Is Mace Spec really terrible?

[DStaller]

After the Armor Pen buff I figured Mace Spec was ahead of Poleaxe. Jawbone dropped tonight and now I'm seeing all these posts about how mace spec blows and the Skull-Clad (my previous wep) does more dps. Should I stick with Mace Spec and Jawbone over Poleaxe and Skull-clad?

[Haxx0r]

Mace spec does indeed, blow. Polearms ftw.

[Unbreacable]

Well Mr. "Kungen" if he really is (but I don't care) is right.But you should stick to jawbone because it's a better weapon than the Cleaver.If you can get some nice polearm/axe maybe betrayer you would pwn in the dps meters. ;D

[Haxx0r]

Well Mr. "Kungen" if he really is (but I don't care) is right.

That was my old sig. It was just commenting on how he has 100 mana. LOL. I just found it hilarious. I'm not really him.

[BrotherGriMM]

this isn't a clear cut case as a lot of this depends on your current crit and armour pen. basically you'll see higher top end weapon damage and actual damage from your abilities (assuming basic stats) with the jawbone, you just wont crit as often, however with skull clad you'll find that your individual abilities will not cause as much damage but will crit more often, therefore a bit of number crunching is in order!

i'm nto great with numbers but i have been told by a few people who are very good with numbers that the Jawbone will give a DPS increase based on baseline stats.

[Craz]

I've tested mace spec. It's pretty nice, but it varies depending on your gear and enemies armor. But with my current gear vs lvl 80 test dummy my dmg per hit goes up around 8.3%.

In PvE you have way higher crit rate which lets you benefit from the +5% dmg on crits more. In PvP gear you have low crit after calculating in enemies resilience. And crits in pvp do a lot less dmg, making the 5% extra dmg on crits benefit less.

Axe gets better with high crit gear(pve).
Mace gets better vs high armor (pvp).

Let's say you have 0% crit. Going axe spec will bring you up to 5% crit. And axe spec gives +5% extra dmg on crit.. which you'd only get 5% of the time. (you'd see slightly over 5% dps increase)

If you had 95% before axe spec and 100% after. You'd gain +5% crit and you'd have +5% dmg on every crit as well which would be every attack. (you'd see 10% dps increase)

[Mysmere]

8/10 top warriors prefer axe spec! dentist recommended etc

[Dedweight]

Mace spec isn't horrible, its just Poleaxe spec is better in most cases, I've heard maces only pull ahead when you have a bass 30% ArPen from gear.

With that said, my warrior is mace spec all though I don't have the gear for it I just don't have an Axe to use.

[Crimsonak]

After the Armor Pen buff I figured Mace Spec was ahead of Poleaxe. Jawbone dropped tonight and now I'm seeing all these posts about how mace spec blows and the Skull-Clad (my previous wep) does more dps. Should I stick with Mace Spec and Jawbone over Poleaxe and Skull-clad?

For something as significant as the difference between Jawbone and Skull-Clad Cleaver.
Mace is better. This is a very specific situation because not only does Jawbone bo more DPS.
It also has a slower swing speed.
However, in most normal situations Axe > Mace by a large margin. Just so happens that you're in one of the few situations where the weapon is such a big upgrade the spec you're in becomes somewhat irrelevant in relation to it.

[Rax]

Graz's math is wrong, but the point remains valid. Mace and Axe are extremely close in PVP, and Axe is a fair amount better in PVE. Jawbone is still a really good weapon, though, since it has such a great top end. But if you get the chance to grab any Axe with similar damage definitely go for it. I'd say anything from Ulduar 10 and up will be a huge upgrade; check out Hodir's axe for example.

[RPZip]

Axe is always better in PvE, but weapon stats/DPS may outweigh it. They do in this case.

[Ezek!el]

I was in a similar situation i had the titansteal destroyer and skull clad for fury gear, got jawbone, went arms 3.1 with the jawbone just because auf the higher top end and better stats.
By now i got black ice which puts at about 38% crit unbuffed and a weapon that is metal