Yet Another Cataclysm Arms Guide

[Destruyen]

First, I want to give us some context here: the things we're discussing as inaccurate in this guide are:

• A minor glyph
• A major glyph
• Execute range and the resulting talenting

And of course the gemming section, which I hastily threw together out of memory, which turned to be horribly bad.

What no one's debated thusfar are:

• Stat priorities
• Non-execute rotation
• 95% of the talents

tbh for a "first edition" of an arms warrior guide for a new xpac that's pretty damn good if that's the only things people can't agree on, which some could be filed under personal tastes.

[shiz98]

On the subject of Glyphs, I'm loathe to recommend anything over something else (except for primes, and I certainly hope we don't need to debate those). Here's why: It's all situational. This part here?

And on the glyph of heroic throw. With devastate being so low on the prot warriors threat rotation. being able to add a stack at the start of the fight, and refresh it here or there in the fight, it doesnt seem like that bad of an idea to pick this up.

Is absolutely correct. Maybe your prot warrior doesn't make stacking sunders a priority. Maybe you don't have a prot warrior and you need to do it yourself. Heck, maybe your prot warrior is fine -- you'd still stack it a second or two factor. There are totally situations where that's valid.

But there are also situations where other glyphs are more valid. Maybe you're doing a fight with lots of adds that are dying and your healers are having trouble, and maybe that means that you should pick up Glyph of Victory Rush. That's valid too. But if I say in the guide "You should get Glyph of Heroic Throw," I might convince someone otherwise, and then they'd make the wrong choice. I'm not going to do that, because the benefit is so minute, and the potential downside is much greater.

The same goes for Berserker Rage. Yeah, it might be the best glyph, but that's min/maxing to a ridiculous extent, and not enough for me to recommend it over something else. Like I mentioned in the guide, I don't personally use it (which isn't to say you shouldn't either). I specifically mention in the section that it's a "popular choice," but I feel the trap I found myself in may be useful information for someone considering using it, which is why I threw it in there.

[squats]

I wasnt so much saying that you should say they need to get that glyph(s). And i think you know that. But im more saying that you shouldn't tell them that you dont find something terribly useful in your guide. Doing so pretty much tells people to not get that glyph at all.

[shiz98]

That's fair. I'll be fixing that in the next update.

[marklar]

to be fair, you claimed this as the end-all, be-all guide to arms, and every other guide is wrong, which is why i'm nitpicking it. i thought the rotation, stat, etc was pretty good. overall, i think the guide is good.

however, you made some absolute statements about glyphs that WILL mislead people. saying a glyph is bad, when it's quite good in some situations is not correct. i did not make any absolute statements about glyphs, and in fact, i ONLY use the HT glyph when there are no adds in the fight. in that case, it IS the superior choice. cleave/SS are much better in fights with adds. you also made a bizarre statement about the zerker rage glyph that will mislead people as well. there is no real downside to the glyph and there is a small upside. name 3 glyphs that are better?

execute is available for 20% of the fight, so it's an important range. you've also made some absolute statements about execute and the executioner talent that i disagree with and i haven't seen anything to change my mind yet. you claim haste only affects white damage, but it also affects rage generation. 3203 stat point allocation is a LOT, even it's one of our weaker stats, and you completely ignored it when doing your execute damage comparison.

the real value in the talent, imo, is not the extra white damage - it's the extra rage generation. if i can find the formula for rage generation, i'll try and figure out how much additional rage/sec the talent gives you. then it should be easy to give it a dps value. while i haven't done any math on the talent yet, i'm not just "assuming" it's better. i have been raiding with and without the talent, and i can tell you it makes keeping up your rotation during the execute phase much easier.

the only thing i'm giving up to pick up the talent is one extra point in RI (which is a wasted point much of the time), and PH (which i've not found a lot of use for yet). normally, i'm a big PH fan, but my trade off is PH vs. 1/2 RI.

so your comparison rotation is 4 GCD abilities vs 3 GCD abilities? it's no wonder the first one wins.
17173*2 + 15086 = 49,432 (execute usage)
12761*2 + 15086 + 14255 = 54,863 (no execute)

if i add in another execute, the first becomes:
17173*3 + 15086 = 66,605

the thing is, you are never rage-starved with SD. execute costs a minimum of 10 rage, but SD always leaves you with 10 rage (free executes?). without executioner, pretty much all i could do was spam execute. with executioner, i can pick up most CS and MS attacks as well (sometimes with a little help from my zerker glyph). since i also always try and have DC up for execute phase, that buys me some more time of no rage problems as well.

and i do think that anyone writing the definitive guide to any spec should be willing to post logs so that others can see where they are coming from. i'm far from the top arms warriors in the logs, but i'm always willing to show where i'm working from.

[woodyman]

I think its impossible for anyone to write the definitive arms guide at the moment,
but its always good to get lots of different inputs and work together to reach the goal that we all want which is a cookie cutter spec.

i must agree with execute at the end of a fight i can spam it and keep up my Overpowers and fit in CS and never rage starve due to the leaving you 10 rage thing + haste of executioner.
its definately not to be overlooked

[swelt]

One way to answer the 'heroic throw glyph' section would be to add a discussion about "Should I Sunder Armor". I wasted a ton of effort sundering a boss in one of my first raids, until I realised that a feral druid for a single GCD can put up a 3 stack of faerie fire for the same effect at a much lower opportunity cost. I think as far as 'who gets sunder duty', arms warriors are pretty low down the list and that might be worth bringing up here. Of course, if you are in a group which has no better option, glyphs like heroic throw and furious sundering suddenly become much more attractive.

Or someone could bribe Blizzard a huge sum of money to change the glyph of heroic throw to apply rend instead of sunder armor and make everyone happy.

[Pek]

Personally, I don't see the issue with Arms warriors being the sunder bots. As mentioned previously in other threads, sundering as Arms is pretty easy with glyph of Heroic throw and Colossus Smash.

Heroic throw as you charge (1 sunder), apply rend, apply colossus smash (2 sunders), then either put up a sunder straight away or just continue your normal attack priority and no doubt you will get Sudden Death proc to apply the 3rd sunder pretty quickly. Done and with next to no GCD wastage.

Really takes no effort at all but yes, a feral druid does do it much easier. Still, it's no excuse for us to not be putting sunders up.

Edit: Speaking from a 10 man raiding perspective here where we don't have a feral.

[Kazeyonoma]

you're not "sundering" if you're using heroic throw and colossus smash, smash only works if there is already 1 stack of sunder on the boss, otherwise it won't sunder. using SUNDER ARMOR as an ability is a waste of a gcd for an already gcd capped spec, so yes there is an innate issue with making arms warriors the "sunder bots" but with smart usage of glyph of heroic throw and making sure CS never falls off, it's probably good that we do it effortlessly, but this doesn't mean "sunder bot" it means, convenient person to put up sunder. Sunder bots are typically people who have to break their rotation to add sunder armor into the debuff list. Fury warriors still have it easier here because you have open GCDs.

[marklar]

i'd put us 3rd on the list of "sunder peeps".
1) prot warrior
2) feral drood
3) dps warrior

i don't think it matters much if it's an arms or fury warrior, since either one would want to get them up ASAP and so will end up using ONE wasted GCD (if glyphed properly) at the start of the fight (or target change). arms has the slight advantage that we will naturally refresh them more often lessening the chance of the stack falling off. i haven't played fury in a long time, so i don't know how many open GCD fury has when engaging their target. neither spec should ever need to use a GCD to refresh sunders.

what bugs me is fights where you can't help but have the stack fall off (actually, that's most of them so far ><), but i still HT, charge, rend, sunder, CS every time to stack it back up.

[marklar]

execute ... costs rage regardless.

question of the day, does it cost rage if you use it with exactly 10 rage? O.o

[squats]

i'd put us 3rd on the list of "sunder peeps".
1) prot warrior
2) feral drood
3) dps warrior

i don't think it matters much if it's an arms or fury warrior, since either one would want to get them up ASAP and so will end up using ONE wasted GCD (if glyphed properly) at the start of the fight (or target change). arms has the slight advantage that we will naturally refresh them more often lessening the chance of the stack falling off. i haven't played fury in a long time, so i don't know how many open GCD fury has when engaging their target. neither spec should ever need to use a GCD to refresh sunders.

what bugs me is fights where you can't help but have the stack fall off (actually, that's most of them so far ><), but i still HT, charge, rend, sunder, CS every time to stack it back up.

The thing about fury is that the CS glyph isnt 100% reliable. Sometimes its best to wait a second or two for things to come off CD and then hit CS and then sunder falls off.

IMO Arms has a much easier time keeping it up because CS refreshes a decent bit for them. But regardless of what spec is easier to keep Sunder up on. If you have a prot warrior, and a fury/arms warrior. Sunder should never fall off.. ever.

[Kazeyonoma]

question of the day, does it cost rage if you use it with exactly 10 rage? O.o

IT COSTS SOMETHING GODDAMNIT, CUZ THE INVERT OF 0 Is 0 BUT DIVIDING ANY NUMBER BY 0 IS INFINITY, GET IT?

[squats]

IT COSTS SOMETHING GODDAMNIT, CUZ THE INVERT OF 0 Is 0 BUT DIVIDING ANY NUMBER BY 0 IS INFINITY, GET IT?

SHUT UP KAZ YOU'RE GOING TO BREAK THE WEBSITE!

[Nez]

I think this requires further testing on the Holodeck!

[Destruyen]

i'd put us 3rd on the list of "sunder peeps".
1) prot warrior
2) feral drood
3) dps warrior

moonkin, resto druids, assassination rogues, and fury warriors are all better at maintaining sunder better than arms

[Muffin Man]

question of the day, does it cost rage if you use it with exactly 10 rage? O.o

You know, it was buggy as all hell in LK. There were times where I would execute back to back and not have rage to do it a third time.

That was with improved execute mind you.

And since I haven't specced into that in Cata I don't know if it's still buggy or what.

[Krenian]

Would you not simply be able to shift your lowest damaging ability in your rotation and replace it with Execute instead? Say drop, oh, I dunno, OP or Slam and use Execute? If I recall, for Fury, Execute is the most damage per rage we got and that's why Fury spams it. I also did not see any particular talent in Fury that increases damage on Execute so both are pretty much on par for both specs.

Count me as a skeptic but the fact if you can get Executioner which will give you added haste, which will give you a chance to proc your Mastery and give you more rage to Execute at a higher amount of rage used...I'm a lil curious. I saw your math Shiz and let me be the first to say that math is my weaker point, however I still am not convinced and I'm trying to figure out what you're not accounting for.

I know Haste is a bad stat for Arms. Fine, I get that. But it's not the most terrible stat on the sole fact it'll allow you to throw out Executes sub 20% that hit way harder.

Just my two cents!

[Kazeyonoma]

swords of opportunity don't generate rage.

we don't have 2 weapons to generate as smooth rage as execute

we have 2 abilities that are more important than just spamming execute while you only have 1 (we both have CS, but we have MS for lambs buff as well)

we have a super rage efficient high damage high crit chance ability that you don't (OP)

really we could squeeze out slam from our rotation but that'd only work, as something we do with our core rotation isn't up, AND only if we have 30 rage, at 10 rage, execute is not damage/rage efficient at all from what my logs tell me.

[marklar]

moonkin, resto druids, assassination rogues, and fury warriors are all better at maintaining sunder better than arms

moonkin - costs him 3 GCD vs. 1 GCD for arms, although his duration is certainly much better. for fights where we have to stop attacking the boss long enough that sunder drops off, i'd agree with you. for fights with one target, i can't see how they're better. for fights with target switching, you have to multiply the target changes x3 for moonkin GCD's spent and x1 (or x2) for warriors.

resto druid - i would never ask a healer to use 24% of base mana + 3 GCD to put up FF at the start of a fight. and on any fight with target switching, or where sunder needs to be reapplied, forget it.

rouges - similar to warriors in inital cost (1 GCD), but rogues have to waste a GCD to refresh it every minute. if not talented (no idea if those 2 talent points are typically taken), it actually costs them two extra GCD to build up 5 CP.

fury - USED to be much better at sunders, but i'm not sure what the advantage to fury is now. yes, they have free GCD during the fight, but that's not how we typically refresh sunder anymore. with glyph of CS, sunder maintenance is free. i think i agree with squats - because fury can't refresh CS, they are always in more danger of losing their stacks.