Tier 10 Preview: Ymirjar Lord's Battlegear

Click the picture for more shots of different angles.

Kinda bleh name, equally bleh visuals. Nothing really stands out. I dunno, maybe it's me. Maybe we've seen so many armor sets that nothing impresses me now. Why have the designers put the misty glow effect on every gear set lately? I don't get it.

I do like the set bonuses however. They give a boost of dps to players that are using their class correctly. Instead of a flat crit boost across the board, they take an ability that procs, and gives you a double take. These are subject to change of course, being test realm content.

Poppin' Potions

Every good raiding warrior brings their flasks to the raid like they are instructed.
But not many bring potions.
These lil' wonder drinks are cheap and bring more benefit to your DPS than you might think.

The first potion is the indestructible potion. 3500 armor is nice, and since All DPS warriors should be specced 3/3 into Armored to the Teeth, this potion will give you 97 AP for a full 2 minutes.

The second potion grants you 500 haste for 15 seconds. This buff seems like a proc of a trinket, but can be used any time you want. And is best used when you have all your other cooldowns popped.

The limitation of potions is we can only use 1 during any combat phase, which pretty much means 1 per boss fight. What we can do to get around this is pop one right before the boss pull.
So pop your Indestructible potion right before the boss is pulled, and then your second potion whenever you need it. This second potion can be either of these. Depending on if your encounter needs alot of dps during a specific point (Popping the shield of the Twin Val'kyr), or not.

Holy Crap! Shadowmourne the Legendary Axe

Check out this amazing weapon that probably none of us will ever get! haha.

Shadowmourne. It is the latest legendary weapon to be obtainable from the forthcoming Icecrown patch. It follows the same style of the legendary Ulduar priest mace, where the raid must collect items from each boss and assemble them.

We can all hope right? =D

Arms vs. Fury! The Great Debate

This is the topic of nearly half the threads on the WoW forums. And everyone's response to this question is in response to their gear. This is only half of the answer.

When leveling your Warrior, there is only one answer: Arms. Your gear choices are limited when your leveling up, and Fury is too stat dependent to be effective at any level other than 80. Even after hitting 80, Fury will be sub-par compared to arms for quite some time.
But with Conquest and Triumph badges, the jump into fury level gear isn't that hard to accomplish.

The numbers you want to shoot for to make fury worthwhile are:

164 hit (minimum)
any expertise is helpful
4000+ AP unbuffed
213+ dps weapon for your main-hand.

If you don't have these numbers, Arms will probably give you more personal DPS. But both specs with max gear are evenly matched.

And now for the readers who are well beyond those limits.
This blog is directed to the raiding DPS warrior. What spec will be most effective in the raid environment? Lets break it down.
The first question you need to ask your self is what buffs are already covered by other raid members, and what does the group composition look like? Chances are you will be the only DPS warrior in the raid. So you have a choice between 2 DPS specs.


Blood Frenzy (Arms)
vs.
Savage Combat
Both these talents do the same thing, and do not stack. If you're raid already has a combat specced rogue, then your Blood Frenzy Talent will only provide you the 10% attack speed buff. So check with your rogues and see what specs they are.


Trauma (Arms)
vs.
Mangle
These do the same thing and do not stack. If your raid has a feral druid tank he will be doing mangle for threat anyway. However, if your raid has a dps kitty druid, let him know that he doesn't have to use mangle anymore since your arms talent already provides that buff. He will be very happy.


Rampage (Fury)
vs.
Leader of the Pack
Your Rampage talent is overwritten by the feral druid's talent. 5% crit is a lot, and the raid needs this. If your raid does not have a feral druid, it falls upon you to provide this buff. It trumps both Blood Frenzy and Trauma in terms of need-a-bility. (Yes that's a word =D)

In conclusion...
If your raid group does not have a feral druid, you should be fury.

If your raid group has a feral druid, you should be arms.

If your raid group has another dps warrior, then choose the opposite of him.