HALP! I cant seem to break 6k dps as an arms warrior!!

Hey guys, so I've been taking a good hard look at my spec/gearing as of late in hopes of figuring out why I cant seem to break 6k dps on a single target boss fight in ICC. :confused:

I first found that with the addition of a new trinket I was way over ArP soft cap, so I fixed that and brought it down to a more reasonable level while re-gemming for Str. That helped a little bit but I am still maxing at 5.5k DPS with perfect rotation timings in raids. I dont think my rotation is at fault, I have read extensively on this and am doing all the recommended things (keep rend up, OP every time, no wasted GCDs, etc).

So Im pretty much stumped here... below is a link to my armory, note that Ive been trying a couple different variant things in my spec, but I think I have most of the important stuff down.

Link to Armory

Thanks in advance guys!


EDIT: oh, and yes, I have read The Complete Arms Warrior Guide already to no avail...

your crit is low for being axe spec... optimal crit for axe is 35%. i would drop the next 60 frost badges you get on the agi cloak, for one it's bis until the 25m insanity cloak from togc. plus it will help your crit. having to gem for hit is hurting since that could be str/arp gems instead as well.

what sort of raid buffs are you getting? are you talking 6k in 10 or 25?

Thanks for the quick reply! First off Im talking about 25man raiding, so I usually have the full buffet of raid buffs. everything from feral dps buffs to full totems and heroism. I usually just run with a fish feast for well fed but have been considering getting some str food. oh, and always a flask of endless rage to top everything off.

As to debuffs on the boss we are talking fully debuffed with sunders, bleeds and the like. So I dont think buffs are to blame here (but I could very well be wrong).

Also, here is a link to one of the last logs of our raid:

World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis

Your gear actually looks fine for Arms, crit is a bit low by 2% but your other stats look fine. How much ArP do you have when that trinket procs?

I was under the impression that for Arms you really only gem for ArP, Str/Crit gems. My warrior alone has 57% ArP from gear (because I don't have the ArP Trinkets which seems to fall into the hands of horrible players.)

You could try and download the EJ warrior dps spreadsheet off the forums, import your character from the armory and see what the ideal DPS you should be pulling. I did my own character and it says I should be doing about 7.2k dps in a ideal 25 man setting (except I only do 10 mans).

I think gemming for hit is hurting you....do some heroics and get the T9 helm with +82 hit. Enchant your gloves +20 hit. Replace all gems with Str gems. Profit. Get the crafted boots or legs.

lets see, for ArP with my trinket procced I have 85.67% plus an additional 16% from battle stance (improved by t9 2piece set bonus), so Im still a little over soft cap, but not by much (101.67%).

I was thinking about gemming for a bit more crit, from what I read I see that anywhere from 35% - 40% is acceptable correct? and I assume that is unbuffed...

as to this spreadsheet, I have looked a little but have not found exactly what you are talking about, I looked in Rawr and it says I should be at 5.7k and that seems to be about my absolute maximum. I dont know what else to do! Ive got all the enchants, and I dont see any really low ilevel gear on... is it really just my gear that is holding me back?

Warrior DPS Calculation Spreadsheet - Elitist Jerks

best thing to have as a dps warrior.


on another note about your crit, don't limit yourself to just plate. there are some very nice leather and mail pieces that are comparable to (sometimes better) than plate. these pieces have agi instead of strength on them to help your crit get to the 35%+ level.

Wouldn't using leather drop my overall AP due to the fact that warriors derive AP from Armor? anyhow, I dont think I will have to resort to leather because I think I can re-arrange my gems a bit to pick up some crit.

Also thanks for the link to the spreadsheet! So apparently according to that, I should be cresting 7.3k DPS... ugh, so something must be wrong with my rotation... I guess Ill try and figure it out later today after class...

Well Tbh. I think it might be your rotation, you are welcome to email me at Furyz@live.dk if you wanna talk about it and what might possibly be wrong, or else you can just post in here, and i'll try to help as much as possible, you could start with telling me / us your current rotation.

:)

mmkay, rotation, well I take my face, press it on my keyboard and... haha just kidding.

ok, so I guess Ill just go over an average pull:

1. charge in
2. apply rend
3. either start stacking sunders or do MS
4. overpower when available
5. execute when possible
6. when nothing else, slam
7. during heroism do shattering throw
8. ...?...
9. profit?

I think thats about it... so overall, my priority would be

1. keep up rend (not refreshing before expiry)
2. overpower
3. refresh sunders if needed
4. execute
*end here if target below 20%*
5. MS
6. slam when everything else is on CD

I think thats everything...

Well it sounds pretty much like my rotation even though i've never had need to stack sunders because i've almost always grouped with warriors tanks and ofcourse i only use execute when i got over 45 rage or so since its rather bad to use it otherwise as the damage seems almost useless but well i dont really know if its your rotation or the crit thats the problem but to me it seems that its not the rotation (except from the sunders)

You are losing a bit of DPS by stacking up Sunders right away, when I do the arms rotation with sunders it is a little more complicated but this is how I usually do it:
1. Charge if possible
2. Apply Rend
3. MS if Rage permits
4. Use OP when TfB Procs
5. Sunder (only when OP or TfB proc has been used) and repeat until you have 5 for each TfB proc
6. When its time to refresh Rend, I also reapply sunder to keep it refreshed, on a fight with a lot of mobility it gets harder to keep up the rotation.
7. Try to use all possible Trinket/AP procs before bladestorming since it works well with their cooldowns.
8. Use slam and HS when appropriate, I generally combine HS+MS if my rage is > 75

thanks for the replies and help so far guys!

Looking at the EJ Warrior DPS spreadsheet I see that it recommends bladestorm in my rotation... I have never really thought its that great against a single target tho, any thoughts?

It is, but use it
1) after using overpower
2) when rend duration is longer then 7 sec

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by xzosimusx

Wouldn't using leather drop my overall AP due to the fact that warriors derive AP from Armor? anyhow, I dont think I will have to resort to leather because I think I can re-arrange my gems a bit to pick up some crit.

Also thanks for the link to the spreadsheet! So apparently according to that, I should be cresting 7.3k DPS... ugh, so something must be wrong with my rotation... I guess Ill try and figure it out later today after class...

---

the difference in ap when looking at just armor from one plate item compared to a leather or mail item isn't that big. when you are low on crit, the sep for crit will sometimes be higher than str. wearing a piece or two of leather or mail to boost your crit (lots of these pieces have high armor pen as well) is always better than gemming for crit. like the legs i use, i get close to 4% crit from that item alone, as well as 137 arp rating.

and yes, bladestorm in a single target rotation is a dps gain. throw it right after your first taste for blood overpower so you can squeeze as many in per fight that you can. however, if there are parts of a fight where you will be able to hit more than one target (lord jax and portals for example) its better to hold your bladestorm or make sure you time it to where it will be up by then.