Warriors have 2 DPS specs.  For a long time, though, people might argue they really didn’t.  When asked what spec to use for raiding DPS in the past, the answer was always simple:  Fury.  Going with an Arms build was an easy way to open yourself up to brilliant insults in the vein of “L2P.”  It was a cruel, cruel world for Arms warriors in PvE, forever relegated to the PvP spec.

When Wrath hit, people who loved the Arms play style had high hopes for the spec.  Fun new tools like Bladestorm and Sudden Death sounded like the perfect cure for a broken PvE spec.  Well, I can say from experience that Arms was huge, HUGE fun for the leveling game.  I wouldn’t take a warrior to 80 any other way.  In raiding though, it still took a backseat (way, way in the back) to a Fury spec.

3.1 hit, and everything changed.  Titan’s Grip took a mighty wallop from Ye Olde Nerf Bat.  At the same time, Arms got a healthy boost all around.  So now the question that hovers around the official boards and beyond is this:  Fury or Arms for raiding?

My simple answer is this:  Arms is better at lower gear levels, and Fury evens up and then pulls away as you approach BIS gear. 

For more details, let’s carry on and look at the strengths and weaknesses of each spec.

Arms Strengths

• Excellent single target DPS, some multi target DPS with Bladestorm and Sweeping Strikes
• Very, very active, many different “buttons to push” if you like that sort of thing
• You only need ONE uber two handed weapon
• Requires less expertise through gear to reach the cap

Arms Weaknesses

• Weaker (than fury) DPS in multi target situations
• Perhaps TOO active for some, long priority list (Rend, Execute, Overpower, Mortal Strike, Slam – in that order)
• You don’t look quite as cool with only ONE giant weapon

Fury Strengths

• Very, very good single target DPS – excellent multi target damage as well
• Active, but not quite as many things to keep track of (Whirlwind, Bloodthirst, Slam Proc, HS > 50 rage)
• Nothing looks quite as badass as a TG Fury Warrior with nice weapons

Fury Weaknesses

• Single target DPS less than Arms (at least at lower gear levels)
• Some consider the rotation boring
• Must gear and gem for more expertise
• Really need 2 excellent weapons to thrive

It’s like I said before, Arms, IMO, is better until you have some really nice gear for Fury.  If you’re just starting out raiding, or if you’re mostly wearing Naxx 10 gear or thereabouts, you’ll probably do better as an Arms warrior.  Arms spec relies a bit less on gear.  As gear improves, however, Fury catches up and eventually surpasses Arms.  Fury Warriors scale very, very well with gear, but it takes time to get there.  Let me give you a real world example.

Before 3.1, I out DPSd our Arms warrior every time.  Even when he had better gear, I out DPSd him.  Once I got better gear than him, it got even worse.  After 3.1, the story has changed.  Our gear right now is roughly equal, and he is almost always beating me.  You may look at my gear and say, “but you have some really nice gear.”  Yeah, I do, but one key piece is missing – a good off hand weapon. 

If my theory is correct, I should start to pass him again once I replace my crusty old Titansteel Destroyer. I believe that the real key to Fury Warrior DPS is how good BOTH your weapons are. The nerf, after all, was a direct hit to physical damage – and weapons have a HUGE impact on physical damage.

Try to take everything into account, however.  Arms and Fury are two very different playstyles.  As a Fury, I spend a lot more time waiting on cooldowns, where when I spec Arms, it’s everything I can to make sure I take advantage of every proc.  There is constantly some attack lit up that I could be using – it’s all about managing the GCD. 

Heck, there are quite a few raiding warriors that are actually using dual spec.  Some fights in Ulduar are more suited to Arms than Fury and vice versa.  If you really, really want to min/max, you too can go this route. 

Really, if you think about it, Blizzard did a nice job with these changes.  Arms is finally viable as a Raid DPS spec without totally destroying Fury.  Now we can actually choose a spec based on – wait for it – FUN!!

Before I get out of here, I believe I owe you guys a Power Auras setup export for Arms DPS.  Here it is – enjoy! It tracks your rend being up with a timer, and will let you know when Mortal Strike, Execute and Overpower are available. Thanks again to Drotara for teaching me the ways of Power Auras!

I love me some Power Auras.  If you don’t know what Power Auras is, it’s a mod that helps you keep track of things like skills being available, various procs and whatnot.  I picked up this mod awhile back, and finally have it set up to my liking.  I figure it would help to share with my readers my exact setup, as it has the convenient ability to import and export settings.  Hopefully this will give you that extra little edge.

First, download the mod itself here.  (I hate linking to Curse, but I just did!)  Power Auras is one of those mods that is very, very useful, but can also be very complex and difficult to get set up just right.  Well, thanks to Drotara at http://www.qqpewpew.com/, I finally got my setup all ironed out.  Without further adieu, let’s get to it.

Rather than give you the ugly strings of code this thing generates, I’ve uploaded a text file for you to download here. 

Now, get thee in WoW and open the mod by typing /powa.  Next, copy the text provided in any way you see fit, and then click the Import button.  Paste the text, hit ok, and voila!  I have mine set up to notify me of a few events and available skills.  You’ll get an icon for Bloodthirst, Whirlwind, and Execute when they are available when you are in combat.  You’ll also get a big flashy icon when Slam procs.  For raiding I also give icons for Death Wish and Recklessness availability. 

Here is a shot of what it looks like generally.  I tried my darndest to get as many of them as active at once as possible, but I’m just too darn tough nowadays.    You can see the icons for Bloodthirst and Whirlwind, as well as the Icon above my head for the Slam proc. 

I’ve been feeling a tad bit nostalgic of late.  I’m not sure what brought it on exactly.  Maybe it’s that I’m tiring of Wrath a little sooner than I thought.  It’s not that I don’t like what’s there, mind you, I think they did a great job, but on some level I feel like I’ve done it all before.  Just in a different skin.

By way of summary, my Warrior is now running in Ulduar 25 once a week, so far we’ve gotten down Levi (of course) and Razorscale.  We are very close on the robot, we just need a couple of tweaks.  My Druid is still unplayed, and I don’t know if I’ll pick him up again any time soon.  My Hunter is now available for raiding as well, so I’m pretty well stacked.

So it is that I found myself playing my Rogue, Mummrah.  The very first character I created on live, who was sitting at 43.  I think the reason I initially quit playing him was all the freaking misses built into dual wielding, but that’s not important. 

What is important are my memories of my first character, and of my early days tooling around Azeroth. 

I began playing WoW sometime around patch 0.7 in beta, I believe it was around the end of June or early July.  At the time, I was writing for the WoW Vault.  (For anyone who is interested, my columns are actually still there!  Look for the ones written by Captain Kryptonite.  Keep in mind these were all written before I even played the game!)  Like many of you that are reading this, I fell in love with WoW immediately.  I loved the visual style.  I loved the cohesiveness.  The quests.  The classes.  The removal of the lame CRAP that other MMORPGs felt “had to be in there” (like painful, xp loss on death type stuff). 

At the time, the “end game” was pretty far from my mind.

So from release for a LONG time, I kicked around with different characters.  Played on different servers.  Tried the horde, tried the alliance.  I rerolled early and often, with a reckless disregard for the mythical level 60.  All the while I had a great time. 

I enjoyed the many and varied zones of old Vanilla WoW.  I heard of places like Un’goro Crater and Azshara, and marveled at how foreign and far away they sounded.  I was still in Loch Modan and having a grand old time.  I couldn’t wait to kill Van Cleef, and marveled at the wonder of his dungeon, when the ship was revealed in the giant cave Goonies style.  I heard of all the other instances as you leveled up, and I couldn’t wait to see each one, and explore their wonders.

I played WoW from release, and I hit level 60 for the first time in November of 2005.

Now, I honestly miss Vanilla WoW, it’s faults and all.  Somewhere between BC and Wrath, leveling became a bit of a job (though quite a fun one!) and max level and end game content became the goal.  I’m not sure when, and I’m not sure how, but I miss it. 

Have we been slowly pushed towards focusing on the end game?  Or is it just me?  Let’s take a look at the three major iterations of World of Warcraft.

Vanilla WoW

• No real twinking for quite awhile.  Most were experiencing all the leveling content for the first time.
• It took quite some time to reach max level.  No leveling guides, boosting, etc.
• Limited end-game raiding at release.  Molten Core, Onyxia, UBRS.  Added Blackwing Lair, ZG and AQ over time.
• End-game raiding was also quite restrictive.  Other than UBRS, raiding was for 40 players.  Nearly an un-puggable number.  (Did they have raiding pugs in Vanilla WoW?)  You needed a large number AND it was difficult to raid.

Burning Crusade

• Twinking became a way of life for many players.  How fast could you get to max level?  Especially with new race and class possibilities.
• Shorter overall leveling curve.
• More end-game raiding right out of the box.  SSC, TK, Kara, and more.  BT and others added later.
• Less restrictive end-game raiding.  Now you only needed 25 players or even 10 players.  Raiding had more of an “entry level” than before, but it was still quite difficult beyond Gruul and Kara.

Wrath of the Lich King

• Welcome to World of Twinkcraft.  Leveling is distilled, processed, and the quickest paths are easy to find.
• Shorter leveling curve than BC or Vanilla, by far.  Leveling is easy cheesy with all the quests and such in Northrend.
• Fewer new raids than in BC, but still an obvious focus.  Naxx, OS, VoA, Malygos.  First major patch adds Ulduar.
• Now every raid can be done with 10 or 25 players.  Raids at release are easily puggable.  All raiding at release is basically entry level.

At this point, I might argue that it’s not so much that Wrath raiding was dumbed down so much, but rather they made it easier to get the initial gear necessary.  Do you remember how long it took you to get a decent gear set together for Karazhan?  And then you had to farm Kara for a little while to hope to compete in SSC?  And so on through MH, BT and finally Sunwell?

There used to be a progression, but now that progression has been immensely shortened.  There is a metric ton of good, BOE epic gear to be had, be it through crafting or through zone and instance drops.  Outside of tanks, perhaps, just about any class can go into Naxx 10 almost as soon as they hit 80.  (Heck, my hunter went into Naxx 25 after a grand total of 2 heroic runs.) 

Is this better, though?  Or were things more interesting before, what with attunements, keys, and long grinds for gear to see the end game content.   Did Blizzard push the bar too far back the other way?

I don’t really know.  I’m starting to sound like a crotchety old man here, and I’m supposed to be the voice of the casual.  “In my day, you had to get ATTUNED to the Molten Core.  I had to use a specialized solo method to get attuned involving jumping off ledges and swim speed potions.”  And I’m not even kidding, maybe you remember the solo MC attunement method. 

All I really know is that I miss how I felt about WoW in the beginning.  When everything was new, and happening across Uldaman in the Badlands was exciting to me.  But, those are the breaks.  It was like that with me for Asheron’s Call too, back in the day.  And Dark Age of Camelot.  I suppose at some point perhaps you get TOO familiar with one game and how it works.  At some point I exposed the gears and wires of WoW, it’s inner machinations.  I used that knowledge to manipulate the leveling game, to get powerful fast.  Now I just wish I could put the old machine back together again.

Hello all.  Lot’s of happenings in the world of PTD, I have some upgrade stories, new levels of uberness, and a bit of a rant about my 10% less cool Fury Warrior.  Let’s get this started.

The Great Fury Warrior Nerf of 3.1

Titan’s Grip was one of the first "new" talents that sounded really freaking cool.  Be able to use TWO giant, badass 2-handers?  Sign me up!  Since it’s inception, though, it’s gone through a number of changes, tweaks, buffs and nerfs.  Blizzard just doesn’t seem to have a clue how to balance the talent.  I’m almost at the point where I wish they’d quit tinkering and just rework the 51 point fury talent completely. 

If you recall, when we first got to take this talent for a spin, it came with a hit penalty when wielding 2 two-handers.  It’s gone through quite a few iterations, and I’m not even sure where it started out.  I believe it was in the neighborhood of a 15% hit penalty for yellow (special) damage, then a straight 5% penalty to hit, and then finally it was removed completely.  Trying to actually remember the roadmap of changes to Titan’s Grip makes my head spin.

The newest change introduced in 3.1 gives Titan’s Grip a straight up 10% damage nerf. 

Should there be a penalty or nerf to Titan’s Grip?  If so is a straight damage nerf the best way to do that?

The answer to the first question is "yes," while whether a damage nerf was a good idea is more difficult.  If you look at the talent honestly, you would have to think that a penalty-less Titan’s Grip is an overpowered talent.  I think the difficulty, though, is determining just HOW overpowered it is.  You see, the Warrior class is, in my opinion, THE most gear dependent class in the game.  A poorly geared warrior can’t do anything, really, but that also means that we SCALE better than most with GOOD gear.

The issue is that if you looked at the TOP geared fury warriors in the game, they were often blowing other classes away on the damage meters.  Personally, I was consistently in the top 5 in 25 mans, and that was with sub-par weapons.  If I had a couple of BOH’s, I may have been leading the meters.  (Though at this point I’ll never know.) 

With this recent nerf, however, I’ve dropped a good 3 or 4 spots on the DPS hierarchy.  I still do solid DPS, and with some recent upgrades I’m sure to be climbing the meters again (more on those upgrades later.) 

My issue is this.  Were fury warriors nerfed based on the performance of the top geared warriors in WoW?  I’m a little afraid that just might be the case.

I’ve also heard the argument that warriors are a hybrid, and therefore should not be tops in damage.  Well, that makes sense, but where is the explanation for the Ret Pallys and Feral Druids I see at the top all the time post 3.1? 

Like I said, though, I’m happy with my damage output.  I guess I just don’t quite understand the reasoning, and in some ways feel a straight damage penalty was a lazy way to fix the problem.

Lucky Night With the RNG

On a lighter, happier note, my terribad luck with weapon drops came to a merciful end last week.  I was online doing some questing when a call went out for a DPS to fill Naxx 25, where they were on KT.  I had no plans to run it later that week, so I piped up and got ported in. 

It turned out to be the most profitable single, fill-in boss fight I’ve ever been a part of.    It was the first time that KT dropped the Betrayer of Humanity for our group, and guess who was on top of the SK list in that particular raid.  Wahooo!  It’s about freaking TIME I got rid of my crap Naxx 10 mace, Demise.

Now, I felt a tiny pang of guilt, having only gotten on for that one kill, but at the same time I had run Naxx many, many times with this group previously.  And we do use SK for a reason!  I am also a believer that if you took part in a boss kill, you have the right to roll on any loot that he should drop. 

And, just to make things even more profitable, I picked up my T 7.5 helm at the same time. 

80 Number 3

This is a testament to how much easier leveling is in Wrath than it was in BC.  I now have THREE, count them (3), level 80 toons.  My Druid, my Warrior, and now my Hunter.  Heck, it wasn’t until the tail end of BC’s reign that I got my 2nd level 70, and here I sit with 3 level 80s.  I know I could easily get more, as well!

But, as a more casual player, I’ve always been pretty heavily invested in alts.  If I only have a half hour, the best thing for me personally is to log on an alt and do a few quests.  I just can’t stand dailies, I’ve never been able to, and I’m not really an achievement junkie, either, so alts are it for me. 

Rarely am I forced to immediately post something, but Curse and their frigging “premium” service offering have forced my hand. 

I’ve been pissed since they blocked WoW Matrix.  I understand they want their visitors and whatnot, but WoW Matrix was just flat out a better product.  But, again, I understood their reasoning.

So I did what they wanted.  I grumbled a little bit, sure, but I started using the Curse client to download the brunt of my mods. 

Well, tonight I went to log on for an  hour or so, and because it’s been a few days or so I thought I should check for updates to my mods.  I see that a few do in fact need updating (using the Curse client, like I’m ?supposed” to) and click the old ?update all” button.  And this is what I get:

You have got to be EFFING KIDDING ME.  So I went from a superior, free program, to Curse begging for my cash.  Just for giggles, I check out the prices.  5 bucks a month?  30 bucks a year?  For an addon manager I used to get for free?  WTF?

So, everyone join in with me!

SCREW YOU CURSE, YOU SUCK!!!!!!!!

Now excuse me while I go update my addons one by one.  Jerks.

p.s.  And, to top it off, even if you do it one by one, you have to WAIT for each download to finish and install before doing the next one.  AAAARRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!