Single Minded Fury & Me : Stat Priorities
Me : A heavily indoctrinated Tank trying to learn to DPS to be of maximum use to Natural Order
You : An old hand at Warrior DPS, preferably Fury, even better Single Minded Fury, willing to take an inexperienced orc under your wing.
Let's meet and make beautiful corpses together.
Working from the guide here : http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1827667312 and the guide here : http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1710234851, one can derive a stat priority like this :
Hit (8%) > Experise (cap)* > Crit > [Hit (12%) = Mastery] > Hit > Haste
Strength is not worth calling out because its a function of iLevel nowdays, and in almost all situations iLevel should be maximized. The stat priority that is confusing me a little bit is Expertise. Several sources say to get it to 26 points, others to the cap.
Now you might be saying "Nergraal, don't be stupid, 26 is the Expertise cap". That appears to be true for the on-hand weapon - however that does not appear to be the case for the offhand weapon. The Expertise cap for the off-hand weapon appears to be 28. Can anyone advise on whether it's accepted truth that off-hand damage has less value and thus mitigating dodge/parry/block is less valuable than stacking lesser prioritized stats?
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For starters...
SMF isn't going to be your top DPS capability, even with the damage modification. Why? Because you lose out on significant amounts of strength going from TG to SMF due to one-handers not carrying as much on stats as two-handers, and the damage boost doesn't mitigate that. Add to that the fact that there's a dearth of strength-based one-handers, and you have a serious problem. The drop in survivability puts the final nail in the coffin; less stats = less stamina = less HP = more makeouts with the floor. If you want to rock those charts, for the time being TG is the way to go. Later in the expansion, this may change, but for now, it's the facts.
26 expertise is all you need, because your main source of damage, your specials, work off your main-hand rating. It's the same reason that we don't sacrifice everything to reach the off-hand hit cap: the off-hand swings supply some of the damage and rage, but not enough to cater to it at the cost of other stats. Past 26, the returns on expertise put it in the toilet; you're better off reforging extra to crit or hit.
Hope this helps.
Damn, read that as Furry and
Damn, read that as Furry and came to see what mess Waka and Shin had gotten themselves into.
!
Go Arms. Seriously. The way things work at the moment (and since Wrath), is that Arms tends to be better when you're at mid-low gear levels, as it's more self reliant for its DPS. Fury scales to a much greater degree, but because of that, if your gear isn't all 359, you notice it immediately.
That said, read this thread. EJ is a good point to start for anyone wanting to improve.
Thanks
Thanks for the input, that's good to know about the off-hander and the relative value of expertise on that weapon.
I chose fury because it's just more enticing than arms. I get the rotation and even though I know Arms is probably easier to start with, Fury is what I want to use in the long run so I might as well try to suffer through. Regarding TG vs SMF, right now its a matter of having 2 heroic level 1H weapons and 0 heroic level 2H weapons. Once I get the drops I'll probably switch, but it helps to get the practice since the rotation is similar between the two.
I read EJ and a few other tanking sites, just helps to confirm that I'm understanding. Thanks for the help!
Crafted?
Check with some guild blacksmiths, Samm is usually more than happy to make gear for anyone.
Yeah...
I actually am a maxed out Blacksmith (Chaos orb crafting free of charge to guildies!)
The issue is the 12 truegold I'd need to make 2 elementium mindcrushers. At current prices, I'm happy and content to SMF my way to some dropped items - eventually Deadmines, Throne of Tides and Shadowfang will give up their goods (I favor axes - I'm an orc and I love free Expertise).
Ahh ok
I'm sure there are some alchemists that might have a couple transmutes available too. =)
If you need any leather lemme know. =D
Hit (8%) > Experise (cap)* >
Hit (8%) > Experise (cap)* > Crit > [Hit (12%) = Mastery] > Hit > Haste
So I'm trying to figure out my warrior fury spec. I have a feeling that I'm going to have to make a lot of changes to him. I always thought mastery was the big thing now. Don't ask me why I thought this. So for clarification on this. I should try and get hit to 8% then go to expertise and get that capped and so on. Am I reading this properly?
Yes.
Those first two are priorities for the simple fact that missed or mitigated attacks are lost rage/DPS. Expertise cap stops the dodges when you're attacking from behind (which as melee DPS is where you should always be unless Bad Stuff is there), and the 8% hit means your yellow damage will always hit. Mastery for Fury isn't that strong, and it's going to get weaker once 4.1 hits, so I wouldn't worry too much about it.
I have to admit
I was dubious when people here said Arms might be more forgiving to someone with middling gear, but I have to say overall I've found arms a lot easier and the stat priorities are (imho as always) a little more clear.
Arms is also nice because
Arms is also nice because Expertise is less important -- Overpower procs when people dodge. :)
Eh
I think a lot of the stuff people like to spout about Arms VS Fury is a little misguided. They try to make it sound like ARMs just magically stops improving after a certain point while Fury bursts ahead like a glittery rainbow unicorn of anger. Heres my total Arms whore Rant on:
Preference:
I think it pretty much boils down to personal playstyle. Arms and Fury manage their rage differently, and (personally) I find Fury a little more luck based while (personally) Ive always found it easier to hit a solid stride right out of the gate with Arms, while being able to burst on demand. Statistically Arms and Fury have always been close enough that its never been a night or day situation over who is better when things are relatively balanced.
Stats
Your stat priorities are essentially the same (Though the soft cap numbers are slightly different due to talent trees and dual weilding allowing for slightly higher stats overall). Ive never had an issue being at or very close to hit/expertise cap without sacrificing any crit. Cata especially straps those stats to everything you get, its tough to NOT get close to cap, and yeah expertise is still important. Overpower is a fantastic ability, but Ive found that being signifigantly under exp cap is just laziness. Dont sacrifice damage from Colossus Strike, Mortal Strike or even more white damage just to get more pops on a single ability -
- This is approximately 13k unbuffed DPS standing behind a boss dummy with http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/farstriders/giran/simple equipped using a CS(when not active)>MS()>OP>Slam priority with a single Calm/trink burst which is where the Heroic strikes came in. You can see where the top 3 abilities are fairly close together. Purposely leaving a boss extra dodge just to pop OP would at most raise OP damage while lowering your other abilities to s similar degree, or worst case - hurt your burst phases. I try to spend as much time as possible in places like EJ without drowing in the BS that tends to collect there, and I have yet to see anything conclusively stating that EXP is any less important than it was in Wrath. You can definitely live without it starting off, but theres really no excuse not to make sure its balanced.
The Single Target VS AoE arguement is also a little silly since the benchmark is almost always set on raiding tiers where AoE is usually the Ranged DPS's job and a surefire way to get yourself murdered since as a Warrior, you have nothing to mitigate your hate other than "Stop hitting and pray for a babysitter". Plate armor is a joke when you have no avoidance to back it up.
Oh, and regardless of your build, please dont forget to use your Thunder clap, Demoralizing shout, Shattering throw, and Sunders in Raids (on bosses). It might be a small personal DPS loss, but if your raiding with primarily Pally and DK tanks, your going to save the whole raid mana and improve DPS over all by using em. Be a team player :p
Good post
As I mentioned above I went Arms after following the advice on this thread and from Nordberg (who was nice enough to hand me a bunch of truegold to make that dream come true) A couple of notes here :
- I find that prioritizing MS over CS makes for a somewhat more consistent rotation and I've read posts that value it higher due to Lambs to the Slaughter
- Taste for Blood means that the arguments in favor of lower expertise are specious at best. If you are properly maintaining your Rend (which will be even more trivial in 4.1 when MS refreshes it) then your OP should be up >60% of any fight
- AoE damage is incredible good in bursts, sustained AoE is not our area of expertise or design. In a fight like Maloriak for example, when we DPS adds, I blow my trinket and orcyorcorc CDs, click on sweeping strikes and then BROOOOOSTOOOOOORM. I'm not taking credit for improvements in this phase transition by the guild, but I will say that since I figured this out those adds take a LOT OF DAMAGE from Nerg
- Sunder Armor for the win. Every fight should start with Sunder Armor, and in most fights your CS will keep it up. I don't usually use TC, but Shattering Throw is great for situations where you need to run out of Melee (think Maloriak and the frost ring effect, or ODS and the poison protocol).
Oh man
Im definitely not disagreeing with your decision, its just as a lifelong arms whore comments about the low importance of expertise and ARMs being a low GS spec as a lead in to Fury drive me up a wall lol. Your not kidding about 4.1 too. The change to Lambs and buffs to Slam and MS are going to be fantastic.
- I find that prioritizing MS over CS makes for a somewhat more consistent rotation and I've read posts that value it higher due to Lambs to the Slaughter
Agree again. CS is great to use when the debuff isnt up on a mob, but if your MS/OP etc is on cooldown your better off leaving it out of a rotation until you can line up a series of big hits to compliment it, since the damage on CS is kind of wimpy (And its only getting wimpier from my experience on the PTR's. I think the debuff from 100% to 70% armor coming up is a PvP nerf thats probably going to put another nail in the coffin of CS rotation viability)
As for AoE. My arguement is more of the Arms VS Fury in effectiveness in AoE fights. This is another issue 4.1 might alieviate a little bit with a whirlwind buff, but in the grand scheme of things its an infantesimle part of a nights dungeon runs/raids. ARMs especially can do some terrifying things with a little stance dancing to burn Recklessness before Storming
Heres a question though, do you notice a major difference with the Orc racial when your pushing DPS? Ive been considering a little change in scenery and Im kind of debating Orc or Troll.
So, I'm going to answer your
So, I'm going to answer your question, then go on to say a little more.
I can say there is a meaningful difference between trinkets + racial and just trinkets, although what that difference is seems to change a lot. My testing has been relatively minimal and semi-scientific, but against the dummy I can see an increase between .5-1.5K DPS depending on what stage of my rotation I'm at. I categorize my rotation state as A) Building Up, B) Steady State, C) WTFCONFUSION.
I tend to be an all or nothing now-it's-time-for-a-big-push kind of DPS, so I generally save my DPS cooldowns for either a good piece of B) Steady State or the occassional odd duck circumstance, like adds on Maloriak. I have most of my CDs macro'd together and I just blow them all at once. In terms of maintaining steady overall DPS this is probably bad practice, but if I can maintain >10k normally (which I can) and have that panic button for OMFG burn phase I'm happy.
Now, for my extra piece...
When discussing warriors, I genuinely believe the orc racials overall are superior to troll racials for usefulness.
Anyway, I'm sure someone else would feel differently, but that's my $0.02... anyway Orcs feel like warriors, trolls seem more like hunters and rogues in the martial classes.