[Corbusier]

DW Fury Guide - 5th Edition

This guide is an update of Meeks' DW Fury Guide - 4th Edition, and is created and posted with both his input and consent. THIS GUIDE IS NOT FOR LEVELING WARRIORS, it is for RAIDING warriors or those who are interesting in raiding as a fury warrior. For leveling, see:
http://www.tankspot.com/forums/tanks...mystified.html and
Of Steel -- Guidelines for New & Leveling Warriors - TankSpot

Fury FAQ - Fury for Dummies

Below you will find the most commonly asked questions regarding the fury spec, gearing strategy and damage rotations for a raiding fury warrior. If you seek more specific information, follow the table of contents below to find the appropriate section.


Why 17/44? Why not a weapon spec?
This is currently the gold standard for pure DPS:
WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Warrior -> Talent Calculator

Some of the early arms talent points are negotiable (Improved Thunderclap, Iron Will, Deflection - but I find that this build is quite nice for clutch offtanking) as is trading Unbridled Wrath for Improved Demoralizing Shout (which at least one DPS warrior or offtank in every raid should have).

DO NOT spec any farther into arms than Anger Management/Impale. The loss of extremely important deep fury talents is not worth the minimal gains from the weapon specs. It's been tried, tested and dusted literally dozens of times. Stop trying to make it work; it doesn't.

No, don't argue. Spec like I told you and everything will be ok...

How much hit?

NEVER EVER EVER EQUIP THE POISON VIAL
NEVER EVER EVER EQUIP THE POISON VIAL
NEVER EVER EVER EQUIP THE POISON VIAL

Short answer: as much as you need to maintain your DPS rotation while keeping Rampage & Battle Shout active (and Demoralizing shout if that's your job).

Long answer: You need 9% hit to not miss specials attacks (yellow damage) on raid level (or ??) bosses, which are treated as level 73 for all intents and purposes. You get 3% from precision, so you need 6% from gear. 1% hit is equal to 15.77 hit rating, therefore you need 95 hit rating to "soft cap". The hard cap for dual wielding is 28% against raid bosses, which equates to 442 hit rating (395 after 3/3 precision). This is not a goal to work towards or even worry about.

"but but but does that mean stop at 95 and don't get more +hit?"

NO. No. no. After the soft cap, hit is merely no longer your most important stat. Ignoring it altogether will cripple your rage generation.

"but i see all these fury warriors running around with 250 hit..."

They either don't know what they're doing, or are in T6 quality gear that naturally includes hit. They did not go out of their way (hopefully) to stack it at the expense of other stats.

"ok, so should i go ahead and gem for hit?"

If you're under 95, yes. Then again, if you don't have 95 hit just from gear, you probably have no business even speccing fury for raids.

"but you didn't tell me how much i need "

Precisely.

Proper rotation?

The standard fury build has ½ improved whirlwind. This allows you to make a solid skill rotation with blood thirst and whirlwind. Seconds into fight: 0: BT 1.5: WW 3: Global cool down free 6: BT 7.5: Global cool down free 10.5: WW 12: BT 13.5: Global cool down free 15: Global cool down free 18: BT 19.5: WW

This allows you to use both abilities as they cool down. It also leaves some pauses to use a global cooldown on something else. Use these times to refresh Demoralizing Shout (if that's your job), Battle Shout or Rampage.

Assuming threat is not a concern use heroic strike if you go over 50 rage. (This threshold may change for those with two slow weapons, as sometimes it is best, depending on where you are in the cycle, to ensure that you have 55 rage for both a Bloodthirst and a Whirlwind.)

That's all there is to it, really. It's not rocket science, there is no magic.

What gear?

Ugh. Really? Seriously?

Fine. Use at your own risk, some are out of date.
Ahx's Pre-Kara Guide: WoW Forums -> Pre-Raid Fury Gearing - Lists Inside
Bloodwraith's Non-Raiding Guide: WoW Forums -> Non-Raiding DW Fury Gear List (2.3)(Closed)
Shakti's DW Fury Gear Guide: WoW Forums -> > DW Fury Gear List <

You can also try MaxDPS.com - Fury Warrior DPS Gear Rankings
USE WITH CAUTION - SEE CAVEAT IN SECTION 7. ENCHANTS, GEAR & GEMMING FOR SPECIFICS.

Slow or fast Offhand?

Short answer: Use the best you have access to. I tend to value stats > DPS > speed.

Long answer: A slow offhand is the theoretical ideal, and has the highest theoretical DPS potential, assuming all other stats & DPS are equal. The slow mainhand/slow offhand combo takes some time to get used to, and it can be much more difficult to manage your rage. Rage is coming in bigger chunks but less often, and can leave you with too little rage to punch your instant attacks, or spike too high that you're sitting at 100 rage with no real dump other than Heroic Strike. Slow/slow also tends to favor a higher gear level, which has enough stats (crit/hit/haste) to smooth out the dips in incoming rage.

FASTER WEAPONS DO NOT GENERATE MORE RAGE THAN SLOW WEAPONS.
TOP END IS NOT A DPS STAT.

Slow or fast Mainhand?

Short answer: Slow. Always.

Long answer: Slow. Unless you're execute spamming. A slower weapon will hit harder on whirlwinds, and will result in larger, less frequent Heroic Strikes. Every Heroic Strike is accompanied by a static bonus threat (196) as well as bonus damage (176). A faster weapon will benefit more from Heroic Strike from a percentages point of view, since you're adding 176 damage more often. However, all that bonus threat adds up fast, and that's the last thing a DPS warrior needs.

TOP END IS NOT A DPS STAT.

What should I socket?

Short answer: Strength, unless the socket bonus is really worthwhile.

Long answer: Strength, unless the socket bonus is really worthwhile. Really. If you have a yellow socket with a nice bonus, put a crit/strength gem in it. Once you're into t5-t6 content and are pushing 4k AP raid-buffed, strength will be your priority stat. If you're in that content, you should be able to figure this out by now and don't need my help.

Your meta-gem should be a Relentless Earthstorm Diamond. This meta-gem requires 2 red, 2 yellow and 2 blue gems to be active, so you should have no more than 2 green/purple (crit/stam or strength/stam), since hybrid gems count as both colors. Try to choose the sockets with the best bonuses for these gems (i.e. a +4 strength bonus is obviously better than +3 crit or (shudder) +4 stamina).


Executioner/mongoose/potency?

Short answer: Executioner goes on your mainhand. Always. Put Mongoose or Potency on your offhand, depending on whether you need crit or AP more. Mongoose will scale better with gear in the long run.

Long Answer: Oh hey, there isn't one.

Fury for PvP?

Was gimping along with the expansion, finally murdered in 2.3 with the Deathwish/Sweeping Strikes and Imp. Intercept/Weapon Mastery swaps. It's fine for battlegrounds and casual PvP, but DO NOT expect to be competitive in serious ranked Arena matches.

[Corbusier]

Table Of Contents

1. Talents
2. Stats
3. Attack Table
- Two Roll System for Specials?
4. Offhands
- Priorities
- Whirlwind damage
- Flurry & Synced Speed "Extra Attacks"
- The Effects of Sharpening Stones
5. Skill Rotation
6. Execute Range
7. Enchants, Gear & Gemming - Choosing Items
8. Haste, PPM, Rage & You
- Haste's effects on PPM enchants
- Haste & Rage Generation
9. Best Practices
- Consumables
- Cooldown Synergy
- Raid Preparation
- Awareness & Multi-Target Attacks
- Standing Behind the Boss
- Buffs/Debuffs
- Survival

1. TALENTS

In the Arms tree, you are building towards impale. Anger Management generates 20 rage per minute in combat, and slows rage decay when out of combat. Improved Heroic Strike is also standard since it becomes a mainstay of your damage. The other early Arms talents are primarily preference (though there is absolutely zero reason to spec into Improved Rend, DO NOT spec it). In the fury tree, most talents are obvious wins; Dual Wield Specialty, Improver Berserker Stance, Bloodthirst, Rampage, etc. Weapon Mastery, with its move to the Fury tree in Patch 2.3, has displaced Improved Execute. Improved Cleave is a waste in any build.

WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Warrior -> Talent Calculator

There are several reasons to give up Improved execute. For one when execute range hits, swap out your slow weapons for two fast ones to ensure that you are hitting Execute on every GCD. They will do a little less damage each time...105 pre mitigated...to be exact but the most important part is that you are able to use Execute.

The only option in the fury tree is Unbridled Wrath. If your raid is regularly using Curse of Recklessness, it may be worth trading UW for Improved Demoralizing shout, as this negates the majority of the boss's AP gain.

[Corbusier]

2. STATS

IN GENERAL, stat priority is Strength > Crit > ArP > hit/haste (assuming you've achieved 9% hit already). This order obviously changes relative to your existing stats (i.e. at certain gear levels, crit & ArP begin to outpace strength). The most important thing to understand about stats is balance, balance, balance. An increase in one stat makes all the others that much more valuable.

- Strength

The bread & butter of fury DPS.

Attack power - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft

Attack Power (AP) increases your base DPS by 1 for every 14 attack power. For example, an AP of 28 will give you 2 DPS. To convert DPS into average damage per swing: (Weapon DPS + AP/14) * Weapon Speed. If dual wielding, an off-hand weapon will also receive DPS from AP with the normal damage penalty. Disregarding dual wield specialization talents, the offhand damage is then: [(Weapon DPS + AP/14) * Weapon Speed]/2.

DPS Warrior Compendium - Elitist Jerks

The list of weapon normalization speeds is: * Daggers: 1.7 * One-Hand Weapons: 2.4 * Two-Hand Weapons: 3.3 * Ranged Weapons: 2.8 The formula therefore after 1.8 is: normalized_damage = base_weapon_damage + (X * Attack Power / 14) where X is the listed value for the specific weapon type. While the normalization of Attack Power greatly reduced the impact of having a slow weapon for instant attacks, slower same-dps weapons still produce a slight dps increase for instant attacks. This is because a weapon with 100 dps and a fast attack speed has a relatively low damage range, while a 100 dps weapon with a slow attack speed has a higher damage range. Therefore the increase in base weapon damage used in the formula makes the slower weapon come out slightly on top. In short: instant attacks still benefit from slow weapons, just the difference is not as large as it once was.

With these formulae we can then determine that for every 10 strength (20ap) we will see a DPS increase of 1.43 for the mainhand, .89 for the offhand (both raw white damage, not including crits & special attacks) and 1.5 for Bloodthirst (BT damage per second = .45xAPx[attacks per minute]/60) assuming you are able to hit Bloodthirst every 6 seconds.

- Hit

Most of the information in this & the following section came from:
Working Theories of Theorycrafting as of 2.3 - Elitist Jerks
Blessing of Kings: +Hit Caps for Bosses
Weapon skill - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft
http://www.tankspot.com/forums/tanks...expertise.html

Base Melee Miss (Dual-Wielding): 28% Base Melee Miss (2H/1H+Shield/Special Attacks): 9% Hit % = hit rating / 15.77 These following statements are assuming your target is a raid boss. If a mob/player is your level the miss rate is 5% for special and 24% for normal attacks (5% base miss chance + 19% miss dual wielding penalty). While dual wielding your white attacks will have a 28% chance to miss on both mainhand and offhand. Your special attacks still have a 9% chance to miss. This means that if you have precision you will want to stack hit until you reach 95 hit rating which will mean you will not miss a special attack.

It is important to note that after 9% hit, more +hit ONLY affects white (normal) attacks. The typical fury warrior will see 36-44% of his damage coming from white attacks. The implication is that more hit only affects 36-44% of your damage, while crit and strength affect ALL damage. (This is simplified of course, but illustrates the point well enough.)

- Expertise

Since a boss-mob is calculated as level 73 mob its dodge is increased by 3*0.5% = 1.5% up to 6.5%. To negate 6.5% dodge, 26 points of expertise or 103 points of expertise rating are needed. ++++Expertise rounds down. Partial amounts of Expertise do nothing.++++ Base Melee Dodge: 6.5% 1 Expertise = expertise rating / 3.95 1 Expertise = -0.25% Dodge and -0.25% Parry When you reach 103 expertise rating, your attacks will never be dodged. Melee attacks can still miss. If you reach both your hit rating cap and 103 expertise, your melee attacks will never miss or be dodged. The following is the amount of expertise rating you need to minimize dodges for raid boss fights, depending on your talents, and disregarding racial expertise. Base: 103 w/ Defiance: 80 w/ Weapon Mastery: 88 w/ Defiance + Weapon Mastery: 64

It is worth noting that expertise is quite a valuable stat relative to hit. After 9% hit, you've capped for specials, and more hit will no longer affect your yellow damage, yet expertise will until that is capped.

- Crit

Critical Strike is a multi-faceted stat, and a very important one for fury warriors. It helps do more damage, generate more rage, it procs & refreshes flurry (which in turn does more damage & generates more rage) and allows Rampage to be activated & refreshed. Ignoring it will cripple your DPS; stacking it at the expense of strength/AP will make you hit like a wet noodle. It is best to seek a balance between crit and AP.


Contrary to popular belief, 33.33% crit will NOT guarantee 100% flurry uptime, far from it.

1 - ( 1 - c ) ^ x

Where 'c' is your Crit chance expressed in decimal (i.e: 35% crit = 0.35) and 'x' is the number of attacks made in one cycle of Flurry (3 from auto attack swings, and generally one additional from instant attacks; 4 is a commonly used number).

Example: 35% crit yields

1 - ( 1 - 0.35 ) ^ 4 = 0.8215 which translates to 82.15% Flurry up-time.

Crit past 33% will of course increase your Flurry uptime, any amount of Crit under 100% (or the crit cap) is less than 100% Flurry up-time, and therefore additional Crit will increase your up-time. It is important to note that while additional Crit will increase Flurry up-time, it is subject to diminishing returns. The amount of Flurry up-time gained going for 1% crit to 11% crit is much greater than going from 40% to 50% (in both cases an increase in 10% Crit chance).

- Armor Penetration

Short answer: Armor penetration is good!

Long answer: Most of the hard data is going to come from a thread at the Elitist Jerks forums:
Boss armor values:
[RAID] Boss armor values - Elitist Jerks
ArP Spreadsheet:
Google Docs - Armor Penetration Analysis
Neat graph for the math impaired:
Image:Armor.JPG - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft
Babgelbite's ArP Calculator:
World Of Warcraft Armor Penetration Damage Increase Calculator

Armor reduction of a level 73 boss attacked by a level 70 player is 37% for 6200 armor, and 42.17% for 7700 armor. Sunder Armor x5 is -2600 armor, Faerie Fire is -610, and Curse of Recklessness is -800. For a boss with 6200/7700 armor, SA x5 gives a damage increase of 18.36%/16.61%. If we assume now that the boss has SA stacked x5 on it, adding just FF gives a further 4.5%/4.05% increase, CoR gives 5.99%/5.38%, and with both on they give 11.06%/9.9% increase over just SA. Armor Penetration is a bit more complex because it comes in varied amounts. If the boss has just SA x5 on it, then the effect of ArP is as follows: 100 ArP: 0.71%/0.64% 200 ArP: 1.43%/1.29% 300 ArP: 2.16%/1.95% 400 ArP: 2.91%/2.62% 500 ArP: 3.66%/3.3% For a fully debuffed boss (SA x5, FF, CoR) the increase from ArP is: 100 ArP: 0.79%/0.71% 200 ArP: 1.59%/1.42% 300 ArP: 2.41%/2.15% 400 ArP: 3.24%/2.89% 500 ArP: 4.08%/3.64%

As you can see the higher your armor penetration gets the more valuable each point of it becomes. It is an incredible stat in that it is the only one that scales with itself AND with other stats. Now I would be careful before making the plunge into armor penetration if you are not ready for it. It used to only be in BT/Hyjal making it impossible to stack it until you were ready for it. As of patch 2.3, with the new badge & arena gear it is easier to collect before you can truly support it. (However, much of the badge gear is poorly itemized, use with caution.)

At some point in gear level in may be beneficial to have a different gear set for bosses with 6200 armor versus those with 7700. A 6200 armor boss with full raid debuffs (Sunders, Faerie Fire and Curse of Recklessness) is left with 2190 armor. Add Executioner to that, and you're left with 1350 armor. Add in the proc effect from [item]Madness of the Betrayer[/item] and you're left with 1050 armor. This is the effective "Armor Penetration Cap", as no more ArP will result in more damage*. Both 1350 and 1050 ArP are achievable currently, and the new Sunwell gear is loaded with this stat, so it is likely that you will accumulate enough ArP to "cap" on 6200 armor bosses if you have access to this content. In the event that you do, it may be wise to reevaluate your gear choices per boss, and adjust accordingly.

* After you hit 1350 (for the 6200 armor bosses) static ArP, you start cutting into the value of your Executioner enchant. For instance, if you see 40% uptime, every point of ArP past 1350 loses 40% of its value.

3. ATTACK TABLE

A little explanation about how the hits & misses work with both white and yellow attacks. The consensus at this point is that yellow attacks are on a 2-roll system, but white attacks still rely on a single roll (except for hunter's, who's ranged attacks seem to all follow the 2-roll system afaik). Whenever an attack is made (both white damage and specials), the following can happen: MISS DODGE PARRY BLOCK GLANCING HIT CRIT (Parry/Dodge/Glancing are Melee Only) (Glancing is White Damage Only and Applies 70% of Normal Damage)) The above all have a chance to happen, based on your and your target's stats. Base miss rate against an equal leveled target is 5%. Against a mob 3 levels higher than you (which is what a boss is considered to be), your miss rate is 9% or 28% if Dual Wielding. Glancing Hits are a static 24%. Dodged attacks are 6.5%. With ranged attacks, there is no 1% chance to miss that cannot be negated. This is a rumor, and is incorrect. Spells always have a 1% chance to be resisted, melee/ranged attacks do not. Ok, let's deal with your regular white melee hits (non-special attacks). Let's go with 0 hit 0 expertise and 30% crit and attacking from behind to remove parries and blocks. White attacks work on a 1-roll table that looks like this: Dual Wielding (Druids, Hunters and Single/Two-Handed attacks are 9% Miss Rate - Hunters are on the 2-Roll System following this) * 1-Roll Table 1-28...: 28% Miss 29-35..: 6.5% Dodge 36-59..: 24% Glancing 60-89..: 30% Crit 90-100: 11.5% Hit Based on these numbers, you're still hard crit capped at 30%. You'd need an additional 11.5% crit for your complete lack of hit rating and expertise to start affecting your crit hits (once you reach 41.5% Crit, you theoretically push HITS off the table and all the misses you experience at this point are missed crits). So right now, adding +hit and +expertise only increases your white "hits", not your crit.

One of the popular arguments for stacking hit is people tell you that the more you hit the more you crit. As much as that sounds like it makes sense it is not how the WoW combat system works. Wow uses an attack table. Attack table - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft

This means is that there is a 100 sided die that blizzard rolls every time you attack. Say you have 0 hit and 41% crit and are attacking from behind.

Here are the sides of the die:
1-28: Miss
29-53: Glancing Blow
53-58: Dodge
59-100: Crit

In this circumstance every time you hit it will crit. Crit shares the hit table with non crits so as long as your crit is less than miss + glancing + dodge then adding hit will have no effect on your crit. Now if your crit was above 41% which is possible with raid buffs and mongoose procs then you would be losing crits in this situation. However one will never have 0 hit. Assuming then the minimum 9% hit for your yellows not to miss you can safely stack crit to 51% without losing any benefit. From here on every 1% hit increases your crit cap by 1%.

- Two-Roll System for Specials?

After poring over dozens of WWS reports and combatlogs, I have yet to see any evidence supporting a two-roll system for special attacks in PvE, apart from this thread:
Backstab: Two Rolls? - Elitist Jerks
Bear in mind that this thread was created in November of 2006, and the testing methodology is not especially rigorous. I personally have not had the time nor opportunity to properly test this, as I would need to drop my hit rating and boost my crit rating to such a point that it would become unfeasible in a raid setting.

However, I do not discount the possibility of a two-roll system for specials out of hand, but would like to point out that from a programming standpoint, it is much more efficient to have one one-roll system than two different systems operating simultaneously. Therefore, it is unlikely that this is the case.

[Corbusier]

4. OFFHANDS

- Priorities

Your offhand accounts for a relatively small percentage of your DPS (due to the offhand damage modifier, which is .5 before talents and .625 after talents), so the weapon's damage itself is less important than its contribution to your overall damage. What that means is that the stats on the weapon tend to be more important than either the DPS or the speed. Take [item]The Decapitator[/item] for instance. The DPS alone makes it a decent mainhand, but the poor stats make it an equally poor offhand compared to, say [item]Fool's Bane[/item], which has slightly lower DPS but much better stats.

- Whirlwind damage

The primary argument for slow offhands is the extra Whirlwind damage (since equal DPS weapons will have identical white damage over time). Let us assume that we have a choice between [item]Vanir's Left Fist of Brutality[/item] and [item]Vanir's Left Fist of Savagery[/item], since they have identical DPS and stats apart from speed & damage range.

average_normalized_damage = average_base_weapon_damage + (X * Attack Power / 14)

Let's assume 3000 AP.

Slow: x = 257.5 + (2.4 * 3000/14) = 771.2
Fast: x = 154.5 + (2.4 * 3000/14) = 668.8

Now if we apply the offhand damage penalty we get:

Slow = 482 average damage
Fast = 418 average damage

Ideally, you can Whirlwind every 9 seconds or 6.67 times per minute.

Slow = 3215.94 damage/minute = 53.58 dps
Fast = 2788.06 damage/minute = 46.47 dps

The DPS difference turns out to be only 7.11.


- Flurry & Synced Speed "Extra Attacks"

I was highly skeptical of this particular "bug" for quite some time. I finally got a chance to test it when the new fist weapons were released in patch 2.4. It appears that you do often get four flurry "charges" instead of three, but never two. Now, I do not recommend gearing exclusively in an attempt to exploit this bug, however, the extra attacks are worthy to consider when seeking weapon upgrades.

- The Effects of Sharpening Stones

Sharpening stones with +damage (such as [item]Adamantite Sharpening Stone[/item] added to the offhand favor faster weapons, as these weapons hit more often in a given period of time. Take our previous example of the new fists:

1.5 speed weapon hits 40 times/minute
2.5 speed weapon hits 24 times/minute

40 x 12 damage = 480 damage/min = 8dps
24 x 12 damage = 288 damage/min = 4.8 dps

The damage added to Whirlwind and other instant attacks will be the same no matter what speed the weapon is.

*Also of note: the +damage of the sharpening stone is added to both weapons, no matter which it is applied to. For example, if you had an adamantite stone on just your offhand, you would see 12 additional damage to both MH and OH attacks. If you had stones on both weapons, you would see 24 additional damage to both MH and OH attacks. This additional damage also applies to non-weapon-damage based attacks such as Bloodthirst and Execute.


5. SKILL ROTATION

Seconds into fight: 0: BT 1.5: WW 3: Global cool down free 6: BT 7.5: Global cool down free 10.5: WW 12: BT 13.5: Global cool down free 15: Global cool down free 18: BT 19.5: WW

- Heroic Strike vs. Cleave
Heroic strike and cleave are the two contenders for a rage dump for fury warriors. They both have bonus damage, are not on the global cooldown, and both turn a white attack into a yellow attack. This means that an attack that would have had a 28% chance to miss, 25% to be a glancing blow, and only crit for 2x damage now becomes a yellow attack. It only has the base 8% miss, no glancing and 2.2 crit from impale. They both also have bonus threat.

In an effort to try to lower their threat people have been floating the idea of using cleave instead of heroic strike. This is a matter of confusion due to blizzard listing on Heroic Strike’s tooltip that it has bonus threat, but no similar note for Cleave. But you should know better than to believe something on Blizzard’s tooltips. (Blood Frenzy and melee/physical damage anyone?)

Heroic Strike - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft
Cleave - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft

Heroic strike adds 176 damage for 196 threat. That is 1.1 threat per bonus damage.
Cleave adds 70 damage for 130 bonus threat. That is 1.8 threat per bonus damage.

Something worth noting however is that if cleave hit two targets the bonus threat is split between the two making it preferable threat wise if you have a second target to hit.


- Should Hamstring be a part of my skill rotation?

Before the Windfury nerf Hamstring used to be a vital part of your skill rotation because it could proc a Windfury attack. Now that it no longer procs Windfury it is less clear whether or not to use it. Hamstring can crit and proc flurry, and it can proc enchants and haste procs. Hamstring also has 181 bonus threat per use. In the end it is up to you. If you have the rage and you are good on threat feel free to use a global cool down on a hamstring. Generally speaking I will use Heroic strike before I use Hamstring. This is because they both have the same amount of bonus threat and I generally feel heroic strike will add more damage. This is really up to personal opinion though.

6. EXECUTE RANGE

- Enchants & Weapon Choices

Executioner MH and Mongoose OH are still your best options for your execute weapons, as crit & ArP are the only stats available that allows your Execute damage to scale, and the haste & crit from Mongoose can help generate a little extra rage.

For Execute range, it is recommended that you equip two fast weapons (1.5 speed or faster) so that you are able to punch Execute on every available cooldown. Daggers with these stats are acceptable, as Execute is not normalized nor is it based on weapon damage. Look for items with haste, crit, hit & armor ignore, as AP is not factored into Execute damage.

It is highly advisable that you NOT substitute fast weapons that are substantially lower DPS than your regular MH/OH, as this can actually result in less DPS.

- Adding Bloodthirst to the Rotation:
The math on Execute vs Bloodthirst:
30 rage Execute: 925 + 21*15 = 1240
30 rage Execute w/ t6 2 peice: 925 + 21*18 = 1303

Bloodthirst does damage equivalent to 45% of your AP.
You need 2756 AP(raid buffed) for your Bloodthirst to be equal to a 30 rage execute without T6 2 piece.
You need 2896 AP(raid buffed) for your Bloodthirst to be equal to a 30 rage execute with T6 2 piece.

With 3 blessings and Rampage and an Enhancement Shaman you will have those numbers no matter how bad your gear is.
If you are really undergeared, in Karazhan, with only 1 blessing and no Enhancement Shaman then Execute might be preferable.

Conclusion: If you are executing and BT is lit up, hit it.

The only question at this point is whether its worth it to save rage for BT but most likely not, because of flurry.

[Corbusier]

7. ENCHANTS, GEAR & GEMMING - CHOOSING ITEMS

Much of this section is lifted from the Elitist Jerks Thread - DPS Warrior Compendium - Elitist Jerks

- Choosing Items

The highest i-level item is typically the highest DPS item, no matter if it has ideal stats or not (i.e. the badge shoulders having higher DPS than t4/ragesteel). Upgrades in i-lvl will thusly be upgrades in DPS. Most often you do not have a choice between items with similar quantities of different stats, so this rule of thumb suffices for the most part.

The way item budgets work is that the more of one stat you have the less total budgets the items gets. This means that items that have a variety of stats will have more overall stats allocated. Items with hit/crit/str together are generally better items then just str/crit. Find gear with balanced stats when you can and use this to keep your hit rating high. Then gem for str/crit in these items.

It is also important to note that the lower your level of gear the more effective str is. If you are just starting to gear up STR is by far your best stat. As your gear improves the value of crit will rise and at certain levels of raid buffs even marginally pass str. This means that for very low levels of gear stick to +8 str but as you improve you can phase in 4str/4crit gems to finish socket bonuses.

A good place to go to in order to find the relative value of each stat for your current level of gear is:

[Warrior] Fury DPS Spreadsheet for 2.4 - Elitist Jerks

You can also try:
MaxDPS.com - Fury Warrior DPS Gear Rankings
blavigne Profile, blavigne Details - FileFront.com

Use at your own risk.

The spreadsheet is not meant to be an absolute guide. It is in fact quite flawed, especially when it comes to predicting the rage-->damage ratio. I link this post because there is very good discussion throughout and it is an incredible resource for posting specific item questions and getting reasonable answers. Even when working the spreadsheet is no more then a rough guide. Use it with caution.

Here you can enter your gear and get a rough value of how useful a single point of str, hit, and crit is for you right now.


On Maxdps:
It has its usefulness, but also serious flaws. It is terrible at modeling rage, bad at ranking weapons and trinkets & proc effects. Inputting extreme values of certain stats (i.e. very low crit) tends to throw off whatever algorithm is at work, and it's also bad at knowing when you are soft or hard hit-capped.

However, for other gear I have found it to be fairly accurate and close to the other spreadsheets as far as ranking non-weapon, non-trinket items, so long as you input your raid-buffed stats. Use it with caution.

The EJ spreadsheet is still the one I have found to be most accurate according to my in-game testing.

For the love of all that is good on this earth I am not advocating staying at 100 hit and never increasing it from there. All I am saying is to stop stacking it ahead of str/crit. Hit is still a very good stat and one you will need. Just use it in moderation.



- Gemming

* Relentless Earthstorm Diamond: 3% Increased Critical Strike damage, 12 Agility. 2 of each gem color. (Meta) * Bold Living Ruby: 8 Strength (Red) * Inscribed Noble Topaz: 4 Strength, 4 Crit Rating (Orange) * Sovereign Nightseye: 4 Strength, 6 Stamina (Purple) * Jagged Talasite: 4 Crit Rating, 6 Stamina (Green) * Smooth Dawnstone: 8 Crit Rating (Yellow) You should maintain just enough Blue/Yellow/Red gems to have a working meta gem. Purple/Orange/Green gems work as either of their two component colors. i.e: Purple can count as Red or Blue. The Relentless Earthstorm Diamond will always yield the highest dps of the meta gems currently available.

- Enchants

* Enchant Bracer: Brawn - Enchant Bracer - Brawn - Items - World of Warcraft
* Enchant Gloves: Major Strength - Enchant Gloves - Major Strength - Items - World of Warcraft
* Enchant Boots: Dexterity - Enchant Boots - Dexterity - Items - World of Warcraft
* Enchant Boots: Cat's Swiftness - Enchant Boots - Cat's Swiftness - Items - World of Warcraft
* Enchant Boots: Surefooted - Enchant Boots - Surefooted - Items - World of Warcraft
* Enchant Cloak: Greater Agility - Enchant Cloak - Greater Agility - Items - World of Warcraft
* Enchant Chest: Exceptional Stats - Enchant Chest - Enchant Chest - Exceptional Stats - Items - World of Warcraft
* Enchant Weapon: Potency - Enchant Weapon - Potency - Items - World of Warcraft
* Enchant Weapon: Mongoose - Enchant Weapon - Mongoose - Enchant Weapon - Mongoose - Items - World of Warcraft
* Enchant Weapon: Executioner - Enchant Weapon - Executioner - Enchant Weapon - Executioner - Spells - World of Warcraft
* Glyph of Ferocity - Glyph of Ferocity - Glyph of Ferocity - Items - World of Warcraft
* Cobrahide Leg Armor - Cobrahide Leg Armor - Cobrahide Leg Armor - Items - World of Warcraft
* Nethercobra Leg Armor - Nethercobra Leg Armor - Nethercobra Leg Armor - Items - World of Warcraft
* Greater Inscription of Vengeance - Greater Inscription of Vengeance - Greater Inscription of Vengeance - Items - World of Warcraft
* Greater Inscription of the Blade - Greater Inscription of the Blade - Greater Inscription of the Blade - Items - World of Warcraft

- Runspeed? Really?

The following is from the Enhancement Shaman theorycraft threat over at EJ:
Shaman: Enhancement - Elitist Jerks
Yes, it's for shaman, but the math is the same and we can use apply it to warrior DPS just fine.

Agility vs Run Speed for Boots For PvE, either Boar's Speed or Cat's Swiftness are going to be big payoffs. Increased run speed is hands down the best enchant you can get for PvE. Derivation: Let D be your dps without a boot enchant. For the run speed to provide more benefit, we need: (D+12A)(T-t) < (D+6A)(T-t/1.08) which simplifies to T < [(1-k)D + (2-k)6A]t/(6A) where k = 1/1.08. For example, gives A = .16286, and so we have T < (.07581D + 1.074) t Using some actual data, a shaman that does betwen 900 and 1000 dps will have T < 76.88t For 5 minutes, we would need t > 3.90 seconds and for 6 minutes we would need t > 4.68 seconds. So for a 5 minute fight if you spend roughly 4 seconds moving between adds, running to the boss, etc, Run Speed provides a superior DPS benefit.

Caveat: Runspeed is situational. Currently the most DPS intensive fight in the game, Brutallus, involves little to no movement, so a runspeed enchant would be wasted.

[Corbusier]

8. HASTE

[Mechanic Primer] - Haste - How it works, and what that means. - Elitist Jerks

The formula for determining hasted weapon speed is: Hasted Speed = Weapon Speed / ( (1+(Haste 1 %/100)) * (1+(Haste 2 %/100)) * (1+(((Haste Rating 1 + Haste Rating 2 + ... )/100)/15.7)) ) Example: Beast Master Hunter Bow Speed / Serpents Swiftness * Quiver Speed * haste from added up haste ratings 3.0 / ( (1+(20%/100)) * (1+(15%/100)) * (1+((30+45+25)/1570)) ) 3.0 / (1.20*1.15*1.064) = 3.0 / 1.468 = 2.04 sec. attack speed.

- Haste & Rage Generation

It has been thought for some time that the rage generation formula used the "hasted" weapon speed instead of the "base" weapon speed to determine the rage-per-hit, or used a normalization factor so that 1% haste did not result in 1% more rage. It appears that this is not the case.
http://www.tankspot.com/forums/theor...ion-haste.html

From Bagelbite's testing, we can see that haste has no appreciable effect on rage-per-hit, so haste effects WILL cause you to generate more rage in a given unit of time. This conclusion is supported by Jathine, who duplicated this testing with a wider range of haste buffs and weapons:
WoW Forums -> Haste-Rage Relationship

- Haste's Effect on PPM enchants
TBD

[Corbusier]

9. BEST PRACTICES

- Consumables

* Flask of Relentless Assault: 120 Attack Power. (2 hours, persists through death)
* Elixir of Major Strength: 35 Strength. (1 hour)
* Elixir of Major Agility: 35 Agility, 20 Crit Rating. (1 hour)
* Elixir of the Mongoose: 25 Agility, 28 Crit Rating. (1 hour)
* Fel Strength Elixir: 90 Attack Power, -10 Stamina. (1 hour)
* Elixir of Demonslaying: 265 Attack Power vs Demons. (5 minutes)

* Roasted Clefthoof: 20 Strength, 20 Spirit. (30 minutes)

* Haste Potion: 400 Haste Rating. (15 seconds, shares Health Potion cooldown)
* Insane Strength Potion: 120 Strength, -75 Defense Rating (15 seconds, shares Health Potion cooldown)

* Elemental Sharpening Stone: 28 Crit Rating (1 hour)
* Adamantite Weightstone: 12 weapon damage, 14 Crit Rating. (Mace/Fist, 1 hour)
* Adamantite Sharpening Stone: 12 weapon damage, 14 Crit Rating. (Axe/Sword/Dagger, 1 hour)

* Drums of Battle: 80 Haste Rating for party. (30 seconds)*
* Drums of War: 60 Attack Power for party. (30 seconds)*

- Raid Preparation

- Knowing the Fight

There is zero excuse to be ignorant of the ins and outs of an upcoming fight with all the resources available.
Bosskillers World of Warcraft Bosses, Guides, Movie Reviews and Guild Kills
WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft
MMO-Champion - World of Warcraft Guides and Raid Strategies
Learn the fight, learn your role in it. Don't die.

- Consumables

Bring them. Lots of them. It's your job to farm for/make/purchase them, not your guild's. Make sure you have enough sharp/weightstones for the night, for both hands in case you are left without a shaman. Be sure you have at least enough flasks for the allotted raid time, or enough elixirs to cover the expected deaths (which can easily run into double digits on progression nights). Bring one stack of bandages at minimum, as well as 2-3 stacks of health potions.

- Gear

Is all your gear appropriately gemmed and enchanted? Did you repair before zoning in?

Be sure to bring along appropriate off-set gear as well. At certain points you may be expected to offtank, so be sure to grab that set from the bank before heading out. You may also need resist sets for certain encounters, so find out ahead of time. Some resist sets take quite a while to build; most notably the shadow resist set for Mother Sharahz. Farm for the materials to make these if you must.

- Awareness & Multi-Target Attacks
"Get out of the goddam fire!"

You know how Whirlwind hits up to 4 targets? And has a longer range than your other attacks? Yeah, about that. Careful where and when you use it. Yes it's part of your rotation. But if you break a sheep or a shackle, that mob is coming after you, or worse, the healer that just saved your ass.

Get a feel for the range of your Cleave & Whirlwind range, or download an addon that tracks distance for you. You and your raid leader (and healers) will get along much better.

- Cooldown Synergy

Taken almost verbatim from Elitist Jerks

Use them, use them in conjunction with each other if possible. Using short cooldowns such as trinkets or Deathwish as soon as possible in the fight allows them to cool down sooner and become ready for use again later on in the fight. Cooldowns used in conjunction with each other will always yield higher dps than cooldowns used consecutively. Take this example:

Recklessness guarantees most of your attacks for the next 15 seconds will be critical strikes.
Heroism increases your attack speed by 30% for 40 seconds.

Used in conjunction with each other, you get 30% more attacks that are nearly guaranteed by Recklessness to crit if they land. This inflates the value of Recklessness by 30%. Note that Recklessness is still subject to the crit cap and Attack Table.
Used consecutively, each buff yields only it's own dps with no added value. Recklessness is 15 seconds of near 100% critical strike chance, Heroism is 40 seconds of 30% faster attack speed.

If possible, time your Recklessness/Deathwish/Trinket/Haste Potion/Insane Strength Potion with your shaman's Heroism. If you don't have a shaman, try and time your Deathwish/Trinket/Haste Potion/Insane Strength Potion to coincide with each other.

It should be mentioned that not all cooldowns scale each other. For instance, activating a trinket such as [item]Berserker's Call[/item] and popping an [item]Insane Strength Potion[/item] at the same time doesn't make either effect more potent in and of themselves. However both benefit from being timed with a heroism or recklessness. This mostly only matters if you run into a situation where you know that a fight won't last an additional two minutes for an extra use of a trinket or pot, and you have a choice of waiting to use it now, or saving it to coincide with a potential proc. In general, stacking like bonuses together won't result in an increase beyond the basic bonus. The exception to this is of course armor pen, as it grows in potency as armor approaches zero.

Bear in mind also that it pays to ensure that you use your trinkets, pots and other cooldowns just when BT/MS and WW will be available. Take for example the aforementioned [item]Berserker's Call[/item], which grants an AP boost for 20 seconds. If this trinket is used just when BT and WW become available a full 3xBT 2xWW cycle can be completed before the duration ends; if it's carelessly popped just after Bloodthirst and Whirlwind are used you will end up losing the buff before the third Bloodthirst and second Whirlwind can be executed.

Likewise, it is best to keep a close eye on timers for any ability which may result in you being unable to DPS for any length of time, and hold off on using cooldowns if they become available shortly before the timers for such abilities come up. Quite a bit of DPS can be lost from carelessly popping a pot and trinket just before say, getting graved on Morogrim or being airbursted by Archimonde.

- Standing Behind the Boss

You should know this by now. Seriously.

Attacking from behind has numerous benefits to both you and your raid (not to mention myriad opportunities for mildly clever witticisms). You effectively remove parry and block from the attack table (not dodge, this isn't PvP), increasing your DPS.Also by doing so you drastically reduce the chances that your tank will be parry-jibbed. Furthermore, many bosses have a nasty cleave/hateful strike/other fun frontal attack that can be completely avoided merely by standing behind its 180 degree frontal arc.

- Buffs/Debuffs

- Battle Shout

Keep it active at all times. Your DPS will improve, and your rogues and shaman will appreciate it.

* Solarian's Sapphire
[item]Solarian's Sapphire[/item]

This trinket deserve special mention as it's our class specific trinket for TBC and because of it's unique stat. In terms of raid dps gained from a single trinket, this is by far the best trinket a warrior can use. It grants your Battle Shout an additional 70 Attack Power. This is affected by the Commanding Presence talent up to 87.5 Attack Power. 87.5 Attack Power for 5 members of the raid is 437.5 Attack Power. No other trinket comes close to the amount of Attack Power granted by this trinket.

- Sunder Armor

If your tank is not a warrior, congratulations! It's now your job to apply sunder armor. Not only will keeping a stack of five sunders active increase your DPS, it increases everyone else's physical DPS as well (apart from bleeds & poisons obviously).

- Demoralizing Shout

Keeping Demoralizing shout active is imperative if that is your responsibility, especially if Curse of Recklessness is being used (you did spec 5/5 Improved Demo Shout, right?). If you allow this debuff to wear off, your tank has a much higher chance of being killed by spike damage, and that big ugly monster will likely come after you first. Use a mod to track debuffs if you must, but DO NOT let it fade.

- Commanding Shout

No it's no sexy. No it won't increase your DPS. Sometimes though, you just have to bite the bullet, especially if you happen to be in a group with tanks/offtanks (or are said offtank).

- Survival

Dead warriors do zero DPS. Sometimes living a bit longer is more important than landing one more fat Bloodthirst crit.

- Berserker Rage

C'mon, you've had this skill for, what, 40 levels now? Use it.

- Defensive Stance & Shield

Make a macro for it already. Getting hit by AoE damage and the healers are ignoring you? Use said macro. Shield Block helps as well if you're taking physical damage.

- Shield Wall

Under dire circumstances, using your cooldown on Shield Wall instead of Recklessness can save your life, and sometimes the entire raid.

- Commanding Shout

On some encounters there are expected bursts of damage, aoe or single target, in which case it can be beneficial to use Commanding Shout instead of Battle Shout until the expected burst is over. Naj'entus/Illidari Council/Mother Shahraz come to mind.

- Blessing of Salvation

If you get only one buff, make sure it's this one. No questions. Beg, plead, throw a fit if you must.

[Corbusier]

reserved 9

[Corbusier]

reserved 10

That should be enough...hopefully.

[Ciderhelm]

Hi my name is corbusier and I haven't realized that I can fit everything into one post.

[Corbusier]

Source: Ciderhelm Hi my name is corbusier and I haven't realized that I can fit everything into one post.

Lies, I'm Corb!


>.>

Too used to the WoW forums I guess.

[MasterWolf]

reserved 13

[Kazeyonoma]

lol,

[Corbusier]

I hate you all.

[kittikat]

Source: Ciderhelm Hi my name is corbusier and I haven't realized that I can fit everything into one post.

Sometimes it's easier to split them into separate posts (please remove your sigs when doing this) because if you need to edit something at a later date, it is faster and more efficient to only have to scroll through a couple dozen lines instead of a couple thousand. And it makes sectional pointers more obvious (like in my Hit Rating/Spell Hit/Expertise thread)

[Kazeyonoma]

I don't think removing sigs fixes it though =P

[Corbusier]

Either way, sig is off, and it looks like it's gone :P

Will be updating soon.