The Cataclysmic fury Warrior Guide

[Thegreatme]

Introduction

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 Contents

• The Video Guide
• Talent Selection
• Glyphs
• Itemization
• Rotation
• Macros
• UI
• Useful Resources
• Encounter specific Tricks/Tactics
• Mastery boosting/Gurthalak's and you

Last "major" update: 4/1/12

The Video Guide

Talent Selection

Suggested spec:
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#LG0cZcrrcszkMfdZb








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 encounter

Glyphs

Prime 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.

Itemization

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

Rotation

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.

What about Heroic Strike?

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.

What ability should I use when I get a Battle Trance proc?

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:

• If you use your Battle Trance proc on a Bloodthirst, that Bloodthirst will not be able to proc a new Battle Trance. (this may have been fixed, needs comfirmation)

What about Inner Rage?

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.

Macros

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

[Thegreatme]

Encounter Specific Tricks/Tactics

If you happen to have some clever tricks for maximizing your DPS on any encounter, or just in general, I want to hear about it. If I think it's a useful thing to include, then I will add it and give you credit for it.

Most of the stuff below is for heroic mode, as that's the content I run, though a lot of it should be applicable to the normal mode version of each fight.

General Tactics:


- always mastery boost your first death wish

- You can start any fight with 100 rage if you spend a while out of combat just spamming berserker rage/battle shout. One way to speed up the rage generation is by swapping to a couple pieces with lots of mastery.

- Because heroic leap is not on the GCD, you an viably use it on CD for every fight ever to maximize DPS, it's moderately tricky to execute, as hitting any of your other abilities cancels the targeting circle, meaning you need to do it in between a GCD.

- Try to time your death wish/CS usage so that you can use two CS's during each death wish, this generally means you will have to delay using one of them.



Morchok:
-Use shattering throw and heroic throw during black blood.

Zon'ozz:
-Maximize boss uptime as much as possible

Yor'sahj:
-Delay recks/ deathwish's for black ooze sets, use discretion as to not delay the usage too long as to lose a whole deathwish.
Use fetish over creche

Hagara:
-Don't leap back in when a frost/lightning phase ends, use intercept. save the leap for ice tombs.

Ultraxion:
be awesome

Warmaster Blackhorn:
-Time target swaps before adds charge to never delay auto attacks
-Time leaps/WW's with gripped sappers.
-Use fetish over creche.

Spine of Deathwing:
-Time inner rage's for burn phases
-When the nuclear blast is casting just auto attack to cap rage before running away
-If you're trying to rank, take everything you've learned not to do on this fight, and do those things.

Madness of Deathwing:
-If blistering tentacles are up and cataclysm is not being cast, you can swap to them and cleave off of them for extra spell weaving+ the cleave damage.
-About half the time when killing bolts you can cleave and hit the arm/wing tentacles
-On the yellow platform you can cleave the parasites and hit the arm tentacle
-After cleaving through the first set of fragments, weave cleaves in to maintain your meat cleaver stack for the bloods.

[Thegreatme]

MASTERY BOOSTING


you've probably heard about it, or maybe you haven't. but I finally have some free time, so let's talk about mastery boosting.

What is it?
Mastery boosting is the process of having a gear set with a lot of mastery specifically so you can use death wish in that set before entering combat, then switching to a standard set of gear.

Why does it work?

When you cast deathwish, it checks your mastery and increases your damage accordingly, it only checks your mastery when you cast it, so if you for any reason have less mastery after you cast it, nothing changes.

Is it worth it?
In a word, YES.
just as an example, a fairly standard non boosted deathwish increases your damage by 30% for 30 seconds. As I am writing this, my current mastery set puts my deathwish at 65.35%

How do you do it?
1) get a mastery set, you can do this by simply hanging on to items that have mastery on them. save this set in the gear manager, also save your normal DPS set.
2) find a way to quickly swap between those two gear sets (there are tons of ways to do this)
3) before you pull a boss, put on your mastery set
4) when you are about to pull, battle shout/berzerker rage, then hit deathwish, (don't forget to prepot)
5) swap to your regular set of gear
6) start DPSing.


I personally use a macro because I have trinket that grants mastery on use, so it allows me to just click the same button a few times, then hit a second button to gear swap. In case you are really curious, here's the exact macro:

#showtooltip
/castsequence reset=5 Mark of Khardros, Death Wish, Golemblood Potion

For those really curious, the current BiS mastery set it this:
http://chardev.org/?profile=364712
with moonwell up, it gives 7361 mastery, which converts in to a 68.23% deathwish (241.13% boost)



Gurthalak's, and YOU

the proc mechanics on gurthalaks are unlike anything that's been in the game thus far. a lot of testing has been done, and pretty much everything has been figured out. Unfortunately I see people doing things that tells me not everyone got the memo, so allow me to forward that memo to you:

• Certain attacks can proc gurth regardless of what hand it's in (the most notable being BT).
• If you use two of the same ilevel gurths, the spell id's of the proc is obviously the same for both weapons.
• When you use an attack that can proc off a gurth in either hand, it will not proc the same spell id twice
• Different ilevel gurths proc different tentacles (read: different spell id's).
• Using 2 gurths of different ilevel allows the attacks that can proc from a gurth in either hand, to be capable of procing both at the same time

What does this mean?
if you're going to use two gurthalaks, make sure they are different ilevels, otherwise you are losing a lot of stats for a minuscule increase in tentacle procs.

I personally don't use a gurth in my offhand, this is because not only is the theoretical gain very small (less than the value of a str gem), using two gurth's sets you up for even more tentacle RNG, which can really suck some times.

[ygar]

Awesome guide dude... I am using everything you have said and I have had a jump of 1800 - 2500 dps in heroics. It was a little tough moving from pure PvP to PvE. not to mention not playing my warrior for nearly 4 months.

Got My Vote for Critical guide

[Kazeyonoma]

Stickied.

[Grannos]

Damn good timing. I just started my 80-85 warrior grind last night. Your last guide was a huge help. I cannot wait to get home and impliment what I have learned here. Thank you for taking the time to put this guide out. It is much appreciated.

[Symph]

Decent guide but I disagree about doing nothing when you can't raging blow. You should be using berserker rage to raging blow when you have no enrage.

[Erkebrand]

You should be using berserker rage to raging blow when you have no enrage.

I'm certain the TGM is thinking of the situation, where you arent Enraged and BR is on CD - in which case you cant use RB and should do something else like using your Bloodsurge proc....

[Krenian]

Symph, this is fine to do when you are in a fight where fear isn't an issue. If it is, I would rather save my Berserking rage for that situation where I can break out of fear and continue dps instead of losing 3-4 seconds.

It's situational. On normal times, you wanna use it if you're sitting with nothing else to do. But if you have to save Berserking Rage for something such as fears, then you wanna use something else. And that includes if it's on CD or anything of the sort.

So in a way you're right and in a way TGM is right: you use that period to do something at least. Honestly, you should never have 'nothing' to do. A debuff, a shout, anything really, you do it in that downtime.

[Symph]

That's very true. On any fight that fears, using it to break the fear is more dps than saving it for raging blow. But usually fears are timed and the cooldown on berserker rage is fairly short. So as long as your smart about it you can use it for both.

I just thought something should be added about it to the guide because I've come across a few warriors who did not know they could use Berserker Rage to allow the use of Raging Blow.

[Krenian]

It's harder to time honestly.

Most fears I've seen are honestly timed on a CD that coincides with the Berserking Rage CD. I've seen some fights that the fear is more often (Herp'derp being one of em..god damn ogre) but never really something that was on a one or two minute CD. At most 45 second which throws everything off.

Safe to say Berserking Rage is a tool that you must use smart. Going around and always pushing it when it's off CD is not the best strategy but never using it when it has obvious benefits (Rage if glyphed and enraged proc) is silly as well.

That's why honestly you wanna watch yourself and simply use it when you can. S'why he left it in there stating that you should do 'nothing' in the sense that any other attack will lose dps.

[Thegreatme]

obviously you should just reroll human and racial out of every fear in pve.

seriously though just use zerker rage when every you need it most, whether you need it for the rage, the enrage effect, or for the fear immunity.

[Lettuce]

Any insight on why you took the Skirmisher talent? Once the patch went through, this was an obvious choice for me, even without Heroic Leap available. Now, after having time to play with some talents, I have found it to not be as good of a use for 2 points as others.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...talent/primary (my spec)

I chose to put the 2 points into Blood Craze (capping it with the 1 from Heroic Fury).

I would only like insight into the Skirmisher talent choice. I am still currently experimenting with the other talents, and reading your/other guides.

[Symph]

Why would you spec into Blood Craze? Heroic Fury and Skirmisher can actually be a dps increase if it allows you to intercept or heroic leap (an extra time) to close the distance to dps a boss or allow you to move out of something bad, then intercept back to the boss. I haven't even done all the new raid bosses yet so I can't speak too much about that but there's been plenty of times in heroics and the bosses I've done so far where having heroic fury and shorter CD on heroic leap has helped.

And Blood Craze is just really bad.

[squats]

obviously you should just reroll human and racial out of every fear in pve.

seriously though just use zerker rage when every you need it most, whether you need it for the rage, the enrage effect, or for the fear immunity.

Obviously your playing on the inferior faction. Trolls>everything

[Lollo]

Thank you very much for this comprehensive giude! It is very valuable for me.

[Yves]

Symph what DPS are you pulling with the stats you got now?
Just curious.

[SeptimX]

currently switched back to Arms, as i am acquiring better 2hand weapons for Titan's grip... using 2 2hand swords as an orc looks kinda funny...

and since world market/economy on some enchants and crafted (Chaos orb required) is out of whack, i am then left playing the waiting game, the gathering game, to get enough gold for future purchases...

tgm thank you for the guild, the gems and enchants, talents and abilities list saves me a lot of time from researching each one...

[Symph]

Symph what DPS are you pulling with the stats you got now?
Just curious.

Honestly? My dps has been pretty bad in raids because I've been testing random things like SMF viability (btw it's not good), inner rage, plus learning new fights kinda sucks. I think I've got things down now though so if you're still interested I can let you know next raid or next raid reset.

Though if it helps at all I did 15,307 on Argaloth when I was just playing normally, but I've gotten a few important upgrades since then. And 15k seems pretty low (at least it does to me), but I somehow ranked 65th on WoL. Maybe it's just because most people are doing 10 man though.

[Vexengetorix]

Hey Thegreatme. I just wanna say thanks for making your guide. I've been a fan of your guides ever since I watched them back in WotLK. Your guides helped me alot to understand rotation and how to do the best dps possible, lately my DPS has been sucking and hasn't been as good as it should be. After I watched your latest video I figured out what I was doing wrong and now I'm always top dps! Turns out my single target rotation was completely off. :P Much love/respect! <3