Questions for Warrior mains

Classes Warrior
1

Hey yall, hope you’re having a good morning.

SL S1 is the first xpac/season that I’ve decided to take the game seriously and commit to both PvP and PvE (longtime roleplayer, note the server). Although I’ve done a lot of research in a short timespan, I had some questions for those of you who have mained Warr, particularly Arms, across the xpacs and have a thorough knowledge of the class and spec. I’ll number my points so they’re easy to address, and feel free to critique me on literally anything, whether that’s the questions themselves or from a quick overview of my armory. I apologize in advance how long this post may be, these are just questions whose answers I’ve been having trouble finding.

1. How important is min-maxing?
I more or less know the answer to this question — if you’re trying to compete at the highest level, explore every advantage. I’ve made a few mistakes this season already (like crafting Unhinged to my bracers as opposed my gauntlets, WITH suboptimal secondary stats), but I’m quickly learning from them. My question here is whether or not min-maxing had a significant effect on gameplay and impact, or if other factors are more important.

2. Stat priority.
I’ve seen some conflicting views and as I’ve come to realize, many guides out there are unreliable. According to Wowhead, I’ve seen that the stat priority should be something like:

Strength
Critical strike ~= Haste to 20%
Mastery
Versatility
Haste

Is this accurate? If so, although I’ve hit the haste recommendation, my critical strike is pretty low. Many of my current pieces are Conquest (Rival), so I have a hefty amount of versatility. But since Strength is the prioritized stat, that would mean an ilvl upgrade trumps everything else, right?

3. DPS rotation during Mythics+
From what I’ve gathered from research and personal experience, Arms has incredible cleave, decent utility, and average single-target damage. I usually top charts in the 7-10 range pretty easily, and I’m hitting a consistent 4-4.5k DPS for most dungeons (~3.7k on boss fights). Although I’m pretty happy with my DPS, I was wondering if my rotation could use some work.

I utilize Slam as a rage dump whenever I’m not spamming Overpower into MS, and I save Avatar and WB to line up offensive CDs with my burst, usually coupled with BS. I don’t use Whirlwind at all, but I’m constantly keeping Sweeping Strikes on CD; I’m usually fed, flasked, and I have strength pots ready for certain fights, but I rarely use them.

My PvE talent config is in my armory link. For those pushing well into 14-15s (or really anything higher than a 10+), what is your rotation? Is there something I could be doing better?

4. Tormented Kings over Unhinged in PvP?
I know TK is BiS for Arms right now in all PvE situations, but I was wondering if it trumps Unhinged in PvP. I’d like to eventually push Glad in a later season, having just recently reached Rival in 2s (still learning how to fight other classes/optimize my impact in 3s). In theory, it seems like the Avatar/Recklesness proc from hitting BS is pretty insane, while accidentally proccing BS after hitting Avatar can be, if necessary, quickly canceled with a macro so as to not break CC and/or continue dishing out single-target damage.

Insofar as I know, Sharpen > two Overpowers > BS with Unhinged equipped modifies the first MS thrown out, so I’m aware the single-target AND cleave damage can be pretty nuts, especially when coupled with offensive CDs and the spear (I’m Kyrian). But having more consistent uptime on offensive CDs with TK seems like it’d be more impactful, I dunno.

5. Simming — how to implement it into my gameplay.
I have SimulationCraft installed and I’m familiar with RaidBots after looking through some guides and testing it out myself. My question isn’t how to sim, but moreso how to utilize it in a manner that improves my gameplay. How do y’all integrate the information gleaned from simming into your own gameplay?

That’s it for my questions, thanks for reading to this point if you have. Feel free to address any of the points above; all tips are appreciated. Looking forward to capitalizing on this information and learning from recent mistakes to optimize my gameplay moving forward!

2

Will min/maxing change the play style, not really. While there are generally a lot of variations on what entails min/maxing, a lot is just making sure you have all your enchants, consumables, etc. These will directly help with output, just make sure to sim accordingly.

While the guides all have a list, they also explain the finer details of it. Just most seem to ignore the fine print. All secondary stats are beneficial. Though not all are equal. I will break this down in a moment. Your stat weights will change every time when you get new gear. So it is always a good idea to sim your items. Maybe followed by a stat weight sim to see what would be the next item to keep an eye open for.
Now Stat values, once you look at a stat weight sim it gives you a list. First thing you’ll notice is how much more valuable weapon damage is compared to others. Usually around 14 to 16 points. Strength is usually around 2-5, while secondary stats are 1 maybe 2 points. What this is telling you, is how much of a dps increase these stats enable.
TL:DR : All stats are good, there is no reason to sacrifice some to hit breakpoints or diminishing returns.

While I’m not really the gal to dig through combat logs, I can point you to the Skyhold Discord. They have a channel just for the purpose of getting assistance with the “where and what” exactly, you can change to improve.
For me as a Night Fae, my play style is a lot different than Kyrian or Venthyr.

Again, I’m not the best one to answer this either. Skyhold does have a very prominent PVP channel. Right now it does sound like Unhinged is play. Though arguments can be made for both.
Sharpened and Overpower stacks do affect the first MS during Unhinged Blade storm. Add in mortal combo if some extra spicy if you want. Though that maybe just a meme dream.

As you may have noted above, having mentioned it a couple times. It is very important. It gives you a solid foundation on where to go next. Be it stats, consumables, etc. Really takes all the guess work out of those rare drops we get these days.

Hope this has been at least, a little help to you.

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3

Pretty much what lady Osaliske said!

Beside that, just keep praticing, look out guides from wowhead/icyveins/Skyhold discord community to get all the juicy info, see your mistake and keep improving.

If you have other specific question, just ask in here, many of us are happy to help you out.

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4

Only thing I could suggest is to log your runs and compare it to other people of similar iLvl. See what their rotation is. See how they move

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5

Get signet
Spam slam to fight rage capping
Reroll because slam sucks to press

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6

Guy above me is either trolling or just bad.

Anyways Osaliske answered this one pretty well, so I don’t have too much to add. I’m a PvPer, not so much into PvE outside of the occasional raid and M+.

Depends on your definition of min/maxing. Correct stats, gems, enchants, consumes, buffs, etc etc definitely help. But the bottom line is going to be how well you perform. If you are good at the spec, you can put out good numbers. Obviously you will put out better numbers with the correct things I mentioned above. But the most important thing to min/max is your rotation. Fury is a little more forgiving than arms if you mess up the rotation here or there, but ideally you won’t mess up.

This is a trick question. There is no set value for how stats affect your character. It is all dependent on your current setup. The list you mentioned is a sample, but may change depending on what your current stats look like. It could also change depending on what talents you have or the type of fight. Which ties into your fifth point. You want to sim your character often, and for different scenarios to figure out what stats are going to be your best upgrades.

For PvP, obviously you want to stack versatility. The 2nd stat you want however is still somewhat a question mark to me, but many seem to believe it is still haste.

This is where I can’t help much. I have a rough idea of what to do and can hold my own, but I’d hate to give you any wrong information here. So instead I’d just refer you to the warrior discord, or Archimtiros’ guide on wowhead.

Haven’t seen many warriors running Signet in PvP. I think Unhinged is far and away the better pick between the two for PvP. If you have your opponents stacked, you throw down your spear to lock them in place and you get Sweeping Strikes up with Avatar and Warbreaker, the damage is near unhealable. Bladestorm is already sort of scary, Unhinged adds a whole new level of scary to it for opponents. Even if your opponents aren’t stacked and you use it on a single enemy, it chunks their healthbar pretty nicely.

Goes back to your first question. If you truly want to min/max and get the most out of your character, sim often for different scenarios, different talent builds, different gear sets, all that good stuff.

That’s about all I got. Others may have more info that’s more valuable, as I mentioned earlier I’m more into the PvP side of things, so if you have any questions about that I’d be happy to help. As for PvE questions, others may field those questions better than I can.

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7

I’m gonna quote specific people but, keep in mind, I’m on my phone at work so it’s a bit wonky. That being said, special thanks to everyone taking these questions seriously and taking time out of yall’s day to help out a fellow warrior. I’ll be sure to hop into the Skyhold discord as I’ve seen it mentioned a few times!

This is really helpful, I was looking into different stat weights a couple weeks back after realizing that haste was important only to a certain point. I’ll be sure to look into stat weight simming later today, thank you for the tip.

Will do! I usually confer with some seasoned Arms vets that have been pushing higher keys on my server, but I haven’t tried comparing logs yet. Whenever I run with other warrs I typically come out on top, though I mostly attribute that to optimizing my DPS on trash pulls.

If I’m reading this correctly, SS affects the two MS thrown out during an Unhinged BS if you have two or more enemies caught in your cleave? I’ve been mirroring my PvE rotation in arenas in that I’ll hit SS right after my BS finishes so that I can continue my cleave, especially when I’ve caught people in my spear. It definitely looks like I should be switching that up though in order to maximize my damage output, however.

I do have another question, but this is moreso geared towards Prot warrs. I usually push my own keys as DPS, but getting into pugs can be pretty rough, even with an io score of 700 (still working on it) UNLESS I’m tanking. This is fine because I don’t mind learning multiple specs and because I like being a versatile player. I got the rotation down handedly, the stat priority, and I just picked up the Thunderlord leggo since I don’t raid enough to justify crafting The Wall just yet.

My question concerns the viability of prot at higher keys.
How does it stack up to other tanking specs? The differences seem nominal, but I know a lot of healers that prefer prot pallies and bear druids over others. Asking because as much as I love Arms and believe that I’m impactful with it, lacking a dedicated group means that I’m missing out on pushing higher keys.

Once again, thanks to everyone who has reached out thus far! It’s been really helpful.

8

Yes, and all can proc Mortal combo conduit if you’re running it.
Thank you, and welcome. Glad I could help a bit.

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9

Unless recently hotfixed, which is a real possibility, I’m 99% sure the Mortal Strikes from Unhinged are cleaved by Sweeping Strikes. You’re absolutely right that this would not optimal in PvE, however in PvP the burst is generally more valuable than sustain, especially in the current state of PvP.

Forgot about the Mortal Combo conduit too. Yes, Osaliske is also correct on that, Mortal Combo can proc from Unhinged Mortal Strikes.

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10

So in the world of pugs, you will save a lot more time and energy to just find a guild to have people to do group content with or find some friends. Since you are a dps, you will be competing against 20 other dps to get a invite, so you get decline a lot, unless fitting numerous criteria like ioscore, ilvl, spec/class, etc. As a tank, its less painful to pug since there less tanks and you can make your own group and choose the best pugs that queue up and push your key.

For Prot viability, they are capable tank and can push high keys, they just less popular, so the pug world people think they aint good bc of it. Compare of the other tanks, i would say its mostly the utility each of them bring differently in a group.

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11

This is something I can completely agree with. I’ve read too many horror stories of being declined one after another. Even for plain mythic 0s. Moment you get a group of friends going you can drill out mythic 0 - x+ keys you desire.

Pugs can be great but when you’re competing with a large quantity of dps that are available its easy to be overlooked.

This game can be very fun if you have the right group of friends to do content with, in the long run you’re have higher progresion, less stress, and you won’t be as bitter any more.

Playing with a group of friends will make you feel like warriors are in an okay spot.

Its when you pug and get declined or random nobodies give you a hard time about dps, that is when it is easy to become bitter about warriors and claim the class is in a terrible state.

Anytime I see these super harsh negative threads or posts about warriors, my initial thought is always.

“who hurt you?”

I’ve experienced it myself, attempted to do quest weekly mythic runs few weeks back, you need 4 total, got declined a total of 20+ times one after another. Created my own group. Wasn’t able to get a tank or healer to join, though countless dps joined.

Sure made me frustrated and I was about to just blame the warrior class. Then two friends popped online. One a tank and the other dps. We set up a group amongst ourselves and their guild mates.

Had the best time of those 4 mythic. We did about 5 or 6 because we were enjoying the company and I was pulling my weight in dps perfectly fine, there were no negative side comments or the such that you get with pugs.

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12

That’s nuts, I’m away from my PC but I’m fairly certain I’m already running Mortal Combo. I’ll have to slot that in case I’m not, because I may be running the Overpower or Execute crit chance stack conduit.

13

It will depend on the content your running. Thedîesel is correct in that burst is king in PvP. In Mythic+ or any multi target, you’re more and likely going to get a lot more value out of Crash the Ramparts (Overpower Conduit). Single Target, well, a lot of variation can play into it. I know for my personal sims, I’ve had Mortal combo sim higher for certain gear setups, and Crash for the rest.

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14

I can imagine Crash the Ramparts pairing really nicely with Dreadnaught, assuming the AoE damage is also modified by the increase (if not, at least there’s the 2 charges). I’m gonna have to look into simming different combos later tonight, even though I’m fairly certain I’ll come to the same conclusions you have.

I saw in another thread that less than 3% of recorded 10+ instances were being tanked by Prot warriors but to be honest, I haven’t had any issue tanking keys from 5-9 and I don’t foresee that changing even in higher keys. Damage mitigation is easily managed, and I imagine it’ll be a even easier with a potential ~40% uptime on DS with Thunderlord equipped and Crackling Thunder/Unstoppable force talented.

I hear you loud and clear, though. As I mentioned before, I’m on a server where content is secondary for most, but I’m slowly guiding my guildies into higher keys and rated PvP. It’s a slow grind and I still have a lot to learn, but I definitely think it’s worth it for the dedicated group alone since pugs can be so tedious.

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15

What you saw is correct, but that is because most players will gravitate towards what is perceived to be the “best”. Unfortunately, this means that they perceive everything else as “bad”. Warriors may not be the best tanks in every situation, but they are not bad tanks. Their popularity does not determine their capability. You could be one of those 3% of warriors tanking +10s just fine with practice and good groups (both of which are requirements for any tank clearing above 10s anyway).

Think of it like the stat weights you were asking about. All secondary stats will increase your dps. You may favor certain ones in certain situations, but none of them are “bad” for warriors.

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16

Do you watch any streamers or youtubers? I’ve been looking into Bajheera’s content recently since he’s been running NF Arms this xpac, and I’ve learned a lot from watching him. I was wondering if you had any others in mind if that’s your cup of tea, I find that I improve the most when emulating the success of others more experienced than me.

That’s a great way of looking at it, thanks for the clarification. Really solidifies the assertion that most classes and specs are viable, you just need to learn your class, learn the mechanics, and use your resources effectively. I’ll ask you a similar question, do you know of any Prot content creators out there that I could watch and study up on?

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17

I don’t watch a whole lot of videos or streams but I know Smexxin and Magnusz both stream warrior PvP on twitch. Both of them are r1 glads, very good warriors and are helpful. Occasionally I pop in their streams to watch a few games if they’re doing arenas.

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18

Well I’ll be damned. Good to see another Night Fae Warrior.

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19

He’s actually making me a bit envious with his gameplay admittedly, the covenant + class ability seems like so much fun. Aftershock coupled with offensive CDs and a Piercing Howl seems to be just as competitive as the Spear, and then you have the added mobility with covenant ability. If Phial wasn’t so good I would’ve already switched, even though it looks like Venthyr warrs have a higher damage output potential.

20

I will admit, the blink is really good. Not to mention some of the QoL buffs like 2 minute speed increase after killing a mob. Mind you, you lose it again as soon as you enter combat. I think 3/4 covenants are really good and well balanced. Only Necrolord seems to be the underdog. I do hope they buff/rework that one a bit.

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