1.0 - Introduction
This page is for the current, or "would be" Arms Warrior. For more general Warrior info, check out our Warrior Class Guide and our Warrior Leveling Guide.
Arms is the tree to use when you want to carry a big weapon and SMASH! your opponenet with massive damage.
Currently, for the 3.1 patch series, Arms is the build of choice for PvP, with Fury falling well behind. Arms also makes a good DPS build for raiding and tanking as well as a nice A of E leveling build. All in all, it's a pretty flexible tree.
Some will say that Arms falls too far behind Fury for raid DPS. Others differ, saying that the two are comparable. Most agree that Arms DPS requires a lot more attention than Fury to generate comparable numbers.
I find arms warriors to incredibly enjoyable simply as a breath of fresh air from playing dedicated fury for more than two years, it's always nice to switch around attack rotations and see something different for once. Also, as mentioned above, Arms requires a little more attention to use properly, which is a nice change.
This guide is simply intended to provide a general overview
of the Arms Warrior. For a more in-depth and highly detailed resource for Warriors,
including PvP, raiding, builds, and more, check out the
Killer Guides' Warrior guide, here.
2.0 - Arms Warrior Talents and Builds
Mortal Strike is an odd spec for raiding, one once considered rather pathetic in comparison to fury warriors, and thus left for the PvP fanatics. Things have changed, and with that Arms warriors have once again become viable for endgame raids due to a number of factors.
The increase in damage becomes apparent the further you go into raiding, the raid-wide damage improvement from Blood Frenzy shifting it entirely in the Arms warriors favor, more so given the generally limited slots DPS warriors are allowed, if any.
However, this build is far more attention and skill intensive, requiring you to maximize every hit in-order to achieve the true DPS potential of the build. A single miss is far more devastating with Arms due to the slow hit rate as opposed to fury where this can generally be ignored.
Additionally, being slow on the draw for Slam or Mortal strike can terribly gimp your DPS, this will likely happen more than a few times when first raiding as MS, but you’ll either eventually get the hang of it or switch to fury.
The Weapon specialization can be within either Sword, Mace, or PoleAxe (axes and polearms.) I prefer sword personally, mostly for the style, but Poleaxe is currently the most efficient.
2.1 Arms Build for Raiding
55/16/0 Arms DPS Build for Raiding
Note: While Arms might not quite match Fury for DPS it does have talents, such as Blood Frenzy and Trauma, which will increase the group DPS, hence it is still valuable.
Attack Rotation
Note: Addons can be enlisted to aid in your strike timing, such as Quartz Combat Bar
The Quartz attack bar can be used to maximise your DPS by triggering the next attack ,seemingly before the current attack begins, however in reality this is done via latency allowing you to queue an ability immediately as the current action is executed.
Unfotunately, triggering this too early cancels the current attack thus gimping your DPS rotation temporarily, leading to far more damage lost for Arms than faster, attack based, builds.
Additionally, the maximum speed possible before it no-longer aids you is 2.5 attack speed, anything beyond this point has no effect in the rotation and is thus a waste.
The attack rotation will be as follows:
Auto Attack - Slam - Mortal Strike
Auto Attack - Slam - Whirlwind
Auto Attack - Slam - Mortal Strike
Auto Attack - Slam - Demoralizing Shout/Battle Shout Refresh
Should you find yourself lacking enough rage to finish each rotation try working in a bloodrage to allow the mortal strike/whirlwind to be used the next rotation period. Slam however should take absolute priority and thus come first even if this consumes the remaining rage.
2.2 - Leveling Arms Build
54/17/0 Arms Leveling build.
An Arms Warrior leveling build gives better ability to fight multiple mobs and comparable DPS to Fury, but less healing, so a bit more downtime.
While bleeds aren't so useful for leveling (things die too fast) they do have some use for PvP and instances/raids, so Improved Rend is included here. Rend is also nice for fighting mobs that run away. Let them run and die.
This build has a certain amount of PvP utility, but see below for real PvP builds. If you never group and never PvP then feel free to move some things around. Heck, feel free to do that anyway. Fury points are in red.
- 5 points into Cruelty - Start working on your crits.
- 3 in Improved Heroic Strike - Your "bread and butter" strike for awhile.
- 2 in Improved Rend - Filler, but useful in some cases.
- 2 in Improved Charge - Start fights with more rage.
- 3 in Tactical Mastery - Helps with tanking, also important later on when you're switching stances.
- 2 in Overpower - Really useful when fighting things that dodge...
- Anger Management- More rage
- 2 in Impale - More crit damage
- 3 in Taste for Blood - Your rend damage lets you use Overpower with its 60%+ crit chance...
- 3 in Deep Wounds - While you'te doing those crits you might as well make them bleed at the same time.
- 3 in Two Hand Weapon Specialization - More damage with your 2-hander.
- 5 in Poleaxe specialization - Change this to mace or swords, depending on what you're using. PoleAxe provides the best bonuses, though.
- Sweeping strikes - Start fighting multiple mobs.
- 2 in Trauma - Since you're rending anyway this is nice.
- Mortal Strike - More useful in PvP, sometimes in raids
- 2 in Stength of Arms - More Strength and Stam is good and Expertise in nice sometimes, but especially in PvP and raiding.
- 2 in Improved Slam - Makes it faster.
- Juggernaut - Charge while in combat, and the charge stuns while you have +25% to crit with Slam or MS. Nice.
- 3 in Improved Mortal Strike - More damage and a bit faster.
- 2 in Unrelenting Assault - More damage and nice in PvP Vs. Casters/Healers
- 3 in Sudden Death - More, and cheaper, Executes
- Endless Rage - 25% more Rage.
- 2 in Blood Frenzy - Slightly faster attack speed, adds to group damage
- 5 in Wrecking Crew - More damage after crits and you should be getting a lot of crits.
- Bladestorm - More A of E chaos.
- 3 in Armored to the Teeth - More damage since you should have some armor by now.
- 2 in Booming Voice - Increases the range of your shouts, nice when A of E grinding.
- 3 in Blood Craze - Filler, let's us get Improved Execute. Minor PvP utility.
- 2 in Commanding Presence - More Attack Power - more damage
- 2 in Improved Execute - Cheaper Executes
2.3 - Arms Warrior PvP Builds
Of course, most of your PvP effectiveness will be due more to your skills and how well you use your abilities than the exact build. Just because the build below is used by a Warrior with a 2800 rating doesn't mean you will
achieve that rating.
For a lot more Warrior PvP goodness see our PvP
Warior Guide.
- Learn to use your hot keys. Remap the default bindings so that they make sense to
you. Some people use a special keypad, such as the
Logitech
G13 Advanced Gameboard
- Move around with the WASD (or ESDF) keys and put your hotkeys within easy reach of your moevement keys. Use the mouse to turn.
- Stuns, bleeds, and hamstrings are your friends.
- Make friends with your friendly, neighborhood healer. You'll be unstoppable.
- Practice, practice, practice.
Tweak the builds to your style of play and to your teammate's (if you have any) abilities.
63/8/0 Arms PVP Build
This is a general PvP build. People specializing in 2x2 arena, for example, might want to change some things. Lots of damage here and some stun resistance.
And speaking of 2x2... Here's a build from a 2800 rated Warrior (teamed with Balance Druid:)
57/14/0 Arms 2x2 Arena Build
- skips iron will (stun resistance)
- skips amger management (rage regen)
- takes poleaxe instead of sword - More crits
- 1 pt in imp. hamstring, instead of 3
- adds booming voice - Increase shout range
- adds piercing howl - Slows the opposition
- adds blood craze - Mitigates some damage
49/22/0 Arms/Fury Hybrid PvP Build
- Dig deep into Fury to get Death Wish - 30 seconds of 20% more damage
Arms Warrior Macros
- Intervene: Allows you to Intervene a friendly player without losing your target. You can also Intervene with the same button just by targeting who you want to Intervene.
/cast [nostance:2] Defensive Stance; [help] Intervene; target=targettarget, help] Intervene
- Intercept/Intercept Focus - Intercepts your target. If used in combination with the shift key it will Intercept your Focus target.
#showtooltip Intercept
/cast [target=focus, modifier:shift] Intercept; Intercept
- If you are in combat this will ensure you are in Berseker stance and intercept. If you are out of combat it will ensure you are in Battle stance and charge. The icon will change to whatever skill is to be used.
#show [combat] Intercept; Charge
/cast [stance:1/2,combat] Berserker Stance; [stance:3,combat] Intercept; [stance:2/3,nocombat] Battle Stance; [stance:1,nocombat] Charge
/stopcasting
For in-depth tactics for every class, and how to kill them, you need a more detailed
guide. To achieve PvP mastery with your warrior your need to know your character in detail
and the other guy's character. Grabbing our recommended PvP
guide will be a huge step towards that goal.
3.0 - Gear, Skills, and Stats
This section is dedicated to covering the numerous different stats you may
wish to stack, hit rating, STR, crit, weapon expertise, etc.
| |
Level 60 |
Level 70 |
Level 80 |
Hit Rating
Critical Rating
Weapon Expertise – 1 point = .25% lower chance for enemy to dodge/parry
Haste |
10 rating = 1%
14 rating = 1%
10 rating = 1pt
10 rating = 1pt |
15.8 rating = 1%
22.1 rating = 1%
15.8 = 1pt
15.8 = 1pt |
32.79 = 1%
45.91 = 1%
32.79 = 1pt
32.79 = 1pt |
Hit rating is capped at 8% for everything except Dual Weild. 3 points
is Precision gets you 3% Hit, then add another 5% from gear and you're capped.
That's about 263 total hit rating points. Additional Hit Rating will do you no good.
Statistic wise, for raiding, you'll want to first aim for that 8% +hit rating,
all the +hit talents in the Arms warrior talent tree are unavaliable and
thus leaves you entirely at the mercy of what equipment you currently
possess to improve this stat. PvP and leveling require less hit rating.
Since missing attacks as an arms warrior is so effective at ruining our DPS you'll want
to reach the hit cap regardless what must be sacrificed, working the rest of your gear
in after reaching this limit.
Armor penetration is a massive boost to damage and you can never go wrong with getting more, each 100 improves damage by almost .80% on a fully debuffed boss and a slightly lesser 0.70 or so with only sunder
armor.
You'll likely find it difficult to achieve reasonable levels of critical rating with
the emphasis on gaining +hit, however it's also not recommended to sacrifice any strength
gem slots for improved critical and instead to wait on the gear.
Stat list
Note: Your priorities will change depending on whether you're leveling, dungeoning, or PvPing.
- Crit - Very important for everything you do. Shoot for 35% in Battle Stance
- Hit Rating - for Raiding shoot for the 263 (8%) rating cap, this is the point
where youi will never miss when using a single weapon. Hit is a bit less essential for
PvP and Leveling.
- Expertise - For raiding, shoot for 4-5%, the cap is 6.5%.
- Stamina - You'll need more if tanking or in PvP. Fit it in where you can.
- Strength - Arms relies on crits for its DPS, more so than Strength. So go for Strength only when Hit, Crit, and Expertise are where they should be.
- Agility - Adds to crit rating, but the above stats have priority.
- Resilience - little use in PvE, Raiding, or leveling, it's very important for PvP.
- Armor Penetration - Don't worry about it unless you're already way up there in Hit, Crit, and Expertise.
3.1 - Weaponry
Weapon wise you'll definitely want to choose from either sword or axe, this is due to the weapon specializations dictating that maces are essentially only for PvP and lose all effectiveness in PvE comparative to axe's 5% crtiical or sword's extra attacks.
Poleaxe gives you that 5% crit and 5% extra crit damage. It adds up in a long fight and is also useful in leveling and PvP.
See below for level 70 & 80 gear suggestions.
Gems and Enchants are simple. Just follow the above priorities for raiding. For PvP or tanking you'll want to have some stamina in there. For PvP Resilience is pretty important.
If you really really want to squeeze out every last point of damage then you will want to check out ElitistJerks' Warrior DPS Spreadsheet.
3.2 - Arms Warrior Gear Guide
- Level 80 - Good Gear without raiding - Good gear to get into before you head into Naxxramas.
- Level 80 - Best in Slot (BiS) - The best gear in game for raiding, not PvP.
- Level 70 - Pre-Kara If you don't have Wrath of the Lich King or you want to try the 70 raids, here's your gear list.
Level 80 - Good gear to get without ever setting foot in a 10+ raid.
Note: Many pieces of armor below, as well as potentially weaponry, can be substituted by Arena/Honor gear. Also, depending on how much cash you have and which slots you need to fill, look into Blacksmithing or Engineering.
Helm
Shoulders
Belt
Gloves
Legs
Boots
Chest
Bracers
Cloak
Rings
Neck
Trinkets
Weapons
Ranged
Level 80, Best in Slot (BiS) Gear, Arms Warrior, Hard Mode.
Level 70 - pre-Karazhan
This following is a strictly pre-karazhan gear list to get you started on your way to raiding.
Note: Many pieces of armor below, as well as potentially weaponry, can be substituted by Arena/Honor gear.
Helm:
Neck:
Back:
Shoulders:
Chest:
Wrist:
Hands:
Belt:
Legs:
Boots:
Rings:
Trinkets:
Weapons:
Ranged Weapon:
4.0 - 1-80 Arms Warrior Leveling Guide
Ok, you're not yet 80. Maybe you're even level 1. Have a plan to hit 80 and get into that end-game content? To make your job a lot easier onsider
a full blown leveling guide for your 1-80 blast. You will never again wonder about where to go or what to do and your leveling will be faster, much faster.
Zygor's
Guide nearly automates the whole leveling path, from start to finish, for your Warrior.
Pick your starting point and the guide automatically updates and advances
as you complete quests, sets a waypoint arrow automatically, and includes
the important quest info. You will probably never need to look at your
quest log again, much less browse Thottbot.
Grab your copy of Zygor's Guide here or read
our review. |
