Hello, everyone.
UPDATE: I’ve remade the guide and separated it into three parts, all of which are a bit longer. Some of the “best practices” have changed and I’ve also improved the audio quality so that it is easier for people to understand.
Here is the link to the playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NA87...h1Ljpd6sbwHdxb
Older Post:
https://youtu.be/2fEpOjWG8Mk
I get a lot of questions about gems, enchantments, talents and glyphs about Arms Warriors.
As a result of this I have decided to make a pretty basic guide on what you should be aiming for in terms of statistics as well as some of the options you have when it comes to gems or other items.
This doesn't cover everything (it's not supposed to) and doesn't cover advanced strategies for arenas or any particular rotation, but briefly mentions and hints at the importance of some spells.
Any extensions to this guide will be added here. This includes a macro list that I intend to put here very soon.
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Member
[Guide] [Video] Arms Warrior 3.3.5a Gemming, Talents and Macros.
Edited: June 28, 2020 Reason: New link with updated guide
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Staff
I really like the video effects and the way text comes up and goes away. Says a lot about how much effort you put into the video, looks really nice :)
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Member
Thanks for the kind words! Very much appreciated. It did take me some time to make.
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I've been PvP-ing as warrior for well over 8 years, so I have some experience when it comes to playing one, but by no means I'm trying to act superior or saying that I'm better than anyone else, I did achieve quite some glad titles, but this was on private servers so some may say the skill cap is lower on private servers than on retail so I'll leave that on the side.
I'm just trying to teach others the few things that I learned from playing warrior for so many years.
The guide is nice for people that haven't played warrior in the past, but it has few things I don't like, I will make a list of the things I'd like to add and also give examples while I'm talking about it to make my point get across easier.
Again, the guide is nice, I like it and I respect you as a warrior and as a player.
English is not my main language, but I'll do my best to make the wall of text that I'm about to write as readable as possible.
1) You don't talk about ''Spell reflection cancelaura'' macro, this macro is A MUST for any arms warrior that wants to reach his full potential with this class, for example: You play vs Mage/Spriest as Arms/Healer and they somehow manage to kill your healer, but you also killed the priest, your charge is on cooldown and you used your intercept 2 seconds ago to get to the priest and kill him, now you are at 60% hp vs a Mage that is at 20% health, he starts casting frost bolt at you, you pop spell reflection then the mage stops casting and proceeds to cast polymorph to reflect it and polymorph himself, if heroic thrown is not on cd you can use it fast and intrerupt the polymorph or use a ranged weapon to damage the mage, but most likely he will heal for more than 30-40% of his hp before you do that. That's why having a /cancelaura spell reflect macro can save your butt so many times, the thing I talked about above happened to be because I was too lazy to make my cancelaura macro after re-downloading wow, making me lose a game at 2.3k mmr, I felt so noobish, the mage even /lol at me :D
2) You have /equip shadowmourne on battle and berserking stance. I would really delete that line, I just like to have a simple macro with /cancelaura bladestorm and /start attack on battle/zerg stance, I would also delete the /cancelaura bop from it because you can cancel bop by accident, ex: you fight warr/hpala you're at 10k hp and you want to use charge on his paladin so you get away from warrior, but right before you do it your paladin uses bop on you, making you waste a precious CD and potentially lose the game.
About /eq mourne macro, I really hate that one, let me explain why. Sometimes you want to stay with 1h and shield even if you are not in defensive stance, ex: you pop shield wall vs a caster, your bash/spell reflect are on cooldown and you want to use Overpower on his cast to get UA debuff so he does even less damage, you don't want to equip a 2hander just to go to battle stance, you will lose the damage reduction from shield wall, same goes for charge and other spells, or maybe you just want to do a bit more damage while keeping the shield wall buff up, it's just not optimal to have /equip 2h on battle/zerker stance, put your 2h on action bar and equip it when you need it.
Have your cancelaura BOP macro separately from your charge, intercept and intervene macro.
3) You don't have /cancelaura bladestorm /cast overpower macro(this one has to be separate from your normal OP macro), sometimes stopping bladestorm and getting UA on your enemy will put more pressure than just keeping bladestorming the target.
As you can see in Zage's video at 1:10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeAMGKsY0kw he bladestorms the priest then right away cancels it and uses overpower to get UA debuff then finishes off the priest.
Sure, you can have a separate cancelaura macro for bs and then you can use OP, but that takes 2 moves and sometimes you can be too slow for that and miss the cast.
This macro is pretty good and has a lot of general use and it's good to have it.
4) You seem to have /cancelaura enrage regeneration macro, berserking rage and focus charge/intercept, but you don't talk about it in your guide.
5) It's nice having /startattack on your bladestorm, your character is no longer autoattacking while you are using bladestorm, adding /startattack to the macro will make you autoattack while spinning DA ORANGE AXE ;^).
The macro goes like this
/startattack
/cast bs
/startattack
You also say some like to put their 2h on their bladestorm macro, that's not a good idea either, sometimes you use bladestorm to just get away from enemy, so you might do it when you have shield wall up and stuff, again, simple /equip 2h macro that's separate from your bladestorm/stance macros will do wonders.
6)Focus fear is also another underrated macro, it is used to (derp) fear your focus target and it will be casted only when your focus target is close enough, this way you don't risk missing the fear on the guy you actually want to fear.
There are more stuff that can be added such as getting the tier2 pvp weapon to boost your resilience by a lot while still doing tons of dmg or @mouseover ranged attack to destroy totems, and stuff, but that's for the more advanced warriors.
Looking forward your macro section here in this thread and if that's ok, I will add some of my macros that I think are useful or underrated by so many people.
Great guide overall, it's nice to see new guides.Edited: August 5, 2015 Reason: :^)
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Half of the things you mention I actually do or have some sort of alternate way of doing. Admittedly I do not mention everything but as I have stated, it is a BASIC GUIDE. I don’t get why felt the need to write an entire essay for just a few things which you consider to be mistakes which are in reality different ways of doing things. I even say it in the forum post. Using mouseover macros as well as a lot of what you mentioned falls into the advanced category, something I had no intention of covering to make this more user friendly. Do understand that it is a guide that also tells you how you could gem and an explanation about certain talents.
Reading your comment, it looks more like a passive-aggressive way of discrediting me for things that are actually just different ways of doing the same things (at least in some of the cases mentioned).
This guide was made with the consultation of a friend of mine that is a Gladiator Warrior. 2.8k Molten (Ragnaros) and 2.7k AT (now of course, Blackrock).
He did actually tell me that the guide is very good and had exactly 0 complaints.
I do have a cancel spell reflection macro but I didn't consider mentioning it in this guide simply because the guide is basic. Not only that but you can just equip your 2h weapon and it will cancel spell reflection for you. This way actually saves binds but as I've stated about a number of things HOW you do certain things can be a matter of personal preference.
Additionally, I emphasise the fact that other people do certain things. "Some like to put their 2h on their bladestorm macro" is something some people do because their emphasis is on making sure they are doing as much damage as possible - you might want to do this in bgs (I personally don’t), remember that this isn't a specifically arena centric guide.
Having cancelaura bladestorm in lots of macros, even overpower, IMO increases your chances of accidentally cancelling your bladestorm when you don't want to.
If I'm bladestorming and I want to put my 1h and shield on I can simply press one of the other macros that do this and voilà. Sure, it doesn't cast Shield Wall but I have NEVER been in a situation that called for it. Anyone competent in arenas will switch OFF the warrior once he/she in in wall unless the warrior's health is very low - but that would be the warrior's fault for walling too late.
Bladestorming away from a target is wasteful. You can intervene on your healer to get away and use spell reflection to mitigate the CC that will be cast on you. Once I'm done in wall I will want to apply some pressure but if I followed what you said I would have wasted an offensive cooldown. This only make sense if your charge, intercept, bash are on cooldown and you want to be immune to an incoming cyclone or polymorph.
Not only that but if you are bladestorming in shield wall you might get disarmed. This makes the amount of damage you take higher because of course you are losing resilience. It’s counter-intuitive.
About /startattack with Bladestorm, I like to sometimes use heroic strike right before bladestorming.
"There are more stuff that can be added such as getting the tier2 pvp weapon to boost your resilience by a lot while still doing tons of dmg or @mouseover ranged attack to destroy totems, and stuff, but that's for the more advanced warriors."
You know it's a basic guide so why even write this? Not only that but I know you don't use this strategy, I can’t think of anyone that does. Using a 2h pvp weapon instead of something like shadowmourne trades a lot of good offensive stats for some resilience. You're better off just using your 1h and shield and swapping when you have the opportunity to burst. I've played against and spoken to some great warriors they have NEVER mentioned this being a legitimate strategy. Also, if it was important they would say it because I have sought advice from them and I have learned things from them. On top of that, try getting a tier 2 2h pvp weapon. Try getting 2.2k in 3s right now on Ragnaros or Deathwing right now (Yeah I know the top 4 teams on Deathwing are currently above that but you can see from the stats that those teams have been wintrading) or wasting coins on a 325 dps weapon when you could instead use the coins on a BiS part.
Thanks for the feedback.
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Member
I'm sorry if it sounded like I'm trying to discredit you or something, just wanted to show how I play my warrior.
I said you should use 2 overpower macros, one with and one without the cancelaura on it.
''Not only that but if you are bladestorming in shield wall you might get disarmed. This makes the amount of damage you take higher because of course you are losing resilience. It’s counter-intuitive.''
What does this mean? Makes no sense
How can you lose resilience by getting disarmed? Disarm doesn't remove the stats of your weapon/shield, if it did, you would see more people disarming casters in PvP.
Bladestorming away from a target is really good if you are, for example playing with a resto druid or shaman who can't dispell things like roots, or anything else that's not a pala to remove imp hamstring
''Not only that but you can just equip your 2h weapon and it will cancel spell reflection for you. This way actually saves binds but as I've stated about a number of things HOW you do certain things can be a matter of personal preference.''
If you used shield wall and want to cancel spell reflect you'll lose the buff from shield wall.
I never ran out of keybinds tbh, more like space on auction bar :D.
And about the tier 2 pvp weapon, I actually use it and find it extremely usefull against comps such as spriest/rogue, destro/ele, spriest mage.
You will deal way more damage than when you have 1 hand and shield and you will have the same resilience.
Here's
Here's a screenshot right after moltdown, when mourne was not available, the tier 2 wep is at bottom right.
Spoiler:Show
Again, the guide is good and I like it sorry for sounding ''passive-aggressive'' I guess that's the way I type.
Peace.Edited: August 5, 2015
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In rag or dw if sp/rog or other caster teams wanna deal damage to you, they will kill you before you can kill them. You'll almost always be relegated to turtling a lot of times against good players. If you want to have more resil just preemptively equip pvp offsets and a skeleton key if you know you're fighting these teams. Having a spare t2 along with your sm is a very good luxury but i'd rather have new players learn when to put pressure and when to play defensively.
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^^^ This ^^^
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I do recommend using thrown though to knock totems as it raises a warriors awareness in fights instead of tunneling (something a lot of warriors are guilty of in rag/dw). I personally use gluth's as well for the hit it gives as i do not feel the need for the extra stats of the lk bow. Tiny detail but there is a very nice thrown(twirling blades) in the marketplace for votepoints that helps a lot of new warriors in gearing. I'd be lying though if i said the lk bow didn't give me a semi-hardon when i turn on gs.
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So the trinket choice in order is STS HC>DBW HC> DV HC > STS > DBW > Needle? Is there no other trinkets to use in between? I think Grim Toll is better than Needle since it doesn't proc on crits and gives a ton of hit which you can then get elsewhere
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imo sts normal>dv HC
If you compare the stats
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DV HC: 288 ap 510 str on proc
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STS N: 163 arp 1304 ap proc
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I even like DBW normal more than DV.
Death's verdict is more of a paladin trinket.
Only way I can see it being useful for a warrior was if you played prot because it adds some block value.(obviously it's better than needle and grim )Edited: August 9, 2015
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With what TBCwascool said above... How many keybinds do you have!1?11!
I play with 2v2 keybinds and I'm already using up a ****load, now if I had to include cancelaura spellreflection and all that jazz, I don't have enough buttons
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I have all buttons around my left hand keybinded, including caps lock, f1-f5 and combinations of alt+f1, alt +wasd, there are certain spells that don't require you to move, such as thrown, shattering thrown, mounting up, eating, etc, so you can keybind shift+w/a/d, alt+w,a/d, I also keybinded my S key, so I have only 3 keys for moving.
I don't have a mouse with more than 2 buttons because I can't afford one, I use mouse wheel up/down, alt+mouse weel up/down, etc.
I'm playing on a laptop so the bottons are really close to each other and the keyboard is pretty small, allowing me to make all kinds of weird combinations.
There was a time I even used extra bars addons because wow didn't have enough bars for my spells/macros :D
You just have to be creative.Edited: August 9, 2015
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Banned
You`ll probably want STS 284 and either DVHC or WFSHC as your second trinket. I mean, going ham with Taunka & STS is fun, but realistically that`ll happen once every other arena match at most, which is not really worth the effort. Having some guaranteed 2500 to 3000 AP every 45 secs is the real deal, mainly because it`s dead reliable, every single time. The sync`s also pretty important as PvP is all about the burst; DBW having the weird 30/105 is probably the real dealbreaker here.
TL;DR. Don`t use DBW, it`s bad. Use DVHC or WFSHC.
EDIT: Okey I just actually watched the whole thing. Some points that`ve come to my mind & attention
*People really hate Orange gems, now do they. They`re usually cheaper, and offer more flexibility for the most part. Seriously, get those Resplendents. They`re awesome.
*I would definitely recommend Engineering. Pyro Rockets are _huge_.
*The Wrathful Gladiator`s Pendant of Sundering should be worth a consideration
*DBWlol see the above
*You forgot the Strength of Arms talent in your DVHC calculation, it`s actually 510*1.04*2 = 1060.8 AP.
Oh, and the Darkmoon Card: Greatness.Edited: August 10, 2015
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Banned
In the video you talk about Str as if it gives 2AP/point, which is not true only coming from talents. Then we also have BoK and other all-stat boosters.
A good Mage would always use a shield before reflecting a Poly on himself so you won't be able to break it even with damage. A cancealaura macro for SR is a must for fighting mages, otherwise you're giving him a free reset.
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