WotLK Arms PvE Guide

[Ardie]

With upcoming Lordaeron realm i decided to release my old Arms PvE guide from my old server where i used to play arms in pve for reasons which i explain in this guide. Lets begin.

1. Arms PvE? Viable or Not.
2. Pros? Cons?
3. Stat Prioritys?
4. Gear? Gems? Enchants?
5. Talents? Glyps?
6. Rotation? Swing Timer?
7. Advanced Tips.

1. Arms PvE? Viable or Not.
At current state as progressive realm Arms is perfectly viable raiding spec, it requires much more than Fury spec to perform in its max potential and with the lower item levels can outdps fury spec (pre 100% passive ArP)

2. Pros? Cons?
Pros: Can give raid Feral Druid Bleed Debuff [Trauma] and Combat Rogue increased Physical damage debuff [Blood Frenzy]
Cons: Limited AoE Dps capability, more difficult rotation compared to fury

3. Stat Prioritys?
8% Hit Rating > Str > Crit = Armor Penetration > 8% Expertise > Haste
The rarity of Expertise Stat in Lower itemlevel gear lowers the value of the stat in general

4.Gear? Gems? Enchants?
-Work in Progress

5.Talents? Glyphs?
http://wotlk.openwow.com/talent#LhrcbfIt00bRdGuioGx00xb Basic Arms PvE spec
Glyphs?

Major: All of these are viable choices however i prefer Mortal Strike, Execution, Bladestorm
Glyph of Mortal Strike, +10% Increased damage
Glyph of Overpower, Overpower is activated on Parry
Glyph of Rending, Increases duration by 6
Glyph of Sweeping Strikes, removes Energy cost of the ability
Glyph of Execution, increases damage as if you had 10 more Rage
Glyph of Bladestorm, Reduces Cooldown by 15 seconds

Minor:
Charge/Command, Bloodrage, Battle

Rotation? Swing timer?

Rend >>>> Overpower > Mortal Strike > Slam > Heroic Strike
Keep Rend up at all times, use Overpower and Mortal Strike whenever they are available, Slam when either one of them isnt available, Heroic Strike only if you are rage capped [100 Rage]

Where does Bladestorm come to play here? Bladestorm is really good aoe damage ability [especially with sweeping strikes] and also deals good amount of single target damage i prefer using it during either: Add phases, trash clearing and during bosses when im low on rage.

Swing Timer?
IMPORANT! Slam will reset your auto attack timer if casted at same moment your autoswing is about to go off, this is where the hard part of being arms dps comes to play, you need to download addon (or practice a ton) of timing your slams so they do not reset your auto attack swing timer because that will be a rage loss.

7. Advanced Tips.
Use all your stances and the abilitys in them, you have entire arsenal of abilitys to use in all 3 stances, if you are progressive raider you can safe entire raid from wiping with defensive stance => Shield block => shield wall => taunt => enraged regen etc.
Always be ready to try something NEW.

I might add some stuff to this guide later on when i have more time off.

Id like to thank all the warriors i had a chance to play with and their advices over the years, all credits of this guide go to them.

[Panofsky]

All the infomations provided in this guild are correct and I actually like a lot to play the arms pve spec. It's more funny and its gameplay is definetly more difficult than the fury one. Just few things I would like to add:
- the spec linked by you is considered the best spec for those who have just reached lvl 80 because of the low gear. When the gear starts to get better, usually with the TOC gear (ilvl 232-245), you can change your spec with this one: http://wotlk.openwow.com/talent#LhrcdfIt00bRdGuiohxZbI . With this spec you give priority to Heroic Strike (or Cleave, when you are fighiting against a lot of mobs) above Slam in your rotation, if you have more then 70 rage points.
- You have not mentioned Execute in your rotation, which should be used when the Sudden Death talent procs. So, the rotation should go like this:
Rend, Mortal Strike, Overpower (taste for blood procs), Execute (sudden death procs), Heroic Strike/Cleave (if you have more then 70 rage points), Slam.
Don't spam too much execute during the execute phase of the bosses (when their hp is lower then 20%) because it's a rage eater.

[taralej]

- Mortal Strike > Overpower in the rotation. Overpower should only be cast before Mortal Strike if Taste for Blood is about to get refreshed before the next GCD.

- Overpower being in the game doesn't mean Expertise comes after ArPen (and Crit?!). Getting dodges/parries on your Mortal Strike or Rend is a big DPS loss. Arms aims to use EVERY SINGLE GCD available, getting dodges/parries reduces these available GCDs, thus lowering your DPS greatly & unnecessarily. tl;dr - get Exp capped.

- As per the above, the correct stats priority is Hit(cap)>Expertise(cap)>ArPen(cap)>Strength(gemmin g)>Crit>Haste. Crit is in no way equal to ArPen. It is still stronger than Haste though, which is almost a "bad" stat for Arms.

- Bladestorm is bad for single-target. That's one sure sign of a bad Warrior. One auto-attack and your rage bar will be full, so if you're rage-starved just wait.

- You said Arms's AoE potential is limited, compared to Fury's. My friends Bladestorm and Thunder Clap disagree. In a longer AoE fight you just need to switch between Battle and Berserker stance for Thunder Clap & Whirlwind.

- Panofsky mentioned the spec you linked is only the best for low-geared Warriors and he explained the other spec - I understand that you made the guide for Loraderon, so I won't add more salt to this.

- Major glyphs should be Mortal Strike (yeah, of course), Rending, and Execution. Rending and Execution are clear DPS gains, the other glyphs mentioned are not. GoBladestorm is only viable for AoE-heavy fights, GoOverpower is useless when Exp capped, GoSweeping Strikes is a PvP glyph. GoHeroic Strike is also a viable option to consider.

Other than that, it's a nice starter guide.

[Panofsky]

Maybe the critical strike chance should be considered a better stat than pure Strength, because a critical hit activates a lot of important talents, like Deep Wounds, Trauma and Wrecking Ball (aka Enrage). Sure, our Overpower ability should almost always crit because of Impale, Improved Overpower and Unrelenting Assault but I think that an Arms Warrior should always aim for more crit to be dps efficient. Obviously I'm not saying that we should gem for crit, that would be insane. I'm talking about the wotlk leather/plate itemisation. Most plate items, especially in the lower wotlk tiers, have Haste as secondary stat, which could be useful in some way for a Fury Warrior, but for the Arms spec is a useless stat.

As for the Glyphs, I agree with Taralej.

[Ardie]

this guide is centered on upcoming Lordaeron progressive realm, Expertise in earlier gears is really rare and hard to come by, crit is also much lower with i200/i213 naxx/Eye gear and armor penetration passive cap is impossible to get without a proc [Grim Toll], if they really plan on making this progressive/hardcore realm, the epic gems wont even be available to players (+16 stat rare gems are best).

Ill be adding more stuff as i keep testing stuff with i200-i213 gear at the moment.

[taralej]

Yes, so what we're talking about here is Grim Toll + 788 ArPen for the soft cap. Of course, if Warmane fixes Battle Stance (Blood Gorged, Mace Specialization etc.) then we would require less than 788.

[Panofsky]

Since it's quite hard to reach the expertise cap when you are still wearing low gear from rdf hc (the best you can get before starting to raid Naxxramass), what do you guys think? Should we still gem for expertise to reach 26 points? Someone say it's not necessary when you are low geared, also because every dodged hit turns in a free Overpower. I think it's still better to reach the expertise cap.

[jendah]

I think so as well, especially since arms rage income is very low.. each dodge is going to hurt a lot. It would be also probably beneficial to spec into "weapon mastery" at start as well. (reduces chance to be dodged by 1/2% = 4/8 expertise... If I understand it right)

[rascunho]

noob guide

[pSyoo]

maybe you could add that 2/2 Weapon Mastery > 5/5 Axe Specialization at lower ilvl when you cant reach exp-cap via gear only.

[DarkenedHue]

Swing Timer?
IMPORANT! Slam will reset your auto attack timer if casted at same moment your autoswing is about to go off, this is where the hard part of being arms dps comes to play, you need to download addon (or practice a ton) of timing your slams so they do not reset your auto attack swing timer because that will be a rage loss.

On Warmane right now, casting spells (Slam and Shattering Throw) don't reset your swing timer. On quartz the swing timer looks like it pauses, but when you start a hardcast < 1.5 sec before your next melee swing, you get that melee swing instantly as the cast ends. This has major implications for how Slam should be handled.

[taralej]

aka "spammed". Yet another retail bug which works on Warmane :P Just dump any extra rage, without starving yourself for Mortal Strike, into Slam and that's it.

[DarkenedHue]

The thing is, the swing timer reset thing was probably intentionally added, to reduce the feasibility of warriors actively hardcasting as part of their rotation. As it currently is, even Fury can incorporate Slam hardcasting in place of Rend where they have a free GCD for a DPS gain.

I haven't tested this as thoroughly as I'd like, but right now it's appearing like hardcasting where you have an empty GCD is just as good as, if not better, than rending during free GCD's, the best GCD being after the first BT when WW is on CD (i.e. where you normally Rend).

[taralej]

I don't think that's "intentionally" added. Slam used to reset the swing timer on vanilla & TBC. They changed it with WotLK's launch so that it only pauses it.

[DarkenedHue]

I don't think that's "intentionally" added. Slam used to reset the swing timer on vanilla & TBC. They changed it with WotLK's launch so that it only pauses it.

Yep, this would explain why swing timer add-ons visually display the swing time to be paused for the duration of the hardcast. Having your swing time paused while hardcasting would eliminate any feasibility of hardcasting Slam as Fury and somewhat diminish it as Arms. Seeing as Swing Timers aren't paused here, though, it's worth investigating the extent of the benefit from this more thoroughly.