The PvE Fury Guide - Cataclysm Edition

[thebadme]

Introduction

So, some of you may or may not have read the fury warrior guide I made for WotLK. For those of you that did, I intend to be a lot more in depth, and a lot less awful this time around.
For those of you who did not read my WotLK fury warrior guide, the basic premise is that this guide is intended for fury warriors looking to succeed in a PvE raiding environment. My goal is to provide as much accurate information as possible in a succinct manner. That being said there is a lot to cover so either read this guide in chunks, or find yourself a large block of time to read this and make sure you understand it.




Table of Contents

• The Video Guide
• Talent Selection
• Glyphs
• Itemization
• Rotation
• Macros
• UI
• Other Useful Stuff

The Video Guide

Talent Selection

Suggested spec:
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#LG0cZcrrcszkMfdZb








Titans Grip vs Single Minded Fury

Currently TG has been putting out higher DPS parses, though there hasn’t been a ton of parses available for SMF, and regardless of which talent you go with, it’s not going to make or break your DPS. when I get some more time I intend to do extensive testing of SMF to see how it compares to TG. As for right now though I would just say try and go TG, but if you have better 1 handed weapons, go SMF.



3/3 Deep Wounds vs 3/3 Incite

Get 3/3 deep wounds. Even though crit values are pretty low right now the math is suggesting that the third point in deep wounds is more or less blowing the third point of incite out of the water. If you are really interested in the math, see the math section at the end of this guide.


Simply put: get 3 points in Deep wounds, and 2 Points in incite.




About the Recommended filler talents, and why I chose them:


Please note that just because a talent isn’t “recommended” does not mean it’s bad; there are sound arguments that can be made for all of the non-required talents.

Rude Interruption
On any fight that requires interrupting, having rude interruption is pretty much amazing, it’s fairly self explanatory.

Piercing Howl
Any time there are kite-able adds that can be slowed this ability is incredibly useful, there aren’t a lot of fights that would get a lot of use out of this ability currently, but I have no doubt in my mind that there will be encounters where this ability will shine.

Heroic Fury
Any time there is a lot of movement involved (meaning pretty much every fight) heroic fury can substantially increase your uptime on a target, and thereby increase your DPS.

Meat Cleaver
Any time you are going to be able to use cleave you want this talent, simply put.

Incite
This could probably be considered a required talent, but if I absolutely needed to drop a DPS talent to get some other situational talents, this would be my first choice.

Field Dressing
Pretty self explanatory, it helps you not die.

Blitz
Can be useful for getting an extra rage boost at the very start of an encounter

Glyphs

Prime glyphs:

Basically no variance for what you can viably pick:
Bloodthirst
Raging Blow
Slam
These are the only 3 prime glyphs that affect abilities we use.


Major glyphs:

Lots of solid options, go with your personal preference (* denotes what I personally use)

*Cleaving
Any time there are more than two targets within close proximity this glyph is awesome (unless you are supposed to CC those mobs obviously).

*Colossus Smash
Any time you have to sustain a sunder stack you want this glyph.

*Deathwish
It saves healer mana, which can then be used to help your raid not wipe. Get this.

Heroic Throw
If you Have to do sunders your self, get this glyph so you can use it at the start of combat.

Victory Rush
saves healer mana, though on most fights it's not going to be as useful as glyph of Deathwish.


Minor Glyphs:

Again, lots of solid options (* denotes what I personally use)

Battle
Honestly you probably aren't going to need this because you will more than likely be using battle shout on cooldown for rage, so really this doesn't change anything for you unless you don't need the rage but need to sustain the buff, or if you expect to die before the end of the fight (which shouldn't happen).

*Berserker Rage
GET THIS. getting a rage boost that's off the GCD is awesome, and you can use it to build a rage bar out of combat.

*Bloody Healing
it helps you not die, and saves a bit of healer mana.

*Furious sundering
if you have to sunder, get this.

Command
Same as glyph of battle.

Itemization

Stat Priorities

Hit(till 8%) > Expertise(till 26) > Strength >[ Hit> Haste](until Rage generation is adequate) > Crit > Mastery > Hit> Haste


please note that the only reason why hit/haste is located where it is, is due to the increase in rage generation it provides. once you feel comfortable with how much rage you are generating, then you should begin itemizing for other stats.



What gems should I use?


You should use what ever gems are going to activate your meta gem, then for the rest of your sockets use what ever gems result in the largest DPS increase.

But that didn't answer the question

I know. What stats result in the largest DPS increase varries greatly depending on what your stats currently are, so I can't make a blanket statement about what gems are going to be the best for you, beyond saying that they are probably in the list below:

Meta Gems:

Chaotic Shadowspirit Diamond


Red Gems:

Bold Chimera's Eye (Jewelcrafter only)
Precise Chimera's Eye (Jewelcrafter only)
Bold Inferno Ruby
Precise Inferno Ruby


Blue Gems:

Rigid Chimera's Eye (Jewelecrafter only)
Rigid Ocean Sapphire


Yellow Gems:

Smooth Chimera's Eye (Jewelecrafter only)
Fractured Chimera's Eye (Jewelecrafter only)
Quick Chimera's Eye (Jewelecrafter only)
Smooth Amberjewel
Fractured Amberjewel
Quick Amberjewel

Orange Gems:

Skillful Ember Topaz
Fierce Ember Topaz
Inscribed Ember Topaz
Keen Ember Topaz


Purple Gems:

Accurate Demonseye
Etched Demonseye
Sovereign Demonseye


Green Gems:

Sensei's Dream Emerald
Piercing Dream Emerald
Lightning Dream Emerald



What enchants should I get?


Head:
Arcanum of The Wildhammer (Alliance)
Arcanum of the Dragonmaw (Horde)

Shoulders:
Greater Inscription of Jagged Stone

Cloak:
Greater Critical Strike

Chest:
Peerless Stats

Bracers:
Greater Speed
OR
Greater Critical Strike

Gloves:
Mighty Strength

Belt:
Ebonsteel Belt Buckle

Legs:
Dragonscale Leg Armor

Boots:
Lavawalker (run speed enchants are always the best)

Main Hand:
Landslide

Off Hand:
Landslide

Rotation

Note:
BT = Bloodthirst
RB = Raging Blow
CS = Colossus Smash
HS = Heroic Strike
GCD= Global Cooldown (1.5 seconds)
Slam = Implies using a Bloodsuge proc (Read: an Instant Slam, as opposed to casting slam)


CS > RB > BT > Slam > HS

On an exact time-line:

0.0-Colossus Smash
1.5-Bloodthirst
3.0-Raging Blow
4.5-Bloodthirst
6.0-Slam
7.5-Bloodthirst
9.0-Raging Blow
10.5-Bloodthirst
12.0-Slam
13.5-Bloodthirst
15.0-Raging Blow
16.5-Bloodthirst
18.0-Slam
19.5-Bloodthirst
21.0-go to 0.0 (Colossus Smash)


If you don't think you can remember that whole timescale, just remember:

Use CS on cooldown
BT-RB-BT-Slam


Sub 20%
Use Colossus Smash on cooldown and spam Execute. Also hit Berserker Rage on cooldown for extra rage. Easy peasy.





Commonly asked questions about the rotation

What should I do if I am not enraged, and therefore can't use Raging Blow?

if BT is on cooldown, and you can't use RB, use a bloodsurge proc if you have one. if you don't, then either do nothing, or use that GCD for debuff management on your target or something.

If RB>BT, why are we using a Bloodthirst over a Raging Blow immediately after using CS?

By using Bloodthirst first, it allows you to ensure that you fill the GCD table for the 3 GCD's immediately following a CS, and by doing this the net damage gain is greater than the damage lost due to pushing back the use of Raging Blow.




What about Heroic Strike?
HS should be used when ever you get a battle trance proc, and when ever you have excess rage.


How will I know when I have "excess rage"?

Unfortunately the correct is basically "after spending a ton of time practicing you will be able to have a good feel for how much rage you are generating, and then be able to know when the best time to use HS is."

However, as a generalized blanket statement, if you have more than 60 rage, that is the time to use Heroic Strike.

Shouldn’t we use slam every time we get a Bloodsuge proc instead of using procs after every second BT?

Nope.

Why?

When you delay the use of the 2nd BT, you get a rotation that looks like this:

0.0 BT
1.5 RB
3.0 Slam
4.5 BT (-1/2 BT)
6.0 Slam
7.5 RB (BT comes off CD)
9.0 BT(-1/2 BT)
Etc.

By delaying the 2nd BT, you actually end up losing a full BT every time this happens, and because the potential gain is only 1 extra slam, which hits for less that BT, it is a DPS loss to delay the use of the 2nd BT.

Please keep in mind that the above statement is assuming that you have the rage to use the second BT, if you do not have the rage to do it, but you have a Bloodsurge proc; then by all means use that proc, because some damage is better than no damage.

What ability should I use when I get a Battle Trance proc?

Heroic Strike

Why?

Heroic Strike has the lowest damage per rage of any of our abilities, even though it's damage is really high. Because it's rage cost is so inefficient, it makes using HS on Battle Trance procs the most efficient use of that proc. Also because the fact that
Heroic Strike is off the GCD, it means that you can use a Battle Trance on a HS, and use the rage that you saved for a RB.

If Heroic Strike happens to be on cooldown when you get your Battle Trance proc, use it on a Raging Blow.


Please note that Battle Trance currently has the following bugs associated with it:

• Even though Bloodsurge Slams cost no rage, they can currently consume your Battle Trance procs.
• If you use your Battle Trance proc on a Bloodthirst, that Bloodthirst will not be able to proc a new Battle Trance.

What about Inner Rage?

Currently there are a lot of inherent problems with Inner Rage that I personally think make it way more of a hassle than it's worth .

The biggest problem is that right now our rage generation is nowhere near high enough to viably use Inner rage for its entire 15 second duration. What I mean by this is that when you use it, you burn through your rage, but then you are left with ~10 seconds left on the buff. If you leave the buff on you lose DPS because of the fact that you are going to be rage starved the rest of the time. This means that the only decent option is to make a cancelaura macro to remove it, which becomes a big hassle to try and manage that on top of managing your rage in general, and doing your rotation.

One possibly viable option is to macro inner rage in to slam, and macro /canelaura Inner Rage in to heroic strike. I have not personally tested this so I cannot attest to how viable it is or how much of a difference it makes.

My personal opinion is that I would either like to have the buff fall off once you get below 30 rage again, or make the duration less (make it last ~5 seconds).

Macros

Retaliation

#showtooltip Retaliation
/cast [stance:3] Battle Stance; [nostance:3] Berserker Stance
/cast [stance:1] Retaliation

Intervene


#showtooltip intervene
/cast [nostance:2] Defensive Stance; [help] Intervene; [target=targettarget, help] Intervene


Shield Wall

#showtooltip Shield Wall
/stopattack
/cast [stance:2] Shield Wall; Defensive Stance
/stopmacro [equipped:Shields]
/equip INSERT SHIELDS NAME HERE
/attack




Intercept/Heroic Fury

#showtooltip
/castsequence reset=1 Intercept, Heroic Fury, Heroic Fury, Heroic Fury


Slam

#showtooltip Slam
/cast slam
/stopcasting







UI

I'm not really going to rehash what was said in the video, but what I will do is give you links to some addons that will do the things that were mentioned in the video



Rage tracking/unit frames:

Pitbull4
IceHUD
Shadowed unit frames


Proc tracking/Enrage tracking:

Power Auras
SBF (satrina buff frame)
Elkano's Buff Bars


Cooldown Tracking:

OmniCC
Cooldown Count
CoolLine Cooldowns




The math/advanced stuff section

So yeah, if you are afraid of lots of math or complex jargon filled statements, I suggest you hit the "page down" button a few times


you might want to download my incredibly unorganized spreadsheet, pretty much all of the math is done in there and you can play around with things.



enrage uptime:
(1-deathwish uptime)*(1-(1-enrage proc chance)^(hit's per enrage duration))

(1-(30/144))*(1-(1-.09)^x)



incite math

Deriving my equation from THIS POST
please note that the equation is only calculating the crit GAIN, if you want the actual HS crit value just add a +x


1pt:
((1-x)*(x+(1*0.05))*((1/3)+(1*0.05)))/((1+(((x+(1*0.05))*(1/3)))))
2pts:
((1-x)*(x+(2*0.05))*((2/3)+(2*0.05)))/((1+(((x+(2*0.05))*(2/3)))))
3pts:
((1-x)*(x+(3*0.05))*((3/3)+(3*0.05)))/((1+(((x+(3*0.05))*(3/3)))))

in case you are interested, here's the graph of the above equations:





1pt maximum
x=0.4357
2pt maximum
x=0.3748
3pt maximum
x=0.3168

you can use these values to determine the DPS gain from incite,meaning we can use these equations to evaluate whether the 3rd point in incite or deep wounds will be the best.

Deep wounds:

determine the damage of each MH and OH stack of deep wounds for both 2/3 and 3/3

determine mainhand stack crits/sec, then OH stack crits/sec
multiply MH crits/sec by the MH stack damage, and OH crits/sec by OH stack damage.

for the 2/3 deep wounds crits/sec calculation make sure you are using values from the 3/3 incite equation, and for the 3/3 deep wounds calculation make sure you are using values from the 2/3 incite equation.


a brief summary of the results:

getting the 3rd point in deep wounds results in a gain of about ~180 DPS. assuming about 85% HSF, the third point in incite only results in a 158 DPS increase. In fact the only time 3/3 incite is resulting in a larger gain than 3/3 deep wounds is at 100% HSF, and the gain is a whopping 2 DPS.

[Templars]

I'm not entirely sure the assessment of Deep Wounds and Incite is correct. I recently swapped my third point in Deep Wounds for Incite after looking at logs for Forlorn Legacy. I have noticed a decent jump in my DPS.

---------- Post added 2010-12-20 at 05:54 PM ----------

I'm not entirely sure the assessment of Deep Wounds and Incite is correct. I recently swapped my third point in Deep Wounds for Incite after looking at logs for Forlorn Legacy. I have noticed a decent jump in my DPS.

[Deleted]

Owww Meeeeennnn,

Your guide is GORGEOUS!!! the video is very well fitted. Men I don't know what you do in your life but it's obvious that people need people like you! thanks a billion

Regards

[MildCorma]

Have to agree with the first poster here (regarding incite vs deep wounds). I conducted a number of parses in game and got different results to what you state above. The details are on ELJ in the fury warrior simple questions thread if you want to have a look. Basically these calculations are based on what we think is true, but you have not actually parsed from in-game to clarify a post that was made late in WotLK on elj and therefore has the potential to be out of date.

[narwaana]

"By delaying the 2nd BT, you actually end up losing a full BT every time this happens, and because the potential gain is only 1 extra slam, which hits for less that BT, it is a DPS loss to delay the use of the 2nd BT."

Im playing as a SMF warrior atm, and i think your statement slam vs Bt are incorrect for us, since SMF makes you hit whit both your weapons each slam.
I would say that a SMF should use bloodsurge before we hit another BT. (I do agree about your statement while talking about TG warriors however).
Thanks for a wonderfull guide, there are alot of usefull info here=)

//Narw

[Gromgol]

Curious why you suggest RB>BT when the FAQ on EJ says BT>RB.

[Tueland]

Your rly want that drake dont you? :P

[Gromgol]

Curious why you suggest RB>BT when the FAQ on EJ says BT>RB.

CS > RB > BT > Slam > HS

On an exact time-line:

0.0-Colossus Smash
1.5-Bloodthirst
3.0-Raging Blow
4.5-Bloodthirst
6.0-Slam
7.5-Bloodthirst
9.0-Raging Blow

????? 10charlimit

[Templars]

????? 10charlimit

Raging Blow does more damage than Bloodthirst. However, you can't rely on it because of its dependence on white swings and being enraged. Therefore, it typically makes more sense to place Bloodthirst higher in the rotation because it is consistently available. Should you prioritize Raging Blow over Bloodthirst if it is available? Absolutely. Its a matter of personal preference and play style.

This is from EJ:


Originally Posted by Kesslar
Landsoul can you elaborate why you chose 3/3 incite over 3/3 deep wounds? I understand that 5% crit would be very important at this current state, but Ive been watching my overall deepwounds damage and It has mainly come in at #5 per boss fight, with it being

White
Bloodthirst
Heroic Strike
Raging Blow
Deep wounds (last 2 are vice versa)
Execute

Knowing that heroic strike is almost always #3 for my damage output, and deepwounds being mainly #5, is the 5% crit a noticeable difference?

Response:

Having more heroic strike crits will give you a higher overall crit percentage and as such greater damage from the 2 talents you do have in deep wounds.
At least thats the thinking. I dont know if its sufficient enough to offset the extra deep wounds damage per crit from 3/3 or not (it would also depend on gear).

[Gromgol]

...

I meant that he put "RB>BT" and then says to "BT>RB".

[Deleted]

Nice indepth guide.Goodwork !

[Deleted]

Great Guide Thanks

[Deleted]

About the DW vs incite thing... I'm at work and can't do the math / look up recount on a target dummy so I'll ask here.

getting the 3rd point in deep wounds results in a gain of about ~180 DPS. assuming about 85% HSF, the third point in incite only results in a 158 DPS increase. In fact the only time 3/3 incite is resulting in a larger gain than 3/3 deep wounds is at 100% HSF, and the gain is a whopping 2 DPS.

Ok, if I understand that correctly, thats the damage of the two abilities compared with each other... Miore important would be the overall increase in damage, as there are quite a few factors that play a role. While many are fight dependant, the average damage output is what is most important.

I see that the equations consider enrage effects on damage increasing effects such as enrage and death wish, BUT, are the results still the same when considering the following other aspects:

- rude interruption (filler, but who doesn't have it?)
- trinket procs (will increase hs damage, but not DW)
- flurry uptime (which plays a larger role when at lower crit levels)
- heroism (while probably benefiting DW more (more white crits in a certain time), it still should affect HS damage due to the increase in rage)
- execute haste buff
- SA / CS armor debuffs (bleed effects aren't mitigated by armor)
- Mastery (increases enrage benefits)
- crit damage increasing meta gems (should play a larger role with higher gear levels)

Rampage would be more DW friendly, but i think the few crits and large CD make it neglable.

We as fury have a lot of +x% to damage abilities that will affect HS but not neccessarily DW....

Which leads to my question if it really is true (not wanting to question anyone's wisdom, but it doesn't seem as logical or as "simple as that"..). I'm also sure that the results of this equation will favor the other talent at a certain gear level, but at the moment, my stomach would say that incite is better...

Has anyone had a chance to see the overall damage gain of one spec over another as a whole, and not just the two abilities compared to each other?

If I missunderstood something or whatever - sry

/wave

[Laundry]

Well you beat me to writing the next fury guide, so grats to that.

As for the guide itself, very well written. Personally, I haven't been able to write a guide because of some guild situations mixed with laziness and testing. I like the guide, you wrote a lot of things that I simply would not have written. I actually hadn't begun to start figuring out the ability priority list, so I followed your priority and found an increase in my DPS. Very well written

I am, however, one of those people is disagrees on the incite / DW conspiracy. Right now fury has lower crit, and flurry uptime is going to be more valuable than deep wounds uptime. Yeah the dot is nice, but I'd rather swing more

[Harts]

What would be great is a ClcFury or something, much like what you see with the ret addon

[Helander]

You should add a section on reforging...I know it will be a concern

Oh and yea the only dif between SMF and TG's rotation is TG prioritized RB>Slam where SMF is Slam>RB. Other then that they are identical, atleast what my conquest for knowledge has told me.

---------- Post added 2010-12-29 at 12:58 AM ----------

What would be great is a ClcFury or something, much like what you see with the ret addon

You and your obsessive laziness, keep it to your shitty thread!

[thebadme]

Oh hey, this thread finally got past the road block or waiting for moderator approval...

On incite VS deep wounds:

@pak24b, A good portion of the variables you listed don't really need to be accounted for when strictly comparing if one talent is better or worse than the other because of the fact that they are not modified by either talent, so they are essentially constants and get canceled out in the calculations. When looking to quantify the actual DPS difference it is important to account for those variables for the sake of accuracy. my math was intended to simply be a comparison of the talents and not to quantify the exact DPS difference, I should have been more succinct in the guide and I probably shouldn't have included the quantified values in my results. Also DIM's (damage increase modifiers) such as enrage actually do affect deep wounds damage because they increase weapon damage, which then increases the damage per stack of DW

One thing that I did not account for in my original calculations is CS uptime, which could definitely alter the results; I will look in to this. It will also be interesting to see how blizzard goes about nerfing HS, and how that will affect the results in the future.


On RB > BT and the like


There are two ways to think about the fury rotation; the first is as a strict rotation, where you do everything when it tells you to and there is no variance. While there is nothing wrong with this way of thinking, it does not have a good way of explaining what to do when things don't go as planned (read: don't follow the rotation exactly). The second way of looking at the rotation is via a priority system, where you are doing what is going to result in the best returns for that given timetable (generally 1-2 GCD's). I personally believe that it's important to understand the rotation from both thought processes. Most of the time I will use BT over RB like the timeline suggests, however there are a few situations that I will choose to RB over BT. Two examples of this are if I have less than 1.5s left on an enrage effect, I would use RB over a BT, or if I only had 20 rage due to poor rage management and I knew my next auto swings would be longer than 1 GCD away, I would choose RB over BT. Again I should have been more succinct in explaining this, I will more than likely go back and edit the guide to explain my reasoning a bit more.

[MonsieuRoberts]

I meant that he put "RB>BT" and then says to "BT>RB".

Did you not watch his video?

Using BT first makes sure you'll not only have it up in time to use after RB, it will make sure it's ready to go once you have to start the rotation again after a CS.

RB is still > than BT, but 2 BT is > than 1 BT and 1 RB with terrible CD management.



EDIT:

I forgot to mention that this guide is excellent, thanks for putting it together Thegreatme/Thebadme/Daveclap!

[Deleted]

Hit(till 8%) > Expertise(till 26) > Strength > Hit(till 27%)≥Haste(till rage gain is consistent) ≥Crit ≥Mastery > Haste

please note that the only reason why haste is located where it is, is due to the increase in rage generation it provides. once you feel comfortable with how much rage you are generating, then you should begin itemizing for other stats.

This is simply wrong.. you don't need 27% hit and you most certainly don't want to go for haste.. your flurry uptime will provide the rage you need, and if you manage your battle trance proc's well (this talent is SO underestimated - get something to track it!), you'll see your DPS skyrocketing.. I'm sure lots of newcomers found most of what you write very usefull, but don't misslead them.. Get the two soft caps, then go Str > Crit > Hit.. as to whether haste > mastery or vice versa, will depend on your gear level.. haste is better at low level's off gear (yes due to rage) and mastery will prevail in the end (even over other stats).. where the sweetspot is, I don't know, unfortunately.. for now, try to steer clear of these two stats as much as possible..

[Xetenor]

Man I really need to get an addon for battle trance procs...so useful for heroic strikes. I definitely agree that battle trance procs are underrated. Time to look on curse gaming! Yea right now I am not steering towards mastery and haste and am primarily sticking to hit and strength followed by crit. I am at almost 21% hit now and feel much happier compared to when I was at 11% hit as I miss much less and generate more rage. I am almost always rage capped and sometimes it sucks because I keep having to use heroic strike as rage dump or use cleave which I genearlly don't use when we are CCing of course unless we are far away from the CC'd targets and the tank has good threat on targets.