I’m writing this post out of both deep frustration and genuine care for the class. Right now, Arms Warrior is in a rough place — not just in performance metrics, but in the core feeling of the spec. Our rotation is clunky, our signature abilities are diluted, and our representation in high-end content is practically nonexistent. This post outlines specific pain points and concrete suggestions.
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Slam and Execute Feel Awful
• Slam is a dead button that we’re forced to press when everything else is on cooldown. It’s rage-negative and emotionally unrewarding.
• Execute feels like a slightly better Slam. This ability used to be iconic — a massive crit, a satisfying finish, a moment of glory. Now it’s just a filter spell — Improved Slam.
• Slam and Execute should be merged into a smart ability that adapts based on stance:
• In Sweeping Strikes stance (AOE), it procs Whirlwind.
• In Battle stance (ST), it becomes Execute below 30% HP.
• This would give both buttons a real purpose and eliminate the dead feel of pressing Slam with nothing else available. It would make us feel more dynamic and provide a reason to actually change stances.
• Cleave should be baseline. It’s part of Arms Warrior’s identity.
• Whirlwind should passively proc from our core abilities — 100% chance from Slam and a smaller chance from MS and OP (damage can be tuned if needed).
Give us ravager/BS be default make them share a CD can be linked to SS stance or battle chance or just let us pick. So I can macro in a shift button for both. When I’m on a trash mob or boss. At one point we could use both at the same time and storm bolt hit like an execute was a ranged finish avatar made us immune to movement impairing effects.
Why?
It would smooth out the rotation, especially in AOE, and make pressing filler buttons feel worth it. It also avoids dead globals and rage starvation mid-rotation.
• Being forced to press Slam while nothing procs, MS is on cooldown, OP isn’t up, and Thunder Clap has been used is one of the worst feeling states in the game. The worst is missing a demolish I’m filled with outer disgusts and disappointment.
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Sweeping Strikes Issues
• SS on the GCD is clunky.
• It’s super risky to pre-cast Warbreaker before Demolish is off cooldown — one knockback or tank/boss movement and the entire window is ruined. You need DBM to check if it’s safe to use so you don’t get locked in or use it during a phase change when you can’t hit the boss.
• Missing a Demolish inside Avatar + Warbreaker + Sweeping is a disaster. One misstep and 50 seconds of setup is wasted.
It’s like making heals have a 50% chance to miss.
Suggestions:
• Remove GCD from SS, or make it a toggle/stance, and let SS raise your target cap to 8 for 15 seconds.
• Give Demolish SS so we can just pop SS on CD and play fluidly.
• Improve synergy with Collateral Damage — we need a way to refresh it so we can save it. I’ve had a slow tank just let 600% cleave fall off because they were slow between pulls. CM falls off all the time, so please make it longer.
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Warbreaker, Collateral Damage, and CM Need Help
Problem:
We go into boss fights with nothing built, and the ramp takes too long. It’s easy to miss windows or fall out of sync with the tank or mechanics. It feels like blizzard went out of its way to make sure we can’t prestack CM/CD before boss fights, like in Workshop Floodgate.
• Warbreaker should be baseline. It’s core to our gameplay.
• It should grant at least 2 CM stacks, or double stack gain during its window. So we can set and forget.
• Give us a way to keep Collateral Damage or CM before pulls. If your with an evoker everything just get evaporated and your stuck between using CD on like the 3 remaining low hp mobs praying you will kill them in time and your tank will pull the next pack in time before it falls off. it’s the worst on the high Hp mobs like chewie shreaders and mini bosses in priory tank will have them at 40% without pulling in to next pack. So you have just slam MS op them to death losing dps to get more DPS on the next pulls just to have it fall of or burn and loose even more dps.
• Allow a talent or effect that gives us 10 CM stacks on demand, with a medium cooldown — like Avatar or SS. I think WB giving 10 might be a little too good, but if we were Ret Paladins we’d have it, lol.
• Ravager + SS shouldn’t be our main way to build CM — it’s awkward and inflexible. Or reduce that stacks to 5-8. I shouldn’t need 4 WA to play my class properly.
Cleave Fix
Reduce cleaves cd by 20% You already have to be in melee range, have rage, and position correctly.
- No CD during / Blademaster’s Torment
• Let us spam it in that window. off. We our already limited by rage.
2. Proc Buff:
The chance to cast rage free cleave is worthless due to the CD. It’s needs to be Cleave deals double the damage/cast twice. Or again at the very least WW
• Low chance to double is fine (even 1–2%). Just give us that shock value moment for when it hits with a 600% CD. So I can turn on my ultra kill addons again.
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Warrior Mythic+ Representation Is Embarrassing
• Arms + Fury combined = 1.7% of all DPS in high M+.
• More Prot Warriors in high keys than both DPS specs combined — 2.1%.
• You even said in a dev interview “someone has to be last” — but every other “low” class has at least one A/S-tier spec. Warrior has none. Ranked 21 and 22 in Undermine is definitely last, even if there are 3 technically worse specs.
Suggestions:
• Raise our damage floor.
• Stop punishing missed procs and cooldowns so hard.
• Make our windows more forgiving — either widen them or reduce the dependency on precise timing (which is often broken by tanks or mechanics). I feel like I’m working on an excel spreadsheet at work double checking my work for 10th time.
You’re not playing Warrior right now — you’re playing “Cooldown Sudoku.”
“Okay, Demolish is up… but wait—do I have enough rage? Is Colossus Smash up? Oh they dropped a puddle? Is the target standing in the exact 5-yard cone? Did my procs line up? Is the sun at a 30-degree angle behind a full moon?”
It’s too many variables for something that:
• Can miss its mark entirely due to tiny movement.
• Has a microscopic window.
• Doesn’t even guarantee payoff.
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What Warrior Should Feel Like:
• “CD’s up? Let it rip.”
• No fear. No checklist. Just violence.
• If something dies, it dies.
• You didn’t solve a math problem — you broke it.
⸻ “I don’t want to solve a puzzle every time my cooldown comes up — I want to kick the damn door off its hinges.”
Target Cap Is Arbitrary and Anti-Fun
• We aren’t even strongest at 5 targets, yet we’re capped.
• Other specs (Ret, DK, Moonkin) have no target caps or smart AoE targeting Starfall
• Being target capped makes groups skip giving us PI or prioritizing us in pulls — I’ve literally been passed over because “DK isn’t capped.”
Suggestion:
• Remove target caps.
• If you must cap, let us hit the first 5 harder, but hit the rest at normal value — not reduced.
The Arms Warrior rotation feels good when all your CDs are up, your Bonegrinder lines up, you have a full CM stack, you’re in Avatar, and the planets align. Otherwise, it’s a house of cards that collapses with one missed proc, one tank movement, one stun, or one knockback.
We are too fragile, too punishing, and underperforming, with too many buttons that feel terrible to press and not enough that feel good.
I’m not asking you to nerf other classes. I just want Warrior to compete fairly and feel rewarding to play. Right now, that isn’t happening.
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Warrior Feels Like It’s Still in Vanilla While Everyone Else Is in Season of Discovery
Other classes have modern tools, smooth uptime, and effortless damage — meanwhile, Warrior is playing a completely different game:
• Ret Paladins do 75% of their damage from just two buttons, and one of them is passive. No cooldown management, no punishments.
• Moonkins have what feels like a massive aimbot — their spells hit everything with aggro, no need to aim or worry about position.
• Rogues have Black Powder and Fan of Knives with 10-yard range. They can cleave packs from safety while we have to be glued to melee.
• Unholy and Ret can still do real ranged damage when forced out of melee. Extend melee range to.
• Rogues and Hunters regenerate energy out of combat. Meanwhile, Warriors can’t do anything without uptime. Just getting kited all day.
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We’re Playing on Survival Mode
• Warriors need 100% uptime to generate rage or do any real damage.
• If we’re not hitting something, we’re just standing there useless. No energy regen. No ranged fallback. Nothing.
• We have to find a one-pixel safe spot during chaos or we fall apart.
• Our mobility is the worst in the game. We walk at base movement speed — literally the only class that hasn’t been updated here.
• Charge doesn’t work inside 5 yards, so if a boss moves fast (or it’s a druid tank/dh) we end up too far to hit, too close to charge — stuck doing nothing.
• Spell Reflect is the only tool that feels cool, but once we’ve kicked, stormbolted, shockwaved, shadowmelded, etc. — mobs still just free-cast while we sit there helpless.
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Warrior Is Still Stuck in Vanilla Tuning
It feels like every other class has shed the restrictions of the past, but Warrior is still dragging them around:
• Target capped at 5, and we’re not even the best at 5.
• Movement locked, cooldown-dependent, range-limited, rage-starved.
• I literally can’t keep up with groups in long hallways between pulls. We walk slower, fall behind, lose uptime, lose damage. Top everyone is leaving me behind I can’t leap because I’ll get 1 shot by xev. So I need to save it. After a wipe the party could have had a picnic before we I get back to boss. Meanwhile rets pull a dam rhinos out their butts turn in to part time cow boys.
• It’s like we’re playing on survival mode — where if we don’t hit every condition (rage, uptime, positioning, cooldowns, procs), our entire chart dies.
This spec needs modernization. Badly. We’re not asking to be overpowered — just to be brought into the same era as everyone else.
We need some improvement auras and utility. Even if our damage was S++ tier every season, we’d never be meta because we bring zero utility. We cant avoid any mechanics, bring nothing to the table but mediocre damage. Any class can bring damage.
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Arms Warrior Should Be a Force Multiplier, Not a Buff Bot
Warriors should lead the charge — not just prop up others with passive buffs. That doesn’t mean we need a Bloodlust clone, but we should enhance the flow of battle around us.
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Let Us Fill the Guardian Role
• We should be able to back up the tank in emergencies.
• Let Arms equip a 2H and shield in Defensive Stance to activate Shield Block in a pinch — Feral Druids could do this in Cataclysm/MoP. And still now feral can back up tank in bear form. in cata they were all the same talents/tree.
Right now it requires:
• A macro
• A shield/1H in bags
• An addon to swap bars and abilities
Suggestion:
Bake this into the spec or talent tree. If we take Defensive Stance, give us a passive that allows temporary shield block or 2H/shield utility.
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Rework Our Group Utility
Battle Shout Should Scale With Group Comp
• Currently just a % attack power buff — fine for melee, useless for casters.
• Change it to main stat so it benefits everyone (like DH’s Chaos Brand).
Rallying Cry Should Actually Rally
Rallying Cry is iconic, but it’s just a flat HP increase. Half a DoT tick. It’s more like rallying crying because it will heal if stubbed your or toe, rallying whisper.
Suggestions:
• Mass Barkskin (10–40% DR for 10s)
• Mass Second Wind (regen over 15s)
If no brez
• Cheat death mechanic for allies — or give us a new ability like “Last Stand” that grants a short cheat-death window. Not quite a battle res, but lore-friendly and impactful.
On a fatal hit you intervene on an ally (not the spell don’t need to be charging a crossed that map at random) blocking all damage they take an instantly gain 35% hp or not let your hp drop below 1%.
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Give Us Targeted Team Utility
Spell Reflect Should Be Castable on Allies
• Let us cast Spell Reflect on a teammate (like Intervene).
• If Mass Reflect is too strong, make this the more tactical, supportive version.
A full counter on some melee abilities like melee version of spell reflect.
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Banners, Not Buffs
If we’re not getting Bloodlust, at least give us something tactical and thematic,like a shaman totems.
Suggestions:
• Bring back Banners with strong but temporary effects:
• 15% HP, 15% DR, 10-20% 30
versatility. 20% leech fear immunity or movement impairing effects. Give it a 10-30 yard range and let us be able to charge the banner.
• Or mini-bloodlust/drums equivalents (e.g. 15% crit/haste/flat out damage) with 5-min salted CDs separated from lust or just same salted just half the time Like an improved war drums. I’d opt for something a bit more unique than a copy pasta lust. Mass recklessness.
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Victory Rush Needs to Feel Victorious
Victory Rush feels slow and unimpactful.
Suggestions:
• If you’re under 35% HP and kill a mob, heal for 30% instantly.
• Refresh Charge and Leap so you stay in the fight.
• For 30 seconds after a kill, Victory Rush becomes a massive opener:
• 500% damage, guaranteed crit.
• If no recent kill, reverts to the current version.
Let us live the berserker fantasy — feeding off chaos, killing harder, moving faster. Turning damaging in to rage.
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Final Notes
I’m not asking for all of this — but these are the types of changes that would make playing Warrior feel inspiring again. Not just a rotation math puzzle, but a heroic battlefield commander. Fury can be a blood thirsty berserker. with less utility but more damage.
We should:
• Command the battlefield
• Save our teammates
• Be dangerous in melee
• And survive longer than a clothie when two mobs look at us
We’re not asking to be overpowered — we’re asking to feel like Warriors again.
The current skill cap is in all the wrong places. I literally can’t even listen to music while playing my Warrior anymore. I used to love hitting big crits when the bass dropped — now I need 100% of my concentration just to keep up.
You need:
• 3–4 WeakAuras
• To manage 5+ cooldowns
• To meticulously plan every pull
• And pray your last Demolish hits inside SS + WB + Avatar
It’s like I’m filling out a spreadsheet, not playing a class. And then — just when you think you’ve lined everything up — your target moves or dies with 2 seconds left on your Demolish setup. So you chase them down, get locked into your animation, and end up eating a swirly.
Demolish is like giving a healer’s main heal a 50% chance to miss. Our entire kit is built around it — yet a boss or mob slightly walking left can counter the whole thing.
It’s a joke. Like a stormtrooper meme or something out of Spaceballs.
“Oh, don’t worry — just move two steps to the left, the Warrior will completely miss.” Root him at 6 yards lmao Kek can’t touch me can’t couch me ohhh the lil war just burned all cds how sad. We turn in to Achilles heal with 1 root slow or lazily drifting to the left. blizzard is the cable company from South Park with that last 100% WW buff.
It’s not a power fantasy — it’s a clown fantasy.
Thanks for reading,
. Heck maybe Berserkers Torment will get a rework because they want us to use Titans Torment instead 
.