Due to some insane Career Pressures, the general bumpiness of the Construction industry, severe Raiding burnout, a death in the family, budget issues, etc. my wife and I have quit WoW indefinitely.

Have fun in Ulduar and Icecrown, folks. Be sure to check the BlogRoll for other great people that you should read.

Total hits for the 11th and 12th: 21,083.  Thanks for reading. It’s good encouragement to keep writing it.

I say this because the Arms rotation isn’t as intuitive as Fury. With Arms, you can’t follow one rotation ad naseum (1-1-1-2-3, etc.)  It takes a bit to learn. I’m still learning.
Fury shows more damage on Recount because Arms has more Raid Utility and Arms is in need of buffs. (The Devs even agree.) To eek out enough damage to justify your spot in a competitve raid, you may have to work as hard as a good Warrior Tank. But me telling you that you’re going to work your arse off doesn’t teach you how.

With that in mind, I’m going to start working on a Basics of Arms DPS series, but here are some resources that I use to work things out. Use them. Chec my math. Help me help y’all. My warrior is a little more than a year old and I’ve been Arms for about three months. I don’t claim to be infallible like certain elitist jerks often claim.

• Advice
  • TankSpot’s DPS Forum – lots of smelly tanks, but some good damage dealers here too.
  • Twitter – Ask me questions, or ask Veneretio, Lakland, or dozens of the “twitterati”
• Gear
  • LootRank for PvE Warriors – MaxDPS.com will leave you with 11 stamina and an over expertised corpse. Use lootrank. change numbers as you see fit.
  • WoW Gem Finder – Helps you figure out what will fit ina slot if you need something to activate a meta. Else, +str or +crit if you’re hit capped.
• WoWwikki.com – When in doubt about mechanics, look it up!
• Commandments of DPS – yes, it’s my article, but I wrote a lot of condensed truth into it for a reason.

Feel free to leave other resources in the comments. What all should I cover? I thought I’d start with a quick article on Specs, then one on Rotation and I’d work from there.

39 - 18 - 5 - 7 - 44 - 287 - 9,916 - 8,943 hits

Thanks to Matt Rossi for linking my 10 Commandments Post; I’m getting hits like crazy.

Please, leave comments, find me on Twitter or shoot me email about what kind of articles you want to read or questions you have! I’m always drawing a blank when thinking up topics.

Also, visit the team over at Big Hit Box for a up-and-coming all-Melee DPS blog. I joined the crew this week and we have lots of great things planned over there!

Thanks!
Weryl

These are the very most basic rules that you, as a WoW Player operating in Melee range, should follow. Several apply to the lesser classes, but you, oh dealer of the Smashy, Smashy, shall embrace them all.

I. Do not die. Even if you can Ankh. Using your death as an aggro wipe is an abomination.

II. Do not cause your raidmates to die. In this way, do not allow the healers or wearers-of-cloth to become squished by Lesser Nasties should the Tank ignore them. Your weapon shall be your weapon, but CC shall be your shield in a time of trouble.

III. Do not overtax your healers by taking undue raid damage. In this spirit, do not stand in front of the Big Nasty, nor should you stand in any nastiness the Big Nasty has strewn on the floor.

IV. Focus your Fire by assisting and following the kill order. ALWAYS.

V. Use your trinkets and cooldowns wisely. When in doubt, early and often. If your raid leader orders you to pop your trinkets and they are on cooldown, smile for you have done well.

VI. If the strategy calls for you to interrupt spell-casting by the Big Nasty, do so. The loss of dps is insignificant compared to violating the First, Second, or Third commandments.

VII. If you have a buff to share with melee, use it. This includes debuffs to the Big Nasty and anything that mitigates damage on the Tank. Though he is unintelligent and stands in front of the Big Nasty and probably smells a little funny, he is your melee brethren.

VIII. Do not show up to raid unprepared. Read the strategies, bring consumables, and have your items enchanted. Listen to your raid leader and class leader. Bring an offering of gold for repairs and pay it to Murphy willingly.

IX. Know what items and statistics will improve you and in what ratios. Do not stand around a dead Big Nasty and debate if his loot is good for you. This too is a violation of the Eighth commandment.

X. Do not covet your neighbor’s Recount. Do not violate the above commandments in an attempt to increase your dps at cost to the raid. This is a violation of the spirit of the law, which is teamwork.

*With my apologies to God if I have profaned His Scriptures. Oh, and Charlton Heston, who I did not recognise as a complete Bad Ass until he was dead.

The only spec I like more than Arms is Smartass.

It’s a talent of the new Comedian hero class. Promise.

Image Courtesy of wowbash.com

Warrior

1. Changing stances now has a much reduced cost: you lose a maximum of 20 rage (10 with Tactical Mastery). For example, if you have 100 rage and change stances, you will have 80 rage remaining. If you have 10 rage and change stances, all of your rage is lost. In addition, we may change the penalties associated with some stances.
2. You now gain rage when damage done to you is absorbed, such as through a Power Word: Shield.
3. Blood Frenzy now causes 2/4% physical damage done.
4. Sunder Armor (and similar debuffs) now reduces armor by 4% per application, and is now a single rank. Creature armor has been globally reduced so that debuffed targets should take about the same damage from physical attacks that they did before this change. The net effect should be that this debuff is slightly less mandatory in PvE and is not disproportionately more powerful against cloth targets in PvP.
5. We are also adding increased damage to Arms, possibly through Overpower or Slam.
6. We are also looking at granting rage when the warrior blocks, dodges or parries.

Six items, some raptrous, some bland for an Arms Warrior.

1. The Stance Dance no longer a rage hog.
   (Tangent: I wish there was a specific achievment for a warrior to do The Safety Dance in all three stances.)
   - Obviously helpful in Arenas and other PvP where jumping between Battle and ‘zerker sances is necessary to combat fear-happy classes like warlocks. Also good for hopping to ‘zerker stance to pummel (like I do on Kel’thuzad.)

- Good for switching to Defensive in a hurry to try to offtank an add when shite hitteth the fan…eth. Now likely to have rage for Thunderclap and Mocking Blow as soon as you switch. (Possible Macro to equip sword’n'board, switch to defensive and mocking blow?)

2. Rage when damage is absorbed.
   - Yay for more rage when paired with a Disc Priest.
   - Yay for no longer educating newbie priests about the counterintuitive “Shielding a warrior on a pull is bad.” (Can rage-starve them. DPS pulls aggro on adds.)
   - Does this also include Earth Shield (No, it doesn’t.) or the buff from [Essence of Gossamer]? Essence is already an OP tanking trinket.
3. Blood Frenzy is more Uber. – This is an Arms talent, folks. Buffs for Arms! Hooray!
4. Sunder Armor changes & mob armor nerfs
   - Good: This seems to be aimed at groups that are using non-warrior tanks (like Fire Team Alpha, my Naxx10 group that has a Druid and Pally as OT/MT)
   - Good: I don’t have to be as concerned that I’m not working sunder into my rotation if there’s not a prot warrior around.
   - Good: Any Armor Pen that a tank has (DKs and Druids, I’m looking at you here) will be more effective.
   - Bad: There’s a slight chance this will further make Armor Pen. the red-headed stepchild of all melee dps stats. depends on how they implement it.
5. MOAR DEE-PEE-ESS FOR ARMS!! – via two of our three “musts” in our rotation; not something I’m gonna have to shoehorn in! Thank you, Devs.
6. Unimportant since I play protection like once a month. (Until Dual Specs, that is…)

Rejoice Warriors, and rush the Field of Victory to collect your spoils!

  As far as melee dps goes, we think rogues, cats and Arms warriors are all a little low. We haven’t announced specific changes yet but they are coming. – Ghostcrawler, 02/03/2009 09:04:04 AM PST

All I have to say is “WOOT.” After the Sudden Death nerf, I was wondering if they were going to do something to ratchet our overall DPS up a bit.

So far they only have one article on warriors, but I’ll see if I can’t talk someone into getting us some equal representation.

You (probably don’t) remember our first installment of Questions from Twitter. That’s likely because 3 people read it. This time, we’re shootin’ for four!

Back then, @veneretio asked:
“What are the hit and expertise caps for an Arms Warrior?”

My discussion on hit is way back down the page, so let’s follow through on that promise and talk about expertise. Expertise works a lot like hit rating, except it reduces the chance to be dodged or parried, rather than the chance to miss.

Expertise’s Effect at 80
One point of expertise decreases the chance that melee attacks made by the player will be dodged or parried by 0.25%.  At level 80, a player requires 8.2 expertise rating to achieve one point of expertise.  8.2 = .25%, therefore 32.8 expertise rating = 1% less chance to be dodged or parried.

Boss’ Chance to Dodge or Parry
Rule #1 of Melee DPS: Don’t pull Aggro. 
Rule #2 of Melee DPS: Don’t stand in front of the boss.

A Mob (and Bosses) have 0% chance to Parry an attack from behind or to their direct flank. They have a 12-15% chance to parry an attack in front. Don’t stand in front. The math is easier, you won’t get cleaved or AoEd and your dps is better. Zero expertise required if you stand behind the mob. How easy is that?

Bosses have a 6.5% chance to Dodge an attack from behind or to their direct flank. (Players have zero from behind. So unfair.)

Expertise Cap from Behind a Boss
Using our earlier math, 32.8 x 6.5 = 213.2 expertise rating required to reduce the boss’ chance of dodging you from behind. The expertise cap to reduce it from in front of the boss is so astronomically high that my calculator wept. True story.

Other Sources of Expertise

Racial Traits – If you’re an Orc, Human, or Dwarf, you probably already know that your racial talents give you expertise with certain weapon types. Orcs get 5 with axes, humans 3 with swords and maces, and dwarves get 5 with maces. That’s 3 or 5 Expertise, not Exp. rating.  If you’re using that weapon type, subtract your racial bonus from 6.5, then multiply the result by 32.8 to work out the expertise rating required now. (Hint: it’s a LOT less.) 

Talents 

• Arms Warriors should grab Strength of Arms, which gives you 4 Expertise. You now need only 5.5% reduction or 180.4 exp. rating (assuming you’re using an Axe and aren’t an Orc.)
• Fury Warriors should take Weapon Mastery, which drops your chance to be dodged by 2%. Take the 4.5% left, subtract any racial talents and work to that number.

If you have more questions, be sure to find me on Twitter or send me an email!