Arms Warrior Playstyle and Rotation Guide

General Rotation:

1. Maintain/Apply Rend
2. Mortal Strike
3. Execute (If on 2 stacks of Sudden Death or 3 stacks of Marked for Execution as Slayer)
4. Overpower
5. Slam

Execute Rotation:

1. Mortal Strike (With 2 stacks of Executioner’s Precision)
2. Execute (If less than 2 stacks of Executioner’s Precision)
3. Overpower (If below 40 Rage)
4. Skullsplitter (If below 40 Rage and on 0 charges of Overpower and if talented)

NOTE: Below 35% HP, Rend is automatically maintained with Mortal Strike through the Bloodletting talent.

Opener (Slayer):

1. Charge
2. Rend
3. Avatar + Thunderous Roar
4. Colossus Smash
5. Mortal Strike
6. Bladestorm

NOTE: Still use Execute as outlined in the General Rotation section if either of the conditions are met before Bladestorming

Opener (Colossus):

1. Charge
2. Rend
3. Ravager (once your charge reaches your target)
4. Avatar + Thunderous Roar
5. Colossus Smash
6. Mortal Strike and Overpower until you reach 10 stacks of Colossal Might
7. Demolish (with 10 stacks of Colossal Might)

The Colossus opener can be slightly dynamic depending on how many of your Mortal Strikes crit. It is important to get your Demolish off while Colossus Smash is still on your target. As such I recommend using Demolish with no less than 2 seconds remaining on the CS debuff.

I also recommend having a good tracker of Colossal Might stacks to make the process easier. During a fight, the tracker won’t be quite as relevant as long as you’re consistently hitting a target, you’ll go into each new Demolish with a full 10 stacks easily.

Multi Target (Slayer):

1. Charge
2. Thunder Clap
3. Avatar + Thunderous Roar
4. Colossus Smash
5. Cleave
6. Bladestorm
7. Sweeping Strikes once Bladestorm ends

If targets are hitting Execute range, you can begin focusing them down with the Execute rotation if they are a priority mob and need to die quickly. Otherwise, maintain the multi target rotation.

Sweeping Strikes should be used on cooldown as long as you will get the full value of the buff before the pack dies.

Multi Target (Colossus):

1. Charge
2. Thunder Clap
3. Avatar + Thunderous Roar
4. Warbreaker
5. Ravager
6. Sweeping Strikes
7. Cleave

As with the Single Target rotation, once Colossal Might hits 10 stacks you will send Demolish unless the Colossus Smash debuff will wear off before this moment comes. Between Cleave and Unhinged from Ravager you should be able to reach 10 stacks of the buff before the Colossus Smash debuff wears off.

Playstyle

General Playstyle

Arms is significantly slower to play than in previous years. The rage economy feels fine pre Execute phase but can feel a bit frustrating in Execute with various moments of Rage starvation.

In Execute, Charge Weaving might be necessary; as such, a swing timer Weakaura would be useful. Charge Weaving involves running away from your target and charging back to it in between auto attack swings so as not to miss out or delay any rage gain from your auto attacks. It can be a bit tricky to get the hang of to begin with but it is invaluable in moments of rage starvation.

Cooldown Usage

For the most part, using cooldowns as they come up is the best course of action since Arms Warrior cooldowns are quite short. The natural exceptions are if your target is about to begin taking increased damage or if multiple adds are about to spawn.

Defensives

Die by the Sword should be held for dangerous periods of high incoming damage. Almost every fight will have at least one of these moments so try to identify it before beginning progress or a high key.

Spell Reflection is a highly underrated defensive tool. While many Warriors are keen to use it as a damage spell, it also has a 20% magic damage reduction effect for 5 seconds on a 25 second cooldown. Try and get used to using this spell as often as possible with almost ANY magic damage you take in a Mythic+ key or raid encounter. Preventing as much damage as possible is just as important as dealing as much damage as possible.

Ignore Pain is slightly harder to make use of now that we aren’t completely rage capped the majority of the time but this is still a particularly strong defensive tool when required. It should be a go to ability to use any time you are overcapping rage. Outside of this, using Ignore Pain during any period of taking moderate damage is a positive for your healers.

Finally, Defensive Stance is a tool massively underutilized by a large majority of Warrior players due to the damage reduction you suffer while Defensive Stance is active. While this is understandable, the damage reduction is incredibly minor if you time the ability correctly and only need to be in it for the 3 seconds of cooldown it incurs. 3 seconds is roughly 3 globals and while this might coincide with a Mortal Strike, 10% less damage on 1 Mortal Strike will not destroy your DPS, especially if using Defensive Stance allows you to live an otherwise unlivable amount of damage taken.