[GUIDE] Warrior Guides for dps (patch 3.1)

CONTENTS v1.0
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0. Why this Compendium?
1. Why be an Arms Warrior?
2. Arms vs. Fury FAQ
3. Preparation
----3a. Bustin' some Caps
----3b. Stats, Gemming, Enchants, and Professions
----3c. Talent Breakdown
----3d. Spec Breakdown
----3e. Glyphs
4. Theorycraft
----4a. How I Learned to Stop Sucking and Love the Rend (Rend Theory)
----4b. The Great Whack-a-Mole (DPS Cycle)
----4c. Crit vs. Ap vs. Haste vs. Armor Pen (Stat Allocation)
----4d. Min/Max'ing Profession Benefits
----4e. Consumables
----4f. We Can Tank That (Tanking as Arms)
----4g. Contributive DPS vs. Personal DPS
5. Gear
----5a. Pre-Naxx
6. WWS Show-off

0. Why this Compendium?

There is a distinct lack of attention drawn to the Arms Warrior in a raid setting. Many people will boast that Fury is superior in every way, or that Arms is useless in a raid. This is most definitely not true. Not only is there a lot of misinformation about Arms as a spec, but there is a lack of theorycrafting, experimentation, and guidance to playing an Arms Warrior effectively in a raid.

This compendium is designed to answer some of the most frequently asked questions, dispel some myths about Arms vs. Fury, and highlight why you might consider picking up the traditional way of the warrior that's lasted us 4 years and 3 content packages with lots of trials and tribulations along the way. The guide itself is incomplete, and suggestions or corrections are openly welcome. Everything, including theorycraft, is tuned to be as accurate as possible and based off of a couple weeks of testing, comparison, and a little competitiveness with our guild's Fury warrior, who is just as knowledgeable about warriors as they come.

I'm not going to say flat out either spec is better than the other. I've been asked to play both in raids depending on the need, and I prefer Arms personally just because it fits my playstyle better. As of this content push with proper itemization and "skill", Arms and Fury are easily competitive with each other both on a personal and raid beneficial DPS level.

1. Why be an Arms Warrior?

If nothing else, being a Warrior is a symbol of raw, unbridled power, brute force, leader of the pack mentality and while most people attribute these things to the Protection style of warrior, it is definitely notable that most Warriors of any flavor carry about them an aire or mentality of leadership. The Arms warrior, especially is a colossal beast that has withstood the test of time. It carries with it a sort of grace, yet incredible power with which to lay the smackdown on your foes. A level of universal loyalty and dedication to the cause. The Arms Warrior has been the Swiss Army Knife of raids since the dawn of raiding itself.

Vanilla WoW: We were the hybrid "tanks". Able to dish out serious damage and also switch to a protective nature when called upon to tank, we were the machines that drove the raid, not just as tanks but also at a strong level of balanced DPS that could take a hit when necessary.

TBC: We were cast aside for a while. Our DPS was terrible, and hardly comparable to Fury. People looked only at our personal DPS in raids, and we were sort of pushed onto the shelf of mediocrity. Then, as many guilds started to open up to other "redheaded step child" specs, such as Retribution Paladins and Moonkins for their raid buffs/debuffs, we suddenly had a purpose again. Raid stacking in TBC brought the Arms Warrior to the spotlight again not only for Battle Shout, but Blood Frenzy. As more and more experimentation went on, we discovered a DPS rotation that produced a respectable level of damage while also increasing the raid's potential in multitudes. The dedicated few stuck to it throughout TBC, and some even fell in love with it for the first time for it's general technical appeal. It took a smart player to appreciate the technique and mindset behind the Arms Warrior as TBC enterred it's twilight.

Now, WOTLK: Once again we have surfaced as the Swiss Army Knife of the raid, but also bearing with it that original colossal, raw power we had in Vanilla. While nowhere near as technical as we came to be in TBC, the Arms Warrior continues to truck on as a powerful domineering force in a raid, also bringing with it the same benefits and discrete loyalty that only the right kind of person can clutch on to so strongly for so long.

2. Arms vs. Fury: Shedding some Misconceptions, a quick FAQ

Should I go Arms or Fury for DPS?

It depends completely on your playstyle and what you have on hand. Arms is limited in what makes it effective and what doesn't, where Fury is a lot more open-ended and generally recognized for it's easier attainable personal DPS. Both specs are about equal in terms of personal DPS output, so do not let anyone tell you otherwise. Arms is the more flexible spec, in my own opinion, and can not only bring great buffs to a raid, but also perform in more than just a DPS role effectively. As tanks, we have good threat output compared to Fury, and can fill the role of a tank just fine without having to respec to Protection. While Fury can do this as well, Arms is much better suited to the task.

Here's a quick rundown of some of the benefits and drawbacks of going Arms over Fury:

+ Only need one weapon
+ Lower hit rating requirement
+ Incredible burst potential
+ Better rage generation ("infinite rage" situations are common)
+ Unsurpassed AOE damage
+ Trauma (+30% bleed damage)
+ Blood Frenzy (+2% physical damage)
+ Self-Enrage (+10% damage on crit)
+ Spammable Revenge makes tanking threat as Arms pretty good, as well as decent DPS output

- Less stat pumping due to only one 2-handed weapon vs. two.
- Slightly higher need for expertise
- Very RNG reliant and "whack-a-mole" vs. having a DPS rotation
- Harder to control threat
- Limited to Axes/Polearms as a weapon choice to be able to be equal to Fury

Which does more damage?

Fury will most notably do more single target, personal DPS on average, where Arms will shine in AOE fights, add control, and adding to the raid's commiserate DPS with Blood Frenzy and Trauma. Fury has Rampage, which is great but LOTP is more reliable if you have a feral druid, as it does not drop off during pauses in an encounter, or have any drawbacks of bad RNG (a fury warrior not critting for any fault of the RNG). All in all, if you consider everything as a whole, they do equal potential damage, even if the DPS meter doesn't show them at an exact level. I have, on several occasions, done equal or more damage to our raid's Fury.

Why bring an Arms Warrior if you have a Feral Druid?

Yes, a Feral Druid can put up Trauma and a Combat Rogue can put up Blood Frenzy, but in many cases a tanking Feral may not want to refresh Mangle just for the sake of threat. In this case, an Arms Warrior keeps it up passively everytime they crit. Blood Frenzy is sort of dwarfed by having a Combat Rogue, but it's the same way of thinking. If nothing else Trauma will be the big factor as far as debuff allocation goes. If you really do not need either of these, an Arms Warrior is still unprecedented for off tanking, AOE, and still putting out respectable single target DPS if nothing else.

Ask your raid leader what they need more, and ask yourself how your playstyle fits your role.

I went Arms once, but I did more damage as Fury

Many reasons this might be the case. You either were trying to play it like Fury (which the style is completely different), weren't geared properly for it (both specs prioritize different stats), and more often than not the reason is not having the right weapon.

Arms has 3 weapon specializations: Sword, Mace, and Poleaxe.

At this point in time, Poleaxe is the only effective raid DPS spec out there. It adds 5% chance to crit and 5% increased critical strike damage. This basically means whenever you crit, instead of doing 200% damage, you will do 205% damage. This may not seem like much, but compare a Fury execute for 5000 base (10000 crit) to an Arms crit execute of 5000 base (10250 crit). Also don't forget Impale and you're talking more along the lines of 225%, but Fury also usually gets this talent, so it is not a good basis of comparison.

Mace penetrates 15% extra armor on the target, but as of WOTLK Armor penetration has become our weakest stat, and really does not increase DPS enough to out-perform Poleaxe.

Sword spec now is on a 6 second internal cooldown, and merely gives you a chance to get an extra swing. This is no longer as good as it used to be, also due in part to the change to Windfury being a straight Haste buff.

Long story short. Poleaxe or GTFO. Arms is not competitive enough as any other weapon spec to be worth raiding as.

Fury warriors have more Attack Power, and use TWO 2-handers, obviously they're better

The one thing people completely forget about that Arms has: Sudden Death, Taste For Blood, Bladestorm etc... This is quite possibly the colossus that drives Arms to be competitive on DPS, in addition to more overall bleed DPS output, which accounts for a quite large amount of your damage as Arms. Rend (yes, Rend) is quite good now, and most of the Fury glyphs available are sub-par or not nearly as effective as the Arms choices.

3. Preparation

As said, being prepared is the biggest factor in being successful at DPS as an Arms Warrior. You need to gem properly, reach your caps, and know what is an upgrade and what is a downgrade. Thankfully, Arms has some lenient advantages over Fury in the preparation department.

3a. Preparation: Bustin' some Caps

A "cap" is where a stat loses its effectiveness, as it has reached a point where it is at the maximum required to achieve a purpose. A cap can be anything that limits a stat from being useful beyond a certain level. For example, when someone says "hit capped" it means more +hit rating than that number is a waste. Of course, some stats boil over these caps but it shouldn't be a terrible concern to be a few stats over a cap if it means the piece being equipped is an upgrade. Also being over cap means you have more breathing room for gemming, enchanting, and other gear swapping while maintaining that cap. So while you don't need more of a stat than a specified "cap", having some breathing room never hurt anyone either. Just don't do something like gem for +hit when you're already at the cap.

First and foremost, for any DPS class, you want to stop whiffing. This means you need to reach your hit and/or expertise cap before worrying about anything else. If you miss, you don't get rage, if you don't get rage, you don't do DPS. Now, you can always just get hit yourself to get rage, but then that means your tank is doing something wrong, or you are. Your white damage is just as important as your yellow, and in order to make every white hit count, you need to cap your hit.

Luckily, as Arms, your hit cap is considerably lower than that of Fury (13%). You only need +8% chance to hit, to make every white swing AND special attack never miss again. Fury even at their "cap" will still whiff 5-10% of their auto attacks, you will not miss a single swing, ever.

Now just to recap, every boss mob has a certain hit table in which your attacks either connect, whiff, crit, or get dodged/parried. What we're concerned about here, are the whiffs. The "MISS" that pops up from any angle on the mob. If you see "MISS" in your recount still, it means you are not hit capped. As said, an Arms warrior, or any class using a 2H-Weapon needs to have 8% +hit to stop missing. This is 264 hit rating in raw number. If you are below this amount of hit rating, focus on reaching it before anything else.

Next, the Expertise cap. Expertise applies to DODGE and PARRY on a boss's combat table. The cap for Expertise is 6.5% reduction in a target's chance to dodge or parry. Fury unfortunately has the edge in this department, with the Weapon Mastery talent (-2% dodge chance) but luckily for Arms we don't really need to be completely capped on this. However you should make it a point to close the gap where possible, but don't waste valuable stats just to reach it. I'd say about 4.5% in expertise is acceptable for Arms. As you eventually hit the cap of 6.5% you will no longer see Dodges and Parries in your combat log. Expertise goes up in 0.25% increments, so add Expertise until you hit an acceptable level. This will come with upgrades in time. Also keep in mind that parries only occur from the front of the mob. Always DPS from behind and that way parry chance is 0%. Bosses can still dodge from behind though.

These two caps are pretty much the only ones you have to worry about. Mostly hit, though.

3b. Preparation: Stats, Gemming, Enchanting, and Professions

The next level of Preparation moves into your scheme. That is, gear enhancements, gemming, and stat allocation. If you aren't hit capped with your bare gear configuration, then you need to gem or enchant to reach that cap still. There's tons of +hit enhancements to help with this, and that is what the socketting system is for, to help fill in gaps as needed.

Stat Priority as Arms:

1. Hit Rating up to 264
2. Crit up to 35% in battle stance
3. Balance of STR/Crit and work on Expertise capping

First, of course, you want to raise your hit rating to the 8% cap, and keep it there.

Next, if you aren't already there, aim for 35% crit in battle stance. This is a solid benchmark to be adequate for raiding. With full raid buffs you'll easily break 43% crit in battle, which is a good place to be.

After all is said and done, gear up at your disposal. I prioritize crit above all else, but I have also reconfigured a bit to reach 5% expertise and 37% crit in battle stance. STR isn't as much of a concern as Fury, as Crit as Arms domineers most of your DPS potential, and keeping your Enrage and debuffs rolling (all are crit based). Also, based on how Execute works, you simply will find critting it as much as possible with Sudden Death helps enormously to add to your DPS output.

In an ideal setting, you would have 50% crit fully buffed in battle stance, making 50% with raid buffs your absolute target crit as Arms. This means Overpowers from Taste For Blood are a 100% chance to crit EVERY time.

Gemming

Assuming you are hit capped, because if you're not, you should gem for +hit until you are [Rigid, Yellow gems give straight +hit]. Otherwise, use the following mentality.

If a socketted piece of gear does not have a significant set bonus, socket all +crit yellow gems in that item. If you want the socket bonus, or find that you would benefit more from hybrid gemming it, then go for the socket bonus. All "prismatic" sockets, or generic sockets should be gemmed with +Crit also.

RED:
Inscribed (Orange): +STR / +Crit is your best matching socket gem
Precise (Red): +Expertise great filler for a red socket if you want to close the expertise gap some more
Bold (Red): +STR if you feel you're at an adequate crit rating already and want to start increasing your straight AP

BLUE:
Jagged (Green): +Crit / +Stam is your best matching socket gem
Sovereign (Purple): +STR / +Stam also good if you want more strength

YELLOW:
Smooth (Yellow): +Crit is your best matching socket gem
Inscribed (Orange): +STR / +Crit for more balance

Your best gems are namely +Crit in almost all circumstances, however if you feel you're already at a high crit rating naturally then you can start pumping AP or fill in Expertise where deemed necessary. It is mostly your own call but at this point in time my personal opinion is: You can't have too much crit as Arms.

Enchants

The following is a listing of enchants for each slot, in order of best (most expensive or difficult to obtain) to least (least expensive or easier to obtain). All are listed as notably useful, however, depending on situation and availability.

Helm:
Arcanum of Torment (Ebon Blade Revered): +50 AP / +20 Crit Rating
Arcanum of Ferocity (Cenarion Expedition Revered): +36 AP / +16 Hit Rating

Shoulders:
Greater Inscription of the Axe (Sons of Hodir Exhalted): +40 AP / +15 Crit
Lesser Inscription of the Axe (Sons of Hodir Honored): +30 AP / +10 Crit

Bracers:
(Leatherworkers only) Fur Lining: +120 AP
Expertise: +15 expertise
Greater Assault: +50 AP
Striking: +38 AP

Cloak:
Major Agility: +22 AGI
Superior Agility: +16 AGI
Greater Speed: +23 Haste
Subtlety: -2% Threat

Gloves:
Expertise: +15 Expertise
Crusher: +44 AP
Precision: +20 Hit

Chest
Powerful Stats: +10 all stats
Super Stats: +8 all stats

Boots
Icewalker: +12 crit / +12 hit
Greater Assault: +32 AP
Superior Agility: +16 AGI

Legs
Icescale Leg Armor: +75 AP / +22 Crit
Nerubian Leg Armor: +55 AP / +15 Crit

Weapon
Berserking: Chance on hit +400 AP -25% Armor
Accuracy: +25 Hit / +25 Crit
Massacre: +110 AP
Greater Savagery: +85 AP

Beneficial Arms Professions

Skinning: +25 Crit Rating at 450
Inscription: Extra Glyph
Alchemy: +20% effect on all elixirs
Leatherworking: Drums (5 min Forbearance) & BOP Bracer enchant
Blacksmithing: Additional socket for bracers/gloves
Jewelcrafting: Up to four equippable higher quality gems
Enchanting: Ring enchants

3c. Preparation: Talent Breakdown

The following is a breakdown of the talents you should consider, and why for a viable PVE Arms DPS build.

Improved Rend: You will use Rend a lot as Arms, so get this.

Improved Heroic Strike: Sudden Death is your new rage dump, so you will not need this.

Deflection: Fill this talent where points are otherwise not going to be used, mostly for tanking avoidance should you ever need to tank.

Tactical Mastery: For tanking threat mostly, but it outperforms any other talent you can get in the first 2 tiers.

Improved Overpower: Must have 2/2

Anger Management: Optional leftover point allocation talent. It's either this or Piercing Howl, I go for Piercing Howl for AOE add control.

Impale/Deep Wounds: Must haves.

Two Handed Specialization: Must have.

Taste for Blood: Must have. This talent gives your rend ticks a 30% chance to proc a free Overpower, which is a near guaranteed crit, which keeps your debuffs up and deep wounds rolling. There's more theorycraft to the utility of TFB but I'll cover that later in the Theorycraft section.

Poleaxe Specialization: Quite possibly the only good weapon spec for Arms right now. 5% more crit chance and crit damage is pretty much your best option.

Sweeping Strikes: Prerequisite for Mortal Strike. Must have. Great for AOE and add control.

Trauma: Must have, makes your rend/deep wounds tick for significant amounts of damage, and also greatly improves your rogues' Rupture/Garrote damage, and any other warrior/feral druid bleeds. This is notably better than mangle since it frees up a GCD for feral druids and is a passive debuff from your crits.

Improved Intercept: Optional. I'm rarely in Zerker stance for boss encounters unless I'm switching to add control or short duration skirmishes where Rend will not have utility. In any case, it's not useful enough to warrant this talent outside of PVP.

Improved Hamstring: Useless, especially if you get peircing howl for add control. Bosses are immune to hamstring.

Strength of Arms: Must have, increases your Strength, Stamina, and Expertise.

Improved Slam: Must have. Slam will fill any "gaps" in your DPS cycle. And with the new way Slam works, by pausing the swing timer, it is a worthy addition.

Improved Mortal Strike: Get this, as you will use MS as another "gap filler" in addition to slam.

Unrelenting Assault: Essentially removes the cooldown on both Overpower and Revenge. Taste for Blood can chain proc which means you will always have this available, and Revenge will become spammable when tanking for good threat output with this. So another must-have.

Sudden Death: The meat of the Arms spec. This gives you a 9% chance on any attack to proc Sudden Death, which lets you Execute regardless of the target's HP. This will be your main rage dump in any situation. Unloading a full rage Execute has hit for upwards of 14k for me, and the buff it gives also lets you retain an additional 10 rage, which is plenty for a followup Overpower (see the Theorycrafting section for DPS Cycles). Sudden Death procs a lot, even at 9%, so you will find this being amongst your top 3 damage sources a lot of the time.

Endless Rage: 25% more rage generation. Why would you pass this up?

Blood Frenzy: Not only for the 2% physical damage debuff on a mob, this also boosts your attack speed. Must have.

Wrecking Crew: Every time you crit, you Enrage and do 10% more damage for 12 seconds. Continuous critting will keep this buff up for an entire fight, so it is naturally important.

Bladestorm: Must have, AOE damage, threat generation, you name it. It is even good DPS on a single target basis, doing up to 3-4k DPS for 6 seconds, in addition to wiping out most add phases pretty quickly. It does work with Sweeping Strikes, also.

Armored to the Teeth: Must have. Makes plate gear optimal as a choice for DPS gear. Every 180 armor you have gives you 3 more AP. I have roughly 13k Armor, so I'm basically getting a free bonus 216 AP.

Cruelty: 5% bonus crit. Pretty "durrr" right there.

Booming Voice: I get this for the increased duration mostly, that and the 2nd tier of Fury blows.

Imp Demo Shout: Warlocks curse of weakness overwrites our improved demo shout, let them handle it IMO.

Unbridled Wrath: Trash. Don't get.

Improved Cleave: You will rarely Cleave except for AOE'ing, even then, it's not effective or used often enough to warrant getting, for the same reason as Heroic Strike.

Piercing Howl: I use this as my last floater point just because most adds are snareable, and this keeps them under control, gives squishy AOE'ers more breathing room, and also helps keep an aoe pack clumped for a Bladestorm. Not necessary but optional.

Blood Craze: You shouldn't be getting hit, not bad if you want more tanking talents I guess. It will proc off of a mob's "would-have" crits as well as actual crits, if you're defense capped. That means if the mob would've crit but your defense prevented it, you still proc Blood Craze.

Commanding Presence: Most raids you'll have Imp Might, but Commanding Shout is unique to warriors. I go 5/5 in this just for giving everyone a subtantial juicy HP boost in raids, more than for the battle shout. It is nice when you do not have a paladin for any reason to give Imp might, however, and need the Battle Shout.

Improved Execute: Goes in line with Sudden Death nicely. By lowering the initial cost of Execute, that extra rage converts to more damage, so this is a must have.

Improved Bloodrage: Not a bad choice either, if you don't mind losing Imp Execute. Optional, not fond of it for a dedicated DPS build.

Shield Specialization: If you're leaning heavier towards a tanking hybrid build, put some filler points in this to get to tier 2.

Imp Thunderclap: Another "if you want to hybrid tank" talent.

Incite: Not only for better tanking but also increases your aoe damage output. Crit Thunderclaps (with Imp TC) can crit up to 1500 pretty often in battle stance, and adds weight to your AOE power.

Anticipation: You can put a few points in this for a tanking hybrid version of Arms. Not bad, not deathly important.

Last Stand: If you give up Armored to the Teeth in Fury you can get this far in Prot, and Last Stand obviously will make you a versatile dps/tank hybrid in raids that are short on tanks but don't need you to tank for every fight (in which you can throw dps gear on and still do respectable dps).

Improved Revenge: REALLY nice for the Arms tank hybrid build, because you will be SPAMMING revenge a lot as your main threat output device. Must have if you go this route.

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I left out some but they are considerablly "less" important than the ones I have listed worth mentioning.


3d. Preparation: Specs

Now talent specs. These are the two main specs I'd ever use as Arms, for any reason. Both are useful specs and are conditional on what the needs of your raid are.

Purebred DPS build: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=LVbcbfIt00bRffRtGx0oxb

This build gets Imp Execute and is maximized for DPS. You can still obviously tank effectively as this build, but are still more dedicated to DPS. Most Arms warriors should use this build if they are not expected to tank often, or ever, for that matter. This spec is tuned for maximum PVE raid DPS. You can exchange Piercing Howl for Anger Management as a preference, either is fine for this build.

Hybrid Tank build: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=LVbcbfIt00bRffRt0xZMIdb

This build aims more towards being the occasional tank and optimizes for flexibility. Very useful build if your raid has you tanking "some" of the time. I've run as this spec through Naxx10 with only one Prot warrior tanking, and this makes holding threat where you're called on to do so very easy compared to the Purebred. Improved revenge shines here in combination with Unrelenting Assault simply because you can literally spam it, so why not make it your best threat tool? The drawback is you give up your "pure" DPS for a reasonably powerful hybrid. You won't be crippled but you'll be a lot more flexible, and this is also a solid heroic tanking spec when you're shorthanded on tanks and don't want to respec. Good balance of the ying and yang and quite possibly the biggest perk of being Arms as a hybrid tank. You can do competitive DPS and tank effectively all in one spec. Also notable why this is a good tanking spec is that you can increase raid dps with your debuffs (Trauma/BF) while you tank. This spec produces notably higher threat and dps while offtanking than Fury can do, but not as much threat as your "pure" tanking Warrior, obviously. This isn't a spec for tanking main raid bosses, but it can tank the less aggressive ones well enough.

3e. Glyphs

Glyph of Rend: Increases the duration of your rend by 3 seconds. You'll be using Rend a lot now, and there's no other glyphs that are notably better.

Glyph of Execute: Deals damage as if you had 10 additional rage. As Execute is going to be used more than just at 20% as Arms, this is an obvious choice.

Glyph of Mortal Strike: This one is debatable, but with a lack of better glyphs, you lose nothing by not getting this. Increases your Mortal Strike's base damage by 10% but reduces the healing debuff by 25%. In PVE raids, you won't sweat losing the healing debuff, so don't worry about this so much. It's a good glyph and you will use MS enough to warrant having it.

Glyph of Whirlwind: Your whirlwind hits 1 additional

4. Theorycraft

The following goes into detail as to executing your DPS and maximizing your potential DPS output, with some theory and some fact mixed together. Most of it is theory, as there are no hard, solid numbers at this point in time proving one way is more effective than another, and with the heavily RNG based DPS Cycle of the Arms spec, it is hard to find a method or flow to it that is confirmably better than another, because of the high level of variable involved.

4a. Theorycrafting: How I Learned to Stop Sucking and Love The Rend

As you may or may not know, Rend is now a useful part of your DPS cycle. It might sound crazy, but it's not. I've had rends tick as high as 1200 but on average they sit about 800. Rend is actually a very important and flexible DPS tool, since it is on-demand damage over time. This comes with some implications, rules, and considerations to take into mind when using it.

What does this mean? Well for starters, rend ignores ALL armor on the target. Boss can have 50000 armor, but rend ignores it all. As a boss's armor scales higher and higher, Rend's DPS becomes more and more efficient. Of course, no boss really has armor scaling that high (yet) but this is the theory behind DOT damage.

Rend now attributes anywhere from 6-8% of my total damage from all sources, so you should refresh this AFTER it drops. With glyph of Rend, it lasts 18 seconds, and ticks every 3 seconds... so on a low end my rend does a total of 4800 damage over time, and on a high up to 7200. Rend does more damage when the target is above 75%, and with Trauma and Wrecking Crew included, this is how you get ticks this high, for the first 75%.

Some rules to maximizing Rend's DPS output:

A) Never refresh the debuff while it is still up. The last tick of Rend happens at the end of the debuff, so if you refresh your Rend debuff, it will start the tick timer over again. Here's a time scale model of a full duration rend and a rend refreshed @ 17sec doing 1200 dmg a tick.

0-----------3------------6-----------9------------12-------------15-------------18------------Total

Rend----Tick------Tick-------Tick---------Tick-----------Tick------------Tick----------7200 dmg
Rend----Tick------Tick-------Tick---------Tick----------Tick-------------Rend---------6000 dmg

It's very important that you observe this and wait for the debuff to tick off before using a GCD to replenish it. Rend does not tick until 3 seconds after you apply it, so interrupting the duration is gimping the DPS output significantly. The only time you would want to prematurely interrupt rend ticking would be for bosses that become unreachable for any amount of time. You actually do more damage over time by interrupting the rend cycle if you will soon be unable to attack the boss otherwise, so every point of damage counts. For example, Malygos flies into the air periodically in Phase 1, so reapplying the rend before he is out of range will get that extra damage in while you're sitting in the whirlwind. Even if you lose that next tick or two, you won't gain anything by waiting and having the rend stop ticking while you're incapacitated. Use your better judgement.

THEORY A: REFRESHING THE REND DEBUFF CYCLE PREMATURELY WILL DECREASE YOUR DPS TWOFOLD IN ALMOST ALL CIRCUMSTANCES

B) Having Glyph of Rend means less GCDs wasted on Rending, so it's an important glyph to have.

Over a 5 minute fight without the glyph you would rend (theoretically) 20 times, that's 20 GCDs used to Rend, and also causes it to do one less tick of damage over the course of the fight.

With the glyph you would only have to rend about 16 times, freeing up 4 more GCDs that could be a SD Execute, Overpower, MS, anything else, and also ticks for that extra bleed damage in the long run.

So THEORY B: GLYPH OF REND INCREASES YOUR DPS SIGNIFICANTLY.

C) Even after 20% where you'll be Execute spamming, keep rend up for guaranteed 5k damage over time. Rend is dirt cheap to throw at a boss, so in addition to getting that guaranteed damage in, it will give you another white swing's worth of rage to use for your Execute spam. When a boss is low enough that a full Rend will not complete it's term, then just spamming Execute outweighs reapplying a new Rend. Most of your low rage executes will not do more damage than your full duration Rend, so this is why it's good to keep up.

THEORY C: REND IS STILL USEFUL IN TANDEM WITH EXECUTE SPAM BELOW 20%

D) Keeping rend up obviously means you'll almost always have Overpower up. Overpower will keep Deep Wounds, Trauma, Blood Frenzy, and your Enrage rolling, so Overpower superflously. Times that Taste For Blood is exceptionally useful would be right after a Execute rage dump, since low rage executes will usually not supercede a free overpower crit in total damage, or guaranteed damage. It's a roll of the dice, but a 10 rage Execute crit is about equal to Overpower crit.

Not only this, but using TFB to use Overpower is better until your rage spikes from damage output and you *have* a new pool of rage to Execute with. It's very reactionary and every millisecond counts. If you OP as outlined above over Executing and use your head for quick judgemental calls you will increase your DPS significantly as Arms. This is mainly how I am able to stay competitive with Fury DPS, and often times outperform it.

THEORY D: USE TFB PROCS AS A FOLLOWUP TO A HIGH RAGE EXECUTE DUMP, OR TO GIVE YOUR SD EXECUTES TIME TO BEEF UP


4b. Theorycraft: The Great Whack-a-Mole

Yes, I may have pointed this out several times in this compendium but Arms DPS does not follow any natural flow, like Fury or a Rogue's DPS cycle. So many times I often refer to this as "Whack a Mole" and in that, I find Arms DPS to be exponentially more fun, and challenging to squeeze the benefits out of. Over time you kind of acquire the judgment required to maximize Arms DPS as second nature, and will naturally become a whack-a-mole master, almost to a science.

One main theory behind DPS as Arms is that instead of a DPS rotation, you have a priority list to keep in your head for maximum DPS. In 25 man raids, almost all the time I'm finding myself in an "infinite rage" scenario. That is, you'll always have rage to do *something* useful, at least 99% of the time. If you aren't able to do something every GCD, either your RNG crapped out on you, or you made a bad call on something.

Here is the main priority list I use when choosing which mole to whack.

1. Rend: If the debuff has fallen off, reapply it. Also goes in tandem with #1 if you have a GCD to spare, goes great as a precursor to an SD Execute. Gauranteed 5k-7k damage over time, and keeps your TfB procs coming.

2. Overpower/SD Execute: These come hand in hand, but I use these two in parallel to each other. Both take top priority over anything else. Overpower relies completely on Taste for Blood procs, so this is why I ranked Rend as the highest priority, since you can't use the OP/Exe chain without it. The OP/Exe chain is based off of THEORY D in the above 4a Theorycrafting section.

3. Mortal Strike: If you do not have any of the above as a current option (or rend doesn't need refreshing yet). These crit up to 7k but cost 30 rage, so this is sort of parallel to...

4. Slam: I usually use this if nothing else is up, but in most cases you'll have more rage than you ever need, so MS is better than Slam just for not interrupting your white damage timer. Nonetheless, this is your last resort if Rend does not need a refresh, OP/Exe are not lit up, and MS is on cooldown.

If you're having some bad RNG, your best DPS output during these lulls is MS > Slam > Slam (Repeat) until something of higher priority comes up.

NOTE: After so much haste Slam is actually lowering your DPS. During Bloodlust I will not use Slam, but will use Heroic Strike in between MS cooldowns assuming nothing else of high priority is lit up. While Slam pauses your swing timer now, it still becomes decreasingly useful as your white swings get faster. My white swings are about 2.9 without anything up, with Windfury or Icy Talons from a DK it's ~2.6 or so, so a Bloodlust makes you cross the threshold where Slam is no longer a DPS increase, but a detriment, or at least equal to just white swinging/heroic striking.

4c. Theorycraft: Crit vs. AP vs. Haste vs. Armor Pen

As proposed earlier I mentioned explaining the theory behind stat priority in Arms. As you know, Fury usually goes for more AP and Haste in many cases. Arms, most people prefer Crit.

Here's a list of things that are affected by crits as an Arms Warrior:

Wrecking Crew (Enrage)
Trauma
Blood Frenzy
Deep Wounds

All of these are extremely important to your DPS cycle, and keeping up your debuffs as well as 10% damage increase is a no brainer. Now your three highest damage contributors will mostly be from Deep Wounds, Melee, Execute, and MS/Slam, three of those depending on the nature of the fight. Execute, especially being so high on the list grants extra necessity to buffing it's general utility. When you can spam 12k executes pretty often in a fight, it makes more sense to buff the stat that will cause this more often than not. Crit.

Execute gains a minimal coefficient from attack power/weapon than other attacks, and being such a high contributor, we want to crit this as much as possible. I am told that AP does now affect Execute scaling, but I would like to confirm this. Using the old model of Execute, the only thing to make it do more damage is crit, and based mostly off your rage pool.

Other stat theory included:

Crit: Keeps your Enrage rolling, Trauma/BF, and Deep Wounds, biggest effective stat for Execute spam both before and after 20%. Closes the gap on the potential chance of Overpower NOT critting (your buffed crit + 50%). At 50% raid buffed crit you have a 100% chance of critting Overpower, so this is a logical target for your crit rate. With this much utility, crit is the dominant stat for an Arms warrior.

AP: Melee, Deep Wounds, Mortal Strike, Slam, Rend, Overpower are most affected by your AP, but these also are not as big in contribution as your main burst attack (Execute), and while important, takes 2nd string to Crit. After reaching the optimal crit level (50% full buffed) AP would be the best option. Or, if you feel you crit enough that you don't *need* more, AP starts to have an increasing importance. As AP scaling grows however, it may outweigh crit if it starts to cause these abilities to overshadow Execute enough, but with our main dps coming from Sudden Death, this is not the case.

Haste: As stated above, it takes a lot of haste to reduce your swing timer significantly. While Fury builds benefit pretty well from Haste, they also do not use Slam outside of instant casting it. Haste also gradually reduces the value of Slam over white damage, but also increase rage generation. For this mix of reasons, we have nothing significantly affected by haste to the point it should be a priority stat. Don't shun it, but don't look at haste when considerring upgrades, at least not right now.

Armor Penetration: This stat has pretty much diminished in effect, in general since the expac. Armor penetration comes in two flavors. Straight armor reduction (Sunder Armor, Executioner) and then %-based reduction (ArP Rating, Mace Spec). The reason this is not as decent as it could be, is mainly because a mob will typically be sundered in PVE. A tank's sunder armor removes *about* 750 per stack, so at a 5 stack you're looking at 6000-7000 armor left on most boss mobs after sundering. After straight armor reduction is applied, THEN your rating and %-age applies. So basically the overall value of that 15% from Mace Spec would be applied to the remaining 7k which is a significantly lower return than if it applied to the target's base armor. (-1800 vs. -1050). With the amount of "rating" required to attain even this amount, it is neither truly worth it to prioritize this as a main stat, nor does it qualify Mace spec as better than Axe. In other words, don't bother with ArP when it comes to choosing stat allocation.

4d. Theorycraft: Min/Max'ing Profession Benefits (unfinished)

Assuming you have a Flask of Endless Rage and +30 crit food buffs, gemming for pure crit in all yellow/prismatic sockets.

Blacksmithing/Jewelcrafting: +65 crit rating
Blacksmithing/Skinning: +57 crit rating
Blacksmithing/Leatherworking: +32 crit rating / +65 AP
Blacksmithing/Alchemy: +32 crit rating / +36 AP
Blacksmithing/Enchanting: +32 crit rating / +64 AP
Jewelcrafting/Skinning: +58 crit rating
Jewelcrafting/Leatherworking: +33 crit rating / +65 AP
Jewelcrafting/Alchemy: +33 crit rating / +36 AP
Jewelcrafting/Enchanting: +33 crit rating / +64 AP
Skinning/Leatherworking: +25 crit rating / +65 AP
Skinning/Alchemy: +25 crit rating / +36 AP
Skinning/Enchanting: +25 crit rating / +64 AP
Leatherworking/Alchemy: +101 AP
Leatherworking/Enchanting: +129 AP
Alchemy/Enchanting: +100 AP

For maximum crit your best combination is Blacksmithing / Jewelcrafting for +65 crit rating
For maximum AP your best combination is Leatherworking / Enchanting for up to +129 AP
The best balanced profession combination is Blacksmithing / Leatherworking: +32 crit and +65 AP

Which you'd prefer is up to you. The values provided are based on what you'd gain over having no professions. Now take note Blacksmithing is based off using the two additional sockets with +16 crit gems, and alchemy's bonus based on the +20% to Flask of Endless Rage (+36 AP). The three in bold are your three optimal choices.

If I forgot anything (does inscription get any BOP enchants or item enhancements?) please note it in a response and I will ammend this unfinished section.

4e. Theorycraft: Elixirs, Potions and Food

I personally prefer Succulent Orca Stew (+30 crit / +30 stamina) and Flask of Endless Rage (+180 AP) as my choice self buffs. I use Potion of Speed as my burst pot.

Also available and viable are the following (but you don't get a Flask, and good offensive Guardian Elixirs are lacking):

Elixir of Deadly Strikes (+45 Crit Rating) <-- Very nice, but does it warrant dropping FoER?
Elixir of Accuracy (+45 Hit Rating) <-- If you're in really bad need of hit
Elixir of Expertise (+45 Exp) <-- Will close any gaps in your expertise, but again, worth dropping 180 AP?

These are the only three viable elixirs I'd consider. Given that they are not persistant through death, I feel FoER is the best elixir for the job. While EoDS is very tempting, I don't feel it's good enough to replace the benefits of Endless Rage.

Potion of Speed is pretty much the only useful burst pot, and can be used once per fight. They're expensive as hell to make but well worth pushing that extra DPS out for whatever...impressing your friends on WWS, winning a DPS bet-off. Whatever. Just don't Slam while you have one chugged.

Food choices are widely variable, so pick whichever you prefer more of. Right now I use Succulent Orca Stew for the +30 Crit. Most foods offer up +40 stats and +40 stamina of some kind. So it's between +30 crit and +40 STR, which is notably harder to get, and you'll most likely have to settle for +30 STR.

Here's all your viable options in a nutshell. Most of the +40/80 recipes require Northern Spices, something you can only get through the Cooking Daily Quest I believe. They sell for 10-15g per spice on the AH, if you want to buy them that badly. In other words, level cooking. If you know of any other good ones feel free to post the names, these are all I could find. All give Stamina as the additional component.

Dragonfin Fillet: 40 STR
Mega Mammoth Meal: 80 AP
Grilled Sculpin: 60 AP
Mammoth Meal: 60 AP
Poached Nettlefish: 30 CRIT
Poached Northern Sculpin: 80 AP
Rhinolicious Wyrmsteak: 40 Expertise
Snapper Extreme: 40 HIT
Spiced Wyrm Burger: 40 CRIT
Spicy Blue Nettlefish: 40 CRIT
Succulent Orca Stew: 30 CRIT
Wyrm Delight: 30 CRIT

4f. Theorycraft: We Can Tank That

I mentioned many times that Arms is a very effective off-tank when required to be, and mostly because of the Arms talent "Unrelenting Assault". The reason this is so important is that it essentially removes the cooldown on Revenge.

I'm not sure if this is just a bug in the latest version of the game, but typically when you "avoid" an attack Revenge lights up. After you use Revenge, it starts the cooldown (in the usual case). Since as Arms it no longer has a cooldown, you might now notice that it STAYS up regardless of continuous avoidance or not, for the entire duration of the timer. For about 6 seconds you can literally spam revenge until it un-lights, even if you don't block/dodge/parry again within the time frame.

For this reasoning, the best method of holding threat as Arms (especially if you're the hybrid spec) is to open with Shield Slam, Sunder to 5, then use the rotation (as Revenge will be up 99% of the time)

SS > Revenge > Revenge > SS > Revenge > Revenge > etc.... That's it! This produces excellent single target threat and DPS if you are continuously critting Revenge for 3-4k (very easy if you tank with an axe). Revenge is also dirt cheap, so you will be very rage efficient per the threat you produce (mostly the DPS threat + D Stance bonus). Revenge, it should be noted, does not have an innate threat boost like it did in previous versions of the game, but the damage it does is excellent cover for this lost threat with the D Stance bonus alone. Just make sure to refresh the sunder stack before it wears off.

Your best weapon of course to tank with would be a 1h axe as you get the benefits of Poleaxe spec with it (and there's no 1h polearms). This will invariably increase your threat also with the 5% bonus crit damage adding to revenge as well. If you have improved revenge you can expect 5k+ revenges every GCD while tanking if you crit most of them.

Having an arms warrior tank a 10 man vs. a 2nd prot warrior means you can effectively split tanks from a 25 man into 2 formed raids. Not only does this save time, it also boosts your groups overall DPS output for several reasons.

1. A tank will not be able to change gear and do considerable DPS on a fight where only one tank is needed.

2. A tank does not put up debuffs like Trauma/BF while tanking

3. A tank does not do quite as much DPS as an arms warrior can do while tanking.

4. No need to respec from your main raid spec!

For these reasons a 2nd tank of choice can be an Arms warrior no doubt, for the lone fact that when you get to single tank fights like Sapphiron or Grobbulus, etc... you can just have them switch to dps gear and go to town very easily.

This, of course, can apply to more than just warriors. Ret paladins can tank if they change gear, Feral druids obviously can do this, and DKs can as well. This is just an idea of why tanking hybrids now have some options in their repertoire and Bliz is no longer pidgeonholing groups to take X number of tanks for everything. Usually in 10 mans 1 dedicated tank spec is all you "need" now.

4g. Theorycraft - Contributive DPS vs. Personal DPS

I hear more and more input from very arrogant players "Oh well Fury will always do at least 1000 more dps than Arms". This is not only because Arms is harder to compete with, requires essentially more gear, but it may also be because the warrior is looking solely at personal DPS on recount, and not your contributive DPS. Your mileage may vary, but both specs bring a buff/debuff to the raid which contributes to their own DPS value.

For example. Fury warriors bring 5% crit to the raid. So lets assume that 5% of everyone in the raid's crit damage belongs to the Fury warrior. Arms brings 2% phys DPS, and 30% bleed damage, so these add to the Arms warrior's overall DPS.

Let's use one WWS as a simple example.

http://wowwebstats.com/s5hqe3roy6wpo?s=275510-320014&m

In this WWS 30% of all the bleeds in the raid damage add up to 165,032 contributive damage. You can get this number by taking all the warrior and rogue bleeds, adding them to a total and taking 30% of that.

Also considering 2% physical damage from all physical sources in the raid (Blood Frenzy), and excluding all non "physical" abilities worth of damage, the total amount of physical damage sources in this encounter as shown on the WWS was about 4.8mil (4,814,212 total). We take 2% of that and that's 96,284 damage from Blood Frenzy.

So all in all 165,032 from Trauma and 96,284 from Blood Frenzy and our contributive damage added about 260k damage to the raid. Out of 13M, we increased the raid dps by 2%. So in reality that damage done by me (subtracting my own Trauma/BF boosted dmg first, which put me more at 763k without those debuffs), and my total damage was actually closer to a little over 1mil. (763k+260k estimating and rounding down)

It's much harder to gauge the contributive damage of Fury, as all it does is directly increase a stat. There's tons of variables to consider. Things such as abilities that have variable boosted crit rates (like Overpower) diminish the value of Rampage/LOTP, some classes crit for more than +100% bonus, or less (casters that get a 50% crit to spells, some might have a greater talent). But it's also a "chance" proc. It's impossible to say how often that 5% crit was the result of a critical strike, and there's no real way to accurately gauge this value. However, it is a good buff to have.

Now, in the presence of a Feral Druid, we essentially share the contributive damage with their "Mangle" ability, which does the same thing as Trauma. Lets just assume that in a raid all we brought was Blood Frenzy. If you're rolling with a Feral Druid, the Fury warrior is also bringing no contributive buff, as LOTP is more reliable and will always be up, also assuming Mangle will always be up. Lets see the difference on that WWS with just Blood Frenzy added (compared to the Fury warrior).

Taking away 2% of his damage he only did 873382 without Blood Frenzy factored in. Once again the total damage contributed by BF in the raid was 96,284, so adding that to my value after removing my own BF total from my total damage (leaving me with 836721), with the damage done by blood frenzy alone I did more along the lines of 933,005 damage, which is essentially more.

The value added by Trauma obviously is higher than Blood Frenzy, and in the case you have both a combat rogue and a feral druid, neither spec adds anything unique, so the contributive value of both a Fury and Arms warrior in such a case would be 0. If you just have a combat rogue, Arms is DRASTICALLY more valuable to have than Fury, unless the Fury warrior is putting out significantly higher personal DPS. If you have a feral druid, Arms doing nearly as much personal DPS is still putting out MORE damage through the raid.

As shown in the WWS above, Arms is actually more DPS for the raid than Fury's contribution, until you have both a combat rogue (which most rogues should be HAT or mutilate), and a feral druid (more likely).

Just remember when looking at Arms DPS that you consider how much damage the raid gains from having them there. Also consider that Arms value goes up as you have both more physical DPS, other dps warriors with bleeds, and rogues that use Rupture (all of them usually do).

5. Gear

This list comprises a number of good choices for gear. The following key is to describe how each piece influences your stats:

[C]: Heavy on crit
[H]: Heavy on hit
[E]: Expertise
[@]: Other/Misc
[C/H]: Good balance of both
[ r ]: Red socket
[ y ]: Yellow socket
[ b ]: Blue socket
[ * ]: Meta socket

-------------------------

5a. Pre-Naxx: Items you can get without setting foot in a 10+ man raid

Helm
[C] Charged Titanium Specs (Engineering 440) ::[ * ][ y ]::
[C/H] Spiked Titansteel Helm (Blacksmithing 440) ::[ * ]::
[C] Chitin Shell Greathelm (H. Azjol-Nerub - Anub'arak) ::[ * ][ y ]::

Shoulders
[C] Spaulders of the Giant Lords (Sons of Hodir Revered)
[C] Gold Star Spaulders (The Oracles Revered)

Belt
[C] Flame-Bathed Steel Girdle (Heroic Nexus - Keristrasza) ::[ b ]::
[H] The General's Steel Girdle (Heroic HoL - General Bjarngrim)

Gloves
[H] Heroes' Dreadnaught Gauntlets (Emblem of Heroism T7 Token)
[C/H] Gauntlets of Dragon Wrath (Heroic Occulus - Chest)
[C] Fists of Loken (Halls of Lightning) ::[ y ]::

Legs
[H] Staggering Legplates (Heroic Utgarde Keep) ::[ r ][ y ]::
[C/H] Legplates of the Oculus Guardian (Heroic Oculus)
[@] Legplates of Bloody Reprisal (Wyrmrest Exhalted)
[@] Legplates of Steel Implants (Heroic Stratholme) ::[ r ][ y ]::

Boots
[C] Death-Inured Sabatons (Ebon Blade Exhalted) ::[ b ][ r ]::
[C] Spiked Titansteel Treads (440 Blacksmithing)
[C] Rift Striders (Heroic Nexus - Anomalous) ::[ r ]::
[H] Berserker's Sabatons (BOE)

Chest
[C/H] Heroes' Dreadnaught Battleplate (Emblem of Heroism T7 Token) ::[ r ][ b ]::
[C] Bonegrinder Breastplate (Heroic Old Kingdom - Prince Taladram) ::[ r ][ b ]::
[C/H] Breastplate of Undeath (Heroic Drak'Tharon Novos the Summoner)
[H] Engraved Chestplate of Eck (Heroic Gun'Drak - Eck) ::[ b ][ y ]::

Bracers
[H] Cast-Iron Shackles (BOE)
[C] Golden Limb Bands (Heroic Azjol-Nerub - Krik'thir the Gatekeeper)
[C/H] Vengeance Bindings (420 Blacksmithing)

Cloak
[C] Cloak of Bloodied Waters (BOE)
[C/H] Cloak of the Gushing Wound (Heroic Violet Hold - Erekem)
[E] Shroud of Reverberation (Heroic Halls of Lightning - Valkhor)
[@] Ice Striker's Cloak (440 Leatherworking)

Rings
[C] Band of the Kirin Tor (7600g from Dalaran Vendor)
[C/E] Band of Gal'darah (Heroic Gun'Drak - Gal'darah)
[C] Signet of Edward the Odd (BOE)
[C] Band of Frosted Thorns (Heroic Nexus - Ormorok the Tree-Shaper)
[C/H] Mobius Band (Heroic Stratholme - Chrono Lord Epoch)
[C/H] Ring of Scarlet Shadows (Jewelcrafting 420) ::[ b ]::

Neck
[C] Pendant of the Outcast Hero (Emblem of Heroism Reward)
[C] Gold Amulet of Kings (Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle - King Ymiron)
[C] Necklace of Arcane Spheres (Heroic Violet Hold - Xevozz)

Trinkets
Mirror of Truth (Emblem of Heroism Reward) [+84 crit / chance on hit: +1000 AP]
Oracle Talisman of Absolution (The Oracles - Exhalted) [+71 crit / restores rage on killing blow]
Meteorite Whetstone (Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle - King Ymiron) [+74 crit / chance on hit: +444 haste]
Mighty Alchemists Stone (400 Alchemy) [+50 crit / +100 AP / +Bonus to heal & mana potions]
Sphere of Red Dragon's Blood (Heroic Nexus - Keristrasza) [+55 hit / use: +670 AP]

Weapons
[Axe] Colossal Skul-Clad Cleaver (Heroic Halls of Lightning - Loken)
[Axe] Edge of Oblivion (Heroic Old Kingdom - Jedoga Shadowseeker)
[Axe] Wyrmclaw Battleaxe (The Oculus - Chest)

[Polearm] Saliva Corroded Pike (Heroic Violet Hold - Moragg)

Ranged
[C][Gun] Nesingwary 4000 (440 Engineering) ::[ y ]::
[C/H][Gun] Pierce's Pistol (Heroic Stratholme - Mal'ganis)
[C/H][Gun] Zombie Sweeper Shotgun (Argent Crusade - Revered)

[@][Bow] Titanium Compound Bow (Heroic Old Kingdom - Herald Volazj)

[C][XBow] Drake-Mounted Crossbow (Heroic Utgarde Keep - Ingvar the Plunderer)
[C][XBow] Amanitar Skullbow (Heroic Old Kingdom - Amanitar)

[C][Thrown] Lilehoff's Winged Blades (Emblem of Heroism Reward)
[H][Thrown] Spineslicer (BOE)
[C][Thrown] Tracker's Balanced Knives (BOE)

Excellent guide, well done.
Stickied

Holy FUCKING wall-of-text Batman!

It's actually pretty good. Not padded with garbage, nice reference.

Thanks

Nice job there Haidos , let it always be said and this guide even says , all specs are good it just depends on your playstyle and how your geared.
Brings a tear to my eye and reminds me of the good old days with my 1st main in vanilla wow. Ah it was a time of joy when I was one of the servers 1st gnome warriors while they were as rare as anything. Mainly used arms with him till I was needed to become a raid/molten core main off-tank.

Keep up the good work Haidos