Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Blue Set: Arms Edition!

So a couple of posts back I built a gear set consisted entirely of blue gear pieces and blue level enchants. I wanted to see how much DPS I could pull in a heroic with this "noob" gear set.

Well I built the set, a very bad gear set. Ventured into a heroic Old Kingdom and put up only 1500 DPS. This was in fury spec. Now any warrior can tell you that Arms is better for the fresh 80 non-epic'ed warriors. Fury is just too gear dependent.

So tonight I switched over into Arms, and rocked that same exact gear set, minus one of those weapons of course.


Top DPS! The other guys were all fully epic'ed, so they are definitely doing something wrong.

2100 DPS! Not too bad considering the disaster area of a gear set I was rocking! Most heroics have packs of mobs, so Sweeping Strikes and Bladestorm together are a great combination. and they are almost always both up for every pull. I didn't feel rage starved at any point during the run. I even crit one boss for 7K damage!

So this run is pretty good evidence for the budding DPS warrior: If you just hit 80 or are leveling up, stay Arms spec. I'll get into when the right time is to consider Fury spec later.


Thursday, October 22, 2009

Cleave to Achieve

Now must fury warrior blokes go 2/2 Improved Execute, and when you couple that with Glyph of Execution, it can hit very hard. Almost to the point of just spamming it non stop when the boss hits 20%. Its simple, its the best for single target bosses.

Single target bosses.

But with TOC 25 man, we were given 5 new encounters, all that involve multiple targets. So what do we do? Well, you adapt is what you do!
Take your 2 points out of Improved Execute, and pull another point out of somewhere else. If your raid always has a Ret Pally, drop the points in Commanding Presence, or perhaps 1 point out of Precision if you feel you already have enough hit to keep your rotation up. Take these 3 points and put them into Improved Cleave.Replace your Glyph of Execution with Glyph of Cleaving and you are done!


These 2 basic specs are the way to go. Yours might have small differences that work better with your play style.

When you have a situation where there is 3 or more targets, just spam Cleave and Whirlwind. If you happen to have enough rage to use Bloodthirst, do so. Even with 2 targets only, your cleave will hit almost as hard as a heroic strike. but since its hitting 2 targets, it's doing twice as much damage as before. With this spec, you will see your DPS soar in fights like Anub'arak. Heroics your DPS will shoot up at least 600. Heroics are the best place to show off this spec. They are designed with trash mobs in packs of 3 or 4. Perfect for a fury warrior.
So try it out, tell me what you think. Enjoy those numbers.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Less is More

Is your raid group having trouble getting a boss down before an enrage timer, or does the tank keep dying? Having trouble getting enough dps to engage XT's hard mode? Well DPS warriors have the tools to help in these situations! I know that deviating from your DPS rotation will make your numbers suffer, but would you rather have a wipe and be top DPS, or a dead boss and be 2nd or 3rd on the meters?


Demoralizing Shout
The most important of the 4 abilities in this list. This can be used in any stance, costs only 8 rage and lasts 30 seconds (45 if you are specced into Booming Voice). This ability should be up on any boss fight that is giving your raid trouble. It's true that keeping this ability up is your tank's responsibility, but if you notice the debuff falls off, it's your responsibility to keep it going.

Sunder Armor
This ability has been around since the beginning, and was the protection warrior's best way to generate threat. That ability is now devastate. So why is this talent even in the game?
It is here for you, the DPS warrior. Is your main tank not a warrior? Guess what. you're job is to keep sunders up on the boss. With 5 stacks, it removes 20% of the boss' armor. This is a ton of armor. Anyone doing physical damage to the target will get a huge DPS boost, even you! Slowly build stacks when your main attacks are on cooldown.
When not to use this ability: If the boss goes through phases where he is untargetable. Specifically Anub'arak or Beasts of Northrend. Your hard earned stack of 5 sunders will roll off while you are running from Anub's spikes of death!

Thunder Clap
This ability is more directed towards the Arms warriors, since it is not usable in berserker stance. It slows the attack speed of anything in range by 10%. That's 10% less damage the main tank is taking because you clicked one button. Now many times you may use Thunder Clap and realize nothing happened. The Main tank is doing it or an equivalent ability already. If your tank is getting rocked, keep this up, or yell at him to keep it up.
Where this abiltiy rocks: In the new Onyxia encounter, when the dragon takes off into the air to begin phase 2, about 50 whelps come storming out from the caves on either side, and at the same time about 7-10 of your raiders will get disconnected. Jump into that pile of whelps and drop one of these thundery blasts (and a demo shout for good measure). Your screen will be absolutely filled with numbers. Its probably the best way to DPS these adds down as a warrior.

Shattering Throw
Another ability that is more arms warrior oriented. While a bit costly on rage, the buff it provides to your raid is huge. Instantly 20% of a boss' armor is gone for 10 seconds. Now 10 seconds does not seem like a lot, but when timing is an issue (Think XT's heart phase, or when Razorscale is pulled down) this ability shines. If your group is having trouble doing enough DPS during certain phases where any damage done to a boss is multiplied (Icehowl when he is stunned on the wall), this is the perfect time to use shattering throw.


In closing, these abilities will hamper your DPS slightly, and improve your raid's DPS significantly. Bite the bullet, be a team player and use them. It's your job as a DPS warrior.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Blue Set!


So I collected my blue gear set. Most were crafted, and some were rep rewards. I sort of cheated in the fact that I didn't have blue trinkets. I ran about 6-7 heroics to collect them to no avail. So I used Grim Toll and Mirror of Truth. I kept the same fury spec as normal. We assembled the group to venture back into Heroic Old Kingdom. A paladin to provide blessing of kings, and I was keeping battle shout active.

Click here to view the gear set I used.



Our group skipped Jedoga Shadowseeker boss, so overall damage isn't comparable to previous run.

I put up a paltry 1500 DPS. Now keeping in mind my gear set was stupid. I had mail pants, half was resilience PvP gear. But even with those hindrances, I expected more from myself. I felt rage starved the entire run.

I am not convinced that the differences in gear means and extra 2300 DPS. That gear alone made my character more than twice as effective.
So this topic will be concluded later, when I retry this instance with the same gear set, but in Arms spec. Arms is a great spec for leveling and fresh 80 warriors. It is not as gear dependent as Fury, and performs almost as well. Stay tuned.

Friday, October 2, 2009

What Can Gear do for my DPS?

I was in a very annoying Ony25 run today. There were people in the 5k-6k DPS range, and people in the 2k DPS range, both with equivalent gear sets. I thought to myself, 'how someone could be possibly playing their class so badly with gear like that?'

So, I decided to build an entire blue gear set. No epics at all, no enchants requiring abyss crystals, or epic gems. Heroic gear, rep gear. that's it. I wanted to see how much of your dps is attributed to knowing your proper dps rotation. At least for a fury warrior anyway.

I ran a heroic Old Kingdom run today. here is the link to the gear set I used, and the overall DPS report.

Click here to view Zarrick Fury Gear Set




Soon I willl publish another post with my "noob" gear set, and the numbers I put up. Stay tuned.