Arms Warrior guide
Melee DPS. Arms is a two-handed spec built around Mortal Strike, Overpower and big crits via Impale and Deep Wounds. A single Weaponmaster talent rewards whatever you wield: axes and polearms get crit, maces and staves ignore armor, swords get extra attacks. Bloodthrill lets main-hand hits on a target with your Rend enable Overpower without a dodge, and with baseline Tactical Mastery you can dance into Battle Stance for Overpower without dumping all your rage.
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Stat priority
- Hit (to cap)
- Strength
- Critical Strike
- Agility
- Weapon DPS
- Stamina
Opener
- Charge: Open in Battle Stance for free rage
- Bloodrage: Extra rage to start the fight
- Battle Shout: Keep it up the entire fight
- Mortal Strike: First global after the charge
Single target
- Execute: Spam below 20% health, it replaces everything else
- Mortal Strike: On cooldown, your main damage and healing debuff
- Overpower: Whenever the target dodges; Improved Overpower adds up to 50% crit chance
- Whirlwind: On cooldown in Berserker Stance when rage allows
- Slam: On its 15 sec cooldown if rage is above 40; without Improved Slam it delays your swing
- Heroic Strike: Rage dump on the next swing only when rage is high
- Rend: Only on long fights vs bleedable targets without other warriors
Several targets
- Sweeping Strikes: Before the pack, next 5 attacks hit a second target
- Whirlwind: On cooldown, best paired with Sweeping Strikes
- Cleave: Replace Heroic Strike as the rage dump
- Thunder Clap: Hits up to 4 targets and slows their attacks by 20%
Cooldowns
- Recklessness: Burst window: 100% more crit chance for 15 sec, but you take 20% more damage
- Sweeping Strikes: Use on 2+ targets on cooldown
- Berserker Rage: Fear immunity and bonus rage when taking damage; needs Berserker Stance
Key talents
- Mortal Strike
- Impale
- Deep Wounds
- Two-Handed Weapon Specialization
- Weaponmaster
- Bloodthrill
- Improved Overpower
- Anger Management
- Sweeping Strikes
- Improved Slam
What Forever changed
Tactical Mastery is now a level 14 trainer passive, so swapping stances to Overpower no longer wipes your rage bar. Slam is a cooldown strike now, and Improved Slam, which removes its swing delay and shortens its cooldown, is a tier 6 Arms talent. New Arms talents include Bloodthrill, Weaponmaster and Spearing Strike, a tier 4 talent that deals 75% weapon damage plus an extra 75% against giants, dragonkin and mounted targets, and dismounts riders.
Tips
- Weaponmaster is one talent whose bonus follows your weapon: crit with an axe or polearm, armor ignored with a mace or staff, extra attacks with a sword.
- Spearing Strike, a tier 4 Arms talent, dismounts mounted players, which is strong in world PvP.
- Hamstring deals a little damage and slows by up to 50% for 15 sec; keep it up on kiting targets.
Other Warrior specs: Fury, Protection
Data from the WoW Forever client, build 1.60.1.70938, extracted .