3.1 ARMS Arena & PVP: Nerf bat coming soon...

So I “Enforced” my will on my guild (i.e. I begged:) and I’m starting to get some Nax runs now, or rather there are a few people who don’t need the weapons I’m after so we’re swapping out, so I think I’ll just keep with the guild and try for a /roll on a good 25 man Nax weapon. The guild isn’t extremely OP they just gel well so we run Nax pretty quickly with few wipes if any.

I’m still running some recounts on the REND glyph vs. the Execute Glyph for PVP. It’s hard to say as the recount doesn’t give the TRUE impact of the glyphs because PVP is more about burst and REND is more about over time. I think I’ll stick with the Execute glyph regardless, if only because I feel it lends to the 8-10k crits I can drop on clothies in BG’s, nothing like smacking a mage for 5k with MS and then 4k regular swing, and then a 10k execute almost back to back.

I’ve gone back to the axe for the increase in Crits. Again the idea being that BURST needed to be priority in PVP and it’s easy to hit a higher crit rating with an axe that it is with a mace. Did a few Arena last night and you definitely notice the additional 5% in crits and you don’t give up so much AP because of crit gems.

I’m about 300 gold from duel specing and then I think I’ll have a 100% solid spec for Arena, it’s going to be focused on burst and burst damage only. I’ll post it probably at the end of the week.

So if you haven’t heard they are planning on doing a hot fix to a couple of things, most notably for warriors they are planning on changing the following:

1. Juggernaut will no longer have 100% chance to crit your next MS or Slam, nope instead it’ll be 25%. This SUCKS TAUREN BALLS. I’ve never seen so much QQ so quickly and I’ve never seen a class get hit with the nerf bat so quickly as a result(except ret pallies during the RetPally fiasco of 08).

The difference between the two, ret and warrior, in case your wondering, is warriors aren’t OWNING everything the way Ret pallys were. That extra 3-7k damage ever 12 seconds breaks down to average about 416 extra dps per second. (which when you think about it is NOT that much, especially when you consider the nature of heals in Arena.) This 75% crit nerf is really going to show up

2. They are going to “adjust” the 20% charge glyph to 7%...which instead of dropping charge by 3 seconds drops it by 1.05 seconds (WOOT) so basically this is a worthless glyph now. If you have any in your bags sell them now while the getting is good because they will be obsolete soon. New glyph breakdown should be as follows
MS, Execute and Hamstring.

Is it me or is the stance dance we have to do fun. Shield wall, disarm, pummel, reflect, intercept. When you think about how often you need to use these it’s pretty intense and demanding. If you’ve never tanked a raid or heroic I suggest you do this to help with the “pressure” of knowing when and how to use your skills. Experience is a big factor so just get into some arena, create a junk team if you’re not to experienced and start getting some fights under your belt.

See you in the arenas

3.1 Warrior to Raid or PVP...THAT is the question.

*sigh*
I’m generally not one to admit defeat, so I’m not going to start now, but what I will admit is that sometimes you need to change course, refocus, develop a gameplan and move on.

So back to my arena team. Like I said before I’m still using a titan steel destroyer. I need only 1 ring, a belt, and a back to be fully PVP geared, I have everything else. Except the most crucial component of a PVP ARMS warrior...a bad ass weapon.

Lately I haven’t found the time to raid so I’ve been hurting in this area. The two times I’ve been able to roll on Death’s Bite I was out rolled. Once soundly, 87 to my 6, and then I lost one so close that I don’t eve like to say the roll count, but lets just say if my dice had 3 more points to it I’d be smacking people with DB right now.

So after my arena partner and I, while getting better, were still just 5 fights over .500 we’ve decided to take a break. Not that we couldn’t get to the magical 1850, just that it would take us about 3 weeks worth of time to get there. We’re not a horrible team, we got a good strategy for just about every set up and very rarely were we getting owned, and then when we were getting owned it was usually because of a screw up. The biggest problem has been DPS on my part. Not that I wasn't hitting things, I just wasn't hitting them Hard enough. I've got decent gear, nice crits (30% battle stance) decent enchants on just about any thing that is enchantable. Just that with MS, Overpower and Execute all being influenced directly by my weapon it's hard to enter into an arena with a crafted weapon.

So what’s the plan? I’m going to switch to Prot to get in on some raid Nax. Why not DPS you might ask? Well ironically enough after all the Heroics I’ve done and all the OS, VoA and such believe it or not my Prot gear is better than my DPS gear...don’t ask me how it just is. The only thing I’ll dole money out for is a shield, other than that I have a very nice set up going. Well let me take a step back. I MIGHT go prot. The Might is contingent upon my desire to switch guilds. My son’s guild has offered to help me gear up. They raid pretty frequently and I’m sure they could help me out. So why not swap guildes you might ask?

I guess it’s because I like the guild I work with now, the problem is that their raid times are usually NOTHING like my schedule permits.
So I’m at a cross roads. Do I swap guilds or do I tough it out and hope that at some point I can time things just right to gear up.

That’s the question for today, or rather for the next three days. I’m posting a POLL right now that will allow you to decide for me. In the end I’m going to be having fun regardless so it matter’s only to a degree. BUT as it will drastically change the content of the site as I’ll be more focused on PVP if I switch guilds, and PVE if I decide to go Prot to get in on some more pugs.

So basically Switch Guildes = PVP posts with some raid info type stuff
Going Prot = Staying with current guild, farming raids, PUGS, etc, etc, etc.

You decide. Poll closes at the end of the week.

3.2 Warrior Macro & ARMS PVP

Wow Warrior Macro Menu

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You can find these and many more macros in our new forum: http://wow-warrior-forum.webmmorpg.net/warrior-pvp-f10/warrior-macro-pvp-t21.htm#90

Some useful Macros/key bindings for a PVP Arms warrior.

To cast Pummel(while in battle stance)
/cast Berserker Stance
/cast Pummel

To cast spell reflect (you have to SPAM the hell out of this to get it off before a spell hits. Works well on mirror mages)
/equip [One Hand Weapon Name] (you have to do this or you are not able to equip the shield if have a 2 hander)
/equip [Shield Name]
/Cast Spell reflect
* make sure to keep the shield on till you reflect the spell or till the buff goes away. I’ve placed my weapon in one of my action bar slots so I just click it to re-equip my two hander (BE SURE TO DO THIS. Nothing sucks more than losing an arena, only to find yourself in Org with a shield on your back realizing you’d been fighting 1/2 a match with a sword and board.

To Cast Bladestorm while in berserker stance for +crit
/Cast Berserker Stance
/Cast Bladestorm

Execute CRIT FTW
/Cast Berserker Stance
/Cast Recklessness
/Cast Execute
* You can also cast this to pop recklessness because if execute isn’t up you’ll still end up with recklessness. I like to use this once I’m at the 20% mark in PVE situations. PVP it’s a little less potent only because you’re generally dealing with a healer and the 20% mark goes away fast. It’s still ok to use if you’re instant Execute procs, but chances are you’re going to get off 1 execute and the other 2 crits will go towards an MS or Rend or something.

Charge hamstring
/Cast Charge
/Cast Hamstring

Intercept hamstring(to be placed in your Battle Stance ActionBar)
/Cast Berserker Stance
/Cast Intercept
/Cast hamstring
/Cast Battle stance

Charge hamstring (to be placed in your Berserker Stance Action bar)
/Cast Battle Stance
/Cast Charge
/Cast Hamstring

The last two macro’s are great stance dancers and instant gap closers. Be mindful of rage when switching to use Intercept because if you don’t have the rage you’ll basically burn whatever rage you find you had during the dance swap. You can put a “/Cast Bloodrage” in there if you’d like I just don’t’ find it necessary, but what these macro’s allow you to do is basically zip around the battlefield. With charge being on 15 second CD you can basically have a distance closer available every time you need it with just the rapid spamming of one button.

I find that having the MIDDLE MOUSE BUTTON key bound to the action bar position where you place these two macros is a great tool. So for instance when you start a battle if you bind your middle mouse button to the second to the last action bar spot you simply have to spam your middle mouse button regardless of what stance you’re in to get from where you are to where your victim...er target is.(to expound on this further....when you switch stances your action bar changes, so if you put the first macro in your battle stance action bar you'll switch to berserker, once you're in berserker if the second macro is in your berserker action bar you'll switch to battle and charge...sorta like a 1 button macro but via key binding.)

Other key bindings I’ve found useful:
Execute = Caps Lock
* Place execute in LAST spot of Actionbar on Battle and Berserker stances and have Caps Lock keybound. Careful when typing as you can often find yourself YELLING THINGS TO PEOPLE YOU DIDN’T INTEND. (which is why I always preface instances and raids with, “execute Capslocks bound, I’m NOT REALLY YELLING”

MS Action bar slot #1 for quick strike
Overpower #2 this is really nice for PVE because you can generally click #1, #2, and CAPS and an occasional rend (#3) and never have to really do much of anything else. I’m going to do some tests on a dummy tonight to test my theory that a regular rotation>DPS than a 6 second bladestorm. I’ll post screenshots of recount.
Adding a 2 new Macros:
I call this the "oh shit Macro"
This is the macro I use when I realize my healer is either DEAD or is now a sheep and I’m eating spells like they’re Krispy Cream donuts.

/Cast Defensive Stance
/Equip [1 hand weapon Name]
/Equip [Shield Name here]
/Cast Shield Wall
/Cast Enraged Regeneration
/Cast Spell Reflect

So like the sequence hints at, you want to use this when you realize that if you don’t you’re dead in the next 5-10 seconds. It equips a sword and board, casts shield wall to reduce the damage you take and if available Enraged Regeneration to help with the healing and then Spell Reflect to turn some of the other guys PEW PEW against them. This macro works in PVE as well. You can swap Spell Reflect and Enraged Regen to your style, but basically just go spam happy with this and it should help save your life...or extend it a few more seconds.

Here’s a macro that was developed in light of mages and the following scenario.
I charge, mage ices me, mage blinks, mages starts to cast a spell at me, I SPAM THIS MACRO FAST

/Use [PVP TRINKET NAME]
/Cast Berserker Stance
/Cast Bloodrage
/Cast Intercept

NEW....

#showtooltip intervene

/cast defensive stance
/cast [target=Partner] Intervene
intervenes to your partner, great for getting out of movment imparing effects or for helping to peal that rogue off your healer. Change "partner" to your arena teamates name.


#showtooltip

/cast [mod:shift,form:1/2,@focus]charge;[mod:shift,form:3,@focus]intercept;[form:2,help]intervene;[form:3]intercept;charge
/startattack [harm]
(care of wowwikki)

Basically what this will do is allow you to charge while in battle or defensive (if target is foe, intervene if target is friend), intercept if in berserker. IF you press shift while using this then it will switch the target to your focus, this is great for ARENA where you have the healer focused you can interupt. I've recently replaced my previous "one button" mobility keybinding+macro simply because this allows for a focused target attack.

I find that this is a right off the bat type of macro and about 98% of the time as soon as I charge a mage I get ready to hit this macro because I know what their gameplan is. This is a great tool because once you get to them they are in deep trouble for the next 15 seconds till their blink comes up again. Make sure you have them well hamstrung and near the 10 second mark you need to start in with bladestorm. Reason being is that once blink comes up the first thing they are going to do is ice you in place and try to blink away. The reason you want to bladestorm BEFORE they can do this is so that they try to do it and blow the blink getting away from your bladestorm. You do it early enough because you can use it to do some damage on them but it’s more of a defensive move. Once they blink your charge should be off of its cooldown so charge the mage again. Now he’s stuck with you at his side for another 12-14 seconds with nothing to do but eat your axe/mace/spear/sword. Hopefully you’ve been keeping MS up on him and you’ve done enough damage to where he’s either dead or near it. Finish him off and move on to the next target.

These are a few “ghettofied” Macro’s I use. I don’t know if there are faster versions out there, but as a good starter set these should do.
If you have any other Macros send them my way. blackthought@opendomain.ws or simply add them in the comments section.

Warrior 3.1 ARMS it is!!! (and a bladestorm tutorial)

Well I haven’t posted in a bit because my Arena partner has been working me like a dog. I respeced yet again (GOD I gotta get duel specs) and went arms with my titan steal destroyer. I did this for two reasons.
1. More stamina = more life = longer fights = more wins
2. Ignore Armor

I also picked up my pvp neck piece and my pvp boots from Wintergrasp. My resilience didn’t go up to much because I was using the Saronite boots before and sadly they have more Resilience than Hateful Gladiator stuff.

So I’m down to needing my belt, cloak and two rings to be completely PVP geared out. Now after all the hustle and bustle about not really know which way to go with ARMS or FURY after 3.1, especially for PVP, especially for those of us who haven’t gotten a chance to finish up and/or win a good weapon of Nax I’m back to proclaiming ARMS:Mace Spec as the way to go. With one small adjustment, and sadly it’s not towards the spec, it was with a glyph. I dropped the bladestorm glyph and picked up the rend glyph. Crazy right? Crazy Wrong actually.

The rend glyph basically tags your target for an additional 6 seconds. Now this might not sound like much, but when speced properly your rend damage can Overpower. In addition you have an additional 6 seconds of DOTS on a target, which, believe it or not, won me 3 matches last night.

I was eating up a mage, his healer didn’t have LOS on him and he blinked even further away right before I could finish him off. Well the next 4 seconds resulted in him dying and then me turning around to dump on his priest.

So all in all PVP ARMS: MACE is much more effective than the axe was. I was able to get to a 1k+ rating last night and hope to add to that tonight. What’s killing me right now is the utter lack of MONEY I’ve been having. Literally as soon as I log on I’m in an arena and the que times on the arenas are at most 20 seconds. So I haven’t even had the time lately to post titan steel bars in the AH.

As for PVE the rend glyph actually helps in this department too. Same reason as it helps in PVP.

What about bladestorm? IT is both a blessing and a curse.
First why it’s a blessing.
It get’s you out of snares and ice. It’s nice to pop on clothy healers, if you’re on a lock and you don’t have your trinket up and your berserker rage is on CD and he’s going to start to fear juggle you it’s a nice way out of getting feared and you can generally hit a caster 1-2 times during a long CC type spell before you have to pop BS. The best use I’ve found for it though is to use it against rogues that are trying to kill my healer. What I like to do is make sure my healer doesn’t get out charge range. I then play stupid and go attack the other teammate. Usually this is when the rogue thinks it’s GO TIME. He saps, my healer says NOW, I turn around, charge, rend, hamstring, then bladestorm. While blade storm doesn’t deal an awful lot of damage, when you’re doing it to a leather wearer with no real armor buffs all it takes is for 2 of your swings to crit for him to be at less than 1/4 of his life when the BS is done. From there it’s a quick mortal strike and Boom rogue down. Even if the rogue vanishes he’ll un-vanish because of the rend. If he sprints he’s only going to go so fast and by the time he’s done your charge and or intercept ability should be ready to go. Charge or intercept and finish him off. So there’s the little rogue buster combo.

Now for the Curse that is Bladestrom.
Well first it’s nerfed. So for 6 seconds you might average 1k-1.5 k damage or 6-9k damage over 6 seconds. When you think about the proc rate of instant execute (2x1-2k), Overpower(2x1-3k), and MS(2x2-4k), along with normal white swings(2.5x600) = 9500 -19500 during that same time frame. Now the range is bigger because things depend on procs and such but overall you’re going to do more damage in the same 6 seconds.

Bladestorm can also work against you if you don’t have your target properly snared and if you haven’t been paying attention to their blinks, sprints, charges, and intercepts. Lets say you jump into a fight and start off with bladestorm against a mage. First thing he’s going to do is blink away and toast your ass from a distance. Same thing with a warlock. He’s going to simply dot you up and take the damage. Then when you’re done you get feared and chaos bolted. Hunters are the same, do it to early and they pop back and work you while you’re spinning like an idiot.

So just remember that BS is a good snare breaker and nice for rogues, but be warned using it at the right time on the right class can mean the difference between your arena partner telling you “Awesome Job” or telling you “WTF was that?”

I’m looking for 1200 rating tonight so wish me luck. I keep promising must have PVP macros and I’ll put them on tonight. So check back later on today for some simple yet very effective macros to help you out in a jam.