HFC Warrior DPS Boss-by-Boss Guide

[fearmemortals]

You are ignoring the fact that the whole point of the spreadsheet/this thread is to NOT make blanket rules but look at each boss individually. I also disagree with fury being the be-all and end-all single target choice this tier. The closest thing you get to patchwork in HFC are Iron Reaver and Fel Lord Zakuun, both of which I think arms is the superior specc.

Your spreadsheet is pretty generalised. There is nothing about cool down usage or ideal ways to handle specific spawns or mechanics to optimise dps. It's just a list of what spec to play on which fight with pretty standard talents and glyphs. Also unless you're in a guild that has cleared at least 13/13H at this point, by the time you end up having to do serious progression on single target Fury will be the stronger choice. Arms is only looking good right now on single target because of the massive boost you get just by equipping the 4pc that is propping it up.

[Gangster021]

Edit the Monnoroth fight..its aoe fight and stormbold and bloodbath not working..

[fuguki]

Your spreadsheet is pretty generalised. There is nothing about cool down usage or ideal ways to handle specific spawns or mechanics to optimise dps. It's just a list of what spec to play on which fight with pretty standard talents and glyphs. Also unless you're in a guild that has cleared at least 13/13H at this point, by the time you end up having to do serious progression on single target Fury will be the stronger choice. Arms is only looking good right now on single target because of the massive boost you get just by equipping the 4pc that is propping it up.

You are flat out wrong when you say there is nothing about cooldown usage or ideal ways to handle specific spawns or mechanics.

Here is the simulations from Simulationcraft for T18 Heroic gear(which you'll most likely be using for mythic progression):
http://i.imgur.com/I30Tvlx.png

I just took the data from their website. Arms and Fury simming very close for single target. Then you have to look at the encounters aswell: Zakuun is 100% an arms fight in my opinion because you have a burn phase. Iron Reaver is personal preference with both speccs having their own merits(Arms has sweeping strikes mine cleave, while fury has a higher health pool from two 2h and enraged speed glyph)

Even if Fury pulls ahead with higher item levels you probably won't be significantly above 715 avg ilvl before killing Iron Reaver on mythic, and Zakuun is, in my opinion, an arms fight hands down.

TL;DR Arms is definitely a valid choice for single target encounters in HFC.

[Archimtiros]

You are flat out wrong when you say there is nothing about cooldown usage or ideal ways to handle specific spawns or mechanics.

Here is the simulations from Simulationcraft for T18 Heroic gear(which you'll most likely be using for mythic progression):
http://i.imgur.com/I30Tvlx.png

I just took the data from their website. Arms and Fury simming very close for single target. Then you have to look at the encounters aswell: Zakuun is 100% an arms fight in my opinion because you have a burn phase. Iron Reaver is personal preference with both speccs having their own merits(Arms has sweeping strikes mine cleave, while fury has a higher health pool from two 2h and enraged speed glyph)

Even if Fury pulls ahead with higher item levels you probably won't be significantly above 715 avg ilvl before killing Iron Reaver on mythic, and Zakuun is, in my opinion, an arms fight hands down.

TL;DR Arms is definitely a valid choice for single target encounters in HFC.

It's a valid choice, but I think the major point is that they are close enough that there is no overwhelming need to play one over the other, such as you might see in other classes where one spec vastly out performs its competition.

This is why I said earlier that you should play your spreadsheet to both angles. A lot of the information is either very generic or accounts for both specs anyways, so there really isn't any harm, and hardly any extra work in it. However, simply making a blanket "play Arms" doesn't help anyone who simply doesn't want to play Arms.

Personally speaking, I won't play Arms on a pure ST fight because it feels like ass to play on single target. MS resets aren't reliable enough to keep pressing it, and WW isn't strong enough to bother pressing it when you might get an MS reset, leaving it very bland and boring to play. I'll take the 3-5k dps drop, because that isn't going to make or break the fight (and if it does, something else went horribly wrong and needs to be corrected anyways).

[fearmemortals]

It's a valid choice, but I think the major point is that they are close enough that there is no overwhelming need to play one over the other, such as you might see in other classes where one spec vastly out performs its competition.

This is why I said earlier that you should play your spreadsheet to both angles. A lot of the information is either very generic or accounts for both specs anyways, so there really isn't any harm, and hardly any extra work in it. However, simply making a blanket "play Arms" doesn't help anyone who simply doesn't want to play Arms.

Personally speaking, I won't play Arms on a pure ST fight because it feels like ass to play on single target. MS resets aren't reliable enough to keep pressing it, and WW isn't strong enough to bother pressing it when you might get an MS reset, leaving it very bland and boring to play. I'll take the 3-5k dps drop, because that isn't going to make or break the fight (and if it does, something else went horribly wrong and needs to be corrected anyways).

Well when you start getting up there in gear it'll be the 3-5k dps loss to play arms on ST

[fuguki]

It's a valid choice, but I think the major point is that they are close enough that there is no overwhelming need to play one over the other, such as you might see in other classes where one spec vastly out performs its competition.

This is why I said earlier that you should play your spreadsheet to both angles. A lot of the information is either very generic or accounts for both specs anyways, so there really isn't any harm, and hardly any extra work in it. However, simply making a blanket "play Arms" doesn't help anyone who simply doesn't want to play Arms.

I think both speccs are viable for almost every encounter. I wasn't trying to bash on fury, but rather make the point that arms is definitely not worse on ST encounters in HFC. I'm sorry if I came across like that, I just felt that there were a lot of people who thought(and still think) that single is synonymous with fury. It's definitely a luxury problem when we can play both speccs for almost anything. Cheers to that!

Also, looking forward to testing fury t17 4p on Assault mythic this week, I have a strong feeling that it will shine very bright, but I want to try it out first before changing the guide.

[Archimtiros]

Well when you start getting up there in gear it'll be the 3-5k dps loss to play arms on ST

What? I think you meant Fury, since Arms out performs Fury at the moment. The only time Fury will out perform Arms is close to BiS mythic, with Ring, etc; and I accounted for that in my paragraph where I said I would take a 3-5k loss to play Fury over Arms because it doesn't play like ass on Single Target.

3-5k is frankly nothing. It's about 10%, which isn't going to be the difference of meeting enrage or not, unless things are going horribly wrong.

- - - Updated - - -

I think both speccs are viable for almost every encounter. I wasn't trying to bash on fury, but rather make the point that arms is definitely not worse on ST encounters in HFC. I'm sorry if I came across like that, I just felt that there were a lot of people who thought(and still think) that single is synonymous with fury. It's definitely a luxury problem when we can play both speccs for almost anything. Cheers to that!

Also, looking forward to testing fury t17 4p on Assault mythic this week, I have a strong feeling that it will shine very bright, but I want to try it out first before changing the guide.

They both work well, Arms gives great priority damage and strong cleave against all the myriad targets, while Fury can wreck groups with their Bladestorm. Strictly speaking, Arms is probably easier/more conducive to the fight as a whole, while Fury will get higher numbers with great AoE burst during the intermission.

[Deleted]

They both work well, Arms gives great priority damage and strong cleave against all the myriad targets, while Fury can wreck groups with their Bladestorm. Strictly speaking, Arms is probably easier/more conducive to the fight as a whole, while Fury will get higher numbers with great AoE burst during the intermission.

In Assault, Arms is 10x more difficult than fury imo

[fuguki]

In Assault, Arms is 10x more difficult than fury imo

Just changed it to fury, with tier 17 equipped, just did it today and the recklessness' lined up very well(1st one start, 2nd one on BL, third one whenever you get good proccs or need the damage for a vehicle/metamorphed caster.

[fearmemortals]

What? I think you meant Fury, since Arms out performs Fury at the moment.

Yes, we're saying the same thing. Arms is very strong right now even on single target as the 4pc bonus is huge, while for Fury 4pc offers very little. As you get mythic geared Fury will overtake arms on a single target fight. I also agree though that it plays like ass with only 1 target to rend.

[fuguki]

Yes, we're saying the same thing. Arms is very strong right now even on single target as the 4pc bonus is huge, while for Fury 4pc offers very little. As you get mythic geared Fury will overtake arms on a single target fight. I also agree though that it plays like ass with only 1 target to rend.

I find it actually interesting. I was considering getting a rend tick timer, but decided against it, most of the time you get a feel for when the rend procs so after getting a ms reset and not being able to ms the next global you have a chance to for example refresh rend.
It's an interesting rhythmic game imo.

[Gromnak]

tons of misinformation in this "guide"

[Bigbazz]

Having picked up the 4 set this is how I feel about boss by boss in non mythic (raid on a dead server and we have 15 guys left after BRF, I've not seen mythic HFC yet and probably won't at this rate unless blizz makes it cross realm or I switch server). But yes HC...

Hellfire Assault - Fury T17 - Bladestorm/AM - Nothing else compares, maybe Mythic allows Arms to shine with bleeds?

Iron Reaver - Arms T18 - Bloodbath/AM - Because I can't trust my tanks to leave the boss in one place after ravager is down.

Kormrok - Any spec - Because my guild refuses to do green pool first, I don't get to glorywhore myself to sweet ranks.. Fury is clearly the best here though if you're getting some green pool first action. Most likely Bladestorm/AM but I'm not sure if it's best to go for T17 godly recklessness or a more likely T18 with more stats and basic recklessness on every bladestorm.

Iron Council - Arms T18 - Bloodbath/AM - (see Iron Reaver) - Because doing 80k dps without the fel rage buff is fun, love it!

Kilrogg Deadeye - Fury T17 - Avatar/AM - Bare with me.... Rampaged Recklessness during execute with Visions buff... Not that I've ever pulled it off. Bladestorm is much better if you're struggling to make 20 stacks in the visions room.

Gorefiend - Arms T18 - Bloodbath/AM - To get reckless on pull + both feasts with that insane Arms Execute phase. If you have decent raid dps the 2nd feast will happen during execute. Fury is equally good here, depends on how your gear compares... The feasts have amazing synergy with T17 Fury due to AM/Avatar lining things up perfectly to have Avatar used on cooldown and recklessness + avatar for both feasts/execute. T18 Fury has a nice stat boost, possibly enough to pull it ahead of T17... But T18 gives you crappy recklessness for a lot of the time, while T17 gives you rampaged recklessness at the exact moment you want it, on pull and during feasts/execute.

Socrethar - Arms T18 - Bloodbath/Ravager - If your tanks are competing in an Olympic event for some reason, use AM. Fury Works well as a pure single target if you're not getting the casters pulled into melee range, but even in that case Arms has strong single target, and can also deal much better with cleaving casters.

Iskar - Arms T18 - Bloodbath/AM (See Iron Reaver + Gorefiend) - reck on pull + 2nd and 3rd adds phase. Rend the world and priority target MS spam + SS Executes to win damage meters.

Xhul'Horac Arms - Bladestorm/AM/Shockwave - I've only played this as Arms with T18/T17 combined 2 sets, damage was kickass but I've seen plenty of Fury Warriors do better, last week I topped our other Arms Warrior who actually had the T18 4set.. Though that might have been a fluke. Use shockwave to prevent casts from the imps, works really well.

Zakuun - Arms T18 - Bloodbath/Ravager (unless see Iron Reaver) - Mostly because at this point of gearing Arms does more single target than Fury, save for perhaps if you have HC Worldbreaker + EDH where Fury will likely pull ahead.. In which case, maybe Fury T18... But since I don't like Fury and I don't have a HC Worldbreaker... Arms T18.

Tyrant - Arms T18 - Ravager/Bloodbath (unless see Iron Reaver) - I've never managed to do particularely well on Tyrant tho, so don't listen to a word.

Mannoroth - I wish I knew, my guild has run multiple tactics and I've done shit every time. Bladestorm is not worth it as Arms tho, worked that out last week. I feel like I should probably play Fury on this fight, but have not really given it a try yet.

Archimonde Arms T18 - Bloodbath/Ravager if you trust tanks - All kinds of win on this fight, unless you're running a 10 man group, in which case you will be running out of group every 2 seconds to aim your arrow at someone..

[fuguki]

@Bigbazz I agree with most of what you wrote, but I don't really run ravager as arms atm, however I have a feeling that I'm playing too much AM.

tons of misinformation in this "guide"

Right in the feels </3

[Nega]

tons of misinformation in this "guide"

This ^^

why would you "take storm bolt over DR on kormrok if the hands die within 6 seconds"

Given that DR deals a massive amount of AOE in one global, seems kinda silly.

[Bigbazz]

I've since done Xhul'horac with T18 4 set bonus, I still think that Bladestorm has great value as it deals significantly more dps to the imps while allowing you to still benefit from the excellent Arms cleave. It's a compromise but one that works really well, save for perhaps if your group is severly overgearing the fight and imps die too fast anyway, overall dps will be roughly the same as BB but you will have lower boss dps and higher imp dps.

For reference - https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...pe=damage-done this is HC kill from last night. I'm 2nd overall (ahead of the BB using Warrior), I was comfortably top on imps and 2nd on boss damage (behind our BB using Warrior). So it's a choice of imp damage/boss damage, take your pick.. Bladestorm wins on imps tho.

[fuguki]

This ^^

why would you "take storm bolt over DR on kormrok if the hands die within 6 seconds"

Given that DR deals a massive amount of AOE in one global, seems kinda silly.

It's because bladestorm lasts for 6 sec. If everything is dead before the time you come out of bladestorm then going stormbolt is fine. However, since there's probably 1 set of hands or maybe two that'll last longer than six seconds, coupled with the fact that there's a tank hand, then DR is better and you are correct! (Changing it right now!)

Again, I emphasize that if you think anything isn't always the case or blatantly wrong, then I'd be really happy if you told me so we can create a good guide together!

[FASTFORCE]

It's because bladestorm lasts for 6 sec. If everything is dead before the time you come out of bladestorm then going stormbolt is fine. However, since there's probably 1 set of hands or maybe two that'll last longer than six seconds, coupled with the fact that there's a tank hand, then DR is better and you are correct! (Changing it right now!)

Again, I emphasize that if you think anything isn't always the case or blatantly wrong, then I'd be really happy if you told me so we can create a good guide together!

Dragon roar deals more damage than bladestorm in 1 global, so you would dragon roar first then bladestorm (and cancel aura if needed).

[fuguki]

Dragon roar deals more damage than bladestorm in 1 global, so you would dragon roar first then bladestorm (and cancel aura if needed).

I'm not a theorycrafter nor am I proficient in running simulations, so take this with a grain of salt.
Dragon Roar and 1 tick of Bladestorm have similar damage(MH+OH), you can test this out yourself by unequipping trinkets/ring and hit dummies until both your weapon enchants proc, then use berserker rage followed by Dragon Roar then Bladestorm. My results show me that they are about equal with bladestorm coming out on top if there's many crits.
Then we have 2 big factors remaining:
1) Bladestorm is affected by crit(30% + T17 4p which I encourage to use).
2) Bladestorm hits every second. GCD is higher than 1 second.
I don't know if there's some weird AP scaling or something which can make me completely wrong, but I'm pretty sure both those factors together make bladestorm skyrocket above Dragon Roar.

EDIT: Tested this on dummies, Dragon Roar damage went from ~115K to ~128K(10% crit damage from Reck). My Bladestorms, however, went from around 600k-700k to once even as high as 1.2million.

These numbers are 3x ST as I was doing it on the three dummies outside mage tower.

[Bigbazz]

If we're comparing Bladestorm vs Dragon Roar, you have to take into account that Bladestorm can hit targets that may not be able to be hit with Dragon Roar, depending on positioning.