<![CDATA[The Ironsong Tribe - Warrior]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/ Fri, 12 Jun 2026 00:27:59 +0000 MyBB <![CDATA[Fresh start - now what?]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-216.html Wed, 13 Oct 2010 12:51:28 -0700 rincewindy]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-216.html
Despite it's potential setbacks...I WILL NOT GIVE UP FURY! Rawr!

(Back on track.) So, maybe a splash of everything...A leetle beet of Haste, A leetle beet of Strength, a leetle beet of Hit, and a leetle beet of Crit. (And now my brain is fried from thinking about it for so long.) ...but seriously, any ideas?]]>
Despite it's potential setbacks...I WILL NOT GIVE UP FURY! Rawr!

(Back on track.) So, maybe a splash of everything...A leetle beet of Haste, A leetle beet of Strength, a leetle beet of Hit, and a leetle beet of Crit. (And now my brain is fried from thinking about it for so long.) ...but seriously, any ideas?]]> <![CDATA[Possible warrior builds]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-274.html Fri, 23 Jul 2010 00:52:32 -0700 Melikar]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-274.html
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.wowtal.com/#k=lV0br1ZZ.9q4.warrior">http://www.wowtal.com/#k=lV0br1ZZ.9q4.warrior</a><!-- m -->

This is all *potential* of course. Right now, I see no reason to pay attention to rage. I gain so much of it so quickly, it makes no difference to me. However, Blizzard said they would be making it so warriors will have to focus on their rage and actually pay attention to when certain abilities can be executed. Picking up talents like Deadly Calm and Battle Trance may be something I take later. For now, this is what I will be sticking with.

Playing around with the Prot tree, however, there are a lot of interesting things to take in.

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.wowtal.com/#k=GHR_jb1UM.9q4.warrior">http://www.wowtal.com/#k=GHR_jb1UM.9q4.warrior</a><!-- m -->

Once again, because I don't know how rage will work, I didn't put points into Battle Trance. I took Armored to the Teeth, but debated on skipping that and throwing points into Blitz in the Arms tree instead. Having that ability to stun another target as you charge can be really helpful. Another thing I noted is the Blood and Thunder talent. I thought I read that Rend would be usable in all stances, but perhaps I am wrong there. Regardless, it sounds like Prot warriors may have a good reason to use it now.

Charge > Rend > Thunder Clap+Thunderstruck = A great way to hold aggro on groups

I'm glad to see Blizzard is understanding how rough AE tanking is for warriors and how having a "Consecrate"-like ability is going to help. I hope much of this makes it to the actual expansion. However, nothing is really set-in-stone for the moment, so we shall see.

Feel free to discuss. Smile]]>
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.wowtal.com/#k=lV0br1ZZ.9q4.warrior">http://www.wowtal.com/#k=lV0br1ZZ.9q4.warrior</a><!-- m -->

This is all *potential* of course. Right now, I see no reason to pay attention to rage. I gain so much of it so quickly, it makes no difference to me. However, Blizzard said they would be making it so warriors will have to focus on their rage and actually pay attention to when certain abilities can be executed. Picking up talents like Deadly Calm and Battle Trance may be something I take later. For now, this is what I will be sticking with.

Playing around with the Prot tree, however, there are a lot of interesting things to take in.

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.wowtal.com/#k=GHR_jb1UM.9q4.warrior">http://www.wowtal.com/#k=GHR_jb1UM.9q4.warrior</a><!-- m -->

Once again, because I don't know how rage will work, I didn't put points into Battle Trance. I took Armored to the Teeth, but debated on skipping that and throwing points into Blitz in the Arms tree instead. Having that ability to stun another target as you charge can be really helpful. Another thing I noted is the Blood and Thunder talent. I thought I read that Rend would be usable in all stances, but perhaps I am wrong there. Regardless, it sounds like Prot warriors may have a good reason to use it now.

Charge > Rend > Thunder Clap+Thunderstruck = A great way to hold aggro on groups

I'm glad to see Blizzard is understanding how rough AE tanking is for warriors and how having a "Consecrate"-like ability is going to help. I hope much of this makes it to the actual expansion. However, nothing is really set-in-stone for the moment, so we shall see.

Feel free to discuss. Smile]]> <![CDATA[New tank spec?]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-376.html Tue, 13 Apr 2010 18:10:37 -0700 ]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-376.html
Basically, I'm opening this up so you guy's will tear it apart and tell me what I did wrong. D:

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.wowhead.com/talent#Li0h0fZZVItrx0didIzsGo:bdNmzo">http://www.wowhead.com/talent#Li0h0fZZV ... sGo:bdNmzo</a><!-- m -->

Of course, I have reasons for all of the decisions I made with it, which is why I want help making it better. *nods*]]>
Basically, I'm opening this up so you guy's will tear it apart and tell me what I did wrong. D:

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.wowhead.com/talent#Li0h0fZZVItrx0didIzsGo:bdNmzo">http://www.wowhead.com/talent#Li0h0fZZV ... sGo:bdNmzo</a><!-- m -->

Of course, I have reasons for all of the decisions I made with it, which is why I want help making it better. *nods*]]> <![CDATA[Raiding with Arms]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-496.html Sun, 31 Jan 2010 01:29:43 -0800 Melikar]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-496.html
Let's get started!

Spec

Obviously, you'll be putting a majority of your points into the Arms tree. Depending on your play-style, you are free to switch things around as you see fit, but I use specs from sites such as <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.wowpopular.com">http://www.wowpopular.com</a><!-- m --> to figure out the basic aspect of what I want and then mess with it to fit how I like to run my warrior show.

Here is the wowpopular spec: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#LcbIbfIt0brRzGuioGx0s">http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#LcbIbfIt0brRzGuioGx0s</a><!-- m -->

Here is my spec: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Silver+Hand&cn=Melikar&group=2">http://www.wowarmory.com/character-tale ... ar&group=2</a><!-- m -->

I put extra points into the Arms tree and I've messed with my talents because I also use this spec for PvP. But, the basic idea and needed talents for raiding are there all the same. I did not grab [spell]Anger Management[/spell] because I feel I can generate rage quickly enough due to other talents as is. Also, I grabbed the [spell]Improved Charge[/spell] because I believe charging into battle with that extra rage can really help get you started on the rotation. I also threw 2 points in Weapon Mastery mostly due to the PvP aspect of this spec. That is something you are totally able to avoid if you wish.

What is NEEDED...

Here are the talents and abilities that are really needed and why:

[spell]Mortal Strike[/spell] : Mortal Strike not only reduces healing done to the target by 50%, but it also is a huge amount of your burst damage.

[spell]Taste for Blood[/spell] : This is another very needed talent. When TfB procs, your [spell]Overpower[/spell] ability becomes usable. Normally, you can only use this when your attacks are dodged. So having it pop up due to a 100% proc is another great source for burst damage. Since this ability can only occur once every 6 seconds and you have a 9 second timer, it's always best to use it with 3 seconds or less on the timer. As long as your rend is still up, TfB will always proc immediately again as long as you wait out those 6 seconds.

[spell]Trauma[/spell] : Grabbing the two points in Trauma is well worth it. It increases all bleed effects by 30%. And that's not just the bleeds done by you. It includes bleeds from other classes (such as rogues or feral druids) as well. So not only are you increasing your DPS output, but also your fellow raiding bleed DoT'ers!

[spell]Improved Slam[/spell] : This may seem like a waste of 2 talents, but in the Arms spec, it is absolutely not. [spell]Slam[/spell] Has a relatively short cast time as it is. Reducing the time by one second makes it nearly instant. Another great source for burst damage and it's good to use when your other abilities are either on cool down or need a proc.

[spell]Rend[/spell] : Probably the most vital ability to the Arms warrior DPS. Keep Rend up at all times. Not only is it essential that this is up to keep Overpowers to proc, it also provides a lot of overall damage due to talents and the like as well as its initial damage. Yes, I know sometimes I space and forget to throw it back up there, but the more I remember, the more damage I am doing. Also, it is best to wait to reapply Rend until the very last moment. Right as it disappears off the debuff on the mob's portrait, throw on another one. Why is it best to wait? Because reapplying too early resets the timer and actually causes the next tick of damage to come later than if you'd just left it on until it wore off. Basically, you're doing less damage by reapplying early.

[spell]Sweeping Strikes[/spell] and [spell]Bladestorm[/spell] : I put these together because they almost work hand in hand. If you are fighting a single mob, the benefits are not as great. Sweeping Strikes basically hits additional enemies but nothing more. Bladestorm can have it's uses, for sure. While on a single mob, it hits much quicker than an auto-attack and it tends to crit a lot. And...that's about it. The beauty of it comes out in AoE with groups of mobs. Hitting Sweeping Strikes then hitting Bladestorm causes large amounts of damage simply because you're hitting multiple mobs around you at a higher speed. I will admit that Bladestorm was made for PvP, but it has its PvE side as well.

[spell]Sudden Death[/spell] : This ability used to be a lot better. Your execute damage was based off of your amount of rage. If you had a Sudden Death proc, you'd wait until 100 rage to use it (or as close to 100 as you could get) because that meant big numbers. I can't find the source, but I recall some recent patch notes saying that Sudden Death would no longer exceed 30 rage if and when it proc'd. If this is untrue, let me know. Regardless, I use this ability anyway. If you have a Sudden Death Proc, use it. The more rage you have, the better.

[spell]Execute[/spell] : And while I'm talking about SD, let me mention that the spell Execute itself will still do the full amount of damage if you have the mob below 20% health. So, if you have the mob to 20% health or lower and you're at 100 rage, you will cause weapon damage plus 3800 damage. It's very nice to have, is it not?

Stances: Warriors cannot forget they have the three stances - Battle, Defensive and Berserker. An Arms warrior should always be in Battle stance. Defensive is for Prot and Berserker is for Fury.

Play around with the talents and find what works best for you. I've given my ideas on what I think is the best way to go about playing an Arms warrior.

Rotation

I feel the Arms rotation is rather simple. Here is the run down of what I do in raid situations:

[spell]Charge[/spell] > [spell]Rend[/spell] (getting this up ASAP is important) > [spell]Mortal Strike[/spell] > [spell]Overpower[/spell] (If it procs off TfB, if not skip to the next ability) > [spell]Execute[/spell] (if it procs off of [spell]Sudden Death[/spell], if not move to the next ability) > [spell]Slam[/spell]

By this point, Mortal Strike should be off its cool down and you can throw another one of those out. Keep Rend applied every time it finishes its timer and keep hitting Overpower when it procs at the last three seconds. Keeping this basic rotation going is the name of the game. Slam also helps when you have nothing else available (i.e. waiting on procs or cool downs). Also, if pulling groups of mobs, make sure your tank has some pretty decent aggro before you attempt the [spell]Sweeping Strikes[/spell]/[spell]Bladestorm[/spell] combo.

IF you are fighting a boss mob and they fall below 20% health, it is best to remember a few things. Your Execute will be available at all times here. Therefore, I usually use something along the lines of this, assuming you still have Rend up and are keeping it up:

[spell]Mortal Strike[/spell] > [spell]Execute[/spell] (as close to 100 rage as you can get it without missing procs) > [spell]Overpower[/spell] (if it's there from a TfB proc and it's in the last 3 seconds. If not use a [spell]Slam[/spell]) > [spell]Slam[/spell]

If you have your Execute sitting there and you are in the last three seconds of a TfB proc, use Overpower first as it only consumes 10 rage, whereas your Execute uses all of it. You can gain back that 10 rage in about .01 seconds.

Also remember to always use your trinkets and any racial abilities you may have to help increase your DPS. As a troll, I have the Berserking ability that I always try to use whenever its two-minute cool down is over. The 20% speed increase on attacks is VERY helpful. It's pretty much the same as having a secondary [spell]Bloodlust[/spell], so always remember to keep it going if you are a troll, no matter what your class.

Gems and Glyphs

When gemming an Arms warrior, it is important to remember these stats:

Strength: It is better to gem for pure strength than AP. AP helps, of course, but raw Strength is where most of your DPS comes from.
Crit: Crit strike is also very important for any abilities you use.
Hit: The warrior hit cap is 8% or 262 for a hard cap. Make sure you are aiming for this with Strength as missing attacks means less DPS.

Other stats such as AP, Stam, Haste and Agility should come second. Your top priority is Hit cap and gaining as much strength as you can. Crit can even take a back seat to these two stats, but it's important to remember.

Red Gems

[item]Bold Cardinal Ruby[/item]
[item]Bold Stormjewel[/item]
[item]Bright Cardinal Ruby[/item]

Blue Gems

[item]Solid Majestic Zircon[/item] - Rarely should you be using this as an Arms warrior. The only reason you would need one is to fill out your meta-gem requirements. Otherwise, stick with Purple gems in blue slots if you need the bonus. If you don't, feel free to replace it with another strength gem.
[item]Solid Stormjewel[/item]

Yellow Gems

[item]Rigid King's Amber[/item]
[item]Rigid Stormjewel[/item]
[item]Smooth King's Amber[/item]

Purple Gems

[item]Sovereign Dreadstone[/item]
[item]Balanced Dreadstone[/item] - The main gem you will use in blue slots will be these ones. As I said earlier, Majestic Zircons will only be needed to fill out the meta-gem requirements.

Green Gems

[item]Jagged Eye of Zul[/item]
[item]Vivid Eye of Zul[/item]

Orange Gems

[item]Deadly Ametrine[/item]
[item]Etched Ametrine[/item]
[item]Fierce Ametrine[/item]
[item]Inscribed Ametrine[/item]
[item]Pristine Ametrine[/item]
[item]Wicked Ametrine[/item]

Meta

[item]Chaotic Skyflare Diamond[/item]
[item]Relentless Earthsiege Diamond[/item]

There are also plenty of other Meta-gems that can give you AP or Crit and also give you things such as a 10% decrease in fear or rooted effects. I only posted these two because they benefit your DPS the most.

Glyphs

[item]Glyph of Bladestorm[/item]
[item]Glyph of Execution[/item]
[item]Glyph of Mortal Strike[/item]
[item]Glyph of Rapid Charge[/item]
[item]Glyph of Rending[/item]
[item]Glyph of Sweeping Strikes[/item]
[item]Glyph of Victory Rush[/item]

[item]Glyph of Battle[/item]
[item]Glyph of Charge[/item]
[item]Glyph of Enduring Victory[/item]

Happy raiding! Smile]]>
Let's get started!

Spec

Obviously, you'll be putting a majority of your points into the Arms tree. Depending on your play-style, you are free to switch things around as you see fit, but I use specs from sites such as <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.wowpopular.com">http://www.wowpopular.com</a><!-- m --> to figure out the basic aspect of what I want and then mess with it to fit how I like to run my warrior show.

Here is the wowpopular spec: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#LcbIbfIt0brRzGuioGx0s">http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#LcbIbfIt0brRzGuioGx0s</a><!-- m -->

Here is my spec: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Silver+Hand&cn=Melikar&group=2">http://www.wowarmory.com/character-tale ... ar&group=2</a><!-- m -->

I put extra points into the Arms tree and I've messed with my talents because I also use this spec for PvP. But, the basic idea and needed talents for raiding are there all the same. I did not grab [spell]Anger Management[/spell] because I feel I can generate rage quickly enough due to other talents as is. Also, I grabbed the [spell]Improved Charge[/spell] because I believe charging into battle with that extra rage can really help get you started on the rotation. I also threw 2 points in Weapon Mastery mostly due to the PvP aspect of this spec. That is something you are totally able to avoid if you wish.

What is NEEDED...

Here are the talents and abilities that are really needed and why:

[spell]Mortal Strike[/spell] : Mortal Strike not only reduces healing done to the target by 50%, but it also is a huge amount of your burst damage.

[spell]Taste for Blood[/spell] : This is another very needed talent. When TfB procs, your [spell]Overpower[/spell] ability becomes usable. Normally, you can only use this when your attacks are dodged. So having it pop up due to a 100% proc is another great source for burst damage. Since this ability can only occur once every 6 seconds and you have a 9 second timer, it's always best to use it with 3 seconds or less on the timer. As long as your rend is still up, TfB will always proc immediately again as long as you wait out those 6 seconds.

[spell]Trauma[/spell] : Grabbing the two points in Trauma is well worth it. It increases all bleed effects by 30%. And that's not just the bleeds done by you. It includes bleeds from other classes (such as rogues or feral druids) as well. So not only are you increasing your DPS output, but also your fellow raiding bleed DoT'ers!

[spell]Improved Slam[/spell] : This may seem like a waste of 2 talents, but in the Arms spec, it is absolutely not. [spell]Slam[/spell] Has a relatively short cast time as it is. Reducing the time by one second makes it nearly instant. Another great source for burst damage and it's good to use when your other abilities are either on cool down or need a proc.

[spell]Rend[/spell] : Probably the most vital ability to the Arms warrior DPS. Keep Rend up at all times. Not only is it essential that this is up to keep Overpowers to proc, it also provides a lot of overall damage due to talents and the like as well as its initial damage. Yes, I know sometimes I space and forget to throw it back up there, but the more I remember, the more damage I am doing. Also, it is best to wait to reapply Rend until the very last moment. Right as it disappears off the debuff on the mob's portrait, throw on another one. Why is it best to wait? Because reapplying too early resets the timer and actually causes the next tick of damage to come later than if you'd just left it on until it wore off. Basically, you're doing less damage by reapplying early.

[spell]Sweeping Strikes[/spell] and [spell]Bladestorm[/spell] : I put these together because they almost work hand in hand. If you are fighting a single mob, the benefits are not as great. Sweeping Strikes basically hits additional enemies but nothing more. Bladestorm can have it's uses, for sure. While on a single mob, it hits much quicker than an auto-attack and it tends to crit a lot. And...that's about it. The beauty of it comes out in AoE with groups of mobs. Hitting Sweeping Strikes then hitting Bladestorm causes large amounts of damage simply because you're hitting multiple mobs around you at a higher speed. I will admit that Bladestorm was made for PvP, but it has its PvE side as well.

[spell]Sudden Death[/spell] : This ability used to be a lot better. Your execute damage was based off of your amount of rage. If you had a Sudden Death proc, you'd wait until 100 rage to use it (or as close to 100 as you could get) because that meant big numbers. I can't find the source, but I recall some recent patch notes saying that Sudden Death would no longer exceed 30 rage if and when it proc'd. If this is untrue, let me know. Regardless, I use this ability anyway. If you have a Sudden Death Proc, use it. The more rage you have, the better.

[spell]Execute[/spell] : And while I'm talking about SD, let me mention that the spell Execute itself will still do the full amount of damage if you have the mob below 20% health. So, if you have the mob to 20% health or lower and you're at 100 rage, you will cause weapon damage plus 3800 damage. It's very nice to have, is it not?

Stances: Warriors cannot forget they have the three stances - Battle, Defensive and Berserker. An Arms warrior should always be in Battle stance. Defensive is for Prot and Berserker is for Fury.

Play around with the talents and find what works best for you. I've given my ideas on what I think is the best way to go about playing an Arms warrior.

Rotation

I feel the Arms rotation is rather simple. Here is the run down of what I do in raid situations:

[spell]Charge[/spell] > [spell]Rend[/spell] (getting this up ASAP is important) > [spell]Mortal Strike[/spell] > [spell]Overpower[/spell] (If it procs off TfB, if not skip to the next ability) > [spell]Execute[/spell] (if it procs off of [spell]Sudden Death[/spell], if not move to the next ability) > [spell]Slam[/spell]

By this point, Mortal Strike should be off its cool down and you can throw another one of those out. Keep Rend applied every time it finishes its timer and keep hitting Overpower when it procs at the last three seconds. Keeping this basic rotation going is the name of the game. Slam also helps when you have nothing else available (i.e. waiting on procs or cool downs). Also, if pulling groups of mobs, make sure your tank has some pretty decent aggro before you attempt the [spell]Sweeping Strikes[/spell]/[spell]Bladestorm[/spell] combo.

IF you are fighting a boss mob and they fall below 20% health, it is best to remember a few things. Your Execute will be available at all times here. Therefore, I usually use something along the lines of this, assuming you still have Rend up and are keeping it up:

[spell]Mortal Strike[/spell] > [spell]Execute[/spell] (as close to 100 rage as you can get it without missing procs) > [spell]Overpower[/spell] (if it's there from a TfB proc and it's in the last 3 seconds. If not use a [spell]Slam[/spell]) > [spell]Slam[/spell]

If you have your Execute sitting there and you are in the last three seconds of a TfB proc, use Overpower first as it only consumes 10 rage, whereas your Execute uses all of it. You can gain back that 10 rage in about .01 seconds.

Also remember to always use your trinkets and any racial abilities you may have to help increase your DPS. As a troll, I have the Berserking ability that I always try to use whenever its two-minute cool down is over. The 20% speed increase on attacks is VERY helpful. It's pretty much the same as having a secondary [spell]Bloodlust[/spell], so always remember to keep it going if you are a troll, no matter what your class.

Gems and Glyphs

When gemming an Arms warrior, it is important to remember these stats:

Strength: It is better to gem for pure strength than AP. AP helps, of course, but raw Strength is where most of your DPS comes from.
Crit: Crit strike is also very important for any abilities you use.
Hit: The warrior hit cap is 8% or 262 for a hard cap. Make sure you are aiming for this with Strength as missing attacks means less DPS.

Other stats such as AP, Stam, Haste and Agility should come second. Your top priority is Hit cap and gaining as much strength as you can. Crit can even take a back seat to these two stats, but it's important to remember.

Red Gems

[item]Bold Cardinal Ruby[/item]
[item]Bold Stormjewel[/item]
[item]Bright Cardinal Ruby[/item]

Blue Gems

[item]Solid Majestic Zircon[/item] - Rarely should you be using this as an Arms warrior. The only reason you would need one is to fill out your meta-gem requirements. Otherwise, stick with Purple gems in blue slots if you need the bonus. If you don't, feel free to replace it with another strength gem.
[item]Solid Stormjewel[/item]

Yellow Gems

[item]Rigid King's Amber[/item]
[item]Rigid Stormjewel[/item]
[item]Smooth King's Amber[/item]

Purple Gems

[item]Sovereign Dreadstone[/item]
[item]Balanced Dreadstone[/item] - The main gem you will use in blue slots will be these ones. As I said earlier, Majestic Zircons will only be needed to fill out the meta-gem requirements.

Green Gems

[item]Jagged Eye of Zul[/item]
[item]Vivid Eye of Zul[/item]

Orange Gems

[item]Deadly Ametrine[/item]
[item]Etched Ametrine[/item]
[item]Fierce Ametrine[/item]
[item]Inscribed Ametrine[/item]
[item]Pristine Ametrine[/item]
[item]Wicked Ametrine[/item]

Meta

[item]Chaotic Skyflare Diamond[/item]
[item]Relentless Earthsiege Diamond[/item]

There are also plenty of other Meta-gems that can give you AP or Crit and also give you things such as a 10% decrease in fear or rooted effects. I only posted these two because they benefit your DPS the most.

Glyphs

[item]Glyph of Bladestorm[/item]
[item]Glyph of Execution[/item]
[item]Glyph of Mortal Strike[/item]
[item]Glyph of Rapid Charge[/item]
[item]Glyph of Rending[/item]
[item]Glyph of Sweeping Strikes[/item]
[item]Glyph of Victory Rush[/item]

[item]Glyph of Battle[/item]
[item]Glyph of Charge[/item]
[item]Glyph of Enduring Victory[/item]

Happy raiding! Smile]]> <![CDATA[Crying wolf...for real this time]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-806.html Mon, 15 Jun 2009 13:49:00 -0700 Eruadan]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-806.html
Donalzon was kind enough to let me off tank Naxxramas yesterday, which is a TREMENDOUS jump from the two regular instances I have tanked in the past (which summed up my experience prior to yesterday). This sparked an insane amount of questions I never thought of, and the desire to tank more instances. So if anyone who has experience with Warrior tanking and has some time to answer my questions again...possibly helping me put it into practice, it would be appreciate it.

This time I will be more active at practicing it so it becomes second nature and I no longer have to ask you guys over and over again.

Thank you!]]>
Donalzon was kind enough to let me off tank Naxxramas yesterday, which is a TREMENDOUS jump from the two regular instances I have tanked in the past (which summed up my experience prior to yesterday). This sparked an insane amount of questions I never thought of, and the desire to tank more instances. So if anyone who has experience with Warrior tanking and has some time to answer my questions again...possibly helping me put it into practice, it would be appreciate it.

This time I will be more active at practicing it so it becomes second nature and I no longer have to ask you guys over and over again.

Thank you!]]> <![CDATA[Advice from experts....]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-1044.html Thu, 26 Feb 2009 08:58:20 -0800 Eruadan]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-1044.html
I am in need of some advice from those who have leveled their warrior through Northrend. Not only that, I am in need of advice on HOW to tank, and what are important factors in tanking. Things like, single target tanking vs Multiple target tanking, skill rotations (if they exist for warriors), even rage management advice. I know I could seek guides on the internet, however over the years I have witnessed the abilities of Ironsong's main tanks and trust their knowledge and experience over those guides. They are incredible players and I wish to learn from them in an attempt to fulfill another role besides healing.

Even though Garudo is level 71, please feel free to critique his current talent spec and gear choices (He is also an Armorsmith). I am somewhat unfamiliar with which choices I should make when presented with several options for gear in regards to Stats/Ratings.

Thank you to those who reply! Big Grin]]>
I am in need of some advice from those who have leveled their warrior through Northrend. Not only that, I am in need of advice on HOW to tank, and what are important factors in tanking. Things like, single target tanking vs Multiple target tanking, skill rotations (if they exist for warriors), even rage management advice. I know I could seek guides on the internet, however over the years I have witnessed the abilities of Ironsong's main tanks and trust their knowledge and experience over those guides. They are incredible players and I wish to learn from them in an attempt to fulfill another role besides healing.

Even though Garudo is level 71, please feel free to critique his current talent spec and gear choices (He is also an Armorsmith). I am somewhat unfamiliar with which choices I should make when presented with several options for gear in regards to Stats/Ratings.

Thank you to those who reply! Big Grin]]> <![CDATA[PvP Warrior Guide - As of patch 3.0.2]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-1295.html Fri, 24 Oct 2008 22:57:06 -0700 Melikar]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-1295.html NOTE: This is not done. Only got a bit of it done. more will come later.

So, I am making this guide as a way to help warriors who may be interested in PvP.

One thing I have learned is, that as a warrior, there are a lot of things to look out for and others that you will have to rely on. You have no magic and cannot heal yourself unless you have health pots. These can be useful when used at the right time. You will mainly have to rely on others for healing and anything that impairs your movement will be a great hindrance to you.

Please keep in mind that I am not the best PvP warrior out there and never will be. The best way to learn and to become better is to take the advice of those who've had more experience than you. I am still doing so and improving slowly but surely.

~The Path of Arms~

The best spec design for PvPing is, by far, the Arms tree. This tree has Mortal Strike (reduces all healing effects on the target by 50%) and Sweeping strikes which hits all nearby enemies for damage over your next 10 attacks. It also now carries the dreaded Bladestorm which is pretty much a six second whirlwind in which you can move to hit others. You cannot be stunned or feared while you use this, but enemy players will see you and will most likely try to kill you off as soon as possible. If you have a high crit rating, this can do a lot of damage to a lot of enemy players around you. Unless you are getting some good heals, you most likely will not survive an enemy player onslaught.

As an Arms warrior, you will also be sacrificing Stamina and higher armor/defense ratings for increased strength and crit. Hit rating is also really something you should look into improving. The higher these stats are, the easier of a time you will have. It's also largely based on skill. Playing a warrior successfully in PvP is by no means an easy feat. It requires a lot of practice, a lot of studying and a lot of patience. You will also find yourself going through a lot of nerdrage when you seem to die so much. Wink

Having a macro that toggles your two-hander/Berserker stance and a shield/one handed weapon/Defensive stance is good since you can use spell reflect, disarm and Shield Wall. Since the new patch, Shield Wall, Recklessness and Retaliation no longer share CD times. By the way, I usually stick to Berserker stance for PvP, but a lot of people also like staying with Battle stance. Your damage output is more in Zerker but you also TAKE more damage, so it really depends on how comfortable you are with the two.

Please read this Warrior PvP guide on how to fight the various classes. I will not go over all of these here (the guide is very helpful) but I will at least mention your worst enemies, in my experience.

The Paladin and the Rogue.

~Paladin~

Paladins can now make very quick work of anything they run into. And since you're a warrior, they have some very nice ways of stopping you and making you a very angry player. The Paladin's Repentance now lasts 1 minute instead of its old 6 seconds (though it breaks if you take any damage), and Hammer of Justice is commonly seen here (this does not break even if you take damage and lasts 6 seconds). The PvP trinket will break both of these. But if anything, use it to break HoJ and not Repentance since a Paladin can just wail on you while HoJ is down. The same can't be said for Repentance.

Most Paladins you run into in PvP will be Ret, even though Holy ones have been showing up more. These guys will mostly just stay off to the side and heal instead of ruthlessly throwing themselves into the fray. You're Mortal Strike can work wonders if the Paladin doesn't have a shield on. Always wait for a Pally to throw up the shield before doing too much. Their Forbearance (the debuff that makes it so that can't use shields) now lasts 3 minutes instead of the old 1 minute. Their shields can also clean themselves of Mortal Strike, so always save it for when the shield is gone.

Paladins both can and cannot attack when shielded. One type of shield (Hand of Protection) will make it so they can't attack physically, but they can still use judgments, consecration, and stunning effects. They will usually toss these around to stop you from gaining rage in battle and take that time to heal. You should try to get out of range as soon as a bubble goes up and bandage yourself or use a health pot if your HP is still relatively high. The other type of shield (Divine Protection) will reduce all damage taken by 50% but will increase time between their attacks by 100%. With the average two-handed weapon (I'm speaking in the belief that you are fighting a Retadin) the normal hit time is 3.50 seconds. This means it will take the paladin 7 seconds to even hit you physically once. This means they can only hit you perhaps twice at most, unless they have a high haste rating. The last shield (Divine Shield) entirely protect the paladin, but once again increases time by 100%. If you can see what shield they have on, its best to run and bandage when they have HoP or Divine Shield. When they have on Divine Protection, if your HP is running low run and bandage. If you're still pretty good in that area, attack regardless. This helps to interrupt heals and 50% damage is better than none.

Paladins will also throw down consecrate, even when they fight you alone. The best thing to do here is to back-up out of it. The Paladin will try to keep you inside the AoE and when you leave, they will try to lure you back by throwing out a judgment or they will keep you in place by using Hammer of Justice. The best thing to do here is to trinket out or hope HoJ is on CD when they throw down the consecrate. If you back far enough away, your Intercept ability should become available as long as you have the rage. That's your chance to rush in and attack. By the time you back far enough away, the consecrate time should be nearly finished and you'll take a lot less damage. Intercept is also a great way to interrupt heals if a bubble is wearing off.

Next thing to note, Hammer of Wrath. The new patch made it so that HoW is now doing anywhere from 2-3.5k damage and can be used at 35% HP instead of the old 20% HP. If the battle is getting desperate and both you and the paladin have red, flashing portraits, switch to Defensive stance (with that cool shield/one-hander macro) and throw up Shield Wall. All damage is reduced by 75% when this goes out and HoW will only end up doing 800-1.5k damage instead. This should not be hard of a hit and you can try to use Execute to finish them off.

And one more thing to remember, Lay on Hands! This heals the paladin for full HP and restores 500 (or more, I'm not sure) of their mana. This is only used in desperate situations and the CD has been reduced to 20 minutes instead of the old 1 hour. When a paladin has no other options and is desperatly low on health they will try to use LoH. It's instant cast and cannot be interrupted. The best way to fight this is by watching to see if the paladin starts to use a normal healing spell when they get low on health. Interrupt this with a Pummel and finish them off since all their Holy spells will be down for six seconds.

Keep all this in mind and try your best!

~The Rogue~

Will be writing this later.]]> NOTE: This is not done. Only got a bit of it done. more will come later.

So, I am making this guide as a way to help warriors who may be interested in PvP.

One thing I have learned is, that as a warrior, there are a lot of things to look out for and others that you will have to rely on. You have no magic and cannot heal yourself unless you have health pots. These can be useful when used at the right time. You will mainly have to rely on others for healing and anything that impairs your movement will be a great hindrance to you.

Please keep in mind that I am not the best PvP warrior out there and never will be. The best way to learn and to become better is to take the advice of those who've had more experience than you. I am still doing so and improving slowly but surely.

~The Path of Arms~

The best spec design for PvPing is, by far, the Arms tree. This tree has Mortal Strike (reduces all healing effects on the target by 50%) and Sweeping strikes which hits all nearby enemies for damage over your next 10 attacks. It also now carries the dreaded Bladestorm which is pretty much a six second whirlwind in which you can move to hit others. You cannot be stunned or feared while you use this, but enemy players will see you and will most likely try to kill you off as soon as possible. If you have a high crit rating, this can do a lot of damage to a lot of enemy players around you. Unless you are getting some good heals, you most likely will not survive an enemy player onslaught.

As an Arms warrior, you will also be sacrificing Stamina and higher armor/defense ratings for increased strength and crit. Hit rating is also really something you should look into improving. The higher these stats are, the easier of a time you will have. It's also largely based on skill. Playing a warrior successfully in PvP is by no means an easy feat. It requires a lot of practice, a lot of studying and a lot of patience. You will also find yourself going through a lot of nerdrage when you seem to die so much. Wink

Having a macro that toggles your two-hander/Berserker stance and a shield/one handed weapon/Defensive stance is good since you can use spell reflect, disarm and Shield Wall. Since the new patch, Shield Wall, Recklessness and Retaliation no longer share CD times. By the way, I usually stick to Berserker stance for PvP, but a lot of people also like staying with Battle stance. Your damage output is more in Zerker but you also TAKE more damage, so it really depends on how comfortable you are with the two.

Please read this Warrior PvP guide on how to fight the various classes. I will not go over all of these here (the guide is very helpful) but I will at least mention your worst enemies, in my experience.

The Paladin and the Rogue.

~Paladin~

Paladins can now make very quick work of anything they run into. And since you're a warrior, they have some very nice ways of stopping you and making you a very angry player. The Paladin's Repentance now lasts 1 minute instead of its old 6 seconds (though it breaks if you take any damage), and Hammer of Justice is commonly seen here (this does not break even if you take damage and lasts 6 seconds). The PvP trinket will break both of these. But if anything, use it to break HoJ and not Repentance since a Paladin can just wail on you while HoJ is down. The same can't be said for Repentance.

Most Paladins you run into in PvP will be Ret, even though Holy ones have been showing up more. These guys will mostly just stay off to the side and heal instead of ruthlessly throwing themselves into the fray. You're Mortal Strike can work wonders if the Paladin doesn't have a shield on. Always wait for a Pally to throw up the shield before doing too much. Their Forbearance (the debuff that makes it so that can't use shields) now lasts 3 minutes instead of the old 1 minute. Their shields can also clean themselves of Mortal Strike, so always save it for when the shield is gone.

Paladins both can and cannot attack when shielded. One type of shield (Hand of Protection) will make it so they can't attack physically, but they can still use judgments, consecration, and stunning effects. They will usually toss these around to stop you from gaining rage in battle and take that time to heal. You should try to get out of range as soon as a bubble goes up and bandage yourself or use a health pot if your HP is still relatively high. The other type of shield (Divine Protection) will reduce all damage taken by 50% but will increase time between their attacks by 100%. With the average two-handed weapon (I'm speaking in the belief that you are fighting a Retadin) the normal hit time is 3.50 seconds. This means it will take the paladin 7 seconds to even hit you physically once. This means they can only hit you perhaps twice at most, unless they have a high haste rating. The last shield (Divine Shield) entirely protect the paladin, but once again increases time by 100%. If you can see what shield they have on, its best to run and bandage when they have HoP or Divine Shield. When they have on Divine Protection, if your HP is running low run and bandage. If you're still pretty good in that area, attack regardless. This helps to interrupt heals and 50% damage is better than none.

Paladins will also throw down consecrate, even when they fight you alone. The best thing to do here is to back-up out of it. The Paladin will try to keep you inside the AoE and when you leave, they will try to lure you back by throwing out a judgment or they will keep you in place by using Hammer of Justice. The best thing to do here is to trinket out or hope HoJ is on CD when they throw down the consecrate. If you back far enough away, your Intercept ability should become available as long as you have the rage. That's your chance to rush in and attack. By the time you back far enough away, the consecrate time should be nearly finished and you'll take a lot less damage. Intercept is also a great way to interrupt heals if a bubble is wearing off.

Next thing to note, Hammer of Wrath. The new patch made it so that HoW is now doing anywhere from 2-3.5k damage and can be used at 35% HP instead of the old 20% HP. If the battle is getting desperate and both you and the paladin have red, flashing portraits, switch to Defensive stance (with that cool shield/one-hander macro) and throw up Shield Wall. All damage is reduced by 75% when this goes out and HoW will only end up doing 800-1.5k damage instead. This should not be hard of a hit and you can try to use Execute to finish them off.

And one more thing to remember, Lay on Hands! This heals the paladin for full HP and restores 500 (or more, I'm not sure) of their mana. This is only used in desperate situations and the CD has been reduced to 20 minutes instead of the old 1 hour. When a paladin has no other options and is desperatly low on health they will try to use LoH. It's instant cast and cannot be interrupted. The best way to fight this is by watching to see if the paladin starts to use a normal healing spell when they get low on health. Interrupt this with a Pummel and finish them off since all their Holy spells will be down for six seconds.

Keep all this in mind and try your best!

~The Rogue~

Will be writing this later.]]> <![CDATA[Blue Post]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-1301.html Thu, 23 Oct 2008 08:27:35 -0700 Efluvious]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-1301.html
Quote:As I posted recently in the hunter forums, we increased the armor on level 83 raid bosses by 10%. This will be a nerf to warrior dps.

In the case of Arms and Protection, we don't think any adjustment is necessary at this time. Arms is doing very competitive dps, while Fury has fallen behind. We experimented with lowering the proc chance of Sudden Death, from where Arms gets a lot of its damage, but weren't happy with the result and ultimately decided to buff Fury instead.

First, we increased the percentage of AP that contributes to Bloodthirst from 45% to 50%.

Second, we reduced the hit penalty on special attacks on Titan's Grip from -12% to -5%.

As I have said before, we have been somewhat reluctant to give Titan's Grip such a huge buff. It is now likely more powerful than several other talents in the tree and risks being the 51-point talent to which all other classes compare their 51-point talent. Nevertheless, we feel it was the right change to make.

When a Fury warrior missed a Slam or Bloodthirst on a boss, they ended up building up a lot of extra rage that couldn't be spent fast enough. I understand some players suggested an additional attack for Fury, and that is something we may still consider when we see players hit 80 and start experimenting more with the build. But it would be a very big change that involved touching talent trees and glyphs, as well as a lot of time necessary to iterate on the right values. The Titan's Grip change by contrast was a simple one, and judging by the number of players who have asked for it throughout beta, one that will be welcomed by the community.
]]>
Quote:As I posted recently in the hunter forums, we increased the armor on level 83 raid bosses by 10%. This will be a nerf to warrior dps.

In the case of Arms and Protection, we don't think any adjustment is necessary at this time. Arms is doing very competitive dps, while Fury has fallen behind. We experimented with lowering the proc chance of Sudden Death, from where Arms gets a lot of its damage, but weren't happy with the result and ultimately decided to buff Fury instead.

First, we increased the percentage of AP that contributes to Bloodthirst from 45% to 50%.

Second, we reduced the hit penalty on special attacks on Titan's Grip from -12% to -5%.

As I have said before, we have been somewhat reluctant to give Titan's Grip such a huge buff. It is now likely more powerful than several other talents in the tree and risks being the 51-point talent to which all other classes compare their 51-point talent. Nevertheless, we feel it was the right change to make.

When a Fury warrior missed a Slam or Bloodthirst on a boss, they ended up building up a lot of extra rage that couldn't be spent fast enough. I understand some players suggested an additional attack for Fury, and that is something we may still consider when we see players hit 80 and start experimenting more with the build. But it would be a very big change that involved touching talent trees and glyphs, as well as a lot of time necessary to iterate on the right values. The Titan's Grip change by contrast was a simple one, and judging by the number of players who have asked for it throughout beta, one that will be welcomed by the community.
]]> <![CDATA[Mods/Macros to make tanking better]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-1603.html Wed, 18 Jun 2008 11:08:12 -0700 Cloudjumper]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-1603.html
I am looking for any suggestions on Mods or Macros to make tanking better/easier/more enjoyable.
Should any of you have suggestions can you post them here?]]>
I am looking for any suggestions on Mods or Macros to make tanking better/easier/more enjoyable.
Should any of you have suggestions can you post them here?]]> <![CDATA[Your Shield and You (Prot spec guide)]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-1661.html Wed, 21 May 2008 12:50:46 -0700 Kosath]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-1661.html Foreward: It's been a while since I wrote a guide, so bear with me. I will try to cover all of the bases plus a few things extra. I believe that leading a group tends to go hand-in-hand with tanking, so I will cover a bit of that as well. If you have any additional questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

Introduction

When it comes to being a protection specced warrior, you must accept the fact that you are going to be a tank and nothing else. That's it. You may be able to do enough DPS to avoid embarrassing yourself, but it will still be far below someone specialized for the role. You also must accept that you have chosen a role that will solo slowly and that is meant to shine in groups.

I would also recommend that you write off significant PVP. There are ways to harrass your opponents, carry flags, hold bases, etc... but in the end, you should not expect to kill your opponents without help. You become a very effective speedbump and can certainly have fun, but it is a side of the game you need to decide if you can do without (at least on this character).

Finally, there are those who would argue over wether tanking is an art or a science. Science is based on hard numbers, and art tends to be something you feel. I will tell you that tanking begins as a science and, with practice, becomes an art.

And so, we begin with the science of tanking:

Talents
Your talents can be divided into roughly three categories: Damage reduction, threat generation, and (to a limited degree) crowd control. The first two are obvious, but crowd control for a protection warrior is not used to take an opponent out of the fight. It is used to buy time to hold or regain aggro.

I will start with what I consider the must-have talents, and they are certainly not all in the protection tree.

Deflection: You will be hard pressed to find a better damage reduction talent, and it's in the first tier of arms. As an added bonus, parrying will speed up your attacks and thus threat generation.

Cruelty: This is the most basic threat generating talent, and it is in the fury tree. 5% more damage is worth it alone, but a critical shield slam often generates enough aggro that you can comfortably focus on other targets. Finally, you will generate more rage when trying to hold numerous weaker opponents.

Anticipation: The third most basic talent. 20 defense gives more block, dodge, parry, miss chance, and crit reduction. And with a basic requirement of 490, it will eventually allow you much more latitude in your gear choices.

Improved Thunder Clap: While the additional damage is mildly helpful when multi-tanking, the real key here is the additional 10% reduction in attack speed on bosses. That's more time for a heal to land, less chances they get to smash you, and less damage all around.

Toughness: 10% more armor is hard to beat. Absolutely required talent.

Shield Specialization: When combined with the shield block skill, you want your shield block percentage to be as close to 100 as possible. I will explain the reason for this in the gear section below. This talent is also a prereq for...

Improved Shield Block: A second tool for reducing crushing blows. You will be able to block two of them before refreshing, which may (just barely) be enough to negate crushing blows.

Defiance: 15% more threat and expertise. This one should be self explanatory.

Improved Taunt: It may not seem like much, and you'll curse blizzard every time something is immune to taunt, but 2 seconds can seem like a lifetime. This is especially useful when multi-tanking or helping AEing groupmates. More mages probably owe their lives to this talent than iceblock.

Concussion Blow: Much like improved taunt, this talent is limited to opponents who can be stunned. A great deal of trash can be effected by this, and it is a great way to buy time to regain aggro when taunt is already on cooldown. It is also useful if you want to safely change target for a few seconds and not worry about the first target eating a rogue.

One-Handed Weapon Spec: It may not be clear from the tooltip, but this talent adds 10% to ALL DAMAGE when you are wielding a 1-handed weapon. Not just white damage or just damage from your main hand weapon... all damage. That includes shield slam and dual wielding.

Shield Mastery: This may at first appear to be a defensive talent, but it is actually designed for threat generation. This talent effects shield slam damage.

Shield Slam: Without a doubt the most important ability a protection warrior gets. It will be your highest damage attack as well as your highest threat attack.

Focused Rage: One of the best talents available to warriors, period. This will effect every ability you use aside from shield block, spell reflect, commanding shout, and battle shout. If you are protection specced and have taken improved sunder armor instead of this talent, quietly fix it before I find out. Smile

Vitality: In the life of a tank, your skill is often gauged by exactly how hard you can be hit without falling down. Stamina is key.

Devastate: If you've come this far in the protection tree, you should have this. Useful in soloing and in tanking, every bit of damage helps. Be thankful Blizzard fixed it and included sunder armor.

That covers the must-have talents. Now for those in between and my opinions on them:

Unbridled wrath: Unless you are a dual wielding DPS warrior, you should not take this talent. Mathematically, it simply doesn't measure up when using a single weapon. What I recommend taking instead is...

Anger management: This is a great rage generation talent, and I regret not having enough points to take it with my other choices. Luckily most opponents will hit you hard enough that rage generation is rarely a problem until you are overgeared. If you want to take this and need to find 2 more points in arms over deflection and improved thunder clap, I recommend improved heroic strike. It is an excellent threat generation tool.

Improved Bloodrage: You will use bloodrage before every pull if it isn't on cooldown. I recommend putting any leftover points you have in this talent, as it will allow you to more quickly open with a shield slam.

Tactical mastery: Not as crucial as it once was. If you do not pvp, you can live without it.

Last stand: I almost put this among the must-haves. It comes highly recommended. As your group/raid progresses past each boss in gear and skill, you will use it less and less. However, when learning a new encounter or needing to hold on just a few second longer, it always pays to have one more "Oh $#!^" button.

Improved Revenge: I have 1 point in this. It is a tough talent to judge, but my reasoning is that 1 point is an infinite percentage increase in my ability to stun with revenge. The stun is short, but useful for interrupting casters now and then, as shield bash and concussion blow have longer cooldowns. And honestly, sometimes it's better to be lucky than good.

Improved Sunder Armor: Only take this after focused rage. The talent is useful, but I find that with the rage generated in most encounters, only a certain number of rage reducing talents are necessary.

Improved Disarm: Never, ever take this. Ever. Disclaimer: Someday, theoretically, a boss may require it. Until then, see above.

Improved Shield Wall: This is much like last stand except it enhances an existing skill. This one is a matter of personal preference.

Improved Shield Bash: I have 2 points in this talent, but it is also a matter of personal preference. I use it for dragging casters back to the group when I don't want to wait for an opportunity to interrupt. Why not wait? Because the longer you tank something in a bad location, the longer Murphy's Law has to take effect.

Improved Defensive Stance: When you compare the three primary tanking classes, the advantage that can most clearly be shown for warriors is that we handle magic damage better. Defensive stance already reduces that damage by 10%, and 6% may seem minor. I prefer to play to my strengths, and have 3 points in it.

I believe that covers talents. That should definitely be the largest section. Next up will be soloing.]]> Foreward: It's been a while since I wrote a guide, so bear with me. I will try to cover all of the bases plus a few things extra. I believe that leading a group tends to go hand-in-hand with tanking, so I will cover a bit of that as well. If you have any additional questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

Introduction

When it comes to being a protection specced warrior, you must accept the fact that you are going to be a tank and nothing else. That's it. You may be able to do enough DPS to avoid embarrassing yourself, but it will still be far below someone specialized for the role. You also must accept that you have chosen a role that will solo slowly and that is meant to shine in groups.

I would also recommend that you write off significant PVP. There are ways to harrass your opponents, carry flags, hold bases, etc... but in the end, you should not expect to kill your opponents without help. You become a very effective speedbump and can certainly have fun, but it is a side of the game you need to decide if you can do without (at least on this character).

Finally, there are those who would argue over wether tanking is an art or a science. Science is based on hard numbers, and art tends to be something you feel. I will tell you that tanking begins as a science and, with practice, becomes an art.

And so, we begin with the science of tanking:

Talents
Your talents can be divided into roughly three categories: Damage reduction, threat generation, and (to a limited degree) crowd control. The first two are obvious, but crowd control for a protection warrior is not used to take an opponent out of the fight. It is used to buy time to hold or regain aggro.

I will start with what I consider the must-have talents, and they are certainly not all in the protection tree.

Deflection: You will be hard pressed to find a better damage reduction talent, and it's in the first tier of arms. As an added bonus, parrying will speed up your attacks and thus threat generation.

Cruelty: This is the most basic threat generating talent, and it is in the fury tree. 5% more damage is worth it alone, but a critical shield slam often generates enough aggro that you can comfortably focus on other targets. Finally, you will generate more rage when trying to hold numerous weaker opponents.

Anticipation: The third most basic talent. 20 defense gives more block, dodge, parry, miss chance, and crit reduction. And with a basic requirement of 490, it will eventually allow you much more latitude in your gear choices.

Improved Thunder Clap: While the additional damage is mildly helpful when multi-tanking, the real key here is the additional 10% reduction in attack speed on bosses. That's more time for a heal to land, less chances they get to smash you, and less damage all around.

Toughness: 10% more armor is hard to beat. Absolutely required talent.

Shield Specialization: When combined with the shield block skill, you want your shield block percentage to be as close to 100 as possible. I will explain the reason for this in the gear section below. This talent is also a prereq for...

Improved Shield Block: A second tool for reducing crushing blows. You will be able to block two of them before refreshing, which may (just barely) be enough to negate crushing blows.

Defiance: 15% more threat and expertise. This one should be self explanatory.

Improved Taunt: It may not seem like much, and you'll curse blizzard every time something is immune to taunt, but 2 seconds can seem like a lifetime. This is especially useful when multi-tanking or helping AEing groupmates. More mages probably owe their lives to this talent than iceblock.

Concussion Blow: Much like improved taunt, this talent is limited to opponents who can be stunned. A great deal of trash can be effected by this, and it is a great way to buy time to regain aggro when taunt is already on cooldown. It is also useful if you want to safely change target for a few seconds and not worry about the first target eating a rogue.

One-Handed Weapon Spec: It may not be clear from the tooltip, but this talent adds 10% to ALL DAMAGE when you are wielding a 1-handed weapon. Not just white damage or just damage from your main hand weapon... all damage. That includes shield slam and dual wielding.

Shield Mastery: This may at first appear to be a defensive talent, but it is actually designed for threat generation. This talent effects shield slam damage.

Shield Slam: Without a doubt the most important ability a protection warrior gets. It will be your highest damage attack as well as your highest threat attack.

Focused Rage: One of the best talents available to warriors, period. This will effect every ability you use aside from shield block, spell reflect, commanding shout, and battle shout. If you are protection specced and have taken improved sunder armor instead of this talent, quietly fix it before I find out. Smile

Vitality: In the life of a tank, your skill is often gauged by exactly how hard you can be hit without falling down. Stamina is key.

Devastate: If you've come this far in the protection tree, you should have this. Useful in soloing and in tanking, every bit of damage helps. Be thankful Blizzard fixed it and included sunder armor.

That covers the must-have talents. Now for those in between and my opinions on them:

Unbridled wrath: Unless you are a dual wielding DPS warrior, you should not take this talent. Mathematically, it simply doesn't measure up when using a single weapon. What I recommend taking instead is...

Anger management: This is a great rage generation talent, and I regret not having enough points to take it with my other choices. Luckily most opponents will hit you hard enough that rage generation is rarely a problem until you are overgeared. If you want to take this and need to find 2 more points in arms over deflection and improved thunder clap, I recommend improved heroic strike. It is an excellent threat generation tool.

Improved Bloodrage: You will use bloodrage before every pull if it isn't on cooldown. I recommend putting any leftover points you have in this talent, as it will allow you to more quickly open with a shield slam.

Tactical mastery: Not as crucial as it once was. If you do not pvp, you can live without it.

Last stand: I almost put this among the must-haves. It comes highly recommended. As your group/raid progresses past each boss in gear and skill, you will use it less and less. However, when learning a new encounter or needing to hold on just a few second longer, it always pays to have one more "Oh $#!^" button.

Improved Revenge: I have 1 point in this. It is a tough talent to judge, but my reasoning is that 1 point is an infinite percentage increase in my ability to stun with revenge. The stun is short, but useful for interrupting casters now and then, as shield bash and concussion blow have longer cooldowns. And honestly, sometimes it's better to be lucky than good.

Improved Sunder Armor: Only take this after focused rage. The talent is useful, but I find that with the rage generated in most encounters, only a certain number of rage reducing talents are necessary.

Improved Disarm: Never, ever take this. Ever. Disclaimer: Someday, theoretically, a boss may require it. Until then, see above.

Improved Shield Wall: This is much like last stand except it enhances an existing skill. This one is a matter of personal preference.

Improved Shield Bash: I have 2 points in this talent, but it is also a matter of personal preference. I use it for dragging casters back to the group when I don't want to wait for an opportunity to interrupt. Why not wait? Because the longer you tank something in a bad location, the longer Murphy's Law has to take effect.

Improved Defensive Stance: When you compare the three primary tanking classes, the advantage that can most clearly be shown for warriors is that we handle magic damage better. Defensive stance already reduces that damage by 10%, and 6% may seem minor. I prefer to play to my strengths, and have 3 points in it.

I believe that covers talents. That should definitely be the largest section. Next up will be soloing.]]> <![CDATA[Leveling a Warrior]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-1836.html Mon, 17 Mar 2008 08:38:25 -0700 Cloudjumper]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-1836.html Ultimately I want this warrior to be a main tank, not DPS. But leveling I suspect Fury is the best way to go.
Said warrior is Undead if that makes any difference.
Also any tips and tricks for warrior leveling would be appreciated.]]> Ultimately I want this warrior to be a main tank, not DPS. But leveling I suspect Fury is the best way to go.
Said warrior is Undead if that makes any difference.
Also any tips and tricks for warrior leveling would be appreciated.]]> <![CDATA[The Art of Big Freaking Weapons (The Arms Guide)]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-1948.html Thu, 14 Feb 2008 18:55:40 -0800 Jivundus]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-1948.html
So you wanna be an Arms warrior while you raid, eh? I wont lie to you, its harder than Fury. Gear wise, and play wise. Fury is forgiving in play style if not so much gear, Arms requires that you pay attention, all the time. However despite its hard play style, if done correctly the PvE Arms DPS build can not only do well, but it will actually add %4 damage to any other physical damage based DPSer in the entire raid, tanks included.

There are many kinds of Arms builds, arranging from Solo, PvP, PvE Raid, Tanking Hybrids, and variations on all of them. However for Arms PvE Raiding to truly shine, it depends on Improved Slam, two talent points that often get overlooked in other builds. While an Arms build can DPS without using Slam, using MS and Whirlwind, it will be sub par in a raid situation. And it is Imp. Slam that brings the difficulty and trickiness into a true Arms PvE Raid build.

-The Builds-
Imp. Slam+Blood Frenzy Raid Build without Imp TC
Imp. Slam+Blood Frenzy Raid Build with Imp TC
A typical Arms build that does not use Imp. Slam
More of a PvP based Arms build, this will deal damage, but will be Far under the damage of the build listed above, I do not recommend trying to raid with it.

-Weapon Choice-
Of course as any Arms build, you are going to choose a weapon to use via the Specializations. While all three types have their own benefits and draw backs, only two should be used for PvE Raid DPS, Axe and Sword. Mace Specialization are near useless when up against bosses that are immune to stuns, you will find much better results with either an axe or a sword. I recommend an axe until you get your crit chance to about 30% without it, then going sword for the extra swing chance.

-Weapon Rotation-
As I've said earlyer in this, Slam is vital to this build, as is its use. Slam resets your auto attack swing timer so when you use the ability is crucial. You must use Slam as soon as your auto attack happens, which brings me to a crucial addon if you wish to perfect this, Quartz. When it is set to display your swing timer, it will allow you to correctly cast Slam in order to time it right. To quote Meeks, a DPS warrior with two Very good guides which I will link at the end of this, as follows:
Quote:You want your slam to start every swing as soon as the auto attack happens. To do this you need to have Quartz activated and displaying your swing timer. Ideally if you have 0 latency you will hit slam as soon as the swing timer finishes. If executed perfectly you will only loose .5 seconds from your auto attack and you will be maximizing your potential damage. Unfortunately most people do not have 0 latency so to maimize your rotation Quartz has another very use feature to help you avoid latency slowing your rotation.

When you hit your slam button Quartz will display your latency on the Slam swing timer. Remember this number every time you slam. For example if it says 300 MS then you watch your swing timer and when there is 300 MS left in the swing timer hit slam. When done correctly the slam will start as soon as the auto attack happens. The problem here is that if you jump the gun even a little you will loose your auto attack and that is much worse then being a little late on the slam. As you do this more and more you will develop a feel for it and it will get a little easier.
As to the actual attack rotation you should use, it is as follows.
Auto attack --> Slam --> Mortal Strike
Auto attack --> Slam --> Whirlwind
Auto attack --> Slam --> Mortal Strike
Auto attack --> Slam --> Demo Shout/battle shout
In this attack rotation, Slam is the priority. If you do not have the rage for every step of the rotation, stick to Slam.

-The Gear-
As an Arms PvE Raid warrior, there are several stats you want to consider when gearing.
Hit Rating, Crit Rating, Attack Power, Armor Penetration and Haste. I will not go into Armor Penetration here, as it is not worth getting until you can get a lot of it(Read, T6/S3 gear).
Hit Rating is by far the most important and best way to get up your DPS as a PvE Arms build, up to the boss cap of 142. Gemming for hit is acceptable as this build up to the point where you are capped. After hit, you will want to focus on both AP, and crit, going for a balance of both until you have a decent amount of crit(About 30%) It should be noted however that if you wished to max your potential DPS during an entire raid, that 142 hit is only what is needed for bosses, I personally use two sets, one which has over 142 hit, and one that is closer to 80, but with more AP, crit, ect.

In closing, I'm not the master of warrior DPS, I'm always open to suggestions, talk to me about it!

-Links-
Meeks Guide]]>
So you wanna be an Arms warrior while you raid, eh? I wont lie to you, its harder than Fury. Gear wise, and play wise. Fury is forgiving in play style if not so much gear, Arms requires that you pay attention, all the time. However despite its hard play style, if done correctly the PvE Arms DPS build can not only do well, but it will actually add %4 damage to any other physical damage based DPSer in the entire raid, tanks included.

There are many kinds of Arms builds, arranging from Solo, PvP, PvE Raid, Tanking Hybrids, and variations on all of them. However for Arms PvE Raiding to truly shine, it depends on Improved Slam, two talent points that often get overlooked in other builds. While an Arms build can DPS without using Slam, using MS and Whirlwind, it will be sub par in a raid situation. And it is Imp. Slam that brings the difficulty and trickiness into a true Arms PvE Raid build.

-The Builds-
Imp. Slam+Blood Frenzy Raid Build without Imp TC
Imp. Slam+Blood Frenzy Raid Build with Imp TC
A typical Arms build that does not use Imp. Slam
More of a PvP based Arms build, this will deal damage, but will be Far under the damage of the build listed above, I do not recommend trying to raid with it.

-Weapon Choice-
Of course as any Arms build, you are going to choose a weapon to use via the Specializations. While all three types have their own benefits and draw backs, only two should be used for PvE Raid DPS, Axe and Sword. Mace Specialization are near useless when up against bosses that are immune to stuns, you will find much better results with either an axe or a sword. I recommend an axe until you get your crit chance to about 30% without it, then going sword for the extra swing chance.

-Weapon Rotation-
As I've said earlyer in this, Slam is vital to this build, as is its use. Slam resets your auto attack swing timer so when you use the ability is crucial. You must use Slam as soon as your auto attack happens, which brings me to a crucial addon if you wish to perfect this, Quartz. When it is set to display your swing timer, it will allow you to correctly cast Slam in order to time it right. To quote Meeks, a DPS warrior with two Very good guides which I will link at the end of this, as follows:
Quote:You want your slam to start every swing as soon as the auto attack happens. To do this you need to have Quartz activated and displaying your swing timer. Ideally if you have 0 latency you will hit slam as soon as the swing timer finishes. If executed perfectly you will only loose .5 seconds from your auto attack and you will be maximizing your potential damage. Unfortunately most people do not have 0 latency so to maimize your rotation Quartz has another very use feature to help you avoid latency slowing your rotation.

When you hit your slam button Quartz will display your latency on the Slam swing timer. Remember this number every time you slam. For example if it says 300 MS then you watch your swing timer and when there is 300 MS left in the swing timer hit slam. When done correctly the slam will start as soon as the auto attack happens. The problem here is that if you jump the gun even a little you will loose your auto attack and that is much worse then being a little late on the slam. As you do this more and more you will develop a feel for it and it will get a little easier.
As to the actual attack rotation you should use, it is as follows.
Auto attack --> Slam --> Mortal Strike
Auto attack --> Slam --> Whirlwind
Auto attack --> Slam --> Mortal Strike
Auto attack --> Slam --> Demo Shout/battle shout
In this attack rotation, Slam is the priority. If you do not have the rage for every step of the rotation, stick to Slam.

-The Gear-
As an Arms PvE Raid warrior, there are several stats you want to consider when gearing.
Hit Rating, Crit Rating, Attack Power, Armor Penetration and Haste. I will not go into Armor Penetration here, as it is not worth getting until you can get a lot of it(Read, T6/S3 gear).
Hit Rating is by far the most important and best way to get up your DPS as a PvE Arms build, up to the boss cap of 142. Gemming for hit is acceptable as this build up to the point where you are capped. After hit, you will want to focus on both AP, and crit, going for a balance of both until you have a decent amount of crit(About 30%) It should be noted however that if you wished to max your potential DPS during an entire raid, that 142 hit is only what is needed for bosses, I personally use two sets, one which has over 142 hit, and one that is closer to 80, but with more AP, crit, ect.

In closing, I'm not the master of warrior DPS, I'm always open to suggestions, talk to me about it!

-Links-
Meeks Guide]]> <![CDATA[Offy tanky fury buildy (for the offtank/fury hybrid)]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-1949.html Thu, 14 Feb 2008 12:43:06 -0800 Efluvious]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-1949.html For the helpful fury warrior

Okay, so for the offtank/fury build you use the same fury tree talents, but instead of taking the arms talents all the way up, you only put 4 into that tree, 4 into deflection. The other 13 points go into the protection tree.

*NOTE* There are many variations of this, this is just my suggested one.

In the protection tree you want tactical mastery 3/3, and Defiance 3/3. the other talents sort of depend on your gear. effectively in you protection gear you need 490 defense. if you can do this without the 20 points from anticipation then I'd recommend 2/5 for it, otherwise go for the full 5/5. If you go 5/5 in anticipation, do 2/5 in toughness. this extra armor is more important than shield specialization, so don't take that. If you have enough defense to go 2/5 in anticipation, go 5/5 in toughness. As for what you use instead of shield slam and devastate, you will be using bloodthirst, sunder armor and revenge, and rage permitting, heroic strike.

With this build you will be able to offtank fairly well with good threat generation and not lose too much on the dps side. You can't really multi-tank well in this build however, so keep that in mind. this is for offtanking trash only and dpsing the rest of the time.

Tanking Gear

Okay, so your run of the mill tanking gear is fine, but what you want is optimal performance right? So, with this build you want strength and agility too. Don't gem for it though, always gem for stamina as much as possible. But there are a few gear choices you can make that will make you a threat machine even without shieldslam.
Many of these are from heroic dungeons and so are somewhat accessible.

[item]Spaulders of Dementia[/item] from Heroic Sethekk Halls
[item]Amber Bands of the Aggressor[/item] from Heroic Steam Vaults
[item]Lion's Heart Girdle[/item] from Heroic Ramparts
[item]Eaglecrest Warboots[/item] from Heroic Blood Furnace
[item]Gauntlets of Dissension[/item] from Heroic Botanica

If you have access to t4 gear, that works even better, but these are quite nice for some good threat generation with bloodthirst tanking, and some even can be worn with a full set of t4. These are, in my opinion, more accessible than t4 as well and there are some good blue drops and epic gems that can be had from the same heroic dungeons.
I chose to include these and not pvp gear because although pvp gear will make you uncritable, that is all it does besides give you good armor and hp. you will have no avoidance, just comparable mitigation and a bit more hp. Besides, pvping for pve gear is not fun, and to really get the most out of it you have to switch spec's every week, which can be quite costly.]]> For the helpful fury warrior

Okay, so for the offtank/fury build you use the same fury tree talents, but instead of taking the arms talents all the way up, you only put 4 into that tree, 4 into deflection. The other 13 points go into the protection tree.

*NOTE* There are many variations of this, this is just my suggested one.

In the protection tree you want tactical mastery 3/3, and Defiance 3/3. the other talents sort of depend on your gear. effectively in you protection gear you need 490 defense. if you can do this without the 20 points from anticipation then I'd recommend 2/5 for it, otherwise go for the full 5/5. If you go 5/5 in anticipation, do 2/5 in toughness. this extra armor is more important than shield specialization, so don't take that. If you have enough defense to go 2/5 in anticipation, go 5/5 in toughness. As for what you use instead of shield slam and devastate, you will be using bloodthirst, sunder armor and revenge, and rage permitting, heroic strike.

With this build you will be able to offtank fairly well with good threat generation and not lose too much on the dps side. You can't really multi-tank well in this build however, so keep that in mind. this is for offtanking trash only and dpsing the rest of the time.

Tanking Gear

Okay, so your run of the mill tanking gear is fine, but what you want is optimal performance right? So, with this build you want strength and agility too. Don't gem for it though, always gem for stamina as much as possible. But there are a few gear choices you can make that will make you a threat machine even without shieldslam.
Many of these are from heroic dungeons and so are somewhat accessible.

[item]Spaulders of Dementia[/item] from Heroic Sethekk Halls
[item]Amber Bands of the Aggressor[/item] from Heroic Steam Vaults
[item]Lion's Heart Girdle[/item] from Heroic Ramparts
[item]Eaglecrest Warboots[/item] from Heroic Blood Furnace
[item]Gauntlets of Dissension[/item] from Heroic Botanica

If you have access to t4 gear, that works even better, but these are quite nice for some good threat generation with bloodthirst tanking, and some even can be worn with a full set of t4. These are, in my opinion, more accessible than t4 as well and there are some good blue drops and epic gems that can be had from the same heroic dungeons.
I chose to include these and not pvp gear because although pvp gear will make you uncritable, that is all it does besides give you good armor and hp. you will have no avoidance, just comparable mitigation and a bit more hp. Besides, pvping for pve gear is not fun, and to really get the most out of it you have to switch spec's every week, which can be quite costly.]]> <![CDATA[Feel the RAGE burn within you! (The Fury guide)]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-1951.html Thu, 14 Feb 2008 12:21:50 -0800 Efluvious]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-1951.html
Things have radically changed with some abilities and with stats.



Okeys, here is the bare bones guide to a fury warrior. If you have additional questions, you can talk to me online, post below this, send me anonymous hate mail, or whatever. I'll be more than willing to help answer your questions or dilemmas.

Feel the RAGE burn within you!

For a duel-wielding fury warrior to be an effective fighting force, you need a pretty specific set of talents (I'll also give a good offtank/fury talent spec for those that offtank a lot, though the first would work pretty well with good enough gear). (For a two-handed weapon fury build, talk to me.)

The numbers at the end of each are the number of talent points recommended to go in the number of slots 2/5 means put 2 talents into this slot, but not fill it all the way to 5/5.

ARMS
~Talent Tier 1~
- Improved Heroic strike: very good to take, as you will find yourself with a lot of extra rage most of the time, so 3/3
- Deflection: one of the best defensive talents and I always recommend taking at it 5/5
- Improved rend: Never take this talent...like ever. rend does next to 0 damage, its only use is to keep rogues visible in pvp, and using 3 talents to bring a dot from doing 12 damage to 21 is NOT worth it. 0/3

~Talent Tier 2~
- Improved Charge: not for a fury warrior. you will be in 'zerker stance most of the time. 0/2
- Iron Will: This is mostly a pvp talent and I don't recomend taking it as a raid build. 0/5
- Improved Thunderclap: This I always recommend taking in any build because a)you can help your tank take 20% less damage from this debuff and b) its good for offtanking. You will help paladin and Bear tanks immensely if you keep this up (be sure not to break crowd control though!) 3/3

~Talent Tier 3~
- Improved Overpower: You won't use this much, if at all. This is mostly a pvp arms ability and is only usable in battle stance. 0/2
- Anger Management: Very nice. It generates 1 rage every 3 seconds giving you rage during combat and slowing the decay of your rage out of combat. 1/1
- Deep Wounds: This is essential only in that it leads you to Impale.

~Talent Tier 4~
- Impale: 20% increase to the damage of your critical strikes. Very good talent. In fact, it's just about the whole reason you take talents in the arms tree as fury. 2/2

FURY

For the sake of making this shorter I'll omit the talents that are not so good and just put down what you should take.

~Talent Tier 1~............. ~Talent Tier 2~..........................~Talent Tier 3~..............................~Talent Tier 4~
- Cruelty 5/5................ - Unbridled Wrath 5/5..................- Commanding Presence 5/5............- Duel wield specialization 5/5
.......................................................................................................................................- Enrage 5/5



~Talent Tier 5~........................~Talent Tier 6~................~Talent Tier 7~............................~Talent Tiers 8 & 9~
- Sweeping strikes 1/1................- Flurry 5/5.....................- Precision 3/3..............................- Improved Berserker stance 5/5
- Weapon Mastery 2/2.....................................................- Blood Thirst 1/1..........................- Rampage 1/1
....................................................................................- Improved Whirlwind 1/2



Your stats: maximizing your intellect...wait...

What you don't want
Intellect = Bad. We don't want smart warriors, that leads to the dark side.
Spirit = Bad. It only affects out of combat regeneration, and it is REALLY SLOW no matter what.
Stamina = meh. It comes on gear. you don't need more as fury, or dps in general.

What you do want

Okay, so first and foremost, a fury warrior wants hit rating. While duel wielding, your white attacks have a miss chance of 25% on your level of mobs, but since we are raiding, we're going for bosses. that means 28% on your white attacks and 9% on your yellow ones. So, with the precision talent, thats 3%, now you need at least another 95 hit rating to stop your yellow attacks from missing.

Getting this much hit is more important than anything else, but it comes standard on gear, so don't gem for it unless you have to. After you get this hit rating, you can take more (since it will come on gear) but it is now your least important stat. Why you ask? Because crit and strength give stats to all of your hits, whereas hit rating now only affects your white attacks. This does not mean you never want any more, on the contrary! Just don't take it over strength or crit (within reason). If you aren't sure, ask.

Your important stats: Strength, Crit, Armor penetration, haste, hit. Don't gem for agility, agility gives some crit and some dodge, and you don't need dodge in your fury gear, so effectively you are losing some strength or crit you could have had. Also, expertise is great, but there's not plate dps gear with it. If you can distract a rogue long enough to get a-hold of some leather its a great stat to have. Armor penetration is amazing in a very unique way: the more of it you have, the more effective it gets. So until you get a few pieces with it, don't worry too much about this stat.


Weapons and how they work for you

Weapon speeds are sort of important because they affect how much damage you deal with some of your abilities. Basically it goes like this:

hit rating of around 130 or less with the precision talent: Slow main hand, fast offhand (for rage generation).
Hit rating greater than 130 or so and with the precision talent: Slow / Slow (same speed if you can get it).

The reason for this is because Whirlwind hits with both weapons and deals weapon damage + a certain amount. so having two slow weapons vs a slow/fast set up is more effective.

Your Main Hand should always be slow, that means 2.3 or higher (2.6-2.7 is optimal). This ensures that your heroic strikes and whirlwinds will do lots of damage.


Attack Power

Because bloodthirst (this one ability will do a good chunk of your damage) is based soley on attack power (thats right, you can use it unarmed!) and strength is 1str=2attackpower, you want a good amount of strength and/or attack power.



Oof, this is long, so if you have any more questions, ask away!]]>
Things have radically changed with some abilities and with stats.



Okeys, here is the bare bones guide to a fury warrior. If you have additional questions, you can talk to me online, post below this, send me anonymous hate mail, or whatever. I'll be more than willing to help answer your questions or dilemmas.

Feel the RAGE burn within you!

For a duel-wielding fury warrior to be an effective fighting force, you need a pretty specific set of talents (I'll also give a good offtank/fury talent spec for those that offtank a lot, though the first would work pretty well with good enough gear). (For a two-handed weapon fury build, talk to me.)

The numbers at the end of each are the number of talent points recommended to go in the number of slots 2/5 means put 2 talents into this slot, but not fill it all the way to 5/5.

ARMS
~Talent Tier 1~
- Improved Heroic strike: very good to take, as you will find yourself with a lot of extra rage most of the time, so 3/3
- Deflection: one of the best defensive talents and I always recommend taking at it 5/5
- Improved rend: Never take this talent...like ever. rend does next to 0 damage, its only use is to keep rogues visible in pvp, and using 3 talents to bring a dot from doing 12 damage to 21 is NOT worth it. 0/3

~Talent Tier 2~
- Improved Charge: not for a fury warrior. you will be in 'zerker stance most of the time. 0/2
- Iron Will: This is mostly a pvp talent and I don't recomend taking it as a raid build. 0/5
- Improved Thunderclap: This I always recommend taking in any build because a)you can help your tank take 20% less damage from this debuff and b) its good for offtanking. You will help paladin and Bear tanks immensely if you keep this up (be sure not to break crowd control though!) 3/3

~Talent Tier 3~
- Improved Overpower: You won't use this much, if at all. This is mostly a pvp arms ability and is only usable in battle stance. 0/2
- Anger Management: Very nice. It generates 1 rage every 3 seconds giving you rage during combat and slowing the decay of your rage out of combat. 1/1
- Deep Wounds: This is essential only in that it leads you to Impale.

~Talent Tier 4~
- Impale: 20% increase to the damage of your critical strikes. Very good talent. In fact, it's just about the whole reason you take talents in the arms tree as fury. 2/2

FURY

For the sake of making this shorter I'll omit the talents that are not so good and just put down what you should take.

~Talent Tier 1~............. ~Talent Tier 2~..........................~Talent Tier 3~..............................~Talent Tier 4~
- Cruelty 5/5................ - Unbridled Wrath 5/5..................- Commanding Presence 5/5............- Duel wield specialization 5/5
.......................................................................................................................................- Enrage 5/5



~Talent Tier 5~........................~Talent Tier 6~................~Talent Tier 7~............................~Talent Tiers 8 & 9~
- Sweeping strikes 1/1................- Flurry 5/5.....................- Precision 3/3..............................- Improved Berserker stance 5/5
- Weapon Mastery 2/2.....................................................- Blood Thirst 1/1..........................- Rampage 1/1
....................................................................................- Improved Whirlwind 1/2



Your stats: maximizing your intellect...wait...

What you don't want
Intellect = Bad. We don't want smart warriors, that leads to the dark side.
Spirit = Bad. It only affects out of combat regeneration, and it is REALLY SLOW no matter what.
Stamina = meh. It comes on gear. you don't need more as fury, or dps in general.

What you do want

Okay, so first and foremost, a fury warrior wants hit rating. While duel wielding, your white attacks have a miss chance of 25% on your level of mobs, but since we are raiding, we're going for bosses. that means 28% on your white attacks and 9% on your yellow ones. So, with the precision talent, thats 3%, now you need at least another 95 hit rating to stop your yellow attacks from missing.

Getting this much hit is more important than anything else, but it comes standard on gear, so don't gem for it unless you have to. After you get this hit rating, you can take more (since it will come on gear) but it is now your least important stat. Why you ask? Because crit and strength give stats to all of your hits, whereas hit rating now only affects your white attacks. This does not mean you never want any more, on the contrary! Just don't take it over strength or crit (within reason). If you aren't sure, ask.

Your important stats: Strength, Crit, Armor penetration, haste, hit. Don't gem for agility, agility gives some crit and some dodge, and you don't need dodge in your fury gear, so effectively you are losing some strength or crit you could have had. Also, expertise is great, but there's not plate dps gear with it. If you can distract a rogue long enough to get a-hold of some leather its a great stat to have. Armor penetration is amazing in a very unique way: the more of it you have, the more effective it gets. So until you get a few pieces with it, don't worry too much about this stat.


Weapons and how they work for you

Weapon speeds are sort of important because they affect how much damage you deal with some of your abilities. Basically it goes like this:

hit rating of around 130 or less with the precision talent: Slow main hand, fast offhand (for rage generation).
Hit rating greater than 130 or so and with the precision talent: Slow / Slow (same speed if you can get it).

The reason for this is because Whirlwind hits with both weapons and deals weapon damage + a certain amount. so having two slow weapons vs a slow/fast set up is more effective.

Your Main Hand should always be slow, that means 2.3 or higher (2.6-2.7 is optimal). This ensures that your heroic strikes and whirlwinds will do lots of damage.


Attack Power

Because bloodthirst (this one ability will do a good chunk of your damage) is based soley on attack power (thats right, you can use it unarmed!) and strength is 1str=2attackpower, you want a good amount of strength and/or attack power.



Oof, this is long, so if you have any more questions, ask away!]]> <![CDATA[Best warrior pvp video ever.]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-2159.html Wed, 31 Oct 2007 17:55:36 -0700 Efluvious]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-2159.html
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