Gear
Tier Sets
A new patch means new tier set bonuses. The Arms bonuses for 10.1 are:
2 set - Your Critical Strike chance and Critical Strike damage are increased by 5% against all targets affected by your Deep Wounds
4 set - Your Deep Wounds critical strikes have a chance to give you a stack of Crushing Advance, causing your next Mortal Strike to deal 10% more damage and deal additional damage hitting all targets in front of you (damage reduced beyond 5 targets) stacking up to 3 times
These set bonuses are virtually completely passive. While more damage on Mortal Strike is always good, (similar to Overpower stacks) it isn’t worth holding uses of Mortal Strike to wait for full stacks.
The damage portion of the 4 set is rather underwhelming on single target but does begin to add up on multi target. The rotational impact on AoE is minimal with simply adding Mortal Strike into a natural AoE rotation at 3 stacks instead of mindlessly using Cleave and Overpowerr on repeat.
Embellishments
Embellishments are special properties that can be added to most crafted gear adding a little bit of extra power to your item. Some of these are strong, and some are not. The high-value Embellishments are:
- Shadowflame Patch - For raid you will use 2 of these on your boots and legs. The tier legs are poorly itemised for both DPS specs so being able to put our own stats on this slot is significant
- Allied Wristguards of Companionship - FOR M+. Since Shadowflame patch is a primarily single target embellishment, the stats gained from this item is quite a bit better
- Frostfire Legguards of Preparation - FOR M+. This will not be the longterm aim but could be a better early pickup than the alternative listed below
- Elemental Lariat - FOR M+. As mentioned above, this is more of a longterm goal since the power of this item is now tied to the number of gem slots you have.
It is worth noting that a weapon could be a worthwhile pickup depending on your raiding activity in this patch. Heroic Ashkandur will be better than any 447 weapon you could pick up, so chances are it won't be worth crafting a weapon, especially considering it takes 2 sparks to craft.
Onyx Annulet
The new Onyx Annulet is proving to not be a hugely impactful item for Arms Warrior. Double 418 item level crafted rings just come out ahead of the Annulet with the best fully upgraded stone combination on Single Target while on AoE the Annulet is considerably worse. If you’re still working on getting max item level crafted rings, the stones you are looking for are below.
Single Target: Desirous Blood Stone (Necromantic), Prophetic Twilight Stone (Shadow) and Freezing Ice Stone (Frost)
Multi Target: Desirous Blood Stone (Necromantic), Prophetic Twilight Stone (Shadow) and Storm Infused Stone (Nature)
You can read more about the Onyx Annulet in our Primordial Stones and Onyx Annulet Ring article and see a full list of the Primordial Stones in our List of All Primordial Stones and Condensed Magic.
Trinkets
There are a couple of interesting raid trinkets this tier. The Ominous Chromatic Essence (AKA Icon 2.0) is a particularly strong trinket, especially when multiple players in the group/raid are using it. As an Arms Warrior, you will want to rigidly stick to Haste from this trinket; no other stat really comes close.
Another interesting trinket is the Elementium Pocket Anvil. This offers a proc that adds extra damage to our main damage ability, Mortal Strike. The longer a fight goes on, the more damage it does, up to a cap of 5 stacks, which will be around 5 minutes into a fight. Worth noting, this trinket does not share a cooldown with other on-use trinkets.
The new dungeon pool opens up some great trinket options for both Warrior specs including Irideus Fragment from Halls of Infusion, Homeland Raid Horn from Uldaman and Vial of Animated Blood from Underrot.
Gear Upgrading
The new crest system is particularly powerful. It is normally worth using crests early and often, especially if you feel that it will take a while to replace a certain piece of gear.
As a general rule of thumb, you should look to upgrade high-value items first. These items include:
- Weapon
- High value armor pieces (chest, legs, head)
- Trinkets