mogai]

Execute has been nerfed so much SMF don't have a real benefit from it. You're right that TG has always been better at aoe than SMF, and that's the case now as well.
What makes TG excell now is the buff to Storm Bolt. It does insane amount of damage, with both your weapons. It scales from pure weapon damage, which makes TG the clear choice. The added SMF bonus is not enough to dish out 2 million damage between the 2 weapon effects.

on that subject. how far behind is SMF to TG these days? i want try it for fun but i don't have the weapons to try it yet. and obv i don't want my dps to suffer to much

[Archimtiros]

This question comes up every few months. ilvl isn't as big a factor as people like to think.
It really comes down to two things; your Crit and Weapons. Fury is very sub-optimal with 1hrs this tier and is also very reliant on Crit to have a reliable rotation.

I generally tell people to start swapping over to Fury once they have ~30% unbuffed Crit and 2 good 2hrs.

[Deleted]

It's gonna depend on your Rotation too my friend. both specs are equally good in some situations and the moment where you should change or when i would do it is when you have the best weapons on both hands. For example since i rarely do normal / heroic / flex i have the Two handed axe's of Garrosh on LFr and upgraded them, if i should compare that with just 1 then fury does more dmg single target.

[Warriorsarri]

Just wondering, if you find Arms to be more fun, why would you switch at all? Arms is just as good as Fury on all of the hard encounters this tier.

[Flalia4]

Just wondering, if you find Arms to be more fun, why would you switch at all? Arms is just as good as Fury on all of the hard encounters this tier.

Well I don't know about OP but I love arms but if TG fury IS better dps then I want to play that because my dps affects the raid group.

[Warriorsarri]

Single target, sure Fury is better, but on any sort of cleave/AoE arms blows fury out of the water.

I've managed to become the Third best dps warrior in the world (west) while playing Arms, so saying that it is sub-optimal is far from true.

[sjsctt]

Well I don't know about OP but I love arms but if TG fury IS better dps then I want to play that because my dps affects the raid group.

With excellent play, on both burst aoe and single target, yes. For most players, they can probably do just as well, if not better on arms than fury. The margin of error is larger on Arms. It is really not in a bad spot. Hell, you can be a god on some fights!

[Deleted]

If you have no idea how to play fury or dont really feel comfortable playing it you're not really gonna do higher DPS is you feel very comfortable playing Arms and like other people said Fury playstyle is more complex than Arms.

[Trubo]

This question comes up every few months. ilvl isn't as big a factor as people like to think.
It really comes down to two things; your Crit and Weapons. Fury is very sub-optimal with 1hrs this tier and is also very reliant on Crit to have a reliable rotation.

I generally tell people to start swapping over to Fury once they have ~30% unbuffed Crit and 2 good 2hrs.

Hrm, I currently have a heroic warforged Malk axe and may get another heroic warforged weapon from Paragons this week. Been toying with the idea of going SMF until I get a heroic warforged 2h since my current options are either swim in expertise I can't reforge away or just play with 7.5%/6.5% and screw missing on Raging Blow.

That or just go back to Arms for Garrosh considering all the adds that spawn during the fight.

[Archimtiros]

Hrm, I currently have a heroic warforged Malk axe and may get another heroic warforged weapon from Paragons this week. Been toying with the idea of going SMF until I get a heroic warforged 2h since my current options are either swim in expertise I can't reforge away or just play with 7.5%/6.5% and screw missing on Raging Blow.

That or just go back to Arms for Garrosh considering all the adds that spawn during the fight.

7.5/6.5 is perfectly acceptable, as has been pointed out a dozen times this tier.
As for 1h HWF vs 2h H; I'm not sure which would be better without simming though gut tells me the HWF.
For Garrosh, Fury is much better. Not only in overall DPS but specifically boss damage. Lastly, most of the adds on that fight die very quickly, within Bladestorm, so Arms doesn't really have a chance to shine.

[Trubo]

7.5/6.5 is perfectly acceptable, as has been pointed out a dozen times this tier.

I know, I just feel OCD about not being expertise capped with my OH.

As for 1h HWF vs 2h H; I'm not sure which would be better without simming though gut tells me the HWF.
For Garrosh, Fury is much better. Not only in overall DPS but specifically boss damage. Lastly, most of the adds on that fight die very quickly, within Bladestorm, so Arms doesn't really have a chance to shine.

Well this'll largely depend on whether or not Paragons drop a HWF weapon that neither of our tanks want. All our DKs currently have Norushen weapon (think one may be missing a single HWF weapon) so I don't think I'd have any competition. As for the Arms bit I was mostly thinking of the Jade Temple vision but guess it's not worth going Arms for such a small portion of the fight.

[Archimtiros]

I know, I just feel OCD about not being expertise capped with my OH.



Well this'll largely depend on whether or not Paragons drop a HWF weapon that neither of our tanks want. All our DKs currently have Norushen weapon (think one may be missing a single HWF weapon) so I don't think I'd have any competition. As for the Arms bit I was mostly thinking of the Jade Temple vision but guess it's not worth going Arms for such a small portion of the fight.

Bladestorm and then some single target should carry you through your group of adds fairly easily. Charge (or leap) -> BS + AoE interrupt; depending on health of the mobs remaining, follow with CS and RB's. If you need another interrupt and group can't cover, fill with Storm Bolt.
As Arms you could handicap the damage of your group more with cleaves but the dps requirement isn't really that high, its the interrupt coordination that gets most groups.

[Bloodletters]

Just wondering, if you find Arms to be more fun, why would you switch at all? Arms is just as good as Fury on all of the hard encounters this tier.

I'd say Fury is better for Seigecrafter, Paragons and Garrosh which are the three hard fights of the tier. If you're on belt duty with Seigecrafter you'll do more damage as Fury to the primary targets. On Paragons, its all about single target maximization so Fury is much better for that fight as well. Same deal with Garrosh, there is some fairly important AOE but the single target damage far outweighs it.

[Archimtiros]

I'd say Fury is better for Seigecrafter, Paragons and Garrosh which are the three hard fights of the tier. If you're on belt duty with Seigecrafter you'll do more damage as Fury to the primary targets. On Paragons, its all about single target maximization so Fury is much better for that fight as well. Same deal with Garrosh, there is some fairly important AOE but the single target damage far outweighs it.

Believe it or not, for Belt duty, Arms can be just as good or possibly even better.
If you have a bigger belt group (4), chances are the mob will die within a single CS. If you run a light belt group (2), Arms can potentially be better as its DPS doesn't suffer outside of CS. I'm sure Sarri will add more.

That said, I personally think Fury is better all around. Arms certainly isn't terrible in the hands of an expert, but Fury does shine on single target and burst. Burst matters more on progression, especially when pushing phases and other mechanics. I think Arms starts to shine more on farm once you have a solid grasp on timing and uptime, such as with adds; knowing Deep Wounds and Sweeping Strikes timing (whereas Fury simply Bladestorms and maybe does a bit of Meat Cleaving).