Arms PVP vs. Fury PVP vs. Prot PVP 3.2

A very quick, very right to the point discussion on the state of all warrior specs in pvp.
First and for most let me draw the following conclusions up front, then explain them.

ARMS – Best for arena, and Battlegrounds
FURY – Good & Fun for Battlegrounds, Arena only in the RAREST of occasions
PROT – Good & Fun for Battlegrounds, Arena only in the RAREST of occasions

Now that that’s out of the way lets continue.

ARMS PVP –
Basically ARMS is going to be your best PVP spec. Mortal strike, Overpower, Execute, Rend, thunderclap, bladestorm and a few other skills separate ARMS form the two other specs...That and the “OMG-STOP-HITTING-ME-SO-HARD” damage you deal coupled with the “DAMN-DAMN-DAMN-MY-HEALS-SUCK” Mortal Strike debuff and ARMS becomes ever more solid as THE BEST PVP spec for a warrior.

In Arena ARMS outshines because of Mortal strike, plain and simple. Where fury does have some good dps, it means nothing if the person’s health is back in half a second. Your ability to keep within range and your ability to keep Mortal Strike on a target are what will make or break your Arena results.

In battlegrounds ARMS lets you fly around a battle field. Your ability to use Intercept as well as charge provides you with the GET UP AND GO you need to get up and go meltsomeone’s face. Bladestorm works great in groups as does tclap for honor grinding.
Your ArP in arms mode, is enough to give you a slight extra boost to damage and is ONLY a buff, which is to say you don’t GIVE anything to get this, whereas in the other two specs you either give up damage given or damage taken.

While you do not have any INSTANT spell interrupts you have something which is almost as good and depending on the situation may be better, Overpower, which when speced gives you the ability to reduce casting effectiveness by 50% for 10 seconds or to put it in an example.

You hit a healer casting who would have healed for 5000.
The heal now only heals for 2500
If the heal target also has the mortal strike debuff there’s 50% to that 2500.
Which turns a 5k casted heal into a 1250 actual heal; which is 75% of the original heal.

And this little combo alone is what gives ARMS such a large edge over the other two specs.

FURY PVP -
I know, you’ll cite me some example of a fury warrior doing all these great things or how you’re fury and you do just fine...you’re an oddity if this is you and your example is an oddity if you want to provide one.

I understand guys, I do. Titan’s grip is like a warrior’s wet dream with a supermodel subject, but since the nerf it’s the warriors wet dream with an ugly fat chick. So basically it’s like a really cool thing, but then...not so much, in fact not at all and while you WANT it to be cool, fact remains it’s not....

So again I’m sorry.
.
.
BUT,
It is fun. In battlegrounds you really lose no “effectiveness”, this is primarily do to the nature of battlegrounds.
One about half the BG isn’t going to be geared so you’re fighting lesser opponents right off the bat.
Two there are seldom any heals and when there are they are spread out.
This is optimal for a Fury warrior because you deal such a large amount of damage in such a short amount of time that it anyone NOT having a consistent stream of heals hitting them is going to not wanna be near you.

You do have large burst damage but truth be told in Arena burst and king but consider you’re also taking 5% more damage and now you have a healer “unbursting” all that burst you did and NOW you have a slow cooldown between your next yellow attacks. Which only provides more time for a healer to get your target back up to snuff. You are very kiteable by most classes even with a decreased intercept cooldown and the ability to instant intercept.

Now I did say RARE occasions FURY is ok to use and may work. If you are an uber warrior and know what the hell you’re doing you can probably pull this off in an arena, keep in mind you have to have perfect heals as well and you would still be better off in arms. If you are in a 3v3 or 5v5 this may also work if you already have a warrior applying mortal strike, but even then you’d benefit your team more by specing arms and using TWO bladestorms.

Stick to battlegrounds in fury.

PROT PVP –
I love it for BG. Not because you put up big numbers and not because you drop things in two swings, but because you can take ALL the damage a team wants to thrown at you and still have time to cripple a team AND type /dance.

As I’ve said before you have the ability to be like batman. Stuns, reflects, fear, a seemingly endless supply of life, silencing throws, armor reducing effects, disarms. You can now also dish out a respectable amount of dps, AND if you are geared and such for it a shield slam CAN really hurt. (I have a story about running with an elemental shammy and prot pvp in Arena skirmishes I’ll tell you later)

In BG’s you run around causing general annoyance. I like to call Prot the little brother spec. It’s annoying as hell but you learn to love it.

In arena, again only in the rarest of occasions, is it worth anything. I would say it’s viable in a 5v5 setting and in the “proper” 3v3 team makup. In 2v2 it is a VERY difficult class to make viable. HOWEVER it can be done. Sadly I’d say prot has more place in Arena than fury.

If you want to try prot pvp out I would go with a VERY high end dpser and focus on stunning a single target while the DPS nukes. Spell reflect really helps out in this environment as does an heroic throw at a healer because of the silencing abilities. Basically charge the NON healer, conc blow to stun, heroic throw at the healer, shockwave to stun again, finish off with a revenge. Works best with a RANGED dps class.

So that’s basically it. I hope you take away that ARMS is your arena spec and fury and prot are both good in BG’s.

To put it another way on a mullet ARMS would be up front (business) and Fury and Prot would be in the back(party).

Hope that helps clear things up.