The Cataclysmic fury Warrior Guide
So, some of you may or may not have read the fury warrior guide I made for WotLK. For those of you that did, I intend to be a lot more in depth, and a lot less awful this time around.
For those of you who did not read my WotLK fury warrior guide, the basic premise is that this guide is intended for fury warriors looking to succeed in a PvE raiding environment. My goal is to provide as much accurate information as possible in a succinct manner. That being said there is a lot to cover so either read this guide in chunks, or find yourself a large block of time to read this and make sure you understand it.
Table of ContentsLast "major" update: 4/1/12Suggested spec:
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#LG0cZcrrcszkMfdZb
http://www.tankspot.com/[IMG]http://...com/iwhkcy.jpghttp://i56.tinypic.com/iwhkcy.jpg
Titans Grip vs Single Minded Fury
Currently Titans Grip is doing more damage, and has much better weapon options than Single Minded Fury does. IF you are dead set on playing as single minded fury, it's still viable, but honestly, just go Titans Grip.
3/3 Deep Wounds vs 3/3 Incite
Get 3/3 deep wounds. Even though crit values are pretty low right now the math is suggesting that the third point in deep wounds is more or less blowing the third point of incite out of the water.
About the Recommended filler talents, and why I chose them:
Please note that just because a talent isn’t “recommended” does not mean it’s bad; there are sound arguments that can be made for all of the non-required talents.
Rude Interruption :On any fight that requires interrupting, having rude interruption is pretty much amazing, it’s fairly self explanatory.
Piercing Howl: Any time there are kite-able adds that can be slowed this ability is incredibly useful, there aren’t a lot of fights that would get a lot of use out of this ability currently, but I have no doubt in my mind that there will be encounters where this ability will shine.
Heroic Fury: Any time there is a lot of movement involved (meaning pretty much every fight) heroic fury can substantially increase your up time on a target, and thereby increase your DPS.
Meat Cleaver: Any time you are going to be able to use cleave you want this talent, simply put.
Incite: This could probably be considered a required talent, but if I absolutely needed to drop a DPS talent to get some other situational talents, this would be my first choice.
Field Dressing : Pretty self explanatory, it helps you not die.
Blitz: Can be useful for getting an extra rage boost at the very start of an encounterPrime glyphs:
Basically no variance for what you can viably pick:
Bloodthirst
Raging Blow
Slam
These are the only 3 prime glyphs that affect abilities we use.
Major glyphs:
Lots of solid options, go with your personal preference (* denotes what I personally use)
*Cleaving: Any time there are more than two targets within close proximity this glyph is awesome (unless you are supposed to CC those mobs obviously).
*Colossus Smash: Any time you have to sustain a sunder stack you want this glyph.
*Deathwish: It saves healer mana, which can then be used to help your raid not wipe. Get this.
Victory Rush: Saves healer mana, though on most fights it's not going to be as useful as glyph of Deathwish. If you don't have to sunder, I would suggest this glyph.
Minor Glyphs:
Again, lots of solid options (* denotes what I personally use)
Battle: Honestly you probably aren't going to need this because you will more than likely be using battle shout on cooldown for rage, so really this doesn't change anything for you unless you don't need the rage but need to sustain the buff, or if you expect to die before the end of the fight (which shouldn't happen).
*Berserker Rage: GET THIS. getting a rage boost that's off the GCD is awesome, and you can use it to build a rage bar out of combat, the rage gained is also effected by mastery.
*Bloody Healing: It helps you not die, and saves a bit of healer mana.
*Furious sundering: if you have to sunder, get this.
Command: Same as glyph of battle.
Stat Priorities
Hit(till 8%) > Expertise(till 26) > Strength >Crit > Hit > Haste > Mastery
The above priority list seems too complicated, can I have a simplified list?
Sure.
1) Get 8% hit (5% from gear+3% from precision)
2) Get 26 Expertise (780 Rating)
3) Get lots of Strength
4) Get Crit
5) Get More Hit
6) Get Haste
7) Get Mastery
What gems should I use?
You should use what ever gems are going to activate your meta gem, then for the rest of your sockets use what ever gems result in the largest DPS increase.
But that didn't answer the question
I know. What stats result in the largest DPS increase varies greatly depending on what your stats currently are, so I can't accurately make a blanket statement about what gems are going to be the best for you, that being said the generalized method for gemming is as follows:
Meta Socket:
Reverberating Shadowspirit Diamond
Red Sockets:
Bold Chimera's Eye (Jewelcrafter only)
Bold Inferno Ruby
Blue Sockets:
Only match the socket if the bonus is worthwhile; otherwise use a strength gem
1)Etched Demonseye
2)Rigid Ocean Sapphire (only use this gem if you need it to get above 8% hit)
Yellow Sockets:
Only match the socket if the bonus is worthwhile; otherwise use a strength gem
1)Inscribed Ember Topaz
general gemming proceedure for non-red sockets:
Items with 1 socket:
-if the socket bonus is +10str or more, and the socket is yellow, gem for the socket bonus. If the socket is blue, then either gem for the bonus, or gem pure strength, I need to confirm the resulting gains.
-if the socket bonus is +10 crit or more, gem for the socket bonus.
-if the socket bonus is +10 hit or more, gem for the socket bonus.
-if the socket bonus is +20 mastery/haste, gem for the socket bonus.
-everything else gem pure strength
Items with two sockets:
- if the bonus is +20 str or more, gem for the bonus
- if the bonus is +20 crit or more, and the sockets are yellow and/or red, gem for the bonus.
- everything else gem pure strength
What enchants should I get?
Head:
Arcanum of The Wildhammer (Alliance)
Arcanum of the Dragonmaw (Horde)
Shoulders:
Greater Inscription of Jagged Stone
Cloak:
1)Greater Critical Strike
2)Critical Strike
Chest:
1)Peerless Stats
2)Mighty Stats
Bracers:
1)Major Strength
2)Greater Critical Strike
3)Critical Strike
4) Hit or expertise as needed in order to reach caps
Gloves:
1)Mighty Strength
2)Exceptional Strength
Belt:
Ebonsteel Belt Buckle
Legs:
Dragonscale Leg Armor
Boots:
(run speed enchants are always the best)
1) Lavawalker
2) Earthen Vitality
Main Hand:
1)Landslide
2)Hurricane
Off Hand:
1)Landslide
2)Hurricane Note:
BT = Bloodthirst
RB = Raging Blow
CS = Colossus Smash
HS = Heroic Strike
GCD= Global Cooldown (1.5 seconds)
Slam = Implies using a Bloodsuge proc (Read: an Instant Slam, as opposed to hard casting slam)
FOR TITANS GRIP
BT > CS > RB >Slam > HS
On an exact time-line:
0.0-Colossus Smash
1.5-Bloodthirst
3.0-Raging Blow
4.5-Bloodthirst
6.0-Slam
7.5-Bloodthirst
9.0-Raging Blow
10.5-Bloodthirst
12.0-Slam
13.5-Bloodthirst
15.0-Raging Blow
16.5-Bloodthirst
18.0-Slam
19.5-Bloodthirst
21.0-go to 0.0 (Colossus Smash)
If you don't think you can remember that whole timescale, just remember:
Use CS more or less on cooldown
BT-RB-BT-Slam- repeat
FOR SINGLE MINDED FURY
SMF's Slam damage is much higher, it puts its damage in line with RB damage, making it better than RB because it costs zero rage. Because of this the best course of action really isn't using a set rotation, and instead using a priority system.
1) Keep Bloodthirst on cooldown
2) Use Colossus Smash whenever available
3) Use Slam whenever available
4) Use Raging Blow whenever you can't use a BT/CS/Slam
BT > CS > Slam >RB >HS
Sub 20%
Use Colossus Smash on cooldown and spam Execute until you have 5 stacks of executioner. From there, depending on how much rage you are generating and what gear you have, you might need to do a few extra things besides spamming execute.
- If you are generating more than 20 rage per second, just keep spamming execute and Colossus Smash. (If there is a lot of raid damage going out and/or you have lots of hit rating, do this)
- If you have the 4pc t11 set bonus make sure you are using RB at least once every 30 seconds to keep your stack.
- If you are generating less than 20 rage per second, any time that you do not have 30 rage you should use RB>BT>Slam for that GCD. (This is because a RB or a BT does more damage than a 20 rage execute)
- If you get a battle trance proc, use it on execute, not Heroic Strike.
- If you are forced to use RB/BT a lot due to rage issues, make sure that you are not losing your stack of executioner, even if it means using a low rage execute.
(there are some major revisions that need to be made for this, stay tuned)
Commonly asked questions about the rotation
What should I do if I am not enraged, and therefore can't use Raging Blow?
if BT is on cooldown, and you can't use RB, use a bloodsurge proc if you have one. if you don't, then either do nothing, or use that GCD for debuff management on your target or something.
HS should be used when ever you get a battle trance proc, and when ever you have excess rage.
How will I know when I have "excess rage"?
Unfortunately the correct answer is basically "after spending a ton of time practicing you will be able to have a good feel for how much rage you are generating, and then be able to know when the best time to use HS is."
However, as a generalized blanket statement, if you have more than 65 rage, that is the time to use Heroic Strike. Shouldn’t we use slam every time we get a Bloodsuge proc instead of using procs after every second BT for Titans Grip?
Nope.
Why?
When you delay the use of the 2nd BT, you get a rotation that looks like this:
0.0 BT
1.5 RB
3.0 Slam (BT comes off CD)
4.5 BT (-1/2 BT)
6.0 Slam
7.5 RB (BT comes off CD)
9.0 BT(-1/2 BT)
Etc.
By delaying the 2nd BT, you actually end up losing a full BT every time this happens, and because the potential gain is only 1 extra slam, which hits for less that BT, it is a DPS loss to delay the use of the 2nd BT.
Please keep in mind that the above statement is assuming that you have the rage to use the second BT, if you do not have the rage to do it, but you have a Bloodsurge proc; then by all means use that proc, because some damage is better than no damage.
Heroic Strike
Why?
Heroic Strike has the lowest damage per rage of any of our abilities, even though it's damage is really high. Because it's rage cost is so inefficient, it makes using HS on Battle Trance procs the most efficient use of that proc. Also because the fact that
Heroic Strike is off the GCD, it means that you can use a Battle Trance on a HS, and use the rage that you saved for a RB.
If Heroic Strike happens to be on cooldown when you get your Battle Trance proc, use it on a Raging Blow.
Please note that Battle Trance currently has the following bugs associated with it:Use it when ever you need to dump rage really really quickly. If you are lazy you can macro it in to HS, but that's up to you.
What if I have the t13 2set bonus?
That changes EVERYTHING
Having 20 rage HS's is a huge deal, and because of the up times that you can achieve with inner rage, it has impacts on everything from itemization, to rotation.
Itemization implications:
rage generation is even more valuable, as ideally you can fit 15 HS's in to an inner rage. Hit is arguably better than crit, and haste is just slightly behind crit. while items with hit/crit on them are still going to be the best itemized, the fact that hit is at the very least equal to crit is a huge deal. if you choose to prioritize hit >crit, then you should know that once you reach the spell hit cap of 17%, crit will absolutely pull ahead of hit. This is because you probably have a gurthilak if you have that much hit, and the tentacles attacks are affected by your spell hit, so once you reach the cap, additional hit doesn't benefit your tentacle procs.
I personally do not subscribe to this itemization scheme, and prefer to itemize crit>hit, and while I can't prove that it's the better way to go, the fact that as of typing this for 6 of the 8 fights in DS, I'm ranked 10th or better in the world as fury, I can certainly prove that crit>hit is still viable.
Rotation implications:
I'm going to be assuming your TG here, which you probably should be in DS.
when inner rage is up, your rotation priority changes, the goal here is to maximize the number of HS's that go out without drastically reducing your GCD based damage.
slam> RB
A slam plus a HS is the same rage cost as a single RB, and is more damage.
Battle shout>Slam
this may seem strange, how a non damaging ability be better than a damaging one?
Battle shout grants 30 rage, which with IR converts to 1.5 HS, And while you won't see the damage during that specific GCD, 1.5 HS is more damage than 1 slam.
One thing to note is that because IR and BS have the exact same cooldown, you should have a shout available for every single inner rage.
When inner rage is down, the rotation goes back to normal, though you should be working on pooling rage for the next IR. Retaliation
#showtooltip Retaliation
/cast [nostance:1] Battle Stance; [nostance:3] Berserker Stance
/cast [stance:1] Retaliation
Intervene
#showtooltip intervene
/cast [nostance:2] Defensive Stance; [help] Intervene; [target=targettarget, help] Intervene
Shield Wall
#showtooltip Shield Wall
/stopattack
/cast [stance:2] Shield Wall; Defensive Stance
/stopmacro [equipped:Shields]
/equip INSERT SHIELDS NAME HERE
/attack
Intercept/Heroic Fury
#showtooltip
/castsequence reset=1 Intercept, Heroic Fury, Heroic Fury, Heroic Fury
Slam
#showtooltip Slam
/cast slam
/stopcasting
UI
I'm not really going to rehash what was said in the video, but what I will do is give you links to some addons that will do the things that were mentioned in the video
My UI:
http://www.tankspot.com/showthread.php?59916-Thegreatme-UI&p=498862#post498862
please note that I will not help you troubleshoot any issues with setting up my UI.
Rage tracking/unit frames:
Pitbull4
IceHUD
Shadowed unit frames
Proc tracking/Enrage tracking:
Power Auras
SBF (satrina buff frame)
Elkano's Buff Bars
Cooldown Tracking:
OmniCC
Cooldown Count
CoolLine Cooldowns
Useful Resources:
Elitist Jerks the place to go for the latest theorycrafting and math
Landsoul Coaching if you feel like spending some money, or are lucky enough to find a major bug in landsoul's spreadsheet like I did, the compendium is pretty much amazing.
Landsoul's Spreadsheet hands down the best fury dps simulator available. also see the thread dedicated to the spreadsheet on EJ
