Warrior DPS - 2h VS Dual-Wield

[T33]

I'm noticing that 2h Fury was more suitable than arms. Is this primarily due to the debuff timer? Was there not one debuff slot reserved for people's spam abilities to share? Or is there a major damage difference?

[Storfan]

I'm noticing that 2h Fury was more suitable than arms. Is this primarily due to the debuff timer? Was there not one debuff slot reserved for people's spam abilities to share? Or is there a major damage difference?

1. Early vanilla had 8 debuff slots TOTAL on any mob or boss. With BWL patch that was increased to 16 (which is still low). This means you had to keep a strict dicipline in the raid for what buff slots you used on boss and MS debuff was something you didnt want to have taking up a slot on the boss.
2. Arms is alot worse than 2h-fury when it comes to single-target raidboss DPS.

tldr: You'll never get to raid MS/Arms in any serious guild.

[anon5123]

I'm noticing that 2h Fury was more suitable than arms. Is this primarily due to the debuff timer? Was there not one debuff slot reserved for people's spam abilities to share? Or is there a major damage difference?

Arms had good burst damage. Fury had good sustained damage. Guess which one was better on raid bosses that took 2+ minutes to kill.

[Super Kami Dende]

2h Imp. slam spec was fun.

[Storfan]

Arms had good burst damage. Fury had good sustained damage. Guess which one was better on raid bosses that took 2+ minutes to kill.

Exactly. Burst and AoE (Due to sweeping strikes). I could see MS competing for top DPS on a few boss fights in MC where you fight Boss + 2 or more adds. Still there is the issue of MS taking up a debuff slot though which any serious raid leader will not allow.

2h Imp. slam spec was fun.

I dont agree with fun, but definitely effective. Imp slam when done right is superior to regular cookie cutter 2h-fury.

[Super Kami Dende]

I dont agree with fun, but definitely effective. Imp slam when done right is superior to regular cookie cutter 2h-fury.

It was much more fun than other DPS options for Warrior. Especially Imp Slam Sweeping Strikes.

[Storfan]

It was much more fun than other DPS options for Warrior. Especially Imp Slam Sweeping Strikes.

How would you spec that in vanilla? Imp slam and sweeping strikes is too far down in each tree to reach both, unless you skip MS or BT entirely?

[Super Kami Dende]

How would you spec that in vanilla? Imp slam and sweeping strikes is too far down in each tree to reach both, unless you skip MS or BT entirely?

I did, it was 25/26 build. Was fun for AoE. I mean it wasn't the best spec but I played it because I enjoyed it.

[Storfan]

I did, it was 25/26 build. Was fun for AoE. I mean it wasn't the best spec but I played it because I enjoyed it.

Cool. You could probably top dps on alot of aoe/cleave fights thats for sure.

[Deleted]

As far I remember I played 2h warrior during Vanilla WoW.
It had nice dmg, especially on Vael fight in BWL
On other encounters hard to say, 2h was good but people mostly played 2x 1h does time.

But in pvp you were unstoppable.

[epLe]

As some mentioned earlier, Fury was not really a thing until 1.12 - which means last months of naxx.

Also in BWL there was still only 8 debuff slots, this didn't increase until ZG (1.7).

[Storfan]

As some mentioned earlier, Fury was not really a thing until 1.12 - which means last months of naxx.

Also in BWL there was still only 8 debuff slots, this didn't increase until ZG (1.7).

The warrior talents was mature enough for deepz with AQ40 as it is by that point we also start to see a considerably larger option pool for gearing.

EDIT: That being said. There's not a snowballs chance in hell that blizzard will re-create the talent tree progression. Talents (and possibly gear) will most likely be 1.12.1-esque while content will be released in a progressive manner.

[Moizus]

I'd go with swords becaause i dont like maces

[bucksandwich]

Man i really cant wait for vanilla wow

[McFuu]

The problem is you won't get rage unless mobs are constantly hitting you, so you can't use your skills as efficiently as you should. 2H weapons are slow and there will be misses, parries and blocks, which won't give you any rage, so less than every other attack allows you to use your damage skills.

Dual wielding makes you hit more often coz of more attacks in total, so you get more rage than wielding 2h weapon, and there are talents in fury tree that improves this somewhat.

2h arms is for PvP and questing, and dual wielding as a fury is for PvE group content, but in order to be effective you need a very good gear that is not easy to obtain. Low level dps warriors are mostly treated as a joke for this reason, although they become the best dps class in end game with the proper gear.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I remember it there were no parries and blocks while standing at the rear of mobs. Positioning was important in OG mainly because if you were too close to the front of a boss and caused a parry, the tank would get hit because parries caused retaliative strikes. Not saying it isn't harder to generate rage with slow weapon swings during content, but all you should have to worry about is misses and resist.

[Storfan]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I remember it there were no parries and blocks while standing at the rear of mobs. Positioning was important in OG mainly because if you were too close to the front of a boss and caused a parry, the tank would get hit because parries caused retaliative strikes. Not saying it isn't harder to generate rage with slow weapon swings during content, but all you should have to worry about is misses and resist.

You are correct. Bosses cannot block or parry when you hit it from behind, only dodge. If a boss parries it causes parry haste meaning MT will take more damage. Also, you are completely hitcapped at 9% with 2h as warrior in vanilla meaning you wont miss even a single hit if you have that much +hit.

[T33]

Is it at all viable to take 5/5 Sword Spec? I really like that fantasy of taking that, but definitely don't want to be completely gimped. (Not looking for ideal, just usable) I'm currently looking at a 28-23 build, taking both Death Wish, Sweeping Strikes, and 5/5 Sword Spec. Thoughts?

[RickJamesLich]

If you're leveling, either spec will work, of course if you go arms you want a 2 hander but if you're fury, a 2 hander or dual wielding will both work just fine. The main problem with arms is when it comes time to spec for a weapon, if you get a good drop that doesn't match up with your spec you're not really going to get good mileage. There's a few good sword drops but horde side at least, there's a lot more great axes.

2 hander fury isn't really a thing until you get lots of hit which won't be happening until you at least get a lot of good BWL gear. Prior to that, it's not a really sizable difference before hand. Personally I prefer the two handers but with fury, it's a lot easier to level up a wide range of weapons, which will come in handy when you're tanking dungeons and don't have to worry about weapon skills as much.

- - - Updated - - -

Is it at all viable to take 5/5 Sword Spec? I really like that fantasy of taking that, but definitely don't want to be completely gimped. (Not looking for ideal, just usable) I'm currently looking at a 28-23 build, taking both Death Wish, Sweeping Strikes, and 5/5 Sword Spec. Thoughts?

You're better off picking up MS or bloodthirst. Going 5/5 sword spec as MS definitely is good though, not to mention it's ideal in pvp as it has the most burst potential compared to the other specs. Sweeping strikes is fun but it's pretty situational, most boss fights don't really have opportunities for aoe... I gotta be honest it's fun popping it and then using whirl winds and cleaves but the charges expire so quick that way. While leveling and tanking dungeons though, you get insane aggro on the mobs with that combo (and then of course switching back to sword and board right after).

[Chaelexi]

1. Early vanilla had 8 debuff slots TOTAL on any mob or boss. With BWL patch that was increased to 16 (which is still low). This means you had to keep a strict dicipline in the raid for what buff slots you used on boss and MS debuff was something you didnt want to have taking up a slot on the boss.
2. Arms is alot worse than 2h-fury when it comes to single-target raidboss DPS.

tldr: You'll never get to raid MS/Arms in any serious guild.

Many Guilds ran with one because there was some heal effects in vanilla that MS works on Gluth is one that comes to mind quickly but yes 2H and dual wield Fury at end game did significantly more damage after the rework. I remember running around with Kalmidor's Revenge(we did not have 1H weapons drop for a while in our guild) for a while on Alliance doing as much or more damage then our DW fury warrior who had a AQ40 sword and the green dragon sword, both of us were human. The proc rate on Kalimdor's revenge was almost too high, it would pull threat at times if it proced early.

[Rehija]

We had a two Handed Fury in our Raid and i remember fights with him something like this: for the first 20% Bosslife he stood in the back and danced, after that he started to dps. At roughly 50% bosslife he used his soulstone