Arms Warrior Raid Guide

Rage comes primarily from Auto Attack, but another way to get Rage is from Charge. Charge can only be used from range, and Auto Attack can only happen in melee, but if you time it correctly you can walk, Heroic Leap or Intervene out of melee and Charge back in without delaying your auto attacks at all.

A well timed Charge also happens just as you used an attack, and part of the time you spend walking out you are in a global cooldown, although you still have some time spent not attacking.

When you successfully Parry your swing timer is sped up and your next Auto Attack lands sooner. Since Arms Warriors have Die by the Sword this can be used together with an Intervene on the tank, making you intercept all the melee attacks that would otherwise go on the tank and parrying them. It is important that you are facing the mobs while you do this, since you can only parry attacks from enemies in front of you.

Because Die by the Sword is your main defensive cooldown you might want it for a defensive purpose, but if you have Intervene talented and use Die by the Sword to survive, you might as well throw in an Intervene on the tank. When in AoE scenarios using Die by the Sword paired with Intervene on the tank gives you practically infinite Rage.

The green bar is the auto-attack swing timer, and as Die by the Sword + Intervene is used it starts skipping forward.

Shown below is a useful macro to Intervene on your target's target, which is usually the tank. Ensure that you have Die by the Sword ready before pressing this, since if you do not have it ready it is most likely an instant death.

#showtooltip Intervene
/cast Die by the Sword
/cast [@targettarget,help] Intervene

Bladestorm and Ravager Macro --- If you have Ravager talented then you use Ravager on your cursor, if not then you Bladestorm.

/cast [known:228920,@cursor] Ravager; Bladestorm

Thunderous Roar and Champion's Spear Macro --- If you have both abilities talented then Champion's Spear is prioritized, and if you have Champion's Spear talented it is cast on your cursor.

/cast [known:376079,@cursor] Champion's Spear; Thunderous Roar

Heroic Leap Macro --- Leap on your cursor without the extra mouse click.

/cast [@cursor] Heroic Leap

Execute Macro --- If your mouse is over an enemy then Execute it, otherwise Execute your target. This macro is useful to Execute a nearby low HP mob while still targeting the boss.

/cast [@mouseover, harm, nodead][harm,nodead] Execute

Intervene Macro --- Intervene a friendly player your mouse is over.

/cast [@mouseover,help] Intervene

Charge Macro --- Charge your target, unless your mouse is over another enemy, then it targets that enemy and uses Charge.

/target [@mouseover, harm, nodead]
/cast Charge

Defensive Stance and Battle Stance Macro --- With this you can swap stances while using only 1 keybind.

/cast [stance:2] Defensive Stance; stance[:3] Battle Stance

• MRT -- Notes, Raid cooldowns, and more
  • Helpful addon for Raiders, especially for Raid leaders and officers.
• ElvUI -- Full User Interface replacement
  • A user interface designed around user-friendliness with extra features that are not included in the standard UI.
  • Alternatively, you can also use Shadowed Unit Frames (SUF) and an action bar addon of your choice or of course the stock UI.
• BigWigs -- Generic Boss Mod
  • BigWigs is a boss encounter add-on. It consists of many individual encounter scripts, or boss modules; mini add-ons that are designed to trigger alert messages, timer bars, sounds, and so forth, for one specific Raid encounter.
• WeakAuras -- Jack of all trades
  • WeakAuras is a powerful and flexible framework that allows the display of highly customizable graphics on World of Warcraft's user interface to indicate buffs, debuffs, and other relevant information. This addon was created to be a lightweight replacement for Power Auras but has since introduced more functionalities while remaining efficient and easy to use.
• Plater -- Advanced Nameplates
  • Plater is a nameplate addon with an extraordinary amount of settings, out of the box debuff tracking, threat coloring, and support for scripting similar to WeakAuras and wago.io + the WeakAuras-Companion for Mod/Script/Profile updates.
• Details -- In-depth Damage Meter
  • Most powerful, reliable, handsome, damage meter.

There are many WeakAuras for Arms Warriors at wago.io.

Warrior

• Developers' notes: We feel that Warriors are in a good place overall, however, there are a few places we'd like to make improvements to each spec, and to the class as a whole. Warrior survivability in particular has been a weak point, and Endurance Training competing against powerful throughput nodes in the bottom of the Warrior tree makes it difficult to talent into. We’re combining Endurance Training and Reinforced Plates to put the choice in the second tier, which has more choice against other utility and survival nodes and thus be easier to spend points on. The Weapon Specialization nodes have been increased to 2 points to keep the tree structure and overall talent build costs similar, and the nodes have been rearranged slightly to make the choice about how to access Avatar more distinct for each spec.
• Reinforced Plates is now a 2-point talent that grants 5% Stamina and 5% Armor per point.
• Overwhelming Rage is now a 1-point talent that increases maximum Rage by 30.
• Two-Handed Weapon Specialization (Arms) is now a 2-point talent that grants 3% damage and 2% reduction of damage from area-of-effect attacks while wielding a 2-hand weapon per point.
• Dual Wield Specialization (Fury) is now a 2-point talent that grants 3% damage and 2% movement speed while dual-wielding per point.
• One-Handed Weapon Specialization (Protection) is now a 2-point talent that grants 3% damage and 2% Leech per point.
• Thunderous Words increases your Bleed damage by 20% on affected targets (was 30%).
• Cruel Strikes, Wild Strikes, and the Weapon Specialization nodes have changed positions in the tree.
• Endurance Training has been removed.

Arms

• All ability damage reduced by 5%.
• Mortal Strike damage increased by 66%.
• Cleave damage increased by 26%.
• Overpower damage increased by 44%.
• Dreadnaught damage increased by 44%.
• Execute damage increased by 32%.
• Slam damage increased by 45%.
• Whirlwind damage increased by 40%.
• Martial Prowess' Overpower now increases the damage of your next Mortal Strike or Cleave by 15% per stack, up to 2 (was 30%).
• Developers' notes: Arms Warriors should always feel good about using Mortal Strike when it's available, so we're moving damage from the Overpower buff into Mortal Strike and Cleave baseline to open up more rotational and build options.
• Bloodborne increases Bleed effect damage by 5/10% (was 7.5/15%).
• Bloodsurge now causes damage from Deep Wounds to have a chance to generate 5 Rage.
• Colossus Smash and Warbreaker have new visuals.
• Warbreaker’s area of effect is now centered around a point slightly in front of the Warrior, to better align with the new visuals.

Colossus

• Demolish damage increased by 30%.
• Practiced Strikes increases Mortal Strike and Cleave damage by 20% (was 15%).
• Arterial Bleed increases Rend and Deep Wounds damage by 5% per stack of Colossal Might (was 3%).
• Colossal Might is no longer applied by Execute.
• Developers' notes: Using your hard-hitting rotational ability regularly is core to the Colossus playstyle, and Execute applying Colossal Might pushed Colossus away from that during Execute phases.
• Fixed an issue causing Demolish's animation to not correctly play sometimes.

Slayer

• Opportunist increases the damage and critical strike damage of your next Overpower by 25% (was 20%).
• Cleave will only trigger Reap the Storm if 3 or more targets are hit.
• Imminent Demise and Death Drive now correctly require the Sudden Death talent to be taken to function.
• Developers' notes: This was an oversight during implementation. Slayers are expected to talent into Sudden Death.

Warrior

• Thunderous Roar now deals reduced damage beyond 5 targets (was 8).
• Champion's Spear icon has been updated.

Slayer

• Overwhelmed now stacks up to 10 times (was 12).

Arms

• Warbreaker’s radius increased to 10 yards (was 8 yards).
• Warbreaker now deals reduced damage beyond 5 targets.

Warrior

• Shield Slam damage increased by 8%.
• Pain and Gain now heals for 2% of your max health (was 3.5%).

Arms

• Mortal Strike damage decreased by 15%.
• Overpower damage decreased by 20%.
• Storm Wall now heals for 5% of maximum health (was 8%).

Warrior

• All talent trees have had many talents move locations or have had their pathing updated. 
• Honed Reflexes has been redesigned – Cooldown of Die by the Sword, Enraged Regeneration, Shield Wall, Pummel, Intervene, Spell Reflection, and Storm Bolt reduced by 5%.
• Second Wind gains an additional effect – While you are below 35% health, restores 1.0% health every 1 second. The amount restored increases the closer you are to death (max 2%).
• Berserker Rage is now learned at level 12.
• Slam damage increased by 130%. Arms Slam damage bonus reduced to 50% (was 75%).
• Bladestorm damage increased by 70%.
• Ravager damage decreased by 10%.
• Sudden Death can now stack 2 times.
• Thunder Clap Rage cost reduced to 20 (was 30) and now applies Rend by default if it is known.
• Frothing Berserker now refunds 10% Rage for Arms and Fury, and 25% Rage for Protection.
• Shockwave no longer generates Rage on cast.
• Champion's Spear generates 10 Rage on cast (was 20).
• Thunderous Roar no longer generates Rage on cast.
• Thunderous Roar now deals reduced damage beyond 8 targets. The tooltip will reflect this change in a future update.
• Thunderous Words now causes Thunderous Roar’s Bleed effect to increase damage targets take from all the Warrior’s bleed effects, rather than passively increasing it all the time.
• Odyn's Fury now deals reduced damage beyond 8 targets. The tooltip will reflect this change in a future update.
• Uproar now reduces the cooldown of Thunderous Roar by 45 seconds (was 30 seconds).
• Champion's Might now causes you to deal 25% increased critical strike damage to targets chained to your Spear.
• Piercing Challenge now increases all damage dealt by Champion's Spear (was only initial damage).
• The visual for Shockwave will now properly match its radius, both with and without the Rumbling Earth talent. Impact visual has also been updated.
• The visual for Thunderous Roar has been adjusted.
• Fixed an issue that caused Rallying Cry to increase maximum health by 15% instead of the intended 10%.

The following talents have been removed

• Titanic Throw
• Sonic Boom
• Blood and Thunder

Arms

• New Talent: Finishing Blows – Overpower generates 8 Rage when used on a target below 35% health.
• Barbaric Training has been redesigned for Arms – Now grants 10% damage and 10% critical damage to Slam, Cleave, and Whirlwind.
• Storm of Swords has been redesigned – Now grants Whirlwind or Cleave a 30% chance to make your next Whirlwind or Cleave cost 100% less Rage.
• Unhinged has been redesigned – Every other time Bladestorm or Ravager deal damage, you automatically cast a Mortal Strike at your target or random nearby enemy.
• Dance of Death has been redesigned – When an enemy dies while affected by your Bladestorm, all damage you deal is increased by 5% for the remainder of the Bladestorm and for 2 seconds afterwards. When an enemy dies while affected by your Ravager, its duration is extended by 2 seconds. These effects can trigger a maximum of 3 times per use of Bladestorm or Ravager.
• Blademaster's Torment has been redesigned – Activating Avatar grants 8 seconds of Sweeping Strikes and while Avatar is active the cooldown of Cleave is reduced by 1.5 seconds.
• Storm of Swords has been redesigned – Cleave and Whirlwind have a 30% chance to make your next Cleave or Whirlwind cost 100% less Rage.
• All ability damage increased by 43%.
• Execute damage increased by 15%.
• Slam damage increased by 20%.
• Cleave now replaces Whirlwind.
• Cleave cooldown reduced to 4.5 seconds (was 6 seconds).
• Cleave damage increased by 5%.
• Overpower damage increased by 55%.
• Rage generated from auto-attacks reduced by 16%.
• Whirlwind base Rage cost reduced to 20 (was 30).
• Whirlwind damage reduced by 33%.
• Rend base Rage cost reduced to 20 (was 30).
• Ignore Pain Rage cost reduced to 20 (was 40).
• Battlelord no longer increases damage dealt by Overpower.
• Fervor of Battle now also triggers from Cleave.
• Seismic Reverberation now also triggers from Cleave.
• Collateral Damage's damage bonus now applies to Cleave as well as Whirlwind.
• Warlord's Torment no longer triggers from Colossus Smash. Duration of Recklessness buff increased by 50% and bonus Rage generation reduced to 25% (was 100%).
• In For The Kill's Haste bonus now lasts as long as Colossus Smash does.
• Improved Overpower increases number of Overpower charges by 1.
• Dreadnaught no longer increases number of Overpower charges.
• Dreadnaught damage reduced by 58%.
• Strength of Arms no longer causes Overpower to generates 8 Rage when used on a target below 35% health.
• Strength of Arms now also increases Overpower damage by 15%.
• Tactician chance to reset cooldown of Overpower per Rage spent reduced to 1% (was 1.3%).
• Deft Experience increase to Tactician's chance to reset cooldown of Overpower per Rage spent reduced to 0.5% (was 0.6%).
• Valor in Victory's Versatility bonus increased to 2% (was 1%).
• Skullsplitter now accelerates Rend's Bleed baseline.
• Ravager is now a choice node with Bladestorm. All existing Bladestorm sub-talents have been updated to work with both Ravager and Bladestorm.
• Bladestorm no longer generates Rage on cast.
• Crushing Force now increases Mortal Strike damage by 5% and Mortal Strike critical strike damage by 5% per point (was Slam damage and critical strike chance).
• Critical Thinking now restores 10% of Rage spent on Execute per point (was 5%).
• Warlord's Torment tooltip updated with detailed information. No functional changes.

The following talents have been removed:

• Tide of Blood has been removed, its effects have been added to Skullsplitter
• Reaping Swings
• Hurricane

A: You are likely not using enough Overpower or holding onto your cooldowns too much. If your group does not have Skyfury then you are far more likely to have Rage issues. Most AoE builds have you rage-starving on single-target.