Comprehensive Arms PvE Guide 4.0.3

[DaNefariouz]

A Comprehensive Guide to Arms Warrior DPS
Last updated 12/29/10
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Terminology
3. Talent Allocation (Spec)
4. Priority
5. Utility
6. Stats (Reforging and Gear)
7. Closing Statement, Credits, and Edit Log
1. Introduction
First and foremost, I would like to clear one thing up. This is a guide intended for those not yet adept at playing as an Arms warrior, or those who wish to simply learn more about the class, for those of you with a large amount of knowledge on the class, feel free to post comments or criticism, however, I do request you keep it civil.
Now that we’ve cleared that up, I’d like to introduce myself. Nefariouz from Illidian, however, I have recently relocated to Silvermoon, and yet again to Whisperwind. I have played every class to at least one of the caps, but of those, warriors have always been my favorite. I have played them since arms became incredibly viable, in early BC. Seeing as warriors are my favorite class, I’ve yearned to write a guide about Arms for eons, and I did. However, the last time I attempted to, patch 3.0.1 was released the week after I posted it on the blizzard forums. The knowledge in this guide solely from WoWhead.com, including their talent calculator, along with months of cataclysm PTR gameplay, and over three days already logged into cataclysm content (as of 12/23/10).
2. Terminology
MS - Mortal Strike
OP - Overpower
TfB - Taste for Blood
CS - Colossus Smash
BS - Bladestorm
Calm - Deadly Calm
HS - Heroic Strike
DPS - Damage per Second
PvP - Player versus Player
PvE - Player versus Environment
FCFS - First Come First Serve
SD - Sudden Death
CC - Crowd Control
GCD - Global Cool down
AoE - Area of Affect
3. Talent Allocation
Although cataclysm has made placing talent points less than an art, I’d like to discuss every talent in light detail, in an effort to help you better understand the class.
Also, in case you don’t wish to read over every talent I commented on, here are two specs. One of which is for AoE damage, the other single target.
AoE-http://www.wowhead.com/talent#LG0ffR0RurkcbMoZ0b
Single Target- http://www.wowhead.com/talent#LG0ffR0RurkcrZh
Arms Tree
Tier One
War Academy 3/3: Increases the damage of Heroic Strike, Cleave, Victory Rush, and Slam by 15%.
Heroic Strike, has, and always will be our main rage dump. However, since the cataclysm revamp removed the “On Next Swing” mechanic, blizzard greatly buffed the straight forward damage of HS, to make it valuable once again. 3/3, as a 15% damage buff to one of our most used abilities is very well accepted.
Field Dressing 2/2: Increases all healing received by 6% and the effectiveness of your self-healing abilities by an additional 20%.
This one is surely up for debate, I personally believe the 20% self-healing buff can save your arse in a tight situation, but on the other hand, “Blitz” simply adds 10 rage per charge, which hopefully you don’t have to use much, and a 1.5sec stun on two more mobs. Personal preference put the points into whichever you believe will give you more utility. Either way, both talents can have points in them.
Blitz 0/2: Your charge generates 5 additional rage and stuns an additional target, per point placed into this talent.
Read above talent.
Tier Two
Tactical Mastery 0/2: You retain an additional 25 rage when changing stances, per point placed into this talent.
Personally, I see no reason as Arms, to be switching stances in a PvE encounter. Both pummel, and spell reflect, are useable in battle stance, which were the only reason you would be switching in WoLK.
Second Wind 2/2: Whenever you are struck by a stun or immobilization effect, you generate 20 rage, and 5% of your health over 10 seconds.
No debate. If you’re stunned, you want to recover gaining back rage quick enough to continue your rotation safely, in terms of rage. Take both points.
Deep Wounds 3/3: Your critical strikes cause your opponent to bleed, dealing 48% of your melee weapons average damage over 6 seconds.
Once again, no debate on whether or not to take this talent. There is absolutely no reason not to take this talent. It is nothing but a DPS increase. Also, it leads you to very good tier three talent.
Drums of War 2/2: Reduces the rage cost of your Shield Bash, Pummel, and any shouts which cost rage by 100%.
Fights require interrupts. (Think the first fight on SFK.) I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been rage starved on fury, unable to pop that pummel. Take it, in the end; no other talents you can pick up to hit 31 points are better.
Tier Three
Taste for Blood 3/3: Increases the critical strike chance of Overpower by 60%. Also, every time Rend deals damage, you have a 100% chance of allowing the use of Overpower for 9 seconds. This effect has a 5 second cool down.
I can’t find another single talent in the arms tree that increases your DPS more. Makes up most of your DPS, as well as increasing the amount of procs on both Deep Wounds and Sudden Death.
Sweeping Strikes 1/1: Your melee attacks strike an additional opponent for the next 10 seconds.
The first thing that comes to mind, is switching to adds on boss fights (Icehowl, or Admiral Ripsnarl for example) whilst still DPSing the main boss.
Impale 2/2: Increases the critical strike damage bonus of Mortal Strike, Slam and Overpower by 20%.
Since Overpower is almost a guaranteed crit (even in 334 gear, I have around 80% OP crit.), and Mortal Strike is one of your main damage abilities take this for a sure DPS increase.
Improved Hamstring 0/2: When reapplying hamstring, you immobilize the target for 5 seconds. This effect cannot occur more than once every 60/30 seconds.
Purely PvP. Don’t bother, this is a PvE guide.
Tier Four
Improved Slam 0/2: Decreases the swing time of slam by 1 second, and increases its damage by 10%.
Pass up, Slam is still absent from our rotation. Rage is better spent elsewhere, and most players cannot weave auto attacks well enough to continue generating rage.
Deadly Calm 1/1: For the next ten seconds, none of your abilities cost rage, but you continue to generate rage. Cannot be used during inner rage.
This talent is golden for your execute phase. You’ll see pretty big numbers rocking for ten seconds. However, this will be discussed later.
Blood Frenzy 2/2: Your bleeds cause the target to take an extra 4% physical damage, and 30% bleed damage. In addition, your auto attacks have a 10% chance to generate an additional 20 rage.
4% more physical damage is huge raid utility, if no one else is bringing it, along with the 30% bleed. (But any other class with bleeds should apply this themselves, other warrior specs being an exception.) The chance to generate additional rage is just gravy, makes the points with it, even with another raid member applying the debuff.
Tier Five
Lambs to the Slaughter 3/3: After dealing a Mortal Strike, your next Execute, Overpower, or Mortal Strike will cause 30% more damage.
This will be significant for your priority tree, making MS go before Overpower or Execute, simply because of the buff to damage, whereas without this skill, it’s almost FCFS.
Juggernaut 1/1: Your Charge ability is now usable whilst in combat, but the cool down is increased by 5 seconds. Following a charge, your next Slam, or Mortal Strike has an additional 25% chance to critically hit if used without 10 seconds of the charge.
Take it, you’ll need it to pick up Bladestorm, and you’ll need to charge in combat often due to knockbacks, to avoid losing DPS uptime.
Sudden Death 2/2: Your melee hits have a 6% chance of resetting the cool down on your Colossus Smash, and you keep 10 rage after using Execute.
With the removal of ARP, and Sunder only reaching 12% armor reduction, you’ll want as much uptime as possible on CS.
Tier Six
Wrecking Crew 2/2: Your Mortal Strike critical hits have a 100% chance to Enrage you, increasing all damage caused by 10% for 12 seconds.
Pick this us for sure. Nothing but a DPS gain, and in higher gear levels (Around T14, so in the future), it will not be difficult to maintain 100% uptime.
Throwdown 1/1: Knocks the target to the ground, and stuns it for 5 seconds.
Worth taking for sure. Very potent skill when used properly, especially for one point.

Tier Seven
Bladestorm: You become a whirling storm of destructive force, instantly striking all nearby targets for 150% weapon damage and continuing to perform a whirlwind attack every second for 6 seconds. While under the effect of Bladestorm, you do not feel pity or remorse or fear and you cannot be stopped unless killed or disarmed, however, you cannot perform any other abilities. ** Except auto attack.
This can be a DPS increase or loss, depending on how you use it. A priority tree discussing how to use whirlwind effectively will be in part four.
Fury Tree
Tier One
Blood Craze 0/3: After taking any damage, you have a 10% chance to regenerate 1.0% of your health over 5 seconds.
Don’t take it. The healing isn’t nearly enough to warrant it, you need other skills here more.
Battle Trance 3/3: Your Bloodthirst, Mortal Strike, and Shield Slam hits have a 15% chance to make your next special attack that costs more than 5 rage, consume no rage.
This is a great skill to pick up. You’ll see it proc enough to be beneficial, but it’s not clear casting. Don’t prioritize based on whether or not this procs.
Cruelty: Increase the critical strike chance of Bloodthirst, Mortal Strike, and Shield Slam by 10%.
A 10% increased critical strike chance to our most important DPS skill is always welcome.
Tier Two
Executioner 2/2: Your Execute hits have a 100% chance to improve your melee attack speed by 5% for 9 seconds. This effect stacks up to 5 times.
Excellent skill for rage. With Calm in the Execute phase, you’ll have this in the first 5 GCDs.
Booming Voice 0/2: Reduces the cool down of your Battle and Commanding Shouts by 15 seconds, and causes them to generate an additional 5 rage, per point placed in the talent.
Not a DPS increase. Only nice when rage starved, which hopefully is never as Arms, and definitely should happen more than once a minute.
Rude Interruption 0/2: Successfully interrupting a spell with Shield Bash or Pummel Increases your damage by 5% for 15 seconds.
Will bring more DPS than Executioner on fights with 100% uptime. However, many raid bosses spells can’t be interrupted. They all have an execute phase, hence why I prefer Executioner, but situationally both are good.
Protection Tree
Tier One
Incite 3/3: Increase the critical strike chance of your Heroic Strike by 15%, and gives your Heroic Strike criticals a 100% chance to cause the next Heroic Strike to critically hit also. These guaranteed criticals cannot re-trigger the Incite effect.
More crits equals more DPS. I don’t know of any easier way to put it.
Toughness 0/3: Increase your armor value from items by 3% per point in this talent.
Nothing to do with DPS.
Blood and Thunder 0/2: When you Thunder Clap a target affected by your Rend, you have a 50% chance to affect every target with rend, per point placed in this talent.
I keep an AoE spec, which uses this instead of incite. Your choice, either way, you’ll do about the same DPS.
Glyphs
-Prime-
Glyph of Bladestorm: Decreases the cool down on your Bladestorm ability by 15 seconds.
There are three primes for arms. This is one. You might not need Bladestorm a lot, but take it anyways.
Glyph of Mortal Strike: Increase the damage of Mortal Strike by 10%.
Your best ability gets a flat damage increase. Who’s complaining?
Glyph of Overpower: Increase the damage of Overpower by 10%.
Your second best ability gets a flat damage increase. Wait, this seems familiar…
-Major-
Glyph of Sweeping Strikes: Reduces the rage cost of Sweeping Strikes by 100%.
Saves you 30 rage, so you aren’t starved as soon as you pop Sweeping Strikes.
Glyph of Colossus Smash: Your Colossus Smash ability refreshes the stacks of Sunder Armor on your target. ** By refresh, it means, if one is already on it, it applies another.
Great glyph.
One of the two that allow you to remove sunder from your rotation.
Glyph of Heroic Throw: Your Heroic Throw applies a stack of Sunder Armor.
Coupled with Glyph of Colossus smash, no more sunder.
-Minor-
Glyph of Battle: Increases the Duration and AoE of Battle Shout by 50%.
In case you forget to use it every CD.
Glyph of Command: Increases the Duration and AoE of Commanding Shout by 50%.
Same reasoning as above.
Glyph of Intimidating Shout: Victims of your Intimidating Shout now tremble in place, instead of fleeing in fear.
Mobs that link being feared are bad. Mobs that link being snared… Are nice.

[DaNefariouz]

4. Priority
Starter Rotation (With Bladestorm)
Battle or Commanding Shout -> Heroic Throw -> Charge -> Rend -> Mortal Strike -> Overpower-> Colossus Smash-> Inner Rage-> Bladestorm ->Overpower-> Regular Rotation
This is your optimal starter rotation. It takes some learning, but in the end it should increase your DPS, and the overall smoothness of your rotation. You’ll want to make sure, more than anything else, to use overpower before your Bladestorm. If you don’t, those six seconds will be over, and you’ll lose your TfB proc.
Starter Rotation -Non Priority Based, No Bladestorm-
(For Fights Where You Opt to Save Bladestorm)
Battle or Commanding Shout -> Heroic Throw -> Charge -> Rend -> Colossus Smash -> Mortal Strike -> Overpower -> Inner Rage if Over 75 Rage -> Heroic Strike if Over 60 Rage, but under 75-> Regular Rotation
The reasoning for this rotation is as follows, with Glyphed Heroic Throw and Glyphed Colossus Smash; you do not need to apply Sunder Armor, ever. Using the initial Heroic Throw, applies one stack of Sunder. Each Colossus Smash you use from that point on will then apply one more stack of Sunder. This way, you take no time out of your starter to apply three stacks.
Regular Rotation (From the Starter Rotation till the Execute Phase)
Maintaining Rend > Colossus Smash > Mortal Strike > Overpower > Heroic Strike > Inner Rage (Only use Inner Rage if you have RIDICULOUS amounts of rage to spare, it’s not worth the 15% damage buff to potentially ruin your rotation) > Battle or Commanding Shout every cool down
Execute Rotation
Maintaining Rend > Colossus Smash > Mortal Strike > Overpower > Execute (If over 60 rage, or less than 3 seconds left on Executioner)
Honestly,It’s not too different from your regular rotation. Also, use Mortal Strike directly before your Execute for optimal DPS increase.
Deadly Calm Execute Rotation
Rend at 3 seconds before execute phase ->Deadly Calm -> Mortal Strike -> Execute-> Heroic Strike Every Cool down -> Inner Rage as soon as its available
This is the bread and butter of your execute phase. Grants you the initial 5 stacks of Executioner you’ll want, and a lot of DPS.

5. Utility
At the moment, this is just a brief statement about utility. (However I do intend to update it, and make it a full portion of the guide once I know when and how to assist the group on every individual Cataclysm boss.) As a warrior, generally, your job will be to DPS, nothing more. Fury brings a lot to the table with their 5% Crit Chance. However, Arms gives the beloved 4% physical damage, and 30% bleed damage buff in one passive skill. You’ll also most likely be the main interrupter of the raid, since you have a no cost interrupt, and only Frost DKs, and Feral Druids also possess this ability.
6. Stats
Hit Rating
As an Arms Warrior, you will only need 8% hit to be hit capped. Around 800 rating. This is your most important stat.
Expertise
You need 26 expertise rating in order to be expertise capped, as mobs cannot parry from behind. You shouldn’t have to reforge or gem for expertise.
Strength
Next up, Strength will increase DPS by the most. As warriors generate more than 2 ATP/ point of STR.
Mastery
Mastery, along with crit, are our go to reforging stats. Mastery gives you a chance of Triggering another attack for full weapon damage. Worth taking as Arms. Do not pick up as Fury. (But honestly, what Fury warrior is reading this guide for information on that spec?)
Haste
This is the only stat that actually increases rage generation as of 4.0.1. Usefull for any class, but its best left to the Shamans and Casters. Reforge to Crit or Mastery.
Crit
Every spec can use crit, it gives a spiky increase in general damage output, and allows for unreliable burst. Works similiarly to Mastery in the game of numbers.

Reforging
Reforging is a relatively new art, one which I have yet to master. (Most likely due to the lack of time put into it.) After a bit of research, theres no simple way to put it. You want Mastery and Crit. But you dont need to go out of your way to obtain either, or horde if a more important stat is available. For example.
On legs with 178 Mastery Rating, and 112 Hit Rating (Not Realistic Stats)
If you are above hit capped - Change hit rating to Crit.
If you are missing expertise - Change hit rating to expertise.
If you are missing expertise, but not hit capped - Change mastery to expertise rating.
On legs with 178 Mastery Rating, and 112 Crit Rating (Not Realistic Stats)
If you are hit capped, and expertise capped - Do not reforge
If you are missing alot of hit - Reforge mastery into hit
If you are missing hit or expertise, but you gain too much from reforging mastery - Reforge Crit
On legs with 178 Haste, and 112 Hit rating (Not Realistic Stats)
If you are above hit rating - Reforge to Crit, or Mastery.
If you are barely hit capped (within .20%) - Reforge Haste to Crit, or Mastery.
Crit, or Mastery?
At this point in time, to my knowledge, it requires alot of number crunching to figure out which would be better for you. Most likely, based on the amount of each you already possess. If you want to figure out which would be better, i advise using Spreadsheets.
---Note---
I am requesting anyone who can (and will) do the math please to post with a releastic representation of how your DPS output will be affected with either spec.

[MORE WILL BE ADDED]
7. Closing Statement
I would like to round up this guide for thanking you all for taking the time to read it, and to ask you for any constructive feedback you may have. If you wish to give me any information, or correct anything I may be wrong on, feel free to post here, or message me on Wow Head, as well as in game. Finally, I’d like to thank Ivo and his guild Unknown on Whisperwind, for making an enjoyable raiding atmosphere, as chance are I would not have taken the time to continue to play WoW in Cataclysm, without them. Especially,
Ivo-Whisperwind – For doing a spectacular job setting up the first 10 man raiding guild on Whisperwind.
Flardoran-Whisperind – My only competition healing ICC.
Nikana-Whisperwind – For making &*!@ interesting.
Walrus-Silvermoon – For making me better myself. (As far as gameplay)
Sincerely,
Nefariouz – Whisperwind
And with utmost respect for your time put into bettering this post...
Victarious-WoWhead Forums Member: For input on Throwdown, Imp. Slam, RI and BV, and most importantly, stats.
Edit Log
12/29/10, 11:41AM PST- Changed spec to reflect comment posted. Reworded reforging, including a small tutorial as to how to allocate stats.
12/30/2010, 11:12AM PST- Listed all those who contributed as to reflect which website they were from.

[DaNefariouz]

Reserved.

[Mazar]

Got a question. Why not using Imp. Slam? I am not sure, but I recall reading somewhere that Slam gives more damage per rage than Heroic strike.

[squats]

Got a question. Why not using Imp. Slam? I am not sure, but I recall reading somewhere that Slam gives more damage per rage than Heroic strike.

because it pauses your swing timer. You wont gain the rage you use on it back wile your casting it, and if you spam it. you starve yourself

[DaNefariouz]

because it pauses your swing timer. You wont gain the rage you use on it back wile your casting it, and if you spam it. you starve yourself

Aye, pausing your swing timer is bad. At the moment, with Incite, I believe heroic strike has higher potential DPS. Slamming isnt bad but its not golden either. I'll be adding a section discussing the pro's and cons of it. For more information on the heated slam debate, check the discussions i've had on this post on WoWhead. http://www.wowhead.com/forums&topic=...632#post-reply

[Muffin Man]

I'd get used to slamming if I were you though. It's pretty clear that HS is going to get nerfed (or Slam buffed a lot for Fury/Arms).

From http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/1829962#blog

Specifically "We think Arms and Fury warriors are getting too much damage out of Heroic Strike. We want it to be clear that it’s a rage dump and not make it the hardest hitting ability."

There was a throwaway line about making slam scale with haste, but I wouldn't hold my breath on that one.

A few questions now:
Are you saying Glyph of Colossus Smash is bugged? or the tooltip is misworded (easily as likely)? That would definitely make the glyph mandatory when not raiding with a Warrior tank I would think.

If you're reforging away from haste are you having trouble maintaining a full rotation?
Somehow my set of gear has almost 9% haste and I haven't had any trouble running rotation with HS and I've read elsewhere that haste is pretty good for warriors. I do use improved slam though, so I guess it could be a case of my haste just making up for my rage throttling via imp slam.

Anyways, nice guide. I'd recommend a note/section emphasizing expertise capping since in LK that was something Arms just didn't care about, but with the synergy between Colossus Smash, Lambs to the Slaughter, ect it's pretty much required now.

[JollyWarrior]

I don't know if I agree with your points in 2nd Wind. the history of raids shows you are not stunned all that often. I think the points would better be spent in Imp. Slam (maybe it's because I've not tightened up my rotation yet, but I find I have moments where HS and everything else is on CD and I could spend that moment Slamming.)

[shiz98]

Couple notes.

Utility
Seems like a few things you may have passed over while putting this section together:

1. Ret's interrupt is essentially free; you might want to make note of it
2. Intervene is the best threat reduction ability in the game, and it's extremely easy for Arms to make use of.

Stats
The simulations I've seen coming out of SimulationCraft put expertise pretty low on the totem pole; it probably isn't worth reforging to, ever.

That aside, stat calculations for Arms are extremely loose right now due to the math being rather immature at this point. There's a lot of new mechanics to account for (and if you ask me, the complexity has grown past the points where you can effectively model it -- simulation will be the way to go), and the game just hasn't out long enough to get these resolved.

With that in mind, I'd be extremely wary of any spreadsheet calculator for Arms at this point. The fact right now is that nobody knows how to gear the most efficiently as Arms.

Spec
I wouldn't be so fast to dismiss slam, and by skipping out on Imp. Slam you're effectively removing it from any consideration in the rotation. Personally, I'd pull the points from Drums of War and drop them into the Imp. Slam. (And for those interested, the effective rage cost of slam is going to be ~22 rage)

Also, I really really think that it's better to drop the points in Second Wind and pop them into Tactical Mastery. It opens up a huge range of flexibility by allowing you to easily stance dance in any setting.

Glyphs

1. I'd take a serious look at Enduring Victory. That ability is pretty awesome on any fight with adds, and may end up saving your healers some mana.
2. Personally, I wouldn't pick up Heroic Throw; it really only saves you one GCD slot (that you'll have open anyway). Cleaving, on the other hand, is pretty awesome for any kind of AoEing.

Rotation
It'd be nice to see this fleshed out

Again, I'd drop Slam in there -- it certainly gets use during Deadly Calm, and it has its place in the regular rotation as well, just not very often. And while I haven't done a lot of math on it, I've anecdotally had great success with a slam-heavy (and HS light) rotation.

For your opener, I'd recommend CSing before you MS or OP, and also using Deadly Calm after a couple second, before you do BS. Charge, rend, CS, MS, OP, maybe dump rage via a Slam, and then pop DC and go hog wild. Once it wears off you burn down your rage, wait for a CS, and bladestorm. I'd also recommend popping trinkets with DC rather than BS, and try to time it so you can pop off a rend while any AP trinkets you have are active. I'd also recommend not using HS on the opener every time; it doesn't really add much on the pull, and it can be useful on some fights when you need a ranged attack.

Also, with the ability to keep 75 rage when stance dancing, hopping into zerker stance to pop recklessness starts to look attractive again. Swap, pop zerker rage, and fire off CS + MS + HS and then hop back.

Again, no maths on this, but I'm fairly confident that you don't really want to execute that much once you're in execute range. Or at least, not at the expense of other abilities? I'd be a bit more careful here as Arms than I would as Fury.

Finally, I'd recommend not using shouts on CD. Use shouts when you need the rage. If you use a shout in a high rage scenario you're really just wasting a GCD slot. You're going to have a lower rage income over the course of the fight, but your ability usage should be better if you don't block another ability to shout.

All in all with it's important to recognize that nobody really knows what the Arms rotation should look like right now. Priorities are anything but set in stone. This guide is a good starting point, but I'd expect to see some significant changes once we start to understand the rotation better (or, at all :P).

--

Thanks for taking the time to do this. The other Arms guides are seriously outdated, and there hasn't even been a basic guide up here to help point people along the way. Every time I've sat down to write one I've been foiled by the fact that I just don't know what to recommend rotation wise... Glad someone else was able to step up to the plate

@Muffin Man
From a pure damage perspective, haste is still incredibly lame. Its only real benefit is the rage it gets you. To my knowledge, any recommendations on haste as a stat are just based on anecdotal evidence rather than hard math; for example, it may be more effective to run without any haste and forego the HS usage.

[Muffin Man]

Stats
The simulations I've seen coming out of SimulationCraft put expertise pretty low on the totem pole; it probably isn't worth reforging to, ever.

Interesting, I guess I was persuaded more by the 'logic' of wanting Lambs and Crushing Blows to land rather than any testing. Good to know.

@Muffin Man
From a pure damage perspective, haste is still incredibly lame. Its only real benefit is the rage it gets you. To my knowledge, any recommendations on haste as a stat are just based on anecdotal evidence rather than hard math; for example, it may be more effective to run without any haste and forego the HS usage.

Lately, I've been reading more and more recommendations to avoid haste. So I guess I'm just remember earlier expansion exuberance that 'we can use haste now!' I have been missing my Crit so far this expansion, guess I know where I'll be getting it now.

[Msrobinson]

I like the idea of using colossus smash as a higher priority than mortal strike and overpower. the extra 6 seconds of 100% arp is a huge increase. Gotta be careful not to overlay the buff if colossus smash comes off cd really early.

I also like the idea of using deadly calm before inner rage and bladestorm, allowing the rage to build up more easily.


One question I do have, however, is how bladestorm stacks up with inner rage as compared to just a normal rotation on a tank and spank raid situation. Assuming all gcd are used for your colossus smash --> mortal strike --> overpower --> heroic strike --> mortal strike, and rend is up, would inner rage benefit your rotation more so than bladestorm? Is bladestorm worth using if there aren't any adds? What if there are 2 adds, is it better to sweeping strikes and then use the rotation, or sweeping strikes bladestorm

[The Hoof]

Just a side comment, I've found that if you bladestorm without having a mob targeted, you don't seem to generate rage.

[Kazeyonoma]

That's because the only rage you generate while bladestorming is from your white swings, if you have nothing targetted, you're not white swinging, BS is used as a "rage gain" ability because it forces you into 6 seconds of not consuming rage, while you continue to generate rage from your regular attacks, all while still putting out damage to make up for your "lack of using rage". It isn't an inherent rage gain ability, it just functionally acts as one.

[shiz98]

One question I do have, however, is how bladestorm stacks up with inner rage as compared to just a normal rotation on a tank and spank raid situation. Assuming all gcd are used for your colossus smash --> mortal strike --> overpower --> heroic strike --> mortal strike, and rend is up, would inner rage benefit your rotation more so than bladestorm? Is bladestorm worth using if there aren't any adds? What if there are 2 adds, is it better to sweeping strikes and then use the rotation, or sweeping strikes bladestorm

Inner rage is a strange beast indeed. I'm hesitant to make any broad statements about it, since there are several unique and interesting ways to use it. At the moment I think the safe bet is to just use it in conjunction with other CD's.

Interestingly enough, it works really well with Bladestorm. If you're opening with Deadly Calm, for example, you can pop Inner Rage right after DC wears off, burn off a bit of rage (maybe with an MS, Slam, OP, Rend, HS -- right now I'm thinking that ideally it's a Colossus Smash), and then pop BS. It'll hit 15% harder, and by the time you come out of it you should have a good 8 seconds or so left on IR and a full rage bar to boot. It should work similarly well even if you didn't have a DC usage available.

As for ideal Bladestorm usage with respect to adds... I don't think there are any numbers on it yet. Personally, I'll be popping it for adds, though not in conjunction with Sweeping Strikes.

[Kamani]

I'm not playing in live, but I was a beta tester and did number crunching on Inner Rage and spent quite a bit of time pondering it.

The big thing about IR is that your current rage state has absolutely no reflection on what your future rage income will be. And IR's usefulness applies only to your future rage income.

If you are rage capped at the moment, you can very easily use HS + something else and blow most of the rage and then sit at a normal level. 100 is never quite excessive. Using IR means your 100 rage is gone in two abilities and you are much more likely to be starved at this point.

The only time it is worth using is when your future rage will increase at a highly(very) predictable manner; such as a phase where you stand in fire 100% of the time. If rage is subject to normally random variables, you can blow your rage with your standard rotation just fine.

I say this because:
(Only use Inner Rage if you have RIDICULOUS amounts of rage to spare, it’s not worth the 15% damage buff to potentially ruin your rotation)

You can't actually have "ridiculous amounts of rage to spare." You're hard capped at (I'll pick 75 since MS cost 25) 75 rage to spare. The reflection that I consider more accurate is "expect ridiculous amounts of incoming rage."

[The Hoof]

Has anyone noticed a change with Inner Rage? It seems that since yesterday, if I've hit Deadly Calm and then hit 75+ rage Inner Rage is still greyed out. Where as prior you could hit Deadly Calm and then once you hit enough rage you could also trigger Inner Rage.

Anyone else seeing this?

[Kazeyonoma]

you were never able to hit inner rage while deadly calm is up, that was the absolute first thing i thought of once i hit level 83 and tried it while leveling, and noticed that it didn't work. sucks but it's kinda like popping wings i guess and you can't use both.

[The Hoof]

Hmm, I was almost positive that the way it worked was that you couldn't trigger deadly calm if inner rage was up, but you could trigger inner rage if deadly calm was already going. I could, however be smoking crack.

[Kazeyonoma]

i've tried both ways, and as far as i can tell, they're exclusive buffs, =(

[Muffin Man]

I get the feeling that we'll be using a macro for IR soon enough.

Not too sure how it would look, I guess some sort of cast sequence macro like:
/castsequence reset=15 Inner Rage, cancel aura Inner Rage
the reset is just the Inner Rage duration, which looking at is actually a really long time. It's doesn't seem like 15 seconds of +50% rage usage is going to be manageable at all.

Other than something silly like Hysteria while getting hit by an AoE aura.

Anyways, this'll let us switch it on and off at will which should make it much more manageable and probably end up separating out the really top end Arms warriors (who I'm sure already are doing this as I've seen it suggestions to IR slams / cancel aura immediately).

Also, does IR work with Battle Trance? If so, just imagine:
Battle Trance proc
IR
HS
Cancel IR