Introduction
My name is Dan, perhaps better known as Danwarr. I have been playing WoW since late Vanilla and Warrior specifically since Mists of Pandaria. I have raided with Method since Castle Nathria, always as DPS Warrior. This guide serves to help you learn how to play Arms Warrior during The War Within.
What has changed
11.1.5 Arms Warrior Changes
For 11.1.5 there are no significant class changes for Arms Warrior. However, there is a lot of other new patch content being added to the game that you can check out in these articles.
11.1 Arms Warrior Changes
There are some changes to the talent layout for Warrior. These are:
- Reinforced Plates is now a 2 point node and gives 5% Stamina and 5% Armor per point. Additionally, Endurance Training has been removed
- Overwhelming Rage is now a 1 point node
- Two-Handed Specialization is now a 2 point node and gives 3% damage and 2% reduction of damage from AoE attacks
- Thunderous Words now increases Bleed damage by 20% on affected targets (was 30%)
- Cruel Strikes, Wild Strikes and the Weapon Specialization nodes have changed positions
A few balance changes coming to Arms in 11.1:
- Martial Prowess (Overpower stacks) increase Mortal Strike and Cleave damage by 15% per stack (was 30%)
- Bloodborne increases Bleed damage by 5/10% (was 7.5/15%)
- Bloodsurge now causes Deep Wounds damage to have a chance to generate 3 Rage (was all Bleed damage had a 10% chance to generate 5 Rage)
- Mortal Strike damage increased several times
- Overpower damage increased several times
- Dreadnaught damage increased several times
- Cleave damage increased by 10%
- Execute damage increased several times
- Slam damage increased several times
- Whirlwind damage increased by 40%
Additionally there are some Hero Talent balance changes:Colossus
- Colossal Might no longer applied by Execute
- Demolish damage increased by 30%
- Practiced Strikes increases Mortal Strike and Cleave damage by 15% (was 20%)
- Arterial Bleed increases Rend and Deep Wounds damage by 5% per Colossal Might stack (was 3%)
Slayer
- Cleave will only trigger Reap the Storm if 3 or more targets are hit (was previously 20% chance)
- Imminent Demise and Death Drive now require Sudden Death to be taken to function
- Opportunist now increases Overpower damage by 25% (was 20%)
The Imminent Demise change will have some talent build implication which will be noted in the Talents section.
11.0.7 Arms Warrior Changes
There are no notable class changes for 11.0.7 besides the addition of the new ring Cyrce's Circlet. This ring is now pretty much BiS for everyone. There is a section under gearing to detail what gems we will be using in the new ring.
11.0.5 Arms Warrior Changes
During a recent class tuning update, Arms Warrior had the following changes:
- Colossus: Mountain of Muscle and Scars now reduces damage taken by 5% (was 2.5%).
- Colossus: Dominance of the Colossus now causes enemies damaged by Demolish to deal up to 10% less damage to you (was 5%).
These changes are a defensive buff only, and don’t impact the gameplay outside of that.
Patch Release
Arms Warrior has received a few notable tuning changes with the release of 11.0.5. These include:
- Thunderous Roar deals reduced damage beyond 5 targets (previously 8)
- Warbreaker radius increased to 10 yards (previously 8 yards)
- Warbreaker deals reduced damage beyond 5 targets (previously uncapped)
- Slayer: Overwhelming Blades caps at 10 stacks (previously 12)
Additionally to the changes listed above, further tuning was implemented for Arms in hotfixes during the 11.0.5 patch including:
- Execute damage increased by 7%
- Mortal Strike damage increased by 15%
- Overpower damage increased by 15%
- Dreadnaught damage increased by 15%
- Cleave damage increased by 20%
- Colossus: Demolish single-target damage increased by 15% (the first 2 strikes of Demolish)
- Slayer: Reap the Storm damage increased by 25%
- Slayer: Slayer’s Strikes damage increased by 15%
The War Within Arms Warrior Changes
Coming out of Dragonflight there have been a lot of fundamental changes to Arms Warrior, most notably with the Rage economy. Slam, Rend, Thunder Clap and Whirlwind all now cost 20 Rage without any talents increasing this cost. This, along with the removal of the Furious Blows talent, serves to slow down the gameplay of Arms which had been quite rapid for several expansions.
There is a big shift in damage breakdown coming into the new expansion with a significantly higher focus on Mortal Strike alone instead of supplanting much of Arms damage between Deep Wounds, Rend and Overpower.
Execute phase is still important for Arms Warrior but Execute as an ability is slightly less powerful due to the Rage changes. Hero talents can help this a bit which will be covered later.
The talent trees have received a reshuffle which will be covered in a later section. Finally, all classes in The War Within have access to new Hero Talent trees which aim to change up the gameplay of a given spec a bit further. These Hero Talents for Arms Warrior are Slayer and Colossus. The intricacies of these trees will be covered later.